I wanted to share a song with you. I have been taught that before I share the song, it’s really important that I share with you how the song came to me. I know that the music comes out of the land and the songs come from the land. All of the songs that come to me carry a teaching so it’s important for me to pay attention when I hear the song: what I’m doing, where I am, and what’s around me.

This particular song came to me on a full moon in December. I was creating salves for medicines, from my garden that I had gathered in the fall. As I took time in between rounds of creating the salve and pouring it into the tins, I would go out onto my deck. I have many birds on my deck and all of my medicine plants. It’s winter so all of my plants are sleeping and waiting. This song came and I have since thought quite a bit about this song. It is my belief that this is a song that actually has to do with my garden, which has to do with the natural world and with the land.

The first round is actually the springtime. When we begin to hope that our plants will grow, the sun is starting to peek through, and the ground is still wet. In the second round of this song, we get into summertime and things are growing. The pace picks up because things are verdant and growing quite tall. The third round takes us to the fall. This is a time of harvest and has a “you can’t wait!” If you’ve ever had anything growing in your garden, you know that if the tomato is ready today you’d better pick it today because it is going to be rotten in two days. So there is a sense, and you’ll hear it in the drum beat, that we have to actually get after it.

The last one I’m going to play the rim of the drum, rather than the centre. Because it’s heading into the wintertime and it’s a time when everything again is dormant. In wintertime I think of the sound of tree branches in the wind. If you listen to the drum beats you’ll hear part of the story even though the melody of the song doesn’t shift so much.

CREDITS FOR DRUM SONG

Cinematography by Ashley Daniel Foot
Edited by Fletcher Lenz
Produced by Ashley Daniel Foot and Rebecca Hass