Just One Together at the Calgary Folk Festival

Glendower: I can call the spirits from the vasty deep.

Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them?

-- William Shakespeare, Henry the Fourth, Part One

The aural sensual overload is taking a different turn this year. I can hear the spirits answering the calling by the musicians. Very much inhabiting a different dimension as I approach Day 4.

Arrive later than I could have. However I am in time to pick up lunch and settle into the Acorn concert. Again a band with superior arrangements for instruments that challenge the genre. The tune they play from the next CD tells me this band is dedicated to complex music that is very accessible. It will be a pleasure to buy their CD's as they develop.

In the next time slot there is an abundance of great choices. What a marvelous gift from Kerry Clarke and compatriots. What other festival has so much great talent assembled that all you really need to do is pick anything, and simply enjoy the hour?

I decide to cheat and start at Streaming Consciousness and then switch to Pacifica for the opening of that concert. Glad I do. Ramped up by the great musicians at Streaming Consciousness, after I move I discover Pacifica. She is calling to the spirits that reigned prior to the European invasion. I am suddenly convinced that the patriarchal god simply has gotten it wrong. We should be listening to the earth, not laying waste to it.

As I must hear Umalali one last time this weekend, I opt for the Guided by Voices workshop. The Good Lovelies, Akron/Family, Dry Branch Fire Squad and Umalali draw us into a world where the spirits of human community really do answer our calls. I shall not soon forget the rousing closing number, led by Umalali but joined by their colleagues and all of us, of "Just One Together." No matter what else happens this evening, I am going home with a new treasure in my memory bank.

At the mainstage Darrol Anger, Mike Marshall & Vasen have the daunting task of inviting people back to their tarps with some entrance music. These guys go much further. Their playing would have qualified them as court musicians for Prince Esterházy at what might have passed for an 18th century garden party. A sweet and enchanting introduction to the evening.

The newspapers are rightly full of the experience emerging from the pairing of the Sojourners and Mavis Staples. The Sojourners demonstrate that the term "spiritual" emerged from the human need to call out for solace and justice. Mavis Staples demonstrates how that call was amplified in the 60's so that the simple, yet strong calls were mutated into anthems that still resonate today - mostly because the work is not yet complete. Yet the power of hope is strong in both sets. And I begin to understand how a young politician with the theme: "Yes, We Can" gets elected to the American presidency.

Ok, I admit I was fully enchanted by Loreena Mckennitt. No one can anticipate moments like that. However, when they happen, it is best simply to absorb the experience. Did the oracle at Delphi invite pilgrims to her temple at dusk with a solo harp? I think not. However, my bet is that some druid priestesses did in their eon. The enchantment spreads as her songs of the Celtic journey through space and time invade the site. A group of young people behind me spontaneously form a circle and dance the rhythms of Beltane. We are "Just One Together" yet again this evening. It is too powerful to describe. It had to be felt.

Thank goodness for the finale. We all needed some direction to find our way home. For sure we know what to do for the next year: Let our light shine!

Yes, the evening ends with me joyfully singing along, in the key of off, with 15,000 other like minded companion spirits.

Like the musicians, I must thank the staff and the volunteers of the CFMF. Your enthusiasm and dedication makes pulling off the logistics of an event of this scale look easy. I know it is not. Thank you. See you next year!