hey Hartlist,
Biz Notes: The May 8 live gig at the Kraine with me opening for comedian Liam McEaneney is sold-out IRL but there are streaming tickets available. Mark your calendars for June 8 *with the band* on a rooftop in brooklyn, details forthcoming.
‘for the May Day/ Is the Great Day/ Sung along the Old Straight Track
And those who ancient lines did ley/ Will heed the song that calls them back’
-jethro tull
What can I say, once a Celtic Pagan, always a Celtic Pagan.
’It’s Spring!’ we (still) feel like shouting as we walk down the city streets and see all the bursting-forth of life. But we also notice that, while it’s been Spring technically since March 21, we feel a little more like this now, and daily, as the temperature (occasionally) rises and the sun beats down a little brighter. And that, my friends, is because what we’re actually feeling on the horizon… is summer.
It won’t actually arrive til the summer solstice (June 21), but from now until then we are in a particular season of not just Waking Up, but starting to Enjoy the Day. We stretch, we look around, we go outside and dance on Winter’s Grave. (not because it’s bad, but because it’s over… for a ‘dancing on summer’s grave’ vibe, I refer you to all things on and around Halloween. (Or, really, August 1, but let’s take this one cross-quarter day at a time.) (wow, I’m really laying it on here, what is this, the year {REDACTED}*?)
I’m working on a (i guess?) book (!?I guess) right now, about The Tarot and about my low-key side career as a card reader, so I’m feeling philosophical. I’m also going to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (in the rain) today. I’m also soon-to-be fully vaccinated and making plans to play out (ie, SING AND PLAY WITH OTHER HUMANS), and there’s nothing sexier than that. And speaking of sexy, oh yeah, this weekend marks the great Fire Festival (not to be confused with the Fyre Festival) of the Celtic Pagan holiday of Beltane, which throws the doors open to the summer season. It’s a great time for lighting fires and jumping (carefully) over them, drinking mead, dancing maypoles, and frolicking in the woods…and when you’re done with that, join me Sunday afternoon at 4PM EDT for The Chrysalis 49: FIRE FESTIVAL. Songs of radiance, heat, and, as they said on the TV show Slings and Arrows, “inappropriate dancing”.
love,
Rebecca
* the year I played with my first band, the Rebecca Hart Project, which featured both a candlelit stag’s head sculpture AND copious tree branches onstage at every live show and yet nothing burned down