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]