Sacred Ashes

Welcome to Tower Time. It currently is hovering over our nation. I first heard the term “Tower Time” about a decade ago from Byron Ballard (The Village Witch of Asheville NC). She has a new book out, The Feral Church, talking about the future she foresaw coming. Well, friends and neighbors Tower Time is upon us, like green grass on a grave.

The times are looking bad, and worse each day. Interest Rates are up, Stockmarket collapse, etc. etc. Different things affect different people. Distraction comes on top of distraction…

But there is one thing that affects us all, the continued disregard for the Earth, our Home, our Mother. The corporate, govenmental, and private plundering of our homeworld grows worse by the day. Even with fires, flooding, melting glaciers and polar ice caps, freak storms, rising Summer temperatures, the powers that be continue to say Climate Change is not real. Thousand plus acre wildfires, a hurricane in the middle of Appalachia, a blizzard on the gulf coast. Nope, nothing to see here. And they continue to ravage our world for any and all resources they can sell, because to them nothing is more important than wealth.

I read today the Supreme Court has lessened restrictions so more raw sewage can be dumped into our rivers. Our federal lands are being opened so more and more trees can be harvested. Areas are being opened up for mining… and drilling for oil. Our president continues gleefuly proclaiming, “We’re gonna drill, baby drill!”

It turns my stomach, and it makes me angry.

I wrote this song in 2019; I sat down in my tiny studio, with a few instruments, recorded it and mixed it. It is the tag to the title track “Sacred Ashes.”

click to listen to Sacred Ashes

Sacred Ashes, Redux

We’ve all been lied to by the Fathers
It’s time the healing has begun
We’ve all been lied to by religions
By the politicians and their guns.

Walk on down past the burning
The bitter smoke it burns your eyes
Walk on down to the water
Take my hand and look beyond their lies

Their agenda is enrichment
Take it all and damn the cost
All they want is to control us
Until our whole damned world is Lost.

Walk on down past the burning
The bitter smoke it burns your eyes
Walk on down to the water
Take my hand and look beyond their lies

Sacred Ashes on our faces
Burning questions in our minds
Can’t you see Our Mother’s dying
Leave this way of life behind

Walk on down past the burning
The bitter smoke it burns your eyes
Walk on down to the water
Take my hand and look beyond their lies.
Take my hand and look beyond their lies.

“Sacred Ashes” (c) 2019 by Louis Garou, available here on Bandcamp

I can’t say much else. No one is coming to save us. We have to save ourselves, and the only way we can do that is to join others and fight for our planet.

Grow a garden. Write your congress people. Stand up. Participate in peaceful demonstrations. Read Edward Abbey, learn about monkey wrenching. Watch V for Vendetta… And remember that scene in the movie Antz where the head grasshopper explains, “Yeah, it’s just one ant standing up… But what if they all stand up?”

We are the ants… The wealthy, the politicians, the destroyers, they look down at us all with disdain, but they know if we ever all join hands, if we ever all stand together, it is the end of them and their predatory ways. So mote it be.

Be that ant… Stand up!

If Tower Time interests you, check out the blog post Tower Moments by Jenna Greene. And more posts about environmental justice are collected in our online Book of Shadows, in the “Earth” category within Element Magic: Fire, Air, Earth and Water. A good example is the post Last Tree Falling by George Nicholas of Cernunnos Riding.

For more information about Louis, including his collected articles here on Pagan Song, his bio, and links to Louis’ sites on the web, check out Louis’s author page here on Pagan Song.

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