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What Are We Doing?

We are making a SONG OFFERING to the Oak Grove.

We have prepared these songs over many weeks, filling them with joy and beauty and heart. The entire process has been a way to connect with each other and with all the beings around us as we sing outdoors.

Now we have brought them here as a gift to the Oak trees, the insects, the worms and snails, and the humans like you who are part of this setting. 

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

You can receive the songs as part of the grove. Hang out with the trees and critters and take in the music and the heartfelt intention of what we are doing.

You can join in with us as you feel moved. Sing along, stand with us, move with us, speak when there is an invitation.

• You can respect and appreciate what we are doing by not interfering, by applauding if you are so moved or showing your appreciation in other ways.

• You can learn more about the songs by reading below and following the links when you have time later to listen.

About the Songs

These songs come from the Community Singing movement. The Free Range Singers and director Laura Sandage are part of the Ubuntu Choirs Network, an international community of people (mostly in Canada and the US) who sing together for joy and connection.  Another network is the Natural Voice Network in the UK. Many songs shared in these communities can be found online, in resources such as this one: Lisa Littlebird's Online Song Library.

Lyrics and Credits

Laura Sandage, Davis, CA

Oh, the Beauty

Oh, the Beauty 3x

Bowing down, bowing down before you

Oh, the Forest 3x

On our knees, on our knees before you

Oh, the Oak trees 3x

Carry us, carry us along with you

Sarina Partridge, Minneapolis, MN

Listen

I will bow my head to this beauty

I will fill my song with you, oh, forest

I will sink to my knees at the feet of the trees

And listen, I will listen

Anna Richardson, River Jones, and Oran Ash of the Children's Forest Movement in England

CHORUS: 

Oak, oak, oak of old

King of trees in your crown of gold

You are the door to worlds unseen

In winter bare and in summer green

VERSES: 

1. Five hundred years to grow and thrive

Five hundred more to remain alive

Shelter for all throughout your reign

And many thousand lives sustain

2. Your roots grow deep, your heart so strong

Power of the sun to you belongs

Generous to all as king you stand

In strength and peace you guard this land

3. From gold to green and gold once more

Your leaves will turn before they fall

When twice you've worn your golden crown

Each season's harvest comes tumbling down

(VERSE 4 lyrics by Alison Berry of Davis)

4. Your living roots in soil abound

A web of life giving to the ground

From forest oak to microbe small

The microbiome joins us all

Helen Yeomans, Bristol, UK

Unto this land my heart I seal

To always love and cherish as my own

And through my veins her crystal waters flow

To the ocean of my soul

Unto this land I shall return

When all my days upon this earth are done

And in her arms I'll lay my body down

And my heart will find its home

Heidi Ann Wilson, Vermont
Go Slowly

The Sun Is Our Star

Go slowly, slowly

Slowly orbit over the soil

Building a spiral of time on your back

Days into seasons to years

You carry a galaxy, so go slowly... 

~also by Heidi Ann Wilson~

The sun is our star (4x)

How we turn and twist and reach for you

How we open every leaf to you

With a fierce and fiery love for us

You would burn it to the ground for us

We turn and turn around you

We turn and turn

Alexa Sunshine Rose, Port Townsend, Washington

Created by Sound

We are created by sound

We are created by the song of the universe (repeat)

Singing with the trees

Singing with the song of the universe

Singing with the whales

Singing with the honeybees

All creation sings (repeat)

My massive trunk sprang from a pod smaller than a human hand

Fed by mist and sun, I'm connected both to sky and land

I shelter and I feed you, create your very air

Pollinators learn my messages, returning every year

CHORUS:

Years pass, our grown is silent and unseen

We are the inscrutable Generosity of Green

Your lives flit by in just a blink, like petals on the breeze

We the silent sentinels exist for centuries

Nourished by our ancestors whom the first people beheld

The many miracles that Green devise cease when we are felled

CHORUS

All growing things alone disclose the wordless mind of God (4x)

You behold our branches, but you never see us whole

You dwell onon the surface; You cannot glimpse our soul

A network of filaments, there is as much of us below

Our roots are our community, where our spirits ever grow

CHORUS (2x)

Heidi Ann Wilson, Vermont
Limber Dancer

Have you seen the swaying of the white pine

Praying in a wild wind?

Limbs up lifted to the sky

Limber dancer on high

Kira Seto, Bend, Oregon

Bumblebee Waltz

Bumblebee, bumblebee, bumblebee, I see you pollinating

I feel your love; I see you pollinating

Floating from flower to flower, spreading all your love

Pollen, nectar, ancient love

Katy Rose Bennett, Birmingham, UK

Trees

Yoy yoy yoy . . . 

Trees give me strength

Oh, trees give me strength

I am weary, I am worn down

I am lonely, help me turn this around

Trees give me strength

Oh, trees give me strength

I am holey, I am burned out

I'm bewildered how my whole life turned out

When the shadows in my mind are growing

Still a spark behind my eyes, the dark is rising fast

I will fly into your arms, my friend

To touch your skin

And I'll begin to mend

Trees give me strength

Oh, trees give me strength

Iam guilty, I am gone astray

I'm a vagabond, how they've cast me away

When the shadows in my mind are growing

Still a spark behind my eyes, the dark is rising fast

I will fly into your arms, my friend

To touch your skin

And I'll begin to mend

Yoy yoy yoy . . . 

Trees . . .  Oh, trees . . . 

Mo Washburn, Sebastopol, CA

Belong

I believe

That I belong

To the Earth

I belong

May my life

Be a song

May my song

Feed the Earth

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