Wren-King Quail

I wrote this song for my Father.

In response to a songwriting challenge in Marya Stark's Voice of my Womb Rose Petalled Path Temple of the Muse course, this song was born.

The challenge was to ask a question and then choose 3 random books and open to 3 random pages and see what they say when you open them.

Then collect these messages together as an oracle and write a song about it.

Well, I chose to ask a question about love, since I had arrived to my Dad's house for safe harbor in CA after leaving my partner and home.

I wanted to know more about what real love feels like.

First, I opened to a book on native plants and animals of the Bay Area, CA. It was a page about the 'King Quail' and how protective male birds are of their eggs in the nest.

I thought of how familial love and it's protectiveness is such a powerful force. I've been walking in the mornings on my Dad's favorite trail on the Carquinez Straight, so I decided to write about that.

The second book I opened to was an advice column book. I opened to a page with advice to an older 37 year old woman (which was a synchronicity since i'm 37) about how once you're not able to reproduce and have children as easily, romance and sexuality becomes rechanneled for other creative means.

So I wove this aspect into the song as well, as my release into the creek and waters my lost loves and lost expectations of having my own family.

Finally, I opened a self help book to a practice about limiting beliefs, and how to go through the process of trying to prove them to be true until we realize they're not.

So I wrote about this at the end of the song, and about how I really need the kind of love my Father provides when we walk through the woods.

Quiet companionship and commitment, protectiveness, and kinship. And thus, King Quail was born.

As I practiced, my sister Meg developed harmonies to the song, and everyone in the family including the kids learned the words.

It's become a treasured song spell for us!!!

Here are the lyrics:

King Quail, King Quail
Tell me a fairytale about love
About love

King Quail, King Quail
Tell me a fairytale about love
About love

I was called by the quail
to walk along the George Miller trail
Misty Morning
Owl cried a call
And I remember it all

I remember it all

King Quail King Quail
Tell me a Fairytale
About Love
About Love

King Quail, King Quail
Tell me a Fairytale
About Love
About Love

I'm much older now
I've seen the oak
rise and fall

I've walked this path
for miles and miles
and I never go it alone

Cuz I know the fox
is following my trail
That my father's love
was the first that was real

And if I wanna die
Happy and free
Just lay me down
underneath
the bay laurel tree

King Quail, King Quail
Tell me a fairytale about love
About love

King Quail, King Quail
Tell me a fairytale about love
about love

I'll return the tears i've shed
from lost love into the creek
I'll release all of my worries
Till i remember I am me

Like the newt and the frog
and the hovering coopers hawk
putting mugwort in my hair
feel the water in the air
lupin seed and woodland star
hear coyote from afar

till i realize
my limited belief
that love was something
physical to me

cuz if you
cant walk
and you wont wait
you'll never know
Carquinez Straight