All deep things are song. It seems somehow the very central essence of us, song; as if all the rest were but wrap pages and hulls! ~Thomas Carlyle

There is something deeply spiritual about music. Our Celtic ancestors understood this, and they gave poets and musicians a place of honor they deserve. As their daily lives were infused with their spirituality, so it was with music. I imagine that rituals were very musical and that most of their prayers and words of praise were sung. The legends and stories of the Gods and heroes speak of the magical power of their music.

The deeper truth here is that music is magic. Music is prayer. “Music,” says Beethoven, “is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.” It is no less than the universal language of the Gods. The study and practice of music, then, is a form of spiritual devotion and communion.

Music not only gives us a spiritual connection to the divine, but a connection to our heritage as well. Music is a universal language, but it is also cultural. So, I espouse integrating music into ritual, and to honor our ancestors by making our music culturally connected.

There are two instruments I recommend to those interested in a Celtic mode of worship: the Irish flute, also known as the penny-whistle or tin-whistle, and the bodhran, which is a traditional Irish drum. They are portable, inexpensive, and easy to learn.  In my book, that makes them ideal ritual instruments.  I intend to discuss them in more detail in upcoming installments, but for now, I’d like to point out that you don’t even need an instrument.

As an African proverb tells us, “If you can walk, you can dance; if you can talk, you can sing.” Wherever you go, you always have the musical power of your voice. So, how can you incorporate song into ritual? I have a couple of suggestions. First is to find relevant folk music, “borrow” the tune, and set your own lyrics to it. That takes a bit of poetic skill, but it’s not too difficult. Also, it is something of a time-honored tradition. Many old and well-known church hymns have the tunes of even older tavern drinking songs and other folk songs.

The other suggestion is to use a method such as Ossianic Chanting. Alexei Kondratiev, noted Celtic Studies scholar, gives us some great information about the Ossianic chant:

Equally ancient is the type of mythological recitation commonly known as ‘Ossianic chant’. This has survived in the southern Hebrides, but it was clearly widespread in Ireland several centuries ago, and at least one example was collected in Donegal in the 1940s.

Poems (duain) relating to the exploits of the Fianna are presented in one of two styles:

· A rapid, semi-improvisational chant on four or five notes, shaping itself according to the natural intonational patterns of the words; or

· A slow chant on a simple melody with wide intervals and a metrical pattern emphasising the structure of the verse line.

According to tradition, this chant was invented by Fionn Mac Cumhaill’s son Ossian (Oisean in Scots Gaelic, Oisín in Irish) to recount the deeds of the Fianna to St. Patrick. In fact, the custom of chanting these stories may well be pre-Christian, since it appears to have had ritual connotations and it was considered particularly appropriate to perform them on Hogmanay-New Year’s Eve-which in Scotland attracted to itself many of the customs of Samhain.

Clearly, Ossianic chanting is very appropriate for our rituals.  And, you can set pretty much anything to an Ossianic-like chant, and give it a haunting beauty. I’ve listened to some samples, and there is a lot of variance in the style. I like to use poetry adopted from the Carmina Gadaelica, much of which was undoubtedly sung or chanted in earlier times.  Here is what Condratiev gives us about the structure of the Ossianic chant:

“The most common intervallic structure is A-C-D-E, with the voice starting on A but rising rapidly to E, staying on E a few syllables, then gradually descending back to A in imitation of the natural lowering of pitch near the end of a sentence. In some poems, the “stanza” structure will be emphasized by having the voice rise to D again at the end of the passage before dropping again to A at the start of the next one.”

Using those four notes and my Irish flute, I sound out, in an improvisational manner similar in style to some of the chants I’ve heard, how I am going to sing each verse. Then I follow with the verse in song.  It’s simple, but very effective.  So, I hope that is enough to get you started, and I hope you find a way to work music, which truly is the language of the gods, into your spiritual practice.

The discovery of song and the creation of musical instruments both owed their origin to a human impulse which lies much deeper than conscious intention: the need for rhythm in life… the need is a deep one, transcending thought, and disregarded at our peril. ~Richard Baker

Here are links to me with my Bodhran and with Irish Flute, discussing their application in ritual.

Happy Samhain, everyone! No, this post is NOT late! Samhain is a three-day event, starting about October 31 and lasting till, about, today. Samhain is an Irish word meaning “end of summer” or “end of the harvest.” The Celtic calender had the year divided in to two haves, a light half and a dark half. Samhain marks the beginning of the dark half, which lasts until Beltaine.

For our ancestors, it was a time of celebration, since the harvest was fully in, food was plentiful, and work was slacking off. It was also a time to take stock and make the grim calculations required to survive the winter. Excess livestock was slaughtered and salted, breeding stock moved from the summer fields to winter shelters, and other foodstuff accounted for and stored.

This is one of my personal favorite times of year, but perhaps that is partly because of the differences in climate I enjoy relative to my Gaelic ancestors. The miserably hot and wet weather of South Louisiana turns cooler and dryer, for example. Hurricane season is over. The mosquitoes are not quite as bad. Winter here is not very harsh and there is greenery year around. This is not the kind of place where a festival like Samhain would have ever naturally developed. There are still some major harvests left to collect and winter does not have much dread for us.  It’s more of a relief, really.

Still, the magic of Samhain is present. It is a between time, a time on the cusp of changes in the world around us, and a time where we remember our dead and pray they remember us.

My son is now five, and I want to incorporate the remembrance of our ancestors in a meaningful way for him now that the hullabaloo of Halloween itself is just past. We talked about this kind of thing briefly in our Halloween preparations. I had him dressed up as a woad-painted Celt, after all. But I think we also need something for more quiet reflection.

I thought of involving a cemetery somehow, but there are no nearby grave sites of anyone we are directly descended from. We’d have to travel a good three or four hours for that. Maybe that would be good for some day, but I have in mind something simple.

My thought is to sit down with him with some paper and crayons, talk to him about some of our ancestors, and “write” to them together. Then, we would ceremonially burn the paper, sending our letters to the ancestors. Lastly, we will put some food out for them on this last day of Samhain. I think it will be a lovely thing.

I hope everyone had a lovely Samhain and may your ancestors watch over you this coming new year.

Inanna at At the End of Desire wrote recently about a New York Times article which related mental health to the narrative style of the stories we tell about ourselves. Those with mood problems, for example, tell stories in which every major incident is tainted by some dark detail — “notes of disappointment.” Inanna suggests that a storytelling technique using this information could be used therapeutically to change, subtly and over time, characteristics about our selves.

This makes me wonder if a positive form of cognitive therapy could be to “rewrite” the stories we tell ourselves, making ourselves the heroes instead of the victims. I can imagine a therapist, peer counselor, or friend gently pointing out the “notes of disappointment” in a story being told and suggesting ways to change the narrative.
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Of course, it’s not as simple as “thinking makes it so.” (I don’t really understand the Law of Attraction, but I know that that’s not so simple either, The Secret notwithstanding.) If anything, the retelling works more like an affirmation; repeat it often enough, and you can cognitively “rewire,” training the mind to move in a different groove.

The possible connection of such a technique to ritual was, of course, not lost on her and she concludes with the observation that “Ritual and magick could also be powerful tools to aid in retelling.” I would expound on that and suggest that ritual and magic are extremely powerful and useful psychological “self-help” techniques. The connection between the power of storytelling and magic was made clear to me by a passage later in the article, relating how people who found recovery, externalized their problems:

At some level, talk therapy has always been an exercise in replaying and reinterpreting each person’s unique life story. Yet Mr. Adler found that in fact those former patients who scored highest on measures of well-being — who had recovered, by standard measures — told very similar tales about their experiences.

They described their problem, whether depression or an eating disorder, as coming on suddenly, as if out of nowhere. They characterized their difficulty as if it were an outside enemy, often giving it a name (the black dog, the walk of shame). And eventually they conquered it.

“The story is one of victorious battle: ‘I ended therapy because I could overcome this on my own,’ ” Mr. Adler said. Those in the study who scored lower on measures of psychological well-being were more likely to see their moods and behavior problems as a part of their own character, rather than as a villain to be defeated. To them, therapy was part of a continuing adaptation, not a decisive battle.

The findings suggest that psychotherapy, when it is effective, gives people who are feeling helpless a sense of their own power, in effect altering their life story even as they work to disarm their own demons, Mr. Adler said.

A sense of power? Disarming demons? Sounds like ritual and magic to me. I’ve discussed the psychological affect and benefits of ritual here before, and this reinforces my theory: that ritual and magic can be seen as a way to effectively communicate with the subconscious and thus change our lives for the better. If externalizing our problems is an effective therapy, what can be more therapeutic than magic in which our problems are not only externalized but given physical form, say as a poppet or a note on paper, and then manipulated or destroyed?

I am leery of reducing magic to simply a mind-trick we play on ourselves, but I think it helps to recognize that, at least on some level, that’s exactly what it is. The surprising thing I have come to realize, though, is that recognizing the “mind-trick” doesn’t reduce the power of the magic, it only helps us develop better and more powerful rituals! The reason for this is that the subconscious doesn’t know the difference. The distinction is being made by the conscious, rational mind. So, what can we get out of this article that will help us design rituals? Here are my thoughts:

1. “Externalize” the problem you are dealing with. Make it real and separate. Represent it with some tangible object that you can work with.
2. Word spells in terms of overcoming obstacles. Word them with the problem first, then the resolution. Negative, then positive ending.
3. Use third person instead of first person as much as possible.

It would also seem to me that this storytelling angle reinforces the importance of journaling. Journaling lets you see what’s going on in your life from another perspective, lets you integrate thoughts and feelings using both sides of your brain, and, as this article suggests, gives you a narrative you can review and examine in a different light, letting you see how your own “notes of disappointment” are bringing you down.

Erynn Rowan Laurie, an elder of Celtic Reconstructionism and collaborator on the Celtic Reconstructionist FAQ project, has recently made available a PDF file, giving the beginner an excellent introduction to the Ogam and her valuable insight into it. This PDF will be the core of her upcoming book on the subject to be published by Megalithica Press.Though reading several books on the Ogam, I never felt them to be very accessible to me. Laurie’s fresh perspective and insight has unlocked the door and I’m studying this fascinating alphabet with renewed interest.

Although easy to read, Laurie’s scholarship is rigorous for such a brief treatment of the subject. She clearly explains her sources and differentiates them from her personal insights.

After some introductory notes explaining briefly the history of the Ogam and her approach to them, Each Ogam is given one page. The descriptions start with the traditional associations, and then Laurie gives us a few paragraphs of her personal insight, which I have found very edifying. A later section briefly discusses divination methods and other practical uses.

In short, Laurie’s work provides an excellent springboard for a beginner (like me) and I look forward to her completed book on the subject.

Hat tip to Brenda.