In his 1926 novel Steppenwolf, Hermann Hesse discussed the soul of the artist. When asked to summarise the meaning of this book, Hesse said: "The story of the Steppenwolf pictures a disease and crisis – but not one leading to death and destruction, on the contrary: to healing."

The role of the artist – the storyteller, the poet, the balladeer, the musician – has always been crucial during conflict against oppression. In our automised, electronic age however we seem to have forgotten the inspiration singers like Frances Black and songwriters like David Rovics and poets like Edward Abbey give us, making it easier to get up and continue the fight. A primary reason for this is that we have become polarised into fiercely competing and mutually intolerant ideologies. This has not led to communication and understanding, it has instead resulted in a paralysing gridlock. Creative people provide the means for freeing our tortured souls. We need creative people to present us with new visions for living, with new visions for the future, with alternatives to the approaches that have repeatedly lead to failure and misery.

We live in a world of competing lies. The old virtues of honour and honesty have tragically been lost and forgotten. Whenever we hear a statement coming from a politician, a corporate head, or a news reporter, we can have good faith that what they are saying is very likely to be partially or completely false. The absence of honour and honesty leads to the decay and collapse of nations, communities, families, and individual lives. So, who will tell the truth? Throughout human history, creative people have been truth-tellers. They have played important roles in countless dramas of social change. Today, it is no different. In Ireland, which is still clinging to its reputation as a land of hedgerow storytellers and earthly poets, artists are working hard to tell the truth, to inspire the people.

1998 was a pivotal year in recent Irish history. It was also the 200th anniversary of 1798 when Irish peasants joined with the United Irishmen (Protestant, Catholic and dissenter) to rise up against the English. Many ballads and songs and stories were written about this tragic period of Irish history. One of the most popular is the Rising of the Moon – a traditional ballad seen to embody the idealism of the cause.

Sean Tyrrell, an Irish balladeer who collects traditional ballads long forgotten, was one of the musicians at a concert in 1990 called 'Fool's Gold'. The purpose of this concert was to raise money to fund opposition to the creation of a gold mine at Ireland's holy mountain Croagh Patrick. Poets Padraig Stevens and Siobhan O'Higgins were inspired to add a few new lyrics to the original version of Rising of the Moon, which Tyrrell recorded in 1999.

As we wander through the Universe, on this December night
The children are all dancing and the stars are shining bright
One more word must now be spoken out, or sung to an old tune
Let's be friends this New Year coming at the Rising of the Moon

So we gaze up to the stars that shine, with wonder in our eyes
Will we just destroy the planet or is peace to be the prize?
'Cos the wail of fighting nations dims the beauty of the tune
Let's all dance the dance of Freedom, at the Rising of the Moon

At the Rising of the Moon, at the Rising of the Moon
Let's be friends this New Year coming at the Rising of the Moon

May the wisdom of the Ancients with their messages and signs
Come and shine on our tomorrows, with the magic of their times
Like the stars that shone on wise men, like the dawn that's coming soon
It's the truth that guides us onward at the Rising of the Moon

We can live within God's garden if we tend her with our care
We can understand the meaning and the motives of the fair
Tho' we stumble thru the darkness trying far too much too soon
Let's all stand up and be counted at the Rising of the Moon

At the Rising of the Moon, at the Rising of the Moon
Let's be friends this New Year
coming at the Rising of the Moon

the end.

DIDN'T WE

Jim Page is an American singer-songwriter well known to American and European audiences. His song, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Russian Roulette, was made famous by Moving Hearts during the 1980s. By the end of the century this street singer was still celebrating the protest movement's effect on culture, with his masterly summation of Seattle in November 1999. Called Didn't We it sums up the protest perfectly.

November 30th, '99
history walkin' on a tightrope line
big money pullin’ on invisible strings
gettin’ into everything
so deep, it’s hard to believe
it’s in the food and the water and the air you breathe
and the chemistry, the bio-tech
the banker with the bottomless check
the corporations and the CEOs
and the bottom line is, the profit grows
the money talks, you don’t talk back
they don’t like it when you act like that
but didn’t we
shut it down
didn’t we

November 30th, '99
it was a Tuesday mornin’ when we drew the line
it was the WTO comin’ to town
and we swore we’re gonna shut it down
and they stood there with their big police
they had the National Guard out to keep the peace
with the guns and the clubs and the chemical gas
but still we would not let them pass
and they raged and roared and their tempers flared
and there were bombs bursting in the daylight air
and they’d run us off, do us in
but we came right back again
yeah, didn’t we
shut it down
didn’t we

November 30th, '99
millennium passing as the numbers climb
and the people came from everywhere
there must have been 50 thousand out there
there were farmers, unions, rank and file
every grass roots has its own style
there were great big puppets, two stories tall
there were drummers drummin’ in the shoppin’ malls
there were so many people that ya couldn’t see
how that many people got into the city
and the WTO delegates too
we were locked down, so they couldn’t get through
yeah, didn’t we
shut it down
didn’t we

November 30th, '99
lockdown at the police line
and they’re hittin’ you with everything they got
but you ain’t movin’, like it or not
and they’re tyin’ your wrists with plastic cuffs
and they’re loadin’ you up on a great big bus
and they’re takin’ you down to the navy base
pepper sprayin’ you right in the face
try to break you down, try to get you to kneel
but you got the unity and this is for real
and they can’t break a spirit that’s comin’ alive
that’s the kind of spirit that’s bound to survive
and didn’t we
shut it down
didn’t we

now the media loves all the glitter and flash
and all the newspapers talkin’ out a whole lot of trash
about the violence of the people in black
and how the cops were so tired they just had to attack
and the secrets hidden in that deep dark hole
that they call, "City Hall," may never be told
the mayor’s out doing the spin
the police chief quit so you can’t ask him
well they can swear to God and all human law
but I was there and I know what I saw
and the visible stains’ll wash away in the rains
but this old town’ll never be the same
‘cause didn’t we
shut it down
didn’t we

now it’s the greatest story ever told
David and Goliath, how you be so bold
standin’ up to the giant when the goin’ gets hot
and all you got is a sling shot
well they tell me that the world turned upside down
you gotta pick it up and shake it, gotta turn it around
you gotta take it apart, rearrange it
I don’t want to save the world, I want to change it
don’t let ‘em tell you that it can’t be done
‘cause they’re gonna be the first ones to run
just take a little lesson from Seattle town
the WTO and how we shut it down
yeah, didn’t we
shut it down
didn’t we

November 30th, '99

I'LL PLANT A SEED

Between the summer of 1997 and the winter of 1999 Eanna Dowling was among a band of intrepid and inspired campaigners who set up the Glen of the Downs vigil in north county Wicklow – the Garden of Ireland – to prevent the widening of a road which would destroy one of the few strands of native woodland left in the country. In 1998 Kevin Hayes, inspired by the tree planting walks of Longford man John Crossan, produced an album called Trees Are Life. Eanna contributed a song called I'll Plant A Seed.

It's not the end of the world
when a starving baby cries
It's not the end of the world
when the smog obscures the sky
It's not the end of the world
when your loved ones say goodbye
It's not the end of the world when
you can't find paradise

For every living soul, dancing beyond control
For every blossom that must fall
For every ancient wood, painted in chainsaw blood
For every tree that is cut down

I'll plant a seed and then another
I'll plant a seed and then another
I'll plant a seed and then another
I'll plant a seed and then another, another

It's not the end of the world when
the road gets extra lanes
It's not the end of the world when
your morning's filled with pain
It's not the end of the world when
the world seems set on gain
It's not the end of the world if
you don't know if you're sane

For every ancient wood, painted in chainsaw blood
For every tree that is cut down
For every living soul, dancing beyond control
For every tear drop that must fall

I'll plant a seed and then another
I'll plant a seed and then another
I'll plant a seed and then another
I'll plant a seed and then another, another

WASTELAND OF THE FREE

America also has a tradition of artists striving for social change, many who take their inspirations from native American and European roots. Iris Dement, a singer-songwriter from Kansas City, Missouri produced, in 1996, a powerful anthem that sums up not only America but the whole of the western world called Wasteland of the Free.

We've got preachers dealin' in politics and diamond mines
And their speech is growing increasingly unkind
They say they are Christ's disciples
But they don't look like Jesus to me
And it feels like I'm living in the wasteland of the free

We've got politicians runnin' races on corporate cash
Now don't tell me they don't turn around and kiss them people's ass
Now you may call me old-fashioned
But that don't fit my picture of a true democracy
And it feels like I'm living in the wasteland of the free

We've got CEOs makin' 200 times the workers pay
But they'll fight like hell against raising the minimum wage
And if you don't like it mister
They'll ship your job to some third world country cross the sea
And it feels like I'm living in the wasteland of the free

Where the poor have become the enemy
Let's blame our troubles on the weak ones
Sounds like some kind of Hitler remedy
Living in the wasteland of the free.
While we sit gloating in our greatness
Justice is sinking to the bottom of the sea
And it feels like I'm living in the wasteland of the free

We got little kids with guns fighting inner city wars
so what do we do, we put these little kids behind prison doors
and we call ourselves the advanced civilisation
but that sounds like crap to me
And it feels like I'm living in the wasteland of the free.

STORIES

"Humans became powerful because of our mastery of language – the power of our stories," Michigan poet Rick Reese wrote in 1998. "We studied nature intensively, learned a great deal about the ways of plants and animals, and built stories around this knowledge. We learned stalking from the cats, tracking from the wolves, deception from the possums, trapping from the spiders, community from the apes, and joy from the chipmunks. We learned the finest magic of all beings, and enriched our stories with it. Stories are our software. Stories are the heart and soul of every culture. Stories define who we are, what we believe, and how we behave. Stories are our most important and powerful possessions."

When our cultural software becomes corrupted, our culture goes berserk as it is doing presently. The solution, of course, is to fix our software – to create new stories, new visions, new modes for thinking and being. The good news is that gifted artists continue to share their inspired work with the world. The bad news is that what they are currently doing is not enough to heal a world that is howling with madness. In today's world, almost everything is broken and in desperate need for prompt, wise, creative repair.

Over the centuries, we have forgotten almost all of the wisdom of our ancestors. We have forgotten their profound reverence for the perfection of creation. We have forgotten their respect and reverence for the generations yet to be born. We have forgotten their joy and enthusiasm. We have forgotten how to sing and dance. We have forgotten how to have a rich and meaningful and beautiful life. We have forgotten that everyone is a creator – for good, or for ill.

We have a lot of remembering to do. We have a lot of stories to fix. And it is too big a job for a small group of professional artists. This is a job for all of us. This is a job that goes beyond the commercial world of books, CDs, and films. This is a job that needs to take place on the personal level – day by day, hour by hour. It needs to take place in our workplace chats, in our email messages, in our family conversations, in our meditations and dreams.

We are in need of a tremendous amount of healing, and this transformation will only occur when we all focus the full power of our hearts and souls on creating a new and better world for ourselves, our children, and for those who have yet to be born.

It's the truth that guides us onward at the Rising of the Moon.