The Los Angeles Heart Project
2000 and Beyond
Hearts In Los Angeles
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As
you know we held a public meditation for each of the Zodiacal signs in 1999.
These experiences were wonderful. Our very first effort at the Griffith Park
Observatory was attended by about 35 people. We did the meditation work in a
very exposed area on the grass just to the side of the main entrance to the
Observatory.
![Griffith Park Observatory](../../images/GriffithPark.jpg)
It
was a nice warm Southern California day and many local Los Angelenos were out
and about at the Observatory. We sat in a large circle and did the meditation.
Since there were so many people about, there was some concern about sounding the
OM aloud, but we did; and it seemed to hang in the still air and reverberate for
some time. We also sounded the Mantra of Unification aloud at the end of the
meditation.
When I opened my eyes and looked around, there were people looking at us. But
perhaps because this is Los Angeles and the unusual is not so unusual, or
perhaps because the energy of love was present in abundance, the faces turned
toward us were mostly smiling and the looks being directed at us were
appreciative and friendly…at least to me. After the meditation we buried a rosy
quartz heart in the center of the circle and some of us “planted” quartz hearts
around the area and gave a few away to some of the people who were out that
day. It is interesting to think about the hearts we planted all over the
City…they are there radiating the quality of love with which they were
impressed.
Our
outing at the new Getty Museum was the best attended, and it also attracted the
most attention from the public. We made our circle in a corner of the lawn just
off a main path that crosses over a small stream. The museum grounds were packed
with tourists-- many from foreign countries-- and we were very visible sitting
in a large circle on the lawn.
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After the meditation as we were touring the museum, many people came up and
asked what we had been doing. Each of these people were given an explanation of
the Los Angeles Heart Project and a rosy quartz heart.
To
me, the most wonderful and powerful of the meditations took place in the heart
of Los Angeles in a rose garden which was exploding with bloom. This garden is
in Exposition Park which is in the center of a very old and densely populated
section of Los Angeles. It is a wonderful garden about 100 yards long and 50
yards wide. It is laid out in geometrical sections with different varieties of
roses in each section. There are paths of grass between each section and it is
altogether a lovely place.
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On
this very beautiful, balmy spring day, we were a smallish group of about 15. We
sat in a circle on the grass where two or three paths intersected. There were
many, many people in the park with their children and cameras. There was at
least one wedding group taking photos and having a gay old time. There was a
lot of chatter, laughing and conversation in at least three languages going on
when we started the work. As it does, the meditative power created a small
circle of stillness around the group. Then as we moved into the meditation the
stillness grew, and the circle widened until it enclosed a relatively large
area. The garden around us became very quiet. Conversations, chatter all
stopped, and held for the entire silent period of the meditation. There was no
sense of force in this. The space became still very naturally. I believe we
were working in a very old and very sacred place and simply tapped into the
power of the garden’s Deva. Anyway it was a hair raising experience for all of
us. When the meditation was over, it was as if life resumed. The people started
moving about and human sounds again filled the air.
Another very wonderful experience was had by the group at the Dorothy Chandler
Pavilion, a complex dedicated to the performing arts in the center of downtown
Los Angeles, and the home of the Los Angeles Symphony. There is a large square
in the middle of two of the buildings. In the center of this square is a
fountain in the shape of an even armed cross.
At
the very center of the cross is a wonderful sculpture by Jacques Lipchitz,
“Peace on Earth”.
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After the meditation the group made a circle around the fountain and sounded
the Great Invocation. Later one of the group managed to place a quartz heart in
the center of the sculpture at the feet of the Madonna.
Each of the meditations was held in a very public place frequented by lots of
people, both local and tourists. Each had a special and seemingly different
quality, and all were very powerful whether there was a large or small group
doing the work. At the Los Angeles County Medical Center, we meditated next to a
military compound that had tanks and trucks in it. We held a meditation in what
is called Little Tokyo in an area just East of the main downtown district of Los
Angeles. At the Huntington Gardens we meditated under a canopy of very old elm
and eucalyptus trees.
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As
modern disciples working in the Western world, we often do not have the option
of doing our meditative work in retreats, away from the “real” world of our
everyday lives. We have had to learn to work in the midst of what D.K. refers
to as the “jungle of the Occident” with all of the noise, bad air, milling
people, traffic and general commotion. Our experience at the Los Angeles Public
Library required all of our skill.
We
were sitting on a grassy knoll about 50 feet from the corner of 5th
and Grand Avenue. It was the only unencumbered space available. About 30 feet
to one side of where we were sitting, the stairs leading to the main entrance of
the library come up from 5th Street. Right under a large sign that
prohibits bikes, skates and skateboards, a group of boys were very engaged in
riding their skateboards down the stairs, as well as the cement banisters of the
stairs and jumping a curb at the bottom. Very active. The boys were apparently
unaffected by the meditation but the sound of the skateboards seemed to take on
a rhythm and was somehow wrapped or folded into the silence, which was intense.
Our
last public meditation for 1999 was held by a small fountain in a garden area of
the Los Angeles Union Station.
Hearts Around the World
Another aspect of our Heart Project had to do with the dispersal of the small
quartz hearts that we blessed at our meditations. We had hundreds of these
hearts, many of which are buried and hidden in various locations around Los
Angeles. In addition several hundred have been given to people all over the
United States and the world. There are small, quartz, heart-shaped parts of the
Heart of Los Angeles in just about every state, including Hawaii and Alaska.
There are several dozen scattered in strategic locations in Washington D.C., The
White House, and the Lincoln, Jefferson and Vietnam memorials to mention a few.
There are hearts planted in the United Nations Buildings in both New York and
Geneva.
Hearts from the Los Angeles Heart Project are now residing in New Zealand,
Australia, South Africa, London, Bristol, Bracknell and several other cities in
England and Scotland, a number of cities including Paris and Yerres, in France,
several cities in Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, India, in
several provinces of Canada, Rio de Janeiro, Niteroi, Barra Mansa, and Sao Paulo
Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia, Mexico… The list is long.
Two
of the most exciting of these Los Angeles heart transplants occurred in the
mountains. Last May, just after the Taurus full moon, a group of Heart Workers planted a heart in the Alps adjacent to Mount Blanc on the terrace of the summit
of Aiguille du Midi, about 12,400 high.
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And
last August another group of heart workers planted a heart on a sacred rock at
10,000 feet in the High Sierras of California.
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Heart Project 2000
This year we plan to hold only four public meditations. These will be held on
the cardinal points of the year, the solstices and equinoxes. Our first outing
will probably be on Sunday, the 19th of March. This year we are
planning to visit places where decisions are made in the very heart of Los
Angeles. We are still scoping these places out.
One
additional heart meditation outing is planned, and that is to visit the heart we
planted in the High Sierras. This meditation will take place on August 14th
at the exact time full moon in the solar month of Leo.
As
one of the results of doing this work this year, we have learned a lot of things
-- among them the power of doing intergroup work and the fact that the heart is
a dynamo of joy, adventure, and discovery. We have discovered that love, the
central aspect of the heart, is known all over the world. People everywhere
resonate to its frequency without words, without forms of any kind. It’s the
note, the music of life. We all hear it the same.
For
my fellow heart workers and friends on the Path at Arcana Workshops, we are
loving you,
-tom
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