Liathach: A Song of Longing

 

Fergus O'Connally (Farmer Fred's 'Celtic Roots' 
alter ego) always plays Liathach for his opening tune.

When I first adapted this song to play on my alto sax I knew I'd struck on something. This song is packed with longing for God... something I could feel in my very bones but not really get my mind around. It is a longing for the boundless.

Having looked up the mountain that the title refers to I was thoroughly unimpressed. Growing up in the US I have the Rockies, so a mountain less than 4000 feet is bound to disappoint, right?

And so it did.

Until...

I did a little research.

First of all, I found it isn't about the height so much as the age. Liathach is roughly TEN times older (near a billion years old) than the US Rocky mountains (formed a mere 70-80 million years ago).

Scotland's Liathach is roughly ten times older than the US Rockies

Secondly, it simply rises up out of the floor of the earth near sea level... no warning, no foothills... just BAM!!! Here I AM! No gentle climb from a city like Denver already a mile high. Can you say 'dangerous precipices'? Sure you can...

A hiker's dream and a serious challenge,
Liathach is treacherous and beautiful.

I chose Jo Hamilton's song to start my sets first of all because it is slow, brooding and powerful. A great song with long tones to pour some emotion into and warm up the sax all at once. But the longing is so powerful and overwhelming at times... I cannot put it into words.

Never heard of Jo? Scottish-raised singer Jo Hamilton has been covered by Prince, performed at TEDGlobal, and is known for an eclectic musical direction. With a sound self-described as "Björk and Sarah McLachlan singing Robbie Burns backed by Sigur Rós," she is one of the chamber folk scene's most intriguing artists.

 

If only I could let you be

If only I could let you breath

I would never show my face here

If only I could see clear

I will one day when it's all gone

I hope to catch the right ray

Before it's all gone wrong

Wishful thinking

There's more than that

There's understanding

But mine's not here

But I can feel it near

You're my Liathach

You're my boundless

Coming to the time of give and take

I'm so full, but what if I break?

Wishful thinking

More is needed

Mind is off again

Lasso it near or it will never hear

You're my Liathach

You're my boundless

You're the warmth around me

This song is packed with so much mystery and beauty, let's take it line by line with a little help from Truthly:

The opening lines — *"If only I could let you be / If only I could let you breathe / I would never show my face here"* — pulse with a kind of aching restraint, a soul that senses it is grasping at something it cannot hold. This is precisely the movement St. Augustine described: *"Our heart is restless until it rests in Thee."* The soul doesn't just want God — it is structurally oriented toward God, built for Him, and *disoriented* until it finds Him.

The line *"I hope to catch the right ray / Before it's all gone wrong"* echoes the mystics. St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Ávila both describe the soul's pursuit of God as catching glimpses — light through fog, presence just beyond perception. Thomas Aquinas understood this as the *lumen gloriae*, the light of glory toward which the soul moves even now through the life of grace.

*"Wishful thinking / There's more than that / There's understanding / But mine's not here / But I can feel it near"* — this is a soul arguing with itself. It hears the cynical voice that says "this is all projection," and immediately it rejects it: *there's more than that.* It knows something is real. Yet full understanding remains just out of reach: *"mine's not here / but I can feel it near."*

This maps precisely onto what the Church calls the *sensus divinitatis* — the innate human sense that God exists. It is not yet faith, not yet theology, not yet the Beatific Vision — but it is a real participation in the first movement of grace. The soul *feels* God near even when it cannot yet *see* clearly. This is the condition of the pilgrim soul in via — on the way, not yet arrived.

*"Coming to the time of give and take / I'm so full, but what if I break?"*

This is extraordinary. The soul here is overwhelmed — not empty, but *too full* — and afraid that the weight of longing, of love, of encounter will exceed what it can bear. This is precisely what the mystics called the *wound of love* — *vulnus amoris*. St. Bernard of Clairvaux described it: the soul that encounters even a shadow of divine love is simultaneously undone and filled. The very greatness of God is what threatens to break the vessel of the finite human person.

St. Paul gives the theological anchor: *"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me"* (Philippians 4:13). The vessel does not break — it is *transformed.* Grace doesn't destroy nature; it elevates it.

*"Mind is off again / Lasso it near or it will never hear"* — this is the language of *recollection*, the classical spiritual discipline of drawing the scattered mind back toward God. The Carmelite tradition speaks extensively of this. The mind wanders; prayer calls it back. St. Teresa of Ávila's *Interior Castle* is almost entirely about this movement — the soul learning to still itself, to be present, to *hear.*

The final image — *"You're the warmth around me"* — is reminiscent of Psalm 139: *"Where can I go from your spirit? From your presence, where can I flee?"* God is not distant. He is the very ground of being, the warmth that surrounds even the soul that doesn't yet know His name. This is what the Church calls *prevenient grace* — God's love that precedes and makes possible even the desire to seek Him.

The genius of the song is that Jo Hamilton does not name God. She names a mountain. And precisely because she names a mountain that no finite human lover could possibly be, the song points beyond itself — toward the only One who is truly *boundless*, truly the *warmth around us*, truly the *one we cannot let go of without being undone.*

_______________

So, maybe just this once, my instincts served me well when I chose to always open with this beautiful song of longing. Nobody knows the words or the tune when I play it with my sax, but from the responses I see in their faces sometimes they can feel it just the same.

And that is enough. 

A seed of longing for the boundless is enough. 

We leave the rest in God's hands.

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