OH LAND
This song came through me as I was wanting to honor and have an embodied experience of my connection to land and the work I am committed to doing in my lifetime. You can sing the verses as an echo or you can have the group hummmmmmm for the verse and have a different person sing each verse (which is what we did). We have also just taught one verse with the chorus and sung it repeatedly. I believe the most potent verse for a land acknowledgement is "oh land, i know, the history here is painful, oh land, you know, your healing’s woven with the peoples"

lyrics:
oh land, upon which i stand - holding me 
i thank you - for all that you hold me through 
i lean back into you, rejuvenate my body anew 
oh land, upon which i stand - holding me 
i feel the gravity, where you meet my feet 
i can hear your heart beat - if i listen carefully 
oh land, upon which i stand - holding me 
oh land, i know, the history here is painful 
oh land, you know, your healing’s woven with the peoples 
oh land, upon which i stand - holding me 
oh Land, we’re here to see the grief and rage and suffering 
take these hearts as offerings, massage you with our feet as we sing 
oh land, upon which i stand - holding me

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

Oh Land (Land Acknowledgement Song)

Miranda Rondeau's gorgeous song, "You Are . . . Surrounded by the Light" has become a staple in our community for every possible lifecycle event and every moment in which extra support is needed. Here it is sung in Jerusalem on May 14, 2023 by members of the synagogue who were completing a 10-day journey in Israel and Palestine; being sung especially for one young, radiant member of our community for whom some extra light and expanded divine protection would be good around now.

Words:
Love surrounds you
Peace surrounds you
Angels surround you
Everyday, all day long,
Morning, noon, and night
You are surrounded by the light.

You are surrounded by the light.
The light of God,
The light of peace,
The light of love.

Surrounded By The Light

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

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)

Part 1: 
May this body be a bridge for the healing of this land
May the river flow through us cleansing greed from our hands

May this body be a bridge for the healing of this land
May the river flow through us cleansing grief from our hands

Part 2:
We are, we are born from the water
We are, we are made from the land

Teach us, teach us, oh Great Mother
To bring, to bring peace to this land

Lyrics: Part one is inspired by Said Abdallah; part 2 by Theresa Martin
Melody: Theresa Martin

May This Body Be A Bridge

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

Your Heart Knows the Way

Song/prayer/meditation to heal personal and societal grief. For ordinary grief, extraordinary grief, the unbearable kind and the unseen kind and the enduring kind, in service of exhales and letting go of what is ours and not ours, of compassion, lightness, & becoming who we are after and through it all.

Aly Halpert's Album

Loosen Loosen

Origin: a person named Molly (we aren't sure of Molly's last name!), taught it on the first night of the Let My People Sing! 2019 retreat. Molly learned it at Urban Adamah, we're not sure where it originally came from - please comment if you know! This recording is from a Let My People Sing teach-back gathering in DC, in Sept 2019

Words:
I step into the flow
And then I let it go
I open my mind, my heart and my soul (x2)

I surrender, I surrender
I surrender, I open my mind, my heart and my soul

LMPS Teach Back

Step Into the Flow

Original song by Annie Zylstra, arrangement by Lisa G. Littlebird.

Blessed Motion by Annie Zylstra - All Parts

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

Step Into the Flow

Miriam Ginsberg

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