"while I am watching the animals and birds I am watching the river and listening. In the water I hear the aboriginal sounds which musicians and poets, shamans and seers have heard in the Great River from the beginning and repeated to their people. In the sound I hear their songs cast into the Great River a long long time ago. Music from the veiled source and these human melodies gather in the long bed waiting to be heard and retrieved by someone, somewhere downstream, in time. Adding to this eternal litany, I tell my own stories to the river, stories I have heard, dreams which people have entrusted to me, my own dreams, tales I have read. The words I write I take to the river and read to the water. Until I have given the words to the river they are not mine to give. Until they are thrown into the flow, washed and bedded in her body, I do not trust their purity. The water absorbs the sounds and the timeless commingling continues, running with purpose to union with all the waters circling this sweet earth. In the waters the sounds go round and round.
Sometimes I think of the animals hearing the songs in the water and perhaps understanding something good about us. I always carry with me one of my stone animals. Washed in the river, the animal returns the sound to its altar in the studio and the sounds in the stone sing like the stones in the riverbed."
beautiful words about voice
by meinrad craighead
who do you share
your voice with?
No comments:
Post a Comment