The Harp

The Harp

"Healer of each wounded warrior,
Comforter of each fine woman,
Guiding refrain over the blue water,
Image-laden, sweet-sounding music!"
   ___"The Book of the O'Connor Don," Irish text (trans CM)


    The harp is one of the most characteristic instruments of the Celtic tradition. The harp of the Dagda (the Good God of the Gaelic gods) was magical. In it the Dagda had burned melodies that would not sound until he summoned them. It had three properties of 'strains' that all harpers in ancient times used in their music, each property having a different effect. It had the suantraigh (SWON'atree) or 'sleep strain,' which lulled people to sleep. It had the geantraigh (GEON'tree) or 'joy strain,' which caused people to laugh.  It had the goiltraigh (GOYL'tree) or 'sorrow strain' which caused people to weep. 
    These three harp strains are still the property of harp music today - music that can lull us into a restful state, bring tears of beauty to our eyes, or enliven us and set the foot tapping. With these three strains, harp music affects the soul: it pours comfort, balm, and rest into the soul laden with cares, burdens and anxieties, giving it rest with the sleep strain; it plumbs the depths of sorrow and grief, of loneliness and bereavement, with the sorrow strain; it reconnects those who are lost, stressed and humorless with the primal joy of life with the joy strain. The playing of the harps confers a special privilege upon all harpers: the ability to unlock the doors of the soul.

"Choose three pieces of music that represent for the three musical strains outlined above. Play them when your soul needs rest, relief or uplift."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

March

Month of March -- great is the forwardness of the birds;

Severe is the cold wind upon the headlands; 

Serene weather will be longer, than the crops.

  ___anon Welsh poem

 

March gives us proof that spring has really arrived. The themes this

month include observation and sensitivity to subtle messages, spring

cleaning and restoring, tribal and individual consciousness, constancy

and change, power and its abuses, creation and increase, public

service, creative fire.