Day Of Jubilee

We are made to learn and be healed by stories. This song celebrates that ancient truth. It originally appeared as the title track to Storyteller.

My original songwriting mentor taught me to write exactly what I felt. As I sang for an audience of homeless people, I realized that I truly didn't understand their situation– and the result is this song.

As I progressed in my aikido studies, I realized that the labels that had become so dear to me were also holding me back.

The idea of periodic debt release arises from the Old and New covenants– reflected in the instrumental piece that starts the song. But wholesale debt release has consequences...

What if we were to discover that immortality was possible only at the cost of our creativity? Sharon Webb explored this idea in her trio of YA novels, and the song summarizes this exploration.

A song every musician needs to hear.

You really can do a home DNA prep– though sequencing is a stretch...

We think of pilots as technically competent highly-trained people– but what if flying at superluminal speeds requires spiritual rather than technical talent?

People with gender identity issues face a horrible uninvited dilemma.

If the only people who can fly starships are born with the talent, you're stuck with who you get– even if your pilot is a snotty, irresponsible adolescent girl.

This song turned out to be horribly prescient. Who knew how low we'd eventually be brought by debt?

This is the reason I left my musical career to map genes in a little weed.

If you were at risk for Huntington disease, and a genetic test would let you know whether you were going to get it, would you get tested? If you received a negative result, would you feel survivor's guilt? What would you do if you knew that, even though at the moment you felt fine, your life would be cut short by 10 years or more? The quote from Francisco Tarrega's Recuerdos de la Alhambra is used here to symbolize that the person in the song has solved the dilemma– and her life will never be the same again.

Written about solar sailors, the sentiment nevertheless applies perfectly to all explorers, whatever their mode of transportation.

This Shaker hymn holds the solution to many of our modern problems. Oh, if only we could figure out the best way to capture the gift of simplicity!