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a high performing person who has been motivated by perfection and then rewarded for it. Because it’s a reckoning we all have to come to terms with, the fact that nature isn’t perfect, it’s in harmony. AK: What remains on your bucket list? Jewel: I was lucky to be a person that felt very engaged in my music that was a real passion and purpose. I knew that I was here to help people and my music helped me do that. I thought that if I served my purpose, I would just be fine and I would be taken care of, and it almost killed me. I just wore myself out because I kept thinking well if I’m serving a good purpose, I’ll be healthy. It isn’t actually how that works so I really exhausted myself and wore myself out and worked probably three hundred times harder than I needed to because I didn’t know how to do less at the time. AK: Do you mean like recording, touring, appearances? Jewel: Yes, I was doing 1,000 shows a year. I was doing five and six shows a day. AK: Were you ever at home? Jewel: No not for decades (laugh). It was in service of my purpose, and I was like that is noble so somehow, I don’t know I thought God owed me health. I have no idea what I was thinking (laugh). I didn’t even realize it was a thought and so for me as I re-engage and I have a new record and new book coming out, it has been a privilege to get to redo this in a whole new mindset. Not because I have a chip on my shoulder, not because I have to be a slave to my purpose, but because I want to see what I’m capable of when I’m rested and engaging in something in a much healthier way. My native uncles taught me a really beautiful definition of power and it is an act of power benefits both yourself and the community. AK: Tell me about the new music. Jewel: I have a new album called Freewheeling Woman coming out. This was the first record I’ve written from scratch. Even with my first album I had 100’s of songs already written by the age of eighteen, so I would always just take songs out of my back catalogue, whether it was pop, country, or whatever. I didn’t want to do that for this one even though I have a lot of songs in my back catalog that I love. I wanted this new album to be written from the ground up and reflect who I am now. I think I was forty-five when I was writing it and it was hard! I see now why middle-aged artists do a lot of drugs (laugh). AK: Oh man (laughs). Jewel: They do it to bypass the work that it takes to get past the domestic architecture that had gotten into me, and to find a new, honest, raw, but different new place creatively. I think I wrote two hundred songs for this album to get the 12 or 14 that I like. It has a more soul feel. Kind of like a Muscles Shoals soul feel. I’m singing very differently than I’ve sung. Singing a lot better than I’ve ever sung and its sort of a celebration. I’m 47 now but it feels fun to be just like on my side of life. I enjoy it (laugh) AK: Did you ever at a time in your career feel that you ever needed to use substances to reach like that higher level of creativity? Jewel: I never felt that was something I needed to do. I was raised in bars watching people drink and do drugs until they died so I never drank or did drugs. AK: Last year was the 25th anniversary of “Pieces of You” that is a milestone. How did you celebrate? Jewel: I did a show here where I live in this little theatre. It was during quarantine and I did it live. Which was really fun for me to be home, be with my son. I love doing visual art, so I did this huge 40-foot back drop drew it and painted it. Sang the whole album top to bottom which was so fun. I had never done that. AK: What do you think you came into this life as Jewel Kilcher to learn, and what do you think you came here to teach? Jewel: I think that a lot of us feel this huge obligation to see why we’re here. Something I learned from my Native American uncles is that the purpose of your life