MUSIC“Having worked through many conditioned patterns that were causing my suffering, I came to know a deep inner reserve of love and wisdom. We simply call it “the heart”— the experience and knowing of our own capacity to be a vehicle for the expression of goodness.. My music is an outgrowth of this awareness of love. It answers the cry of suffering with love and wisdom.”
In my twenties, I was an aspiring actress. My acting teacher encouraged all of her students to begin a therapy process. I began a deep dive into therapy for many years in order to look at all aspects of my mental health and wellbeing. My therapist and I looked at childhood patterns and conditioning, relationships, dreams—the full spectrum of a deep inner journey from a contemporary psychoanalytic and Jungian lens.
It became clear to me that I was meant to do this work myself so I left acting and began a master’s program in clinical social work. With post-graduate training in contemporary psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, I’ve spent my professional life helping people work through and transform their own deep patterning that was formed in childhood as well as to cultivate a more authentic and vibrant life through music and sound.
Doing deep inner work and helping others do the same, has been absolutely transformative, illuminating, and deeply spiritual. It is the ground from which all I have done has sprung.
Throughout my own deep psychological process, I felt a deep sense of existential loneliness. I wasn’t satisfied with seeking only the mainstream goals of life — career, relationships, and possessions. I began to meditate in the Buddhist tradition, in addition to practicing Yogic chanting.
Both Buddhist and Yogic practices are ultimately meant to shift our consciousness to experientially relieve our sense of existential suffering, and help us find more peace and ease even when our existential questions have yet to be answered.
Sanskrit mantras are chanted, which are meant to evoke the various Gods and Goddesses of the Hindu pantheon. When I participated in yogic chanting events, I found that the discursive mind quieted down and I had access to the spiritual heart—much like what happened in deep meditation. I had never formally studied music besides a few piano and guitar lessons when I was younger. Under the name Devirose, I write music that combines lyrics written in English with the mantras, while still relying on the resonant vibration of the harmonium as the foundation.
I can’t say that I chose music so much as it chose me. The music was an outgrowth of both my healing journey and my spiritual practice. I found myself singing and writing songs in order to express what I had seen in my meditation practice—the awareness of our capacity for love and wisdom that dwells in the spiritual heart beyond our thoughts about everything. A love that many spiritual adepts have experienced as the very fabric of all that is. And the music flowed from there.
“By seeing clearly and undertaking the work of the heart, we can become a vehicle for goodness, love, care, and wisdom. I have found this to be a very beautiful and meaningful way to spend this human life.”