Human Decay and the Return to Our Primeval Origins (Philip Carr Gomm, Chief of OBOD)
(Background music: Dead Can Dance “Frontier”)
All around the world there is a revival of the Ancient Ways.
People are returning to indigenous religions and ideas.
Why is this happening?
In one of his podcasts, Philip Carr Gomm (the chief of the Order of Bards Ovates and Druids) gives his perspective.
He says that many of the main religions have reached a point of maturity.
While I don’t want to bend his words – this could mean that these mainstream religions have reached a point of death. All around the world, people are realizing that the system just isn’t working. The pre-dominant religious ideas aren’t solving man’s problems and the environmental crisis is getting worse. Culturally and spiritually humanity is experiencing a sort of metaphorical death. At a deep subconscious level – we know that something ominous is ahead like crows warning of a coming storm. That’s not what Phillip said, but that’s my point of view.
What Phillip did say is that we are like Salmon before death. Before death, salmon swim upstream to the point of their origins. Like salmon, humanity – in the face of a spiritual and environmental crisis – is swimming upstream to return to their primordial origins – to return to the ancient indigenous ways before it’s too late.
You can listen to the entire interview with Phillip here at OBOD podcasts.
Dead Can Dance – Yulunga
Brought to you by the world’s greatest fusion band.
Genre: World Fusion, African poly-rhythms, Gaelic folk, Middle Eastern Mantras
Location: Melbourne Australia
Yulunga is the leading track on Dead Can Dance’s album Into The Labyrinth. This album was a groundbreaking event for the band, because it was the first album they completed on their own without the aid of guest musicians, as well as the first album to have a major label release in the United States. Into The Labyrinth is the album that put ethnic musical influences at the forefront of the band’s sound.
“Yulunga” itself is a type of spirit dance referred to in the Aboriginal Australian Kamilaroi language.
It is also a rainbow serpent Goddess in an aboriginal dream time legend of the Watagora people. These are the people who lived in what is now “New South Wales.” In the legend they were a happy people who spent their days hunting kangaroo, wallabies, emus and catching eel in what is now called the “Duck River.”
These blissful days came to an end when strangers entered the ancestral lands of the Watagora people. The Watagora warriors made several attempts to defend their land, but all to no avail. So then the Watagora elders made an appeal to the spirits for help. At first there was no answer. The Watagora thought that the Gods had abandoned them. But then a rainbow serpent appeared in the sky and chased the strangers away. You can read the rest of the story here.
The video for this song itself is a breath taking montage of nature and dance (aren’t you glad I posted the HD version?). The footage is from the film Baraka (an experimental documentary film with no plot that seeks to evoke emotion through a cinematic look at different world cultures).
At the end of the video – if you pay attention – you’ll notice that there is just the briefest glimpse of a little girl watching a rainbow shining over a river. Perhaps a symbol that the dance of life will go on.
Metal Gaia 