New Song: The Grandmothers

This is a song about things that persist through changes.

About waking up to gifts from the past,

Hidden in the things many of us call weeds.

The idea started filtering in as I began working the soil in my garden in early May, and fell in love with some of the plants I was removing: Dandelions (which you’ve already heard me sing about), Lambs Quarters, Creeping Charlie.

here's some lovely creeping charlie saying 'hi' before I pull it out of where I'm about to plant my garden.

creeping charlie, aka ground ivy, aka grandmother Ivy!

When I was growing up, we removed Lambs Quarters (Chenopodium Album) from the garden but also served it up for dinner, and it was tasty braised with butter and salt. So that was an old friend.

Then I got curious about Creeping Charlie, so did some poking around on the internet, and found out that it, like our Dandelion friend, was brought to the Americas on purpose by folks who understood that it had medicinal properties — incidentally, for health challenges I personally struggle with). They grew so lushly and beautifully that I felt regretful taking them out of my garden.

But I felt that they reassured me — “Make your garden the way you want it, we’ll be here guarding it for you on the edges.”

As I wait for my intentionally planted garden to sprout and grow, they feed me and give me tea. Lambs Quarters was part of breakfast the other day, sautéed with onions and mushrooms and then scrambled with eggs. Creeping Charlie tea has a lovely musky minty flavor, especially nice with honey, and with Dandelion root it’s a great tonic for my kidneys. Of course these statements not evaluated by FDA, take with a grain of salt and maybe more careful research than I did, but what fun it is to know that these plants that we can’t seem to get rid of were considered allies from way back.

Due to their connection with my own ancestors, I have begun to think of them as my grandmothers.

The musical motifs on the guitar emerged during a jam session with Aidan on Mother’s Day.

I hope you enjoy!! (subscribe to listen to the song on my Patreon here.

Lyrics

The earth is changing
I’m changing too
Where is the wisdom
I’m not sure it grew
The way that we wanted it to

Still I’m loving with hands wide open
Feeling my feet on the ground
Feeling through time for the ones who came before me
The lost and the found

Trying to reach back
Through the threads of existence
Trying to reach back
Bridging the distance
Trying to find traces of ancestors care
Come to find out they are everywhere

Dandelion mama
Grandmother ivy
Gifts from the old world
With a knack of surviving
Seeds still grow from the gardens you tended
We lost the plot
But the story never ended

Loving with hands wide open
Sinking my love in the ground
As a message to you
The lost and the found

Chenopodium
Creeping Charlie
Chenopodium
Creeping Charlie
Chenopodium
Creeping Charlie
Dandelion mama
Grandmother ivy
Bringing beauty to those who know how to see
To those who know how to see

The earth is changing
I’m changing too
The earth is changing
I’m changing too
The earth is changing me
I’m changing the earth
And the earth’s changing me
I am the earth
The earth is me
We’re changing
I’m changing too

trina brunk, singer/songwriter

Transcendent, joyous and authentic, a gift of grace: the music of singer/songwriter Trina Brunk is alternately inspiring, vulnerable, subtle, soaring, stirring, enlivening.