Castalia 361
Lying down in the heart
…I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.
William Butler Yeats, The Circus Animals’ Desertion
Dear Friends,
A common reason for blockage in creative work: one’s mind is in one place, one’s heart in another. A composer, for example: his mind with Elliot Carter, his heart with hip-hop. If he’s to move forward, he must begin with the heart: till the fields of hip-hop harmony, hip-hop rhythm. He’s a barbarian: so be it! He may become cultured, but here he must begin. Post-minimalism is a good example here: not that the music is so wonderful, but that its growth is honest.
In my own case, the gap was never so wide, but for many years I hovered above the heart, not willing to trust it — like Virgil Thompson, with the old-time hymns he loved, maintaining a certain distance; thinking not quite within but about the tradition.1
How could one trust it, though? The heart of man is evil — as Yeats saw, a rag and bone shop. One is at an impasse until one sees who that lady is who keeps the till — the “raving slut” as he calls her. She is a priestess of Apollo.2 Yes, the heart contains all kinds of junk, but within it shines also divine light. It is this light, the light of awareness, which makes possible a life within the heart.
As grain sprouts when soaked in water, so does the heart, soaked in awareness. We rest in awareness of the heart’s contents, and they change. In a man’s heart, for example, the image of womanhood changes; if she has been hungry and rapacious, she becomes happy and kind. No longer does he ooh and ah over women in airports who seem unhappy!
This is alchemy, transmutation into gold; it is also prayer.
This story of division between mind and heart, the mind’s attempt to go it alone, and their marriage in the light of prayer: it is not only my story, not only a creative person’s.
Thank you so much.
With every good wish,
Ishmael
Music as a Path:
I coach musicians online, guiding composers and performers alike to deeper connection with the Muse. For details, please see my website:
I have in mind his opera The Mother Of Us All — very powerful, but ironic.