Sunday Song and Rumination Radio Show: Recent Episodes
Alana Levandoski
This is a radio/podcast show by contemplative roots singer/songwriter Alana Levandoski www.patreon.com/alanalevandoski www.alanalevandoski.com
In this podcast, I touch again, on how we are in a time of fragmentation and division, but on how I am beginning to make peace with that. Making peace with something in our culture is often read as resignation.
Perhaps all of this is the rumbling sound of wider reality metabolizing the trauma of modernity ... or the resonant thrum of transformation through embodied decay (which is how life happens).
Thomas Merton once said, "everyone wants the red sea to part, but the problem is that we have to be in over our heads for it to part."
Merton also famously said, "My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going."
I think we are being invited to sit with having no idea. Not as a techno-fatalist act, but as an organic act of trust. In our own nature, and in the nature of the world, the universe, and in the nature of Love.
I just wrote a chant that you will hear when my album Liturgy comes out, and it paraphrases Ezekiel, "remove from us these hearts of stone, and give to us a heart of flesh". And built right into that prayer, is the acceptance of our participation in the organic nature of being and becoming... like... maybe the reason we position ourselves with hearts of stone, is because we're afraid if our hearts become flesh, they will decompose, and therefore "we" will dematerialize... in other words, from our Newtonian viewpoint, having a heart of flesh feels like annihilation.
So here are a few tender ponderings on shifting...
This is my first Sunday Song and Rumination since springtime, and it shares a bit about what has been coming up for me. The nature of this talk runs the risk of rejection, but my hope is that because I've let it steep for a long time, and at times in silence, (letting go, allowing, letting go, allowing, returning), that it will at least be received as sincere, hopeful, and maybe even some much-needed fresh air.
Not sure about that, but that is the hope.
My new album Liturgy will be out Nov 1st for all Patreon members, and Nov 28th for all non members.
Today I came in from gardening to do my Sunday Song Radio show and still had dirt on my hands.
An apt image for what I attempt to speak about this week in terms of my complicity in being part of the story of colonization. How in light of the precious 215 children showing us more of the truth about Canada's history of genocide (which is ongoing).
This week, without failing to hold accountable the people responsible for these specific heinous crimes, I point out the difference between the average person who is religiously Catholic, and how in fact, if we are settler immigrants, tied to any institution, land title, or inheritance, we are politically Catholic because of the doctrine of discovery.
I also attempt to consider even deeper, the idea of how Jesus was standing in indigenous sovereignty when he performed his food miracles (if not ALL of his miracles). To support indigenous sovereignty and to decolonize (unharness) our creative power, is a very Christic thing to do. I saw that colonizer Jesus/historical Jesus meme floating around... and am definitely inclined toward the historical one, but I'm also complicit with the colonizer one.
A great hope that I have, is that many of you will continue to be patient with me, as you all know what it is like to do deep work. To sit in unknowing as you intuit that there is a constellation asking for you to put your ear to the thrum of the ground, staying open so the alignment can happen, and you can receive understanding.
There are prophecies around this planet that exist "outside" of our tradition. These prophecies are in keeping with what the heck Pentecost is getting at.
So if this talk isn't clear yet, please bear with me, as I open to the project being asked of me. The music is going to make it more clear, because it is coming from a nearly unspeakable place at present.
I have been on my knees this week in prayer... for indigenous people to continue experiencing a great re-membering... a great awakening from the nightmare imposed upon them... and in the case of the Fairy Creek story in Pacheedaht territory, on Vanvouver Island... I also pray for the working class people whose livelihoods rely on the lumber industry. As I said in this talk... the provincial government in British Columbia is far left, and they are still sending in the police helicopters and are now trained to hold up tarps so the arrests can't be captured on cell phones.
More to come, but again... a reminder... one of the reasons why I made the album Sanctuary - Exploring the Healing Path, is because I know that deep down, the lack of understanding (and understanding is a tenet of Pentecost!) is directly connected to how far we have to go to heal. I have a theory that many people of white settler descent are afraid to begin healing from being complicit in systemic violence, because healing from one thing, requires healing from another thing. It's the old "change the door knob, change everything" analogy. Many of us have so much of our personal trauma balled up somewhere inside of us, that to attempt healing from the trauma of being complicit in a violent government that has built-in biases, shuts us down before we can begin.
Today's Sunday Song includes my song Fear Not (Adamah - of the Earth).
I also give a talk about how we have chosen to live and why... sounding a soft, tender trumpet for localization over centralization.
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In this episode, Alana recommends the book Casteby Isabel Wilkerson, as well as speaks into her process of letting it mirror her.
Pointing out that often those at the center, or in the dominant caste, are led through healing journeys that can be hyper individualized, and the resiliency needed for collective healing, and decentering, can be hard to find, or to build.
She also references Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah's book Unsettling Truths - The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery, as well as Resmaa Manekem's book My Grandmother's Hands, and The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk.
The album Alana mentions, Sanctuary - Exploring the Healing Path, can be found on streaming platforms or at her gift economy store.
This week was taken up with writing an essay for an upcoming publication in April. The essay is called The Language of Praise: how we sing is how we see.My patrons will be hearing the recitation in full, but I shared an excerpt on Sunday Song Radio.
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This week I describe a method of praise that I've been developing in the last couple of years. Despite all evidence to the contrary, we are in a post-individual era, and that is another reason why people are leaving worship spaces that don't encounter the Whole inside of their expressions and rituals.
This is in early development so be patient with me!!!
Further to last week's talk on the temptations and visions that Jesus had in the desert, Alana imagines how he got to the path he walked in his ministry. A radical abundance in the face of Roman occupation and scarcity. Like he lived from the ground of his being, all the way down.
How does this design, this abundance that is at the heart of healthy ecosystems (that can and do include humans), apply to other systems?
Like... economics... companies... communities.
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In this episode, Alana does a talk about the creative process as a metaphor for the spiritual process. She parallels Jesus in the desert with the struggle to trust one's inner voice.
To become a patron of Alana's work go to www.patreon.com/alanalevandoski
To sponsor an upcoming song and video click here.
To get Alana a virtual coffee, click here.
In this talk, Alana addresses her own challenges of wrestling with what radical love looks like within the current polarized epoch. She tells a few stories, and also talks about the history of the colour red in association to Mary Magdalene.
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In this episode Alana further contextualizes the characters in her music video of her song When Love Meets Dust. Particularly sharing how she developed the Mary Magdalene character. At the end of the talk you will hear a scratch recording of a song Alana wrote last fall, that will end up on the album she will release next year.
If you would like to sponsor a video and a song click here.
Please consider collectively gathering around this work at www.patreon.com/alanalevandoski
If you would like to get Alana a virtual coffee - click here.
In this episode, Alana talks about the process of writing the song When Love Meets Dust, as well as the process of filming the music video. The first in a series of talks that will develop and contextualize so the song and music video can be received at multiple levels. Alana mentions Fr Ron Rolheiser's book The Holy Longing, as well as Abba Moses' teaching, "if you will, you can become all flame". The song was also written with the backdrop of Ash Wednesday landing on Valentine's Day. Lots to work with and ponder as we lead up to the release of a brand new recording of When Love Meets Dust, as well as the video where Alana plays three different characters. For those who have eyes to see, the video itself is a sermon.
To become a patron of Alana's work click here.
To sponsor a song and video for the liturgical album click here.
To buy Alana a coffee, click here.
In this episode, Alana doesn't offer a reflection, but unveils the plan for a new album to be released one song and video at a time over 2021 and then will released in its fullness on All Hallow's Day 2021.
Alana also reveals that she will be writing a book that will companion an album to be released one song, one video and one chapter at a time, in late winter 2022.
To sponsor a song and video click here.
To become a patron click here.
To buy Alana a virtual coffee click here.
In this episode, Alana explores how many of us formed by the evangelical movement have experienced the trauma of being entrained to be enablers, particularly of people in positions of religious power. She names the internal wrestling she has gone through, of seeing the difference between holding a perception of one sacred universe, and being expected to offer "cheap grace" to people who abuse their positions of power. In this particular podcast, Alana explores the roots and rise of Evangelicalism and how many of us who see ourselves as "post evangelical" need to be examining our own reactions... because the evangelical movement itself rose out of reactivity. Near the end of the episode Alana confesses to the role she has played in the very present danger of political sectarianism that is on the doorstep of the entire Western world, and currently playing out in the United States.
Please consider supporting Alana's work at www.patreon.com/alanalevandoski
All of Alana's music is available in the gift economy. You can listen to her album Behold, I Make All Things New on all the streaming platforms, or get it on CD here, or by downloading it here.
In this episode, I am sharing a live talk and chant I did on facebook today. The talk is about how I've been wrestling with the difference between naming something and name calling... the difference between a fierce accountability and debasing others. Then I play a chant I wrote as a prayer for the interfaith groups on the ground in Charlottesville back in the summer of 2017. I also wrote the chant as a way to encourage people to not shut their eyes to the signs of extremism that we witnessed, and to do the difficult work of keeping our hearts open as well as our eyes. To be wise as serpents and soft as doves.
The link I shared and reference to get a Black Farmers Matter t-shirt is this one - https://offgridincolors.com/shop/
When I released my steampunk-styled music video and my brand new version of Tennyson's poem, Ring Out, Wild Bells, I didn't know how it would reverberate across the world in such fun ways! In this episode you'll get to hear from a few people including the "Celtic with a Scottish flair" music duo, Scotia.
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