See historical timeline: Celtic Files.
Celtophile:
Celtophile: Adjective - strongly attracted to or interested in Celtic history and culture.
Celtic cultures share an essential moral principle in acknowledging personal sovereignty.
Sovereignty refers to ‘national sovereignty’ - the authority of a nation or state to govern
and protect itself. However, in ancient Celtic Heritage (Rees, 1961), the Feminine Divine
is represented in Eriu, Goddess of Sovereignty, the protector of personal sovereignty -
referring to individual autonomy as the cornerstone of well-being for an entire community.
My journey as an independent artist is a testament to personal healing, and learning to follow intuition. I am one person and one person can make a difference! This is my motto.
As a "traditional" Irish singer, touring Australia, I became a Celtophile inspired by one question:
"If I can understand the Indigenous Australian concept of 'The Dreaming,' where can I find it in my own cultural history?"
To cut a long story short, a wonderful Melbourne based musician and friend, Christopher Stellar convinced me to write songs. He was so insistent that I sat down one evening with pen and paper and wrote my first poem/song. That was just before midnight on New Year’s Eve 1991 and the song is ‘Dreaming The Dreaming’ - “Recall what you knew when you were nursed in the sea of beginning. …Dreaming The Dreaming, wake to The Dreaming of old…”
The Indigenous Australian prism of "The Dreaming" was the most ancient perspective I could imagine.
Dreaming The Dreaming
@December 1991 Maireid Sullivan
Recall what you knew
when you were nursed
in the sea of beginning.
Relive the deep magic
from beyond the first dawn.
Wrap yourself in the cloak of ancient memory.
Reveal The Dreaming of old.
CH
Dreaming The Dreaming.
Wake to The Dreaming.
Wake to The Dreaming of old.
Weave the knot of the future.
Draw your strength from the Draighean Tree*.
Play in the canopy of nature,
and bathe in the wide surging sea.
CH
Dreaming The Dreaming.
Wake to The Dreaming.
Wake to The Dreaming of old.
(Draighean Tree = *Life force: Blackthorn tree - magic wand)
Inspiration in Celtic studies:
Dating from around 3200 BC, Bronze Age members of the Tuatha dé Danann "Children of Danu" have been identified as the fifth group of settlers to arrive in mythical Ireland.
Dwelling at Brú na Bóinne, with the chief Druid, the Dagda, his daughter Brigid is celebrated
as goddess of poetry, healing, and fertility, on the 1st and 2nd of February, the beginning of spring: IMBOLC, in Gaelic = "womb of time" - the crossroads of the seasons = rebirth.
Brigid - Queen of Song
@February 1992 Maireid Sullivan
Brigid - Queen of Song
Loving, strong, compassionate
Ancient matriarch
Priestess of sorcerers
~
Oh! Brigid, while you wept
Over your fallen royal harp
Your teardrops were transported
Be-mingled in distant hearts
Winds echo your heartstrings hum
O'er seas on far off lands
Through the strains of a foreign tongue
Voices linking an epoch's span
Exquisite sad refrain
Hear the tune, the voice, the song
Of heroes, poets, bards
The memory has not gone
Familiar figure on a vast horizon
Inter-weaving sweet love and myth
To soothe the precious pain
Whose fragments we inherit
Beside you we will stand
Reconciling hope and heir
Lift the veil! mourn no more,
Ere we stir, fearless and fair
Danu is the supreme Celtic mother/goddess who has disappeared - out to sea,
under the lake, under the hill (Sidh/Sî mounds), into 'fairie land',
with all ancient heroic Celts.
The song, Danu's Land was composed in 1993, and recorded in June 1998:
Track 8: For Love's Caress - a Celtic journey
Sound The Horn
@1992 Maireid Sullivan
Sound the Horn of airigeacht,*(representing sovereignty)
fierce and passionate lover,
goddess of sovereignty.
So terrible in battle.
Champion the goddess,
the Goddess of sovereignty.
Reforge the sword. Relight the flame,
for the lamp is moving swiftly.
Flame-bright dragon rise now.
Arise and save the day.
Leap over shifting sands now.
Lay a new way for freedom.
Let passion surge from within.
Embrace the world. Relight the flame,
the fire, of personal sovereignty;
a mighty, precious treasure.
Reveal the hidden treasure
that dwells in the cavern of our hearts.
Sound the horn of airigeacht.
Blow away the mists of delusion.
Sound the horn of Airigeacht.
Supplant the will of oppressors,
who blindly stole what might have been.
Banish the mists of delusion.
@1992 Maireid Sullivan
Danu's Land
@1993 Maireid Sullivan
Return to your other world lover, Leannan Sî (fairy helpers)
Take your magic stars and go
Summon me later, send me a charioteer
Shake your golden cloak around me
But let me not forget you were here
~
I can't forget your wild ways
banished in deep waters
Or white sea's endless beating
on your shoreless dwelling
Or enchanted music's echo still wailing
Chorus
Sweet as the voice of angels
Winter misted byways
hide the great fellowship of heroes
Their stories shrouded in mystery
Their truth rings out from childhood memory
Listen for their keening call
In your heart you will hear their song
Hear your own voice, See your own dream
"Come to me" they sing in melodious strain
Live forever deep in Danu's dream
No thine or mine, no sin or pain with the fairy queen
Where courtly lovers awaken from their long trance
Noble warriors unfold their slow dance
Fountain of ancient rivers
Bridge of wings to Danu's land
Passage to her other world.
Her crystal mansion's watery helm
Where shadows never fall on Tir Na Nog's eternal shining realm
Lovers one and all,
heed her call to exile's end
Where abundance never fails
and the shining guardian's golden rays
bring a white shadow to a sweeter brighter day
Chorus
Sweet as the voice of angels
GIVING THANKS
@August 1997 Maireid Sullivan
After allocating a good amount of time every day in praising 'glory'
I feel so expansive and free.
No wonder great saints, spiritual masters and poets, like RUMI,
spent their time in praising glory. It is such a beautiful thing to do.
It leads me to feel that I really am 'out there' - 'in heaven'.
I have a powerful feeling that I am meant to be all inclusive.
I feel it in a way that is different from thinking it.
It's as though my thinking and feeling are trying to come together,
but the thought hasn't crystallized fully enough just yet.
I reach for a fresh perspective and I get there for a fleeting instant.
I guess it comes back to continually seeking to overcome
the dualism that our culture practices so relentlessly.
But, anyway, where was I? Oh! Yes!
I feel my best results come when I express my gratitude to Infinite Intelligence.
I think expression of gratitude is the most powerful means
of reaching out to another and it brings a great acceptance.
Gratitude is always appreciated, (especially by Infinite Intelligence,
which is the means to express its own 'full value').
The experience instantly comes full circle- back to the act of sending the thought.
Then I can feel it on a vaster scale, which unifies my sense of everything.
Just taking a moment to stop in order to 'identify' Infinite Intelligence
is like using the brain as a tuner; a transmitter and receiver.
Holding any thought with full commitment gives the power needed
to send the thought through every cell in the body and out to the ends of the cosmos.
That's what we can do when we put the focus and the intention together.
Then we can turn on our receivers to listen, with our whole being, to the resonance.
That is basically what 'superhero' meditators do.
That's how they become so happy and loving and nonjudgmental and joyful.
When you get to that place of resonance, no other attitude is respectable.
The resonance is so great that it can't be fully contained
with all of the attention that we can give to it in one moment.
So, the best way to manage this intensity is to find a level
where we can keep it constant, in consecutive moments,
because it is a never ending fountain of joy and bliss. Never-ending!
My heart is beating right now with the great excitement of having 'tuned in'
to describe the process. I can barely type! Oh! This is always so amazing!
I feel such intense energy rushing through me.
When it gets like this I just don't know what to do, except just hold on and stay calm.
I shiver with excitement! And, I want to share it with others.
This is the purpose of singing and writing for me.
It is the practice of my growing courage to reach out to everything and everyone, with love,
even those with whom I struggle.
At points like this I feel that I am really connected to the great energy of love and joy.
And the quality of my relationships with my audience leads here.
When I write from the memory of my favorite experiences with others,
the resonance helps me to focus my thoughts.
This is one of my surest means of keeping the quality of 'the flow' going,
from person to person, over the consecutive moments.
I believe this is what happens in my concerts.
We all, together, enter this 'sanctuary' and we can acknowledge being in love, with each other,
in as many ways as there is insight and courage and subtle agreement.
I sit here in my room and I feel the most sublime connection with the whole cosmos
through taking myself into these thoughts.
Writing it down acts as a support for me.
I can go a little further, perhaps, and I won't completely float away,
because my fingers anchor me.
It is not easy to keep this intensity up all the time! It's a great sleeping tonic!
In my waking hours it is the ritual I use everyday, as the foundation of my reality.
The more I perform this subtle little sacred ritual, the greater is the energy I experience.
It begins with actually spending time expressing simple gratitude,
for the eternal gifts of Infinite intelligence; for the wonder of life.
From there, it is an improvisation flowing through giving thanks
for the privilege of experiencing this wonder.
I give thanks from the bottom of my heart!
I feel recharged in every cell of my body and my spirit is renewed.
Prose and Poetry
~ Celtophile Musings 1992 - 2001
~ Desolation Sound Cycle 1997
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