STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Jewel began questioning the concept of nature versus nurture as she watched a rabbit that had been raised in a chicken coop.

The child of a dysfunctional family, she was already a statistic. She was living in her car after losing her job because she refused her boss’s sexual advances. And she had begun stealing to get by.

“I started off shoplifting vegetables. Pretty soon that led to the hard stuff--imported pistachios,” the four-time Grammy nominee told an audience of a thousand people at the Sun Valley Pavilion  Friday evening.

Could she break the cycle? Could she learn to be happy?

The 38-year-old singer described how she began keeping a happiness journal. She watched people who appeared to be happy and started imitating them. And she began collecting inspirational quotes, such as “Happiness doesn’t depend on what you have or who you are but what you think.”

“There’s a lot of talk about what we inherit genetically. But we inherit emotions, too,” said Jewel, who recounts her story in her memoir, “Never Broken: Songs Are Only Half the Story.” “We’re raised speaking an emotional language, whether we like it or not. I knew I had to learn a new emotional language if I didn’t want to repeat the cycle.”

Jewel’s concert marked the first time that the Sun Valley Wellness Festival has held its kick-off keynote address in the Pavilion. It was a gamble, given Memorial Day Weekend’s traditionally iffy weather. But the temperature was pleasant and the sun streamed through as slides of the northern lights and Baldy’s ski runs rotated on a screen behind the singer.

Jewel described how she had grown up in Homer, Alaska—the granddaughter of a Swiss immigrant who took advantage of free land in Alaska and made the first recorded crossing of the Harding Icefield. Her family was full of very creative pioneer stock folk and she started singing in a family band—considered the Von Trapps of Alaska--at a young age.

When her parents divorced, she and her father began singing as a duo—perhaps, the only fourth-grader to sing in a lumberjack bar.

“A lot of the characters I saw there have stuck with me,” she said. “I saw people in a lot of pain who were trying to cover their pain with alcohol. Problem is: When you try to cover your pain like that, you end up creating more pain.”

Her father had his own pain, caused by post traumatic stress from war and his own family’s emotional distance, and he began to be physically abusive. Jewel left home for a cabin in the woods at 15 and  eventually moved to a boarding school in Interlochen, Mich., where she learned to play guitar while majoring in operatic voice.

She nearly got kicked out of school the first day, she revealed, when she showed up with a hunting knife strapped to her waist—something no one would have given a second thought to back home in Alaska.

She took it back when she headed across country to reunite with her mother in San Diego. All was well and good for awhile. But the two had to take to living in their cars after they had trouble paying the rent.

In desperation, Jewel offered to sing at a San Diego coffee house that was about to go under. A couple surfers showed up the first night. But, as word spread about the blond-haired girl with the heartfelt songs, people began standing outside in the pouring rain to watch her through a window.

The record labels took note and she released her first album, “Pieces of You,” in 1995.

Her father, who stars in The Discovery Channel’s. “Alaska: The Last Frontier,” eventually learned to talk a new emotional language after his own father finally told him he loved him. And he and Jewel have a good relationship today, the singer related.

“Forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves—it has nothing to do with that other person. But it means cutting the cord,” she said.

Jewel said she was fortunate that she grew up with nature right outside her door because the natural world taught her so many valuable lessons.

“For instance, I learned that the things that are most prone to break are the things that are rigid. That taught me the valuable of being adaptable.”

The natural world also offered a simple environment which, she said, many kids don’t have today.

The need for simplicity in such a busy world led her to conduct a workshop with “Simplicity Parenting” expert Kim John Payne on Friday. And the two will be back at the Sun Valley Wellness Festival  at 2 p.m. today—Saturday, May 28-- offering a  presentation titled “How to Be your Best When Your Kids Are At Their Worst.”

“There is a need for simplicity parenting—not only for the kids but also for ourselves,” Jewel told the audience.

Among those in the audience was Nathaniel Von Beitler, who moved to Ketchum after participating in a camp for veterans offered by Higher Ground Sun Valley. He was reuniting with his 18-year-old daughter Tatiana Skylann Von Beitler for the first time since being discharged from military a few years ago. Tatiana, who lives in San Luis Obispo, had wanted to see Jewel, and it served as a good excuse for a  weeklong reunion.

“She’s even better in person,” said Tatiana of the singer, who sang expressively in a crystalline voice.

Elizabeth Grabher who presides over the Wellness Festival Board of Directors, said she had followed Jewel since she was in her 20s.

“Her story is incredible,” she told the audience. “She’s so raw about everything that happened in her life. And she turned it around to say she’s whole, not broken. We all have a gift to give every day to our loved ones—that’s what I hope you will take away from this festival.”

THE SUN VALLEY WELLNESS FESTIVAL continues today at Sun Valley Inn. 

A free Experience Hall featuring health products and services will be open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the Sun Valley Inn.

Kevin Hines’s presentation, “Cracked Not Broken,” has moved to 9:30 a.m. Sunday with a Mental Wellness Panel following at 11:15 a.m. The presentations are free.

A new speaker presentation has been added to Sunday’s schedule. Steve Kuzara, CEO of Vyykn, will talk about technology’s influence on society in a presentation titled “The Greatest Presentation Ever: It’s All About You” at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 29.

For information, go to www.sunvalleywellness.org.