In the spring of 2019 — as bushfires began to rage across New South Wales — I received a text message from my friend Lisa Mitchell, the indie-folk singer-songwriter. Akin to a love note, it held the recording of an impromptu song birthed at the keyboard in the corner of her kitchen. Somewhere between a poem and a chant, it was an impassioned audio hug shared intimately with friends, with the words: summoning the army of my heart. It was everything I needed in that moment, an acknowledgement of our collective despair. With the rhythmic, cascading trill of her piano and those words in repetition, I felt truly summonsed.
It finished with a gentle appeal, her ethereal voice calling to “stay soft, staaaay softtt”. Music has a power to call to us. There’s something vibrational in its resonance, as words and notes conflate, massaging our subconscious into a gentle awakening within our cells.
For friends and colleagues working in the climate movement who had been trying to raise the alarm so long, it was devastating to see the climate crisis playing out in real time. It can be tough, to stay soft.
The previous year, Lisa and I had convened together at the world-class Heron Island research station on the Great Barrier Reef. With a
