I first came across the concept of the World Song while reading Alison Leigh Lilly’s blog, Holy Wild (I am endlessly jealous of her naming skills, btw – Meadowsweet & Myrrh was perfect, and Holy Wild is even better). In her article ‘What is the Song of the World‘, she describes the Oran Mór (or Great Song) as
“…something like Divine Harmony — it’s not a personal creator god, so much as the on-going creative process of the universe discovering itself, unfolding playfully and joyfully in an endless and infinite variety of ways, all of which are part of an exquisite harmony that is inherent to existence yet always changing and deepening.”
This idea spoke to me in the same way as old stories that feature words that create reality, and the old cautions against speaking carelessly. In the book I am reading now, Eyes Like Leaves, there is a concept known as “taw” that is described as “silence that is like music”.
I’ve been hovering on the edge of the explorations of sacred sound for a few years now, and I think that part of this is what finally drew me to study the Bardic grade of the OBOD. There is something there that is pulling me to it – two of my unfinished novels explore the concepts of magic created through song. I’ve been amongst musicians enough in my life to have felt the energy that can be coaxed from an instrument. And I have felt the energy that can arise from a group chant and a choir. But there is more. I feel the need to follow this path. And I am very excited to begin.
How funny that it should start at Yuletide? Christmas carols were always the songs I played when I had the opportunity to play around with musical instruments as a child. And with all of the musicians and hope we have lost to 2016, I think that maybe this sort of magic is needed now more than ever.
Every day I see more of the damage caused by the new US President-Elect and his machiavellian antics. People are losing hope. There is massive discord, and violence on a massive scale seems inevitable. And I expect that religious practise of all sorts will be on the rise in the coming years. People will turn to familiar comforts.
For me, I feel compelled to draw my family close, and to commune with the sound and harmony behind and beyond everyday life. I feel the need to make a more direct contact with the fabric of the world – the web or strings or whatever you want to call it that binds us all to each other. The Oran Mór is calling. And I am listening.
Land of the Phae 