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Earth Walk: A Spirit-Filled Concert

OE 7It’s been quite a month with lots going on, specifically, finalizing all the components for our Earth Walk concert. The concert was a great success. The music of the Oîkos Ensemble is always top notch. I love playing with my St. Louis based group. Not only are they all A-list musicians, but wonderful people, each with their own spiritual center committed to sharing their music in a spiritual way. Add to this the artistry of painter Michael Anderson and Diana Barrios’ Leverage Dance Theater, and it was an inspired spirit-filled event.

We began with Arianna and Kim singing new words to an ancient melody—adoro te devote—and then a joyful rhythmic dance procession to a 500 year-old plainsong melody: personent hodie. As music and stories unfolded Michael’s canvas came alive before the audience, especially as Arianna sang the Gregory Porter song, “Painted on Canvas.” The church’s pastor, Dave Denoon recounted the Genesis creation story to the music of Miles Davis’ “Blue in Green,” and I told an original creation myth about Gaia’s creation of the earth with Leverage interpreting the story. Kim sang new words I had written to Coltrane’s “Equinox” depicting the wonder of Creation, but the perils we face because of human pollution.

A new world, a blue world, A green world, abounding with blessings. Created. How? A mystery.

It’s God’s world, it’s our world, A perfect world, a holy sanctuary. Our home, a world for you and me.

She’s sighing, she’s crying, Expiring, our Mother Earth is dying. So blighted, choked in misery,

Now strangled, trashed by you and me, It’s time to stop . . . this catastrophe! *

My final story highlighted the need for humanity to listen to Mother Earth before we can take action to restore our ecosystem. We concluded the concert by inviting everyone to join us in singing “The Blue Green Hills of Earth.” A reception followed with ecologically sustainable resources shared by the EarthWays Center (Missouri Botanical Garden) and the church’s Green Team.

It was a great event. Just another example of how worshipful a concert setting can be.

* Feel free to use these lyrics with an ascription of my authorship.