This album by myself and @APi_ZZ is titled after the Windmill of the Year - the cycle of eight Druidic festivals that were celebrated widely before Christianity, and still are in some places today. There's an article here if you'd like to read more about it. https://anniedieuleveut.com/2024/02/01/the-windmill-of-the-year/

Windmill

Annie DLV & Combstead

A sound lesson, in 432 hz, on how to compose healing poetry and music, from Mercury who's often depicted in alchemical symbolism as a serpent, and without whom no creative endeavour can come to fruition.

Words and vocals: Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, September 2023
Copyright © Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, September 2023

Music: © Ryan Kenneth Ford, September 2023.
https://linktr.ee/RyanKennethFord 

Lyrics:
Great Earthen sprites under diamond skies
Of Beltane constellations,
Rocked me to sleep with a lullaby,
Lunar mansions of star nations.
In magical flight, 
Hush hush, good night,
To chrysanthemum plantations,
Where sun keepers gather together, to baptise
With kisses from carnations. 

The split-forked tongue of the serpent god 
Sparked red from among the clover.
Like Alice, adrift and over-awed
I knew all sense was over.
I felt a fraud
Tongue too roughshod,
For this wordsmith lover. 
He handed me a measuring rod,
And the rhythm held, moreover.

He told me to leave the meaning behind, 
And just let the drum beat free
He said that the rhythm of the rhyme
Would be the remedy. 
Healing song lines
Across all times
Not for left brains, you see.
More like the waves at royal Lyme,
That come and go to the sea. 

Cover Art: Eve Tempted by the Serpent
William Blake (1757–1827)
Victoria and Albert Museum

The Serpent's Teaching

In the days of yore, before Halloween become a festival for ghouls, ghosts and goblins, ‘hallows’ meant ‘holy’ and it was a sacred celebration of the rebirth of the Celtic Lord of Winter, Gwyn ap Nudd, as the constellation of Orion rose above the horizon in the night skies. 

Lyrics:

All Hallows Eve! The stars are brightly shining ....
in celebration of Lord Gwyn’s rebirth.
Sages gaze into embers divining ...
and dreaming of the winter king of Earth. 
 Dark is the night; its cloak is black as coal,
And only the fiery eyes of dragons glow, 
But something is stirring, a flame is igniting 
Under the ‘neath roots of Paradise below. 
Oh night, oh holy night, oh night divine!

O Samhain eve! Our hearts are loudly beating ....
 like shamans’ drums, to augur your return,  
The gentle folk are stoking their hearths for greeting  ...
the blessed Guardian of the great stag Herne.  
Our fields lay fallow; our crops are gathered up,  
And now the gales and winds of winter knock.  
But something is stirring, a flame is igniting ....
under the ‘neath roots of Paradise below.  
Oh night, oh holy night, oh night divine!  

O Halloween! The giant Orion is rising ......
from Eridanus, to take his winter throne. 
 In his belt, three kings are on their camels riding,
Bearing myrrh, and frankincense and gold.  
Cetus the Whale dives through the starry deeps,  
While we down here in the Land of Nod sleep... 
 As into our dreamscapes, flames your sacred wisdom, 
 And your love, your love, your love for all mankind.  
 Unto us a star is born! Oh, it is SUCH a night divine!

Words and vocals by Annie Dieu-Le-Veut
Copyright © Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, October 2023

Music: O Holy Night (Cantique de Noël) from https://www.FesliyanStudios.com

Production by Paul Foss, contact: paul@paulfossmusic

All Hallows Eve

The words "Know Thyself" were written over the doorway of the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, where people would go to consult the Oracle, Pythia, for her wisdom. 

I'm very grateful to Ryan Kenneth Ford for his stirring and epic music. You can find him here: @ryankennethford

Music by Ryan Kenneth Ford, tuned to 432 Hz. 
Vocals by Annie Dieu-Le-Veut

Original Song: Embrace Your Essence by Ryan Kenneth Ford

All Links: linktr.ee/RyanKennethFord

Instruments: Violins, violas, celli, basses, french horns, choir, Heavyocity symphonic destruction, braams hits, swells,
Damage 2 drums, takio, gran cases, trash can,
Samples: Ghosthack atonal riser 4, BTS - VO - downer 2.
Ai vocal

Embrace Your Essence
Artist Ryan Kenneth Ford 
IPI/CAE 1087894598 
Key C Maj 
Tempo 130 Bpm
Genre Epic Trailer
Tuned 440 Hz,
Composer: Ryan Kenneth Ford
Music producer: Ryan Kenneth Ford
Mix and mastered: Ryan Kenneth Ford
© ℗ 06/08/2023 Ryan Kenneth Ford All rights reserved.

(PRS): IPI/CAE 1087894598

© ℗ 06/08/2023 Ryan Kenneth Ford [100%] copyright holder [100%] One stop clearance [100%] master and [100%] publishing control.

Contact: Email: ryankennethford@gmail.com 
phone +447415595096

#RyanKennethFord #epictrailermusic #epictrailer #Mediacomposer #orchestral #electronicmusic #filmtrailer #tv #film #games #taunton #somerset #england

Know Thyself

Mary's song of joy about her pregnancy, while at the house of her cousin Elizabeth.  Also known as the Song of Mary and the Canticle of Mary and, in the Byzantine tradition, the Ode to the Theotokos. It is one of the eight most ancient Christian hymns and perhaps the earliest Marian hymn.

Copyright © Annie Dieu-Le-Veut and Paul Foss, December 2023

Main vocal and cover art by Annie Dieu-Le-Veut
Backing vocals: Paula Wallwork
Music by Paul Foss, paul@paulfossmusic.com 


Words from Luke 1:46-55, New Testament: 

My soul does magnify the Lord. And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he has regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden. For behold, from henceforth, all generations shall call me blessed.

Magnificat anima mea Dominum.  Et exsultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo.  Quia respexit humilitatem ancillae suae.  Ecce enim, ex hoc beatam me dicent omnes generationes.


For he that is mighty has magnified me.   And holy is his Name. And his mercy is on them that fear him, throughout all generations. He has shown strength with his arm.   He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

Quia fecit mihi magna, qui potens est.  Et sanctum nomen eius.  Et misericordia eius in progenies et progenies timentibus eum. Fecit potentiam in brachio suo.  Dispersit superbos mente cordis sui.


He has put down the mighty from their seats: and has exalted the humble and meek. He has filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he has sent empty away. He remembering his mercy has helped his servant Israel: As he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed for ever. 

Deposuit potentes de sede, et exaltavit humiles. Esurientes implevit bonis et divites dimisit inanes. Suscepit Israel puerum suum, recordatus misericordiae suae.  Sicut locutus est ad patres nostros, Abraham, et semini eius in saecula.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost; As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end.   Amen.

Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum.

Magnificat

My best selling book, The Sacred Sex Rites of Ishtar, will be published as an audiobook on Audible some time in 2025. This is a sample; the first chapter. If you'd like to read the full book, you can buy it here on Amazon here: https://shorturl.at/diLX5

Copyright Vesica Publishing, all rights reserved. These books or any portion thereof, may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

The Sacred Sex Rites of Ishtar/ Annie Dieu-Le-Veut -- 2nd ed.
ISBN 978-1-9163795-0-3

Chapter One: What's this book all about?

A celebration of the Ostara, aka the Spring Equinox, the first in a series of eight pieces to celebrate the eight Druidic festivals of the Windmill of the Year, more about which here: https://anniedieuleveut.com/2024/02/01/the-windmill-of-the-year/

By Annie Dieu-Le-Veut and APi_ZZ (@api_zz)


Words and vocals by Annie Dieu-Le-Veut.
© Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, February 2024 

Music and Cover Art by APi_ZZ 
© APi_ZZ (Andreas Pirner) February 2024

Words:

Fire serpents and dragons are stirring 
Deep down in the hard, cold iron of Earth. 

Slithering land wights are waking, 
And wriggling and stretching, 
Woken from their sleep by the return 
Of the song of the Sun, 
Its melody singing all dreamers awake,
To light the cauldrons and fasts to break. 

Lady Slipper yawns and opens her petals 
To a bold west wind ruffling her labellum.
Thunderclouds above ominously threaten. 

An ash in full livery, its leaves right on time,  
Stands next to the winter-nude of an oak. 
So the old wives mutter in iambic rhyme,
“Ash before oak, we’re in for a soak.” 

Great Spotted Woodpecker drills Mars’s drum 
In a military tattoo, to marshall the bugs,
The soldier beetles and bark-gnawing weevils, 

Now Luna turns russet red in Earth’s umbra, 
A covenant of balmier days without number. 

Wyrm moon, Cold moon, Sap Moon
Pulling on the tides, rising 
And not just in the flooded rhynes, but 
Coursing up the loins of men too, 
Their reveries of love fine-tuned 
To Jack in the Green’s reciting 
To the tremolo thrill of Pan’s piping

Labyrinth Spider stands guard on the dell, 
While Salamanders ring the bluebells 
To peal out harsh winter’s fare-thee-well. 

Pixie-cup lichen arrives in the Vale, 
And elves riding turkeys with blue ruffled tails
Then ... Amanita Muscaria sings her aria, 
And Cuckoo tells us Spring is finally here.

Ostara

This Celtic star story, an ancient myth, is part of our album The Windmll of Year, and it tells a tale that used to be acted out at carnivals, fairs and pageants up and down the country on May Day or Beltane. Nowadays, all that remains of it is the personage of the Queen of the May, and the maypole. So here we reconstitute this seasonal drama, which is about the Lord of Winter (Orion) having to give way to the Lord of Summer (Ophiuchus) so that summer can begin, at the setting of the Sisterhood of the Deer (the Seven Sisters of the Pleiades) when the Sun is in Taurus the Bull and the full Moon is in Scorpio.

I'm very grateful to APi_ZZ (@api_zz) for orchestrating so brilliantly all the twists and turns of this song, the second in a series of eight pieces to celebrate the eight Druidic festivals of the Windmill of the Year, more about which here: anniedieuleveut.com/2024/02/01/the-…ll-of-the-year/

By Annie Dieu-Le-Veut and APi_ZZ (Andreas Pirner)

Words and vocals: Annie-Dieu-Le-Veut
Copyright © Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, February 2024 

Music and cover art: APi_ZZ 
Copyright © APi_ZZ (Andreas Pirner) February 2024

Beltane

Our song for Litha, aka the Summer Solstice, is part of our album The Windmill of the Year. It celebrates Bridie, the overlighting Divine Feminine spirit of the land of Avalon. She is also the bride of the Lord of Summer, who we first introduced in our song Beltane (hear that here: https://soundcloud.com/annie-dieu-le-veut/beltane) 

The word “Solstice” means "Sun stands still” in Latin, as it appears to do, for three days, at both the Summer and Winter Solstices. At the Summer Solstice, around the 21st of June in the northern hemisphere, the North Pole is turned the most towards the sun, providing us here with the longest day of sunshine of the year. 

Lyrics and vocals by Annie Dieu-Le-Veut
© Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, March 2024 

Music and Cover Art by APi_ZZ
© APi_ZZ (Andreas Pirner) March 2024 
You can visit APi_ZZ here. https://soundcloud.com/api_zz

WORDS
How grace You fair the Summerlands, 
when the Windmill slows to Your command. 
The tumbling tendrils of Your goldenrod hair, 
your perfumed breath through June's dawn air, 
and skies tinged with roses of Your cheeks pink, 
like apples honeying for ambered drink, 
while fragrant meadows sing with your springs...
and young cranes soar overhead with Your wings. 

These long, lilting Avalon days are Your behest 
To the Undeserving and alike, the Blessed. 
Even Chronos gives way to Your valse musette, 
and slows Time for your gentle, satined step,
where winter’s grief is swept away by Your mercy, 
and fairies dance through swaying sunflower leas
to your cooing, throbbing in the breasts of doves
making love, at this season, among the foxgloves. 

Your night-scented stocks open in pleasure 
like a choir, to Your starry vault of treasures. 
The evening blooms along the lanes and ridings, 
with aromas so pungent and dusky and enticing, 
reminding us of ancient ages, that Time forgot... 
of gentler, slower days and deeper thoughts, 
when a man’s dreams were valued more than gold, 
and a real song could birth new worlds from old. 

This is Avalon, raw earth of potter’s clay, 
where Bridie sleeps and dreams Her worlds into play.

Litha

The first verse is all that remains to us of the oldest song in the world, written almost 2,000 years ago. Its words were inscribed on the tombstone of a Turkish woman by her husband Seikolos. 

While you live, shine 
have no grief at all  
life exists only for a short while 
and Time demands an end.

Here, I’ve composed my own version ... and I hope Seikolos would have approved! 

Lyrics and vocal Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, April 2024
© Copyright, all rights reserved, Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, April 2024

Music composed by Paul Foss
Contact email: paul@paulfossmusic.com
© Copyright, all rights reserved, Paul Foss, April 2024

Words: 

1.    While you live, shine! Have no grief at all.  Life exists only for a short while and the Reaper will soon demand his due.

 2.     While you thrive, don’t just survive. All the world’s a stage just waiting for you to realise that it’s time to play your part, under the spotlights of the stars. 

3.    While you breathe, believe in your true self and your sovereign right to liberty, guided by your own heart’s dreams and your inner knowingness.
 
4.     While you exist, insist on following your intuition - your inner tuition. It's in your gut. Those feelings are your tutors who will never lead you wrong. 

5.     While you stay, play! Meet your dragons with a smile. See that life is just a game and what’s more.... the ball is in your court, so what are you waiting for?

6. Use your power to flower. Your heart is a young bud, just waiting to bloom and ripen into your first fruits to take to your harvest home. 

7.    Then when you die, fly high ...through that final portal, giving thanks for all you’ve seen and dreamed into being, on Earth, as a mortal.

 8.    But ...while you live, shine. Life exists only for a flash in the eye, like a shooting star across the sky...and the Reaper will soon enough be along with his scythe.   

© Copyright, all rights reserved, Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, April 2024

While You Live, Shine!

This song was inspired by the 13th century poem about the abduction to Elfland by the Fairy Queen of Thomas the Rhymer. Thomas was a real person, also known as Thomas Lermount, a Scottish laird whose supernatural powers were said to rival those of Merlin. He was called True Thomas because he was said to have received the fairy boon of the Tongue That Can Never Lie. 

Whether or not Thomas actually was abducted by the Queen of Elfland,  I’ll leave up to you and your imagination! 

I’m very grateful to APi_ZZ for providing such a beautifully evocative soundscape for our fairy ride from Dreamland to Elfland! You can find here: https://soundcloud.com/api_zz

Words and vocals by Annie Dieu-Le-Veut
© Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, April 2024

Music by APi_ZZ 
© APi_ZZ (Andreas Pirner , April 2024)

Words: 

True Thomas was lying on a grassy bank, when a marvel with his eye spied he...
There he saw a lady bright come riding by the hawthorn tree.
Her skirt was of the grass-green silk, her mantle of the velvet fine, 
And at each lock of her horse’s mane hung fifty silver bells and nine. 

True Thomas, he pulled off his cap and bowed down to his knee: 
“All hail, thou Queen of Heaven! For thy peer on Earth I never did see.”
 “O no, O no, Thomas,” she chuckled, “That name does not belong to me; 
"I am but the Queen of fair Elfland that am hither come to visit thee.
“Sing and play, Thomas,” she said, “Sing and play along with me, 
And if you dare to kiss my lips, then certain of your body I will be.” 
“Betide me weal, betide me woe," replied he, "That fate shall never frighten me.”
And then he kissed her rosy lips, all under the hawthorn tree.

“Now you must come with me,” she said, “True Thomas, you must come with me, 
And you must serve me seven years, through weal and woe, as chance may be.”
 Then she mounted on her milk-white steed,  and she took True Thomas up behind.
And every time her bridle rang, the steed flew faster than the wind.

On they rode, on, and farther on, the white horse swifter than lightening,
Until they reached a desert wide, and living land was well behind them.
 “Lie down, lie down now, True Thomas," she said.
And rest your head upon my knee; 
Abide and rest a little space, And I will show you wonders three.” 

“So do you see that narrow road, so thick beset with thorns and briars? 
That is the path of righteousness, though after it but few enquire.” 
“And see ye not that broad, wide way that lies across the lily leven? 
That is the path of wickedness, although some call it the road to heaven.” 
“And see ye not that lovely lane that winds about the fern’d hillside? 
That is the road to fair Elfland, where you and I this night must ride.
“But Thomas, you must hold your tongue, whatever you may hear or see, 
For if you speak in fair Elfland, you’ll never get back to your own country.”

So on they rode.... and on.... and farther on, 
And they waded through rivers above the knee, 
And they saw neither sun nor moon, 
But they heard the roaring of the seas.
 It was dark dark night, and there was no sun light, 
And they waded through red blood to the knee; 
For all the blood that’s shed on Earth runs through the springs of that country.

Soon they came to a garden green, and she pulled an apple from a branch on high,
“Take this for thy wages, True Thomas, it will give you the tongue that can never lie.”
"My tongue is my own,” True Thomas said, 
“A goodly boon that you gifted me! 
I’d neither buy nor sell it, at fair nor tryst where'ere I may be.
“I dare neither speak to prince nor lord, nor ask favor from fair lady. “ 
“Now hold thy peace,” the Lady said, “For as I say, so must it be!”

So now True Thomas has a coat of elven cloth, 
And a pair of shoes of elven green, 
And till seven years are gone and past 
True Thomas on Earth will never be seen.

True Thomas and the Queen of Elfland

Even today, modern politicians are educated by what's been dubbed a "manual of statecraft", penned by the so-called Father of Modern Political Philosophy and Political Science, the 16th century Venetian, Niccolò Machiavelli. 

In Machiavelli's book, The Prince, they are taught that no matter how evil the means that they employ are, to achieve victory, the ends will justify those means. Then as the victors, all they have to do is to rewrite the history, to present themselves as the good guys. 

I'm very grateful to Mark Combstead for providing such great rock music for this poem. You can find him here: https://soundcloud.com/markcombs-928282858

Words:

Last night, I dreamed of Machiavelli,
 Who, it seems, hasn’t learned much since the days of the Medici. 
 His pretext of seizing power for the ‘good of God’,
 Was straight out of the playbook of Cesar Borgia....
 So it seemed from my talk with poor, deluded Niccolo.
 
 Looking into my eyes and holding my hands
 He plied me with cunning plots and plans,
 Dripping in evil criminality, and base intent
 To create chaos for the existing world order
 No means was too foul, not even murder.
 
 The end will justify the means, my dear,
 Don’t worry your pretty head. 
 He said. 
 I wasn’t buying it, though, 
And so I said:	
 
 All around us in the world today that we see,
 Has been caused by those with such a strategy.
 The end doesn’t justify the means, at all.
 It is the means themselves which create the evil
 Of famine, pollution and perpetual war,
 Driven by madness, greed and holy preachings;
 This is the end created by your teachings. 
 We now have nation pitted against nation,
 Because the way, the means, IS the destination.
 

Words and vocals by Annie Dieu-Le-Veut
© Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, April 2024 

Music by Combstead
© Mark Combstead, April 2024 

Cover Art by by pizarro2021 at DeviantArt.

Machiavelli

The spirit of my drum "asked me" to heal the pain of betrayal in all those who wished to attune to it, and so I used my breath and intention while drumming between 4 and 7 beats per second, the rhythm most conducive for going into shamanic trance.

Andreas (APi_ZZ) found that the resonance of my drumming was of the frequency 109 Hz, close to the 108 Hz which is the sound tuning used to heal the sacral chakra, the Svadhishthana. So he fine tuned the drumming frequencies to that exact 108 Hz. 

The sacral chakra governs the reproductive region and when it has been knocked out of balance, it can block our fertility in all aspects of our lives, such as our joy and enthusiasm that gives rise to our creativity. And so I added in the Adi Shakti mantra, the prayer to the Great Mother, who is associated with the Svadhishthana. The Adi Shakti mantra tunes us into Her and into Her mantle of protective, generating energy that gently dissolves our fear blocks. 

Andreas then put the whole thing to music, using flute and Tibetan sound bowls attuned to the frequency of 432 Hz. He also added a bowl drone sound (again at 432 Hz), augmented by bells chiming in deeply associated frequencies of  (again) 108 Hz, 162 Hz, and 243 Hz and a second bowl at 364.5 Hz. These frequencies relate to the sacral, solar, heart and throat chakras.

The whole track has been carefully developed to enrich (self) healing ideas and offers a deep listening experience as well. 

The Cover Art, by APi_ZZ, incorporates the Svadhishthana yantra, the visual, symbolic interpretation of the Svadhishthana mantra.

Drumming and vocals by Annie Dieu-Le-Veut
Copyright © Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, April 2024, all rights reserved

Music by APi_ZZ
Copyright © APi_ZZ (Andreas Pirner) April 2024, all rights reserved
You can find APi_ZZ here: https://soundcloud.com/api_zz

Svadhishthana - shamanic healing for betrayal

This song is part of our album, The Windmill of the Year, and it represents the Autumn Equinox. The bardic purpose of this ancient Celtic mythic tale about the rescue of Mabon was to illustrate the importance of the Animal Spirits, and their long memories, to the shaman who goes to them for guidance in the Underworld. 

This originally orally-conveyed yarn was drawn in the constellations of the polar stars, and it's entitled How Culhwch Won Olwen. It’s also the earliest Celtic myth featuring Arthur Pendragon.

Our hero Culhwch (Hercules) was born in a pig pen and raised by sows, but he eventually went on to win the hand of the beautiful princess Olwen (Ursa Minor or Little Bear), who had been kept from him by her ogre father Yspaddaden (Draco).

However, like all heroes that make their epic rite-of-passage journey around Merlin’s Round Table of the Stars, Culhwch has to pass a number of trials first, and one of them is to find and release Mabon, the Wondrous Youth, who had been imprisoned before Time had even begun.  

Yet he cannot even attempt this impossible Quest without the help of his cousin, Arthur Pendragon (Ursa Major or Great Bear) Olwen’s monstrous, one-eyed uncle Custennin, the Wild Herdsman (Bootes), Drudwyn the Hound (Cor Caroli), the Eagle (Aquila) and the Salmon (Cetus).        


Lyrics and vocals by Annie Dieu-Le-Veut
© Copyright Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, May 2024, all rights reserved

Music and art by APi_ZZ
© Copyright APi_ZZ (Andreas Pirner), May 2024, all rights reserved

You can hear more of the delightful music here of @APi_ZZ.

Mabon

Here is the next song for our album, The Windmill of the Year. It celebrates Lughnasadh, a Celtic festival that takes place at the beginning of August which honours the sacrifice and death of Tailtui, mother of the Irish god, Lugh, and the last High Queen of the Fir Bolg. 

I find the music created for this by @APi_ZZ to be quite enchanting, nostalgic and towards the end, moving, as he once again reaches back to remind us of an age that Time forgot. 

Words and vocals by Annie Dieu-Le-Veut 
© Copyright Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, May 2024

Music and artwork by APi_ZZ 
© Copyright APi_ZZ (Andreas Pirner) May 2024

Words: 
Children are playing in stacks of hay, 
On this long hot day in Earth’s Paradise, 
With their bellies full of your goodness 
They've no knowledge of your sacrifice. 
Their days are spent in blissful content, 
Far from feeling the pangs of lament, 
They’ve no idea even that we mourn 
The last High Queen of the Fir Bolg, 
The Great Mother, the Grain Mother 
Tailtiu, womb of our cornucopia.

When they're older, they will know 
How you cleared the land of stones 
While your birds fertilised the ground, 
Before the ploughing and the sowing. 
How they found you, lying on the soil,
Your body stiff; dead from exhaustion, 
How the long days drew in their breaths 
And their curtains ...for your requiem, 
The Great Mother, the Grain Mother
Tailtiu, O how you did suffer.


 Lugh, who fought off Balor’s blight
And famine from the scorching heat, 
Is leading you through the Lion’s Gate, 
Below, reapers of the harvest meet
For the festival and crowd the pews,
But they never knew you, Tailtiu. 

As the Sun begins its fall, to journey south 
We humbly offer these first fruits to you, 
O Great Mother, O Grain Mother, Tailtiu. 
As we stand here, we give honour to you 
And your self-sacrifice on the altar of Earth.

Lughnasadh

My words here were inspired by a magic mushroom experience I had a few years ago, and the gorgeously dreamy, trippy music was put together by APi_ZZ who skillfully waved his wand over some AI sounds from UDIO.

Words: 
I have been to the cairn
Where the two seas meet.
I have been to where 
Fish-tailed sirens sing
Each to the other.
There I meet the Lover,
In that perfect stillness.

To describe these feelings,
Words are too cryptic.
For dreams, like paintings,
Are huge vivid triptychs,
Monet masterpieces,
Every brush mark
A holy-graphic jewel.

They say a picture speaks
A thousand words,
How could they know?
The error’s made unwittingly.
For minds cannot conceive
Of the love of ten trillion
To the power of infinity.

Words by Annie Dieu-Le-Veut
Copyright © Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, May 2024, all rights reserved

Music by APi_ZZ via UDIO
Copyright © APi_ZZ (Andreas Pirner), May 2024, all rights reserved

Where Two Seas Meet

Words and vocals: Annie Dieu-Le-Veut
Copyright © Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, June 2024, all rights reserved

Music: Paul Foss 
Copyright © Paul Foss, June 2024, all rights reserved
Contact: paul@paulfossmusic.com

Cover art: Starship Ahoy! by me with a bit of help from AI. 

Words 
She was on the street, talking to the cars. 
Her long silver hair down to her waist, uncombed, 
Her eyes faded, washed out from all she’d seen 
since she’d been born, all those tears ago. 
The drivers sped on their blinkered course.
But there was a monk passing through 
and he heard her words as they tumbled out 
in guttural tones, hoarse with rye and rue, 
“The only difference between history and mythology
 ...is that myths are true.” 

He thought her insane, a lunatic, 
that she would swap mere fairy tales 
for the annals of the scribes of kings.
But he stopped and turned his ear 
just in time to hear her reasoning: 
“History is written by the victors, 
to bring the newly-conquered into line 
with stories dripping in falsehoods, 
while myths are parables drawn in the stars, 
that contain universal and eternal truths.” 

Then it unfolded on the screen of his mind’s eye:
A vision of myths like arks... sailing the seas of Time 
and containing, deep in their submerged holds, 
guidance about the meaning of our human lives 
which are fractally yoked to cycles that drive us all
along life’s winding and eventful course. 

Those who came before us ... they knew 
that not even the greatest cataclysm on Earth, 
nor the comings and goings of different rulers, 
could cause these starships to slip their moorings, 
or for their navigators to lose their bearings, 
along the voyage of the archetypal hero 
from his stable berth in a lunar mansion, 
around the stars of the firmamental ocean.

So they penned a chart on that vast canvas, 
in dots of silver ink against the obsidian blackness. 
It was a work of genius: these master mariners 
charted the whirlpools, the sirens, the sea serpents ... 
all the trials that we, as the hero, must survive 
on the way to unlocking the doors of perception 
until our reincarnation into our own lives. 

Such wisdom was being shouted in the streets, 
freely, for all to hear ...but most stayed unaware
just why, like this wise witch talking to the cars,
we all may be in the gutter, 
but some of us are looking up at the stars.

Starships

This was my first experiment with AI music, via UDIO, and I'm grateful to @APi_ZZ  for kindly titivating it up with some percussion and other production bits and pieces. 

Words and musical concept, Annie Dieu-Le-Veut
© Copyright, Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, June 2024. 

Musical arrangement and cover, @APi_ZZ
© Copyright, APi_ZZ (Andreas Pirner) June 2024. 

Words: 
I’ve always been a priestess of the Great Mother,
A powerful one, since the days of Atlantis.
I was among those who were in the City of Golden Gates,
At the sacred temple to the Sun on the island of Ruta. 
When I left with the Seed-bearers for the upcoming Age,
I saw, from the sea, the final deluge as Atlantis went down,
Its brass bells tolling in requiem as its golden domes drowned. 

I watched them build Carnac, Stonehenge and Avebury. 
I came down through the smoking pyres of Varanasi, 
I tended the shrine at Madurai’s temple of Meenakshi.
I was a sacred whore of Ishtar in the city of Babylon.
When we were banished by the Hierophants of Apollo
I followed the ram-headed sphinxes of the Valley of Kings,
across the pool of blue lotuses and under the high pylon 
with its bas reliefs showing the heroic deeds of Ptolemy,
‘till I reached the bronze doors of the sanctum of Black Isis. 

I was the cuen, the power behind Alfred’s throne
His muse who inspired him to fight the Vikings
With the fire in his head aflame, as an ecstatic. 
Then I was in the harems of Constantinople 
Teaching thee concubines ceremonial sex magic. 

I am not a goddess, nor the Great Mother.
I am Her priestess who channels Her ecstasy.
It comes, everyday, through the Door of Dawn,
The Door of Dreams, the Door Without Key. 
She’s not a fair Earth Mother but dark, like Kali. 
A destroyer of maya, a crusher of delusions, 
Some may think Her evil, but I would disagree,
For which ever man She breaks, is broken free.

Priestess Of Avalon

A song about the Marriage of the Sun and the Moon. 

I was actually overwhelmed when I first heard @APi_ZZ's beautifully poignant orchestration and arrangement of Thomas Tallis's Spem in Alium for this track, it's so good! 

And yes, we did steal the title from Jimi, but we don't think he'd mind. After all, he never explained it! :-) 

Words and vocals: Annie Dieu-Le-Veut
Copyright © Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, July 2024

Music and cover art: APi_ZZ 
Copyright © APi_ZZ (Andreas Pirner), July 2024 

WORDS:

1.	You must remember that darkest of midnights when we made love in the Summerlands? 
We were down in a hidden dell of honeysuckles, on a soft grassy bank of meadowsweet, 
amidst the musk of the night-blooming violets, the passiflora clematis and Persian blue gentians. 
It was a night of a thousand choirs chanting Spem in alium nunquam habui. 
The winds in the willows were whispering among themselves about the wonders of the Mysteries, 
and the fluting aria of a lone nightingale embroidered the air, 
as a glittering pyramid took shape above, to house the sacristy, 
Held up by the three singing birds of Deneb, Vega and Altair. 

2.  I saw you, out there, on the pearly rim, drawing down the stars, 
and then you were suddenly in my arms, with a necklace of moonstones. 
You fastened it around my throat, gazing down with such tender care 
that the black marble floor in my inner sanctum opened to you, in adoration, 
and released a diaphanous cloud of ambrosia that surrounded us, like love-in-the-mist. 
Your lips were soft when you kissed me; your smiling eyes were ecstatic. 
Your head was bathed in an aura of gold, like the Sun itself. 
Our hearts entwined in beautitude and in waves that were silver and magnetic. 

3.  Later, we watched, wrapt in ecstasy, under Beltane’s pink blossom Moon, 
as the goddess Virgo arose, from her bed, to prepare herself for the heavenly Honeymoon, 
When Ophiuchus arrived, as the Bearer of the Serpent and the divine bridegroom,
He brought with him the gem-studded Corona Borealis, the Serpent’s crown. 
Orion was falling headfirst into the Underworld, with the Seven Sisters not far behind, 
Then a loud shout from the High Elven Lords caused a great fountain to burst forth. 
Its silver ribbons of awen ran across the Summerlands, flooding the rivers and rhynes, 
and we knew then that the Sovereignty was restored, and our land a Wasteland no more.

... And the Gods Made Love

This song is my dedication to Isis, and most of the words come from the ancient Egyptian scripts. 

The star of Isis’s birth, Sirius, is considered by esotericists to be our spiritual sun, and it is now aligning with the constellation of Leo, which is believed to be the “open sesame” key to the Lion’s Gate, the gate of the Egyptian lioness goddess Sekhmet. 

The Lion’s Gate is thought to be a galactic portal that, when open between late July and mid-August, delivers high-frequency energy into our beings, inspiring us to great works.

You can watch it on video here on YouTube: https://youtu.be/DMLLmwZcWw8?si=eJpTUrKJoMeOGmpg
 
Words and vocal by Annie Dieu-Le-Veut
© Copyright Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, August 2024 

Music by Paul Foss
© Copyright Paul Foss Music, August 2024 

Cover art: Black Isis by Annie Dieu-Le-Veut 

Words: 
“I am Black Isis, the daughter of the Moon that governs the tides, and not just the ebb and flow of the seas, but the times and tides in the lives of men too. 
“I am Black Isis, the One of a Thousand Names, the Nubian queen who descends from the black heavens at night from the brightest, burning star in the sky,  in the heart of the Great Dog of Orion.
“I am Black Isis, the mother of Horus, and the widow of the king Osiris, who I made ruler of my rich verdant lands of the Underworld, my fertile crescent from where all starseeds are born. 
“I am Black Isis, and my loins are as fruitful as the black silt from the river Nile that covers the fields after the floods. 
“I am Black Isis, I am all women. I am the goddess you see in the eyes of the woman you love. You hurt her and she leaves, to protect your soul from your naivete, from further profaning her inner sanctum. You know that, even if only in your dreams, and that’s why you’ll always love her.
“I am Black Isis, the Mage, the owner of magic and the teacher of the Mysteries. I perform magic with my powerful speech of words that I choose from the hieroglyphic Demotic script I invented under the tutelage of Thoth. “
” I am Black Isis, the queen of every land, the mistress of every country, and whatsoever laws I have established, these can no man make void.”

Black Isis

Combstead (@markcombs-928282858) made this wonderfully whimsical and melodic track and asked me if I felt inspired to put any words to it. I said "yes, defo, if my dream fairies come through with them." And they did ... seems they couldn't wait... which was great ... except that it was at four o'clock this morning! 

Here's what came through:

WORDS:

I thought at first it was a dream, just a childhood fantasy that had grown and grown. 
But over the years, I realised .... it was real, it was my loved ones singing me home. 

When the day is dark, and the night is long...in the still, small hours I hear their song.
The road less travelled can be full of stones, but their song makes the journey seem not so long.
When I meet the devil, at the crossing, and I have to choose right, from wrong, 
I follow their attunement, and soon find, that where once I was weak, I am strong 

Now the sun is glowing red, and the shadows growing longer, their song is sounding out... even louder
Rising to a crescendo, as every sacrifice is cheered, every last injury and pain is honoured, 
Pulling me up the steep, craggy pathway of that last mountain I have to climb, 
Until I’m released from the valley of the shadow of death, ruled by Old Father Time. 

I thought at first it was a dream, just a childhood fantasy that had grown and grown. 
But over the years ...I've seen that it’s real, and that it’s my loved ones singing me home. 

© Lyrics and vocal, copyright Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, August 2024 
© Music and cover art, copyright Mark Combstead, August 2024

Our Way Home

We have condensed the oldest and longest (at 13,000+ words) poetic drama ever composed, entitled the Epic of Gilgamesh. 

The Epic is about the first and original hero ...of those “with a thousand faces”, the term coined by the mythologist Joseph Campbell, to indicate that there were more mythological heroes who underwent similarly challenging rite-of-passage quests after Gilgamesh. There were heroes like Hercules, Jason, Theseus and Odysseus, Buddha, Pinocchio in fact, and even Bob Dylan sung of his own hero's journey in his song Isis on the album Desire. King Arthur and Merlin also undertook a heroic quest in the Celtic myths, a sea voyage around the pole stars. 

But Gilgamesh is the prototype, and his epic journey requires him to “tread the rim of the wheel”. In my book, Stories in the Stars, I re-interpret the translations of the cuneiform on the Babylonian tablets to show that this "wheel's rim" symbolises the ring of the zodiac constellations in the stars, and so that’s also reflected in our track.
 
I’m very grateful to @APi_ZZ for providing such a captivating and inspiring soundscape to accompany Gilgamesh's stellar journey. 

Copyright © Words, vocals and cover art: Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, August 2024

Copyright © Music and cover title, APi_ZZ (Andreas Pirner) August 2024
All rights reserved.

Hero With a Thousand Faces

The words here come from the chapter describing a Samhain shamanic ceremony in my book The Dragon Whisperer's Son, and as ever, @APi_ZZ has come up with the most perfect, and moving, music to accompany them. The Bird Mother was the most ancient goddess of the Caucasian races, in acknowledgement of the vital role of the birds in fertilising the lands. 

Words, spoken vocals and cover art by Annie Dieu-Le-Veut
© Copyright Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, October 2024 

Music and cover titling by APi_ZZ 
© Copyright APi_ZZ (Andreas Pirner) October 2024 


Words: 

Samhain began, as it did every year, on the stroke of midnight when the bright star of Antares was directly over the Fairy Stone. The Fairy Stone was a huge, white obelisk and it was covered with tiny inscribed sigils that were barely visible under the thickly-encrusted green moss of ages. 

No human alive could remember how the Fairy Stone came to be there – and quite probably no-one who was dead either. It was only the dragons of the misty black Mountains of Memory who kept that knowledge safe from prying ears.

A cold breeze was gusting around the crowds of locals milling there amidst the blue, smokey fragrance from the bonfires. The flaming pine logs were dripping with sweet aromatic resins as they fired crackling sparks of brilliant orange into the dark-clouded skies. 

Scarlet elf cap mushrooms peeped through a damp carpet of gold, russet and bronze leaves covering the hard, muddy ground. The trees they had fallen from were now standing bare and shivering, entirely naked, but bravely ready to face the first gales of winter.  Frosted cobwebs, stretching between their branches, twinkled under a full silver moon.  An owl hooted.

In front of the Fairy Stone stood a large wooden platform. It had been charred black, and then scored with white Xs, Vs and spirals to turn it into an altar, carved in the shape of an eagle so gigantic that it was as if the constellation of Aquila had fallen from the star-studded vaults above. Standing astride the altar was a giant effigy of a woman. She had a pointed head and the beaked face of a bird of prey. Her breasts were huge and egg-shaped, as were her protruding buttocks.  Her arms, outstretched as if in flight, were entwined with wriggling serpents. It was the Bird Mother. 

Each family was going forward, one at a time, to the Bird Mother's altar with their offerings of lit candles for the Naming of the Dead ceremony. Tears glistened in their eyes as the recited with gratitude the names of all those who had before come them.  It wasn't long before there were so many candles jostling together that the altar began to mirror the glittering blackness of the night skies. 

Afterwards, hearts were so full and heavy with remembrance that each preferred to just sit silently with their own thoughts, their solemn faces upturned towards the stars to watch Orion, the Lord of Winter, arise from his watery Underworld to reclaim his rulership over that half of the year. 

Then they were content in their hearts that throughout the cold dark days to come, new starseeds would be nurtured in the warmth of the womb of Earth; that the silver spindle connecting their revolving seasons to the starry mills slowly grinding above would hold firm with their prayers and offerings; that eventually new stargates would open like vast glittering palaces, and that the end of the beginning was done so that life could become and spiral on forevermore.

From The Dragon Whisperer's Son by Annie Dieu-Le-Veut,  ISBN 978-1-9163795-6-5. Buy it on Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/yss89t58

Samhain

Big thanks to the hugely talented Mark Combstead for coming up with this captivating music, which inspired my words. 

Words and vocals by Annie Dieu-Le-Veut
Copyright © Annie Dieu-le-Veut, October 2024

Music and cover art by Mark Combstead (@markcombs-928282858)
Copyright © Mark Combstead October 2024

We came here to Love.
We came here to learn what great Love really is.
We came here to learn about a Love so great that, just out of joy, it builds a whole multiverse.

We came here to Dance
We came here to learn what great Dance really is.
We came here to learn about the joy of the great weaving, spiralling dance of the web that give form to this multiverse.

But not all are here to Love and Dance,
And those who came before us, aeons ago,
Knew the trials we’d have to face, and pass
So they left us guidance in letters from home.
They drew them as stories in the night skies
On silver starships that stay true to their course,
Like messages in bottles across the sands of time,
We rely on these myths to guide us along.

We came here to make Art,
We came here to understand what great Art really is, to know the Artist who paints a glorious sunset across the sky in indescribable hues, purely out of Joy. 

We came here to make Music
We came here to understand what great Music really is,
The song that the universe is built upon, the Word of God, Om, that births frequencies to create both Sorrow and Joy.

So we always look forward to those letters from home
Drawn in the stellar guides that are ever true
Like messages in bottles across the sands of time,
We rely on the wisdom of ages to guide us through.

Letters from Home

My words here describe a shamanic journey that taught me more about the origins of sentient life, and I'm most grateful to @APi_ZZ for accompanying my poem with such enchanting, captivating and epic music.

Words, spoken vocal and cover art by Annie Dieu-Le-Veut
Copyright © Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, October 2024

Music and cover title by APi_ZZ 
Copyright © APi_ZZ (Andreas Pirner), October 2024

Words:

One night, I was in astral flight over indigo storm-tossed seas.   I was riding the air as a sea gull, soaring above the drowned reefs.

An uncertain moon shone fitfully on the  watery valleys and peaks.   And I saw rank upon rank of white-crested billows, Rising and falling in regular formations, like a galloping cavalry. 

Then, off the point of Bardsey Island, where all currents and tides take charge, The water hissed as it met the wrecks of the Spanish galleons, And I heard the bells ringing, in the church spires, in the groves of sunken forests of swaying trees, In this place they'd called the Lowland Hundred, which, one night,  was swallowed by the seas.

The Moon came and went, sometimes vanishing behind huge black clouds But in the dark, the thundering was just as deafening as it drove the gales, Then when her silver face came out again, as the furies raged around, I could see the drowned reefs bellowing and spouting high, like the blowholes of whales.

I realised ....in all that din, that there was a song and a rhythm.   My ear was picking out the orchestration of this storm.   I heard the deep-toned, bass roar of the surf as it crashed into the caverns, The clangour of its surges against the chalky outcrops, The Gregorian tones of this tempestous tempest, and the tiny piccolo as the wind whistled around the rocks.

Throughout it all were the clarion-calls, and the blowing of conches, as if the souls of the drowned land were calling out from their watery graves, And that’s when other beings began to appear in the waves. 

Out of the wind-whipped foam, riders of the storm took form.   Some wore winged helmets; others had wild flying robes and hair.   They were galloping in on white horses, their strong muscled thighs gripping their girths, As they swept up those old souls, to take them back to the firmamental seas, The cosmic oceans from where they first took birth.

Then, behind them, in the walls of water following the surf, Not rising into the air as the horsemen, but deep in their own element, unhasting, unresting, I saw the sea gods coming, moving inexorably with irresistible force. 

These Great Ones rose with the tide; their approach was stately and unceasing, Their faces were vast and calm; they were unhurried, ineluctable in their progress.   They were the rulers of the great waters where their word was unimpeachable law.

And it was then that I saw the folly of man who thinks he can master the seas, That it’s only by the grace of these gods that we live on its margins.   That all land is really a beach where we thrive only through their privilege,  For if they gathered together in wrath, they could drown all humanity.

It seemed our lives are spun, like a thread, between forces that could destroy us with a mere breath, But from which we draw our sustenance.   For all things are one and, at the last call, in the final analysis, There is no part of us that does not come from the cosmic seas.

Sea Gods

Huge thanks to Combstead, who has once again come up with a beautiful piece of music and artwork for me to decorate with my words.

Words and vocals: Annie Dieu-Le-Veut
Copyright © Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, November 2024

Music and cover art: Mark Combstead 
Copyright © Mark Combstead, November 2024 


Words:
I always thought I wanted to be free.
I didn’t know then how wonderful it would be
To be held captive in the web of  love.

I always thought that I should stand tall
I didn’t know then the ecstasy of the fall
Into the arms of the Earthly love

I always thought that I would learn the truth
Through reaching further and further into space
Until I found I was lost its vastness,
And felt like a speck of dust with no place. 
Our forefathers’ science was more holographic, 
They drew a picture that was just as true
But it was also one where each could find their nest,
Where no wren could fall un-noted 
And no blade of grass would go un-blessed,
And in which it's easy to find the truth:
When we hear it, it rings like a bell.

I always thought that I wanted liberation 
Until I realised that I took incarnation 
To be rooted in the love of Earth.

I always thought I wanted to be free.
I didn’t know then how wonderful it would be
To be captured and enraptured in the love of Earth.

Captured

This song was inspired by the ancient practice of Bee Shamanism and its associated sacred sex practices that confer Sovereignty, which has been coming back into view since the discovery of the role of the Melissae, or Bee Priestesses, across the Middle East, Mesopotamia and Greece, thousands of years ago. 

I’m most grateful to @APi_ZZ for his bee-yoo-tiful mellifluous music! 

You can read more about Bee Shamanism in my book The Dragon Whisperer’s Son. https://tinyurl.com/y3r97bdw

Words and cover art by Annie Dieu-Le-Veut
© Copyright Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, November 2024
 
Music and cover titling by APi_ZZ 
© Copyright APi_ZZ (Andreas Pirner), November 2024 

WORDS
Ask the Wild Bee what the Druid sees,
And she will tell you of Amergin the White Knee 
A poet, ancient in years and grey of hair 
Whose wise words flowed from the hive
And the hex sex six of its frequencies. 

Ask the Wild Bee what the Druid perceives
And she’ll tell you of black-and-gold liveries,
Of the lovers of the Queen Bee, Isis Herself,
Of the Lunar and Solar serpents
Secreting ambrosia into her Cup.

Ask the Wild Bee what the Druid dreams, 
And she will tell you that the lovers of the Queen
After coupling with Her, Isis Herself, 
Fall to the tiled floor of her temple 
And die .... from sheer ecstasy.

Ask the Wild Bee what the Druid knows,
And she will tell you that this is the Isle of Honey,
Where the Melissaes keep the Sovereignty
And protect the white sea walls 
With fractal hexagonal geometries. 

Ask the Wild Bee what the Druid hears:
And she will tell you that the song of the hive is life itself,
Its rhythms laying down the tides of the year,
Attuned to the harmonies of the spheres,
Rung out by the stars on their course.

Ask the Wild Bee to what the Druid attests,
And she will tell you that beekeepers are the blest, 
The guardians of the Cup that overfloweth,
Of the Land of Milk and Honey,
Of the Living Waters, of Everlasting Life.

Ask the Wild Bee

The words come from my book The Dragon Whisperer's Son, and I'm very grateful to @APi_ZZ for providing such enchanting music, and also the stunning artwork for the cover, and the title.

Words and vocal by Annie Dieu-Le-Veut
© Copyright Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, November 2024 

Music and cover by APi_ZZ 
© Copyright APi_ZZ (Andreas Pirner), November 2024

Father to Son

Here is our track for Christmas, describing the oldest Nativity tale that was drawn by our earliest ancestors in the night skies of the stars. I'm very grateful to @APi_ZZ for such divine, sacred and uplifting music. 

Words and vocals by Annie Dieu-Le-Veut
© Copyright Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, December 2024 

Music and cover art by APi_ZZ 
© Copyright APi_ZZ (Andreas Pirner), December 2024 

Words:

1. It comes upon a midnight clear, that glorious song of old,
 When angels bend so near the Earth, they touch their harps of gold.


 2. In the quiet of deepest night, when only the clock sounds on the stair 
The Sun returns and moves into line with its twin Underworld pair.


3. Now the Archer's stars are fading as Cygnus the Swan raises the veil, 
For the Virgin to appear with the cup of Crater, the Holy Grail.


4. Then as the Sun casts a-glow on the land, up comes the Serpent Slayer. 
Ophiuchus is rising, and he brings with him all the ancients’ prayers
For now the cast of stars are all here for the Mystery Play to unfold 
A drama staged in the skies at Christmas since time immemorial.

5. We come together under the noonday sun for the joyful feast of Yule, 
When the ring of the constellations crosses the ring of the Milky Way
and forms the Vesica Piscis with, at its heart, the birthing pool 
The manger of the stable, guarded by asses eating hay.
A covenant of joy, of birth and rebirth, on this blessed Christmas Day. 

6. Dusk soon falls, and the Hunter Orion appears in the East 
Three wise men are riding camels across the stars at his waist
They are carrying the precious gifts of frankincense, myrrh and gold 
As the merry-making for the Nativity begins down on Earth below. 
The Hunter’s emissary, the White Stag, stands proudly in the snow 
In a forest of pines, dripping with icicles and worms a-glow, 
Its crown is of holly; its huge antlers are hung with mistletoe.
The trees are frosted white from the Sugar Plum Fairy flying by 
And hanging them with ribbon-tied bundles of red and white spotted fungi, 
Walnuts in their shells, sweet honeyed apricots and cinnamon sticks, 
Oranges studded with star anise and gingerbread men grinning liquorice. 

7. Over the Well of the Stars, the flamed-mouthed Dragon’s Head suddenly appears
It is orbiting around the poles behind the Harp and the Great Bear. 
Then a flash of electric turquoise lights up the indigo vault
Then sapphire-green, then lapis lazuli shot through with gold, 
The aurora borealis turns into the Queen of Heaven’s robes, 
As she opens up the stargates for us to hear the Christmas song of old.

Yule

This 16th century carol is a lullaby that was traditionally performed as part of the Coventry Mystery Plays. It was sung by the mothers of all boys aged two and under, who were doomed to genocide under King Herod’s cruel edict known as the Massacre of the Innocents, after the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem.

As ever, I’m very grateful to be accompanied by @APi_ZZ’s haunting and captivating musical arrangement. 

Vocals by Annie Dieu-Le-Veut
Music and cover by APi_ZZ 

Words:

Lully, lullah, thou little tiny child,
Bye bye, lully, lullay.
Thou little tiny child,
Bye bye, lully, lullay.

O sisters too, how may we do
For to preserve this day
This poor youngling for whom we do sing,
Bye bye, lully, lullay

Herod the king, in his raging,
Chargèd he hath this day
His men of might in his own sight
All young children to slay.

That woe is me, poor child, for thee
And ever mourn and may
For thy parting neither say nor sing,
Bye bye, lully, lullay.

Lully, lullah, thou little tiny child,
Bye bye, lully, lullay.
Thou little tiny child,
Bye bye, lully, lullay.

Coventry Carol

I first heard In Paradisum being sung by the Benedictine nuns of St Cecilia's Abbey on the Isle of Wight, where I would often go to stay, on retreat, in the Nineties.  Now @APi_ZZ has come up with this extraordinary 21st century version of it, a Gregorian chant that is normally a part of the Western Catholic Church Requiem Mass, and Udio ended up getting involved too. 

Andreas also created the beautiful cover art.

In Paradisum

This is our final track for our album, Windmill, which celebrates each of the eight festivals of the year, and @APi_ZZ has provided a beautiful magical flying carpet of sound to transport us to other realms to celebrate Imbolc, on February 1st, when we give thanks to the triple-faced fertility goddess, Bridie-Brigit-Brid.

Words and spoken vocals Annie Dieu-Le-Veut
© Copyright Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, January 2025

Music and cover art APi_ZZ
© Copyright APi_ZZ (Andreas Pirner)  January 2025

Words:

When Earth stands cold and hard as iron, 
And the bitter north wind still blows, 
The Dreamer in the Land yawns, and rises 
To stir up the embers of her smithy’s forge, 
In her crystal and copper caves below. 

So let us talk about young Bridie, the Exalted One. 
Her face as luminous as the Moon that sired her, 
And her heart as bright as the yellow aconites 
That rise up smiling to the winter Sun.
While icicles still drip on the cobbled yard 
And the ice on the bird baths has to be cracked 
For the blue tits, starlings and tiny wrens,
Snowdrops spring up at her feet, wherever she treads, 
As Bride makes her way along the frozen tracks.

So let us praise Brigid of the Tuatha da Danaan, 
Beloved of poets, smiths and farmers alike. 
Ewes come into milk at the touch of her hand 
The rivers are once again jostling with pike, 
And even though Jack Frost still comes at night, 
And the tors and hills are white with snow, 
They turn coral at each sunrise and sunset, 
While carpets of crocus and periwinkles glow
As the gems in the rainbow of her necklace,
A covenant that Spring is on its way.

So let us light a candle for Brid at Imbolc, 
The triple-faced, ripe-wombed One, 
And put out offerings of milk in bowls 
To the Sow Mother, to the White Swan.
Her perpetual fire is kept ever aflame
In a shrine, deep in a hawthorn wood 
On these isles that were given her name
For her blooms and beehives, and orchards 
Where we sing to the apples at Wassail, 
In thanks for her bountiful blessings on us.

Imbolc

Andreas and I have decided to honour each of the 12 full moons of this year. So here is the first one for January, which is the Wolf Moon, and I hope the words give that some context, along with the haunting, mesmeric music. Do check out Andreas (@APi_ZZ) here. 

Words and vocals: Annie Dieu-Le-Veut
Copyright © Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, January 2025 

Music and cover art: APi_ZZ 
Copyright © APi_ZZ (Andreas Pirner), January 2025 

Words: 

Winter’s night, stars cold bright, 
Logs ablaze in hearths of stone.   
Snug and warm, curtains closed, 
Against the north wind that blows.  
 Across white fields, no sign of life 
Except for the hoot of an owl.   
Only the edelweiss blooms in the snow.   
On the mountain, a grey wolf howls. 

Lone Wolf Moon, sailing above 
In skies sparkling with meteors,
Their silver rain, a gift of love 
From the Sun in Sagittarius.   
The Archer’s arrow's ready to fly 
Across the wheel of the zodiac 
Into the Taurean bull’s eye 
To augur the year’s coming trials. 

Dreaming through these nights of snow,
Under the aegis of Ursa Major, 
We ask the Wolf Moon to bestow 
Its gifts of the wild lupine nature, 
Of the sharp intuition of their kind, 
Their warmth and loyalty to their kin,
Their tight-bonded packs and tribes, 
And give us courage as we proceed, 
Along roads less travelled in our lives.

Wolf Moon

I wanted to explore the theme of the instant “hit by the thunderbolt” as expressed in Godfather 2, when Michael Corleone and Appolonia meet for the first time. I’ve alchemically blended it with the notion of quantum entanglement: twin souls who, it’s believed, incarnate and reincarnate, lifetime after lifetime, just to be with one another. 

I fed the words into Udio with a few music prompts, and this is more or less what it produced, although greatly improved by the ‘maginations’ of Andreas (@APi_ZZ), who also mixed in my vocal with A.I.’s bluesy rock diva that we’ve affectionately named “Aretha”.

Lyrics by Annie Dieu-Le-Veut
Copyright © Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, January 2024

Under heated skies, lightning’s flashing bolts
The thunder rolls above, mysteries untold
Glimpses in the storm, faces blurred by rain
Our eternal destiny was drawing us again,
Amid the bustling streets, heartbeats interwove
In the crowded night, sparks began to glow.

It came upon that night in the storm, 
When we saw each other through the rain
Splashing on the ground, in London town,
We knew our lives would never be the same. 

Where’d I seen you before? Well, I didn’t know,
But your breath on my cheek wasn’t new to me.
Nor the touch of your hand, now at life’s command
We will love each other forever and a day. 

Thunderstruck in love, that’s what we were
And we’re still soaked in that love today.
A gift from the gods as it rained cats and dogs
And then your fast car just drove us away.

Thunderstruck

Snow Moon is the name of the full moon for February, and so this is the next track in our (as yet, unanamed) album) that @APi_ZZ and I are making for each of the 12 moons of the year. We hope you enjoy it!

Words and vocals by Annie Dieu-Le-Veut
© Copyright Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, February 2025 

Music and cover art APi_ZZ
© Copyright APi_ZZ (Andreas Pirner) February 2025 

WORDS: 

Snow Moon came sailing in on a black anvil cloud
And gazed down at the red roofs in the hushed vale below.
The people were fatigued, that much she knew. 
They felt it had been a long time since Yule, 
The grey-skied days were taking their toll. 
She could hear them as they slumbered on.
Their dreams and prayers stole through her heart 
On their way up the silver stairway to the stars. 

She waved to Aquarius, the Water Bearer,
In no time, sparkling crystals filled his pails,
And he tipped them down towards the vale. 
White lace fractal flakes fell in silent veils, 
Each one complete in itself; unique in shape,
Swaying in murmurations, in soundless accord, 
Whispering into swansdown drifts and banks
And turning the valley into a winter wonderland. 

Snow Moon shone in pleasure at her twinkling boon
Until dawn, when the Sun rose to light the scene 
With an iridescent pink and coral sheen. 
Then two small boys pulled back their blinds, 
Rubbing the sleep from their eyes in delight 
And wonder that their whole world was now white. 
They ran downstairs: “Dad! It’s snow! It’s snow! 
“Do you think the schools will be closed?” 

Dad smiled at the memory of his first Snow Day. 
No trains could run; black ice covered the lanes
It was days before the snow ploughs got through. 
So he knew that there was only one thing to do. 
He went out to his shed, the boys jumping in tow, 
And he reached up to bring down an odd-looking gizmo, 
“What’s that, Dad?” his sons wanted to know,
“It’s a toboggan,” he replied with eyes alight. “Let’s go!”

Snow Moon

Bard, storyteller, alchemist, star walker and author of books on the sacred mysteries.

Hyperfollow: https://hyperfollow.com/anniedieuleveut

Annie Dieu-Le-Veut

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