Sometimes the gift we need is one we've always had.
(Found on the inside cover of India.arie’s Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationship)
To My Dear, Dear Listener,
I give praise to God for every manifestation of love in the universe. I honor my Angels and Ancestors, spirit guides, spirit teachers and loved ones in spirit because these songs do not come FROM me but THROUGH me; for the sheer and utter pleasure of that gift I give thanks. I give thanks for the healing, comfort and insight that music has brought me all of my life but especially in the past three years. This album truly is an offering from my heart to every person who is learning what it really means to love. It is my mission to spread love and healing through the power of words and music and I offer this body of work to you in faith that it will speak to you in exactly the way your soul is calling out for.
This process has been very different from my previous projects in that it was created in a vacuum. I used to write a song and go play it for people and it served as a sort of safety net because I had a sample of how the general public would receive each song. However, this time around, I pretty much wrote these records upstairs and recorded them downstairs and the only songs I shared were the ones that wouldn’t make me cry. This is a very intimate experience because as you are learning it for the first time (hopefully you went right out and bought it the first week LOL!) I am showing it for the first time.
This album is called Testimony: Life and Relationship because it is my testimony (testimony meaning a true account) of how the relationship I was in affected and changed my life. As a person who was born a romantic, I had a very strong lesson to learn about what LOVE really is and all of these songs reflect the pleasure and pain of growing into a woman. My previous two albums were spoken in a female voice; this is the voice of a woman.
This is the musical culmination of a lesson learned. I have learned that fear and love don’t match. I have learned that there truly is nothing unacceptable about me when I have the courage and self-love to accept everything about me...so too will another. I have learned that you must be willing to let things and people go to really enjoy them being in your life. I have learned that it only takes a moment to re-act out of love. I have learned that sometimes people come in our lives to go and therein lies the lesson. I have learned that honesty means being honest with me first. I have learned that sex with the wrong person is horrible, but sex with the right person is exquisite! There is fulfillment in waiting. I have learned that I must seize the day. I have learned that my mother is a human being and a woman just like me and that I have things to teach her too. I have learned that love doesn’t make relationships last...
This album took three years to create because I had to do the emotional work to get to the point where I wasn’t simply complaining but rather sharing my lessons and experiences in love and heartbreak. As many of you well know, heartbreak isn’t an easy subject to tell the truth about because it’s too easy for it to come out as anger. Beneath that anger is pain and beneath that pain is fear. I want to be a vehicle of truth and the underlying truth of this last two years has been facing my fears about love and relationships and still keeping my heart open to love again. That is the secret of life, to get back up and try again. Without love we are nothing. To all of those, myself included, who have been heart broken by life’s experiences may this collection of songs inspire you to heal, keep the faith and open your heart to try again. To all of those who have yet to have your heart cracked open, may this collection of songs show you the beauty in the complexity of the journey of love. I have learned that it ain’t like the movies, it’s so much better.
And most of all I have learned that even in the darkest hour... This too shall pass.
Sincerely,
India.arie
Thank you India.arie. Thank you.
