For thousands of years, cacao has been revered as a sacred plant ally, honoured by cultures throughout Central and South America as a companion for ceremony, connection and communion with the self. A gentle guide back to the wisdom that already lives within.
Today we touch in with musician, artist and heart living human being - Azure Ryder. About what creativity, and ritual mean to her...
LL. When do you feel most connected to the source of your creativity?
AR. When I find the right words. I have always been dedicated to storytelling, which to me is not only the purpose of a song, but the basis of connection. To me words are best served warm and weighted and I’m deeply fascinated with how you can say ‘love’ in so many different ways. I have never really been very good at short and sweet, and it’s so easy today to speak without heart. For that reason I believe in being thoughtful with how I move even if it takes me a little longer. So the moment where I translate feeling with intention, is the most connected I feel not only to clarity in my creativity, but myself and who the words are meant for. This feeling to me is then amplified when I get to share those stories at a live show, one of the few places that we still meet heart to heart and my words land exactly where they came from.
LL. What practices, rituals or moments help you return to yourself when life feels noisy or disconnected?
AR. I think we have gotten so used to always being stimulated or distracted on the surface that the thought of a quiet moment can feel unnatural. Quiet for me is so important for connection, for listening to thought, for noticing nuance, for deepening experience, so practice and ritual is this daily balancer and it’s mostly in the small acts that help me return. I’m all for a no headphone nature walk, I find it delightful and disarming to pay attention, insteading of tuning out the world, I tune into it. I marvel at the sky every sunset as if it’s the first one I have ever seen, it’s my favourite time of the day where the world looks as hopefully romantic as me and I have a moment in a movie.
When I first wake up, I like to read a little of my book. I find myself easing into this world through another that supports imagination and wonder is the sense I try to awaken first. I love hand writing with my loco love or tea in hand. Whether it be a song, love letter, or my set list before a show, pen to paper to me will always bring back a tangibility to human. There is something about committing with ink that shares this closeness and confidence to feeling, and I find that such a valuable practice to strengthen how we communicate considerately. I don’t believe all these moments need to be alone to return to ourselves, how magical when we can share them. A conversation, a cuddle, a hand to hold, it’s the greatest feeling to find people that bring out and encourage the fullness of you, that connection will always quiet any outside noise.
LL. What is your heart currently asking you to create, explore or express?
AR. What my heart wants has always been what I led with, it’s so intrinsically tied to who I am, who we all are. When creating my Debut Album ‘Even Flowers Can Bruise’ I for the first time felt it expressed the entirety of that, the strength I’d found in the vulnerability to choose to lean into myself completely and continue to love deeply. I am proud for this record to be out in the world so it can now hopefully live and explore the heart in others too.
I have some live shows coming up that I am beyond excited to share in the world in which I and my Album exist in, one of love letters and long-form lullabies.
LL. What do you think creativity is here to teach us about being human?
AR. To me the true core of creativity comes from human instinct, it’s instinctual to feel, to love, to express and in a world which now often asks of the opposite, it is so crucial that we fight for things that still speak of human, and breathe of soul. As this day spins quicker and calls for less of us, creativity moves slower and encourages more from us. Nothing I create exists without the in-betweens, the life lived, loved and lost in. Just like being human, art is a shared experience, it’s this giving thing we can look to in both wonder and comfort and find ourselves not only held but together.
My Album ‘Even Flowers Can Bruise’ is a story of the imperfection, the honest, the magic and the messy. Creativity welcomes the whole of us, it relies upon human.
LL. How do you cultivate space for inspiration to find you?
AR. I am naturally a very detail oriented person, I delight in the little things, I notice everything. I often find it wild that nowadays we can walk through our day without really seeing the world, let alone each other. I feel like we’ve gotten too comfortable with looking down and looking through, and for me inspiration comes from looking out and leaning in. Whether it be the soft dance of a light, the brown of his eyes, and always stopping to smell the chocolate and the daisies.
LL. How do you nurture your relationship with mystery, wonder and the unknown?
AR. I’ve never been someone to only believe what’s right in front of me, creativity let alone life itself would be far less heartfelt otherwise. In the past I have been told that it was nice to reach for the stars but I had to be realistic. The funny thing about the real world is that it's set under a sky of stars each night, and we could choose to believe they are out of grasp or wish upon them.
So I leap, I dream, I love without limit and bounds for what fear thinks of me and certainly without knowing because mystery, wonder, and the unknown are simply other beautiful words for hope, and I know I would rather a reality nurturing hope than fear. I tend to the dreamer in me by staying curious, looking for the layers, detail, in-betweens, and insides, the things maybe not noticed at a glance but rather when you lean in and linger. Magic grows in these spaces, we grow in these spaces and much like love which can too be considered out of reach, I double down on my heart and if someone else can’t see the stars, I show them.
LL. What does living from the heart mean to you?
AR. I’ve always been someone to elaborate, tell you more, never less, but I trust in music to carry soul and story, I believe in a song that says something, so I will answer with my own “Go as the river takes me, yes I’ll tumble and twirl, I’d rather know my heart led, than leave this life untouched and untold”.
@Azureryder thank you for sharing your heart, wonders and words with us.
Love, Loco x
