Beltane: May 1, 2010
Beltane - an ancient celebration in Celtic cultures. Many different spellings are used, but all derive from the same linguistic root – old Irish meaning ‘bright fire’. This links to the coming season of strongest sunlight, and to ancient practices of driving livestock between bonfires in order to purify them for the coming season of growth.
Many traditions mark this time of year. The “Beltane Fire Festival” in Edinburgh draws an audience of nearly 15,000 people annually – with grand re-enactments, dancing and drummers.
You would have a tough time getting any bonfires lit in the foothills of Alberta tonight! Just a day or so ago, 50 cm of snow blasted into the woods out here in less than 24 hours. The howling winds covered the emerging leaves with frozen slush...the firepit is buried somewhere under it all, so I’ll write about it instead of light it.
Continuing the theme of ‘go like heck!’, the month of May is packed. Looking forward to some performance for a taller audience or two in the next weeks, as well as a number of different things with shorter audiences. In between it all, I am merrily pulling together the last arrangements, etc as preparation for the month of June – which is entirely devoted to the completion of the recordings I have been writing about.
Pretty excited about this! These two recordings have been in the works for awhile – even before I started posting about them here just over a year ago. Labours of love.
I am heading up to Edmonton in a couple of weeks to choose a venue for a release concert there, and have been mulling over a few options in Calgary. To make sure there is enough time for mixing, mastering and pressing, the concert dates start in October. Just thinking about Alberta venues for the latter part of 2010, but am exploring options a little further afield for the first part of 2011.
So for now, Happy Beltane! If you can find any dry kindling where you are, may your drumming be loud, and your bonfires burn brightly!
Spring Equinox: March 20, 2010
Blessings as Spring’s tide rises!
The Equinoxes are a profound lesson in the art of balance. At the Vernal and Autumnal Equinoxes, light and dark dance together as equals, the two in balance. I find I tend to think of ‘balance’ as a noun, a thing to be achieved. In reality, it is a verb – a constantly shifting dynamic, something that we do – not achieve.
A good lesson for me as I reflect on the weeks since Imbolc. Many gifts, but a pace that left little time outside of those demands. The weeks have flown by.
So today, I was amazed to see so many buds already on the boughs as I wandered through the woods. New buds, the promise of spring.
The piece of music that I recorded at sunset last evening is a gentle piece, one that flows between sunlight and shadow. It is a medley of three songs. “Eleanor”, by the greatest of the Irish harpers, Turlough O’Carolan; “Som Coiman” – a simple, yet compelling Bolivian traditional folk melody; and part of a piece I composed after the loss of a loved one several years ago, entitled “Gifts”.
I hope it is one you will enjoy. It will be here for download until early morning March 22.
I looked up the linguistic roots of the word ‘dream’ as I was settling on a title for the piece…it comes from the old English word drēam, meaning both ‘joy’ and ‘music’. May you find much of both as the Spring’s tide calls forth the growing season and the new leaves.
Imbolc: February 1st, 2010
Each lengthening day weaves the promise of spring into the fabric of our daily lives. After the deep nights of Midwinter, there is relief and sense of wonder as the daylight lingers just a bit longer, comes just a bit sooner.
This year, Imbolc brings a brief pause for me to slow and reflect. Most years, the months of January through April tend to become quite full with storytelling work in schools, and this year is no exception. I love it though, and look forward to the adventures ahead in creating storytelling festivals with students as the tellers!
The creation work with the song and story projects continues, and I am beginning to dwell more on the celebration event to release the recordings. When I have sorted through this, I will post the details here.
I have added an ‘events’ page to the site. My itinerary tends to fill with mostly private functions – performances for closed audiences such as schools or groups, music for celebrations, work with individuals. But over the next months, there are a couple of workshops that will be coming up. One is a meditation workshop experience, and the other an introduction to the shamanic journey space. If you are interested, please send me a note…the group size for both events will be kept quite small. If you are interested in either, but can’t make it work on a weekday, please let me know. Arrangements for weekend workshops are easy to make, once there are enough people to make it a go.
There is a lovely piece of music I have been playing and singing a great deal through the darkest part of the year…a blend of the melody lines of two traditional pieces I have long loved. I have been preparing to record a simple version of it for free download from this site at the spring equinox, and have entitled it ‘Dreaming of Spring’. It will only be posted here for download March 20th & 21st, 2010, so be sure to check back then.
Until then, blessings!
Winter Solstice: December 21, 2009
Blessings on the rebirth of the sun! Midwinter has always been a time of celebration and gratitude for those in the northern hemisphere. Here in the dark heart of winter, the sun seems to stand still in the heavens.
It remains an incredibly powerful symbol and teacher, even in our age of scientific explanations for all things. Twice every year, the ultimate source of physical light, warmth and power appears to come to a complete standstill in the heavens. And in that stillness, the sun gathers the energy to change course. At winter solstice, the waning light turns. After 6 days motionless in the heavens, the sun begins its climb back to the fullness of brilliance and influence over the northern hemisphere.
The winter solstice is a time of gathering in, of dwelling in the stillness of potential energy before it becomes kinetic - and enacted upon the world. It seems ironic that the celebrations of this season have drifted so far afield of stillness. It is easy for the weeks around the winter solstice to become frantic and frenetic.
But the snow falls gently out here in the woods today, the forest fading into a haze that makes it hard to distinguish earth from sky. Perfect for a solstice retreat with candle and firelight, harpsong, long walks in the winter silence, and simple ritual.
Ritual is simplicity itself. Our days are crafted around our own personal everyday rituals – kiss the spouse, hug the dog, a cup of morning warmth, the ways in which we close and lock the house in heading out into the world. Rituals are actions we take to remind ourselves of what is valued, of the worth of things and individuals in our lives. Ritual space forms the heart of all sacred activity.
A lovely solstice ritual involves a simple contemplation of the power of the sun – manifested each day in the form of the shadow we cast. Our shadow is with us constantly, falling upon the earth as we travel – a temporary and fleeting thing, as are our experiences. At midday on the winter solstice, one’s noontime shadow is the longest it will be on any day in the turning of the year.
A few moments standing still (attending to the size of the shadow at this time of the year), followed by a walking meditation (ruminating on all that this small shadow has passed over and through in the twelvemonth since the last winter solstice) can be a welcome respite from the frenetic, a way to return to stillness. It can also be a time to dwell on potential. What are the hoped for pathways ahead, the dreams, of the year to come? What possibilities merit action? What actions call as the days begin to lengthen – bringing us out of the time of long nights?
At this time of ‘sun stands still’, I am allowing the music and the stories to rest a bit as well. The past weeks have been largely preoccupied with the current recording projects.
‘Beneath the Boughs’ has settled itself into five pieces: ‘Wonder’, ‘Awakening’, ‘Joy’, ‘Blessings’, & ‘In The Stillness’. It has taken weeks to settle on which cello and violin takes are best suited to the final pieces. In addition, I have been working with some draft harp recordings - again listening for where the pieces ask for more fullness of the harp, or a more sparse arrangement.
Through this, I have also been determining which violin, cello and percussion lines will become part of the soundscape for the story recording. At this time, ‘Wisdom of the Woods’ has settled around four tales: ‘The Storyteller’ (a traditional tale from the British Isles); ‘Maiden Huntress’ (traditional); ‘Raven & Bear’s Wild Ride’ (an original creation, celebrating the life of a dear friend); and ‘Fear on the Wind’ (a variant of a Buddhist tale). The interludes of harpsong between tales are as yet untitled, though the pieces of music themselves are quite settled.
It feels like the completion phase is just now beginning. As I head into this stage with both projects, I will be listening for the best way to celebrate their releases into the world. I will post details here as this takes shape.
May Midwinter bring you renewal, thanksgiving, and time to celebrate life’s gifts. And then, as in one of my favourite quotes from Rumi, may you:
"Step forth proudly into sunlight, never looking back."
Samhain: November 1, 2009
Happy New Year!
Although every festival in the turning of the Celtic year has importance, it is the festival of Samhain that anchors the year’s turning. The Celts had a deep understanding that a meaningful new beginning needed acknowledgement of the endings that preceded it. Hence the New Year began in the waning light following the harvest months.
Samhain Eve is a time for joy, for feasting, for the telling of otherworldly tales. At the heart of the celebrations is a deep acknowledgement of the ancestors… a celebration of the gifts left us by those who have passed on. A place set at the feast for the dead, candle and lamp lit at the windows, are signs that none are forgotten in the home of the heart.
I was able to retreat from worldly duties for three days and three nights over Samhain, and am deeply grateful for the gift of the time. It was renewing to look at the twelvemonth past, and to dream of the twelvemonth ahead.
My apologies for posting a bit late, but it has been a rich (and busy!) week following my retreat, as it was time to leap back into the studio. Roger Duncan completed his percussion work this past week, and I am so pleased with what he has done. One of the pieces on “Beneath the Boughs” will feature his work – and the other two will have their place on a Midwinter recording project that will take shape later in 2010.
Barb Olorenshaw completed the violin accompaniments at the end of this past week as well. I have been hoping to record with Barb since playing alongside her for the first time after the release of “Sacred Ground”. She brings sheer magic from the violin strings. With the voice of the violin, it is like hearing all of the pieces for the first time, and I couldn’t be happier with what she has done.
Now it is all up to me. I will be deciding on final arrangements of cello, violin and percussion as I record the final harp and vocal tracks for “Beneath the Boughs”. I will also be settling in to the story recording for “Wisdom of the Woods”. All good things in their own time!
Many thanks for stopping in to find out how things are taking shape, and many blessings for Samhain!
Autumn Equinox: September 22, 2009
Exquisite balance, light and darkness, day and night. Each equinox brings the simple lesson of stillness…simple, yet not an easy thing to achieve in walking through the world.
In the early hours this morning, I listened through the music recorded thus far. Many facets of this process make my heart sing, though the wonder of the other instruments is by far the most inspiring at this time.
The final cello pieces were recorded mid September, and the results are so beautiful. One piece in particular sings out.
Titled ‘Awakening’, it is one of the first songlines that came to me as I lived in the austere beauty of the forest over a decade ago. The song was inspired by standing in the early morning equinox light, mist rising through the pines, the air fresh and cold.
From the beginning, I heard the rich voice of the cello on the melody line, calling out to the stillness. One of Tom’s takes in particular perfectly and sensitively captures the mood for the piece that I have been hoping for. The violin drafts thus far are beautiful as well – Barb brings such a freshness and sweetness to each of the pieces she is developing.
The work itself now sets the pace. As schedules fill, my hope now is to have Barb's final violin work and Roger's percussion work recorded before the end of October.
Though a bit reluctant to leave the still place of the studio work, at Autumn Equinox, the storytelling season begins anew, and it is time to head out into the world with harp in hand! And it is good! Some of the photos from the summer photoshoots for the CD’s now grace the webpage. The shamanic work now resumes in the cottage as well as I continue to work towards readying the recordings to make their way out into the world.
I hope that as the nights begin to grow longer than the days now, you find many moments of awakening and stillness as you walk through the world.
Lughnasagh: August 1, 2009
For the Celts, the festival of Lugh – the Many Gifted One of ancient myth - marked the call of the harvest and the turning to prepare for summer’s end. Though summer heat reaches its heights, there is something of a bittersweet quality in the air…a sense of the need to truly enjoy the many-gifted richness of the all too brief summer.
I have spent a fair bit of time out in the silence this summer. It has always been where songs have taken shape and taken their place in the rhythms of my life. The past three weeks have seen a surge of ‘songline’ energy, as three new pieces of music arrived and took over my life. I love it when that happens, though the rest of the world seems to fade away until the tide passes. As I have fallen in love with the new songs, the vision I had for ‘Beneath the Boughs’ has grown in order to make room for them.
The three original pieces I have been working with have been tightened up a little, and the recording will now likely have six tracks. The first three longer playing pieces feature harp, voice, cello, and violin. The final three are all shorter pieces with lyrics, the other instruments weaving in and out. I will be heading out to the Kananaskis for photos to work into the CD design early in August. ‘Beneath the Boughs’ contains the last of the songs that began to develop during the magical years of living out in that powerful landscape, so it seems appropriate to bring its images into the final package.
Since the Summer Solstice, preparation for the recording work has continued. It is really exciting to be preparing for the work of the guest musicians on the two recordings. Tom Megee (cellist for Calgary Philharmonic), Barb Olorenshaw (violinst for the Celtic group Seancara), and Roger Duncan (director of the One World Drum company) are bringing their gifts to various pieces. They will be laying down their tracks during the last three weeks of August. Once the other musicians have completed their contributions, my schedule will once again open for the shamanic work. I will then take September and October to do final harp tracks and vocals, as well as develop the design and text for the CD packaging.
So thanks for checking in to find out how things are coming along! I hope your own creative harvests are coming along, and that this many-gifted season brings you much satisfaction!
Summer Solstice: June 21, 2009
Ah, the sweetness of Midsummer! The longest day of the year, and though the light begins to wane again now, the warmest months of the year lie ahead. My reasons for loving the season have changed as I have aged…when I was a kid, it meant hours on my rickety bike, afternoons at the local swimming pool, and popsicles in the shade by the merry go round. In the years since the harp has arrived, it has been the sweetness of being able to play outside – to hear the notes float between trills of robinsong, or the breeze sounding the strings when my fingers have stilled.
Typically, my storytelling season ends at the Summer Solstice and resumes around the Autumn Equinox. Storytelling has always had its greatest power during the long nights – not that it doesn’t have a place year round! But those childhood delights linger in their own way, and it is hard to imagine competing with the delights of the short warm season.
These past years have seen summer become the prime season for my own creative work. Those childhood delights have their honour place in that work these days.
A decade ago, as a novice storyteller, it was difficult for me to gauge how long stories would take in performance. As I began performing in schools and at conferences or retreats, time and schedules needed to be respected and adhered to. In those first performances, I would sometimes find myself exasperated to glance at the clock and see I would come up short, or have to cut something off in order to finish on time. It was during one of those moments that I discovered something of the power of family stories.
I had had one of those grand storytellings where the words had woven magic, and the audience was rapt. As the last notes of the harp stilled, I saw that there was too much time left on the clock – yet not enough time left to do another story justice. I did not want the morning to end with a whimper, and in a flash of both inspiration and desperation, I opened my mouth to ask, “Did I ever tell you about my little sister Carmen?”
Carmen has always been my best friend. She has grown up to be a storyteller of a different sort – a brilliantly funny comedian who has appeared at comedy festivals in North America, been featured on CBC and the Comedy Network, and created a number of one woman shows. When we were kids, we were inseparable (and still are!), and found ourselves in a wide variety of bizarre (and sometimes dangerous) situations as our imaginations ran off with us.
So the tale flowed out, and the audience and I laughed until we couldn’t breathe – the time I accidentally buried Carmen alive in the big dirt hill down the back alley. And from that time, the “Misadventures of Carmen and Jeff” have been a staple in my repertoire.
It troubled me for awhile though…I would return to a school where I had performed previously, and though the kids would remember Perseus and Theseus and Beowulf and Robin Hood – they would remember Carmen and I most of all, and ask if I was going to tell them another this time. In fact, the question I have most often been asked by audiences of young children has been “Could you bring Carmen in for show and tell?”
Perhaps the stories about nothing appeal to the heart, because most of our favourite personal stories are really about nothing more than the unfolding of one moment in time. No grand life or death choices, or dramatic plot lines…but unforgettable nonetheless.
Last summer, I worked on character illustration and design to bring these stories to life in picture books. As a kid, I had always drawn and drawn and drawn. Things were a bit rusty at first (my fingers are a few decades older now), but it has been delightful to see the characters take shape on the page the way I have envisioned them in my mind at each telling. I got a little carried away, and ended up creating hundreds of character sketches, expressions and poses, which I then compiled into a hundred page design guide. I wrote a fair bit too, and the ten or so stories I tell most often have all been drafted out and redrafted and reworked, and I have been working on page layouts for the first illustrated misadventure.
This summer – though ‘Beneath the Boughs’ and ‘Wisdom of the Woods’ are my primary focus – I am further developing the first misadventure, and preparing to publish sometime early in 2010. It is nice work to be able to rest in when I take a break from the other projects.
So though I no longer ride my rickety bike at maniacal speeds down gravel roads, I still enjoy a popsicle or two while putting speed lines on the pictures of my ten year old self as he roars through the page in hand.
And for the ten year old in all of us – what season is better than the one that begins Midsummer’s Eve?
Beltane: May 1, 2009
In the turning of the year by the Celtic calendar, the festival of Beltane was a joyous celebration. The tides of growth, of light, have returned visibly to the natural world; the days have grown much longer than the darkness. Passion, vitality, and wonder surge through the glades, and the branches are no longer barren.
Some years ago, at this time of the year, I was deeply moved by the wisdom of a child. A dear friend of mine was reading a paper by educational scholar Dr. David Jardine entitled “Unable To Return To The Gods That Made Them”. A thought provoking read, one image created by the author had lingered with her…the idea that we have created so many things that cannot return to the elements of the earth in our world; that ‘hell’ is to be a Styrofoam cup... created from elements of the earth, yet unable to decompose, be renewed, and enter the natural cycles once more.
My friend discussed the power of this image with her daughter – seven years old at the time. After hearing the statement that “Hell is a styrofoam cup”, without pause her daughter responded, “Then Heaven is a new leaf.”
The beauty of this statement has traveled with me ever since. Each year, beginning at the tide of Beltane, I find myself carefully watching for the gates of ‘heaven’ on the boughs of the wakening woods. There is nothing like the fragrance that fills the air as the new leaves unfurl, or the exquisite shade of green that haloes the boughs as the buds open.
The new music recording I am working on is entitled “Beneath the Boughs”. It is my hope that the three long-playing pieces will capture some of the magic I witness in the coming weeks beneath the new leaves. As I finalize the arrangements for the new CD, I am also at work developing a companion recording of traditional stories entitled “Wisdom of the Woods” – several tales from around the world with trees playing a central role in the unfolding story.
For the weeks ahead, there is a bit of a lull in the busy time of performances in Alberta schools (before a surge once more towards the end of the school year). As the creative work unfolds and I continue shamanic work in the healing cottage, I will savour and draw inspiration from the beautiful truth that ‘Heaven is a new leaf’.
Spring Equinox: March 20, 2009
Spring Equinox, in this part of the world, followed by the inevitable big snowfall! Even so, I am inspired by the balance between light and dark; by the natural world’s continual, ever-changing improvisation.
The natural world is a great teacher of timelessness. We run about with time measurers strapped to the wrist, sweating the morning traffic, constantly recalculating the length of the commute. Time outdoors renders the ticking irrelevant.
Even the moment of the equinox itself is calculated by industrious scientists…but heading outside, there is no momentous event that occurs at a set moment on the clock. Instead, the sun, the wind, the quality of the light, conspire to pull us into time of a different sort.
The three facets of the work that I do are all about this timeless space, where other elements of life are freed to come to the forefront, and eclipse deadlines and appointments and duties for a time.
I have been so engaged in the storytelling space of late that this is the one on my mind. Many Greek myths live in my storytelling repertoire. There is something about the scope of them that still dances for me with each telling, no matter how often the tale has crossed my lips. There are two Greek words that deal very beautifully with this idea of timelessness.
One that we become so intimately acquainted with in the grown-up world is that of kronos: the space of measured time, where we keep time, make time, lose time, and watch the clock. Things to do are stored in voicemail and email and text messages, etc. But kronos is not where the treasures are found.
The treasures are found in the realm of kairos, the space outside of time. It is the space of being completely caught up in something - lost in a book, carried away by a piece of music, moved by the elegance of the sunset. These tend to be the treasured moments in our lives.
The Welsh bards spoke of this as the presence of Awen – flowing spirit. Peak performance researchers and those in the learning sciences describe it as the state of flow…we lose track of time entirely - mesmerized and nourished by the wonder of the moment. Story transports us there.
I hope that this threshold of the year finds you well and able to step off the clock for a few moments, and be nourished.
Beltane - an ancient celebration in Celtic cultures. Many different spellings are used, but all derive from the same linguistic root – old Irish meaning ‘bright fire’. This links to the coming season of strongest sunlight, and to ancient practices of driving livestock between bonfires in order to purify them for the coming season of growth.
Many traditions mark this time of year. The “Beltane Fire Festival” in Edinburgh draws an audience of nearly 15,000 people annually – with grand re-enactments, dancing and drummers.
You would have a tough time getting any bonfires lit in the foothills of Alberta tonight! Just a day or so ago, 50 cm of snow blasted into the woods out here in less than 24 hours. The howling winds covered the emerging leaves with frozen slush...the firepit is buried somewhere under it all, so I’ll write about it instead of light it.
Continuing the theme of ‘go like heck!’, the month of May is packed. Looking forward to some performance for a taller audience or two in the next weeks, as well as a number of different things with shorter audiences. In between it all, I am merrily pulling together the last arrangements, etc as preparation for the month of June – which is entirely devoted to the completion of the recordings I have been writing about.
Pretty excited about this! These two recordings have been in the works for awhile – even before I started posting about them here just over a year ago. Labours of love.
I am heading up to Edmonton in a couple of weeks to choose a venue for a release concert there, and have been mulling over a few options in Calgary. To make sure there is enough time for mixing, mastering and pressing, the concert dates start in October. Just thinking about Alberta venues for the latter part of 2010, but am exploring options a little further afield for the first part of 2011.
So for now, Happy Beltane! If you can find any dry kindling where you are, may your drumming be loud, and your bonfires burn brightly!
Spring Equinox: March 20, 2010
Blessings as Spring’s tide rises!
The Equinoxes are a profound lesson in the art of balance. At the Vernal and Autumnal Equinoxes, light and dark dance together as equals, the two in balance. I find I tend to think of ‘balance’ as a noun, a thing to be achieved. In reality, it is a verb – a constantly shifting dynamic, something that we do – not achieve.
A good lesson for me as I reflect on the weeks since Imbolc. Many gifts, but a pace that left little time outside of those demands. The weeks have flown by.
So today, I was amazed to see so many buds already on the boughs as I wandered through the woods. New buds, the promise of spring.
The piece of music that I recorded at sunset last evening is a gentle piece, one that flows between sunlight and shadow. It is a medley of three songs. “Eleanor”, by the greatest of the Irish harpers, Turlough O’Carolan; “Som Coiman” – a simple, yet compelling Bolivian traditional folk melody; and part of a piece I composed after the loss of a loved one several years ago, entitled “Gifts”.
I hope it is one you will enjoy. It will be here for download until early morning March 22.
I looked up the linguistic roots of the word ‘dream’ as I was settling on a title for the piece…it comes from the old English word drēam, meaning both ‘joy’ and ‘music’. May you find much of both as the Spring’s tide calls forth the growing season and the new leaves.
Imbolc: February 1st, 2010
Each lengthening day weaves the promise of spring into the fabric of our daily lives. After the deep nights of Midwinter, there is relief and sense of wonder as the daylight lingers just a bit longer, comes just a bit sooner.
This year, Imbolc brings a brief pause for me to slow and reflect. Most years, the months of January through April tend to become quite full with storytelling work in schools, and this year is no exception. I love it though, and look forward to the adventures ahead in creating storytelling festivals with students as the tellers!
The creation work with the song and story projects continues, and I am beginning to dwell more on the celebration event to release the recordings. When I have sorted through this, I will post the details here.
I have added an ‘events’ page to the site. My itinerary tends to fill with mostly private functions – performances for closed audiences such as schools or groups, music for celebrations, work with individuals. But over the next months, there are a couple of workshops that will be coming up. One is a meditation workshop experience, and the other an introduction to the shamanic journey space. If you are interested, please send me a note…the group size for both events will be kept quite small. If you are interested in either, but can’t make it work on a weekday, please let me know. Arrangements for weekend workshops are easy to make, once there are enough people to make it a go.
There is a lovely piece of music I have been playing and singing a great deal through the darkest part of the year…a blend of the melody lines of two traditional pieces I have long loved. I have been preparing to record a simple version of it for free download from this site at the spring equinox, and have entitled it ‘Dreaming of Spring’. It will only be posted here for download March 20th & 21st, 2010, so be sure to check back then.
Until then, blessings!
Winter Solstice: December 21, 2009
Blessings on the rebirth of the sun! Midwinter has always been a time of celebration and gratitude for those in the northern hemisphere. Here in the dark heart of winter, the sun seems to stand still in the heavens.
It remains an incredibly powerful symbol and teacher, even in our age of scientific explanations for all things. Twice every year, the ultimate source of physical light, warmth and power appears to come to a complete standstill in the heavens. And in that stillness, the sun gathers the energy to change course. At winter solstice, the waning light turns. After 6 days motionless in the heavens, the sun begins its climb back to the fullness of brilliance and influence over the northern hemisphere.
The winter solstice is a time of gathering in, of dwelling in the stillness of potential energy before it becomes kinetic - and enacted upon the world. It seems ironic that the celebrations of this season have drifted so far afield of stillness. It is easy for the weeks around the winter solstice to become frantic and frenetic.
But the snow falls gently out here in the woods today, the forest fading into a haze that makes it hard to distinguish earth from sky. Perfect for a solstice retreat with candle and firelight, harpsong, long walks in the winter silence, and simple ritual.
Ritual is simplicity itself. Our days are crafted around our own personal everyday rituals – kiss the spouse, hug the dog, a cup of morning warmth, the ways in which we close and lock the house in heading out into the world. Rituals are actions we take to remind ourselves of what is valued, of the worth of things and individuals in our lives. Ritual space forms the heart of all sacred activity.
A lovely solstice ritual involves a simple contemplation of the power of the sun – manifested each day in the form of the shadow we cast. Our shadow is with us constantly, falling upon the earth as we travel – a temporary and fleeting thing, as are our experiences. At midday on the winter solstice, one’s noontime shadow is the longest it will be on any day in the turning of the year.
A few moments standing still (attending to the size of the shadow at this time of the year), followed by a walking meditation (ruminating on all that this small shadow has passed over and through in the twelvemonth since the last winter solstice) can be a welcome respite from the frenetic, a way to return to stillness. It can also be a time to dwell on potential. What are the hoped for pathways ahead, the dreams, of the year to come? What possibilities merit action? What actions call as the days begin to lengthen – bringing us out of the time of long nights?
At this time of ‘sun stands still’, I am allowing the music and the stories to rest a bit as well. The past weeks have been largely preoccupied with the current recording projects.
‘Beneath the Boughs’ has settled itself into five pieces: ‘Wonder’, ‘Awakening’, ‘Joy’, ‘Blessings’, & ‘In The Stillness’. It has taken weeks to settle on which cello and violin takes are best suited to the final pieces. In addition, I have been working with some draft harp recordings - again listening for where the pieces ask for more fullness of the harp, or a more sparse arrangement.
Through this, I have also been determining which violin, cello and percussion lines will become part of the soundscape for the story recording. At this time, ‘Wisdom of the Woods’ has settled around four tales: ‘The Storyteller’ (a traditional tale from the British Isles); ‘Maiden Huntress’ (traditional); ‘Raven & Bear’s Wild Ride’ (an original creation, celebrating the life of a dear friend); and ‘Fear on the Wind’ (a variant of a Buddhist tale). The interludes of harpsong between tales are as yet untitled, though the pieces of music themselves are quite settled.
It feels like the completion phase is just now beginning. As I head into this stage with both projects, I will be listening for the best way to celebrate their releases into the world. I will post details here as this takes shape.
May Midwinter bring you renewal, thanksgiving, and time to celebrate life’s gifts. And then, as in one of my favourite quotes from Rumi, may you:
"Step forth proudly into sunlight, never looking back."
Samhain: November 1, 2009
Happy New Year!
Although every festival in the turning of the Celtic year has importance, it is the festival of Samhain that anchors the year’s turning. The Celts had a deep understanding that a meaningful new beginning needed acknowledgement of the endings that preceded it. Hence the New Year began in the waning light following the harvest months.
Samhain Eve is a time for joy, for feasting, for the telling of otherworldly tales. At the heart of the celebrations is a deep acknowledgement of the ancestors… a celebration of the gifts left us by those who have passed on. A place set at the feast for the dead, candle and lamp lit at the windows, are signs that none are forgotten in the home of the heart.
I was able to retreat from worldly duties for three days and three nights over Samhain, and am deeply grateful for the gift of the time. It was renewing to look at the twelvemonth past, and to dream of the twelvemonth ahead.
My apologies for posting a bit late, but it has been a rich (and busy!) week following my retreat, as it was time to leap back into the studio. Roger Duncan completed his percussion work this past week, and I am so pleased with what he has done. One of the pieces on “Beneath the Boughs” will feature his work – and the other two will have their place on a Midwinter recording project that will take shape later in 2010.
Barb Olorenshaw completed the violin accompaniments at the end of this past week as well. I have been hoping to record with Barb since playing alongside her for the first time after the release of “Sacred Ground”. She brings sheer magic from the violin strings. With the voice of the violin, it is like hearing all of the pieces for the first time, and I couldn’t be happier with what she has done.
Now it is all up to me. I will be deciding on final arrangements of cello, violin and percussion as I record the final harp and vocal tracks for “Beneath the Boughs”. I will also be settling in to the story recording for “Wisdom of the Woods”. All good things in their own time!
Many thanks for stopping in to find out how things are taking shape, and many blessings for Samhain!
Autumn Equinox: September 22, 2009
Exquisite balance, light and darkness, day and night. Each equinox brings the simple lesson of stillness…simple, yet not an easy thing to achieve in walking through the world.
In the early hours this morning, I listened through the music recorded thus far. Many facets of this process make my heart sing, though the wonder of the other instruments is by far the most inspiring at this time.
The final cello pieces were recorded mid September, and the results are so beautiful. One piece in particular sings out.
Titled ‘Awakening’, it is one of the first songlines that came to me as I lived in the austere beauty of the forest over a decade ago. The song was inspired by standing in the early morning equinox light, mist rising through the pines, the air fresh and cold.
From the beginning, I heard the rich voice of the cello on the melody line, calling out to the stillness. One of Tom’s takes in particular perfectly and sensitively captures the mood for the piece that I have been hoping for. The violin drafts thus far are beautiful as well – Barb brings such a freshness and sweetness to each of the pieces she is developing.
The work itself now sets the pace. As schedules fill, my hope now is to have Barb's final violin work and Roger's percussion work recorded before the end of October.
Though a bit reluctant to leave the still place of the studio work, at Autumn Equinox, the storytelling season begins anew, and it is time to head out into the world with harp in hand! And it is good! Some of the photos from the summer photoshoots for the CD’s now grace the webpage. The shamanic work now resumes in the cottage as well as I continue to work towards readying the recordings to make their way out into the world.
I hope that as the nights begin to grow longer than the days now, you find many moments of awakening and stillness as you walk through the world.
Lughnasagh: August 1, 2009
For the Celts, the festival of Lugh – the Many Gifted One of ancient myth - marked the call of the harvest and the turning to prepare for summer’s end. Though summer heat reaches its heights, there is something of a bittersweet quality in the air…a sense of the need to truly enjoy the many-gifted richness of the all too brief summer.
I have spent a fair bit of time out in the silence this summer. It has always been where songs have taken shape and taken their place in the rhythms of my life. The past three weeks have seen a surge of ‘songline’ energy, as three new pieces of music arrived and took over my life. I love it when that happens, though the rest of the world seems to fade away until the tide passes. As I have fallen in love with the new songs, the vision I had for ‘Beneath the Boughs’ has grown in order to make room for them.
The three original pieces I have been working with have been tightened up a little, and the recording will now likely have six tracks. The first three longer playing pieces feature harp, voice, cello, and violin. The final three are all shorter pieces with lyrics, the other instruments weaving in and out. I will be heading out to the Kananaskis for photos to work into the CD design early in August. ‘Beneath the Boughs’ contains the last of the songs that began to develop during the magical years of living out in that powerful landscape, so it seems appropriate to bring its images into the final package.
Since the Summer Solstice, preparation for the recording work has continued. It is really exciting to be preparing for the work of the guest musicians on the two recordings. Tom Megee (cellist for Calgary Philharmonic), Barb Olorenshaw (violinst for the Celtic group Seancara), and Roger Duncan (director of the One World Drum company) are bringing their gifts to various pieces. They will be laying down their tracks during the last three weeks of August. Once the other musicians have completed their contributions, my schedule will once again open for the shamanic work. I will then take September and October to do final harp tracks and vocals, as well as develop the design and text for the CD packaging.
So thanks for checking in to find out how things are coming along! I hope your own creative harvests are coming along, and that this many-gifted season brings you much satisfaction!
Summer Solstice: June 21, 2009
Ah, the sweetness of Midsummer! The longest day of the year, and though the light begins to wane again now, the warmest months of the year lie ahead. My reasons for loving the season have changed as I have aged…when I was a kid, it meant hours on my rickety bike, afternoons at the local swimming pool, and popsicles in the shade by the merry go round. In the years since the harp has arrived, it has been the sweetness of being able to play outside – to hear the notes float between trills of robinsong, or the breeze sounding the strings when my fingers have stilled.
Typically, my storytelling season ends at the Summer Solstice and resumes around the Autumn Equinox. Storytelling has always had its greatest power during the long nights – not that it doesn’t have a place year round! But those childhood delights linger in their own way, and it is hard to imagine competing with the delights of the short warm season.
These past years have seen summer become the prime season for my own creative work. Those childhood delights have their honour place in that work these days.
A decade ago, as a novice storyteller, it was difficult for me to gauge how long stories would take in performance. As I began performing in schools and at conferences or retreats, time and schedules needed to be respected and adhered to. In those first performances, I would sometimes find myself exasperated to glance at the clock and see I would come up short, or have to cut something off in order to finish on time. It was during one of those moments that I discovered something of the power of family stories.
I had had one of those grand storytellings where the words had woven magic, and the audience was rapt. As the last notes of the harp stilled, I saw that there was too much time left on the clock – yet not enough time left to do another story justice. I did not want the morning to end with a whimper, and in a flash of both inspiration and desperation, I opened my mouth to ask, “Did I ever tell you about my little sister Carmen?”
Carmen has always been my best friend. She has grown up to be a storyteller of a different sort – a brilliantly funny comedian who has appeared at comedy festivals in North America, been featured on CBC and the Comedy Network, and created a number of one woman shows. When we were kids, we were inseparable (and still are!), and found ourselves in a wide variety of bizarre (and sometimes dangerous) situations as our imaginations ran off with us.
So the tale flowed out, and the audience and I laughed until we couldn’t breathe – the time I accidentally buried Carmen alive in the big dirt hill down the back alley. And from that time, the “Misadventures of Carmen and Jeff” have been a staple in my repertoire.
It troubled me for awhile though…I would return to a school where I had performed previously, and though the kids would remember Perseus and Theseus and Beowulf and Robin Hood – they would remember Carmen and I most of all, and ask if I was going to tell them another this time. In fact, the question I have most often been asked by audiences of young children has been “Could you bring Carmen in for show and tell?”
Perhaps the stories about nothing appeal to the heart, because most of our favourite personal stories are really about nothing more than the unfolding of one moment in time. No grand life or death choices, or dramatic plot lines…but unforgettable nonetheless.
Last summer, I worked on character illustration and design to bring these stories to life in picture books. As a kid, I had always drawn and drawn and drawn. Things were a bit rusty at first (my fingers are a few decades older now), but it has been delightful to see the characters take shape on the page the way I have envisioned them in my mind at each telling. I got a little carried away, and ended up creating hundreds of character sketches, expressions and poses, which I then compiled into a hundred page design guide. I wrote a fair bit too, and the ten or so stories I tell most often have all been drafted out and redrafted and reworked, and I have been working on page layouts for the first illustrated misadventure.
This summer – though ‘Beneath the Boughs’ and ‘Wisdom of the Woods’ are my primary focus – I am further developing the first misadventure, and preparing to publish sometime early in 2010. It is nice work to be able to rest in when I take a break from the other projects.
So though I no longer ride my rickety bike at maniacal speeds down gravel roads, I still enjoy a popsicle or two while putting speed lines on the pictures of my ten year old self as he roars through the page in hand.
And for the ten year old in all of us – what season is better than the one that begins Midsummer’s Eve?
Beltane: May 1, 2009
In the turning of the year by the Celtic calendar, the festival of Beltane was a joyous celebration. The tides of growth, of light, have returned visibly to the natural world; the days have grown much longer than the darkness. Passion, vitality, and wonder surge through the glades, and the branches are no longer barren.
Some years ago, at this time of the year, I was deeply moved by the wisdom of a child. A dear friend of mine was reading a paper by educational scholar Dr. David Jardine entitled “Unable To Return To The Gods That Made Them”. A thought provoking read, one image created by the author had lingered with her…the idea that we have created so many things that cannot return to the elements of the earth in our world; that ‘hell’ is to be a Styrofoam cup... created from elements of the earth, yet unable to decompose, be renewed, and enter the natural cycles once more.
My friend discussed the power of this image with her daughter – seven years old at the time. After hearing the statement that “Hell is a styrofoam cup”, without pause her daughter responded, “Then Heaven is a new leaf.”
The beauty of this statement has traveled with me ever since. Each year, beginning at the tide of Beltane, I find myself carefully watching for the gates of ‘heaven’ on the boughs of the wakening woods. There is nothing like the fragrance that fills the air as the new leaves unfurl, or the exquisite shade of green that haloes the boughs as the buds open.
The new music recording I am working on is entitled “Beneath the Boughs”. It is my hope that the three long-playing pieces will capture some of the magic I witness in the coming weeks beneath the new leaves. As I finalize the arrangements for the new CD, I am also at work developing a companion recording of traditional stories entitled “Wisdom of the Woods” – several tales from around the world with trees playing a central role in the unfolding story.
For the weeks ahead, there is a bit of a lull in the busy time of performances in Alberta schools (before a surge once more towards the end of the school year). As the creative work unfolds and I continue shamanic work in the healing cottage, I will savour and draw inspiration from the beautiful truth that ‘Heaven is a new leaf’.
Spring Equinox: March 20, 2009
Spring Equinox, in this part of the world, followed by the inevitable big snowfall! Even so, I am inspired by the balance between light and dark; by the natural world’s continual, ever-changing improvisation.
The natural world is a great teacher of timelessness. We run about with time measurers strapped to the wrist, sweating the morning traffic, constantly recalculating the length of the commute. Time outdoors renders the ticking irrelevant.
Even the moment of the equinox itself is calculated by industrious scientists…but heading outside, there is no momentous event that occurs at a set moment on the clock. Instead, the sun, the wind, the quality of the light, conspire to pull us into time of a different sort.
The three facets of the work that I do are all about this timeless space, where other elements of life are freed to come to the forefront, and eclipse deadlines and appointments and duties for a time.
I have been so engaged in the storytelling space of late that this is the one on my mind. Many Greek myths live in my storytelling repertoire. There is something about the scope of them that still dances for me with each telling, no matter how often the tale has crossed my lips. There are two Greek words that deal very beautifully with this idea of timelessness.
One that we become so intimately acquainted with in the grown-up world is that of kronos: the space of measured time, where we keep time, make time, lose time, and watch the clock. Things to do are stored in voicemail and email and text messages, etc. But kronos is not where the treasures are found.
The treasures are found in the realm of kairos, the space outside of time. It is the space of being completely caught up in something - lost in a book, carried away by a piece of music, moved by the elegance of the sunset. These tend to be the treasured moments in our lives.
The Welsh bards spoke of this as the presence of Awen – flowing spirit. Peak performance researchers and those in the learning sciences describe it as the state of flow…we lose track of time entirely - mesmerized and nourished by the wonder of the moment. Story transports us there.
I hope that this threshold of the year finds you well and able to step off the clock for a few moments, and be nourished.