Dancing the Windstreams -  Robyn Francis  -  Music CD released 2007

Weaving soundscapes of luscious music, song, spoken word and poetry, Robyn takes you on a musical journey of hope, despair, frustration, joy and deep contemplation of life, the earth and our relationship with nature and each other.

Better known for her permaculture work, Robyn Francis is a gifted and accomplished musician, composer and singer-songwriter. Her lyrics demonstrate her mastery of poetry infused with deep philosophical  insights. Her voice sits exceptionally well with the genre of this album, which also clearly displays her gift for melody, sense of rhythm and composition.

The track Freedom to Fly from Dancing the Windstreams was nominated finalist in Contemporary Ballad category of the 2008 Dolphin Music Awards.

Starting out as a folk singer-songwriter in the 1970's & ‘80's, in 1992-93 Robyn received multiple nominations and performed at the Dolphin Music Awards for her first CD Songs of a Green Guerilla.

All music, songs and poetry written, performed & created by Robyn Francis

Dancing the Windstreams CDs available from:

Djanbung Gardens
PO Box 379 Nimbin NSW 2480
Australia/NZ $27 inc postage  - Overseas $35 inc postage

Song descriptions, lyrics and poems

1. LEGACY

-  new-age funk rock song embodies an appeal about the state of the planet, climate change and taking responsibility for our actions regarding the legacy we leave for future generations.

Carbon building in the sky
Temperatures are rising high
Poles are melting down into the sea
Poisoning the atmosphere
Pillaging the biosphere
Toxic landscape legacies appear

CH: Can you tell me
What you're going to say
To your children
They're the ones who'll pay

Oceans rising fish are dying
Still uranium you're mining
Silent forests in a silent spring
All to feed your corporate greed
Insatiable consumer need
The legacy of your economy

See the writing on the wall
of the supermarket mall
what's your footprint doing to the earth
Learn to live more consciously
Conserving all the energy
Resources we so thoughtlessly abuse
© Robyn Francis 2006

2. WISDOM

- a reflective new-age ballad and haunting melody with words of wisdom philosophising about life and the courage required for self-healing and embracing change on a deep personal and inter-personal level. The profound shifts required for our personal response to the earth's crisis can be sustained by a deep love of beauty-within ourselves and the life around us.

What you think and what you say
in your heart, in your mind
it will resonate around you.
What you do will always pay
back in time, back in kind,
in the shaping of your future.

Ch: Healing heart can only start
without fear of embracing change
Healing heart can only start
with the light of the wisdom gained

Recognise what needs to change
as you learn to forgive
but please don't forget the lessons.
As you reflect on old pains,
letting go, then you know
you can liberate the future.
Chorus

Let the love shine in your heart
to dispel all the clouds of
the doubts and fears that bind you,
Then you'll find true peace of mind
and awaken the joy
of the beauty that surrounds you.
You're the beauty that surrounds you
© Robyn Francis 2007

3. WALTZ OF THE LAST ICEBERG

- a funky electronic instrumental waltz with a whimsical World-Music feel.

To the top of the sky birds no longer fly
No more dolphins or fish swim the sea
From the horizon
where blue sky meets ocean
The last iceberg melts down alone...
© Robyn Francis 2007

4. WIND DANCE

-  is the track inspiring the Album title.  Great ethnic rhythms, spacious pads and interweaving string melodies play around spoken word and song, "Dancing the windstreams of the sky...." is one of Robyn's ‘deep ecology' songs.

The wind is in my being..

I breathe the wind
I breathe the sky,
the air we share
each word we cry
lucent angel let me see
you ripple the waters,
bend the trees
Carrying raindrops
from ocean to land
Sculpting the cloudscapes
Shifting the sands
Bringer of change
and bearer of wing
With every step
I dance the wind

Winds of the mountains
Winds from the sea
Winds of the desert dance with me

Light as a zephyr
High I would fly
Dancing the wind streams of the sky

Carry me higher
Carry me far
Carry me closer to the stars

Over the mountains
Over the sea
Over the desert dance with me

High I would fly
Dancing the wind streams
I would fly
Dancing the wind streams of the sky...
© Robyn Francis 2006

5. DESTINY

- the arresting sounds of rhythmic piano, drums and ethereal vocals back this reflective song's  philosophical look at life.

Weaving space and time independently
Nothing is by chance in your destiny
Doesn't matter what serendipity
You will always be where you choose to be
Patterns from the past shape your history
Balancing in time seeking harmony
Traveling in line with your legacy     
You create the way to your destiny

Life' s a web of fine connections
Space and time in all dimensions
Ebbs and flows from all directions
Your intentions, Perceptions
Reflections, Deceptions
Projections, Conceptions
© Robyn Francis 2007

6. FOREST WHISPERS

- a lyrical ode to nature with a definite Celtic influence and sensitively orchestrated string and harp accompaniment.

From the valley deep a mist is slowly rising
Hiding mountains in the haze
An' the shadows melt before the sun arising
Welcoming the break of day

Hear the forest murmurs whisper in the treetops
Breezes dancing with the leaves
As the dewdrop diamonds scatter through the canopy
Rainbow sparkles in the trees

Flowers open up to sunshine in the meadow
Raven in the silence cries
And on wings unfurled a'soaring on the zephyrs
Flying through an azure sky

I feel life suspend forever in a moment
Spiralling the breadth of time
As the forest whispers wisdoms in the wind streams
Echoing the ancient rhyme
© Robyn Francis 2004

7. ENCHANTERS LOVESONG

is lyrically structured in the Northern European folk idiom. This whimsical nature-based song about love through the seasons was inspired by a magical place and people described in a fantasy novel set in Norway.

I will sing to my love in the springtime
I'll weave garlands to wear in my hair
and we'll dance with the flowers in the meadow
and delight in the magic we share

Then I'll gift you my dreams in the summer
As we fly with the birds in the sky
Watching thunder clouds loom in the distance
Bearing lightening to sparkle your eyes

I'll write love poems on leaves in the autumn
about sunsets and starlight above
As the harvest moon climbs the horizon
You'll ensorcel me deep in your love

Then I'll sit by your side through the winter
As we sip on mulled wine by the fire
and you whisper me stories and legends
of enchantment and loves sweet desire 
© Robyn Francis 2007

8. ROCKS IN MIST

- a spacious ambient instrumental soundscape. The sweeping string melody over pulsing rhythmic pads evokes mist swirling around the legendary sacred Nimbin Rocks across the valley from Robyn's home.

Sacred rocks rise tall above
the mountains forest shoulder
Resonant dreams of ancient wise ones

Mist enshrouds the layered landscape
Wispy white tendrils reach out
caressing the ancient sentinels.
I merge into the mist,
suspended in space and time
The ageless heartbeat of mountain
and rocks echoes in the mist...
© Robyn Francis 2005

9. SPACE BETWEEN STARS

- a funky electronic dance instrumental with contrasting textures of sound, space and rhythm.

Dark matter,
black pulsing heart of the universe
Carrying the light  of distant stars and galaxies waiting to be seen - traveling
through time to greet my eyes.
Invisible forces pulsing
Awakening unnamed senses
stirring the edge of my awareness

The earth beneath my feet responds as
intangible mysteries unfold 
through undefined infinite dimensions
the space between stars
© Robyn Francis 2005

10. FREEDOM TO FLY

- an electronic slow rock ballad with catchy piano and rhythmic hooks counterpoint the poignant melody of this beautiful song about finding the balance in human relationships.

Please love don't tie me or bind me I pray
No golden cages, they get in the way
Please let me fly how I will and I'll stay
Happy in your love, my joy to repay.
Freedom to fly...

Please don't control me, withhold or deny
Hidden agendas will mess with my mind
I've had my wings cut and chains on my heart
Carried the memories of hurts from the past.
Freedom to fly ...

Misunderstanding what you didn't say
Let's talk it over, please don't turn away
And if I get overwhelmed, let me cry
Hold me, don't scold me, the tears will soon dry
Freedom to fly...

© Robyn Francis 2006

11. SUPPLICATION TO GAIA

this is a moving piece of ambient rock with spoken word, rich with poetic prose imageries and metaphors it express joy, despair and hope for planet earth.

I am one with the earth
My blood is your rivers,
Your mountains my body
The mystery of your enchantment thralls the essence of my soul

Bound to life, I breathe the breath of your winds
Bound to die, your arms will enfold me in earth sleep
Reuniting with the elements to give life to new forms
Rising again as tall trees kissing the sun
Dancing the moonlight
Shedding tears of joy with the raindrops
You ripple the waters of my awareness
Your ocean currents swell with my desire
To envelope your beauty

Father sky embrace me
Sister moon grace me
Starlight enchant me
Mother, restore me to your being

I feel your pain the aching hurt
The cry of your oceans dying
The cracking of your ice mantles,
The rending of your heavens
And scaring of your flesh
The severance of your forests green
The thirst of your rivers running dry
The tears of rage in hurricane
And shudders of your quaking heartbreak
The rising fever of our greed

Brothers, sisters, hear the call
The awakening earth
Arises within you
Her plea summons all
to surrender to the beauty of her bounty...
Conjoining, immersing, reconverging with the source,
the essence within all beings, all life, all form

Nemesis arises -
the future-eating nightmare of our wanton gluttony
shatters the earths green dream asunder.

Give us the wisdom to tread lightly upon you
Unveil our eyes to read your sacred landscapes
Guide our hands to heal your wounds,
plant the forests new, restore the garden
Grant us the generosity to give and receive in equilibrium
Open our hearts to immerse our spirits in your mystery -
resonating radiance of life within all elements, all beings
Reawaken our memories to the ancestral dreamings 
from the dawning to the end of time
Reunited with the mother, one people, one planet one earth
One earth - Gaia
Freya  - Daear  - Maya
One earth - Gaia
© Robyn Francis 2006

12. INVOCATION

- a melodic, deep, nature-connection song inspired by the Celtic Bardic tradition. Usually sung a-cappella but is presented on the album with ambient pads, subtle sound-effects and ethereal vocal harmonies.

I am the wind I am the starlight
I am the eagle soaring high
I am a quail where the grasses shiver
I am the velvet evening sky

I m the word I am the poet
I am the singer and the song
I am the light that comes with summer
I am the dark of winter storm

I am the strength of ancient wisdom
I am the joy the lovers troth
I am the pain of giving childbirth
I am the peace when death has come

I am creation and the creator
I am destroyer and destroyed
I am the end and the beginning
For I am life, for I am life
© Robyn Francis 2003

13. TWIGHLIGHT SERENADE

- an expressive and beautifully structured composition for string ensemble and piano, interweaving melodies punctuated with rhythmic harmony.

High breezes choreograph painted clouds in a fading sunset sky
Silence settles with the shadows of evening
Venus shines tentatively from a deepening sky
Embraced by the silver slither of a newborn moon
Twilight whispers the deepest yearnings of the soul
Meeting and melting into the mystery
The oneness of universal love
© Robyn Francis 2004