The Story of "Woman by the Sea"
Track 1: Cave Spirit
This song was inspired during the winter solstice sunrise at New Grange, County Meath, Ireland. New Grange Stone Age Passage Tomb is an ancient monument constructed 3,200 B.C. Each year a few lucky people are selected to attend the sunrise alignment on winter solstice and be inside the mound where the morning light positions right at the entrance of the tomb and lights up the inside dwelling. I was one of the blessed people chosen to attend in the year 2019.
Track 2: McGregor
McGregor was an inspired song honoring the masculine lineage. The awakening of heart centered protector. Also a love song, dedicated to my dear Husband.
Track 3: Loves Mirror
Loves Mirror is a song semi-inspired by a Peruvian Icaro. During recording it was intuitively performed. A song about the dance of relationship. Featuring Craig Thomas McAdams on flute.
Track 4: The Call
The Call is a song inspired by the spark of longing to go deeper... listening.
Track 5: HeartSong
This song was inspired by the heartbreak that also catalyzes deep healing and transformation. It was related to a dream, where a woman figure lets out a heart wrenching keen, while overlooking her village that had been burnt to the ground.
Track 6: EverLoving
A Song dedicated to but also received from my Mothers Spirit.
Track 7: Trinini
Composed and featuring William Llerena Murayari on Guitar.
A Medicine Song.
Track 8: How Can I Keep From Singing
In March of 2018, I woke from a dream. I was is a grassy meadow overlooking beautiful misty mountains. The place was so beautiful, that I wondered if it was a different planet. I felt this sense of overwhelming peace, like I had spent many lifetimes there, and I knew it well. There was a house on the hill behind me, its cellar entrance was built into the hill. I walked into the cellar basement and up some wood stairs. At the top of the stairs was the front door of the house. Behind and to the right of me was the living space of the house. On the front door, there was a shelf and laying there, was a sacred cloth I recognized from the time I spent in Peru a few years ago. The indigenous people who live among the Jungle, sew these sacred cloths in geometric intricate patterns. I learned that the way the medicine people heal in this tradition is with the understanding, that all of reality is made up of these mandala looking designs. The Shaman, with the help of the spirits, can see into the energetic field of a person and see where the design is not quite right- tattered, broken, or missing. The Shaman chooses the right “Icaro” or sacred plant song to sing the pattern back into its original form. In the dream, I see this sacred cloth on this shelf, and a top of this shelf are some German Hummel figurines placed in a certain pattern. I begin meticulously moving the figures around in an intuitive new pattern on the cloth. As I am doing so, I notice that the words to “How can I keep from Singing” the old Quaker Hymn are written on the door above the shelf. I begin singing the song as I am diligently working on the new patterned design with the figurines. Then I start to hear voices behind me. I turn around and the entire living area is filled with people. They are all looking at me with such love in their eyes, as they are singing with me. We sing together all verses of the song and I am filled with the a immense sense of connection and gratitude.
Track 9: Woman by the Sea
By the time I was six years old, my mother, and grandmother had died. Being so young, I do not have many vivid memories. I remember them mostly by the felt sense of warmth in my being. Since then, I have been on a long and incredible journey of re-connecting to this feminine line. My Grandparents were immigrants from a ethnic German region located in modern day Slovenia, called Gottschee. The forest covered mountains of that land was their home for over 600 years. During WW2 they were relocated, suffered great pain and hardship and eventually made their way to America as refugees. It is said that the village people used to gather and sing under the linden tree. My name "Lyndsey" means "grove of linden trees" and from the moment I learned that, I felt it deep within my soul, a calling to go to this land. In December of 2019 I finally made this journey and arrived to greet the rubble of the houses in the middle of the forest that still lingered from the bombings of WW2. I was incredibly surprised to find, that these ruins of Kletsch, Gottschee, where my Grandmother was born, was the landscape of my dream years ago! The mountains in the distance were the Alps! And the rubble of homes were a top a hill, with a grassy meadow connected. I had been here before. I found a very old Linden Tree, sat under it and sang this song in the Gottscheerish language. My intention was to help the forest awaken, to do a ceremony of healing for the land, and to let the ancestors know that through it all, we made it! This version of "Women by the Sea" is a rendition of a Gottscheer favorite folk song. It is said to have originated before 1230ad. Its full ballad is the story of a woman who sits by the sea to do laundry and two men arrive in a little boat. The woman is ashamed of her situation and does not want to reveal her true identity.
Nevertheless, the men who are actually her brother and beloved, do recognize her. They put her in the boat and say "You are the beautiful woman by the sea"; we recognize you. The woman goes on a journey and when she arrives, she is embraced and kissed, showing she has been returned home from foreign and far-away lands. This story touches my heart, and reflects the similar journey I made to reclaim my rootedness to this land and to my ancestors. It feels like one of the most important and magical experiences I have ever had.
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Inspiration
"Sometimes when we hear a song, we breathe deeply and sigh. This reminds the prophet that the soul arises from heavenly harmony. In thinking about this, he was aware that the soul itself has something in itself of this music"- Hildeguard Von Bingen