71. The Daily Dàn I
71. The Daily Dàn I
Dàn is poem or song in Gàidhlig. It’s also fortune, fate, luck or doom. It is the power of the word, spoken into the world with the magic of manifestation and the co-creational relationship of Being.
Let’s talk about ReEnchantment.
Transcript
Lezley (00:00):
This is just a great mystery. What's going on here? Who knows? Who knows what's happening here? I don't know. Do you know? Fàilte, hello, welcome. Okay, so this starts off a series around the Daily Dan. The Dàn means song in Gaelic. It also means poem. It also means your fortune or your fate or your luck or your doom. I have a daily Dàn that I speak every day and a spoken word was essential to ancient Celtic worldview and manifestation and power. The power of the spoken word was well known and well used and was a foundation for so much for law, for popularity and power and charisma and inspiration and magic. The spoken word created the world. It was a language of manifestation, which I mean language is. Language is literally a symbol for how we can communicate our perception of the world to one another.
(01:50):
And a caveat to this, I'm learning and I'm sharing now what I'm learning. And because I'm still learning, I might be wrong about a lot of stuff. So if you know, you're invited to correct me. I want to learn correctly as best as I can, braiding the roots of my Gaelic ancestors and Gaelic cultural practice and ways of knowing and ways of being with Turtle Island Mishiki Minisi knowledge and ways of being and knowing. So I'm just a learner, so please feel invited to correct me when I'm wrong about anything. Perception, because this is my perception of what I'm learning. This is me braiding it together here and sharing what I'm perceiving with you. So if I'm wrong and you know that I've got it wrong, please correct me. You're welcome. You are invited and welcome to correct me. So there was the chief Ollamh, Amergin Glúingeal.
(03:06):
There's an ancient poem song of Amergin, Amergin Glúingeal, Glúingeal. Was the chief Ollamh of a Malesian king. Chief Ollamh is like the chief Druid, the chief Draoidh of the Milesian king. And the Milesians were the ancestors of the current Irish who basically fought and defeated the Tuatha de Danaan, the gods of Ireland, and forced them into the fairymounds, into the shi, into the shi, which are the fairymounds. Sìth means both fairy and the mounds, the earth. Interesting. Anyway, so the Milesians defeated the Tuatha de Danaan. The Tuatha de Danaan agreed to live in the earth and Amergin Glúingeal was the chief Draoidh, the chief Druid of the king. And Amergin Glúingeal, Glúingeal means white knees. Glúin is knee and geal is white. And how fucking white do your knees have to be for that nickname to be remembered 4,000 years later? Fuck. Could you imagine being him and being like Jesus after everything that I did and as powerful and magical as I was, they remember me for my white knees.
(04:40):
And I imagine sitting on the hill of Tara with the king and everyone gathered around and they're having, I don't know, whatever, talks, meetings, celebrations, ceremonies, and his plaid is lifted up and everyone's like, "Oh God, his white knees, white knees just shining out into the crowd." And that's how you remembered Amergin, Amergin Glúingeal, Amergin white knees.
(05:14):
I think that's hilarious. Anyway, Amergin Glúingeal, the song of Amergin is the song that he sang, the poem that he spoke, same same, when he stepped foot onto Ireland for the first time. And it was a song of manifestation. It was a song of his intention for the Irish people on Ireland or the Milesians people who became Irish. 1699, this is from 1699 BC, supposedly. Anyway, I'm going to leave a link. You can go and check it out yourself. Go and check out the translations, but it's a song of him speaking about all the incarnations of animals that he is and will be in presence in Ireland. He is the wind in the sea and he is the stag and the eagle and all kinds of stuff. So there was shape shifting in the song of Amershen and there is reincarnation in the song of Amershen.
(06:32):
And it is a song of intention of presence, presence of ancestors and presence of spirit on the island. That was his magical incantation, his magical intention and manifestation when he stepped onto the island. So his song is the connection of ancestors, the promise of presence, the connection of the people in the land and the people in the land and the spirit together and the presence and being a witness through time of this place. He speaks clearly of the connection between land and people. The people in the land are merged into one. They are an inseparable, undivided, inseparable whole land and spirit woven and sewn together forever. The very end, there is an invoking, an invocation of the satirist and the satirist of wind, which is really interesting because satire was the way that the kelts kept their rulers in line because an Ollamh, a Draoidh could speak your uplifting or your downfall through satire.
(08:07):
You could be eviscerated through the satire of the Druids because they were equal to the king, really. They held magic and manifestation and the law and the natural ways of the world and the cyclical ways of creation. They were mystics.
(08:43):
They studied and were in relationship with the mystery, the great mystery the great mystery. So anyway, he invokes wind. Amerginn invokes wind, which is a really interesting evocation. Wind is but it's also anail, which is breath. It's associated with breath. They would call wind breath. And the wind was associated with breath and spirit and anam and. All of these ideas are all wrapped up together. So breath and spirit and soul and the spiritual presence, the presence of spirit in the world. And so invoking wind was invoking spirit, the presence of spirit, the presence of soul, which is why the charismatic speakers are inspirational. They are using breath to share spirit and soul and invite you to partake of the spirit through breath, through wisdom, through wind, through word, through manifestation, through magic, through presence, through ancestors. All of that is being invoked in dance, a poem, a song.
(10:29):
So I say a daily dan. So a daily Dàn is a structure of manifestation. It is a repeated...
(10:40):
What is it? A repeated song, a repeated poem, a repeated prayer, a repeated act of manifestation. It is a purposeful act of making manifest spirit, making manifest in the world spiritual intention. It is an intention and it is a habit and it is a reminder for me to perceive this world through the lens of radical re-enchantment because when we change what we perceive the world to be, we change the world and we're doing this. We are changing our perceptions of mythology and meaning. We are changing our perceptions of what this world means, what it means to be alive, what it means to be present in the world, what it means for land and spirit to be inseparable for ways of being, changing, changing, changing the validity of ways of being and ways of knowing, of accepting more and being more expansive and inclusive about what is valid in terms of perceiving reality.
(12:04):
It's all expanding now. It's all breaking open. It's radical re-enchantment. And so I say a daily Dàn to remind me of what my focus is. All right. A 15 minute introduction. That's nice. Great. Okay.
Fàilte chridheil uile mo fine. Aanii Boozhoo Indinaway Maginidook. Tapadh leibh don Anam Mòr. Chi miigwetch Gitchi Manitou. Keenway goodomay kuchi-knockin-agaywin
(12:42):
Thank you to the great spirit. Thank you to the great mystery. We are all treaty people. Okay, so a warm welcome to all my relations. This is a standard greeting on Turtle Island, and it is the recognition that we are all relatives here, that everyone is family, that we are all connected, that this earth, this entire earth is a family of interconnection and everyone is warmly welcome. All are warmly welcome, all relations, all relations, not just human, more than human, not just animals, plants, water, insects, wind, mountains, stone, rock, grass. It's infinite. Your family is infinite. And I always like to point to this, to the Luca, the last universal common ancestor. We are literally all evolved from single cell beings. We're literally related, all of us, since the beginning, forever.
(13:56):
Okay. Thank you to the great spirit. Thank you to the great mystery. Always a good idea to start everything with gratitude. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for everything. It reminds me of the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving address where they go through and thank all of the different families of beings. And by saying thank you, there's also the recognition now our minds are one. Now our hearts are one. We have recognized, I want to say clan, this clan of being, plant, plant nation. Now our minds are one. Now our hearts are one. We have recognized plants as our equals in our family and our relatives. We recognize animals as our equals in our family and our relatives, and now our minds are one. Thank you. Now our hearts are one. Thank you. This is beautiful. And I think there is value in reminding ourselves again and again and again the equality that exists between all nations that we're all here and there is no better than, there's no hierarchy, there's no superiority.
(15:13):
In fact, human beings will die first before our animal family or plant family does, especially plant family. They'll just live, be here forever. We depend on them and giving thanks and recognizing our interconnectedness through spoken word is powerful and life changing and just a good reminder. I'd also like to make a point, a little pin in gratitude. I want to put a pin in gratitude because new age types of practices and gratitude journaling and all of that, there is a feeling in me of an enforced gratitude of fake it till you make it gratitude where you have to fake feeling gratitude or try and drum up things to be grateful for. Just don't feel how you feel. True gratitude often is unlikely to manifest until you are able to express grievances, until you feel that grievances have been accepted and acknowledged even by yourself, even just yourself acknowledging that you're pissed off, that something isn't fair, something hurts, something's wrong, something doesn't fit, doesn't work, doesn't feel right, something's broken.
(16:52):
So much, so much. There's so much to have grief and grievance about in the world that it is unfair to ask for gratitude from anyone until your grievances have been acknowledged. So just a little caveat there on the gratitude. However, I like to be thankful to spirit every day because I really am. I love the term Gichi Manito specifically being though of as the great mystery. That is just, it's beautiful and it's perfect. And as a mystic, this resonates so strongly with me because this is just a great mystery. What's going on here? Who knows? Who knows what's happening here? I don't know. Do you know? Anyone who says that they know I think is a red flag, but I love that, the great mystery. And the whole point and interest of my life is to be in relationship with the great mystery and to woo.
(18:05):
Literally woo is honourable pursuing of a love relationship, honourably pursuing the love of spirit, the world, land, the great mystery, Gichi Manito, love that so much.
(18:29):
A mystic is seeking to be in harmony with the great mystery and to be in harmony with the great mystery as a Gaelic descendant on Turtle Island is to be in harmony with land and spirit. And thank you Leanne. Leanne taught me that. Leanne Bewasaya taught me. We are all treaty people. And when I asked her what the Anishinaabemowinn was for that phrase, I was thinking of it just in terms of people, people in relationship, nations in relationship with one another. But then John Borrows expanded that so hugely that we are in treaty with all nations, not just human nations, more than human nations as well. And those treaties that Indigenous people had with more than human nations are implicitly brought into treaty with Canadian governments, Canadian peoples. We are in treaty with more than human nations and we have been since we got here, since before we got here.
(19:58):
So we are all treaty people. That's all of us, all of us everywhere, human and more than human. So Braiding Roots is about practice, practice daily, being in new relationship with the world, with spirit and land and nations. Practicing allows us to perceive differently. Practicing allows us to make real and make ready the new perspective, the new world that's ready, that's coming into being, which is based in ways of knowing and ways of being greatly expanded upon, greatly larger and more inclusive and non-separating. It is an Indigenous worldview, not a western worldview. It is a worldview based in tìr agus Anam which is land and spirit woven and sewn together forever. And it is practicing being in communication with the great mystery, being in communication and reciprocity and relationship with the great mystery and then acting on that in the world. We're braiding the roots of our Gaelic ancestors.
(21:35):
We are Gaelic descendants on Turtle Island, Celtic descendants, Celtic descendants, Gaelic descendants, same but different. I'm a Gaelic descendant.
(21:49):
I'm a Gaelic descendant on Turtle Island. And the work to do now is braiding those roots together to belong to this land. We want to belong to this place. We are not rooting in Ireland and Scotland. That's our ancestral roots. We're rooting here on Turtle Island. I belong to the land of the Michi Saagiig. I belong to this land. I belong to this place. So rooting here honourably is learning both and braiding both roots, braiding ancestral Gaelic roots, understanding ways of being, ways of knowing, ways of seeing Gaelic worldview, braiding it with Michi Saagiig. For me, Nishnabeg, Anishinaabe land, Chippewa land, Ojibwe land, Michi Saagiig, rooting here. So that was a lot. Anyway, check out Braiding Roots. It's free in the library. Spend a year practicing a different way of being, and you have to practice. You don't have to do all the things, but you have to do some of the things.
(23:11):
You can't just be told, you can't just learn and have it all in your head. It has to come down and live in your body. It has to be in your heart and to be in your feet in the land. It has to be rooted in the land. You have to do the things you have to practice. And I'm not saying I know the way, this is just my way. This is just my way. And all I care about is you doing the practice. You can be inspired by whatever I suggest. You can come up with your own things to do. We have the community cauldron, that's where we gather together and we can share our experiences together, share them, share what's happening, share what experiences work for you, share what doesn't work for you, share what you like, share what fills you with spirit.
(24:07):
Share your own daily dàn. What is a daily thing that you do that reminds you of being in the presence of spirit, of being. This is really long. I don't know how we got to half an hour, but here we are. Okay. Oh, check it out. Check out Braiding Roots in the library. Just practice, practice perspective, practice seeing differently. Practice seeing the world as family and inseparable. Land and spirit are woven and sewn together forever. Okay. Love you. Bye.
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Dàn is poem or song in Gàidhlig. It’s also fortune, fate, luck or doom. It is the power of the word, spoken into the world with the magic of manifestation and the co-creational relationship of Being.