I spent much of my youth traveling the National Parks of the United States and Canada with my family, and in the years since I began practicing yoga, I have become fascinated with the connections the Yogi perceived between the human body and the cosmos--in particular our connection to the Earth. As a result I have found it to be a powerful influence on my art. This work uses the traditional Alchemical elements (Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind) as a form to cycle through a loose set of variations on two sets of counterpoint. The sections are fairly impressionistic. The first, was inspired by Hokusai's incredible painting South Wind, Clear Day and a photo of a Castle in the Scottish countryside I took when I was 16. The second is a reflection on images of the Nile and Amazon Rivers at dusk, the third a video of the Canadian wildfires and the first bloom of spring, and finally a calm evening I spent on my porch after a brutal thunderstorm. My process for navigating through these musical ideas was impacted significantly by the music of Freddie Hubbard, Charles Ives, and Chen Yi as well as my time studying improvisation with Afro-Brazilian percussionist Jason Finkelman.

This work uses these devices to meditate on the juxtaposition of the beauty and power of the natural world contrasted against the nature of the humans that inhabit it--fear and survival (Earth), pleasure and guilt (Water), shame and willpower (Fire), and grief and love (Wind). In digging into these ideas a pair of thoughts came to me relentlessly, "Is the World worth trying to make sense of, or is it purely chance?" and "Is enlightenment understanding that there is no certainty--only trust?"

"One can never step into the same river twice because, even though the water has flowed on, you are also a different person than when you first stepped in." - Rick Rubin