Writing to Richard Druitt in Puerto Rico earlier I recalled something that happened the last time I was in Ireland. I usually fly over on a Friday and teach a weekend Intensive which we round off with a meal at Ann's on the Sunday evening (the Monday class is a coda for those who can stomach more). This particular meal was remarkable because the Irish, ever gregarious and communicative, started to recount the old myths and fables. Now these stories are almost certainly from pre-Celtic times so are at least 3000 years old, and what became apparent was that their retelling, especially in such good and energized company, evoked ancient aspects of spirit and essence which, in England at least never surface. I began to realize that these strange people have actually had the heart and intelligence to keep alive their energetic heritage despite the suffocating presence of the Catholic church, and the probably even more repressive recent presence of the English. For me it was like receiving a priceless and magical transmission: the room sang with the old voices. In England, where all tribal structures have been replaced by those revolting feudal hierarchies of church and state, energy has been repressed and controlled and directed into the acquisition of profit. As a consequence we are to some extent lost – the things we do belong to don't nourish us deep down – and our collective soul has been broken. Even family is fractured, and we have little feeling now for our genetic ancestors or our places of origin. John Connell told me how the fighting spirit used to rise in him when a particular teacher at school in Dublin used to recount the ignominies of English behaviour in Ireland. There was a history programme on TV recently which tried to convince viewers that Cromwell was actually very good to the Irish. This is the sort of arrogance and deceit that unfortunately characterizes governance in this country: we are told lies and consequently have no choice but to cut off. The proliferation of information nowadays is just another aspect of this. The temptation is always to spread yourself so thin that you never really get to grips with anything, certainly not your own energy, not even your own life. This is the way the powers that be want it. Our responsibility as spirited individuals is to fight this control. In a way it's a blessing because the warrior needs an enemy without to keep him agile and on his toes.
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It was really quite a small number of people who were directly involved in dominating the empire: Bernard Porter in 'The Absent-Minded Imperialists' reckons about half a million in a population of about 35 million in 1881 (and a lot of them Scots). I think the prevailing English sin is apathy, but to shake that off people need to be aware of a clear alternative.
Pat
Old stories abound here in the North East of Scotland too, where I now live and where my grandmother is from, she was born only 20 miles from my home... When I organised the Halloween Festival for my town 2 years ago we came across a wealth of oral tradition in both song and story, strange, rich, much more spiky and spooky than found elsewhere even in Scotland. The Samhain guising tales and regular encounters with the world of spirit are still currency here, as borne out by the fact that the vicar of one local church tried to ban mention of the word 'Halloween' when we went to speak to school children. This was 2003, not 1703. This area is known in Scotland as 'The Songbook' as it is the repository for ancient and certainly pre-Christian myth, tale and wisdom. Dowsers are at work finding new wells for farmers daily, in a matter of fact way. The 99 stone circles (covered with spirals, often, like those of New Grange in Ireland) in Aberdeenshire are imainly not tourist sites or twee heritage money-spinners, they are just everywhere, in the fields, part of the inner and outer landscapes.
Tht Halloween, after a few whiskies, the most straight-laced and outwardly unlikely of folk were sharing stories like you described. The slight difference being a little more reserve here in the manner of speech, than I have found in Ireland. Given a chance the spirit will out.
It's so sad that we English are so broken. You only need to look around at the terrible social problems that we have to see how little connection people feel with each other, with their culture and with the earth under their feet. The young feel this lack keenly - maybe that's why so many are so angry. And the only response from the state is to introduce more repression and to sell off more of our high streets, schools, hospitals to massive corporate institutions. As if growing the economy will increase gross national happiness. Modern halloween itself has been bought from the Americans - the young today know nothing of the ancient tradition.
Still there is hope in that people are trying to by-pass this corporate and state strangulation and to rediscover the benefits of doing things on a small scale.
Blogs like this play a part in this process.
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