“THREE FEET CLOSER”

OCTOBER 2026

Lovelies,

My trip to Greece had a big effect on me.

Now I spend long hours cutting carrots and zucchini into tiny cubes for lentil salads and herbed rices.

Now I’m training my first cohort of coaches, therapists, and educators in the Muzi Methodology. (We begin Thursday morning! If you’ve been on the fence, hop all the way over!)

Now I occasionally, for humor I promise, end the word “yes” with a “shhhhh” like my friend’s impossibly chic Grecian girlfriend... to the extent that my fiancé (!) last night implored, “STOP THAT!”

And also — and here’s what I’ve been building to — my trip to Greece has moved me a solid three feet closer to mysticism.

And honestly I’ve only ever been one foot away.

I’m told that as a barely verbal child I concerned adults by asking so many questions about God.

I recall that as a preteen I found my .5 Jewish / .5 Christian family’s compromise on Unitarianism to be Problematically Unspiritual.

I spent my early adulthood in a sustained ache to surrender, but with religion so uncooly on-the-nose, surrendered to every category of thing one should never surrender to.

And then, on my 17K steps per day walks throughout Greece, I recognized like a pencil scratching in the margins of a notebook: creativity is mysticism. 

Writing a poem is my spiritual practice. Arguing over song lyrics is my spiritual practice. (Telling you my embarrassing human truths once per month is my spiritual practice.)

Because every time I create I walk right around myself. 

Every time I create I claim a one-on-one relationship with the divine.

Talking to a roomful of self-identified dreamers in Delphi, Greece about my experiences writing prophetic songs felt dangerous — Was it really okay to admit spiritual ecstasy?

Now a month later I can’t believe I ever kept this under wraps.

And even as I’ve puzzled over how to fit my new mystic imperative into my highly analytical work life... I realized it was already happening. Two weeks ago I found myself giving a talk to the Management, Spirituality, and Religion Division of the Academy of Management. Last week I found myself recording my newest Spark Sessions episode on divergence and precognition.

So then maybe I don’t have to do anything... except keep surrendering.

With love,

For the Muzi-curious, your Connection Reflection if you choose to accept it:

Connect to Something Larger

Walking home from the market I bumped into my photographer neighbor. We chatted for a block, then lingered by my front stoop. She told me how a new creative idea feels, to her, like recognition. She told me how she balances effort and ease in her creative process. We had a jazzed and fascinating conversation.

And I experienced the whole thing as though from the other side of a pane of glass.

Because I was out-of-sorts.

In fact I was craving creative connection. I’d recently lost my home, including my piano, in a fire, and sensed that some high quality creative connection could lift me back into a sweeter experience of myself.

But I was so creatively disconnected, the very thing I most needed couldn’t reach me.

So I promptly took myself on a hike in the redwoods. 

Because here’s what I know: Sometimes we desperately need connection but aren’t up for connecting with people. And the best news about creativity relationships is that two of the six are not interpersonal. We can connect to role models and spirit/nature without subjecting our vulnerable selves to the complexities of potential rejection, misunderstanding, or social fatigue. 

Beneath the trees I felt like I was kicking it with my favorite artist. I admired her branches and flowers. She held space for my admittedly more modest creative pursuits. By the time I returned to my car, I felt better. 

And then, when I ran into my neighbor again later that day, the glass was gone: I resumed my conversation with her and this time I enjoyed it.

In this Reflection, you’ll explore the power of the non-interpersonal creativity relationships: role models and nature/spirit. 
 

1. Think of someone -- living, historical, or even fictional -- whose creativity moves you. What could this role model give you that people in your day-to-day life cannot?

2. Think of a favorite place in nature or spiritual practice. How could it support your creativity?

3. The next time you feel creatively depleted or disconnected, how could you call on a role model or nature/spirit to support you?

To complete this and other Reflections download Muzi for free in the Apple App Store

“THERE I AM”

September 2026

Lovelies,

I just plodded upstairs, found my journal, plodded back downstairs, and wrote this sentence:

I'm going to write in my journal and hope I find a Newsletter.

And that's exactly it. That's the Newsletter.

I mean this:

Your moody songstress is at this very moment a scattering of sadness. She's an Easter Egg hunt and inside each hollowed egg is an emotion and each one of them is a variation of sad.

Who would even go on a hunt whose spoils promise sad? THIS GIRL! Because sad is better than scattered any day of the week.

And yet... this is a tricky Easter Egg hunt! Like, where are said hollowed eggs because I can't find them.

Enter: art.

Or in this case: THIS NEWSLETTER.

I swear to you all on Jeanette Winterson's beautiful retelling of the Atlas myth, Weight, that at my most lost, creativity locates me in three seconds. It draws my shape. It pulls me out of various gravitational force fields and tosses me onto my couch, next to my journal, which I no longer need because NOW I KNOW WHERE I AM.

It's an irony of creativity: If we aren't well, it feels inaccessible. (We're "blocked"! We're uninspired!) But really creativity is the layer below our skin, itching to be scratched, and if we engage it for THREE SECONDS, it is every form of relief. 

But I think HOW we engage it matters. For years I wrote Newsletters like pulling teeth. Announcing shows. Promoting albums. I didn't want to write them (and you, Lovelies, didn't want to read them! Bless!). Then one day I opened my computer and thought, what if I write what I want to write? And my first Good Newsletter got writ. 

So yeah, creativity will locate us, but only if we allow ourselves to be found... by indulging ourselves: our embarrassing quirks, our petty grievances, our inexplicable curiosities. By answering the timeless question: what do I, right now, actually care about?

Then we're right there. And then our best work is right there too.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this Newsletter is my best work.  But I'm saying it came from me, as I am. And I believe that means it has a prayer of finding you, as you are.

Please, if it does, throw an Easter Egg at me. 

With love,

Last week I produced the wonderful international duo, Made From Nowhere. This was my first time working with artists from out of town (Toronto and DC), which meant it was the first time I recorded an EP start to finish in five days. Now I KNEW day one would be long — I'd have to both rehearse the band and REVIEW THE REHEARSAL for necessary adjustments. Usually I do that for a week. And I knew day two would be long because — TRACKING BASICS FOR FOUR SONGS IN ONE DAY IS ADRENALIN SPORT. But I was under the impression that days three, four, and five, the VOCAL DAYS, would be three hours and wrap. I FORGOT that in order to track background vocals on day five, I'd have to do all the vocal editing, plus writing background vocals, after my day three and four sessions. My three hour days expanded to eleven hour days. 

My verdict? It's just the coolest way to make a record. Total immersion. Shipboard romance. A big old creativity chocolate sundae. 

I can't wait for you to hear what we made!!

(And, like, because we literally ALREADY MADE IT, I won't have to wait long!)

On September 30th I'll be presenting the Muzi methodology to the Academy of Management's Management, Spirituality & Religion division. And good news, it's open to anyone who wants to join. I can't wait to discuss the connections between creativity, research, and spirituality — and with two women that inspire me beyond reason, Judi Neal and Jyoti Bachani. 

For the Muzi-curious, your Rest Mission if you choose to accept it:

Free Write

You likely do a lot of writing. Maybe you email all day long. Maybe you compose reports or blog posts for work. Maybe you journal. 

Maybe writing is your creative focus: you’re a poet, or a novelist, or a memoirist, or a biographer.

But whether you're a writer or not, whether you love writing or don't, there’s a kind of writing that’s gold for creativity. The free write.

Free writing means you write about whatever you want. Absolutely anything you want.

You check composing at the door. Instead, you loosen your grip on fine vocabulary and reasonable sentence structure. You encourage yourself uncrafted. Uncurated. Unconsidered. You abandon making sense. You indulge yourself. What's interesting to you today? What's truly exciting you? Truly dismaying you? Truly perplexing you? Truly nagging you?

You allow yourself to be histrionic as you like. Idealistic as you like. Romantic as you like. You welcome every bit of yourself you hold off-limits.

You notice: The edge in your co-worker's voice. The thing your partner said that made your day. The unseasonable heat. The ill-advised walk down memory lane.

Free writing is a waking dream. You coax your subconscious to offer its images. Its impressions. Its emotions. Its delights and grievances. And in so doing, you win yourself access to what in you most needs identifying. Sorting. Integrating.

Just as dreams rejuvenate us at night, drawing the associations that allow our psyche to rest, so does free writing rejuvenate us — in broad daylight. And with the extra thrill that we’re participating in it.

To explore this and other Missions download Muzi for free in the Apple App Store

“ORACULAR”

AUGUST 2026

Lovelies,

I don't usually start newsletters with news. So on the nose! But there’s been so much these past weeks I can’t help myself. (Then I’m sure I’ll get into some impossibly inward something. So bear with and the Real Rachel Efron will be with you again shortly.)

This month's news:

• I produced basics for the highly anticipated new David Hobbes album over the course of an ecstatic three day lockout at 25th Street Studios. 

• I started pre-production on the debut EP of Toronto/DC duo Made from Nowhere.

• I implemented the most major Muzi update since we launched — a rework of not just language, not just function, but the entire curriculum.

• I devised a Muzi Practitioner Training Program. (I’ll be doing my small part to fill the world with creativity-savvy coaches and therapists.)

Finally, and this one escapes its bullet point, I write you from Delphi, Greece (yes, of the oracle @) where I just delivered a workshop on creativity and dreaming to a mostly European, entirely gorgeous group of scientists, therapists, writers, dancers, etc.

(It was great!)

And now, with so many compelling options, what I choose to explore with you is this: the plane ride here.

Because for a very long time I didn’t imagine I’d get on another plane, let alone embark on a twenty four hour doorstep to doorstep journey from Oakland, CA to Galaxidi, Greece.

For our purposes, a hurried summary: I got sick in college. Arrived at total compromise in my early thirties. Then shaded life’s exit for eight years. 

I'll say I’m now 80% well. (I first wrote 75% but I’m looking off my balcony at some gorgeous mountains so: optimism!) At this point in my life, the only thing that makes me feel actually scared is physical exertion. It’s what scares me about a three day lockout. It’s what scares me about relationships. It’s what scares me about eating dinner. Risk has always been and will always be my love language. But I’m wary of the immensity of my bravery: will I over-risk and slip back to a time I couldn’t walk down a flight of stairs, let alone board a flight to Greece?

I will this from my mind — yet it’s an imprint on my racing heart, a catch in my breath, a numbness in my feet.

But this morning I walked those feet to where an oracle used to wail riddles to men about whether they should go to war.

And it was foretold: my most risky battles are behind me.

With love,

Here I am with my brothers turning voice memo demos into sick jams. And speaking of risk, I took a few, which I itemized in last month’s newsletter, and I’m that special post-session mix of elated and relieved to tell you they went great. Even: I anticipate my three biggest risks (ahem, Imagine Dragons, ahem, fast bluegrass, ahem tribal drums) will be the album’s hits.

Are you interested in creative health? 

Next month I begin the pilot of my Muzi Practitioner Training Program. It involves four two hour sessions, private consultation with me, and access to the complete Muzi library. I’m especially interested in working with coaches, therapists, teachers — people who are actively serving other people. That said, I am open to discussing options with anyone who is interested. The Program will ultimately cost $1200 but for these hand-selected founding Muzi practitioners we’re charging just $200 — and ask only that you share feedback with us about how the methodology serves your work for the next year. 

Any interest at all, reach out!

For the Muzi-curious, your Courage Mission if you choose to accept it:

Gold

Courage asks us to address painful experiences from our past: To acknowledge creative losses. To integrate creative disappointments. To dismantle harmful mythologies.

All of this is important. Every time we resolve hardship, we are freer.

But our pasts are more than a repository of pain. They also hold our joyful memories.

Think of a time you felt competent. A time you felt excited. A time you felt celebrated. A time you felt peaceful.

Think of a time you experienced yourself as vibrantly creative.

Our joyful memories are lived proof of our strength. Our value. Our belonging.

And when we remember them, our joyful memories are the stuff of courage.

Psychologists tell us that we have a negativity bias: Difficult thoughts, emotions, and events have a greater effect on our psychological states than neutral or positive ones. This means that, to protect us, our brains scan for the problems in every situation. They send us warning signals about potential threats. They imagine the worst possible outcomes.

They keep us swimming in our worst memories.

How lovely to have such a concerned friend!

And what a shame to be kept from the reservoir of courage that is our joyful memories.

But we can combat negativity by vigorously inhabit our joyful memories.

In GOLD you will recall and inhabit a moment of your life where you felt shiningly creative. 

Scan your past. Your memory could be a big event: the completion of a project, a showcase, an award. But it could also be subtle: the train ride where you suddenly understood the premise of your new song, the smile of a collaborator when you offered a great idea. 

Be sure to walk yourself through your memory as if it's happening right now. “I’m looking out upon listening audience.” “I’m on the phone talking to my favorite creative ally.” Also be sure to speak your memory out loud. Let your voice tell you both what’s happening and what it means to you.

Most of all, let yourself have fun with this — choose your memory like ordering off an emotion menu.

Use this Mission to make the most of your past.

Pull every last bit of its fortitude, optimism, and radiance into your present.

To do this and more Missions download Muzi for free in the Apple App Store