July 2025 | Part II: Interview with Sarah Dupre, Co-director of the Acorn MusEcology Project

I’m interested in soil health. I’m more tuned in to plants, animals, weather. My sense of kinship has really expanded…As you get older, you become more distilled. Now it feels more poignant. I’m less focused on my own gratification and more on paying attention.

Both my parents were musical, and my brother, sister, and I grew up singing rounds with our parents. My mom listened to a lot of classical music, including choral music.

I started singing in school choirs as early as I could, maybe in 6th grade (11 or 12 years of age). My parents joined the Occidental Community Choir (OCC), and I joined them in 8th grade. The OCC was hugely formative. Everyone in it was powerfully influenced by their directors. The first director, Phil, was there for a couple of years, and then came Allaudin (Mathieu). He made the OCC extraordinary. He brought his own compositions and encouraged the singers to bring their own lyrics and compositions. He encouraged them to bring in their instruments, and for all of us to cross-pollinate in that way. He saw the potential in this group of people and brought it forward. He was our director from 1980 to 1991 or ‘92.

For the next dozen years, Doug Bowes became director. Doug was also a brilliant composer and musician. He was a mentor to many, and to me. He taught me Finale, the program I use to compose. It was a heady time, writing music for the choir and becoming part of its dance! The choir would pick a theme, for example, “Rivers,” and weave people’s different musical ideas into a concert. This is a pretty tricky undertaking, especially with all the personalities and egos.

How much control do you have over a potluck? You can’t be too lax or too rigid. You want people to put their imprint on the music. When you offer anything of yourself in a creative, expanded way, you’re making yourself vulnerable. For instance, if you audition for a solo and don’t get it, that can undermine your feelings of confidence and where you think you are. Likewise, when you get feedback about your composition needing to be redone.
At the worst, it can hurt people’s feelings. Some people might say, You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. When the program director and committee came from a place of generosity, you ended up with something more than the sum of its parts, something radically original. “Curiouser and Curiouser” was the theme about Alice in Wonderland. Everyone got jazzed about writing music for it.

Working with the OCC for 40 years off and on was an ongoing masterclass in how do you collaborate with people. How do you bring out the best in them? You find ways to show that to the world.

My confidence as a director has solidified. I don’t suffer from “impostor” syndrome anymore! There are a lot of directors whom I admire who are minimalistic with their hands. I’m much more kinesthetic in my hand and arm movements.

The OCC was the crucible in which my character and talent were formed. My maturation as a musician all happened there. My time in the OCC set a template for how to give performances, how to talk to the audience, and create a cohesive aesthetic experience that takes them somewhere.

I’m a “word” person. I love talking to the audience. It’s like a pulpit. Let me tell you what I think. My youngest son is a stand-up comedian. I would have been good in Vaudeville. I can take a pie in the face anytime.

I’ve been memorizing poems. My mother had us memorize poems when we were little, and I’ve been inspired by Rumi’s Caravan. (For more about Rumi’s Caravan, please see my interview from December 2022.) I love reading and reciting poetry. It’s my first love. I’m hoping to learn 30 to 40 poems while in Lawrence, Kansas. I’m also playing my ukulele. I’m hoping I get to a place where I’m brave enough to busk.

Lawrence is a college town, about the size of Santa Rosa (population close to 200,000). My eldest son, James, studies extinction patterns. Why do populations and ecosystems peak? Why do they fail? What forces govern extinction? His wife teaches paleobotany.

The Luther Burbank Farm

My father, Steve Fowler, was the Curator of the Farm for 25 years, and I volunteered there for two years before he died. I worked with him side by side, and got pretty tightly knit with that community.

You see, I’ve only got a little time on the planet. How can I contribute?

I think we do good work in Acorn MusEcology. I aspire to walk in my father’s footsteps of earth stewardship. He is my role model for how to be a good human being. He lived a life of service to others and to the planet itself, but he also found time to make art every day. He loved deeply and cultivated a lot of joy. That’s the dream.

I’m interested in soil health. I’m more tuned in to plants, animals, weather. My sense of kinship has really expanded. I feel I’m paying more attention. As you get older, you become more distilled. Now it feels more poignant. I’m less focused on my own gratification and more on paying attention. As Mary Oliver said,

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over, announcing your place
in the family of things.

I fail at it more than I succeed. But I feel I’m getting a little better.

(You can listen to Mary Oliver reading Wild Geese on YouTube at this link.)

There’s more of Sarah and the Acorn MusEcology Project at https://acornsings.org/acorns

Impermanence

All things change. Nothing perishes. ~Ovid

First, you were the sea
And I was something borne by the sea. We were so close, we did not know
             we were not one.

Then, a separation. We were two, and you
were pure light. I was that which sought the light.
All I knew was you,
             and the absence of you.

Then, for many years, you were
a sound on my lips: Maaaaa. Maaaaa-ma. Mama.
Sometimes, this sound brought circles of dough,
sprinkled with sugar, cinnamon, raisins, and
butter, folded into half moons,
             and baked alongside fragrant pies.

Then, as my body grew bigger, and strange in all its ways,
You were the walls and roof of the house, trying to
hold me inside it, to shelter my awkwardness. Bu
t my arms and legs
stuck out the windows, and my head
             poked through the roof.

Then, very briefly, you became a bird.
You flew into the green trees; for a spell
             you perched on a branch somewhere, and sang.

Then you were a wounded animal. You retreated
into a place beyond the reach of language.
You dragged your body into the bushes
             and left it there.

Then you became an unquiet ghost.
You rattled your ghost chains in the bardo of my dreams.
Decades passed before I once again saw your face
             break into a smile.

Today you are a photo on the ofrenda.
I bring you whiskey in a tulip-shaped cup, and
oranges, and tobacco. You seem so relaxed, so yourself,
             in the company of the dead.

A few changes from now,
We will sit on the ofrenda together.
And who’s to say that we will not once again be as close
             as salt and water?

Sarah Dupre

ANNOUNCEMENTS

My daughter and son-in-law were safely delivered of a healthy baby boy on June 4th. Praise be!

The newsletter will lie fallow during August. In September’s issue, I’ll let you know whether this newsletter will continue in its present form.

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Dear friends,

I recently recited poems from my five books for fifteen minutes as part of a Zoom hosted by Diane Frank of Blue Light Press. It featured poets Toni Ortner (reading first), Dane Cervine (introduced at 19 minutes), and me (at 43 minutes).

You can watch it on YouTube at this link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8pC7F7sZCQ

Warmly,
Raphael

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Becoming Earth: Experimental Theology
by Robin Wall Kimmerer

“Imagine yourself as a molecule of carbon dioxide exhaled by a black bear wandering through an ancient cedar forest. You drift through the air until a towering tree draws you in through its open stomata—the tiny pores in its needles. There, you become part of the tree’s architecture; the building blocks of its cells. Centuries upon centuries pass before the tree, in the throes of rot, releases you from its disintegrating body, and you rejoin the vast expanse of forest air. Moving through this eternal cycle of inhale and exhale, where is the distinction between what is living and what is dead?”

You can read &/or listen to Robin Wall Kimmerer’s wonderful account at Emergence Magazine’s site:
https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/becoming-earth/?utm_source=Emergence+Magazine&utm_campaign=f52f749a06-Newsletter_20250629&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-0be9b497cf-42372573

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Pathways to a Kincentic Future

with Lyla June Johnston, Paul Powesland & Shrishtee Bajpai

How do we move from an extractive civilisation to one where interdependence and kinship with all life are embedded in every aspect of how we live, lead, organise, and make decisions?

This Zoom meeting on Wednesday, July 16th is an offering from Kincentric Leadership based in the UK.
You can register for this free event and find out more at
https://www.kincentricleadership.org/events/toolkit-launch-event