Thank You

Our society has a complicated relationship with Artists.

The impulse is to take the beautiful things that someone has made, the truths that they’ve helped us all see, and to make it about the person. We are taught that authority, or truth, is something that we find outside of ourselves - and so if someone’s art shows us something about ourselves, we marvel at them. When what they show us, is a reminder of the magic of us.

When love is the intention it creates more space, not less - and love is the intention for me.

I’m grateful that you’ve spent some of your time with my art, and my words, and my visions - thank you for being here, and for witnessing the art that I’ve made.

I have a lot of beautiful art to share, and powerful things to say.

I own my words - but I don’t own the spirit that inspires them. I don’t own love. Nobody does.

I’m here to say; this is what love sounds like, when it’s expressed through me.
I’m here to ask; what does love sound like, when it’s expressed through you?

Because to me, that’s the song that’s worth singing. That’s the collaboration that reflects the love that is life.

There’s a lot of wounding around Artistry - around what it means to be a Visionary, around what it means to be “good enough”.
I’m interested in naming those wounds without letting them define us - without letting them direct us.

I’m interested in asking what does it look like when the Artist and the Audience meet as equals - because I know that the Audience is also an Artist.

Together, there is life to create.

I’m interested in asking what happens when we build Pro-Artist Institutions - spaces that are genuinely concerned with the humans that sustain them and the life that allows them. Spaces that understand the power of creativity. Spaces that aim to heal our relationship with Creation.

Think of what beautiful life we could create.

I’m interested in pointing out that the impulse to place the Artist on a pedestal is part of the scam. It keeps us looking up at a select few, when we could be looking around. When we could be looking within. When we could be looking for ways to lend our unique gifts, our spectacular Genius, to the collaboration that is life.

Everybody is a Genius at something…maybe it’s not even one thing. It doesn’t need to be some craft that you cultivate - in search of Genius, I find it best to ask; what did I do when I was younger when no one was looking?

Maybe it’s some form of play. Maybe it’s a willingness to be generous with others, or the ability to bring people together, or the ability to know right from wrong, and the courage to do something with that knowing. Maybe it’s a love of numbers, or planets, or plants, or taking seemingly different things and making something unique with them. What did you do, when nobody was watching you? What did you do, when you felt most like yourself.

When I was younger I told stories to the trees. I danced alongside the wind. I found lyrics and sang songs decades before I recognized them as songs that were mine to sing. My Genius has always resided in the realm of story - it’s the one thing that I would do, no matter what.

I give language to things. I see things, I name them, and I create with what I’ve found. Sometimes that means listening to what is - and sometimes that means listening to what could be. Sometimes that means using words to help realms meet. That’s my contribution in the collaboration that is life - but it is no better or worse than any other contribution.

By myself? I can only do so much. I’m left to my words and my wandering. But if you recall, I believe that there is a togetherness that holds all our wandering. A collaboration that exists just because we are. Knowing that, is part of what compels me to share what I’ve made; to share what I’ve found.

My words set me free - but in setting them free I give them a chance to collaborate with you. So I’m encouraging you - if you sense gaps in my work? If something I’m saying doesn’t feel like love? Question it. Find your own answers. Feed your own clarity. If my work inspires you or helps you find clarity? That’s beautiful! Run with it, trust yourself, do the things that love calls you to do.

I sit with two questions above all;

Does this feel like love?

and also

What would love do here?

Sitting with those questions means that sometimes my answers and actions evolve. If my truth isn’t consistent for me, then it couldn’t possibly be reliable for anybody else. Because the thing is I’m not actually finding my answers - life holds them. I’m simply lending life my ears, and my voice, and my heart. I’m simply showing up to sing, and speak, and rhyme with conviction; all while remaining open to the possibility, that I’m wrong about everything. I trust in those moments of clarity, with love as my compass, that life will keep showing me the way.

I’m naming these questions, so that we might give life more hearts that are listening. These times are calling us to see - and I believe that they are also calling us to love.

When we put people on pedestals we invite them to disconnect from the Earth. We create hierarchy where there is none. I think the real revolution happens together on the ground. It’s the only revolution I’m interested in.

I believe that it’s also where Love is found.

I believe that the antidote to hierarchies of supremacy - is to return to the knowing, of our inherent equality. Of our inherent, and intrinsic, worth. To me; the act of doing so is the act of remembering ourselves. It is the act of creating love.

We’ve been led to believe that love is some trivial, minuscule, timid light that could never possibly fend off the dark. But that’s not the love that I recognize. The love that I recognize is the rising sun, bidding it’s time, the force that sustains all else.

Love is all we need - but we have to make our way back to the real thing.

To the love that we can’t help but recognize - not because somebody showed it to us, but because we know it for ourselves.

A community that centers Love? That chooses love? That’s led by love? Is the very thing the status quo most fears.

Individuals can be stopped, and slowed down, and bullied. But a community? There is power in our people. There is power in our collaboration.

I will keep showing up with my words, and my songs, and my stories - but I do so with the intention of contributing to life; alongside all those who aim to create love.

There is no scarcity here. The world is full of beautiful storytellers - and the world needs everyone of us. Do not underestimate the impact of just showing up to be who you are, wherever you are, on whatever scale you feel called. Even if you just tell your stories, or sing your songs, to the trees. Even if you just find it in yourself to be kind to yourself, and to the people you cross paths with, trust that those small actions are meaningful.

There is no contribution too small, when we are collaborating across countries and borders. When we are collaborating across time. Our Ancestors have brought us to this moment; their contributions are beautiful, and they are also worthy of our examination. What does it look like to understand the love that guided them, and to question where there is dissonance? Where it doesn’t feel like love? To question where trauma has been presented as truth. To question where harm has been dismissed as necessary. What does it look like, to let love be our compass?

So thank you for spending time with my words; with my art, my dreams, and my love.

But before you go- with no agenda, or expectation, I encourage you to take this question with you;

What does love sound like, feel like, move like; when it is expressed through you?