Dublin Winter Solstice Celebration

Now that the days are getting longer, let me bring you back to a celebration of the winter solstice that was held here in Dublin. This particular celebration began a few years ago, initially as a small and informal event. Now it has expanded and been adopted by the City Council.

Events began in the Riding School Hall of the National Museum in Collins Barracks. Here there was food and drink available, There was some music and also storytelling. The picture above shows people listening to a linking some ancient Irish queen to a deity and the Newgrange burial mound.

Many people were wearing ivy garlands in their hair. You could make these yourself or if, like me, you are not very handy readymades were available.

I always look grumpy in photographs.

The action moved outside, into the courtyard of the Museum.

The Snow Queen arrived. The Sacred Flame was lit.

My beloved was excited by the arrival of Lord Summerisle.

Then we processed from the Museum and along the Quays. I do not know what people trying to drive into the city centre made of it all.

The procession ended up in Smithfield Square. The Christmas Tree there struck a jarring note. The Christmas Tree has now been wholly appropriated by Christianity, yet this Solstice Celebration was an entirely Pagan affair with no room for the Galilean.

There was some more Pagan ceremonial stuff. People burned withies in the fire that had been lit at the Museum. These were paper or wooden things on which they had written wishes for the coming year. Then the flame was held aloft.

And then the crowd began to disperse. The Sacred Flame was guarded as it burned itself out. A new year has begun.

See also:

Some more pictures

Slí an Chroí, Native Celtic Shamanism in Ireland, the organisers of the event.

Bells and Calls

One of my correspondents in Frank's APA was talking about being in Malta. Malta is apparently quite Catholicy, and at one point on his visit the churches started ringing their bells simultanaeously, creating a weird and spacey sound effect. This reminded me of sitting on the walls of the castle above Tripoli in Lebanon and hearing a load of mosques simultanaeously doing the Muslim call to prayer. There was one long sustained note on which they all seemed to be unintentionally harmonising, creating a strange and otherworldy sound that cast me into unintentional direct contact with the sublime. It was on of the strangest and most fascinating experiences of my life. I know a lot of people who think that the world would be a better place if it could be expunged of religious devotion; it is experiences like that that convince me they are wrong.

An inuit panda production

"Das Rheingold"

I saw this in a concert performance in the Gaiety Theatre by Opera Ireland. I think it was originally meant to be fully staged, but the current economic climate meant that this was all they could afford.

As you know, the Rheingold is the first opera in Wagner's Ring. This one tells the story of how the Ring came to be made, and it how it found its way into the hands of the giant Fafner. It is an odd tale. Wagner's Ring deals with semi-divine characters very much larger than life – the giants, Valkyries, heroes, and the Norse Gods themselves – but they seem to lack any kind of higher nobility to go with their exalted status. If anything, they seem even more petty and venal than normal human beings.

A lot of the action here is driven by Wotan's promise to supply Freia, his sister-in-law, to some giants, as payment for their having built him a lovely new palace. Aside from all the yap he gets from the wife over this, brainbox Wotan failed to register that without Freia's magic apples the Gods are doomed to age and wither. Duh. To buy off the giants he has to get the magic ring from the sinful dwarf who made it from magic gold he stole from the Rhinemaidens (themselves a bunch of slutty teases). It is all very tawdry, with no one coming well out of this, except maybe for Loge (Loki), who does at least seem to be somewhat brainy and far more self aware than his fellow Gods.

The Rheingold is the one of the Ring Cycle with which I am most familiar, so it was easy enough to follow this concert performance as a piece of drama, even though it was sung in German (with English surtitles). The various singers performing the roles were excellent, really getting into character for all that they were just standing onstage singing away. I was particularly struck by the two giants, who (without make-up, funny costumes, or anything) managed to convey a sense of overwhelming bulk.

Musically, the Rheingold has two big moments. The first of these is the opening, reprised at the end, when the music evokes the flowing of the Rhine so effectively that it sounds like the surging waters more than the product of musical instruments. The other is the scene in the dwarves' workshop, where the junior dwarves bang away on tuned anvils as they strive to fashion the Rhinegold into wonderful artefacts. This piece of proto-industrial music is a bit less impressive in a concert setting, as we lose the sense of visual spectacle gained from the site of the dwarves pounding away, but it still did the job.

So that was that. I would definitely go to further Opera Ireland productions of the later Ring operas, staged or just in concert. My only real criticism of this was that they staged it as one continuous two and a half hour performance, without any breaks. Although this is as Wagner wanted it, it was somewhat hard on the weaker-bladdered members of the audience.

Gotterpandarung

Ancient Lolcat Temple Found

Archaeologists have discovered a 2000 year old temple in Alexandria to Bastet, the Egyptian cat goddess. Bastet is a funny deity - she started off as a very fierce lion-headed monster, but mutated over time into basically a divine domestic cat. Read more here.

Adhan and Muezzin

I have already posted about Radio Muezzin, an interesting theatrical piece about the guys who do the adhan (call to prayer) in Cairo, and the Egyptian state's crazy plan to replace them with a radio broadcast. There was an interesting comment left there about a documentary film called Voices and Faces of the Adhan: Cairo, covering similar ground. Follow the link, see what you think.

Radio Muezzin

This was my only visit to the Dublin Theatre Festival. A muezzin is that fellow who issues the call to prayer from mosques. This piece begins with some Cairene muezzins telling their stories. Some of them were basically amateur hobbyists, but one of them being a professional employed by the Egyptian Ministry for Religious Affairs. And then another person came on stage, a radio engineer. And then we had another muezzin, but this one just appeared on a screen, talking about how his (live) calls to prayer were going to be broadcast to every mosque in Egypt, putting the other guys out of work*. Then another fellow came onstage and said that the star muezzin had to leave the show, due to musical differences, and that he would be saying his lines henceforth.

And that was it, conceptually. The muezzins did their calling to prayer, and we got a sense of another bit of the world's greatness being swept away by pointless modernity.


* Perhaps not entirely, aside from the calling, the muezzins also function as mosque janitors.

WORLD'S GREATEST FESTIVAL FOUND!

Nepal is currently celebrating the festival of Tihar, the local version of Diwali. The second day of the feast is known as Kukar Tihar; on this day the Nepalese honour the country's dogs.

It's all down to some religious thing in the Mahabharat, where dogs accompanied some Dharmaraj Yudhisthir guy to heaven. Or maybe it's because dogs guard the underworld. Either way, the dogs are not complaining. On this great day they are garlanded with flowers and given lots of treats to eat. Even street dogs - normally treated rather badly and lucky to scrape a living from scraps - are fêted on Kukar Tihar.

The BBC has more on this festival: In pictures: Nepal dogs honoured

i can has light? & light wuz

The Lolcat Bible.

Link from Jim's Occasional Journal of Sorts

Rather worryingly, I have found myself recently signing off work voicemail messages with "OK, thanks, bye".

Things you never want to find yourself saying #3

"Of course I identify with Christian values but what have those got to do with going to bed with a prostitute? [...] Are you saying that I cannot be a good father and a good husband just because after five, six days away from home, I had a little adventure?"

Man, Prince, or GOD?

Nick Squire of the BBC reports from Vanuatu, where some of the locals worship Prince Philip as a God.

"He's a god, not a man," claims Chief Jack, of the village of Yaohnanen.

Could this be why Vanuatu is the happiest country in the world?

He have a round head

World's greatest website found, again.

Kangaroo

Noah's Ark

Israel

Islam

Officially Fish

Capaybaras are the world's largest rodents. The Catholic Church classes them as fish so that people can eat them on fast days.

More Capybara action. And more. And make sure to check out the Perpetual Capybara Machine

Nice hair

I'm getting a bit fed up of people shiteing on about the secret Christian sub-text of the Narnia books. I have also found it ever harder to take Aslan seriously since realising that lions model themselves on Peter Stringfellow, and not the other way round.