In the House of Darkness

In the House of Darkness

"The poets shut their doors and windows for a day's time, and lie

on their backs with a stone upon their belly, and plaids about their

heads, and their eyes being covered they pump their brains for

rhetorical encomium or panegyric."

   ___ Martin Martin, "Description of the Western Islands of Scotland," in

   John and Caitlin Matthews, "The Encyclopedia of Celtic Wisdom."

   The seventeenth-century traveler Martin Martin toured the west coast of Scotland and reported on the training used in the last of the bardic schools, whose methods of composition had not varied from earliest Celtic times. Students given subjects of composition would go to the House of Darkness: a long, low hut divided into cubicles devoid of light, in which the students lay upon couches alone and worked on each poem in darkness. At nightfall, lights were brought in and the students recited their compositions to their masters before going to their evening meal.

  What is the meaning of this desire for darkness? Inspiration was able to spark more brightly, leading the poet's mind from metaphor to metaphor with a greater assurance. For the one who lay upon the 'bed of reclining,' there was no opportunity to make notes; words were written first upon the memory. There is a more ancient reason also: the early druidic and poetic method of incubating knowledge out of sleep and darkness drew upon the fact that the ever-living otherworld is visitable in dream and inspired soul-flight. This is not a daytime experience, however, but one possible only when it is dark (so that the subtle senses are able to work). Darkness, which so many shun as synonymous with evil is actually an opportunity in which we can respect our subtle senses and give rest to our physical ones. In the darkness shines the greatest light of all: the three sparks of inspiration that run like fire through charcoal and illuminate our own being.

"Choose a subject to meditate upon without light this evening."

[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]