As a child growing up in Philadelphia, I had not much of nature to see,
But streets of asphalt and buildings of bricks, was how most of the world seemed to me.
Then my summers I’d spend in the country, in the east Pennsylvania hills,
At a camp near farmlands and forests and fields, a serenity that dwells with me still.
Over the years I would learn there about Native American lore,
And I began to feel one with the natural and wild, like those who had lived there before.
And a voice from within me would whisper through the rustling red maple trees,
As the spirit that nurtures the universe spoke in the sounds of the soft, summer breeze:
(Chorus)
I will be here as long as the mountains, the rivers the lakes and the trees;
And till then may I watch eagles soar through the skies and the salmon come home from the seas.
As I watch over all of Earth’s children, the land, air and water so blue,
And all of the creatures that never ask why, I’m a spirit within each of you.
It spoke from the stream I would swim in, and the willows that shaded its shore,
And the whippoorwills’ song as the nighttime drew on or the wind through the old cabin door;
In campfires on cool summer evenings, with the flame’s dance and crackling song,
Or the chirp of the crickets and the katydids trill, that would comfort me all the night long.
And the spirit remained always with me. Through the seasons I could still hear It call;
From the cornfields in summer that covered the hills, to the gold leaves that colored the fall.
Or a winter’s night snow on the fence rows, bright mountain drifts reaching the moon;
Or the bullfrog’s spring bellow that would lull me to sleep, to awake to a mockingbird’s tune-- It spoke:
But encroachment by men was relentless, and the life of the forest grew still;
As the bulldozers plowed out the wide logging roads to haul trees to the old lumber mill.
And as forests were transformed to houses and yards and the fields to apartments and malls,
Then gone were the katydids, turtles and streams, and the whip-poor-wills’ long evening calls.
And gone was the red fox that slipped through the fence-row, the wildflowers that blossomed each year,
And the blackberry thickets that bordered the fields that fed the box turtles and deer.
Now their home has been taken away from us all, and we’ll suffer the loss I believe.
For I know that the death of my campestral home left the spirit within me to grieve -- it spoke:
“I am the soul of the universe. I’m the seasons of winter to fall.
I’m the life of water of air and of the land, and the creatures that ‘bound in them all.
And I’ll speak to whoever will open her heart, to a wisdom we harbor within;
That we are all one with the stars and the sun, with the earth and with each living thing.”
(Chorus- modified)
I will be here as long as the mountains, the rivers the lakes and the trees;
And forever may I watch eagles soar through the skies and the salmon come home from the seas.
As I watch over all of Earth’s children, the land, air and water so blue,
to all of those creatures, even those who ask why, I'm a spirit within each of you
Spirit is a true autobiography of my youth as a camper and counselor at a camp in the rolling hills of eastern Pennsylvania for children from urban Philadelphia. Though the logging intrusion on the camp at that time was local and temporary, the urbanization of those country roads, forests, and fields in that area of Pennsylvania over the years is heartbreaking to those of us who knew it when.
All are rooted in my love of nature and music. At least the love of nature, and maybe the love of music, too, are grounded in“biophilia,” or, as defined by E.O. Wilson, that sense of oneness with and passion for nature that seems to be a part of human experience.
This sensitivity is why we seem to experience esthetically trees, gardens, flowers, mountains, lakes, streams, oceans and the natural world in general. Like an “imprinting” process, such esthetic and emotional components of humans are inherently a part of our development, our ‘make-up,’ or, if one wishes, our “species ancestral memory.”
But like many of our emotional and aesthetic systems, our biophilia needs to be nurtured by early experiences. Perhaps the younger we are when we have positive experiences with nature, the more easily and with greater intensity our biophilia develops. It is these passions, feelings and emotions that are within us that define our “spirituality” and that which we often refer to as our “spirit.”
This song, Spirit, describes such early experiences in my life and in the lives of so many campers and counselors who spent summers in those rolling hills. It also reflects my thoughts (and to a large extent-- the reality) of watching that rural area of eastern Pennsylvania overtaken by the ‘progress’ of development..
“A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood.”
“If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder… he needs the companionship of a least one adult who can share it, rediscover with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.”
“I sincerely believe that for the child… it is not half so important to know as to feel.”
Rachel Carson: The Sense of Wonder
If Only There were Eco-Civ Grammys
If only there were Eco-Civ Grammys. Among other things they would honor songs that evoke a sense of the beauty of the earth and the importance of felt relations with the more than human world. These songs would communicate the world's best and only real hope -- the emergence of ecologial civilizations -- not by preaching but by storytelling. And, like good poetry, the songs would avoid high-minded generallities but instead focus on the particulars of local settings and discrete memories. I'd nominate Joe Lombardi's song "Spirit" for an Eco-Civ Grammy. (Happily, there can be lots of winners.) Joe is a singer-songwriter in Arkansas who performs music at assisted living centers, farmer's markets, restaurants, coffee houses, public libraries, and local benefits. He is on the advisory board of the Center for Process Spirituality. You can hear Joe's song "Spirit" on this page. If you know others who might also deserve an Eco-Civ Grammy (and I bet you do) please share with us at Open Horizons. And know that we are developing an online platform -- www.becomingscollective.org -- to profile this kiind of art and music as created by emerging artists around the nation and, we hope, the world.
-- Jay McDaniel
Arts and the New Paradigm
About The Culture of Possibility
"We are in the midst of seismic cultural change. In the old paradigm, priorities are shaped by a mechanistic worldview that privileges whatever can be numbered, measured, and weighed; human beings are pressured to adapt to the terms set by their own creations. Macroeconomics, geopolitics, and capital are glorified. They form the foreground of the world depicted by powerful institutions: banks, militaries, energy corporations, major news media. People are expected to make sacrifices for profit-margin, to go to war for oil, to accept environmental damage that threatens future generations—and often, to do all this for no palpable reward beyond “improved economic indicators.” Within the old paradigm how we feel, how we connect, how we spend our time, how we make our way and come to know each other—these are all part of the scenery.
In the new paradigm, culture is given its true value. The movements of money and armies may receive close attention from politicians and media voices, but at ground-level, we care most about human stories, one life at a time. Our deepest debates, our obsessions, our consolations, and our most purely discretionary choices about where to deploy our resources and attention are conveyed through sound, image, and movement, in the vocabulary of art. People care passionately about how they and the things they value are depicted. They revive themselves after a long workday with music or dance, by making something beautiful for themselves or their loved ones, by expressing their deepest feelings in poetry or watching a film that never fails to comfort. In the new paradigm, it is understood that culture prefigures econ0omics and politics; it molds markets; and it expresses and embodies the creativity and resilience that are the human species’ greatest strengths.
In the old paradigm, humanity is stuck. By the time an issue is prepared for public consumption—by the time that dueling positions have been extruded like so much media sausage stuffed with empty platitudes—there is very little room to move. In the new paradigm, our prodigious powers of imagination open portals to the future through alternate scenarios that respond to social conditions without being constrained by orthodoxies. There are multiple sides to every story, and many stories lead to something worth trying.
The bridge between paradigms is being built by artists and others who have learned to deploy artists’ cognitive, imaginative, empathic, and narrative skills. The bridge is made of the stories that the old paradigm can’t hear, the lives that it doesn’t count, the imagined future it can’t encompass."
-- Arlene Goldbard
