Estelle Ana Baca

Category: Joy

The Key associated with the Archangel Camael.

  • Keys

    While we’re all still waiting for this book to come out – it will be soon, I promise, and I don’t make promises lightly – let me share with you some information on Keys.

    Within the Ministers of Grace universe, all angels and Nephilim have two innate musical components: the Magnificat and Keys.

    The Magnificat is the sound of Grace, the very essence of the divine, that exists within their soul and fuels their lifeforce. Only other creatures with Grace can sense it, and every Magnificat is unique. If you could hear it, it would sound like a song or a chant. It can gradually evolve over time, so that while you would still be able to name that tune from day to day, year to year, the instrumentation and tempo will differ with that angel or Nephil’s general state of mind or being or health.

    Keys are similar, but they run deeper. They are the core quality of angels and Nephilim. They operate as something as a default emotional response, and they are expressed musically. There are twelve Keys: Joy, Comfort, Inspiration, Protection, Gratitude, Unity, Harmony, Renewal, Freedom, Fortitude, Lucidity and Fulfillment. Three pairs of Keys are twinned: Comfort and Protection; Renewal and Fulfillment; and Freedom and Lucidity.

    How do they work? An angel with the Key of Protection would feel safe and secure when she’s at rest, whereas a Nephil with the Key of Lucidity would feel that all existence is alive and bright, infused with clarity, when he’s at his most calm state. As infants and children, angels and Nephilim broadcast them clearly. As they mature, they learn to control them, and there are two reasons for this. The first is that it is telling to know what it is that motivates them. A Nephil with the Key of Freedom might not be reliable in a situation that requires a great deal of patience and long-term toil, just as an angel with the Key of Fortitude might not always be yielding and understanding in a scenario that would require more subtlety and delicate finesse. The second reason Keys are controlled is that they tend to record all the experiences that an angel or Nephil has had over her lifetime. Unless a mature Nephil wants an angel to know everything he’s lived, then he would be better off keeping it to himself.

    What might Keys sound like, if we could translate them into Western Music? I’ve compiled two Spotify playlists that demonstrate what they might sound like, one with classical music and the other with popular music. Embedded playlists are at the very bottom of this post.

    Classical

    Joy – W.A. Mozart, Overture, Le Nozze di Figaro
    Comfort – J.S. Bach, Suite for Orchestra No 3, BWV 1068, II. Air
    Inspiration – Modest Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition, XI. Limoges, la marché
    Protection – Gabriel Fauré, “La Cantique de Jean Racine”
    Gratitude – G.F. Händel, Serse, “Ombra mai fù”
    Unity – Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No 6 in F Major, “Pastoral”, I. Allegro ma non troppo
    Harmony – Edvard Grieg, Fire Salmer, II. “Guds Søn Har Gjort Mig Fri”
    Renewal – Benjamin Britten, Hymn to St Cecilia, III. “O ear whose creatures cannot wish to fall”
    Freedom – Jean Sibelius, Symphony No 6 in D minor, I. Allegro molto moderato
    Fortitude – Carl Orff, Carmina Burana, “Ave Formosissima” into “O Fortuna”
    Lucidity – Igor Stravinsky, The Firebird, Finale
    Fulfillment – Arnold Schönberg, Verklärte Nacht, I. Grave into II. Molto Rallentando

    Popular

    N.B. The Spotify playlist is incomplete, as they’re lacking the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Radiohead’s In Rainbows ☹. I’ve provided a link to where you can listen to the track elsewhere on the interwebs.

    Joy – The Beatles, “I Saw Her Standing There”
    Comfort – Goldfrapp, “Let It Take You”
    Inspiration – Stevie Wonder, “As”
    Protection – Depeche Mode, “Home”
    Gratitude – Jimi Hendrix, “May This Be Love”
    Unity – Earth, Wind & Fire, “That’s the Way of the World”
    Harmony – Queen, “Bohemian Rhapsody”
    Renewal – Jeff Buckley, “Morning Theft”
    Freedom – Elton John, “Rocket Man”
    Fortitude – Led Zeppelin, “Kashmir”
    Lucidity – Björk, “It’s Not Up to You”
    Fulfillment – Radiohead, “All I Need”

    If you really think about it, it’s not really all that difficult to conceive of all life of being composed of music. If you don’t believe me, just check this out.

    If I had a Key, it’d probably be Gratitude. What would your Key be? Just think of a time of when you were most content. What did you feel then? Tweet or Facebook or G+ or comment me below if you want to share what your Key would be, although you might want to keep that to yourself.

    ♥ EAB

  • Spotify lets me share Keys with you.

    I’ve made mention before that within The Ministers of Grace universe—that is, within everything that I’ve written that pertains to angels and demons—that there are these things called Angelic Keys, and that they sound pretty musical. Well, thanks to Spotify, I’m able to share with you what those Keys might sound like. Granted, these are merely examples. Each angel and Nephil who is in possession of a Key expresses it in a unique fashion. I implore you to use your imagination, but below are some playlists I’ve posted to Spotify that will allow you to listen to what the Keys might sound like in both popular and classical music. Yes, might. Gratitude and Renewal most likely sound like something different to you, but they sure sound like Hendrix & Händel and Buckley & Britten respectively to me…

    Angelic Keys – Popular Music
    1. Joy – The Beatles – “I Saw Her Standing There”
    2. Comfort – Goldfrapp – “Let It Take You”
    3. Inspiration – Stevie Wonder – “As”
    4. Protection – Massive Attack – “Protection” (obvious, I know)
    5. Gratitude – Jimi Hendrix – “May This Be Love”
    6. Unity – Earth, Wind and Fire – “That’s the Way of the World”
    7. Harmony – Queen – “Bohemian Rhapsody”
    8. Renewal – Jeff Buckley – “Morning Theft”
    9. Freedom – Elton John – “Rocket Man”
    10. Fortitude – Led Zeppelin – “Kashmir”
    11. Lucidity – Björk – “It’s Not up to You”
    12. Fulfillment – Radiohead – “All I Need”

    Angelic Keys – Classical Music
    1. Joy – Overture, Le Nozze di Figaro, KV 492, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
    2. Comfort – Suite for Orchestra No. 3 in D Major, BWV 1068, II. Air, Johann Sebastian Bach
    3. Inspiration – Pictures at an Exhibition, XI. The Marketplace at Limoges, Modest Mussorgsky
    4. Protection – Cantique de Jean Racine, Op. 11, Gabriel Fauré
    5. Gratitude – “Ombra mai fu,” Xerxes, George Frideric Händel
    6. Unity – Symphony No. 6 in F major, “Pastoral,” I. Allegro ma non troppo, Ludwig van Beethoven
    7. Harmony – “Guds Søn Har Gjort Mig Fri,” Fire Salmer, Op. 74, Edvard Grieg
    8. Renewal – “O Ear Whose Creatures,” Hymn to St. Cecilia, Op. 27, Benjamin Britten
    9. Freedom – Symphony No. 6 in D minor, Op. 104, I. Allegro Molto Moderato, Jean Sibelius
    10. Fortitude – Blanzifor et Helena: Ave Formosissima & Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi: O Fortuna, Carmina Burana, Carl Orff
    11. Lucidity – The Firebird, V. Finale, Igor Stravinsky
    12. Fulfillment – Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4, I. Grave & II. Molto rallentando, Arnold Schönberg

    If you don’t have Spotify yet in the US, you can request an invite. I’d send you one, but for some reason, I have zero invitation tokens. Sadness. I know. I will try to remedy this ASAP.

    ♥ EAB

  • Musical Interlude #2: Joy

    As I mentioned in a previous post, angels’ Keys are the core of their Graces. It’s part of what makes them immortal, and on a certain level, it operates as a guiding principle. If we humans were able to sense Graces and detect the Key beneath them, they would sound distinctly musical. Nadiel has described the music within them as reminiscent of a humming, chanting engine at work, and the angels refer to this audible quality of the soul as the Magnificat. I’ve always imagined that a Magnificat might sound like a large stadium crowd in which, if you listen carefully, you can pick out various bits of speech. Since Keys are related to Graces, Keys are the music within those Graces, or the song that’s sung by the most hopeful person in that crowd. If you aren’t listening for it, you won’t hear it, but it’s there.

    Each of the twelve Archangels has a different Key with Graces that correspond to it, which isn’t the case with the other angels in all the other Orders. Some angels have Graces and Keys that don’t quite match up. For example, the Watcher Kivati, who had a role in Nadiel’s most recent tale, has a key of Freedom with the Graces of Sympathy, Mercy and Interdependence, which can seem a little contrary.

    The Key that’s associated with the Archangel Camael is Joy. Ironically, if one were to seek expressions of Camael’s brand of Joy within music, one of the last places I’d look would be Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and its Ode to Joy. I invite you to disagree with me, but Beethoven’s 9th Symphony is anything but joyful, for it is a devastatingly beautiful piece that is marked by alternating passages of angst and triumph. Beethoven’s Ode to Joy is about the search for joy in adversity, which isn’t quite the same thing as Joy for Joy’s sake. If I were to identify a piece that embodies Camael’s Joy, it’d have to be Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. Pick any part of it, and it’s joyful. Yes. The whole thing. He wrote it while he was still a newlywed, after he had a child who survived infancy and while was enjoying a more than decent amount of acclaim in Vienna at the time. It’s easy to infer that he was expressing his joy within the music of that entire opera. Even the tense parts of the opera can’t refrain from expressing Joy. I invite you to have a listen to the Overture. You’ve probably heard it before somewhere, and this particular version features an orchestra that’s about the same size as would have played in Vienna when the opera opened in 1786.

    But what if you were looking to listen to something composed within human memory? Well, the Beatles are a good band to listen to if you want to hear some Joy. I recommend earlier Beatles, though. They stopped being explicitly joyful around the time of Revolver. If I had to choose one song, though, it’d most definitely be this one.

    Nadiel has informed me that she might be going away for spring break next week. If she’s isn’t, you’ll get a fresh recollection from her. If she’s out of town, you’re stuck with me for another week. Either way, have a great one!

    ♥

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