Spirit in Action
Too Stupid for Democracy?
Part 2 of a visit with singer/songwriter/activist Eileen McGann weaves powerful themes of healing the world through much of her music, embedded in a spiritual depth and consciousness. Care for the Earth & all its creatures, war, democracy, economic fairness and equality are just some of the concerns that Eileen sings compellingly about.
All the songs in this program are performed by Eileen McGann:
- Broadcast on:
- 01 May 2011
- Audio Format:
- other
[music] ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear that this one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world home ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpsmeat. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service. Hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life. ♪ Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ That we may dream as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world home ♪ Today for Spirit in Action, we welcome back activist singer-songwriter Eileen McGann. She was with us last week, and she had so much to say and sing to us that we needed another hour to express an ample range of the concerns she's worked for and sung about. Two hours is really not sufficient to address the many issues that Eileen has focused on in her career, but we can only do what we can do. Already, you've heard about her deep care for and connection with the non-human co-travelers on this planet, the trees and other plants and animals, her strong witness against war and deception by our governments, and her concerns about international corporations and the many-sided issues involving economic exploitation and justice. As I said, Eileen has many other venues for her civic action, and we'll touch on a few more as we rejoin Eileen McGann by phone at her home on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. Let me mention one of the things about your music. You are not in your face in the way that some people are. Some folk musicians are protest-type, like, we're great, you're bad, shut up. You don't seem to take that approach very often, and I think it's part of the spirituality that you bring to it, which is a compassionate spirituality as opposed to a self-righteous spirituality. Is this something conscious that you put into your lyrics? Is it something that's changed over the years? It's certainly something conscious. I think most people, most ordinary day-to-day people, are good-willed. They're good people at heart. They don't want to take something that doesn't belong to them. They don't want the will to be unjust. They do worry about themselves and their families and their jobs, and they certainly have an eye to what benefits them and what hurts them, but I think most people are good-willed and don't want to benefit at the expense of other people. And I think when I meet people who believe differently than I do in terms of politics, you have to give them the benefit of the doubt and say they think they're making the choice that is best. And I think there's no benefit to being self-righteous. There's no benefit to saying, "I'm right and you're wrong," even if you are. But it doesn't help the situation to put other people in the wrong. My perspective has always been to try to figure it out myself, try to look for the truth, try to raise the questions and make the connections between things that help people perhaps see a little more clearly what the situation is, and then they come to their own conclusions. That sort of breaks down when you get into the levels of commerce and government where there are people who are deliberately mendacious, who are not looking for the benefit of all. At that point, I think it's important to speak truth to power and say, "This is wrong and this is why." And whether or not it has any effect, well, that's up to the powers of the universe. But at least you've spoken your truth and seen as clearly as you can. And I think it's important to try to hold onto that core of truth and to not do the double-think thing that has been going on where people believe obviously incompatible things at the same time and pretend that they don't see the incompatibility. It's easy to fall into that when we get frightened, and they think trying to lower the level of fear in the world is a good thing. Because it's only when people stop being afraid that they can allow themselves to see more clearly and to be compassionate towards the common goals of good for all. When people are frightened, they pull in and they shut their eyes tight and they go for what emotionally might feel right whether or not it sits well with their spirit or with their common sense if they look at it. First of all, I have to commend you on something and another identity that I feel with you. I like words like mendacious, but not everybody knows that. You have extensive education in a number of different fields. Could you tick them off for me what you have your undergraduate, your graduate degrees, all of that in? My BA was a double major in history and philosophy, mostly ancient and medieval. I have a Bachelor of Education, History and English. My first master's was a two-year interdisciplinary master's in medieval studies which included theology, philosophy, literature, architecture, military history, all those things. And I have a second master's degree in drama and theatre studies. And what we note is that music was not one of the disciplines you got a specialized study in. I didn't take music and I didn't take art and those are the two things I make my living at these days. Let's mention your website, eileenmagan.com. People can go there and find a link from my site, northernspiritradio.org and you'll follow the link to eileen's. While you're visiting northernspiritradio.org, make sure that you stop and leave us a comment. You can comment on our programs, general suggestions. It's all good. We love hearing from you. Let's go on and share a little bit of your music. Is there something thematic with your activism in the world, eileen, that you'd like to share? Well, one thing that I think is important in doing political music and just in living our lives too, I suppose, is that you don't get caught up into it to the point that you lose your own perspective and get saddened and angry. And one of the ways of doing this is try to approach some of it with humor. Now, I'm Irish and I actually grew up singing Irish traditional music and it's still a big part of what I do. I'm not primarily a political songwriter, though the personal is political, so all my songs are political. I'm not primarily a spiritual songwriter, though, again, everything I do comes from a spiritual perspective, so in that sense I am. But I do regular old folk gigs in the world. I do concerts that are completely traditional music, most of the traditional music of Britain and the Celtic nations. And I think that's still very important to what I do, and political music is part of, especially the Irish tradition. And so I grew up with a lot of Irish political music, and so for me that's part of my cultural heritage and it's part of what I continue to do. So I see my political songwriting as in line with the traditional music that I grew up with, and I still do that traditional music. And I think it's important to do traditional music and to sing the songs that came from 400 or 200 or 600 years ago, and bring them alive for people now, because I think one of the symptoms of our disconnected society is that we have lost our sense of the past. In losing our sense of the past, it's very easy to lose your sense of the future, lose your sense of responsibility and connectivity to the people of the future who are going to inherit our planet and our economic system and our political systems. If we can connect with the plight of someone 400 years ago in a song, it helps us connect with and think about the fact that 400 years from now, there's going to be the same kind of people dealing with the same kind of things and what are we leaving to them. But one of the things that's in Irish music, and especially in Irish political music, is a sense of humor and a sense of looking at things with the perspective that points out some of the absurdity of what goes on in politics. So I was thinking about some of the political issues that we have and thinking about how do we actually make change happen given that we only get to vote once every few years, and that we often feel like that vote is wasted. So here we are trying to export democracy around the world and you wonder if do we really have a democracy right now? What is the form of government that we have if we only participate when we vote every few years? That, of course, led me to think about Plato's criticisms of democracy and saying democracy is handing power to the white boy, to the people who don't know anything, to the mob. If you hand the power to the mob, then you're not going to get the government that's of the highest standard. I also thought of it Winston Churchill saying democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others. Out of those two thoughts and some other musings about what was going on at the time, I came up with this song which is called "Too Stupid for Democracy" and it's on the Journey album. Oh, I think we're just too stupid for democracy. Whoever thought majority should rule. I think we're just too stupid for democracy. Show me a mirror, I'll show you a fool. Think of the majority of people that we meet. Do you think that their opinions should be law? Well, if you're like the majority, you think the rest are nuts. The democracy reveals a fatal flaw. Think about the average uncultivated field. There's 20,000 weeds for every flower. And over in the corner, webinars pile high. You'll find the weeds who want to be in power. And every four or five years they will play a little game saying you can pick your lead or take your choice. And they close out the line which we swallow every time and that's the end of having any voice. Oh, I think we're just too stupid for democracy. The democratic world is under curse. I think we're just too stupid for democracy though. All of the alternatives are worse. Dictatorship is full of nasty people who will shoot you. Protocracy is likewise full of sharpers who will loot you. All of our keys full of snobs who snag all the important jobs. Monarchy is kind of fun but still I think it's day is done. Communistic theories find a put in practice every time it turns from nice to nasty. And I don't think it would suit you. Which leaves us meritocracy. Which always sounded good to me. Oaksings in the government and all the laws must rhyme. Oaksings in the government or we'll have such a time. Standing up felt policy and singing party line. But maybe your ideas of merit aren't the same as mine. Oh, I think we're just too stupid for democracy. The democratic world is under curse. I think we're just too stupid for democracy though. All of the alternatives, all of the alternatives, all of the alternatives are worse. Too stupid for democracy. Too true, too true. Eileen McGann. And by the way, is that your opinion? Are we too stupid for democracy? How close are we to that threshold? It depends what day you ask me. I think that basically as the song says, all of the alternatives are worse. This is what we have, so we need to work within it. So that means we need to put an emphasis on education in the first place. We need to have as educated a population as possible. It means putting money and effort and giving respect to the education system and getting the most educated children that we can who know how to think for themselves, you know how to make democracy work because without an educated population, democracy just can't work. So education on the one hand, secondly, we need to uphold standards of truth in government and in the media so that we have the information that we can act on and know that it's true. Democracy also falls down regardless of the education of the population. The facts that they think that they're making the judgments upon are based on falsehood or manipulations. Then you're not going to be making the choices that you really want to make. Regardless of the IQ of the population, which by the way can be improved by improving our environment and health in general, regardless of the IQ, if we have the best education system we can have, and if we have standards for truth-telling in media and government, then democracy has a chance to actually form a government that's for the benefit of the people who inhabit that nation. I'm with you on this. Let's go to work on them. Unfortunately, the situation that we have in Wisconsin doesn't bode well. I think what you've had but you've been living with nationally in Canada maybe doesn't promise that we're completely ready for democracy right yet. But what's the alternative? One of the things about singing that song over the last many years has been just great reactions from people and people wanting to come up and talk to me about it afterwards and discussing what kind of government we actually have and whether or not it's a democracy. But if we feed our rights within our democracy, if we stop voting because we're disgusted with what's going on, if we stop demanding that people tell the truth and just shrug our shoulders and say, "Well, everybody lies," then the whole thing is lost and handed over to those who do not mean well, who have other motivations. Our politicians are supposed to be representing us, and we have been seeing more and more clearly how, with the way that our democracy has been changed and manipulated, that power is basically going into the hands of anonymous-faced corporations who have absolutely no mandate to do what's good for the public at large, whose only mandate is to make profits in a short-term mode that fulfill the requirements of their board of directors and can be distributed among their shareholders, plus the multi-marine dollar bonus to the CEO, of course. If we let go of our democracy, if we cease to demand that democracy function as it's to, then that's who we just handed over to. And it may be too late, it may be already completely in their hands, and it's all a game that we're playing when we vote, but I think going in that direction is not helpful, but we just have to assume that we still do have some power and attempt to wield it for the highest good, regardless of whether or not we think we're going to have any effect or not at this point. I think we still have to do it, we still have to say, this is a democracy, I demand to know the truth, I demand that my representatives actually represent me and not the corporations who pay for their campaigns, and I think we have to just not give up the fight. And imagine a world where we do have the power and where that power is used for the common good. I have the feeling that the people in Wisconsin are standing up for that right now. It's been very impressive to me to see these demonstrations down in Madison, which have included 50,000, 100,000, maybe 150,000 people, all motivated to participate, think, critique, and act. And, you know, maybe there is some hope for democracy. It just takes something to get us out of our more abundant silence. I think there is hope, and I think Wisconsin has been proving that, people will stand up, and I think nations around the world are looking at Wisconsin and taking note of what's happening there. I'm sure that's kind of scary for the rest of the world to be counting on Wisconsin as their role model. [laughter] Well, give us some more music that speaks of these issues that we need to pay attention to, or at least that you've been paying attention to. One of the things I've been writing about in my music since my very first album, 25 years ago, my goodness, has been the place of women in our society. It's been discussed in the media recently how international development organizations are seeing more and more clearly that raising the standard of living for women, raising the respect that's paid to women in countries around the world benefits everyone in the society. In fact, although in our first world countries, our industrialized countries, we seem to be very far ahead. We haven't really gotten there yet, and in some ways in recent years, we've seen the clawing back of some of the rights and the respect shown to women in our society. And when we look at the people who are in power and looking to be in power, it's quite alarming to think that a lot of the progress that's been made in the last 100 years could be legislated away very easily in our countries as well as in distant countries where the level of freedom and respect for women has never been very high. One of the things that I've been looking at with concern in the last few years is the way that ordinary-looking women have disappeared from the public face of our culture, that on television shows and advertising and certainly in the movies, there are men of all ages and heights and weights and looks and degrees of beauty, and there are young fashion model girls. And that's pretty much it. Women over 40 are hardly to be seen unless they look like they're 30. And most of the time when they are shown on TV, they're in roles that are minor roles, somebody's mother, somebody's grandmother, a crime victim, occasionally as a one, which is a step up, interestingly. The emphasis on beauty and the emphasis on skininess has gotten so deep into our culture that we now have little tiny girls who are worried about being overweight, six-year-olds and eight-year-olds, young teenagers getting plastic surgery, and the self-destruction and the self-hatred that this culture is imbuing into our girls who think you either look like a princess or you're worthless, is quite alarming, and it seems to be growing rather than diminishing over time. The whole issue of what is beauty, what is ugliness is something that people talk about in the culture, and has been talked about in the culture, and there's no question that movie stars have always been beautiful. I'm not saying that that shouldn't be the case or that's likely to change, though it must be said that the British theater culture, which I was exposed to when I studied theater over there, has continued, to a large extent, to value talent overlooks, even in actresses, which is encouraging. But certainly in North America, that is not the case. I was walking down the street in Boston a while ago, and I saw a sculpture of the faces medusa upon a wall, and I stood there and looked at her and started thinking about these issues of beauty and ugliness and visibility and invisibility, and how that legend has remained so powerful and our consciousness to this day. So many of the ancient legends and fairy tales and myths have survived because they speak powerful truths, and those truths last through the ages. Medusa was a beautiful young maiden who was so beautiful that the goddess Athena became jealous of her, and when Medusa had the temerity to have an affair with a god Poseidon, Athena cursed her, and she's the one who gave her the snake hair and the fact that anyone who looked at her would turn to stone. And Medusa was then hunted down by warriors who decided they would prove themselves by slaying her, and Perseus did so with a huge amount of unfair help from the goddess Athena, and he managed to kill Medusa, and one of the things that the legends often seem to leave out when they tell this story, which is mostly told from Perseus' point of view, is that at the point of death, Medusa gave birth to the child that she had conceived with Poseidon. She had been herself a beautiful winged maiden, and Poseidon is the god of horses, and as well as the god of the sea, and so the child that she gave birth to was Pegasus, who is a symbol of beauty that has lasted through the ages. So it struck me that this symbol of ugliness that has persisted for thousands of years in Western culture gave birth to a symbol of beauty as a sign of hope and the beauty that we can all produce that's inside of all of us, regardless of the outside. There's just so many other things in the Medusa legend. I felt that I had to write a song about it, and that perhaps the song should be told from the point of view for once of Medusa. I knew that I was ugly. It was to be my curse. The snakes writhed round my head all day could not have been much worse. I took myself out to a cave so I could be alone. I did not want to say that all who saw me turned to stone. If I had been a beauty, they'd have used me for their game, and all in all the story might have turned out much the same. There was a girl of beauty, knew the difference beauty makes. They're all the men who looked on how it transformed into snakes. But whether still was slithering, the changes were their own. They never noticed they were snakes. They noticed when they're strong. Yes, I was still a beauty when the Lord of forces came. Together we gave beauty life and everlasting fame. But the goddess looked upon me then with green and angry eye. She cursed me and she swore that all who looked on me would die. So I took myself out to a cave underneath the hill. They followed me with swords and spears and hearts intent to kill. One day a hero came strong of mind and harm. He swore that he would slay me though I'd done to him no harm. The goddess came down to him then and showered him with gifts. Her sword made him invincible. The winged shoes would make him swift, but then the cruelest gift of all, a mirror for a shield. The wisest goddess thought that only shame could make me yield. For I lived among the statues now of those who come before. I knew if I did nothing then this boy would make one more. One more statue frozen there with loathing on his face to stare until death seemed to me a lover to embrace. So I looked in the mirror though I knew the mirror lied. And like so many then and since I saw myself and died. Yes I looked in the mirror it was of my free will. It wasted was a victory in choosing not to kill. The ways it was a victory for finally I was free, a missing and a curses and a beauty's jealousy. He took my head and used it as a weapon on his kind. Even after death my face could strike them cold and blind. Cold his minds that cannot change and hearts that will not see. The stone consumed them from within but legend still blames me. And yet it was a victory for in dying I gave birth. He had the best of everything fire, water, air and earth. As I rose up I watched my child spread snowy wings to fly. Then take a shining place eternal beauty in the sky. Eileen McGann is here with us today for spirit in action. That was her song Medusa. Another powerful insight. It is wonderful. I can see where your background, your history and your studies all of that comes together in that song. Have you ever sung that to someone had someone come up to you afterwards and say this transformed how they wrestled with their own appearances? I certainly had many people come up and thank me for the song and say that it spoke to them in their lives that they have felt so many times themselves like Medusa. I think most women have. To a certain extent women just become Medusa as they get older in our culture because we become invisible. People turn to stone around older women. They don't see them anymore. So younger women get reactions, older women don't get reactions. I certainly had a lot of response to the song from women of all ages talking about their experiences of being seen or not being seen or being judged according to the effect that they had on the men around them as opposed to who they were and what they had to say. I could add a little bit about this from my own perspective as a man. I definitely see our culture of beauty as exploitative of women but interestingly a part that is very seldom noticed is how it's exploitative of men. Men I think to a significant degree it's not the accepted cultural belief in North America but I see men as largely dependent on women and in fact if you look at the statistics men's suicide or die when their partner leaves them divorce or death they die very quickly. Women last on very much longer and it's not biological. It has to do with men giving away their own power and being exploited, exotic dancers and all that kind of thing. That's a way to get money out of the pocket of men. You can look at it as men exploiting women but in fact it's economic forces trying to take money from men's pocket and put it into somebody else's pocket. I realize that it's not generally the women getting rich. It's the owners of the magazines or the clubs or whatever. Our culture is more and more teaching. Younger and younger girls but that's the way to power and there's been this weird flip on issues of public sexuality where women who exploit themselves sexually are called empowered and little girls think they have to dress like little hookers to be seen as powerful but that's how they get attention that's how you get power and this is not what we want to be teaching our daughters. We want to teach them that their power is in their own inner strength and in their talents and their gifts and their work and their love and their contribution not their sexiness. Having power of the sexiness as you say is exploitative of men and this is not the kind of symbiosis that is for the good of the human race. We want men and women to see each other with respect as equals as powerful spirits and fully rounded human beings. That's not to ignore the pull of biology but we are humans and we are spiritual beings and we're intellectual beings and we can make decisions about what we value in ourselves and what we value in each other and what we teach our children to value. Part of that is seeing men and women, boys and girls as equally valuable as fully rounded spirit based human beings and not just someone to exploit or be exploited by. Well that's one more in a number of issues that you've been covering. Again when you start making a song do you start with the idea or the concern that you're living out in society? How do songs generally get started in you? Of course not all of them are political activism or values oriented songs. How do they get started? It varies, sometimes it'll come out of a conversation I have with someone else and sometimes someone will tell me a story or sometimes it comes from watching the news or reading an article or just something that's been turning around in my head. I find that what I mostly get is a fragment of a song, a line or two will come into my head often with the tune along with it and that that fragment will just kind of rattle around for a little while and sometimes the song will unfold from that fragment very quickly within a day or two, sometimes within an hour or two, sometimes it'll rattle around for years. And then one day all of a sudden the rest of the song just flips out or forms itself around the initial idea like ice nine. Like ice nine, not everyone has read Kurt Vonnegut, but some of us have. Well, maybe we should cut that reference then. But generally it starts with a thought or an idea or feeling sometimes and I'll get a fragment and then the song will crystallize around that fragment. Do you deliberately look to say I haven't written anything that shares my concern for all of creation? Is that a necessary component of each of your CDs? No, I don't tend to explicitly say I haven't written about this so I need to write about that or the album needs of this kind of song to round it out. I guess I'm more organic, it's just the albums have each been a collection of what I've been singing and thinking about and doing in the years previous to that album for the most part. With two exceptions I have a CD called Heritage that's entirely traditional songs and I have a CD called Light which is mostly a compilation album of songs of hope and healing and the spiritual journey. Other than that my albums are a collection of a few traditional songs along with the songs that I've written in the years previous and to some extent I think if you look at them you'll find that there are thematic streams that run through all of the albums. But it's not really I need to song about this so I set out to write it. Occasionally people will suggest songs to me they'll say you should write a song about such and such and occasionally I'll think yeah I should and something will come but mostly I'm not as disciplined as that to write specifically to topic. Sometimes when I'm watching the news a storyline will jump out at me or a thought or indignation or some ideas will come from what I'm hearing sometimes the news just gets me depressed sometimes it gets me riled up. Over the years I've occasionally gone on news fast when I just couldn't take it anymore when the news was all so bad I just thought this isn't good for me so I tried not to watch it and once or twice I managed to stay away for for many months at a time. It was probably good for me. Each time I tried to go on a media fast I ended up returning to watching the news or reading the news I read a few different newspaper sites every day. Because it was so drummed into me when I was younger that you needed to stay informed in order to fully participate in a democracy also that it's just become a habit for me to read and to know what's going on and I do feel it's important to do. But I still go through the argument with myself as to whether or not it's ultimately good for my well-being and for my contribution to the world in terms of spirit. I know people who have gotten seriously depressed by looking at what's going on in the world and those of us who do keep up with what's going on know that there's a lot to be depressed about there's a lot of things that are going wrong that are looking very bad for us all. It would be very easy to get depressed and so I go back and forth saying to myself, A, I need to be well informed and active and thinking about things and writing about things. On the other hand I think there's a very strong argument to be made that the place we need to start is with a peaceful spirit. And so I think for those who have decided that their peaceful spirit requires working personally and in their community and without getting riled up about the things that are coming to us through the media, I think that's a legitimate way to go. I think we weren't designed to know everything that's going on the minute it happens. Most of the history of humankind involves cultures where it took days or weeks or even years for news to reach from another country. So you wouldn't know that there was a war going on in another nation until someone who was traveling maybe for many months came by and said, "Oh yes, the war has started in Spain." And I think we're not necessarily designed to take it all in with equanimity and the question arises of what are the human limits of compassion? Where does compassion turn to obsession? Where does knowledge turn into negativity, into depression, into despair? So the song "The Evening News" that's on the pocketful of Ryan's album is putting into song this discussion that has gone on in my head for years asking, "What is it best to do?" It doesn't come up with the answer or any particular conclusion that's definitive in any way. It's just saying, "Here's the situation. These are the things that go on in my mind every day when I confront whether or not to watch The Evening News that day." This day there was a killing, this day there was a storm, there's fighting in the Middle East, the Earth is getting warm, this day there was an earthquake and a politician lied, a fire and a broken heart. And someone famous died. This day I watched The Evening News. I saw it all last year and loaded on my mind and heart, a planet's worth of fear. This day I watched The Evening News, perhaps I'll watch tomorrow and load upon my mind and heart, a planet's worth of sorrow. I try to be a citizen, responsible and true, by voting well and keeping up with all the news that's new, but sometimes now I wonder, are we meant to know each day? The details of each tragedy, ten thousand miles away. This day I watched The Evening News. I saw it all last year and loaded on my mind and heart, a planet's worth of fear. This day I watched The Evening News, perhaps I'll watch tomorrow and load upon my mind and heart, a planet's worth of sorrow. So should I shut compassion down and see, just with the mind, or let my heart be burdened by the sorrows of all humankind? Perhaps I'll just turn off the box and walk out in the air, and say hello to Sam next door and make my garden fair. This day I watched The Evening News, I saw it all last year and loaded on my mind and heart, a planet's worth of fear. This day I watched The Evening News, perhaps I'll watch tomorrow and load upon my mind and heart, a planet's worth of sorrow. Perhaps I'll just turn off the box and walk out in the air and say hello to Sam next door and make my garden fair. A little bit of wisdom in progress, The Evening News by Eileen McGann. I describe it as wisdom in progress, so many people don't even have any idea that maybe I should limit what's coming into my head voluntarily for the well-being of the world. I think that there must have been people who came up to you after hearing that and saying that's medicine I need. I think that we need to look first to what's going on inside of us, that's what we have real control over, we can control what we feed our bodies, we can also control what we feed our spirits and our minds. And I think it's really important to try to find a place of equanimity, a place of peace, a place where the predominant feelings that we have and the predominant ideas in our head are peaceful, joyful, grounded feelings and thoughts. And from that place of strength, we can then move out into the world to make change. If we come from a place of fear and chaos and fighting and depression, I think ultimately that makes us less powerful in the world as well as in ourselves. So I think my challenge to myself is how to get to that place of strength and common peace and equanimity from which I can then be secure in myself and happy in my place in the world for more I can move out and make change in the world either through my music or through a more direct activism. So is there a way I lean, a discipline maybe that you have, like your fasts, that help you orient in that direction? In Quakeries, I would say, center down, find your center, do what you are saying, peel off those layers that you don't need and stay with what's essential. What's your discipline to do that? Well, walking among the trees, going down to the ocean, painting. When I'm not making music and traveling, I paint landscapes. And in painting my landscapes, I find a real centeredness of real peace. You probably won't be surprised to hear that I mostly paint trees. Trees and rocks and water, that's what I'm surrounded by here. And that brings me a real centeredness and a real peace. And I find I can go back and forth between the painting and the music and each informs the other. When I get to a place where I'm stuck over something or something is not working right, I also am very fortunate to have access to something called belief-free patterning. That's a technique that was developed by Sue Casey of Calgary for helping you get past your blocks and getting past the beliefs that get in your way. And I actually have taken training and become a practitioner of belief-free patterning, which I don't do. Well, I do it when I'm not otherwise involved in music or painting, but mostly I use it with myself when I come up against a belief, for instance, that everything's going down in a hand basket and there's nothing I can do about it. I can work through a belief-free patterning session with myself and put myself back on track. So I do that as a specific technique to overcome specific blocks and I find the belief-free patterning really does help me keep a positive attitude and stay healthy and focused on what I want to stay focused on. Aside from that, I have done meditation in the past. I would like to start doing that again, but haven't yet managed to fit it in with everything else. So mostly my meditation practice is just walking among the trees and going down to the water and listening to the lapping of the ocean and the wind in the branches, finding my way to a peaceful spirit that way, and that gives me strength to then do what I have to do in the world. At some point, you must wonder if your music and the energy you've put into that and help visioning the world to a better place. You must wonder, "Am I having a fact? Am I getting enough done?" Do you receive feedback from the environment, from the people that say this was helpful and this is moving us? I do and I am so thrilled and encouraged when I get that kind of feedback. Often you find as a musician or a songwriter, you send your work out into the world and you don't really know where it goes. Often people will buy albums and pass them on and I'm often amazed and delighted at how far the songs have traveled. And I do get stories back from people who say I was at an environmental camp working to stop the destruction of an old growth forest and we sang your song Requiem or at a women's conference that they sang, "Here's to the Man" or "Man's Job" or one of the other feminist songs or having people come up and say what you said to me about this made me take a course or inspired me to go and stand in front of the bulldozers myself or get in a picket line. I occasionally get stuff back, get letters and emails from people who tell me they've been inspired. Certainly many from listening to the light album told me that songs on that album help them personally get through hard times. It's just a delight when you get feedback like that because you feel often that you're working in isolation and you don't know if you're having any effect. So it helps keep me going when I get those letters and when I get some kind of indication that this can make a difference. And other than that I guess we just send our best work out into the world and hope that on some level it changes things whether on a spiritual level or a practical level of inspiring activism or just maybe putting a new idea out there that might change someone's mind down the road. Well it is very clearly inspirational music and I'm just so thankful for it and I'm especially thankful that you joined us for spirit in action. Thanks for having me. Thank you again Eileen. I'm going to send you out everybody with one more of Eileen's song. It is "Here's to the Men" from her Elements CD. To the men with a vision to see with equality everyone gains. So here's to their courage and here's to their truth and their heart in the breaking of chains. Boys are brought up from the time they are small to believe that they've got to be tough. And they're taught not to cry and they're trained not to feel for their toad that it's womanish stuff. And they're taught on the TV that women exist for the pleasure and service of men. And they see in their schools that the men are in charge so they're taught this again and again. So here's to the men with a vision to see with equality everyone gains. So here's to their courage and here's to their truth and their heart in the breaking of chains. And as they get older they learn from their friends the terrible power of names. And the ones they hate most are the ones they'll be called if they don't play the old macho games. So it's only the wise who consider the cost. And only the brave who can change. For the wise and the brave know that for the applause they give half of themselves in exchange. So here's to the men with a vision to see with equality everyone gains. So here's to their courage and here's to their truth and their heart in the breaking of chains. The customs of centuries die very hard but we still look in folk for the time. When equality's not just in charters and laws but entrenched within everyone's mind. Still the internal struggles the hardest of all is the fight to be all we can be. But when women and men join as allies and friends will find truth and serve all of us free. So here's to the men with a vision to see with equality everyone gains. So here's to their courage and here's to their truth and their heart in the breaking of chains. So here's to the men with a vision to see with equality everyone gains. So here's to their courage and here's to their truth and their heart in the breaking of chains. A final song by Eileen McGann, Here's to the Men. An honor to have a song dedicated to us I'm sure. This was the second part of my spirit and action interview with Eileen. And if you missed the first part you can listen via my website where you can also find the song of the soul she shared a couple months back. As far as I'm concerned any and all of her music is worth its weight in gold. I encourage you to sample more of it for yourselves including her traditional Irish and folk music. You can follow up with Eileen McGann at her website Eileen McGann.com or get there via my northernspiritradio.org. Either way you'll find loads of excellent thought provoking pleasure inducing music and art. The theme music for this program is Turning of the World performed by Sarah Thompson. This spirit in action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website northernspiritradio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host Mark Helpsmeet and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is Spirit in Action. With every voice, with every song we will move this world along. With every voice, with every song we will move this world along and our lives will feel the echo of our healing. (upbeat music)