“I believe that community singing, which I define as, when a group of folks come together and they sing songs together that are easy enough lyrically and easy enough melodically to be taught in the moment. And then we sing these songs, which I personally call spells or prayers together that are amplified and help put us in some sort of altered state through the process of singing these songs, it's a technology for belonging. It's a technology for metabolizing grief.”
~ Alexandra Blakely (AKA ahlay)
From the moment she dropped into our opening invitation to a deep breath, with an admitted mix of tension in her body and openness in her heart, artist, singer-songwriter, communal grief tender and community organizer Alexandra "Ahlay" Blakely took us on an unforgettable journey. In this profound and inspiring conversation, we touch on the nuances and complexities of navigating this tumultuous time in the world and how songs can help us move our grief through our bodies in a way the mind can’t and doesn’t have to understand. In reframing communal singing as our inherent birthright, she speaks to the shame many of us have around our singing voices, shares the sense of belonging found in song circles and how songs can be spells casting an impact far beyond immediate time and place. In sharing her journey from backup pop singer to activist to ritual and community song circle facilitator, Ahlay proves a compelling storyteller — you won’t want to miss the dream she shares about whales, among so many other moments in this episode, including when she and Naila discover their profound affinity for whales has more in common than they could have imagined.
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About Alexandra Blakely
ahlay (alexandra blakely) is a dreamer of Whale, Tsunami, and Rain, an apprentice to Lightning and Fire, an artist, singer-songwriter, community organizer and soul guide in training. She is a descendent of Ashkenazi, Scandinavian and British folk and a commitment to breaking the cycles of intergenerational trauma both caused and endured by her ancestors. This commitment unfolds through the mediums of authentic relationship, song and storytelling, ritual and spell casting in ways that acknowledge our varied and intricate histories and identities, emphasizing a devotion to remembering our symbiotic relationship within the natural world.
ahlay has been deeply involved in community activism, communal grief tending and community singing. She is a lifelong student of decolonization, anti-racism and her own ancestral deracination preceeding diasporas. She gets curious about how the individual psyche, embodiment, shadow and trauma responses can be applied to collective and cultural bodies. She has trained with generative somatics, Education for Racial Equity, Animas Valley Institute, The Work that Reconnects, Holistic Resistance, Francis Weller and Laurence Cole. Her community singing albums encapsulate songs for the community to transform, ask questions, and seek to lead lives in service to the future ones. Her upcoming 2024 community singing album, WAILS: Songs for Grief was recorded in July 2023 with a choir of 200 voices.
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Featured Songs:
Spell
written and sung by alexandra blakely
co-produced and mixed by Michael Linder
mastered by Todd Boston
Find the following songs on Bandcamp:
https://ahlayblakely.bandcamp.com/
Grief Mother
Surrender
Carry this All
Mentioned in this episode:
Ahlay Blakely:
More on whales:
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