StarStuffs Articles for The Mind, Body and Spirit

Songlines

by StarStuffsDecember 2004

"Songlines, or Yiri in the Walpiri language, are tracks across the landscape created by Mythical Aboriginal ancestors when they rose out of the dark Earth and travelled, creating mountains, valleys, waterholes - all the physical features of the land.

They are ceremonial songs which pass on these stories. As the ancestors underwent various adventures, the laws for living, and hunting skills were established. The songs, and the stories which make up the content of the paintings, are intertwined. The land was literally "sung" into existence. ⁽¹⁾

'I have a vision of the Songlines stretching across the continents and ages; that wherever men have trodden they have left a trail of song; and that these trails must reach back, in time and space, to an isolated pocket in the African savannah, where the First Man shouted the opening stanza to the World Song, "I am!"' ⁽²⁾

From the time of the Druids, through the early Christian era, a tradition of perpetual chanting was maintained in Glastonbury. According to John Michell, in his book "New Light on the Ancient Mystery of Glastonbury", these perpetual choirs were active in twelve different sanctuaries across the Celtic land, and the chanting helped maintain the Grail secrets and the life energy of Britain.

"...it was largely by chanting that the Druids kept up the spell of enchantment across the Celtic Kingdoms. It can be assumed, from traditions passed down through the Celtic Church, that a perpetual chant...was related astrologically to its time and place and progressed through the seasons of the year. It was a twelve-part chant, based on the twelve notes of the chromatic scale, one for each hour of the day and of the night. Each note corresponded to one of the signs of the zodiac and thus to one of the twelve tribes in a Celtic Kingdom." ⁽³⁾

"..we can see that the trails...that led West, to the medicine rings, or around the island of Hawaii, as well as the songlines of the aborigines-trace paths that led not only from one point on the land-scape to the next but to a sense of renewal among those who traveled them.."

"the understanding we gain from the study of human movement through other times and places will be an under-standing of ourselves as well" (4)

I'd like ask some questions for pondering:

• What descriptions, titles, adventures would your own songline include?

• Who has been important enough in your life to sing about?

• Do you feel your song worthy enough to last forever?

• What will others sing about you?

• What does your songline say about you and your life?

Raise your voice and sing, sing with your heart, sing with you soul for it's the sound of Love.

Love and Light,
StarStuffs