Laura LAIR / We Call
October 21, 2023 § Leave a comment
Samhain 2023
I have been engaging with the Celtic calendar since I was a teen. The four cross-quarter days of Imbolc, Bealtaine, Lughnasadh and Samhain were hugely important to my ancestors and continue to be for those of us who acknowledge them- along with the equinoxes and solstices- as a means to be in tune with our changing seasons throughout the year.
Each point on the wheel offers an opportunity to check in with what Nature is physically doing and energetically implying at that time and see how ‘as above, so below’ applies to our mind, body and emotional worlds.
Samhain has always been the most important to me, a time of year when ‘the veil is thin’ and honouring your ancestors is encouraged. A time when nature is shedding leaves, letting go and allowing decay and death to have its time as we move towards the stillness and peace of winter. Falling on the 31st of October, it is from Samhain that the tradition of Halloween has come about, and like all Celtic festivals, it begins at nightfall and goes through the night to the following day.
There’s a lot I can say about Samhain and my own connection to it but I believe I express myself best through music. Each year I make pieces for the points on the calendar and in the last few years have felt moved to share some of them on my Bandcamp. My intention being to draw attention to the seasonal shift, the cycles we all live in and as a collective seem to have forgotten we are unendingly a part of, and to honour my ancestors and lineage to which I feel a deep connection.
‘We Call’ will be available to buy and stream on https://lauralair.bandcamp.com/ on October 31st 2023.
LAIR / Mix for Oddsratio
January 17, 2021 § Leave a comment
“Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should stop. Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain there are no heroes” – George Orwell, 1984
LuminouSounds / Transmission 1
February 8, 2017 § Leave a comment
From Deep Ether Transmissions Series
For Yoga, Sound Healing, Angelic Reiki and wellness: https://resoundingpower.com/
LAIR / ETHER
January 28, 2017 § Leave a comment
This is a short piece but feels like it wants to become a much longer, meditative track that could be used for deep listening/deep meditation/moving through worlds/insert whatever word(s) works for you…..
LAIR / Aisling
June 9, 2016 § Leave a comment
The tracks Ar Ais, Ais and Aisling are all variations on a theme. The titles are all Irish words (as in, in the Irish language).
I don’t tend to explain my music but as I am feeling drawn to use Irish a lot in titles and lyrics within tracks I am currently writing, I thought it might be of interest to non-Irish speakers to know how to pronounce and to have a definition of the titles.
‘Ar Ais’ is pronounced like you would say the words ‘air ash’ in English. ‘Ais’, again, sounds like ‘ash’. And ‘Aisling’ sounds like ‘ash-ling’.
I wrote these tracks as I was preparing to leave Ireland to come here to the US, saying goodbye in a more final way than I have previously done in all my years of travelling.
The Irish language often doesn’t directly translate- I think that is really reflected in how Irish people express themselves in what is the first language for most of us nowadays in Ireland, English. There can be layers of meanings, depending on context and intonation, within a word or sentence.
I feel these titles express the many layers in terms of what I am referencing and expressing through the music but you need to understand the ‘top layer’ to be able to get to another-
Ais means ‘return’
Ar Ais means ‘to return’ or to go back
Ar can also mean ‘on’, so the title is referencing that the track is based on the track Ais
Aisling means ‘dream’ or ‘vision’
Aisling is also the name of a very important style of poetry- in these poems, Ireland appears to the poet in a vision in the form of a woman
Perhaps understanding the words and then having some context of when I wrote the music will give you new insight into the tracks themselves. Either way, I hope you enjoy listening!
Laura LAIR
Laura Kilty / LAIR / LuminouSounds
April 15, 2016 § Leave a comment
For Yoga, Sound Healing, Angelic Reiki and wellness: https://resoundingpower.com/