My pick this week, for Thanksgiving Day, is "Prophesy Song" by singer and composer Joanne Shenandoah. Shenandoah is a Wolf Clan member of the Oneida Nation in upstate New York ("The People of the Upright Stone"), one of the founding tribes of the great Iroquois Confederacy. She has recorded fourteen beautiful albums to date, and is an advisor to the First Nations Composer Initiative -- an organization dedicated to promoting new music by Native American composers.
In 2007, Shenandoah discussed her music and her creative process with Linda Ronsenkrantz for an article published by The New York Folklore Society ("Oral Culture and History Today: Joanne Shenandoah and Jack W. Gladstone"). Rosenkrantz writes:
"According to Shenandoah, writing/creating 'is a sacred process,' as well as being as necessary to her 'as eating or breathing. It operates on a time frame in which everything is potentially past, present, and future.' She writes 'to influence in a positive way, to change lives, to effect in profound ways, to heal. Writing also communicates; it is an expression of who we are, who’s influenced us, done or said something. We also write to tell stories. Stories are the backbone of who we are. Telling is part of the mission to preserve the earth, to make a peaceful and safe place for our children and their children.' I asked whom she writes for, thinking of the obvious 'Native and non-Native' answer. Her response touched me deeply: It is 'a responsibility for everyone to use the gifts the Creator has given.' It is a choice much like 'the choice a physician has in an airplane when a passenger goes into cardiac arrest: does one use one’s gift, or deny it?' "
Many of Shenandoah's composition are written in the artist's traditional language. "I believe a language must be used," she says, "in order to survive." The lyrics to "Prophesy Song," she explains, "remind us to be aware of our place upon the earth and to fulfill our obligations to ourselves, our families, nations, the natural world, and to the Creator. The words say we are to awaken, stand up and be counted, for you are being recognized in the spirit world.”
These are all fine things to be thinking about on a chilly Thanksgiving morning in Devon, as I celebrate this most American of holidays from an ocean away. I'm reminded of the following little poem by the American writer and mathematician Lee Rudolph:
Little Prayer in November
That I am alive, I thank
no one in particular;
and yet am thankful, mostly,
although I frame no prayer
but this one: "Creator
Spirit, as you have come,
come again", even in November,
on these short days, fogbound.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
