Blog Posts

Songs for Our Journey 39

11/20/2019

This song came through on an evening when I fell into a triggered emotional state in which I was angry at someone else, angry at myself, and I felt very lost. When the friends who had been at my house went home, I went out and lay down on the ground to meditate, and to connect to my body, to the earth, to the night. In a very short timeless few moments, the feelings overflowed, the thoughts moved on, and I opened my eyes to see the brilliance of Orion above me in the sky, with Mars following close behind. The emotional turmoil was completely gone, and I felt deeply at peace. I went indoors to my piano, and within another few moments, this song had been born. Now, many years later, the song is a reminder that thoughts and feelings are always just passing through, and that just a few moments of turning inside can be profoundly liberating.

Like A Ruby
© K Hannan 2003

Sometimes I get lost and
Sometimes I can't see and
Sometimes I get lonely
I get lonely, and

Sometimes I forget and
Sometimes I can't feel and
Sometimes I get lonely
Still get lonely but

Sometimes I remember to
Fall down on the ground and
Watch Mars, shine like a ruby
Orion comin' up
Sorrow gone, gone
Sorrow gone

Songs for Our Journey 38

10/30/2019

These two songs were created a decade apart, but they became very good friends and are always sung together now. Sometime after hearing Joseph Campbell say that we should create new myths,
I noticed that Orion looks to me like a woman belly dancing,
and that Canis Major with it's bright star Sirius, is a little girl dancing with her mother, and the Orion song was born. Perhaps Sirius is the ringing of finger cymbals that the little girl is playing!

And Out Of The Dark, written ten years earlier, comes out of my love of the night, and of the creativity, music and joy that over, over and over comes out of the silence of the dark.

Orion
© K Hannan 1997
I will trade these chains for wings
across the hills I'll fly
I will trade these chains for wings
across these hills I'll fly
Orion reaches out her arms to me
Orion reaches out to dance with me
We are the lovers of the dark
We are the keepers of the night
We are the lovers of the dark
Keeping time in the winter sky
Keeping time in the winter sky
Keeping time in the winter sky
Keeping time
Orion
and I

Out Of The Dark
© K Hannan 1987
Out of the dark, the dancers come
Each one alone, we dance as One
Through all the changes, still we come
Dance into the morning!

Bird on the wing was born to fly
She will not stay, though we may cry
She sings a song up in the sky
Dance into the morning!

Sorrowful tears I cry today
Far from my home and I've lost my way
Somehow a voice inside will say
Dance into the morning!

In every land, by a different name,
There is a dance, One Dance the same
Leave all the reasons for fear and blame
You can dance into the morning!

Out of the dark the dancers come
Each one alone, we dance as One
Through all the change, change, change, change
Dance into the morning
Dance into the morning
Dance into the mor...........................ning!

Songs for Our Journey 37

10/24/2019

What The Baby Knows
© K Hannan 2000
Did you rock all night?
Did you hold her so close?
Did your heart fall open like a flower?
Did her breath rise sweet in between your breath?
Did you almost remember what the baby knows?

What the baby knows, the baby knows
The baby knows just where the love comes from

Did she draw you in to her eyes so deep?
Did she call you back to the beginning?
With no words to say, did she teach you to pray?
Did she light a candle in your temple?

What the baby knows, the baby knows
The baby knows just where the love comes from
***********************************************

When my niece Rose was born I went to visit in Chicago, and the What The Baby Knows song was born out of that sweet time of being with the miracle of a tiny new life. A few short years later Rose and I and her sister Celia recorded some songs in their basement. The photo above is from that session. I have posted three versions below of a song that we wrote that week. The first one is sung by Celia, who I believe was 2 at the time. The second one is the whole family, and the third one is Rose's improv on the tune!
This year, Rose started college!

Here are Rose and Celia a few years later with my other brother's daughter Ruby.

Songs for Our Journey 36

9/11/2019

I believe that we only awaken to our true nature when we see through the false promises of divisive thought. In the days following September 11, 2001, Rumi's poem (translated by Coleman Barks) ran through my mind over and over and over. "Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing there is a field, I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase each other, doesn't make any sense"

I started working on this song that December, and continued for years, always feeling that something wasn't quite finished yet. After about three years, in a deep meditation, the truth of Rumi's poem became evident. All ideas of right and wrong, and the suffering that come with those ideas, eventually disappear, just as all thoughts and all forms disappear. What remains is the Heart, the open, spacious, silent, aware, ever present truth of who we are and what everything is. Even through these troubled times on Earth, that heart lives in all of us, deeper than form, deeper than thought, deeper than sorrow. And the song finished itself.

Out Beyond That Road
© K Hannan 2004

No colors in the world, just black and white
You were wrong and I was right
But I won't go down that road no more
I won't go down that road no more
'Cause we knew in our hearts when the towers fell
We can make a heaven, we can make a hell
And I won't go down that road no more
I won't go down that road no more

I know that out beyond that road there is a field
Out beyond that road there is a beautiful field
When the soul lies down in that grass
The world is so full
The world is so full
The world is too full to talk about

Even words like you and me
don't mean nothin' when we get down in that field
In that field of the heart

Out beyond that road there is a field
Out beyond that road there is a field
Out beyond that road....

Where the heart does not need to ask
The heart does not need to ask
The heart does not need to ask
The heart does not need to ask

Where the smallest flower on the smallest grass
Shines with the answers to the question
Heart does not need to ask

The heart does not need to ask
The heart does not need to ask
Love I'll meet you in that field
Out beyond ideas. in that field of Love

Songs for Our Journey 35

6/8/2019

I watched a beautiful and moving video of the man in the photo above doing The Work inquiry with Byron Katie on his thoughts about his alcoholic mom. The beauty that shone from this man's face and heart as he connected with a truth deeper than his long-held beliefs inspired this song. Click here to see the video:
My Mother Abandoned Me For Alcohol

Never Injured
© K Hannan 2019

Never injured
Indivisible
Always here
No matter what you think about it
Turn around and find what you've always known
Love can never leave you, Love is what you are

Like a mountain
Like an ocean
Like a brilliant fire
Like an endless sky
Turn around and see what you've always known
Love can never leave you, Love is what you are

Songs for Our Journey 34

6/5/2019

It's the 50th anniversary of Stonewall! I'm posting this song and the next one with gratitude for the brave souls who found the self respect and courage to stand up for themselves in the fifties and sixties as GBLT people at a time when the general culture so viciously rejected them.

The first verse of this song refers to young man I met in Salt Lake City in the early nineties, whose parents had disowned him for being gay. The photo above is of a recent Utah Pride March. I just checked Wikipedia, which said that attendance in 2018 was 100,00 people.
I hope that young man, not so young by now, has been able to find reconciliation with his family as so many people have in the past 30 years.

The second verse is about an older man in Philadelphia who was speaking at a Methodist Church that had just become a "Welcoming Congregation", publicly opening it's doors to queer people for the first time, also in the early ninties. He told us that he had always known God loved him as he was, despite everything he had been told to the contrary. For me it was a pointer to an internal strength I didn't know anyone could even have!

If You've Ever Loved
© K Hannan 1993

John lives in Salt Lake City
Provo is his home town
And lately John can't seem to find a reason to go down
His dad won't speak his name
His mother says the devil's got his soul
But Christ said only one thing makes us whole

It's love that sets us free,
but love won't bring John home
And love needs friends and family
Love does not thrive alone
And if you listen with your heart, you'll understand
If you've ever loved a woman, if you've ever loved a man

I have heard truth spoken
I have seen true grace
An old man spoke of his childhood,
and tears rolled down my face
He said in my church, my school, my home
Everyone I knew said my love was a crime
But inside, I've always known, God blessed this love of mine

Cause love has set me free
Love has always been my home
And I've found friends and family
I do not live alone
And if you listen with your heart, you'll understand
If you've ever loved a woman, if you've ever loved a man

Now Christ spoke of love for everyone
That's really all he said
He terrified the mighty,
they did not rest till he was dead
But you say that Jesus lives for you
I say it's a shame
Can't you see Love flows through everyone, the same

You think that God speaks only
You think that God speaks only
You think that God speaks only to you
Well God speaks to me too

Cause love can set us free
Love can bring us all home
And love makes friends and family
Love does not thrive alone
So when you listen with your heart you'll understand
If you've ever loved a woman, if you've ever loved a man
If you've ever loved a woman
If you've ever loved a man

Songs for Our Journey 33

6/5/2019

This month being the 50 anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Riots which were such an important moment in the LGBTQ liberation movement in the US, I'm posting this slide show which I made back when Amendment One, banning Gay marriage, passed in North Carolina. The law was later struck down by the US 4th Circuit and then by the Supreme Court.

I wrote this song before gay marriage was on the horizon, in 1993. I post it tonight with deep gratitude to all those who came before us in the movements for not only LGBTQ rights, but the movements for the civil rights of African Americans and of women and the anti-war movement which all inspired the gay rights movement. Nowadays we call it intersectionality, the fact that all of our issues are as interconnected as are all the ecosystems of the planet, and all the galaxies of all the universes. Although we are living through very challenging times, remembering the history of all these movements has been inspiring me tonight. I know that what is true and good in human beings cannot be destroyed, and will rise and rise and rise again for the liberation of all beings.

Been Here Forever
© K Hannan 1993
vocals - Kathleen Hannnan, Toddie Stewart, Sheila Fleming
bass - Toddie Stewart guitars - James Benson drums - Doug Karger

We've been here forever, we'll be here the same
You try to keep us away, by namin' us names
We live in your home town, with you born and bred
We come from your families, we're inside your head

Cause we're just like you, but we're different too
We're just like you, but we're different too

Throw us out of your churches
Kill us for being queer
Throw us out of your armies
Turn around look again and we're still here
We're still here, we're still here, we're still here

And our love is a miracle
Through the hatred we were taught to feel
Still our love comes, like a miracle
That's how we know it's real

We're in every nation across the whole earth
We cry at your funeral, you rejoice at our birth
We call to your spirit, minister to your health
You love us unless you're afraid of....afraid of yourself

Cause we're just like you, but we're different too
We're just like you, but we're different too
We're just like you, but we're different too
We're just like you, but we're different too
We're just like you, we're just like you!

The song is on the album Count My Heart, and can be purchased
as a download or with the whole album from cdbaby here:
https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/kathleenhannan

Songs for Our Journey 32

4/21/2019

This lovely song has a beautiful and long history. The words were written as a poem by a North Carolina Minister, Henry Richard McFedyen, in 1925. Then in the 1950's, a man named David Johnson paired the poem with the melody of a tune called Prospect, which was originally published in The Sacred Harp in 1828. Mr. Johnson also changed the original word "fowl" to "bird". Thank you Mr. Johnson! And then, in the 21st Century, I made up a dance to go with the song. I love the way music works, that three centuries of collaboration could happen in that way. I do not know who took that amazing photo of the snowy owl, but I post it with deep gratitude.
I have attached the dance instructions below the lyrics.

The Lone Wild Bird
text by Henry Richard Mc Fadyen in 1925
melody - "Prospect" by Graham
melody first published in The Sacred Harp 1828

The lone wild bird in lofty flight
Is still with thee, nor leaves thy sight
And I am thine, I rest in thee
Great Spirit come and rest in me

The ends of earth are in thy hand
The sea's dark deep, and far off land
And I am thine, I rest in thee
Great Spirit come and rest in me

the_lone_wild_bird_-_dance_instructions_nov_2015.pdf
File Size:	33 kb
File Type:	pdf

Songs for Our Journey 31

3/27/2019

I wrote this song in a joyful moment after many months of healing. It's a long story, which perhaps I will post at some point. But the way I got well was through slowing way down and meditating a lot. In that process I learned that connecting with gravity in a deep way, relaxing the body, and watching the breath is a doorway to awareness of the deep peace, joy and love at our core. This song was a celebration of that peace which is always available when we turn our awareness in the direction, as Adyashanti says, of "that which is not thought".

Got Enough Socks
© K Hannan 2003
Got enough socks, got enough shoes
Got enough reasons to sing the blues
What I need, you can't buy in a store
Found a little nothing on a back road
And I want a little bit more

Nothin' on my mind, no fear in my heart
Nothin' to finish, and nothin' to start
When I get nowhere, no reason to leave
I'll just sit down there, on the grass and breathe

Got enough shirts, got enough hats
Got enough info-mercials, and enough talk radio facts
What I need, any fool would choose
Found a little nothin' at midnight now
I got nothin' to lose

Nothin' to say, nothin' to prove
I got nothin' in the way of a real slow groove
When I get a lot of nothing saved up gonna share it with you
Gonna throw a party, and give y'all
Nothin' to do

Songs for Our Journey 30

3/13/2019

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.

I Know Myself
© K Hannan 2009

I know myself in each green tree
I know my heart in the empty sky
I am right here, always right here
From deep in the center of everything
I know myself in your eyes.