Love in the Time of Coronavirus: a letter and a song across the distance.

Yesterday was the Vernal Equinox!  

Happy Balancing, Happy Spring! So much has happened since my last letter, within and without.  I’m sure you could say the same!

For reasons you surely understand, I am quarantined with my dear friend Kim, having cut travel short, cancelled all my performances and programs through June, and self-quarantined; at once overwhelmed and staring, confounded, into the (un)foreseeable future.

You may be at home now, abroad or in the states, constellated around the world. I hope you are safe and healthy, and maintaining a responsible radius like our lives depend on it. Wherever we are, we find ourselves suddenly scrambling to make sense of a dis-ordered new normal, text updates and emails about the daily dismantling of the structures we’ve come to rely on. Keep breathing.

Yesterday was the Equinox, a favorite signal of the end of a difficult time for me each year, 2020 more than ever. It took me a minute to shake off my sad feelings about it. Events where I can offer my best contributions to the world— sharing the songs of my heart, calling in medicine music, and making space for others to do the same— seem to have all been cancelled or postponed, in a matter of hours. I’m a performer and facilitator- an extroverted extrovert- crash landing in a new atmosphere where essential course of action feels like surrendering my survival kit before a journey into the unknown.

Leaving the Earth Holder Retreat in Mexico, I offered our beloved community a protection song. We all hummed in a circle, creating a water’s edge. Melodies lapped and crested as voices offered words of protection and care, spells and aspirations. I sang over us all, and remembered our song “Wade.” 

“When the world is sick, can’t no one be well;
Yet I dreamt we were beautiful and strong.”

We rise to see the light.

This moment is a return to what we have always known: It’s time to accept the unknown as a teacher. To cherish and protect one another. To center the wisdom of those who have been surviving, for whom ‘back to normal’ or ‘back to sleep’ isn’t an option. Time to loose ourselves from illusions of certainty and lean into what is vital: we all deserve a chance to thrive.  To remember ourselves to one another, and to use the gift of our time on earth to imagine new ways forward.

The year between Equinox has offered me an opportunity to befriend myself and my songs, and Coronavirus is offering me an opportunity to share them in new ways. After months of fear to even touch my instrument, I have been returning slowly to my music. I have been so moved by the outpouring of love and generosity by musicians around the world, I’m exploring ways to contribute my voice, and support you in contributing yours!

Earlier this week, I was waiting on the phone to speak with my doctor for 3 hours, after cutting some travel and community practice time short.  I felt so much anxiety - every time the automated “all of our operators are currently assisting other callers…” played, I found myself sinking into deeper worry. I knew I needed to start practicing the kind of magic we’ll all need to make it through. 

I created this little acapella cover while I waited; You can hear the automated system in the background- it is somehow so much gentler on my heart as a duet.The song is “Family Affair” by Australian native The Magic Lantern. It is a heart full and devastatingly beautiful song, laying grief bare with a simple and profound courage I aspire to:

“It’s a Family Affair to make peace with Despair, 
and sing songs to stave away the tears.”

As pollutants disappear from the skies and dolphins return to the canals, as medicine plants re-emerge when Amazon profits from hand sanitizer skyrocketing prices; as people walk out of prisons and houseless walk into shelter; as mutual aid and community care become the new normal; as art shifts to our primary means of connecting and resource-sharing becomes our community practice; as collective care in the form of Universal Health Care and Basic Income-a month ago unthinkable- are now on the lips of every politician in our country, I wonder why it’s taken so long.  I am astonished at how quickly we remember our humanity. 

I’m inviting us to sing together so we never forget.I look forward to another year, fully alive, offering joy and art and song to our cause of surviving, and thriving. Our deep trust has been rewarded, as we are reminded to revere this precious life. Happy Spring. Don’t hoard toilet paper. Read a poem. Wash your hands. Check on your neighbors. Stop for flowering trees. The light is lengthening. 

We can never go back.

 sam