Every once in a while, the warring worlds of fact and fiction come together in peace. Almost 10 years ago, I was tasked with telling my little brother bedtime stories to calm his nightmares. It was critical to our task that we bring novelty and inspiration to his nervous system, which like lots of kids these days, had some yet undefined and generational traumas to calm. 

To do this, I explored the infinite world of storytelling as a healing force. We delved into underwater festivals where turtles judged joke-telling competitions; we travelled through ancient earth treasure hunts for the origin of crystals; and we even saved the future from doomsday with our invisible weapon called “laughter music!” This was the beginning of an adventure in my reimagining basic assumptions about life and healing, like for example, how the world of opposites actually need each other.

Having been born in Michael Douglas' basement from parents who gardened and cooked for his estate, I was always keenly aware of the social inequities and paradoxes of my California upbringing. When I was 8, my mother took me to Nicaragua and I witnessed the poverty and wars that upheld our affluence back home. I became obsessed with how creativity and other everyday common expressions of love - like sports or healthy food - could bring people together to heal judgements and make change. From teaching in inner city American schools to performing on solar-powered stages to Get Out The Vote, from laying bricks or forest seedlings in Haiti after the earthquake to catching Bono for 3 days straight at a music video / Super Bowl commercial shoot, it's all been part of this larger questioning of how my imagination can help heal our world in crisis. Since then, I've won awards, published a bestselling book and am enroute to hosting a fresh TV series. But it's all with a grain of salt: for no man is an island and our greatest bridge to cross the shark-infested divide might actually just be a song, some seeds or a loving embrace. 

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