“All sounds, all colours, all forms, either because of their pre-ordained energies or because of long association, evoke indefinable and yet precise emotions, or, as I prefer to think, call down among us certain disembodied powers, whose footsteps over our hearts we call emotions; and when sound, and color, and form are in a musical relation, a beautiful relation to one another, they become as it were one sound, one color, one form, and evoke an emotion that is made out of their distinct evocations and yet is one emotion.”
- William Butler Yeats The Symbolism of Poetry (1900)
There is music in the seasons of Earth & Cosmos, and there is a music in us that animates and – if we heed it – keeps us awakened to possibilities. There are the rhythms of circulation and the melodies of thought, the harmonies that exist between different parts of our bodies, as well as the harmonies that characterize the interface between our inner and outer lives when we are centered and grounded in Earth & Cosmos. From a naturalistic or earthen perspective, one of the primary aims of spirituality is to ‘tune’ our lives; to bring ourselves into harmony, which involves coming into harmony with Nature and our human surroundings in such a way as to encourage and promote flourishment (eudaimonia; Gk often translated "happiness" but having this more revelatory meaning). When we are well-tuned, we ‘dance.’
Lughnassadh;
one of the old Celtic cross-quarter festivals, opposite Bridgetmas and crossed
from Beltaine and Samhain in the Wheel of the Year—was long ago celebrated as a
time to bring the life rhythms of agriculture and the patterns patterns of our lives into harmony through music & dance; bringing
the music that animates us in our journey through Earth & Cosmos to a manifest
expression, if only for a moment. It was the beginning of the harvest season; 'harvest' being a metaphor for our own coming-to-fruition as well. At this
tine of the year, I turn to these old mythological stories, seeking earthen
wisdom. Mythology can still inform a
naturalistic spirituality, if we know how to hear and interpret it. Ancient symbols and metaphors, especially
those drawn from the turning of the seasons and the human journey through the
annual cycle – can still speak to an earthen heart.
Let
the dance begin!
Lugh
[pronounced “lou”] was a polymath and
an omnicraefty character in Celtic myth who gained entrance to the Celtic fellowship
of gods & goddesses – known as the Tuatha
de Danaan [pronounced “Too-ha jay
don-awn”] – by being master of many things, not just master of one thing. He was a magician and a musician as
well as the god of both manual and artistic craefts. There is much to be
said for the idea that ‘magic’ is a metaphor for the artistic expression of human desire
and intention. Lugh is said to have
introduced several agricultural innovations into Irish society, including the
plow. _Thus the artist is portrayed as having a
practical side to their creativity; the aesthetic and the technological can be wed together in the
gifts of a single person—something we tend to deny or forget in our culture, dominated as it is by the old image of the 'artist' as inept at all practical things.
His connection to agriculture testifies to the lateness of Lugh’s admission to
the house of the gods & goddesses, as the Celts in Ireland and all across
Europe had long lived the life of pastoral nomads, only settling down to
till the land late in their history. In this way, Lugh can be seen as the
culmination of the Celtic vision of what a human person was – or at least could
be. He was an ideal; someone who might
have been called a “Renaissance Person" a millennium later.
Legends have it that Lugh wanders about the land on his festival days at the beginning of August, looking to make craefty any mortal person willing to discipline themselves and dedicate themselves to excellence, beauty and vision. We might today take this story as a call to inspiration, each year as we come around to the early days of August.
Legends have it that Lugh wanders about the land on his festival days at the beginning of August, looking to make craefty any mortal person willing to discipline themselves and dedicate themselves to excellence, beauty and vision. We might today take this story as a call to inspiration, each year as we come around to the early days of August.
I dance_ I revel_ I sing_ I frolick!
From
a naturalistic spiritual point of view, I find in the lore of Lughnassadh a summons
to renew my own energy through meditative dance and music. Lughnassadh is a time for music that calls us
toward an ecstatic fulfillment, in imitation of what is going on in the natural
world around us. The crops in the fields
and even the weeds in the flowerbeds are all coming to maturity and being
fruitful. I take as a rann for the
summer the triad: “Flourishment—Fruition—Fructification”
– and through it attempt to realize in myself something of these natural
processes that are so evident as Summerwood passes from Solstice through this
turnstile at the first of August and on into September. The music I listen to at this tine of the
year tends to be passionate, erotic and sensual. The maturity of the emotions is to be
celebrated, as well as the possibility of epiphany.
I
have taught myself to dwell in the
seasons and nurture experiences that reflect – in my interior nature – what is
going on in the external world. Everything I do is ‘seasonal’ in its
way. Attuned to the season, I express
myself differently in Summer than I do in the Winter; in the Fall as in the
Spring. The genres of music I listen to at
this time of the year differ from what I listen to earlier in the early Summer or in
the Spring or back in the Winter. I have
favorite artists and albums that express what it is I think each season is
manifesting. The fervor of High Summer
is passing, and in the wake of Lughnassadh I start to quiet down, revel more solemnly, and
inevitably turn to more reflective music.
After
Lughnassadh I shift toward music that has that sense of "Faery
Melancholy" – which is akin to what is called the "High Lonesome Sound"
in American music. This music, for me, reflects the irony of the Season; the
fact that although the days are still hot & humid _and the woods & fields
are green, the nights have grown longer over the last five weeks, the fruit on
the trees and the vegetables in the garden have ripened, some even having gone past
their prime, and in the woods you will occasionally see that odd red leaf on
the ground, prophesying Autumn!
As
we turn down the darkening side of the Wheel of the Year, I yearn for moments
of transcendence, and nothing prepares me for this like music with the
temperament of melancholy. Melancholy, properly understood, is not
synonymous with 'depression' or even with mere sadness; it is
that deep awareness of our own mortality tempered by our love of
life.
Along
with the music comes the desire to dance; to move – to swing and sway and make
my way 'round and around the meditation circle, moving to the rhythm of the music
and hearing – in my own being in becoming – the affirmation of life that
transcends the coming of the dark; the dying down of life in the Autumn; the
end that we all must inevitably face. To dance is to dream to fly; to move
and churn and wave the arms and sing a song_
Lughnassadh
as a time of dance and song can be a potent moment in the Wheel of the Year
when our love-of-life faces our mortality; which is intimated in our
awareness of the dimming of Summerwood days. Dancing we accept it, and revel on. Everything
dies. But first_ life can be lived! And in the maturation of life
comes the harvest of all that we have worked for and striven for and danced to
receive! This is the gist of Lughnassadh for me. Thus_
I dance_ I revel_ I sing_ I frolick!
[An
original version of this blog was posted 08/02/2009.]
Good Work ....
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