I’m about to set off for the Highland Games in Pleasanton. The Wild Celts of my seed group go every year, and it’s as close as I’ve been able to get lately to going back to Faire. The Games are great, but hanging out in the parking lot, playing music, watching the boys beat on … Continue reading Adventure Awaits
Part of my problem is image. I can catch people by the ear, but not the eye. Sound will slow many, stop a few, but I just look like any other busker. So I invested a little time in sprucing up my setup: This is quick and dirty, just a stencil and some markers. More … Continue reading Hitch Your Wagon to a Star
That was just the recharge I needed. Well, maybe not the three nights of steady drinking, but nothing that morning coffee didn’t set right. Getting to spend the day barefoot, in my leine, listening to bands and hanging with my clan, now that was a taste of the world I want to live in. The … Continue reading Worlds Apart
This trip has been growing for years. There are things to be done and songs to be sung that have to happen in Ireland, England and Scotland. I don’t expect to get to all of them this time, but there are a few biggies that absolutely have to happen. There are three of my songs … Continue reading Songs That Must Be Sung, Part 1 of 3
S P O I L E R SPACE I love this movie for so many reasons. It isn’t High Art, but it can be unpacked just as a ballad or a myth can be. There are layers of meaning there for the Celtic scholar, but like any good story, it isn’t necessary to be aware … Continue reading Brave — An animated ballad for our time — SPOILER ALERT!
We fight so many wars. We frame so many things in the language of war. I grew this song. It grew out of the quote I posted in my last entry. It grew out of all the things I have learned about humans over the years. It grew out of my archaeology degree. Because we … Continue reading The Last Marching Song
I tweeted from the acupuncture table yesterday. Which I realize sounds dippy beyond belief, but there it is. To spin out this granola theme even farther, it started from meditation class. We had a substitute teacher who really rocked, and it was a rainy day, so only two of us showed up. We ended up … Continue reading I Ain’t A-Marching Any More
I’m reading a book called The Resilient Gardener. It’s about gardening, but far more than that, it’s about living on a changing planet. I want badly to own it as I’ll refer to it for years, but we are stony broke-oh at the moment, so I got it out of the library. When it gets … Continue reading Cycles
My step dance teacher told us that set dances were always the same, unchanged. But she’d go on to say that “this is the way the step was done when I was a girl,” and she’d demonstrate, quick and clean. Though she was past fifty and round, her feet were still sure of themselves. “But … Continue reading The story is always true, even if it’s told differently.
