蜜桃影视

This is part of our Community Cultivator series, which highlights how innovators across all sectors build and sustain global communities from the ground up.

Valerie June is a singer and songwriter with a unique and infectious sound, but she鈥檚 more than that. She鈥檚 a yogi, an entrepreneur and a former professional house cleaner. (Doing something for seven years makes you a professional, she notes.) And now she鈥檚 an author.

The main character of her children鈥檚 book is a toy instrument, a banjolele (half-banjo, half-ukulele) named Baby. With illustrations by Marcela Avelar, came out this past November, but its journey began six years earlier. June was taking part in the Kennedy Center鈥檚 program, founded by Michelle Obama, which sends artists and creators into schools throughout the nation. Students loved her story about Baby, and Turnaround Art鈥檚 Kathy Fletcher encouraged her to turn it into a book. 鈥淲hen I heard Valerie tell the enchanting story,鈥� Fletcher told me. 鈥淚 knew it would be an immediate favorite as a children鈥檚 book. I鈥檓 so happy that this beautiful book, with its positive, inspiring message is out and reaching children everywhere.鈥�

When not , June lives in Humboldt, Tennessee, and Early Learning Nation magazine caught up with her for a brief but intense call. Here鈥檚 what we learned.

1. Anything can be creative. Last month at South by Southwest, June and gave a talk together about creativity. Her message to people who don鈥檛 think they鈥檙e creative is: Think again. You may not play an instrument or write poetry, but any pursuit can take a creative form, if you think of it that way. 鈥淢aybe you like to design your nails,鈥� she says, 鈥淥r maybe you love to cook. It’s about the tone of things. It鈥檚 the way you do it.鈥�

As a struggling musician, she worked as a house cleaner, and there were lots of times during those seven years that she hated the drudgery and counted the minutes until she could get out of there. 鈥淭here were other days,鈥� she notes, 鈥渨hen I saw myself as a domestic artist, and I was ready to go make other people’s homes beautiful and to have it be a sanctuary for them when they came back.鈥� June and Ayers urged their SXSW audience to think of creativity as an antidote to overwork, media oversaturation and all the toxic elements of our society. 鈥淭here is a revolutionary power in creativity,鈥� she asserts, 鈥渁nd in the communities that it builds.鈥�

2. At first, all it takes is 10 minutes a day. Although banjolele is one of the easier instruments to learn, June confesses that, unlike singing, not every part of music comes naturally to her. 鈥淚 never doubted my ability to belt out a song,鈥� she says, recalling the time she sang 鈥淭his Land Is Your Land鈥� in Mr. Wallace鈥檚 fourth-grade class. 鈥淚nstruments, that was the hard part. And keeping time,鈥� she adds, thinking back on the girls on the playground who mastered elaborate hand-clapping games. 鈥淚 couldn’t keep the rhythm at all. It was very embarrassing. So I decided, Why not become a musician for a living? I like a challenge.鈥�

Learning anything new can be frustrating, but her rule is to start with 10 minutes a day. 鈥淚 get mad at the instrument and sometimes have to walk away,鈥� she says. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 still there waiting for me the next day.鈥� With practice, the 10 minutes stretches out to a half-hour and then an hour or more. And before you know it, people like and start noticing. Her 2021 album The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers, Rolling Stone magazine declared, 鈥渦ltimately feels like a record about perseverance, survival and acceptance, about turning one鈥檚 gaze from scars to nighttime stars.鈥�

3. Different is good. As a singer, June always knew she didn鈥檛 sound like other singers. Her tone is a bit scratchy and sometimes nasal and won鈥檛 remind anyone of her 80s idols, Whitney Houston and Tracy Chapman. The word idiosyncratic comes up a lot. 鈥淗er voice is at once grounded and cosmic, earthy yet divine,鈥� . June admits, 鈥淚 always used to ask myself, Why am I doing this? And the answer was always, I’m doing it for me. I’m doing it because I love it, for my joy.鈥� She鈥檚 grateful for the growing audience that does connect to her music. For those who don鈥檛 鈥� it鈥檚 simple: 鈥淣ot everything’s for everybody.鈥�

4. Yoga means unity. The word yoga, June explains, comes from a Sanskrit word meaning to join or unite. 鈥淭he ultimate goal is union,鈥� she says. 鈥淲hich is the point of anything that gets you out of the ego and the self and all the things not helping people to grow and build community.鈥�

Her forthcoming publication, , concerns, in her words, manifesting dreams. It鈥檚 not just about working on yourself, she says, referring to a theme common to many wellness titles. Whether readers are connecting to nature or to their communities, the aim is overcoming the forces constantly trying to divide us, based on race, class and status. 鈥淚 don’t think everybody has to be volunteering for everything at every meeting of their neighborhood association,鈥� she says. 鈥淵ou could be a hermit and create a harmonious world by aspiring to unity.鈥�

5. Kindness takes a little extra effort. The years she spent cleaning houses, among other memories, help June to try a little harder when people are less than pleasant. 鈥淭hink about the neighbor that you just don’t get along with,鈥� she says, 鈥渙r the person at the coffee shop who’s grumpy all the time who clearly doesn’t like you. How do you build a community and keep love in action with them?鈥� That person鈥檚 stress is not yours to take on, she counsels, but there鈥檚 a lot of darkness in the world, and you just have to remember a lot of us are worried and frightened and don鈥檛 always remember to smile.

There鈥檚 something good waiting at the other side of fear. According to June, the lesson of her book is this: 鈥淭here’s a little voice inside you that says, I’m scared and I’m terrified, but I really, really, really see myself one day able to make it through a song.鈥�

This story originally published on Early Learning Nation and is now archived on 蜜桃影视. Learn more here.