EPISODE 2 NOTES FOR SOUL CAFÉ PODCAST—October 2021

Special Guest: Carrie Newcomer

As always the Soul Café Podcast begins with Della Mae singing Rude Awakenings---an awakening is a rousing from sleep or a rousing from inactivity or indifference. We then introduce Carrie Newcomer our guest is has been described by the Boston Globe as a “Praire Mystic”. And Rolling Stone Magazine says, “she asks all the right questions”. Carrie is a singer/songwriter and author that has released 19 albums.  We start the conversation with some light stuff like Carrie telling us about her dog and she actually has a song on her new album—Until Now entitled—My Dog. Then we touch base about how in the cover photo on her new album she actually grew 2 inches for her legs to be able to touch the bycycle in the picture (take a look at the album cover and you will understand). I launched us into deeper conversation by telling my Carrie Newcomer story about the time my wife and I took the train from Norwalk Ct into New York City to see Carrie at Joe’s Pub. This was in early December of 2016 soon after that presidential election that left many of us activist types kind of tired and drained and maybe slightly disillusioned. And then Carrie started singing her songs and spoke to our very souls. Songs like You Can Do This Hard Thing---Sanctuary-“will you be my refuge-my haven in the storm-will you keep the embers warm-when my fire’s all but gone?-be my sanctuary, till I can carry on—in a state of true believers, on streets called us and them, it’s gonna take some time-till the world’s safe again”. And then Lean In Toward the Light followed by Room at the Table (which in part inspired this whole Pull Up a Chair at the Soul Café idea—“come on pull up a chair—there’s room at the table for everyone”. And after we were exhausted and emotionally drained the entire crowd is standing at Joe’s Pub singing to the top of our lungs—If Not Now—if not now tell me when-I may never see the healed land—and yet we’ll take the journey and walk hand in hand—we’ll work it until its done—if not now tell me when”. What a night!! To say the least Carrie was moved by the fact that her music had this kind of impact on myself and others that night. This all moved us into a lengthy conversation about the “great unraveling” we have all experienced in this Pandemic and spent some time on Parker Palmer’s thoughts about hope—“hope is holding a creative tension between what is and what could and should be, each day doing something to narrow the distance between the two”. And that led Carrie into reading a poem from her new book—Until Now entitled ‘What You Want Hear on the Cable News”. We talked a little about a song from her new album—‘When the Wolf is at the Door’---and how that really was her way of thinking about how the Pandemic came ‘like a train coming up through the floor’----and the “we can’t just be healed we need to be transformed”. We began to wrap the interview up with some thoughts on her new song—I Will Sing a New Song and how it was inspired by her readings of Howard Thurman and then we ended with a conversation about the song-‘Like Molly Brown’ which was probably my favorite part of the interview. Over the course of the conversation we talked a lot about how connecting with the natural world has continued to move us in the Pandemic. And, this episode ended as always with Della Mae singing a song that reminds us to get out into nature---‘For the Sake of My Heart’. Of course I also pointed out my gratitude for my adult children helping me with all things Podcast—Amie with Main Street Photography and Brooke with Allobee.com and Page with keeping the song going in our crazy family.

Next month---Dean Cycon founder and owner of Dean’s Beans—organic and fair trade coffee for change and author of JavaTrekkers-dispatches from the world of fair trade coffee.