Well, dear ones, here is a prayer we wanted to pass along – I guess you might say it’s a prayer in progress. With fires of late in the Jemez and Sangre de Cristo Mountains, where many of our songs were written, it only seems right to offer something up. We’re praying for the rains to keep setting in gently and easing this land, without washing us all away in the process, please! The song invokes the New Mexico saint San Ysidro (ask an elder if you haven’t heard his story), and incorporates the traditional Gambian kora kumbengo Kuruntu Kelefa. Ideas from The House at Otowi Bridge found their way into the words, along with our recent post “California Night Bird“. This demo version, complete with crickets, came out quickly because it had to – we give it to you to put with your own prayers, and to help keep hope in your heart. Even as we write this it is thundering.

Right-click (or control-click) to download San Ysidro

Some of the grass is withering and some has grown too tall, one water sustains us all

If the balance is destroyed then all of us will fall, one water for us all

I still will sing the glory of the Earth, joining with the wind’s whistling cry

With the clouds of burning ashes and the fires raging high

San Ysidro, bring the rain, Vishnu sustain these living things

For the bird is singing still, and so I still will sing

The people who created this, they knew what it could do. Their hearts were broken too

One water to sustain us, there’s no guilt, there is no blame, only prayers for rain

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