Autumn’s Edge: Drums with Harvey, Notes to Self and Returning to Practice

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Welcome to Autumn’s Edge — that threshold space where we lean toward winter, darkness, and the long soul-season ahead.

In this episode of Viral Mindfulness, I check in from Southern California on Monday, November 24, 2025, and share what’s been unfolding at the edge of autumn and winter. I tell the story of Harvey’s seventh birthday trip to Nashville — cowgirl party, barn, drum set and all — and you’ll hear a live audio clip of us recording her very first “drum song” together. Along the way, I reflect on how our rituals of play, lyrics, and basement performances are quietly shaping her creative life.

I also open a holiday card I wrote to myself last January and read it aloud — a tender reminder to “deck the halls with cashmere,” surrender to winter, and let my roots rest in the dark. From there, I return to the words of Natalie Goldberg and her book The Great Spring, sharing a passage about creative life as wandering, zigzagging, and always returning to the page, the keys, the brush.

This episode is an invitation to dust off your own practice — writing, music, art, whatever it is — and touch it again. I close with a glimpse of what’s coming next: teachings on soul work inspired by Frances Weller, and details about my upcoming Winter 2026 Wise Circle and my new grief group, Good Grief: The Wild Edge Circle.

SUMMARY

In this episode of Viral Mindfulness, Alexander welcomes listeners back from Autumn’s Edge, the liminal space before winter and the solstice. Speaking from Southern California on Monday, November 24, 2025, he frames this season as a time for soul work in uncertain times — a way of mirroring the descent of autumn into winter in our own inner lives. He names the intention for the coming weeks: to offer teachings rooted in the work of Frances Weller, exploring the long dark, dropping into the earth, and tending to soul in a world that feels anything but ordinary.

Alexander then turns to one of the bright threads of his autumn: five weeks on the East Coast with Harvey Rose and her dads. He recounts the celebrations around Harvey’s seventh birthday — Halloween costumes, the Village of Nyack parade, trunk-or-treat, visitors, and finally her big Nashville cowgirl party in a barn on a family property in Franklin, Tennessee. A couple of hours before the party, while everyone was setting up, he and Harvey retreated to the cozy upstairs living room where she noticed a drum set tucked in the corner.

With a quesadilla in one hand and curiosity in the other, Harvey asks to play. Alexander, not a drummer but rhythmically at home, helps her pull the kit out, find the beat, and improvise. He asks if he can audio record their experiment, and she agrees — not only to recording, but to the possibility of sharing it on his podcast. She gives enthusiastic consent, and listeners are treated to a short, joyful audio clip of Harvey and “Uncle Blue” working on their first drum song together.

From there, Alexander reflects on the quiet modeling of creative life: writing on the couch while Harvey has iPad time, bringing his notebook into the basement playroom, watching her disappear into a room to write lyrics and then perform them later for him and the American Girl dolls. He notices how she sees him, asks if he’s “writing a poem,” and begins to echo his practices in her own way.

Back home in California, as he prepares to travel to Arizona for Thanksgiving and a big Smith-family wedding, Alexander begins to decorate for the holidays. In the process, he finds a holiday card he wrote to himself in January and opens it on his patio under a clear blue sky. He reads the card aloud: a note addressed to his “nuclear family, party of one,” affirming his identity as Alexander Bluefeather, connected to soul, art, music, and the obligation to create light, peace, and compassion. The card carries a winter directive: “Deck the halls with cashmere” and surrender to the season by dropping the leaves, standing in bare branches, and allowing his roots to rest.

The card also holds a poignant metaphor of “frost protection”— trees reducing water content in their tissues, like tears and grief, as a kind of natural antifreeze to protect roots. Reading it now, in his first holiday season without his dad, he notices how the message anticipated the grief to come. He references Megan Falley’s phrase “alleged death” to describe his father’s passing, noting how present his dad feels to him now.

Alexander then turns to Natalie Goldberg and her book The Great Spring, reading a passage that feels like both a mirror and a mandate: an invitation “to enter into a larger, more intimate territory” as reader, writer, explorer, teacher, human being. Natalie’s words about living a creative life — searching, wandering, zigzagging, leaping, and then returning the pen to the page again and again — resonate deeply with where Alexander finds himself: home again after wandering, ready to begin again.

He weaves this into an invitation for listeners to touch their own practice: take the writing out of the drawer, dust off the instrument, return to the brush, the piano, the page. He shares the joy of sitting back down at the piano to play Alexandra Stréliski’s Neo-Romance, realizing how much his body still remembers from his 2024 spring recital.

The episode closes with a glimpse of what’s to come over the next few weeks: teachings on the grandeur of the soul, the quality of your approach, the practice of vesseling, restraint, repetition, and what Frances Weller calls “geological speed.” Alexander also mentions cultivating an expansive, self-compassionate heart, and announces two upcoming offerings for early 2026:

• Winter 2026 Wise Circle

• Good Grief: The Wild Edge Circle, an eight-week grief circle exploring Frances Weller’s The Wild Edge of Sorrow.

He signs off with his characteristic tenderness: sending love wherever listeners are, promising to be back soon at the edge of autumn and winter, and reminding everyone to be well and be gentle, gentle.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Autumn’s Edge as Soul Season
  Alexander frames late autumn and the approach of winter as a spiritual threshold — a time to descend, slow down, and engage in soul work in the midst of global and personal uncertainty.

• Everyday Rituals with Harvey
  Time with Harvey in Nashville and Nyack — basement play, lyrics, drums, costumes, and long walks — becomes a living ritual of creativity, presence, and intergenerational modeling.

• Harvey’s First “Drum Song”
  A spontaneous moment before her birthday party turns into Harvey’s first recorded drum performance, with her full consent to share it on the podcast, illustrating how play, sound, and attention can become sacred practice.

• Modeling Creative Life
  Alexander notices how simply writing in his notebook, bringing his practice into the shared space, and honoring his own art quietly shapes how Harvey sees creativity, emotion, and expression.

• A Note to Self Across Time
  The holiday card he wrote to himself in January 2025 becomes a powerful mirror: a reminder of his “nuclear family, party of one,” his devotion to art and compassion, and an invitation to surrender to winter by dropping what no longer serves.

• Grief and Frost Protection
  The metaphor of trees lowering their water content for winter becomes a way of understanding grief and tears as protection for the roots, especially poignant in his first holiday season without his father.

• Natalie Goldberg’s Invitation
  Drawing from The Great Spring, Alexander shares Natalie Goldberg’s vision of creative life as wandering, zigzagging, and always returning to the page — a call to dust off dormant practices and begin again.

• Returning to Practice (Again and Again)
  Whether it’s piano, watercolor, poetry, or podcasting, the heart of the episode is an invitation: touch your practice, take it out of the drawer, and let it meet you where you are this season.

• What’s Coming Next
  Alexander previews upcoming teachings on the grandeur of the soul, vesseling, restraint, repetition, and “geological speed,” and announces Winter 2026 Wise Circle and Good Grief: The Wild Edge Circle as containers for deeper soul work and grief tending.