Sound Energy in a Time of Fascism

We have a duty to ourselves and the world to speak up. It's not easy but we can make a difference.
There are ways to raise our voices - or amplify voices who should be heard.
We can be proactive - mundane or magical, both count.

Sound Energy in a Time of Fascism 

 

Write letters / make calls. Compose Rosc and call the wrath of all passing gods on them. Choose honied words and persuade the deluded to turn against the cult. Pretend to sympathise - old Irish saying "a lie told to the invader is a valuable act"
Use satire and ridicule. They hate being laughed at. Laughter robs them of power. Laughter conquers fear. Satire holds up mirrors.
Be joyful. Sing and dance. Shout and take up space. Distract them from those who cannot afford to make noise and make waves. Be the bright red flag that maddens the bull.

We can also bear witness. Start writing it down. Write it all down. Make stories and poems and songs about it all. Pass it on. Take names. When this is over, remember who to trust and make sure everyone knows. Don't let them steal history and destroy culture. Recite it. Like the women of Ireland memorized our music, created lilting to preserve it, sang it back to the next generation and the next - so we still have our songs. Do it for your own and every culture.

When someone speaks use your privilege. Amplify them. Silence your own voice to let theirs be heard. Shout their message like a megaphone. 

Use silence like a weapon - hone the edge of it til it's razor sharp. Stare down the cult in ice cold silence, the kind that sucks air from the lungs. Your silence can be filled with contempt and rage. Your silence can slice. 

And use words to unite. Codewords. Shared language. In jokes. Find others. Build bridges. Sing together. Exchange stories. Gift each other poetry. Recommend books and music and movies. 

And hex the enemy, with your rising and falling breath. Let the sight of you, the sound of you, the very fact of you, be a reproach and a heartscald to them. Find the notes they hate and bellow them. Whisper maledictions as they pass. Snigger as they pose. Curse them and all who ride with them.

Geraldine Moorkens Byrne 2025

     

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As we edge towards year's end....#xmas #books #writing #writinglife

 It's been one long strange year.

Feeling the urge to take stock as this year grinds closer to the nadir of the wheel's turn.  Indeed as of yesterday it passed that point and we're on way back to the light.

It's not easy to sum 2021 up. Certainly the glib answer would be covid/stress that would kill a horse/fresh hell. But despite a terrible year in some ways, good things happened.

 Obviously on a personal level, publishing two fiction books has been a milestone in my life.  Despite editing and publishing several poetry collections, publishing a novel was a sharp lesson. Between book 1 and book 2 the learning curve was so steep as to be vertical but in the end I had two books of which I'm now proud. 

In addition to honing writing skills this year has been filled with challenging projects from marketing to sales; I now not only know what a reader magnet or book funnel is, I can create and use them.  

I also had the pleasure of seeing books in actual brick and mortar shops. Online sales are vital to independent authors and small publishers but there's nothing to compare to seeing customers reading the back of a book and buying it!

So good so optimistic; this year was also a year of endings. Having been a primary caregiver for my father for 7 years, five with a diagnosis of Alzheimer's and the last two in lockdown our world was turned upside down when a trip to hospital culminated in him being expedited into residential care. We knew it was going that way but definitely hadn't come to terms with it, not really.  The sudden change has been difficult. This Christmas is not what I'd hoped for although with two little boys you have to dig deep and find your inner tinsel. It took an outside eye to point out that we're grieving. He may be this side of life but we're grieving. 

Because we chose to keep him home until the last moment possible I had to choose to leave my business aside, 150 years of family business. This was hard although in fairness I would do the same again without a doubt. 

The fates in short have conspired and I'm now a full time writer or semi retired depending whom you ask. To paraphrase The Commitments it feels a lot better being a full time writer than a semi retired burnt out family carer ...

Every year I pick a word to live up to rather than making new year resolutions. 2021 was such a roller coaster I don't remember what word I picked. Whatever it was, this year I'm going to make sure I pick something peaceful. Gentle. Calm. 

For anyone finding this year hard, we'll get through it. It will pass. The light always returns, whether we believe it or not. It's the promise of life, that that wheel keeps turning dawn by dawn. 

The new year will bring two new books: the third Caroline Jordan Mystery and a non fiction academic book on the Rosc and draiocht ceoil. There's another very different story rattling around my head that I will start outlining during the year. So, not a busy then lol.

The Body Count: A Caroline Jordan Mystery Bk 2 will have an international online book launch as well as a Dublin launch (covid situation permitting) in February. Lots of fun and merch and prizes. 

So until the new year, stay safe and be well. 

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Firenne

Firenne: the life force "truth" that under-pins all living things. The most complex and yet elegantly simple philosophy of my ancestors; a creation theory and blueprint for life rolled into one.
Firenne comes at a cost; those who would reduce our pagan heritage to new age charlatanry want to reduce the colour of our beliefs to a monotone should remember that Firenne brings life and death, light and shade and while it was the mainstay of Brehon justice by which even kings fell it is equally the weapon of punishment, the scourge of the filí on those who dishonour.

In modern paganism, websites, forums, groups and covens trot out the whitewashed version of ancient, complex and culturally contextual beliefs. The mantra is "it's my path...I can do as I please..." but Firenne remains immutable no matter how we try to change the world and shape it to our vox-pop imaginations. And those who claim to live by "honour" invoke Firenne whether they understand it or not - invoke both its duties and its rewards and most of all, its judgement.

The following piece was written, like Speak and be Damned, because of a campaign of hate and bullying that flared up in 2005 online, attacks by pseudo-pagans who wanted to use a project online to shore up their social lives and build up a little following or the faithful to pander to their egos. Those who opposed them found themselves in the centre of a bloody war of words; in the end it came down to a clash between those who actually follow a pagan path and those who wished merely to play at it, while gathering kudos and a little power over the gullible.

Sadly not exactly an unusual situation among neo-pagan groups, bitching and warring being only second to claiming extraordinary powers for oneself. But some wars are worth fighting; unless your beliefs are as shallow as theirs!

As a poem, it is based loosely on the rhythms and patterns of the Old Irish poems and roscanna. As a personal statement it represents the ties of loyalty, of standing by those who are in the right, of choosing honour over reputation or popularity; it is also a prediction, of the cost of betraying honour and Firenne. The cost is not always visible but in the end the one true loser is the dishonourable, reducing their inner landscape to desert, atrophying in a mire of lies. In Old Irish writing, to live without Firenne is to die.



Firenne

I have seen
the best of my warband
struck by arrows
from treacherous hands
and yet they stand.

They are wrongly accused,
harrased by shrill jackals
whose minds are unshackled
by any standard of honour;
and yet they stand.

When you adopt
the cloak of lies,
how threadbare your clothes!
How ragged you are
how unfit to be seen.

When you bully,
crawl on your bellies
in filth, for the prize
of fool's gold -
you become lower than dust.

The people of honour
will not stand with you
nor breathe the same air
nor eat from your plate
for you are poison to them.

The land will not hold you
the very stones turn from you
how polluted you are
how tainted the blood
spilt from your veins.

The crows turn from you
the worms cannot feast
your bones are not part of us
you speak not our tongue
alone and unmourned are you.

I have seen
honest hearts pierced
truthful mouths stopped
loving hands bound
these are abominations.

I have seen Firenne
dishonoured
but I have been comforted
for the penalties are great
and they are inexorable.

No man need lift hand
Firenne brought down the ramparts
at Royal Tara on the breath
of a single word.
so too will it tumble you.

Geraldine Moorkens Byrne

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