September 2006


 

Donna Phillips: passionate arts and education professional!

By TINA ARNOPOLE DRISKILL

Donna Phillips has devoted much of her life to folk music, a genre she views as centered in important life issues, both political and personal, shared in song. She embraces the power of words, which she traces back to what she considers the “bliss” of studying Shakespeare, Canterbury Tales and other poetry, plays and prose during her high school years.

Her first singing performance (probably with original lyrics) occurred in church as a toddler while still standing on the pew bench singing happily after every one else finished the song and sat down! According to Donna’s mother the minister loudly stated, “Oh my, if we all had the enthusiasm of this little girl, what a congregation we would have”. Her enthusiasm for words, music and communication remains.

The power of communication through words and music has always attracted Donna, and as a songwriter, she is amazed by the process. Sometimes the music comes first and seems to secure itself and then right when she wonders if it will just be a melody.....the words will come tumbling forth.

“Once after performing at a restaurant, “Come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, let’s love one another right now,” a man aggressively walked up to her and spat out, “You communist!” and then left the room. The large group of people gasped and then several in unison said, “Sing it again!” Some even sang along with her, which opened her eyes to the power of folk music and words that carry a message.

She is one of the annual speakers at the California State Capitol Tobacco Survivors Memorial in September, and last year she sang the Tobacco Blues Song, which she wrote after she realizing the devastation her family suffered through the use of tobacco.

She was honored with the Gold Country Tobacco Prevention Coalition’s 2001 “Heroes Award” in recognition for her decade-long accomplishments and contributions to tobacco control in Stanislaus County as a Health Education Assistant. Her songwriting skills were used to develop public service announcements and presentations for tobacco prevention education. Her song’s timeless message is, “I do not smoke now, I never will. Why should I smoke, it makes me ill (cough cough) If you’re my friend, Don’t smoke by me...I need my life to be healthy and smoke free!”

Both professionally and personally, she knows the deadly effects of tobacco use. Donna’s maternal/paternal grandparents, mother, father and brother (lung cancer from second hand smoke) all died from tobacco use! In 1990 she received training from the American Lung Association to be a Freedom from Smoking Facilitator and gave cessation classes throughout the community in schools, hospitals and corporations and for WIC clients. “It was a profound experience facilitating these classes,” she says, “when they graduated tobacco free knowing that their families will not experience the losses she has.”

Donna looks to her family as a major influence in her writing and creative work. Both her paternal grandfather and her maternal grandmother wrote poetry. She considers her brother, a prolific political writer, “way ahead of his time in alerting people to the true agenda of our government’s actions at the time.

Her first remembrance of writing poetry was in early grammar school days. She was taken aback when the teacher asked who wrote the poem she turned in! That poem was, “I climbed the green hill and picked a golden daffodil.” Donna vividly remembers saying, “I did, isn’t that what you asked us to do?” Once someone asked why Donna wrote, her spontaneous answer was, “Because it is there.”

Donna has performed in over thirty Townsend Opera productions earning honors as a TOP Positive Force over a 15 year period.

An artist for the Stanislaus Arts Council’s STARS Program since 1990, she has brought her folk music to numerous elementary school children. She is a facilitator for The Parents Institute for Quality Education and a Stanislaus County substitute teacher.

ONE GREAT FAMILY TREE ARE WE

Sun will rise and rain will fall, these gifts of life are for one and all.
Families grow with the seeds they sow. What will you do with the life given you?
For One Great Family Tree are We
Roots deep within all Humanity

Homeless people in broken dreams, some may look yet never see.
They call to the heart of you and me. What will you do with the truth inside of you?
For One Great Family Tree are We
Roots deep within all Humanity

Some will Chant and some will Pray, each one has their Sacred Way.
Prophets through the ages say, what will you do with the Light inside of you?
For One Great Family Tree are We
Roots deep within all Humanity

Whenever one will rise or fall, it shall affect us all.....
What will we do when this truth shines through
Knowing One Great Family Tree are We
Roots deep within all Humanity.

A CANDLE

A candle lit for deep prayer
reminding a pierced heart hope is there.

A candle to the rescue when electricity is dead
guides you softly and safely to your dreamtime bed.

Brave souls have marched together candles held high
with freedoms voice soaring to the sky.

Wax and wick will the candle remain
until your passion ignites the flame!

ONE LOVING HEART

Father can I help you, take my hand
I feel the hunger Mother, children fill this land
and the sun keeps arising and the moon shines at night.
one loving heart shines bright.

Can you hear the music surrounding you?
Your song in life from what you do
while the sun's singing its song of life
with the moon's melody changing you and me.

Brothers and sisters let us be
working for life within all humanity
while the sun keeps arising and the moon shines at night
knowing one loving heart shines bright!

I SHALL BE AS THEE

I shall be as thee
sweet fragrance of the full blooming flower
that knows not whom may pass their way,
giving what is the essence of their growth to life... and
living thus blooms ever brighter!

I shall be as thee
sweet singing birds of light
heralding inner changes before their flight,
to welcoming hearts with resonate joy bringing...and
in living thus complete unto life!

I shall be as thee
sweet passion of love that no vessel can contain
where truth doth reign and dreams of the soul stir
from their slumber to awaken and be...and
in living thus become one with thee!

TOBACCO BLUES

DO YOU BEGIN EACH DAY SMOKING YOUR LIFE AWAY
WASTING YOUR MONEY MAKING YOU SO ILL?
THE BREATH OF LIFE YOU NEED!
TURN FROM TOBACCO’S GREED!
YOU’LL PLANT THE SEED TO LIVE WITH DIGNITY.

My brother’s gone today THEY smoked his lungs away!
Second-hand smoke it kills with no regrets!
You bet a life on death with the tobacco breath taking innocent ones straight through hell

OH WELL, A SMOKERS CHOICE THEY SAY
MILLIONS OF DOLLARS SPENT EACH DAY -TOBACCO ADS POWER & GLITZ
WITH A SEXUAL BLITZ!
IT’S THEIR SCAM YOU SEE
AND ONCE HOOKED YOU’LL BE, PRAYING TO BE, TOBACCO FREE
I’VE GOT THE TOBACCO BLUES BECAUSE MY FAMILY USED TOBACCO PRODUCTS YEAR AFTER YEAR
‘TIL THE DAY THEY FOUND THEIR HEALTH’S NO LONGER SOUND
AND NOW THEIR FUTURE’S 6 FEET UNDERGROUND!


DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS

Dungeons and dragons darkness and fire
Lives held in bondage consumed by desire
Don your armor bright, sound forth the songs of light
Time for the Quest to begin.

Worlds of words spinning madly through my mind
Keeps me a prisoner in this fantasy called time
Who cast that spell I memorized so well
Thinking this dungeon is my home.

Journey now with wings of gossamer light
Make easy this journey your true birthright
Our Mother is dying, the dragons attack
And sorcerers potions can't ever bring her back.

Dungeons and dragons, darkness and fire
Lives held in bondage consumed by desire
Don your armor bright, sound forth the songs of light
Time for the Quest to begin.

BEAUTY SO NEAR

I know how a tree gets to dance! Invitations the wind for the chance
to sway to and fro with the sunlight's shimmering glow,
and I standing here marvel at this beauty so near.

Seeds gliding down to the ground with the wind a new home is found
Roots ready take hold, secure now grow bold,
and I sitting here marvel at this beauty so near.

These visions are apart of me. I've danced with the wind and the sunlight you see
with seeds of thought the wind has brought,
and I dancing here marvel at this beauty so near.

Yes I know how a tree gets to dance! Invitations the wind for the chance
to sway to and fro with the sunlight's shimmering glow
while I being here marvel at this beauty so near.