How this song came to be

This song was born from a deep sense of change—particularly a change in the Earth herself. In some ways, it is a lament for a planet that is already gone, or in the act of departing. Our world is shifting. The mechanistic and technological revolutions, unfurled in just a few swift centuries, come alongside increasing estrangement from the Earth and a growing planetary crisis. We are brought to a threshold no one can yet see beyond.

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This piece gives voice to those sensations: love, loss, change, the human factor, and the wild, pulsating beat of the planet herself. It is a song for a time both uncertain and definitive—a moment in which the human illusion of separateness has become so strong it alters the planet’s ecological balance. Has anyone paused to love her, to feel her, to witness her in this moment of change? This song is an invitation to do so, and to remember: we were never separate.

Lyrics

Oh dear one, dear Earth (repeats)
I see you changing
Reflecting the mess we’ve created
Oh, oh, oh don’t go
Every atom, every atom, every atom (repeats)

"Every atom belonging to me as good
belongs to you"
(Source: Walt Whitman)

"Even after all this time,
the sun never says to the earth,
‘you owe me.’
Look what happens with a love like that!
It lights up the whole sky."
(Source: "The Sun Never Says," from The Gift: Poems by Hafiz © 1999, Daniel Ladinsky. With permission. www.danielladinsky.com.)