“Our job as artists is to learn to translate the imperceptible notes, textures, and feelings that nature has given us and to share them in a way that allows others to witness those same parts in themselves.”

There was a time when I was so desperate for meaning that I found myself on my knees, tears in my eyes, pleading with God to give me a passion or purpose. By that point, I had already won a full-ride scholarship to NYU, graduated, traveled across Africa, Asia, and South America, got so sick I thought I’d be on medication for the rest of my life, experienced a healing crisis, fallen in and out of love with a hippie guru, gone broke, and was teetering on the edge of whatever my next great adventure might be.

What I was searching for wasn’t another ayahuasca journey or ecstatic dance retreat (though I did find that WOOFing became one of my most treasured experiences). No, I was searching for something deeper—something that could ground me when life got tough. In the chaotic swirl of possibilities that defines your early 20s, I longed for an anchor, 1) a belief in something that could not be shaken by politics or hardship, and 2) something I could cultivate to guide me through life.

Don’t get me wrong, I had passion and purpose in my life before. Growing up during the height of An Inconvenient Truth and deeply affected by gun violence in my hometown, I threw myself into environmental activism in college—determined to do whatever it took to fight the impending destruction of our planet. If that sounds like a heavy load to carry, it was. What started as passion eventually turned into burnout, and that burnout stretched into a decade-long struggle to reconnect with my sense of purpose. What once felt like a vital part of my identity had turned my world into a place of fear and division—'us vs. them'—a mental divide that eventually led to a very real mental health crisis.

Sound familiar? I sometimes wonder what happened to the environmental movement of the 2010s. With Obama in office and leaders like Bill McKibben and Al Gore, it seemed for a moment that the world had begun to prioritize nature. I wonder if the pressure of the movement burned many of us young leaders out, sending us on our own healing journeys that would lead us to change everything about how we see the world. While there are still friends in the fight, I fear that, on a collective level, the urgency of the crisis has given way to disillusionment (one only needs to look at the recent election). The energy for change has been absorbed into the self-help and new-age healing industries, redirecting that passion for the planet into thousand-dollar weekend retreats.

*My first summer after college, peak burnout.*

While I love a retreat as much as the next person—some of these “re-wilding” experiences have and continue to shape my relationship with nature, where college environmental science classes fell short—I still felt something terribly important missing from my life.

By now, many people are beginning to recognize the damage that the new-age eco-spiritual healing industry has caused to Indigenous communities and local economies in the Global South. While these practices aren’t all the same, spiritual traditions that were once shared with open hearts have been repackaged and resold to fit Western business models. As a result, locals have been priced out, sacred resources are becoming increasingly rare (like Peyote in the deserts of Texas and Mexico, which is rapidly approaching extinction). The Indigenous way of life continues to fight to stay free from the overwhelming grip of the Western money system—a system that, like many forms of oppression, is often hard to see for those immersed in it, unless they have undergone deep personal reflection or lived experiences of decolonization.

*WOOFing in 2015 at Whispering Winds Bamboo Farm in Maui, HI*

So what are we left to believe in to guide our work? What can we believe in that fits my original two criteria?:

A belief in something that could not be shaken from me by politics or hardship,
something that I myself could cultivate as a guide for my life.

I, like many others, have spent years looking for a faith that could keep us grounded through life’s most challenging experiences. I’ve learned that this kind of resilient faith requires flexibility. It’s not something rigid or fixed; it’s a way of thinking that evolves over time, one that prevents us from being trapped in dogmatic 'us vs. them' mentalities.

In the past, I found meaning and purpose in my connection to nature, but in the face of the challenges we now face as humans, my faith in it has been shaken by deep waves of grief. It’s like watching a Planet Earth episode you love, only to realize that what you're witnessing might not survive beyond the next few generations. The weight of this truth has become almost paralyzing.

So, what was left? New-age spiritual practices attempt to fill the void where community, tradition, and real connection once thrived. I just couldn’t quite embrace it—and after a few years, I moved on to something that eventually gave my life new meaning and purpose.

Not long after that prayer, I picked up a camera and began documenting the world around me. Photography and videography gave me everything I was looking for—technical challenge, a way to honor cultures without appropriation, and most importantly, it was personal. It was something that required only one person to show up every day (spoiler alert—that person was me).

Most importantly, my art was creative—meaning it connected me deeply to the spirit inside myself as well as the world. It was a force of nature that could not be interrupted by Exxon or Shell. It was a force that, if I took care of it with enough intention and love, I knew would one day grow into something beautiful that I could believe in.

This road eventually took me to music production and sound engineering. Along the way, there have been many moments that challenged my commitment and faith in my purpose. Each time, I found that the power of creative force was always there for me, willing to renew and reinvigorate my moments of despair and apathy. It’s my thread to the bigger picture of life all around me—despite the world.

While the creative industries have presented their own challenges of co-opting and exploitation, the work you discover by connecting to creativity is indisputably yours. It is the magic that has chosen you as its vessel. Our job as artists is to learn to translate the imperceptible notes, textures, and feelings that nature has given us and to share them in a way that allows others to witness those same parts in themselves.

Your work is already inside you. The only thing left is to shed everything that tells you otherwise.

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