I found this quite informative. thank you for this video. I was hesitant because there aren't many views but I guess that's life - good information isn't usually the most popular, fluff is. this isn't fluff. thanks again, good info and good video
keening isn’t a christian practice. it originated when the Irish goddess Brighid cried out in grief after learning of her eldest son’s death. it’s a pagan practice, which explains why as christianity took over, it lost popularity.
Yes, this is a practice in Romania as well, we call it 'bocet' and some of the church priests are forbidding it at funerals, claiming they don't see the value in it and discrediting it along the way. I believe the element of patriarchy plays a role, since the practice of 'bocit' is a womanly tradition. It is the feminine within us that feels, and this practice is all about feeling to heal. The clergy men abhor feeling since it surpasses the brain washing techniques they employ. They know how to brain wash but not how to heart wash.
The 'bards' or poets made poems called 'marbhna' or elegy. These were more formal than keening and different from them. They were recorded in the poem books, whereas keening was rarely written down. It is not quite right to say that it began with men and was taken over by women.
I think keening is a way of bringing emotions to the surface so that the can be dealt with instead of festering into a latent depression. Professional keepers performed this service for the family. To this day funerals are large community events in Ireland, attended by hundreds or even thousands of people.
@@snowbirdybird in a village you get to at least know OF everybody if not actually know them. One would think that it is the family who should be keening but, that's exactly it, the whole family is too struck with grief the other members in their community step in and cry for all and helps the blood relatives release n let go.
@boat man Yes! Spot on! I am learning about a similar tradition in Romania, called 'bocet'. And indeed it has this cathartic effect. When we experience loss it can leave us shell-shocked, mute and unable to grieve or cry or express anything, like your throat closes up. But when you hear someone wailing right next to you, it gives your body permission to shed the tears that the mind was holding back, to sob the sobs and feel the feels. This is releasing and therefore healing. We would benefit greatly from preserving such traditions and picking them up again. So we learn how to let ourselves feel again and sit with that feeling so that we may process it and let go of it and continue with life from a healed position, rather than leave a wound unattended and festering.
