Click here: Pumpkin Hollow Retreat Center

Sounding the River

Sunday, July 13th

Join us in the morning

10am - 12 noon

Lecture by Mohican scholar Lion Miles

Shawn Stevens, Mohican Drum Leader of Nanapowe will share songs and stories

2pm - 4pm

Sounding the River Performance

A celebration! A procession! A Sound and Rhythm Event!

Celebrate the river at Pumpkin Hollow in a procession of rhythm and song

Follow the river to the beat of drums and the sound of gongs

join with

Shawn Stevens, Nanapowe Drum Leader and Storyteller

Members of KDZ, Kripalu Drummers

Youth Alive Step Line and Drum Team from Pittsfield, MA

Marafanyi Percussion

Shirley Edgerton Trio

Vikki True

Beth Craig

JoAnne Spies

Ed Mann, noted Frank Zappa percussionist and sound artist

and other special guests

as we honor the land and river and celebrate different traditions

At Pumpkin Hollow retreat center the beautiful Taconic stream caterwauls into a waterfall and then heads out toward the Hudson. Sounding the River starts at one end of the river and ends by the waterfall and peace pole area.

Early Registration suggested:

$10.00 - Lecture and storytelling only: 10am - 12 noon

$10.00 - Sounding the River performance only: 2:00 - 4:00

$30.00 includes all activities and lunch 10:00 - 4:00

Bring canned goods for Hillsdale Helping Hands Food Pantry

To register call:

Pumpkin Hollow: 518-325-3583

For information about performance e-mail: spiesart@aol.com

Lesley Beck, then-editor of Berkshires Week, who took part in the first Sounding the River performance as a member of the choir, wrote a glowing review. In its first incarnation the celebration was called RiverMASS: http://joannespies.com/page5.php

Funded in part by the John A. Sellon Charitable Trust and the Women's Interfaith Institute of the Berkshires, donations from Staples in Great Barrington, MA are in place for writing workshops before the event and we look forward to welcoming new art partners and collaborations within Columbia County.

Thank You to Jody Rael of Solaqua in Chatham, NY for providing his solar-powered sound system

TAUKH WNAUKOOTWAUKUN HKEEK TONNEH

To write letters of welcome to Mohicans

e-mail: movesound@gmail.com

Rivermass Song

Twelve thousand years of tears are standing in my throat
A hundred million fears are woven in my coat
Illusion and memory are all the same
Can you tell me, what is my name?

Beyond the mountains I move along
My voice is hidden, then my voice is strong
After so much silence and separation
Will you praise my beauty, my reparation?

Rising, falling, known, unknown
My water blossoms in your bone
I am the heart of tree and bird
I am the river, a holy word

c 2007 words and music by JoAnne Spies

Youth Alive

Raphael and Jerome of Youth Alive
photo by Keith Emerling c 2005

One of the highlights of the RiverMASS performance at St. Stephen's in 2005 occurred when Raphael drummed a solo on his bucket and the Nanapowe drummers all stood up with smiles on their faces looking to see what grooves he was laying down. That curosity and appreciation helped shape the line-up for Sounding the River. We will all have a chance to sit in a circle together and learn each other's songs and grooves. Debra Winchel will be hand drumming and singing Mohican songs Sunday morning, July 13th, teaching new songs and old.

Hudson River: Looking Upriver from Bear Mountain Bridge

The Hudson River, called Muh-he-kun-ne-tuk in Mahican, is a river that runs through the eastern portion of New York State and, along its southern terminus, demarcates the border between the states of New York and New Jersey.

When Henry Hudson first encountered the Mohicans, they referrred to the river as "Mahicannittuck," meaning "the place of the waters which are never still" or "the continually flowing waters." There are variant spellings for these words but, generally speaking, "Muhheconnuk" meant "place of the Mohicans" and "Muhhekaneew" meant "Mohican people."
It was not far south of Schodack Island that the Mohicans first met Henry Hudson as he sailed up the 'Great Tidal River.' Schodack Island was the seat of the Mahican's Council Fire.

In our Sounding the River celebration we will have the opportunity to welcome descendants of the Mohicans who are members of Nanapowe, the Mohican Drum. They will be drumming at Pumpkin Hollow in Craryville, NY by a waterfall and stream that joins the Hudson.
We are inviting schoolchildren and people of every age to write letters of welcome to the Mohicans.

Send letters of welcome here: movesound@gmail.com

Thank you for joining in the celebration! We look forward to seeing you on July 13th when these letters will all be received by Nanapowe during the Sounding the River performance.

Notes from RiverMASS ~ forerunner of Sounding the River

When I first heard about Housatonic River Summer in the Berkshires I was intrigued by the fact that the east and west branches of the Housatonic join near Pittsfield. This confluence of water is a powerful symbol for the revitalized energy in Pittsfield. The need for a ceremony to honor the river seems natural. Art, spirituality, and activism come together in RiverMASS. The word 'mass' in RiverMASS refers to the state of Massachusetts, to the definition of earth weight as mass, and to the performance that is a celebration of nature by different traditions and people. Perhaps music originated in our innate sounds of reverence and awe as we imitated nature with our voices. When we express our reverence and awe for the world around us in song we can begin a powerful process of change within ourselves and the world around us. Let's make a joyful noise today by singing or shaking a shaker and acknowledge the majesty of the river.

The name RiverMASS surfaced in January 2004. The making of RiverMASS includes freshets here, rivulets there: the story of the Pittsfield man who rafted down the Housatonic as a boy and rolled in the mud by the railroad tracks at Clapp Park is in RiverMASS; the bed-ridden woman at Hillcrest shaped the songs in RiverMASS by her intent listening; the textures and sounds in the voices of the children at Morris School in Lenox who took on the roles of mammals, birds and wind in the river orchestra are in RiverMASS ; each performer and reader today brings their unique rhythm and vision to honor the river. "To put your hands in a river is to feel the chords that bind the earth together" (Barry Lopez).The river is a boundary, a mirror, an indicator of movement. It is a map of early industry, sacred route of the Mohicans and repository of modern manufacture. It invites us to create legends and re-direct its flow, see where it is dead or stagnant and restore its vitality. By sharing stories and studying the history of the river we can understand better where we are now and re-direct our future.

If you get in a canoe off East New Lenox Road in Pittsfield you will be amazed at the thriving life on the river. In a 2 hour ride that was part of the Upper Housatonic River Valley Course for teachers studying the river, I saw two blue heron, turkey vultures, darning dragonflies laying eggs in the water, mayfly larvae, silver maples laying over the water, linden trees and arrowhead bushes. While we struggle to clean the river of poisons and PCB's, the river shares with us its resilience and beauty."A river sings a holy song conveying the mysterious truth that we are a river, and if we are ignorant of this natural law, we are lost" (from Thomas Moore, The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life). The river holds all our voices. We are once again listening to and learning from the river.

At the invitation of puppeteer Meredyth Babcock http://marmaladeproductions.com/ I wrote six songs for a performance called " The Watershed Waltz" that explores the dynamics of a healthy watershed. "The Watershed Waltz" was written and performed in schools with funding from the Highland Communities Initiative, a program of The Trustees of Reservations and http://www.westfieldriver.org/.

Many groups locally and nationally have devoted themselves to cleaning the river. Resources to continue honoring the river: Housatonic Valley Association, The Housatonic River Museum , Housatonic RiverWalk, Housatonic River Initiative, Hudson River Sloop Restoration, Inc., riverkeeper.org, rivernetwork.org, Upper Housatonic Valley African American Heritage Trail and many more.

W.E.B. DuBois

"For this valley, the river must be the center. Certainly it is the physical center; perhaps in a sense, the spiritual center. Perhaps from that very freeing of spirit will come other freedoms and inspirations and aspirations which may be steps toward the diffusion and diversification and enriching of culture throughout this land."

~~~W.E.B. DuBois, "The Housatonic River,"
Delivered to the Annual Meeting of the Alumni of Searles High School, July 21, 1930

Illustrious native son of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, W.E.B. DuBois is the grandfather of the civil rights movement and his visionary statement about the river informs 'Sounding the River.'

Nanapowe, Mohican Drum Group in Stockbridge, MA

Nanapowe in front of Stockbridge Library

after drumming on front lawn in a performance

funded by the Laurel Hill Association

By Water I Am Led

We call upon the waters

That rim the earth horizon to horizon

That flow in our rivers and streams

That fall upon our gardens and fields

And we ask that they teach us

And show us the way

~ Chinook Blessing