Awakening the Heart

“He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist”

- Francis of Assisi

A couple of weeks ago my 10 year daughter approached me with an issue she was having at school.  Another child, one that she has at times struggled to get along with, was copying her drawings both in style and content.  Busy with something else, I tossed out a flippant “Well you know, imitation is the highest form of flattery!” but I could tell from the look on her face that this platitude was not going to do the trick.  After I slowed myself down to try and meet her where she was at, we had a deeply meaningful conversation about art and the boundaries of ownership. It was clear that her emotions about her work connected to something deep inside of herself, and that this experience for her had left her feeling violated, and interestingly, unseen by others.  Immediately I had a memory of a similar experience from my own childhood, and it got me to thinking about why I had stopped creating art as a kid.

This memory led to others, and I eventually stumbled on the one that had the residual pangs of a wound scabbed over long ago.  When I was in the second grade we had an assignment to create a short book about something we were interested in. At the time I loved horses, but I couldn’t ride them or be around them at all due to a severe allergy, so this majestic animal was my chosen subject. Thinking back, I can feel the pleasurable sense of creating unencumbered, of having endless time, and the joy of honoring the beauty of something through capturing its likeness.  I was so proud of the result, and as silly as this may sound, I remember amazing myself with how much my drawing skills had improved through the process. I brought it to my teacher wide-eyed and proud, with anticipation of encouragement if not praise. It was met with. . . nothing. No response at all. The silence crushed me, and caused me to doubt that this thing that I had created from such a pure place had any value. Without a word to anyone, I shut something down that day; a lifeline to a budding passion went dark.  Years later my mother told me that the teacher hadn’t believed I had actually done it myself, and I imagine this woman had decided that simply looking the other way was the best way to handle the situation.  

If you think this story is sad, check out any of Brene Brown’s work on the term she has coined ‘art scars.’  The stories are horrifying and heartbreaking. These wounding experiences follow us into adulthood, and we often don’t see or realize how we have cut ourselves off from our proverbial hearts.  The hurt we feel from rejection or criticism, especially at tender young ages, causes our minds to swoop in to attempt to protect us from further damage. Without proper guidance and encouragement we lack the inner strength and knowledge from experience to stick with it, and try again.  Moreover, the dominant way of thinking in the traditional school system rewards us for using our analytical minds. We learn that the process of learning is purely external, and we look outside of ourselves in service of the rational mind.  

All this digging into my past caused me to realize how over the years I have let my heart connection to music making fall into neglect.  It wasn’t something I chose to do of course, but my mind had been at work attempting to protect me from feeling the hurt of continued rejection and criticism.  We all know how persistent the perception of failure is in this industry, and it can whittle away at our heart connection like a death by a thousand papercuts. Over the past decade or so I have found myself often in the company of a circle of loud voices, forever championing the lost art of study in service of the music.  You know these voices too -- they like to remind us of the select few that meet their standards of music making, and strongly imply that there is a ‘right’ interpretation, and that the rest are thereby wrong. While “to each his own” would be an appropriate response here, we cannot afford to let these voices further convince our minds of its absolute dominion.  Our connections to our hearts represent the contribution of the internal, and this is just as vital to our music making as our study of the external. 

So how do we repair our connection to our hearts?  My personal answer to this question is in its fledgling stages, but I would say the first step is to acknowledge the heart’s crucial role in the process of making and interpreting art.  When we look to ourselves for the answer to the question of finding personal meaning in the music, we have the opportunity to draw upon our individual rich and varied life experience as the resource.  This is fundamental in the process of developing our own unique voice, and quite frankly to sustaining a passion for what we do. Furthermore, if we lack an emotional connection to the music, I find it hard to believe that we will be able to elicit much of an emotional response from the audience.  While it may be difficult for the average concert goer to have a nuanced discussion about their experience, most people would find having only their mind stimulated by a performance to be ultimately lacking.  

This next step of looking inward can be the stuff that existential crises are made of, so if you are feeling lost or panicked while contemplating all this, know that you are not alone!  Perhaps you feel that your life experience is limited or not interesting, or maybe you fear deep down that you don’t have anything worth sharing with the world. This is a boldfaced lie -- but one that can seep into our subconscious mind unnoticed.  That being said, I do think our souls can suffer a drought of sorts at certain times in our lives. In these times we need to remember (or find) what feeds our souls. This can mean something different to everyone; to you it might be a beautiful novel or some poetry, to someone else it might be found in nature or a sublime meal.  The point is to remember that this type of soul sustenance is just as important to us as the food we eat. Find something that moves you at your core, and keep it in your life as a part of a balanced diet.  

If you are a musician reading this, I have two more suggestions for connecting to your heart center.  The first is to make a music playlist that I call a “soul” playlist. This can be any artist, song, or piece, in any genre, that makes you feel something.  Pick music that is special to you, music that awakens something deep inside you -- even if the feeling is dim or muted right now, making this effort will strengthen that connection over time. My second suggestion is meditation.  I know this idea is not original and well covered in other resources, but meditation in this context can be life changing. For some this can be a time of contemplative prayer, and for others a practice of silence and stillness can suffice.  What I have found is that this profound silence can be an act of listening at the heart level. You may not hear much during these sessions, but what you discover about yourself throughout the rest of your day may surprise you. I am willing to bet that you will feel more alive, and with hope these small practices will nurture the courage it takes to connect your heart with every act of art that you endeavor to create. 

I have been working for some time now on additional resources for both tapping into the emotional content of the music, and for bringing more thoughtfulness to musical interpretation.  I will be sharing these ideas in future blog posts, so…

To be continued...