Listen: on our website, Mixcloud, PRX — full track list

This week on the Earth Eclectic Radio Hour, host Laura Dedelow presents “Grounding for Earth Day,” a carefully curated sonic remedy for scattered souls seeking reconnection with our planetary home. Laura opens with Lorraine Bowen’s celebratory “Blue Planet” before Nicholas Peters offers his gently restorative “Earth Grounding” from his medicine music practice in Manchester. The Mommyheads pay tribute to climate activist Greta Thunberg, while Edinburgh’s Lyft & Folde offer something older and more elemental — “a remembering, a song of earth and body, of belonging older than language.” Avice Caro’s “Springtime of the Year” captures the seasonal renewal that Earth Day always heralds, before New Orleans’ own Neville Brothers consecrate the proceedings with “Sacred Ground.” A regional treasure follows: Bryce’s 1979 Louisiana recording “Mother Earth,” salvaged from the archives, leads into Frank Fable’s expansive ten-minute “Earth Day,” a Guatemalan medicine music journey that carries its listener — much like protagonist Jakob — into the consciousness of Pachamama herself beside a quiet creek.

After a brief pause, Los Angeles’ Wurmy Wormfield & Friends remind us that “Everything is My Family” in the Navajo beauty way tradition, before Vito Di Bona offers his own heartfelt “Greta’s Song” from North Carolina. Tim Koehn, writing from Cyprus, weaves the beloved hymn “How Can I Keep from Singing” into an Earth-centered meditation, while Missouri’s Fancy Coffins deliver an unexpectedly perfect acoustic rendition of Monty Python’s “Galaxy Song” — reminding us with irreverent cosmic humor just how extraordinary our little blue planet truly is. Portuguese duo Eye Color Dreams close the journey with “Matriz Divina,” a medicine music invocation of Earth as divine matrix and source. Throughout this Earth Day offering, Laura gently guides listeners from scattered anxiety back to the stabilizing ground beneath their feet — suggesting that in uncertain times, the most radical act may simply be to feel the Earth again.

By the way, we’re proud to be on the verge of entering our third year. Earth Day will mark the anniversary of our debut in 2024. Thanks for being with us on this journey.

Award: We’re looking for new releases that lift up ecological consciousness. With support from the Gaian Way, we’re giving an award to recognize outstanding ecospiritual music released in 2024, 2025, or 2026. Re-releases, remasters, and remixes are welcome, and self-nominations are encouraged. Nominations must be submitted by Earth Day, and we plan to announce the award on World Environment Day. The prize includes a cash award of $1,000. Visit the nomination form to make your submission.

Broadening: Shout out to KXCJ in Cave Junction, Oregon, where Earth Eclectic can be heard Saturday mornings at 11AM. They’ve been playing the program since we got on the Pacifica Affiliates Network, but we couldn’t see who or where they were until a recent reconfiguration of the platform. Thanks, y’all!

Photo: Why, that’s a Common Evening-Primrose emerging from a Maine winter, looking frazzled like some of our nerves these days. Taken by Laura Dedelow.