Rainbow Pageant

The crescent of a waning moon hung in the black velvet sky. I couldn’t see any of the constellations with which I was so familiar, and, in looking, it seemed to me that there were many, many more stars in the Lemurian firmament than in that of my own world. A night sky is one of the things that has the power to make my mind dredge up curious little facts. Gazing out into the Lemurian heavens, I thought about how the ancients believed their heroes became constellations, watching over the fate of humans eternally. In that case, Lemuria must have produced many heroes, for the sky was aglow with the light of a million distant suns.

I couldn’t have missed the floating stage if I’d tried. Arcs of laser light crossed the sky, and the rhythm of music led me to it. There must have been a thousand people or more milling around, watching the performances, and clapping exuberantly as each came to a close.

 

The stage was a sight to be seen. It floated, as its name suggests, several yards offshore and was linked to the promenade by a pontoon walkway. A long queue stretched from the entrance to the walkway back into the crowd: probably the performers waiting to take the stage, I reasoned. Sure enough, as one act finished and the applause died down, a large sign hung from the center of the stage flashed a number, and the person at the head of the queue scurried along the walkway and climbed onto the stage. I decided to watch for a while before finding out where I needed to go to get a number of my own.

Seldom have I seen anything so fascinating. The backdrop changed for each performance, adding harmonious lights and images, according to the style and mood of each performer’s offering. I watched as a solo dancer trod out from darkness in to a spotlight, and as the first strains of music reached out across the water, she moved, and the backdrop showed a lakeside scene with wind ripples and delicate, fairylike creatures mirroring the performer’s steps. After a while, the rhythm changed, and drums took over, sending out a raw, archaic beat. Flames rose up behind the dancer. A second person leaped onto the stage, and together they danced an ancient story of power and danger and bravery. The drums beat faster and louder, and the music faded into the background, leaving only the power of rhythm to guide the dancers’ steps. They seemed to dance forever, and then their dance ended abruptly with a loud drum beat. As they stood on the stage, panting from their exertion, the crowd roared and clapped, as if it would never cease, and I found myself cheering them, too.

As carefully as I could, I edged through the spectators and toward the waiting performers and asked the last woman in line where I could get a number for the stage. Like me, she was dressed in travelling clothes and carried a pack and staff.

“Are you on the Enchanter’s journey?”, she inquired.

I said I was.

She offered me her hand. Her grasp was firm and determined.

“Then, come to the Mermaid Tavern on Market Square later, if you like. There are a few of us still here at Rainbow Beach, and we drop by the Mermaid to meet. That’s, unless your boat leaves tonight”, she added.

“I don’t know about my boat, yet”, I replied. “I thought I might look for it in the morning.” Then I asked her when the performances stopped for the night.

“They don’t”, she told me, “or at least not at a fixed time. The stage is open for as long as performers want to use it. And tonight will probably be a long one, because of the soul singers.”

At that point, I couldn’t imagine what should be so particularly special about people singing soul music that it would keep Lemurians from their beds. My incredulity must have showed.

She laughed.

“Not that kind of soul music. Lemurian soul music. It’s ummm… Oh, wait until it happens. You’ll understand more then that I could possibly explain.”

She pointed me in the direction of the ticket booth where I would be given a number for the stage. I promised to look by the Mermaid Tavern that night, if I wasn’t too tired.

At the ticket booth I was given a number and told it would likely be an hour or more until my turn was called. I made my way to the harbour wall and found a place to stand, right across from the stage.

One after the other, as their numbers were called, singers, poets, conjurers, fire eaters, and pantomime artists, and more took the stage and entertained us splendidly. But it was more than mere entertainment: in what they did, each of the performers showed us something of who they were and of the work to which they had been called in their lives.

The Soul Singers

Just before midnight, there were only three numbers before mine, and I had just decided it was time for me to move off to join the queue. Then it happened. As the last chords of a particularly skilled piano recital drifted off into the night, and the pianist left the stage to loud applause, instead of flashing out the next number, the light extinguished, and a man with a microphone strode to the center of the stage. A murmur of expectancy passed through the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen”, he announced, “the soul singers have arrived and are ready to perform for you. The programme will continue when the soul singers have completed their service.”

First the stage went dark, then stars appeared both on the backdrop and floor of the stage, making it merge seamlessly with the night. One by one, soft spotlights faded in, each focused on a figure in a long gown of dusky grey and shimmering gold. Many of the people on the stage held or sat by musical instruments — flutes, harps, violins, cymbals, small drums, and other percussion instruments — others simply stood in the light, looking toward the crowd. Had I not known they were standing on a stage, I’d have sworn they were floating in mid air, above the gentle river swell.

As one, they began to sing a single, long note, which they held for what seemed an eternity, and then extended into a simple, three note chant. I heard the overtones emerge, eery and beautiful, like the songs of angels. My spine tingled. Almost imperceptibly at first, the musicians drew sounds from their harps and cymbals into the music. Then followed the violins and soft drumming. I was enraptured, I felt myself slipping into a light trance and the cares of the day slipping from me.

After several minutes of chanting, two women, one very young, the other old, with flowing silver grey hair, stepped out to the front of the stage and wove a song into the chant. In her part, the younger woman asked questions, and the older woman answered them in hers. They sang in a language I could not easily follow at first, but as the song continued, I found myself able to grasp more and more. Their song recounted a myth about the creation of the worlds and of the passing between them. In the nature of all ritual songs, it spoke of the pain of loss and the hope of reunion, of the passing of darkness and the emergence into light, of despair and hope, of death and the eternal power of love.

Then the singers parted to stand on each side of the stage, and more and more voices joined in the antiphony, while others maintained the harmonics. I became aware of many of the people around me singing and chanting one or other part of the same song.

Slowly, a landscape appeared against the starry sky of the backdrop. The heavens faded into the background and a view of hills and lakes and woodlands came into focus, bathed in a light that exuded warmth, comfort, and serenity. People passed through the landscape, some a distance away, others in the foreground, so that it was easy to make out their features. I heard sighs and low sobs from here and there in the crowd, and when I looked around me, some of the people were gazing enraptured at the images, tears in their eyes.

Still the song continued, creating an atmosphere of peace and acceptance. I realised that some verses of the song were traditional and that others addressed specific individuals, presumably people around me, by name, for as names were woven into the verses, I heard occasional cries of “here!” and “yes!” and “listen!”, sometimes followed by excited exchanges of chatter or by soft crying.

Eventually, the scene faded and the stars took on their original brightness. The choirs and musicians merged once more, and the main singers melted back into the group. The singing ceased, the chants reverted to a single note that tapered off softly into the night. Then the stage darkened completely, and it was all over.

The crowd on the dockside was still and for the most part silent. Several minutes passed before the usual milling and chatter resumed. Intuitively, I understood why such a large number of people had gathered to hear the soul singers, for I, too, felt more at peace than I had for a long time, even though I hadn’t understood everything at a logical level, and even though none of the verses had been for me.

A new number flashed out from the stage, so I picked up my pack and staff and made my way to take my place in the queue of performers waiting for their turn.

Half an hour or so later, my number flashed above the stage and I stepped onto the walkway. It occurred to me that I’d forgotten to ask about the backdrop and how the images were selected. At the steps to the stage, I was greeted by a stage manager. I asked about the backgrounds. He smiled, and I had a hunch that he had been asked this by many of the non-Lemurian performers that night. Hastily, he explained that I should not worry and that the vibration of my own energy and that of my presentation would be translated into the appropriate background imagery.

I mounted the steps and walked across to the center of the stage, which had been marked with a large circle that showed performers where to stand.

In our brief encounter, Enchanter had instructed me to present three things: something old, something new, and something borrowed.

My choices had been easy, for I am not prone to indecision or stage fright, And so I began with the old: a poem I had written three years before this night, without knowing that it would ever be heard or read by others.

The stage lights dimmed and a fine mist spread across the floor, backlit by dim footlights. Of course, I couldn’t see the backdrop, but my curiosity was piqued when I heard gasps of what I took to be amazement from the spectators on the dockside. I cleared my throat and spoke:

When You Are Croning

When you are croning
the night
will be your ally and
death will blow you kisses
from the threshold
between the worlds.

You will have
more friends in the Otherworld
than in this, and hunger
for their love
will layer itself upon your soul
until it robes you in a shimmering veil.

When you are croning
you will shun the busy-ness world
and journey within to
travel exquisite landscapes.

You will learn to speak an
ancient tongue,
your truth will ring
and wound and heal
and your anger rise to burn its way
through the wild flesh of your life.

When you are croning
You will come to treasure
wrinkled, grey-haired women
and their soft belly flesh.

You will learn
the preciousness of touch
and the art of
folding memories into your skin,
ready to carry them with you
into eternity.

For the something new, I presented a work that has been in progress for some time but is coming to completion: a shrine to a sanctuary from my childhood days.

As a girl, I lived in a village on an island just off the coast of the south of England. On the beach was a ruined church tower, all that was left of a church that had been eaten away by the tides. I’d climb up the inside of the tower, using jutting stones that had once borne a stairway, as hand- and footholds. Halfway up was a wide window ledge that looked out to sea. I’d sometimes sit there for hours with a book, an apple, and something to drink.

Since then, as I discovered on a visit several years back, the beach has been landscaped, and the tower made safe and closed. It is no longer much like the sanctuary of my girlhood, but it remains dear to me.

For the something borrowed, I presented some of Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord’s “Spirit Books”, accompanied by one of my most beloved pieces of listening by Enya.

Spirit Books – Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord
View or download a 36-page pdf
http://www.susankapuscinskigaylord.com/spiritbooks.html

Spirit Books – individual examples
http://ingoodspirit.blogspot.com/search/label/Spirit%20Books
http://endicottstudio.typepad.com/endicott_redux/2007/03/spirit_books.html 

All through my performance, I perceived changes in the lighting and atmosphere on the stage, but I saw little, for I was focused on my words and actions. It must have been impressive, though, for the spectators sighed and clapped and gasped, and as I left the stage and retraced my steps along the walkway, I heard kind words, for which I was grateful.

Example of Harmonics
http://www.harmonicworld.com/