about
A story/invocation about the earth's sacred water bodies, especially the rivers, and the Salmon's Returning - Inspired by the yearly Salmon Run up the Yuba River in Nevada County, California. Each year, the local Maidu Natives hold this ceremony to Bring Back the Salmon, which for a while had stopped their upstream migration due to dams. Most of this song, except for the part about the Salmon Run, was channeled in the studio, with no pre-written lyrics. It is intended to evoke a love of our waters and a rekindling of sacred relationship with them and ourselves as water vessels.
lyrics
THE WILD SALMON RETURN
Ooo aaa ooh,
Aah,
Aka Ata Pele Mong Avinu,
I call upon all of the ancestors
all of the ways that were taught us that we have forgotten
I call upon the mountains and the streams and the fires
In the rivers, in the head and in the heart,
I call upon the birds and the sky and the wind -
The furious seas
I call upon the leaves falling in the autumn,
Destruction and creation, regeneration
Light & darkness
Freedom from confusion:
Where are, all the pieces of the puzzle that you lost?
Sailing like the seagulls returning to the coast
Bringing the ships to safe harbors
The man runs with a spear - in the end, a salmon.
Salmon returning, up the stream
They're climbing the river
As he runs, each step
Is closer to the source of the water
We climb to find
Their love and their beginnings
In the ending
We found the source of Rhiannon
In the queen of spades
Of all the rivers I have ever known or heard of:
Of the Thames, the Seine the Boyne
And the Yuba
The California and Colorado
The Mississippi,
The vast Oceans that Sustain Us
The Nile, the Tigris, the Euphrates,
The Amazon
Lake Tenochtitlan
Lake Titicaca
The Po the Rhine the Tevere
The Aqueducts of Greece, Rome and Turkey
Every Sacred Spring on Earth!
Each waterfall, and every well
Every message of mystery in every drop of dew
And rainy augury
Ooh, of every stream dam pool hot spring,
Cold spring, mineral spring,
Underground Cavernous Watery Mains
Of dew, steam, mist and fog,
Of snow, rain, puddles and sinews,
Cracks of wetness in the midst of the driest desert,
Keep running, keep running!
I call upon the rain...
I call upon memory remembering through
The truth
Aah.....
Ah...yyyy
Oh-- oh oh oh oh oh ooo oo oo oo
Ladadadadada aaaa aa aa ah aaah
See her emerging from the center of the earth
The Great Mother
As the father looks down with teardrops of starlight
We walk in these earth bodies
Oohhh aah aaah
OOhhhh aaa aaa aaah
Dancing,
Dancing
Running running back to the source of life
Running running back to the source of freedom
Running running back
I take this egg
I plant it in the earth
From it sprout millions of buds into trees
And the birds land on its branches
From all parts of the world.
credits
from
SYZYGY,
released May 1, 2011
Hammer Dulcimer, Vocals
license
all rights reserved