Hildegard Von Bingham at Samhain...........

Years ago  I performed a ritual invocation at Samhain with this haunting, visionary rendition of Hildegard Von Bingham's  "O Successores Fortissimi Leonis" by the group Vox, recorded in the early 1990's.  The invocation was done at my "Rites of Passage" Gallery in Berkeley, California, in honor of the approach of Samhain, the last harvest festival, the time to homor the Beloved Dead, and also the time when "the veils between the Worlds are thin".  The Invocatioin was done with 4 women in a circle,  turning the circle with gestures of offering.  It was one of the most beautiful performances I've done, well remembered.

I recently  played the piece again and was delighted to find it had been uploaded on UTube.  Von Bingham's vision and prayers reach across the ages to touch me again, on the unimaginable Internet.  I just felt like sharing it again, here.

From "The Dinner Party" by Judy Chicago

Illumination from the Liber Scivias 

showing Hildegard  receiving a vision

 and dictating to her scribe and secretary

"Hildegarde of Bingen, also known as St. Hildegard and the Sybil of the Rhine, was an enormously influential and spiritual woman, who paved the way for other women to succeed in a number of fields from theology to music. She was a mystic writer, who completed three books of her visions. During a time when members of the Catholic Church accorded women little respect, Hildegarde was consulted by bishops and consorted with the Pope, exerting influence over them.

She wrote on topics ranging from philosophy to natural healing with a critical expertise praised by both German advice-seekers and the highest-ranking figure in the Church, Pope Eugenius III. An esteemed advocate for scientific research, Hildegarde was one of the earliest promoters of the use of herbal medicine to treat ailments. She wrote several books on medicine, including Physica, circa 1150, which was primarily concerned with the use of herbs in medicinal treatment.

Hildegarde may be best known as a composer. 

Stemming from the traditional incantations of Church music, Hildegarde’s compositions took the form of a single chant-like, melodic line. These compositions are called antiphons and are a single line of music sung before and after a psalm. Hildegarde combined all of her music into a cycle called Symphonia Armonie Celestium Revelationum, circa 1151, orThe Symphony of the Harmony of the Heavenly Revelations, which reflects her belief that music was the highest praise to God.

Hildegarde herself created a drawing, or illumination, in her manuscript Scivias (Know the Ways), circa 1140–50, of her defining vision, in which the great span of the universe revealed itself to her in a trance as “round and shadowy…pointed at the top, like an egg…its outermost layer of a bright fire.”**

https://youtu.be/-4H3o1cvh8I

** "The Dinner Party" by Judy Chicago, Brooklyn Museum of Art   https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/place_settings/hildegarde_of_bingen

"Some Day" - wonderful "flash mob" in Israel

So inspiring, so good to hear these  voices singing together for the Human Family!  Thanks as ever for my friends the MacGregors at their Blog Synchro Secrects  (http://blog.synchrosecrets.com/)

https://youtu.be/XqvKDCP5-xE

"Spider Woman Speaks" Performance

Yesterday I participated in a Performance Showcase at the Carport Theatre, the wonderful community theatre created by multi media artist Kathy Keler here in Tucson.   It was my pleasure to see two pieces (which were  created and  pre-recorded with the great help of Kathy) and  performed by Diane Warren.     The first performance was  Spider Woman,  who is found, sometimes, in the deserts of the wide South West.   Because you came there with empty hands.

https://soundcloud.com/user-972033003/spiderwomanwithmusic3-2

The Hidden Sky

The Hidden Sky:  Fibonacci Movie from Cara Reichel on Vimeo.

When I find something I love, it stays with me, revisited over and over again. The Spiral...............the Spiral Dance, the Spirals of Fibonacci, the elegant, eternal, mysterious spiral of time and space.  This video was one of the  "trailers" for a play some 7 years ago that was based on a story by Ursula Leguin called "The Masters" (a story not without relevance today, as it concerns a scientist who is silenced by an oppressive theocracy in a post apocalyptic world.  )   Below I also share the Prologue to the tale.

The Hidden Sky: Fibonacci Video

 http://vimeo.com/8652898  

music and lyrics by Peter Foley

book by Kate Chisholm

based on the short story “The Masters” by Ursula K. Le Guin

directed by Kate Chisholm

The Hidden Sky: Prologue Movie from Cara Reichel on Vimeo.

"Science and religion collide in this sophisticated and mythic new musical. At the center of the conflict is Ganil, a young woman whose passionate longing for knowledge leads her on a dangerous journey in pursuit of lost and forbidden truths. With an eclectic score featuring lush choral singing, this compelling tale of spiritual awakening illuminates the complex dialogue between faith and reason."

“The power of Foley´s score effectively communicates the exhilaration of intellectual discovery… The melodic urgency, rhythmic variety, harmonic invention and orchestral sophistication of his music compel the attention. Foley acknowledges a range of influences from Sufi music to the rock band U2, yet what he has made of them is something uniquely his own.”

— The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Hidden Sky:  Fibonacci Movie from Cara Reichel on Vimeo.

Joanna Brouk - Hearing Music

Joanna and I  met as students at U.C. Berkeley in the halcyon years of protest, New Age, and just being young artists in an exciting time in our lives. I created a series of drawings for Joanna and my other friend Felicia, in a collaboration we did to create a book of poetry. I lost touch with Joanna and Felicia, but I put their poems up on my website.  In 2008 I was contacted by Felicia, and spent time with her before she passed away in 2010.  Not too long after that Joanna and I reconnected, and we've been friends again ever since.  

She was one of the early composers of synthesizer music.  I remember a beautiful piece she performed for Hearts of Space using a Tibetan gong....for years I played it on an old tape until it finally stopped working.  I also remember standing in the stairwell of Kroeber Hall, where the art and anthro departments at U.C. B. was, while Joanna recorded me singing to the echoes of the building.  It ended up in a piece of music, and it was ghostly to hear my  own voice from so long ago within the album. 

I was delighted to learn that Joanna's music has been re-released, and she will be doing concerts again, among them in Paris this summer.


https://youtu.be/CDy1dDijsIs

Celebrating Jackson Brown

Every generation has its great singers, its heart movers, an Orpheus who can move you to tears with their words and their songs...........JacksonBrowne has been one of those singer poets for me, along with Robin Williamson and Leonard Cohen......people whose songs will no doubt be with me until the end.    This post is sheer indulgence for me, and thanks to the technology of UTube and the generosity of Blogging, I can come back to these favorite songs again and again.  

Like Leonard Cohen, Jackson Brown has always been bitter sweet, infused with both pragmatism and a deep mysticism, sad, ironic and celebratory  at the same moment. Everything, as Cohen pointed out, "has a crack in it - that's how the light gets in".  

Thank you, Jackson Brown.


https://youtu.be/AWIJ8RAcsHQ  In the shape of a heart



https://youtu.be/BV03illYdTM  the pretender

There's a Crack in everything - that's how the Light gets in

Driving to my brother's funeral in Los Angeles, where my family is from.  First thing I do is go to visit Mother Ocean, the Pacific, the place it begins and always seems to end.  My feet walk on the sand, and I think of this song by Leonard Cohen.  Truly, he says it all.  To love, indeed, we all must come - but like a refugee.  That's how the light gets in...............

http://youtu.be/_e39UmEnqY8




http://youtu.be/5ma5tF6TJpA



The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what
Has passed away
Or what is yet to be

Ah the wars they will
Be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
Bought and sold
And bought again
The dove is never free

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

We asked for signs
The signs were sent:
The birth betrayed
The marriage spent
Yeah the widowhood
Of every government
Signs for all to see

I can't run no more
With that lawless crowd
While the killers in high places
Say their prayers out loud
But they've summoned up, they've summoned up
A thundercloud
And they're going to hear from me

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

You can add up the parts
But you won't have the sum
You can strike up the march
There is no drum
Every heart, every heart
To love will come
But like a refugee

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in
That's how the light gets in
That's how the light gets in

Ferron

And you may say:  "I don't really care what you're talking about" and I say:

"Are you trying to say you don't belong?"

Ferron

Have you ever heard a song from a long time ago, and suddenly, a whole decade of your life becomes alive and animated in your bloodstream and your tastebuds again, and you remember driving down highway 40, and listening as if the song propelled you toward the setting sun, and the horizon was full of promise and adventure, and maybe even a touch of some dimly devined Destiny........and now, you say to yourself,  "How did life ever get so static?"

And "How did I ever forget that song?"............

Here's to  Ferron.  I can't believe I ever forgot those songs. 

http://youtu.be/I3vY89M8uVI



http://youtu.be/5of4PUgG41w