My seven-week online Musicking and Shamanism class and creative lab begins on Sunday January 14th 2024. Find out more and sign up here. My recent album Songs of Liberation is an album of sonic rituals that are both personal but also invite the audience to shake off their own chains… The album is available here.
At the root of my Musicking and Shamanism class and creative lab is my practice as flute player, singer, composer and performer exploring the spaces between ritual and theatre and the challenge of inclusivity and collective healing for audiences and communities. In my teaching and facilitation practice at Goldsmiths Alchemy I see young people who are referred to the programme due to concerns that they are ‘at-risk’ of dropping out of education (usually victims of social harm or exclusion), and I have observed them creating and performing music (with instrument, voice or computer) and I see that they are entirely capable of world-making by generating sonic material and organising it in space and time; they have focus, discipline, emotional intelligence, intuitive intelligence, highly-tuned listening skills, technical skill and knowledge, project management skills, communication skills, agency and confidence in themselves. I know it for myself, and I see it in others: through music, these healing and humanising skills can be lifted out of creative, imaginative or spirit worlds and brought back into daily life where they can be effectively utilised for a better relationship with self, society and the environment. When we perform music, we are often seen and heard for the first time by our friends, teachers, colleagues and families. This reveal of our inner world is an important step towards healing; sounding ourselves as bodies, resonating with the people and space around us; becoming visible.
Once visible and untethered (or at even a little loosened) from past traumas, we are free to help others, and then, together, we are more able to focus our energy on resolving the many crises that are bigger than us, those that will affect future generations. Shamans in cultures around the world often go through great pain and near-death experiences, either literally or symbolically, often through physical or mental illness caused by their ignoring of a calling to not participate in society as a passive consumer or creature of habit. I believe that we are missing the dimension of the shaman in our culture, not just one shaman but a culture of shamans, so we can retune to each other and our spaces, despite the noise around us. There is a form of Neo-Shamanism at work in the creative process, and I think we should shine some light on it.
My Musicking and Shamanism class is also a creative lab where participants will be invited to create their own sonic / musical / ritual / performance work related to their own cultures and imaginations.
I went on my own journey into memory, imagination and spirit worlds with this new album Songs of Liberation, which grew out of taking part in Chiara Ambrosio’s Pruning the Family Tree class, also for Morbid Anatomy (running again in January).
Songs of Liberation – my new album and stage show – some lyrics and stories behind the music:
The Heroes of Longhope
On the 17th March 1969 the Longhope Lifeboat responded to a distress call from MV Irene, a boat struggling in a south-easterly gale off the coast of South Ronaldsy, Orkney, Scotland. The Lifeboat was swamped by a huge wave and all eight of the crew lost their lives. Among them were Jack, Ray and Dan Kirkpatrick – father, uncle and grandfather to Kevin Kirkpatrick, today’s coxswain. This event marked a change in the law of how many members of the same family can man the same lifeboat. The Heroes of Longhope melody was composed by the Orkney Island fiddler Ronnie Aim in their honour.
This is the opening piece track of The Songs of Liberation album, conceived, composed and recorded as a result of Chiara Ambrosio’s Pruning the Family Tree – Storytelling from the Bones class for Morbid Anatomy. The melody was taught to me by an inhabitant of the Orkney Islands while I was touring there a few years ago. Many of the tracks are based on imagined correspondences – letters and parcels – that I wrote and sent from one part of myself to another.
The Nameless Art (Sealh)
Slow Time Down
Turn Around
Root to the Ground
Branches Unbound
Gerald Gardener was the founder of modern Wicca. During the 1930s he travelled abroad, working as a civil servant, then returned home where he joined a coven of witches in the New Forest on the south coast of England. Legend has it that he and a group of other witches met near Highcliffe-By-The-Sea on 1st August 1940 to cast a spell on Hitler, to stop him from invading. They called this the ‘Cone of Power’. The ritual involved dancing in spirals while ‘skyclad’ (naked) to create a communal ecstatic state to create a magic powerful enough to keep Hitler away. Gardener wrote about the ceremony: “Witches did cast spells, to stop Hitler landing after France fell. They met, raised the great cone of power, and directed the thought at Hitler’s brain: “You cannot cross the sea,” “You cannot cross the sea,” “Not able to come,” “Not able to come.”
In the process of making this album I have been visiting a circle of Weeping Willows in my local park,and planting myself into their network of roots. It has been my gateway into the place where this music rises from. Willow is a popular wood to make flutes with, and their bark can be used for curing fevers.
Sealh is the Old English word for Willow Tree
A Dress for You, Son
“The psyche has no gender”. James Hillman
Son,
Put the Sea on you
Strength and power in you
See it rise in you
Strength and power in you
What does it mean to wear a dress? Fabric; cut and sewn into a shape, designed to be worn on the human body. It is a texture and colour to step inside, like beam of coloured light. I think of the dress as a ceremonial and journeying object that has been raised out of the realm of spirit and dream – a song of liberation. It offers a different posture and sensation on the skin, a new vehicle for the imagination.
Cwene is the Old English word for Woman / Female
The Key (Aka)
Many of us are bound by chains that were forged for us in a fire of great suffering. They were passed down to us through generations, and they are easy to confuse for love due to their strength and ability to hold without letting go. They help (force) us not to get too comfortable (confident), to maintain an impossible shape and (attempt to) fulfil unfulfillable expectations. They might be invisible to the eye, but we often feel these bonds tug when we get the urge to speak or act against injustices, or face our fears -but don’t. This ritual Song of Liberation is to recognise that we are wearing these chains, to know what they are made of and where they come from, and that we already have the key, close to our hearts.
Aka is an Old English word for Ropes that bind us to painful memories through time and space, draining our energy and affecting our ability to be present and live our lives fully.
Songs of Liberation was created as a response to Chiara Ambrosio’s Pruning the Family Tree: Storytelling from the Bones online class with Morbid Anatomy. This class runs again for weeks from 17th January 2024. Find out more here.
You can find out more and listen to these songs and the rest of the album here: https://birdradio.bandcamp.com/album/songs-of-liberation.
Mikey Kirkpatrick 
Leave a comment