Whenever I find myself walking deep within shaded forest pathways dappled with sunlight and enveloped in a holy hush, it is pretty much a certainty that the same beautiful and moving song will suddenly fill my head. “The Green Cathedral” was part of the holiday assembly repertoire in our elementary school chorus, either in fifth or sixth grade. It keeps popping up and will not go away.

I know a green cathedral

A shadowed forest shrine

Where leaves in love join hands above

To arch your prayer and mine.

The first soprano, second soprano and alto parts still echo in my mind. For some reason, it also tends to bring a lump to my throat – I am not sure if it was the blending harmonies that were so moving, the images of beauty it has always conjured, or the childhood connections I am making, but I almost always feel just a little bit like crying when I think of it.

Within its cool depths sacred

A priestly cedar sighs

And the fir and pine lift arms divine

Unto the pure blue skies.

In my dear green cathedral

There is a flowered seat

And choir loft in branchéd croft

Where songs of bird hymn sweet

While it is usually leafy, verdant tunnels of oak, maple, birch and pine that I am ambling through when the song gets triggered in my heart, most recently it was a walk through a redwood forest with my sister and brother-in-law when the song (which became an earworm) struck. I can say that redwoods and cedar are equally as adequate for the imagery. My sister was unfamiliar with the song – I tried singing a few lines to her, but the emotional constriction it caused in my throat and a slight welling up of inexplicable tears prevented an adequate execution of such. I don’t know why that happened, and almost why it always happens…….. why I am moved by whatever this song brings up inside.

But apparently, this song from childhood school choruses of generations past has moved many. When I tried looking up the lyrics, I kept stumbling upon one blog site after another where “The Green Cathedral” was the subject, the writer filled with childhood memories and deeply touched.

As is not unusual for me, some of the lyrics are incorrectly recalled, and I never have been able to remember all of the last verse beyond a reference to God – possibly because my part at the end consisted of many drawn out “Ahhhhhh” and “Ooooooh” notes instead of words, delivered in a rising crescendo, as if offered up to the heavens.

After locating the lyrics, I hunted down some videos of various choirs performing this song. The ones I found were mostly church choirs, and while the song was definitely the same, for some reason they don’t quite have the same impact, as they don’t sound how I remember; the rich harmonies swirling around me as I stood on an elementary school stage, wearing a dress with a frilly collar and T-strap shoes, singing my heart out to the blur of faces in the audience, hoping some of those faces might possibly be those of my parents.

“Ahhhhhhhh, Ahhhhhh, Oooooooooooo…….”

~*~

The Green Cathedral – by Gordon Johnstone and Carl Hahn, 1921