Thoughts on We All Come From the Goddess

It's been a while since I've posted anything here, but I had to write out my thoughts as I watched the debate unfold on Facebook over Z Budapest's request:

Dearest Friends!I would like you to help me spread the words that Singing "We all come from the Goddess" should NOT BE rewritten. It is my intellectual property. it is NOt a folk song, which by the way is the fate of many composers whose songs are stolen. You steal my song from now will have consequences. You put men into the song, like God,a hex will be activated. I have found that people actually sell their wares with my song in the Title,like Serpentine for example. These people are NOT having my permission, especially when they don't even credit my name. Women are fooled that its from me, or fooled that its Serpentine. .Theft is theft. I cannot be everywhere, but i have experienced women making up new words,attaching it to my song that NEEDS NO attachments. Have you ever heard a man writing a song about the gods, and then put females in it?? Never. So stop you generosity attacks with my songs, write an original .Men who had Mozart and Schubert amongst them,surely will come up with their own songs .
Women like to give away and include but please do it with your own intellectual property.
I wrote that song for the Goddess worshipping women. Its gone around the globe. I don't mind you singing it, only selling it and not giving me credit.
Its a sacred song, and i will protect it! Speak up when you hear this song abused, and write to me. Blesssed be!Women like to give away and include but please do it with your own intellectual property. I wrote that song for the Goddess worshipping women. Its gone around the globe. I don't mind you singing it, only selling it and not giving me credit. Its a sacred song, and i will protect it! Speak up when you hear this song abused, and write to me. Blesssed be!

I don't know about anyone else, but my chants are very organic. I sing praises I've written myself. I sing prayers I've learned through my community. I was SO HAPPY about 6 months ago when I learned it was Z. who wrote "We All Come From the Goddess." I shared my new knowledge with my Circle. So I started singing it often and its grew.

It grew to include the chant of goddesses names. Because I also have a son and a chant of god names (that I wrote), I eventually channeled a variation of "We All Come From the Goddess." It tends to run along the lines of "We all come from the wild wood (sometimes God) and to Him we shall return like the leaves of autumn falling in the forest."

As a person who values organic music, I see my variations are part of the tradition that keeps music alive. It's not sold on any album or uploaded on Youtube. It's a hymn I sing in my car, on long walks, in my rituals, and in my prayers.

However, my song isn't a Dianic prayer anymore. It's pagan, but not Dianic. I believe this because I hold so much respect for the Dianic community. I understand Women's Mysteries and the religious perspective or ethics that accompany an exclusively female tradition of Goddess Worship. At one of my first festivals I learned a Dianic chant with instructions that it was only shared Sister to Sister. I haven't share it or changed it to include the Divine Masculine because I honor the tradition and instuctions that I inherited with it.

"We All Come From the Goddess," regardless of the author's original intent, has moved into the wider pagan tradition and has grown to reflect that. Therefore I plan to continue singing and sharing all its glorious incarnations. I'll continue tellings folks that the original core chant was written by Z. Budapest. I'm not sure how I will deal with the rest of the debate. I want to honor the author's wishes, but suppose in the long run I'm too much a part of the re-mix, open-source generation to agree that "We All Come From the Goddess" should not be rewritten.