Summer 2025 my mother and I were on the the coast of Delaware when I stumbled into a sea shanty singalong and Friends, as you likely know, singing in community is sunshine in my soul…

…and though I was grinning from ear to ear, I found myself craving lyrics less about rum and debauchery and more about joy and resilience — courage and encouragement — resistance and refuge — cultivating cultures of care and mutual flourishing that we remember, re-imagine and practice together.

Many traditional sea shanties we’ve re-hydrated since..

….and Friends, we fondly call them see(d) shanties!

Why?

As much as I wish so many ships in the last millennia had stayed at anchor to heal their own hearts and homelands, we now sing these see(d) shanties to break spells of scarcity and cast spells of belonging, seeing the moment we’re in and seeding futures with peace, healing and abundant gardens for all.

So come!

Join us!

Let’s sing as we cross oceans serene and tumultuous…

….finding meaning and nourishing mystery, grounding land and joyful harmony together:

we sing & sow til we free us

find our lyrics below & make your own!

Thank you Noli and Isaac for singing as you tend and share all the lighthouses you do, on little Islands as well as in my heart.

Here is one of my favorites, a traditional sea shanty called Bully in the Alley, whose title references an old English phrase:

To be ‘bully’ in the alley was to be black-out drunk in the alley…

…and we live in a rather toxically inebriated culture with power-hungry bullies at the helm, yes?

Thanks for

laughing & crying

rigging & rowing

singing & sowing

our way to

new worlds together!

Bully in the Alley

Re-imagined for Resistance 2025

Chorus:

Oh help me Friend / there’s a bully in the alley

Way HEY! Bully in the alley

help me Friend / there’s a bully in the alley

What we gotta compost now?

Now, fascists think that some of us are better

Way HEY! Some of us are better

We’re still learning we’re all in this together