A simple all-and-response song of welcome to all the states our hearts might be in as we gather. I encourage you to sing this on your own with your own words - how is your heart right now? Welcome in.

Welcome in, wild hearts
Welcome in, wild hearts
Welcome in, wild hearts
We will sing our way to wholeness
We will sing our way to wholeness

...and tender... seeking... grieving... courageous... & wild hearts

Welcome In, Wild Hearts

Roadblock  by Debbie Nargi-Brown

Part 1 
This is a roadblock, not the end of the road
When I get knocked down, I get back up again

Part 2
I don’t care what you’ve been told
Now is the time to take back control
This is not the end of your dreams
Life is not, what it seems

Part 3
Faith, Hope to Believe
Faith, Hope to Receive

This is a live recording at Song Village 2022.

Roadblock

I'm an imperfect being
In an imperfect world
And I'm doing my best to be grounded

Oh, Earth beneath my feet
Bring me back home to myself
And remind me - that I'm an imperfect being...

Imperfect

I wrote this song in the wake of the Nepal earthquake in 2015. I spent time travelling and teaching English in Nepal in 2011 and felt a personal connection to the people and land there.

Words & melodies by Osprey. Guitar by Rich Glauber. Produced by Geoffrey Mays at SoaringHeart Studio in Eugene, OR.

© 2015 Osprey Huffsmith

03 Grief & Praise

Halleluya  148 - Nava Tehila

This song is on the Sharing the Music start up CD. 

You can order the CD package (either digital or physical) with all 12 songs and their separate harmony parts (soprano, alto, tenor, bass), lyrics, teaching notes and a vocal ranges chart here:

www.susiero.com/song-leader-resource-pack

(I'm singing the bass part an octave higher than men would, so you don't get the full SATB effect!)

www.susiero.com

Sharing the Music - Susie Ro Prater

Listen to your Heart - Adapted Taize (words Sophia Efthimiou)

This recording was made in community with the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir NYC

Healing Is Possible by Orion Johnstone

A song for these uncertain times. Inspired by one of Joanna Macy's talks at a Bioneers Conference.

© Heather Houston
All rights reserved

To learn the individual parts to this song, please visit my Public Song Library:
https://heatherhoustonmusic.com/sisters-in-harmony-song-library/

Lyrics:
And we will care for each other
As the world around us unravels
And we will tend to the spark
of hope that lives within our grieving hearts
And we are here now, in this present moment
Lifting our voices and hearts
And we are here now, we have come together
We are tending the spark hope
Oh may it grow
And we will care for each other

Tending the Spark by Heather Houston

03 Body Mine

An original 5-part polyphonic song that serves as a reminder to listen to life's subtle nods and not wait until the rug is pulled out from under us to make a change... This song has also become somewhat of an anthem for environmentalists and climate change.

Written and arranged by Britta Gudmunson, 2019.

For individual parts, visit inCourage Chorus on SoundCloud. 
For permissions to perform or inquiries, please write Britta at info@brittagreenviolet.com

iCC Spring '19

Soft Breeze

This song is called “Blessed Motion.” I learned the songs at Singing Alive and the songstress is Annie Zylstra. I am amazed by the song and the story of the song, which is as follows:

Blessed Motion is a 4-part acknowledgement of the nature of Life as an unpredictable, ever-changing movement toward itself. The melody came squatting on a rock next to a fast moving fork in the Trinity River, where salmon were in their first week of journeying to their spawning sites in northern California. Martin Prechtel said after surviving the Guatemala earthquake of 1976, during which he witnessed the ground beneath him rising up and swallowing people and villages whole, that solid ground is a myth believed by people who live on the earth rather than in it. This idea has stayed with me through the years and provided partial inspiration for this song. This is a big song! It travels through two dimensions, the first, a three or four part set of repeating lines, the second, a layered riff topped with a solo section. 

Thank you Annie. 

I hope you can hear the waves and motion in the voices of the track. It is genius. 

LYRICS

I believed in solid ground until I saw the earth in motion,

in the winds of steady change and in the ever-rolling ocean.

All moves on in perfect, perfect motion.

All is change and ever-rolling ocean.

All is moving, all is change, though I once believed that there

might somehow be something firm beneath my feet, but

All is motion, and all is well for solid ground is just a myth 

for those who never swim in it.

All is moving in blessed change, o the world we know

will come and go and everything will rearrange, so

be the ground beneath that sky,

tumbling round the by and by.

All is change, so am I.

lye lye lye, lye lye lye.

Blessed Motion Cover (Original by Annie Zylstra)

Alexandra “ahlay” Blakely is a descendent of Ashkenazi, Scandinavian and British folk. She is a singer-songwriter, grief tender, community organizer, facilitator and ceramicist walking the path of ancestral healing and the reclaiming of lost cultural memories. Her community singing album, Spells from the Unknown encapsulates songs for the community to transform, ask questions, and seek to lead lives that might make us ancestors worth honoring. Her upcoming 2024 community singing album, WAILS: Songs for Grief was recorded in July 2023 with a choir of 200 voices. The album is completely dedicated to grief, inspired by the Whales and Frances Weller’s “the five gates of grief.”

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJiuxVf4FhGSkYT4K0zpGyA/videos?view=0&sort=p&flow=grid
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexandra_blakely/
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/alexandrablakely
Website: https://www.healingattheroots.com

Blessed Motion Cover (Original by Annie Zylstra)

Alexandra Blakely