JADE MONKEY:
Look deep in your mind
Far back in mirrored time
The old, ancient days
Before there was change
I was at peace
Sleeping under the fig tree
Then I learned the forms
The gods sent their storms
After me

The rivers of space
And time in my mind
Opened the gates—the power to shape
I found the gods
And their home in the clouds
They were so afraid
So they sent me away
Into the reflection

My body attained
All of the twelve shapes
I mastered the changes
I laughed in their faces
They told me the final form
Was hidden at the end of time
They turned me to jade
The gods lie
They locked me away
When I got there

MONKEY:
I become a monster, I wear the face you made
I pursued the path you laid, so I would find you here
I stared into your mirror, so that you could escape
Can I change the future
Can I correct the mistakes I’ll make?

GOOD GOAT:
Wake up
Wake up
Wake up
Wake up

GOLDEN FISHERMAN:
Monkey was all alone
His mind a prison of stone
Where nothing would ever change
He faced his future and let it escape
In the tree, his body went still
A surrender to the will of fate
His boyish fur went white
Goat cried out in the night

MONKEY:
Nobody calls out for me
Nobody knows how I feel
I am the lowly prince of forgotten dreams
Withering away, stuck in a tree
I can’t face the world knowing what I become
The trickster can have my life
In my hands it was wasted
Was I always just a note of someone else’s song?
Not the body but the tail, not the wind but the sail

GOOD GOAT:
Take my life, take my pride
I will never leave your side
Hear me call from the other side
Can’t you feel it when I cry?
Wherever you go
I will follow
Wherever you are
I will be there
Put your pain
Into my hands

JADE MONKEY:
I took a piece of myself, and tucked it into the snake
A seed in the river of time—
You grew back to me like a vine
Only one face could open the gate
To release me from the jade
I’ll return from the end of time
To kill the gods for their crimes

GOOD GOAT:
We were born to be happy
To sit in the sunlight, in harmony together
In our gardens, so long ago

MONKEY:
I saw the face of my fear in the river
I saw the truth staring back from the mirror
No roads are left which could lead me away
I know what fate waits for me up ahead
I feel the load of this harness I wear
I feel the warmth of your tears through my cage
I hear your prayers, they help lift the weight
I know it’s time for me to wake up

GOLDEN FISHERMAN:
Monkey awoke
In the arms of Good Goat

GOOD GOAT:
Tell me, my friend, where have you been?
What’s on your mind, what did your dream find

MONKEY:
You catch the light like a gemstone at night
Bright like the moon to shine back on the world

GOOD GOAT:
My shine is yours so save all your tears
You’ve been gone for so long I’m so glad that you’re here

MONKEY:
My thoughts wove a trial, my body survived
But I let my fear out into the world

GOOD GOAT:
Fear is the snake that feeds on its tail
Make no mistake I’ll keep you safe

MONKEY:
Sometimes when you learn the truth about yourself
It’s not the tale you wanted to hear

GOLDEN FISHERMAN:
Monkey came down with Good Goat
His only friend in the world
Before them, the endless road
They didn’t know where to go

GOOD GOAT:
Here comes the sun, bright like an orchid in bloom

MONKEY:
I see the moon, hid behind a curtain of dark clouds

GOOD GOAT:
I feel so light, I’m a crane on the wind up in the sky

MONKEY:
My old bones weigh down my body like a thousand
Stones

GOOD GOAT:
Get up old friend
You’ve been sat upon your bottom for days
Don’t dream your life away, time is precious
It only goes one way
It only goes one way

MONKEY:
It felt like years
I was down there for so long my fur turned white
I don’t know who I am
I know less now that I did when we left
All I found inside were old fears
Kept near to keep me warm

GOLDEN FISHERMAN:
Out from behind the moon, a puff of tail, a wrinkle in time
The one who guides—
Gregarious Hare, he who turns the days and nights

GREGARIOUS HARE:
Funny I should see you again after we escaped the snake
Now then, it’s all the same—
Is there still time or am I too late?
Good Goat, don’t you look well
The stubborn frame of a mortal
How you carry your old friend to and fro
From start to end!

GOLDEN FISHERMAN:
Monkey shrunk down to the size of a pebble
‘Take me into your ear, and I’ll tell you my tale’
He told the sage who he’d met at the gate
How Jade Monkey and the snake would become his fate
He was too ashamed to reveal to Goat
The monster he became, but she heard every word
She would never say what she learned that day
She knew he could change. She knew what had to be done

GOOD GOAT:
Good Sage, turn the days all the way to a distant age
Bring us to an ancient realm before one split into twelve

GREGARIOUS HARE:
You let on more than you know
In you, divine wisdom grows
I can take you before days
But can this trip a mortal make?
Time is like a waterfall
Most are fixed within its flow
Gods and Sages can transcend
Will you risk your life for him?

GOOD GOAT:
Old Sage Goat spoke of a place
Before there was fear—the original face
So turn back the moon, I’ll spend my chance
Only love can ask what courage takes

GREGARIOUS HARE:
A patter and pulse, the thirst for a dream;
Love, the unjust harmony
Chase it into the unknown
But never my mind—down the hole we go!

GOLDEN FISHERMAN:
Gregarious Hare blew on the moon
And sent it back to yesterday
Into the sky another grew
He spun them into retrograde
Days and nights passed them by
Rearward turned the wand of time
Good Goat could barely contain
Her changes as the seasons waned

Good Goat’s mind reeled at the edge of the wheel
Monkey and Hare in the center were still
So then a light emerged from the darkness
So then a feeling of warmth all around them
All three opened their eyes
Rainbows danced with the light
They sat on clouds in the sky
Long ago, deep in the purest time

MONKEY:
I will be more, I will climb high
Into the sky, like those who came before
My bones are tired, I’ve spent my mind
Give me my rest in this land of the Gods

GREGARIOUS HARE:
Now we arrive in a land preserved in the past
Careful not to rest too long
Lest you become stranded here
That sweetness in the air hangs like a beetle in honey
I see your snake-wearing friend would like nothing more
Low fruits, they dangle
Old roots can strangle
Look back, see clearer
Dust grows on the mirror
Memories can imprison
Portraits are not visions
Fear feeds on torpor
Live life, go forward

MONKEY:
No place is safer than far from my maker
Clear is my mirror, the sweetness of languor
The past asks no questions, the flesh of remembrance
The snakes are stalking from either direction
I found the face, the source of the fountain
We all have to live under our own mountain

GOOD GOAT:
One drop of rain on a surface so still
One cry of pain in a life of tranquility
A mind stripped of haste is a tongue stripped of taste
I’ll shatter the glass to send you back

GOOD GOAT:
We have coiled the length of the world
Through your mind and into the past
To find the truth about what you are
Who is the creature inside your mirror
When you look back, do you find peace?
Or the fear and sorrow you hid underneath
Did we leave what we left in a better place
On this odyssey to find your face

MONKEY:
Say goodbye to everything we’ve ever known
Here we find the time that will become our home
Life can be like a dream
Come lay down next to me

‘Monkey said to be happy
Though your life is a mystery
Heaven’s light is inside you
Find your way home and live in harmony’

GOLDEN FISHERMAN - CHRIS COLOHAN, JONAH FALCO, MIKE HALIECHUK
MONKEY - DAMIAN ABRAHAM
GOOD GOAT - TUKA MOHAMMED
COILED KING RAT - DAN BEJAR
SAGE OX - CARSON MCHONE (RECORDED BY DANIEL ROMANO)
TEA TOUT TIGER - ANNIE-CLAUDE DESCHÊNES
THOUSAND YEAR OLD MONKEY - KEITH MORRIS (RECORDED BY PAUL ROESSLER)
FALLEN DRAGON - SALLY MORREADORA
ANCIENT RAT - WALTER SCHREIFELS (RECORDED BY TJ PENZONE)
LOVELORN MONKEY - BRANDON WELCHEZ
LOVELORN GOAT - LEIGH ARTHUR
THE RIVER - EIDOLON
JADE MONKEY - JOHN BRANNON (RECORDED BY DELEANO ACEVEDO)
GREGARIOUS HARE - JACOB BANNON (RECORDED BY ZACH WEEKS)