Craig Minowa & Cloud Cult: Music as Medicine ow where we come from / I don’t know where we go / ON BEING WITH KRISTA TIPPETT
ON BEING WITH KRISTA TIPPETT Music asCraig Minowa & Cloud Cult: Medicine Original Air Date April 14, 2016 Last Updated September 17, 2020
For so many of us, music is a source of solace and nourishment in the best of times and the hardest of times. It has been so for me in this year of pandemic. And Cloud Cult is on every playlist I make. Craig Minowa started the band in 1995. Its trajectory was cathartically changed the day he and his wife Connie woke up to find that their firstborn two-year-old son, Kaidin, had mysteriously died in his sleep. The music that has emerged ever since has spanned the human experience from the rawest grief to the fiercest decision to hope. It’s hard to classify their mix of indie rock and orchestral collective. Less in question is the profound and life-giving force of Cloud Cult’s music.
KRISTA TIPPETT 1 I’m Krista Tippett, and this is On Being. Craig and Connie Minowa live on an organ- ic Wisconsin homestead with their children. We welcomed them and the whole Cloud Cult ensemble to the On Being Studios on Loring Park in Minneapolis in 2016. So you’ve been the soundtrack for my life for weeks now. CRAIG MINOWA Aww. Yeah, I’m taking you to the gym. You’ve been in the car with me. You’ve been here at work. And now here you are in my space, and it’s just so beautiful. Aww, thanks, Krista.
Craig Minowa & Cloud Cult [music: “You Were Born” by Cloud Cult] 2 Yeah. It’s amazing. On Being with Krista Tippett It’s an honor to be here. So I’m glad you didn’t wear shoes. I was go- ing to say, If read in my preparation that you like to play without shoes, and I wanted you to know, this is a shoe-optional workplace. I appreciate that. And so you fit right in. Anyone else can take off their shoes, as well. I’m wearing shoes tonight, because we have company. But I don’t know—you can’t imagine. We actu- ally work here by day, and we moved all the desks out. They’re downstairs, but we do have the sofas out. Oh, fantastic!
So you grew up in Owatonna. And was I don’t know where we come from / I don’t know where we go / But my arms were made to hold you / So I will never let you here—how would you talk about the religious or spiritual background of your childhood? I was raised in a very devoutly practicing Lutheran family. It was the kind of practic- ing that was every service and Vacation Bible School and volunteering for the church. And it was our community. Those were our closest friends, growing up. And that practice was ingrained in me very deeply and beautifully and in different ways. With my dad, it was that this is what we do—this is what we’re supposed to do. And with my mom, it felt like she was passion- ately in love with her belief system and the kind of thing of where it’s Easter morning, and for whatever reason—daylight savings
On Being with Krista Tippett 4 Craig Minowa & Cloud Cult
time is happening at the time— 5 so you’ve got to wake up really, really early. And as kids, we kind of realized, OK, we’re going to have to go to the early service at 6:00 and then volunteer to work at the breakfast and then do the Sunday school and then the late service and get up an hour early to do that. But my mom was the real deal. She would wake up, it’s 4:00 in the morning, and we would hear, “Wake up, kids! Today is the day the Lord is risen!” And she was so joyful about it. Yeah, it was beautiful—and the same kind of thing on Good Friday, that she wept openly in church. Really? Wow. I also read somewhere that your mother said of you, “Craig was early on interested in the stars.” And I think that there’s some star imagery in, I would say, your adult spirituality that’s evolved. Yeah, when I was really young, I was kind of an astronomy geek. All my friends were into football and trading football cards, and I was into memorizing the diameter of the planets and doing extra-credit reports. And I used to sign my name “Craig, future astronomer.”
Craig Minowa & Cloud Cult Did you really? 6 Yeah. In some ways, yeah, it stuck around through the music. On Being with Krista Tippett I think people have trouble classifying Cloud Cult, both the group and the music, and—I don’t know, I thought this phrase got maybe as close as I would get to saying—“orchestral rock collective.” And you’re so beloved by your fans and cele- brated, at this point. But like every over- night sensation, you had a decade or two in the shadows. It’s interesting how we tell the story of the great success. Yeah, it’s been a very long road. I feel like it’s such a competitive field that you have to inherently just love it in order to survive. And I really like to compose and write and be in that sacred space, but I’m not a lime- light-lover. But it comes with the territory, so I’m thankful for the ritual of perfor- mance and the ceremony that we can do when that is happening. So in 2002, in February, your son Kaidin didn’t wake up one morning. And it seems like you poured your grief into music, but I don’t know if that’s how you would say it.
“you have to 7 inherently just love it in order to survive.”
Craig Minowa & Cloud Cult How would you start to talk about that connection? 8 Yeah, I really just didn’t want to go out into the world at all. We had a little farm out in Hinckley, and all I wanted to do was go down into the basement and play recordings of him and play music at the same time. And if I did that long enough, I would feel like I was with him again. And that was the only way that I could feel like I was with him again, and so I did that pretty obsessively for a very long time. And it was—and there wasn’t any intention of crea- ting a project out of it, it was just personal medicine. You use that phrase, “music as medicine.” Had you thought of music as medicine before that? On Being with Krista Tippett Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, it’s always— “it was just it’s saved me so many times, and I think personal it’s such an important thing to push to medicine” our youth, who have hormones flying through them. And they need things like that. But yeah, no, it’s always felt like that, something very, very spiritual and sacred.
If you look at the history of music, for “it’s saved me the vast majority of time people have so many times” used music as medicine or as a connec- tion to the divine and just as a very, very 9 sacred tool. And I think sometimes when I talk about pop music and that, I can come across as sounding like a Scrooge or something—“You just—you have to do it sacred, otherwise it’s …” But I think there’s a place for the really light stuff, and there’s a place for the highly intentioned stuff, and I’ve been always very attracted to the highly intentioned. And so at that time, I needed that highly intentioned connection to the divine and personal medicine aspect of music more than anything. So it was very obsessive. There’d be weeks that I wouldn’t have to leave the house. I was fortunate to have a day job at the time that I worked remotely, as an environmental scientist for the Organic Consumers Association, and so I wouldn’t have to go anywhere at all. Well, you recorded over 100 songs during that time. Over the course of a year, yeah. Do you listen to those songs now?
Craig Minowa & Cloud Cult I—very, very rarely. 11 Yeah, I mean I think it would be hard for On Being with Krista Tippett any of us to have that kind of record—I don’t know what an equivalent would be in music—or some equivalent of that kind of dark place. Yeah, I couldn’t tell you the last time I listened to it, and for the most part, songs from those earlier albums are not an option for set lists now. We did them during sets for years, and they were a way, onstage, to connect with Kaidin too, that I felt like as soon as we were up there, and you were playing, and you could get into that spot through the music, that I could feel his soul join me onstage by the end of the set. And I felt, for years, that if I left the stage and I hadn’t gotten that deep enough to feel his
Craig Minowa & Cloud Cult [music: “Ghost Inside Our House” by Cloud Cult] 12 presence by the end of the set, that I didn’t do my job that night. On Being with Krista Tippett And I still feel that, but in ways of where it’s more not-exclusive. Like Cedar Falls last week, I felt my grandma up there with me. But then we have a story shared from fans and supporters of people that they’ve lost, and I feel like the whole ceremony is an opportunity to raise the ghosts and mix them around in a celebration. It’s pretty astonishing to read what people write from hearing the songs, that people respond completely directly and inti- mately to your loss, because it turns out that everybody has loss. I mean they’ve lost in all kinds of ways, all kinds of people,
relationships. I mean this was one I wrote So live on, baby live on / Live on baby live on / Packed up my clothes in a grocery bag / I’m going to find the creator / An old down, somebody who wrote, “I came across this band shortly after I tried to kill myself, and the song ‘Thank You’ reached into my soul and planted a seed of hope, a hope that life could be beautiful. That song was the first turning point of healing for me, and since then, Cloud Cult’s music has continued to change and heal me.” And there are thousands of variations on that theme. I wonder, was that a discovery for you too, to look up and see that everywhere in the world? Yeah, like I said, early on it was a personal medicine, but then people started coming to shows that had similar loss of—initially, it was people that had lost children, as well, that they found comfort in that music. And as time went on, then there’s more people that were coming with different—for dif- ferent reasons, struggling with addiction or depression, things like that. And that’s where I realized that—flashback to when I was in college and trying to decide what I was going to do for a major, and I remember being in the woods and feeling like I needed to decide between music
Craig Minowa & Cloud Cult “There’s something in this 14 composition and environmental science and and sitting out there meditating and wait- and ing and ultimately feeling, “I want to leave and this place better. Music feels too self-y, and On Being with Krista Tippett I could do good with the environmental sci- ence.” So at this point, now flashing ahead where people are finding something good in it, and I feel like I could do good with this, I could continue to do this. And that’s where things started to shift. But it was also very important, at that time, to realize that I needed to continue the humility and understand that when people are coming with those stories of struggles that they’ve overcome and sharing it in a way where they are honoring the band and the music, I recognize wholeheartedly that has very little to do with us and that we’re a reflection. There’s something in
15 that they’re able to see deeper parts of themselves, all of that energy power of healing overcoming and hope is coming out of them.”
On Being with Krista Tippett 16 Craig Minowa & Cloud Cult
this that they’re able to see deeper parts 17 of themselves, and all of that energy and power of healing and overcoming and hope is coming out of them. Yeah, you get to let it in, but you get to let it go through you, as well. Right. Exactly. So I was thinking—and you have two other children now, right? Mm-hmm. I was surprised, when I was reading your story and listening to the music, and you have —again, you hear Kaidin’s voice, and I’ve seen pictures of him. You have films of him that come out in films about the band. And two years old—a two-year-old is such an amazing—still so tiny, but so incredible. And I was thinking about before—it was way before On Being—I mean it was when I was doing pilots. It was called “Children and God.” But I heard, in that time—and also, I had young children at that time. There’s this old—there’s this Hebrew pro- verb, and I think there’s actually an Islamic version of this too—that before a child is
Craig Minowa & Cloud Cult “I am an absolute lover of the fact of— born, the angel Gabriel tells them every- thing, all the secrets of the universe and then kisses them on the forehead, and they are born, and they begin to forget. 18 I think I had this feeling, and I don’t know, or the idea of I saw it in these pictures of Kaidin, you timelessness have this feeling with children like they On Being with Krista Tippett do know things, like they’re closer to God or whatever God is, and they just kind of embody that mystery, and you just wish they had the words to tell you the secrets they know. And you also see them growing and becoming more like us. But then, also, the fact that that’s all of us, the child in each of us, and so that’s all part of our story. And you talk a lot about mov- ing through that loss and through that grief as kind of a rebirth. This doesn’t really
sound like a question. I just wanted to tell 19 you all that. I think it’s lovely. I’m just engaged. Does that make sense to you? It makes beautiful sense. I totally agree. And with Kaidin and with our kids now, we’re asking what they’re dreaming. You just know that they’re connecting in a way that that censorship hasn’t stepped in yet and that all that modeling hasn’t stepped in yet. And actually the new album that we’re just releasing is really about that adult reclaim- ing that child inside that can believe in magic and connect to things in a way that doesn’t have all the cynicism that we all end up— And knows things, right? Yeah. Kaidin had a look in his eyes of—that he knew. Every parent knows—they look at their little one-year-old, two-year-old, three, six-year-old, whatever, and know that “whoa, you know way more than I understand you know.” And that is, it’s a beautiful thing. and formlessness.”
Craig Minowa & Cloud Cult I was so happy you started with the song “You Were Born” tonight. I mean I just—I 20 love that so much. When did you write that? On Being with Krista Tippett That was before Nova. After Kaidin had passed, Connie and I went through griev- ing for a few years and then spent time rebuilding our relationship and trying to get to a point that we felt like we could have the strength to have a child again. And we were lucky to be able to do that. And before Nova was born, we finished the Light Chasers album, and that was a song written specifically for him. I like that. That’s that Einsteinian view of time looping around. Yeah, that looping of time, or lack of time, is all over the place in there. And in fact, there’s a whole lot of intention in not getting too caught into the illusion of time, and I think the presence of Kaidin is only possible with that recognition that time doesn’t actually exist on a level of quan- tum mechanics. Hence, when this illusion of the physical universe dissipates, or we fold back into dark energy, or whatever the case is, I know that all those moments that we had with him, they are forever. And
[music: “Transistor Radio” I heard my Grandpa on my transistor radio / Though he turned in his bones twenty years ago / He said, “Kid, there’s some- by Cloud Cult] this moment with you right now is forever. Every moment is forever. And that inten- tion on timelessness, at this point in time, is huge in our lives. Einstein said that our perception of time as an arrow moving forward—past, present, future—is a stubbornly persistent illusion. Maybe you were referring to that quote. Exactly. Yeah, we blend a lot of quantum physics into our philosophies and in our music, and I am an absolute lover of the fact of—or the idea of timelessness and formlessness.
22“There are those that search a little or are
I think somewhere you said that in that Craig Minowa & Cloud Cult depth of grief, you—what did you say— you lost—after Kaidin died, you “gave up 23 on God and turned to science and discov- ered magic.” On Being with Krista Tippett Yeah, I—there’s so much to be said about a belief system and what kind of reality that sculpts for a person. I, like I said earlier, was raised in that Lutheran church. But when I was 16, and I bought my first car, it was Easter Sunday, and I had worked the night before till close. And it would be absolutely out of order in my family to not go to church on Easter Sunday, but I had been up late working the night before. I was supposed to meet my family there, and I drove the car, and instead of turning to go to church, I turned and went to the woods. It’s a big public woods that was there in Owatonna. And I sat out there—a beautiful spring morning, everything coming to life, and had a religious experience that I hadn’t ever felt within those four walls of the church. And magic was reborn in me. And it wasn’t any shutting any doors or setting anything apart—I mean Jesus spent his time praying in the garden of Gethsemane, just hungrier for it.”
Craig Minowa & Cloud Cult [music: “Breakfast with My Shadow” by Cloud Cult] 24 and there’s something to be said about On Being with Krista Tippett stepping out into the wilderness and just letting those constructs of the mind dis- appear and reawakening to the fact that it is an incredibly complicated, mysterious, and beautiful universe. And I can’t put my finger on it, I can’t name it, I can’t classify it, I can’t put it in a box, so right now I’m just going to lay back and be in awe. And maybe that’s something that we all need to practice a lot more, which is the child in us. So let’s talk about some of your lyrics, which are so beautiful. Thank you. You’re a poet. Actually, this follows on what you were just saying. So in “Breakfast With My Shadow,” which is another—well,
there’s really so many wonderful songs, so And all the mosquitoes know I love you / Can I love me just as much? / And I had breakfast with my shadow / We had quite many wonderful songs in your repertoire. Thank you. So here are two questions. “Can you fall in love with the things you only know, the things you may never touch?” Another question: “If I truly believe that things can change, will I wake up to something different?” I just want to know where you came out on those questions. But also, would you explain—I think I get this, but I’d like to know how you explain “Can you fall in love with the things you only know, the things you may never touch?” What’s that about? I think that that is so much about so much of our reality. As a band, one of our recur- ring themes is that philosophical search for the divine and the connection to God, however you want to define that, and that true source out there. And it’s something that we’re never going to be able to wrap our heads around, and we’ll keep trying to get as close to that as possible. And it’s something that you really never do truly touch and get down to the physics on that
26 of where there actually really never is the actual touch, and so the whole thing is an abstract. But I’m madly in love with it, and I want to live my life that way. And what about “If I truly believe that things can change, will I wake up to something different?” I think that would go back to that same thing of manifesting the dream, create your own reality kind of situation. There’s so much to be said about the mantra and intention and practicing things over and over in your head, as far as how you want “I want to believe in something bigger, your reality to be sculpted. And it takes a lot of practice to do all of that. “Presence, presence, presence.” “I’m here, I’m here.” “Where are you? “Oh, I was thinking about the past.” “No, I’m here.” “No, I’m worried about the future.” “No, I’m here.” You have to keep on doing it, and you have to keep on believing in the bigger things too.
and I want to have Craig Minowa & Cloud Cult guts to have faith in that” 27 I mean we’re all told through the media to On Being with Krista Tippett have this cynicism or to think that we understand the universe more than we do. And it takes a lot of strength to step out of that and say, “I want to believe in some- thing bigger, and I want to have guts to have faith in that without having to argue with anybody about what that is.” I feel like hope and a rejection of cynicism is a huge theme that runs through your music, through Cloud Cult. And it’s not just in the lyrics. I think it’s a presence, and it’s a spirit that—and the feeling, the joy—it’s a hopefulness that kind of comes through the music, that transmits through the music. It occurred to me that “light chasing” for you is a synonym for hope.
Craig Minowa & Cloud Cult That’s true. The Light Chasers album was a figurative and literal journey. The whole 28 story was about a crew that decides to take off out into space and look for God, look for On Being with Krista Tippett the light at the end of the tunnel, physically go after it and look until they find it. And in the end, all hope is gone, the fuel is gone, everything is spent, and there’s nothing there. And it’s not until that moment of surrender and apology, laying down all the protective layers of the self, this ulti- mate moment of fragility, where love is able to come outside of the skin. And then, for that moment, there’s that connection. And they see the light, and they recognize— [music: “To The Great Unknown” by Cloud Cult] “Oh, was it always there? And did we have to travel through the universe to do it?” And so there is that hope that those brief moments that we get to be in touch with that sort of power, it’s brief, but how can we practice to make that more prominent in our lives? How can we practice to make that more prominent as a culture and as a global family?
Called your name, and you formed out of the emptiness / Called your name, and I swear this time I’ll be my best / Called your
Craig Minowa & Cloud Cult We were made to walk 30 And one of the interesting things about On Being with Krista Tippett that whole journey out into space to find through firethat light is that space is curved, as you know, so the universe, instead of being a plane, can blow up like a balloon. And since in our dancethere is no time on the energy level, and if you remove time and you could see far shoes /enough, the farthest that you can possibly see would be the back of your head. So you can search as far as you want to search, and you can journey as far as you want to journey, and you’ll ultimately end up right God gave uhere, right now. And that gives me hope. “You’ll ultimately words, theyend up right here, were ‘I lovright now.” I also think we live in this bizarre moment you, pleasewhere we’re inundated with the opposite of hope—the terrible things happening in the world, the presidential election, the and thankway news is defined and brought to us. But I feel like hope is making a comeback. I feel like what you’re talking about, the way you’re you’ /talking about—a lot of us are—we’re just waking up to that. And it’s kind of that thing
“And that gives me hope.” that you said. We get to know it. We get to know it, all evidence to the contrary not- God gave us thirswithstanding, and also, to say, “That’s not the only evidence that’s out there.” But it’s and it’s a hungerkind of countercultural. It’s—I don’t know. I would totally agree. I think it’s probably us a genetic thing, that we’re attracted to the for the universe /negativity, because back when we were hunters and gatherers, you had to be super— have our ear on the worst possible thing that could happen, so you could protect yourself. But now people are attracted to that, and so the media provides it. 31 ey And I agree, it seems like a—we are really ve blessed, as a band, because our supporters e, are seekers. They come to shows with the k masks down and with their hearts on the outside. And since they’ve gotten close to the albums, they feel comfortable with us, the band members. And so they come, and they share their stories openly and quickly. God gave youYou don’t have to have icebreakers. And the blessing that you probably see, too, feet so youis that you find out how gorgeous people are if they can talk about it openly and without protection—that just about any- could find yourbody you can pick out on the street has a own way home.
Craig Minowa & Cloud Cult gorgeous interior. And we just have to keep working to peel those layers of skin off so 32 that everybody can walk around in their [music: “Through the Ages” gorgeousness. by Cloud Cult] On Being with Krista Tippett So your new album is called The Seeker, right? You are becoming more and more a theologian. I don’t know if you know that, but if you don’t, I’m telling you. Oh. [laughs] Uh-oh. I mean what’s the song—“The Great Unknown” on this album. I have so many— just—I have favorite lines in this one. Correct me if I don’t have every line right. “We were made to walk through fire in our dance shoes.” “God gave us words, they were ‘I love you, please, and thank you.’” “God gave us thirst, and it’s a hunger for the universe.” “God gave you feet so you could find your own way home.” It’s beautiful. Thank you. Yeah, it’s called The Seeker, because that’s what we’re here to do. [laughs] I don’t know what we’ll find, but it’s really not about an individual. It’s sort of a story for humanity as a whole. And I feel like that we’re on that crust, that era,
as a people, that we have the potential to We were born on a lightning bolt, grew up in the ocean salt / We’ve traveled through ten thousand lives / So if ever I can’t see wake up to a new age. We have the respon- sibility to wake up to a new age. There isn’t any room for pessimism anymore. Time is limited. And so yeah, it’s all on the table with this one, as far as lyrics go, of trying to wake myself and every—anybody around me up to the fact of “Hey, let’s go be good people and do a good job.” That thing you said a minute ago, it’s a really perceptive way to talk about— we are riveted by the scary news. And we’re hard-wired to be riveted by the scary news. To be a seeker, I think that there’s a—you have to be choosing to be open to something scary that you don’t know. It’s an evolution. But it just occurs to me that the seeker is actually—that word, it’s so gentle, in a way. It’s so open. But it’s a departure that’s very courageous. Yeah, I think it doesn’t classify, either. I think you can be a part of any religion or a part of any spiritual pursuit and be a seeker. And it’s kind of a scale. There are those that search a little or are just hungrier for it. But I see the evolutionary aspect, as well. There’s the Carl Sagan book where he talks about how, if you walked into a room, and
Bless the children, safe sleeping... / Bless the parents, hearts aching / Bless the wakeless on their journey / Travel safely, travel safely /We’re the sleepless always searching / Light chasing, light chas-
then your father walked into the room Craig Minowa & Cloud Cult right behind you, and then your grandfa- ther walked into the room right behind you, 35 how long it would take before you hit an ancestor who was down on all fours. And On Being with Krista Tippett he was discussing it on the level of just evolution in general, but I was thinking about it in the context of, OK what if that did happen? And ultimately what you end up with is about 250,000 people, your dad, your grandfather, your great-grandfather, all of them in there, 250—quarter of a million people. And represented in that, 3 million years of that would be hunter-gatherers, 10,000 years of that would be farmers, and depending on your family—for my family it would just be the last two generations that haven’t lived off the land. So you’ve got a quarter of a million people that are your direct lineage, that if they could all speak the same language, they’d all be able to sit down and talk about living off the land and jabber on and on and on, and it would just be me and my dad sitting there not know- ing what to talk about. So there’s so much change that’s happening right now, and we have to keep up with that spiritually. The requirement to grow spiritually at the
Craig Minowa & Cloud Cult [music: “Time Machine Invention” by Cloud Cult] 36 pace that we are growing technologically is On Being with Krista Tippett absolutely necessary. I just want to come back to something I had in my notes, and I don’t really know where it fits in here in the arc of this conversation, but you said, everybody’s gorgeous, and everybody’s also been hurt, and those two things all at once. And you have this song, “Blessings,” in the Light Chasers album. I mean the thing is, what you went through with Kaidin—I guess every parent, every night—my son is here tonight. He’s 17. He’s like a foot taller than me now. He’s this big, strong hockey player. And still I go into his room in the middle of the night when he’s come home or first thing in the morning, worried—is he OK? And so that is this universal experience, and then the worst happened to you.
But you have more children now, and you Yeah, I’m a believer in mind over matter / And I made my mind up to travel in time / Restart the days, and I’ll do it so much choose to get through the night, to worry every night again, right? And I just— there’s something very beautiful in—you have this, and the Light Chasers album was after you had kind of come out the other end of—or I don’t want to say come out the other end, but walked through the grief. “Bless the children, safe sleeping… / Bless the parents, hearts aching. / Bless the wakeless on their journey. / Travel safely, travel safely. / We’re the sleepless always searching, / Light chasing, light chasing.” Yeah, that one—it’s interesting that you bring that one up in that context, because that came—the line came in the middle of the night. Nova was born at that point, and there was so many sleepless nights where you just almost couldn’t let yourself fall asleep, because that PTSD is there. So we were both—Connie and I were both going through that. And there was a night that was when Nova was a newborn, and the next day was Kaidin’s birthday, and we were both just so panicky and couldn’t sleep. And in the middle of the night, that line was just there. And I give thanks to whatever it is that lays those kinds of things just there. They’re gifts.
I’m done being stupid and worried and dramatic. I lay down my every disguise. / So if ever I can’t see the magic around me, / please take my hands off my eyes.
I don’t know where we’re from but we came here to be. / We came here to be coura- geous.
Craig Minowa & Cloud Cult And I think when I was younger, and I heard people talk about—artists talk about 40 things not coming from themselves, it felt a little bit—it felt a little pompous, like, On Being with Krista Tippett “Oh, God’s talking to you? Like, wow, you’re so important.” But I think it’s—I really feel that now, and I don’t think it’s me, individually. I think everybody has that power to sit in silence or be in a moment and to hear things from—again, we know of 2 percent of the universe. There’s 98 percent—now there’s multiverses. This thing is huge. [laughs] There’s so much to be heard. And our bod- ies can be tools to hear that and put that out there, and all of us have the power to do that. And that line was a gift. It wasn’t from me. So I’ve started asking this question recently, when I’m finishing an interview— how you have come through all the things that have happened to you, this life you’ve lived, how you’ve come to think about what it means to be human, which is obviously an enormous question, and so it’s just— how would you begin to talk about that? I did want to read—again, I’ll read you back to yourself some beautiful lines that
seem to me to start speaking to that, from 41 “Through The Ages”: “I’m done being stupid and worried and dramatic. I lay down my every disguise. / So if ever I can’t see the magic around me, / please take my hands off my eyes.” It’s a wonderful thing we should all ask the people who love us to do: “Please take my hands off my eyes.” “I don’t know where we’re from, but we came here to be. / We came here to be courageous.” What would you add, in terms of what you’re learning about what it means to be human? Looking back at the evolutionary discus- sion that we had earlier, if you continued to trace that lineage all the way back to the creation of life, us going back 3 million years to being on all fours, that’s one per- cent of geologic time. There’s so much more that’s before that, and there’s so much more before the creation of the earth, and who knows how many cycles the universe has gone through to get to the point that we’re at right now. But now we’re here, and we are incredibly advanced organisms who are not grasping our potential. And we have to be courageous about laying
Craig Minowa & Cloud Cult down our insecurities and our fears, in order to get to the point that we can really 42 embrace that energy in us. There was a fact that I read—all of physi- cal matter, as we know, is made of energy, and all physical matter can be converted back into energy, and it takes a tremendous amount of energy to make the smallest particle of matter. And so in the average human body, there’s 7×10 to the 18th power joules of energy, and that translates into 30 hydrogen bombs. Just this physical body right here, the energy in it, is equivalent to 30 hydrogen bombs I have right now. And that’s my only guarantee. On Being with Krista Tippett
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