First Friday: A quick one… I just got back from my friend Christa Grimm’s opening down at 537 SE Ash. She has some great art, you should pop in and check it out. Great Landscapes! Her kids were there, Bonnie, Autumn & Sam. They are all in their 20′s now, in their teens when we first met them. Christa comes from an artistic background, her father and mother are well known Portland artist…
I stopped in at the Muralist Show, saw several of the artist, and saw the new pieces that have been put up. Talked with Joanne, and we are making plans for some new murals… so stay tuned!!
Lots on this entry, and we may as well delve into it on this wonderful evening in Portland… Tomorrow is the Rose Parade, and we are going down town to a hotel to hang with friends watching the parade pass below… good fun!
Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm
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On The Menu:
The Fairy Thorn – An Ulster Ballad
Within’s Within: Scenes from the Psychedelic Revolution: 6/7/2008 Broadcast
The Orb: Vuja De (thanks Peter!)
A Few Words From Idries Shah
The Piper And The Puca
For Winter Rose & Mimi…. William Butler Yeats
The Orb – Fluffy Clouds (an oldie but goldie!)
Art: Edmund Dulac
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The Fairy Thorn – An Ulster Ballad
“Get up, our Anna dear, from the weary spinning-wheel;
For your father’s on the hill, and your mother is asleep;
Come up above the crags, and we’ll dance a highland-reel
Around the fairy thorn on the steep.”
At Anna Grace’s door ’twas thus the maidens cried,
Three merry maidens fair in kirtles of the green;
And Anna laid the rock and the weary wheel aside,
The fairest of the four, I ween.
They’re glancing through the glimmer of the quiet eve,
Away in milky wavings of neck and ankle bare;
The heavy-sliding stream in its sleepy song they leave,
And the crags in the ghostly air:
And linking hand in hand, and singing as they go,
The maids along the hill-side have ta’en their fearless way,
Till they come to where the rowan trees in lonely beauty grow
Beside the Fairy Hawthorn grey.
The Hawthorn stands between the ashes tall and slim,
Like matron with her twin grand-daughters at her knee;
The rowan berries cluster o’er her low head grey and dim
In ruddy kisses sweet to see.
The merry maidens four have ranged them in a row,
Between each lovely couple a stately rowan stem,
And away in mazes wavy, like skimming birds they go,
Oh, never caroll’d bird like them!
But solemn is the silence of the silvery haze
That drinks away their voices in echoless repose,
And dreamily the evening has still’d the haunted braes,
And dreamier the gloaming grows.
And sinking one by one, like lark-notes from the sky
When the falcon’s shadow saileth across the open shaw,
Are hush’d the maiden’s voices, as cowering down they he
In the flutter of their sudden awe.
For, from the air above, the grassy ground beneath,
And from the mountain-ashes and the old Whitethorn between,
A Power of faint enchantment doth through their beings breathe,
And they sink down together on the green.
They sink together silent, and stealing side by side,
They fling their lovely arms o’er their drooping necks so fair,
Then vainly strive again their naked arms to hide,
For their shrinking necks again are bare.
Thus clasp’d and prostrate all, with their heads together bow’d,
Soft o’er their bosom’s beating–the only human sound–
They hear the silky footsteps of the silent fairy crowd,
Like a river in the air, gliding round.
No scream can any raise, no prayer can any say,
But wild, wild, the terror of the speechless three–
For they feel fair Anna Grace drawn silently away,
By whom they dare not look to see.
They feel their tresses twine with her parting locks of gold
And the curls elastic falling as her head withdraws;
They feel her sliding arms from their tranced arms unfold,
But they may not look to see the cause:
For heavy on their senses the faint enchantment lies
Through all that night of anguish and perilous amaze;
And neither fear nor wonder can ope their quivering eyes,
Or their limbs from the cold ground raise,
Till out of night the earth has roll’d her dewy side,
With every haunted mountain and streamy vale below;
When, as the mist dissolves in the yellow morning tide,
The maidens’ trance dissolveth go.
Then fly the ghastly three as swiftly as they may,
And tell their tale of sorrow to anxious friends in vain–
They pined away and died within the year and day,
And ne’er was Anna Grace seen again.
– Sir Samuel Ferguson
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Within’s Within: Scenes from the Psychedelic Revolution: 6/7/2008 Broadcast
Show #273
Time: 07 June 2008 (Saturday) at
19:00 UTC | PST-11am | EST-2pm | UK- 7pm | NZ-8am
High speed listen at: http://yage.net:9000/listen.pls
Dial-up listen at: [currently disabled]
Now Podcasting at: [currently disabled]
Duration: ~3h
On this week’s show:
New Rock Album: Elbow, The Seldom Seen Kid (2008)…been since 2005
that this UK band has been on this show…they’re back with a strange,
sometimes pretty, sometimes hauntingly melodic new record, full of
love songs and weirdness…very tasty…
Classic Rock Album: Brainticket, Cottonwoodhill (1971)…this band
formed in 1968 with Swiss, German, and Italian members, and in the
early ’70s released three amazing lysergic journeys…this was the
first of them…turn on…tune in…
Storybook Time: Chapter Twenty of Breaking Open the Head: A
Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by
Daniel Pinchbeck…
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems…& this
week’s featured artist is The Rolling Stones, music from their
fantastic 1970 live album, *Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out!*…they say all sorts
of excitement is gathering together, all kinds of hope wiggling
through the door, hurry, don’t miss it! Don’t…miss…it…
Webcasting to the globe & beyond from the People’s Republic of
Portland, Oregon!
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Thanks To Peter For This!
The Orb: Vuja De
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A Few Words From Idries Shah
A quote from: ‘A Perfumed Scorpion’
Hindsight shows how often yesterday’s so-called truth may become today’s absurdity. Real ability is to respect relative truth without damaging oneself by refusing to realize that it will be superseded. When you observe that today’s controversies often reveal not relevance but the clash of the untaught with the wrongly taught, and when you can endure this knowledge without cynicism, as a lover of humankind, greater compensations will be open to you than a sense of your own importance or satisfaction in thinking about the unreliability of others.
—
Quotes from: ‘The Commanding Self ‘
Nowadays, few people contest the importance of knowing about conditioning in order to examine belief-systems. Why, therefore, is it so difficult to communicate with so many people along these lines? The answer is very simple. We are at a stage in understanding human behaviour analogous to that which obtained when people began to try to talk of chemistry to those who were fixated upon the hope of untold wealth (or, sometimes, spiritual enlightenment) through alchemy. Like the alchemist or those who want easy riches, people want dramatic inputs (emotional stimuli, excitement, reassurance, authority-figures and the rest) rather than knowledge.
It is only when the desire for knowledge and understanding becomes as effective as the craving for emotional stimulus that the individual becomes accessible to change, to knowledge, to more than a very little understanding.
So learning must be preceded by the capacity to learn. THAT, in turn, comes about at least in part by right attitude. And THAT, again, is where the would-be learner has to exercise effort.
Surely there is not, cannot be, any better proof of imagination confused with real experience, than something which happened to me during a tour of holy places in the Middle East.
I was with a party of very devout people belonging to a certain faith, we need not say which one. They were visiting places reputed for their spiritual history and atmosphere, mostly belonging to another religious tradition.
Their guide was new to the job. To help matters, he read in detail from a Michelin guide as we went from place to place. ‘Here martyrs were killed …. Here is the site of the cell of a certain holy monk …. Here such-and-such a person had a holy vision ….’
Every single time the devotees stood respectfully, showing every sign of appreciating the deep spiritual feelings which suffused the places ….
Then, one day, we were taken to a site where the guide read out about the horrors which had been perpetrated there, how a certain tyrant had murdered scores of good men of God, and how the whole area was reputed to be cursed. All shivered and eagerly discussed how they felt the ‘very essence of evil’ surrounding them.
They were still exchanging accounts of their own bloodcurdling experiences at the hotel that evening when the guide shamefacedly called us together in the foyer and admitted that he had been mistakenly reading from the wrong page. In spite of the ‘very essence of evil’ which all had experienced, we had in fact been standing in the middle of a burial-place of saints ….
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The Piper And The Puca
Douglas Hyde
Translated literally from the Irish of the Leabhar Sgeulaigheachta.
In the old times, there was a half fool living in Dunmore, in the county Galway, and although he was excessively fond of music, he was unable to learn more than one tune, and that was the “Black Rogue.” He used to get a good deal of money from the gentlemen, for they used to get sport out of him. One night the piper was coming home from a house where there had been a dance, and he half drunk. When he came to a little bridge that was up by his mother’s house, he squeezed the pipes on, and began playing the “Black Rogue” (an rógaire dubh). The Púca came behind him, and flung him up on his own back. There were long horns on the Púca, and the piper got a good grip of them, and then he said–
“Destruction on you, you nasty beast, let me home. I have a ten-penny piece in my pocket for my mother, and she wants snuff.”
“Never mind your mother,” said the Púca, “but keep your hold. If you fall, you will break your neck and your pipes.” Then the Púca said to him, “Play up for me the ‘Shan Van Vocht’ (an t-seann-bhean bhocht).”
“I don’t know it,” said the piper.
“Never mind whether you do or you don’t,” said the Púca. “Play up, and I’ll make you know.”
The piper put wind in his bag, and he played such music as made himself wonder.
“Upon my word, you’re a fine music-master,” says the piper then; “but tell me where you’re for bringing me.”
“There’s a great feast in the house of the Banshee, on the top of Croagh Patric tonight,” says the Púca, “and I’m for bringing you there to play music, and, take my word, you’ll get the price of your trouble.”
“By my word, you’ll save me a journey, then,” says the piper, “for Father William put a journey to Croagh Patric on me, because I stole the white gander from him last Martinmas.”
The Púca rushed him across hills and bogs and rough places, till he brought him to the top of Croagh Patric. Then the Púca struck three blows with his foot, and a great door opened, and they passed in together, into a fine room.
The piper saw a golden table in the middle of the room, and hundreds of old women (cailleacha) sitting round about it. The old woman rose up, and said, “A hundred thousand welcomes to you, you Púca of November (na Samhna). Who is this you have brought with you?”
“The best piper in Ireland,” says the Púca.
One of the old women struck a blow on the ground, and a door opened in the side of the wall, and what should the piper see coming out but the white gander which he had stolen from Father William.
“By my conscience, then,” says the piper, “myself and my mother ate every taste of that gander, only one wing, and I gave that to Moy-rua (Red Mary), and it’s she told the priest I stole his gander.”
The gander cleaned the table, and carried it away, and the Púca said, “Play up music for these ladies.”
The piper played up, and the old women began dancing, and they were dancing till they were tired. Then the Púca said to pay the piper, and every old woman drew out a gold piece, and gave it to him.
“By the tooth of Patric,” said he, “I’m as rich as the son of a lord.”
“Come with me,” says the Púca, “and I’ll bring you home.”
They went out then, and just as he was going to ride on the Púca, the gander came up to him, and gave him a new set of pipes. The Púca was not long until he brought him to Dunmore, and he threw the piper off at the little bridge, and then he told him to go home, and says to him, “You have two things now that you never had before–you have sense and music (ciall agus ceól). The piper went home, and he knocked at his mother’s door, saying, “Let me in, I’m as rich as a lord, and I’m the best piper in Ireland.”
“You’re drunk,” said the mother.
“No, indeed,” says the piper, “I haven’t drunk a drop.”
The mother let him in, and he gave her the gold pieces, and, “Wait now,” says he, “till you hear the music, I’ll play.”
He buckled on the pipes, but instead of music, there came a sound as if all the geese and ganders in Ireland were screeching together. He awakened the neighbours and they all were mocking him, until he put on the old pipes, and then he played melodious music for them; and after that he told them all he had gone through that night.
The next morning, when his mother went to look at the gold pieces, there was nothing there but the leaves of a plant.
The piper went to the priest, and told him his story, but the priest would not believe a word from him, until he put the pipes on him, and then the screeching of the ganders and geese began.
“Leave my sight, you thief,” said the priest.
But nothing would do the piper till he would put the old pipes on him to show the priest that his story was true.
He buckled on the old pipes, and he played melodious music, and from that day till the day of his death, there was never a piper in the county Galway was as good as he was.
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For Winter Rose & Mimi…. William Butler Yeats
The Stolen Child
Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats;
There we’ve hid our faery vats,
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you
can understand.
Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances,
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you
can understand.
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,.
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To to waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For to world’s more full of weeping than you
can understand.
Away with us he’s going,
The solemn-eyed:
He’ll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal-chest.
For be comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
from a world more full of weeping than you.
—
To A Child Dancing In The Wind
Dance there upon the shore;
What need have you to care
For wind or water’s roar?
And tumble out your hair
That the salt drops have wet;
Being young you have not known
The fool’s triumph, nor yet
Love lost as soon as won,
Nor the best labourer dead
And all the sheaves to bind.
What need have you to dread
The monstrous crying of wind?
—
The Song of Wandering Aengus
I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire aflame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
—
The Cap And Bells
The jester walked in the garden:
The garden had fallen still;
He bade his soul rise upward
And stand on her window-sill.
It rose in a straight blue garment,
When owls began to call:
It had grown wise-tongued by thinking
Of a quiet and light footfall;
But the young queen would not listen;
She rose in her pale night-gown;
She drew in the heavy casement
And pushed the latches down.
He bade his heart go to her,
When the owls called out no more;
In a red and quivering garment
It sang to her through the door.
It had grown sweet-tongued by dreaming
Of a flutter of flower-like hair;
But she took up her fan from the table
And waved it off on the air.
‘I have cap and bells,’ he pondered,
‘I will send them to her and die’;
And when the morning whitened
He left them where she went by.
She laid them upon her bosom,
Under a cloud of her hair,
And her red lips sang them a love-song
Till stars grew out of the air.
She opened her door and her window,
And the heart and the soul came through,
To her right hand came the red one,
To her left hand came the blue.
They set up a noise like crickets,
A chattering wise and sweet,
And her hair was a folded flower
And the quiet of love in her feet.
—
The Delphic Oracle Upon Plotinus
Behold that great Plotinus swim,
Buffeted by such seas;
Bland Rhadamanthus beckons him,
But the Golden Race looks dim,
Salt blood blocks his eyes.
Scattered on the level grass
Or winding through the grove
plato there and Minos pass,
There stately Pythagoras
And all the choir of Love.
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The Orb – Fluffy Clouds
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