“There are those who tell their tales

Without hesitation

Of saved souls and holy grails

Coven to congregation

I don’t care whether you’ve seen the light or felt the magic

Are you gentle? Are you kind when you’re stuck in traffic?”

— “The One Thing that I Know”

Nor does she saccharin it up with moral lines that would make deviants sweat.

“We watched as they paved, as they worked, as they tore

You said, I have no faith in this earth anymore

Sounded like hopelessness, sounded like need

I grabbed you, we ran to the trees

There was rain

And we danced in it

There was mud

And we ran in it

It was wild

Deep inside of everything green

There was pain

That we talked about

There was love

And we let it out

And we prayed

In the shade of everything green”

— “Everything Green”

“I don’t have a voice that tries to force feed,” said Kane. “I believe your true voice and your true message come out strong when you’re singing in front of an audience, regardless of the words. My deep belief is that I’m using my voice for healing, connection, and teaching people.”

“I try not to be heavy handed in thought,” she continued with a rueful grin, “although I can be very opinionated.”

And she could have let vitriol spew with “Everything Green,” written (partly) in ill homage to the development of the U.S. 19-23 highway.

“(19-23 going up to Johnson City) is a horrible thing to look at,” Kane said. “With things like that, it’s tempting to throw your hands up at everything — trees, kindness ... getting out of bed.”

But her anger flowered because of Julia Butterfly Hill, the world-renowned activist who spurned loggers by spending two years camped high up on a Redwood.

“I read her book Legacy of Luna prepared to be totally depressed and shaky,” said Kane. “I read it in a night. I was amazed that it’s a subject [logging of forests] so dear to her heart and yet, the book is saturated in kindness.”

Hill’s book became the spirit of “Everything Green” and made Kane realize that awareness doesn’t need a wagging finger.

“There’s a lot of horrible things going, and here’s a reminder of why we’re here and what’s important,” said Kane. “Lord knows there’s enough politically correct depressing folk songs. I don’t want to make a listener hurt.”

The root of Christine’s philosophy — a belief that her talent should be used to give to the world — makes her a treat with fans needing a little reprieve from reality.

“I think it’s easy to get thrown off balance,” she said. “It seems that people think that they’re either all about giving to others, or all about fulfilling themselves. When actually, there’s always a part of you being served when you give. It’s selfish to take yourself out of the equation.”

Even her songwriting workshops are studies in spiritual inwardness. Kane gets students to go beyond the cookie cutter philosophy of tune-smithing. Instead, she tells each individual to dig inward and cultivate the inner voice.

“I encourage people to not be afraid of their own voice, and this kind of process isn’t limited to the work of writing song. I tell them to experience their life fully and jump off the ‘path of the should’.”

And it’s hard not to be smitten with her philosophy. Here’s a musician who’s gone from shaky stool strummer to a respected artist with a whiff of sage nobility. Naively, I thought her success must be partly derived from all those hours on the glorious road, free from the headaches of normal life, free to write to the rhythm of the passing yellow lines.

“It’s hideous,” she clarified. “Recently, I was in a St. Louis airport trying to carry all at once my gigantic 100 pound guitar case, a computer, and two suitcases. Then my cell phone rang and everything fell. It was my good friend who’s also a songwriter, and we laughed at how ridiculous it all is. Touring is 22 hours of schlepping and two hours of performing.”

Kane blames the Red-Headed Stranger and the Beat Generation for her travails.

“(Being on the road) is glamorous in that people like Willie Nelson and Jack Kerouac made it glamorous to live life in the grimy. I don’t happen to find it glamorous. If you’re unhappy with your job, you may look at a tour bus with envy .... I guess the only difference between me and someone with a regular is I get applauded when I get to work,” she laughed.

This kind of humor keeps Christine sane and makes her songs pointed without leaving an irritating wound. Her pen’s aged like Dick Clark, maturing nicely since she began writing over 20 years ago, while growing up in Fairfax, Va.

“I could see as a kid that I was destined to be an artist,” remembered Kane. “Starting in the sixth grade, I wrote constantly. They became my outlets in high school and college [Christine also wrote a column for the school paper at Boston College]. Still, at that time, I didn’t think of myself as an artist.”

The pressure of finding a job, marrying the college sweetheart, and becoming a suburban clone didn’t bode well for Kane. After graduating, she decided to take a two-month writing class in Asheville. The short sabbatical (thus far) turned into 11 years. During her period of self-discovery, Christine made a living waiting tables and writing in her free time. But, she still had identity troubles. It took the prodding of close friends to stoke her true gift.

“I had a great friend who started calling me a songwriter. She forced me to start calling myself a musician. She started introducing me to other people as, ‘This is Christine, she’s a musician.’ I thought these people would call my bluff once they saw me perform.”

However, the real sham turned out to be her internal doubts. The “LaMotte Incident” instilled a smidgen of courage, and Kane began to polish her act on the local Asheville scene. Her debut CD, This Time Last Year (recorded in a friend’s basement) received lofty praise and unpredictably good sales. The second album, A Thousand Girls, showed Christine’s maturation as both a writer and a musician aware of creating atmospheric textures and rhythms.

Her fourth album, Rain and Mud and Wild and Green, is arguably the best yet. Kane hooked up with producer Ben Wisch (Kathy Mattea) to man the knobs. Wisch then acquired Bob Dylan’s hired gun, Larry Campbell, to do guitar work on the album.

Halfway through the recording, Christine flew to New York City for more studio work. The next session fell on Sept. 11, 2001. Work got put on hold for a week, as normalcy got displaced in the carnage.

“I found myself caught between two worlds,” Kane wrote in the liner notes. “One where I was locked up alone in a friend’s apartment staring at the TV for hours in a stupor of sadness and fear; and the other where I walked aimlessly through the streets of the Village just to be with other people who also just wanted to be with other people.”

Kane credits producer Wisch for keeping it together during the sessions that followed. The album, in parts, definitely takes on a darker, yet wiser tone. “Times Three” became the first song they recorded after 9-11, and its portency was uncanny. Kane wrote the song before the tragedy, but the song’s message seems like a postscript anthem.

“Noise all around me

Sounds like Graffiti

In this broken land

Where we will tell you

Where we will sell you

And we will shake your hand...

And I dream now

To wake up all the love inside me

Time Three

And I see how

The light alone is all we need.”

Almost two years later, Kane still skips down the shimmery path despite the bumps and thorns that may appear. Her fears are vaporizing (when she opened for 20,000 people in lieu of the Beach Boys she told me “I put on my sunglasses, closed my eyes and enjoyed the moment.”) and she began another “glam” tour at the beginning of July.

Kane’s wisdom stems from panic and self-reservation, ugly traits that have swanned over time.

“I am like the poster child for fear and self-doubt,” said Kane. “A friend told me that it’s not fear, it’s just all these dreams that you’ve pushed down all these years. Now, I make a point to tell new artists to keep going. The most frightened people have the most to offer.”