“What is wrong in this world can only be wholly healed by
those in the other world.
What is
wrong in the other world can only be wholly healed by those in this world.”
- Irish saying
I write this in the music room that has been my sacred
temple for 38 marvelous years. So many miracles have happened in this place and
yet again this morning, as 100 children charged the air with the powerful
sounds, gestures and motions of our Intery Mintery Halloween ritual. By the end
of this homespun ritual/ performance, the 3rd graders are locked in
heart-stirring grooves on the xylophones, the 2nd graders are
accenting downbeats with shaking bamboo rattles and resonant singing bells, the
first graders are adding percussive effects, the 5th graders are
playing the chant-like open-5th melodies on the whole family of
recorders, the 4th graders, dressed in costume, are circling the
space with explosive scary shapes and then moving in ancient grapevine steps
while I play the Bulgarian bagpipe, unbelievably barely heard amidst the the
80-piece orchestra.
Music has long been a shamanic healing force, each
instrument type and melodic mode and rhythmic groove bringing its specific form
of healing, either energizing or calming or both, finding the calm at the eye
of the storm or the dynamic dance at the center of silence. Here they join
together, the struck skins and strings, the blown wind instruments, the rung
and shaken and scraped percussion, the singing voice and dance for 15 minutes
of “you just had to be there” soulful ceremony. Made all the more extraordinary
by the fact that these are children from 6 to 11 years old and every single one
included and contributing and participating just because their teachers believe
in their deep-down musicality and the school still values it all.
Playing the bagpipe in the center, I didn’t want to stop. I
wonder what might have happened if I followed my impulse and continued for
another 10 or 15 minutes or 2 or 3 hours. Perhaps the parents would have to
board a space shuttle to pick up their kids at carpool, as we were slowly
lifted off this earth and landed, all 100 of us, in some other land or
dimension. Maybe I’ll try it next year.
Meanwhile, it’s Halloween. The ancient Celtic festival of
Samhain renewed and revived and kept going—except in those fearful places where
it’s banned for its Satanic influence on our children. The origins speak of the
belief that a veil separates this world, the land of the living, from the other
world, the land of the dead. At Halloween, the veil grows thin, the curtains
part and the dead return for one night to visit (or haunt) the living. As in
every culture from time immemorial, we the living need to propitiate those
spirits, both to let them know we remember them and to protect us from any
lingering resentment on their part. The reasons for many of the current customs
are mostly lost to us modern folks, but we enact them anyway and mostly have a
great time doing it.
Last night, I went to see political comedian Will Durst, who
was excellent as always. But he drew me into the spooky, horrific world far
beyond any goblin or ghoul, the unbelievable and simply unacceptable
possibility that the American people might be duped yet again and consider a
candidate who will move us back toward the Dark Ages. I woke up in the grip of fear, disheartened that this
contest is even a question and terrified that I would relive the constant
sorrow of the Bush years.
And so I call to the ancestors at this time of communication
between the worlds. We have the voices and bodies to speak and act for you and
are honor-bound to heal the hurts that you suffered and move us toward love and
compassion. You work in the realm of spirit and have the power to enter
people’s hearts. In the political arena, things come and things go and we
confused mortals keep shouting across imaginary lines and forget the spirit
that unites us. But still, these decisions have real impacts and are not to be
ignored or shrugged off just because they’re temporal and the spirit lives on.
Attention ye ancestors! Today we played beautiful music for you,
we’re working here to give the children what they deserve and training them to
think and critique and analyze as well as feel and celebrate and express
themselves in beauty. We’re making phone calls to Ohio and encouraging people
to get out and vote. From your side, we’re hoping you’ll gather the invisible
forces to at least keep the door of possibility open to necessary change and
intelligent discourse. We know that Obama carries both hope and disappointment,
but the difference between the little he offers and the alternative is huge and
worth of a petition to you all. It’s time for trick or treat— you know which
one we prefer! Thanks for the help.