For Mother’s Day in 2017, I prepared a song called “Spirit” for my mother. She had been battling breast cancer along with other health complications, and her morale was declining. The fight was one of many years, multiple cancer outbreaks and several events weighed upon her consciousness. “Spirit” possessed the sound of the animal kingdom, […]
A wilted petal does not define a flower. Its beauty remains intact. Recently I had a most curious experience. I was sitting there, listening to a friend of mine play music at my house, when suddenly I was overcome with a creeping headache. I shifted all of my attention to this pain – unfurling like […]
Happiness has been, at times, like the green light in The Great Gatsby – an illustrious prize off in the distance that I could never quite reach. That is until I became far more observant about what influences my state of being, pulling apart variables and finding the factors that affect my happiness the most. […]
From the Renaissance Era to our Digital Age, music has remained the method that expresses the language that we cannot. And contrary to what one might think, research has shown music can help heal the heart. Its sounds release dopamine and endorphins that “can induce happy moods and relieve pain” — specifically for the mind. […]
“I made it here,” I wrote to a mentor of mine while the sound of xylophones quietly trickled in the background. Direction has been an ever-evolving map for me. Instances where the paper folds over have placed creases in what I had assumed was my intended road. Hot take, but I must say the notion […]
The sun brings life to our planet. Photosynthesis. Plants, algae, and some bacteria take in oxygen and carbon dioxide from the soil and the air. They capture energy from the sunlight to make oxygen and chemical energy stored in glucose. The carbon dioxide is offset as chemical energy. It’s fascinating how the sun can spur […]
When director Alice Gu set out to make a film about beloved L.A.-based luthier Reuben Cox, she envisioned creating a 12-minute mini-documentary. That plan quickly changed as Cox’s famous clientele (Jackson Browne, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, Phoebe Bridgers, The National’s Aaron Dessner and My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, among others) also agreed to appear in the […]
When McKenzie Ellis moved to Los Angeles from Oklahoma City two years ago, it wasn’t at all what she’d expected. Not only was the world in the midst of what seemed like an apocalypse-themed episode of Punk’d (things were that absurd), she’d realized the weather wasn’t quite her cup of tea either. Though a selling-point […]
Wisdom. The highly regarded philosopher Plato believed that Wisdom was one of four core virtues of the soul. To be wise is to wield information against ignorance through positive action. When times get tough, it is easy for us to reject all that we have come to know, seemingly willfully ignorant of any advice life […]
This week, I wanted to share something I wrote one day when thinking about those who experience mental health challenges wanting to experience a feeling of “normalcy”. Many musicians, artists, creatives, people of all walks of life, at one point and time, have felt what the below describes. Are we meant to be; Statistics stacked […]