Candle lighting
Click on picture to watch video (19MB). Please note that this is the same clip from the page for the reading "On Joy and Sorrow."
Breaths
Refrain:
Listen more often to things than to beings,
Listen more often to things than to beings,
"Tis the ancestors' breath when the fire's voice is heard,
'Tis the ancestors' breath in the voice of the waters.
Those who have died have never, never left.
The dead are not under the earth.
They are in the rustling trees,
They are in the groaning woods,
They are in the crying grass,
They are in the moaning rocks.
The dead are not under the earth.
Refrain
Those who have died have never, never left.
The dead have a pact with the living.
They are in the woman's breast,
They are in the wailing child,
They are with us in our homes,
They are with us in this crowd.
The dead have a pact with the living.
Refrain
Performed by Sweet Honey in the Rock, Selections 1976-1988
Text: Adapted from the poem "Breaths" by Birago Diop
Music: Ysaye Barnwell
On children
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but they are not from you,
And though they are with you, they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
They have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the place of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even
in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but you cannot make them just like you...
Adapted from
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
Performed by Sweet Honey in the Rock,
Selections 1976-1988
Music: Ysaye Barnwell