It began with a dream that wouldn't
lie down. (Carolyn McDade) When Caryn Douglas was on program staff at the Prairie
Christian Training Centre, in Fort Qu'Appelle,
Saskatchewan, she had a dream of Carolyn McDade being musician in residence at
the centre, and she set about putting her dream in motion.
That dream became a reality in the fall of 1995. When Carolyn arrived on the prairie scene she said to people, "Show me your land", and people responded by taking her to places of broken and unbroken land: the Qu'Appelle Valley, Grandmother's Hills (a long vista in the back county near Climax where ancient seas once stretched for hundreds of miles), the rolling hills near Aneroid, the South Saskatchewan River valley. The land spoke deeply to Carolyn's poetic heart and words and music began to form from the power of this ancient land: Hills of Grass, Ancient Seas, Trilogy, A Chant.
Another dream formed in the darkness of Carolyn's unshielded heart, growing steadily until it was born in words shared with a few good prairie women. These women caught the energy of the dream --- to record a CD with the voices of western Canadian women singing love songs to the land: Women~Land~Spirit was born.
From the beginning, the group who represented the four western provinces decided, to say "Yes" to whatever would unfold as the dream grew bigger, wider and more awesome. "Yes" to women who dreamed of singing and recording human voices and voices of creatures; "Yes" to women who dreamed of fabric art expressing the theme; "Yes" to women who dreamed of writing poetry and stories; "Yes" to women who visualized the project through the lens of a camera; "Yes" to women who dreamed of dancing music and lyrics; "Yes" to individuals and communities who wished to give energy to the sacred web. Wonderful life giving energy, all focused on making the dream a reality.
And so it came to pass
--- "89 women singing, in the Banff mountain air, love songs to creation. Songs
celebrating the unending turning of this blue green planet toward the sun. Songs
tenderly and passionately calling forth the essence of who we are Songs defying
the death-dealing forces of our world, winding a life-sustaining path in harmony
with our souls, and land and spirit" (excerpt
from an article in Wholife magazine Vol. 5 Issue 4 November-December,1999).
This, I believe is the power of the music. It touches and greets the wiId wise woman within, giving courage to name ourselves, our truth --- individually and collectively --- and to claim our power to create culture. A new justice conserving the connections of people, land, and Spirit.
Three truths shared by women at Banff stay with me, sustain me from this mountain top experience:
We are the land we sing / We are born of a star / We are releasing a flew justice.
The launches held in all four provinces extended the web, so now this powerful music is released to the world, winding its way on wind, singing in diverse souls. We wonder what will happen now? In wisdom we return to the darkness to ponder and rest, to trust in the power of a dream that will come, a dream that will not lie down.
Carol Stevenson Seller is a partner in People Focus and lives in Saskatoon.
The CD
($18) and tape ($12) We Are the Land We Sing are available at United Church Bookstores in Canada and in the U.S. through Faith@Work.
More pictures & reflections on the Sacred Web Project. And please these other sites on the Internet at http://www.gis.net/~surtsey/womenlandspirit/ (Carolyn's website) or http://www.cableregina.com/business/livingland/ .