But there’s a lunar eclipse tonight, and I got a strong inspiration: I wanted to surprise you with a song I’ve never released before.

It’s called “Someday You’ll Dream,” and I’m giving it to you as a free download tonight on Bandcamp.

LISTEN TO THE SONG HERE

I wrote this song about finding re-enchantment in the world.

I’ve noticed lately that so many people seem overwhelmed and weary. The future feels uncertain and things are changing faster than it feels like we can grasp.

And underneath all of that, there can be this deeper feeling that we’re alone. That the world has lost its magic and possibility. You scream into the void and hear nothing.

I’ve felt that too.

But I’ve also had so many moments when that feeling totally shifts into something different.

For me, it often happens in nature. Those moments when the world feels mysterious and alive again, and I remember that I’m part of something much bigger and wilder.

That’s what this song is about: finding your way back to connection, possibility, wonder, and dreams.

And tonight felt like the right night to share it. An eclipse holds both darkness and light at once, which is really what this song is about.

I wanted to share this one a little differently. Instead of immediately putting it onto every streaming platform, I wanted to give it directly to you.

You can stream it for free. Or, you can choose whatever you want to pay.

And if you’re in a place right now where dreaming feels very far away, this one is for you.

If you listen tonight, hit reply and tell me where it takes you. I’d love to hear.

Someday You’ll Dream

Are the stars lonely like us?
Do they ache for a place, for another heart?
Are they cold in that big velvet sky, too heavy to fly?
Or maybe they’re fine

I know you feel small, swallowed by the night
Your fears and your tears feel insignificant

But think of the roses kissed by the sun
The way the moon wants us to fall in love
Don’t give up, when it all seems so empty,
Grief is too heavy, you may not feel ready
But I know someday you’ll dream again

You used to make me dance in the rain
Then the clouds grew and grew into a hurricane
Then you screamed so loud into the void
But nothing came back, just your own voice

And now you feel so small, swallowed by the night
Your fears and your tears feel insignificant

Think of the roses kissed by the sun
The way the moon wants us to fall in love
Don’t give up, when it all seems so empty,
Grief is too heavy,
You may not feel ready
But I know someday you’ll dream

I’ve been there too
It’s not just you
Find a diamond in the darkness
Light and shadow all around us

Think of the roses kissed by the sun
The way the moon wants us to fall in love
Don’t give up, when it all seems so empty,
Grief is too heavy,
You may not feel ready
But I know
I know
Someday you’ll dream again.

THE SONG IS YOURS HERE

Song Credits:

• Written and performed by Tess Posner

• Produced by Tess Posner and Rob Wells

• Mixed and Mastered by Chris Anderson

• Album art by @moonriverart.co

That led to a six-month exploration of AI and creativity: it was existential, strange and messy and I am grateful for it.

Part One: Analog

First, I wrote a song with just me and the piano.

No technology, totally analog: paper, pen, piano. I even prevented myself from using an online thesaurus.

What came through was a song called “Someday You’ll Dream,” about going through grief and coming out the other side.

Part Two: Existential Crisis

Then, for phase two, I wrestled with the question: how would I bring AI into this process?

At first I resisted…..

Songwriting feels great with no technology, raw, real meaningful.

But I was curious, so I tried to play with AI tools with an open mind. Most of the tools out there generate music for you, like Suno.

After generating a bunch of songs with it and similar tools, I fell into a bit of existential questioning:

I can push a button and get a fully formed, professional-sounding songs in seconds, something I’ve worked so many years to be able to do. It brought a kind of grief, a vertigo.

What does this even mean for art, for music, for the sacred artistic process?

Beyond my own personal vertigo, I deeply felt the market reality. It’s now so cheap to make a song, and will likely disrupt all parts of an already challenging industry. There’s also the ethical issues of training AI models on art and music without compensation, attribution or permission.

I talked to some artists and colleagues in the music industry, as we saw AI music flooding streaming platforms and even some charts.

“The song is dead,” we half joked in a kind of dark way. Love live the song.

At that point, I almost gave up on AI.

Maybe the answer was to reject this new technology completely, go make music in the forest with a banjo and the trees and preserve that beauty in defiance.

But the conference was looming in a few months, and I couldn’t give up on the exploration.

Part Three: Creative Integrity

So I took a step back, emerged from my existential crisis, and started again.

I started to analyze why I felt so empty after using some AI music tools, and came to the idea of creative integrity.

When I say creative integrity, I don’t mean some rigid idea of artistic purity, or that “real art” can only be made one way.

I mean integrity in the sense of wholeness: the feeling that the creative act is alive and inhabited, and that the process of making was itself worth undergoing. This might be different for everyone.

For me, my creative act has integrity when it holds three things:

• Vision: it is connected to an intention and purpose.

• Transformation: the maker is changed by the process.

• Meaning: the result carries emotional, aesthetic, or spiritual resonance.

AI-created music can potentially have meaning (most people can’t tell a song is AI, though I know this is hotly debated).

It can have vision, because you can prompt your way to a song that sounds exactly how you want it.

But what it didn’t have, for me, was transformation.

And without transformation, the song may have sounded complete, but the process felt empty.

In my experience, the creative process can include struggle, iteration, failure, doubt, ecstasy, insight, communing with something bigger than ourselves, or simply time passing.

So I decided: if I could make a piece of art with AI that didn’t skip out on this process or even deepened the process, it would be worth doing.

Part Four: Build it Yourself

I started playing with Claude Code, and I built a custom tool I called SongLab that draws on what’s available online about some of my favorite songwriters, listens to my tracks via MIDI, and offers musical ideas.

I wanted it to feel like being in the studio with Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell and have them ask, “Could you try this kind of metaphor, or this chord change instead?”

That felt generative. It challenged me to deepen my process and try new ideas, and showed me that another way was possible: One that supported my creative process, rather than undermined it.

Part Five: The Stage

When I finally stood on that stage in Athens to share this whole 6 month exploration and perform “Someday You’ll Dream,” I was jet lagged and sleep deprived.

But I felt those notes ring out from the grand piano and all the questions disappeared.

I knew clearly in that moment that bringing our messy human selves to the process of creation won’t go away.

We’ll keep coming back to that, and keep wanting that, because its a core part of being human.

No tool or technology can strip that from us.

We’re living in a moment of intelligence on tap.

We don’t have to accept the out-of-the-box AI tools if we don’t like them as is.

We can design our own process with them, or even build our own tools to be human-centered so they enhance our creative process, and bring out the deeper core of what matters most.

The defaults are not destiny.

We can learn from what great artists have always done: turn the tools of their time into instruments for bringing visions and our deepest dreams to life.

It’s been raining almost every day here this week, and the mist has given everything this mysterious quality.

I went down to the ocean the other day and it was viciously cold, but so beautiful, and I got to see the sunset.

I think that’s what I love about the solstice, not just about the light coming back, but the way it highlights the contrast.

Darkness makes light feel like something worth paying attention to.

There’s also research suggesting darkness enhances creativity by freeing us from our usual constraints NPR, and I feel that. Creativity isn’t always about making; sometimes it’s about allowing time to dream and gather inspiration.

The quiet, the fog, the long nights, they’re making space for something.

I made you a playlist for tonight and this week….

✨❄️ LISTEN TO THE WINTER SOLSTICE PLAYLIST ❄️ ✨

If you feel like reflecting on the longest night, here are a few journal prompts:

• What surprised you most about yourself this year?

• What permission do you need to give yourself for 2026?

• What’s been trying to emerge from your own “fertile darkness” lately?

• What would you do if you trusted yourself completely?

As this year winds down, I just want to say thank you for being part of this journey with me in 2025.

Your support means everything ❤️ I’m already dreaming up whats in store for 2026.

Happy holidays, however you celebrate!

Cheers to the fertile darkness and whatever it’s quietly growing in us.

-Tess 🥂

The lyrics to Boulevard of Broken Dreams have felt haunting to me ever since I first heard them, that image of walking a long, empty road with only your shadow as company.

My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating
Sometimes, I wish someone out there will find me
‘Til then, I walk alone

Of course the original is iconic, and perfect in what it does.

But when I was playing it on the piano, I started hearing a different version in my head.

The sound I kept hearing: a dulcimer

The sound I was hearing was the dulcimer, which is not exactly the instrument you’d expect in a Green Day cover.

A dulcimer (in case you’ve never met one) is this beautiful, shimmering string instrument that sounds like the space between a harp and a music box. It has this ancient, ghostly tone to it, like something you’d hear wandering through an old forest at dusk.

Then, I slowed down the speed of the song.

With the dulcimer + slower speed, the song became less of an anthem and more of a confession.

So I kept the rest of the production intentionally sparse:

• harmonies and vocal layers,

• bare-bones instrumentation,

• strings

• and drums that only highlight the emotional peaks and subtle heartbeats

The lonely road and the hero’s journey

While I was working on this cover, I kept thinking about the classic hero’s journey how there’s always that moment where the protagonist has to walk into the unknown alone.

No map. No answers. No one who can really tell you what’s coming next.

It feels a lot like the moment we’re collectively in now.

So many of us are traveling paths no one has ever walked before.

Whether it’s living through the wild, unpredictable shifts happening in the world, or the loneliness so many carry beneath the surface… none of us get a guidebook.

This is my offering for anyone walking a lonely road right now.

For anyone rebuilding, healing, wandering, or lost.

For anyone in a chapter where the next step is unclear.

LISTEN HERE

At the beginning of the year, I stepped back temporarily into my old role leading a nonprofit in the AI and ethics space. It was kind of perfect timing to be back in the AI world while everything is shifting so fast.

But at the same time in parallel, something big was opening creatively.

I started diving deep into music production again, really deep.

(me starting to produce with Logic Pro in 2022 👆🏻)

I’ve been taking these intensive production courses, getting mentorship from artists and producers I admire so much, and spending hours experimenting.

Ableton 12, my Korg Minilogue analog synth, my Ableton Push, and even my PlantWave device hooked up to actual plants, all these tools started becoming my little musical universe.

(My forest studio 👆🏻)

I’ve been shaping sounds out of nature recordings, building new textures, learning sound design in a whole new way… and it feels like discovering portals to other dimensions.

(My current home studio …👆🏻)

If you’ve been with me a while, you probably remember the early days…

writing songs in my bedroom, recording during the pandemic in my tiny home studio, doing livestreams on my balcony….

Through the years I’ve played and collaborated with some incredible musicians… Alex Gilman, Simon Keyser Petty, Joyce Lee, and others… and worked with producers like Rob Wells, Lael, Trey Vittetoe, each one helping me understand a different piece of who I was becoming as an artist.

And then, one of the craziest moments of the year, I got to play one of the biggest shows of my life: opening for EMM at The Midway in San Francisco.

It felt like a line in the sand. Like the beginning of a new chapter I’ve been working toward for years.

So here’s where I am now….

• I’m producing my music from the ground up, designing the textures, the atmosphere, the pulse, and weaving in everything from analog synths to plant-generated frequencies.

• I’m collaborating with new artists and producers who are pushing me in the best ways.

• I’m building out a whole series of events for next year.

• And I’m working on a new EP that’s already in motion.

And because I want to say thank you for being here through all of this…
I’m giving you a free unreleased song today.

This song was never released, and it’s from 4 years ago. There are two names for it, one is “Just Breath” and the other is “Travelers Song.” I am not sure I will ever release it, because it represents an older era, but it still means something to me so I wanted you to have it.

Thank you for listening, for caring, for sticking around through all the evolutions.

I can’t wait to share this next era with you.

With SO MUCH GRATITUDE,

Tess

I scrolled through my phone, but each Reddit post and cat photo only made me more awake, dreading the next day.

I don’t get insomnia very often, but when I do, it always wakes me up at about 3am, my mind spinning, and the more I try to go back to sleep, the less I am able to.

One night, I saw something out of the corner of my eye.

A shadow, a ghost… I pushed the thought away.

I decided to journal about it…

It’s 3 am and my mind is circling, my head is swimming

in the space between awake and dreaming.

In this twilight world, nightmares and memories

I can’t tell what’s real.

Ghosts kiss my feet, hungry shadows, haunting me.

Carl Jung wrote that what we perceive as ghosts or haunting figures might be parts of ourselves, the “ghosts” of our own inner lives that we suppress or ignore.

These hidden aspects, or shadows, don’t disappear; instead, they linger, emerging in subtle, unsettling ways.

When we repress certain parts of ourselves, we might project them outward, seeing them as external threats or hauntings.

Maybe those restless nights, those shadows in the corner of my eye, were just unacknowledged parts of me, surfacing in the quiet, dark hours when my mind wasn’t crowded with distractions.

Around 2 and 3 am, the hours I’d lay awake, were once called the “witching hour.” And creatives, mystics, writers, did their best work at that time.

In the book Waking Up to the Dark,

Clark Strand describes this time as the “Hour of God,” a period when darkness provides a deeper connection to our inner selves and the unknown.

“After about 4 hours of sleep,” he writes, “priests, rabbis, imams, and lamas would awaken to perform devotions, during which their minds occupied a space that wasn’t quite waking, or dreaming either, but had qualities of both. It was a visionary state, a time of deep tranquility.”

Strand goes on to explain that modern research supports the idea that, rather than fighting it, embracing nighttime wakefulness as a natural, ancestral rhythm may be a powerful way to combat insomnia.

It reflects a time before artificial light, when waking up in the dark allowed for a special, receptive state of mind.

So now, I’m learning to embrace this liminal space, where things get stripped away, and what’s left might seem scary but also connects me to the deeper aspects of life:

The ideas, the shadow, the bones, the connections to the dead.

The mystery.

In these hours, when ghosts seem to drift through, I find myself open to new layers of inspiration.

These moments have become fuel for my creativity, a source of energy that feeds into healing, or my music and writing, guiding me into unexplored territories of myself.

This darkness can be a companion, revealing truths I couldn’t hear in the daylight.

In embracing the night and its hauntings, I find both the courage and the calm to face the hidden parts of myself.

Happy Halloween!

Some halloween treats for you….

Watch “You Set me On Fire” Music I filmed at a 400 year old castle in France:

WATCH HERE

Listen to Ghosts, a song for your 3am hauntings:

LISTEN HERE

Listen to “Never Had a Lover so Cold,” my love song to death…

LISTEN HERE

I hear so many people say they feel bad about getting older, but to me, it’s an opportunity: to grow, to know more than you once did, to become more of who you really are.

That’s why I wrote Free My Soul.

It’s about letting go of what’s been programmed into us and finding the freedom to be who we are.

We tend to think of patterns or trauma as coming from our experiences, but sometimes they’re older than we are.

They live in our DNA, in the cellular memory we never signed up for. Stories buried so deep they shape how we dream, how we flinch, how we think we’re supposed to live.

One of the first lines that came to me was:

“Buried stories, living inside of my blood.”

Free My Soul is about breaking the silent agreements we make: the rules society handed down, the habits our families don’t mean to pass on, the versions of ourselves that never felt like ME.

By the end of the song, I wanted it to break wide open. I found the perfect synth that I am now obsessed with :)

The last lines are a kind of ritual for you: a space to stand in that freedom long enough for it to sink into your bones.

I wanted it to shake something loose.

Because I know the truth: We can rewrite what’s written in us.

And maybe it’s not your birthday tomorrow too, but it is a new day, an opportunity to wake up fresh to your life and to your future.

I’d love to hear from you, hit reply and let me know how you’re doing these days. ✨

🌿 Listen to Free My Soul 🌿

Check out one of the reviews here that made me blush.

Are you local to the Bay Area? I’d love to connect in person!

Click here for Tickets.

I’ve got a new song out today, it’s called Free My Soul, and it started with these words:

Something inside of me knows

There’s a river inside of my soul

Shaking me, making me let go…

That’s exactly what this song is about: letting go, freeing your inner self and experiencing joy.

The world feels kind of heavy right now, and maybe you’ve been carrying more than you realize.

This one’s for that moment when you finally exhale. When you turn the volume up, dance it out, cry it out, or just close your eyes and breathe.

✨ Listen to Free My Soul here ✨

I hope it moves something in you, literally or emotionally.

Let this be your soundtrack to releasing what you don’t need, even just for a few minutes this weekend.

I was trying to see what would happen if I co-wrote a song about letting go of the past with AI.

How do you even explain cheesy to ChatGPT? It’s a hard thing to explain, but I know it when I see it.

So, then I asked it to research best practices from hit songs and those in the style of Bob Dylan, John Lennon, and Stevie Nicks.

It spit out:

“I keep walking, though the map is torn,

You can’t build tomorrow in yesterday’s storm.”

Okay… it’s mixing metaphors, but I kind of liked the last line.

It had a nice rhythm, and I could imagine singing it and the chords behind it.

Still, compared to writing with a human, something was definitely missing.

In a good co-write, something magical happens, something hard to put into words.

In the best co-writes I have done, it’s like the song is already there, just waiting to be pulled out of the ether.

You feel it. You catch a current. That’s when you know you’re on the right track. And when the other person writing with you also feels it, its absolute magic.

Chatbots don’t feel and so writing with one ends up feeling more like writing alone.

With AI, there’s no shared field of emotion, intuition, or presence to surrender into.

And yet…

ChatGPT surprised me, it wasn’t as bad if I gave it the right prompt. Sometimes that’s enough to spark something.

So what is AI for in the creative process? A really good thesaurus? A creative second brain? A soulless mimic? A collaborator? Or a threat?

If a song moves you, does it matter how it was made?

As generative AI tools have exploded in popularity, the music and art worlds has been grappling with what this means for the future of the creative economies.

But we’ve seen this before….like the uproar when the electric guitar went mainstream, when drum machines hit, or when Auto-Tune came out. Each “unnatural” breakthrough sparked massive debate, then became part of the artists palette.

But AI has unique challenges because of the questions of ownership and copyright. Several high-profile lawsuits are happening against companies like Suno and Udio, accused of training on copyrighted material without permission or compensation to artists.

There’s also the question of AI generated music flooding the market.

In March, Deezer reported that up to 70% of AI-generated streams on their platform were being listened to by bots. AI listening to AI.

It calls back to the so-called “dead internet theory” where more and more content is created by AI, consumed by AI. That more and more of the web is synthetic, recursive, and bot-amplified than ever before, and that will only increase over time.

But perhaps that means there will be even more demand in the future for the raw, messy, unpredictable process of making music from a place that feels alive.

I see AI as a tool, one that, when used intentionally, can open up new possibilities and ultimately support human creativity.

We’re entering strange new territory, and it might be messy along the way. There are more questions than answers.

But I still believe that, in the end, humans are powerfully creative beings, and we will find new ways of creating and exploring and finding new sounds, new expressions, new ways to feel alive.

What do you think about the role of AI in music and art?

Right when you’re like “this is it!” something pulls you deeper in, and you’re falling down another rabbit hole and feel like you’re in the beginning again.

But maybe you’ve felt that too, whether you’re an artist or not. I believe we all are creators, whether it’s through your job, art, food, gardens or through the imagination.

Music just happens to be my ocean for that journey.

For many years, I poured myself into melody, chords, and lyrics and piano.

That was my world, and my heart lived there fully.

But slowly, something shifted.

I began to feel the pull to not just write the song, but to create the full sonic world it would live in.

(my current sonic creation station 👆🏻)

Maybe you’ve had moments like this too, where something you once loved in one form suddenly wants to evolve.

When a new part of you stirs awake and asks: What if I went deeper?

Do I dare enter this portal?

The answer I find is usually YES because creation, like life itself is always evolving and opening up new things. Change is constant.

That’s what happened to me.

I started building demos. I experimented with live looping on Twitch. And each time I peeled back another layer of sound design, arrangement, production—I wanted to go further. The rabbit hole was infinite, and I was in.

June 12, 2025 marked a turning point in that journey.

My first self-produced song came out that night.

And on stage, I performed remixed versions of my own tracks. It felt like the beginning of a whole new chapter.

It’s like suddenly discovering hundreds more colors to paint with.

And with more colors, there’s more freedom, more room to experiment, to push boundaries, to make something immersive.

Where in your life are you being asked to go deeper?

To enter a portal that might be scary, but ultimately takes you to the next part of your journey?

In a time when there is so much intensity in the world, I feel drawn to make music that acts as a release valve. A catharsis. A space where the bigness of what we’re holding can be felt and maybe even transmuted.

Check out the Flood here, and some of the first reviews here and here.

If you listen to it in a moment of overwhelm or emotional weight, I hope it helps you move through.

More soon, happy Summer!

❤️ Tess

I was restless. I used to go to yoga and the gym regularly, but all of that was gone.

So, I started doing solo dance parties on my balcony.

That’s when I discovered an artist named EMM. I got hooked, on her voice, her message of empowerment, and her wild, creative spirit (her costumes are next level).

I added one of her tracks to a playlist I made called Womxn Rising and we even exchanged a few DMs.

Fast forward FIVE years… and she randomly reached out to ask if I’d open for her San Francisco tour at one of my dream venues.

One of those rare moments when the universe taps you on the shoulder and says: See? Keep going.

This same week I’m releasing my first co-produced song (a collab with LAEL).

It’s the result of years of learning, practicing, performing on Livestreams, looping on Ableton, getting mentored from producers I admire.

But for a long time, I told myself I wasn’t ready to release my own productions. Now, I’m going for it. Not because its perfect, but because if I wait for perfection I might wait forever. Art never feels finished in a way.

And it’s also scary.

I used to think I needed to be perfect before I could be seen.

But now I know: most of the time, the universe moves when you do.

This week reminded me that every small step adds up, and every authentic connection matters.

When you risk something, you grow, whether it works out the way you imagined or not.

I’m still processing this wild, beautiful full-circle moment…

And I’d love to hear from you too!

Have you had a time recently where you stepped into a bigger, more powerful version of yourself?

Maybe something that scared you, but you did it anyway.

Reply or comment—I’d truly love to celebrate it with you.

---

Join me in San Francisco Tomorrow!

📅 Midway SF Tickets here

🎤 A night of songs about fire, power, and rising from the ashes.

And my new song the Flood also drops at midnight the same night, which you can pre-save here.

When I first wrote The Flood, it was inspired by the Tower card in Tarot. Even if Tarot isn’t your thing, the image is unforgettable: lightning striking a tower, people tumbling from the wreckage.

It’s a symbol of those moments when everything we’ve built: our plans, identities, illusions…comes crashing down.

I’ve been drawn to writing about those threshold moments. Especially right now, as we face literal floods, tornadoes, fires, war, and so much instability, it’s hard not to feel like we’re all living through our own Tower card in real time.

But I didn’t know this song would become the one I needed most.

Just a few weeks ago, I found myself in my own personal storm. A loved one was suddenly in the hospital, facing a life-threatening emergency. The days blurred into sleepless nights: hospital corridors, critical decisions, second opinions.

I tried to hold everything together, but underneath, my body was frozen with fear, every muscle bracing for the worst.

A tidal wave’s coming

So you start bracing,

Ready to hold it all back

Alone in the fight without even a light

Will it all fade to black?

Do we cling tighter when things fall apart?

Or is there another way—to feel it fully, and let it move through us?

If you’ve ever heard the phrase “you have to feel it to heal it,” this song is about exactly that.

Letting the grief, rage, and fear wash over you: not to drown you, but to make space for something new. But sometimes it feels like it might drown you so you resist and resist.

When I finally surrendered and felt it, something shifted.

And in that clearing, everything gets stripped away except human connection and love.

Suddenly making eyes with a complete stranger feels deep and meaningful as if the shared experience of being human suddenly stops time. What matters in life is suddenly so much clearer.

The flood will come

And wash away everything you’re holding onto

There’s nothing you can do

But love runs deeper than you know

So it’s ok to let go

I co-produced The Flood with LAEL, and we wanted the sound to feel big—like an emotional tidal wave.

Because that’s what it is.

A catharsis. A release. A reckoning. A reminder that when everything gets stripped away, the what’s most real and important comes to the surface with total clarity. That sometimes even when it feels like the world is ending, the love underneath can hold us through.

If you’re in the midst of your own flood, I hope this song helps hold you on your way through.

🎵 The Flood is out next Friday (And yes… the song officially drops Friday the 13th 😅)

🎤 Join me for the release show on June 12 at The Midway in San Francisco.

📀 Pre-save the song here.

I also read an article titled: “Where Are the Protest Songs of Today?”

They’re definitely out there. But we’re not all tuned in to the same station anymore.

With 100,000 songs dropping on Spotify daily and a fractured media landscape, it’s harder than ever for one voice, one song to break through the noise.

When I think about the 60’s and 70’s some music was able to define the moment, define the generation, like Imagine by John Lennon.

I sat down in my studio and started to sing Imagine, adding in some new elements and harmonies, a harp, Rhodes and some nature sounds:

You can check out a snippet of my reimagined “Imagine” linked above in this post.

Despite its gentleness, “Imagine” was controversial.

Released in 1971, during a time of war, political unrest, and cultural upheaval-its vision of a world without countries, religions, or possessions challenged the very foundations of Western society

It still resonates so deeply today: A longing for peace. For unity. For a world less obsessed with borders, ownership, and the things that divide us.

But what song would John have written about the current moment if he were alive today?

We’re facing things that would have been so hard to imagine at that time.

In 2025, we’re living through another moment of political instability and global uncertainty.

Wars rage. Democracies are under strain. Climate disasters, economic divides, and algorithm-driven echo chambers pull us further apart.

Just like in 1971, many are asking: What kind of world do we want to live in?

But what I find to be so powerful and unique about “Imagine” is that it doesn’t point fingers.

It doesn’t get lost in blame. It invites us back to our shared humanity.

It speaks in simple language, from a raw place—not pretending to have answers, but daring to ask the question:

What if we tried something different?

It gave us permission to dream- of a better world, a new story.

So many people have run out of imagination and are lost in despair today.

So, what would he name the song for today’s world?

Whatever the title, I don’t think it’d be cynical.

It’d be a mirror. A steady voice reminding us of the things we forget when the world moves too fast:

That imagination is a radical act.

That empathy can be louder than fear.

And maybe, in the face of it all he’d still sit down at a piano, close his eyes, and sing:

You may say I’m a dreamer…

But I’m not the only one.

I’ve always loved stripping a song down to its bones. Not to recreate it, but to rebuild it. From the ground up in some other way.

This series isn’t about recreating, but about re-imagining.

And I am starting with a track that hits hard right now:

“Boulevard of Broken Dreams” by Green Day….You can listen to a snippet above.

Broken Dreams

No matter where you land politically, it’s hard to deny: we’re living through a season of broken dreams.

Jobs disappearing overnight. Programs cut. Entire agencies collapsing. Futures once imagined now in question.

I also recently read that the World Health Organization declared loneliness a public health crisis.

We live in a hyperconnected world. We carry hundreds of contacts in our pockets. We post, we scroll, we “like.”

And yet… so many feel isolated, unseen.

“I walk a lonely road / the only one that I have ever known”

To anyone out there feeling like their dreams are broken, I wanted to make this song for you.

Music doesn’t fix anything. But sometimes it gives us a place to grieve, to accept, to breathe.

And maybe something new can grow from the ashes.

🎧 Production Notes: What I Added

I made a few specific choices to re-imagine this song….

• Dulcimer – One of my favorite instruments. It has this ancient, resonant quality—almost like it’s been carrying stories for centuries. It gave the track an earthy undercurrent.

• Whale Song – Yes, actual recordings of whales. There’s something beautiful about how they sing across vast distances. It felt like the perfect mirror to the song’s central emotion.

• Atmospheric Layers – I used slow-building synths and reverb-drenched background harmonies to textures to create a sense of space.

Each week this month, I’ll be releasing another cover and taking you behind the scenes of how I made it.

👉 What song would you love to hear reimagined?

Drop it in the comments, or reply to this email.

It’s funny how life sometimes feels like a circle—or maybe a spiral.

We find ourselves returning to something we thought we had left behind, but this time with a new perspective.

Recently, I returned to an amazing nonprofit organization that I had the honor of leading at its founding: AI4ALL, which is focused on ensuring an equitable and responsible future for this technology.

As AI has exploded over the past few years, this feels like such an exciting and important time to be part of this work (how many of you use AI daily now?).

AI is shaping our daily lives in ways we couldn’t have imagined just a few years ago—and there are so many open questions about how we can ensure its benefits are shared broadly, and that it enhances—rather than squashes—our wellbeing, creativity, and thriving as humans.

When I stepped back into this work as Interim CEO, I realized it’s deeply connected to the same mission that has always been at the heart of my music too:

That’s why I’m excited to share something new with you.. a brand new Substack where I share updates on my journey leading AI4ALL as interim CEO, insights into the organization’s work, and broader reflections on the AI field and the future of humanity in a world shaped by machines.

Will You Come With Me?

If you’ve been following my music on Elixirs, thank you so much for being part of my artistic journey. That’s still very much alive and continuing, and I have new music on the way soon.

Carbon and Code is a new thread in the same fabric—just through a different lens.

If this interests you at all, I’d love to have you along for the journey as it evolves:

Carbon and Code

Exploring the future of connection, power, and creativity in an algorithmic world.

Click here to subscribe to Carbon and Code

The hills are vibrant green again and I just saw the first daffodils of the season and it brought a lot of joy.

There’s something about daffodils that remind me of new beginnings, hope and cheerfulness.

It reminds me that no matter how uncertain or challenging things might feel, there’s always an opening- however small- for something new to burst through.

It’s felt like a long time since last Spring, as though I have lived multiple lifetimes since then.

Last Spring was filled with a whirlwind of travel. One of my biggest highlights was when Jayne Trimble and I started VENUS, a music showcase that elevates all who identify as women in the music industry.

Next month, we’ll be celebrating the one year anniversary with a special concert in San Francisco.

Jayne and I started this showcase because over the past decade, women have only made up 12.7% of songwriters. Only 22% of artists on the Billboard Hot 100 Year-End Chart were women, and only 3.4 percent of producers identify as women.

Women’s voices are essential—not just in shaping the future of art and music, but in society as a whole.

When women’s voices are amplified, entire communities thrive, paving the way for a more inspired, hopeful future.

VENUS uplifts women and gender expansive individuals in the music industry, and to foster a culture of kindness over competition, compassion over comparison, and empowerment over ego.

Join us for an enchanting evening and get your early bird tickets before they sell out!

This special one year anniversary will feature:

KITKA:

The women in Kitka are fearless sonic explorers, and you can hear their intrepid spirit in every haunting song. For four decades, the nine-woman Oakland ensemble has developed a vast, breathtaking repertoire of traditional songs from the Balkans, Caucasus and Slavic lands, as well as new material composed for the group drawing on those traditional vocal practices. Traveling to rural communities in Armenia and Bulgaria, Ukraine and Georgia, Serbia and Turkey, they’ve gathered songs and communed with elders who are often the last links to centuries-old traditions. The VENUS showcase will feature a quartet configuration of KITKA.

Rowan Katz:

Rowan Katz is a vocalist, songwriter, poet, folklorist, physical theater artist, facilitator and somatic voice educator. Their work most often concerns themes of gender expression and identity, trauma healing, queerness, Jewish diaspora, recovery, abolition, rematriation, grief, and mysticism. Touted as a powerhouse vocalist and performer, Rowan uses performance and education as a way to dismantle shame and foster expression, intimacy, critical engagement, and embodied connection in community.

And I will also be playing some brand new songs for you that night!

GET TICKETS HERE

The show brilliantly satirizes the belief that we can separate our ‘work selves’ from our regular lives.

But for me what makes the show cut so deep is that it explores why people sign up to be “severed” in the first place—they are trying to escape something. Grief, low self-confidence, heartbreak. A pain so unbearable that they would rather split themselves in two than face it.

When I set out to write a song about The Moon tarot card (for a concert I did last week, read more here), Severance immediately came to mind.

The symbolism on the Moon card depicts a dog and a wolf, standing at the edge of the unknown, symbolizing the wild and tame parts of ourselves. The part of us that adapts, that learns the rules, that fits neatly into society. And the part that refuses.

In Severance, this tension plays out in the split between the ‘innie’ and the ‘outie’—the corporate self that functions within the system and the deeper self that exists outside of it.

But eventually, those carefully drawn lines start to blur. The selves begin to rebel, to reach for something more whole, raw, alive.

Recently, there has been a growing desire for more “authenticity” at work—more openness, more humanity, more space to bring our full selves into professional spaces.

Companies encourage vulnerability, personal storytelling, and emotional intelligence. But some say it’s gone too far, blurring the lines between personal and professional in ways that feel uncomfortable or even exploitative.

Is this push for authenticity truly about fostering connection, or is it another corporate strategy—one that asks employees to reveal more of themselves, knowing full well that in the end, the individual is always expendable in service of the company’s priorities?

Can authenticity ever truly exist within a system designed for output and efficiency, or will there always be a part of us that resists—yearning to break free, to reclaim something wilder, something real?

This is the core of my new song, The Wild in Me that I wrote for the Moon card.

It explores the deep tension between our outward-facing self—the one that follows the rules, that fits in, that learns to be contained—and the raw, untamed part of us that refuses to be boxed in.

How do we reconcile these different parts of ourselves? The part that wants to be polished and presentable and together, and the part that longs to run barefoot into the unknown? The part that feels too big, too emotional, too much?

✨ Hear a snippet of the demo attached to this post, and listen to the full song on Patreon.

The Wild In Me Lyrics Snippet:

Work nights, fake lights,

But I don’t feel a thing

‘Cause I am fine in

my concrete machine

Clock in, clock out

Of this box I’m living in

It’s 9 to 5, but it’s safe and dry

What else could there be?

But in my dreams

I see some things

That I cannot explain

The forest speaks

And the willow weeps

And the stones are whispering…

If this resonates with you, I’d love to hear your thoughts—have you ever felt this tension between different aspects of yourself?

Let’s talk in the comments. And if you’re enjoying these tarot-inspired explorations, stay tuned for the next post in this series.

The weight of the past few weeks has been immense with political changes and weather disasters like in Los Angeles, where the devastating fires have wiped out entire communities. It’s times like these that we need extra time to process, explore and outlet emotions. And yet there is never a pause - things just keep coming at us.

Sometimes, the best way I know how to deal with us is to sing about it. Music helps me to explore confusion, loss, grief, overwhelm and world events in a way beyond words, using my mind, emotions and intuition. I’ve had a similar experience with the Tarot since I got my first deck in high school. Both music and Tarot feel like mirrors—reflecting truths that we sometimes struggle to put into words.

Over the next three weeks, I’ll be sharing to your inbox a series that dives into three potent cards: The Moon, The High Priestess, and The Tower. Each week, I’ll take you on a deep dive into my exploration of the card, its meaning, and the creative process behind the song that was created. But before we get to that, let me tell you why I decided to write songs about the Tarot.

Even if you’re not into Tarot, the cards are rich with symbolic meaning that resonates beyond divination.

It originated as a 15th-century Italian card game and later evolved into a tool for spiritual exploration. Artists and mystics alike have drawn inspiration from its imagery, and psychologists like Carl Jung saw it as a way to access the archetypes of the human psyche.

To me, Tarot is a bridge between the seen and unseen, a way to connect with the hidden currents of life and unlock deeper truths in ourselves, helping us process universal human experiences like growth, loss, and transformation. At its core, I see the Tarot as a reflective tool—it shares back to us what we most need to see.

When I partnered with The Eleventh House to co-create a special event around Tarot education and music, I originally had five Tarot cards in mind that I wanted to write songs for.

To narrow it down, I decided to do a reading for myself and draw three cards. Of course, the cards that came up were three of the ones I had already been thinking about: The Moon, The High Priestess, and The Tower. It felt like confirmation that these were the stories I needed to tell.

The Moon, The High Priestess, and The Tower

Each of these cards carries a potent message, especially in the times we’re living in.

• The Tower is the card most people dread pulling. It’s chaotic, disruptive, and forces change in the most uncomfortable ways. But as we look around at the challenges facing ecological systems, political upheavals, and shifts in power structures, The Tower feels more relevant than ever.

• The High Priestess often represents intuition, inner knowing, and the mysteries that exist just beneath the surface. In a world obsessed with constant noise and action, The High Priestess reminds us of the strength in stillness and listening, and the dire need for feminine power.

• The Moon is the card of the subconscious, the hidden, and the shadows. It’s about what we can’t yet see clearly but feel deeply. At a time when so much is uncertain and the path forward is murky, The Moon’s invitation to embrace the unknown feels like a vital lesson.

For me these cards hold a mirror to our collective experience. They show us where we are and what we might need to transform in ourselves and in the world.

Going deeper…

Once I had these three cards, I composed a song for each card after researching its history, meaning and looking over a bunch of decks. Tomorrow, I’ll be performing these songs live for the first time.

If you’re local to the Bay Area San Francisco, join me for the performance and workshop where we’ll dive much deeper into these cards, featuring author and artist Casey Zabala who created the Wanderers Tarot and Wyrd Sisters Oracle. If you can’t make it, follow along here over the next few weeks as I share the meaning behind each song and card.

Whether you’re a tarot enthusiast, a music lover, or someone seeking a deeper connection to yourself and the world, I hope these songs speak to you.

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When I finally managed to pull myself out of the house, I would shuffle down the sandy paths toward the ocean, my headphones on, drowning out the world.

The sunlit waves sparkled, but I could barely look at them.

I avoided eye contact with the happy beachgoers, feeling like a shadow moving among them. I was trapped in my little world of fog.

Then, one day, standing in the shower, something shifted.

I felt a strange, nauseating sensation in my stomach.

As I felt the drops of water touch my skin, I breathed in and turned my attention to it.

Then this image came into my mind—a black cloud was living inside me.

I had been so cut off from my body that I hadn’t noticed it before. It felt like it was sucking all my energy into it, a vortex, a storm.

As I let the shower run, I felt this black cloud build and build energy. It got bigger and bigger, threatening to swallow me whole.

Then it broke open.

There was a huge release alongside many tears, and the water felt like the rain, letting out all of this potential energy that had been coiled up like a spring.

This moment is what started a deep awareness and decade long healing journey of how my emotions are stored in the body.

This healing water and newfound connection to my body nurtured the seeds of a new life for me.

Nature as a Mirror for Healing

The cycle of a storm—the energy brewing, the catharsis, and the way the rain waters the earth—mirrors the cycle of emotions within us.

When we connect with the storm, it offers a reflection of our inner landscape, a mirror of the alchemy that emotions often follow:

First, there’s the pressure and buildup, the quiet tension of sensing an emotion taking shape. The tension may increase if push it away or distract ourselves.

Then comes the storm itself: the intensity of feeling the emotion fully. Sometimes it can feel unbearable, the thunder and lighting scorching and exploding our insides.

Finally, there’s catharsis, the release and then the calm after the storm, when the air feels clearer and the earth nourished by the rain that fell.

In my moment of breaking open, I felt this mirrored so vividly.

The black cloud inside me had been building for so long, and when it finally broke, it was like the sky opening up. My tears felt like a downpour that washed away the heaviness I’d been carrying, making space for something new to grow.

Nature’s storms remind us that emotions are part of a cycle, and no matter how overwhelming they may feel, they will pass.

Just as the rain nourishes the earth, the release of emotions can nourish us, creating fertile ground for healing and transformation.

When we let ourselves connect to the mirrors in nature, we allow the natural process of healing and transformation to unfold, clearing the way for renewal.

A Song for The Storms

As I am emerging from a crazy storm here in California that left us without power and a tornado in San Francisco, I think of this song and the wisdom I’ve received from the storms.

I wrote Black Cloud about this catharsis and healing that changed my life through the element of water.

I hope it speaks to your own experience, whatever storm you may be holding.

Watch the music video for Black Cloud here:

I’m always juggling multiple projects at once, and my to-do list is never ending. If I get sick, I find it hard to put things down and just spend time recovering. But life has a way of forcing rest.

Breaking my ankle. Getting sick with COVID for a month. These moments have made me confront my resistance to slowing down. And here’s what I’ve learned: rest isn’t just about stopping activity,

it’s about what comes up when we do.

During the holidays, it’s so easy to get caught up in the collective craze—shopping, traveling, end of the year work deadlines.

But this frenzied pace is the opposite of what this time of year is about.

Look outside: nature is going underground. Plants are conserving energy. Animals are hibernating.

So why do we push so hard against the rhythms of the season? Maybe that’s why this time of year feels extra stressful.

We’re not just busy—we’re actively going against nature. But there’s even more to it than that.

When life forces us to rest, like it did for me, it becomes clear that the resistance to slowing down often has deeper roots.

When we slow down, the distractions fall away, and suddenly, the emotions we’ve been avoiding bubble up.

Fear. Sadness. Loneliness. Discomfort. Grief.

And so, to keep these feelings at bay, we fill every empty space with activity.

We stay in motion to stay numb.

The winter solstice next week is nature’s invitation to pause.

It’s the longest night of the year, a time to sit in the darkness and allow yourself to feel, to rest, to just be.

Instead of seeing rest as unproductive, think of it as essential for creativity, growth, and healing.

Rest isn’t the absence of doing—it’s the foundation of being.

This solstice, carve out time to be, not just to do.

• Light a candle, journal about what you’re feeling, or stare at the snow or rain.

• When emotions surface in the quiet, don’t fight them. Acknowledge them. Let them move through you.

• Take a walk, even if it’s cold. Notice how the trees have shed their leaves, how the air feels slower, heavier.

• Let nature remind you that rest is part of the cycle of life.

To help you embrace the energy of the season and the layer of emotions that may arise, I’ve made a Winter Solstice Playlist— click below to listen:

The light is coming back soon enough. Will you let yourself be ready to receive it?