‘Rishi’ is the first song and title track from my album coming out in November on @aerobicinternational ... but before it was this, it was a Hindi name we picked for our child-to-be. An astrological reading in Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India in 2017 inspired us to try for another child. Rishi and her mother nearly died in labor at St. Luke’s hospital in 2018. Her heart rate and breathing nearly stopped and the nurses and doctors rushed to miraculously revive and successfully deliver the baby via an emergency Cesarean birth. That was the most traumatic experience of my life — until of course I awoke in the middle of the night on April 20, 2018 to find infant Rishi not breathing. In between these experiences, during Rishi’s short period on earth with us, the music and spiritual energy of India came rushing through me, and I demo’d two songs (this one, originally called ‘Rishikesh’, and the album’s closer ‘Letter to Rishikesh’) that were unlike anything I had written before. We also nearly lost Rishi in broad daylight during that time when her mother @magicinclined noticed she wasn’t breathing and pleaded with her to breathe. Reflecting on the experience through an alien lense, the whole thing feels like a miracle — something that was impossible all along yet still came to fruition. We were visited and saved by a Rishi (Hindi word for ‘Sage’, ‘teacher’, or ‘seer’ - as in the ancient mystics that lived in the mountains and transcribed messages from divine sources) — so if this song strangely has an elated, uplifting feel, it’s not by accident. I will always be hurting and grieving for my loss but simultaneously feeling absolute peace, gratitude, joy and even luck for being inside Rishi’s orbit. We’re all so much bigger than the earthly body we inhabit, and Rishi proved that to me. 💫🎶🌈 song link in bio — Thank you for listening, sharing, and carrying Rishi’s spirit with you. . . . . . . . . #rishi #rishikesh #mystic #calmposeur #hindipop #windierock #applecore #indiepop