Countenance

ever so often she comes ~
a song
A rupture with pretention,
she walks out of the heart,
its fold of hills,
its damp persistent marshes,
its long perfect curve
It is her countenance that names her,
her lack of detour
from fields of fear and danger
In a fastened world
she comes not clinging
In all the rush to understand
she is patient with meanings
In the clamor for hope
she says but one thing ~
This life, in all
its ache and beauty,
is worthy, my friend, of living

(Through the Moons of Autumn)

Carolyn McDade

Carolyn McDade is a lover of language and sound. A writer of sound, she is committed to the power of the human voice singing and speaking truth to move society to just and liberating transformation. Through song and singing she helps us deepen human consciousness and understand ourselves as part of a living planet. For over three decades she has brought circles of women together to sing songs rooted in women's experiences. A social activist, she weaves together the spiritual and the political - integrating personal, social, planetary, cosmic. She describes herself simply as a woman of faith seeking with others to touch what matters.

Carolyn's recorded music dates back to the early 1970's. Over the years she has organized 13 recording projects that grew out of her singing circles. Each project involved activist women and a growing body of gifted and accomplished professional musicians. Thousands of women have touched into these circles and projects. The depth of their living - profound and ordinary - stirs and sustains this music.

Were I to say how much I love this earth. . .

...I often wonder what it would be like if we dared to love this life ~ the fragile and the vulnerable, the endangered, daring to be humble before the magnitude of our beginnings, daring to lean our species into a stubborn and pliant wonder, until reverence shines in all that we do ~ until we live an economics of reverence, a theology of reverence, a politics of reverence ~ until it permeates education, development, and health care, homes and relationships, arts and agriculture ~ a reverence for life, for planetary, social, and personal wholeness.

This is our purpose now. May we do it well, with thoroughness and love.