From Holly Near's - Edge

I've long been predisposed to like Holly Near, but acquiring music has taken a back seat to other interests over the last decade. Thankfully there's no reason I cannot enter a new discovery phase. Besides, there is no shame in tardy discoveries of music, art, or literature that's been around for centuries - or for six years. My wife's Christmas request for 1000 Grandmothers and I Ain't Afraid by Holly Near, led to my giving her the 2001 album Edge, which I've happily discovered is chock full of wisdom which is at once radical and hopeful. The opening song, Fired Up!, features Near's beautiful anger, because hers is an anger that refuses to deny hope - the possibility of a yet better world which she paints in the second song, Planet Called Home

Can you call on your imagination
As if telling a myth to a child
Put in the fantastical, wonderful, magical
Add the romantic, the brave and the wild

Once upon a time there was a power
So great that no one could know its name
People tried to claim it and rule with it
Always such arrogance ended in shame.

Thousands of years would pass in a moment
Hundreds of cultures would come and go
Each generation with a glorious calling
Even when they were too busy to know

Then one day after two millennia
Which after all was a small part of time
Hundreds of souls found their way out of no where
To be on earth at the threat of decline

Let's all go, they moved as one being
Even though each would arrive here alone
They promised to work in grace with each other
To brave the beautiful planet called home

There was no promise that they could save it
But how exciting to give it a try
If they each did one or two actions beautifully
Complex life forms on earth might not die

And so they arrive in a spectrum of colors
The population on earth did explode
Some threw themselves in front of disaster
Others slowly carried their load

Some adopted small girls from China
Some lived high in the branches of trees
Some died as martyrs, some lived as healers
Some bravely walked with a dreadful disease

They mingled among each class and culture
Not one of them could be identified
But together they altered just enough moments
To help the lost and the terrified

To step outside our egos and bodies
To know for once that we truly are one
Then quickly we would forget to remember
But that's OK, their job was well done

And earth went on for another millennium
And now its time for my song to end
This magical story of hope and wonder
Invites you all to wake up and pretend to be

Fabulous creatures sent from the power
Souls that have come with a purpose in mind
To do one little thing that will alter the outcome
And maybe together we can do it in time

Can you call on your imagination
As if telling a myth to a child
Put in the fantastical, wonderful, magical
Add the romantic, the brave and the wild

The Souls are coming back

Copyright 1999 by Hereford Music (ASCAP)

Near's indictment of human error is matched by her celebration of humanity and its potential, transforming anger into hope by stating that which is obvious to her, and inviting us to join her in a transformative hope for a better future. Her words are a fitting complement to my mission here at Choosing Hope.

Those more familiar with copyright law, do let me know if quoting lyrics in full runs afoul of any proscriptions against that.