Hern Song - Cat Chapin-Bishop

Magic: at its best,
it's that moment of connection
to the here and now,
to the power of the moment.

That quote comes from the Pagan Quaker Blog. It is a beautiful blog fulled with the luminescent prose and compassionate spirits of Chat Chapin Bishop and Peter Bishop.

Chat tells a wonderful story from the Merry Meet Festival. I quote part of it here:

...and in a very soft voice, he sang me a song about Taliesin the bard, and the Old Gods returning. It was very beautiful, and if I can get the words later, I may post them here. But the most wonderful part was the way that, sung just then, in that place and time, it reminded me so powerfully of another song, long years before, when at the Twilight Covening that changed everything for me, I had felt the God Herne singing for me--just me--in the notes of a stranger's guitar.

It was like a caress on the cheek. It was like an affirmation of my path. Quaker I may be, but I'm still His daughter, too.... It was not until today that I had the chance to speak privately with Canu again, and to share with him what his song had meant to me. By then, I was feeling shy, myself, and I said only that, as I deepened in my Quaker self, I sometimes felt doubt about my place with the Old Gods, and that I'd felt his song as an affirmation of something that had wanted affirmation.

True enough. But I'd left out the part about sensing Herne, touching me through the song. I couldn't quite trust that to words... I ended by saying that I thought he was a very good singer.

And Canu grinned, and said, yeah, well... I'm told I draw down Herne pretty well, too.

To read more, visit her evocative account of the Merry Meet Festival

As a companion piece, I also recommend her post titled Lloyd Lee Wilson, Hern and the Sea of Limitless Life.

Go well, stay well,

Sia

Photo: A wildlife rescue volunteer from the Cascades Raptor Center with a Red tailed hawk. Taken at the Faerieworlds Festival in Eugene, OR by WitsEnd. (Used with permission - all rights reserved)

Off the Shelf:


Flights of Fancy: Birds in Myth and Legend by Peter Tate

Pagan Theology: Paganism as a World Religion by Michael York