Celebrate St. Patrick's Day with exotic, magical music

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Everybody gets around to carving their pumpkin in March, right? ;)

A week or two ago, I watched a Loreena McKennitt concert on TV. I've been a fan of her music for some time, so I really enjoyed it. While watching the concert, I thought how it would be cool to share some of her music for St. Patrick's Day. She's Irish and Scottish, as you can guess from her name.

Some of Loreena's music sounds Celtic and some of it has other ethnic vibes. A few of my favorite songs of hers have parts that sound Middle Eastern to me. You'll see what I mean when you listen to the first song in this concert. I managed to find the concert I watched on TV! Enjoy. :)

A link to the video: Loreena McKennitt ~ Nights from the Alhambra

For some reason, those of you who read my blog in email form don't see the videos. If anyone knows a way I can make it so that videos show up for my email subscribers, please let me know! Maybe there's a setting I'm missing.

You'll get an idea of Loreena's personality and the background of the music she's playing here. There are some neat visuals added in of the places that inspired her.

I actually became familiar with Loreena McKennitt about 15 years ago when I was in a little gift shop. The person working there had Loreena's music playing and I said "Who is this? I love this music". That's the only time I've cared to ask what music was playing in a store. The woman working there seemed surprised. "You haven't heard of Loreena McKennitt?" she said. Nope. I had to wonder if most people had. She then went on to give me an introduction to who Loreena is and what her music is like. I went straight to finding some of her CDs after that encounter at the shop. I'm happy to introduce Loreena's music to those of you who haven't heard of her. And, what better time than today?

Although, looking back to 2012, some of you might remember a Christmas post where I mentioned her song "Mummer's Dance":

A visit from the creatures of Christmas

I wish you all a Happy St. Patrick's Day! I hope Loreena's concert helps get you in the festive mood.

A foggy walk, ice crystals, and a swamp monster!

Today was a very foggy day. To my surprise, the fog hung around for hours, into the night. As I was taking some photos of what it looked like around here, it struck me that these images looked a little like what was in my last blog post. These scenes are made of transparent layers, some lighter or darker than others. Can't you imagine this image as the inspiration for one of those tunnel books?

I was looking for some fog themed music to add to this post, and was surprised to find some choices. I really like this song. I recommend listening to it while looking through the photos because it's a good fit!

Celtic Mystique: The Foggy Dew

I listened to this while looking at a slideshow of my foggy photos and it added something. I began to feel like I was putting together a St. Patrick's Day blog post with this music, the fogginess, and all the green. Seeing green on the ground instead of white is really weird for January here, by the way. It will be 50° here in a few days!

Check out the little droplets hanging from these branches:

If you look really closely at this drop, you will see the landscape behind it upside down. It might help to enlarge the photo. Pretty cool, hey? It's like there's a little fisheye lens in there.

There was still ice along the curb. Here you'll see some of the leaves left from autumn which are looking surprisingly colorful and  fresh.

This little leaf was nearly transparent.

Here's the swamp monster! If you use your imagination, you'll see a face and two arms emerging from the ice. I even see a bit of a hand. He has kind of an Oscar the Grouch thing going on.

Do you see the tiny tree branches in these droplets?

This ice next to the curb reminds me of an ice queen's crown.

Some of these look like larger versions of crystals or snowflakes that you'd see through a microscope. Maybe you've seen some of that up-close crystal photography.

These looked like insect wings to me.

I like how still this one is. It just looks quiet. You know the painter, Edward Hopper? This reminds me of something he'd paint. It's quiet and kind of isolated looking.

Three soft little trees:

The fog was still hanging around at night, so I went out in the drizzle to take a few more photos.

I love the curving frame of this limb.

It was pretty spooky out there. I could hear all kinds of little noises. Dripping, something scurrying around. So, that cut the photo session a little short. :)

If you were following my blog back in June of 2011, you might have seen some foggy photos I took back then. It's interesting to look back at those, in part because the color is so different. Check out how blue these are:

Out of the fog


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