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Sara Hickman (photo by Todd V. Wolfson)


A Conversation with Sara Hickman (continued)

PM: Which leads me to the fantastic cover and the inside painting. One is led to believe, between the Hindu-inspired cover and inside portrait and the Pope Benedict quote on the back, that your spirituality is, to say the least, multifaceted.

SH: Yeah. I come from a Christian base, but I feel like that beautiful quote that "God is too big to fit inside one religion." I want to say this is a very big world, but it's getting smaller and smaller. And because it's getting smaller and we're more interconnected, there's all this pain and suffering, which is so unnecessary. And if we could connect from the heart--and it sounds so corny, but I just feel like God must be weeping, because to me God isn't a condemning being. God isn't about war and famine, and when people blame God, I think they're not getting the point. The point is God created this beautiful, beautiful planet, and all these beautiful beings in it. The fact that a sperm and an egg meet and a person is created is not happenstance. There is a great purpose, and each of us is divine. And if one person chooses to be Hindu and one person chooses to be Hebrew, that is mostly, I have to say, because of their geographical placement.

PM: Absolutely.

SH: If I had been brought up in India, I would probably be Buddhist or Hindu or Muslim. But the fact is, I was brought up in a western culture, in Houston, Texas, by two Presbyterian parents, who were artist heathens and really didn't go to church at all.

[laughter]

SH: So I have this whole--I really feel that Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell really shed the light on the fact that we are all connected. And when we're in a state of disconnect, that's what creates war and famine and suffering. Our job is to stay connected so that God can flow through us. And when we were disconnected, that is when the ability of evil thoughts can rise and take action. And it's our job to stay in a place of love.

PM: Evil just being the absence of God consciousness, after all.

SH: Yeah. I just think of God as pure love.

PM: Yeah.

SH: We have to stay with the essence. And to me it's an honor, and almost sometimes a burden [laughs] to be a musician. There's that beautiful song--you'll know who wrote it--"Too Sensitive For This World." [Sarah is probably referring to a Ben Vaughn song by that name; click here to listen to a clip of it.] And just the fact that as an artist you can't stop reacting to what you see and what you feel. It's this constant--I don't know if evolution is too strong of a word. But that's how it feels to me. I feel like I'm being led down this path, and I have to react, and I have to speak out about it.

And sometimes I get it right and sometimes I don't, but I can't control it. It's just this physical thing, and I have to respond to it and give it out to the world. And then if other people respond to it, wow, that connection is so beautiful! I love being on stage. Last night I did a show--my band was so perfect, and everything about it was perfect. And the love in the room was perfect. And people were crying, and people were laughing, and people were throwing their arms around each other dancing--

PM: Wow.

SH: --and moving, and singing with me.

PM: What magic.

SH: Yeah. You can't not feel that there's a greater essence to that, because I'm just a woman with a guitar singing.

PM: Yeah.

SH: And there are millions of us doing that. But what is it that makes people sit down on a floor or stand up and dance and look in your eyes as you look in theirs, and there's this wave of connectedness. Ah! Man, it's better than sex, it's better than giving birth, because it's connectedness! Ah, it's beautiful! And I wake up--and this morning I was just writing all these people thank you letters and writing texts to the guys in my band, and writing them love letters about how much I love them.

[laughter]

PM: That's fantastic.

SH: And then, oh, I get to talk to Frank about it all, it's awesome! I can't wait!

PM: You're unbelievable. So what about that incredible portrait of you on the inside--what is the story about that?

SH: Well, let me tell you. You have the promo CD--and this is all very interesting, I think--you got the cover, and you got one of the inside panels. There's another inside panel. Did I send you a little postcard, too, that--

PM: I didn't get a postcard, no.

SH: Okay. There's a double-sided postcard, too, that shows the other artwork. There is also a blue painting of me.

PM: Oh, I saw a blue painting on the web.

SH: Yeah, that's the other inside of me. It doesn't look as much like me, but of me holding a baby--and that's because it's a double disc. So one disc, as I said, is happy--or at least it seems happy.

PM: Right, with underpinnings, right.

SH: Exactly. So the orange painting is the "Thread of Happiness" disc, and then the blue painting goes with the "Mirror of Despair" disc. And when you actually open the digipak, there are these two beautiful portraits that this woman, Aletha St. Romain, created.

PM: They're so beautiful.

SH: Well, I went to her, and I said, "I love your painting. It says exactly what I want to say. Can you create two portraits of me that show the two sides in me for these discs?" And she said, "Yes." And she was an angel to work with. And she's from New Orleans, and so she has--there's this depth and this beauty as an artist, but also we'd just gone through the horrible thing with Katrina, so I think she put a lot of emotion into that. She has a website you can go to and look at more of her beautiful art. And I love that she was a woman, and just love how she captured me.

"Thread of Happiness" by Aletha St. Romain

PM: It's outstanding. I mean, I really think that orange picture in particular should be a purchasable poster to your fans.

SH: Oh, really?

PM: Yeah.

SH: That's a great idea.

PM: Yeah, because I see zillions of records all the time, and I never pick one up and go, "I want a poster of that signed by the artist. I've got to have it!" It's so much about all that's beautiful about womanhood.

SH: Thank you so much. Thank you for saying that.    continue

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