"We are one - one human family - one Earth community,
a common destiny for all."

Music by Carolyn McDade/ Text excerpted from The Earth Charter

Yesterday (Saturday)I was with the Gaia Women of the Great Lakes Basin. Many of these women from Michigan and Ontario have been singing together since the early 1990s. In September 2002 they answered the call of the composer, spiritual feminist, social activist Carolyn McDade to begin work on a CD project called "O Beautiful Gaia." This call was much deeper than simply to sing; it was to embrace the earth with every fiber of their beings. To study, reflect and act to save this precious planet that is so threatened by our human choices. And not just the planet itself, but all who call it their home, especially the creatures and plants whose very existence is endangered in all parts of the world. In the spring and summer of 2003, three communities of women--Atlantic Canada, Atlantic New England, and the Great Lakes Basin--recorded their portions of the double CD, "O Beautiful Gaia." It was launched in Autumn 2003. I was privileged to be part of this project.

And now, in Autumn 2007, a new CD is being launched by Carolyn McDade and hundreds of women across Canada and the United States, including the Gaia Women of the Great Lakes Basin. This brand new CD--"Our Heart Is Moved"--is at its heart a choral and instrumental interpretation of The Earth Charter, a visionary and profoundly realistic document completed in 2000 after years of communal deliberations by thousands of individuals and groups across the globe, people who recognized the choices we humans have to bring "peril or promise"--from another song on the new CD--to our earth and its countless forms of life. The women I was with on Saturday were preparing for next weekend's CD launches in Detroit and in Windsor, Ontario. They brought tears to my eyes. After two years of not singing with these wonderful women, I will be rejoining them after next weekend's launch.

I have just finished listening to "My Heart Is Moved" CD. The title says it all: my heart and mind and spirit are forever moved by this extraordinary gift to our world community. Let me encourage you to go to the "My Heart Is Moved" web page, and order at least one CD if at all possible. If you need someone to mail it to you, just let me know. I will see that you receive this CD wherever on this great and glorious planet you live. CLICK HERE to go to the "My Heart Is Moved" web page. If you'd like to get to know Carolyn McDade and her work, CLICK HERE. To read The Earth Charter and its history, CLICK HERE.

By the way, the sheet music on the piano in my photo is to "We Are One," the song I quoted at the start. It is on the CD. And I'm sure you won't be surprised to learn that Mary White was a beloved member of this community of singing women. She will always be with us. After all, we are one.