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A Review of this truly magnificiant album from:
Rev Francis Wheatland from Langley, Berkshire, ENGLAND | I've
always been a dedicated fan of Anderson's spirituality. Not only through some of its lyric but also by the way he put faith
in music. Angel Embrace is an absolute masterpiece. Not only for the wonderful short intro Myo Maya (an opening anthem) til
the last note of the CD. I discovered the power of this album when I played it, in my church, one evening after evensong,
when everybody was gone, and I was alone. with the space, the candles, the altar and the cross, and when the music started.....the
magic happened. It was like if the whole choir of heaven was rehearsing Angel Embrace ...Like if some beams of music were
filling the whole church, Like a new pentacost, a musical one... It just sounded like if a new hymnal book from Heaven
was being played in my little church... WAOH! that's all I can say in human language....It was probably the strongest religious
experience I ve ever made in my carrier as an Anglican minister.. So, go, buy it, turn the volume up, dim the lights in
your living room, lighten a candle and enjoy ....A gift from Heaven to Humankind
Prayersong
thou art mother
thou art father
thou art friend and companion
thou art knowledge and wealth
thou
art all in all
thou art father
thou art mother
thou art friend and companion
thou art knowledge and wealth
thou
art all in all
lead us from the unreal to the real
lead us from ignorance to light
lead us from death to immortality
and
manifest
through and through and through and through
thou art mother
thou art father
thou art friend and companion
thou
art knowledge and wealth
thou art all in all
protect us with your sweet benign presence
we offer a meditation
body, mind and soul
past, present and future
for thou art all in all
thou art father
thou art mother
thou
art friend and companion
thou art knowledge and wealth
thou art all in all
All in all...
Shotgun Angel
written by leila
My Dad was a farmer. At the best of times, income for a farmer is
never enough. For that reason, Dad would take any manner of odd jobs that were offered him as a means to supplement a most
variable income. In the summer of my tenth year he took a job erecting a fence around a section of land (640 acres). We definitely
needed the money after a hard winter that saw the
loss of several cattle. But, alas, the land to be fenced was 10 miles
away as the crow flies and more like 25 miles taking the only road into the area.
As soon as school was out that year, my parents began the daily
trek with my brother and I in tow to work on the fence, travelling across country to get there. These 10 miles did not consist
of open prairie but rather much of it was treed, underbrush, swampy low areas filled with water, perhaps 3 feet deep in places.
Due to this wild terrain, Dad chose to use a team of horses rather
than a tractor to take us and our supplies in the wagon
to do the work. The horses qualified much more as an all-terrain means of transportation than did the tractor. So much for
the backdrop! Now the story!
This one hot humid July day found us very nearly at the worksite. Along the trail this day,
we came across some bushes so laden with saskatoons (a Manitoba variation of a blueberry) they were hanging like grapes
almost. If you've ever tasted a saskatoon, you'll know this was too good a treat to pass up! My folks and and little brother
hopped off the wagon grabbing what ever they could use as containers to pick some of this ambrosia to have with lunch later.
I stayed put to read a book I was engrossed in. Thinking they'd just be a few minutes, Dad merely looped the horses reins
around a wagon appendage
of some kind. And whilst my family filled their containers and their mouths with berries I was
lost in my reading...probably Nancy Drew who was my passion at the time. Well,as fate would have it along came this hornet
or
wasp. It decided to sting one of the horses right on a most sensitive spot on their anatomy located somewhere on their
derriere. And now imagine how you'd feel if you were a horse having something sting you in such a spot...! Well, that bite
was all it took to totally startle the team. They jolted ahead and broke into a full gallop. And away they ran, up the trail
into a clearing and then they turned around to head back down that same trail. And I...I was in a stunned panic! As they ran
in the turn I remember seeing Dad running with all his might, hoping desperately cut them off. He did get close enough to
lunge at the bridle of one of the horses as they flew by him. But he missed grabbing hold by just inches and fell to the ground.
The fleeting glimpse of terror I saw in his eyes must have mirrored mine. He picked himself up and continued running
after
the wagon but he was no match for a spooked team going hell bent for leather! Holding onto the wagon for dear life, I looked
back to see the figure of my Dad shrinking to just a speck and then he disappeared out of sight.
I was all alone...Except
for those two nags running flat out with me along
for the ride! They ran like the devil himself was after them. They ran
down trails Dad had cut through stands of trees with maybe 4 to 6 inches of clearance on either side of the wagon
wheels. So we wouldn't get hung
up on the trees we always went so slow through these spots--they went full tilt! They ran
through the swampy places with the water flying as they did. So on they ran down the trail towards home..nearly 10 long miles
away.
I didn't really expect to survive. I could picture any one of many ways the wagon was going to tip over with me under it.
There was so much equipment, tools and supplies on the wagon, there was no way I could have made my way over it jostling about.
Even if I had been able to reach the reins, there is little chance a 10 year old girl could have had enough strength to slow
up two hard-mouthed horses! I was sobbing at my plight as you might imagine. Then not knowing what else to do, I cried to
the skies, "Help me,
please!" I was still crying but I began to feel an intense awareness that I wasn't alone. I felt strangely
calm. I happened to look back up the trail. There I saw such a sight for sore eyes. It was my dear old dog and best friend
Poncho running for all he was worth to catch up with the wagon. He looked like an angel with four paws to me! Curiously around
this time, the horses finally started to slow down to just a fast trot. I didn't see anything but in my mind's eye I could
imagine someone had taken over the reins. As would have been their usual custom, the horses should have headed for the drive
into our farm. As they trotted up on to the road which went past our place, I started to worry again. The gate to the farmyard
was shut. There was a neighbour's place to pass before ours. But why would they go in there? In addition, this fellow
only
came out on weekends and so his gate was always shut. But as the horses, the wagon, the dog and I approached, I noticed the
gate was open! Then inexplicably, the horses slowed, turned and slowly trotted up his lane---pulling to a stop 20 feet from
his front door. I was in shock again!!! This time a happy one. Having heard the jangling of the horse's harnesses and them
snorting, out of his house came the neighbour. He looked at me in total disbelief, exclaiming "What the hell happened here??!"
He hastily tied up the horses and took me inside to relate the whole story over a great big bowl of
ice cream... About
45 minutes later my poor father showed up just about at the point of complete exhaustion. He had run that whole distance.
It was +90
degrees not counting humidity and my Dad being a smoker on top of it was a wonder he never collapsed from heat
fatigue. And this was not taking into consideration his dread of finding me mangled up in the wagon somewhere along the trail.
But what a glad reunion for the two of us! After taking a little time to refresh himself, Dad and I got back into the wagon
to go in search of my Mom and little brother. We found them several miles away wandering down the trail. And finding them,
we went on to the fencing site. We passed on the idea of stopping to pick saskatoons.
Like my adventure here, sometimes I think life can take us on wild
rides without asking if we want to go, rides where everything seems beyond our control, rides when we think we're all alone
and that we're done for. For anyone who has watched a few old westerns they would be familiar with
the term "riding shotgun".
A person so designated rode with a stagecoach or a wagon train for the purpose of keeping a steady eye out for trouble of
any
kind and then to be prepared to protect and defend his charges. I'm of the opinion that there has been an angel "riding
shotgun" with me through my life both before and after this particular escapade. I do not think I am at all unique in this.
Whatever name one might be comfortable with applying to unseen guardians...angel, guide, spirit of a deceased loved one, who
knows perhaps even a manifestation of God/dess themself, I do not think we travel alone through this life even in the most
solitary of experiences. I feel the story of my wild ride is a vivid illustration of synchronicity as well...the fact
that our neighbour happened to be at his house when as a rule he NEVER was along with the fact that the horses, creatures
of habit that they are, turned into this
neighbour's drive rather than going up to ours (which would have been their normal
routine). I have flirted with scepticism in my time but somehow life has
always had a way of squelching that activity in
short order. Do I believe in what I can not see? You bet.
Perhaps even shotgun totin' angels...
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the music you hear:
Prayersong
from Angels Embrace
- Myo Maya (0:50)
- New Fire Land (14:44)
- Angels Embrace (6:40)
- Cloudsinging (5:37)
- Prayersong (4:47)
- Naturemusic (11:44)
- Midnight Cello (4:00)
Jon Anderson - all vocals and instruments
guests:
Deborah Anderson - vocals (3)
Jade Anderson - vocals (5)
Keith Heffner -
keyboards (5)
Steve Katz - keyboards (2)
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a definition from the
Catholic Encyclopedia
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