I wrote this song as a final project assignment in a class i took on prison abolition. In my four years at school, this was by far the most mentally and heart expansive class i took. Prison abolition is rooted in holistic care and like affirming systems. My unlearning was intensified in this class and I thank Xing Hey, Nikkita Oliver, Dean Spade, Angela Davis, Caleb Knapp and AM Weatherford for being a huge part of that process.

This is a compilation of songs recorded between 2016 and 2019. They were manifested on the unceded lands of the Duwamish, Coast Salish and Muckleshoot People. These songs are home recorded, in my basement, not mixed, not mastered - just raw - captured moments of healing on my personal journey of reckoning with climate change, sexual violence, decolonization, prison abolition, cultural transformation and deep time. 

The name of the album, “We Remember Witch is Witch” was a working title my daughter and I dreamed up back in 2012 when we were having a conversation about the plant people in a field we were in one day (context: daughter is 4 at the time). We were talking about how we might know who each plant person was and how to work with them had our great grandmothers not been burnt during the burning times. “Which is which mommy,” she said, “like witch is witch, get it?” This album as a whole is an incantation for remembering and reclaiming what has been stolen or meant to be forgotten, ultimately our animist practices and relationship to and as a part of Earth themself. The artwork was done by my sibling Rose Unfolding. 

For more context on each individual song, please click on the song to learn more. 

No money is being made from these songs - if you would like to work in reciprocity with the creations flowing through me - you can become a Patron at: https://www.patreon.com/alexandrablakely

GRATITUDE: I would like to thank all my Patreon supporters who have continuously reminded me to keep making music - much of what you hear monthly wouldn’t happen without your reminders: I owe much of this music to your holdings.  

Big shout outs to Leticia Nieto, Lyndsey Scott, Eliana Scott-Thoennes, Meg O'Hara, Nathanael Mengist, Cristina Lanata, ALOYSIOUS, Alec Connon, David Solnit, Bobby Gordon, E Sulakshana, Nicky Bradford, Leonard Higgins, Shemona Moreno, Becca Deutsch, Lisa Marcus, Clare Heriza and my beloved mamma for sticking with me through the thicks and thins in this musical online mycelial web. 

And nearest and dearest to my heart - my ancestors who most definitely have my back. To the Whale People and Rue People. To my beloved family: Femi, Alec, Pooh Bear, Mamma, Daniel, Bee and Brooke. Thank you. 

I am a descendant of Brooklyn Jews, Polish Jews from Miloslaw and many different places where Jews traveled to before that. My nomadic Jewish ancestors assimilated in the Americas as yet another form of historical and diasporic resilience. I am grateful to my ancestors who stayed Jewish, generation after generation, when it was not strategic or safe to do so and I am here today reclaiming what my most recent ancestors thought would harm me by passing it down to me and my daughter. 

I descend from the lands of northern norway and islands in the baltic sea. I am of the caribou people, the whale people, the rain people, the mycelium people and I come from priestesses, witches, healers and oracles, silversmiths, potters, alchemists and farmers. The Coast Salish lands of salmon, orca, pine, cedar, cold-salt water and fresh wild and feral sweet water rivers are the lands that raised me.

holy questions

Leave Your Troubles at the Water

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

This song was born on Wintu Pom (Northern Wintu) & Nom Sus Wintu land (trinity alps // swift creek // mumford meadows). I was preparing for a four-day earth-communion time of solitude & fasting. I laid down at the place where two rivulets came together, watching a spider weave between blades of grass, feeling in myself this question: 

"Toward where is the Golden Thread tugging me now? What is my heart asking for? What do I KNOW?"

Lyrics:

At the place where the waters meet 
Spider weaves a web
Casting a Golden Thread to the center of your knowing

At the place where the waters meet
Spider weaves a web
Ze (she/he/they) say(s)
"Be still & wait. It will all become clear."

I am still breathing this in. Spider invites me to stay; to keep going -- keep weaving, Ze says. Trust that what you need will come. Prepare for the known unknown even though it has not arrived yet. Weave. Trust. Listen. Do your work, cast your spells, & then wait. It will all become clear. Somewhere in you KNOWS -- Knows what is on its way +++ 

What in you KNOWS? Where is the Golden Thread tugging you? Where can you surrender to trust a little bit more?

---

Recorded with Lisa Littlebird & Karisha Longaker.

The Golden Thread

Inspired by nomadic years, the wisdom of the body and nervous system, change, Somatic Reality: Bodily Experience and Emotional Truth by Stanley Kelemen, the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess community, and the Judaism of my ancestors. Received to the tune of Avinu Malkeinu, a traditional Jewish High Holidays prayer.

Deep gratitude to my teachers, community and bright and well ancestors: Taya Shere, Rabbi Jill Hammer, Ibrahim Baba, my parents, Zaide, Grandpa, the Romanian women, Kohenet and so many more. Thank you.

Lyrics:
Slow down, child, slow down
Slow down and listen to the wind
All comes together; all falls apart
Forming anew your beating heart

Slow down, child, slow down
Slow down and draw yourself near
The rocks are your keepers
Tell them your stories
Now it is safe to be here

A river flows from within you to where you will go
The current carries you home
Let your life unfold

Slow down, child, slow down
Slow down and you will receive
Life wants to meet you where you are
Not where you think you should be

A river flows from within you to where you will go
The current carries you home
Let your life unfold

Slow down, child, slow down
Slow down and you will be shown
The love that was always lifting you up
You are never alone

A river flows from within you to where you will go
The current carries you home
Let your life unfold

Slow down child, slow down (x4)

Slow down, child, slow down
Slow down and listen to the wind
All comes together; all falls apart
Forming anew your beating heart

Slow Down / The Mother's Response (Preview)

This one (chorus) came through in Northeast Missouri while singing with a couple people and (verses) in California outside the house I grew up in, standing at the foot of a great Monterey Cyprus tree (not a Redwood!) and watching some vines climb up the brick outside of the house.

Chorus:
Sister you are not too far holding
I need your strength to carry on

Verse 1:
Our bodies are bound like the vines on the side of a house somewhere deep in the heart of the earth

Verse 2:
Our roots intertwine like the Redwood tree somewhere deep in the soil in the soul of the earth

Sister, You Are Not Too Far for Holding

Inspired by nomadic years, the wisdom of the body and nervous system, change, Somatic Reality: Bodily Experience and Emotional Truth by Stanley Kelemen, the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess community, and the Judaism of my ancestors. Received to the tune of Avinu Malkeinu, a traditional Jewish High Holidays prayer. 

Deep gratitude to my teachers, community and bright and well ancestors: Taya Shere, Ibrahim Baba, my parents, Zaide, Grandpa, the Romanian women, Kohenet and so many more. Thank you.
lyrics
Slow down, child, slow down 
Slow down and listen to the wind 
All comes together; all falls apart 
Forming anew your beating heart 

Slow down, child, slow down 
Slow down and draw yourself near 
The rocks are your keepers 
Tell them your stories 
Now it is safe to be here 

A river flows from within you to where you will go 
The current carries you home 
Let your life unfold 

Slow down, child, slow down 
Slow down and you will receive 
Life wants to meet you where you are 
Not where you think you should be 

A river flows from within you to where you will go 
The current carries you home 
Let your life unfold 

Slow down, child, slow down 
Slow down and you will be shown 
The love that was always lifting you up 
You are never alone 

A river flows from within you to where you will go 
The current carries you home 
Let your life unfold 

Slow down child, slow down (x4) 

Slow down, child, slow down 
Slow down and listen to the wind 
All comes together; all falls apart 
Forming anew your beating heart

Slow Down / The Mother's Response (Demo)

Artist: Joe Crookston
I learned from Ilana Cloud in 2016 who learned it from Catherine and Jesse at the Wilderness Awareness School.

Sung at a song circle on November 17, 2018 on Chinook land/Portland, OR.

Lyrics:
I can feel my heartbeat
Beating to the rhythm of the freedom song
When I say yes to the beat in me, I can set my spirit free
When I say yes to the beat in you, I can see your light shine through

I Can Feel My Heart Beat (Joe Crookston)

Artist: Scott Kalechstein Grace
I learned from the IfNotNow soundcloud!

Sung at a song circle on July 20, 2019 on Chinook land/Portland, OR.

Lyrics:
I'm gonna let life move me
I'm gonna let life stir me deep
I'm gonna let life wake me from an ancient sleep
I'm gonna laugh all my laughter
I'm gonna cry all my tears
I'm gonna love the rain as deeply as the sun when it clears

Gonna Let Life Move Me (Scott Kalechstein Grace)

kol ha olam kulu gesher tzar meo'd 
the whole entire world is a very narrow bridge
and the main thing to recall 
is not to fear fear itself

<3

gesher tzar

let it blow through
let it blow through 

open up the windows of your soul and let it blow through

hard times come and hard times go 

let it blow through

Let It Blow Through by Maggie Wheeler

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

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Alexandra Blakely

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