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People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

For well you know that it’s a fool who plays it cool / By making his world a little colder

– Paul McCartney, Hey Jude

Denslow’s Humpty Dumpty, 1904

Contempt. In the past few years, I’ve a few times come across something Nick Cave said in response to inquiries about his growth and perspective as an older chap who’s navigated deep grief in the last decade, having lost two sons. He talks about how he, for the better part of his early adult years, held the world and the people in it in contempt. This really stayed with me, as someone who, from an adolescent age, started to observe, with a questioning eye, the many stupidities of humankind.

Over the years, this awareness developed into a contempt of my own. One need only take a short look around to find deep lack in the way stuff gets done; our considerations toward one another, our blindness to our interconnection and shared suffering, summer road work in Toronto. We often live in disregard, usually, I think, unconsciously, while we race about making life happen.

This unconsciousness, for many of us, stems from trauma. For some us, the trauma is complex, wont to rear up without warning, reducing us, whispering self-hateful slogans into the raw spaces. The more I learn and experience, the more I see that this is most of us. We are generations of humans learning to express our vulnerabilities and what’s there in the dark corners of our internal experience.

My own inner world has lately been an amplified, fitful landscape, with my friend Contempt shouting righteous indignation from the rooftops. This isn’t new. Anytime the black dogs rear their heads, I stop seeing the beautiful bits. Things get fucking ugly. The world, the method, the person in the mirror. Standard self-hateful fare. And how on earth did that become standard fare? Through years of damaged practice. Through experiencing in my formative years things no one should experience.

The grace in the current crisis appeared through radical acceptance. I’m apprehensive using the term. It’s been overused in new age lingo, when at the root it’s accessible to everyone. Accessible but difficult. It’s hard to take the things that hurt us most and let them in. They’re strange friends to sit next to. I’m aware that this thing that’s followed me around forever needs a hug. I’ve known for years that we don’t necessarily get rid of the fragmented parts. It’s only through this current wave of struggle that I’ve felt a dawning surrender. That I’m broken and that’s okay. There are good bits, too. Love and Hate springs eternal.

I came across today’s quote a few days ago. It hit hard and clear. I’ve been listening to the confessions of my own character and not digging the sound. My lens is dirty. Yes, there are so many aspects of the world that are completely messed, but the vehement distaste I’ve felt, that’s informed so much for so long, has been a major player in stamping out trust and good things. It’s a fear-based exercise. Creating false safety by tearing down externals.

I’ve spent years trying, like all the King’s men, to put myself back together again. To mend the scattered parts. It hasn’t worked all that well. Sounds like it’s time to let the satellites wander…

As always, thanks for reading.

K. xo

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How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness, how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?

– Dr. Suess

Persistence Of Memory – Salvador Dali, 1931

It’s that time of year when our feeds and minds are full of ways in which we might improve ourselves. Usually rooted in feelings of lack, we use the new year as some kind of barbed yardstick to quantify all the ways we don’t measure up. If I’ve learned anything this year, it’s that these feelings, the deeper ones, aren’t so easily tamed by taking up a hobby, losing weight, or any of the usual resolution suspects.

Earlier in the year, I found a book called When Things Fall Apart, written by Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun with a wonderful perspective. It both reminded me and helped me newly see that only when we’re okay with the parts of ourselves that we can’t stand to look at or acknowledge can we be okay with anything.

The past year was the most difficult I’ve experienced. It dawned with continued worsening of the chronic pain that’s plagued me for the last few years. In February, I released Stereophile, which felt amazing, but was followed by zero interest from the general public and shops that I tried to get the book and record into. Not helpful was the fact that, due to chronic fatigue and spiritual exhaustion, I wasn’t able to, or interested in, putting forth the relentless effort it takes to promote any creative work. I then found out that I’ve a heart condition that’s going to require surgery later this year. It sounds like a standard procedure, but nonetheless added another thing to the list of maladies. In the early spring, a romantic relationship came to an end, one in which the friendship and familial aspects, just as, if not more important to me than the romance itself, were subsequently decimated in the ending’s wake. Early summer saw some standard bloodwork flag the possibility of a rare form of cancer for which there is no cure. It took until December 1st to get the final word. Turns out I don’t have cancer. Almost a half a year with that question hanging around. Egad. Add to all of this my role as solo householder and single parent to a beautiful, brilliant kid with a handful of her own challenges, and it’s fair to say there was enough cooking this year to leave a body wanting. There were many times I thought I might cave. I didn’t.

While the year was my hardest yet, it also offered great gifts. Revelatory is the word that comes to mind. Were it not for the intensity of the events I’ve listed, I wouldn’t have had the capacity to see where I stand. To own my behaviour and reactions. To begin befriending the parts made previously unbearable. In Chodron’s book, she talks about the importance of possessing unlimited friendliness toward ourselves. It sounds simple, but it’s dead elusive. We’re all so hard on ourselves. Our feelings of unworthiness eat us alive from within. They become the anger we inflict on others. The demons that drive us to addiction. They’re a departure from our innate humanity and basic self-worth. The work I put in this year has given me the ability to start seeing different possibilities. However tarnished by the hurt and suffering we endure, our hearts still shine. Whatever the depth of the darkness that surrounds, we’re still fundamentally okay. In the heat of the moment, clearly seeing what’s up is almost impossible at first. I’ve had recent experiences where I’ve been able to see where certain reactions are coming from, closer to the events themselves. This is usually after the reaction. With practice comes the ability to see it rise and catch it before it goes live.

Also present in 2025 were dear friendships. My appreciation for the support and understanding of a few close souls cannot be understated. Where nighttime reigned, there they were, reminding me of the dawn which was, always and inevitably, just round the bend. If you’re reading this, you know who you are. Thank you so much for always seeing me, and for your patience and love.

I’ve often berated myself for how far I have to go to be “whole.” The tandem filters of self-awareness and the things that hurt have a way of sending these messages. According to the Buddhist view, it’s all right here and available to us right now. With lots of life and twenty years of yoga under my belt, I understand that part. A life lesson revisited, from a perspective only experience can offer. I’m full of gratitude for seeing a bit more clearly. The ground needs constant, gentle cultivation.

If, from all I’ve said here, anyone is thinking that I’m breezing into the new year full of vim and vigor and ready to become instafamous for living my best life…I wish it were true (except for the nausea inducing instafamous for living my best life part). I came into the holiday season crawling across the finish line. The break has done nothing to improve my wellbeing. I’m currently on Herculean doses of meds, none of which are making my days pain free, but help enough to weather the day. I can feel my heart beating its odd time bebop rhythms in my chest and it’s dreadfully uncomfortable. My doc finally found a med that’s helping with the acute anxiety I started feeling partway through the year, which no amount of meditation could mitigate. It’s doing its job and then some. I wake up each morning feeling stunned psychologically and in dreadful pain from the chronic issues. My yoga mat (mindfully) mocks me from its dusty corner. I can’t remember the last time my body felt not only good enough, but average enough, to get through the day without deep discomfort. I list all of this, not for sympathy, but to illustrate how inspired I feel by the budding successes of Buddha-based technique I’ve had. If I can feel relaxed and okay with all of the crazy shit that’s going on, well, that’s an amazing thing to work toward.

So, here’s to us at the dawn of another calendar year. May we find more kindness for ourselves and each other. May childlike wonder and the wisdom of the ages be with us. May you and I continue to tread this chapter lightly, finding our way through the thick and thin of being, while the world rages on and time flies by.

As always, thanks for reading.

K. xo

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Out of sorrow, entire worlds have been built
Out of longing, great wonders have been willed

– Nick Cave, Are You The One That I’ve Been Waiting For

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair

-Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

With summer’s end approaching, the Khalil Gibran quote above is fitting. I’m rereading Gibran’s The Prophet, a well-worn standby. No one else comes close to putting divinity and unspeakable beauty into words. I’ve spent countless hours this summer barefoot in the grass at the local park. Much of that time has been spent singing for the people. Much of it has been spent writing & reading, and much of it spent starfished and gazing up at the sky and trees. These have been this summer’s meditation.

Each year, I always feel a sense of back to school energy. It’s a time of renewed focus and creativity. This has been a season of retreat, healing and (some) relaxation. Fall is a welcome one this year. I’m excited to be working on new music and keeping the Stereophile flames fanned. I’m writing today to share Dark Horse, one of the tracks from the record and book.

The oldest song on Stereophile, Dark Horse was written years ago, while house-sitting. The words and music started to come to me while sitting amongst piles of bird shit. Say what? It’s true. I was housesitting for a wonderfully eccentric, elderly neighbour, Nancy. She’d been an opera singer in Ireland in her youth. She married a U of T prof and they spent many happy years together before his passing. Nancy, in her later years, kept birds. Not wanting them to be stuck in a cage, she let them fly free about the house. They shat everywhere. She was happy to let sleeping turds lie. There was no shortage of crusty droppings lying here and there.

From these avian-based beginnings came Dark Horse. I’ve been working with depression all my life. At the time the song was written, I was particularly aware that a sensitive being, one prone to chemical imbalance, is also often one that’s very aware and insightful. While the lens we see life through can cause difficulty and be sometimes very messy and devastating (to us and those around us), it’s also something very special. It allows us to see and feel deeply. Nick Cave’s line in today’s first quote always hit me. Pain and longing, when brought forth, have willed great wonders.

Dear Subscribers: If you’re reading this via the email drop, the Soundcloud player doesn’t appear in your email. Click here to listen to the song: Dark Horse

As the years went by and Dark Horse stuck around, it began to take on new meaning. I’m close to someone with a number of different neurodiversities. I see a great awareness, insight and creativity in them. These traits are not limited to those of us who have experienced depression. So many of us with cognitive and emotional challenges look to art to allow us to process. To come back. Our sensitive natures often result in us feeling diminished by the heaviness of the world. Not just its obvious atrocities, but the ever growing isolation we’re feeling, and the general direction of disregard in which the speed of life is taking us. I’ve recently read, in don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements, that we’re all, as he puts it, living in hell. This hell is based on all the societal and familial agreements we’ve made with ourselves, those that beat the wild bits out of us, with an aim at domestication and burying our true nature. I don’t disagree. We’re in the throes of global human tribulation. Our masks are suffocating us and very few among us have found the means to shed our personas and all that we’ve learned, to go with an open, authentic heart.

The chorus lyrics in Dark Horse:

Don’t you know you’re not alone
I want you to know you’re not alone

While I’ve always been happy with the song’s verses, the chorus lines are crucial to keep in our hearts and minds. When we’re down in the dark hole of anxiety/depression/ADHD/OCD/basic human sadness, etc., and it feels like there’s no way out, they’re a reminder that we are not the first or the last to feel this way. Reconnection is always available, if we can find the wherewithal to drop our false notion of feeling like a burden and reach out. These words have for me more recently been a much needed reminder of our interconnectedness. We are not alone. Each of us is made of the same light, separated at birth and finding our way through this strange and beautiful place, so often feeling solo, when we are anything but.

Interestingly, for all the years Dark Horse has been around, I’ve never until now recorded it and have never performed it live. I’d like to record a simple live video version of it here at home. Maybe in the fall. It’ll land in the live set at some point. This year has been quiet on the gig front and, for the first time in decades, I’m happy and comfortable saying that. That said, I’m feeling a bit itchy. We’ll see what autumn brings.

May we all find our way back home. Back to ourselves and each other, and the love that waits patiently, with open arms, for our return.

As always, thanks for reading. Enjoy the track…

K.xo