By |

Use with care, use with care, use with care.

This song is listed as being generally Native American – which is likely all that the STJ commission could find at the time. A link to the source material, Songs for Earthlings, is now dead.

However, I did a search for the lyrics and discovered that one musician/environmental educator, Hawk Hurst, identified this as being from the Hupa tribe of northern California. There are additional verses in the version he’s printed, including two to grandparents,  and planets and animals showing up too.

The Earth is our Mother, we must take care of her;
The Earth is our Mother, we must take care of her.

Chorus:
heyyunga hoyunga, heyyung yung;
heyyunga hoyunga, heyyung yung

Her sacred ground we walk upon with every step we take;
Her sacred ground we walk upon with every step we take;

Chorus

The Earth is our Mother, she will take care of us;
The Earth is our Mother, she will take care of us;

Chorus

The Sky is our Father, we will take care of him;
the Sky is our Father, we will take care of him.

Chorus

The Sea is our Sister, we will take care of her;
the Sea is our Sister, we will take care of her.

Chorus

The Forest is our Brother, we will take care of him;
the Forest is our Brother, we will take care of him.

Chorus

And I say use with care because the last thing we need to do in our congregations is use this without acknowledging the culture from which it comes. I’ve talked several times throughout this practice about cultural appropriation and the use of music from cultures that are not our own; it’s a danger to just use pieces like this as spectacles – something we drag out once a year – just as it’s a danger to use them without acknowledgement or change the meaning or intent. We do a disservice to these rich cultures that have already been badly treated, and we throw mud in the eye of our first principle. So just… use with care.

Musically, I’m neither here nor there with it. I don’t love this piece, nor do I hate it. It honestly just doesn’t speak to me, despite my high pagan days. I think even then I wasn’t attracted to the native American traditions – I leaned toward the Germanic and Celtic (not surprising, since I’m German and English).  It’s easy to learn and can probably be done in sort of a round style, with the chorus being the second part of the round.

A programming note: tomorrow is the last day of Hymn by Hymn.

I know, right? How did that happen? It seems simultaneously like it was just yesterday and a hundred years ago that I started this spiritual practice. We’ll celebrate our last hymn tomorrow, and I’ll have a wrap up on Thursday, with a preview of what’s next.

—-

Image – ubiquitous view of the coastline of northern California.

By |

This is the last in our earth chant quodlibet (yes, since relearning the word last week, I’ve rather enjoyed saying it and typing it, especially since it’s appropriate), and it’s been an … interesting side trip. The melodies of the chants are, intentionally, rather simple, and I imagine the complexity builds as you add other chants – especially if you have a strong song leader and an attentive congregation.

But what’s been especially interesting is the question of appropriation. Over these last few days I’ve wondered about (or been called to wonder about) not so much the inclusion of a song from another culture but rather the use of distinctive phrases or lyrics or styles that come from/are reminiscent of the music and spirituality of American Indigenous cultures. And the truth is that for me, I’m not sure today where the line is between inclusion and misappropriation. And…  we can’t know what the discussions were among the compilers of STJ regarding these things – although by the early 2000s they certainly would have been dealing with some of these question, so I expect they chose with care. And, we know that even 12 years on, some things have shifted even more (such an awareness of binary and ableist language). I do know that I sometimes lean on the side of caution, but I would rather be cautious than careless. So… make of this what you will.

The good news, I suppose, is that this last one is rather neutral. It’s a simple tune that could come from anywhere, with language and metaphors that could come from anywhere.  I vaguely remember it from my high pagan days, and knowing that it comes from Circle of Song, I’m not surprised. (That resource was like a hymnal for one pagan group I was involved with.)

Evening breeze, spirit song,
sings to me when the day is done.
Mother earth awakens me
with the heart beat of the sea.

And… that’s it really. A sweet little chant from a great book published in the 1990s that has helped round out STJ’s collection of Sixth Source songs.

And thus endeth the quodlibet.

 

By |

Way way back on December 16, 2016 – back when this practice was still new – I wrote these words:

I wish I could make sense of this one.  No, seriously. I mean, I get that the lyrics are a rain song, and thus appropriate for a section called The World of Nature. I also get that we want to include voices beyond white men, and thus the hymn led me to learn about Joseph Cotter, Jr, who was an African American playwright and poet who died of tuberculosis at age 24.

But seriously – this too, too simple German tune? … MAYBE this tune sounds okay in a round, but certainly not in a song about dry earth and ancient (I assume native American) drums.

Everything just seems wrong about this.

Well, howdy. I didn’t realize until literally a minute ago that – much like his work on How Sweet the Darkness – had written a much better, much more appropriate tune for these lyrics.

On the dusty earth drum beats the falling rain;
now a whispered murmur, now a louder strain.

Slender, silvery drumsticks on an ancient drum
beat the mellow music bidding life to come.

Chords of life awakened, notes of greening spring,
rise and fall triumphant over everything.

Slender, silvery drumsticks beat the long tattoo —
God, the Great Musician, calling life anew.

The tune that Jason wrote (and which the hymnal commission put together as part of their quodlibet), does echo some of the chant styles we think of as coming from native American tribes, but even without that, the minor key and complexity of the canon works a lot better.

And yet.

I’m not sure even now that I would use it, given the weird conflagration of European American composer, African American lyricist, and sacred imagery that belongs to either (or maybe both?) Native American or African traditions. No offense to Jason, of course – his composition does a whole not more to honor the text than the German-washed-in-the-blood-hymn setting we find in STLT. But even now, I feel uncomfortable as a European American myself considering the use of this without a serious and perhaps belabored content warning.

 

By |

They say brevity is the source of wit; I can affirm that a stomach flu is the source of brevity.

So I’ll be brief:

The second part of our quodlibet is this chant by Windsong Dianne Martin. As noted on the UUA Song Information page,

This song was written on Spencer’s Butte, Eugene, Oregon in 1985. The composer writes, “I was sitting with my friend David, looking out over the vast view of the Willamette Valley, wondering about the ancient roots of the area, talking about the original native tribes who lived there before the white settlers came. We became quiet and sat in meditation for a long time. I was shifted out of meditation dramatically when I became aware that I was singing the song Mother I Feel You Under My Feet, Mother I Hear Your Heartbeat. I sang it for a long time and was very moved by the experience.”

And here are the lyrics:

Mother I feel you under my feet,
Mother I hear your heart beat,

Chorus:
Heya heya heya ya heya heya ho,
Heya heya heya heya heya ho

Mother I hear you in the river song,
Eternal waters flowing on and on,

Chorus

Father I see you when the eagle flies,
Light of the Spirit, gonna take us higher.

Chorus

I wrestle again, as I always do on these pages, with the exclusively binary language and always wish for “parent” to be one of the verses along with “mother” and “father”… but of course that wasn’t a consideration then, nor is it appropriate to just change a living composer’s lyrics.

Anyway. It’s a good tune and an easy thing to sing – it’s not written as a canon or round but it would certainly work like that if you were not doing the quodlibet thing.

—

Photo of the view from Spencer’s Butte by Tess Freeman/Oregon Daily Emerald.

By |

Sometimes the universe likes to prepare you in advance for something you will need. In some cases, it’s the impulse buy that comes in handy later that month, or a song you hear that the choir director asks you to sing a week later, or in my case, it’s a conversation on Wednesday that leads to your mentor looking for a different word and stumbling upon Dictionary.com’s word of the day, “quodlibet,” then talking about how it’s probably something I learned in music theory classes when I was young but have forgotten the term for…. and now here we are, a quodlibet set before us.

“But Kimberley, it’s a short chant. How can it be a quodlibet?”

Well, it’s….

“Hate to interrupt, but what the heck is a quodlibet?”

I’m so glad you asked. You see, a quodlibet is “a composition consisting of two or more independent and harmonically complementary melodies, usually quotations of well-known tunes, played or sung together, usually to different texts, in a polyphonic arrangement.” Dictionary.com suggests it is humorous, but I don’t think it has to be – Ysaye Barnwell leads communities of singers in quodlibets of spirituals, and those are quite moving.

Anyway, the whole reason this comes up is that there’s a note at the bottom of this chant – a traditional Navajo prayer – that reads “all of the earth chants, numbers 1069-1072, may be sung at the same time.” And handily, they are all in the same key (C), with the same number of bars (8), and honestly with the same basic theme (connecting to earth, sky, and spirit).

What I love about making a quodlibet out of these songs is that it blends themes from various traditions, along with imagery and language. Not all is gendered – although I totally get why some of it is. Some is true chant in that there are only a few words (like today’s). Others in this set are chant-like but have multiple verses. But all of them are easy to learn and easy to blend.

Today’s is a simple but powerful piece invoking the feminine divine; it’s up to you to decide if it’s about the earth, or about god, or about something else entirely… but it is powerful and beautiful.

Ancient Mother, I hear you calling.
Ancient Mother, I hear your song.
Ancient Mother, I feel your laughter.
Ancient Mother, I taste your tears.

You can hear a version of it by Libana from their album A Circle is Cast here.

Update: In my rush to get to a meeting, I neglected to address the need for care on this piece (thanks to Kristin Grassel Schmidt for noting the oversight):

This chant is from the Navajo tradition, a people who lived in the area we now know as New Mexico. They suffered centuries of colonization and conquest from Europeans, but unlike many native American tribes, they still live for the most part on their ancestral land.

The chant we have above is more than likely part of a much larger religious event called a ‘chantway.’ According to NavajoIndian.net,

The Navajo culture is big into ceremonies and rituals. Their performances are usually four days, two days, or one day. Although some chants could be as long as nine days and require dozens of helpers. The most important ceremonies are the ones for treatment of ills, mental and physical. The Navajo are also very big into nature, so almost every act of their life is a ceremony of nature, including their building of the hogan, or the planting of the crops. All the Navajo culture ceremonies are included with songs and prayers.

In the Navajo culture and traditions there are over 24 different Chantway ceremonies performed by singers, and over twelve hundred different sandpainting designs that are available to the medicine men.

I think it’s important to keep in mind that this chant is distinctive to the Navajo, and that we must use care to not assume a ubiquitous “native American” tradition. Just as the Irish are not the Scottish are not the English, the Navajo are not the Hopi are not the Iroquois.

—

Painting is by Navajo artist Tony Abeyta. Learn more about his artwork here.

 

By |

One of the things I love best about pagan ritual is the embodiment of creating sacred space. It’s not just about entering a room and calling it sacred, it’s about being present to the physicality of the room, recognizing our connection to and grounding as part of creation, and visualizing the protective and enlivening presence of the immanent divine. There is intention in creating that sacred space, that ‘time out of time, place out of place’ where we can meet that which we call holy. In some circles, participants are asked to face in the four directions as we ‘call’ them into our presence. And as we do, we do have the sense that we are visualizing the energetic circle being formed around us.

That embodiment is reflected beautifully in this piece by UU composer Amanda Udis-Kessler; her lyrics connect us humans to the interdependent web not just as things to see but as things to feel and be changed by.

Mother Earth, beloved garden, living treasure under foot,
All our days you ground our being: sage and thistle, grass and root.
Herbs to heal us, plants to feed us, land to till and tend and plow.
With the pendant, deep as midnight, North we ask you: be here now.

Father Air, your inspiration holds together all that lives.
As we breathe, our minds see clearly, leading us to love and give.
Raging whirlwind, whispered breezes, violent gale and gentle cloud.
With the blade as sharp as morning, East we ask you: be here now.

Brother Fire, great transformer, share the passion of the sun.
In our hearths, your warmth revives us, cooks our food and heats our homes.
Flaming candle, blood within us, blazing desert, will to grow.
With the wand, directing power, South we ask you: be here now.

Sister Water, ever flowing, ocean, river, pond and rain.
Drink we now and quench our thirsting, cleanse us, we begin again.
Mist and ice, a host of changes, all that courage will allow.
With the cup, the holy chalice, West we ask you, be here now.

Lover Spirit, intuition in the center of our souls.
In your love we find relation. All connected, we are whole.
Timeless mystery, quiet conscience, deepest values, voice inside.
With the drum and with the cauldron, this we ask you, be our guide.

I really like this piece. It’s great, of course, for calling the directions to set sacred space. But it’s also great for talking about how we connect to the planet we call home. Of course, there are issues with the binary language – another case of how far we have come in just 13 years. I’m not sure what to replace them with, and I don’t know if our composer has considered a change, but I hope she has.

Meanwhile, it’s lovely to sing, easy to play, and a definite keeper.

 

By |

Rejected intro paragraphs:

This makes me think of Greg Greenway, Joe Jencks, and Pat Wictor – the members of the musical group Brother Sun. Except they’ve broken up now, and any memory I have of them has nothing to do with the song.

It’s nice to have a song that’s good to call the directions with…except…wait… huh. I don’t know how you’d do that physically. Never mind.

Let’s start right off with the ugly truth: there’s a lot of binary language. Because I am Captain Obvious.

Who doesn’t love a Scottish melody – because if it isn’t Scottish, it’s crap! Yeah, now I’m just getting silly. Plus, actor/comedian Mike Myers is notoriously a massive, impossible jerk and that’s why he doesn’t make movies anymore.

Well, folks, I’m out of ideas. This song doesn’t move me one way or another, and I can’t seem to find a way in. So… let’s just star. This song, by Sharon Anway, has some nice metaphors for elements of life…

O Brother Sun, you bring us light, all shining ‘round in fiery might.
O Sister Moon, you heal and bless, your beauty shines in tenderness.
O Brother Wind, you sweep the hills, your mighty breath both freshens and fills.
O Sister Water, you cleanse and flow through rivers and streams, in ice and snow.

O Brother Fire, you warm our night with all your dancing colored light.
O Sister Earth, you feed all things, all birds, all creatures, all scales and wings.
O Sister Death, you meet us here and take us to our God so near.
O God of Life, we give you praise for all your creatures, for all your ways.

…which are, by and large, the work of Francis of Assisi. Now normally I’d be cooing over stuff by this particular monk/mystic/saint, because I was born on his feast day and tend to like his mystic writings. But this one has always left me cold. Anway’s setting doesn’t help. The fact that it’s a list doesn’t help either. When we talk about hymns doing some work to get us from one state to another, this one gets me from unchecked-off list to checked-off list without anything actually being accomplished.

Ho hum.

And I’m very likely alone on this. That’s fine. I’m not a fan of it, I struggle to find a way to use it. But blessed are those who do.

By |

FREEBIRD!

Let me explain (updated 1/22/2018): at General Assembly in Louisville in 2013, despite terrible cell reception, many attendees endeavored to live tweet the events as they unfolded. On Friday morning, we sang Blue Boat Home. Friend and colleague Hannah Roberts made a comment to her friend Meredith Lukow, who tweeted:

… because like “Freebird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd, it is a popular song that people longed to hear, often requested, and reacted to in a kind of rock-anthem awe. The joke spread like wildfire, being retweeted and remarked upon throughout the days. On Sunday morning, Bill Schultz preached about the earth and its inhabitants, and as he finished (to great applause), the band began playing this song. To which Twitter – and more than a few voices in the room – shouted “FREEBIRD!” and more than a few hands in the room held up their hands as though holding a lighter. It was an hysterically transcendent moment.

Which is not surprising, because it is a beautifully transcendent song.

Peter Mayer wrote these gorgeous lyrics to the gorgeous Hyfrodol tune, but he also recast the tune a bit. It’s still in the same meter (3/4), but guitar strums turned to piano notation makes it feel more like 6/8, which makes it feel as rolling and pulsing as the ocean itself. He also extends the final phrase, giving space and room for “blue…. boat… home” to breathe and fill us with wonder.

Though below me, I feel no motion standing on these mountains and plains.
Far away from the rolling ocean still my dry land heart can say:
I’ve been sailing all my life now, never harbor or port have I known.
The wide universe is the ocean I travel and the earth is my blue boat home.

Sun my sail and moon my rudder as I ply the starry sea,
leaning over the edge in wonder, casting questions into the deep.
Drifting here with my ship’s companions, all we kindred pilgrim souls,
making our way by the lights of the heavens in our beautiful blue boat home.

I give thanks to the waves up holding me, hail the great winds urging me on,
greet the infinite sea before me, sing the sky my sailor’s song:
I was born up on the fathoms, never harbor or port have I known.
The wide universe is the ocean I travel, and the earth is my blue boat home.

Really, there is nothing bad to say about this one, except maybe that we can’t use it all the time. Mayer gorgeously captures the awe and wonder of our first source, and the amazing planetary grounding of our seventh principle, along with mysticism and humanism and gratitude.

Really. What a gorgeous song.

—

A short programming note: After today, I have only ten…TEN! hymns left. We’re in the home stretch! On the 11th day, I will write some sort of summary post, and then I’ll take a short sabbatical from daily writing while I figure out what’s next.

By |

In this exciting episode: Jason Shelton did a great innovative thing and I just had to go and innovate it further.

This may be one of my favorite liturgical pieces – a chorus by Jason Shelton to make new the stunning piece by Sophia Lyon Fahs that most of us use at Christmastime, often on Christmas eve. The melody is sweet and simple, warm and peaceful. Jason’s response turns the ‘ho hum, we’ve heard it before’ recitation into an interactive, musical responsive reading. And the truth is, we need more of this kind of thing – I play a lot with unexpected sung responses, but I’m not a composer, so I’ve interleaved pieces. Jason just goes right ahead and composes something. Bless him for that gift.

Anyway. The piece as Jason envisioned it is as follows, interleaving with each stanza of the Fahs poem:

Chorus:
Each night a child is born is a holy night:
A time for singing,
A time for wondering,
A time for worshipping,
Each night a child is born is a holy night.

Reader:
For so the children come
And so they have been coming.
Always in the same way they come
born of the seed of man and woman.

Chorus

Reader:
No angels herald their beginnings.
No prophets predict their future courses.
No wise men see a star to show where to find
the babe that will save humankind.

 

Chorus

Reader:
Yet each night a child is born is a holy night.
Fathers and mothers–
sitting beside their children’s cribs
feel glory in the sight of a new life beginning.
They ask, “Where and how will this new life end?

Chorus

And when you sing it with the congregation, that’s perfect.

However, the first time I used it, in December 2005 at my home congregation, we didn’t yet have a full complement of STJ, nor did the minister think we had time to teach the congregation a new piece for Christmas Eve. So I involved the choir… and yes, I innovated. I imagined an a capella setting, with the choir singing parts as written in STJ, and then landing on a hum to underscore the reader. Here’s how I have done it:

Choir (singing):
Each night a child is born is a holy night –
A time for singing,
A time for wondering,
A time for worshipping.
Each night a child is born is a holy night.
(hum final chord under reader – don’t do bass tag)

Reader:
For so the children come
And so they have been coming.
Always in the same way they come
born of the seed of man and woman.

Choir (singing):
(Back to beginning of song)
Each night a child is born is a holy night…
(hum landing chord under reader)

Reader:
No angels herald their beginnings.
No prophets predict their future courses.
No wise men see a star to show where to find
the babe that will save humankind.

Choir (singing):
A time for singing,
A time for wondering,
A time for worshipping.
(hum landing chord under reader)

Reader:
Yet each night a child is born is a holy night.
Fathers and mothers–
sitting beside their children’s cribs
feel glory in the sight of a new life beginning.
They ask, “Where and how will this new life end?
Or will it ever end?”

Choir (singing)
(back to full chorus)
Each night a child is born is a holy night –
A time for singing,
A time for wondering,
A time for worshipping.
Each night a child is born is a holy night.
(include bass tag)

It goes a little faster, for sure. It also lines out the song so the next time the congregation encounters it, it’s a bit more familiar. But mostly, it helps introduce Jason’s innovation in an innovative way.

Yes, there’s a gender binary issue here – many change “fathers and mothers” to “loving parents” or some variation.  I don’t think it changes the meaning or sentiment to ensure all are included here. It’s worth making that expansive change, because this is a gorgeous piece – whether read as a poem, as a responsive reading, or with some variation on the sung response.

—

I have no idea who this baby is – it’s just a great photo from Pixabay.

 

 

By |

Lord, the days are hard. No sooner do we wrap our brains around one major news story than another one, or ten comes barreling down on us. What we need is something warm and loving and sweet.

Sometimes it’s a sweet song that is just what the doctor ordered.

And to be honest, there isn’t much more to say about this sweet benediction by Mortimer Barron that he doesn’t say himself (below the lyrics).

I love this little piece. It comforts me in its warmth and showers me with its blessing. And on these hard days that never end, comfort and blessing is something remarkable.

Go lifted up,
Love bless your way,
moonlight, starlight
guide your journey
into peace
and the brightness of day.

Here is what Barron has to say, courtesy of the UUA Song Information page:

Written by Mortimer Barron, and he writes, “When I was music director at Murray Unitarian Universalist Church, Attleboro, MA, Natalie Sleeth’s Go Now in Peace was often sung at the end of the Sunday services. Whereas I liked its words but not its music, I composed new music for this sung benediction. The congregation loved this new version and continues to sing it to this day. This new “Go Now in Peace” also became the traditional sung benediction at my present church, First Unitarian and Universalist Society of Middleboro, MA. Go Lifted Up is very easily learned by a congregation and may be accompanied by piano, organ, or guitar, or may be sung a cappella.”