The piece below this intro is basically a thank-you note to OMNIA for their wonderful music. The first time I heard it, I immediately connected with their work at a deep level. In fact, coming at just the right time, it helped me to see some things that I needed to be reminded of. Something tells me that they've heard comments like these before.
What kind of music is it? In a previous post, while trying to describe my music, the best I could come up with was “the genre of Me.” OMNIA seems to feel somewhat the same about labels, so let's just go with “the genre of Them.” Too many labels in the world anyway. Best thing to do is just listen to their music. And here's how to do just that.
The only album I've heard so far is called “PaganFolk at the Fairy Ball.” It's a live album and there's also a DVD of the concert available that's called “Pagan Folk Lore.” The album itself is a Pay What You Like download on their website at www.worldofomnia.com. How nice.
I should explain a few things. Shortly after finding one of their videos on YouTube, I wrote a letter to a fellow poet to turn her onto what I'd just found. This is that letter expanded into a prose piece. (As you may already know, the same thing happened with “A Bus Stop Friday Night.”) Being someone I write to regularly and someone who, like me, loves to write, she's the friend of the pen or Penpal that I refer to in the letter. The Trippy Jack referred to is her nickname for me when the writing in my letters has a different voice than it usually does. This piece is probably the kind of thing she's talking about.
So here's a letter to Penpal, and you too, from my close friend, Trippy Jack. One night, he fell under the spell of OMNIA's music. May the path you walk be as kind to you.
The Ivy Spell (Of OMNIA)
Making myself late, late last night, and now late again tonight, I'm late for sleep and late to write, to you, Penpal, friend of the pen. So I'll only take a minute of your time now and an hour later.
I'm not so old, yet so much wants to be conveyed these days, wants to be placed on common ground before the last light winks out on the last night of a Magical life (as all lives are). I'm sure that all of what wants to be said, you already know. From the look of it though, few others suspect that perception might lie. But who can tell what's known by another? And who can say what wisdom might be seen when ears hear and eyes see such music?
I can't say I know much about these folks, though I know enough from the notes, the tunes that fly from fingers and throats that have mastered the art of translation, that can give the gift of Light and lightness from one heart to another. It is, “Look at what I've seen. Look closely, carefully, and see it too. See this and know the power of who you really are.” No, I know all I need to know of these folks, but will know much more of them and their notes before I'm done.
About to say, I was, that every once in a wonderful while, the Magic surfaces a bit more obviously but, a lucky lad from the first step onto this perfect, imperfect path, I've always seen the sparkle, always have, always will. Despite all the troubles, how beautifully lucky to see it everywhere, everywhere, and though I rarely ever know exactly what it is, it smiles back at my smiling all the same. Which is to say, I think, that with this music, the heart of it all is casting within me a green growing ivy spell of renewal, twisting round younger days and long forgotten lives to unfurl an old allegiance to Wind, Tree, River, and Flame, so that I might remember something ancient, brave, and peaceful that my life in going forward needs to now know. It strikes me that here is where here was always waiting. Maybe I'm never late, but always right on time, or so it seems for the moment and might possibly be.
Where was we? Ah, yes. Penpal might want to hear this, I thought (or something did). She'd understand. She'd feel the rhythm unveil and unleash the body's captive secret. For the body's book of shadows has a vast knowledge of spell songs that dance earthbound energy closer to its source, which keys open witch doors to places where the potency of belief in something more than appearance is strengthened, mountain peaks of emotion where the cloak of personality is thrown from the wizard's shoulders to shred in the winds of Oneness. With the right tune, true happiness may be no more than a dance away. So here's a cauldron full of drums, flutes, and harps as in bang, toot, and pluck, which henceforth will be known unto me as OMNIA. Add a few wizards' words, a little from Lewis Looking Glass, Willy S, and Mister Poe, and call this particular enchantment, “PaganFolk at the Fairy Ball.”
Where have these people been hiding, I wonder? Or has it been me that forgot my religion, my faith in guitar and voice? So much lovely listening out there and I somehow lost my musical way. But the melodies never left me, they've just been sound asleep. I feel them stirring though. Within my heart and hands. Within the instrument. When the case opens, I'll say, “Time to wake, old friend, we have work to do. We can help.” And perhaps someday, even for myself, I may find the healing I seek, and say with a laugh, “I got it for a song.” Soon, I may forget the decades of daily struggle, and only rarely recall a memory of how busy I was with wrong roads, washed-out bridges, dead-end tracks and whistle stops, while a blue of solid invisible sense loomed over me, whispering, waiting to be seen. "Look up and see your beloved sky," I should've said. But I was counting sidewalk cracks and thinking, too often thinking almost useless things. One can see the Light sparkle and still get lost. Hunting for a safer trail, I may have even lost sight, at times, of the wild and wistful Magic that lives inside me, wondering at the depth of my silly disguise. “You are more than this,” it would have said, as it always has, “So much more.”
But enough of the acquisition of truth. For now. Closing the door for tonight, I am, but leaving it unlocked, its windows well polished. I'll end with a wish for an end to all blindness. Not just for me, but for everyone. Every spark within the flame, every drop within the sea, every leaf that lives and falls from green to gold. Yes, an end to blindness and a beginning to this new remembrance of Life as celebration.
So, so long with love, Trippy Jack is off to dreams. Without further ado, as promised to you, here's an hour of OMNIA. And all that's left fore the lamp gets snuffed, beyond thanks to the players who conjured this stuff, are two words: OMNIA – Wow!
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