Although spring has not yet sprung fully in the PIedmont of North Carolina, we are feeling it starting with jonquils and forsythia and tulips and flowering trees and some little tiny leaves peeking out.  All this excitement has gotten me singing this song, about the truth of who we are.  

In the spring of 2003 I discovered, in a deep meditation, my own heart.  As I walked around in the world, I saw that the same heart is at the core of everyone and everything.   When the next Christmas season rolled around, I saw the Christmas story in a new way.  The baby Jesus brought love into the world, the same way every child does, because the divine heart of Jesus is the same divine heart we all share.   I wrote this song to express the joy of that One heart in every child, and in every grownup too, and in every tree, river, rock, earthworm.  The baby in the photo above is my sister Meg, and I am the toddler checking her out in amazement.  Where did this creature come from?  Meg was born in summertime, June 7th, 1951.

The picture above is of the very first Human to Human Circle Dance and Sing outdoor meetup, in Downtown Durham. Although we did not sing the song below, the lyrics to which are a poem by Rumi, I feel this song captures the spirit of what it was like.  People we had not met joined us in song and dance, and it was a truly joyful experience to, as Rumi says, "move outside the tangle of our minds" together. Our next meetup will probably be the last Saturday in October.  If you'd like to be on the mailing list for Human to Human meetup notifications, please visit www.humantohumancircledanceandsing.weebly.com 

A friend wrote to me this week and asked for this song, for a Queen of Heaven celebration she was doing for Beltane.  So I'm posting it here with wishes to everyone for a beautiful Beltane season of green and passion and reclaimed feminine power.  The Maria in this song is an embodied Goddess.  She is passionate, sensual, an activist, a lover.  She is Tara, Kali, Oshun, Venus, Mary. She is you and me.  She is all women  around the world, speaking out, standing up, and creating with the natural compassion and understanding that comes from being mothers, daughters, sisters, grandmothers, aunts. She is also men of course, and children,  and every rock, tree, river and earthworm.. May we all trust, live and create from the limitless freedom within each of our hearts.  Blessed Be. 

This song came through many years ago while I was lying on a huge rock next to the Schuylkill River in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, crying my heart out over a relationship that was transforming.  A beautiful oak tree was growing out of the rock, and as the song was born my sorrowful feelings washed through with the sound of the river, and I was left feeling whole, and at peace with the way things were.  

Of the songs I've written in my lifetime, this is the one that has truly entered the folk stream. People sing this song in Vermont, Maine, Virginia, New York, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Florida, and possibly places in between. It has travelled to places I have not been, and met people I have not met.    Having grown up singing traditional songs, I love that this song has a life of it's own, and I hope that it will be one of many songs honoring Earth and honoring the Mother  that will continue to thrive in our country.  

I wrote this song many years ago, and we usually sing it in Bodies, Voices & Spirit Chorus  just one night of the year. After seeing daffodils and trout lillies blooming on Tuesday, I knew this is the week to sing it! One thing I love about this song is that people tend to want to dance while they're singing it. Imagine a room full of the Faerie people flitting about, and you'll see what I saw the past couple of nights as the Choristas celebrated this moment out of time.  

You can purchase Seen & Unseen on this website  Order Seen & Unseen CD
And you can purchase KIVA's recording through their website www.kivasong.com

This recording was made at Unity Center of Peace in April of 2017. The musicians and singers are the Bodies, Voices & Spirit Chorus and Band, along with the congregation at Unity, with whom we love to sing because they love to sing!    
​

Who Makes The Grass Grow?
© K Hannan 2017

Who makes the grass grow?
Who makes the wind blow?
Who are you without the stories that you tell?
There's just one thing happening
We see it shine in everything
Only One, and that One is your Heart

****************************************************************************************
This song came through with deep gratitude to Byron Katie for the gift of her 4 questions and turnarounds, known at The Work.  

To discover who you are without one of your stories,
take any stressful thought and put it up to these questions:

1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know that it's true?
3. How do you react when you believe that thought?
4. Who would you be without the thought?

Now take your original thought and turn it to as many opposites as you can find.  Then find genuine examples of where each turnaround could be as true or truer than your original thought.

​​
To watch Byron Katie doing the Work with people,
and to find out how to do the Work yourself,
check out Katie's website  www.thework.com 

​You can also learn how to do the Work 
by reading Byron Katie's first book, Loving What Is

And there are many videos of Katie on YouTube as well.  

The photo above is of a  Syrian refugee mother and her baby, in Greece. I am posting this song tonight  with so much love for the displaced Syrian moms, dads and children around the world and still in Syria.   May you find  rest, peace, new friends and kind neighbors.  
​

December 2019
Since I posted this song in 2016, the situation for immigrants attempting to gain asylum in our country has gotten much more difficult.  So many of us are heartbroken about what has been and is continuing to happen at our southern border with Mexico, affecting immigrants from throughout Central America and Mexico, and especially affecting the children and parents who have been  separated from each other.  My choruses sang this song this week, which inspired us to send a donation to one of the organizations doing compassionate and essential work at the border.  R.A.I.C.E.S., (Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services.)  We sent our donation in memory of Eben Charles Dingman, who cared deeply about the people suffering from social, economic and environmental oppression in Latin America and around the world.  

 
Breath of God
K Hannan 2003

 They laid him in a manger, the little baby child
The angels came to greet him, with a song so sweet and wild
 
The stars were fierce and magic, real glory from above
His parents wept and trembled, they’d never known this kind of Love
 
The little boy was holy
Every witness knew it’s true
Cause in each tiny heartbeat,
the breath of god came through
the breath of god
 
There comes another baby
They lay her on the ground
She is not born in Bethlehem
Still the angels come around
She’s born there by the highway
Where the homeless people stay
A little crowd has gathered
And the wise ones kneel and pray
 
The baby girl is holy
Every witness knows it’s true
That in each tiny heartbeat
The breath of god comes through
It's the breath of god
 
Now some are born in castles
To cradles made of gold
And some are born in frozen fields
And sleep out in the cold
And  maybe Jesus told us
But we did not understand
That every baby born on earth is born on sacred land
 
And  every child is holy
Every witness knows it’s true
That in each tiny heartbeat
The breath of god comes through
It's the breath of god
In me and you
The breath of god