Other translations - Ruehr
Ruehr: Songs of the Earth
Elena Ruehr (b. 1963)
I. OPENING PRAYER
SOLOIST
If you stand together and profess a thing before your community, it holds you accountable.
CHORUS
We are thankful to our Mother the Earth,
for she gives us everything that we need for life.
She supports our feet as we walk about upon her.
It gives us joy that she still continues to care for us,
just as she has from the beginning of time.
To our Mother, we send thanksgiving,
love and respect.
Now our minds are one.
– The Thanksgiving Address, from the Onondaga Nation
II. GRIEF
CHORUS
Ear of stone,
will you hear our anguish
when we understand
what we have done?
If grief can be
a doorway to love,
then let us all weep for the
world we are breaking apart
so we can love it back
to wholeness again.
III. GIFTS
SOLOIST 1
It is human perception that makes the world a gift.
SOLOIST 2
I fear that a world made of gifts cannot coexist with a world made of commodities.
SOLOIST 1 This is our work, to discover what we can give.
CHORUS
We are showered
every day with gifts,
but they are not meant
for us to keep.
Their life is in their movement,
the inhale and the exhale
of our shared breath.
Our work and our joy is
to pass along the gift and
to trust that what we put out into the universe
will always come back.
A great longing is upon us,
to live again in a world made of gifts.
I can scent it coming,
like the fragrance of ripening strawberries
rising on the breeze.
IV. SOLUTIONS
SOLOIST
How, in our modern world, can we find our way to understand the earth as a gift again, to make our relations with the world sacred again?
CHORUS
We are told
to take only that which is given.
In order to live I must consume
the endless cycling between my body and the body
of the world.
SOLOIST
How do we consume in a way that does justice to the lives that we take?
CHORUS
Knowing that you love the earth
changes you,
activates you to defend and protect and celebrate.
But when you feel
that the earth loves you in return,
that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street
into a sacred bond.
V. RENEWAL
CHORUS
I want to stand by the river
in my finest dress.
I want to sing, strong and hard,
and stomp my feet with a hundred others
so that the waters hum with our happiness.
I want to hear a great song of thanks
rise on the wind
And then, as the drum begins,
we will dance for the renewal of the world.
"The Thanksgiving Address," from the Onondaga Nation (Mov't. I)
Includes text from and/or inspired by “Braiding Sweetgrass”
© 2013 by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Used with permission.