I'm a bit of an alchemist sorceress. I've collected probably 1500 oils from around the planet over the last ten years. I'm kind of obsessed with the sensuality of it.
Running has made being depressed impossible. If I'm going through something emotional and just go outside for a run, you can rest assured I'll come back with clarity.
Typically I go in the studio and whatever I'm contemplating that day will wind up being a song. I don't come in with lyrics... I just go in and let it happen.
What makes me feel alive is community, connectedness. Certainly family, parenting, relationships, friendship. All the way into colleague relationships and relationship with spirit, relationship with one's own self and inner child, and animals, earth, planet. Fostering and nurturing and really focusing on connection - connection in relationship with other and my own self and God. When I don't feel connected in all those three areas, life is not very good.
No-strings relationships have helped cure me of love addiction. All my life I've been in long-term monogamous relationships. I had to break that pattern by not allowing myself to have a relationship for a year, stopping myself from committing to men. I haven't been celibate. I've had lots of dates and lots of sex, but I haven't been pushing to turn a date into a relationship. This has been a huge thing for me.
As an artist, there's a sweet, jump-starting quality to [marijuana] for me. I've often felt telepathic and receptive to inexplicable messages my whole life. I can stave those off when I'm not high. When I'm high - well, they come in and there's less of a veil, so to speak. So if ever I need some clarity, or a quantum leap in my own consciousness, or a quantum leap in terms of writing something or getting an answer, it's a quick way for me to get it.
I firmly believe that the only reason why I'm on this planet, the only reason why I live, breathe, and exist is, that it's my duty to be as honest as possible in my art.
With songwriting I spend a lot of time living life, accruing all these experiences, journaling, and then by the time I get to the studio I'm teeming with the drive to write.