"Right Place Right Time" is an original song, prompted by this week's Steemit Open Mic Songwriters Challenge. You can be the first to hear it.

“Right Place Right Time”

The Story

The songwriting theme is "Right Place and/or Right Time," and that's exactly where and when I found myself this past week. It's been a wild journey! I had the rare opportunity to film and photograph a historic Native American ceremony celebrating the life of Mary Elizabeth Thunder. She made her passage on December 28, 2017, and yet she was still with us through the entirety of a 4-day wake.

On the night when I first arrived at Thunder Ranch, I participated in a "Devotional" ceremony, in the tradition of the Native American Church. Although this ceremony is usually held in a tipi, this one took place inside of a fortress, and I stood on a stairwell with my camera planted above two chiefs. Now, imagine capturing pictures of chiefs wearing sacred bird feathers, carrying ancient artifacts, working with peyote medicine, and immersing themselves in the spirit realm.

This dream come true lasted three days, and it continues to last. Late in the night following this first meeting, I slept under the stars, with the moon shining behind the clouds. Shivering cold, I bundled myself into a sleeping bags inside another sleeping bag, watching the clouds dancing in the moonlight, and then the rain came, misting mystically. Magical really, considering the weather report: 0% chance of rain that day. I'll say about that much.

I sketched this illustration on the fly, in the force of many medicines. It abstractly reveals a scene in the Sun Dance arena, decorated in buffalo skulls, with people gathering in a ring around the "Tree of Life"–a 70-foot cottonwood tree that I helped chop down and transplant here last Spring. Prayer flags and feathers were flying, along with Mary Elizabeth Thunder.

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The Lyrics

Right place right time
The stars align
Right here right now
Some way somehow

In the sleeping meadow fire flickers awake
Dreams dashing away like a mustang
Hooves and heart lub-dubbing with booming
I hoot and howl like a wolf to the moon

Right place right time...

Fire flashes at my feet on the ground
Rising through the top of my crown
And the wind lifts my breath like a rattlesnake ghost
As a prayer goes up in smoke

Right place right time…

Some invisible force is moving me to tears
Eyes stinging as I face my fears
Throat burning I am all out of words
I sit and listen to the singing birds

Right place right time…

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This sketch visualizes the scene I described above, with the moon obscured by clouds, and the sky crying.

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The Acknowledgements

I'm grateful to @meno and @luzcypher for bringing us the #openmicsongwriters community challenge. I'll say once again that I am so grateful for the #openmic as a whole: the hosts, the audience, the songwriters... This event lights me up week after week. I am impressed and delighted to see the growth of these Open Mic events as well as many levels of growth I see in certain participants, including myself. Thank you to all of you.

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This post contains 100% original content by @cabelindsay.