To sample a phrase from Charlie, tweaking it to make it mine, connecting the dots is hard. It is made especially
difficult when, while entertaining my visiting mother, I do not take the time to journal after each class day, in order
to set my thoughts and memories in some form Or in other words, put them on paper so they don't have to be sung
and I can go on my progressively modem way. Herein lies the crux of what most troubles me about this week's
lecture; the loss of language, words and phrases which contain cultural truths seen as all too superfluous in the ebb
and flow of our 'filthy modem tide'. The one major idea to be seen in this week's dots is that language is culture, take
away that unique mentifact and the culture collapses under the weight of conquest. How many languages die in the
course of a year, dooming the bereft cultures to a life imprisoned in a world of cultural homogenization?
If language is a prison from which we cannot escape, for it shapes the way we see the world, the way we see
ourselves, in a feedback loop of cacophony, then we must use it as a key by which we escape this oppression of the
mind, this petite mort For in the lilting cadence, the melodic and structural harmony of Gaelic there is a quiet place
from which we can see the encroaching wall of cultural impoverishment, which encircles us. When we begin to
reclaim those pungent words that trigger our senses, we fill our world with the poetry that was so much a part of the
Gaelic culture. Recognizing not only the intrinsic beauty but also the spiritual worth of the environment that we
inhabit, the rocks, the trees, the rivers, the life all around us that we have tuned out in this frantic race for tomorrow.
Slow down so you can catch the words as they were spoken, not read to oneself in the vast cavernous space of our
silent prison.
I first came to know of Maud Gonne and Willie Yeats through my interest in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
The mention of Ms. Blavatsky, and Yeats' interest in mysticism, while avoiding his association wit 'the order', the
major influence of his first forty years, seems ironic. His poetry appealed to me only on a superficial level, it wasn't
until I read the biography of the ladies of the order, that I discovered his part in the struggle for Irish independence.
For in the final analysis, Yeats' focus was about reawakening a new interest in Ireland and things Celtic because of
his occult and mystical interests and not so much his politics. Maude was the one interested in the Gaelic revival
through political suffrage. Drinking tea with the MP when the revolution came, now that is some dirty linen. Here
though, was a Bard in our century, for just as much love of history and place as there is in his work, there is that
vein of satire as well. The 'eating of Parnell's heart' is a use of political verse for satirical purpose, to shame those
who have benefited unjustly at the undoing of a man. The Taoist tone of An Irish Airman suggests a very close
understanding of the Gaelic timelessness, the epiphany of the moment, the ever present now. A juxtaposition of the
love of loyalty and the enmity of war, something many a Bard would have had to come to terms with as they traveled
between the borders of feudal provinces and were immersed in the political intrigue of the day. 'A terrible beauty is
born', here again in this alliteration, we have this combination of elements taken at face value to be an ironic pair,
yet that very simplistic coupling is suggestive of the greater reality of struggle, made up of equal parts light and dark.
As Charlie remarked on one of his student's comment, " the difference between the fight word and the almost right
word, is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug", Yeats is a Poet, where others merely write verse. He
is a beginning place form which to reawake the poetic spirit of the Gaelic culture, the Bardic tradition. His use of the
history of Troy's fall in Leda and the Swan, is an excellent example of the Gaelic culture's ability to take foreign
influences and reconfigure them in such a way as to reflect not their invaders culture but their own 'deep heart's
core'. It also makes me think about how the Greek's philosophers tended to respect the learned Druids and vice
versa, for in each other they could see a reflection of themselves.
The movie Man of Arran, and the Synge play Riders of the Sea, are a little harder to connect, unless you look at the
nature of thew peoples relation both to their environs and their survival or subsistence culture. The traditional
Gaelic culture remain at least moderately intact and viable in the areas of the West Coast, especially the island of
Arran A certain amount of timelessness still is maintained in the agrarian societies that weave their words in the
forms of seaweed, shell, and barnacle in the woolen sweaters which provide them warmth in that far north locale. It
seems ironic that the cosmopolitan Yeats and Synge sought out this pagan landscape of plebian subsistence and
used their struggle against the natural environment as a means to display the inherent moral impoverishment of
'the filthy modem tide'. I am reminded of the William Irwin Thompson reflection on the nature of 'cliff protected pools'
or as Niel Peart wrote in the song Natural Science,
When the ebbing tide retreats along the rocky shoreline