Songs as Gifts Simultaneously Received and Given (Don't go to SXSW®)

Dear musicians... Let me be plain, don't go to SXSW®. Mass consumer spectacle isn't very musical. Artists climbing over each other to get 50 shows so they can be "discovered" doesn't have much to do with truth or beauty. Stay home and record a song. Go into the mountains, the desert, to the top of a building, and receive one. Play a show in the town right next to yours that you've never actually been to.

Say no to vampires. So no to mediocrity. You make music and there is no one who doesn’t love music, this makes you one of the most powerful people in the world. Tastes may vary widely, but music is a universal good. You create the most important human export.

The Ainu (Japan’s native population) believe that songs are Man’s gift back to the Universe. As the top of the food chain we do very little to give back, so the Ainu played epic music at every meal and many times throughout each day to honor the beings, and land that sustained their lives. When they played the spirits gathered to drink the song, to bathe in the music.

Every primary culture I have ever studied believed that songs were received, sometimes smuggled back from another plane, usually the world of spirits. Or given to them from some non-physical beings, or some ineffable place. These songs were generally semi-secret songs that gave the singer power and specialized knowledge. So a song is a gift that is simultaneously given and received. That sounds right to me.

Let’s take a few (thousand) steps back and return to the sacred. Not the kind of sacred that is static, reserved or dogmatic. The sacred that is ecstatic, powerful, creative/destructive, funny, wise, overwhelming, honest, entheogenic (God manifesting), hallucinogenic (vision manifesting), and/or psychedelic (mind manifesting). Don’t fill your head or environment with simulacra songs, turn off the car radio, try to tune out the music in the market. And stop giving your songs to parasites. Play only where creation is welcome, where the sacred particles of music can do their good work, swirl for the spirits, and dance for our own.

Yule Caroling

Many of our Christmas carols come from a Pagan source, often

the ancient Celtic or Germanic people. The same is true of the holiday itself and most other Christian holidays. Certain traditions and dates of ritual-practice were maintained and modified by missionaries to draw Pagans into a Christian life. (This is why Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate even Christian holidays, because they come from an "impure" source.) Christmas was once Yule, which has many historic interpretations; originally it was a winter lunar holiday of the Germanic Pagans. However, winter-season and solstice celebrations are common in almost every indigenous or pre-modern culture.

All religions (for lack of a better word) draw upon some same key elements, and so we see the Pagan Yule present worldwide alongside other nearly universal practices and beliefs (consult the works of Joseph Campbell). Of course Christianity is not excluded from the collective mind, many of the concepts and traditions present in Christianity developed independently of other traditions, and yet are connected or related to other systems of thought and practices. A peculiar (and somewhat tangential) example comes to mind: when missionaries arrived in Papua New Guinea they found the indigenous residents difficult to convert because all concepts of sin and salvation were absent from their myths, but cannibalism was/is a fact of life. Therefore, it was the Holy Sacrament (the drinking and eating of the symbolic blood and body of Christ) that bridged the gap between these two seemingly separate cultures.

If we look far enough back into our family tree we are all indigenous. And if we look deeply enough into ourselves, and our modern practices we may find a Pagan face looking back at us, painted and singing. I have much to say on the subject of “song”… but for now I will content myself to address our Yuletide caroling. The Christian mythos and the consumer ethos of the modern solstice season do not suit me, and I’d hazard to guess they do not suit you either. But I do not wish to ignore the power and beauty of the season, in fact I want to sing in praise, gratitude and communion with the Earth and its People. So here is my favorite Christmas song ("The Holly and the Ivy") restored to its original Yule version. You may well find original Pagan versions of your own favorite songs online or in the library, or you may wish to simply look inward and “restore” the ancient song on your own. If you find a good one, or write your own, send it to me and I will post here. Good Yule to you!

The holly and the ivy / When they are both full grown / Of all the trees that are in the wood / The holly bears the crown.

Chorus: Oh, the rising of the sun / And the running of the deer / The shining of the winter stars / As the longer days draw near.

The holly bears a blossom / As white as any flower / As our Mother bears the infant Sun / In the winter's darkest hour.

(Chorus)

The holly bears a berry / As red as any blood / As our Father bears the hunter's spear / for His hungry children's good.

(Chorus)

The holly bears a prickle / As sharp as any thorn / As we shall bear our song of hope / On triumphant Yuletide morn.

(Chorus)

(photo notes: image of "the Holly King" from the internet, British origins)