Beautiful distractions

gnostic chanting

I came on here to carry on writing about a couple of other things (a lack-of-sleep induced meltdown the other day in a coffee shop and the kindness of strangers!) but just had to share this.

It has to be the most beautiful piece of music I have heard in a long time. I am not Christian but this really stirred something deep within.

“The Herdsman,” tells of a medieval French Cathar cattle herder who comes home at the end of the day to find his wife ill by the fire. He attempts to comfort her but she ultimately dies.

The words are interesting. Never before has the line “I will make you a stew (potage)” ever sounded so poetic! Lots of appetising ingredients in there too - a turnip(radish), a cabbage and even a lark.

Not sure how I even came across this Gnostic chant - probably the YouTube Algorithm Gods thought I needed to hear it.

The lyrics are on the video - both the original Breton ones and the English translation - but here is a snippet too:

When the oxherd returns from work
plants his plow on the ground.
A, e, i, o, u.
Plants his plow on the ground.

He finds his wife by the fire
sad and disconsolate.
A, e, i, o, u.
Sad and disconsolate.

“If you are ill, tell me,
so I will cook a potage for you
A, e, i, o, u.
So I will cook a potage for you.

With a radish, a cabbage
and a lean lark.
A, e, i, o, u.
And a lean lark.”

I know very little about the Cathars but from the video comments I have gleaned this: “It was on 16 March 1244 that 210 Cathar “heretics” were burned alive below Chateau de Montsegur. It is said that they walked onto the pyre willingly, chanting and singing, refusing to give up their beliefs and turn themselves over to the catholic church.”

I had come across the Gnostics when participating in a writing course in 2023 with Dr sarah walton and it was the subject of one of the month’s meditations. (there was a theme every month to inspire our writing).

Listening to the chant also REALLY took me back to this vision I had in the woods near my home a few years ago.

I wrote about it here, on my old substack.

Anyway that’s all for today. There is often a musical distraction in my house (which is not really a bad thing) but I am just getting ready for friends coming over later and have lots of baking to do.

These past days and weeks have mainly consisted of baking with my daughter as we have a new oven (hurrah). Actually, it’s mainly her doing the baking while I am cooking other stuff. We have also been home loads lately, preparing for the festivities of Yule.

I love being at home and fortunately there have been lots of podcasts and educational stuff to get through (the Guardian’s Freebirth Society Scam investigation in particular, a zoom on Old English chants with author Stephen Pollington - I have many of his books - and Millennial Woes’s MillenniYule until the early hours.)

Youngest is still not sleeping till 4/5am sometimes but then he sleeps in till late and I do too. The luxury of home education. Well for the older ones at least. My youngest is not even 4 years old and “they” (the mysterious they) are on about him going to school already. I have told “them” that I strongly believe mainstream school is child abuse. Might sound extreme but you have to consider all that it entails….

There is apparently a “flu epidemic” right now - errrm let me think. Maybe it has something to do with all the poor little kids having poison shoved up their noses lately?! I could go on and list 100 other reasons NOT to put your precious child into a government institution for 5 days of the week, but will save that for another day.

Have a good week folks :)

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