A story of Sunflowers and a Drum
(And a Tibetan Diva)
All my invocations of the sun have failed so far. So I’ll drift into autumn, calling on Lugh for help with the weather and the harvest, with an eye on the hidden sun that never shines in Ériu. People say I have SAD in the summer. I do and I am. I’m going to visualise sunflowers leaning towards the sun, calling the sun to the earth. I love their smiling faces. I miss them. I’ll eat sunflower seeds and hope they grow inside me. Ill eat dandelion heads, I’ll pull Saint John’s Wort off the bushes and make tinctures in poitín and distill the sun.
I’ve thought about it. Already. Planting sunflowers next spring. I remember driving around the Loire Valley in 2017 in a Fiat Bambino with an open roof, along roads with nobody on them, fields full of sunflowers. How could there possibly be so many, I wondered and it is still a dream I call on to keep me going under the grey skies over this island.
I’ll call on the Roman Emperor Heliogabalus ( 3rd century ) who introduced the worship of the Sol Invictus (the invincible Sun) as an alternative to the Latin god Jupiter. Sunflowers are like humans striving towards the light, gyrating to do so.
I’d even emigrate to live in fields of sunflowers, groves of lemon trees. Leave the damp, chilly island and never come back. Summers with SAD are too hard hitting. Oh what about all the other problems you say, you’re so concerened with the weather what about the presidential nominee with the toupé who got shot, the other one who lost his marbles, what about the fires in Coolock, what about Helen Mac on Tee’s hate-filled legislation, at the ready to shoot down anybody who puts their head above establishment waters, branded by all of bourgeois Ireland as the ‘far right’? I don’t know what to do about any of it. I have some ideas, but I’m not prepared to rant and lose friends and gain enemies. My refuge has and always will be myth, dream and peculiar things. Read Mike Kay’s marvellous blog about myth and dream here. I don’t want to get into a scuffle. And I won’t. Let me dream of better days.
I’ll call on Lugh. Since it’s Lughnasa. Or Ra.
Lugh. His mother is Eithne, the daughter of Balor leader of the Fomorians, the third settlers of Ériu who fought the Tuatha Dé Danann at the Battle of Maidh Tuarad. His father is Cian, the son of the healing god Dian Cécht, of the Tuatha De Danann.
https://siofra.substack.com/p/danu-and-dreamtime
Music helps the troubled soul. You don’t need good weather to go to the Mermaid Theatre in Bray, which we all did after crepes in Chez Louis last Saturday 20th July. Having had a marathon on the roads of Wexford and Kilkenny the day and night before, ending up in the Priest’s House in Gatabaun, and wonderful chats with Orla Mackey whose new novel ‘Mouthing’ is causing ripples here and across the waters. And a lovely person called Anne. But the effects of the wine were not in my favour, and the fact that Andrew’s Liver Salts have vanished off pharmacy counters was problematic. If anybody knows where they can get them, let me know.
Yungchen Lhamo was singing at the Mermaid. I’d first seen her performing in Oxford in 1999 when Yungchen was then only ten years out of Tibet, having escaped with her two year old child on her back over perilous mountain passes. Her mother and father, she told us, were a monk and a nun, forced to copulate by the PLA to violate their vows. A common strategy. But their gift was this ‘Goddess of Melody’, as her name means. She had always wanted to be a nun, not a singer but the Goddess of Fortune catapulted her to the west, after the Dalai Lama encouraged her to use her unique voice. She has toured more than 80 countries and contributed to nine film soundtracks such as ‘Seven Years in Tibet’ and ‘Mission Joy- Finding Happiness in Modern Times’ featuring the Dalai Lama and Bishop Desmond Tutu and ‘Above and Below: the Art of Tserhin Sherpa’ by Sheri Brenner. She has sung with Sinead O’Connor, Philip Glass, Mike Stipe, The Beastie Boys, Peter Gabirel, Laurie Anderson, Sir Paul McCartney Annie Lennox, Lou Reed, Paul Brady and many, many more.
I’ve seen her sing in Dublin a few times with the likes of Liam Ó Maonlaí, Steve Cooney, and last but not least and in fact the very most, my hero Tommy Hayes, the finest bodhráin and percussionist player in all of Christendom, (if there be such a thing anymore). I saw Tommy play with Yungchen Lhamo in the National Concert Hall, and I saw them both again last Saturday night. When I saw her in 2005 in Dublin in Belvedere she asked my partner of that chapter in my life (my son’s Dad) if he could accomodate her mother, who was lonely as nobody in Dublin spoke Tibetan. He courteously put Yungchen’s mother up in his mobile home on the Slate Cabin Lane in the Dublin Mountains. She felt quite at home there in his strange little hermitage, full of Tibetan relics.
Tommy wove the sounds of rattling spoons, bells, bodhrain and drum, in perfect harmony with Yungchen Lhamo. When she sang, it was like being transported to the mountains in Tibet, centuries ago. There is altitude in her voice. She even had my son entranced, until she started talking, and then there was a bit too much audience participation for comfort and a bit too much rambling. Tommy was perfection, always in tandem with Yungchen Lhamo’s altitudonous voice, not so much the guitarist from California, whose twangy style of playing did not suit her at all to my ears. Surprising, since he produced her latest CD, One Drop of Kindness.
That evening I brought along the drum I inherited from my sister Kristin, and who had inherited it from another of my heroes- Michael Morris, composer, anthropologist and sound engineer extraordinaire. Read more about him here: I was to give it to Aine Dunne, a brilliant flute, whistle and accordian player who played on Michael’s CD, Ériu’s Child. Here is the Coolin, The Fair Maiden, from Érius’ Child.
At Michael’s funeral, his daughter read how he brought this drum back from Tarahumar, Northern Mexico in the 1980s, where he was as as part of his Doctoral studies at Penn State University.
At first, I camped beside the nearby river, where I became a great source of curiosity. One very friendly young Tarahumar, whose name was Silverio, looked into my new and much- prized North Face tent and said “Muy feo!” - very ugly! I wondered did he mean me or the tent! I soon witnessed my first Native Yumari ceremony: a kind of rain-dance, offered so that the maize will grow well. The centre-piece of this Shamanic ritual is a cross draped in a coloured cloth and beads. The leader dances back and forth before the cross, chanting a rhythm, all the while shaking a gourd rattle. The audience drinks a mild corn mead, known as Tesgüino, while joining in the dance - the men and women on either side.- Michael Morris, from his Memoirs
The Tarahumara/ Raramuri/ Yumari tribe were never conquered by the Aztecs and despite being defeated by Mexican armies, the Tarahumara still consider themselves an independent nation. In the Fifties they more than once took complaints directly to the United Nations.
Michael, after some time with the Tarahumara tribe, was gifted that goatskin drum, an orange sun painted on its barrel. Aine should be the custodian of it, being a fine musician and an old friend of Michael Morris and the timing was perfect as she got the blessings of Tommy Hayes who told her to ‘put it in a cold bath for two days and then take it out and put it to dry in a cool place. Then you’ll see it tighten.’ In my attic it had become a floppy drum. Here they are talking about it:
So, summer days spilling with rain. The drum has found a happy home. The only answer, since it is Lughnasa soon, is to invoke Lugh,
INVOCATION OF LUGH
Mighty Lord of The Sun,
The Long Armed Lugh, Child Warrior
He who will die to be reborn
We come here tonight to honour
Your sacrifice and your love for your foster mother
We give thanks to You for these first harvest fruits
And the abundant harvest yet to come.
Give us fruit and grain, and flocks and herds,
To build us strong, to stand against the cold that will come
Mighty God, Honoured Sacrifice,
With all your strength and all your love,
Descend among us,
Bring your light one more time to banish the dark
By love and life, I do invoke Thee
To descend upon the body of this thy servant and priest!
(light candle when you feel His presence) Hail & Welcome
LUGH, DUL OMOS
LUGH, DUL OMOS
LUGH, DUL OMOS
What a beautiful recording Sound Healing is. It's made my day on this typically overcast morning here on the east coast of Ireland. At least it's dry, for the moment.
I don't read newspapers but I do glance at one of the weekend magazines, where I found this interesting snippet in an article about clouds. I reproduce it here verbatim:
"Asperitas: A bumpy-looking cloud that appears after a thunderstorm. Only added to the International Cloud Atlas in 2017, it is officially the world's newest formation."
I can't also reproduce the accompanying photo unfortunately. But it looks like the sky outside my window right now - and it's a long time since we had a thunderstorm around these parts!
Although a mainstream newspaper is unlikely to acknowledge the existence of weather manipulation by nefarious sources, this all but reveals the truth about our current climate. It reminds me of those commentaries about the increase in myocarditis among young people, which never mention the role the jab might have played.
I believe those us of enduring this unseasonal weather have an ace up our sleeves that could yet undo these blatant attempts to discourage and demoralise. We can try to communicate our empathy to those rain spirits who feel compelled to co-operate with this nonsense.
So if it's raining or even overcast, go out for a walk and a splash if necessary. Some gritty defiance is what they need to see!
Thank you so much, Siofra!
It seems mankind is simply wedded to pain.
My heart goes out to the Tibetan people. I have personal experience with being driven off one's own place, and while I would never compare what I have faced with their ordeal, it gives me a sense, a small sense of their experience.
Fortunately, we are wedded to music as well.
This latest piece of yours is very rich, a journey that touches on something deep and vital.
Would that you could find solace in the clouds!
That said, I do hope that Lugh smiles upon you.