1. |
Fireside
04:13
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Come inside, the fire’s nigh.
Raise your feet then rest your eyes.
Dream into that better day.
Let your soul come find its weight.
You’re the first to find your way, into a song for your age. I’m used to knowing your story whole from the young who come and go.
The weight you bear, you know it’s name; it whispers loud inside your pain. Split in two or maybe more, you live your life behind closed doors.
Take this smudge, inhale it’s sting. Let it bring you back to being. Pray it descends, a veil of peace, so you can weep out your relief.
This weight you bear, it’s chosen you, a cross of flesh to burden you. What pierced your soul so long ago, it's wrapped around your skin and bones.
Unspoken love I hope to hold in empty hands shaped like a bowl. I can't give to you, what you won't receive. I hope you'll drink up what you need.
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2. |
Annie
05:14
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Oh, Annie, won't you go?
Accept this invitation that was engraved in gold for you. By Robbie and his Canadian friends in the Pink House of their blues. The Weight you carried done did its work, held you down so you could see. Bring your anchor up and set your sail, for this is how it needs to be.
Yes, that’s you they call, not some other soul who sounds your name in rhyme. Resist the need to clarify because you’ve known this all this time. It's your fear that pins you up in doubt, flaps you back inside the breeze. Should I stay or should I go? Are they really callin' me?
You pine inside for that miserable shore you want to call your life. When it’s gone from sight, whatcha gonna do? When that view has up and died? It’s time you sang out your own song, not the abusive men who do. Not talking about those wolf-man types, I mean the devil inside you.
In order to seek out a new land, you've got to let go of this shore. For days and years and millennia, spiral slowly back and forth. Go make your way in the watery sun, eyes to the horizon line. The new land will ripple up slowly; it was cast in your potter’s eye.
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3. |
Pekkala
03:54
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Don’t you hear the sage on the breeze, though your feet are planted in green? That’s how it goes when you let go your soul, you find yourself always at home.
Listen close and I’ll tell you a tale of how witches ride on the breeze and the gale. They take the nightwind, see Earth from the sky, because they’ve mastered sayin’ good-bye. When you learn to let it all go, you learn not to grab what you think you need so. You bear the heartache at first, that’s no doubt, but when it’s over you’ve got what you found.
When a witch bends low, hugs good-bye to a friend, or the daemon who carries her through to the end, she endures the suffering because her heart knows, when your grasping you never can hold. She’ll cross the distance inside her own heart, retracing lines still conjoined in the dark. She learns that while you often can’t see, what you need is still always in reach.
It’s said that we live on the turtle’s broad back. What’s under him? Well, more turtles in fact. He’s nothing but what makes up his home; his bones are hugged ‘round his own soul. Perhaps this is why it is said he’s got us, because we need to learn what he does. It doesn’t matter how wide that he roams, he knows he is always at home.
So when October’s moon shines so yellow and fat and you spy in it’s face a witch’s sharp hat. Recall where you loved and are unable to stand, holding it in the meat of your hands. Inhale those scents in the moist autumn breeze, let the sounds of what’s passed be heard in your feet. That’s how you fly, crossing all space and time, to bring yourself their by their side.
Ah gousha finga bah-dah whoa-wee
that’s the sound of the spell that they weave.
Ah gousha finga bah-dah whoa-wee
life is more than what you touch here & see.
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4. |
Not Over the Creek
03:15
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Currents got you swirled between reason and feeling. Whirlies churning ‘round what sense you had. Playin’ it all safe, you got your mind set to leaping. Your heart will have its want no matter what you dread.
You’re not a victim of what is churning inside you, but a witness to what needs your voice. Until you learn to name what is roiling inside you, you’ll be hostage to thinkin’ you’ve had no choice.
The water of your mind can’t drown and betide you. You are born to both, rescuer and saved. You’ve been given what you need to ride these rapids. The only danger now is not fording their fray.
Not over the creek when you’re restless.
Not over the creek when you can’t see clear.
Not over the creek when you’re fiendin’.
Not over the creek…Learn to feel Right Here.
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5. |
Goodbye
05:19
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Oh it’s time to lay it down.
Learn what it feels like to live in ground.
Sayin’ goodbye, to hopeless desires-- scribing fantastical stories on the sky. Where you try to breathe but you flail and scream; where you writhe in need, seeking your remedy.
Learnin’ to disbelieve the squirmin’ need that seeks to taste or escape, not release toward grace. There’s no life in that head; you’re just as good as dead if you follow it’s lead seeking your remedy.
When you live in that place that lives under your Face and you finally resolve to let the Mask dissolve. You’ll find strength you’ve not known as you learn to behold and follow its lead toward your true remedy.
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6. |
Gravity
05:36
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I’ve lived in the clouds ripped my feet right off the ground. Bleeding these feet. Crying out loud. I wail and found.
The path home is down home, is bending down low, is bown down.
To this earth I’m bown down.
Pebbles in knees. Dust on these lips. I’m on the ground. Washing these feet. Crying out loud. I sang and found.
The body’s this earth, they go together flesh and ground. This body’s this home, the one I cling to, to be found.
….caved here in this precious ground finding ways to burrow down
…grieving the life up in the clouds, scratching this earth and clawing my way down
...never undo these chains, bearing this heavy heart
….keeping it here in this precious earth and clawing my way down
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7. |
Flesh Dry Up
04:19
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Water-logged in the wild? Up to your knees in muck of the plum nightshade? Soggy heart? Rheumy eyed? You’re soaked in woe that you won’t translate. Can’t you see also these, the blooming seedheads of gosling down? Got to hold both in heart, when all you want to do is drown.
Ooooooooooo….Let your flesh dry up.
Ooooooooooo….Let your flesh dry up.
Can you stand in your skin, let each moment then unfold its time? Will you run straight ahead right past each bud of spidered vine? Whatchyou got against life, declining invite and extended hand? Yes your cup will be filled, overflowing with grace that feeds the land.
Be scared of more scared. Gonna hover up so you pass life by?Ain’t unique. Just not grown. Refuse to Peter Pan this life. Listen in. Settle down. Calm the questions why on earth above? 'Cause your heart, needs to bleed, filleted with blades that beam the Love.
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8. |
Spell It Out
04:27
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Just spell it out,
Just spell it out,
Just spell it out...
Ah, your tender ears can hear what you need to say. So don’t use that excuse to simply wait this wait. You know the truth will out, it yearns to cut through you. Learn to spell it out, in faith, or it will stalk and haunt you.
Let your yes strike yes and your no slice no. Don’t adorn your truth in a sound you think is supposed. Can you weigh the toll on your G-d given mind when you placate what you feel in a trite, melodious line?
Only when your fearless ❤️ has counseled with your soul, will you feel the tension that you’ve been strung to know. There’s no truth out there you ought to live instead. It’s wound tight through you between your feet, heart & head.
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9. |
Deserve
06:57
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Can you be real soft in dappled ground? Can you sway like columbine unbound? Can you gather what’s left here for you where the world is born each breath anew?
Will you let this set your heart a-break? Will you let this clamor you awake? ‘Cause it’s not about what you deserve. It’s about what you came here to learn.
Can’t be a thing as way too much. Don’t swallow that ol’ hogwash. The earth don’t know how to stop its grow. Oh, as its child, you were born to sow.
When your moments are born each day of sky and her seeds drift to your heart inside. Learn to hold out likeso both your hands and plant them where they choose to land.
So you trip and flounder ‘cross your ground, tending all that you were born to found and you dazzle at the teeming feast that your sowing here with heaven’s seed.
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10. |
Live the Crossroads
06:26
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Will you live the crossroads? Let be born what’s strung here? Will you bear the taught pull of these opposite ears? Resist the keening for letting one down? Learn to love and tune each. Let their one song be sound.
Lay down these chords from
each end of the whole.
Open your glistening heart.
It seeks this rock and roll.
Stretch taught your soul.
If you hear the sacred but deny the profane— See what’s sinnin’ on somedays and Sundays praise the Name. You’ll stand divided where no house can stand. It’s when you’re crossed between them that you’ll live Promised Land.
Let their rhythm’s guide you to the union you seek. Blind your ears from hearing thru a tribalist creed. Let those scales slide down. Baby, drop your fear. You’ll pulse the backbeat of what you’re longing to hear.
You’ll know fulfillment— you’re not thissing for that; when you honor what’s good in both the good and the bad. Only at the crossroads will you hear your soul. Standing here is where you let what’s ugly be whole.
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Mudsong Bemidji, Minnesota
Mudsong crafts stories that give voice to our breaking human hearts. Thomas King said, “The truth about stories is that’s all we are." The truth about Mudsong is songstories are all we are. Original stories. Soulful songs. Crafted from the sloppy mess of life? That's what we do. Our evenings open on the hearthfire of the bass guitar, shimmy through the saxophone, and linger over heart and soul. ... more
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