I have always loved to sing. Some of my earliest memories are of my family singing together in the car and my parents harmonizing over the dishes. At the age of five, my older sister joined the junior choir at the church where our father was the minister. I had a hard time understanding why I couldn’t be there, too. She came home and taught me all the songs.

As my sister learned instruments in school, she brought them home to teach me: flutaphone, recorder, ukulele…I had some piano lessons (which I eventually traded in for painting lessons) and when the girl next door started showing us how to play her guitar, we both received guitars for Christmas. I WAS in the junior choir by that time, and the director found me playing my friend’s guitar during a break, and suggested I bring mine. That’s how I got started. I loved it: it was easier than piano, portable and it provided great background for my singing.

The Church gave me my beginning in music, and has played a role at many times: church choirs, learning the history of music by singing it – richness of various periods and composers. At the same time, growing up as a minister’s daughter there was a quest for something else.

I started flute in grade 6 when St FX University in Antigonish NS started a school band program. At 13, after moving to Sydney, in Cape Breton, I was able to continue with the flute but had only one year of singing in grade 10, a big disappointment; however, during that year I found a book of madrigals in a cupboard. As the singing program died, I lost my innocence, and stole a copy of the book. I knew about piano and flute lessons, but had no idea one could study voice the same way.

At 25, I set out travelling around Europe by myself, visiting friends in Paris and family in Holland and Denmark; and discovering sculpture and stone, architecture, and tastes and smells. It was wonderful!  I felt restless while travelling through the North, until, coming down along the Romantic Road in Germany, I reached Lindau, a town south of the Bodensee, or Lake Constance, where southwestern Germany and Switzerland meet. There I felt like I was home. That was my first concrete experience of knowing another lifetime.  That night, in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, sleeping on the floor beside a baby grand piano in a friend’s home, my life changed. I discovered lieder, the classical art songs of Schubert along with some Brecht and several other composers. Included in the stash on the piano was a song for peace I later learned was sung by the people in the Swiss Resistance. I had studied German for 4 years, and was able to grasp the lyrics, and in my heart somehow knew the song. I made copies of a few songs, and continued on my way. I knew by the end of the trip, I wanted or needed to study music, and voice and sculpture, which was also new to me.

Returning to Montreal, where I was living at the time, I entered a BFA program at Concordia. While waiting to begin, I heard an arrangement of the English folk song “Barbara Allen” working its way through my mind, beckoning me to write it down. I really knew I was ready, and the composer/arranger was born. In my third year, the inner voice came out again, asking how shall I actually earn a living. In 1989, I came to Ottawa for the national conference of the Canadian Association for Music Therapy, and by the time I left, I had had my interview and was on my way to Vancouver to continue my studies.

Music took on a whole new meaning there. When I was young I had found peace at the piano when family discord arose. In the piano studio at Concordia, I discovered how playing could support my breaking through emotional blocks. And my songs emerged that reflected the inner turmoil and joys of the period. In school I found that applying instrumental and vocal improvisation in therapy seemed natural. Working with others to express their inner world though song choices or rhythm instruments grew into my profession.

To sing takes courage. Other instruments take technical ability to make a sound, skills to sound good, but the instrument is what makes the sound, and its maker puts the quality into the instrument. The voice is different. It comes from our body and emotions, and I find the energetic model which comes from the Eastern traditions makes more sense for understanding this. Our quantum physicists have found that our bodies are made up of vibrating energy. These energy particles can be organized by sound. You’ve heard the expression “You are what you eat”. Well, we are what we listen to, too. Which means we are shaped by the sounds and other vibrations around us. In the Hindu tradition we learn about the chakras, or energy centers and aura or energy bodies, which are permeable layers of energy fields of different frequencies, which have a registry, of sorts, for our emotions, thought forms and spiritual beliefs. The child who is raised in violence and arguing, becomes fearful and defensive. There are studies by Dr. Emoto on frozen water which has been treated by emotions – words written on the bottles. The emotions bring about different crystalline snowflake shapes. Hate is angular and harsh. Love is symmetrical and proportional. We are what we listen to or sing.

At times, I have been so caught up in other’s songs that I have strained to hear my own melody, but something has happened and song finds me and pulls me back in. At times, I have forgotten to listen, and the realization has brought me back to its path.   It is part of what I am. And once and a while, I realize I haven’t been taking my voice for enough walks, and it gets’ out of shape. I know how I am by my voice and what I am singing.

What is music?

It is expression, it is a way to voice the inexpressible, at times. Without words melody comes straight from the heart and reaches directly to the soul. I’ve come to realize that words can be limiting: we often struggle to say things which we have not yet consciously explored. But through instruments and the voice we can do it. Words are a prism or filter through which we seek to express. But the voice is owned even by ones without languaging ability. From the baby’s first cry, to our last gurgle our voices are with us.  Using my voice, I have been able to build relationship with a man in his 70s who experienced brain damage at birth, and who, we suspected, had received little attention other than someone feeding him and changing his diaper for most of his life. His voice was loud and pervasive in the hospital where he lived, like a rooster. In his group home, with music therapy, he quieted down and showed preferences for different styles of music, especially the female singing voice. As I sang with him, we developed conversations based on sighs and tones, and on hearing I was leaving, he expressed his sadness. Another person, this one a child, who again had experienced neglect and abuse, found self-confidence and self-esteem through the discovery of his hidden talents, which emerged by playing and singing together. Music comes straight from the Soul and carries all the emotion needing to be expressed and doesn’t need any translation.

When I have doubts or questions, Spirit sometimes responds with a new song, a composition. It happened when I needed a way to address closure with a group of incarcerated teens, and again after a difficult conversation with a minister around theology.  Songs may come in the middle of the night, as in the first case, or after meditation or walking the dog.

Music is comforting and grounding: The autistic child who centers herself through humming; The monk who uses chant to pray and its health-giving benefits.  Music urges community. It brings communication, social interaction and expression; it is shouts of acclamation and joy, love songs and anger, and is shut down by fear and terror. It is a measure of the health of a culture and community. It is meditation. It offers a metaphor for life, and teaches us how to live in harmony.

The post A life of singing appeared first on Pamela Holm 1960-2019.

Another child, his eyes he hides
Behind a sideways glance;
To be relieved of shamefulness
And given half a chance.

But crippled we stumble forward
Feet bruised by awkward stones
Bump blindly ‘gainst each other
While crying for a home.

How can we come together;
Release each other’s pain
Embrace each other’s right to love
Make harmony again?

Come travel through all time and space,
Through lifetimes here and past,
Explore the reason for the pain,
And bring some peace at last.

January 11, 2009 Pamela Holm

I found this in an obscure old backup file on Pam’s computer, December 9, 2000. – HH

The post The child looked in his mother’s eyes appeared first on Pamela Holm 1960-2019.

The post Leaves Like Parchment appeared first on Pamela Holm 1960-2019.

• Come Dance With Me
• Hearts are Made for Sweethearts

Where does the Song come from, such beauty in my ear?
I would sing its melody, sing it very clear.
Where does the song go to when it has been sung?
It’s carried home, back to the source of everyone.
Everyone is a singer, every singer has a song.
Singing our true story, other hearts can sing along.
Every voice has its magic When its time has come to sing!
Let us make the rafters ring!

So where does the song come from, the music and the words? And how does it grow into a finished piece of music?

An anthroposophical artist friend, upon hearing I liked to compose said, “Oh, that means you must hear the music of the spheres?” The what, I asked? He ignored my ignorance.

It’s been said that the ideas are out there circulating and if it comes to you, snatch it and make it yours, because if you don’t another will take it up. And once, having let an idea go, I encountered a song written around the same time by someone else that closely caught the essence of what I would have written. Hmm. Is that what is meant by the music of the spheres? Is it something in the collective unconscious?

I decided to ask some old friends for their thoughts:

Bob Schumann said,

“In order to compose, all you need to do is remember a tune that nobody else has thought of.”

Hmm. Dear Luddy van B.:

“Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.”

Copland:

“To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.”

My experience is that many of my songs have come out of feelings I have needed to explore, and the songwriting process opens up that opportunity to discover myself through my self-expression. Other songs have come out of meditation or to address the needs of a group I am working with at the time.

Most of my music has been with words, but at times words are limiting. I am not alone with that experience.

Sibelius:

“Music begins where the possibilities of language end.”

Vivaldi:

“There are no words, it’s only music there.”

Liszt:

“Music embodies feeling without forcing it to contend and combine with thought, as it is forced in most arts and especially in the art of words.”

And Mendelssohn:

“Even if, in one or other of them, I had a particular word or words in mind, I would not tell anyone, because the same word means different things to different people. Only the songs say the same thing, arouse the same feeling, in everyone – a feeling that can’t be expressed in words.”

I like to think that we are each a diamond. When we allow the divine light to shine through us, we create our songs. No two diamonds are exactly the same. So, no two people will ever come up with the exact same song. Themes may be universal, but if we come from our own story, the music will be unique and nuanced.

I have a song exploring this diamond concept, written in a mystical moment. Reading it to my writers’ group, only one person “got” it. But when I sang it, they felt it.

I once found myself alone at the piano in the choir room at All Saints Cathedral in Halifax, where I was singing. Lining the walls were portraits of the various music directors of the past and present. I started improvising at the piano, just letting my fingers roam the keys, pouring out my soul. Then I looked at one of the portraits, and my fingers changed their pattern. I turned to the next picture, and again my fingers moved with different harmonies and rhythms. This was cool. In music therapy, we might call it empathic playing. But I’d never had the experience with a portrait, before. Each little improvisation had a unique flavor. Though I didn’t know the musicians’ music or personalities, I was able to get some sense of them through what came through my fingers.

Music, soul and emotion are so connected.

Verdi:

“I adore art… when I am alone with my notes, my heart pounds and the tears stream from my eyes, and my emotion and my joys are too much to bear.”

Ravel:

“Music, I feel, must be emotional first and intellectual second.”

So how to write music. Evidently there is an emotional component that must be there. Then we must act on it.

Bach:

“It’s easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself.”

Ha, he was a organist and had someone else working the billows! And he was not a wind player.

Goethe, the philosopher and wordsmith whose ideas and wisdom was shaking Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and whose poetry inspired many composers, wrote

“Courage is the commitment to begin without any guarantee of success.” “The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never have otherwise occurred…unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.”

Schubert, who was highly inspired by Goethe, and from the age of 17 used his poetry for over 60 songs, wrote,

“No one understands another’s grief, no one understands another’s joy… My music is the product of my talent and my misery. And that which I have written in my greatest distress is what the world seems to like best.” – there he’s saying that each person’s expression of their own inner world and emotional experience is unique and valued. Again he wrote, “My compositions spring from my sorrows. Those that give the world the greatest delight, were born out of my deepest griefs.”

So, never give up on the power of your emotions, and know that the struggle to communicate your inner world is something of value, and the universe will respond.

Schubert also speaks of music’s transformative power.

“When I wished to sing of love, it turned to sorrow. And when I wished to sing of sorrow, it was transformed for me into love.”

Sounds like something of the healing path, of ex-pressing – moving out of the sorrow to allow love to enter.

We can only really compose out of our authenticity, our sense of connectedness at the time we write. Schubert said,

“I never force myself to be devout except when I feel so inspired, and never compose hymns of prayers unless I feel within me real and true devotion.”

That’s it for the Big Wigs… literally.

Phew. By the time Schubert died at 31, he had composed more than 640 songs plus symphonies, operas, chamber works, over 1500 works. At 31, I was just getting started.

I wrote my first song at age 11 or 12, perhaps inspired by a book of Longfellow’s poetry I had found dating from 1895. I loved to read it out loud and let the words whirl around in my mouth. My poetry throughout my teen years was mostly expressions of heartbreak and teen angst.

At university, I was introduced to Goethe’s poem “Heiden Roselein” in my German class. And loved it though I didn’t wake up to the metaphoric meaning of it until my 30s, through someone’s illuminating comments. Also, back in university, my French prof introduced us to the French philosophical poets – Baudelaire and Rambeau – deep stuff when you understand the language, but at times unfathomable to one who was wanting to learn how to have a conversation – and I stopped writing my poetry because I was comparing myself to them, and it was so totally out of my league.

Then a few years later, I went to my first folk festival, and heard songs of a North Dakota man, Chuck Suky, who sang of going home to the farm for haying time, and country dances, and I realized I can write like that. And that’s when my songs started coming forward. What did the Big Wigs say? It starts with connecting with your own story, and then pressing a few notes on the piano. Or as writers say, moving your pen on the page….or choosing a color of crayon. Just do something then the universe will kick in and support your action.

So, at times words come to me, and at other times, looking through other peoples’ poetry I may find a verse that resonates with me; that speaks to some part of my life experience.

Mory Ghomshei and I met about 24 years ago at the Vancouver Unitarian church between Oak and Cambie, some of you know it. There was a congregational meeting after a service, and with our tea cups in hand we went in to see what was going on. There was some issue within the congregation and they were going around giving people a chance to speak to it. After a little while, I turned to him and whispered, “they’re forgetting about the soul of the Church.” He said, “Yes, they are.” And we left and started planning a service to nurture the group soul, a service that would draw on the gift of Sufi storytelling that was part of his heritage and my acting, music, and presentation skills.

Mory Ghomshei is a Sufi wisdom holder and teacher from Iran. His father was a highly esteemed poet and scholar, and his siblings continue the teaching in Iran and Europe. He has been focusing his teaching in the west over many years, mostly, but not exclusively, within the Iranian community. At the time, he was teaching a group of English speakers working with an epic poem by Attar, called the Conference of the Birds. He invited me to join the group, and we discovered a meeting of minds and the spirit. He rewrote part of the story of the Conference of the Birds for us to use in the service. A few years later, he put that story together with some others to produce a little book, called Paradise Never Lost. One of these stories, called “Passion,” has several poems and he invited me to try my hand at setting music to his poems for the event of his book launching. And so I did. Two songs, “Light Has a Shadow” and “The Food of Lovers” were performed at the launching, by me with my guitar. I proceeded to arrange them for voice with cello and violin, and clarinet and French horn, for other events. I love the story. There is magic in it. And the story and songs, served to inspire me and helped me to find hope in one of the darkest times of my life. Around the time of the launching, I had also started working on two other poems, and have long wanted to complete them, and one day maybe to do a whole musical story telling show with this. The opportunity to lead this service, focusing on creativity, prompted me to take up the other two poems and get to work, and here we are.

To write music for these poems, meant re-reading the story, falling in love with it again, and re-connecting with the characters, finding sympathy and empathy for each, which could help me to be their voice – like an actor playing all the parts. Each poem has a purpose, something to express on behalf of the character who is saying it, whether the Prince, the Princess or the narrator in the case of the other two songs. Each poem was read out loud many times, so I could get the flow and rhythm of the words, listen for pieces of melody, and feel how to shape the structure of the song. In both cases, I felt something more was needed in terms of poetry, and I am grateful that Mory was open to working with me on it, and accepting some suggestions. Goethe, apparently, did not like people messing with his poems, not even repeating a line. But then he was an accomplished poet writing in his native language with a firm grasp of rhyme and metre. English was Mory’s third language and poetry was not his profession. And these days free verse is common, and it is not so easy to compose to. I was a fledgling composer, and he was a fledgling poet in English.

Once the melodies for the songs were composed, and chords chosen with my guitar, I started listening to the songs in my head, imagining how the clarinet and piano might be used. Schubert had such a way with his piano accompaniments. Where other composers wrote the piano part to be a harmonic accompaniment to the melody, he wrote his to be an equal partner in telling the story within the poem, like a tonal illustration. For example, “Ich hort ein Bachlein rauschen, voll aus dem Felsen Quell.” The singer is walking by a stream and asking, “Is this my path?” Here the piano plays quickly flowing notes that imitate a river or stream.

In the case of my songs, I had a sense of Joe’s abilities on the piano, and my time and piano limitations, and decided that at this time the piano would be safe in his capable hands, as the harmonic holder, giving some texture and rhythm, and trusting his ability to come up with his part guided by my chords, suggestions and the other parts.

I gave the clarinet has a couple of roles. It offers a melody for the introductions, and counter melodies to contrast and complement the singing voice, and fill in spaces when the voice is not singing. Sometimes, though, I want it to support the vocal part, and then it plays a close harmony or in unison with the voice. The next piece, “Come Dance with Me,” is a song the Princess sings to the Prince in the garden before she tells him her story. Here at times the clarinet has the Prince’s voice. You will hear the singer and clarinet alternating – as if one calls out and the other hears and sings back from a distance, until they come together in harmony. Listen for the relationship in the two voices.

There is so much more I could say, but the time has come to wind down. Before I close with another quote, if you remember the music used in the prelude, Vivaldi’s “Spring” from the Four Seasons, he has the violins making the sounds of bird calls. Did anyone hear that? Often in music, images are expressed through the voicings of instruments. The music in the postlude, is Copland’s “Hoe Down” from his Rodeo Suite. As you listen to it, what images come to your mind? What might he have been thinking of as he wrote the music? What feelings come up in you? Does it remind you of anything?

Now to close:…. a quote by contemporary film maker, poet, writer Suzy Kassem:

“We are all beautiful instruments of God. He created many notes in music so that we would not be stuck playing the same song. Be music always. Keep changing the keys, tones, pitch, and volume of each of the songs you create along your journey and play on. Nobody will ever reach ultimate perfection in this lifetime, but trying to achieve it is a full-time job. Start now and don’t stop. Make your book of life a musical. Never abandon obligations, but have fun leaving behind a colorful legacy. Never allow anybody to be the composer of your own destiny. Take control of your life, and never allow limitations implanted by society, tell you how your music is supposed to sound — or how your book is supposed to be written.”

The post Inside the Mind of the Composer (2019) appeared first on Pamela Holm 1960-2019.

Flo looked around the hospital room. She looked at the plain walls. She looked at the TV. She looked at the IV tree where a bag hung, dripping liquid through a tube into her arm.

She had cried when the nurse put the needle into her arm. Even Daddy holding her hand did not take away the brief pain of the needle.

She was used to it now. The nurse had patiently explained how the liquid in the bag would help her get better. She was getting used to it, but didn’t mean she liked it!

What was she doing here anyway? Nothing to do. No one to play with. Sometimes she just wanted to explode and pull out the IV from her arm and run from the hospital. But she knew she would not get too far. Last time she tried walking by herself to the bathroom she almost fell. It was good that Mommy was there to help her.

Grrr. Moan. All she could do was sleep or watch the cartoons on TV until she drifted off again.

Grrr. She was tired of being sick. She was tired of being in the hospital. She missed her friends and having her family around. She missed her dog. She missed running around and climbing the jungle gym. She longed to sit on the swing with her older brother pushing her. Once he got her started, when she pumped really hard she could fly up so high she could see the whole neighborhood. Flo felt bored, frustrated and so lonely.

One morning after breakfast, she heard new sound coming from the hallway outside her room. Not just the nurses talking quietly or the big rolling supply shelf passing by. She could hear a jingling kind of noise. What could it be?

Someone stepped into her room pushing a cart with all kind of different stuff. Wow! Musical instruments. She recognized some of them from her kindergarten. The woman had a guitar strapped across her body. This was different.

“Hi Flo, my name is Pamela. I am a music therapist. I am wondering if I might visit with you for a few minutes.” Flo looked at the instruments on the cart.

“Do you see something you’d like to play?” Pamela asked.

Flo’s eyes lingered on a shiny red ball with a stick attached. Red was her favorite color. Pamela passed it to her, giving it a shake along the way. “It’s a maraca. Have you ever played one of these before?”

Flo took it and turned it around in her hands. Then boldly she gave it a shake. “We had something like this in kindergarten. What makes the sound?”

“There are some little pebbles inside. Play it some more.” This time Flo held on tight and shook it harder. It felt good to do that. “What else do you have?” Flo looked over at the cart. This time her eyes landed on a drum with a lollypop design on it. She pointed to it, and Pamela handed her the drum along with a mallet.

“You can use this to play the drum. Give it a try.”

Flo took the mallet and gave the drum a good wallop. The sound echoed loudly around the room. Pamela said, “Go ahead. This is your chance to make some noise.”

She reached around to the other side of the cart and pulled out another drum. As Flo played, Pamela joined in matching her beats. Flo stopped suddenly. Her urge was to hammer the drum so loudly, but she was afraid she’d break it or wake up the whole hospital and upset everyone.

Pamela moved to close the door to the room. “There now.  Your playing will not bother anyone. That drum can take lots of hard playing and you really know how to make it talk.”

Flo looked at the music therapist for a moment, and then she gathered all of her might and pounded into the drum. She let it take all of her frustration and anger.

When she had finished, she stopped and smiled. She was tired. But that had felt so good. “What next?”

“Wow!” Pamela said. “You sure needed to release all that. Well done! Hmm. Do you like to sing?”

“Oh, yes.” Said Flo.

“How about ‘She’s be Coming around the Mountain’?”

“Oh yes,” Flo chimed eagerly. She was getting a bit tired but didn’t want the therapist to leave. Together they sang about driving the white horses and silk pajamas and chicken and dumplings. Right through, Flo played on the drum. It was really fun to it to make the sound of the horses’ feet.

As they finished, Pamela could see how tired Flo was. “I think I’d best be on my way. Why don’t we finish with a little good bye song.”

Pamela sang, “Good bye Flo, Good bye Flo. It’s been fun playing with you today and thank you for sharing your feelings.” Flo sang “Good bye, Pamela, Good bye Pamela, I am so glad you came to see me today.”

“Would you like me to come back again?”

“I sure would,” said Flo.

As she watched Pamela leave, Flo smiled. She was tired, really tired, but felt so much better. She turned over onto her side for a nap and slipped into her dreams with her smile still on her face.

The post Flo Meets the Music Therapist appeared first on Pamela Holm 1960-2019.

I found just one computer-printed copy of the music which is covered with her handwritten notes, plus a rough, incomplete handwritten draft. The notes suggest to me that she performed the song at least once in circumstances that allowed her to also sing “Another Bright Star“, which she wrote for our mother’s funeral in 2014. The two songs depict different relationships with a dying person: one professional and one personal. The copyright date is 2007, but the performance must have been in or after 2014, by which time she had the software to make a computer copy.

The lyrics were published in 2018 by the Orleans Writing Group as a poem, reproduced below.

In a writing workshop in 2014 (apparently, as per the “Writers Block 2014” note in margin) Pam made note of some possible changes, presumably from feedback by another participant who didn’t like the two-syllable line endings. In particular, see the note in the margin: “Consider 1 syllable ending 2nd line.” On her printout of the music (reproduced below), it appears that she tried to apply the changes to the original tune. It seems that she made some edits to the poem version published by the Orleans Writing Group, which was used by Allison Calvern in her article about Pam.

I’m posting Pam’s marked-up version below for those who are interested. There’s also a clean version I made with the original words. The singer may choose which version they prefer. Miranda Lever sings the original words in the video below. Repeating the second section is another option. I hear an instrumental solo for the first part of the repeat, with the voice resuming at measure 26 as Miranda does, or measure 30.

Video

I recorded my friend Miranda Lever performing the song in the same church in Mahone Bay where Pam (and all present) sang “Another Bright Star” at our mother’s Memorial Service. – HH

Sheet music

Lyrics

Marked up lyrics

Marked up sheet music

Poem

Edited version published by Orleans Writing Group, 2018

The post Sing Me a Song appeared first on Pamela Holm 1960-2019.

Stage craft for my dog
     meant following the scent of liver,
Delivered to the tune of “come Toto”
I dressed in black, portraying an alter ego, green-faced and lusting for revenge
     Cruel in her use of power through poppies, magic and monkeys
“You and your nasty little dog” I chanted night after night
     snatching up my little pup as if she were fodder for a witches caldron
     cringing that I should say such words to my little furry love

Winnie took naturally to the stage
Type cast at adoption’s first glance by my thespian step-daughter
     I waited in the wings for her chance to claim her fame
And fame came as eager interviewers plied the director for information
     about the canine actress taking the floor
“Is she well treated?” animal watch-dogs barked
Audience members murmured “I came to see the dog”
A star glowed over her giant leopard-spotted throne

For a mournful divorced step-mother
     who had longed to be a theatrical duo with one of her daughters
     Winnie took the stage and trotted to triumph

                                                                                                            October 25, 2017
                                                                                                            Pamela J Holm

The post Stage Craft (2017) appeared first on Pamela Holm 1960-2019.

Do you remember when you knew me before?
It was another time, another place
Reach deep in your heart, reach deep in your soul
Find truth in our love and grace
I was a lady of no great degree
You were a gentleman true
We had no chance to become one together
But we knew what to do:

Chorus:
Next time around, I’ll be with you then
Such was the vow that we shared ‘neath the tree
I said to you and you said to me
We’ll come together in freedom to be
Next time around.

Do you remember the next time we met?
It was another time, another place.
You were my mother, held me in your arms
Rocked me in love’s embrace
We were a family of fourteen kids
You were amazing with me
Loving us all through our tumbles and falls
You taught us the way to be.

Next time around, I’ll be with you then
Such was the vow that we shared ‘neath the tree
I said to you and you said to me
We’ll come together in freedom to be
Next time around.

So many times we have been close this way
Through life after lifetime of love
Thanking the angels, at closure of day
Sometimes with Buddha or Christ’s love or Way
Through all times and places,
In love’s trials and graces;
The seasons call our hearts together again

Do you remember when we shared the same mom
Again another time, another place
We, in that life had such struggles to bear
Considering time and space
Outcasts and sisters encrusted with pain
We cast our small light mid the rain
Strengthened each other through night and through day
And in passing we were heard to say:

Next time around, I’ll be with you then
Such was the vow that we shared ‘neath the tree
I said to you and you said to me
We’ll come together in freedom to be
Next time around.

Now here we are together again
It is the present time, the present place
Where ever you are, in a heartbeat our souls
Find truth in our love and grace
My spirit is there with you deep in the night
Together we keep our lights true
Through laughter and sorrow we still come together
And always we know what to do

This time around, we’ve found each other again
Searching through forests to find that right tree
I recognize you and you recognize me
In coming together we set ourselves free
This time around.

March 2, 2008 * Oct 29, 2011  Pamela Holm

The post This Time Around (2008-2011) appeared first on Pamela Holm 1960-2019.

Someone’s light is a candle in my window
Can it be you flying through?
What you tried to teach me, I never knew
I flew out of your life like a canary from a coal mine
To find my path to the sun
To become un-done
And then come home to you to see what I had become.

I am dumb in moments of despair
I crack open, a glimpse of light shines through
I come back to you to see who I have become

You true my path
Hone my trumpet playing
Carry my corner to the way of the foundation
You hurry my footsteps into other directions
Present a hope in becoming un-one.
You are one of my heart’s truest handshakes

Amid wind in the dustbowl
An “honour yourself, my daughter, You crack open with kisses”
We are pulled open through the wings of emptiness
A belly of bliss
Flows through cracks in my armour until it falls in pieces around me
Ego flies away
And I return to my I AM
At home with my stones and tunes.

Pamela Holm
November 25, 2016

The post Someone’s light is a candle in my window (to Mom) (2016) appeared first on Pamela Holm 1960-2019.

Reluctant feet shuffle along the sidewalk.
Out through open doors waft the perfumes of java and danish.

Gotta get downtown.
Gotta pour some coffee down.
Gotta somehow make it through the day.

It’s Monday morning.
Dreary-eyed and dazed,
the work-a-day world drags itself into the week;
drags its bones out from the weekend.

You’re walking the line.
It’s not too late to close your eyes
and be back in green peace and soul mending.
But it’s Monday, and the weekend starts to slip away.
By this time tomorrow mid-week will have gained its foothold
and the morning mind will already be full of office plans.
The city beat will have you believing its pulse is yours.
You’ll be pacing down caffeine drive like you own it.
You’ll be feeling one with the racing clock, thriving in the game.

Work time.
Deadline.
Get to the office well before nine.
Punch the clock. Wave to the boss.
Turn on the computer. Papers to sign….

But for now it’s Monday morning.
You have five more minutes to relish its tenuous touch.
Five minutes
then the weekend will slip away into a dream
and you’ll wonder if it ever existed.

Pamela Jean Holm
Salt Spring Island, BC 1998

The post It’s Monday Morning (1998) appeared first on Pamela Holm 1960-2019.