My Music
My Music
What is my music? – I call it ‘mythic music’ … and it is the process of listening to the spirits of a place in any location. And being inspired to play…
It is the spontaneous playing on my fiddle – or the singing of a song that comes through in the moment. I have used this music for many years as part of my work as a way of connecting people with the themes of myth and the power and spirit of the land.
It is a way of expressing the songs of the land. And listening to the beauty of nature – the flowers, the trees and the rivers .. the sounds of the forest. It is the song and music of healing – in the light and the dark.
Mixing and dancing inside me, I play outwards the energy of what it is that I feel in these places.
Land and Soul
I began to play in this way when I was living on Inis Mór on the Aran Islands on the west coast of Galway. I practised listening and then allowing the flowing through of something that I was hearing and slowly this music took its own shape.
When I began my training in Women, Shamanism and Bear Medicine – in the High Desert of southern California in 1993, I was encouraged to play my fiddle as another way of calling in the spirits to our gatherings. And slowly I learned to really listen to what was being asked – when to play and what to play through me … We went walking in the afternoons – along the hot dry paths – and I took my fiddle to speak and listen to the ancestors of the desert lands.
Another memorable moment with the Bear Sisters was at Slieve League in Co. Donegal in North West of Ireland. We were doing healing for Peace in Ireland in 1999 – offering songs to the spirits of the Mountain. We were shown the power of the songs and music for healing. When you do this healing work with the spirits, you learn to trust the subtle messages and build a practice with that trust.
I continued for many years using music as an integral part of the retreats in Ireland, Ohio and in Arizona.
“I attended Kate’s retreats, workshops and personal sessions on shamanic journeying. My intention was to be able to use shamanic journeying and healing to understand my own journey. Kate’s deep love of the landscape, gorgeous violin playing and her respect for the mythic forces that operate around us through space and time, made these retreats and weekends incredibly powerful.”
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Stephanie Sim, Co Down, Northern Ireland
Teacher in The Holywood Steiner School, Co Down
Musical Journeys in Nature
Over the years I have continued to play with a group in Inishowen – traditional and folk music. This has been great fun and a lovely way to balance the intensity of the healing work with the land that we were doing in Ulster for all of those years.
During the shutdown of 2020 I started to record the music that I was playing. And created musical Journeys connecting with nature, the seasons and the elements.
There are four journeys:
Bealtaine, The Sea,
the Summer Sun and the New Moon.
These are journeys with music.
Of relaxation and integration.
And the intention is to be at peace,
Bathed in the energy of each place you visit.
It is the music of these journeys that can carry the energy
of each place into your heart and soul and body.
Listen to a sample of music for Bealtaine:
Bring that Yin sense of the deep feminine into the body and soul.
For relaxation and ease.
They will connect you with the energy of each place.
Musical Journeys at the Yellow River – June 2021
“Kate performed at the formal opening of Mary’s Irish Wildflower Haiga exhibition at St John’s Theatre & Arts Centre, Listowel, Co Kerry on July 31st 2020. What a treat! Her music is evocative of the earth, evocative of the spirits of nature. On the occasion of the opening of my art exhibition, everyone in attendance agreed that there was a beautiful spontaneity and an absorbing quality to her music. It fitted in so perfectly with the theme of the art work.”
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Mary Lavery Carrig, Tarbert, Co Kerry
Mary is a radio producer and creative artist from Tarbert in Co Kerry
