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| HOT NOTES !Hello and welcome to the New Years, 2010 issue of the Sacred Fire Choir newsletter.   “We gather in creative community with joyful voices,
honoring Earth, healing through song and celebrating
the Divine Feminine Spirit in all.”(Please send corrections to Melissa at: info@sacredfirechoir.org ) In this issue:
- Thank you to Margie Hunt for her Service
- Brief Review of the Year from Margie Hunt
- Fundraiser Review, by Patty Zeitlin
- Notes From Lorraine Bayes, Our Director and Guide
- When is a Choir More Than a Choir? by Lois McClellan
- An Awakened Heart, by Melissa K.
Thank You Margie!
The Sacred Fire Choir Board offers its heartfelt gratitude to Margie Hunt, whose year-plus of service to the Choir Board was very important and much appreciated. We wish this dear soul and her trusty clipboard great success as she leaves serving on the Board to continue her education. Thank you, Margie, and much love.
Brief Review of the Year From Margie
By Margie Hunt
Margie sent us this email reviewing some moments from the year, and we would like to share her words with you:
What a trip it has been!
May 31, 2008
At our Spring retreat, we made the decision to sing less at Gaia’s Temple, and more in Nature. We did not know it at the time, but that decision sent us on our Hero’s Journey.
Summer 2008
There was turmoil aplenty, with communications and electronics that did not work as we would have wished.
August 2008
I attended a Board meeting for the first time in several years. By the end of that meeting, we realized that we had no Pam, no Robert, no Veronica, and no Gaia’s Temple. We were cast adrift from our former existence.
September 2008
The Mystery entered into our grief-filled Fall retreat, unexpectedly bringing us Lorraine, who became our Choir Guide.
February 2009
(Was it really only that long ago?) Women of Wisdom became a high point for us. We did a dynamite performance on opening night, dispelling any doubts about the quality of our musicianship; and miraculously, at the Conference, we were provided with the means for mending some wounded relationships.
May 2009
We did a successful full-scale performance at a fundraiser for Patty, with Robert, Pam, and Veronica taking part. Judith was there in spirit.
Spring and Summer 2009
We sang at four different parks, and we had a pool party at Jennifer Sundstrom’s on the hottest day in Seattle’s history.
August 2009
One year after we had gathered while feeling such loss, we once again met for our Fall retreat. This time, we looked back at the year’s journey, and recognized how heroic it had been. We have landed on the other shore with a new identity.
November 2009
When I arrived toward the end of the evening at the Harvest of Song Potluck last Wednesday, I looked around at the singing, and the children playing, and the remains of the sumptuous meal, and I thought about what the Choir is now. It seems to me that our new identity has the elements of fellowship, prayer, singing, and artistic creativity, all expressed in a framework of the sacredness of Nature.
Fundraiser Review
By Patty Zeitlin
Waves of gratitude still wash over me along with smiles, when I recall the Fundraising Concert and silent auction many of my friends in the choir pulled together for me in May. It was lots of fun and it sure did raise funds, enough to cover my alternative healing costs. There is no doubt in my mind that this event, combined with the prayers and daily support I received while recovering from surgery and radiation, contributed significantly to my present state of health and continued healing. Now, good news is (there is only good news) that after P.E.T. SCAN last week, I am completely free of all cancer. Hurrah!
For those of you who were not able to attend the concert, it also included lots of yummy food donated by friends, presented with panache, by our wonderfully well-organized and dedicated Margie Hunt. And there were a number of unique, donated hand crafted silent auction items, organized and beautifully displayed by Melissa K.
The concert, itself, produced by our beloved director, Lorraine Bayes, was MC'd with a joyful, welcoming spirit, by Joel Ware. Our sparkling Sacred Fire Choir sang a variety of songs with smiling confidence and loving energy. One of my favorites was "A Fine Wind Blowing," by Lorraine. It was accompanied by Ingrid Chapelle, a graceful, amazing dancer and her husband, Eric, an expert fiddle player, both from the children's performing and recording troupe, Tickle Tune Typhoon, with Lorraine directing us. Dianna Worth treate us to her plaintive, prayerful Native American flute and then offered us "Circle of Beauty" by Lorraine. Later on, Dianna blessed me individually, with that healing flute voice. Former SFC directors Pam Gerke and Robert Wade also led our choir on two numbers. Then Pam did an excerpt and duet with Robert from her remarkable musical about Florence Nightingale. Robert closed the concert, singing a touching rendition of my request, "You've Got a Friend."
Simone LaDrumma opened the program, with her spirited drumming, Lorraine Bayes with her wings behind her, paying respect to the four directions. Veronica Appolonia led us in her peaceful "Spirit Song", and offered two delightful new songs she wrote, "There Are Fairies in My Garden" and "What Do I do?" (In My Garden Today). Then Simone LaDrumma surprised us, accompanying herself not on the drum, but the ukulele, bringing the house down with funny rendition of a song she wrote recently about "Boobs".
I had invited The Shoreline Kupunas, a group of elders I dance with and joined them at the event for two hulas, "Beautiful Kauai," and "My Yellow Ginger Lei. I also sang a couple of my songs, "The Miller" and "Spin Spider, Spin" in harmony with the pure and expressive voice of Amy Madden. What a pleasure it was to sing with her. I had trouble not being touched to tears as her accompanist while she sang two of my other songs, "Why am I the Little One", and "Secret is My Name".
Melissa K. offered one of her tender, heartfelt poems about her daughter, six year old, Katie, who stood quietly and respectfully beside her while she performed it. Later on, Katie and her brother, four year old Max offered, with enthusiasm and confidence, a version of my "One Little Bird," while one by one some of us joined the children onstage as "little birds". Some laughter resulted when Max, who couldn't wait to do his solo, stood on his tip toes to reach the mike just a few seconds early, and was instantly corrected by his sister who told him, "Not now!" and a few seconds later, "Now!"
The response to this fundraiser from those who attended added to my bounty of gratitude. I heard comments like, "I was bathed in love," and "That wasn't just a concert. It was a spiritual gift." "I didn't feel like coming at first, but I'm glad I did. I felt SO much better afterwards," along with specific appreciations for all of the offerings that were experienced.
To add one more, several people have said, "The Choir is Back!" and I agree. It has been renewed, and continues to walk a musical path that expresses the values and interests of its present membership and director. It is a path of caring for the world of nature, of prayer, spiritual diversity and healing, loving creative community, along with some performing.
Whatever we might be or become in the future, all I can say is I am so glad I am part of these musical friendships and this Sacred Fire Choir community. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you all!
Notes from Lorraine Bayes
Our Choir Guide and Director
" I hear the voice of my grandmother calling me, I hear the voice of my grandmother call ~ listen listen .... "
There are many songs that carried the Sacred Fire Choir -- healing through song community-- this last year and this is one of the ones that kept us strong and hopeful, as we offered our singing prayers to Mother Nature, for peace and healing and joy in our own lives.
On New Years Eve, Dec 31 2009, while at an Interplay Class, a woman recognized me from former years with Tickle Tune Typhoon and from singing in concert with the Sacred Fire Choir at Women of Wisdom, with Native American Grammy winner, Joanne Shenandoah. She said the Grandmother Song deeply moved her, and sings in her as she has shared it in her community.
I was reminded how songs save lives, and how "true blue " this SFC community has been in showing up to care for one another, offering our love and prayer, wisdom and joy on behalf of life, as we humbly and bravely face the music of own our lives.
One of the core learnings from the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers gatherings I have witnessed and been totally RE- inspired by is: how vital and essential the necessity of praying for and with the Earth is, for the protection, healing and blessing of the waters, plants and animals -- for and with the seen and unseen. This web of diverse, interfaith and cultural prayer, ceremony and healing is NOW! It is for our own bodies and children and families and generations for ALL TIME -- as one Grandmother said, "Now is forever. "
In my reflection of guiding and directing and co-creating with this SFC community I have been deeply healed myself, and am honored to share with you the path of healing and celebrating through song ~ drum ~ flute ~ dance ~ ceremony.
We are Walking in Beauty: Our singing medicine walks at the at the UW Arboretum for Earth Day, Summer Solstice atop the mound, in the Holy Light at Gasworks, our time in August at Seward Park with Greenbird and Laurel Eagle Moon and Diana Worth blessing us with flute and drum, as we sang for the old trees and they sang to us. I recall young Katie crawling up in the old maple tree, and we all sang, " I hear the voice of my grandchildren calling me…”
“... Listen, listen... "
Our ceremonies at Sacred Groves with Spring Equinox and Winter Solstice with initiating the medicine wheel, tree planting, singing in and for Peace. I offer deep appreciation for the safe and nurturing harbor that Sacred Groves home has been for our retreats to process and heal and vision and move forward.
I wish to voice my thankfulness and love to the Sacred Fire Choir board for their abiding commitment to sustaining our singing community, to Pam Gerke and Robert Wade for their willingness to lovingly share their masterful skill in teaching and conducting for the WOW conference and for being present for all the understanding and reconciliation with Gaia's Temple. We are soon to sing again, our tree songs--Jan 10, 2010 for Gaia's Temple. Thanks and love to Rev. Judith and the Gaia’s Temple community. Thanks and appreciation for Amy Madden for her willingness to offer her beautiful harmony singing on the spot and skilled assistance and direction with sectional rehearsals.
The song, "We are going… heaven know where we are going ... we know we are " is humming through me.
Great, full-hearted gratitude and reciprocal joy to all who gave their musical offerings and beauty at Patti's Z 's fundraiser ~ WOW! I have a memory of such grace and tenderness. I wish strength and resiliency for ALL, being centered in our love for one another.
I also loved presenting the SFC at the Tickle Tune Typhoon's 30th Winter Concert this December, as we all reached our hands out, “In the name of love… there will be no more war…” Joel was the best ever Jolly Old Saint Nicholas, with Margie as Mrs. Claus for the Fun! of us all, On Santa's Belly Boogie !
I offer a notable remembering for all the Sacred Fire Community who shared their gifts and teachings, homes and food and rich, inclusive, diverse ceremony for Mothers Day and Ancestor Honoring, for all the songs ~ poems ~ stories ~ dances ~ flute and drums in our open circle sharing, for all the prayers that we share in closing of each Sacred Fire session: "Hear my sister’s prayer, for it is also mine..."
We are walking in the Blessing Way-- truly blessed by one another in a circle of song ~ circle of beauty ~ circle of life.
"The love that flows through me to you ~ that flows through you to me, is the Spirit that moves through all things ~"
Thank you Coleen Renee and thank you All, for all that we share this precious life together.
How can we keep from Singing!
So please join us this join us Wed, January 6th, 2010 as we prepare to sing: Oh Cedar Tree and Sacred Trees (with Patty dancing her Hula) and The Love Round for Gaia's Temple. We will then prepare to sing in and support Patty and Lois and Simone in the "Crone Concert " Friday evening, Feb. 12th, for WoW 2010.
ALL WAYS In Beauty ~ Lorraine Bayes
(Lorrainebow Singing Cedar ~ Song Carrier)
Lorraine Bayes, singer, songwriter and co-founder of the family performing arts and recording company, Tickle Tune Typhoon, since 1980. For many years she was Music Director for Women of Wisdom and artistic producer of the "Women of Wisdom Collection" CD. She has many award-winning recordings of original songs for children, as well as three CD's for adults, "Circle of Beauty", "In All Her Fullness", and "Rainbow Songs, Rainbow Prayers". Lorraine serves as a ceremonial singer & drummer with diverse interfaith spiritual communities. She continues to teach nationally in the field of Early Childhood Education, as well as stepping out to do oracle, "Rainbow Readings” using multiple decks of wisdom & tarot cards, combined with healing drum & song, giving you a Rainbow Perspective & guidance on your life path.
When is a Choir More Than a Choir?
By Lois McClellan
ANSWER: When it is a community.
I was new to the Seattle area
when my daughter and I attended a concert called “Welcome to the World”
at the 2003 annual Women of Wisdom conference. I had never heard of
WOW or of Sacred Fire Choir before that night, but as I sat in the audience
listening to the choir sing a song called “Deep Peace”, I turned
to my daughter and said, “That’s my choir”.
That was in February. By March
I was attending Sacred Fire weekly rehearsals, and I have rarely missed
a practice or a performance since. From the beginning, this choir
has satisfied some need inside me that I recognized but was unable to
define as I watched and listened that first evening. The beautiful close
harmony? A new kind of love songs about all of us? The sense
that those singers were that kind of love?
All of that, but most of all,
a need for community.
It is seven years later now,
and when the brochure arrived for the 2010 Women of Wisdom conference,
there, inside, was my picture as one of the solo performers for the
Crone Concert, which is Sacred Fire Choir’s contribution to this year’s
conference. And I thought, “Wow!”.( Or “WOW!”). Look where
that first contact has led me.
Everything changes. Sacred
Fire has been through several transitions since the year I joined.
People following our newsletters know about those. Singers come and
go--some come back again. Pam Gerke, our founder and first director,
has moved on, but is still with us as a friend and helper. We have experienced
some troubled times, but warm and wonderful people have sustained and
encouraged us.
For more than a year now, we
have been guided by Lorraine Bayes, who brings to the choir an amazing
love and spiritual essence as well as her skill and beauty as a professional
singer/songwriter. We have moved to circle leadership, which,
I believe, is unusual for a choir, but is working well for us.
Choir members choose, create, arrange, and help teach the music we sing
and perform. We sing outdoors to the trees and to water, share our love
with prayer, and have evenings of song and poetry sharing.
And more than ever, we are
a community.
PS: If you are not currently
with us and have a need for song, harmony, and community, we would love
to have you join us. We are an open choir—no auditions. Call me at
206-855-0857
Lois McClellan
An Awakened Heart
By Melissa K.
I have heard many times that a prevailing root cause of imbalance here in the West is Greed. I submit what might be obvious to some: that Greed is a symptom of something deeper. Those among us who have the means to consume, often consume mindlessly, in an unconscious effort to console the breaking heart, the lonely heart, the un-awakened heart. I pray for all of us who do this.
These words would describe my own heart in the spring of 2008. A relationship had just ended; my mother’s group, which had accompanied me into the journey of motherhood, had disbanded, and I was heartbroken, lonely, and spiritually hungry.
In a journal from that time, I recently re-discovered a list I had written from my higher self-- advice on how to save my own life. On that short list was “join the Sacred Fire Choir”, of which I had been peripherally aware for many years. So, in this state of internal urgency, I finally showed up one summer night. I showed up just in time to join the Hero’s Journey, to walk with this humble little group of beautiful beings down into the dark valley and up the other side, back into the light.
For me, following that guidance to show up was of the utmost importance. I can tell you that in the last year and a half, my heart has healed in many ways. I have become less lonely. I have had the opportunity to love and be loved in a community way that so many of us long for all our lives. I have found beloved soul-companions to journey with, connections deeper by far than merely singing friends, although that is beautiful, too. I have had people with whom to share my deeply creative life. I have been able to begin to heal the wounded singer inside myself. I have been witnessed enough. I have been encouraged enough. I have been appreciated enough. I have something I treasure far more than anything else in my life: I have an awakened heart, and beloved friends with whom to pray, who have reminded me how to pray.
I find that in some ways, I am heartbroken again, and spiritually hungry again--because these are the cycles of the evolving human soul—but I am not alone, and because of the abundant gifts I have been given through this community, I am able to move forward, and move deeper, in real and terrifying ways.
Since Love begets Love, I can stand in a circle with this very unassuming, humble group of human beings, feeling the songs swirling out and above and all around, and know the ripples from this center will move out, working their way around the world and out into the Universe. I can say with feeling and some degree of understanding: Blessed Be.
Whether it is through photography, writing, pie-making, sewing, painting, working with clay, singing, songwriting, drumming, gardening: everything I do that makes me feel alive is loving through making. As the circle of the year turns, it is with my deepest and most humble gratitude and love that I offer this slideshow of photographs from the last year (at the top of the page). I realize now that there is no mention of the lovely hot summer day at Jennifer Sundstrom’s pool, or of the Mother’s Day ceremony—these were not intentionally left out, but speak to the abundance of the past year—we did so much! If any of you come to my home, I will bake you some pie, also.
I kneel down and touch my hands and my head to the Earth and I say “thank you” to the Sacred Fire Choir, to all my relations, to the whole universe. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Upcoming Events With Sacred Fire Choir
This Winter we will be spending six weeks rehearsing in preparation for singing support for Lois McClellan, Patty Zeitlin, and Simone LaDrumma at the Women of Wisdom Conference in February.
The next session runs from January 6th through February 17th. You can review our schedule on the Calendar page.
We still have copies of our CD, “Ignite!”
If you would like to order them, just email: info@sacredfirechoir.org
COME SING WITH US
Sacred Fire is an open choir and we are always ready to welcome new singers. We practice on Wednesdays, 7 to 9:30 PM. No auditions and no requirements for sight-reading. We do ask singers to make a commitment to be at practice, and to memorize the music for performances. Dues are $60 for the current session, and any additional love offerings are always appreciated. If you are in need of a full or partial scholarship, please E-mail LOIS at mclois@earthlink.net or just speak to her in person at practice.
Happy 2010!!!!
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