“I would like to nurture a world in which non-binary and women musicians feel safe and comfortable, and inspired to do things themselves and not rely on any shitty producer. I'd like to remove toxic masculinity from the world — especially in the music industry.”

A multi-disciplinary artist, a writer of queer love poems, and a BIG dreamer, Anjalica Solomon joins the Resonant Rest podcast. They speak with host Oceaan Pendharkar about crushing self doubt, seasons and cycles of making art, and nurturing playfulness in music-making.

Anjalica shares their approach to a daily writing practice, and how rest and creativity go hand-in-hand for them. They talk to Oceaan about creating for the self and the spirit as a means of resisting capitalist modes of artistic production. We also hear about their dreams for a world beyond the scarcity mindset — where artists have space to experiment, make mistakes, grow, and thrive.

[theme music with soothing synths and piano]

Oceaan Pendharkar 0:26

Welcome to the Resonant Rest podcast. My name is Oceaan. The Resonant Rest podcast is a podcast where I speak with musicians about rest, creative practice, sustenance, community, dreams, and more. This episode will feature a talk I had with my good friend Anjalica Solomon. I very much hope you enjoy it. Here we go.

[music]

Oceaan Pendharkar 1:04

How do you want me to talk about you? Like if I'm going to introduce you, what should I say?

Anjalica Solomon 1:09

Anjalica Solomon. That's my last name. Yeah. I'm a poet, musician, spoken word artist, learning to produce. I do a little bit of theatre work. writing plays and such.

Oceaan Pendharkar 1:33

You do so many things!

Anjalica Solomon 1:34

Yeah. I don't like to hold myself back. But I can definitely relate on feeling the hustle and grind and feeling myself being ground by this pressure that you describe.

Oceaan Pendharkar 1:50

Yeah, I guess I feel like it's influenced a lot of my decisions. Like, even in college when I was like, What should I major in in second year? You know, I had a decision to make between songwriting and performance. And my, my piano teacher wanted me to do performance. And he was like, you should play on ships after college, because you can make a lot of money or whatever. And I was like, I want to do songwriting. Like I'm a songwriter. I've like been a songwriter since I was a child.

Anjalica Solomon 2:15

Yeah.

Oceaan Pendharkar 2:16

That's like who I am. And then but like, there's this other skill, performance, that would be good, that would be like, more financially useful or something. I don't know. I don't even know if that's true. Like, songwriting is quite financially useful if you know what to do with it.

Anjalica Solomon 2:32

And they go hand in hand and you can be both.

Oceaan Pendharkar 2:35

Yeah, it's true. You can be both. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, can I ask you a question?

Anjalica Solomon 2:41

Yeah.

Oceaan Pendharkar 2:41

Okay. So what does creativity look like in your life? And how does music play into it? Do you have particular rituals, or like, practices or routines?

Anjalica Solomon 2:53

Yeah, cool question. In my life, creativity looks like collaboration with friends. I find that my creativity does really well, when it's like playing with another person. But I for sure have my own routines as well. I try to write my morning pages when I wake up. I recently read, like, started reading The Artist's Way. And it talks about like getting that psychic gunk out in the morning. Like, yeah, sometimes I catch some really cool dreams and jot them down. Yeah. And sometimes I catch, like, what's really going on, in my mind. Before the day starts, where I'm like, what's the emotional tone of the day. And just like free writing, getting stuff out. I'm working on a manuscript of poetry. So, a lot of the time, creativity looks like grappling with the concept of writing a manuscript and sometimes coming up against my own self doubt, and turning to other poets to like, read and feel inspired, and then go into writing. I'll like set a timer for seven minutes, a poet named Julia Pileggi kind of taught me that. It's like, just set a timer for seven minutes. Write. Pause it. And, you know, I'll like go and like read something and then like, go back and like set a timer and just like, write to a timer, because then it's like, okay, I'm not just gonna write until I hit my inner critic, and then stop, like, I'm just gonna like, push through. And then every couple months, I'll like, go back and look at that stuff.

Oceaan Pendharkar 4:52

That's cool.

Anjalica Solomon 4:52

Yeah. And then, sometimes I'll just be like on a walk, and I'll just like hum a tune and like hit record on my voice notes. And I'll just like, have that tune. And then sometimes the circumstances are just right where I'm like, hmm, I need something to work on. And I'll like, go back and visit those things. And I find that creativity for me is like a long game. So it's like, even if I'm just putting a seed down, it's a worthwhile seed and like, moving away from, like, capitalistic mindsets is something that is a part of my life. But it's like something I'm still learning.

Oceaan Pendharkar 5:35

Oh, yeah. Yeah, like, I feel that.

Anjalica Solomon 5:39

Yeah, I'm just creating because it connects me to my spirituality or connects me to my life force. And there's seasons. Like I find there's seasons for generating creative work. There's seasons where I'm just doodling in my book a lot. And I'm like, this is great.

Oceaan Pendharkar 5:58

That's awesome.

Anjalica Solomon 5:58

Those are some of my favorite creative periods to look back on, even though no one might ever see those books. Or like, yeah, I might just personally go through those books and be like, Wow, I was so inspired by life at this time, and no one will ever see these random line portraits, or whatever.

Oceaan Pendharkar 6:16

That's beautiful. Wow, you've just said so much stuff to chew on. That's amazing. It is interesting like how in seasons of output, I feel like those, they almost feel less creative to me. I'm thinking of like, when I've finished an album, and then it's time to like, try and promote it and like, book shows and like, be talking to people about it and stuff. You know, all that stuff. It kind of it feels like a season where creativity isn't as easy.

Anjalica Solomon 6:48

It's like, oh shit, now I have to be perceived.

Oceaan Pendharkar 6:53

Yeah.

Anjalica Solomon 6:53

On a deep level where like, you see, like, everything that my heart was going through last year.

Oceaan Pendharkar 7:00

Yeah, yeah.

Anjalica Solomon 7:04

And then being kind of detached from that work, too. I sometimes come up against, oh, this is my old work.

Oceaan Pendharkar 7:12

Yeah, I've definitely felt that too. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. With my most recent EP, though, I feel like now, a year after I released it, I'm like, very ready to like, play the music now. And like, talk about it. And I still like the songs.

Anjalica Solomon 7:28

You gotta let it marinate.

Oceaan Pendharkar 7:29

Yeah, I wonder if I should have just waited to release it until I like, felt this way.

Anjalica Solomon 7:36

Maybe you needed to release it to feel this way.

Oceaan Pendharkar 7:38

Maybe I needed to release it to feel this way. That's a good point. Yeah. It's so..

Anjalica Solomon 7:45

Yeah.

Oceaan Pendharkar 7:45

Can I ask you a different question now?

Anjalica Solomon 7:46

Yeah.

Oceaan Pendharkar 7:47

Okay. To balance, creative time, resting time, everything else, do you set goals? Do you just let life happen? What do you see when you imagine a life with enough time to create, rest and do everything else?

Anjalica Solomon 8:04

Oh my god. Amazing question. Well, like, I like to manifest with the moon.

Oceaan Pendharkar 8:11

Okay, okay!

Anjalica Solomon 8:11

Yeah, no, hear me out! I like to, like, plan, okay, like, what is a season and cycle of my life right now? And like, how is it aligning? If it's like a full moon, sometimes I find myself feeling like more energized or pushed or like, the moon cycles and the seasons. There's different seasons, like, as I mentioned, you know, so I'm like, in the summer I find myself like, having a lot of output. And then in the winter, I like really withdraw and go deeper into my creation, or like, into my rest. Kind of, they go hand in hand. And then like, in the spring, I find myself like, oh, I want to see people I want to share this work. Like, I want to write new poems too, like. In different seasons, I find balancing balancing rest comes in, after I've created something that's taken a lot of emotional energy, I need to withdraw. Especially if it's like, you know, as you described, like this promotional phase where it's like recently working on the bird play, for example, which I did, for those of you listening who don't know this play, that I did with some friends that we wrote that we produced the music for and everything. And we got a whole bunch of press for it and we had like all our friends come out and see it. And then after that, I'm just like, Okay, I am... I've given so much of myself, I've poured so much of myself out. I've shared so much of my heart like and cleared space of myself to be these characters or to sing the songs night after night.

Oceaan Pendharkar 9:54

You are many characters in that play.

Anjalica Solomon 9:56

I'm many characters.

Oceaan Pendharkar 9:57

I was not expecting that. I was like wow, you're everyone. You played everyone.

It was fun. Everyone except baby bird. Yeah. Lots of different voices. And then it's like sometimes when you're performing and like as an artist doing all these things, you're like wearing every hat, you're like playing every role. Like you're your own promoter. You're your own social media person, your own agent. I don't know.

Yeah, I feel like even just writing a play is like a job for many people. Even just like the writing only.

Yeah. Totally. And then now I just feel in this complete season of like, okay, I did that. There's three months left of the year, and I spent this whole year like working so hard responding to emails, trying to keep up with life, and the grind. And part of me feels fulfilled by that. Doing that work makes me feel alive and connected and in harmony, like my life's purpose. But then when I sit down to manifest with the moon, I'm like, okay. I am manifesting time with my partners.

Yeah.

And I'm manifesting, like, lots of days of sleeping in and healthy meals. And yeah, I'm time to be still and like, celebrate, too. We just like live in a culture of like, constantly racing. So it's really nice to like, look back and collect the lessons of what you've done and sit with your work and be like, I did this. We did this. I'm proud. I don't have to do anything right now. Or, like, if there's something coming up, it's always nice to look forward to things. But like, if there's something coming up, can I just like, carve out space to just take a breath?

There's something you said that I'm wondering if you want to elaborate on? You said, creation and rest go hand in hand. Yeah. What did you mean by that?

Yeah. Well, it's like, if I'm creating something, if I'm working on a piece or trying to finish a project, I can't just like, sit and do the project for eight hours a day.

Yeah. Yeah. That's an important point.

Like, I need to like, go for a walk, read a book, get inspired, watch a movie.

Yeah.

And like, changing what I think of as creating time, something I learned from my mentor, Chelene Knight, as we were planning, okay, I'm going on tour. And I have like, these projects that I want to finish. She's like, okay, well, you don't have to put your so much pressure on yourself to like, write in the same way you do while you're gone. Anything can be, can feed into your art and your creativity. So I'm like, Okay, well, the way that the moon is shining tonight is probably going to find its way in my poem or this experience that I had with my friends is, is part of the song I'm writing, the poem I'm writing or Yeah. It's, it's giving me it's giving me the life force I need to, to carry over and let, like create from that place of abundance and not being drained and being like, okay, my cup is empty. But I have nothing to create, or I'm stuck. I'm at a writer's block. It's like often, you just need to fill your cup, and then when you pour it out, it'll like overflow into creativity.

Yeah. That's a good reminder. I guess it's interesting how I've how I've conceptualized the question as if creativity, rest and everything else are separate, as if creativity is only output and rest is only maybe stationary, and everything else is just everything else. Maybe it doesn't even make sense as a question. I think I'm still going to ask it. But, you just made me think about how, like the concept of of creativity and the concept of rests are constructed in my mind in specific ways.

Yeah.

And it came out in the question. Yeah, that's interesting. Can we talk about sustenance?

Sustenance? Yeah.

How do you sustain yourself? We could talk about income, food, feeding your spirit, or anything else that comes up when you think of what sustains you?

I like the word sustenance because it makes me feel like I'm like, running a slow and steady or like I'm on a slow and steady journey, you know? I need sustenance. Yeah.

That's cool.

Yeah, um, I think sustenance, how I sustain myself. And I can't say that I always do this, but the goal is to be doing my practice in my art for my whole life. So I can't burn out by the time I'm 27.

Oh, you mean like for the course of your life? Not just like, for all of the things that are in your life? You mean like, you want to do it until you die?

Yeah, yeah. So like, I want to be a poet until I grow old and I forget how to speak, you know? So I can't hustle so hard, that I have nothing left to give. By the time I'm 27. You know?

27? Very specific.

Well, I'm 25. Now. You know, can, is the pace I'm going sustainable over the next year? And the next five years? The next 10 years? Like, yeah, I don't want to, I don't want to tire myself out. And I think a lot of that is saying no to things that are not nourishing me. I think nourishment is like a good thing to keep in mind. But how can I sustain this practice? Is my art nourishing me? Or is it? Is it pulling me into this rat race? And sometimes, sometimes you do feel pulled in the rat race. And yeah, this conversation is actually a good reminder to me.

Yeah. Yeah.

of like, what I really want with my art. Yeah.

Yeah, I think what we want changes too.

Yeah, I think my community sustains me. Like, when I'm not sustaining myself, I have people looking out for me too, you know. And then there's like, the financial aspect of it, which is like, sometimes writing a grant is part of that sustenance, and it feels like hustling. But okay, hey, I have to talk to myself. Like, if I write this, then I don't have to work at a corporate office part-time, or you know, like, I can get someone else to help me with my sustenance, which there's, those kinds of opportunities are out there. But it's learning and committing to that. And just like moving out of a scarcity mindset, I think is part of sustenance, too. Because a lot of the time, I actually have what I need to be sustained. I have home, I have food. I have people that love me, and I'm going to be fine. And part of that is privilege, you know, like recognizing that, but part of that is also the world I've created because of the decisions I've made to commit to sustaining myself. You know, like, as an artist, like, I'm like, okay, this is what I want to do. And these are the opportunities that I can step towards, in good faith that like, what I call in will come into my life. And a lot of the time I find that I actually have more than I need, because of community like, like friends offering me gigs and people wanting to collaborate with me and people wanting to help me write grants or like looking over something I've written, you know. Like, all of this feeds into me being able to stand on my feet.

Yeah, totally.

Knowing that I'm not doing it alone helps.

Can I ask you another question? Yeah. Okay. Do you have any dreams about the future? A musical dream? A creative dream?

Oh, my god, I have so many dreams every day that I need to hone them in.

You are a big dreamer, actually. I feel like you have inspired me to dream a lot. By nature, I'm not really a dreamer. I'm more of a realist, I would say or like, a let's deal with what's happening in the present and then once that's done, then rest kind, of person.

Yeah,

That's kind of like how I operate I guess.

Like, step by step.

Step by step. Yeah. And I love planning.

Yeah.

But it's more about controlling possibilities than it is about dreaming. And lately, I feel like since you and I have been collaborating more, I feel like I've been dreaming like a lot more.

I love that! Good to hear it! Yeah, I mean, our band that we started, Glow Motive is kind of like a little dream, like a little like I feel like we planted the seed and like now we just have like a little, a little tiny plant with the sprout. You know, you just water. You water your dreams like a garden.

Yeah.

So like, I'm pouring water on different dreams. I have some solo dreams, which is like, even my solo dreams I recognize are so interdependent with collaborations but yeah. Writing my manuscript of poetry, putting out new music has been a dream that like, I think I seeded maybe like two years ago. Um,

Seeded?

Yeah, you know, you just like seed a little dream, like planting it,

Oh yeah, sorry!

If a dream was a seed just like, popping it in. I want to put out music. I'm like both a poet and musician. So I'm finding ways to, like marry those two. And also I want to like learn to produce music. I've recently like, had some major green lights for this project of like South Asian poets that are non binary and women and we have we have the means to like put out a digital publication. So I'm kind of balancing that and...

That's awesome.

Yeah. And then it's a matter of like, not putting too many dreams on my plate. And just like, you know, keeping track of them and giving like sunlight, love, water to each each dream. Yeah, but yeah, I'm definitely someone that's like, let's just dream the biggest dream. And, and then like, you know, you then you just take one step towards it at a time. And then you look back five years, five years from now and you're like, oh, wow, I made some really good friends. I did some shit I'll never forget.

Yeah.

And here's the art to show for it.

Aw, that's so sweet.

Yeah.

What about music production interests you? Like, do you have any elaborations on wanting to produce music?

I think producing music is actually kind of magic. The way that you can capture sound. It's kind of like Mickey Mouse in Fantasia where you're like, like, everything's like moving around you. I was really inspired by being in Lobe Studios. It's like, this studio in Vancouver where there's speakers like in the ceiling, the floor and all around, and my partner is has some music that's going to be playing there and

Oh cool.

Yeah. And I was just like, basking, I was like listening in on some stuff, and basking in the way that a sound could move around the room. And like the way that sound could be at the centre of the room, and a sound could be flying over you. And I'm like, of course, like, not all music production is for a room that has speakers like that. But just the concept of making a sound like float around in a track. And like sprinkling it in and bringing in it's like you're making an environment. And then some people will opt into, like listening to that to like, calm down or dance or like, feel alive.

Yeah.

And that's cool.

That is cool. Yeah, yeah. I just like painting the pictures that are in my head, when I produce. I feel like that's what it's about. For me. I feel like I hear stuff. And I just like want to make it happen.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Following your intuition, and then like looking back and being like, whoa, I just made a a soundscape.

Yeah.

Yeah. I just told a story.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's cool.

Yeah. I think I have one more question. Can I ask it?

Yeah.

Okay. Is there anything you want to nurture or change here and now in the musical community?

What a potent question.

Potent.

I would like to nurture... I like this. This is kind of like what I do with my moon manifesting.

Nice! Cool.

I would like to nurture a world in which like, non-binary and women musicians feel safe and comfortable and inspired to do things themselves and not rely on any shitty producer. How would you say? I'd like to remove toxic masculinity from the world.

Yeah.

Especially in the music industry. I feel like it's so rampant. And I feel the needle shifting in my communities. And I feel myself seeding that change in my life, just by saying, hey, I'm going to learn to do these things so that nobody can gatekeep me, which is exciting. And, of course, I would like to create a world for myself where I'm, I feel so nurtured that I can just like crush my self doubt. Like, what I say to myself is like, once I crush myself doubt over for. I want to say the expression, it's over for you bitches, but like, more, so it's just like, it's just like, okay, that will be that will be when I can really stand, you know. So just like nurturing a culture of experimenting and being okay to make mistakes. Because I think that's what holds a lot of musicians back is being afraid to put out something bad or being afraid of growth. And part of growth is starting small, starting somewhere. You know, so not being afraid of that.

Yeah.

And just like, even just speaking this into existence is helpful for me, but nurturing practice, and, you know, like making a little ditty as my singer, singing teacher, vocal teacher, Erica Dee say,. She's like just make a little ditty in our voice lessons, like she's, like, mentored me and taught me about her practice of like, just like making something on the loop pedal. Just like laying something down that's rough and just like, nurturing playfulness in making music.

Yeah, playfulness. Yeah, yeah. Thomas [Hoeller] has a dream about improvisational shows, I think, where like, people get together. And did I tell you, he was actually listening to some work I was doing with your poems. And he was thinking about how cool it would be to have like, some musicians who are improvisers and just get them in a room with a poet who has a poem, and then do like a video series of like, somebody saying their poem, and these musicians just like playing along to it as it happens.

I love that.

Sort of series, which would be like very playful.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. We've kind of done that with my poetry just like...

Yeah, we have. Yeah, it's just me. Yeah. Yeah, no, I really enjoy that kind of playing too.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think it's really cool. And there's this cool thing that happens in improvisation. Where, like, your ears are so open, and you're just waiting to see what happens next in a different kind of way than you are if everything is planned.

Yeah, you just have to be so present. Yeah.

Yeah. That's cool.

That's true. Because sometimes I dissociate in performance. Like it happens once in a while, you know, you're just like, going through the motions of a piece or song or poem, whatever. But when you're improvising.

You're just doing it.

You gotta be awake.

I've definitely been not in my head while I was improvising before. Once I like blacked out completely and I didn't remember what I played and I like looked up and everybody was like cheering a lot. And I was like I don't even know what I just played?

You just channeled.

I think maybe I did.

Your like you know, like Sasha Fierce like you like you just like don't even

I don't know

You know how Beyonce has like Sasha Fierce.

Oh.

She just like doesn't even know what happened.

Right? Okay. I didn't know that's what that was. I've heard her say that before.

Maybe I just made that up.

Okay!

I think I've heard that.

Yeah, I think I used to blackout playing because I was nervous. I would get like really nervous and I would just like go to a place and not remember what happened.

Sometimes I don't remember what happened. Like people will be like how was that? How was what?

That's funny. Oh my god. Do you have anything you want to say or you want to add or you want to talk about

I appreciate talking about rest at a time where I just like deleted my social media.

You did?

Yeah, I didn't like delete my account. I deleted it off my phone.

Oh, yeah, nice.

Which is so unlike me, I'm usually like, gotta post once a day. But I just reached a point where I was like, I have output so much. Yeah. And fuckin' algorithm. I'm a human.

Yeah, totally.

I knew I would reach that point. I was just like, going so hard, this whole year, I feel like coming out of the pandemic. And the pandemic, like, kind of taught us what rest could look like. And now I'm like, how do I move forward and incorporate the things that have actually changed my life for the better? And, like, be super compassionate to myself when I'm not keeping up with the pace of before? You know? Because I feel like going back, we're all like, okay, like, what's the next project? And...

Yeah.

Of course, like, I do have the next projects lined up. But I also just want to like, take a moment. And yeah, like, just go on a writing retreat or...

Cool. Yeah.

Yeah, just like, a lot of my friends know, I'm busy and, like, I can't keep up with social things this week. You know, just like, I'm a Libra, so I'm like, a very much a people pleaser.

Does that mean it's your birthday now?

Oh, my god. It is my birthday now.

Like when?

Like October 14,

Okay, cool. Nice.

Yeah. It's my birthday soon.

That's awesome.

Yeah, I'm hoping to go to the spa on my birthday and just like bathe in a pool of water.

[soft piano]

Before the end of this episode, I would just like to say hello one more time and let you know that you can contact me. Please contact me if you have anything you want to say, you want to tell me you liked, you want to talk about. You can DM me on Instagram at Oceaan Pendharkar O C E A A N P E N D H A R K A R. You can also email me at OceaanPendharkar@gmail.com Let me know what you thought. To end this episode, I am going to play one of Anjalica's songs slash poems, "Honey Queen." And just before I play that, I will play a clip of them speaking about the song. Thanks so much again for listening and we'll see you next time.

[soft piano]

Honey Queen is a queer erotic love poem. It was definitely a season of output and I find that sometimes... I said creativity and rest go hand in hand. Sometimes creativity and love go hand in hand you know? Like the seasons just align and then and then everything feels like gold silk and you gotta write a poem and make a video and put it on Spotify. I don't know. That's just how I do, but, yeah.

That's beautiful. Cool.

Cool. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, thank you so much for coming here. And for speaking so many beautiful things.

A pleasure.

[Music playing: “Honey Queen” by Anjalica Solomon]