(Joseph MacRae, June 7, 2023. Image from here.)
Before Embarking:
A road traversing Jordan known as the "King's Highway" is mentioned in the Bible's Old Testament as the route that Moses asked permission to cross after leading the Israelites out of Egypt. This road has been in continuous use since at least the 8th Century BCE…. "We keep following the footsteps of our ancestors,"... according to Abudanah, in ancient times, the King's Highway was an important trade route connecting Arabia, the Fertile Crescent, the Red Sea and Egypt… For centuries, the road was also an important pilgrimage route. In the Byzantine period, Christians used it on their way to visit biblical sites in the Holy Land, such as Golgotha, the site of Jesus crucifixion. In the early Islamic period, many Muslims travelled along it on their way to Mecca.-–from BBC Travel, The Open Road
Joseph's Backstory:
Well, a couple of weeks ago I went to this little old mountain village church out into a place called lobster valley. It's a very small small congregation. I like the preacher there and all, and the people. They didn't have any electronics in a church. No microphones. No video cameras or nothing, it was just, they didn't have instruments. It was just all the old-timey like singing. Well when I got done, about half a mile up the road there's a turn off called Hazel Glen Road. So I was interested in if it went over the mountain and if it would hit this other highway on the other side not a real highway, a county road.
Anyway, about two and a half miles out you come to the end of the houses. And there's a sign that says "end of county maintenance", then you're on a one lane gravel logging road that goes up over, and goes along, crosses a stream and goes up over a mountain. And eventually it's a county road on the other side, to go from the valley to a town called Florence on the ocean.
Well, anyway, I pulled off on this one little pull off overlooking this stream, I believe it was probably Lobster Creek maybe. And I dropped the tailgate, was sitting on it, on my truck, and it dawned on me there was something missing here. I should be doing something. I was looking at all around, the forest. It was trying to recover from all the total devastation of the logging that has been going on up there for the last 40 years. And it was really, it was recovering itself.
And I was thinking that, no, something's wrong, missing here. So then it dawned on me. And then I had a chance to buy this cheap guitar at a close out sale and I says, this is what was missing up on Glen Road that day, I needed to be up there on the tailgate singing to nature.
So, somewhere along the line these lyrics had come to me, and I added on a bit over time.
And this is kind of my tailgate song. The lyrics will change depending on where I’m at because I'll be looking at different things. But this to me is just going to be what I call a tailgate song, sitting on the tailgate of my pickup truck enjoying nature and giving this. The only thing I can really give back to nature is just a song. So let it be, I'll sing to all things on the King's highway.
For lyrics, see here.
*From prompt: Create as inspired today, after hearing Haiku excerpts from BOOK OF HOURS by
Jan Constantinescu (prompted through Abbey of the Arts on-line summer retreat); from Reverend Dr. Victoria Marie’s Art As Spiritual Practice group, June 7, 2023.
