This Thursday, October 20, I have the honor, pleasure, and pride of joining a lineup of incredible artists (many of them activists and educators in their own right) and beloved friends—including David Ravel, who produced Precession of a Day: The World of Mary Nohl and countless projects I have gotten to work on over the years through Alverno Presents—to perform in WE MAY WELL BE THE ONES, a benefit concert in support of LuAnn Bird’s campaign for Wisconsin’s 84th Assembly District, produced by Christopher Porterfield and David Ravel. This election is not one to be taken likely, and we (you, all of us in the position to vote for said elections) may indeed be the ones to tip the scales of fate for Wisconsin. David asked me to sing “Christmas in My Soul” by Laura Nyro, with Tontine Ensemble arranging and performing the music. Of course I accepted this dream-come-true of an invitation, and in the months/weeks preparing for the concert, I wish to share some fruits of my considerations, musings, synchronicities, and other discoveries spurred by the song.
“Christmas in My Soul” was released on Laura Nyro’s fourth album, Christmas and the Beads of Sweat, in 1970. The album cover features a portrait of Nyro in pen-ink pointillist beads, with a crimson, moonlike crescent for “C” and a vertical fish symbol—part of a semiotic lexicon I see most often on bumper stickers nowadays—scrawled for the lower-case “L” in laura. Each “t” is stretched tall, like a gothic cathedral, its edges sharp like thorns. A little red rosette is placed where an earring would be, or, sitting in her loose hair, maybe it was above her ear in the morning, now fallen a bit at the end of the day.
When Bette Midler helped induct the late Laura Nyro into the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, Midler pointed out that Nyro “supported the Peace Movement, the Women’s Movement, and wove their themes into her music. She embraced the mythology of the female Goddess and the power of womanhood as no one has since the Pagans. She took it very seriously, and it really was the foundation of her art.”
So why did a Goddess worshipper write a song about its presumed antithesis, a holiday celebrating—and commodifying—the birth of Jesus Christ? (One could argue, on the other hand, that spiritual practices which honor the Goddess are presently at a new apex of popularity and commodification, through countless podcasts, indie jewelry and bath bombs, self-released Tarot decks, entrepreneurial self-help Wiccans offering online courses—and this is certainly just an observation, not necessarily a grievance. I consume these offerings too.)
The contradiction opens new portals of thought that I can’t set down quite yet, and I’m a little in awe of what can be synthesized from supposed opposites.
In the early 2000s I learned, from a professor and nun, about Julian of Norwich, the 14th Century mystic and anchoress (ascetic) who had visions of Jesus, and in her writings about such visitations—“showings” she called them—Norwich understood Jesus’ love as that of a mother. Scholars have since argued whether this description is literal or metaphorical, though I have a hunch that Norwich kept her written records secret—and didn’t use similes in these instances of transcription--for a reason. In any case, the theologian who transmitted this literature (who could speak Middle English) was of the strong opinion that the Jesus Norwich experienced was nonbinary if not a ‘feminine’ being.
From the showings Julian of Norwich experienced, she experienced a Divine Love. And paired with this Divine Love was Divine Desire: “I desired,” she wrote, “by the gift of God, three wounds: the wound of true contrition, the wound of natural compassion, and the wound of willful longing for God.” In “Christmas in My Soul”, Nyro beckons the listener to join her, like children on a classroom carpet, to behold the Book of Love with her. “I know it ain’t easy,” she sings encouragingly, “but, we’re gonna look for a better day…” And so begins a journey through America in the 1960s, fraught with war, pain, homelessness, racism, and even “the sins of politics; the politics of sin.” The song pulls us like a leaf on the wind, or like a disembodied spirit in the style of “It’s a Wonderful Life” or “A Christmas Story”, to various sorrowful vignettes and galvanizing proclamations. It’s a kind of “showing.” And the song, while beautifully expansive, meandering in the best sense of the word, and ephemeral, is also grounded in the real, sincere, and deeply felt compassion of Nyro for the subjects she depicts, and a belief in the transformative power of that compassion.
The crucible of the heart.
Christ Mass in My Soul.
Alchemy. Communion.
A friend of mine said she was feeling the overturning of Roe vs. Wade from deep in her bones to her every nerve ending. I, and many reading this, can relate. I had taken little hiatus from social media some months ago (still kind of on it), only to wake up like Gulliver, my body suddenly overtaken and restricted, not by lilliputian elves but certainly people with a diminutive (and deleterious) concept of reality. I’ve been disheartened to hear so many in my community leave trans and nonbinary folx out of the conversation. I hope that those who wield their visibility toward galvanizing political awareness and direct participation don’t stop at the word “women” but 1) make clear the expansiveness of this identifier and 2) include it in an equally expansive conceptualization of who will be impacted by sweeping gestures of ignorance, malice, and misused power. There are 3’s, 4’s 5’s…but these first two are very important to me.
My Soul. What is it? Christmas in My Soul: If this were really a thing, what would it be? Would it be anything other than a song?
There’s a poem by Patrizia Cavalli that’s been sort of mentally hovering over the shoulder of “Christmas in My Soul” and the WE MAY WELL BE THE ONES concert in general for me. Its first stanza reads:
To get out of prison do you really need
to know what wood the door is made of,
the alloy of the bars, the precise hue
of the walls? Becoming so expert, you might
grow too fond of the place. If you really do
want out, don’t wait so long, leave now,
maybe use your voice, become a song.
“Use your voice, become a song.” I find so much power, freedom, and invention in the idea of becoming a song. It’s like becoming formless, or at the very least, free of dichotomies, oppressive precedents, expectation. Songs find us on the wind, and to some cultures, it is said that songs choose us to sing them. I also love the idea that a song not only rises and moves, but it carries.
When Barry Clark and I were first texting about preparations for a collaboration between Tontine Ensemble and I on “Christmas in My Soul” for WE MAY WELL BE THE ONES, I was struck by the fact that Barry had posted a stanza from the same poem (one which I was less familiar with) a few weeks after the aforementioned stanza had become urgently significant for me again, and inextricably tied to my feelings around my participation in this moment.
It's since been one of the greatest pleasures to work with Barry, Pat, and Molly from Tontine. I feel so lucky to be surrounded by their talents, kindness, and humor during rehearsal. When their string instruments hum in the room, I’m elated to be surrounded by it, to get to sing the “violin part” with Laura Nyro’s gorgeous and galvanizing language. I won’t lie, it’s a challenging vocal part and I’m a little nervous about my role in doing it justice. But as an artist, I am grateful for the opportunity David Ravel gave me to meet this challenge, which sits nestled in the opportunity for myself and other Milwaukee citizens to meet the challenge of ensuring some happy news for Wisconsin citizens on November 8th.
My wish, my Christ-mass-of-the-soul wish (*sleigh bells chime in the distance*) is not only for a happy outcome for LuAnn Bird in the race for State Assembly in the 84th district, but in the longer term, I wish for us all the power to become a song.
Get your tickets for WE MAY WELL BE THE ONES online in advance: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/wemaywellbetheones