I’m delighted to share this live music performance with you: “We Belong to the Earth” a song by yours truly. 😘
R E C O R D E D by Louise Kelly in the Upstairs @ St. Andrew’s. Downers Grove, IL, April 12, 2021. This song is an excerpt from a show recorded for College of DuPage’s Alumni Spotlight Concert Series.
P E R F O R M E R S
Louise Kelly, piano and vocals Dorothy Deen, cello KellyJozwiak, violin
A B O U T the S O N G
After reading Native American Poet/Botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer’s masterpiece, “Braiding Sweetgrass,” I was inspired with a new life purpose. I want to make music that addresses our disconnection with the more-than-human world. I want to make music that reminds us, connects us. To seek healing between myself and the land and animals.
I wondered if I spent time listening to the land, as Robin Wall Kimmerer suggests, would I hear a message? So I spent more time outdoors in the land where I live: Now it’s called Downers Grove, Illinois. But its been known to the Kiikaapoi (Kickapoo), Peoria,, Kaskaskia, Bodéwadmiakiwen (Potawatomi) Native American tribes before their forced removal.
I listened outdoors on a cold fall day. I heard this refrain:
We belong to the earth We belong to the sea From dust to dust, we belong