Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims,
We are blessed to have so many beautiful musicians in our community of dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims. This Friday, May 23rd, Wisdom Council member Te Martin will lead us in a mini-retreat on Sourcing from the Well: Songs of Strength and Resilience. Te offers this reflection on the power of song.
Little bird, listen to your song
There are bones buried deep deep down
They are rising from the ground
With your song
-Te Martin, “Little Bird"
Under tall pines and a night sky, we sang. There were songs from the Congo, Haiti, Iran, Armenia, Palestine, and Ireland. Tears of remembrance streamed down the faces of some gathered around this fire, under shooting stars. We could feel the bones rattling inside of us – our ancestors whispering in our ears,
“Keep singing! Sing – as we always have. Sing – it will get you through. Sing – it will give you strength… Remember the songs!”
This was last week at the Buckeye Gathering in northern California; an ancestral skills gathering where I was on the music team. For most of a week, we left behind our computers and phones and gathered to learn the old skills, one of which was (and is) the practice of singing in community.
And, oh, did we sing!
Amidst the heartbreak of these times, we opened our throats. We sang to stand with Palestine, we sang to end racialized violence and to stand for the safety of Black lives, and we sang for the waters and the trees. We sang our joy, too. We let our bodies sound, move, and dance, as people have throughout all of history.
Our ancestors have always sung their way through joy and pain. I stand on the shoulders of my keening Irish ancestors who knew to mourn the dead through song. I remember that amidst unfathomable violence, enslaved Africans in the U.S. gathered to sing, and their songs have rippled through generations. I remember that song is what helped Civil Rights activists cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma in 1965. I remember that when my grandmother was dying at age 99, I sang at her bedside; and after she died, I sang an old Irish blessing at her funeral.
Song is glue. It is fuel. It is medicine.
So let us gather to sing. Let us rattle the bones that have been buried for so long. What is your song that is waiting to sing through you?
During this retreat Te will teach short songs line-by-line on this theme and together we’ll draw from those reservoirs; there will be opportunities to learn songs as well as to share our hearts and voices with one another. Singers of all levels are welcome — experienced, new, or anywhere in-between!
Join us this Friday to sing songs of strength and resilience.
With great and growing love,
Christine
Christine Valters Paintner, OblSB, PhD, REACE
P.S. The audio podcast for Day 3 Morning and Evening Prayer of our Cultivating Seeds of Liberation Prayer Cycle, which takes as its theme Hope, is available to listen here or on your favorite podcast platform.
