Community Sing

spring seasonings

Community Songs

Witch of the Faerie Star

Live in the Rotunda

song + lyrics + vocals + percussion: Joanna Laws Landis

Lay It All Down

Sacred Woman I Am

A three-part chant celebrating the gifts of the darkness.  Lyrics:  Every time I go into the darkness, I return with fistfuls of jewels.  Midnight velvet wraps all around me; stars glitter brilliant above.
Dreaming darkness, dreaming light.  @ Big Bug Music.
This is now a video! Watch here....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OjQ_v7VtFI&ab_channel=BarbaraMcAfee

Jewels

An awesome song for three voices by Meredith Buck, inspired by a wilderness workshop exercise she participated in where she had to cross a river blindfolded, following only the sound of a drummer on the other bank.

Eel River Song by Meredith Buck (Listen)

*** The recording of this track was updated in May 2020, to more accurately reflect the original song by the composer. ***

This is a wonderfully lighthearted layer song for moving through challenge, written by Dianne Baker.

Copyright Dianne Baker. Contact Dianne for permission to record or perform for profit.

For more information about this track including lyrics, please visit http://thebirdsings.com/the-only-way-through

The Only Way Through by Dianne Baker

Paul Barton (Toronto) brought this song with a humble yet powerful presence to the Village Fire 2018 gathering. He explained in the midst of teaching it that he was crafting the harmony parts on the spot. Suffice to say, the 100 or so of us around the fire with him were floored by the beauty of the song.  

This recording is from the Texas State Capitol rotunda, where about thirty of us gathered on the first Monday of the month (as we do - also on the last Monday of the month) lead by community song leader, Josh Blaine, to sing songs of connection and courage.

Song posted with permission of Paul Barton. To hear more of his music, check out: http://www.paulbartonmusic.com/community-songs.html

8.6.18 Rotunda Sing

I Am Me (Paul Barton) - Live in the Rotunda

A bit about the song from the song catcher:

"Written after a night of dancing ecstatically, and while contemplating my conditioning around romantic relationships. This is a song to myself, to my partner(s) and friends, to the universe, and to whoever you feel called to sing it to ❤" -Jesse French (https://soundcloud.com/yetifree)

Recorded live at a Finding Our Voice community sing in the Texas State Capitol rotunda on 1.28.2019.

Slowly (Jesse French) - Live in the Rotunda

A fun, rhythmic, layered song inviting us to listen deeply to the rhythm of the Earth and the sound of the river. 

Lyrics:

Part 1: Put your roots down, put your feet on the ground, can you hear what she says when you listen?

Part 2: Cause the sound of the river as it moves across the stone is the same sound as the blood in your body as it moves across your bones.

by Molly Hartwell

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

Put Your Roots Down - Molly Hartwell - All Parts

This original 3-part layer song by Gillian Spangler came through while she was biking along one of her favorite trails in Austin. She was inspired by some words of Jon Kabat-Zinn that she heard in an On Being podcast episode: "What if we lived as if each moment mattered." The other lines of the song are inspired by how the experience of singing can bring us into an embodied place of presence. 
PartI:
What if we lived as if each moment mattered
We lived as if we were here.
What if we lived as if each moment mattered
We lived as if time was dear.

Part II:
Can you listen to the wind
Can you feel it in your heart?
Do you know how to give in
To the moment as it parts?

Part III:
Be here, be here now
Be here, in this sound. 

When Gillian first taught this song at one of the FOV first/last Monday rotunda sings about a year ago, she stepped into the center of the circle with such confidence and competence, I (and many others) were sure she'd done this before. But in fact it was her first time leading a song! Since then, she's caught and lead many songs in the rotunda and elsewhere. This recording comes from her final (for now) community sing with us in Austin (which she lead as the night's guest song leader) before she launched on a sojourn to travel and farm along the West Coast. You can follow Gillian's adventures on her blog here: https://www.vaguelyveganvoyager.com/

Be Here Now (Gillian Spangler) - Live in the Rotunda

I wrote this in my sleep my first night on a trip to China.  I think it was a "Cosmic Download"!

Kellianna - Blessed Are We

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)

This is a cover song. Original by Meredith Buck

As story has it, this song came through Meredith Beck as she was participating in a women’s wilderness retreat where each participant was blindfolded and then asked to cross a river, following nothing but the sound of a drummer on the other side.

It is pretty magical. And I could sing it for hours. 

Here are the lyrics:

Lay yourself down on the rocks now
Let your body down in the river
Listen for the drumming on the other side
Lose yourself in the meantime
Listen
Let your body be your guide
Let the water decide
Lose yourself in the meantime

Listen (Original by Meredith Buck)

To skip the intro/story: https://soundcloud.com/findingourvoice/gandalfs-blessing-live#t=1:00

This song came through at the outset of a journey of my own, so it's meant to be a traveler's blessing of sorts. The words are Gandalf's from "The Hobbit." He says to the eagles after they've rescued the dwarves and Bilbo from the burning tree tops (wolves and goblins below!), "May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks." 

The third line comes from Lord of the Rings poem, "All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter": 

All that is gold does not glitter
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes, a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

This recording is from a community sing at Let My People Sing! 2019 at the Isabella Freedman Center in CT: https://www.letmypeoplesing.org/

I invite those who wish to carry and teach this song to tell the story of Gandalf, Bilbo and the dwarves in your introduction - let's hear those Gandalf impressions! 

Singing begins at 1:00

Part I:
May the wind, may the wind, may the wind
Under your wings
Bear you where, bear you wear, the sun sails
And the moonwalks. 

Part II:
May the wind, under your wings
The sun sails, and the moon walks. 

Part III:
Not all who wander are lost
Not all who wander are lost.

Gandalf's Blessing (Joshua Blaine) - Live @ LMPS '19

This beautiful chant invoking the elements is the chorus of a song called "Raven" by Marca Cassidy.

Recorded with permission

Lyrics: 

Breathe in the Air

Invoke the water

Honor the earth

Burn with the fire

© Marca Cassidy

all rights reserved

02 - Breathe In The Air

Hagalaz' Runedance - The Dawning (NH remix)

Nanny's Niggun is an ode to the incredible resiliency of my grandmother, "Nanny" Dorothy. A Holocaust survivor, she endured unimaginable horror and summoned untold strength and endurance to survive four different concentration camps over the course of 18 months as a Hungarian Jewish teenager. 

I caught the initial threads of this niggun (Hebrew for a "wordless melody") while singing with/to her about a year before her passing. It's my attempt to honor her story in all of its pain and profound triumph while reminding me to remain committed to ending oppression for all - no matter the creed, gender, sexual orientation, or color. 

"Nanny's Niggun" was one of the last songs I sang to my grandmother at her bedside before she drew her final breaths in mid-October 2019. This is a recording of me teaching it to a group of about thirty-five community singers in the rotunda of the Texas State Capitol on 11.18.2019, a one month after her burial. 

This song is yours to carry if it helps you connect to your own resiliency and your own commitment to fighting the grave injustices of our time.

To read a more in-depth backstory of this song, become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/posts/35685709

Nanny's Niggun (Joshua Blaine) - Live in the Rotunda

A joyful chant about manifestation, prosperity and connecting with divine grace. A vibrant a cappella arrangement of celestial harmonies and weaving voices.  

Blessings

to hear more community songs by ahlay, visit: www.alexandrablakely.com/songlibrary

Part I
What if what we are doing right now
Ripples out beyond what the eye can see?

Part II
What is this step a part of that's bigger than me?
Bigger than me, bigger than me

Part III
What is happening through me?
Happening, happening, happening through me?

Ripple

This Joy

Cloak Of Feathers - Damh The Bard

Recorded live in the Texas Capitol Rotunda on 9/30/2019. 
 @JoshuaHBlaine leading about 80 people at the bi-monthly Finding Our Voice community sing, including members of the Just Worship conference. 
Song by Abbi Spinner McBride. 

LYRICS:
Sing through my voice
Play through my hands
Let the way
Be open

Let the Way Be Open (Abbi Spinner Mcbride) - Live in the Rotunda

Finding Our Voice is a project created and tended by Joshua Blaine (@joshuahblaine), a community song leader and organizer currently living on Narraganset land along the Atlantic Ocean. His songs are inspired by some of his favorite teachings and landscapes, from John O'Donohue to the Grand Canyon to mystical Jewish wisdom. Pre-COVID, he lead regularly community sings in the glorious domed rotunda of the Texas State Capitol in Austin, TX, where he lived for 8 years. Now, he continues to write and lead song in the virtual realm in service of collective liberation and systemic transformational justice and peace. You can support and follow his work more closely by becoming a patron at http://www.patreon.com/findingourvox and stay in the loop about his virtual song circles and other offerings on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/findingourvoiceproject/ or by joining his newsletter at http://findingourvoice.net