INTERVIEWER: Kelly M. Pattison G--\5g TAPE NO.: 3.15.95 -CC INTERVIEWEE: Cynthia R. Crossen MONO (X) STEREO NO. OF SIDES: 2 NO. OF TAPES: 1 of 1 INTERVIEW DATE: 3/15/95 LOCATION: The deck of Cynthia Crossen's house in Pitts boro, NC. 000 Opening Announcement 006 A discussion of some of Crossen's earliest performances and songwriting. 010 A discussion of Crossen's songwriting. "If I had an occasion to sing at that I didn't have a good song for, I would write one, if I could." "When I first started playing guitar, I guess I was about 24, maybe 25, maybe that's 20 years ago, I started writing songs right at the same time, it just happened." 020 First mention of music as a tool and "The Goddess Suite" as a turning point. "I just do what I do, believe strongly in music as a tool and as a community builder and use it whenever I can get a chance." 028 The difference between performing music and making music in a group. Says she has put a lot into her song writing. "I never set out to be a performer and I don't really think of myself as a great performer. It's something I can do and I've learned to do and I've enjoyed somewhat, but where I feel most comfortable is making music in a group." 039 A discussion of "The Goddess Suite" - Crossen was given a gift of inspiration. "It really feels like some spirit is singing a song through you and all you have to do is open up to it and it's there." "One time at work, I, this, the Artemis piece, I just started hearing it and I just was, had to go to the music store and get some music paper." 065 First mention of the feminist spirituality movement. Crossen discusse her involvement with women choral groups. "I guess that piece (The Goddess Suite) has grown since I've been involved with the feminist spirituality movement that has grown in the culture at large... I am very inspired by the women's spirituality movement. It's very exciting to me. It's a culture that really only women have created." 080 Women's spirit gatherings and how much she enjoys the women's spirituality movement. "It just blows me away that there's this living culture that isn't based on money, it isn't based on anything but spiritual needs." 090 Crossen discusses the community of women musicians, talks about her involvement with the performing group "Pomegranate Rose." "And there's all kinds of women, like me, who are all over the country, singing songs and writing songs, and passing on songs. And it's very exciting for me to be part of that, to be part of that new folk music that's very much alive." 111 Her recent work in a women's singing group. It's a place where I can share and get appreciated for my songwriting while I'm not performing anymore." 125 Discussion of music as a tool. "I think music is, is an incredible tool. It changes the energy." "I think songs are tools. They're tools for social change, their tools for education, they're tools for, umm, personal spiritual growth and they're tools for community building. And I believe really strongly in in. I'm a kind of a song missionary."
141 Nature as her artisitc starting point, how pivotal it is in her music. "And since the first songs I've written, they've always had natural images and because that's a source of feeling and inspiration." 150 Her first encounters with nature as a child. "We had just a tiny backyard in suburbia that I would find secret places and find bushes that I was sure had fairies in them." "Sometimes I have dreams that I for some reason am moving to a suburban neighborhood and I'm crying and saying "Why am I doing this?" 168 Crossen talks about the holiness of the earth. "This is a ground that I walk on, the ground that supports me in a lot of ways. And that's going to come through in music. And I also feel like I have I feel called to remind people of that holiness in the earth." 178 Growing up as a Protestant and her two sides." had a very, a very wild, mystical side as a kid...but, on the other hand, I was a good little girl and I went to church." 189 Discussion of disappointment with Christian church. "There are inspiring Christian leaders and I did not get exposed to them. I got exposed to people that had know idea why an eighth-grader would be interested in what Jesus really meant when he gave two contradictory, you know, messages." 210 How she loved goddessed as a kid. "Even as a young child I felt like Cynthia/Artemis is the same name.... And so umm I felt mystically connected in a lot of ways." 228 How there were no good female role models in the Bible "You know, you've got Noah, and you've got, you know, of course Eve, what a role model.... Nobody wants to be Eve." 239 How she was discriminated against when trying to get her first real job. "And I went around and I looked for jobs and I looked for jobs and basically what it came down to was "Can you type?"... I'm sure that if I had been a male, I would have been offered other things." 272 Consciousness of gender-discrimination and her interest in the women's movement. 284 Discussion of her feminist songs, including "Whole Wheat Women" and "Beauty." 306 How key songs of hers come from a uniquely female point of view. "I think a lot of the songs that I've written in this book do on some level speak to an issue that would appeal to women or speak in a way that would appeal to them." "Women just go around with...this little voice in them that runs them down all of the time. And I know it's not just me, I mean I know I've had that voice all of my life. But I think it's, I think it's uniquely female. Not uniquely female, not to say that men don't have it. But I think it's very very common when you're female." 325 The need to love yourself and be who you are. 337 The difficulities of being an activist "I think it's very hard if you wanna take a stand, if you wanna be a leader, if you wanna be an activist. You're not going to please everybody and in fact you're going to please people in your own organization all of time. You're going to do some things that people won't like, and urn you're going to activate other people's insecurities in a way that you don't really want to." 347 How women need to accept disagreement and deal productively with conflict. "That's a challenge that particularly women are, need to work on in their own movement because we haven't been taught necessarily to be very direct and we haven't been taught to feel very comfortable with conflict." else's 368 Telephone interrupts interview. Tape is paused.
j--\58 369 Crossen as an "activist." "I think I have taken that on, you know that label for myself on the past 5 years." 390 How she dislikes it when good words get bad connotations. "I'm proud to define myself as an activist... I think it's like a lot of words I feel like are good words but what happens is that they get bad mouthed and then they become people are afraid to say them, like feminist." 413 Why some people wouldn't want to be called activists and how her perception of herself as an activist has changed. "I would have hesitated 5 years ago or 6 or 7 to call myself an activist, but I'm doing enough now." 428 Changes she'd like to see people make for themselves. "You could get rid of a lot of baggage in terms of self-hatred and self-image stuff in terms of remembering who we were as little girls and the mysticism we did have then and the love if nature. That's for both men and women." 456 Her involvement in the Haw River Assembly and other community projects. "I can get involved in education. I can get involved in a creative project." 505 The Haw River "Assembly" "In a way you know we are a church you know. We worship at the river." 515 Her thoughts on her involvement in the school system. "I'll volunteer in the schools. I don't so much anymore cause it's middle school. But I did when my son went through kindergarten to fifth grade." 530 How she came in the classrooms and sang with the kids. 536 Why she chose music as her main medium for activism. "Well, because it fulfills some needs of mine, too... In my family we had sing-alongs... I guess that, you know, that I probably have wanted to recreate some of that and I feel like it's missing for so many children particularly. They just don't see that, they don't see other adults making music", 573 The Civil Rights movement and the value of music. "Even now, when I hear the song "We Shall Overcome" it overcomes me every time. What a, it says more than anything else could say, that music. And I'm sure it was just really important. And I think for women, you know, the songs have been really important. Women tend to really respond to the singing, and forget that they can sing, and forget how wonderful and powerful it is. 606 Side A ENDS 000 Side B BEGINS 002 More importance of music in society. "I could go on and on. the ways it gives people courage and it makes them feel part of a larger group that gives them that solidarity that they need." 007 How teacher told her kids learn material faster if it's in a songs. "I think it's very powerful as a song and that it's even more powerful if you sing the song yourself." 011 The presence of inherent mental voices and how music affects them, music as healing. "Music or a song can help retrain you inside, internally, it's been an incredible healing for me that way. If I have something that's hard for me I put it into a song and it transforms it because it makes a thing that feels very hard, and painful and ugly into a thing of beauty that I can sing to heal myself." 025 Her first encounter with the Haw River. "I can remember thinking it's like going to the ocean.... Oh there's rocks and there's everything and it's wild and wide and it smells."
C-»Sg 029 How she fell in love with the Haw River and became involved with the Haw River Festival. "I think naturally I am more of a mystic and less of the activist but as I've gotten older what I've realized is that it's all very well and good to have a mythical connection with the river. It's essential, but it's not enough and uh, I've just felt like I've had to do something more do something to actually clean the river up." 053 How difficult it is to run a volunteer organization "I've gotten closer and closer to well this year particularly to seeing it really up close like that and it's like any other organization, it has, it takes a great deal of time and care and carefulness and nurturing and effort to keep it going. And uh we've gotten tremendous amounts of response from volunteers but it won't happen unless there are a few people that basically become extremely dedicated to it, to making sure that it happens and that everyone else can come in on that effort and contribute." 073 The frustrations of being an activist. "I personally feel that there is, I have a sense of there being too few people for the task that needs to be done...you no sooner would like to take a break from fighting one battle than the next one shows up on the horizon. Or often at the same time." 092 It's important to have fun as an activist. 099 Discussion of the next generation and what she wants to tell them. "'In 20 years, you know supposedly we've cleaned the river up, but these species keep dying, and urn, the river, you know, it could be dead at some point. This can happen, bad things can happen." And [I want kids] just to sort of think, "Along with everything else I want to do in my life, I've got to do a certain amount of tithing to, to protect what I really love," because it will go, it will be washed away'" 120 Her regrets of her generations mistakes and concern for the next genereation. "What I worry about is that your generation has picked up a lot of the cynicism of my generation without the hubris or whatever we had 20 years ago, thinking that we could change things." 137 More thoughts on how the next generation should change the world for the better and her worries about its cynicism. 155 Her commitment as a parent to raising a responsible son. "So I think it is part of our community responsibility... to figure out ways that they [the children] are involved and feel needed and uh not shut out." 187 Discussion of her mother an a non-activist role model and how some of the societal values her mom passed to her didn't work for her. 203 The value of having a good female role model. 211 How she hopes to keep changing. "I think I've done more growing up in some key ways, from 40 to 45. God, I hope I'm doing it when I'm 50, too!" 216 Interviewer takes a side trip, talks about her mom changing. 224 How change hurts, but continues to happen. "I get things in the mail every once in a while about feminism is happening in churches all over the place. And it's so exciting to me!" 234 How much she loves the new feminist spirituality culture that is developing. "I mean we're creating a culture! Worship services that would never, never, never have sprung out of the male tradition. Never! Uh, And they're beautiful.... The beauty of the altars, the lushness, the meaningfulness of this of the service, the getting away from the guilt and the punishment model of the way things work." 250 Interviewer says she's out of questions, but continues to ask more.
Gr-\Sg 254 How she,as a woman is "uniquely interested" in the female tradition. "I think men are wonderful and they create wonderful books, and works of art and everything else. But their interests are obviously going to be different. Urn, and I wanna see the range. I wanna see everybody." 260 How women and the feminist spirituality movement are linked to enviromental activism. "It's very connected... It's not denying the body, it's being comfortable and accepting of the body. And it's seeing the earth as sacred... And I think that's very much at the core of feminist spirituality itself. You are gonna see women in the environmental movement 274 How much she loves and feels responsible for the Haw River. "If I don't advocate for the river and my kind are destroying it, that's not right." 281 Formal Interview ENDS (informal conversation continues).