Title: Black Snake
Artist: Wendy Rule
Label: CD Baby
Product Type: COMPACT DISCS
UPC: 888174296128
Genre: New Age

Black Snake is an album of transformation. It follows my personal journey of the past couple of years - of stripping back and letting go of everything that was holding me back, and of reaching a point of vulnerability that allows for true growth. It's an album of great optimism, and although some of the songs are soft and dark and sad, many are full of the great exhilaration of Life and Nature and the incredible Universe. Even though the 12 songs explore my own journey, they are really celebrating universal themes of death and rebirth, of descent and re-awakening. It's your story, too! And it's Mother Earth's story. So why 'Black Snake'? Well, as many of you know, the energy of the snake is a powerful symbol for me, and embodies the potent energy of Life. It is feminine and masculine, it is Life and Death, it is the shedding of the old skin and the shiny glistening promise of the new. A few years ago, after journeying for years with the energies of snake in ritual and meditation, I decided to honour the connection by getting my one and only tattoo. I knew that each time I saw it, it would remind me of my work as a Priestess of Magic and Nature, and would encourage me to stay on my true path. Not long after, I made two lovely silk backdrops that I carry with me to all of my gigs - a red snake ascending on a black background and a black snake descending on a red background. So the black snake has been this powerful image for me of the necessity of descent - of bravely entering the world of shadow and exploring the deep and true self. It's been a pretty intense few years since I released my last album, and I had lots to examine and process. I knew that I needed to honour this deeply transformational time through creative ritual, so any gaps that I could find in my busy international touring schedule I spent in wilderness. I wrote the bulk of the album over two separate retreats in New Mexico, USA, where my husband Tim and I have spent a good deal of time over the past two years. I took myself away to a humble little adobe cottage surrounded by thousands and thousands of acres of epic wilderness. Each day I would hike for hours, carrying my notebook and a little voice recorder for any song ideas. I truly feel that every song on this album is vibrating with the energies of Mother Earth. It's an album of Magic and honesty, and is for all of us who love the Earth and honour her cycles within us. Enjoy the journey. Love and Magic Wendy.

Tracks:
1.1 Black Snake
1.2 Juniper
1.3 Let the Wind Blow
1.4 Rewind
1.5 Why Must Love Be Twined with Sorrow?
1.6 A Will of It's Own
1.7 Ereshkigal
1.8 From Great Above to Great Below
1.9 After the Storm
1.10 Winter
1.11 Home
1.12 All Life Flows Into the Great Mother