Author Archives: crcrossen@gmail.com

Appreciations

I appreciate you, dear listener, for visiting me and my songs here.

I appreciate the many singers and listeners who have joined me in musical celebration and appreciation, and who have requested my songs — you are such “grow dust” for my creative spirit!

I appreciate my sister Joane Rylander for building this website, and for singing harmonies with me our whole lives.

I appreciate my husband Ken Crossen, for steadfast and loving support of every kind, and for all the music he has gathered and shared through the Community Music Project.

I appreciate Lea Clayton and Hope Wilder for Stellaria; Sandra Brooks-Mathers, Sarbaga Falk, Laurie Lindgren, Val Rosado, Carol Verner, and Dede Banks for Pomegranate Rose; and Sandra, Dave Kleinbaum, and Steven Forrest for Silkworm.

I appreciate Paul Ford, Johnny Waken, and Jesse Crossen for being my muses, sharing their songs, and making my music sound heavenly.

I appreciate Lillian Woodring Rylander and our Woodring family, for introducing me to the glories and communion of singing together.

I appreciate Clanton Rylander and the Rylander family for giving me loving encouragement for my creativity, and a deep love of nature.

 

The Well of Women’s Wisdom, February 2013

~ In the women’s circle, we share.  Every voice is mine.  I hear, and I grok it all, every story, every tear.

~ I pick up the round cut glass crystal I loved so much last night in the candlelight~~the hole in the tree.  Then it looked black, glowing with heart of ruby pink, yellow ring, green, outer ring blue.  Today in the sunlight as I move it, it reflects rays of color, glints and gleams.

We are the many facets.  We make up one beautiful thing, always changing.

I am loving each and every one of us, each facet of this eye of the dragonfly, eye of the damselfly, eye of the baby dragon.

What we can see with this eye!

~My songs!  All my songs!

I have written a song for every woman’s story here, because they are my stories.  All of them.

This is what a boddhisattva is: one who holds all the stories.

How can I

~hold the story

~write the song

~love the teller ~~ as I so do?

I am the bodhisattva and I am the limited me.

I need the limited me

to feel everything so that I can

~hold the story

~write the song

~love the teller.

So.  It is all good.

Gertrude’s Sayings

  • Two wrongs don’t make a right.
  • Pretty is as pretty does.
  • It’ll all come out in the wash.
  • Into each life some rain must fall.
  • This too shall pass.
  • If you can’t say anything nice about someone, don’t say anything at all.
  • Anything worth doing is worth doing right.
  • “Can’t” never could do anything.
  • A place for everything and everything in its place.
  • Don’t cry over spilt milk.
  • There are none so blind as those who will not see.
  • God helps those who help themselves.
  • Don’t trouble trouble ’til trouble troubles you.

Gertrude Whitson Woodring was my maternal grandmother, whom I never met.  Her wisdom came down to me through my mother Lillian, who gave us these quotes to live by.  These are my favorites.  And I guess I do live by them, or try to.

You Don’t Have to Wait 40 Years

Cynthia Singing 1978

Cynthia Singing 1978

You don’t have to wait 40 years to see how beautiful you are right now.

What I felt then: I wasn’t attractive enough.
What I see now: I was beautiful.
What I felt then: I wasn’t a good enough person.
What I know now: I was full of life and dreams and beautiful intentions to share love.
What I thought then: I wasn’t a good enough singer.
What I hear now: How beautifully I could sing!

I don’t have another 40 years to see how beautiful I am right now. No point in waiting! And you, don’t wait either. It is so easy, and so happy-making, to see how beautiful YOU are, right now. I’m so grateful for us.