Latest / The Other 22 Hours / Heather Mae on social justice songwriting, the hedonic treadmill, and hearing god during a massage.

Transcript

Heather Mae on social justice songwriting, the hedonic treadmill, and hearing god during a massage. · The Other 22 Hours

0:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I knew that I would be removed.
0:02
[SPEAKER_02]: I knew that I would go dead weight.
0:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I knew that they would carry me out.
0:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I knew that they would need more than a couple of state troopers because for those of you who are listening, don't know what my body is.
0:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I am a happy proud fat woman.
0:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And I knew that it would take more than just a couple to be able to carry my body out.
0:18
[SPEAKER_02]: What I didn't anticipate was what happened after.
0:25
[SPEAKER_00]: We often define artists by their output, their records, books, movies, and the times they're on stage.
0:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But the art is made in the quiet, the struggle, and the mundane, the hours that no one sees.
0:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm McKinna Ann.
0:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm Aaron Kray for Hayes.
0:40
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the other 22 hours.
0:42
[SPEAKER_00]: An exploration of the creative life, lived in the in-between.
0:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Today's conversation is another step in our quest to expand our conversations on what a career based on your creativity looks like.
1:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And over time, in our explorations, we've had the honor of talking to Grammy winners and people that measure their career in the length of six to seven decades.
1:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And we've got to visual artists and photographers and writers.
1:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And today, we have the pleasure of getting to feature this extremely important conversation with our friend Heather May.
1:27
[SPEAKER_00]: who on top of being a singer songwriter in the traditional sense is also a social justice songwriter and will leave her and her own words to describe what that is, but it is a use of our creativity and our art and our voice in a way that we haven't been able to explore but in our judgment is essential to us as humans in this world.
1:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and it's a longer conversation, so without really outlining what we dig into, I highly recommend just sitting back and enjoying this conversation with Heather May.
2:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, first of all, before I ask our opening question, we are particularly excited to have you on in this time in life.
2:09
[SPEAKER_01]: There's so much to talk about with you because of just the depth and span of your work as an artist.
2:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And you've had an event full week.
2:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And we also have gotten the opportunity you and I have worked together in kind of different capacity.
2:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So I just want to kind of set that up for the audience of that my espresso is making me be like take a breath Michaela we're going to get through everything to worry.
2:36
[SPEAKER_01]: but we are excited to have you.
2:38
[SPEAKER_01]: We like to start the conversation the same way every time and just ask you how are you and that's a how are you really not a small talk how are you and where are you physically and creatively right now?
2:52
[SPEAKER_02]: What you don't realize is that you just rolled in deep.
2:58
[SPEAKER_02]: You're coming in hot.
3:00
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a big one.
3:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Just the asking.
3:02
[SPEAKER_02]: How are you?
3:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Is the launching into what is just happened?
3:06
[SPEAKER_02]: How am I?
3:06
[SPEAKER_02]: I am tired.
3:07
[SPEAKER_02]: I am.
3:11
[SPEAKER_02]: inspired and proud determines.
3:15
[SPEAKER_02]: My body is bruised and muscles that I didn't know existed.
3:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I suddenly know exists because they're sore.
3:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm having been carried by state droopers out of the capital.
3:29
[SPEAKER_02]: And at the same time, I'm so proud of our city.
3:33
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's that's me.
3:34
[SPEAKER_02]: How am I?
3:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Where am I?
3:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm in Nashville.
3:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm home
3:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I am so grateful to be in my pajamas in my house.
3:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, what am I working on creatively?
3:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that the question for you?
3:48
[SPEAKER_00]: How are you?
3:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Or no, where are you?
3:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we only ask this question like 90 times, so it's good.
3:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Where are you in your creative life right now?
3:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Not necessarily what are you working on, but what phase of creative life for you in?
4:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I am in the part where you're not in one room or the other you're standing in the hallway.
4:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Right now I have a lot of rooms that I am walking in and out of and I have a lot of separation of the different places.
4:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like the shortest way to answer this is I am in limbo and also working at the same time.
4:20
[SPEAKER_02]: It's it's I'm writing a lot of songs that are chance that I'm writing like literally moments before I step out into a group of people where they're looking at me and asking me to leave them also the work that I am doing as a song chant leader
4:35
[SPEAKER_02]: As you probably can imagine, is inspiring my own songwriting as a social justice songwriter, but they're very different types of singing and at the same time they inspire each other, and then creatively organizing, which there's so much creativity in community organizing.
4:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I have to put one down sometimes to be able to do the other.
4:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Like Heather May, who's up on a stage, she needs time to be able to write her songs and finish her tour poster and I have to separate them by a hallway sometimes because it is really hard when you're a community organizer, which I've been thrust into not just being an activist, but an organizer now.
5:19
[SPEAKER_02]: the problems in which I am trying to solve using music, I might never see the end, and so therefore I never want to put it down.
5:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I never want to leave this room.
5:26
[SPEAKER_02]: How can I possibly walk out of this room into a hallway and go think about making a poster or updating my tour page?
5:32
[SPEAKER_02]: How can I possibly do that?
5:34
[SPEAKER_02]: But I must.
5:35
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm in a complex hallway right now.
5:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I love that idea of hallways and rooms and walking in and out when the killer presented this conversation I was like because I got to explain that I'm like no deep.
5:47
[SPEAKER_00]: That's awesome.
5:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I was already aware of what the conversation would be and have been really looking forward to it before we dive in further I would love to hear in your words what a
5:58
[SPEAKER_00]: musical community organizer is.
6:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Just for our audience that might not know that this is a thing that you can do.
6:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously our listeners will know what an artist this stands on stage is.
6:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell us what you do and what it is and what that identity looks like.
6:13
[SPEAKER_02]: My job is to take artists who have a stage and have a presence or a fan base and train them and show them that using your amazing skills
6:26
[SPEAKER_02]: that you put your body on a stage and you sing.
6:29
[SPEAKER_02]: information that comes from your heart and your experience, your personal, you making it universal, you actually can do that and create positive change in whatever causes that you are inspired.
6:42
[SPEAKER_02]: To create change, whether it's like climate change or rights for parents or schools or gun reform, whatever it is, you have a voice and you have this gift to be able to translate
6:58
[SPEAKER_02]: of spaces where there's so much emotion and so much anger or so much large-scale groups of people who are all feeling sometimes different things.
7:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And what if you use this beautiful tool that you are so good at?
7:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And what if you helped to regulate people?
7:16
[SPEAKER_02]: What if you helped to give them something to sing and say, while the rights are being taken away?
7:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Or to celebrate the banning of a law or
7:26
[SPEAKER_02]: the changing of the guard.
7:29
[SPEAKER_02]: What if you used your superpower to aid in the movement?
7:33
[SPEAKER_02]: What does it logistically look like?
7:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I write songs that are often four lines or eight lines or repeatable very easy music that has been used in movements for eons.
7:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course, the one that we most are familiar with, especially here in the south is the civil rights movement, but even before then, it's rooted inside of our bodies.
7:55
[SPEAKER_02]: singing together and feeling that connection.
7:58
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't have to do anything.
8:00
[SPEAKER_02]: There's even studies that have been shown that you can literally just move your mouth or rock back and forth and you feel a connection in your brain to the people around you, similarly to when you receive a hug.
8:12
[SPEAKER_02]: So I write songs that are easy and repeatable that unite a group of people, whether it's
8:22
[SPEAKER_02]: politicians office, or 5,000 people singing at a rally.
8:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Music has been known to be the great connector, and this work is tough, it's hard, and it takes so much out of you, so what if we added something that made people feel better?
8:39
[SPEAKER_02]: to a action that makes people feel awful.
8:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And musicians have so much power.
8:47
[SPEAKER_02]: We have this beautiful community service that we provide.
8:53
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't even have to be good at politics.
8:57
[SPEAKER_02]: So you don't even have to really understand the politician-ease language of a bill to know oh they're taking rights away from trans people or oh they're taking rights away from interracial marriages, that's just wrong and so what if we're saying a song and just helped people feel united while they walked into the ballot box.
9:20
[SPEAKER_00]: to me this like resonates I'm hearing like a lot of lineage like you said dating back I mean even to the tradition of like field songs and enslaved people running and singing one there in these extreme realities was there anybody that I don't want to use of word mentor but maybe mentor do you welcome do you like showed you that this was something to do or was this just did this come out of your own activism outside of music.
9:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, and so community singing was ESA Bartonwell from Sweet Honey in the Rock.
9:48
[SPEAKER_02]: I had the honor and at the time, I didn't even know it was an honor.
9:53
[SPEAKER_02]: I would call myself my young white privilege self.
9:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I had no idea who I was being blessed with the voice of I had no idea.
10:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Until I started doing social justice music and of course one of the first groups that you hear and you hear there were is sweet honey in the rock I had been going since the beginning of my career in 2011 was my first tour which is really not really a tour It was more like singing and busking
10:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, but I like happen upon this amazing group called Song School in Colorado, which of course McKellen, we've been together and taught at and I remember this woman leading groups of people without any real instruction, just in community singing and that come to find out she also lives in DC and at the time I lived in DC, so
10:40
[SPEAKER_02]: she had these community sync gatherings and I just soaked up everything every single summer for I think 14 years, just soaking up everything that she bestowed upon us that ones that were lucky enough to be in the room.
10:55
[SPEAKER_02]: So community singing and leading people in song that it can be on the fly and you can teach it in the moment and break up parts and create
11:03
[SPEAKER_02]: even people who aren't even strong singers, you don't need to be good at singing, you just need to have a voice that goes up and down.
11:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, that's really it.
11:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And so definitely, you say, I will forever and always say she was a mentor of mine.
11:17
[SPEAKER_02]: whether she really does it or not.
11:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And then of course, just being an activist.
11:23
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been an activist for 25 years.
11:25
[SPEAKER_02]: My first protest was a bit my sister.
11:28
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was holding a picture of Condolese rice and holding a pair of shoes and high heels and the chant, which is of course the tie had no idea.
11:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And what it even was, but it was Condi rice, your politics sucks, but your shoes are nice.
11:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was protesting with a national organization for women.
11:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And that chant, while it is kind of funny, is something that is deep in my core memory, because I don't remember the protest.
11:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't remember where we were.
11:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't remember anything, but I remember chanting.
12:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was almost like my life.
12:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I had two parts of me that were growing.
12:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And when I moved to Nashville in 2022,
12:10
[SPEAKER_02]: and the covenant shooting happened.
12:13
[SPEAKER_02]: I moved to Nashville and I was like, well, I'm an activist and the social justice songwriter, but I'm not from Tennessee and I just moved to Nashville.
12:19
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm going to sit back and just support activists, circles, and spaces, and protests.
12:26
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to support from behind.
12:28
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the covenant shooting happened and I just
12:31
[SPEAKER_02]: witnessed the lack of anything happening by our politicians.
12:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Tennessee.
12:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to exactly exactly Aaron.
12:41
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like, oh, okay.
12:43
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I can't be silent.
12:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was like my years of protesting in DC and
12:49
[SPEAKER_02]: being an activist and all my training and then being a resident in Nashville who is a social justice sonwriter.
12:55
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just like all of a sudden was the birth of Heather May song chant leader.
13:01
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like all of a sudden they just met the two roads and became one.
13:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I would also love for you to share what did happen this last week for the Capitol.
13:12
[SPEAKER_02]: So with singing resistance, Nashville, we often show up to actions that are happening at either cordel or courthouses or at the capital.
13:20
[SPEAKER_02]: This one is at the capital, and I was working hand in hand with Tennessee Equality Project, who is basically our LGBTQ advocates on the hill.
13:28
[SPEAKER_02]: We knew that this bill, which was going to be, it's called like the trans data surveillance bill.
13:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Essentially, what it is is healthcare workers are being forced to be government reporters of any patient of theirs that's trans.
13:42
[SPEAKER_02]: While it won't say that
13:43
[SPEAKER_02]: their names, it will say what care they received.
13:46
[SPEAKER_02]: It will say the county.
13:48
[SPEAKER_02]: It will say so much private information that y'all know, like Louis and Tennessee, there's some towns that are so small you can try and guillate eventually and that's what our democratic legislators are like this is ridiculous.
13:59
[SPEAKER_02]: This is so specific.
14:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it doesn't say a name.
14:03
[SPEAKER_02]: but it's dangerous.
14:04
[SPEAKER_02]: So we were going to speak out against that bill.
14:08
[SPEAKER_02]: The moment it was passed as the leader of this action, I had a group of singers who were out in the rotunda, outside of the house floor.
14:16
[SPEAKER_02]: They were singing songs of resistance there.
14:19
[SPEAKER_02]: and five of us were actually in the gallery.
14:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I was the action leader there, so I knew I would be removed first.
14:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And the second, that's the bill passed we began singing, when trans-lies are under attack?
14:34
[SPEAKER_02]: What do we do stand up, fight back, when trans-rights are under attack?
14:40
[SPEAKER_02]: What do we do, stand up, fight back, which is a song that was written the day before?
14:45
[SPEAKER_02]: by Melody Walker based off of a chant that I was like, I need your help to write a melody for it.
14:51
[SPEAKER_02]: So when it passed, I began singing it, leading the group, and I knew that I would be removed.
14:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I knew that I would go deadweight.
14:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I knew that they would carry me out.
15:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I knew that they would need more than a couple of stage rubbers, because
15:04
[SPEAKER_02]: for those of you who are listening, don't know what my body is.
15:06
[SPEAKER_02]: I am a happy proud fat woman, and I knew that it would take more than just a couple to be able to carry my body out.
15:14
[SPEAKER_02]: What I didn't anticipate was what happened after, which is them dragging me up the stairs, and then when they removed me from the gallery, them adding more state troopers on.
15:23
[SPEAKER_02]: and I'm carrying me by my arms, bruising my arms, bruising my wrists, I've lost feeling in my thumb, I left them, and then carrying me down one, two, three, four, five flights of stairs.
15:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Until eventually they laid me on the ground, because I said, ow!
15:41
[SPEAKER_02]: my arm because they were pulling me in a way that was too shading for my right shoulder.
15:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And as songwriters, we know for most of us, after you're left handed, your right arm is your strumming arm and I have to be able to have movement for that.
15:55
[SPEAKER_02]: So I advocate for myself to be put down and then I thought they were going to just remove me from the building.
16:00
[SPEAKER_02]: What I did not know is that they would be resting me.
16:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And as soon as I knew that you can see in the video, I say, call the action off to my support lead and no one else was arrested.
16:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank God.
16:12
[SPEAKER_02]: I then went to jail.
16:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, it was not anticipating that.
16:15
[SPEAKER_02]: and thought to go into too much detail which you can imagine what that was like.
16:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was there for six hours without having the ability to know what was happening outside.
16:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I come to find that somebody had posted videos and it went viral very quickly.
16:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And my parents saw it without, thank God, Chris had called and said, hey, just FYI, this is happening.
16:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And my sister Googled Heather May arrested and saw the video.
16:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah.
16:43
[SPEAKER_02]: trauma and also at the same time that part is very proud of the work that was done because now people across the country are aware of what is happening in Tennessee which is they are creating precedents.
16:58
[SPEAKER_02]: We are the guinea pig for the rest of the country.
17:01
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't allow discussion, correct?
17:04
[SPEAKER_02]: No, they refused to allow anyone to speak.
17:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Justin Jones had an amendment that he proposed.
17:13
[SPEAKER_02]: They wouldn't allow it right before the vote, typically what they do is they propose amendments that they vote on the amendments and then they eventually open it up to the floor to be able to speak.
17:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And then they have the vote.
17:23
[SPEAKER_02]: So Justin Jones proposed an amendment, which is just too simple.
17:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Have Hippa sign off on it and they refused it.
17:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
17:34
[SPEAKER_02]: and then Gloria Johnson had her hand up the entire time, and they just refused.
17:40
[SPEAKER_02]: No discussion.
17:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's, okay, there's so much.
17:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey just a quick pause from this conversation.
17:48
[SPEAKER_00]: The other 22 hours is an independent production built entirely on the idea that he's quiet on his conversations matter.
17:54
[SPEAKER_00]: The best way to support our work is simply to share it so if you can think of one person who would appreciate this show please pass it along and if you haven't yet please follow our show in your listening platform of choice or subscribe to our channel and YouTube.
18:06
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a small action that may save massive difference for us.
18:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for being here.
18:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's get back to our conversation.
18:14
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things I'm interested in is just background.
18:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I got my undergrad degree.
18:19
[SPEAKER_01]: We went to Musa School and I got my undergrad degree in music, but then I also got a BA in social inquiry, where I specifically studied social movements of American history.
18:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Great, yeah.
18:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I had no idea.
18:30
[SPEAKER_02]: I know.
18:31
[SPEAKER_02]: We could have been nerding out about that for so long.
18:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I specifically studied civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam War movement, and the feminist movement of the 1960s era and the role that music played and in popular culture.
18:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wrote my thesis on why music,
18:53
[SPEAKER_01]: In popular mainstream music, like Top 40 Hits, why music then, there were countless numbers that were directly commenting on the climate of the country and all the unrest that was happening.
19:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And why in the early 2000s when the unpopular Iraq war was happening, why we weren't seeing like I went through all the Billboard charts and all the lyrics of all the songs.
19:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was just like everyone's just partying up the clip.
19:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that, right?
19:21
[SPEAKER_01]: but this is all just to give a little background of like I've always been so interested in and the sociology of social movements is also studying of like how they happen and also the personalities involved that make them happen and inevitably there's egos and all this stuff but it takes specific type of personalities that can really hold the power of leading and also
19:47
[SPEAKER_01]: crumble from the weight of the emotion, which is something I was so passionate about studying and very passionate about all the causes that these movements were working to find and create justice and equality for, but I never participated in protests.
20:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And I still, I have, but they make me very nervous because I am so overwhelmed by emotion.
20:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm getting teary, I hear right now, like, I cry so easily.
20:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I cry when there's like bursts of positive energy, and I cry when there's bursts of fraught energies.
20:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I got something to tell you about that.
20:23
[SPEAKER_02]: So an hour before we hopped on, I was in therapy.
20:27
[SPEAKER_02]: I've had two therapy sessions since what happened.
20:31
[SPEAKER_02]: And the number one thing that people have been saying to me is, oh my god, how did you keep singing on key and on beat?
20:38
[SPEAKER_02]: How did you keep doing that?
20:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And my response has been, I had a job, right?
20:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I had a job.
20:46
[SPEAKER_02]: It's this like for anybody who can't see my face.
20:48
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like throwing my brow and I'm like shaking my head and I'm confused.
20:52
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm showing physical confusion on my face like I had a job.
20:59
[SPEAKER_02]: So I am a person who my modality of therapy that has helped me the most in my life as a bipolar person, as a person with complex trauma, ADHD, as a survivor, as a person with an ED disorder, like internal family systems, has broken open my entire life in the best way.
21:20
[SPEAKER_02]: So when this happens, I immediately contacted my therapist when I started noticing
21:28
[SPEAKER_02]: a friend would touch me on the arm.
21:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, oh, which is typically not my way, it would be not wanting to like see my body without clothing.
21:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, oh, that's a thing, feeling vulnerable.
21:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Not wanting to be without clothing.
21:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And like we're recording, it's Wednesday, right?
21:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Like this happened on Thursday.
21:46
[SPEAKER_02]: It's less than a week ago.
21:47
[SPEAKER_02]: So I immediately set up appointments with two therapists that I trust very, very much.
21:52
[SPEAKER_02]: And one of the things that immediately came up in therapy was how there is a part of me that's like, you just get the job done, right?
22:01
[SPEAKER_02]: And there are other parts of me that are deeply wounded by the hands that were placed upon my body, by the part of the video that nobody sees that has not been released,
22:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I laid down because I knew the action was that they were going to remove me, didn't know they were going to arrest me, removed me from the gallery, what I did not anticipate.
22:29
[SPEAKER_02]: is that they wouldn't call for backup and they dragged me from my arms like a bag of mulch of the stairs.
22:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is our video.
22:36
[SPEAKER_02]: So I see that video, that part, that activist legacy for the good of all people we will win.
22:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And she's like, yeah, hell yeah, did the job.
22:49
[SPEAKER_02]: But when I make space, which is absolutely essential, one of the things that I was reflecting on before,
22:55
[SPEAKER_02]: This very specific podcast where it's not just about like career and it's like, what do you do the other times?
23:02
[SPEAKER_02]: For me, it was like, oh, the thing that I can bring to this podcast is, what are your other parts of yourself?
23:07
[SPEAKER_02]: How are they doing with this really intense job?
23:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Are you listening to them?
23:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you space for them?
23:13
[SPEAKER_02]: That part of me when I set her aside and say you did a good job?
23:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm really, really proud of you.
23:19
[SPEAKER_02]: I want you to go like into the back room that's filled with books and training modules.
23:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And I want you to get in there because that's what brings you joy.
23:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Get in there, you're done, you're off the clock.
23:29
[SPEAKER_02]: When I move her into there, what comes forward are all the parts that were not prepared for that.
23:36
[SPEAKER_02]: And Michaela, what you are experiencing when watching that video, even now thinking about that video is humanity.
23:45
[SPEAKER_02]: You are not just a white woman with tears.
23:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
23:49
[SPEAKER_02]: You are a human being who is watching a person being violated.
23:55
[SPEAKER_02]: and you are experiencing compassion and empathy.
23:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And those people are also important to the cause.
24:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Because if we cut ourselves off from compassion and empathy, we are bystanders to injustice.
24:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And when you are a bystander to injustice and you don't allow it to move your feet than injustice wins.
24:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I am grateful for your tears because it keeps you awake, it keeps you alive.
24:24
[SPEAKER_02]: and progress in the game.
24:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for all that not to like make me feel better, but just for that kind of information, why I was sharing that is because I've grappled with the guilt, you know, and I've come to terms with it of like there's so many ways to try and contribute.
24:41
[SPEAKER_01]: and help but in the role that you play, you answered the question of what are the things that you do to try and build that resolve and also we are all made up differently emotionally like a high fall apart and cry so easily so it's harder for me to be in those spaces but other people might have the same exact emotions and their response isn't tears.
25:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, which aligns with this podcast of like, Heather May the songwriter is yes building her career as someone who releases music and puts out in the world, but then there's also the layer of the music you release has a purpose and then there's the music that you lead in chance and there's so much inner woven work as a musician that's not as centered around Heather May the person.
25:30
[SPEAKER_01]: gaining something and more centered around this music is a vehicle of expression and connection and you said much earlier the problems I'm trying to solve with music which is a really different approach than I want to write some songs because I want to be a professionally successful
25:50
[SPEAKER_01]: songwriter and this isn't knocking that at all or you know I want to write some songs because I feel I want to personally express my emotions and stories that way.
25:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just curious of like what you have to do to care for yourself to tend to that.
26:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So if there's anything that you would add to that, I'd love to hear about that.
26:07
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like your question is how do you do it and stay same?
26:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
26:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't stay sane.
26:21
[SPEAKER_02]: It's heartbreaking.
26:23
[SPEAKER_02]: It's tragic.
26:24
[SPEAKER_02]: It's so terrible.
26:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Things that are happening in our country right now.
26:28
[SPEAKER_02]: And deep inside myself is not always, but deep inside myself when I'm constantly fighting for is hope.
26:38
[SPEAKER_02]: it has been terrible forever before in our country forever it has been terrible forever but we have had times when it has been awful we have had times when black people have been stripped of their rights and they're having to boycott restaurants and buses and create coalitions for change like they're doing now
27:00
[SPEAKER_02]: We have had LGBTQ people storming buildings and throwing bricks and demanding for self liberation and our own safety to walk through streets like we are now.
27:15
[SPEAKER_02]: We have been here before and while it is exhausting and tiring and trying on the human spirit, what we carry with that is the winds of our ancestors.
27:28
[SPEAKER_02]: they won by sheer existence of me being a out loud queer woman who has my own bank account.
27:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Who is engaged to my fiance?
27:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Who is in an interracial relationship?
27:46
[SPEAKER_02]: I am an example of my ancestors wins because they fought so hard.
27:51
[SPEAKER_02]: So while it is absolutely exhausting this work
27:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I am proof that showing up and singing out and fighting every day when you have the spoons too.
28:07
[SPEAKER_02]: My life is proof that social activism and showing up for your fellow human sibling, it does work.
28:15
[SPEAKER_02]: We will win, and that's why ultimately they're doing it quietly, they're doing it fast, they're dismantling things in small and big ways.
28:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's how authoritarian regimes work.
28:26
[SPEAKER_02]: The authoritarian regimes know unity and the collective people's voice through arts and media and music.
28:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, they go after the artists first.
28:37
[SPEAKER_02]: They're trying to take it away.
28:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Because when there is a feeling of unity, there's a feeling of okay, we can keep going.
28:42
[SPEAKER_02]: We can do it another day.
28:43
[SPEAKER_02]: When they take that away,
28:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I'm gonna move to Ireland.
28:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
28:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
28:51
[SPEAKER_02]: I hate to sound like a broken record.
28:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And I need everybody who's listening to this to know, I kind of hate myself for telling you this thing.
29:02
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'm gonna be honest with you.
29:04
[SPEAKER_02]: It has absolutely helped my nervous system.
29:07
[SPEAKER_02]: I am a person who knows darkness so very well.
29:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I live and breathe anxiety.
29:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I hate that I have to tell you this, but meditating 20 minutes a day.
29:19
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm so sorry for saying that, like girl who is driving in the car right now.
29:24
[SPEAKER_02]: She's like, I hate you.
29:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Do not tell me that.
29:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Look, I get it.
29:28
[SPEAKER_02]: I know the stuff works.
29:30
[SPEAKER_02]: It's hour.
29:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I've meditated to varying degrees for the last twenty-two years of my life, like the majority of my life, and I think what I want to point out curl driving the car, and it Astrix, I'm not man-splaining at all.
29:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just explaining from my experience is like what I hear you say when you say that that meditating helps, it's not that meditating takes care of the anxiety
29:53
[SPEAKER_00]: at all.
29:53
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't make it go away.
29:54
[SPEAKER_00]: What I heard you say I heard you laugh at yourself and I heard you hold that anxiety as something that is a part of you but is not you.
30:01
[SPEAKER_00]: You're able to experience that millisecond separation between others as a human being and the anxiety as this thing that you are experiencing and to me that's what meditation brings into it.
30:12
[SPEAKER_02]: The, you know, Buddhist philosophy life is suffering, but the true suffering is how we look at that suffering.
30:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Being a queer person living in the south, it's a terrible place to live.
30:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And my straight friends who live in blue states are always like, get out of there.
30:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And my response to them is that's so much privilege in saying that.
30:34
[SPEAKER_02]: This is my home.
30:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel at home here.
30:38
[SPEAKER_02]: How they say,
30:40
[SPEAKER_02]: How could you feel at home here?
30:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And I say to them, it's all in the way that you look at it.
30:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, all right, it's our being stripped away.
30:48
[SPEAKER_02]: It is terrifying.
30:51
[SPEAKER_02]: My friends and I, my partner and my other partner who is trans, like we're trying to figure out clever ways to get our doctor and health care treatment and there are people who are trying to figure out how to get healthcare or certain things
31:11
[SPEAKER_02]: That's terrible.
31:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And also we go to brunch on Sundays.
31:15
[SPEAKER_02]: We see each other, we value each other's time a little bit more.
31:19
[SPEAKER_02]: When we hug, such as a hug, when we gather, it hits different.
31:24
[SPEAKER_02]: So the meditating side of thing actually, I feel like helps me be able to have a little bit more
31:36
[SPEAKER_02]: in those times like when I was being carried out at the Capitol, I was able to distance myself a bit more from the suffering.
31:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that mental training of like you said, you did the job.
31:50
[SPEAKER_01]: You weren't on the most deeply wounded emotional level connecting to the harm that was being done to you and the way were being violated in that moment because how would you without falling apart, right?
32:05
[SPEAKER_02]: She wouldn't
32:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and that mental training is clearly evidence that I need to meditate more.
32:16
[SPEAKER_00]: You mentioned privilege in straight friends being blue states and all of that and I'd say this in full knowledge that we are straight friends that will be moving to a blue state But you know mainly because this doesn't feel like home to us and to me and it never has I love my friends here I love the community here.
32:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I love what natural is it just I have never felt at home here in 12 years.
32:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but what resonated with me and this and hearing you say like I was doing the work
32:40
[SPEAKER_00]: There is, and I hope this comes off the right way.
32:42
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a privilege in being able to wallow in sadness and fear that paralyzes you.
32:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I'll say it again.
32:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Say it again.
32:52
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a privilege in being able to wallow in the sadness and fear that paralyzes you.
32:58
[SPEAKER_00]: What made me realize that I had just dropped our daughter off it.
33:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Bruce was driving home with us.
33:02
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a dude who was listening to MPR.
33:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I think he was earlier this spring, being January or February or so.
33:08
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was a piece on kids going back to school in Palestine.
33:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And the sound design, the background noise was infectious laughter, and all of these children playing, and it was talking about, and that's like what made me realize that.
33:23
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, talking about how there is no schools, they meet amongst the rubble, but like the clear out places to like play soccer, and they climb and they are really using dust to write on rubble and rocks.
33:34
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't have the choice to wallow in fear in sadness.
33:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
33:39
[SPEAKER_02]: My destiny partner, my fiance, Chris Matthews, we're both touring musicians.
33:43
[SPEAKER_02]: We only get so much time in Tennessee together because we're constantly on the road, right?
33:47
[SPEAKER_02]: So when I'm home with her and I'm playing at a James on vinyl and she's flipping pancakes and I'm walking around on my slippers and a robe and we're dancing in the kitchen.
33:57
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I don't want to be talking and crying and screaming about how they're trying to make our marriage
34:04
[SPEAKER_00]: No!
34:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to dance and kiss my fiance.
34:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah.
34:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to say to anybody who is listening to this who is absolutely furious right now with me.
34:14
[SPEAKER_02]: So mad at me because that's not where you are.
34:18
[SPEAKER_02]: You are angry.
34:19
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to say to you, sibling, I hear you, I honor where you are, you use whatever you need, whatever emotion you need to get through this.
34:29
[SPEAKER_02]: If it's anger, I welcome it to the table.
34:32
[SPEAKER_02]: There are times when I am absolutely devastated with rage.
34:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I see where you are.
34:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And we say in the queer community, I'm not going to yuck anyone's yum.
34:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna yuck or judge anyone's where they are in the feelings that they have and they look at this political landscape right now, but as for me and my house, we have to do something in order to be able to keep fighting.
34:58
[SPEAKER_02]: For me, it's meditating and therapy and I can't tell you how many times I have emailed music cares and music
35:11
[SPEAKER_02]: help so shout out to them.
35:12
[SPEAKER_01]: For those who are listening, music cares in music health alliance, have incredible programs where they offer stipend amounts of money to support your healthcare needs or your mental health provider needs if you don't have insurance or an ability to pay for it.
35:27
[SPEAKER_01]: It's incredible.
35:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and even if you do have health insurance, they will still sometimes provide support in some way or another.
35:36
[SPEAKER_02]: This is just expensive.
35:37
[SPEAKER_02]: It's expensive because of this where we live.
35:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
35:40
[SPEAKER_02]: So one thing I wanted to share just because I felt like I wanted to have one thing that maybe nobody has said before.
35:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, you checked that box.
35:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, well I want to say one more thing please say one more thing because this is so specific to musicians here So if you are a musician and you want to help, but you feel like you don't know
36:05
[SPEAKER_02]: how to lead people in singing or chanting.
36:07
[SPEAKER_02]: You're like, this world is crazy.
36:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I just don't know.
36:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Or if you're feeling similar to Michaela, but you're like, I just get so emotional.
36:14
[SPEAKER_02]: It's hard for me to show up in protest.
36:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to encourage you.
36:17
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're somebody who stands in front of audiences, and you don't know how to talk about politics or you don't know how to sing and lead people, I want to encourage you to just while you're driving in your car.
36:28
[SPEAKER_02]: I want you to just let your creative muse, however you call it for me, I call her my goddess.
36:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I ask her to just come on in and just help me write four lines.
36:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And sometimes it starts with just right now like.
36:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
37:02
[SPEAKER_02]: real quick, just don't try to write a song, just have a moment, and then let that sit.
37:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the next time that you're looking at the news, and you're so pissed about what's happening, whether it's climate change or uniform or school lunches or whatever it is, and she just write little words here and there.
37:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And then when you are ready, I want you to insert it into your show.
37:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't want you to insert it into your show.
37:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, hey everybody, we're going to do a, I don't want you to do that.
37:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't want you to say, I'm so pissed about Bank of Bank, what's happening?
37:34
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I want you to do this.
37:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I want you to say, you don't want to sing with me?
37:39
[SPEAKER_02]: They're gonna go, yeah.
37:41
[SPEAKER_02]: These people love showing up.
37:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I want you to just repeat, say repeat after me.
37:46
[SPEAKER_02]: That is a, that, that, that, that.
37:48
[SPEAKER_02]: What you're gonna feel inside of your mind and your body, your nuclear succumb and your reward center and your brain is gonna go, oh, that felt good.
37:57
[SPEAKER_02]: It's gonna surge, dopamine and serotonin
38:00
[SPEAKER_02]: and then you're going to do the second line and you're going to have it again and then the third line happening in the fourth line and without saying I'm a person who's a social justice son greater and I sing and I'm pissed about what's happening in our country and fuck Donald Trump and fuck I said get out you don't have to say any of that you don't have to say any of that to be a person
38:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Who is helping change because guess what's gonna happen?
38:22
[SPEAKER_02]: They're gonna pull other phones They're gonna record you.
38:25
[SPEAKER_02]: They're favorite artists doing a chant and then they're gonna take it to the capital in their town That right there without saying a single political word that right there You've thrown a thousand pebbles into a lake and then just let the ripples go beautiful
38:44
[SPEAKER_00]: What an amazing thought on creating something, the impermanence of it.
38:49
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we're so used to as sign writers and creators to like, pour over the song and tease it out and record a demo and listen to it and change it and then like record it and then shoot 9,000, 15 second videos for it and put it on the internet and like, you know.
39:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, this sounds like cages to me.
39:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, to write this thing and then just send it out into the world and let it grow and I would assume evolve and become this living chant that then suits what is needed as an amazing use of creativity.
39:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.
39:16
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's so beautiful about songwriters, right?
39:19
[SPEAKER_02]: We write songs and then we record them and we release them and then our babies are out in the world doing the work without us seeing it.
39:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Whether it's like a mom listening to Michaela
39:32
[SPEAKER_02]: just be very vulnerable and honest about how it's hard to be a mom.
39:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And then she's going, what am I doing?
39:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's somebody else.
39:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And Michaela's not sitting on the bathroom floor with her at 2am.
39:45
[SPEAKER_02]: But she is, though, that song is, so then what if we created songs?
39:50
[SPEAKER_02]: What if we use our superpower to create songs?
39:54
[SPEAKER_02]: that are creating change, that are helping people stay regulated when they're in high intense actions at the capital or when they're singing outside of an ice detention center.
40:05
[SPEAKER_02]: What if you created songs that could be just used for good?
40:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And you don't have to say a single thing on your
40:15
[SPEAKER_02]: being political.
40:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Personally I think you should because history has its eyes on us and it does not speak kindly to bystanders.
40:24
[SPEAKER_02]: But if you're not there yet, well then why don't you just do what you're really good at?
40:29
[SPEAKER_01]: What you said though, a further back about community though, the community booze us into having the courage to do the scary thing and to stand on a stage
40:43
[SPEAKER_01]: We're increasingly living in a time where it feels like, I mean, this is not politics.
40:48
[SPEAKER_01]: This is literally just humanity.
40:50
[SPEAKER_01]: The layers of issues that we can supposedly disagree on to me now feel non-negotiable.
40:57
[SPEAKER_01]: How do we find common ground when you are telling us that trans people shouldn't exist?
41:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a friend who lives in the Pacific Northwest, asked me why on social media I post so much about events and news and stuff, and why I feel like it's my responsibility to inform people or something, and I'm like, well, I had like another friend asked me like, why do you care so much?
41:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And the assumption is like, why do I care so much?
41:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I'm a straight white woman, so like, clearly I'm not being attacked,
41:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, but but also I'm like, why don't you care so much like it's because I love so many people even if I don't know them I want them to have the same safety and privilege to have a family if that's what they want And I've never feared to not be able to marry the person I love or have children with the person I love Like that's never been a thought in my mind and it infuriates me that is not the reality for so many people
42:01
[SPEAKER_01]: But I want to say in Nashville as the point of this is to share that the thing that I reflected on when my friend asked me that is we live in a community of musicians in Nashville that it feels like to not say something would be more of a statement.
42:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, because what are you doing when you're doing that?
42:20
[SPEAKER_02]: We are looking at you as musicians.
42:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Many musicians look up to the artist McAillian.
42:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And when they see Michaela Ann sharing, she might share too.
42:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
42:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel that because I look around our community and I'm like, everyone's engaged or involved or some way.
42:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Though like civic engagement in Nashville is something, I feel very proud of in our musical community that people are at protests and at the Capitol all the time and hosting organizing and the resistance singers
42:55
[SPEAKER_01]: that is like the positive peer pressure of like when we are all in this together, which makes me feel braver to I feel very comfortable and brave to like post things online, but I haven't overtly said that many things on stage and I recently performed on WMOT's live finally Friday thing.
43:16
[SPEAKER_01]: and I made a point to say something about ice, and I shared a song that I wrote called Just More Love, and I was surprised at how nervous I felt beforehand.
43:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, because I was like, I don't know, especially because it wasn't my show, because it was a radio performance where I was like, I don't know who told me.
43:35
[SPEAKER_01]: who this audience is.
43:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I went through it.
43:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you said I looked to the past, I looked to all around me and I was like, what would I want to know that I did in this moment where I felt a little apprehensive or nervous that helped me have the courage to say something.
43:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think that is the point of community.
43:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you said, it's like, it's what helps us continue on.
43:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, singing resistance in Nashville, which I'm the lead organizer for singing resistance in Nashville, and January, after Alex Pretty was murdered.
44:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I was at Folk Alliance, which many of people listening will know.
44:08
[SPEAKER_02]: My partner Chris had just one song of the year, the night before, and I was sitting in a activist, changemakers roundtable when I received
44:19
[SPEAKER_02]: I was inundated with text messages for my activist friends that were like, what are we going to do?
44:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, what are we going to do about what?
44:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And I learned that he had been murdered and I just walked out of that room and I walked up to the hotel room.
44:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was just like all of a sudden that part had just seized my entire system.
44:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And I walked in and she looked at me and she goes, I knew it.
44:43
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, I'm going to Minneapolis, she goes.
44:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I figured this day would come when I booked a flight, and I went up there, and I trained and learned from the organizers in that occupied city, because it was occupied.
44:53
[SPEAKER_02]: It was, I mean, ISIS still there in hundreds, not thousands, but hundreds, despite where the media wants us to know, and coming face to face with ICE and the police that were there, and working with mutual aid, and I just was like, there's something really magical that's happening there.
45:10
[SPEAKER_02]: and I need to understand what it is.
45:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And I can't see it from the internet.
45:15
[SPEAKER_02]: So I went.
45:16
[SPEAKER_02]: And I worked hand in hand with saying resistance, Nashville, and one of the things that I learned was that it's a bipartisan issue.
45:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Slamming people against cars, not needing warrants, not saying who you are, just being anonymous police agents from the government, and
45:35
[SPEAKER_02]: They're not asking, hey, by the way, are you a public end or before I spray?
45:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, amazing your face.
45:42
[SPEAKER_02]: They're not doing that.
45:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And so therefore, the people are reacting that way too.
45:47
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's just absolutely terrible and beautiful.
45:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I did everything I possibly could to soak up every single thing from that, from those organizers and connecting interviews and just training, training everything I possibly could.
46:01
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I came home and I began seeing
46:05
[SPEAKER_02]: and one of the things that I am absolutely demanding of my fellow organizers and those who are helping, who are stepping up and helping to lead this music activism movement in Nashville, organized music activism.
46:21
[SPEAKER_02]: in Nashville is that we will never forget the importance of community because you cannot do this work without support and burn out.
46:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And the same is true with musicians.
46:35
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I say to my pals in the music industry.
46:39
[SPEAKER_02]: who are like, I'm not sure how to step in.
46:43
[SPEAKER_02]: I say, how about you talk to a friend?
46:45
[SPEAKER_02]: They're happy to have you talk to me.
46:47
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'm not the one you're sending memes to.
46:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Go get a burger, go get some waffles with your bestie.
46:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And then see if the two of you could go to a protest together.
46:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I'm gonna tell you, you'll only show up once.
47:01
[SPEAKER_02]: If you come and meet me, but you'll show up over and over and over again, if you go with your best friend, if you go with your partner, because what happens is it's almost like soccer.
47:12
[SPEAKER_02]: It's almost like a book club.
47:14
[SPEAKER_02]: It's almost like church.
47:16
[SPEAKER_02]: It is the same type of thing as community hobbying, but just in this situation, actual lives are on the line.
47:31
[SPEAKER_02]: community bucket filling.
47:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And so seeing a resistance Nashville and the organizing work that I'm doing, not just with seniors in Nashville, but me as an organizer in Nashville, I am launching this kind of pilot program where we host potlucks and happy hours and self-care nights more the organizers to invite people in and we'll sing to you, we'll fill up your bucket, but we're also providing a
47:59
[SPEAKER_02]: you cannot do this without support.
48:02
[SPEAKER_02]: You will burn out and what good are you to the movement if you burn out.
48:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's so beautiful.
48:08
[SPEAKER_00]: We like to be wherever your time and are so grateful that you took the time out today to sit and be so incredibly open.
48:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And obviously we could talk about so many more things.
48:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
48:18
[SPEAKER_01]: We will have to make another another time.
48:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, to have you back on
48:24
[SPEAKER_00]: We like to start and end our shows the same way.
48:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the last question is a choose your own adventure.
48:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And it can be either a nugget of wisdom that you've absorbed along the way, whether it's something somebody has told you or something you've read that continues to fill your cup and keep you inspired or something that you wish you knew as younger you when you were first starting to make a career of your creativity.
48:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I never like the questions about what I wish I knew because I don't want to change anything back then because if I gave her any more information then I wouldn't be here in this moment where I am exactly supposed to be right now.
49:03
[SPEAKER_02]: So what I will I will combine the two.
49:06
[SPEAKER_02]: What I learned five months ago.
49:08
[SPEAKER_02]: This crazy experience and I can't believe I'm going to say this on a podcast, but I'm going to do it.
49:13
[SPEAKER_02]: I had God speak to me in this wild experience and her voice sounded like mine.
49:20
[SPEAKER_02]: So I really thought I was just talking to myself and I heard her say like, Hi, hello, hello, yes, hello, I'm like, oh my God, I'm like in the middle of a massage.
49:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I was actually in the middle of a massage, this is very important.
49:32
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was trying, I was so stressed out about not knowing what I was supposed to be doing in my life.
49:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Because my career had not reached where I wanted it to.
49:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I was not winning awards.
49:42
[SPEAKER_02]: It hadn't gotten a Grammy or a Americana or a folk.
49:46
[SPEAKER_02]: I was not opening for whoever.
49:48
[SPEAKER_02]: I was all of these like very human music industry accolades.
49:54
[SPEAKER_02]: And I felt like, well, what's the point?
49:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Despite being a social justice moderator.
50:00
[SPEAKER_02]: What was the point?
50:01
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I started to think about giving it up.
50:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna give it up.
50:04
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna support Chris's career and I'm gonna be a mom.
50:07
[SPEAKER_00]: As if I can't be a mom and I'm a career.
50:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was so stressed out that I went and got a massage and I like to hear was work.
50:17
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, can you just shut up?
50:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And I heard, no, I'm talking to you.
50:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, oh my god, now I'm crazy.
50:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Now I'm crazy.
50:29
[SPEAKER_02]: you've gone so far that you've now lost your ego.
50:33
[SPEAKER_02]: You now perform and show up in service of good congratulations.
50:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Now you're ready.
50:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And I left that massage and Chris was there to pick me up.
50:44
[SPEAKER_02]: We were working a cruise that she was performing at.
50:47
[SPEAKER_02]: We were in Turkey.
50:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And I stood on the water and I was like I'm crazy.
50:51
[SPEAKER_02]: She's like I'm a preacher's kid.
50:53
[SPEAKER_02]: The sounds familiar to me.
50:54
[SPEAKER_02]: You're not speaking
50:58
[SPEAKER_02]: got us say to me, you will know when you know when I need you.
51:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And months go by and Alex pretty was murdered and the first thing I heard was, now you know.
51:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And since that moment, I have been launched into my goddess work.
51:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I know that to be absolutely sure.
51:16
[SPEAKER_02]: So the thing that I do not wish to have told myself before because I knew at the moment I was supposed to know it, but the thing that I would tell others is if you are dissatisfied with the work that you are doing,
51:31
[SPEAKER_02]: and sit back and wait until you know as it will come to you.
51:35
[SPEAKER_02]: The judging of yourself of I'm not doing enough, I am not good enough.
51:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing which happens to all of us.
51:42
[SPEAKER_02]: There's times in our careers where we know deeply we're supposed to be doing something and then there's times in our careers where we go.
51:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh fuck, it's happened again, as we, we are on a hedonic treadmill.
51:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Our career is always going, we feel like we're moving but really we're just staying in place and there's just another project and another project and another project.
52:00
[SPEAKER_02]: If you feel like you don't know what you are doing, sit down,
52:04
[SPEAKER_02]: and ask to be shown.
52:06
[SPEAKER_02]: We as artists judge ourselves so much based upon capitalism and the productivity monster machine that we don't allow ourselves time to just say, hey, what do you up to lately?
52:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Sitting, I'm sitting, I'm waiting, I'm restoring.
52:20
[SPEAKER_00]: If that's not an ad for self-care, I'm not sure what is.
52:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, also, I want to say thank you for telling us that because we need to hang out because the voice of God that you heard, these are all just semantics.
52:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, you know, what Carl Young in depth psychology would call the voice of God as well as your deeper unconscious mind, your path of individuation, where you've fully reached the apex of developing your persona in ego and now looking around and getting on your soul's work path.
52:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's go get coffee.
52:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
52:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
53:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Heather, thank you so much for this conversation.
53:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for asking me.
53:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there's only one other conversation where we both cried.
53:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It was with Fancy.
53:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Wasn't it?
53:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Fancy, hey, good.
53:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Both Erin and like cried.
53:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I cried so many times.
53:15
[SPEAKER_01]: You should be in montage of all the YouTube videos of my face crunching.
53:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
53:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm honored that I think the work that you two are doing like this is some of your God work to talking to songwriters, not just about being production machines is so important and I know for sure that the ripples of this podcast, the pebbles.
53:37
[SPEAKER_02]: There's not a single songwriter that I'm pals with who isn't like, oh my God, did you hear the last one?
53:44
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's good work that you all are doing and you've been doing it for
53:47
[SPEAKER_02]: a long time.
53:48
[SPEAKER_02]: So thank you.
53:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for sharing that.
53:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much.
53:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you and thank you for everything you do, which we didn't even reach all of the expansive what you do in this life.
53:58
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll connect on our show notes to all of your links and highly recommend people go learn more about you.
54:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So thank you.
54:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks, guys.
54:10
[SPEAKER_00]: We know your time is valuable and we're grateful you chose to spend this hour with us.
54:13
[SPEAKER_01]: If this conversation resonated with you, know that it is just one of many.
54:17
[SPEAKER_01]: We have an archive of over 140 conversations.
54:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you're looking for a way to go to next, you can find curated playlists by topic on our YouTube channel or simply scroll back in the speed to find our conversations with Rogan Cash, New York Times bestselling author, Maggie Smith, Lucius, Jaden McPherson, and many others.
54:35
[SPEAKER_00]: This shows produced by me, Mary Shaveford-based, with help from the Kalaam.
54:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And all the music he hears written, performed and produced by me as well.
54:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Our show is edited and mixed by Leland Holden at Pod Punch, and we are proud numbers of the Bluegrass situation podcast network.
54:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for being here.
54:50
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll see you next time.