If ever there was an album that described the human experience, it is The Original Essence. Its themes are as timeless as its artist is unique.  

Each of its 10 songs were written, composed, and arranged by Peruquois, who in addition to being the main vocalist also plays synthesizers and string pads to scintillating atmospheric effect. Joining her, among a talented cast of supporting musicians, is the album’s three-time Grammy award-winning producer Tom Wasinger, who plays everything stringed from Native American mouth bow to Middle-Eastern oud, and fellow multi-instrumentalist James Hoskins on cello and gadulka (a bowed instrument from Bulgarian, similar to the Greek lyra). 

Wasinger’s unparalleled versatility and experience as a producer of Native American artists gave this album the tribal integrity it needed to shine, and the result is a truly World Music experience with tasteful New Age infusions in all the right places.

Although The Original Essence is the fifth solo album from Peruquois, in some ways it is the first. Where her previous albums explored stories of power, here emphasis is on the power of story. Indeed, the album reads like a book in which all of our lives have been written. To that end, a trilogy around the theme of birth forms the album’s core. Although “Birthing Prayer,” “Birthing Chant,” and “Birthday Song” appear in the album’s latter half, they are most emblematic of Peruquois’s artistry. 

Mixing spoken word, drone, chant, and prayer, each reveals an important facet of the album’s deeply maternal focus, which takes clearest form in “She Story,” in which Peruquois’s voice reaches soaring heights over a driving rhythmic landscape. This song is followed by “Mighty Man,” which concerns itself with vanity, greed, and idol worship.

From this description alone, one might think that The Original Essence would have no space for men in its sacred circle, when in fact it is a meditation on the harmonious joining of yin and yang, of female and male principles. If anything, the album is a prayer of unity, restoration, and healing.

These themes are best represented by the album’s second track, “Tribal People,” which speaks of all humanity as a single tribe. One of the album’s most effective songs, it features narration from Peruquois’s former mentor and partner John Twobirds, a Native American medicine man who dedicated his life to bringing people together. It is a philosophy that Peruquois takes up further in the anthemic “Great Mother,” another powerful meta-statement of inclusion. 

The album’s opening and closing tracks, “Prayer Song” and “Universe is in Love,” concern themselves with cycles of life. The singing in both is magical, and reveals an artist at peace with herself. Hearing such self-awareness in action can only be inspiring for the listener, and makes The Original Essence all the more a restorative experience. Its words sweep through millennia of human history, from ancient times to an upcoming future, and through them allows us to recognize our indebtedness to times past and our responsibility for time to come. 

Peruquois is the compass guiding us to that knowledge. She stands at the center of the universe, inviting us to do the same.

Prayer Song

Great Father
Ooh radiant sun
Shining through the Universe with your brilliant love
Great Mother
Primal womb
Giver of life and nourishment
I call to all of creation to hear my prayer
To open the the Way
For love on Earth to be restored
Four cycles have come and gone
Civilisations have turned and returned back to the soil
Worlds so mighty worlds destroyed
And the balance has never been maintained
I call for the way to be opened
This ancient way to be newly awakened in Man and Woman
Open the way for healing
From man to man and brother to brother
From father to son and father mother
From woman to woman and sister to sister
From mother to daughter and mother to Father
Radiant Sun Beloved golden One
How magnificently you shine your love
Into her body arousing primal beauty
And she celebrates creating forms
Birthed in your pure presence 

Oh Mother, Great Father
Oh Mother, Great Sun
Oh Mother, Great Father
Eternal One
In man and woman
In woman and man
Ignite restore the original balance
Ignite restore the original passion 

Tribal People

I am the Ka first of the first born 
And first and last of the ancient sun warriors
Here me as I call from my heart to yours
Listen to what the Great Mother said to me
When I cried out to the mystery for a vision
He yo he yo He yo hey ya 

Turn with me now to that sacred Center direction
Where all things come from and go to 
Listen to what the Great mother said to me
She said go find those people who do not yet know they are a people
From all over this good mother
Teach them to walk in beauty to be in balance
To walk in harmony with all of creation
She to remind them they have forgotten The Way 

People we are a tribal people
And we’ve come to remember
A new way of living an old way
People we are a tribal people
And we’ve to remember
A new way of living in beauty 

She said teach the people not confuse spirit with those alien Ancients that demand to be worshipped
Teach them again to walk in beauty, be in balance
Those people who do not yet know they are people 

People we are a tribal people
And we’ve come to remember
A new way of living an old way
People we are a tribal people
And we’ve to remember
A new way of living in beauty
People we are a tribal people
And we’ve come to remember
A new way
People we a tribal people
And we’ve come to remember
A new way of taking care of each other 

Teach the people that it is the mud of this earth that makes up the clay of their body
And it is to this Earth that they belong 

Great Mother

Oh Mother, Great Mother
We are your children who left your love
Oh Mother, Great Mother
We are your hands that craft a world of pain
Oh Mother, Great Mother
We made a mind separate and self consumed
Oh Mother, Great Mother
Help us to heal ourselves and one another 

Mother, Great Mother
Beat the rhythm of the world in our hearts
Oh Mother, Great Mother
Open our ears to hear your voice
Oh Mother, Great Mother
Lift the veil of the fear of darkness
Oh Mother, Great Mother
Birth our children wholesome and unified
Oh Mother, Great Mother
We are the instruments of your love
Oh Mother, Great Mother
Restore the earth as in heaven above 

She Story

Wholly original woman She
With the sun and the earth in her body
Lover of man and creation She
And keeper of the Way
Then came the age
When the gods from the skies to earth came
Came to her found her beautiful and tempted her away
Offering her the blade of power
Tempting her with jewels of knowledge
Lifting her up to be a Goddess high in temples
Using the power given to her for self
Using the power to play games with Gods
Tipping the balance of the world
Shame on her 

Wholly original woman she
With the sun and the earth in her body
Lover of man and creation She
And keeper of the Way
Then came the age
When the tyrants of the God force came
Danger fell on her
Taking the voice of the Mother Earth away
Silencing her with the blade of power
Cutting from the roots of truth
Shaming her closing her sensual body
Birthing a world of pain
Using the power to put asleep the wisdom of her
Using the the power to slave her to the life of the mind
Tipping the balance of the world
Shame on him 

Sacrifice for the truth she dies
Compromise herself to live and hide
The source of her love never dies
So she follows him into the mind 

Mighty man 

Mighty man strong and courageous
You have a sickness that's globally contagious
It began back in the age
When you made a Declaration of Independence
From your Great Mother 

Foolishly creating money as a God
How could you create a currency
Greater than that of the fruits of love
You live a foolish legacy 

Your shoulders are tight
Your body is a rock
But keep pushing forward
Enslaved to that money god 

Don't trust in her
she can steal your mind
And destroy all that you create
Don't show your vulnerability
Your weakness, your heart she can break  

Mighty man strong and courageous
You have a sickness that's come through the ages 

Her primal nature makes you afraid
Tame her control her
Then you'll surely own her 

Replace her with a god of technology
Spend your day in prayer
On your cell phone and computer 

She gives you all of her oceans to swim
She gives her waterfalls to wash your spirit clean
She gives you mountains to climb her heights
She brings the darkness to rest you in silence  

There's no need to conquer her
She gives herself freely
Her power and beauty 

When you cut your roots from her
The world became unsafe
Your pain made you separate 

She keeps reaching you with her daughters
To switch off your mind and open open up your heart
She keeps calling you to her daughters
To give you a reason to love and to trust again 

Enter her body without your love
You will confuse her and dry up her essence
Use her essence dishonestly
She builds a world of obsessive anxiety 

Wake up oh mighty man
Wake up oh frightened man
Wake up oh lifeless man 

Put your roots down in her learn to surrender
Put your roots down in her listen be tender
Put your roots down in her breathe in her essence 

Put your roots down in her touch her with presence
Put your roots down in her marry her truly
Put your roots down in her she is your beauty
Put your roots down in her be her love maker
Man and woman kissing, touching, breathing 

Put your roots down in her be her caretaker
Put your roots down in her….
And be her dependable 

Aftermath

There is the cycle of cycles
There is spiral of time
There is the circle of life 

The nature of nature is that it grows in spirals
Deep within these bodies is the original spiral of being human
Unified, whole
Now we live in Aftermath
Where the cycle of cycles
And the spiral of time
And the circle of events
Have embedded in the memory these bodies
And we are not free

Her story
His story
Continue to play us
Living from a past legacy of separation
He without his roots is never enough for her
And she without her roots lives as man in a woman's body
Or dwells in the emotional chaos
At the feet of the world
Weeping for what it has become 

Rearly able to touch the unified source of each other
There is no saviour coming
It is time to stop living from that aftermath
Birth this new wholesome unified man and woman
A new cycle must begin 

A serpentine is rooted in a spine
And it sleeps until it's awakened
Until it unwinds there is a veil of separation
It takes a great love to awaken
It takes a great love  

Only love tears down the walls
That stand between each other
Only love dissolves the lies
That we've hidden inside
Only lovemaking heals the wounds of the past
And only love can heal this aftermath 

Birthing Chant

Hu 
Da hu
Da hu
Da haya da hu 

Baya
Chi yannga
Baya
Chi ya 

Shish da
Shama-ma
Shash da
Shama-ma 

Birthing Prayer

Great Father, Great Mother
Bless the coming of this new soul
For a thirst not only for Mother’s milk
But for the source of the milk of life
With hands that are creative, shaping and crafting forms of love
With feet that are grounded with strong roots
That do not forget from where they have come
With bright eyes and a bright mind
That is is discerning of the truth
With a heart big enough to see through the suffering
Into the source of joy
Purify and clarify the ancestral soul
That has its failings and misdoings 

Bless this child with a great love of humanity
And being human and a passion to serve life 

Bless the mother and father with a new love
That burns and awakens
That guards and guides the soul
Through the Maya of the world
Bless The mother and father
With the spirit of mothering and fathering
That sacred intelligence that guides and aligns
All of its creations 

Bless the birthing space
That he might stand in the centre
As that protector, that pillar of strength
For her to anchor to as she makes that deep journey
Opening her womb
Opening into the infinite womb
Where all souls come from and return to
To realise who it is that births her
As she births this life 

Birthday Song 

You are born in every blessed moment
And you shine anew
Very very beautiful
Very pure and innocent
You are born in every blessed moment
And we're happy too
Celebrate your life
Celebrate your life 

You are a child of Mother Earth

The universe is in love 

My feet are rooted
My womb is open
This pure sensation
Is flowing through me
My hands are lifted
My heart is opening
You beloved are here
The sun is radiating
The stars emanating
The Earth celebrates
The universe is in love
This universe is in love
Oh beloved
Oh great darkness
Falling through this vastness
Into this loving earth
My feet are rooted
I am home