Thank You

Music, lyrics, vocals and guitar – Joe Reilly
Djembe – Thầy Pháp Sơn
Percussion – Chân Pháp Lưu
Backup vocals – Sangha Choir

Thank you for fathers and mothers,
Thank you for sisters and brothers
For sons and for daughters
For the earth and the waters.

Thank you for bright days and dark nights,

For death and for new life.
Each breath we renew life
It’s you who renews life.

And in these times when pain does rise
And I self-criticize, demoralize, over-analyze
Angel spirits wise help to turn my eyes
From looking inside to the skies.

“The sun still shines,” they remind
Even when it resides behind clouds and hides
And each day tides are pulled by the moon
And tonight the moon is full and bright
My gaze is on its light reflecting on snow so white
Fallen from an atmospheric height,
An ancient sacred rite of water, wind and light.

(Chorus)

And all I know is to walk out below
The stars and show
The ancestors who flow through me
That I can be free.

Thank you for fathers and mothers,
Thank you for sisters and brothers,
For sons and for daughters
For the earth and the waters.

Thank you for bright days and dark nights,
For death and for new life.
Each breath we renew life
It’s you who renews life.

Thank you.

Way haw, way haw, way haw

Miigwetch G’chi Manidou
(Ojibway/Anishnaabe: “Thank You Great Spirit”)