🌹🎶 Burning Bright 🎶🌹
"May, queen of blossoms,
and fulfilling flowers,
with what pretty music
shall we charm the hours?"
- Lord Edward Thurlow
In London this May Day, the sun blazed unexpectedly bright,
gilding faces and flowers with the golden glow of summer.
At this time of year, it's possible to catch sight of a full cast of folkloric characters processing through the gateway of Beltane (Celtic:
bright fire)
Having chased away the Winter Cailleach, the Queen of the May dances victoriously over the treetops, sprinkling blossoms as she goes.
The Green Man leaps out from overladen tree branches,
emerald eyes glinting, puffy green leaves lining his lips.
Bright shining, Belenus, Lord of Beltane,
draws a protective line of fire to drive away disease and despair.
Pearls of May Dew quench the thirsty souls of
those searching for answers in the dawnlight.
A symphony of birdsong swells the air, serenading wooing lovers
whilst fireflies flit amidst the fairy magic twinkling in the twilight.
Rings of dancers circle the maypole by day and the bonfire by night as
the folk Celtic glitterati sound their ancient songs of life, death and rebirth.
Belenus - Celtic God of FireKindling the Fires of Musical Ancestry"There are legends of people with the gift of making music so true it can conjure spirits from the past and the future. This gift can bring fame and fortune, but it also can pierce the veil between life and death." - Annie, Sinners On the eve of Beltane, when it's traditional to light and jump over bonfires,
I went to see
Sinners - a multilayered, fierce and fiery exploration of the power of music. Set in the racism of 1930s Missippi, the film draws on the ancient musical lineages of African griots, Native American Fire Keepers and Celtic filídh. The cultural oppression of indigenous and black communities by European colonialists included forced religious and musical conversion, and the appropriation and exploitation of music such as the blues and spirituals.
So when a white couple, members of the KKK, invite Remmick, a white vampire, into their home and embark on a folk-singing killing spree,
it's a supernatural revisioning of history.
The blues pulses through the movie, as young guitar-playing Sammie is
drawn into a deadly yet liberating dance with the music of his ancestors.
His character is based on blues player Robert Johnson (1911-1938) whose song
Crossroads gave rise to the legend that he'd sold his soul to the devil for musical fame. The film is dedicated to Black Panther director Ryan Coogler's blues-loving uncle and driven by a compelling soundtrack composed by Ludwig Göransson, whose Swedish father immersed him in the Delta blues.
Annie, the healer, holds the magical beating heart of the movie, her voice guiding us towards deeper layers beneath the gory action of a blockbuster horror. For me, it was a compelling exposition of music's capacity to exorcise layers of ancestry and dance through and beyond vampirical oppression.
If you've seen it,
let me know how you felt about it.
Sinners PosterFiring UpWhen you do something, you should burn yourself up completely,
like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.
· Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Monk and Teacher (1904-1971)
Each brief flickering moment of this existence - every breath we take,
every note or word we sound, burns with the echoes of ancestry,
reverberating far into the future.
If you were sitting by a blazing bonfire,
What songs, stories or jokes would you send crackling up into the sky?
What secrets would you whisper?
What would you offer up to the flames?
Who would you hold a torch for?
Whose presence would flicker around you?
What obstacles would you jump?
What would fuel you to burn brighter and braver?
What would you be willing to pass through the fire for?
