Spirit in Action
Magpie's Song for the Earth - Greg Artzner - Part 2
Greg Artzner is half of Magpie, a duo aimed directly at calling the world to consciousness in terms of peace, justice, equality and care for the Earth. They work on stage and in the classroom, providing a too-seldom used window into a more honest and helpful way of seeing our history & future.
- Broadcast on:
- 05 Feb 2011
- Audio Format:
- other
(upbeat music) ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear as one ♪ ♪ With every voice, with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ - Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark helps me. 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, with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ - Today for Spirit in Action, we'll continue our conversation with Greg Artzner of Magpie. If you missed the first installment, you can find it at NorthernSpiritRadio.org. Greg Artzner and his partner, Terri Leonino, together perform as Magpie, creating and sharing music primarily aimed at improving our world, which is why Greg is with me here today. Peace, justice, care for all of our world. All of these are important themes you'll find in Magpie's music, but they also often incorporate deep themes of connection and spirituality in their music, which especially drew me to them. So let's continue this dialogue with Greg Artzner, looking for more of the music and means by which Magpie acts as a force for positive change in our world. First, maybe some information on the nuts and bolts of Magpie's music would be a good place to start. I tend to think of the two of you, Greg, as folk musicians. And consequently, I tend to think that you're not much into jazz, pop, blues, all of those types of music. Still, being the talented and versatile musicians that you are, I assume you can do the entire spectrum of that kind of music. - Well, yeah, and as a matter of fact, we actually do a lot of swing tunes. We actually do a lot of swing music, mostly the old stuff, stuff from the '30s. And every now and then, we'll take an old song that seems to be a good vehicle for some kind of a parody and we'll change the woods if that's something that we're working on. And blues is something that, and blues guitar style is something that I've studied and played all along, all through my years of playing. So I quite often will use those styles and those techniques in accompaniments and in songwriting. But yeah, I guess you could say that we're straight ahead folk in the sense that we tend to record acoustic. We don't usually use electric instruments in the studio where we're at mountain and we might actually have some electric instruments in the studio, but frankly, I can't even think of one we have. Stylistically, there's probably a lot more than you could squeeze into one program in terms of various genres of music that we do. - What's the division in terms of songwriting or music playing between you and Terry? - Well, we both write. I've written some songs and she's written some songs, but most of the writing that we've done for the last 20 years of our career has been actual co-writing. We actually write the songs together. And a lot of times, that means that we're in the car, traveling in the car, we're hashing out lyrics together. One of us is sitting there with the notebook, taking it down and we're shooting ideas back and forth to each other. And then musically, we'll sit down and set something like that to music together. In terms of our original stuff versus the covers, we tend to be very selective about the covers that we choose, but we are definitely of the opinion that if the song deserves to be sung and it's something that really says something well that we perhaps couldn't say on our own or couldn't say that way or had just haven't said as well, we're gonna sing it. There seems to be a move, a foot among what we call folk musicians these days, that they can only sing their own songs. You don't do covers, you don't cover other people's material. And we think that that's a really wrong-headed approach in a lot of ways. And it's not to say that people shouldn't sing their own and if they're gonna sing their own material, sing the majority out of the chore, that's fine. But the way I feel, I feel like Dick Gaugham feels about Dick Gaugham, the great Scottish folk singer. He mentioned this in one of his liner notes some years ago. He's talking about how wrong-headed it was because if songwriters forever only sing their own songs, then songs will die with the singer. If you as a performer never do songs by other people, then what's gonna become of all of those songs? Maybe some of them really aren't worth continuing on, beyond the singer. But as a songwriter, I think everybody hopes that somebody's gonna wanna sing your song. I know that I feel I'm greatly honored if someone decides to sing a song that we wrote. I think it's a really, that's a great thing. It's not just flattering, it's great's honoring. You know, one of our songs, "We Beloved to the Earth" is something that the number of our colleagues in music have been performing over the years and we're very gratified to know that. - Well, is this appropriate time to listen to that? Can we share it with the audience? We belong to the Earth? - Absolutely. For us, this is our spiritual honoring of the Earth, so on our recognition that we are of the Earth and that once we take that kind of a perspective, how we live on our planet, perhaps we'll treat it better. ♪ We belong to the Earth ♪ ♪ We all belong to the Earth ♪ ♪ It's not that she belongs to us ♪ ♪ 'Cause we belong to her ♪ ♪ 'Cause we belong to her ♪ ♪ We belong to the Earth ♪ ♪ We all belong to the Earth ♪ ♪ It's not that she belongs to us ♪ ♪ 'Cause we belong to her ♪ ♪ 'Cause we belong to her ♪ ♪ Stranding away by we ♪ ♪ Stranding away by belief ♪ ♪ To own it, we cannot dare to dream ♪ ♪ It's a web that we didn't leave ♪ ♪ It's a web that we didn't leave ♪ ♪ And we belong to the Earth ♪ ♪ We all belong to the Earth ♪ ♪ It's not that she belongs to us ♪ ♪ It's we belong to her ♪ ♪ It's we belong to her ♪ ♪ In sun and in wind and in rain ♪ ♪ It's a seed of what we'll be ♪ ♪ It awakens a power that grows down below ♪ ♪ It courses through you and through me ♪ ♪ Courses through you and through me ♪ ♪ And we belong to the Earth ♪ ♪ We all belong to the Earth ♪ ♪ It's not that she belongs to us ♪ ♪ It's we belong to her ♪ ♪ It's we belong to her ♪ ♪ It's we belong to the Earth ♪ ♪ It's we belong to the Earth ♪ ♪ It's we belong to the Earth ♪ ♪ It's we belong to the Earth ♪ ♪ It's we belong to the Earth ♪ ♪ And when our spirits take flight ♪ ♪ We let our bodies down ♪ ♪ Our ashes may be carried away on the wind ♪ ♪ But return to the birthing ground ♪ ♪ Return to the birthing ground ♪ ♪ And we belong to the Earth ♪ ♪ We all belong to the Earth ♪ ♪ It's not that she belongs to us ♪ ♪ It's we belong to her ♪ ♪ It's we belong to her ♪ ♪ We belong to the Earth ♪ ♪ We all belong to the Earth ♪ ♪ It's not that she belongs to us ♪ ♪ It's we belong to her ♪ ♪ It's we belong to her ♪ ♪ It's not that she belongs to us ♪ ♪ It's we belong to her ♪ ♪ It's we belong to her ♪ ♪ It's we belong to her ♪ So truly said and sung. We belong to the Earth by Magpie. We have with us here today for Spirit in Action, Greg Artsner. He and his partner Terry are Magpie. Their website is magpiemusic.com. By the way, one of the things I meant to ask you earlier, Greg, was which instruments each of you play? Are you both, you know, play 45 different instruments, or sometimes I'll hear a flute in there, or it's a mandolin or whatever? Who is that that I'm listening to? Well, I play the guitar and Terry plays the guitar. She plays the mandolin and the Afret Adulcimer, the Appalachian Dulsimer, and she also plays the harmonica. And then as far as the flute, you will hear the flute. On the seat on the Prairie album, I play most of the flute. She plays flute on at least one track, and she plays the flute on our last month of the year album. So we both play Native American flute a little bit. And I also play English concertina, which you'll hear every now and then on a track. And I have just taken up, just a few months ago, and up the 5-string banjo. So in future recordings, people are going to get to hear me play the 5-string banjo. It's coming along real well. I'm kind of surprised I didn't take it up earlier, because I certainly have a real natural feel for it. I'm just enjoying the heck out of playing, and it's just really fun. Is a guitar an appropriate instrument for a protest demonstration situation, or is the banjo the better one? I imagine you might get some strong arguments from Pete Seeger about which is better. Well, I think they're both pretty ideal, but in some sense, a banjo might be a little bit more ideal, because the banjo is ever so slightly more impervious to bad weather. If you have a synthetic head on the banjo, it's going to be... It's also, perhaps, if you have a good one, you know, and it's a nice, loud instrument. It's a good, loud instrument to sort of cut through the voices. But guitar is ideal, too, in the sense that it's portable. And, you know, you can stand up there and play it, even if you only have one microphone, you know, both those instruments will carry. You don't even have to have more than one microphone. Heck, you can play both those instruments into a bullhorn. So the only issue with both of them really is in climate weather. You know, if you don't have a cover for your stage or your platform, you might be in trouble. Do you have a sense of which environment? I mean, we were just talking about playing music at a protest or some kind of demonstration. But you've also had your work that you've been doing in schools. Do you have a sense of that it really made a difference that you can see it working to change the world? Maybe this was the song that brought everybody together to stop the strip mining of this mountain or whatever. Or maybe it's the kid who went on to become something because of inspiration of your music. Do you have solid feels that all this work that you've been doing for so many decades has clearly borne fruit? Yes, yes we do. In fact, that's the very last thing you mentioned is one. Just one. We actually had a young fellow come up to us at a fire mental conference. He and a couple of his friends, they actually, he did take famed worship. They actually got down on their knees in front of us and started bowing to us. And we said, "Get out. This is ridiculous." And what the one fellow pulled up his shirt sleeve and showed us where he'd actually had the turtle logo from the cover of our living planet, to see the tattooed on his upper arm. He had gone into environmental science as a pursuit and had become an environmentalist, environmental activist as a director of all the listening to our music. Well, now there's something. And I'll tell you two stories. One is Pete. There's a song that we wrote some years ago based on the work of the great civil rights leader Ella Baker. It's a song called "Give Light." The first verse is her words basically set to music. She said, in an interview I suppose, talking about her philosophy of organizing, she said, "Give light, and people will find a way." So we set that to music. Well, when we had Pete Seeger record that with us, and he was in the studio with us in Woodstock, and after he was done recording his part for the song, he sort of took Terry and I back into the back and said, "Come on, Greg. I want to take that song down." So we went back into the back room and he took out his famous 12 string guitar and flipped it over for a desk. And then he took the lyric sheet, flipped that over, and then he dashed off five lines, and then five lines, and then five lines, and then five lines again until he'd written the score. I'm a blank score on the back page. This guy actually can take down a tune, you know, because he can actually do that. A lot of us folks forget it. You know, we'll wait for the tape from the engineer. But Pete is going to take this song down by dictation. So he says, "Come that tune for me." So we sit there, and by note, he painstakingly takes down the entire song by dictation, and I'm going, "Boy, this is it." You know, I'm thinking, "I can die now." You know, I've lived to see my childhood idol, my childhood hero taking my song down by dictation. You know, it doesn't get much better than that in life. Yeah, what an amazing thing to have a folk icon, like Pete Seager, taking down your music, your songs to pass on. I mean, that's, isn't that better than winning a Grammy or anything? You're darn right, as far as I'm concerned it is, you know, I mean, I think it's certainly, you know, Grammy's a wonderful thing, but, you know, I'm more oriented toward this kind of a thing. You know, I have somebody take my song down there and go off and teach it to people, as Pete would do. Oh, yeah, that was a very fascinating thing. And the other thing that happened was with that same song, a couple of years ago, we received an email from a woman in Manlius, New York, which is not too far from Syracuse. She's a Unitarian Minister, and her husband is also a Unitarian Minister. They traveled to Rwanda years after the genocide there, between the Hutus and the Tutsis, and they were involved in the reconciliation and restoration projects. And they sang our song "Give Light" in various presentations at churches and coffeehouses. But they also sang it in lots of other places throughout the country, as a kind of, you know, an inspirational anthem that people could use to bring their spirits together. She wrote us this lengthy email that she said she just wanted to let us know how her song has touched so many lives. And the message of hope and promise. I can tell you that, just the very thought of it, just gives me shivers just to think about that. Those kinds of things happen to you, you just realize, well, you know, yeah, I must be doing something right. I may not be all good, I may not be struggling myself, but there's something good coming out of what we do. You know, I was to Rwanda, I guess almost three years ago myself, part of a Quaker folk dance group that we tour around the world, doing dances from different cultures, bringing them together in peace. So I had that experience. Well, with all that intro about the song "Give Light", it would be a total pity if we didn't share it with our listeners. This is the song "Give Light" by Magpie, introduced to you here by Greg Artsner today for "Spirit in Action". [music] "Give Light" and people will find the way. "Give Light" and people will find the way. "Give Light" and people will find the way. People will find the way I do believe. Teach peace and people will find the way. Teach peace and people will find the way. Teach peace and people will find the way. People will find the way I do believe. Stand together and people will find the way. Stand together and people will find the way. People will find the way I do believe. Give Love and people will find the way. Give Love and people will find the way. Give Love and people will find the way. People will find the way I do believe. Give Light and people will find the way. Give Light and people will find the way. Give Light and people will find the way. People will find the way I do believe. People will find the way I do believe. What good advice? Give Light by Magpie and what a great song Greg. It does have that natural easy to pick up essence of popular folk songs. Songs that everybody can sing during an action or protest or a demonstration. The way that we shall overcome can work for a crowd. And it's a zipper song like that where you can easily make up new one sentence versus building the song as you go. So it's a great song and I predict a bright future for it. And what I ultimately hope is that when I'm dead and gone that that song finds its way into the public domain. Because in fact I'm probably as years go on I'll probably turn it over to the public domain foundation because I feel that this song really is so far beyond us and it ought to be. Yeah that's great stuff. Well you and Terry have been doing so much for so long. You talked a little bit about how you got started back in the 60s. Vietnam War kicked you off. Were you an active anti-war participant? Were you in college? Did you do a deferment? What was your situation during the Vietnam War? During the war I was in school. Of course in 1965 I was just 13. But by the time I graduated high school I was 18. So you know I had to go down and register for the draft at the post office. Now during the years leading up to that point of course I got like a lot of my friends increasingly angry about the war and increasingly opposed to it. I was involved with my local groups who were organizing against it and we had demonstrations in my hometown and I sang at the moratorium against the war in October of 1969. When I was 17 then the following February when I turned 18 I went on and registered for the draft. Now as a result of various things going on. Music pretty big and it's impact on me. Songs from people like Phil Oaks, Peter Yarrows, song The Great Mandela, other anti-war songs that I've been learning. So you know I waste deep in the big muddy bike seats here. And of course a lot of other things. You know my own spiritual studies you know I was really big into the prophet by a career as a rock which was certainly a major inspiration to me and other things that I've been studying. It just led me to when I got to that forum to register for the draft and it had that one question right at the bottom of the page. Do you wish to register as a conscientious objector and I just jumped right on that one. I said absolutely yes. And so that of course sent you through this process they send you further materials. You know the draft board would send you further materials. It was a really long application to apply for CO status. You know I think there was five or six pages of essay questions that you had to fill out. You had to line up a whole list of references. I didn't really have sufficient references because I didn't really have any adult mentors or advisors or counselors who agreed with my position. Even the church you know Catholic church I was in Catholic church at that time and Catholic church was not opposed to war. To this day they still they are certainly going to give a good lip service to peace but if it comes down to war what they consider to be a just war. You know ain't war is okay with the Catholic church they have a history of it. So I couldn't really even you know cite my priests as a of course I was really long gone from the Catholic church by the time this happened. I just really pretty much stopped going to church when I was 13. But anyway I registered as a CO filled out the application and then they made arrangements for me to come in and have my interview with the draft board. I had to sit down there in that tiny little conference room with all eight members of the draft board. Eight dollar looking men who looked as if they could they would rather be any place else in the world. But in that room asking these kinds of ridiculous hypothetical questions trying to goad me into being a violent person and admit that I was a violent person. You know admit that I would take up a gun and you know you can't do that if you're trying to become a contentious objector. Even if you even if you're actually speaking falsehoods so I basically held forth on my total pacifism and they gave me a CO status. When the draft switched over to lottery and I became actually eligible to be called up. I was called up my number was 14 I was called up for alternate service which I did. I worked in hospitals community hospitals and nursing facilities for two and a half years required as a CEO. And I'd tell you that probably the song the one song that had more impact on me than any of the others was a song by Phillips called Is There Anybody Here? Is there anybody here who'd like to change his clothes into a uniform? And Phil asks the hard questions he goes through the whole litany of what it really means to be not just in the army or in the military but to be a militarist. My whole feeling about it is that you know people talk about supporting the troops well I support the troops as human beings but I certainly prefer that we don't have troops. My whole thing is call me one of those call me a dreamer you know you you may say that I'm a dreamer well I'm not the only one but my dream has always been to have a world without militarism. That to me militarism is the problem militarism is one of those self perpetuating problems that once one nation has a military and they use it then other nations have to have militaries and use them. My feeling is that whether you decide to be a person in the military or militarist that's your choice. My whole point is choose not to and even in the case of selective service we did have a choice we just had to exercise that choice. There just were not enough of us who were actually willing to do that and now of course in this nation it's all another choice. People are compelled by their circumstances to make the choice that perhaps is not as wise a choice as they ought to make but I'm pretty strongly anti militarist and anti-war. So a conscientious objection is anyone that actually steps forward and claims conscientious objector status as far as I'm concerned they're heroes to me. They're stepping forward and speaking their conscience and not caving in to pressure or to some myth of glory and national service you know there are many ways to serve your country. You don't have to join the military to serve your country. I just think that especially when you consider the history in my lifetime the history of our nation and our national government in terms of military adventurism around the world. That sort of service put that term in quotation marks service to your country is very very wrong headed very dangerous very short sighted. It would be very wise it seems to me if for any young person considering entry into the military to listen to the locus on and try to really seriously answer the questions that he poses in the phone. If there anybody here is there anybody here who'd like to change his clothes into a uniform. Is there anybody here who thinks they're only serving on a raging storm. If there anybody here with glory in his eye loyal to the end whose duty is to die I want to see him. I want to wish him luck I want to shake his hand want to call his name put a medal on the man. Is there anybody here who'd like to wrap a flag around an early grave. Is there anybody here who thinks they're standing taller on a battle wave. Is there anybody here who'd like to do his part soldier to the world and a hero to his heart I want to see him. I want to wish him luck I want to shake his hand want to call his name put a medal on the man. Is there anybody here who'd like to give a cheer and show they're not free. I like to ask him why he's trying to defend. I like to ask him why he thinks he's gonna win. Is there anybody here who thinks they're following the orders takes away the blame. Is there anybody here who wouldn't mind a murder by another name. Is there anybody here whose pride is on the line with the honor of the brave and the courage of the blind. I want to see him I want to wish him luck I want to shake his hand want to call his name put a medal on the man. Is there anybody here who'd like to give a cheer and show they're not afraid. I like to ask him why he's trying to defend. I like to ask him why he thinks he's gonna win. Is there anybody here who thinks they're following the orders takes away the blame. Is there anybody here who wouldn't mind a murder by another name. Is there anybody here whose pride is on the line with the honor of the brave and the courage of the blind. I want to see him I want to wish him luck I want to shake his hand want to call his name put a medal on the man. Put a medal on the man put a medal on the man. Is there anybody here performed by Magpie of course Phil Oakesong you can find out on Magpie's CD in this world. Again their site is MagpieMusic.com. We've had Greg Artsner here with us today for spirit and action. Greg you know one thing you mentioned about giving options I want to share a little story from my experience. Of course my son has been raised Quaker and so he had an environment I think which led him early on to be predisposed. He mind you he went through his own decision making on this about whether he was a pacifist or not. But in 8th grade his teacher for civic social studies they agreed as a class they were going to prepare a big quilt with a block on it recognizing someone for their military service. And every student in there was supposed to interview a friend a neighbor relative who had served in the military. So my son came home with this and my son was a very quiet timid kind of person very dutiful in school. But he was deeply bothered by this and it bothered him to a great enough degree that he brought it up with me. Normally he would just obey whatever a teacher told him to do. And he brought it up to me and he said you know I don't think I should do this because that would be glorifying the military which I don't want to do. I convinced him that he should talk to his teacher look for an alternative and the alternative that they came up with in this big square from his class recognized all the military. He made a square in there for me recognizing my service to my nation as when I was in the Peace Corps. And so along with all these military images there's a guy in Africa working with the people. It felt to me like a great success and I felt like my son had done the work. He didn't just parrot me and he didn't parrot the teacher. He said "What can I do in good integrity?" And I kind of wish that you had had someone like that in your life. You know you said the priests and you didn't know anyone who you could turn to for support and I just kind of wish you had had that. And I guess you've probably been that for a lot of other people through your music. Yeah well I certainly I would certainly hope that I have been that for other people and I certainly want to be that advocate, that support for other young people now who are trying to make that decision were possibly making that decision. Yeah I in those days it was kind of a lonely thing in my little town of Kent, Ohio. There really was nobody that I could that I could actually rely on for that and no one that I knew I was really on my own. You know the good news was that it actually came out in my favor that I ended up doing what I considered to be the honorable thing. Because I although I didn't I had questions about I was conflicted about the very idea of the nation requiring me to serve in any capacity. Shouldn't that be my choice? There are some people who said "No I forget CIO status, just leave the country because that's the only really truly honorable way to do it." Well I don't know I mean I really kind of disagree with that. I didn't have a problem with the idea of serving my country or my world and I don't have any trouble serving people. I think that the idea of serving was a brilliant idea and I think that everyone should do something good. But the question of it being acquired by the draft was that that's definitely a question. But if you are going to accept that at some point in your life the government can in fact compel you to serve in one form or another. And you have the choice seems to me that now there are questions that need to be answered and you need to be able to get the answers to the true answers to those questions. You know if you talk to military recruiters they're just going to tell you know they're going to they're basically going to give you the song and dance. Now there are some things that they cannot lie to you about but the fact of the matter is that they're going to give you a much rosier picture of the possibilities in military service. Then what is actually really true and as a result young men and now young women are going off to war and coming back dead remained and then of course in so doing they end up having to kill other people. And why you know what's the reason one of the most compelling questions in shows song is who would mind a murder by another name. And that to me is just a very compelling question. What is it about having the government hand you a gun and telling you to go and kill someone that you didn't know that you don't know just because they claim that that person is the enemy. Now if the enemy if a person was your enemy clearly before you as an enemy came to you as an enemy then it seems to me that it's an appropriate response for you to take measures in self-defense or in the defense of those around you those who are members of your family those are members of your community. But to just go to some other place in the world and kill people because the government claims that they are the enemy that is entirely wrong for I'm concerned that is immoral. And just because my government says that these people are the enemy doesn't mean the thing to me. I have lived long enough to see my government lie to me and to my country to other people in my country to the rest of my nation and to the world again and again and again. So they say something like that they claim enemy status for some other nation or some other group of people in the world I'm going to be extremely suspicious and I'm going to go and research the situation before I in any way agree with what they do and I think that's an entirely appropriate response. You know you just cannot be a jingoistic patriot who was it that said I think it might have been Thomas Payne or maybe it was Edward Abbey who said that the patriot must defend his country against its government. That's what we do. That's what we conscientious objectors and we war protesters do. We stand up and we say war is a reality in our world but we have to do everything we can to stop or prevent war. And part of that is questioning what our government claims as the basis for war action military action in the world and I'll never give that up. That's just that that's the basic. It is completely basic and obviously you and I are on that very same page and your music has spoken so eloquently to me and to many other people. We were just about out of time is there one more song that you want to send us off with from this edition of Spirit in action I really thank you for joining me sharing your music doing this work for decades now. Really your music is I think transformational I really enjoy your stories of the people who have been affected by it. Can you give us one more piece of music to send us out with I thank you so much for joining us. Yes thank you very much thank you so much for having us. Well you know living planet that is the living planet album which recorded back in 1989 ends with a song that sort of encompasses all of these things. The title song living planet. It's not just about the earth as a concern but it's about freedom justice and peace. I think living planet would probably be the good thing to end with. And from that album though we sing it on the album with our good friend Pat Humphries who is the one who taught it to us. So last song chosen by Greg Artsner of Magpive will play for you living planet title track of living planet. Thank you again Greg for joining me for Spirit in action. Thank you thank you so much more if all the world were peaceful now and forever more peaceful at the surface and peaceful at the core. Then all the joy within my heart would be so free to soar and we're living on a living planet circling a living star. I don't know where we're going but I know we're going far and we can change the universe by being who we are and we're living on a living planet circling a living star. If all the world knew justice now and forever more justice at the surface and justice at the core. Then all the joy within my heart would be so free to soar and we're living on a living planet circling a living star. I don't know where we're going but I know we're going far and we can change the universe by being who we are and we're living on a living planet circling a living star. If all the world knew freedom now and forever more freedom at the surface and freedom at the core. Then all the joy within my heart would be so free to soar and we're living on a living planet circling a living star. I don't know where we're going but I know we're going far and we can change the universe by being who we are and we're living on a living planet circling a living star. If mother earth were honored now and forever more honored at the surface and honored at the core. Then all the joy within my heart would be so free to soar and we're living on a living planet circling a living star. I don't know where we're going but I know we've gone too far and we can heal this planet by changing the way we are time to heal this living planet. Living Planet from Magpie CD by the same name since I have a few minutes left and it's an interviewers prerogative. I'm going to slip in one more Magpie song since it highlights a portion of the work that Magpie does that we've only mentioned in passing during the interview. If you go to Greg and Terry's website MagpieMusic.com you'll find info on a one-act play that they've co-authored called John Brown Sword of the Spirit. I want to send you off with a song used in the John Brown saga about the personal consequences endured by some of those who escaped from slavery. Heaven is Less Than Fair by Magpie. [Music] Moon is away tonight, weather is so fine, weary travelers will be happy on the line. It wasn't so long ago that I was on that train moving away, heaven bound. Children go where I sent thee, how shall I send thee? I'm going to send thee one by one. It was a harvest time that the southern breeze did blow. I heard the gospel train, and I knew I had to go. The journey was long and hard, and three did nearly die, moving away, heaven bound. And I miss you now, when the snow falls around me, the chains that I used to wear, I wrapped around my heart, and I need you now. While my burden is so heavy, without you here, heaven is less than fair. Children go where I sent thee, how shall I send thee? I'm going to send thee four by four. Will you be traveling late when the sun has lost its light? Shall I bring a lantern, know the north star is bright? I hear that the shepherd calls, she comes for you tonight, moving away, heaven bound. And I miss you now, when the snow falls around me, the chains that I used to wear, I wrapped around my heart, and I need you now. While my burden is so heavy, without you here, heaven is less than fair. Children go where I sent thee, how shall I send thee? I'm going to send thee six by six, six forty six that never got fixed. I'm going to send thee seven by seven, seven forty seven, they never got to have on. 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. You'll 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.