Jo D'Anna - Alouwenja


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Audio - Alouwenja

Artistic Vision of Alouwenja

Everyone’s lifetime contains moments of crisis, pain, love and happiness. It also features critical events that are turning points in where you go on the road of life. Often the most critical of these events seem to feature some kind of spiritual interaction. It is at these very moments that our most crucial decisions are made.

One such spiritual visitation became the inspiring force behind the artistry of Jo D’Anna’s CD, “Alouwenja”. Through this critical visitation, Jo embraced the direction of change in her life to become a calming influence in ours. Jo is one whose purpose is to awaken us once again to see the world around us differently. This is the very message of her CD’s title song, “Alouwenja”, embodying the artists’ role of helping others see what they normally would not. Helping others feel what they have almost become immune to.

Throughout the songs on this CD, she stresses the importance of rebirth, self-understanding and transformation. Not only from the healing perspective, but from one of self-confidence. A reminder that our true spirit can handle all the challenges we face in our lives.

Music can be one of the most powerful mediums of communication. But only if it is true and heartfelt. A true flow from the heart and soul. For Jo D’Anna, it’s not about shouting out for change, but in helping everyone understand that our lives and experiences are all similar. In her music, Jo is communicating as one spirit to another.

Sound engineer and co-production of “Alouwenja:, including multi-instrumental tracking and arrangements, by Kevin Harris of Harwood Productions - Hercules, California.

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Track One Sleeping Lady	There is an ancient volcano in Marin County, California--a beautiful mountain, whose gentle, evocative profile (resembling the shape of a reclining woman) can be viewed from almost every vantage point in that County, and beyond. It was originally named by the local Miwok Indians “Mount Tamalpais”, which means “Sleeping Lady”. Many current inhabitants of this area talk about the mysterious “power centers” scattered throughout the mountain, where unexplained transcendent and visionary experiences occur. Once, on one of my many mountain quests, I wrote this song as an homage to the Mountain Spirit. On the one hand, the song is a prayer for global healing and compassion to abolish the gratuitous violence, abuse, alienation and pain of the world that often troubles me; on the other, it is a joyous expression of gratitude for the gifts of truth, inspiration and enlightenment I continue to receive from the spirit of “Sleeping Lady” whenever I visit the mountain.
Track Two Woman of the Plains	A fictional song-story of an American pioneer woman whose husband was killed by Indians; and who, nevertheless, continues the journey across the plains alone with her children. One full moon night, she gathers her children around a fire and decides she must fully surrender to her dream to achieve her destiny, for herself and her children. With determination, she steps up to the front seat of the covered wagon, picking up the reins. She encounters many obstacles along the way--Indians, inclement weather, illness and a diminishing food supply. Although she does not possess the power and strength of a man’s hands, her intuition, spirit and resourcefulness are her true gifts, and she is determined to make the journey--to follow her heart and a hope of a better life in the West. Woman of the Plains is an allegory of my life, and perhaps an encouragement to all women who may struggle with the solitude and the fear of the unknown when we choose to follow our heart and our vision, against all obstacles. Though many of us may do so as “pioneers of unknown fame”, we can comfort ourselves knowing that the reward may be in the journey, itself.
Track Three Puddles in the Rain	When I was a child, I had a favorite rainy day game. Instead of avoiding the rain puddles, I would walk through them on purpose–watching the sky’s reflection rippling through the puddle with each step I took; fantasizing that I was some kind of gifted airborne acrobat who could walk as easily on the sky as on the ground. This song is an invitation to join me, with childlike abandon, in the discovery of all the small, beautiful and magical things in nature--usually passed by, unseen and unappreciated; an invitation to go deep into the mysteries of oneself through the exploration of natural phenomenon, and to experience the often empowering images of what nature mirrors back to us.
Track Four Warrior Queen	For any woman who has been in an abusive relationship, and has buried her thoughts and feelings until they disappear--even to herself--this song speaks to us. No one should physically harm, define, judge, criticize, deceive, treat a partner as a mere possession, or toy with them cruelly as a cat might toy with its prey. This song is an inspiration to give voice to the victims of abusers–a strong, rebellious and clear voice. To those who deprive us of our personal power by redefining us according to their will–and only to satisfy their distorted neediness--let’s have the courage to speak out, now and forever, to reclaim our power and our lives.
Track Five Remembering	Some of us were unwillingly deprived of our innocent childhood–shrouded by the demons that our parents had not yet exorcized. We may have been incested, abused, misunderstood, denied of parental nurturing and appropriate expressions of love. As adults, we may have realized we had the same demons our parents had, without understanding why or how this could have happened. This is a song of celebration when the truth is finally acknowledged--through the process of “remembering”--and we come to realize, with renewed hope, how the shadows of our past can actually transform to become our unique strengths, and the gifts which will eventually help bring us to fullness in our lives. This song was originally inspired by a chapter entitled “Remembering”, in the book, The Courage to Heal–a Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis (1988, Harper & Row).
Track Six Angel in Flight	There are angels out there who come to our aide when we make the choice to live. Alternatively, one can choose the dance of death. A memory of how the mother of a childhood friend graciously and compassionately let go of her daughter--when the girl was finally old enough to leave home--inspired me to develop a similar compassion for other people’s choices in life, whether I believed they were right or wrong. May none of us live in longing, fear or sorrow. May we always trust there is someone who loves us. May we all choose to live. May we all be – or be touched by -- an angel in flight.
Track Seven Turning My Life Over	I’m watching the changes of the sky at Solstice, listening to the geese calling above as they fly by, and the wistful sound of fallen leaves swirling in the wind. If I were the Sun, I’d emerge from behind the grey skies and bring a better day. You have left me for another lover and I am reminiscing with sadness, but I will survive. After all, what good does crying do? My tears have run out. . .besides, clinging to a dream never got us anywhere. So, like the new leaves in Spring which always return to the trees, I will renew, and hopefully, love will return once again.
Track Eight Winter Love Song	To understand love, one can learn lessons from nature. As the trees shed their branches in Winter making way for the new green leaves of Spring, we must shed our old patterns and all that does not serve, creating a new path and space for the heart to open. This is a song gratefulness at having found that lasting, true love–gratefulness for receiving the sacred lessons of truthfulness and giving that only genuine lovers can teach one another. When we are feeling comforted by our lover, how could we ever have believed we were really living, before?
Track Nine The Healer	Have you ever known anyone who was a true friend to you at a time when you needed it most? They seem to stand out–like a shining star--above all our feelings of misery and isolation, and we find ourselves feeling enormously grateful to them. With so much constriction, fear and greed in the world, these special friends can be have a healing affect on us. Their reward may be simply to witness the opening of our hearts from their loving attention--similar to the kind of reward a gardener may receive in giving a thirsty flower a drop of water to watch it bloom.
Track Ten Girl in the Blue Jar	This song was inspired by an provocative dream I had many years ago. In the dream there was an image of a large blue jar which contained all the horrors of my life that I was forced to deal with--something similar to a “Pandora’s Box”. The blue jar became the central theme of this song, which is about a girl who has become untrusting and emotionally isolated (“she keeps her world inside a jar--a color she once painted blue”). Her isolation is caused by the trauma she experienced in her formative years from abuse and rejection by her parents. As an adult, she cannot love, because her relationships become merely her sexual escape from the horrible truth she cannot seem to face. Her friends reach out to her in compassion, concerned about her withdrawal, yet knowing that she has something important to say. They try to encourage her and give her confidence to speak out. They hope that in doing so, she will one day realize that when she stops fighting herself, they will surely be there for her.
Track Eleven Serendipity Ball	This song is inspired by a walk I took one day in early Spring, which surprisingly transformed into a serendipitous, Alice-in-Wonderland type of journey. All colors suddenly turned bright and boldly iridescent. I heard violins playing in the distance--carrying my feet, as if on wings, to a large meadow by the sea where I was greeted by the call of a Great Horned Owl. It was there that I beheld an incredible vision: there before me were thousands of spirits in the meadow, dancing to a waltz from the sound of the wind in the trees (remarkably like the sound of violins I heard earlier)! The hills covered in green, the clouds, the hawks, the whales in the sea, the seagulls, the sun, the moon, the crickets, even the ocean, itself--all were personified, real characters who played their part at this delightful and incredulous “Serendipity Ball”, to which, I recalled to myself amusingly, I had neither made reservations, nor been invited.
Track Twelve Alouwenja	This song was inspired one night when I was having trouble sleeping and, to ease myself back to sleep, started improvising a kind of lullaby on my guitar in three-quarter time. At some point, I realized there was a spiritual presence in the room who wrote down her name for me: “Alouwenja”. I heard her singing along in an odd-sounding, ancient language that somehow inserted itself as a refrain into my song. Was Alouwenja a spirit I had summoned with my lullaby--someone very close to me in a past life? Or had I actually invoked the Muse?