Samhain

Samhain

"Samhain night with its ancient lore
was occasion for new and merry custom;
it was learned in the wilderness, in oak woods,
from spirits and fairies."
   ___ "The Metrical Dindshenchas" (trans CM)


    The festival of Samhain (SOW'en ) marked the start of Winter when beasts were brought in from the hills to the nearby fields for winter slaughter or for overwintering in barns. Samhain was a liminal time for which the world of the loving and ancestral realms overlapped. This was a time for the remembrance of the dead, candles were set in the window to welcome the loved ancestors and to shine upon the path of the unquiet dead to bless them on their way.
   There was always an element of fear and trepidation about this night - the eve before Samhain - and also one of expectancy. When the dead were abroad, certain kinds of divination could be practiced, which asked questions of the ancestors. This night was one when young people disguised themselves and played pranks on the community. The modern custom of trick-or-treating is based upon the old tradition of 'mischief night', when the guisers begged for food and drink from door to door. At inhospitable houses, the gate might be removed from its hinges or other petty misdemeanors might be performed.
   The great fear that many still have about this night is not aided by the commercialism of modern Hallowe'en, which emphasizes ghoulish fascination with ghosts rather than communal reverence for the beloved ancestors. As we enter the darkness of winter this evening, let us remember our own ancestors with love, with a prayer that all unquiet souls be led to blessedness and peace, with a hope that this sacred festival may be restored to its former respect as a time of communal honoring.

"Light your own candle for the ancestors this evening and breathe your blessing upon all who no longer walk in this world."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

   And so this the end of this book - I turn back to the beginning which is November 1st. 

Farewell to the Season of Lughnasadh

   (to be said at the backdoor or window of the house on the last morning of the Lughnasadh quarter, October 31st) 

 "Go with thanks and go with blessing,
Season of soul's nurturing.
Souls with fruit are deeply freighted,
Hearts are healed rejoicingly.
As ripened fruit and grain have traveled
You have come to Autumn's barn.
Sovereign Lady, who has poured,
Touch the hidden mystery in us,
Aid us to find Winter's hoard."

Threshold Invocation For the Festival of Samhain

   (to be said at the front door of the house on the eve of Samhain, 31st October in the evening.)

"Grandmother Wisdom, open the door,
Grandfather Counsel, come you in.
Let there be welcome to the ancient lore,
Let there be welcome to the Winter of the Year.
In cold and darkness you are traveling,
Under crystal skies you will arrive.
May the blessed time of Samhain
Clarify the soul of all beings,
Bringing joy and wisdom to revelation.
From the depths to the heights,
From the heights to the depths,
In the cave of every soul."

[From: "Celtic Devotional" by Caitlin Matthews]

Flexibility

Flexibility

"May we never be so straight that we
  cannot bend;
May we never be so unapproachable
  that children
Cannot climb up into our lower branches."
    ___ Caitlin Matthews ("Avebury Easter")


    Wherever we have set our roots, there will we grow. The ability to be flexible and adaptable to different growing conditions determines the nature of our development. Learning to change and adapt with each new circumstance is a human gift that we share with all life. Evolution itself shows us that those species that cannot change die out. Opinions and attitudes can become like carapaces that harden about our shoulders, bringing rigidity to our life-flow. Rigidity of opinion cause us to become unapproachable, which may increase our sense of isolation or confirm us in our self-contented stasis. We begin to lose opportunities to exchange views, to receive love, to find other sources of nurture. It take courage to allow children to swarm our branches, to allow the questions and opinions of those younger than ourselves to bend our trunks to their fresh breeze. The beauty of the many-leveled generations alive at one time allows us great opportunities to practice our flexibility and share our wisdom.

"Visualize what kind of tree you are. Check on how vital your root system is; access the flexibility of your trunk, the reach of your branches. What opportunities for change and adaptability are available and needed by at this time?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Living the Metaphor

Living the Metaphor

"Then as now the Cauldron of Ceridwen.... was on the boil; and its life-giving drops .... were
being scattered abroad, according to what,
by mere human computation, amount to nothing, but the accidents of pure chance."
    ___ John Cowper Pwys, "Obstinate Cymric"

  From Ceridwen's vessel of inspiration three drops flew out and were caught by the child Gwion as he sat tending the cauldron. When a spark of knowledge catches the tinder of our being, it runs through us like a forest fire. All the metaphors and images by which we have lived our lives become incandescent with immediacy and meaning. After the kiss of knowledge, Taliesin, who  was once the boy Gwion, declares that he has been in many times and places, that he has been a drop in the air, a letter among words, a sword in the hand, a string in a harp, and many other conditions associated with the human state. It is the metaphor of himself in the immediacy of the realized present that sings.
   To realize and truly live our metaphor, we need the random grace of the cauldron's drops to awaken us to our true potential. Suddenly, meaning explodes behind our eyes and thoughts run together and connect like the colors on an easel when it rains. This is the experience of the child Gwion when he puts his lips to his hand to cool the scalding drops. The incubation period of knowledge for Gwion is nine months in the womb of Ceridwen, where he brings together the many metaphors of himself and learns their truth. By the time he is born, they have become a part of him; he is living repository of his own knowledge.

"What metaphors do you apply to your own life (e.g. lone wolf, a rolling stone, a busy beaver, a foolish clown)? What triggers knowledge of these metaphors? What fixes their truth in you?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Finding Our Place in Nature

Finding Our Place in Nature

"Did you hear what the fish said,
Floundering among the reeds? --
Nature's wiser than learning."
    ___ fourteenth century Welsh verse (CM)


   In the Celtic and world folk traditions, reminders of this important fact emerge time and again in stories that tell of speaking animals. All young heroes and heroines who are sent out on the road of adventure eventually encounter animal allies who speak to them of deeper wisdoms than those they received at school. These encounters require that the young person treat the animal with respect, share her goods or food with the animal, and listen and act upon the animal's wisdom. The characters who do these things emerge unscathed; the ones who neglect to respect, share, or listen lose their way and fall prey to dangers. It is for this reason that so many spiritual traditions regard animals as their wisdom keepers: animals are representatives of the oral, living world of nature - beings who know the implications and responsibilities of their belonging and guardianship.
    All people now living have the responsibility o relearning the wisdom of nature, directly from nature: from the trees and hills, the birds, and streams, the animals and fields, the fish and seas. Wherever we are, there is an older wisdom singing, which keeps the world in harmony. When we can join in that singing, we will begin to find our true place in nature and be at one with our brother and sister beings.

"Be present with a being of nature: be present to it spirit to spirit. What is the wisdom of nature about the plan that is currently brooding in your heart?  How does this differ from the received wisdom of your society, friends, advisers?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Unleashing Joy

Unleashing Joy

"He who binds to himself a joy
Does a winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sun rise."
   ___ William Blake, "Eternity"


   Joy is not a creature of the cupboard. It is wild, free and profligate, spending itself in one great burst of energy. The ability to enjoy and be part of something is a skill many of u7s lose; as we disengage from the immediacy of life, we are less able to sink ourselves deeply into things. This distancing of the self often arises from the need to protect ourselves from perceived dangers (physical and emotional). Whatever its cause, this form of separation from life clips the wings of joy very effectively.
    Certain people want to restrain the freedoms of others; having hushed the ecstatic song of joy in their own lives as a thing too flighty or too dangerous to be allowed, they find it suspect in others as well. At the other extreme are people who, having tasted joy, want it all the time.
    Whatever our condition, how do we make access to joy? It can come only when there are three conditions present: a state of lively engagement with life, a receptive and spacious heart, and a respect for other beings than ourselves. IF we live in a closed-off bubble, forcing life to happen beyond us, joy cannot enter; but if we play ball with life, catching and throwing it back, the many experiences that come our way, we begin our true engagement. If we have a daily receptive space where we allow the universe to speak to us, joy will find its way. If we truly believe that the freedom of other beings is as important as our own, if we truly respect that freedom, joy will wing toward us.

"Meditate upon the three conditions above and discover which ones will help you to be hospitable to joy."
{From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews}

Surviving Marriage

Surviving Marriage

"The first year's a year of kisses,
The second year's a year of fists."
   Scots Gaelic proverb


   The settling-down year of marriage needs to be handled with an understanding patience. And we may need to summon that same high level of patience again in another ten years, when long-term relationships often go into a place of stasis and stagnation. The chief method for surviving as a couple is to realize that two individuals brought into partnership have to find the point of balance and reciprocation. No longer separate, they keep developing as individuals even as the relationship itself is growing.
   Behaviors, comments, and feelings that initially seem to be warning signs of fallout often are nothing more (and nothing less) than signs of growth. These little buds and shoots need space to spread, and a reciprocal understanding of personal needs. Such matters cannot be intuited by our partner, however; they have to be communicated. Petty domestic resentments and larger-scale problems can incubate at an alarming rate beneath the surface of married life, sometimes because both partners have grown together sufficiently to feel that they have one consciousness and that their wants and needs should be obvious to the other. They are not.
    The second year of marriage does not have to be one of fists if we keep attuned to our own and our partner's needs, holding the communication channels open.

"Take time to speak of your needs and concerns to your significant other, and to inquire what his or her needs and concerns may be. If you are not in a relationship at present, consider a past relationship, ask yourself where and why the partnership worked."[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

The Passing of Arthur

The Passing of Arthur

"Be brave, be impeccable!
Endure challenge, be cheerful!
I go to the summer world
of Afallon, to recover,
But I'll come back to my land
Once more,"
   ___Thomas Gwynn Jones, "Arthur's Passing"

  The prophecy that King Arthur will return has been often uttered and widely believed throughout Britain and beyond. It was so strong a belief centuries ago that twelfth-century cleric Alan of Insulis wrote, "Preach about the market places and villages that Arthur the Briton is dead as other men are dead, and ....Hardly will you escape unscathed without being overwhelmed by curses or crushed by the stones of your hearers."  Arthur the British war-leader - the King Arthur of the later medieval legends - derives from a potent Celtic archetype the function of which is to maintain the integrity of the land. His ending is seen as no death, but as a time of recovery for the healing of his wounds, after which he will come again. This legend fueled his Latin title Rex Quondam Rexque Futurus: the King Who Was and Who Shall Be.
   There comes in every country's history a time of hardship and a corresponding time of shining deeds to overcome the hardship. When the land plummets into war or other difficulty, the inhabitants of the land need leaders who can reach into the very soul of the land and draw forth the necessary inspiration, courage, and resourcefulness to defend it and them. Every land has its own Arthur, called by a multitude of names, remembered in heroic stories that can be retold to encourage us in later times of trouble. And the same prophecy is uttered: that the hero or heroine is not dead,  but shall again.

"What is the sacred trust of your own land? Which figures and emblems have been associated with it? How do they endure?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Ancestral Dependence

Ancestral Dependence

"The one whose solitary boast is his lineage, has no
descendant of any virtue." 
    ____ Welsh proverb, (CM)

The Celtic people honored the keeping, remembrance, and repetition of genealogies and family lists. Such genealogies were 'memory tesident' in bards and poets, one of whose chief tasks was to recite these ancient lineages on important occasions. In our society, we generally leave such matters to the professional genealogist or herald, and so our own memory dwindles. As a result of this neglect, strange obsessions sometimes develop. People with no knowledge of their lineage sometimes invent family trees or make outrageously unsubstantiated claims regarding their descent. Such acts have a terrible pathos about them. At the other extreme, we find those who dine out on their ancestral achievements without any attempt to make their own mark. Both they and the people who invent their lineage fall into the trap of ancestral dependence. Whether actual or invented, our lineage is a path that moves through us to our own descendants. Our physical bloodline may have many great and good ancestors among its number, but their deeds do not flow through our veins or belong to us unless we make them ours by similar doing.
   Dependence upon the ancestors is often just a manifestation of laziness, a way of absolving ourselves from total engagement in life; it is also a form of theft that robs our hard-working ancestors of their credit. We cannot live in the reflected glory of ancestral honors without absconding from our own lives and missing the very real opportunities to become worthy ancestors in our turn.

"Honor your ancestors, known or unknown, by a worthy act of your own."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Conflict

Conflict

"on Tuesday they dressed in their finery,
On Wednesday their common desire was better,
On Thursday envoys were chosen,
On Friday carnage was assessed,
On Saturday action was forthright,
On Sunday blood blades were distributed,
On Monday they were thigh-deep in blood."
    ___ Aneirin, "Y Gododdin" (trans CM)

   The battle of Catreath in A.D. 600, fought between the northern Britons and the Angles, is commemorated in this epic Welsh poem. The resolution of conflict is never simple. We may long and pray for peace to come, but it cannot be build upon shaky foundations of wished-for-pacification. We cannot tiptoe around areas of conflict forever. If we truly want to seek peaceful solutions, we have to be actively prepared to deal with conflict. Principles of arbitration and conflict resolution are traditionally part of the druid path: when conflicts, arguments and differences arose in ancient times, a druid was consulted as an arbitrator.

"Meditate upon some area of your life where you are in conflict with another person.  Visualize your opponent as an innocent child, an uncertain teenager, a mature adult, a wise elder. Cease to demonize your opponent. Consider how your conflict warps the world's web, the great net of life and consciousness that binds us all together. With your own issue of conflict in mind, repeat this prayer for peace, written by druid Cairisfiona Worthington:

Deep within the still center of my being may I find peace.

Silently within the quiet of the Grove may we share peace.

Gently within the greater circle of humankind may we radiate peace.

    Take a period of silence to allow solutions to arise."

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

Ordinary Things

Ordinary Things

"There are three slender things that support the world:
the slender stream of cow's milk;the slender blade of
green corn in the ground; the slender thread over the
hands of a skilled woman."
  ___ancient Irish triad


    The comfort and nurture we derive from dairy products is the gift of the cow, that supremely important animal to the Celtic world. The cow, a unit
of wealth, was so highly prized that it is remembered in the heavens among Gaelic speakers who know the Milky Way as 'the Way of the White Cow.'
The fertility of the fields was always considered a measure of how committed a ruler or chieftain was to his land and people: poor crops were an indication of poor rulership. Along with the milk of the cow, the bannock (loaf) of bread, made up the staple diet of most people before the advent of the New World potato, so grain was another measure of prosperity and well-being.
    Before the coming of industrial looms, all clothing was made laboriously by hand. The woman of the house (with the help of her daughters) clothed her entire family; she would take the unwashed wool, comb and card it, and then time-consuming spin it from the distaff until it could be labor-intensively woven on a hand-loom.  That wool kept the cold out, but the greatest skill went into weaving fine linen garments for wear next to the skin. It is by the help of the ordinary things that much of our own living is supported. In different countries, there are different staple grains and foodstuffs, different materials. From their slender existence our own is sustained.

"What three ordinary things are the supporters of your life? Make your own personal triad."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

The Language of Winter

The Language of Winter

"We have all of us eaten the pomegranate seed
of language, and we are its Persephone in the
ways of structuring our experiences of ourselves
and the world."
   ___ John Moariarty, "Turtle Was Gone a Long Time"


   John Moriarty refers here to the Greek myth of Persephone, who went into the Underworld with the god Hades. When sought by her mother, Demeter, she was licensed by the gods to return to the Middle World again, as long as she had eaten anything while in the Underworld. But Persephone had partaken of six pomegranate seeds, and so it was judged that she could return to earth for only half of the year. During those six months that she remains in the Underworld, we have winter. Similarly, the ways in which we think and speak, the concepts that we use to frame experience, give their own limited seasonal coloration to our culture. Meaning is submerged in the very words w speak. We have little sophistication of expression in the West to speak about deeper, mythic states, which is probably why we have such a correspondingly rich folk-story tradition, which speaks of nothing else.
    The revolt against the language of winter is everywhere around as people attempt to explain their own subtle experiences. This revolt often expresses itself in extreme ways - as an unhealthy stretching out toward the bizarre, the unexplained, and the alien, when all the time the common but subtle experiences of life are so ordinary. When we begin to use the wisdom of the pomegranate seeds of language with the insight of those who have experienced the deep riches of the Underworld, we will be liberated Persephones, able to bring beautiful spring to our bare acres of expression.

"Recall a subtle experience of your own. Write it down or speak it onto tape in a way that captures the mood and experience."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

The Mantle of the Universe

The Mantle of the Universe

"You never enjoy the world aright,
till the sea itself flowth in your veins,
till you are clothed with the heavens,
and crowned with the stars."
   ____ Thomas Traherne, "Centuries"


   To re-experience the integration of ourselves with nature, we have to take ourselves out of our four walls and set our life-story in the context of nature's terms. This means becoming especially aware of one area of the natural world - an area that is our listening place, an area where we tune out of the old broadcasts of our separateness and return to the original station of the universal belonging. In that place we enter into a new relationship with nature, conducting a dialogue of one with the other, in which both parties speak and both listen to the other.

   In this communion, a further state of belonging may be experienced - initially just in brief glimpses, then sometimes for longer and longer periods. It is the condition that poet and mystic Thomas Traherne speaks of above: the temporary loss of our sense of identity, a softening of the hard boundaries that separate us from the tree and the animal, from the earth and the sunset. In this condition, we experience ourselves as no different from nature or anything within it. We come into true relationship with nature in such moments, which strip away our hubris, our control, and our feelings of separation and bring us once more under the mantle of the universe.

"Sit in nature and just be with it, without judgment or mental comment. Let your attention be drawn to one feature around you. Be present to it as though it were another being: listen and speak; speak and listen. Finally, experience that feature and yourself occupying the same space, breathing the same air. Just be. Slowly reverse the steps above until you are fully restored to your own body and consciousness again."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Transmigration of Souls

Transmigration of Souls

"The same spirit has a body again
elsewhere, and death is but the
mid-point of a long life."
   ___Lucan, "Pharsalia"


    The druidic belief in the transmigration of souls is evidenced in Celtic literature, as a simultaneous belief in metamorphosis (a changing of one's shape), metempsychosis  (a passing of the soul into another form), and reincarnation (a rebirth into a different human life).  All three of these beliefs are evidenced in the story of Gwion (GWEE'on), who when chased by the goddess Ceridwen (Ker-RID'wen) assumes the shape of hare, fish, bird and corn before being reborn as Taliesin (Tal-ee-ESS'in). In the story of the Irish heroine Etain (e-TAWN) we learn of her enchantment into a pool of water, a worm, and a fly - metamorphosis in action, but when the fly is consumed in a cup of wine by Queen Etar (e-TAR), a new Etain is reborn in a human shape (reincarnation).
    Today many people are preoccupied with their past incarnations, more anxious to know the details of former lives than to get on and live the life they now inhabit. Such details rarely come to memory, however, and those that do are often very private and significant  pointers to aspects of the current life that need attention. The Celtic belief in transmigration does not involve the past-dependency or life-sapping introversion that most modern reincarnation belief does.
   The Celts attitude toward transmigration rather draws upon the bodily and genetic knowledge of former lives that inform this life in active and positive ways. It does not linger in the past but lives attuned to the present, with a fearlessness toward death that reflects a healthy soul-spiral lived to the full.

"What wisdom do you carry from the former habitations of your soul?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Necessity

Necessity

"The art of our necessities is strange
That can make vile things precious."
   ___ William Shakespeare, "King Lear"


   A touch of necessity may remind us uncomfortably of our mortality and transience, but it can also bring us to greater resourcefulness and clarity. The human potential to overcome adversity has been proved in many extreme and hazardous circumstances. Those who can make do survive; those who are helpless without their conveniences do not. When life is pared to the bare bones, when stone soup is all there is to eat, the survivor will ensure that at least the soup is hot and reviving!
   The clarity that necessity brings, that we feel when inessentials are stripped away, can be a great gift - one that helps put our life back on track. This is why many cultures have spiritual beggars and mendicants, men and women who forswear the luxuries of life in order to experience the space that necessity makes around them.
   The ownership of good things by all is an ideal within our society. Though that ideal is complicated by the fact that one person's luxury is another person's necessity, by any standard we are far from it. Valuing the things that matter and undervaluing our ability to resourceful will help us to a more simple and less consumer-focused way of life, as well as setting a scale of necessity that brings us clarity.

"Choose one convenient thing on which you depend in your life and contemplate the difference its lack would create. How would you manage without it, what wold use use instead?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

The Forger of the Elements

The Forger of the Elements

"A shoemaker makes shoes without leather,
With all the four elements together,
Fire, Water, Earth, Air
And every customer takes two pair."
   ____ancient British riddle

   This riddle refers to the work of the blacksmith, who heats the fire for the furnace by means of the bellows, who hammers the softened metal into shape with his hammer, and then plunges it into the water to cool and fix its shape. The blacksmith customers are of course horses, who clop off with their two pair of shoes. The smith is a revered, almost magical figure among many traditional peoples worldwide because of the alchemy of his trade, which forges with the help of the elements. Those among the gods who are smiths play a pominent role in the defense of the land and the mysteries of the afterlife: the Welsh Gofannon and the Irish  Goibniu (Go-VANN'on and GUB'noo), for example, both make weapons of extraordinary power. The power to curtail life or to prolong it is part of the smith-gods skill. Goibniu - when he was not smithing - presided over the otherworldly feasting of heroes, supplying the food and drinkthat preserved the lives of all who partook of them.
    Whoever forges with the help of the elements is seen as a worthy guardian, one whose luck will embrace all in his household. The Celtic smith-god is one who stands between the worlds as a teacher and mediator of otherworldly skills and healing, and as one who can lead the dead from this world to the other. As we draw nearer to the festival of Samhain and toward the dark half of the year, we approach the time of introspection when the elements of our own life's forging can be refined and appreciated. When they no longer hold the life within our body, when our soul goes free of this life, they will become available for the smith to reforge another.

"How are the elements part of your own life's forging?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Criticism

Criticism

"To correct is good, for the mind accepts
correction; not so is reproach, against which
the mind rebels."
   ___ Colman Mac Beognae, "Apgitir Chabaid"
                    (trans CM)


   Certain kinds of criticism stick in the mind like a thorn. The words of the cleric Colman are specifically addressed to teachers within his monastery, but all who are in positions of authority and responsibility should guard their words carefully, lest reproach rather than correction come to their lips. This is especially true for parents, teachers, and all who deal with the young, who are especially susceptible to reproach. Continued criticism offered in place of helpful suggestions, can over whelm a child and leave her with little self-esteem. Correction shapes technique and eliminates errors over the course of time, until the student himself becomes expert, able to guide and correct in his turn. Reproach, on the other hand, is like lime: whatever it touches immediately shrinks away. Wherever reproach has spread its acid, nothing further grows.
    Criticism spring from three desires: a desire to improve, a desire to detract, and a desire to hide the same fault in oneself. The last of these desires is the deadliest: by casting criticism on others, we throw a convenient smoke screen over our own faults, which often perfectly mirror the thing we have pointed at elsewhere. The only way to guard against unwarranted criticism in daily life is to think first, keep silent when possible, and speak only words that will be received without undue offence.

"Consider a recent situation in which you were criticized or you criticized others. Was criticism or reproach used? What wisdom can you learn from the situation?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Expectation and Remembrance

Expectation and Remembrance

"Still thou art blest, campar'd wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But, och! I backward cast mty ee [eye],
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear!"
   ___ Robert Burns, "To a Mouse"


   It is only humans who fetter themselves with the chains of past and future, animals experience a continual present. That they do not inhabit their memories or expectations is a blessed condition for them that we cannot share. We do not know at what point early hominids evolved from this blessed condition, although many of the world's creation myths speak about the fall from that state. Remembrance of the past and expectation of the future have proved a dangerous knowledge. The past has been used to dictate the false paradigms of history to terrible ends:  the victim's justifications for terrorism; the bully's justifications for conquest, suppression and genocide. The future has thrown back its shadow in no less starling ways: the utopian idealist's program of eugenics; the defensive group's overmilitarization. It would seem that when we call upon past and future out of fear, we betray our animal origins again and again.
   Expectation and remembrance can be balanced by the eternal now. By respecting the ancestors and the descendants equally, we can always find resourceful solutions to present difficulties, especially if we access the daring and courage within us without fear. A further evolution of human from animal origins will arrive when we can achieve the balance of remembrance and expectation with the now that is happening, now...and now....and now.

"Attend to the eternal present for an hour, an afternoon, or a whole day, without conscious recourse to remembrance or expectation."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Authority and Authenticity

Authority and Authenticity

"Our deeds remain single till they wed perseverance."
     ___ Welsh proverb (trans CM)


Many people seek validation for their spiritual pathway. Because we may have garnered the components of our spiritual search from many different places and traditions, we often have a feeling of fraudulence or lack of authenticity. Our efforts to make sense of these components, to make a living habitation or pathway from them, are haunted by fear of authority. We feel that if we change the received pattern, if we deviate from the spiritual tradition into which we were born, we will be punished or shunned. This has certainly been the message given by organized religion to those on a spiritual search: authority is withheld from those who heretically deviate in our society; authenticity can derive only from the centrally authorized mandate.
   No human being shares the exact same spiritual path as another. Each person constellates various elements of spirituality that speak to him, borrowing from old traditions and new perspectives. Finding authority for what we do, who we are, cannot come solely from the human world: authenticity arrives when we have begun to move from the known into the unknown through the unique thresholds that life opens to us. Perseverance is the key.

Answer these questions to get a sense of your own search for authority and authenticity:
* Whose approval am I seeking?
* Who encourages me?
*How do I gain vitality? What drains my vitality?
*Who/what do I need to control?
To whom/what do I consistently relinquish power?
*What do I need for self-nurture?"
*Which old repeating patterns prevent me living in balance?"

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

Uninvited Guests

Uninvited Guests

"Three things that come without asking: fear, jealousy,
and love."     ____ Scots Gaelic triad


   When fear grips us, our ability to act quickly or think clearly evaporates; we may become completely petrified and powerless. Fear often skims along just below the surface of perception, ready to appear when given  opportunity. Its appeasing can lead to avoidance: we can be thrown out of the house of our soul by extreme fear. Fear cannot be evicted or overcome as such, though it can be transformed. Fear holds the key to lock away our abilities. It gain access to them again, we have to grasp the key and transform fear into power, recognizing that one becomes the other, just as water becomes ice.
    Jealousy brings with it a fierce twisting of our perceptions so that everything concerning the object of our jealousy is distorted. When Cuchulainn fell in love with another woman, his wife Emer, was consumed by a terrible jealousy that changed her perceptions utterly: "What's red is beautiful, what's new is bright, what's tall is fair, what's familiar is stale. The unknown is honored, the known is neglected."  The only cure for Cuchulainn's enchantment and Emer's jealousy was for the God of the Otherworld, Manannan, to shake his cloak between them to bring them both forgetfulness. By all account, this is the only socially acceptable antidote to this particular guest.
    Love is not altogether a welcome guest either. Its coming is often accompanied by disorientation and upheaval.  It is frequently confounded with illness, as when King Ailell took to his bed with an unspecified disorder: his doctors finally proclaimed that he was suffering from "the two deadly pangs which no doctor can cure: love and jealousy."  The only remedy for love is reciprocated love; this and nothing else can ease the pangs.

"Which was the last of these uninvited guests to visit you? How did you cope? What did you learn from its visit?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Sleep an the Soul

Sleep And the Soul

"In sleep what are you, in sleep,
in the ebb of the tide:
a body dormant, a thing breathing,
or a soul afloat?
What are you in sleep
in the small watch of the night
but a ray of life gathering forces,
the secret retreat of light."
   ___Ross Nichols, "The Cosmic Shape"


   While we may not have a strong sense of what our soul does in its mysterious circuit of the night, most of us value the coming of darkness as a time of quiet, of winding down from the day's activities, of restoring ourselves in the cavern of sleep. For those who remember some of their dreams, there is the added pleasure of sharing in the adventures of the soul. Sometimes these are only a recapitulation of the day's activities; other times they are strange revelation whose meanings we can only guess at. And very occasionally, we find a treasury of meaning so overwhelming as to make us conscious of the soul's capacity.
    The circuits of the soul during sleep enter into a timelessness in which our past and future are inextricably mixed, in which we meet the dead, encounter the expected, and fly and dance and swim through the elements that we normally do not move within. Whether or not the daytime consciousness has a spiritual framework or dedication, the night wandering soul encounters spiritual allies and experiences inspirational truths. Within the compass of sleep and night, the soul explores the unseen universe with skillful knowledge, leaving the body as a secret retreat of the light that will emerge at dawning. But it is in the night that the light shines brightest and can be perceived.

"Live the next twenty-four hours with awareness of the interconnectedness of night and day, soul and body."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Boasting

Boasting

"As blackbirds are to swans, as ounces to hundredweights,
As shapes of peasant-women are to noble queens....
As drones are to great music, as rushlights are to candles,
So is any sword to my own sword."
    ___ Saying of Cokman mac Leinin (trans CM)


   Most accounts of the early Celts note that boastfulness was virtually an art form among them, often leading to factionalism and argumentative competitiveness. Theses factors were instrumental time after time in the downfall of sovereign Celtic nations, an inability to combine forces proving disastrous when organized foreign armies came against them.
   When boasting is lighthearted and tongue-in-cheek, when everyone else is in on the joke, it can be a pleasant after-supper pastime. Such boasting was often the custom during and after feasts: heroes would boast their deeds and possessions in a way that now reminds us of the bluster of world-class wrestlers. But when boasting becomes seriously competitive, there can be problems.
    If we boast in the spirit of competition - whether we stretch the truth broadly or just embellish it - sooner or later we will be asked to run the race. One thoughtless boast can outrun our ability to perform it very easily; a lifetime habit of boasting can swathe the boaster in a garment of illusion that will eventually be seen through.

"Check up on your own boast factor and ensure that it will not disturb the peace. Remember times when boasting caused you trouble."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

The Triskele of Energy

The Triskele of Energy

"Energy is eternal delight."
    ___William Blake, "Energy is Eternal Delight"


   The Celtic peoples had a sacred symbol that embodied the energy of the three-legged cross - we see this spiraling movement of life. Is perpetual motion, turning its three legs ever sunwise, is the very turas of delight. The three-legged whirligig of the triskele appears in Celtic art from the fifth century B.C. on, adorning many articles as the central design feature. It is a sign of good fortune, all things moving sunwise in the centrifugal dance of life. The triskele preserves the wearer from scathe and gives him a long life.
   The triskele spins like a whirlpool or propeller blade, lending its threefold motion to the wheel of life. Stasis is not in its nature. The innate triplicity of the cosmos underscores the whole of Celtic culture, providing a sacred impetus for all action. Each leg of the triskele is one limb of the sacred spirit of all life; all three legs together imbue the universe with the energy to activate the body, heart, and mind of all beings with physical vitality, emotional responsiveness and mental agility, unlocking the wealth of our potential from sheer inertia, emotional stasis, and mental laziness. The energy of the threefold triskele runs through every part of the universe and is available to us all. By drawing consciously upon its qualities, we can grace our lives with an ever-living energy that encompasses the beginning, middle, and end of everything we undertake.

"If there is any leg of the triskele to which you are unresponsive, look to the appropriate areas in your own life to see what fear, doubt or uncertainty is keeping you static and unmoving in your development."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

The Land of Women

The Land of Women

"Do not fall on a bed of sloth,
Let not your intoxication overcome you,
Begin a voyage across the clear sea,
If you would reach the Land of Women."
   ___"Voyage of Bran mac Febal," early Irish text
    (trans CM)


   These words are addressed to the Irish hero Bran mac Febal by an otherworldly woman who summons him to set forth on his quest to the Land of Women - a place that in early Celtic tradition was considered to be the abode of bliss, satisfaction and achievement. She urges him to clear his sights, attend to the task in hand, conjure a vision of beauty and delight, and set off toward it. Regions of the Celtic otherworld can be reached by the voyage of the soul across the severing waters of the west, containing a series of islands that must be encountered in sequence before the traveler comes to the innermost Land (or Island ) of Women. The wisdom-keepers of the soul-voyage reveal themselves as a sisterhood of women who guard the mysteries of life. In Britain there is the myth of Avalon being guarded by Morgen and her eight sisters; in Gaul, there are reports of sisterhoods dedicated to teaching, fostering, prophecy, healing, crafts, shape-shifting and weather magick.
   While we may not be summoned so dramatic a way as Bran, we each have a quest to which we are called. This quest concerns the fulfillment of our life's purpose and is about using our innate gifts in the widest possible way. The inhabitants of the Land of Women have no patience with sloth. They are the energizers, keepers and empowerers who maintain the dynamo of the world. To do this work, they need our assistance and application. If we make our voyage toward them, we will indeed find our way to the goal of desires.

"What gifts have your faery godmothers given you? How are you using them to further your quest?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Measuring the Ages

Measuring the Ages
"Three stakes equal a hound's life; three hounds a steed;
three steeds a man; three men an eagle; three salmon a 
yew tree; three yew trees a ridge; three ridges from the
beginning to the end of the world."
   ___ traditional Irish reckoning of time

  Traditional measurements of time such as the one above do not trade in numbered years but in lifetimes and generations - the chronological criteria that predate numeration. The Irish peasants from whom this saying was collected explained that stakes were hedges of woven hazel twigs and that ridges, or eitrat, were the old wide furrows left from pre-historic plowing, which have left their indelible mark on the earth. In measurements such as this, the farming people connected themselves through their agricultural work with that of their ancestors, who first began to farm. Throughout Celtic folk stories and legends, mythic beings such as long-living animals and plants represent whole aeons of time and reconnect us with our beginnings.
   The memory of life is retained by animals, plants, and stones in a true sense that in no way diminishes our ancestral Celtic wisdom. Each cell of matter is encoded with memory in ways that are becoming clear to science as we investigate the mysteries of DNA.  The subtle changes in life forms over millennia reveal new relationships and connections that we never dreamed of. Time is relative to our personal experience. We tend to think in terms of when we were in school, the year we moved to the house on the corner, the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated, the time our friend visited from France, and so on. We do not always remember which year or month, although we can clearly visualize the masses of cherry blossoms on the tree or the terrible heat on that occasion. The passage of time through our memory leaves its own landmarks, which serve to connect us to the turas of the ages.

"What are the landmarks of your existence? How do you measure your lifetime? How far does your living family memory extend?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Burdens

Burdens

"God/dess fits the back to the burden."
     ___ Scots proverb


   Whether great or small, burdens fall. We may feel that we do not deserve our particular fate, that some spiritual credit must be stored up somewhere that will remit our burden. If this Scots proverb were written the other way around - that God/dess fits the burden to the back - perhaps we would feel better about the whole sorry business; but it is not. When burdens fall upon us, we cannot shift responsibility for them; they are indeed ours to carry. But our carrying power is something we cannot know until we try. Certainly there are many who have sunk under the strain into the distress of physical or nervous breakdown.
   We can prepare our back for heavy responsibilities by bearing the strain with fortitude and human resourcefulness, by not giving up but seeking better and more effective ways. The most effective of those ways, the greatest help in fitting our back to carry whatever has befallen us, is simple beseeching, asking help of our most powerful spiritual sources to open the ways to possibility, to enable fresh perspectives that take the doggedness from our step, to bring the balm that will draw out our pain. Neither the good, the bad, nor the fortunate are spared from the burdens of life, but we can find ways of coping if we ask for help.

"Whatever burdens you are carrying, leave them at the end of your bed before you sleep, entrusting them to your spiritual allies and asking for help to take them up with better heart on the morrow."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Kindling the Hearth

Kindling the Hearth

"Mother of our mothers,
Foremothers strong,
Guide our hands in yours,
Remind us how to kindle the hearth."
____ Caitlin Matthews
    "A Blessing for the Hearth Keeper"

   The hearth is a special shrine that is still ceremonially tended in some Gaelic households. Before retiring, the woman of the house 'smoors' the fire - that is, covers any fresh fuel with ashes so that the fire is banked in and slowly burning. In the morning, the fire can then be easily woken without recourse to fresh kindling. Three blocks of peat (turf) are then placed in the grate, their ends touching so that they radiate out in the customary three-legged triskele symbol, and a prayer is made over the fire, normally invoking Brigid as saint or goddess, since she is the protectress of the hearth. Among traditional peoples, the tending of the hearth is one of the chief duties that fall to women,who also tend to be the repositories of practical spiritual traditions. These two tasks seem to be interlinked: keeping the hearth and maintaining spiritual practice are daily, habitual tasks that cannot be avoided without loss of integrity to the whole household. Today, we may no longer kindle the hearth, but this does not exempt us from kindling our spirit. Many people now incorporate small domestic rituals into their daily life: lighting a candle upon their hearth-shrine, acknowledging their guiding spirits and allies with flowers and offerings, spending time in meditation in a quiet room, making an earth-shrine in their gardens and window boxes. As each home becomes again the focus of dedicated spiritual practice, the hearth-light is rekindled and we remember our own part in the reverence of Spirit as ancestral hands guide our unremembering ones.

"Create your own hearth-shrine and make it the kindling point of your spiritual practice every day."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews"]

The Illumination of Love

The Illumination of Love

"You are the star of each night,
You are the brightness of every morning,
You are the story of each guest,
You are the report of every land."
    Scots Gaelic blessing (trans CM)


    Celtic love-lyrics serenade the beloved by setting a particular love in the context of the universe, for the beloved is the one by whom the lover is connected to the wider world. Time, place, and dimension are utterly confounded in love, fused in one focused obsession. Being in love puts us in touch with the vital life-spark of every being, the commonplace becomes extraordinary and the daily round becomes a dance of joy. We greet and meet everything in a trance of deep enchantment.
   But the real center of the universe turns around the beloved whatever we turn our hands to do, wherever we look, the heart pulls the mind and other faculties back to the object of our love. The beloved becomes a lamp that illumines the dear world with its special ray. We find that the metaphors of poets leap readily to our lips, as in the blessing above, when we seek to express the immensity of our love. There are few lovers who have not at some time recorded their love in verse - however unskilled, however tentative.
    As the floodgates of emotion are opened in us, a greater light is available to us, inundating the world in a fierce brightness. Though the sun grows weaker and the stars be overcast, though the dawn be misty, though the news be bad, the beloved shines over all and encloses us within an eternal story that the whole world is telling.

"Make a blessing for the one you love, drawing on the metaphors that express your own feelings and perceptions."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Choosing a Soul-Friend

Choosing a Soul-Friend

"When is someone able to witness to the souls of others? When she is able to witness her own soul first. When is someone able to correct others? When he can first correct himself."
   ___ Colman Mac Beognae, "Apgitir Chabaid" I(trans CM)

   The idea of the anam-chara (anum-KHAR'a), or soul-friend, arose in the early Celtic monastic tradition. Ideally, each monk or nun had his or her own spiritual advisor and companion, who was sometimes also the person's confessor. The task of a soul-friend was not to sit in judgment or to condemn, but to witness the person's soul and its journey through life. The role of soul-friend also included offering suggestions and setting tasks that would help correct the person's imbalances.
   Each one of us needs our own special soul-friend, someone who can offer nonjudgmental attention as well as words of encouragement, someone in whom we can confide our secret fears and apprehensions as well as our joys and successes. Soul-friends offer us a very necessary reality check and bullshit detector when we delude ourselves or get into deeper water than our abilities can support. A soul-friend, chosen from the ranks of our mature and discreet friends, is one who loves us sincerely and holds the good of our soul paramount.
   A soul-friend must show resourceful perception and gentle strength, dismantle illusion and mirror reality clearly, encourage practice and cultivate trust, curb the tendency to be rash but not diminish the zeal that fuels it. The choice of a soul-friend to accompany us on our spiritual journey is determined by her unswerving dedication to our soul beyond considerations of emotional appeasement or polite restraint. Only the truth and a sensitive hand can bring polish to our soul.

"Who is your soul-friend? What qualifications do you have to be a soul-friend to someone else?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]


  

The Renewing Spiral of Life

The Renewing Spiral of Life

"It is one of their tenets that nothing perishes,
but, as the Sun and the Year,
is renewed and refreshed in its revolutions."
   ___ Robert Kirk, "The Secret Commonwealth"


   The Rev. Robert Kirk was a Scots clergyman with a great interest in faeries and the second sight. His research caused him to talk to many Gaelic people who had firsthand knowledge of these matters. He formed a whole philosophy
of the faery world, including this understanding of the spiraling pilgrimage of life. The wisdom of any turas lies not in the arrival, but in the traveling. With our modern goal-centered, destination-seeking perspective, we have forgotten this concept of the renewal of the spiral of life. We pay attention to the end, to the certificate of achievement, to the self-congratulation of conclusion, when we should be more involved in our spiraling progress through life. Each year, our own spiral path, things change and yet remain unchanging,l freshly and eternally rediscovered, a delight to our senses, powerful enough to move our soul. This unchanging renewal is chanted by mystics all over the world who declare that 'there is nothing new under heaven.'
   Yet these eternal things do not feel stale or repetitive to us when we experience them. They are rediscovered in moments when we have been exiled from or have neglected their savor and wonder: the unstained clarity of a new day, the urgent grasp of sexual need and its assuaging, the laughter of our child, which stays the same whatever age he reaches. All these things are ever new and always the same; time and perspective alone have renewed them for us.

"What is old and always new, what is deep and always true for you this day?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Sacred Encounters

Sacred Encounters

"A sacred being cannot be anticipated;
it must be encountered."
  ___  W. H. Auden, "The Dyer's Hand"


   Many people who are about to embark upon their spiritual quest come to consult me (Caitlin Matthews). They are curious about what they will find and who they will encounter. They have high expectations about the spiritual beings they are going to look up and
'work with.'  As gently as I can, I try to explain that though they may be interested in encountering particular gods or goddesses, animals or heroic characters, they may not necessarily find the ones they hope to. Sometimes, it is true, there already exists a special relationship between a person and a spiritual being - a strong, enduring bond that takes no account whatever of the kind of spiritual discipline practiced or quest undergone. Whether that person treks into the realms of Christianity, or the regions of Buddhism, this being will turn up - sometimes baffling out of place, sometimes very much at home - in her meditations and dreams.
    The most potent spiritual help may come from nameless and sometimes unknown figures who appear in meditation, soul-flights, dreams and visions. Occasionally, however, our helpers are well-known - great figures of history, myth or religion. At those times we may feel humbled or overwhelmed by the sacred encounter, as well as suspicious that we may have made up the encounter from an overactive imagination. Listen to the advice and wisdom that these figures give you, if they come to you; see if it works practically, if it is trustworthy. If everything checks out, you may well be privileged to be accompanied by a sacred being who is known and loved by many. But remember that our spiritual guides and teachers often take forms different from the ones we expect. Do not reject their teachings simply because their appearances does not accord with your expectations. If the help is good, then so is the teacher.

"Who are your spiritual friends and teachers? Visit one today." 
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

October

Month of October - penetrable is te shelter;
Yellow tops of the birch, solitary the summer dwelling;
Full of fat the birds and the fish."
    anon, Welsh poem

October sees the last days of autumn and the presage of winter. The themes of this month are the ordinary and extraordinary, conflict and consensus, adapbility and renewal, combat, and competition, the work of women, the reality of joy.