“How can you ‘stop and smell the roses’ if you don’t even notice them?,” Kara Connolly asks in her new single “Roses” — a breezy commentary on the passage of time, our success driven society, and the singer-songwriter’s desire for a return to innocence where she can finally slow down and be more present in her life.
“I went on a 3 day plant medicine ceremony (ayahuasca—one of the world’s most powerful psychedelics) in search of understanding and healing,” Kara reveals. “We had to walk several miles through brush and cactuses to find what would eventually become our ceremony grounds. Psychedelics put me in touch with my heart and ground me with the earth, so on the walk back I realized I hadn’t even noticed my surroundings on the way up whatsoever, such as the striking color of the flowers. I was so in my head…I spend a lot of my time there. There’s a line in the song that says ‘they tell me slow down before you break down, I’m almost there now’ which really has two meanings…I’m almost to my destination…I can see it…so I feel like I have to keep going, but I’ve also nearly broken down at several stops along the way.”