 My first musical. We're so happy you're here. This is a 45-minute mindfulness musical that's participatory and I'll get into that more in a moment. My name is Ginger Cloud. I'm the author of the play and I'm a member of Cultivating Peace Vermont, our host. Yay, thank you! Cultivating Peace Vermont is a local nonprofit committed to peaceful engagement activities and offering mindfulness practices for the community and so this is one of those. These performances are free and your donation is appreciated. It goes to our cast and over here is a table with a little donation basket if you so choose. There are porta-potties back over there, the information table and in the program, hopefully everyone got a program. If you didn't they're also at the information table. There's also ways to donate if you want to do it online or another day or time. Before we start, when we ask you to hold your applause, we have many people to thank. Most importantly, our cast of Earthkeepers. This is a courageous group of women that have been practicing since April and really co-created this play and this performance. It's been a delight to work with them and a real honor. We have Daryl Brown on percussion and we're so thankful for his rhythm and style. We have Mary Mulaney as our bell master and Beth Mueller created our beautiful poster if you've seen it. She's an incredible local artist so we're very thankful to her as well. Sending deep gratitude to the many individual and business sponsors of this event, we want to acknowledge our sound and technical coordinator, Lisa Smith, our stage manager, Richard McIntyre, our musical director, Heidi Wilson, our seamstress, Chandra Shaket and other volunteers that have supported this performance over the past year. We call out to our land spiritual and blood ancestors that have brought us here today. We acknowledge that we're performing on Abenaki land and we invite healing into the space. This is, as I said, a participatory musical so we hope you will sing along. There are lyrics in your program in bold. There is another way you can participate as well. We have this circle of care here with the flowers and there's bowls of water and this is set up for our friends, our family, maybe even ourselves that have been impacted by war and we have some paper over at the table that's dissolving paper and we invite you to write names of loved ones on the paper or maybe even land that's been bombed on the paper and as it dissolves in the bowls of water it seeks to release the holding patterns of suffering associated with war so we hope you'll participate and you can put the paper in the water really anytime. We also have a bell of mindfulness that gets rung a lot and so we hope that you will enjoy some deep breathing during that. Lastly, we ask that you hold your applause until the end of the performance. You're welcome to show us happy hands or snaps in between songs and we're so thankful that you're here. We have another performance at 5.30 tonight if you want to come back and participate more or tell friends. Thank you. And suffering begin to dissolve. My mind is calm and my body relaxed and a smile is born on my lips. Following the bell sound my breathing guides me back to the safe island of mindfulness and in the garden of my heart the flower of peace blooms beautifully. It's between Mother Earth and humanity. Voice and action. Water song all to the elements. Audience we participate in this call and response song. Shy downs and strong trees all beings belong to one another and to the earth and there is no escape from war. College didn't work for my father. He decided to join the marines. He sought a life that was familiar one of hurting and harming other beings. As a child I grew up with his anger. As a child I became a witness to so much more. Two sisters and my brother we all learned what it was like to live with war. We all saw my father's battles. We know what it was like to be poor. Time to be a father when you're a veteran. Too many wounds they go they go unhealed. The unspoken awareness of war's broken home. The in my sisters. The Vietnam War is alive in my brother. Self love, human love and love of the earth let you to focus your attention on an element of marine life. A dolphin, a shark, a plankton in life. And as we sing we will be sending our collective love to the ocean with the intention of rebirthing life that is on the end of death due to human beings. A rain cloud will appear over the ocean raining down collective energy as medicine. Ocean alive, sea up, the oceans and the seas are alive. Ocean alive, the oceans and the seas are alive. The oceans and the seas are alive. And to love and to be peaceful. Nature now, peace happen now. As long as we inter are, we of a separate self. Participating and we have another show at 5.30.