Dear Alessia 082321

Hard to believe you’re only three weeks old
It’s hard to remember life before you were here
Or not so hard to remember it
As much as it’s difficult to identify with it
I’m sure every parent can relate
There is before your child was born
And after
As if you’ve walked through a supernatural vortex
Permanently transformed
Today I’m starting a dopamine detox
and another water fast
Looking for guidance and direction
These times and my life in particular are calling for reinvention and prayer
A world divided by a syringe and and unknown substance
And your trust or lack thereof in government institutions
Civil war may be brewing
I’m drinking cold brew in the morning writing again to you with not much to say
You have to look away from the demented movie the world has become
And dare to dream anyway
Look past what and who you’ve lost
And restore and renew your mission

I’ve been demonized for trying to warn people against something that seemed and still seems obviously dangerous
I was trying to give voice to relevant thoughts which were being unfairly censored in my view

But who knew speaking out against a shot was like speaking out against a religion
Who knew the backlash could be so intense

I think fear breaks down the possibility of debate
And leads directly to a warring spirit

But this reality is a difficult one to keep waking up in
The reality of a world turned upside down and gone mad through fear
The reality that your mama and me live in a city where we can’t go to a restaurant

See I wake up regretting I’ve spoken up and then I remember
We aren’t even allowed in restaurants and the whole thing resets in my mind
It’s so bizarre

But we’ve set this week to focus again on projects and future plans
To create against the tsunami of destruction the world has become
To rebuild a fallen kingdom

I’m a running man
Yesterday when we got back from an upstate deep nature getaway
I ran in the hurricane
Over the bridge into the city
And back over the bridge through dumbo
The rain pouring on me
Washing off the world’s insanity
Running is freedom
In dumbo I took off my shoes and walked through the grass
Grounding
Connecting to the earth
And instead of putting my shoes back on
I kept them off
And ran home all the way from dumbo
Bare feet on concrete
The callouses built up enough through walking around the neighborhood trying to induce you into being born
Some kind of hard to explain freedom and connected feeling running barefoot through Brooklyn in the rain
People looking twice
But me projecting a remembrance of how things should be rather than deep insanity
Says my bare feet to them running in the rain
The intricate technology
And the connection of your consciousness to the moment
Each step you become more aware than the step before
Turning your run into an adventure
Not a chore
A becoming
A discovering
Every step a sonnet

This week is about building connections like those
Praying deeper
And when we pray
We pray for our enemies
We pray they find peace
We pray no weapon formed against us shall prosper
Our higher selves know
That none of this is personal but that we’ve fallen into sides
Of a trap built by
Huge institutions angling for control by fostering the spirit of our division
So we pray for those that have come out against us
We are war with nobody
But our demons
Tempting us to cave into distraction

In France
Many bikers blocked the highway in protest of the green pass
They protest daily there
Huge numbers taking to the street
The spirit of France is becoming an inspiration to the world
I don’t know where that spirit is in New York
Perhaps it will rise
Perhaps it won’t

France gave me my career
The French embraced me with my first record in the mid nineties
I toured there extensively
26 city tours just in france
Eating French bread and stinky cheese at every stop
Embraced by a culture and a country
Like waking in a strange dream
But a good one
This before the internet was even a thing really
And going over there and touring
Meant you really were a stranger in a strange land
Four channels on a hotel television all French speaking
You had no escapes
Or you had to invent new ones
A different kind of barefoot run
In a different kind of hurricane

I wonder if we can ever forgive each other our different perspectives
But I already have
I’m not mad at anyone for their perspective
Until their perspective disregards or demonizes my perspective
Or an alternate perspective

Debate should be allowed
Choice should be allowed
The media’s fear mongering should be criminalized
People have learned just how vulnerable people are
And I don’t mean physically
I mean mentally
To control the masses
To drive us apart
To send thousands of bicycles out into French highways
To let New York sleep walk into a strange medical apartheid
Which on the surface already makes no sense
Who is pulling the puppet strings on the collapse of the world?

I met a kid who told me he
Ran into trouble by posting his thoughts on the jab on social media
He was also a musician
And lost some friends and his rehearsal space
And a few other things
He said he was forced to back down
I asked him how he did that
He said
I made a post that said I had been feeling manic lately
I said
Oh so you called yourself crazy?
He said yeah I guess kinda
I asked if he regretted it
He said he did

The world can bully you into dis-identifying from your own voice
Internally you may know that that is what you are doing
And your true identity will be present for awhile
But if you’ve called yourself crazy for saying what you believe
Eventually that will become the new reality you operate from
Your authentic self
Becoming more translucent
Fading in the hurricane
The shoes on your feet becoming heavier
Rather than disappearing
To when eventually you have concrete blocks on your feet stuck in the middle of a hurricane
I don’t Judge him for caving to the crowd
It’s difficult to stand up to the torrents of social shame
Even when it’s all so backwards
The world beat him into calling himself crazy
For making a logical and pragmatic point
This is the stuff of Orwell
Of 1984
Of not only saying 2 plus 2 equals 5
But believing it.

I said to him
On the surface I’ve lost much
But what I’ve retained is the ability to speak my mind
The authentic self moving from spirit into flesh
Running barefoot
Through a hurricane.