Showing posts with label Celtic music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Celtic music. Show all posts

Monday, June 21, 2021

Summer Solstice 2021

Found at the Chalice Well in Glastonbury, UK.

In Ursula Leguin's Earthsea Novels,  the Summer Solstice is celebrated by dancing "the Long Dance" all night, to watch the sun rise in the morning.  Something many do on this planet as well, and still. I have done so myself.  I wish all the Blessings of the Day, and may we each find a way to  "dance the Long Dance" together in body or in spirit this sacred and most primeval day.  Here (again, and again) is the poem I share on such days, because the words and harp of the poet will always arise as I look out at the rising sun on the Solstice, the "World's Self Seen" in all of Her abundance, no matter where I am. "Every blue yonder Her brass harp rings" for those who can stop, who will listen to the deep throb of the Heartbeat, to the Harp strings sounding.    "She  will seal us with Her seed", the poet tells us, and this, strangely, is the taste of immortality I experience, each Solstice, when I stop to listen to the Song that Walks among us.

Every morning when I rise with the sun to water my garden, and especially this morning, I find myself  talking to all the people that live there.  The tall sunflowers, making seeds beloved by finches and sparrows.  The desert tortoise who has decided to live here.  My cats, and the  green scarab beetles getting drunk on tree sap.  The bees, having a drink at the bird bath, and the hummingbird. All the beings sensed and unseen, but friendly somehow too.  As  a child, the garden was full of "people" for me to visit, and now, an old woman, I seem to have returned again to that happy experience, unconcerned with what others think, and increasingly tired of all my human "identities" at last.  So much is possible by just shifting the way we see things, from an "it" to a "you".  When we "see with a Webbed Vision".  The world becomes again  conversant.  I think (again) of a story by Ursula Leguin called "May's Lion" that speaks so eloquently to that power of naming.  But let the rest of this post belong (again) to the Poet, Robin Williamson.  And the Glory of the Summer Solstice!

Summer Solstice, Brushwood, 2008









Verses from Powis

I am a lover of the steady Earth

And of Her waters.

She says:  “Let the light be brilliant

for those who will cherish color.”

What if there be no Heaven?

 She says: “Touch my Breasts - the fields are golden.”

Her Songs are all of love, lifelong.

Every blue yonder, Her brass harp rings.

Unlettered, in Her rivers our cherished sins

Drift voiceless in Her clouds.

She will rust us with blossom

She will forgive us

She will seal us

with Her seed.

Robin Williamson

Invocation

You that create the diversity of the forms:


Open to my words
You that divide it and multiply it


Hear my sounds

Ancient associates and fellow wanderers
You that move the heart in fur and scale


I join with you

You that sing bright and subtle
Making shapes 

that my throat cannot tell
















You that harden the horn
And make quick the eye
You that run the fast fox 
and the zigzag fly

You sizeless makers of the mole
And of the whale:  
aid me and I will aid you


You that lift the blossom
and the green branch
You who make symmetries more true

Who dance in slower time
Who watch the patterns

You rough coated
Who eat water
Who stretch deep and high
With your green blood
My red blood 
let it be mingled

Aid me and I will aid you






I call upon you
You who are unconfined
Who have no shape
Who are not seen
But only in your action
I will call upon you

You who have no depth
But choose direction
Who bring what is willed
That you blow love

upon the summers of my loved ones
That you blow summers

upon those loves of my love


Aid me and I will aid you

I make a pact with you























You who are the liquid
Of the waters
And the spark of the flame:
I call upon you

You who make fertile the soft earth
And guard the growth of the growing things
I make peace with you

You who are the blueness of the blue sky
And the wrath of the storm
I take the cup with you

Earth shakers
And with you
the sharp and the hollow hills
I make reverence to you

Round wakefulness 

We call the Earth
I make wide eyes to you

You who are awake

Every created thing

both solid and sleepy
Or airy light,

I weave colors 'round you

You who will come with me

I will consider it Beauty
I will consider it

Beauty, beauty



Published by  WARLOCK MUSIC, LTD.


Sunday, August 12, 2018

"The Parting Glass"............ wonderful Celtic drinking song!

This is true blessing at the bar............ it could easily be my own theme song!  I have always loved Celtic music for the exquisite blend of bitter and sweet.  Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/s1P-365rkOg