So… This past Sunday night. Mary and I along with our friend Terry C. went off to see ‘The Waterboys at The Alladin Theatre. Rowan, was sick as a dog and could not come to his great sadness. He had been brought up on The Waterboys, having heard them from birth. If there is a Folk/Rock Band that has held my attention it is indeed Mike Scott and his merry band of players. Nels and Deirdre Cline introduced us the The Waterboys back in 1984. I was not to impressed, as I was off in Synth heaven at that point… After a couple of years, and my re-engagement with folk ethos in music, The Waterboys had me with the release of Fisherman Blues… I was thoroughly hooked. I have collected all of their works in their various premutations over the years. So this entry really is about the band… and how they have touched us over the years.
I hope you enjoy!
Gwyllm
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On The Menu:
The Two Fiddlers
Waterboys- Fishermans’ Blues
Morphic Fields and Morphic Resonance
Mike Scott Lyrics/Poetry
Waterboys – Everybody Takes A Tumble
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The Two Fiddlers (from Scotland)
Nearly three hundred years ago, there dwelt in Strathspey two fiddlers, greatly renowned in their art. One Christmas they resolved to go try their fortune in Inverness. On arriving in that town they took lodgings, and as was the custom at that time, hired the bellman to go round announcing their arrival, their qualifications, their fame, and their terms. Soon after they were visited by a venerable-looking grey-haired old man, who not only found no fault with, but actually offered to double their terms if they would go with him. They agreed, and he led them out of the town, and brought them to a very strange-looking dwelling which seemed to them to be very like a Shian. The money, however, and the entreaties of their guide induced them to enter it, and their musical talents were instantly put into requisition, and the dancing was such as in their lives they had never witnessed.
When morning came they took their leave highly gratified with the liberal treatment they had received. It surprised them greatly to find that it was out of a hill and not a house that they issued, and when they, came to the town, they could not recognise any place or person, every thing seemed so altered. While they and the townspeople were in mutual amazement, there came up a very old man, who on hearing their story, said: “You are then the two men who lodged with my great-grandfather, and whom Thomas Rimer, it was supposed, decoyed to Tomnafurach. Your friends were greatly grieved on your account, but it is a hundred years ago, and your names are now no longer known.” It was the Sabbath day and the bells were tolling; the fiddlers, deeply penetrated with awe at what had occurred, entered the church to join in the offices of religion. They sat in silent meditation while the bell continued ringing, but the moment that the minister commenced the service they crumbled away into dust.
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Waterboys- Fishermans’ Blues
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Morphic Fields and Morphic Resonance
An Introduction
by Rupert Sheldrake
In the hypothesis of formative causation, discussed in detail in my books A NEW SCIENCE OF LIFE and THE PRESENCE OF THE PAST, I propose that memory is inherent in nature. Most of the so-called laws of nature are more like habits.
My interest in evolutionary habits arose when I was engaged in research in developmental biology, and was reinforced by reading Charles Darwin, for whom the habits of organisms were of central importance. As Francis Huxley has pointed out, Darwins most famous book could more appropriately have been entitled The Origin of Habits.
Morphic fields in biology
Over the course of fifteen years of research on plant development, I came to the conclusion that for understanding the development of plants, their morphogenesis, genes and gene products are not enough. Morphogenesis also depends on organizing fields. The same arguments apply to the development of animals. Since the 1920s many developmental biologists have proposed that biological organization depends on fields, variously called biological fields, or developmental fields, or positional fields, or morphogenetic fields.
All cells come from other cells, and all cells inherit fields of organization. Genes are part of this organization. They play an essential role. But they do not explain the organization itself. Why not?
Thanks to molecular biology, we know what genes do. They enable organisms to make particular proteins. Other genes are involved in the control of protein synthesis. Identifiable genes are switched on and particular proteins made at the beginning of new developmental processes. Some of these developmental switch genes, like the Hox genes in fruit flies, worms, fish and mammals, are very similar. In evolutionary terms, they are highly conserved. But switching on genes such as these cannot in itself determine form, otherwise fruit flies would not look different from us.
Many organisms live as free cells, including many yeasts, bacteria and amoebas. Some form complex mineral skeletons, as in diatoms and radiolarians, spectacularly pictured in the nineteenth century by Ernst Haeckel. Just making the right proteins at the right times cannot explain the complex skeletons of such structures without many other forces coming into play, including the organizing activity of cell membranes and microtubules.
Most developmental biologists accept the need for a holistic or integrative conception of living organization. Otherwise biology will go on floundering, even drowning, in oceans of data, as yet more genomes are sequenced, genes are cloned and proteins are characterized.
I suggest that morphogenetic fields work by imposing patterns on otherwise random or indeterminate patterns of activity. For example they cause microtubules to crystallize in one part of the cell rather than another, even though the subunits from which they are made are present throughout the cell.
Morphogenetic fields are not fixed forever, but evolve. The fields of Afghan hounds and poodles have become different from those of their common ancestors, wolves. How are these fields inherited? I propose that that they are transmitted from past members of the species through a kind of non-local resonance, called morphic resonance.
The fields organizing the activity of the nervous system are likewise inherited through morphic resonance, conveying a collective, instinctive memory. Each individual both draws upon and contributes to the collective memory of the species. This means that new patterns of behaviour can spread more rapidly than would otherwise be possible. Foe example, if rats of a particular breed learn a new trick in Harvard, then rats of that breed should be able to learn the same trick faster all over the world, say in Edinburgh and Melbourne. There is already evidence from laboratory experiments (discussed in A NEW SCIENCE OF LIFE) that this actually happens.
The resonance of a brain with its own past states also helps to explain the memories of individual animals and humans. There is no need for all memories to be stored inside the brain.
Social groups are likewise organized by fields, as in schools of fish and flocks of birds. Human societies have memories that are transmitted through the culture of the group, and are most explicitly communicated through the ritual re-enactment of a founding story or myth, as in the Jewish Passover celebration, the Christian Holy Communion and the American thanksgiving dinner, through which the past become present through a kind of resonance with those who have performed the same rituals before.
The memory of nature
From the point of view of the hypothesis of morphic resonance, there is no need to suppose that all the laws of nature sprang into being fully formed at the moment of the Big Bang, like a kind of cosmic Napoleonic code, or that they exist in a metaphysical realm beyond time and space.
Before the general acceptance of the Big Bang theory in the 1960s, eternal laws seemed to make sense. The universe itself was thought to be eternal and evolution was confined to the biological realm. But we now live in a radically evolutionary universe.
If we want to stick to the idea of natural laws, we could say that as nature itself evolves, the laws of nature also evolve, just as human laws evolve over time. But then how would natural laws be remembered or enforced? The law metaphor is embarrassingly anthropomorphic. Habits are less human-centred. Many kinds of organisms have habits, but only humans have laws. The habits of nature depend on non-local similarity reinforcement. Through morphic resonance, the patterns of activity in self-organizing systems are influenced by similar patterns in the past, giving each species and each kind of self-organizing system a collective memory.
I believe that the natural selection of habits will play an essential part in any integrated theory of evolution, including not just biological evolution, but also physical, chemical, cosmic, social, mental and cultural evolution (as discussed in THE PRESENCE OF THE PAST ).
Habits are subject to natural selection; and the more often they are repeated, the more probable they become, other things being equal. Animals inherit the successful habits of their species as instincts. We inherit bodily, emotional, mental and cultural habits, including the habits of our languages.
Fields of the mind
Morphic fields underlie our mental activity and our perceptions, and lead to a new theory of vision, as discussed in THE SENSE OF BEING STARED AT. The existence of these fields is experimentally testable through the sense of being stared at itself. There is already much evidence that this sense really exists Papers on Staring
You can take part in a staring experiment yourself through this web site. Staring Experiments
The morphic fields of social groups connect together members of the group even when they are many miles apart, and provide channels of communication through which organisms can stay in touch at a distance. They help provide an explanation for telepathy. There is now good evidence that many species of animals are telepathic, and telepathy seems to be a normal means of animal communication, as discussed in my book DOGS THAT KNOW WHEN THEIR OWNERS ARE COMING HOME. Telepathy is normal not paranormal, natural not supernatural, and is also common between people, especially people who know each other well.
In the modern world, the commonest kind of human telepathy occurs in connection with telephone calls. More than 80% of the population say they have thought of someone for no apparent reason, who then called; or that they have known who was calling before picking up the phone in a way that seems telepathic. Controlled experiments on telephone telepathy have given repeatable positive results that are highly significant statistically, as summarized in THE SENSE OF BEING STARED AT and described in detailed technical papers which you can read on this web site. Papers on Telepathy Telepathy also occurs in connection with emails, and anyone who is interested can now test how telepathic they are in the online telepathy test. Experiments Online
The morphic fields of mental activity are not confined to the insides of our heads. They extend far beyond our brain though intention and attention. We are already familiar with the idea of fields extending beyond the material objects in which they are rooted: for example magnetic fields extend beyond the surfaces of magnets; the earths gravitational field extends far beyond the surface of the earth, keeping the moon in its orbit; and the fields of a cell phone stretch out far beyond the phone itself. Likewise the fields of our minds extend far beyond our brains.
—-
Mike Scott Lyrics/Poetry
The Pan within Lyrics
Come with me
on a journey beneath the skin
Come with me
on a journey under the skin
We will look together
for the Pan within
Close your eyes
breathe slow we’ll begin
Close your eyes
breathe slow and we will begin
To look together
for the Pan within
swing your hips
loose your head, and let it spin
Swing your hips
loose you head, and let it spin
And we will look together
for the Pan within
Close your eyes
breathe slow and we will begin
Close your eyes
breathe slow and we will begin
To look together
for the Pan within
Put your face in my window
breathe a night full of treasures
The wind is delicious
sweet and wild with the promise of pleasure
The stars are alive
and nights like these
Were born to be
sanctified by you and me
Lovers, thieves, fools and pretenders
and all we gotta do is surrender
Come with me
on a journey under the skin
Come with me
on a journey under the skin
And we will look together
for the Pan within
When to be with you
is not a sin
When to be with you, oh just to be with you
is not a sin
We will look together
for the Pan within
—-
Peace of Iona
Peace of the glancing dancing waves
Peace of the white sands
Peace of Iona
Peace of the singing winds
Peace of the stones
Peace of Iona
Iiiiii oooooo nnnnnaaaaaa
Peace of the crying gulls
Peace of the humming bees
Peace of the noon-time stillness
Peace of the dreaming hills
Peace of the breath of angels
Peace of Iona
Iiiiii oooooo nnnnnaaaaaa
Iiiiii oooooo nnnnnaaaaaa
Peace of the saints and seekers
Peace of the monks and Druids
Peace of the resting place of kings
Peace of the ruins
Peace of the doves in the bell tower
Peace of Iona
Iiiiii oooooo nnnnnaaaaaa
Iiiiii oooooo nnnnnaaaaaa
Peace of the rested mind
Peace of the glad heart
Peace of my lover’s pots and potions
Peace of her healing hands
Peace of her lazy laughter
Peace of Iona
(4x)
Peace of the unseen
Peace of the spirit
Peace of Iona
Iiiiii oooooo nnnnnaaaaaa
Iiiiii oooooo nnnnnaaaaaa
Iiiiii oooooo nnnnnaaaaaa
Iiiiii oooooo nnnnnaaaaaa
—-
The Whole Of The Moon
I pictured a rainbow
you held it in your hands
I had flashes
but you saw the plan
I wandered out in the world for years
while you just stayed in your room
I saw the crescent
you saw the whole of the moon!
The whole of the moon!
You were there at the turnstiles
with the wind at your heels
You stretched for the stars
and you know how it feels
To reach too high
too far
Too soon
you saw the whole of the moon!
I was grounded
while you filled the skies
I was dumbfounded by truth
you cut through lies
I saw the rain-dirty valley
you saw Brigadoon
I saw the crescent
you saw the whole of the moon!
I spoke about wings
you just flew
I wondered, I guessed, and I tried
you just knew
I sighed
but you swooned
I saw the crescent
you saw the whole of the moon!
The whole of the moon!
With a torch in your pocket
and the wind at your heels
You climbed on the ladder
and you know how it feels
To GET too high
too far
Too soon
you saw the whole of the moon!
The whole of the moon!
Unicorns and cannonballs,
palaces and piers,
Trumpets, towers, and tenements,
wide oceans full of tears,
Flags, rags, ferry boats,
scimitars and scarves,
Every precious dream and vision
underneath the stars
You climbed on the ladder
with the wind in your sails
You came like a comet
blazing your trail
Too high
too far
Too soon
you saw the whole of the moon!
—-
The Return Of Pan
I stood upon the balcony with my brand new bride
the clink of bells came drifting down the mountainside
When in our sight something moved
– lightning eyed and cloven hooved –
The great god Pan is alive!
He moves amid the modern world in disguise
it’s possible to look into his immortal eyes
He’s like a man you’d meet anyplace
Until you recognise that ancient face
The great god Pan is alive!
At sea on a ship in a thunder storm
on the very night that Christ was born
A sailor heard from overhead
a mighty voice cry “Pan is dead!”
So follow Christ as best you can
Pan is dead! Long Live Pan!
From the olden days and up through all the years
from Arcadia to the stone fields of Inisheer
Some say the Gods are just a myth
but guess who I’ve been dancing with
The great god Pan is alive!
—
The Waterboys – Everyone Takes A Tumble
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