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While living a simple life close to the land, Bunny Sings Wolf has learned to hear the gentle songs in the trees in the sacred Black Hills where, since 1999, over 340 original songs have come to her in dreams. Sent from the heart, many of these songs may now be enjoyed on four solo, self-produced, CDs that are played on radio stations and on the web throughout the world, and may be purchased at her web site www.bunnysingswolf.com with links to over 40 paid digital download sites, including AppleItunes and Best Buy. Bunny is well versed and beautifully performs many popular Folk and contemporary “pop” songs in concert – yet regardless of the composer, Bunny’s voice resonates in music that subtly teaches, encouraging life-ways of beauty and harmony reminiscent of indigenous cultures. Her self-taught acoustic guitar and Native American flute playing accompanies her soulful voice sent with respect and conviction that honors Mitakuye Oyasin – (Lakota) all our relations. A recent Rapid City Journal review of her “White Haired Sunrise” CD called her original earth-friendly music “Lakota-inflective Folk.” In concerts Bunny Sings Wolf recounts her many life lessons as a truth-seeker in a medley of original songs that define love, peace, freedom, liberty, beauty, harmony and trust. She
has also excited a large audience of devout fans in children during her
Plains Indian cultural school, museum, and community workshops that teach
about the Buffalo Nation. Using music, heartbeat drum, song, and
encouraging dance and audience participation, people from all walks of
life and from all cultures and age groups are bridged together to enjoy
the unity of good relationship in song. Her refreshing,
life-honoring music underline the respectful ways demonstrated in the
organic world, where each creation uniquely weaves their thread in the
tapestry for completing and mending the circle of life, balancing
again the teachings from the four directions, that all the people may
live. |
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Given the name Bunny, by her very devout, music and art creative parents, she was born in Hollywood, California, and raised to the sounds of her parents’ nightly prayers and songs that sustained them during many tough times while the family moved from place to place to make ends meet. She grew up dancing barefoot in the rich dirt of freshly cultivated fields of farming country.
Her inspiration and
favorite form of entertainment was her daily walk to the edge of the
fields to sing to radiant orange sunsets and learn the songs of the warm
strong evening winds in the leaves, where she sat reverently at the foot
of her favorite childhood friend, a grandfather cottonwood tree. |
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Bunny spent her first two years of life in the back of a Model A Ford while her Christian Missionary Parents, barely the clothes on their backs, trusted "the Lord" to help them raise money so that her parents could go to China (the mission field). While her Dad preached, her Mother sang - and having sold all their belongings for the journey - upon returning to base camp in L.A. the only original piece of equipment in the Model A was the chassis and the frame. All Other parts had broken down and been replaced or thoroughly overhauled on the 2 year trip throughout all the mid-western and Western States of America. |
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Attending a one-room rural schoolhouse, Bunny was known for being an independent dreamer who wrote prolific poetry that she signed with a “funny” name. Her reoccurring childhood dreams included her constant “imaginary friend,” a four-legged animal that she affectionately described as a “very furry white elephant with cute curved horns and no trunk”, whose constant companionship and reappearance convinced and confirmed to her that there would be a future day when she would sing her peaceful wind-songs on a world stage to help make this planet a safe and happier home. Later she recognized her childhood companion was indeed a white buffalo. |
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After a missed audition with the Ed Sullivan Show when her sister opted, instead, to join a rock band, Bunny gave away her guitar and focused on raising a family of her own. She worked her way through several years of college, first as a waitress, then as a self-taught Secretary and later was hired as a Sales Assistant in L.A.’s largest commodities brokerage firm; moved to Denver, spent a few years as Comptroller in a small oil company that she and ex-husband created during the ‘70’s oil boom, moving it eventually to Casper, WY, to briefly compete with Dick Cheney-run Halliburton. Singly she left the oil business behind and moved to Rapid City where she successfully earned her department stores’ top sales as Shoe Store Manager, then moving back to Colorado to take an offer to manage a large shoe chain, she eventually switched jobs to earn a higher salary as Commercial Property Manager, then Administrative Assistant for a computer software company, and then explored her creative bent with her new found hobby part time as a self-taught Portrait Artist, eventually maintaining her own small pencil portrait studio just off the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder. |
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In 1986, a Disc Jockey (who had fallen in love with Bunny’s voice heard at an impromptu step-up-to-the-stage coffee shop), gifted her an Ovation guitar, some Kate Wolf tapes to inspire her, and instructions to “start singing again!” Leaving the corporate world far, far behind, she re-discovered her childhood music dreams upon moving back to her ancient family’s home territory in the Black Hills, as furry white buffalo night visions returned, and she began singing professionally in 1999. During these few short
years since then, she has : she was
gifted her “Indian” name – Bunny Sings Wolf -
in the Lakota tradition;
she has recorded four solo,
self-produced, CDs that are being played
on radio stations and on the web throughout the U.S.,
Europe and Canada, and her music is now available for sale worldwide from over 30 paid
digital download and retail web sites, including
Apple iTunes
and
BEST
BUY); |
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Sacred Ground |
Buffalo Tales |
White
Haired Sunrise |
Prophecy
Keeper |
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Bunny is a Roster Artist in the Arts in Education Program sponsored by North Dakota Council on the Arts she has won several Fine Arts Music Awards for preserving Western history through her songwriting and earth-friendly, Native American spiritually and culturally aware music that naturally highlights the Lakota theme "Mitakuye Oysain"; won a grant, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts to help record her most recent CD entitled “Prophecy Keeper” that now serves as a theme song for a popular Native owned and operated web radio station, and she has received many positive reviews for her concert performances and cultural workshops that teach about Pte Oyate (the buffalo nation).
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Bunny is especially
thrilled to have been recently discovered, and consequently hired
as the featured headliner to do a concert for the yearly “Tatanka Festival” and
parade sponsored by the National Buffalo Museum in Jamestown, ND (in honor of White Cloud the only female albino buffalo in the world). See more current NEWS of Bunny's Music adventures by clicking HERE. Concert tour bookings are still in the progress for 2007-2008 and her next recording project, a 2 CD Kate Wolf tribute album, is ready to take to the studio as soon as funding is obtained. For continued news about Bunny’s music adventures, please sign up for her monthly “Full Moon Music Newsletter" at www.bunnysingswolf.com. |
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Pilamayeah - Heartfelt thanks I send to the many be-ings who have come into my life as I re-awaken to honor these sacred gifts of song!
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Sacred Ground |
Buffalo Tales |
White
Haired Sunrise |
Prophecy
Keeper |
The made up, spontaneous songs of every day life sung her by her Mother and Father throughout her childhood. The sound of the wind in the trees, the heartbeat of Mother Earth, the songs of the birds of the sky, the rumblings of thunder and crack of lightening, lulla-byes of fresh mountain streams, the soulful whisper of peaceful river eddies and the roars of rapids dancing over the rocks, the cracking of campfires, the crashing of ocean waves, and the cries, grunts, groans, barks, whinnies and songs of wild four legged and winged ones surrounding her home and still living on the Wyoming edge of the sacred Black Hills; the ancient ceremonial songs of Lakota Oyate, and a few good and simple country songs from the too few recordings of the late Kate Wolf.
6 String Seagull Guitar 12 String Seagull Guitar 6 String Ovation Guitar
8 Native
American style 5 hole White Buffalo bird flutes made of resonate Spruce,
Poplar, Cedar
(custom hand crafted by
Mark
Nelson patterned after design by Daniel Red Buffalo, Lakota Oyate, circa 1930)
For more information about Bunny's sound
equipment, recording studio, and instruments click here
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Hand Crafted White Buffalo Four
Directions Standing Drum made and gifted from Jim Lee Teardrop drum from 50 year old Walnut (not pictured) made and gifted also from Jim Lee |
Hand Crafted Hand Drum Ovation Guitar and two flutes gifted from Lee Engberg Buffalo Robe gifted by Jump-Off Buffalo Ranch and brain tanned the Sioux way, by Bunny Sings Wolf
Second Buffalo robe (head on) gifted by
Gerard Nervig and later |
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Bunny's Shield hand made and designed from a dream in 1996 by Baire,
Wind Chimes made of copper and hung on Elk Horn
Pilamayeah - Heartfelt thanks I send to the many be-ings who have come into my life as I re-awaken to honor these sacred gifts of song. |
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About That Name: Bunny Sings Wolf
Bunny is her birth name. “Sings Wolf” was gifted her by a Lakota pipe-carrier, reminding her always that her most sacred gift is her voice, to be sent strongly, soulfully, like a Wolf teacher, from the power of song she hears resonating from the organic world. (you may read more about how that happened in the front page February 2001 Panache article).
This name also reminds her of her
recurring childhood vision of the day soon ahead, when predator and prey
will once again walk in freedom, in natural ways of respect and harmony on Mother Earth,
and she hopes these songs will be heard just in time to convey the
meanings that point to the balanced way of life-practice within the Lakota words
“Mitakuye Oyasin” –
we are all related.
Born in Hollywood, Bunny spent the first two years of her life in the back seat of a Model T Ford while her Bible college-graduate parents, with no belongings except what they could fit into the car, sang, preached and traveled to rural churches in every State West of the Mississippi to raise funds for a long prepared for missionary assignment to China.
After accepting all the monies raised, the sponsoring mission church expelled the young family from membership due to a disagreement of scripture interpretation, leaving the young family penniless, churchless, unemployed and homeless.
Without any secular training or job skills, her Father finally found work in California farming country. Lulled to sleep by the sound of her parents’ nightly prayers and songs during many tough times, Bunny grew up dancing barefoot in the rich dirt of freshly cultivated fields.
From
generations of a very musical-artistic family, poetry and song seemed a
natural part of her life near the peach orchards and crop landscapes
where she grew up in the rural farming country of Northern California.
It was a slower time when people of all ages from very diverse cultural
backgrounds enjoyed spending time together, sharing stories and
experiences, laughing and appreciating the antics of the dogs, cats and
horses living on the land.
A favorite part of each day for Bunny was sunrise and sunset when she
would take long barefoot walks to her favorite large, old cottonwood
tree at the edge of the field near her home. There she wrote music,
listened to the songs of the wind rustling through the leaves, and found
herself singing along.
A typical family night of entertainment was going to a neighbor's house
to "jam" all night. Everyone played an instrument and contributed to the
music - even if it just meant playing the spoons, or pounding a
makeshift drum.
In fact, Bunny can't remember when music wasn't a part of her childhood.
On road trips her Dad sang base, and Bunny, her sister and Mother took
turns with soprano and various creative experiments in voice sounds. No
one was afraid of not looking or sounding "cool." On the road, instead
of asking "are we there yet?" Bunny asked:
"Are we there ALREADY? Please, let's just sing ONE MORE song!"
So, as the traffic sped by, they would often stay in the parked car,
enjoying perfect four part harmony while singing that one last song.
Even at age 7 Bunny was very serious about her music. Here she is with
the "Uke" with her younger sister, at an early performance on the front
porch of their country home.
In her teens,
Bunny and her sister were one of the first groups signed to entertain at
the California Exposition, and by that time Bunny was writing music
specifically to be performed with her sister. Soon they were widely
known in California for tight harmonies they had perfected and the
twosome began winning many awards at talent shows. Being regularly
booked for performances at local Sacramento venues, their voices were
soon also well recognized in their singing radio commercials. While
they were cutting their first Folk-Pop album of original songs they
received a phone call from a talent scout who wanted them to come to
L.A. to audition for a nationally televised variety show (Ed Sullivan).
However, just before the scheduled audition Bunny's sister broke up the
duo, taking a job as lead singer with a newly formed rock band.
Shelving her music dreams at that point, Bunny went on to other life adventures. Bunny (yes, that is her real name) says that growing up with that name has given her a good sense of humor as she has always seemed to stand out from the crowd no matter what her endeavors and occupations. She claims that having a "weird" name from birth has eventually worked in her favor creatively, for it helped her courageously "hop" down her own diverse artistic path, regardless of what others deemed “popular” - and never look back.
Her artistic muse sparkled again in 1986 when she was given a guitar and some Kate Wolf tapes (Bunny later learned she had found her voice the same year and month that Folk singer-songwriter Kate Wolf lost her battle with cancer). While developing her own style in bringing forward Kate's songs, Bunny was soon a popular regular performer at several Colorado coffee houses while employed at a "regular job." She worked as a commercial property manager, administrative assistant, office manager for a small oil company, and even spent several years as a very successful shoe store manager for several major anchor stores both in Rapid City, SD and later in Boulder, Colorado, while keeping up with orders for her self-taught custom pencil portraits from her Boulder Pearl Street Mall art studio.
July 1999 she moved back to her relatives home territory in the HEART of the beautiful Black Hills. Shortly thereafter "dream songs" would awaken her in the middle of the night - complete with lyrics and harmonies. She soon learned she'd better wake up and play and sing them as she heard them, immediately, into a tape recorder, or the dreamed songs – like fleeting dreamtime - may be gone forever. Only three songs repeated themselves night after night until she got all the words and harmonies "just right" ("Dance, Buffalo, Dance!" "Freedom" and "White Haired Sunrise.")
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Realizing these songs were gifts of Spirit, she decided she'd better
share them however she could and with whoever would listen, for in
many of the dreams that came with the dream songs it seemed clear
these songs were specifically meant for all people and cultures and
specifically for future times of trouble ahead, to help comfort
hearts and light a path of harmony and peace and compassion, with
which all relations can heal.
As the first (and last, to date) regular performer in historic Hill City, SD in the HEART of Paha Sapa (the sacred Black HIlls of SD) she began to share and sing these gifted songs from the front porch of the popular Main Street Alpine Inn, 3 miles from where she lived (and not far from Crazy Horse Memorial Mountain - the subject of one of her dream songs- "More Than a Mountain"). |
Committed to reach as many people as possible, during the summer she would sometimes sing continuously for eight hours daily in ongoing performances from 1999 to the middle of 2002, to the thousands of tourists who would stop there or pass by to listen to her on their way to other popular tourist attractions in the Black Hills. It was here where she met Producer, David Allen, who encouraged and helped her record her first solo CD released January 2001, and who gifted her with her Indian name "Sings Wolf" to remind her to send out her beautiful voice with confidence.
In her own brand of poignant story songs, brimming with music word pictures about wide-open spaces, slower times, and western peoples, her original sounds immediately hit a chord with vacationers from large cities looking for a way to unwind from the stresses of modern life and the fast pace of the work-a-day world. Her peaceful Native American and earth honoring themes with flute harmonies marked her first CD as something refreshingly different. Because it represented her journey back to her personal whole-souled commitment to vigorously share her unique voice and dream resonating music talents gifted her since moving back to the sacred Black Hills, it seemed only natural to title her first solo CD "Sacred Ground."
The CD was followed up, just before 911, with "Buffalo Tales" a self-produced album still being played over and over by fans across the country. As world events shifted and radically changed with the ever dramatic weather patterns and ongoing destruction of the environment, fear-based and manipulative social, economic and political shift of powers, and the consequent increase in terrorism around the globe, this CD is still gaining popularity among those who would like to see the more natural ways and happier days of "buffalo abundance" return. On this album, her song "Two World's Clash" was almost prophetic of events in Sept. 2001 immediately following the release of the CD in June, yet the words of hope in this song, as well as the theme of the CD, continue to allow thoughtful listeners to envision and manifest ways of peace and harmony among all our relations.
Though both CD's have gained instant and loyal popularity locally, and her performances are still a valued remembrance of many Black Hills vacationers from around the world who still look for and inquire about her in their return trips to the hills, since mid 2002 she has taken her music on the road to surrounding five state areas where she has been increasingly booked for concert performances, grand openings, community music events, weddings, corporate and private parties large and small, and more recently sought after for school music residencies and children's workshops.
Since Bunny's music is still in the process of being "released" to a wider national and international public, taking it on the road to larger groups and varieties of people seemed the natural way to best honor the music.
She is now included on touring rosters by a non-exclusive San Francisco Agenncy, and is enthusiastically endorsed as Roster Artist with several State Arts Councils, which has helped begin to get the word out about Bunny’s musical offerings.
Even so, most of her concert performances are hired by word of mouth or by fans who email their local Presenters and request they hire her in their community. Bunny's web site at www.bunnysingswolf.com has been sent around the web in this way, increasing visits to her site to an average 200 per day in 2005. Although few web fans purchase her CD's, finding the downloads more readily accessible, Bunny continues to look for affordable ways to market to mainstream music audiences while still attempting to pay the bills associated with her small, self-owned music business (Hillbunny Productions) that is still based in a small town near the hills and prairies of the Midwest. Thankfully living expenses are minimal in this part of the country, yet one of Bunny's greatest creative challenges, going forward, is to share these dream painted and prophetic songs with a world-wide audience, for her dreams have told her this music needs to be heard by the general populace to bring many cultures and races of the world together in harmony before more earth-changes occur.
The majority of the
songs on her recent CDs -
"White Haired Sunrise"
and "Prophecy Keeper" features her Native American flute playing as haunting harmonies on most
of the songs. These sounds come from four flutes custom made and gifted to her, each with
white buffalo "birds". The album begins with "The End is Near"
and
carries the theme of world change through a song entitled "Wild Mountain
Climb" and "No More Chains" ' teaches the formula of how to
successfully avert war and anger in the "Treaty" song, and climaxes the
changes found from sunrise "white haired" wisdom words with her
"Freedom" song (the Lakota words also came in the dream of this one) AND
the nurturing of LIFE music CD concludes with the hope and commitment of
the "White Buffalo Peace Song."
Reaching a growing loyal audience through her self-created, hand selected local distribution system of retail outlets in a 4 state area, many of these timely songs are also available digitally for download at several well known music web sites.
Wherever the music takes her, fans from all age groups, cultures, and income brackets continue to write letters, emails, and add their enthusiastic comments to her online guest-book to relate how they love to listen to her striking soulful voice, ponder the multiple depths of meaning in her thought provoking lyrics, and get lost in the forest and prairies of her earth-friendly natural subject matter while relaxing to the haunting sounds of her Native American flute playing.
With more than 200 dream-painted songs still needing to be heard, the hope is that her next CD release will begin manifest sometime before year end, 2006. Right now she doesn’t know where or how the money will come to produce it the way she envisions it (a 2 CD package, one a tribute to Kate Wolf, and the other packed with more of her own original "Wolf teaching" and dream-wisdom songs). But then, because she still can’t fully explain exactly how she managed to get the first 4 CDs recorded and into the hands and hearts of so many listeners during the last five years - she feels confident the rest of this good music dream will also come true in its own good time and good way.
Intuitive listeners say this is music soaring with feminine soulful sound as if upon the wings of eagles, as acoustic guitar and Native American flute voices dance joyfully around the edges of ever-higher spiraling thermals of light and love.
It is hoped that many more people will discover this music that breathes compassion and hope, sent from deep and mysterious dreams and visions from the HEART of the sacred Black Hills. Certainly the time is ripe for music that resonates with earth-honoring vision, the gentle, life nurturing and mentoring wisdom teachings of grandmothers so needed now to lift hearts full of fear to a higher vibration of peace and to encourage the kind of thought and life-sustaining activities that can manifest a positive future for all our relations.
Don't miss the opportunity to hear this musical entrepreneur, an Artist who many of her fans believe is now ready to go the next level with her own new genre of original music. Please support this music by purchasing her CD's!
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Bunny's musical journey continues at home at the North East edge of Wyoming between the forests of the Black Hills and the vast mid-Western prairies, where she listens carefully to the trees, rocks, sage winds and the hills that continue to give music to her creative heart. In a humble, honest lifestyle lived close to the organic music of nature that reconnects to the simple things that make life meaningful, Bunny writes, records, produces, arranges her voice, flute and guitar harmonies, and does the wolf's share of marketing her solo concert art. |
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More biographical
information at
Press
page and bottom of
Links
page. Stories behind the songs on
Lyrics
pages. For updated and
current press release information
contact bunny. Please visit Bunny's Online Store for all Bunny's music products on SALE! Thank you for sharing an interest in the songs, the life experiences and outside of the mainstream music career of Bunny Sings Wolf! |
| Mitakuye Oyasin |
(Lakota - We are all related) |
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Hoye wa yelo - I am sending a voice
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| To hear music clips while reading lyrics - please click on name of albums | ||||
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Buffalo Tales
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Bunny's songs speak in beauty of natural and life nurturing spaces and the importance of living ways of cultivating peace and harmony among all our relations. Mitakuye Oyasin (Lakota-we are all related).
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A note about Native American flutes, music, and story telling: Just as a "French horn" is a particular type of musical instrument, "Native American flute" refers to a particular type of musical instrument and "Native American Storytelling" does not imply that it was presented by an enrolled member of a Federally-recognized tribal member. A reviewer with the Rapid City Journal recently dubbed Bunny's music as "Lakota-inflective Folk". This aptly describes the type and subject matter of the original music she shares, with the intent to build bridges among races of all people, Red, Yellow, White and Black, and educate, show honor and respect for human BE-ings, Lakota and ALL other earth-nurturing, Native American and indigenous life-ways, perspectives and cultures. |
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Although Bunny has a rich mix of Native American ancestry, has learned from, shared and associated with many well respected "Federally-recognized" Native American tribes, tribal elders, chiefs, and medicine people, she has well researched the stories and teachings she shares with great conviction while she plays Native American flutes in music that is enjoyed and endorsed by many prominent card carrying Native Americans, Bunny Sings Wolf's music does NOT claim to be "Native American made" as is now specified by the U.S. Government. IF it is your desire to listen only to music made by an enrolled member of a "federally-recognized" "Native American", you may find them through a web search. Please Click HERE for thorough and very interesting coverage of this subject, as well as present laws on freedom of religion for Native Americans - note also the section "You Don't Look Indian" on Page 11 |
Most asked question: "How can I get a copy of Bunny's latest new songs that I heard at her concerts?"
Most of Bunny's ORIGINAL SONGS (upward of 320 at last count) have "arrived" usually at 3:00 a.m., in the form of dreams since Bunny has been living at home in the Black Hills. Waking her from deep sleep - playing in her head - complete with words and music, she records them, to learn and share later. In honoring this unique music gift, Bunny feels a solemn responsibility to the Creator to use her voice and carry these songs to as many people as possible. Lyrics of some of these songs, yet unreleased on CD, may be found on Unreleased Lyrics page. If you wish to be added to the growing list of those who want to be notified when new CD's are available, and receive announcements of her UPCOMING LIVE PERFORMANCES scheduled in YOUR AREA, please sign Mailing List.
If you are interested in promoting
and/or helping to
finance future music CD productions,
please contact
Hillbunny
Productions
(change (at) to the @ sign in address line before sending)
We hope you will let us know you stopped by for this web visit - please sign Bunny's Guestbook. Thank you!
Bunny's songs speak in beauty of natural and life nurturing spaces and the importance of living ways of cultivating peace and harmony among all our relations. Mitakuye Oyasin (Lakota-we are all related).
|Music Samples |
Lyrics |
Online Store
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Retail Locations and Download Sites |
8th Ceremony
Original Music Works by
Bunny Sings Wolf is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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webmaster
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