Growing Home (Making Sacred Spaces Out of Ordinary Places)

from Samples by Heather Aubrey Lloyd

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Nothing is more ordinary than a forest, but few are more extraordinary than the Muir Woods in California. Inspired by Heather's visit to the forest and the 1945 memorial service for President Franklin D. Roosevelt held in its "Cathedral Grove." The Secretary of the Interior wrote to the president shortly before his death, encouraging him to hold a peace conference in the forest, saying "[There's a] sense of time that could be obtained nowhere in America better than in a forest. Muir Woods is a cathedral, the pillars of which have stood through much of recorded human history. Many of these trees were standing when Magna Carta was written."

Footnotes:
Memorial Service at Cathedral Grove (photo):
www.nps.gov/goga/learn/historyculture/images/450-x-thru-trees-SRL.jpg

lyrics

Michaelangelo is painting ceilings still
his back not to a platform, gravity has not the will
to bring he and his colors down
green, green high above the ground

Mother gave you a ring for every anniversary
traced a circle in your skin so you'd remember everything
a string tied around your limb
blowing in an ocean wind

The closest that most living things will ever get to heaven
on the skirts of the saints, north of all the angels
I am here below
trying to grow.

I could take you home, plant you in my yard
wait a hundred years or so and see how far
I could climb up then
but they might not let me in

So I'll just wait right here in this great cathedral
messiahs it has witnessed, through the fire it's persisted
priests and presidents and me
Gone before the last of it leaves

The closest that most living things will ever get to heaven
on the skirts of the saints, north of all the angels
I am here below
trying to grow.
Trying to grow home.

credits

from Samples, released August 1, 2010

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Heather Aubrey Lloyd image

Heather Aubrey Lloyd Baltimore, Maryland

Recovering reporter turned songwriter, Heather Aubrey Lloyd also co-fronts Baltimore’s ilyAIMY. Her 2017 solo release, “A Message in the Mess,” spotlights Lloyd’s emotive alto and a polished departure from her band’s alt-folk grit. Awards from the likes of No Depression Magazine, Telluride Troubadour, National Women’s Music Fest, etc. soon followed. Lloyd will release new music in late 2020. ... more

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