Mixed Marriage

Later this month we will be celebrating thirty years of mixed marriage. Some people said it couldn't last, and it's true: we come from radically different cultures whose members have battled each other off and on since pre-history and still struggle today. But we persisted. We beat the odds. Statistics vary, but some sources say close to fifty percent of marriages like ours will fail. Yes, a marriage between one man and one woman, a mixed gender marriage, which some people and some legislative bodies, like the New York State Senate, insist is the only kind of marriage there is.

I am not only a thirty year veteran of a mixed gender marriage, my husband and I are also minority members in our immediate and extended family. When we gather around a holiday table, more than half the company is gay. When I consider my circle of friends and my wider community, the same is true. The difference in our minority status is that no one discriminates against us, passes moral judgment on us, or deprives us of our civil rights.

I am also an interfaith minister and a couples counselor. As a minister, I have helped many people create their wedding ceremonies. If they want to write their own vows, I don't stand in their way, but I always put in a plug for the traditional vows: "for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health, until we are parted by death." That's what marriage is, making those vows to another person and having the guts, grace, and good luck to keep them. Nothing more, and nothing less.

I rarely perform marriages anymore, because it feels like a blurring of the separation of church and state for me, as a member of the clergy, to sign a state document. I also don't like to offer a service to mixed gender couples that I am not allowed by law to provide for same gender couples. Here's a common sense solution that would preserve the boundary between church and state. All unions should be civil unions with all rights accorded equally to all couples, mixed or same gender. The marriage ceremony as a blessing of the union could then be performed by the church, clergyperson, religious tradition, or community that the couple chooses. Of course, some churches will not bless same gender marriages, but many will and already do, as do many interfaith ministers like me.

During our long marriage, we have been through many phases, including one where it seemed as though all our friends' marriages were breaking up. For reassurance I called the most stable couple I knew. "Are you all right?" I asked. "You're not breaking up, are you?" They assured me they were fine. Of course, they were a same gender couple, and didn't have the challenges of a mixed marriage. They celebrated their thirtieth anniversary last year.

Brother Blue: alive in the story

We think of stories as words, whether spoken or written. But where do those words come from? When the last word is spoken, where do they linger? Where do they live?

Hugh Morgan Hill, loved by many as Brother Blue, died last month at age 88 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I first encountered him on the Cambridge Commons when I was an undergraduate in the 1970s. There was no flyer for an event, no stage, no time of performance, only a slender man dressed in blue, out under the trees telling stories with his whole body. The story I heard him tell that day was one he told many times about a teacher who'd inspired him. I can still hear him rhythmically repeating one of the story's refrains, "blue eyes, true eyes," as if it were a song. I can still see the way his hands danced in the air, the way he seemed to be telling the story to me alone.

Some thirty years laters, on tour with The Passion of Mary Magdalen, I was scheduled to appear at Club Passim in Harvard Square. It was a Monday night. The only people there were the host, my husband, my cousin, the act that followed mine, and a man I was sure had to be Brother Blue. When I approached him to ask, he said "Yes, baby, that's me," pleased but not at all surprised to be recognized. I told him a little about my book, and then got ready to go on stage.

For this tour (and every one after that)I had decided to depart from the standard reading format. I opened by singing the first three paragraphs of the novel blues style. That night as soon as I started singing, Brother Blue leapt onto the stage and started singing with me--in the voice of Jesus! So I sang back to him in the voice of Maeve (aka Mary Magdalen) and we had a sung, impassioned, improvised lover's quarrel on the stage. "Baby, you know I love you," he sang. "But you left me," I sang back. "I've been searching for you all this time." Words to that effect. It's not the words I remember so much as suddenly finding myself alive in the story, confronted with a wild, living Jesus.

According to Brother Blue's wife Ruth Hill, curator of oral history at the Schlesinger Library, Brother Blue was once a struggling playwright. As he described his plots and characters to his friends, he discovered his gift for oral storytelling and for improvisation. I never aspired to be anything but a novelist, but after months of touring and telling stories, I found it strange to go back to the written word. I missed my body. I missed that electrifying-anything-can-happen moment I knew with Brother Blue. That moment where he lived his life, that gift he gave to anyone lucky enough to be drawn, however briefly, into his story.

Maeve on Menopause

I am not going to write about Thanksgiving. We didn't have it in the first century, though we gave thanks and made offerings, chucked a lot of gold down votive wells. When Celts feasted, usually a roast pig was involved. It could be quite dangerous. There was such a thing as a "hero's cut of meat." Men have been known to fight to the death over that cut. Think about that when you ask for the drumstick.

This piece may be my last for awhile. Elizabeth has been invited to experiment with this blog in a particular way over the next few weeks. For my (perhaps temporary) swansong I am responding to the question: What does Maeve have to say about menopause? Yes, I have gone through it.

In Magdalen Rising there's a whole chapter about my menarche. To my dismay, I realized there is no corresponding chapter about menopause in Bright Dark Madonna. Dear readers, I apologize. Like many of you, I had a child (my second and long awaited) in my early thirties. Her menarche and my menopause roughly coincided, but her change took center stage. My menopausal years were also complicated by having to contend with Paul of Tarsus. No wonder I did not notice my hot flashes. My blood was always boiling. I don't want to give away too much plot. But I might as well tell you: not long after one final knock down drag out battle with Paul, I spent seven years wandering the world searching for my runaway daughter. My red hair turned grey. I did not bleed, except in my heart. Then I took care of my mother-in-law. Believe it or not, when I had given up all hope and thought of such things, I had the most wonderful, tender, fleeting love affair in my early post-menopausal years.

So what do I want to say about menopause: there is life after it. Life that can be juicy, sweet, surprising, as well as sometimes dismaying and out of control (when wasn't it?) If you are lucky, you may get to sojourn for a time in a cave or other retreat as I did. You may learn to love yourself, even forgive yourself; you may have moments of wisdom. (I for one am still capable of being rash and foolish.) For sure you will find out what the moon has been trying to tell us for a long time: It's just a phase. It'a sll just a phase. Life itself, a phase. Don't let it phase you!

MotherRight

First to everyone who has been so kindly inquiring, my husband is continuing to do thorough research about his treatment options. My mother-in-law, Olga, is thriving in her lively new home, as much a queen as ever. She has several guardian cats. She regards them with a certain tolerant disdain (and secretly enjoys their attention). What is a goddess to do?

Every now and then a story in the news gets under my skin, and I have to respond directly. I read the story on http://www.truthout.org/1114098. The next day aol had picked it up: w|dl3|link3|http%3A%2F%2Fnews.aol.com%2Fmain%2Fnc%2Farticle%2Falexis-hutchinson-refuses-deployment-to%2F769226 Here's the gist:

Alexis Hutchinson, an army cook and the single mother of an eleven-month-old son, was scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan on November 15th. The plan for her son's care that she had filed with the army fell through when her mother realized she could not add care of an infant to the load she was already carrying. (Three family members in need of nursing care.) The army first granted, and then revoked an extension that would have allowed Alexis Hutchinson to arrange for alternative care. When Ms. Hutchinson refused to leave her son on the appointed date, he was taken into foster care, and she was arrested and is currently confined on a base in Georgia. She faces potential court martial and a year in jail.

The army's decision to revoke the extension, place the child in foster care, and arrest the mother appalls me. That Alexis Hutchinson was using her child to avoid deployment in Afghanistan, as military officials have alleged, is the grossest speculation and moreover beside the point. If parents of either gender are willing to risk their lives in the course of military service, the military has an obligation to support them in every way possible in making acceptable arrangements for their children. Forcing a parent to place a child in foster care is unacceptable. The suffering already inflicted on this child and this mother is both cruel and unnecessary. I wrote to Michelle Obama, who has said that she has a particular concern for military families, to ask her not only to look into this case but into military policy regarding parents who must leave children behind when they deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan and other posts where family cannot follow.

The title of this blog is Mother Right, a concept that was part of ancient Celtic law and the laws of some other ancient peoples, I believe. I have been searching for a definition of it among my books, including in Magdalen Rising where Maeve gives a definition. But I haven't been able to place my finger on it yet, and I am almost out of time today. I will keep looking and include the definition in next week's blog.

For now, I am going to make something up. Mother right, in today's winging-it definition, not only has to do with the rights of women to own property, participate in all aspects of the political process, bear arms, have spiritual authority, and sexual autonomy, all of which rights ancient Celtic women exercised and enjoyed. Mother right in today's definition is law that includes both common sense and compassion. The spirit that gives life instead of the letter than kills (as good lordess deliver us Maeve's nemesis Paul of Tarsus once said). A law that is unresponsive to individual circumstance soon becomes a form of oppression and abuse.

As to the subject of mothers (and fathers!) in the military and the heartrending choices they make--or have made--that is a subject for another blog. Or novel, like the one I am writing now set during the rebellion of Queen Boudica against the Roman occupation. A hard book to write. More another day.

Who Died for What Sin? Theology with Maeve

It is my turn this week. But before I begin to put my foot in my mouth (at least theologically) Elizabeth asked me to thank everyone who responded to her post last week in comments, emails, on facebook, and twitter. So much loving kindness from so many. As the Dalai Lama says (yes, of course I know him, but don't expect a novel about it) kindness is what matters. Religion is only useful if it supports you in being kind. Or words to that effect. Elizabeth is very grateful for your kindness.

I looked back through the comments for the topic request I haven't yet addressed. I thought it was something like how on earth would a devout praticing first century Jew end up with a pagan pig-eating Celt who became an Isis-worshipping whore? That is a good question, and I was working up quite a sermon on the importance of hanging out with people who are NOT like-minded. And perhaps I will deliver it sometime. But here is the question I will tackle today:

"How a beautiful fiery pagan Celt would answer to the subject of Jesus being the 'chosen one who died for our sins, and that we are all heathens who do not follow.' "

First, thank you for the adjectives! I appreciate them. I am not a theologian or a historian of religion, so I had better speak only for myself. I wanted to blame the whole concept of Jesus dying for our sins on Paul of Tarsus (with whom I have had my struggles). He surely did go on (and on) about it in some of his epistles, but a quick check on the internet (too much information!) tells me the idea did not originate with him. Here's an article on the diverse sources for this concept: http://www.biblicaltheology.com/Research/CostaT03.pdf

Sin was not a concept native to me. A Celt (especially a hero) sometimes had to deal with a geis being laid upon him. A geis is something like a taboo imposed on an individual. Cuchulain (whose name means hound) had a geis laid upon him against eating dog meat. If you broke a geis danger and destruction followed. Grainne forced Diarmuid to be her lover by laying a geis on him if he refused. And I am afraid when I was an impressionable, headstrong young girl under the influence of such stories, I laid a similar geis on You Know Who. He turned me down flat, and I have sometimes wondered if I am responsible for all his subsequent troubles, except that, of course, he eventually relented, but only of his own free will, as he insisted. Very murky waters.

Did I sin in attempting to force my will on him through word magic? Perhaps. If you define sin as "missing the mark," not being in alignment with the will of the whole mystery. If we are all sinners, can someone's death atone for our sins, take them away? I confess I have never been able to see the connection. And as many a child has asked, if Jesus died for our sins once and for all, how come the world is the way it is? Who and what has been saved from sin?

I don't know that answer to that one. As for one person being sacrificed for many, the Celts had something called the god-making death. The idea was that a perfect and willing human sacrifice could, through death, go between the worlds and speak on behalf of the people with the gods. It wasn't that the people were bad; they needed a representative, one made powerful by passing through the mystery of death.

Even if that concept was or is true, I, for one, wasn't having it. I stole away the human sacrifice from under the druids' noses. And even though I fretted for years that the subsequent invasion of Britain might have been my fault, I would do it again. And if I could have prevented the crucifixion, I would have. His mother tried, if you read my version of the story. And when MaevenSong is released, you will be able to hear her defiant lament at the foot of the Cross.

As I lived and healed with Jesus, I know he felt the inexorable pull of the god-making death, as we called it when we spoke of it privately, but to the Jesus I knew it was a mystery. And he also felt a pull towards life, the heartbreaking beauty of ordinary life. He healed people by seeing them, in their brokenness and in their wholeness. There was nothing abstract or theological in that moment of healing. He often said, Your sins are forgiven, and he got in trouble for that. Only God could forgive sins, people said. Who did he think he was?

As you know, people subsequently decided he was the Son of God and moreover the Only Begotten Son of God, and only people who accept that doctrine can be saved--and the rest of us, including me, are damned. Because I never became a Christian. I am a lover of Jesus. That is all I can say. I am myself. I am that I am.

If I believe in anything, apart from loving kindness, it is this: that we are all incarnations of the mystery, all called to mediate the divine and human, little self and the expanded one, the in breath and the out. We are here to embody this paradox, not to condemn our humanness or exalt our divinity, to embody both. To love this earth, to love each other while we're here. Sure sometimes we'll miss the mark. Forgive yourself, forgive another. Draw back the bow string and take aim again.

For more about my stories: www.passionofmarymagdalen.com

Untying my tongue

I have spent the last ten days tongue-tied, if such a term can be applied to writing, responding only when necessary to email or messages directed to me on twitter. I still have not written in my journal. I have not worked on my novel. This blog today is my first step towards returning to writing practice. I can't write or speak without saying first:

My mother-in-law has just moved from her home of sixty-four years into an eldercare home where she can receive nursing care that we are unable to provide.

My husband has just received a diagnosis of prostate cancer.

Also, preceding the first event and during the delivery of the diagnosis, we both had flu. We don't know what kind, but it was severe.

There was a kind of grace in having the flu. We had to stay home; we had to sit with each other and take care of each other and grieve with each other. Although I wasn't able to visit my mother-in-law in person while I was sick, I spent much of the time during the week leading up to Halloween traveling between the worlds. My mother-in-law has alzheimers and zero short-term memory. She often seems to be a meditative state between waking and sleeping. During my own fever-doze, I felt I could communicate with her directly, soul to soul, and help prepare her for the change that was coming. I also spoke to the spirits of the land she has loved and tended for so long and to the spirits of the land across the river where she was going.

I also spent a lot of time crying my heart out. Fever is good for that, too.

The place my mother-in-law has moved is part of a movement in eldercare called the Eden Alternative, based on the idea that elders should be part of the flow of life. Islandview is home to an extended family of caregivers, including mother and daughter RNs, six elders, four cats, four dogs, and a cockatoo. Employees can bring their babies and toddlers to work, and grandchildren are in and out. That sounded great in theory. I am happy to say after hanging out there the last couple of days, it seems to be working out in practice. Here is a description of my mother-in-law's first afternoon from an email I wrote to my sister.

"The place really is sunny and homey. I sat with Olga for quite awhile in the living room while Douglas did paperwork. The other residents were friendly but not demanding of attention.
At one point the most gorgeous calico cat decided to make it her mission to sit on Olga's lap, which wasn't entirely easy since Olga wasn't helping. The cat tried one approach, then another, searching for a way to sit on her that would be comfortable for them both. Finally she settled in across Olga's stomach and chest. She lifted her nose to Olga's cheek a couple of times, then kneaded with her paws careful to keep her claws extended and not in the fabric (unlike my cat). At last she rested and purred loudly for about ten minutes. Although Olga reputedly does not like cats to sit on her, I think she was comforted and perhaps flattered. And probably warmed, too. The woman who runs the place says this cat was the guardian of the 103 year old woman who died recently. I hope she has decided to adopt Olga."

After all the deep grieving I did last week, I am now feeling huge relief that my mother-in-law is safe and cared for. She seemed quite peaceful today. And she is very much her regal, yet-goodnatured self, ready for a new adventure, willing to be pleased. So many of us identified her with the place she created. It is good to be reminded that she is who she is no matter where she is. There is a core nature that seems to transcend even memory.

Now my husband and I must turn our attention to information gathering, decision making, treatment, and recovery. We are at the bare beginning of this journey. We have gathered, so far, that his prospect for recovery from cancer is good but that sex as we have known it and cherished it for thirty-one years may change irrevocably and unpredictably. He is seventy; I am fifty-six. Our age difference, which has hardly been noticeable to us, may begin to make a difference. Nothing is certain. We know that. Everything and anything can change at any moment as if can for any and everyone. And does. Every moment.

There. I just needed to say that. My mother-in-law has left home for her last home. My husband has prostate cancer. We are all held in the mystery no matter what. Tomorrow, mystery willing, I will begin to write again.

For pictures of my mother-in-law's land where she ran a school for many years and where we now run a center: http://www.highvalley.org/ My website is still: http://www.passionofmarymagdalen.com/

Maeve on Shame and Shamelessness

"Just like the Eve I hadn’t heard of yet, I saw that I was naked. Shame I hadn’t yet grasped." -Maeve from Magdalen Rising

Elizabeth posted that quotation on Twitter this morning. (Yes, speaking of shamelessness, we are on twitter. Follow us: http://twitter.com/EliznMaeve How shameless is that?)

I have been asked to write a blog about shamelessness. I suppose scenes like the one cited above have earned me a reputation as an expert on the subject. For those who haven't read Magdalen Rising, this incident happened when I was about fourteen years old, away from home for the first time, having my period and missing my eight mothers. My mothers always went to the beach and fingerpainted on the rocks when they were bleeding. At druid school, I was shocked to discover, there were no organized activities for that time of the moon. Feeling a bit blue, I went off by myself, stripped off my tunic (it was a hot day) and practiced writing ogham, the druid ceremonial letters I was studying. I inscribed the name of the boy I liked on a rock. Well, what would you have done if you were me? You wouldn't have thought of writing your crush's name in menstrual blood?

Neither would Viviane, a stuck-up girl in my class, who tried to shame me for it. I showed her. I dipped my fingers into the original ink well and hauled off and anointed her, so to speak, right across the face. She didn't appreciate the honor, and we got into a bloody brawl, literally. Guess who ended up coming along to break up the fight? My crush, Esus. You know him as Jesus. Can you imagine his horror at this unclean naked girl writing his name on a rock with her blood? Please! (How he could possibly end up with someone like me is also a requested blog topic. Next time perhaps.) Many editors and reviewers were also shocked, and Elizabeth was told to omit all scenes having to do with bodily functions. She refused. She is not as shameless I am, but she is stubborn.

By the way, my next two volumes have very little about any bodily function--apart from sex. Elizabeth fretted that she had been influenced by the critics. But really, it's just that I grew older. In Magdalen Rising, I am a young girl, and everything is new to me. The truth is, until Viviane no one even attempted to shame me about my body or its functions, and she did not succeed. I kept that ease and comfort with my body all my life.

But many people do feel ashamed not only of their bodily functions but of their bodies, which tells you something about shame. We often feel shamed, or are shamed by others, for things that are out of our control. Shamed not so much for what we do (actions are at least somewhat in our control) but for what we are. We are too short, tall, have ears that stick out, have a big behind. We are not smart enough, quick enough, pretty enough, rich enough. There is something inherently wrong, and we feel shame.

Then there is also shame that we carry for someone else. That shame is even more insideous, because it's harder to identify. I once met a man who trained his dog to writhe and wimper in shame every time that man passed gas. It was supposed to be a joke, but it's not so funny when you consider that many of us are that dog. That's how abuse works, any kind of abuse from sexual abuse to economic abuse. The victim carries the abuser's shame. So shamelessness is not necessarily a good thing, not if someone else is carrying the shame that should yours. If you make a foul smell, people, own it!

I had no shame about my menstrual blood and no shame about sex, having been reared on my mothers' tales of Queen Maeve of Connacht, who delighted in freely offering the friendship of her upper thighs, who boasted that she was "never without one man in the shadow of another." She also had a devoted husband and lover, and no one called her promiscuous. This upbringing stood me in good stead during the years I was a whore. I felt no shame in being a whore and took some pride in being a skilled one. What did shame me deeply was being a slave, for my people considered loss of freedom shameful. They blamed the victim. Being a slave was not something I chose; it was not something I did. There was no way I could make amends for it. Though I tried to escape, I failed and my shame deepened into despair which fed the shame. There are many people who are suffering in just this way today whether or not they are called slaves.

So I do know something about shame. Freedom came to me by fluke. I was on my way to being crucified when the very woman who got me into the fix and who had enslaved and abused me for years, finally faced her own shame, her own culpabilty and pleaded with a woman who justifiably despised her in order to save my life. Read The Passion of Mary Magdalen if you want to know more.

Finally, that boy, my crush? He became my beloved. You know who he is. He was sentenced to a death that was designed to shame as well as torture. What is more shaming than to be hung naked and completely helpless while slowly dying in front of anyone who wants to watch? Yet I am here to tell you, he was not ashamed. All that shame that was cast on him, he burned away, as if he were the sun. I am witness.

Burning with shame. That's what we say. That's what it feels like. And that's just what to do with shame. Burn it up. The problems come when we are so afraid of that burning that we bury shame (and carry it as depression) or try to escape it through some addictive behavior that casts us back into shame or we dump it on someone else. So I say, if you are burning, burn. If you can stand it, the shame will burn away and leave you shining, radiant, and righteously shameless.

Recording MaevenSong

A few months ago Tim Dillinger www.timdillinger.com announced to me: We are going to Nashville to record your album. It sounded natural and inevitable. Though I am not a professional singer and have never recorded anything but nine minutes of my voice a capella, it did not occur to me to think twice or do anything but set a date and be grateful for having an experienced guide and companion who has produced two of his own albums. I didn't even get nervous until a couple of days before the trip. Then I wondered if I was crazy.

I would have been more worried if I had known that three days is considered a very short amount of time to make a full length recording. But I knew Tim had arranged for an expert guitarist, Dave Martin, to create accompaniment for the eleven songs I had sung into Tim's phone in August.

On Monday morning, we all met at Colorblind Soul Productions, the excellent studio Mike Torino runs from his home. Before going upstairs to the studio, we sat around Mike's dining room table.

"So," said Mike, looking from me to Dave, the guitarist. "You two have never met before? You've never rehearsed?"

Dave, who was having surgery later that day, remained calm and said that he'd heard the songs and had some ideas. I sensed that Mike was thinking something like: here's this lady who wants to make an album and doesn't have a clue.

"Do you know what key and tempo they're in?" he appealed to Dave.

"Some of them don't have a tempo," Dave allowed.

"Elizabeth has perfect pitch," Tim interjected at one point, perhaps picking up on Mike's skepticism.

"Some of them do have tempo," I spoke up. "Some of them have very standard forms, like Mountain Song. Let's start with one of those."

"Mountain Song?" said Dave. "I don't remember any Mountain Song."

It seems Mountain Song somehow got dropped from the songs Tim sent Dave.

"It's easy," I told the other three as they searched for the lost recording. "I'll just sing it."

And then the collaborative magic of music began to unfold. Dave and Mike brainstormed and found cords, and I soon understood that Mike was not just a sound technician but a brilliant and imaginative musical director with a perfect ear. I instantly forgave him for treating me like a dotty old lady. Dave's guitar playing was rich and supportive, and when we began to work on Pentecostal Alley blues, I was in heaven hearing his blues guitar. In less than an hour we had a rough arrangement for three songs including harmonies created by Tim, and we headed upstairs to lay down Dave's tracks so he could leave for his appointment.

Mike was thrilled to have a chance to work with a guitarist of Dave's caliber and he admitted to Tim that that I did indeed have perfect pitch. It made me feel a little better to be considered a dotty old lady with some natural talent, but I was worried about the songs that did not have a conventional form. I was especially worried about Miriam's Lament. I had never been able to sing it the same way twice. I was doing some short pieces a capella, but Miriam's Lament seemed too long and uncertain.

"I think I'm going to have to scrap it," I told Tim. "They'll never be able to find a tempo or a structure." Things both Dave and Mike had insisted were essential.

"No," said Tim. "You're not going to scrap it. It's a preach, and I know just what to do. I'm going to go get Ron. I'm going to get my son!"

Tim is not only a brilliant vocalist of immense range, he has another genius: people. Knowing people, loving people, seeing their gifts, encouraging their gifts, bringing people together. Everyone Tim loves becomes family. His son, Ron, is a young musician he met and has mentored since Ron was sixteen.

"I don't know what I'm doing," I told Ron when he arrived. "It goes something like this." I sang a bit. "But it never comes out the same twice."

Ron didn't bat an eye or respond in any particular way at all.

"It's a preach, Ron," explained Tim. "You'll know what to do."

So we went upstairs. Ron sat down at the keyboard. I sang a phrase, and a miracle happened. I knew just where the notes were, and Ron supported each one with rich, complex, soulful sound.

"Let them do this live," said Tim. "They need to do this live."

So I stood up, put on the head phones and went with Ron, as Tim later put it, to the foot of the cross. When it was over, we all wept. And remembering that moment still brings tears to my eyes.

That was Ron's first miracle. The next day, he also played with me on Psalm, which despite its Biblical form, lacked the requisite tempo and structure. The Prologue, which was to have been sung and spoken without accompaniment, now has blues piano all the way through. It was done in one take.

The biggest challenge was Resurrection Song. Dave had valiantly returned the day after his surgery to lay down the rest of the tracks. He has found some beautiful hypnotic chords for Resurrection Song and created a structure. It was taking all my concentration to stay within it, and I was having trouble building the intensity the song needs.

"I haven't raised him yet," I said to Tim at one point.

"Let Ron accompany her live," said Tim. "In addition to the guitar."

It took more than one take, because of the complexity of the rhythms. Ron turned to Mike between takes, and asked for a pad. I think that's the term. They searched around. At Ron's suggestion, they decided on strings.

I sang the next take carried on a swelling river of sound, and at last I was able to go where I needed to go, to the tomb, to the beloved. At last I raised him.

The night of that day, only the second day, a day in which time must have been suspended, Tim's friends Pam and Jerry came over to sing on Thou New Moon, an a capella piece. My idea was to go from a straight singing of it to a jam, perhaps with drums.

"No," said Mike. "I can't record that. That would be chaos. I thought you wanted a choral piece. Let's record it that way and then you can improvise over it on another track."

In record time, Pam and Jerry learned the tune and the upper and lower harmonies Tim had created. Together we laid down three tracks. Mike looped them to make it sound as though we were a huge choir. He had no way of knowing that this song was the one the entire druid college sang to Maeve went she was sent beyond the ninth wave. The effect was gorgeous, and I happily let go of my idea improvise over it.

"So," I said to Mike. "Maybe it could be a solo voice, then unison voices, then harmony?"

"No," Mike said bluntly. "The purpose of this song is to be a break between some of your other songs. Once is good, but three times, no."

By this time I had learned Mike was almost always right, and I appreciated his directness. That night when I woke at 3:00am to lie awake for two hours, as I had every night, I remembered what he said about the song's use, and the whole structure of the album became clear to me. I knew exactly how to group the songs.

When I woke up on the third morning the sky (which for two days had been as dark as the crucifixion, in Tim's words) was a brilliant blue. We went to the studio where Tim laid down harmonies on two more songs while enjoying a visit from Reba Rambo McGuire and Destiny McGuire, more of his beloved kin, his mother and sister.

Later Mike added percussion to two songs. I didn't have to do anything but sit and listen. I remember thinking I wanted to spend the rest of my life in a sound studio making music with wonderful people. At last Mike played us some of all the songs, marvelling that they sounded as good as they did when he hadn't cleaned them up yet. Tim and I cried again.

After a warm parting with Mike, and a late lunch with Lenny, another brilliant musician and the one who led us to Mike, Tim and I went to see sacred Nashville sites, first one: the shelf in the library where Tim found The Passion of Mary Magdalen some fifteen months ago. It was there on the shelf in very battered condition, which Tim admitted was probably because of him.

I remain in a state of awe and gratitude for the miracles that led to MaevenSong. I will close with thanks from my heart to Lenny, Mike, Dave, Ron, Pam and Jerry, Reba and Destiny, brilliant musicians all and so welcoming and encouraging to someone new to their world. Thank you to Midori and her children and to Crystal for a celebration full of riotous laughter. Thanks also to David and Kare for sparing Tim for a week as they all get ready for the Soulkiss concert at Don't Tell Mama in NYC on October 23 and 30th. Most of all, thank you Tim, for MaevenSong, for your friendship, for your genius at generosity. Sing on! Write on! I love you!