Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 There was some point where I must have gotten a little out of line. Um, maybe they hadn't given me enough meds. They put me in, in, you know, like a confinement room and I got all upset and I demanded to see the art therapist because I knew that she would be able to, she would be able to speak for me. And on my behalf, early in this pandemic, someone sent us an, a friend, sent an email, and I can't remember who wrote this piece, but the piece was about artists being first responders in this time that we musicians artists of every sort poets are first responders in this time, not only of the pandemic, but even the social crazies that are happening in this, in this day and time that we are first responders, because what people need is beyond words and music and art is beyond words. It's skips right past the head and goes to the hearts. And it really, the crisis in our country is a crisis of soul and spirits. And so I think artists are really called upon during this time.
Speaker 2 00:01:34 You're listening to sound mind where queer voices across Minnesota explore mental health through art. I'm Jane Ram siren Miller, artistic director of one voice mixed chorus. Minnesota is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and straight allies. Chorus. We acknowledged that sound mind is produced. And our singers reside on the sacred traditional lands of the Dakota and initial NABI people. In this episode, I talk with Sarah Thompson and Paula Peterson. Sarah is a singer songwriter who performs across the Midwest and beyond she founded and serves as the artistic director of Duluth echoes of peace choir dubbed one of Northern Minnesota is best kept secrets. Sarah lives on a small farm with gardens and chickens and her wife, Paula Peterson, Paula says she serves as Sarah's backup singer. And she's trying to figure out retirement life during a pandemic. This episode was recorded in fall 2021 in the middle of the COVID pandemic. So Sarah Paula and their dog, Hannah and I are outside, including all the noises of my urban neighborhoods. I am
Speaker 0 00:02:46 Sarah Thompson and very happy to be here. I'm a musician from Northern Minnesota, um, twin ports area, and here with my beloved that I'll let you introduce yourself.
Speaker 3 00:03:01 My name is Paula Peterson and I'm Sarah's backup singer and spouse. We live on a little farm farming, kind of a farming farming, homesteaders garden, big garden in the lake superior watershed. So outside of the twin ports to superior
Speaker 0 00:03:23 Growing right now is, um, still things in our garden, even though it's late fall. Um, some of the greens, and since we have a greenhouse this year, a lot of tomatoes and peppers still going in the greenhouse, which is very exciting because we're very far north, so to have stuffs to growing. Um, and we also have this native plant field that we put in about three years ago. Um, that is, was just gorgeous this year. So for me, just sitting on a bench near that, um, wildflower field has, is one of my favorite places to be under a big maple that as her branches cover me. So that's one of my favorite places. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:04:10 And I, I grew up on a farm in Iowa and, and have learned to appreciate flowers, but growing up it was about what was you could eat or sell or, um, yeah. Yeah. So it's been, so I think more about the produce and I can it, and so every, every day is what's what do I have enough of to do some small batch canning? And we try to eat, um, from our pantry before we go anywhere else. It's just in me. I grew up with my, my grandparents and extended family doing that, um, at the farm. And I hated it as a child. I'll never do this. This is stupid. Here I am.
Speaker 0 00:04:56 Paula was a squirrel in a former life we think.
Speaker 3 00:05:00 Yeah. Yeah. And she's
Speaker 0 00:05:01 The person to be with during a pandemic. I mean, we, um, we really have been grateful for, for the garden and just your know-how of yeah. Putting up food.
Speaker 3 00:05:16 Yeah. And, and all of a sudden it's valued in a way that is kind of fun to see. Although I couldn't get canning lids, all of a sudden it's popular and I'm like, what the heck? Some of us have been doing this for awhile. What are you doing with all the canning lids?
Speaker 0 00:05:31 We have, um, a small flock of chickens for, um, like laying, like laying hens. Um, I slammed a carriage hens and, um, as well as Hannah, who's here with us today, our four legged, uh, dog, and we have a cat and do we have any other animals? Oh, bees, Paula is
Speaker 3 00:05:54 A beekeeper. I'm a hobby beekeeper. So right now we have two hives that are alive. That varies from zero to four, depending on what's happening zero to four hives. Correct. Yeah. And that'd be, that'd be tragic generate much honey. Right, right. Right. I
Speaker 0 00:06:11 Grew up in the city of Sioux falls, South Dakota. So, um, my parents, my mother was an avid flower gardener. And, um, and, and both my mom and dad also did a little bit of vegetables, um, as well. So I did grow up with, with growing things. And then we had a, I had a great aunt who had a farm out in the country that we would spend a week, maybe in the summer and on the, on the farm. So Paula claims to have more farming experience than me because I only had a week at a time a week every summer, but we both grew up with a love of, of growing food. And for me also growing flowers. So my mother would flowers and eating went together. We would always have a big bouquet of flowers at the table, um, whether it's special events or just, you know, everyday dinner.
Speaker 0 00:07:10 So it was part of eating was having flowers. Music was a part of growing up early on. Like my earliest memories I often share are of my dad singing lullabies to me. Um, in fact, I wrote, I would remember sort of whimpering in bed so that my dad would pick, scoop me up and take me into the rocking chair and sing me to sleep. So, um, he was, he loved to sing and, um, and in fact, my dad who died this past spring, um, one of the things I re I remember him always asking, uh, in the morning was, what song did you wake up with today? What song did you wake up for today? So I, um, I think about like song was present for him throughout his life as just something that's always with you. And I think he brought that to all of us.
Speaker 0 00:08:09 I have three, um, three sisters, one younger and two older, and we would sing together around the piano. We all had piano lessons. We all sang in choir, uh, even played in bell choir at my church, growing up and sang in the, you know, the choruses at school took a guitar elective one year in junior high. And, um, so music, music was always a part. But actually when I was young, younger, I was, my dad not only was musical, but also like, uh, uh, you know, he could draw and the whole visual art piece was there. He was more like he was a structural engineer, so it was more that kind of technical drawing, but he could do, um, sketching as well. And I think that also got nurtured in me for it did growing up. And I, I always thought I would become a visual artists. Um, and that's even, even into college, I was, I was minoring in art and, um, and music was just aside, you know, something we did, but yeah. So, and then it became more of my work kind of post college. And now I have been thinking about the visual art piece, moving back toward doing some of that, especially now that all this, all my music gigs are a little different now with the pandemic. So yeah, but
Speaker 4 00:09:38 In a non pandemic year, you're pretty much working almost full-time as a singer song writer, performer thrown around everywhere. Yeah. Which is really remarkable doing
Speaker 0 00:09:49 That. Full-time and as well as the, part-time doing the echos, a peace community choir in Minnesota, which is a non addition community choir, that's been also a, just a regular part of my music work, but singer songwriter performing and all that is yeah. It's my full-time job that, that, uh, I, and I love it. And it's shifted a little bit now.
Speaker 2 00:10:18 Not only does polisher a musical background with Sarah, but music is also what brought them together.
Speaker 3 00:10:25 I remember being in choirs probably. I mean, I grew up the Scandinavia being Lutheran farm. Um, so singing in church, um, seeing in school and then in high school, what really, um, I got into was we had a swing choir and that was, I mean, that was in the eighties, the early eighties, we had a swing choir and I loved swing choir and we traveled around and, you know, competed and did all that in, in swing choir. And so that was really what, um, what I loved. Um,
Speaker 4 00:11:03 Okay. Can I ask you, you're sitting here in a flannel shirt. Yes. Very lesbian clothing. Yes. Did you like wear those dresses? Oh yes. And then GERD and shields and the heels bow tie. Yeah. And I
Speaker 3 00:11:19 Had a fair faucet haircut. Yeah. That was very talk about gender roles. Right, right. Yes. Yes. Yeah. But growing, even younger than that on the farm, I was a closeted, um, Barbara Streisand fan. I loved Barbara Streisand. Well, because she was a cool among my, my age cohort. So didn't, you have to hide. I did. I had to pull out and coat Billy Joel glass houses. So I would, I would drive to school cause I was on the farm and I would pick up some friends the way and I'd be blasting Barbara until I got to their house. And then I'd put her in the glove box and put in Billy Joel. Wow. Yeah. But I would use my hairbrush and as a microphone and I just, I wanted to be her in the worst way. So I still love her. I love it. She's like, yeah. Like butter. But then I went to Luther college in Decorah, Iowa, and I'm saying with Western noble and the Nordic choir, and that was a very peak experience for
Speaker 4 00:12:28 Me. Yeah. That's a legacy. Yeah. Was legacy.
Speaker 0 00:12:33 Well, I think it's kind of fun. The first, even the way, the way we met was Paula was looking for a backup guitar player for a song. She was going to sing for the local women's coffee house and a mutual friend said, oh, give Sarah a call. So <inaudible> Yeah, we started with, I was her backup.
Speaker 3 00:12:59 And so I didn't know who Sarah Thompson was or nor that this was her profession. I just called her and said, I hear you play guitar. I need someone to play guitar for me gracious. Sarah Thompson said, sure. And then as we were practicing, she started singing some harmonies. Oh, that's really good. Yeah. Do that still. Like, I didn't know that wasn't my kind of music. So I wasn't listening to her now. I am every day, every day. Um, but then we, we had a mutual friend that we knew separate from, from each other, the rabbi in town, there was only one, um, also a lesbian, um, singer. And the three of us got together and started singing three part harmony and then created a group called three Altos. And that's, that's been really fun to, to sing that way. Have you seen the documentary 20 feet from stardom that I, that helped me, like it is a skill it's like Nike, you have to pay attention and follow. And I feel like I love that. I actually love watching Sarah and singing, you know, following carefully and, and singing. And someone said once, oh, you, you look at her. So adoringly, it's like, no, I'm trying to follow her lead, but I'm not looking at her. It's really about, I have to watch it been
Speaker 2 00:14:38 Conducting choirs for three and a half decades. And every few years someone would say, have you met Sarah Thompson? She's got this choir in Duluth, or you need to meet Sarah you program such concerts. Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. Apparently she was getting the same nudges as I was in 2018. We were both part of an indigenous led waterwalk with a Jibo elder Sharon Day walking the length of the Wisconsin river. And we finally met for real turns out, oh, we have a lot in common. One of those commonalities is a shared commitment toward creating music that inspires action for social change. I asked Sarah to share a bit about that journey.
Speaker 0 00:15:23 I have to give a nod to just musicians that I listened to. That is kind of how I learned, learned. Wow, you can, you can like name things through song, you know, like the Pete Seeger's and Woody Guthrie and Mercedes Sosa and Odetta and, um, uh, all the folk and musical troubadours who have who I was like, wow, they music can be used in this way. So I, uh, um, well the most relevant one maybe right now is a song I wrote. Um, that's really based on our rural life as well as the national politics that we're facing right now. And, and that was too many roosters in the white house,
Speaker 3 00:16:16 Too many roosters in the white house, Cox Crow, feathers, fluff of the hands of had no bare neck feathers back to hope or act the blood spec. What the cluck cluck we going to do organize a chicken coup flat together. As on the prize, flat, flat up rise. We know exactly what to do. We have many, a few, we got a feather up and get down around the roosters out of town. What the cook cook. We all want to do organize a chicken coop, two minute foxes in the hand out, dressed up suit and SLAs, Nikki grins, flashy tie, still the eggs cut off the legs. Rats and rags truth in gags are what the clip clip. We all want to do organize a chicken goo flat together. As on the prize, flat, flat brass. We know exactly what to do. We have a few, we got a fender up and get down wrong. The roosters out of town. What the cluck cluck we'll want to do? Organize a chicken inspired by the chickens and our place. Yeah, I mean, they were Paula Paula called me
Speaker 4 00:17:50 In tears, tears because
Speaker 0 00:17:53 We had the little babies that were so cute in the spring had grown up to be no in the fall or in whatever, whatever time of year, it was all of a sudden we had too many roosters in our flock and they were bringing up on the hands. It was spring and they were beaten up on the hands.
Speaker 3 00:18:10 Right. When you kind of let them out of the coop and they, and then all of a sudden, oh my gosh, we had like seven hands and six roosters. And it was brutal. I think the other powerful one that you wrote right after the election, which was a way of communicating with your family was where did Jesus go? Yeah. And, and using the metaphors and, and realities of Jesus being a brown skin, you know, middle Eastern immigrant or migrant anyway. And, and that
Speaker 1 00:18:50 To make a point, Jesus go that brown skin, man walking in the road to Jericho. Tell me <inaudible> Jesus go. He's about to go do, I'm gonna stay by you. Love is love is all you do. It's bigger than me. And it's bigger than <inaudible> Jesus. <inaudible> Jesus. Now he's like, dude, it's bigger. Tell me what <inaudible> street <inaudible> for that story. I can't find him. She walked out the door to go off his son, Chicago, <inaudible> it it's bigger than me.
Speaker 2 00:22:51 I asked Sarah and Paula to talk about when they each came out and they both paused. We had this moment of recognition that coming out is not simple for anyone. Often it happens in phases over many years. You did it before I did
Speaker 0 00:23:10 Well. I'm trying to think. Cause there's all, you know, it's happens in all different contexts at different places along the way. Um, first you come out to your little sister as what my, you know, like, and then you come, you know? So, um, for me, it, it took a while in terms of coming out to the people nearest and dearest to me, um, except for, you know, uh, this before reference little sister who I was the first one to share it with, because I knew would not be a big, big deal. Um, so the first number of years that was not easy in terms of, um, sharing that with the rest of my family. Um, but in terms of where I was living and where we live now, it, it, that has not been, it has not been very hard to be out in the community that we, that we live in. Um, and it's been so many years ago since coming up, like now it, I wouldn't say it's a non-issue with all members of my family, but it there's definitely, uh, uh, love and acceptance for sure. They love an ex Paula. And, um, so we have that peace with there's a lot of peace that's come with the whole family issue that, that took a while.
Speaker 3 00:24:40 Yeah. So my story, so I was, um, at teaching faculty at the university of Minnesota Duluth from the time I got out of college and grad school. And so that's what brought me up to the area and I got, and I was married to a man, um, and my high school sweetheart, although we weren't in the same high school, he was from the area in Northern Minnesota, um, different story about how we met, but we, we dated long distance, six and a half years. I was 15, he was 17. Um, and it really was a beautiful thing for who I was in that part of my life. Um, and so for me, my coming out was, was very gradual and very intellectualized, I would say. Um, I, I, I S I studied, I taught human sexuality. I had to learn a lot, um, to teach.
Speaker 3 00:25:38 And I remember the moment, even in, in my marriage telling my then spouse, um, yeah, I, I'm probably bisexual, like, this makes sense to me. And, you know, so if so, if so, if you die, I'll probably check out know, I mean, it was just this intellectual exercise for me. Um, and, and at a point when our relationship, our marriage stopped working for me, um, that's, that's where I went. Um, so I, I was, I explored my sexuality and realized that this is a bigger part of me than I, than I, I realized. Um, and so we then w we split up, it was very hard on him. Um, understandably and I have this, and yet I was at the university in a very liberal environment, um, in the psychology department and teaching human sexuality and gender. And so it just felt like not that big a deal, um, to, to me in a lot of ways, except for my family.
Speaker 3 00:26:44 And so I did lose family for a period of time and, and we've, we've gotten each other back, but it was as much about leaving that, what, what then was a 20 year relationship, um, that I was being selfish and, you know, and he, he was in is a wonderful human being. So it was very hard for people to understand why that wasn't enough. Um, and how, how to explain to, to, to family who I believe had the ethic of you just bear it out. It doesn't, you know, no matter what. And, and for me to say, I just think there's something more than I want to explore. That was really not a good answer. Um, well, I still, I use the term and bisexual, which I found in some original Kinsey work because of my academic work.
Speaker 2 00:27:41 Alfred Kinsey was an American biologist who had a huge impact on how we think about human sexuality, way back in 1947. He founded the Institute for sex research at Indiana university. So you may have heard of his Kinsey scale. It's one of the oldest and most widely used scales describing sexual orientation, because his research was based on thousands of interviews with people about their sexual histories and behaviors. It's now outdated, but the Kinsey scale was groundbreaking at the time. It was one of the first models to suggest that sexuality isn't a binary where people are exclusively heterosexual or exclusively homosexual. Instead, the Kinsey scale acknowledges that sexual attraction for many people fall somewhere in the middle of those two binaries Kenzie's work continues to spark controversy as our understanding of human sexuality continues to expand, but it can't be denied that Kenzie had a great influence on broadening the way people think about sexual orientation and attraction even today.
Speaker 3 00:28:50 Um, what I loved about Amber sexual was this fluidity throughout the lifespan, that, that he really believed that it's not a static thing. Um, and there was like, wow, that really resonated for me because I loved my, I, I'm not saying his name for, you know, I loved him and that's who I was at the time as not who I am now. And so even when Sarah and I said our vows, I had to say, I, I did this once. And I said, till death do us part, and I meant it, I can't say, oh, this is who I was all along. And it just, but it just makes sense to me, is that how do we know who we're going to be 20 years from now? Um, but I know that's not everyone's sexuality story. So it's kind of hard to, it's even actually hard talk about within the LGBT community, because it sounds not right. Or, or, or like
Speaker 4 00:29:49 It there's that word selfish, like it's a choice. Well, it's a choice for me
Speaker 3 00:29:55 To decide if I'm going to honor who I am, which I'm grateful I did in 2000. And it was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life was to honor speaking of mental health. Um, you know, that was when I became healthy. It was when I honored who, who I was becoming, um, maybe more than who I was all along. I mean, so that's, you know, people could argue with and about that, but that's, that's my story. And I would say it's only been recently where we live now in a very rural environment where I I'm, I mean, that was, that was 2000. So what is it not? It was 22 years ago. I came out 2000, um, that, so it's been a long time, but I'm not no longer in that kind of liberal cocooned environment. And, and when we have like service people come out, who, who, I'm just not sure about, uh, I'm feeling it, you know, I'm, I'm feeling some, I don't know if it's fear internalized homophobia, what, but just a caution that I, I never felt before. And that's, that's unfortunate. I feel that's unfortunate, our neighbors that we have relationships with are great. It's the unknown folks that, you know, come to look at this tree that needs to cut down and just try to pick up on the energy and maybe the other one will stay in the house depending on how it seems. So, yeah, that's the, that's the other side.
Speaker 0 00:31:32 Yeah. I, I, well, I can share a story of, um, for me, and, and this was that time or pretty early on, post-college living with friends actually in New York city. This was before I moved to Minnesota, but I kind of had a, um, what might have been called as a mental health breakdown, uh, um, or at least a cry, like, uh, a crisis of the spirit, um, that, that I ended up, um, you know, in the psych ward and put on, put on meds and the whole thing, what I remember during that time, it was probably 11 days that I spent, um, they actually had like an art therapist, a dance therapist. And I can't remember for sure art and dance. I, you know, I don't remember there being, um, music, but it, you know, there was music as part of the dance therapy that had a huge impact on me.
Speaker 0 00:32:33 And I still think some of the struggles I was going through had to do with, with, um, you know, working through, through acceptance and nonacceptance, and I would say it was in terms of coming out as well as some struggles with the church at that time that I was more connected with. And it was a crisis of, of difference on a, on a, on a lot of levels. It was family, it was, it was faith. It was, and it was even with this, within this group of friends, you know, like, uh, feelings of betrayal, um, on a number of levels. So it ended up with a crisis and, and yet coming out of that, and, and during that time, the, the arts really the fact that there were those art therapists in that space at that time saved me. And I, I think ever since that time, I realized that, um, that, that it needed to no longer be a side thing for me, like the arts that the arts was not a fringe part of my life, but like the bread and butter, but it was my vocation or my calling for my own mental health.
Speaker 0 00:33:52 Like I needed to be doing, I needed to be, be, um, coming out as an artist. Really. I think the arts helped me heal and continue to, like, if I don't have that in my life, um, it's, it's, it's a piece of work.
Speaker 3 00:34:09 I'm a psychologist, a licensed psychologist I'm, um, trained very traditionally I didn't therapy. Um, for years before I, before and while I was teaching and Sarah has taught me so much, um, outside of the box of, you know, not in, not only what you just described as what was most helpful in therapeutic to you, but how we might even define mental, mental health or mental non-health or mental illness is, is so I've become, I became a critic of my own discipline. Um, the, the more that I kind of opened myself up to Sarah and Sarah's world, and Sarah's way of being, which I mean, artists think and do the world differently. And, and I think, you know, I love just that notion that if Sarah and people like Sarah can't express their art, they're not healthy and whole, and, and that's a powerful lesson for all of us who do mental health work to, to be in touch with. And, and I it's probably with anything. Um, but particularly, um, artists, I think we, we tend to kind of label can, can label you as in that aren't, aren't necessarily always helpful.
Speaker 0 00:35:39 And why don't we, um, do that same naming of really there's systems that are mentally unhealthy, or, you know, we don't name here, this, you know, thinking of things like systemic racism that is mental unhealth
Speaker 3 00:35:57 That's I got snippets of that taking courses in what was then women's studies now it's women, gender and sexuality studies, um, or, or now queer studies, or like that kind of just even queering up our thinking, um, which was not part of traditional psychology at the time, but it's an advertisement too, for a liberal arts education. That's for sure. And cross disciplinary ways of knowing. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:36:29 Since Sarah and I met in 2018, we have managed to find many ways to collaborate together. One of them is as co-writers and creators of a concert, that one voice will premiere in September, 2021 called remembering singing water, the concert combines music and true stories of indigenous people, immigrants, and queer folks, their experiences of Minnesota as a place of both homecoming and of exile because of the pandemic, the music for remembering was recorded virtually this winter. Literally our singers recorded their own voices on their own phones at home, including Sarah. And then all of those voices were edited together. Just last weekend. We gathered outside to film the songs and stories, which you, our listeners are going to be able to experience as a film this fall. We're going to give you a sneak preview of one of the songs we recorded. This is Sarah's water is life. Many were Choni. The
Speaker 0 00:37:26 Origin of that song was at standing rock in North Dakota when the Lakota and Dakota took a stand, um, against the Dakota access pipeline that was going to be built across the Missouri river, right north of, um, the resume, the standing rock Sioux reservation. And so the standing rock, uh, nation stood up and then all, all ni you know, the other Lakota and Dakota peoples came together as well as indigenous and non-indigenous folks from across not only our country, but the world to, um, to address that issue. And so I went for just a small bit of time during, during that. Um, and that song was kind of born from being there at the, at the camp, um, and many would Shoney, which is water's life in Lakota and Dakota was, uh, was, and continues, be a call for protecting the waters. And I began sharing it with my choir and there was actually a Lakota and a jib boy, man, that, that, that, uh, came up to me after one of the practices,
Speaker 4 00:38:51 Sorry, the neighbors are working on their motorcycle,
Speaker 0 00:38:55 Um, and said, kinda offered, um, or said, what about adding this part, which was the <inaudible> and the, all my relations, we are all related part to the chorus. So it's, it's a song that evolved over time. And then we sang it on the Missouri river. Waterwalk led by Sharon Day in 2017. And Sharon added the, uh, the part, the <inaudible> part that we sang during, during that walk. There's a choir that sang it in singing for water in London. There's news that will travel to me the, of, uh, you know, being sung in various places around the world. It's a song for the water, for the protection of rivers, lakes, streams, everywhere, but it began at standing rock
Speaker 1 00:40:12 <inaudible> <inaudible> <inaudible> <inaudible> <inaudible> <inaudible> nation <inaudible>
Speaker 0 00:44:31 This week, just in our personal life. We had a dear friend who we thought would be with us longer and got, got the call that, you know, she might be gone in the next 24 hours. And we hopped in our car and went to sing at her bedside, you know, and, and music, music is one of those things that can be, can help us be present to someone as they're leaving this world. So that happened this week. Um, and a few days after that, we showed up at another friend's house who happens to be the mayor of to-dos, but showed up to sing for her because a week prior, um, there had been a parading up and down her street with a lot of, um, I would say hateful rhetoric coming spewing from the vehicles that passed up and down for 30 minutes, um, truck parade, a truck parade
Speaker 2 00:45:37 Last September, president Donald Trump held a rally in Duluth before the November election, over 2,500 Trump supporters showed up, which was well over the 250 person limit agreed to bond by the campaign. You might remember there was a COVID pandemic and full swing at the time. So democratic Duluth mayor, Emily Larson spoke out, condemning the rally, and that prompted a parade of Trump supporters to circle her Duluth home and trucks playing loud music, flying trumped flags, blocking traffic and yelling, well yelling, hateful messages at mayor Emily.
Speaker 0 00:46:16 And, you know, we were like, how could we show up unexpected, but to bring a positive something to, and so we, we showed up and, and sang a song for a hundred porch for Emily on her porch. Yeah. So, but how do we, how can music and the arts shift the energy, it can transform negative energy and, um, just shift things in a moment and make us be able to take a breath. Oh, I was gonna say yeast, like you
Speaker 3 00:46:53 See it, like some of that as being yeast for something for transformation, but the starter. Yeah. Sourdough starter.
Speaker 4 00:47:06 There you go. I'm hearing a song coming in. It's called for Emily on her porch. Are you ready? No, that was your prompt, Sarah, because really that story of what happened in Duluth last week. Um, it's just one another important story told. Yep. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:47:29 Indeed. Sarah tells me she has written at least 70 songs in her lifetime. There was a link to Sarah's website on the sound mind page. So check out more of her music, buy a CD and support Sarah and other first responder musicians. We're going to close with an excerpt of a song on Sarah's most recent CD. That seems pretty perfect for the world we're living in right now. Thank you, Sarah and Paula for the music, wisdom and inspiration toward action. That sprouts from your rural home, alongside your flowers, vegetables
Speaker 1 00:48:07 <inaudible> turn free. What is your story now? Hey, tell us fortresses crumbling governments as they drown. <inaudible> Tom <inaudible> <inaudible> country, such as <inaudible>. This
Speaker 2 00:49:58 Concludes episode five of sound mind from one voice mixed chorus, Minnesota's LGBTQ and straight allies. Chorus. If you want to support this podcast, there is a one voice donation button at the bottom of the sound mind webpage, all gifts are graciously welcomed. This podcast is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through the Minnesota state arts board. Thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund. Yay, Minnesota voters. Thank you to audio engineer playwright and all around smart tech person. Paul Cruz. Join us for the next and final for now. Sound mind episode, I'll be talking with actor dancers, singer Renaissance, woman Kumani Kaleel who lives in crystal, Minnesota, Kimani weaves a darn good story and has an infectious laugh that will keep you smiling. The rest of the day.
Speaker 1 00:50:56 <inaudible> turn free. What is your story now?
