A Song Book
by Beth Martens
THE POETRY
AND other BIRTH STORIES
Breathless
Once upon a time Jesus turned water into wine
Mysterious genius would awaken the soul in 2000 years time
Once upon a night Jesus wept, mourning tears into light
Mysterious genius could imagine compassion, set angels‟
wings to fly.
Mary mother of the four dimensions my heart broke open.
In the breathlessness between us, the breathlessness of us
Beings are three among us
Lovingly, holding the trinity
So lovingly…
Once upon an age Jesus wed his human with his divine
Mysterious genius born of this union,
may you make this love for all time.
Mary mother of the four dimensions my heart broke open
In the breathlessness between us, the breathlessness of us
Being is one among us
Lovingly, rocking the soul of the trinity
So lovingly, baby
Is in the breathlessness between us, the breathlessness of
us.
This song is based on Thomas Moore‟s book, „Soul Mates,‟ which I borrowed
from my parents, unbeknownst to them. Moore introduced to me the “daimon,”
the soul of any union, as well as the soul in, and of, each one. He said that as a
historical teaching figure, Jesus introduced the idea of love into the worldview of
the time, and therefore encouraged humanity to wake up to its heart, and have
compassion for one another. The same message has similarly come throughout
the worlds teaching traditions, for example in Buddhism and Hinduism. As for
the rest of the song, my friend, Tracy McBride announced her pregnancy after
the chorus was born, and a Blessing Way was planned for her and the father. I
finished the song with her in mind and sang it for the celebration of their
pregnancy, who later became known as their beautiful boy, Aurum.
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Boat on the River
The boat is on the river and I‟m going home
Oh Lord let your sweet breath blow.
Rock me gently so I can sleep and ease these waters black
and deep; navigate, show me the way.
I left my anchor way back on the shore
I traded this sorry world for an oar, oh Lord.
The boat is on the river and I‟m going home
Oh Lord let your sweet breath blow.
Cover my eyes when the sun‟s too bright, cover my body
when the cool wind bites,
Cover my ears from the river‟s might.
Whisper words of immortality
And shower nectar of eternal peace, Oh Lord.
The boat is on the river and I‟m going home
Oh Lord let your sweet breath blow.
Blow your breath into my lungs that I may sing your song,
meditate in my heart.
I am unborn in your eternal arms,
With your strength I face all raging storms
The boat is on the river and I‟m going home
Oh Lord let your sweet breath blow.
Oh Lord let your sweet breath blow.
Oh Lord let your sweet breath blow.
This is one of the first songs I ever wrote while in India in 1993. I was inspired by
chanting at the Himalayan meditation institute, where I was to spend my next
eight winters. “Lord,” to me is another word for “life” – that which is true and to
be trusted. It gives me hope and appears to be a hit with the fans. The true test
was that Calvin A. Roberts, my two-year-old nephew has been requesting my
record, and singing along to „Boat on the River.‟ He‟s also begun to veto other
perhaps less refined music selections, showing extraordinarily good musical
taste and discrimination.
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Where There’s Beauty
All the angels pass, no need to hang around
Past the point of beauty, truth not lost or found
Where there‟s beauty find me
Where there‟s beauty walk with me,
Where there‟s beauty take me,
„Cause I cannot get there on my own.
Acid rain falls on my guitar, I‟m glad it‟s all coming down
To this story – in this town, in this sky-high tree house
Where there‟s beauty find me
Where there‟s beauty walk with me,
Where there‟s beauty hold me,
„Cause I cannot hold me on my own.
There‟s no sense hovering in suspense,
in the future or the past tense.
It will all go tumbling over, like rocks in a riverbed dance.
Where there‟s beauty find me
Where there‟s beauty walk with me,
Where there‟s beauty hold me still,
„Cause I cannot hold still on my own.
While thinking of the source of this poetry, another one came to mind:
More or less on my knees,
begging for the strength to find
what is beautiful in everything…
It is especially difficult
with those who are
most close and most far,
because they will be the most ruthless reflections,
of where we are and are not.
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Welcome Angel
Welcome angel to the table, welcome back into the land
Of living love and open hands - welcome home again.
We believe but we don‟t see beauty in the beast
Come in, come in from all directions –
north, west, south and east.
Anything you can sing in my ears I‟m all here
To hear you well, and feel yourself welcome home again.
Welcome demon to the reason we all came to play today
Your quickened tricks will make way for a new world stage.
Anything you can scream in my ears, I‟m all here
To fear you well and heal yourself welcome home again.
Hello fellow warrior, you‟re beating all the heat,
The heart, the drum, the raging sun
There‟s none can be won over, there‟s none can be won.
Anything you can bring into focus, in to clear view, where
you are true…
Nothing less would do.
So welcome angel to the table, welcome again into this land
Of living love and open hands, welcome home again.
A few years back, my sister, Leslie, gave us notice that she was returning with her young
family to live in Manitoba after fifteen years in Ontario. I felt a sense of welcome to her
and heard the first verse of the song come down the pipes. Later in the month, I was
house-watching for friends who live remotely beside a lake – charming by day, eerie by
night. Sitting alone in front of the fire in the evenings I would hear and feel angels and
spirits. I watched them dance nearly every one of those fall nights as the northern lights.
One night in particular, they filled the entire sky, 360 degrees, for hours.
It took me ten years to understand that staying in the dark about demons is trouble.
Everything, including demons, is looking for awareness, love and light.
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Tattoo
I would tattoo myself to you if I could
Go to the moon and back with you, if I could
We‟d take chances in the night
Talk until the morning came with the light
Go with it, go with it, don‟t fight it don‟t break the flow
Go with it, go with it, no don‟t break the flow.
I would tattoo myself to you if I could
Take all my pictures close up to you if I could
We would argue over Sunday brunch
I‟d hold my breath „til the next one.
Go with it, go with it, don‟t fight it don‟t break the flow
Go with it, go with it, no don‟t break the flow.
I would tattoo myself to you if I could
Paint myself into corners of you if I could
We‟d hold each other up in high places
And hold it against our selves in the space
Go with it, go with it, don‟t fight it don‟t break the flow
Go with it, go with it, don‟t fight it don‟t break the flow
Go with it, go with it, no don‟t break the flow.
I would tattoo myself to you if I could.
This is a tribute to unbridled attachment in the traditional, North American-style. I
vaguely recall a now-you-hear-it, now-you-don‟t pop song that had a tattoo
theme. If anyone reminds me of what it is, I‟d be happy to give it credit in my
writing process.
It‟s shocking to me how simple music can be. It doesn‟t all need to be that, but if
you‟re able to get at the essence of something, less may be more to the feel of a
song.
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Dear Disillusionment
Thank you for this trip you take me on
Thank you for turning me around and around and around
Thank you for leaving me in peace.
Doesn‟t even matter that you‟re gone now,
cause it won‟t be long now
Before we‟re all gone...Dear Disillusionment,
Thank you for waving like a veil,
For raining down like hail.
Thank you for taking time
to tangle your immortal soul in mine,
Immortal soul...in mine.
Doesn‟t even matter that you‟re gone now, cause it
won‟t be long now
Before we‟re all gone...Dear Disillusionment,
Don‟t be surprised when I find you behind my open eyes
There you are my dear, completely sublime
You and I are sublime.
Doesn‟t even matter that you‟re gone now, cause it
won‟t be long now
Before we‟re all gone...Dear Disillusionment,
In 1996 I played at the Winnipeg Folk Festival, and was at the time falling in love
with someone. Over a short period of time they wavered in and out of my life, by
all appearances, and it felt like God was making a run-on joke at my expense. I
sat down the night after I realized there was no hope, and heard these words and
music come up right out of, as if, nowhere. I realized how giving thanks for my
experience brought out the sense of gratitude nature must have for being allowed
to go its course of birth, life and death. It also made me see that nothing is what
it seems, and on a good day, that is both a point of great celebration and cause
for enormous patience.
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Every Day
Every day is a new experiment
In harm‟s way we never meant to be
We are innocent,
Forever free to be who we are,
Immortal, and blissful.
Everyday is a new opportunity
Look in the lake, you‟ll see right through me
No one can say what the future brings
Only one thing‟s for sure, you are
Immortal, Amaram Hum, and blissful, Madhuram Hum.
Every day is a new universe,
Poetry, rhythm, rhyme and verse;
We‟re freedom-bound it‟s a matter of course
Surrender to your Self, the Source…
That‟s where I see you, making everything seem true
I only ever knew you - In so many ways the trio plays,
But three we never become, because we are all one.
Amaram Hum, Madhuram Hum
Immortal, Amaram Hum, and blissful, Madhuram Hum.
Patience with a vengeance, with myself, with Life… I was in the affectionately
named by me, “armpit” of a chemotherapy cycle when this song came burbling
along like an innocent kid wanting to give me a thread of hope and sense that I
should be light and take each day new. The Chinese word for “chaos” also
means “opportunity,” and to me poetry is a playful way to take advantage of it
and make an experience mean something powerful and useful.
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Secrecy
No reflection, no distance, no social control -
no one knows what they‟re seeing;
To politicians, physicians, preachers and goddesses -
we give our power away.
And if it‟s only o.k. in secrecy, then how righteous could it be?
It‟s ever so discreetly, your secret is safe with me.
Rich men, rich women, betrothed to their fortune,
silence the price that they pay;
We honour contracts on our own freedom,
we give our power away.
And if it‟s only o.k. in secrecy, then how righteous could it be?
It‟s ever so discreetly, your secret is safety to me.
We like them we‟re drawn to them we want their attention -
we‟re hungry and they‟ll have their way;
And if they knew what you knew,
what you do behind doors might not be easy any more.
That‟s why we hide from ourselves and everybody else.
It‟s ever so discreetly, your secret is with me.
The hook is a good time
Sadness is in your mind.
Over the years, I have become aware of various teachers, preachers, healers
and leaders who abuse their positions of power and use people to fulfill their own
compulsions. Pioneer psychologist and mystic, Carl Jung, says the difference
between a mad person and an artist is practice (of art, that is). An artist
practices, exercising their demons (and I add angels), and a mad person is
riddled with symptoms and psychosis. It‟s an honest person who can just
acknowledge the madness (and the glorious) and devote them self to the
creation of great and humble works that can forever cure, inspire and influence.
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Faith
There‟s nothing to lose, have faith
There‟s nothing to face
It‟s not what it appears, have faith
It‟s not what disappears
Have faith, have faith, have faith, have faith
You walk on a plank have faith
No more think in your tank
Who you got to thank, have faith
You‟re on your own again
Have faith, have faith, have faith, have faith
Have you got what it takes? Have faith
Can you take what it‟s got?
May fear not take its place, have faith, fear not.
Have faith, have faith, have faith, have faith
Faith became the central theme of my latest run with Hodgkin‟s disease. I
realized for the first time, that without faith I would watch my life pass away
before me, despite my heroic efforts at getting a cure. If I was to do the best
things for myself, but do them out of fear of dying, then all that fear attracted was
death. Out of love for myself and love for life, with faith in love and life itself, I felt
no matter when my time for death came, I was perfectly fulfilled.
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Om Poornam (The Mantra of the Whole)
Traditional Sanskrit, poetic translation partly by Beth Martens
It takes a lot of love to be everywhere
It takes a lot of love to be everything
It takes a lot of love to be right here.
OM POORNAM ADAHA POORNAM IDAM
POORNAAT POORNAM UDACHYATAY
POORNASYA POORNAM ADAAYA
POORNAM AYVAA VASHSISHYATAY
OM POORNAM ADAHA POORNAM AADAAYA
OM POORNAM ADAHA POORNAM IDAM
OM POORNAM ADAHA POORNAM IDAM
The field of unstruck sound---
The field of unstruck sound is one
From that sound everything has come.
You can take from the whole and the whole remains whole.
What you take from the whole is also whole.
OM POORNAM ADAHA POORNAM IDAM
(OM POORNAM ADAHA POORNAM IDAM)
OM POORNAM ADAHA POORNAM AADAAYA
(OM POORNAM ADAHA POORNAM IDAM)
OM POORNAM ADAHA POORNAM IDAM
POORNAAT POORNAM UDACHYATAY
POORNASYA POORNAM ADAAYA
POORNAM AYVAA VASHSISHYATAY
OM POORNAM ADAHA POORNAM IDAM
(OM POORNAM ADAHA POORNAM IDAM)
OM POORNAM ADAHA POORNAM AADAAYA
(OM POORNAM ADAHA POORNAM IDAM)
This is a 5,000 year old chant that nearly any East Indian person will know.
Some version of it has appeared on every recording I‟ve made, to date. And it
has been know to usurp the presence of other songs, in public, and push its way
to the front of the line, on several occasions. If songs are alive, and they are,
then this one has a very strong life force. It is a thread passed along by those
devoted to the vision that everything and everyone is interconnected, that what
we do to ourselves we do to everyone, what we do to everyone we do unto
ourselves.
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Small Things
Aurum, what ya doing today?
Aurum, can you come out and play?
Aurum, what ya got to say?
Aurum, we‟re so happy you came.
Calvin, where did you come from?
Calvin, it seems like Heaven
Calvin, tell us in your sweet voice again,
Calvin, how it all began, aa-oh-m.
Christopher, can you walk over here
Christopher, just point and you‟re there
Christopher, you cuddle like a little bear,
Christopher, for your highness we love and care, very much.
Theo, you‟re first and never last.
Three-oh, you have all the laughs,
Theo, all these days you‟ll hear is “no,”
But Theo, the world is at your door.
Aurum, amarum hum, Calvin, Madhuram
Christopher, amarum hum, Theo, Madhuram
Mmm, Amarum, mmm, Madhuram
Within a short period in my life there were five births, three by my two sisters, one
already mentioned by my friend and of course, my baby, this collection of
recorded songs with producer, Dan Donahue. To his many credits he has a
wonderful sensitivity, and especially to that of a child‟s essence. He brought this
simple folk lullaby sweetness and gave me the best background vocal
experience I‟ve ever had. I couldn‟t be more in love with these children. Thank
you to Theo, Chris and Calvin and Aurum for bringing such big light into my life.
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