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  Kathleen Hannan

Songs for Our Journey 4

1/31/2015

9 Comments

 
Picture
My new camera and tripod seem determined to make me believe that happiness comes from the outside! The 42x zoom makes it possible for me to stand in my front yard and take a picture that details the craters of the moon. I feel like shouting!  What kind of crazy world is this, where I can take a picture like that?  And if something like this can happen in my front yard, why haven't human beings figured out how to stop the wars, or how to feed everyone good food? 

Well, that I will not be able to figure out in this blog entry.  But the moon did remind me of another moon song of mine, one I wrote a long time ago.
Recording it tonight a change to the song came to my mind, so I've sung it the new way, which is simply the change of the word "on" to the word "in" in the last refrain. And it's funny how making a lyric more accurate seems to make me happy.  But my guess is that making a lyric more accurate is actually an expression of happiness.  Like the moon, always new again, the song is reborn, and I'm so happy to post it here for whoever might happen upon it.      In Love, Kathleen    
She Shines
© K Hannan 1992

Darlin', I'm alone, I'm alone tonight
The full moon is shinin' and I've finally seen her light

It shines on me alone, shines on you alone
She travels the whole world around
Shines on the lovers, shines on the lonely ones
Shines on the lost until we're found
Shines until we're found, shines until we're found

Darlin', can you feel it?  That moon does not take sides
She'll light your way to laughter, and she holds me when I cry

She shines on me alone, shines on you alone
Travels the whole world around
Shines on lovers, shines on the lonely ones
Shines on the lost until we're found
Shines until we're found, shines until we're found

And oh I do get lost sometimes
I forget most everything I know
That's when I call on the moon for a favor
Please shine your light, show me where to go

And darlin' can you feel it?  That moon does not take sides
She lights my way to laughter and she'll hold you when you cry

She shines in me alone, shines in you alone
She travels the whole world around
Shines in the lovers, shines in the lonely ones
She shines in the lost until we're found
Shines until we're found, shines until we're found
She shines until we're found, shines until we're found


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Songs for Our Journey - 3

1/21/2015

4 Comments

 
Picture
As I have walked in various beautiful places this past week, looking for birds and playing around with my new tripod (so fun!), I kept thinking of the Navajo song/prayer Now I Walk In Beauty, which I have loved from the moment I heard it many years ago.  "Now I walk in Beauty. Beauty is before me. Beauty is behind me, above and below me." With great gratitude to the Navajo culture for the power and wisdom carried in that prayer, I wrote a song based on it called Beauty Waltz several years back, in which I added the words "beauty inside me". I have often wondered whether "beauty inside me" is inherent in the original Navaho and was left out in the English version I learned, as I felt that if there is beauty all around me, there must be beauty inside me too! And of course, when I started to sing those words, I started to notice, yes, there certainly is beauty inside me.  This week as I sang quietly and watched for birds in the winter trees I once again experienced that in singing those words, I fall into a place of intimacy with all that I see.  The beauty in me is the beauty in the birds, in the trees.  Here's a recording of the song I made about ten years ago.  
 
Beauty Waltz
words - Navajo Beauty Way song/prayer
melody © K Hannan 1995


I walk in beauty
Beauty before me
Beauty behind me
Beauty inside me
Beauty all around
Around, around, I walk around
I walk in beauty all around

Picture
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Songs for Our Journey - 2

1/13/2015

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May 18, 2022
Here's an update to this post. Today got this delightful message about this song / dance via a Facebook post. Thanks so much Sukanyah, for sharing this with me.  


Kathleen, Dear One, Sunday night at a Dances of Universal Peace Camp in Paonia, CO, led by Bernie Heideman, Sky Roshay, Jen Friedman & Douglas Stevenson, with a blissfully blessed talented group of musicians, we prayed, sang, danced your hauntingly beautiful, meaningful, masterful No Part Left Out, under the blood red Full Moon Lunar Eclipse! We Are Saying Thank You, 10,000 times for this gift of Love, Harmony and Beauty Towards the One.
May All be well for All in All Ways.
Ya Shakur!
Ya Fattah!
Sukanyah, St. Augustine, friend of Tom S.
Picture
This song is based on a poem by Izumi Shikibu, a 10th century Buddhist Japanese woman.  I found the poem in a wonderful book called Women In  Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women, edited by Jane Hirshfield.  The book was a revelation to me when I first saw it in the mid 90's.  It is full of poetry by women mystics whose existence, up until that point, I had absolutely no knowledge of.  The moon in this poem represents Consciousness, Oneness, the genderless unity underlying everything. I am full of gratitude to Jane for publishing this book, thereby helping to free me from stereotypes I had about who could or could not realize their true spiritual nature.  


There is also a circle dance that can be done while singing this song.  
I've attached a file of the sheet music and dance instructions down below the lyrics.  I've danced it all alone in my front yard at midnight, on a beach in the moonlight with friends, and with 150 people at MotorCo in Durham.   Please feel free to teach it, sing it and dance it anywhere, with anyone, anytime. 
  
No Part Left Out
melody © K Hannan
words based on Jane Hirshfield's translation of Izumi Shikibu's poem
a recording of this song with harmonies, flute, guitar, bass and crickets
is on my CD Seen & Unseen; Songs from the Light of Midlife

Watching the moon at midnight
Alone in the middle of the sky
I saw myself completely
I saw myself completely
I knew myself completely
Whole, no part left out      
no_part_left_out_rev_2010.pdf
File Size: 44 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

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Songs for Our Journey - 1 

1/8/2015

13 Comments

 
Picture
Welcome to day one of my experiment in sharing songs and pictures with you. I hope you'll sing some of these songs, teach them to your friends and children, and generally enjoy the magic that a beloved song can bring to your life.  

The photos are of things I see while I'm walking along singing. Perhaps in their own way they are songs.  Yesterday at sunset, telephone wires turned into gold before my eyes, and a fence 

became a graceful ruffle in a circle dancers's skirt. 


This all reminds me of a Dances of Universal Peace song I learned recently on the internet. The words Hu Allah mean the mysterious, the impossible-to-express-in-words nature of God. It's a very simple song that brings the mind to a spaciousness, empty and alive. 




I don't know the composer's name, but you can hear the Hu Allah song sung by a group and see the very simple and beautiful dance that goes with it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBiB3mccq7A 
Photos © K Hannan 2015 
Feel free to share the photos for non-commercial use! 
For commercial use of photos, please contact Kathleen. 
13 Comments
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" Kathleen makes music that makes community."  
The Independent Weekly, Durham, NC  

Contact Kathleen