If wishes were circles around the sun,
And all that has been had just now begun,
I’d chase the gold flame till the light had come
And be the one who loves you.
When will I believe again?
My dreams have all faded and God is dark.
They drank up the tears of my broken heart.
I emptied my soul to be where you are,
To walk the salty ocean.
When will I believe again?
Can you hear me? I am calling. I am falling after you.
Will you make another blue sky?
Will you kiss me with the truth?
Your song is the cry of a gentle voice,
The secret that gives me no other choice
But doubt comes defending the angry noise,
The Sacred Void of longing.
When will I believe again?
If wishes were circles around the sun,
I’d fly up to Heaven and follow one,
Blind me with faith till the world is done
I need to run to find You
Then I will believe again! © Kim McLean Music • 2020
This is a song of longing. I want to know God. I do know God with a certain unknowing. This is me. Sentences like that, about knowing and unknowing God. To some people it’s crazy psychic nonsense and philosophical play-dough, but its my happy place. Those who prefer the pragmatic brick and mortar how-to life say that I overthink things. Down on planet earth they want things grounded with a guise of safety. I get it. But I’ve always felt much safer in the thermosphere, just before the atmosphere drops off into infinite space. It’s not quite Heaven, but I can see Heaven from here.
This song came to me while I was on one of those mystic journeys. I’d been invited there by Rainer Maria Rilke as I was reading from his Book of Hours. He said this: I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. I may not complete this last one but I give myself to it. I circle around God, around the primordial tower. I’ve been circling for thousands of years and I still don’t know: am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song? Those are the words that inspired this song. I’ve been circling too. When I write songs, when I write anything, I am circling. When I sing, when I pray, when I teach, I am circling.
Every time I sing this song or listen to my recording of it I think it is myself I want to know. In knowing God I find myself. (I use the term “knowing” loosely, no, humbly). We are one. It is bold. It rings true. I love my metaphysical self. But why do I feel like I know God better than I know me? And God knows me better than I know me? It’s the cultural dictum that has plastered me in. They taught me to love God and not myself. Now my golden heart is trapped behind the sheetrock walls built around me, but this isn’t my house. And that’s not my white picket fence. The house around me is crumbling. It is the tribal vice of family and region. It is the plastic Jesuses and toy let-there-be-light-sabers that mock my most precious and real relationship. It is the pressure of being a powerful woman and terrified to admit it. I was postured to be a damsel in distress but everything within me rails against that paradigm.
The wish is for freedom. Psychic freedom. Mental, emotional, sentimental, spiritual, joyous freedom. It looks rebellious. It feels radical and renegade. The YOU in this song – is God – is me. I am falling after me. Falling from the top of the wedding cake. Falling from the marquis. Falling after the water that is rushing out to sea, chasing it into the unknown. When I run to my heart’s desire it sometimes looks like I am running towards darkness, but that is only because I run from the norms, the status quo, the sure things and into the music itself.
To follow the wishes that circle around the sun is to live close to the bright flame that lights the world. It is a blinding light. It blinds me from all that is not love. When I sing this song, I fly but I don’t escape. It’s just my way of seeing it all from the angels’ point of view.
Love to all, Kim
