You once asked rhetorically in an interview: “What does it mean to be alive? Is it a curse or a gift?”. I am wondering how would you answer this question.

I struggle to decide on either side of the coin. I think it’s a bit of both. It’s a curse because of the insurmountable yet insignificant responsibility of essentially strengthening or propagating our species. But being alive can feel so strange and bizarre and beautiful and intense… that is the gift. Sometimes I feel like that is my payment for being a human, to be able to feel and experience existence in such a vivid way.

Your Instagram description reads “Forest dweller” among others. This is also a concept in Hindu traditions, “Vanaprastha”, representing the third of four stages of the human life, meaning “giving up worldly life”, a transition phase from the emphasis on wealth, security, pleasure and sexual pursuits to one more connected to a spiritual liberation. In which way are you relating to that?

I grew up in the woods, so it’s very much where my feeling of “home” is rooted. However, my decision to come back to living in the country after living in the city was made very intuitively. When I was young I was desperate to leave and never return. But living in the city was hard. It felt unnatural to me. I couldn’t relax. I couldn’t hear myself through the constant static of everyone around me. I lived the city life and threw myself into society long enough to put a brave foot on the ground. Since moving back to the woods, not only can I hear myself again, but the voice is getting louder and wilder. As a “forest dweller” I feel more magickal, more natural, more connected. And that is more important to me than anything ephemeral a society could provide.

In 2017 you moved back to your seedtime of the soul, your childhood place in Wisconsin, where you built yourself a home on your family’s property. A “return to my roots and to several personal traumas”, as you stated. Was it a Freudian drive that brought you back there, were you feeling somehow imprisoned by unfinished circumstances from the past – following the law of closure?

The reasons are more practical, unfortunately. Initially, I was looking for land in Seattle, but it was way too expensive. So, my parents offered to let me build on their land. It was also a benefit for them to live so close, since I travel so much. It would be easy for them to look after my house and my pets. Also, I was able to spend more time with my family. When I’m home, I either want to be alone or with people I truly care about and love. It all just made sense.