Charles Ives Plays and Sings
I am listening to Charles Ives playing his piano, singing and shouting sometimes with unstoppable joy. I find him so sensitive and rich in his music. I find him playful as a child. Sometimes he is a naughty child, breaking all the rules of music in his time. But he does it because his heart tells him to, and because of this, his “naughtiness” only makes him more lovable.
And suddenly I am back in the issue of heart-wave. It is just a name for a program of learning to meditate with an emphasis on the energy of the heart. The heart does not think incessantly. It knows, so it does not need to think in order to do. It is the inner guidance to happiness and freedom. If we just tune into it, we will be lead.
And I think about what Joshua Bloom had taught me about expanding my aura to fill the room and then more, saying that this is a healing state. When you are in this state you do not think. And I think about Quantum Healing, taught by Frank Kinslow. In his method you learn to discover the quiet mind, the happy mind, the heart-mind actually, where words do not rule, but knowing and an eternal love to all. All comes to the same thing. The Buddhist meditation that I learned and practiced also leads to the same thing. It is a method to drop the mind of thinking and when you do this, your heart-mind manifests. Following intuition, in my way, is following your heart-mind too. All that I teach and all that I do, comes and goes to the same thing. Listen to your heart all the time, in whatever way you find natural to you, and you will be lead to happiness and love.
The arts have a good gate for truth to come through, and Charles Ives opened his gate very wide. Whatever came through that gate, even if it broke all the rules, is made of pure love and therefore it is the best gift that anybody can give. And this is why I cry as I listen to him shouting like a mad man and playing all the “Wrong” notes. Because I feel his love and I feel my love.
In this way, listening to Ives, my heart tells me that I got stuck and that it is time to move.
I used to be a graphic designer and an illustrator. I became involved with the Chan Meditation Center and studied meditation and Buddhist knowledge with the late Master Sheng-yen from Taiwan. For twelve years I was in a process of deepening my meditation. I had many more experiences and insights and my life changed. After having illustrated more than 40 children’s books and writing two of them, I left this career too and went to New York University to study art therapy.
