Sunday, November 13, 2005

Heart-Altering FULL CIRCLE


Friday night was a heart-altering evening. A woman from my old Goddess group invited me to a “Full Circle” concert. These 20 women blew me away. They're an a capella group with, occasionally, an instrument or two thrown in – like saxophones or gungon drums. Yesterday I did nothing but play their CD, which is packed with deep-heart music.

Even today I’m thinking about settling into that pew at Yarmouth’s First Universalist Church (one of those old New England churches with the big white steeples and the V-shaped pews with little walls separating five people on one side, five on the other). The church was packed, and at the last minute a slender nine-year-old named Sam with a basketball-sized tousle of hair squeezed in next to me (his parents sat in the pew ahead). I asked Sam why the pews had walls, and he said he didn’t know -- but he knew they always did.

Even though it includes the word “God” (twice), the CD song I keep playing is Song of Peace (Finlandia). If everyone woke singing this song every morning, I swear it’d put an end to war:

“This is my song, Oh God of all the nations,
A song of peace for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine.
But other hearts in other lands are beating,
With hopes and dreams
As true and high as mine.

My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine.
But other lands have sunlight too and clover,
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
Oh hear my song, oh God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and for mine.”
Go HERE for more info on this incredible anthem.

I don’t even want to change the word “God” to “Goddess” in this song! Of course it helped that it’s followed (on the Full Circle CD) by the following Goddess-friendly version of the 23rd Psalm:

The lord is my shepherd,
I have all I need.
She makes me lie down
In green meadows

Beside the still waters
She will meet.
She restoreth my soul
She rights my wrongs
She leads me in a path of good things
And fills my heart with songs.

Even though I walk through a
Dark and dreary land
There is nothing that can shake me
She has said she won’t forsake me
I’m in her hand
She sets a table before me
In the presence of my foes
She annoints my head with oil
And my cup overflows.

Surely, surely goodness and kindness
Will follow me all the day of my life.
And I will live in Her house
Forever, forever, and ever

Glory be to our Mother and Daughter
And to the Holy of holies
As it was in the beginning,
Is now and ever shall be,
World without end.

Amen
Mostly the songs are international –Japanese, Bulgarian, South African, Jamaican, Serbian, etc. Too bad I can’t blog the whole album (I can’t, can I? Anyone know how to blog music?)

I'm telling ya, this CD has drained me of all ambition. I’m purring like a kitty kat today, mesmerized, and full of peace.

If you want a Full Circle CD, write to them c/o Webster, PO Box 201, Brunswick, Maine 04011. But I’m warning ya – don’t expect to rise in life after you’ve heard it; nothing will matter any more except floating on a cloud of Full Circle.
________
thnx to miniBloom for the foto of the ice boat in Finland

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