Prophecy

Prophecy

"O hear the voice of the Bard
Who present, past, and future sees,
Whose ears have heard the holy Word
That walked among the ancient trees."
    ___ William Blake, "Songs of Experience"


   Celtic tradition has abounded in prophets: King Arthur's Merlin, the uncanny Brahan Seer, Thomas the Rhymer, the Welsh awenyddion (ah-wen-ITH'ion) or 'inspired ones,' and the many unnamed seers and seeresses of history. The ability to see thyrough the veil from the temporal world into the world where time is always now, is one that runs in the blood and surfaces in certain family lines and in lone individuals alike.

  Moments of true seeing and true utterance happen to everyone. They occur when we see clearly through the veil between the worlds, all unbidden, and observe what will be. Then we experience the slowing down of time, the growing sense of communion with precise coordinates of knoweldge that click in our brain into startling patterns of revelation. Because our society tends to ignore such revelation, we usually shrug off what we have experienced as something of little importance, ignoring these subtle messages.

  These moments sometimes happen when we are on the brink of decisions, meetings, or agreements: we suddenly have a sense that we are present at something momentously charged and potent, maybe having a flash vision of a future event when the fruits of the decision have matured. We may experience a sense of warning, a flash of insight that tells us clearly that the person we are meeting does not mean us well. We sometimes even remember past insights and visions that we indeed predicted and are now actually living through. At those times the same sense of timelessness and encompassment rises within us.

"Use your prophetic soul to look between the worlds to understand a recent action's consequences."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Glimpsing the Otherworld

In an old Welsh tale, Pwyll, the Prince of Dyfed, is out hunting with his hounds when he encounters another pack of hounds of weird appearance, bringing down a stag:  "...their hear was of a brilliant shining white, and their ears were red; and as the whiteness of their bodies shone, so did the redness of their ears glisten."  Then the owner of these hounds appears and it is none other than Arawn, King of the Otherworld, who persuades Pwyll to swap places with him for a year. While in the Otherworld, Pwyll wins the beautiful Rhiannon as his wife.

A brush with the Otherworld:  There are many signs that an entrance to the Otherworld is near, time may distort, and often an animal with bright eyes will look at you or invite you to follow it.
   Go out either at dawn or at dusk. Walk slowly, in silence, stop, look and listen. You are searching for a creature - a bird, mouse, squirrel, badger, or even a fellow human - who will guide you to the Otherworld. You'll know when you've arrived; there will be a deep silence and colors will become more vivid. Remember, it is a subtle, evanescent place. You cannot stay there for long.
[From: "Celtic Inspirations" by Lyn Webster Wilde]