[Brief synopsis: I did not write this song. The hill across the street from me did.]
There is this hill across the street from where I live; it's covered with all these beautiful trees, and birds go there and sing, and sometimes I hear coyotes at night.
Or at least that's how it used to be. Then these assholes came and started ripping out all the trees. I'm sure they're gonna put an ugly building there. It's ripping my heart out. It's tearing me apart to see this devastation. It's tearing me apart to see an ecosystem totally destroyed in front of my eyes.
I shoulda known it was coming. A few months ago, I dreamed of a hill with trees on it, and all the trees got ripped out of the ground. I never made the connection between that and the hill that I live across from. And then it happened. Shit, man.
Well, anyway, I feel so stupid and helpless. I feel all impotent. I can't do anything about it. I can't do anything to stop this atrocity. All I could think to do was make fliers with the Lorax on them speaking on behalf of the trees and put 'em up on phone poles and such. It's odd; I feel really good about that act of protest, even though it's not gonna do any good.
But last weekend, when I finally came to terms with the awfulness of what was happening, I kept on asking the spirit world what the fuck I should do about it. The answer I got was to listen for the Song of the Hill.
See, okay, that needs a bit of unpacking.
One belief I have is that every being has a song.
Okay, I think I need to do even more unpacking.
I think that hill has a spirit. A few nights ago, I got the message that the spirit of a hill isn't just the dirt. It isn't just the geological formation. That spirit also is of the trees and little plants and all that is growing on that hill. Now that this awful construction is happening, that spirit is going away. When it's reduced to just a mound of dirt, that is when I will know that hill's spirit has gone to Heaven.
So, the message I got was to listen for the song of the spirit of the hill. See, I believe every being has a song that's their very own song. It's sort of like a calling card for the spirit world to be able to recognize you. You sing your song, and the spirit world'll know who you are. The Objibwe people (and probably others) talk about people as having death songs. Those're songs you sing when you're about to die and enter the spirit world. That way the spirit world knows you're coming.
So, anyway, last weekend, I got the message that I should listen for - and then sing - the hill's song. I should listen for the hill's song and sing it.
So, I told the hill, "I'm listening for your song; you don't have to feel pressured to sing it to me, though. Only do so if you think it's a good idea."
For about a week, I was getting some snatches of music here and there and thought, okay, this might be something.
And then last night, oh dear lord!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm sitting there in bed, drifting off to sleep when this song comes to me and hits me like a ton of bricks! Holy crap! Good thing I had enough frontal lobe functioning at that point to get my keyboard and figure out all the notes and chords and write it down.
So, that's what this song is.
I wish I could say that this is purely song of the hill, but I must admit that there's one part that's sort of my own mantra, but the rest of it belongs to the hill. I kinda think of the my-mantra-ish part as bein' sorta a connecty bit between one part of the song and another part of the song. And it goes well with the rest of it. (One hint - it's the part that's in English).
Now, I can't say with 100% certainty that this is the Song of the Hill. It could be a song that was downloaded from another source. But I think there's a very good chance this could be the Hill's song. And if that's the case, I hope I did right by you, Hill. I hope I did a good job of recording your song, because I know it is very sacred.
I'll miss you much, when your spirit finally goes away all-the-way. I'll miss you, and I appreciate you, and I apologize on behalf of my short-sighted, unwise species.
