2024 Sept. Song Lab - One Woman And A Shovel

And Announcing The Global Interfaith Compassion Challenge With Service Space

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to the September Song Lab!

First, I wanted to let everyone know about a beautiful online event happening this month.

Its the Global Interfaith Compassion Challenge presented by ServiceSpace. I’ve joined with Service Space as a presenter during their Mystical Music Pod and was so touched by the contributions of participants from around the world and the Service Space volunteers. (I’m delighted to join the zoom meeting on Sept 8th!).

If you are interested in learning about different faith traditions in a compassionate, welcoming, beautiful setting, and to get a deeper overview of the 21-day journey, check out this link!

Here's how it works:

• Daily Prompts: For each of the 21 days of the challenge, you'll be emailed an inspirational and thoughtfully-crafted prompt from a unique faith or tradition -- with "heart" music, "head" reading, and "hands" compassion-in-action practice (which you can complete on your own time each day). 21 days, 21 faith traditions, 21 practices.

• Your Reflections: For each of the daily prompts, you are invited to submit an online reflection, and once you share your reflection, you can read and interact online with the reflections of other global participants. 

• Sunday Zoom Calls:

• Every Sunday of the challenge (starting Sep 8th, 11:00 AM EDT) will feature a group call with poetry readings, songs, inspiration from a wide range of luminaries, and peer-to-peer sharing. (I will be joining the zoom meeting on Sept 8th!)

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Back to the Song Lab……

Today I’ll be presenting the song “One Woman And A Shovel”. Ok…and I wanted to lift up and celebrate the idea of how a strong woman - and the community she gathers around her - can make such powerful difference.

It was recorded on two albums, The Geography of Light and a compilation album Wilderness Plots With Krista Detor, Michael White, Tom Roznowski and Tim Grimm. The Geography of Light version is my favorite recording of the song, but I love all the other songs on the Wilderness Plots album so much. I hope you check out both. Krista Detor’s “More Than I Dare Say” is stunningly beautiful - as well as several other jewels on the recording.

The song was inspired by a short story in a lovely collection called Wilderness Plots - The Book by one of my favorite authors Scott Russell Sanders. You can check out his many lovely books which often include environmental and spirit of place themes at his website here.

I talk more about the book Wilderness Plots the book and the collaborative album and theatrical production in the video.

The song is based upon a true story. Martha lived in the Ohio Valley region before there was railroad or even many roads. Commerce happened on a network of canal systems. But for Martha’s town to be part of that system they had to take some questionable environment actions. As often happens the environmental impact was not thought through and Martha gathers her community together for the common good.

Musically it is a tip of the hat to folks songs like John Henry. It was nice to revisit this older song this month when we are all thinking about how can all contribute to the common good.

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Question

Do you have a “Martha” in your life. Feel free to shout out her name! I’ll start with Shelli!