TOPIC: WAKING UP INSIDE YOURSELF

This week I completed the 200th song I've written and recorded in the studio! And I wanted to share with you that I've discovered that the one song I listen to the most of all, out of all of those two hundred--the one I am moved by, on a regular basis, is one I created just last year, entitled, "Of Grace and Gratitude."

TOPIC: A Song That Invites You to See Life All Around You, Anew

I once heard a woman speak, and what she had to say was so powerful that it it instantaneously and dramatically changed almost everything about the way I eat, that very day. And I have deeply, meaningfully stayed with this shift, two full years later. 

Not long after that, I was asked by this same woman to partner with her to create a song that honors the Unitarian Universalist principal, "Honor All Beings." It took longer for me to write this song than any song I have ever written in my life - months and months and months. 

But from the moment it was finally created, this song started spreading to new places. It made its way all the 

Here is the video of my talk and the song, "HOME,"created for TEDx WALDEN POND.

Song Audio is clearer on this mp3 audio than on the video:

I have always LOVED Ted Talks and was so honored to be invited to participate in the first TEDx to take place in my hometown of Concord, MA. It was a rare and special experience to get to stand up and share my story and this song, created specifically for this occasion. ENJOY! 

Three years ago I wrote a song for a village in Ghana, Africa. From that day to this, the song has been sung by children in the village each morning, in school, right after they salute their flag.  Just this month, a music video has been created to commemorate this song,which has now been performed live by a children's choir in Australiaand has been shared as a recording in churches and at retreats all throughout the US, many times over.

I have become rather transfixed with a non-profit organization that teaches at-risk girls to find their voice, to step forward from a centered and considered place, and to believe in themselves anew.  The organization is called Girls' LEAP, and it very specifically helps girls develop a diverse set of responses to violence, beyond the extremes of passivity and escalation. Every time I get near any kind of LEAP event, I find something astonishing happening. And I find tears welling up in me, in response to it.

A SONG FOR A TRIBE IN GHANA!
So how DOES a song for a tribe in Ghana Africa come to be, exactly? In this case, Diane visited my website and wrote a one-line email: “I’M SOLD!”  and with that we were on our way. Diane discovered the small Village of Trom while she was in Ghana working on a project with Bentley College and HUGS International to build a school in a remote village. She noticed young children regularly walking into the village to gather water, and soon learned that they were walking an hour each day to deliver water to their even more remote village, called Trom. Their tribe consisted mainly of children orphaned by AIDS and their surviving grandparents, most of whom suffered from River Blindness (due to infested water).  Diane arranged for a visit to the Village of Trom (no small feat) and there she met and fell in love with the villagers. She then decided to spearhead a personal project in which she and her siblings would donate all the resources required to dig a fresh water well right in the village of Trom. (Diane grew up on a farm in Utah where a well was the centerpiece, and upon the very recent death of her father, felt compelled to coordinate with her siblings an honorary “McKinny Well” for this small, struggling tribe of lovely, buoyant children and elders.) As Diane began working on her project, the idea of a song, to be written for and sung at the dedication, came into her head, and she reached out to me. The project took on some surprising new turns from there!