Stepping Stone
About the song from the album, The Sound of the Word.
Listen to the song, here. (scroll down for lyrics)
The Stepping Stone story continues where the Raspberry Cane story leaves off…
Spend much time alone in the woods and you might begin to decipher the language. The sounds, sights, smells, tastes, the feel of the forest on your skin and under your feet. The unnameable sixth sense just out of periphery. These add up to a place that doesn’t need humans, but yields to our presence. The forest doesn’t require that we learn the language, but as like in any foreign country, knowing the language—at least attempting to try—puts one in good graces with the locals.
Much the way a foreign language is at first utterly incomprehensible until over the course of months and years patterns emerge and take on meaning. The grammar of the beech, ash, maple, birch climax forest. The duff, scat, branch, fungi, moss and lichen syntax of the forest floor. The semantics of the bedrock granite, gneiss, and schist provide terra-firma between which water flows, roots grow, and feet fall. Understory and overstory in concert. Somehow, over time, the language begins to make sense. For my feeble mammal mind the meaning is more a sense of trust and allegiance. No words are needed. Only a sense of what to do. Like a deer path offers direction.
Sounds… The liquid, melodious song of the hermit thrush at dusk and dawn. Chickadee’s de-de-de’s punctuate the silence. The bard owl’s insistent “who cooks for you” in the night. Thunderstorms crash through the forest in waves like surf breaking on the beach. Poplar leaves pivot like the Queen’s hand to a whisper of gentle applause. Winter branches clatter like muted wind chimes. White noise from the brook gushes with spring melt, gurgles through the summer, and falls silent under winter snow.
And there’s so much more—an inundation to the senses. How far do you want to go to take it all in? To touch wood, stone, shovel, soil, food and wild herb. Hands caked with soil, and washed in cold, cold water. How much capacity have you for absorbing the vernacular?
The rocks are my friends and my community. Each time I picked up a stone I tried to imagine how vastly ancient it was. I stole them from where they were and moved them to a different place. Each heft and glance a communication of weight, texture, color, and shape. It told me where it wanted to go. I was servant and transportation system. In exchange the stones provided me with retaining walls, foundations, garden borders, and folly cairns. The nice, flat and wide ones became pavers for the walkway leading to the house. My stepping stones.
Backwoods Hot Tub Recipe. Ingredients: Tub, Water, Wood Stove, Soap Stones.
Fill the tub (located outdoors on the shed porch) with water from the brook. This requires making umpteen trips up and down the bank with five gallon buckets. Dip and haul. Dip and haul. Two at a time. Once the tub is full, place soap stones on top of a hot wood stove. Wait until they’re hot then place them in the tub. After the stones transfer their heat to the water, fetch them out to reheat. Pro tip: It helps to have enough stones so you’re heating several on the stove while others are in the tub working their magic. Repeat until the water is up to temperature. The entire process takes about two hours (worth it!). Shed clothes and immerse yourself. Pause and consider the forest as the steam rises around you.
During the winter of ’93-’94, every other week I’d drive over snowy mountains to record Elemental Lullabye with Pete Sutherland and a host of other musicians. It was an ambitious step for me, and beyond my resources, but I felt compelled to complete the project come what may.
One of my bookings the summer of ’94 was on the “Bus Stage” at the Ben and Jerry’s One World, One Heart Festival in Warren, Vermont. After my set a gentleman by the name of Dan Storper introduced himself and asked if I had a CD. I replied that my new album was almost done. Dan gave me his card and asked me to send him a copy. His card said, “Putumayo Records,” New York City.
That August, I’m in the middle of my day in the bakery and I get a call from New York. It was Dan saying that he loved my album and would I be interested in a track being included in his next compilation project entitled, “Shelter.” Oh, and they’ll be having the CD release concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City that October and he’d like me to participate. I was standing there at the cash register after hanging up the phone and my co-workers and customers were staring at me. Apparently my face had gone pale. I walked back to my ovens in a daze. I was going to play at Carnegie Hall!
The song Dan requested me to play was “Stepping Stone.” The stage manager had other ideas, however, insisting that I keep my song to under three minutes long. No problem ultimately. I sang a new song, “Island,” instead (track #10). It felt really good, though, that Dan wanted to hear Stepping Stone. I should have done it regardless of what the stage manager said. Next time!
Stepping Stone You take one foot forward and you are stepping on air I know no sense of weight 'cause my intentions are clear Well I've had all these troubles, but now my troubles are all gone I don't even know what the heaven was wrong Since I've found my stepping stone Some people I know, they have a beautiful vision Some people I know, they remember their dreams Me, I find it when I'm walking a shadow leaps in the corner of my eye Something will run away laughing and leave me With another stepping stone You've got to dig up your stepping stone Only your body knows Yea the earth will show you how to bring up your stepping stone Only your body knows Where to find your stepping stone Now I walk often in the forest and you never look the same One side exposed to the whether and your dark sides plain Show me your smooth white belly as I turn you over in my hands Show me another reflection of the man within this stepping stone I read you like a book of wonder and I listen to your tales Your eyes have seen the likes of trees that lived a million years ago Well I hold you at my belly as I take you upon the hill Not a bird is singing the forest, the forest is still Still for your stepping stone You've got to dig up your stepping stone Only your body knows Yea the earth will show you how to bring up your stepping stone Only your body knows Where to find your stepping stone