“Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak whispers the o’erfraught heart and bids it break.” – Shakespeare

In March of 2020, Thailand, the country where I live, announced it would be closing its borders until the Covid crisis was under control. Like everyone else in the world, my life was disrupted by a sudden scramble—my partner, who is Burmese, was working in Myanmar at the time. Myanmar too, would be closing its borders, and so in a split second decision my partner packed a bag and got on the last flight out of Yangon to Bangkok. We didn’t know it at the time, but getting in and out of Thailand would end up being significantly difficult for the better part of the next three years—making travel back to the U.S. uncertain. Nor could we have known that in February, 2021, a violent military coup would wreak havoc on Myanmar, making it impossible to return.

Thailand was our new home. And while our lives during the pandemic were generally safe and secure, it felt as though we were watching the world around us burn. I looked on in shock as the U.S. fractured—political and social polarization becoming so severe that it seemed everyone everywhere was dealing with some version of a psychological crisis. As Myanmar descended into political chaos, protesters took to the streets, only to be slaughtered en mass by a vengeful Junta. Activists fled into the jungles in a move evoking the dark dictatorships of the late 20th century. Our countries were unravelling. And yet there we were, sheltered in a nation whose pandemic response was effective and sound. Thailand felt so safe, and the outside world so tenuous, I thought I might never leave.

But eventually, I did. In 2023, with Covid finally under control, I returned to the U.S. I’ll never forget the feeling that struck me as I entered the country: a sense of shock at an anxious, confused-seeming populous. People seemed to be having trouble coping on even the most basic levels. These were not the hearty, self-assured Americans I’d known. In my own life, health issues emerged—my body’s way of responding to the stressful years of holding on, having to be strong. Life was supposed to be normal again. Instead, mine felt out of control. It was then that I understood: We were a world awash in grief.

So much grief. And yet, here we are. So resilient. So alive.

As I recorded this album in 2024, it was that improbable, but central connection between grief and resilience that kept coming up, again and again. How do we find solace amid the excruciating pain of losing a loved one? What about when our loss isn’t attached to a person, but to an entire way of life? How can we learn to live in a world transformed, and in doing so, turn our grief into a motivating force for peace? Since processing grief isn’t just an individual act, but a collective one, it seemed a useful exercise to turn to some of the spiritual tools passed down through centuries by those who’ve come before us. The cultural traditions of Buddhism and Judaism, meaningful in my own life, felt like the right place to start.

Refuge is about the places and spaces that bring us comfort in times of conflict. Bringing together devotional mantras from the Hebrew, Sanskrit, Pali, and Gurumukhi languages with songs of love and grief, the album is a meditation on what it means to reach for wisdom and compassion in the face of life’s suffering, and in that reaching, transform.