Joni Mitchell (1943–) was born Roberta Joan Anderson on this day in Alberta, Canada. She survived childhood polio and found refuge in art, poetry, and music. Her left-hand weakness led her to experiment with alternate guitar tunings, opening shimmering harmonic worlds that became part of her signature sound.

As her voice and vision grew, other artists carried her songs into the air: Tom Rush with “Circle Game”, Judy Collins with “Both Sides Now.” In her own catalog, she painted with line and color — the Paris light of Court and Spark and the lyric, “I was a free man in Paris, I felt unfettered and alive.”

She also wrote the generational hymn Woodstock: “We are stardust, we are golden… and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.” The line still lands like a blessing.

After time away from the stage, Mitchell’s radiant return at the 2022 Newport Folk Festival became a circle of friends and songs. The live album from that night, At Newport, won the 2024 Grammy for Best Folk Album, a tender testament to endurance and joy.

Her music reminds us that small things gathered with care can heal: a tuning chosen for ease, a melody turned just right, a lyric that finds the truth. The heart does its quiet work. We listen.