This song is inspired by my friend and collaborator Sara Airoldi’s poem Opening. Together, we created the poem and song as a ceremonial opening for a community offering called Social Alchemy, with the intention of unwinding from the paradigm of isolation and fostering collective healing.
Sara and I brought forward the ingredients of alchemy we have each cultivated over a lifetime: creativity, world culture, play, and embodiment.
To learn more about Social Alchemy currently offered in Bellingham, Washington, please see here. A unique aspect of this offering is that it is completely free for participants, and even provides a small stipend for those who complete the four-month training. Our project is sponsored by the Mount Baker Foundation to expand access across the economic spectrum and to honor our belief that everyone’s voice and healing are essential to the community, not only those who can afford services.
Original Poem by Sara Airoldi
Opening
I opened to the Earth elements
Subtle
Tiny
Earth body movements that
Became the wild energies
Of time
And ancient beauty
And rage
And how mountain is telling
A story of “as”
Rock
Tree
Water
Fire
Embodied in the me of human
That has expression
Not yet known.
The tears are of the below,
Sacred,
A listening place
Of silence
That hugs the vast
Darkness
Glowing
With forever
Letting me know
It is time to meet
The compressed
Expanse of anguish...
The compressed
Expanse of anguish
In sound
Heaving forth into
The gift of now
In the stream
Who knows of miracles.
I hear the playful around me.
