This month’s SLOWLY, SLOWLY newsletter is abundant in length, meaning: the message may be clipped in your inbox! Click “View entire message” at the bottom of this e-mail to open the newsletter in a new window and read it in its entirety.
Hello Friends,
I don’t have anything particularly poignant to say about the current state of things. Times are difficult. If you’re reading (or listening) to this, I invite you to learn about the case of Mohsen Mahdawi, a member of the New York City Buddhist community who was illegally detained earlier this month.
I find spring both glorious and tedious: crushingly beautiful days followed by frigid temperatures, and then back again. One thing bringing me joy is the psychedelia of new growth. Fresh leaves are thin, have fewer pigments, and a higher concentration of chlorophyll, making their green color brighter and vibrant. I moved into my new apartment as the last leaves were falling, so learning the foliage of my block is a particular delight.
I haven’t had much space to write this month. In lieu of more in-depth thoughts, this month I want to share what I thought would be the first episode of SLOWLY SLOWY RADIO, an idea that I have been teasing in the audio recordings of this newsletter. Broadly, SLOWLY SLOWLY RADIO would feature a loose transcript from these newsletters, interspersed with music. Beyond that, the format would be loosey-goosey, which I hope will give me flexibility to play and experiment with this offering. The idea is largely inspired by my dharma friend Gaby Azorsky, who hosted ALMOST HEAVEN for several years. 🌸
So it goes, I recorded all of the audio to launch the radio show, only to discover that Spotify has discontinued its Music + Talk feature. Life is suffering! Instead, you’ll get things piecemeal. Enjoy!
ME IN 20 YEARS, MOSES SUMNEY
This song is a good place to start this series because a couple of months ago, while writing, “Me In 20 Years” came on my Spotify radio, which instantly cast my body back in time.
When I think about this song and time, I think about how I was in a house in rural Western Connecticut, maybe 3 or 4 days after the election was called for Biden in 2020. I had just been dumped after a brief and intense romance1, and on this particular evening, I led a dharma talk to which no one showed up. It was raining heavily, and Meesh and Lindsley had stepped out to get some provisions. They had given me a lot of space throughout the afternoon to process said dumping, and I needed to muster the presence to lead this dharma talk about how to listen to the future self who is free of the cycles and patterns in which they are currently caught. Alas, very poignant content for me at the time, and always.
Because we have the internet, I was able to seep even deeper into this memory by watching the recording of the dharma talk on YouTube.
During the dharma talk, I shared a Joan Didion quote from Slouching Toward Bethlehem:
"I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be; one of them, a seventeen-year old, presents little threat..the other one, a twenty-three-year old, bothers me more. She was always a good deal of trouble, and I suspect she will reappear when I least want to see her, skirts too long, shy to the point of aggravation, always the injured party, full of recriminations and little hurts and stories I do not want to hear again, at once saddening me and angering me with her vulnerability and ignorance, an apparition all the more insistent for being so long banished."
On Vulnerability, Joan Didion, 1966
With almost five years of distance, it feels striking to reflect on this quote, especially given the work I’ve done via Internal Family Systems. When I gave this dharma talk, I had absolutely no language for “parts.” In retrospect, it is heartening to see that my 30-year-old self was angling toward this system of knowing, even if I didn’t learn the language for it for years to come.
Anyway, I speak about how bodhicitta and experiences which put us in direct contact with the sensations of the heart broken open help get us out of the theory of pain, moving us into affect, and how certain artists illuminate those things we might not want to see or experience (fear, the body in pain). After the Joan Didion, I introduced “Me In 20 Years” as a reference for the mind’s tendency to look toward the past and the future to try to make sense of the present moment. Dropping the videos here for you.
I can’t remember if I had seen this first version of the music video before, but I find the juxtaposition of the vehicle / camera searching up until it comes across Moses’ body, followed by the remainder of the video pulling back and running away from Moses, to be very arresting.
Here is the official music video.
For me, the questioning in this song is a form of releasing the ingrained survival instinct of the stories we believe (ie, “Hey, me in 20 years, does you milk, still, turn to rot, too soon? Do you still hold souvenirs?”). Like, Hey! Maybe all my forms of suffering might still be a thing in the future. But if I can name and call them out now, perhaps I can alter their presence in my future?
And though my suffering felt specific at the time, it has been recurring. The fragility of a new relationship, tender possibility, followed by deep heartbreak. Even the idea of President Biden and political progress. These are all forms of my habit energy, both personal and societal.
During this dharma talk, I say, “What I know experientially is that there are moments that I have touched on a limitless quality of the present moment. And what I have found there exists outside the bounds of time.” I speak about pairing the present moment with these genuine touches of the heart. I still believe that is true. That these parts of ourselves, the ancestors before, and the ancestors that will be, want us to know about the joys and sorrows that exist inherently, regardless of what is currently occurring for us.
Here in 2025, I put on the album from the start and viscerally felt how my heart felt then. It kind of felt good to be back in that moment and, simultaneously, painful: the 10,000 Joys and the 10,000 Sorrows.
AMERICAN TUNE, PAUL SIMON
When I met my best friend Lindsley in college, one of the things we connected on was a mutual love of Simon and Garfunkel. We both very adamantly agreed that the lyrics and orchestration were the height of poetry. In 2018, we attended the final performance of Paul Simon’s “Homeward Bound - The Farewell Tour”2 in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, and somewhere in the depths of my iCloud’s is a performance of “Homeward Bound” that would ruin you.
Anyway, I want to bring your attention to the song “American Tune”, which was the third single from Simon’s third studio album, There Goes Rhymin' Simon (1973). 3 If you’re already a part of the Simon + Garfunkel gang, you’ll know that their lyrics were often overtly political. “American Tune” was not a roiling protest song like, maybe “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” by Gil Scott-Heron. Instead, it is tender, thoughtful, internal.
I was initially going to share some excerpts of the lyrics to “American Tune,” but on repeated listens, it feels better to share the full song lyrics (emphasis my own).
Many’s the time I’ve been mistaken
And many times confused
Yes, and I’ve often felt forsaken
And certainly misused
Oh, but I’m all right, I’m all right
I’m just weary to my bones
Still, you don’t expect to be
Bright and bon vivant
So far away from home, so far away from homeI don’t know a soul who’s not been battered
I don’t have a friend who feels at ease
I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered
Or driven to its knees
Oh, but it’s all right, it’s all right
For lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the road
We’re traveling on
I wonder what went wrong
I can’t help it, I wonder what’s gone wrongAnd I dreamed I was dying
And I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly
And looking back down at me
Smiled reassuringly
And I dreamed I was flying
And high above my eyes could clearly see
The Statue of Liberty
Sailing away to sea
And I dreamed I was flyingOh, we come on the ship they call the Mayflower
We come on the ship that sailed the moon
We come in the age’s most uncertain hour
And sing an American tune
Oh, it’s all right, it’s all right
It’s all right, it’s all right
You can’t be forever blessed
Still, tomorrow’s going to be another working day
And I’m trying to get some rest
That’s all I’m trying to get some rest
Fuck you, Paul Simon! 😭🥲 I hate to relate to a white man’s lyrics so deeply.
It is a tune that turns me inward and toward the interiority of the American experience, especially with the lyrics “I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered, Or driven to its knees” and the following “Oh, but it’s all right, it’s all right, For lived so well so long.” Talk to me about your family immigration story! Talk to me about your disillusionment with the American Dream! Talk to me about how you invested in an ideal and then were challenged by it!
Lindsley was able to see able to catch Cecile McLorin Salvant perform “American Tune” during her set at Carnegie Hall last month. She sent me this pared-down performance of the song (below). The lyrics become even more poignant when sung by a Black woman reflecting on the American experience, especially with the adjusted bridge, “We didn’t come here on the Mayflower, we were dragged on a ship, under a blood-red moon”.
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In my quick research of “American Tune”, I learned that these lyrics were first adjusted when Paul Simon performed the song with Rhiannon Giddens at the Newport Folk Festival in 2022. Here is a video of the performance (on Facebook, sorry!).
It seems the best you can hope for as an artist, that your work lives beyond yourself and continues to be interpreted and contextualized within the current moment.
SILVER SPRINGS (MAY 1997), FLEETWOOD MAC
Honorable mention to the May 1997 Fleetwood Mac performance of Silver Springs, which is not on Spotify, but that everyone should watch BEFORE THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION SCRUBS THIS FROM THE INTERNET because they don’t want you taking notes on this type of sorcery! They don’t want you to know it is possible to haunt a man so thoroughly!
This performance took place during the band’s “The Dance” tour. The good stuff gets going at the 2:38 mark when Stevie Nicks’ eyes cast daggers at Lindsey Buckingham while singing the lyrics “Time casts a spell on you, but you won’t forget me.”
The intensity really builds from there. Up until this point, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham have been stealing loaded glances at each other. Then, around the 4:13 mark, they lock eyes while singing “You’ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you.” They hold eye contact through the climax of the song. Stevie’s eyes almost bulge at one point as she emphasizes that Lindsey will never get away from her.
From the comments section:
@MsSmurflover: “Whoever did the camera work on this deserves the Nobel Peace Prize”
@miadawsonbro9192: “The live version of Silver Springs is probably the best thing to ever happened to me.”
@Em_of_Brien :“I love how everyone is so pissed at each other and then you get mick fleetwood like ‘I fucking LOVE drumming 😄🥰🥰’”
Yes to all of the above. It’s deranged. It is unhinged. I love a woman jaded and not afraid to tell everyone!4 I love being thrown into the intimacy between two former lovers, how they’re communicating something private on a public stage. Do you think they got in a fight backstage right before this and that is why the energy is so charged?5 Do you think this performance was staged?6 How messy!
I watch this and the 2013 Beyoncé Superbowl performance every couple of months to remind myself that I’m alive. If you have somehow never seen this performance, please stop what you’re doing and see what I’m talking about for yourself.
KEEP 462 HALSEY FARM THRIVING FOR BED-STUY
If you’ve been reading this newsletter for some time, you’ll know that I am deeply involved in stewarding 462 Halsey Community Farm, a greenspace in my home of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. Being a part of this urban farm is an integral part of my eco-dharma practice. At 462 Halsey Community Farm, I have learned to be in relationship with the Earth, attuning to what it offers and what I offer it in return. It is also an important part of my organizing, where I work to understand and address the harms of food injustice, environmental racism, and gentrification through community-centered land stewardship.
Our farm is currently fundraising $3,000 to help nurture our operations into our 14th season. Every dollar directly supports:
🌿 Rebuilding raised garden beds and community structures
💧 Installing a new water-saving irrigation system
🐝 Supporting our beekeeping and compost programs
🎨 Adding new art and signage to beautify and guide visitors
🍄 Funding free workshops and events
Of specific note, our three beehive colonies passed away this winter (one small colony in the 1.1 million bee colonies that died this last winter ). The funds raised will go directly toward building a more hospitable home for three new incoming bee colonies due to arrive at 462 Halsey in early May.
One last thing - and this is very particular - but I spent 5+ years living with a direct view of the garden from my apartment. I had an opportunity to witness people in their quiet moments, or spending time with friends, and even 1 - 2 arguments. One of my favorite things about living above the garden was seeing the number of people speed walking past and then stopping in their tracks when passing the open garden gates. It truly is a space where people stop and breathe, maybe the only moment they get all day.
DONATE TODAY AND HELP US REACH OUR GOAL BY APRIL 30! »»»
WORK WITH ME
You can find me five days a week at Arena and often at 462 Halsey Community Farm.
🌞
Aren’t they all?
He is touring again. It’s never actually the farewell tour!
One: the album art for this album is so very off-kilter. Almost like someone started a vision board for the album art and then submitted that for the final version. Two: highly recommend listening to the unfinished demo of “American Tune” that is available on Spotify.
I emphatically believe this song and performance paved the way for the Taylor Swift - All Too Well (10 Minute Version) performance on Saturday Night Live. Taylor’s performance here is more orchestrated (she made a film and really queued up the “Fuck You”) - but equally unhinged for her to be like “A man named Jake (Gyllenhaal) made me feel like this”. I love it.
After watching this so many times, I am fully convinced that something went down backstage beforehand.
I read this somewhere on the internet, and thinking about it being staged made me feel sad. For maximum enjoyment, I recommend avoiding these internet rabbit holes and taking the performance at face value.
Nothing less than thrilled to see that Moses Sumney, Paul Simon, and Rhiannon Giddens showed up in a dharma newsletter 🩵 Lovely melding of all these artists!