A VIRTUOUS CYCLE

There are four of us on the Zoom call. Sometimes five, depending on whether Ayní, María Grand’s 10-month-old son, has crawled onto her lap. Grand explains the exercise, a “breath of reciprocity” that she says she learned from a Lenape grandmother. “Look at the moon, inhale the moon,” she says, willing some creative thinking as it’s about 11 a.m. in the small town in Sonora, Mexico, where Grand, her partner—a sound healer and artist named Pedro De Las Rosas—and Ayní have spent the winter. “When you breathe out, the moon is inhaling you,” she continues.

The relaxation practice, a way of feeling more grounded and connected to the earth, is part of Grand’s Patreon programming. The 29-year-old saxophonist and composer has spent the past few years developing a creative system that couldn’t be more different from the competitive, achievement-oriented methodology favored by music schools like the one she left after three semesters, City College. During the pandemic Grand decided to start sharing some of that practice, which she calls the SoliLunar Method, with students online; the lowest subscription tier is five dollars per month.

That gets you access to, among other things, these Zoom calls, in which Grand spends about an hour explaining her creative philosophy: how she’s worked to build a practice connected to the movements and rhythms of things outside herself like the sun and moon, as well as traditions that rely on them like astrology. “They have reliable cycles that show up even when we don’t,” she explains. Even those who might