N'AWLINS ON MY MIND Blues/For Katrina 
Written 9/13/2005 8:49:58 PM Eastern Daylight Time 

N'AWLINS ON MY MIND
Flash Silvermoon c Goddesstunes 2005

[organ driven mournful blues sound]

I
The dead are walkin' down the streets of N'Awlins
And I feel their footsteps break night's silent scream [2x]
No honky-tonk piano rings out on old Bourbon Street
And the wind howls ghostly through the trees
II
Seems like someone just forgot 'bout the people of N'awlins
When the water comes up there's no place to go[2x]
I feel the Spirits gatherin' out on old Congo Square
And Mamselle Marie Laveau she's a standin' there
[organ solo to afro rhythm drum break]

Blood mix with mud through the Bayou flood 2x
Children in the streets with not enough to eat
Gris gris gumboyaya Gris gris gumboyaya [3x]
Sacred Jambalaya
[these words continue in background under rap]

Children starving in the streets not enough to eat
Not enough to drink 
Livin' in dirt and stink
No roof over their heads too many needlessly dead
What could be in their heads to bring the aid so slow
People got nowhere to go how could they not know
What millions of us knew, but these monied few
Just had too much to do --------oh wade in the water
Wade in the water children wade in the water someone's in trouble in the waters [2x]
Don't leave them all alone
Damballah take them home [2x]
Dancin' with the Snake,,,Until the levee breaks
Damballah Damballah Damballah Damballah Aweido [3x]

Don't leave them all alone
Damballah take them home

Just a note;;; Damballah Aweido is the Sacred Snake of the Yoruban Ancestors whose blood runs in the streets of New Orleans....even now. I play this song to help them find their way home, these lost spirits and each year on the Anniversary of this horror I honor them especially.

This is my tribute to New Orleans. I am hoping to get a new CD out this year or early next and N'Awlins On My Mind will surely be on it. I have rarely been compelled to write a song as much as this one and my body shook the first time I sang it out loud.
Katrina affected me so deeply as it was an even deeper loss of innocence than 9/11. The bloodstained white gloves of the Bushinista regime were truly off and their genocidal proclivities were right out in the open with the drowned people of New Orleans.

I had to do something so I went to work healing the Katrina dogs that were rescued and brought here to North Central Florida by some very brave women. I expected to work on some 400-500 dogs and had prepared a holistic triage. This included flower essence mixes in bottles and spritzers in case they couldn't be touched. It would also provide aid to the first responders who had pulled them out of the barricaded houses where nothing was left alive. I still cry at the pain that I witnessed. Unfortunately I think that this was all more than my empathic self could handle even though I protected myself.

After treating some 50 dogs, I had an accident at home which broke my arm severely and I was laid up for 3 months. The first time that I played N'Awlins On My Mind in public was 2 weeks after this injury and I played it with my left arm in a cast and a sling and a lot of pain meds at the 4th Annual Wise Woman's Festival.

My singing partner and Priestess of Yemonja, Omi Aladora Ajamu joined me on this one, adding additional African chants to the Egungun,the Ancestors. Talk about chills. When we play, it is as two Priestesses as well as Muse-icians. She also shared with me about how this was not at all the first time that people of color were murdered in New Orleans by the powers that be. I believe it was in the 1930's that hundreds of black residents were lined up on the levees to create a "higher levee" to protect the Crescent City and of course they all drowned. There's been a lot of blood in that Mississippi mud.

So today I remember the dead and those who lost everything and count my Blessings

Flash Silvermoon
* The Wise Woman's Tarot - http://www.flashsilvermoon.com *