THE CELTIC OAK

The Oak tree is a living legend, and King of the Tree realm.  It is a tree of strength and protection.

SYMBOLS OF THE OAK

Oaks are known for its size and longevity, and powerful life-affirming symbolic themes of fire, masculinity, durability, purity, constancy, crusader, robin, Stag, growth, doorway, call to adventure, security, pride, grace, primeval vigor, life, nurturing, wisdom, nobility, loyalty, power, longevity, honor, history, territoriality, ancestry, teacher, and knowledge.

FOLKLORE OF THE OAK

The Oak’s tower of strength has a regal presence and tendency to attract lightning.  It is associated with the Celtic god, Eochaidh Ollathair (Dagda).  The Dagda possesses superhuman strength, endurance, agility, magical powers to open portals, grant power to mortals, hurl energy, and perceive phenomenon on a cosmic scale.  He has power, mystical potential and more superhuman strength than any Celtic god, and may be equal to Zeus and Odin in power.

Ancient Celts recognized and honored the Oak as a clear sign of its noble presence, endurance, massive growth, impressive expanse, and as a spiritual doorway.  The ancient Europeans wore oak leaves as a sign of special status.  Known for its high tannin content, it is resistant to fungus, and used for making doors and boats.

There are accounts that trace the name “druid” to duir, the Celtic term for the Oak.  The actual translation of duir is “door” and lore indicates that witches can access the ethereal planes of higher thought by using the Oak as a door into magical places.  Druids met in oak groves and ate acorns to ingest the ancient knowledge contained in them.  Mistletoe grows best on the Oak, and is the most sacred herb of the Druids.

MIGUEL RIOS – A SONG OF JOY

CHERCHEZ LA FEMME!

DR. BUZZARD’S ORIGINAL SAVANNAH BAND ~ WHISPERING CHERCHEZ LA FEMME SE SI BON

STORM IN THE MOUNTAINS!

STORM IN THE MOUNTAINS (1870)

~ Albert Bierstadt

ANGEL VOICE!

In the early 90s, Oliver Putland sang with all-boy English vocal groups, Libera and Angel Voices. Below is a short interview with Oliver, and performing Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Pie Jesu.

Pie Jesu,

Qui tollis peccata mundi,

Dona eis requiem.

Agnus Dei,

Qui tollis peccata mundi,

Dona eis requiem,

Sempiternam,

Requiem.

GRATITUDE!

Start the day with the benefits and blessings of gratitude!

When you look at life through grateful eyes, then life becomes a magical realm of amazing and endless possibilities.  Cultivate the practice of gratitude as a way to bring more into your life, that can lead to joy in the face of adversity, unshakable inner peace and unwavering freedom.

GRATITUDE JOURNAL

Take time everyday to write 5 things you are grateful for, and why.  You can do this exercise in the morning before starting your day, or in the evening before bedtime.  Close your eyes and take a deep breath, and listen for the whisper of things in which to be grateful.

Express and enjoy the blessings of gratitude for the benefits of visible and invisible helpers, who act as “Virgil” to guide us through the dark woods.

NAMASTE’

A CELESTIAL ORCHESTRA!

Before me there were none

and after me there shall be no more!

Sail into the dream of new worlds!

~ The Ancient Librarian

The eternal vox of Ireland’s Lisa Gerrard and composer Patrick Cassidy, merging as if every instrument in the ethers integrated into one enormous celestial storm of orchestral myth.  The composition, Sailing to Byzantium was inspired by the poet William Butler Yeats’ poem by the same title.

Yeats wrote the poem in 1926, at the age of around 60. It is definitive of the agony of lost youth, an abyss of pain and inevitability of old age, societal insignificance, and the spiritual and imaginative inner work necessary to remain vital.

Byzantium was an ancient Greek city that later become Constantinople. It was the center of European civilization and the source of its spiritual philosophy. Therefore, Yeats symbolized a metaphorical journey for the spiritual life by a man pursuing his visual quest of eternal life, and the conception of paradise by sailing to the Holy City of Byzantium. Byzantium is now Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey.

Astral Voyage ~ Art Image by Josephine Wall ~ http://www.josephinewall.co.uk

Sailing to Byzantium

That is no country for old men.  The young

In one another’s arms, birds in the trees

— Those dying generations—at their song,

The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,

Fish, flesh, or fowl commend all summer long

Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.

Caught in that sensual music all neglect

Monuments of unaging intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,

A tattered coat upon a stick, unless

Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing

For every tatter in its mortal dress,

Nor is there singing school but studying

Monuments of its own magnificence;

And therefore I have sailed the seas and come

To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God’s holy fire

As in the gold mosaic of a wall,

Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,

And be the singing-masters of my soul.

Consume my heart away; sick with desire

And fastened to a dying animal

It knows not what it is; and gather me

Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take

My bodily form from any natural thing,

But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make

Of hammered gold and gold enameling

To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;

Or set upon a golden bough to sing

To lords and ladies of Byzantium

Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Sailing to Byzantium ~ Lisa Gerrard and Patrick Cassidy (Album: Immortal Memory)

 

DOLCE FAR NIENTE!

THE SWEETNESS OF DOING NOTHING!

Miss Gladis M. Holman Hunt (The School of Nature) (1893-1894) ~ William Holman Hunt

Roman Widow (1874) ~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Rose ~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Roman Painting (1903) ~ Lawrence Alma-Tadema

ERIK SATIE: A MELANCHOLY TAURUS!

Eric Alfred Leslie Satie was born in Paris on May 17, 1866. An eccentric French composer and pianist during the 20th Century Parisian avant-garde, he was referred to as a gymnopedist in 1887, shortly before writing his most famous compositions, the Gymnope’dies, published in Paris, starting in 1888.

Mr. Satie left a remarkable body of music and writings.  After many years of heavy drinking, he died of cirrhosis of the liver on July 1, 1925.

WARRIOR OF MUSIC: SERGE GAINSBOURG!

Serge Gainsbourg, born Lucien Ginsburg, on April 2, 1928 at 4:55 AM.

Sun:  Aries (Mars)

Ascendent:  Pisces (Neptune)

Moon:  Taurus (Venus)

He was a French singer, songwriter, poet, composer, artist, actor and director.  His diverse, artistic, provocative and scandalous releases embodied the musical genres of electronic, disco, jazz, reggae, chanson, funk, pop, and ye’-ye’.  He was an international sex symbol, a beloved, and influential figure in French popular music.

A LYRICAL SWORDSMAN

Gainsbourg’s childhood was profoundly affected by Nazi Germany’s occupation of France.  However, he transformed his wound into  lyrical swords of creative musical inspiration.

ASTROLOGER CHALLENGE

It would be interesting to compare the natal charts of Clyde Barrow and Serge Gainsbourg, both Sun in Aries, and Moon in Taurus; and Bonnie Parker and Brigitte Bardot, both Libras.

Song ~ Bonnie and Clyde by Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot