I enjoy listening to the German folk music band called 'Faun.' Their acoustic music emphasizes many pagan themes.
Eden
by Faun, 2011 Includes more songs in English than their other albums.
by Faun, 2011 Includes more songs in English than their other albums. 
Renaissance
by Faun, 2005Licht
by Faun. Here is one selection from the Eden album called 'Hymn to Pan.'
"Listen now, Great Pan he calls us
From the green wood in his grove
'neath the waxing moon above us
Hear his clear flute sweet and low
Hear his clear flute sweet and low
Follow in the dance he's leading
Circle 'round the fire's glow
Come and drink the wine he pours us
From the tangled vines that grow
From the tangled vines that grow...
Listen now and I shall follow
Listen now and I may follow...
Out of the mid-wood's twilight
Into the meadow's dawn
Ivory limbed and brown eyed
Flashes the Faun
He skips through the copses singing
And his shadow dances along
And I know not which I should follow
Shadow or Song...
O Hunter, snare me his shadow
O Nightingale, catch me his strain
Else moonstruck with music and madness
I track him in vain
From the green wood in his grove
'neath the waxing moon above us
Hear his clear flute sweet and low
Hear his clear flute sweet and low
Follow in the dance he's leading
Circle 'round the fire's glow
Come and drink the wine he pours us
From the tangled vines that grow
From the tangled vines that grow...
Listen now and I shall follow
Listen now and I may follow...
Out of the mid-wood's twilight
Into the meadow's dawn
Ivory limbed and brown eyed
Flashes the Faun
He skips through the copses singing
And his shadow dances along
And I know not which I should follow
Shadow or Song...
O Hunter, snare me his shadow
O Nightingale, catch me his strain
Else moonstruck with music and madness
I track him in vain
And I know not which I should follow
Shadow or Song
And I know not which I should follow
Shadow or Song ..."
- Hymn to Pan by Faun, from the 2011 album Eden
Reminds me of "GreenMantle" by Charles de Lint, 'cept there Pan was a huge Stag with amazing antlers who appeared at the forest edge always accompanied by the sound of pipes.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your posts, they are a delight. The picture from "Pulling Onions Again" reminded me of the quote from "Wayward Lemon & the Garralous Gnome": "Only gardeners & sloppy painters have green thumbs" :) ... J.
I am glad you enjoy the posts.
ReplyDeleteI watched a documentary recently about three men who took a huge flock of sheep into the mountains of Montana to graze in the summer. It was tough work. At night, bears and cougars from the forest, threatened the sheep, and some sheep were killed. Spooky camping situations. The men who herded sheep and goats in the mountains and hinterlands of Ancient Greece, Arcadia, had similar scary experiences, including bandits, and had no rifles in their hands.
& sheep are notoriously stupid & that can not have helped much. My children's father's (itz a long story) family had a farm on the inland side of the Drakensberg [Dragon Mountain] (South Africa) & the historical sheep kraal was a cave in the side of a kopie (small hill) on the farm - no doubt to ensure as much protection for the flock as possible.
DeleteI guess it is the things that appear in shadow on the edge of awareness that are the most terrifying.
Your Ancient Greece reference reminds me of "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho where the main character, an Andalusian shepherd boy, begins & ends his journey in the same place. As I'm starting to realize this sense of "ending up where you began & understanding it for the first time" is breath-taking. Simmilar, only different to doing '1st-half-of-the-Short-Form' again & again & again in class this morning & re-perceiving subtletes. J
The paradigm, for me, for "ending up where you began" is the cycle of the seasons. I'm a bit obsessed with this paradigm: http://www.gardendigest.com/monindex.htm.
ReplyDeleteAre you doing the Cheng Man-Ch'ing short form? The first 3rd is identical in choreography to the Traditional Yang 108 Long Form.
I feed my neighbor's sheep when she is away ... yes, 'dumb' animals.
Pan is associated with panic and terror. Weird looking creatures and odd sounds and nighttime in the woods are still staples in horror films. We are still looking for Bigfoot.
Greetings Mike,
DeleteWe do Yang style but I'll have to check with Sifu re: the 'Short form's' proper name when she gets back next week. The 2nd half includes Repulse Monkey, Cloud Hands, Snake creeps down, Golden Rooster (left & right), Fair Lady (4 sides) & Ride the Tiger.
We've done Tai Chi ?Chuan(straight sword) & Tai Chi 'broad sword' but I still need to put in more practice for those.
We've started Simplified 24 Form & another 'straight sword form' but I don't know it's name either :(
Although it fits the photo from your Green Fire post better I've included this quote below from the Dojo's 2012 Calender:
The creative spirit
slumbers in pebbles
dreams in plants
gathers energy in animals
and awakens to self-conscious
discovery
in the soul of Man.
In Tai Chi
we weave this spirit
back into the trees
and the sleeping stones.
We have Autumn here in March but somehow these words seem to fit both your March Spring & our March Autumn.
Rgds, J
ps Tom Robbins weaved us a interesting take on Pan in 'jitterbug perfume', 'tho at times he was a smelly ol' goat
You Southern Hemisphere folks do have your seasonal changes in different months that us Northern folks. So your coming close to Samhain or Halloween events on our May Day.
ReplyDeleteYour poem does have, for us, an autumn feel: slumbers, dreams, sleeping stones, and tree spirits.
Enjoy your forms - you sound very dedicated in your practice.
Best wishes,
Mike
Thank you Mike.
DeleteI do like to follow the turning of the Seasons - 'tho the commercial world follows the same traditions as the N Hemisphere & at the moment there are chocolate bunnies&eggs & Lent&Easter however it was the recipe for Simnel Cake in the weekend papers that really wobbled me! I do find it off balance to "celebrate" life after I've harvested & while I'm pruning & clearing in the garden! J
Easter in autumn, Christmas in summer ... yikes, that would really be problematic for me.
ReplyDeleteI'm a Druid/Daoist, I would realign my sacred day celebrations with the proper seasons. We are getting ready for Walpurgis Nacht, May Day, Beltane Celebrations: fertility, green, rebirth, return of Peresphone, lovemaking, jumping over fires, leaf budding, warmth, return of Faun and Green Man, Yahoo!!
In the end, everything is just fine, God can be reborn in the autumn as well as the spring.