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  Kathleen Hannan

Songs for Our Journey 53

12/14/2020

4 Comments

 
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Depot Day
© K Hannan 1981 St Augustine, FL.
 
This is the saga of the Depot at Malaga St.
Hot food, cold food, good food that’s hard to beat
Hungry stomachs gather round for a special treat
Y’all come down to the Depot, it’s time to eat!
 
There’s art on the walls and on the ceiling
When you walk in the door you get a comfortable feeling
Baskets, and banners and flowers too
Let you know good folks have been passin’ through
 
Ned’s on the grill in his new straw hat
He’s cooking somethin’ good you can bet on that
And we’re all lookin’ cause he’s really bookin’
And when I say fast, I mean whizzin’ past
 
Oh Depot
Hooray hooray…
Another Depot Day
 
Out in back where the water swishes
Let’s say hooray to the washers of the dishes
Doris, Al and Loretta with smilin’ faces
Keep those dishes movin’ through on a regular basis
Cause it’s basic to the scene that the dishes be clean
And they wash ‘em by hand, cause there ain’t no machine
 
Lots of great people bring your food to you
Leslie, Al Jill, Tom and Doris too
Workin’ together in some tight situations
Usin’ uncanny powers of concentration
They make it look easy, they make it look fun
Well let’s give em a cheer when the day is done
 
Chorus
 
For the cakes and the breads give Joy the credit
Try Maureen’s lasagna, you won’t regret it
And James helps clean at the end of the day
When the customers have all gone on their way
 
And on every customer’s smilin’ face
You can see that the Depot is a magic place
Where hugs and smiles are freely given
Where people celebrate their daily livin’
 
Chorus
It’s a meeting place of friends & neighbors
It’s a circling energy of love’s best labors
And now this song is nearly through
Just want to say Depot, I love you
 
Thank you Depot
Hooray Hooray
Another Depot Day
 ***************************************
 On Winter Solstice of 1980 I moved to St Augustine, Florida with my then partner Tom Santoni.  We fell in love with the town, not in small part because of Ned Pollock and Joy Delia and all the other people who made the Malaga Street Depot restaurant shine. In the video above Ned & Joy tell some of the stories of the Depot.  I wrote the song above for a Depot celebration in spring of 1981. Ned went on to run the Gypsy Cab Company in St Augustine, which is still winning awards for Ned's creative and oh so delicious cooking. And just tonight I found out that Ned is releasing a cookbook this week!  I just ordered one.  If you'd like some recipes of the kind of cooking you might  wish you'll get to taste on a vacation in St Augustine, this is the book you are looking for. I just ordered one here:   https://www.facebook.com/NedsKitchenCookbook
4 Comments

November 19th, 2020

11/19/2020

2 Comments

 
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Here's a beautiful song to sing or dance as you walk along.  
Pieces of Cloud
From Dances of Universal Peace repertoire
lyrics: Rumi
music: Susan Nechama Sheely and Oraea Varis


This is how I would die into the love I have for you
This is how I would die into the love I have for you

As pieces of cloud dissolve in sunlight
As pieces of cloud dissolve in sunlight

La Illaha Il Allah, La Illaha Il Allah
La Illaha Il Allah, La Illaha Il Allah

​Hu Allah Hu, Hu Allah Hu
Hu Allah Hu, Hu Allah Hu


2 Comments

Songs for Our Journey 51

11/18/2020

0 Comments

 
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Om Shanti  November 2020

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Songs for Our Journey 50

10/28/2020

0 Comments

 
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I learned this song in around 1990 in a Goddess circle in Philadelphia.  I didn't know the songwriter, Susan Arrow's name till many years later, thanks to the internet. Thanks so much to Susan for this wonderful song, which we sing in chorus both to call the elements and also to express our deep gratitude for Gaia, our Earth Mother.  The recording is of a rehearsal for an interfaith celebreation a few years ago with Raymond Smith - guitar, Jude Casseday - tamborine, Xopher Thurston - bass, Diantha Rau - flute and myself.  That was in the days when people had rehearsals in a room together!   May those days come again before too long. 
Thank You Mother Earth
© Susan Arrow

Thank you Mother Earth
Thank you Sister Water
Thank you for our birth
From your sons and daughters

Thank you Brother Sun
Thank you Air in motion
Thank you everyone
Earth, Wind, Fire and Ocean

0 Comments

Songs for Our Journey 49

9/17/2020

5 Comments

 
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This song was born as fires burn throughout the western US and Canada, in a year that has been, as my partner and I like to say,
one pandemic after another. I know I am not alone in feeling a great deal of heartache, as well as a tremendous love for all beings on earth living through this challenging time.  This song is dedicated to all of us, that we may meet our many feelings from our own compassionate heart.  And get out the vote.  Love, Kathleen

River Of Tears
© K Hannan 2020

Will I drown in this river?
River of tears, oh the tears
I have found there's no way out of here
And now I fall on the ground
And wait for the strength
To weep, and weep, and weep

Oh will I burn in this fire?
Fire of hate, oh the hate
And we have found there's no way out of here
And now we fall on the ground
And find the strength
To breathe, and breathe and breathe

And will I die in this ocean?
Ocean of love, oh the Love
For I have found there's no way out of here
And now I fall on the ground
And rest in the strength
Of love, of love, of love

​And now we fall on the ground
And rest in the strength
Of love, of love, of love

 


5 Comments

Songs for Our Journey 48

8/28/2020

0 Comments

 
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There is a youtube recording of the composer, Carolyn McDade, leading this song here.  During 25 years of singing it, I have inadvertantly changed a note or two, and a bit of the timing, so please check this out for accuracy and to hear the feeling and timing of Carolyn leading the song.  

I learned this powerful and healing song at a workshop with Carolyn McDade in North Carolina many years ago...probably 1995 or thereabouts.  As I recall, the workshop consisted mostly of gathering around a piano and singing together for two or three days. A beautiful experience.  Carolyn told us the story of when this Serpent of Life song arrived.   She was at a meditation retreat on Cape Cod, and one day had not been comfortable sitting for a session. Instead Carolyn walked her meditation through the silence of a very foggy misty day.   I have a vivid memory of imagining the scrub oaks and pines of Cape Cod brushing her face, and that she could barely stay on the path, it was so hard to see the ground.  And suddenly she found herself singing this song, which arrived with no conscious work on her part. It came whole, out of the mist.  At least that's the way I remember it these 25 years later; but of course I was not there in the mist with her.  But that is the power of a story and a song!   To learn more about Carolyn's work in spiritual feminist community song, please check out her website.  I love moving as a snake or panther moves as I sing this song, and for me "her only garment" is fear. 

​I just found a recording of this song from 7 years ago, with Carolyn playing the keyboard and a group of women singing it.  I realize listening that I had made some errors in a couple of notes...I sang it for so many years, I can understand how that could happen. But do listen to these women if you'd like to hear the subtle difference in the notes from my recording.  The song is labeled 
Serpent Song on that recording, but I am keeping the name 
that I love for the song too.  


Serpent Song 
(Serpent of Life)
© Carolyn McDade

In the places that reek of impossiblity
The Serpent of Life coils
She crawls upon the swollen stone
Crawls upon the swollen stone
Crawls upon the swollen stone
And loosens her only garment
0 Comments

Songs for Our Journey 47

8/18/2020

0 Comments

 
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This recording of Nur Julie Purcell's beautiful Love's Song
was made one evening at Bodies, Voices & Spirit Chorus.
​Love's Song
© Nur Julie Purcell

Ya Rachman    Ya Rahim  
The Sun and Moon of Love
 
Ya Ra-uf   Ya Rahim 
The deepest Love within
 
Ya Hayyo     Ya Quayuum 
Love is what remains
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Plum Fiesta Fabric Millefiori Heart by Meg Hannan
0 Comments

Songs for Our Journey 46

8/13/2020

0 Comments

 
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Photo © Lorie Hollar
Lately with the pandemic and the other big changes in our country, impermanence has been on my mind quite a bit, as I am sure it is for many of us.  And reading the wonderful book In Love With The World: A Monk's Journey Through the Bardos of Living and Dying by Tibetan Monk Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche for the second time, I am more in love than ever with a phrase he uses to describe impermanence:  the continuity of change.

Hearing the word "impermanence" my attention tends to go to what I don't want to lose.  With "continuity of change" we see the truth of the world....that life is a river of always new always new always new again. And Yongey Mingyur points out that it is in seeing the impermanence of every "thing", including our thoughts, emotions, and bodies, we can notice that which is not a thing.  That which does not change at all. The pristine empty awareness that is our true nature. I dedicate this song to the Buddhist tradition, and to Rinpoche Yongey Mingyur for the beautiful teachings he passes on in his book, especially that magical phrase, which I have of course included in the song.   
The first recording below I made when the song was born, in August of 2020.  The second one I made in February of 2025, when I realized that I was singing the song at a slightly faster pace and with a great deal of joy.  It seems I have come to see the compassion and great gift of the phrases.... Mutu Kabla Anta Mutu, Die Before You Die, and Continuity of Change.  Thank you to all the teachers who point us towards seeing the unreality and impermanence of the beliefs which bring us suffering.  
Die Before You Die
© K Hannan 2020
​Mutu Qabla Anta Mutu -  
Islamic phrase meaning Die Before You Die
La Illaha Il Allah - There is only one God, God


Mutu Qabla Anta Mutu
Mutu Qabla Anta Mutu
Mutu Qabla Anta Mutu
La Illaha Il Allah 
Mmmm Hmmm

Die before your body dies
Leave all thoughts about yourself behind
In silence watch the continuity of change
La Illaha Il Allah 
Mmmm Hmmm

La Illaha Il Allah
La Illaha Il Allah
La Illaha Il Allah
Die before you die
Die before you die
0 Comments

Songs for Our Journey 45

8/6/2020

0 Comments

 
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The Tao Te Ching is my favorite book, and Stephen Mitchell's is my favorite translation.  There is no run-around with Lao Tzu. 
He goes straight to the essentials.  And of all his verses
​I think this one is my favorite; it sums up the truth so succinctly.


See The World As Yourself
lyrics Lao Tzu from translation by Stephen Mitchell
melody © K Hannan


See the world as yourself
Have faith in the way things are
See the world as yourself
Have faith in the way things are

Love the world as yourself
Love the world as yourself
Loving the world as you love Love itself

​See how you shine in everything
Now you can care for all things
Now you can care for all things
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0 Comments

Songs for Our Journey 44

6/17/2020

0 Comments

 
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I wrote this song in 1994 after hearing a South African man and woman being interviewed on the radio. They were standing in line waiting to vote in the first free South African elections. The man said, "That this has finally happened in my lifetime, I am filled with joy, like a dreaming child." The woman followed, "We only know what has gone before, we can't say what's coming now."  

I was struck by the balance between the visionary and the practical, even skeptical.  Perhaps that balance is what is needed to create change.  

​
June 13, 2020
In the Georgia primaries this week people stood for 4, 5, 6 hours, many of them wearing masks, to cast their votes during the pandemic. And Republicans in Iowa want to rescind universal voting by mail after the highest ever primary turnout thanks to universal voting by mail.

It seems like it's time to sing this song again.  

May we vote out the people who do not want everyone to vote, towards the day when we will finally have truly democratic elections in the USA.  Love, Kathleen
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Count My Heart
© K Hannan 1994

"That this should finally happen in my lifetime,
I am filled with joy, like a dreaming child."
"We only know what has gone before, 
can't say what is coming now."

But this has finally happened in our lifetime
We are filled with joy, like the mountainside
So we stand in line
​Thousands at a time
To be counted

Count my heart, which is beating
Count my eyes, which are open
Count my children, my sisters, my brothers
whose hearts were once beating
Their voices once sang with us
Their spirits will always sing

Their spirits will always sing
Freedom is coming....  Freedom is coming
Freedom is coming....  Freedom is coming
Freedom is coming we paid with our lives
Because no one gives freedom away

Freedom is coming....  Freedom is coming
Freedom is coming....  Freedom is coming
Freedom is coming, we're coming to take it
'Cause no one gives freedom away
Because no one gives freedom way


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" Kathleen makes music that makes community."  
The Independent Weekly, Durham, NC  

Contact Kathleen