Gentle, soft-spoken David Cain wears many
hats — artist, businessman, practitioner of the healing arts
— and the blossoming of his career closely parallels his
personal development. Cain graduated in 1981 from Illinois State
University with a bachelor’s degree in music composition and
performance. In 1983 he received a master’s degree in
communication, with a focus on video and media arts, from the
University of Illinois at Springfield. After a three-year stint
with Apple Computer, employed as a consultant and
“evangelist,” in 1989 he launched his own company,
Umedia Inc., which offers interactive training, video and audio
production, online and Internet design and consulting, conference
and meeting presentations, and CD and DVD production. In 1981 Cain also developed Unbroken
Media/Arts to create music, animation, video, drama, dance,
writing, audience-interactive performances, guided meditation and
visualization, and what he calls “well-being sensory
environments.”
In 1998 Cain produced an interactive software
program, Human Saver, that teaches well-being techniques to
computer users through a series of guided meditations, breathing
and awareness exercises, stretching, massage, and visualization. Over the years Cain has been involved in the
performing arts — staging original productions, playing in a
rock band and collaborating on many performance-art projects.
“At times,” he says, “I get the urge and have to
create something — I never can really predict how or when
that happens.”
Cain could be described as a man that travels
to the beat of his own drum, literally. For instance, after the
flurry of controversy in response to Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, Cain says he wondered,
“What would it be like if, instead of a cross, Christ carried
energy of love?” His musing led to a one-time theatrical
presentation, The Passion of the
______, at the Hoogland Center for the
Arts. The focal point of the production consisted of Cain onstage
sending “loving reiki energy” (pronounced “ray-key,” reiki is Japanese
for “universal life energy,” the energy found in all
things) out to the crowd, and culminated with drumming. Cain says,
“Sometimes I get an idea for creative expression and I just
have to do it.”
How does a creative businessman morph into a
creative mind/body practitioner? “I’ve always been a
seeker,” Cain says, describing himself as a young man always
hearing and seeing things in his mind such as music and animation
and wondering where it all came from. As he studied various
religious traditions, he began to see the synchronicity between art
and spirit: “Learning the source of creation is the source of
everything made sense. “Then, 10 years ago, when I turned 40,
my 40,000-mile warranty ran out.” Cain started experiencing health problems. He wasn’t
exercising and or eating well. He changed his diet and began meditating
as a means of decreasing his blood pressure and boosting his immune
system. As his personal focus on wellness grew, so did his professional
focus on the subject. Cain noticed that because of the beat, most
of the music he heard while being treated by massage therapists
distracted rather than relaxed him because of the beat. He created
a CD of music that flows in a timeless way. He has several other
relaxation productions, some combining video and audio. About a year ago, Cain’s exploration of
integrative medicine practices intensified. He studied reiki with Franciscan
nun Sister Anne Mathieu and has been providing reiki treatments in his
office. Reiki practitioners place their hands on various areas of a
client’s clothed body, allowing reiki to flow through the practitioner to the client.
The transfer of energy may be perceived by the client as a variety
of sensations: heat, cold, tingling, vibration, heaviness. Reiki can bring a
physical response of relaxation of stressed muscles, accelerated
healing, and decreased pain. Cain does not advertise his reiki practice,
perceiving it as something he can provide to the community and
friends to be a part of the flow of universal positive energy. He
says he may start treating his practice more like a business at
some later date: “I’ll see how the Reiki practice
evolves.” After reading some of Deepak Chopra’s
work, Cain called the Chopra Center and has since begun training
with Chopra, a popular practitioner of holistic medicine who
integrates ancient Indian practices and traditional Western
medicine. In Springfield, Cain is offering classes
based on Chopra’s work. He is an instructor of Primordial
Sound Meditation, a technique espoused by Chopra.
“Interestingly, there is no audible sound involved,”
Cain says. Every participant is given a personal mantra, based on
his or her time of birth, to use during meditation. Cain also periodically conducts a seven-week
course on “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success,” which
is also the title of one of Chopra’s books. The next course
begins in mid-January. Cain is also available for one-on-one
consultation and “spiritual coaching.”
For more information, contact David Cain at
dc@umedia.net, call him at 217-528-3333, or visit
www.rememberperfection.com for a comprehensive description of his
services.
This article appears in Jan 12-18, 2006.
