Pondering: Throughout the ages tales tell of otherworldly music drifting into the everyday world and leading unsuspecting humans on an adventure. Does music from another time count as coming from another world as well?
I’m a longbow archer, (currently the County Outdoor Lady Longbow Champion at that) and our club was running a have-a-go stall at an event this bank holiday. My friend and I had agreed to go help before realising that it was a medieval day. Perfect! We’ve been working on Renaissance and Medieval Music! With 24 hours to go, and most of that full of work and rehearsals, I set to making something that might pass as a medieval costume. We pulled together the songs we’d been working on and discovered we have a full set that we can do with only the two of us and arrived, songbook in hand, to make some magic!
There is something about hands-on-activities that really excites people and we were rushed off our feet all day, talking about the longbows and organising the people as they came in to shoot so in the end we got to sing whilst packing up – which prompted some interesting heckling! It was a glorious day, the club raised a good amount of funds to keep it running over the winter and we got to sing in the end. All in all, a grand day out.
Despite the fact that we didn’t get to sing much, we still gathered several opportunities. It is funny how being open with people about what you do can lead to new connections, new chances. It makes me wonder how many opportunities I missed when I was too nervous to share my passions with those I met in case they… what? Rejected me? I’m not sure really. All I know is that I tended to keep my love of myth and magic under my hat in all but the most obvious situations. I’m learning though; every time we share what lights us up, others respond in kind and we make connections with those that love our passions too. And those that don’t share those passions often know someone who does!
It also struck me that often when we follow one passion (in this case archery) and hold the other in mind (music!) they will find ways to overlap and feed each other.
My takeaway from this: Don’t bother compartmentalising life. Share what you love and allow each aspect of your life to inform and feed the others. In this way you connect with others who love the same things, opportunities open for you and life becomes a veritable feast of delight!
Maybe at the Philosophy Conference in February I’ll do a philosophical piece on faeries… now where was that copy of Collingwood’s ‘Philosophy of Enchantment‘?
A World Enchanted 