one by one
One of the ways I carve out a bubble of airtime for letting new songs and melodies arise, is by taking my dog Dusty for a walk. Sitting at my writing desk, I look out my window upon a backyard which is a little rocky hill that, beyond our fence line, keeps rising up to become a bigger hill. Often times with Dusty I walk through our back gate, up this hill behind our house, and from the top of this hill I can take in a 360 view of the mountains radiating in all directions around this small desert town. The squares and rectangles of houses and buildings and scratchy lines of roads that piece together this town diminish in proportion to the sweeping mountain ranges stretching outward as my gaze pans west, north, east, south.
Standing atop this hill, looking out, a part of me lands and is anchored both inwards and outwards simultaneously. I remember that I am a part of something larger, a bigger whole, both important and unimportant at the same time.
It is while walking my four-legged companion, usually in the late afternoon just before the sun goes down, that I often find myself humming. The movement of walking creates a rhythm upon which I play with vocal sounds. Sometimes words find their way into this playful dance of movement and sound. It’s an embodied opening to words rather than a cerebral construction of lyrics. And it is not until later, if any words stick, that I will take the time to think about what these words mean.
One by one, two by two, three by three – these lyrics get me thinking about how we make sense of our place in a larger, social existence.
“Ubuntu is the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you cannot exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can’t be human all by yourself…. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas we are connected and what you do affects the whole world. ”
One by one we rise, we stand up.
Two by two we fill each other’s cup.
We are social creatures, finding meaning, inspiration and belonging through our social connections. Each of us navigates our place among this unfolding dance between the self and the other. As we collectively face a prospective future that is unseen and unknown, on an individual level we each take responsibility for our part in the making of this future. Each decision and action starts with each one of us, on an individual level, as we make choices about how we live our lives.
“We are each part of a larger whole: a family, a friendship, circle, a neighbourhood, a community, an organisation, a world. Each of us is a player in the same big human drama. This does not mean we should lose ourselves in these connections or deny our individuality. But it does mean that, if we take a look at the big picture, we will come to recognise that our identity is defined by our context even more than by our essence. It’s more a case of Who needs me? than Who am I?”
Six, seven, eight we ride the waves, we thrive.
It often feels like this world is racing ahead of us, faster than we can keep up with. Yet somehow in this rapid unfolding, we need to hold on to a sense of self-agency, of choice, of responsibility, of the part that we play in the larger whole.
Twelve, thirteen remains unseen.
The future that we play a part in making. There are those that shrug their shoulders and say let’s just enjoy what we have on offer today, downplaying or hiding from any consequences for the future. There are those that are overwhelmed with anxiety, carrying the weight of responsibility on their shoulders, feeling like it’s already too late.
This week, as I sat with the arrangement of the song, I was tempted to throw in a resolved or inspiring ending. Something along the lines of Twelve, thirteen let’s rise again and heal.
Leaving something up in the air is against all my therapeutic arts and social worker training – it’s been drilled in to me to always leave people feeling resolved or contained moving forward. Art and music doesn’t always do this. More often than not it questions, stirs things up, gets under your skin, turns your world upside down. And leaves you deciding how to make sense of some new knowing as you move forward.
Something for you to think about as you listen to this song that’s more a playfulness of layered textured sounds than the verse chorus verse format of a folk or pop song.
one by one
one by one we rise, we stand up
two by two we fill each other’s cup
three by three we build a fire, we dream
four by four we search, we believe
five by five we join the dots, we survive
six, seven, eight we ride the waves, we thrive
nine, ten, eleven we destroy, we fight over heaven
twelve, thirteen remains unseen
