Laurel Massé

And it is good

Happy Easter! Yes, still! Easter lasts fifty days in the church calendar, and will not end this year until (counts on fingers) June 8th! 

I re-enter the world of bloggery with this offering to you all. Draw sweet water from the well, make yourself a cup of tea, and settle in to listen to some extraordinary music. I want - I fervently desire! - to sing in a performance of this work. Watch the video, and you'll hear and see why.

 

Vespers for St. Hildegard was created by British composer Stevie Wishart, who wove in passages from Hildegard of Bingen's music. I especially love the groundedness - as in both feet firmly planted on God's green earth - of the singing. I long ago grew weary of celestial fluttering soprano renditions of Hildegard's music, even though they were often beautiful. Hildegard was a mystic, yes, a nun, a writer, and composer and painter... and an herbalist who had had her hands in the dirt caring for plants and soil. It is that side of her that I've been longing for. Here are highly skilled yet unmannered, low-pitched, strong voices of women with real bodies. I am in earthy bliss.

Thank you, Terri Windling, for introducing me to this music. If I could draw like you can, I would send you a picture of me with mud on my feet, and a smile on my face and musical notes swirling all around me.

 

Swordswoman

                       Rey Alabastro Photography

This is Samantha Catto-Mott, aka Samantha Swords, Champion of Longsword, Harcourt Park International Jousting Tournament, 2013.

If, like me, you looked at this picture and your heart leaped, hail sister! If you are thinking, "oh, playacting", or just wondering what this is all about, let me recommend the documentary Reclaiming the Blade, which is about retrieving the lost traditions of Western martial arts.

I offer my congratulations to Samantha, and a tip of the hat to fight choreographer Normand Beauregard, whose Swashbucking 101 class was a brightness in the gloomy sky of my time in New York city in the 80s. And a deep, deep reverence to legendary sword master Ralph Faulkner, with whom I had a few lessons in the late 1970s in Hollywood, without quite realizing how very lucky I was to do so. "Ah. Left-handed," he said. "That can be an advantage. Take this sword."