Orenda

Lyrics

[Intro]
Little stone in my palm.
Colder than the air before dawn.
You feel like a promise I am making to myself.

[Verse 1]
They call you chert, they call you flint.
A breakable piece of the earth.
But my grandfather's grandfather broke you just right.
He saw the edge inside you, waiting.
And my thumb, here, on this curve...
it feels the hum. Not a memory. A current.
A will to be sharp.

[Verse 2]
Outside the longhouse, the dark is still deep.
The Seneca woods don't owe me a thing.
The deer has its own power, its own story for the day.
The frost has its own mind, a will to bite deep.
I have only this breath, this hunger, and you.
This small, grey point of intention.

[Chorus]
This is the push against the grain of the world.
The heat that rises from the belly to the hand.
It’s the prayer that isn’t asking.
It is telling.
The quiet word that says 'I am here, and I will.'
This is Orenda.
The force that decides the story.

[Verse 3]
A man came, with a notebook and careful hands.
J.N.B. Hewitt, it was 1902.
He tried to write you down, little stone.
He called it 'mystic potency,' 'immanent will.'
Good words. But he couldn't write the weight of you in a cold palm.
He couldn't write the way you change the shape of my hand.

[Bridge]
My Orenda is not the only one.
The river has a will to the sea.
The storm has a will to break the branch.
The tobacco in my pouch has a will to make smoke that speaks.
I am not shouting into the void.
I am adding my voice to the choir.

[Outro]
So, little stone.
Let my will be your edge.
Let your edge be my breakfast.
Let's go affect the world.