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

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

In Vedic myths, Lord Vishnu sings all the worlds into creation by the means of mantras. 

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

Music by Ryan Kenneth Ford
© Ryan Kenneth Ford, February 2024

Multiverse

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 (ft. Combstead)

The Isle of the Strong Door is the ancient mythical name for the island of Britain.

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

Music by Paul Foss
© Copyright Paul Foss, May 2024
Email: paul@paulfossmusic.com

Words: 

No man is an island ......a wise man once said. 
But an island is an island, that cannot be denied, 
Nor that those who live on islands evolve in different ways 
To their contemporaries in places like, say, Vladivostok or Monterey. 


Some call it “island syndrome”; it's not a painful condition. 
It’s just how we grew in our homeland, and not even of our own volition, 
On the Isle of the Strong Door, surrounded by a deep blue moat,
Our smallest became gigantic, while our giants became remote.


 “But you are no-one! You're so small!” go the voices beyond our walls, 
“You’ll never survive, let alone thrive, all alone as you are on the world stage.” 
Except we have done – ever since the last Ice Age.
And it may have passed them by, but haven’t they heard? 
Our language is the lingua franca of the world.  

Bran was the last giant of this Mighty Isle, or so it is told in our myths. 
On his death bed, he ordered that his head should be buried in the towering white Dover cliffs. 
Since then, it has guarded the wave-tossed straits, staring forbiddingly out from our shores, 
Rendering all invaders at checkmate, unless those inside open the Strong Door.

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

The Isle of the Strong Door

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

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

Inspired by a poem by the lovely and sadly, late Amara MacEachern, about why the occult is occulted. And @APi_ZZ's music as ever is out-of-this-world DELIGHTFULLY enchanting! 

Vocal by Annie Dieu-Le-Veut
Copyright © Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, June 2024, all rights reserved

Music by APi_ZZ 
Copyright © APi_ZZ (Andreas Pirner) June 2024, all rights reserved

Cover art by APi_ZZ.  

Words:

We locked up our wisdom into our bones
And swallowed the keys
They sank in our Rivers of Blood, 
And we forgot the maps
Because we had to forget the Mysteries
To keep them safe.

We wove our hair into brooms
And swept over our paths,
And then burned the earth with our rage.

We didn't teach our children;
It was the only way to protect them, we thought.

But in them we planted seeds, seeds and keys
And told them stories and riddles and songs
With no roots, just tangled threads
That would take years to unwind,
Just enough time
For the rains to fall again
and put out the fires,
For the dams to break,
For the rivers to flood,
For the paths to be walked again,
For the soil to breathe.

And as the old bones crumble
Deep beneath the rubble
We find we've always had the keys.

 Our stories are our maps,
Our paths are revealed to some,
And the seeds grow again
The threads are unspun
And woven again.

Amara Bronwyn MacEachern, Hollow Bones
RIP 29th June 2022

Ouroboros

A cautionary tale from out of the Midsummer Mists of Avalon, with some extraordinarily-inspired kling klang from @APi_ZZ (Andreas Pirner). It's Fellini meets Dante's Inferno on magic mushrooms sorta thing! Or perhaps it should be The Nightmare Before Solstice, a la Tim Burton? Anyway, we're willing to bet it's a Fairy Death March the likes of which you've never heard or seen before!

It begins:

A full moon was sailing through clouds that midsummer’s night 
as I was coming home from the Summer Solstice rites
where, it has to be owned, the mead had flowed without halt.
Now walking along Paradise Lane ‘till Wicks Hollow neared,
and the three-way crossroads there, my eyelids felt heavy,
so I flopped down on a mossy bank, and leant up 
against a rock... and it was then that the fairies appeared.


I’ll let you listen to what unfolds next ... if you dare! 

Words and vocals by Annie Dieu-Le-Veut
Copyright © Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, Summer Solstice, June 2024 

Music and cover art by APi_ZZ 
Copyright © APi_ZZ (Andreas Pirner) Summer Solstice, June 2024

Midsummer Night's Dream

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

I composed this slow, bluesy rock music with UDIO (AI) and then @APi_ZZ did an excellent job arranging it to fit my words. 

© Copyright, Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, July 2024. 
Cover art, an effort by me and AI and considerably improved by APi_ZZ. 

Musical arrangement by APi_ZZ, Andreas Pirner. 

Words:

Amazing starseeds, so many we’ve seen
In the Shadowland of the night Sandman.
Carmelites at Sabbats, in Theatres of Dreams.
Tone the Magnificat through astral seams.

Carnivals of Fools, they tumble and dance
Under madrigal moons in distant parts.
Sunset black palms on sands of rose gold,
Croon fugues of Brahms as waves come and go. 

The Mad Hatter waltzes with the Queen of Hearts,
Around Merlin’s Round Table, circling the pole stars. 
Troubadour bards I’ve seen chant and pray
Mantras and masses through the Milky Way.

Lucy in the Sky, flirting with Mars,
With diamonds for eyes rivalling the stars.
Ophiuchus and Virgo’s Honeymoon of the Gods
Mirrored down below as Titania and Oberon. 

Vestal vagabonds, devotees of the Sun,
Tango with fire flies until night is done
Flame-tailed sun birds soar with ballerinas
And the dancing girls of Cassiopeia. 

Pierrots swing from crystal chandeliers,
And Ruby Tuesday grins from ear to ear
Because they never could hang a name on her kind.
“Lose your dreams,” she says,“And you’ll lose your mind.”

Amazing starseeds, so many we’ve seen 
In the Shadowlands of the night Sandman.

Starseeds

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

I was messing around, like the non-musician I am, with Udio, and this tune popped out. I realised it would work for a poem I'd had in mind for a while, inspired by the old folk tale by Hans Christian Andersen, The Red Shoes. It still needed some help though from an actual musician. So here it is ... with an excellent arrangement and gorgeous cover art by @APi_ZZ.

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

Musical arrangement and cover art:
© Copyright APi_ZZ (Andreas Pirner) July 2024

Words: 

There’s nothing like a fairy dancer
Escaping out of your dreamworld, 
You can chase him upstairs and downstairs, 
But it’s impossible to get him out.
In the Land of the Ever Young
It was so romantic as we did the fandango,
But now there’s the washing up. 
He was very fine as my dream beau,
But oh no! Here he comes again. 

He drives me mad, all day long, 
Even when I’m in the loo 
But the real scarey thing is, 
I’ve heard about this in songs,
From folk tales about red shoes 
In which good and fair women
are danced to their dooms. 

I tried locking him in the greenhouse,
Well it gave me a few minutes peace.
But it wasn’t long before he broke out 
And the splintered glass cut my feet.
I even shut him in the bathroom
So I could get on with my chores,
Then there I was in the kitchen,
Plunging out my drains, 
When he tapped me on the shoulder
And, oh no, we were off again!  

He drives me mad, all day long, 
Even when I’m in the loo 
So it’s starting to seem like
It might be true, and not just
In tales about red shoes 
That I’ll be joining those women
Who are danced to their dooms.

Fairy Fandango

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

This was inspired by a lucid dream. The first verse is verbatim what happened, but I couldn’t remember the rest when I woke up. So I imagined what I think might have happened, or could have happened, or even should have happened next! 

Big thanks to @APi_ZZ who has magically composed some quite dreamy, trippy and unique-sounding music to accompany the voyage. 

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

Music and really cool cover art by APi_ZZ 
Copyright © APi_ZZ (Andreas Pirner August 2024) 

WORDS

You found me lying dozing on the Web. 
“Why are you here?” you whispered softly.
“This is what holds it all altogether,” I said
Gesturing to encompass its warp and weft,
“What? All of it,” you said, lying next to me.
I smiled at the warmth of your magnetics,
“Yeah,” I said, “they’ve got this Wyrd thing
“Going on...to help them manage infinity!”


“How to do you know all this stuff?”
You asked, still not really sure of my premise.
After all, I expect you thought it wasn’t very scientific.
“It’s easy, you just follow the River of Words.
“It’s not a waterway that runs to the sea,
“But back to the cosmic ocean of birth.
“The Druids called it the silver river of ‘Awen’.
“Their bards took their inspiration from there.”
“The silver river of Awen!” you laughed 
 “Oh, we should go there now… Come on!”
You grabbed my hands and pulled me up, 
“Sure” I said...and then we just jumped. 

“Hold on,” you said. We gripped tight to our wooden raft.
You were staring down at the river, and said: 
“I could swear I just saw the word ‘magic’ floating past.” 
“Yes, we’re going back to the genesis of that word,”
“So you can get what it means, from its source.”
“Where is that?” you asked. “You’ll see,” I replied.
 “Now watch out. We’re just coming to the giant waterfall 
“That plunges into the abyss of the Age of Enlightenment.” 

 “What the hell was that?” you asked, 
As our raft emerged out into a smooth-flowing creek,
“Don’t worry about it, “ I said. “It was just a device
“To end the Dark Ages. Only it just made things worse.
“They thought that by separating matter and spirit
“They’d get a more true view of reality.
“But, unfortunately, it was quite the reverse.”
“But what started the Dark Ages?” you wondered,
“Oh...that was just the Time Bandits
“Telling us that the Sun orbited around us,
“Screwing up our sky charts and calendars
 “Robbing us of our place in the All That Is.”

The sun was beating down as if it was midday
So we lay back on our raft to soak up the rays.
But then it just got hotter and hotter, until you asked
“Where are we now?” “Ancient Alexandria,” I said

The ‘magic’ word came past again, but now it just said ‘mage’
It floated towards the sandy banks where we saw an old sage,
Seated on a camel, his head wrapped in a purple turban, 
“We must be in the cradle of alchemy because there’s a mage.” 
 “That’s a mage?” you said. “You mean a magician?” 
“Yes, ‘mag’ just meant ‘power’; the ability to rearrange 
“The electro-magnetic warp and weft of, you know, 
“the Web of the Wyrd upon which our reality is staged.” 
“Well, I think it’s all a simulation,” you replied.
“So if you’re talking about that coding...”
“I am,” I smiled, sensing another adventure ahead.
“Then I’m in for the ride!” you said.

Web Of The Wyrd

This track will guide you through an ancient technique which helps to retrieve and cultivate empowerment and magnetism.

@APi_ZZ has quite brilliantly used specific sound frequencies in the music which support this practice. He 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. So he fine-tuned the drumming frequencies to that exact 108 Hz.

He 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.

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

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

Power - a guided practice

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

Author of six books on star magic, fairy magic, dragon magic and shamanic sex magic. I also make podcasts on these subjects on YouTube and perform poems about them here on Soundcloud. 

Hyperfollow: https://hyperfollow.com/anniedieuleveut

Annie Dieu-Le-Veut

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