Celtic Spirituality by John O'Donohue

Introduction by John to Aine's album "The Mysts of Time"

In the beginning was the music. For millennia its secret melodies blessed the earth. Streams gave voice to the silence of valleys. Rivers ferried the song of the land along. The dream of the mountains flowed out in pure wells of spring water. The waves made antiphons where the fluency of the ocean tempted the faithful land.

Great melodies wombed in the wind. Breezes sounded with sudden delight and celebration. And the vast loneliness of the earth rose up where the wind became a caoineadh mourning the night. While all the time beneath the earth a silent music played to stir seed and root towards the Springtime.

This music of the clay is what makes Celtic spirituality so warm and attractive. In a loud cacophonous world it offers us again a sacred space. It invites us to listen with the soul. It is then that we will hear the deeper harmony which plays secretly beneath the turgid externality of our daily routine and pressures. This is where the promise and beauty of Aine Minogue’s music lies. In these wonderful Celtic chants she coaxes our wearied attention back to the forgotten sources of refreshment and healing.

This music somehow manages to reach into the nameless silence within our soul. It is music of the soul for the soul. When you take time to listen to Celtic chants, you come into your own special and sacred place. The deep peach which lives within your clay will begin to flow through you. Your mind will calm; your body will relax: the energy and gentleness of the divine – will warm your life. This is music to bring the eternal alive within you. Aine Minogue has managed to echo the ancient music of the earth so honoured in the Celtic tradition. We are made of clay and this is the music to bring us home to the house of belonging that we call the soul.

by John O'Donohue