Yesterday, I attended a carving class in Youngcheun, near the city of Daegu, Korea.
It was a completely new experience for me, because I had never used a chisel.
The teacher asked me to choose a theme to carve on wood. I just opted for the word ‘Love’. He then glued a small sheet of paper with the superscript word ‘Love’ on a piece of wood and asked me to chisel the letters. The other students in the class made more difficult carvings. They engraved Chinese characters on rectangular planks.
Carving is like giving life to a new object that spreads special vibrations. A carver is just like a novelist that writes a novel, or a painter that paints a picture, or a musician that creates a piece of music. They give life to something new and original.
Finally, with the help of the teacher, I succeeded in engraving the word ‘Love’ on a small board of ginkgo wood.
I also carved a small heart. After all, love comes from an open heart. They are connected!
Ettore Grillo, author of these books:
– November 2: The Day of the Dead in Sicily (English version)
– A Hidden Sicilian History (English version)
– The Vibrations of Words (English version)
– Travels of the Mind (English version)
– Una Storia Siciliana Nascosta (versione in lingua italiana)
– Viaggi della Mente (versione in lingua italiana)
Before dying, Chopin requested that his heart be explanted and taken to Warsaw upon his death. Adhering to his will, his sister Ludwika put her brother’s heart into an urn filled with alcohol and took it to the Church of the Holy Cross, in Warsaw.
These days, Chopin’s body rests in Paris, while his heart is buried in Warsaw.
When we entered the Church of the Holy Cross, the melodious sound of the organ flooded the atmosphere. There was a tombstone in a wall of the church, which read in both Polish and English: here rests the heart of Frederick Chopin. We took a seat near Chopin’s heart and stayed there for a while, meditating on the spiritual heart of Chopin. Yes, music and art are universal languages; we should use them to communicate each other, I thought.
Now we are back home, in Enna, Sicily. I love to play a piece from one of his nocturnes.
While playing, I think of him as a piano teacher and hope he will forgive me for my amateur performance of his immortal music.
Ettore Grillo's Blog 