Hogmanay

Hogmanay

"I am now come to your country,
Renewing the duty of Hogmanay;
Of its mysteries, what need I tell?
It began in the time of our ancestors."
   ___ Scots Gaelic song of Hogmanay (trans CM)


   The festival of Hogmanay - a word whose origins are lost - is celebrated in Scotland every New Year's Eve. A festival that outshine Christmas even today. Hogmanay is celebrated with vigor by every Scot. Rich food and strong drink are abundant; shining music and lively dancing are enjoyed.  The custom of first-footing - of receiving with celebration the first guest across the threshold after the stroke of midnight - is still practiced. According to tradition, the first-footer should be a dark-haired person from outside the household who is able to bring good fortune to the house; healthy, young, and vigorous people are particularly welcomed. The first-footer brings a 'handsel' (or a token of good fortune) to the household.  This is usually fuel, food or a bottle of whisky. The first-footer is then hospitably welcomed and given a gift, usually joining in the party that runs until the small hours of the morning.
   The magical turning of the old used-up year into a fresh new one has little to do with chronology and much to do with the hope of new beginnings and all that they bring. The old year can bring no more opportunities to us, but we can give it a good send-off with a party that simultaneously welcomes the new possibilities ahead. If the celebrations of this evening become sometimes riotous or rowdy, it is worth remembering that the mysterious crack between one year and another is best leaped rather than crawled over! In this time between worlds and times, nothing is as orderly as normal. It is a time to celebrate life and the return of the sun from its darkest, deepest depths.

"Welcome the new year over your threshold and see the old year out with some fancy footwork and good cheer!"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Gathering in the Year

Gathering in the Year

"It is the year's end that the fisherman
tells of his fishing."
   ___ Scots Gaelic proverb


   The end of the calendar year is the time when we traditionally look forward and make good resolutions for the coming year. But before we can do that, we need also to make a summation of the past year's shape. It may be helpful to wind the year backward, retracing our steps from November back to January. As we go backward, month by month, we can consider the following questions: What was the major theme of this month? Which events made the greatest impression on my life? What did I achieve? What mistakes do I regret?. The point is not to indulge in blame and guilt but to neutrally survey our findings.
    Now look back over the year as a whole and make a summation of its overall pattern and effect upon you. What has this year meant in real terms to you. How has it changed the world? Which new figures and influences have come into your life?
   Now for the third part of this review. Looking at the year just past, move forward from January to December, asking questions about each month: What seeds were sown in this month that affect me now? What wisdom have I learned? Which patterns and connections are poised to continue unfolding in the year ahead?  Which obstruction or unhelpful aspects of my own behavior need to change? Having made our review, we can now consider the year ahead and lay down pathways of resolution and intention that will help guide our steps.

"Make your review of the year as suggested above."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Heart's Desire

Heart's Desire

"You shall receive whatever gift you may name, as far as wind
dries, rain wets, sun revolves; as far as sea encircles and earth
extends."    ___ Culhwch and Olwen, from "The Mabinogian"
  (trans CM)


   How many times since childhood have we pondered our heart's desire? When we were young, we grasped the notion of bountiful giving and the granting of wishes very easily from the folk and faery stories that we read. In our growing up, we began to struggle against the denial of heart's desire. As adults, most of us have given over even contemplating it.
    The heart's desire is not an illusory or unachievable ambition if we can suspend our adult disbelief. The true heart's desire is an integral potentiality, a germinated seed waiting to manifest. So what prevents us from achieving it? Our lives may be littered with unresolved and undeveloped wishes, all of which block the way to our true heart's desire. If we are to achieve the core of our wish, we must first rescind and cancel our immature wishes - unless, of course, we still wish to grow a monkey's tail, obtain a rocking horse, drive a steam engine, or marry Elvis Presley!  We must cancel our old and immature wishes by calling them back and revoking them, along with any other idle wishes we may have uttered and since forgotten. Then the way stands clear.
    If we can commune deeply upon our true heart's desire, rather than upon our fantasies, if we can envision it with every cell of our body and call to it, then we send a true song to make the pathway between ourselves and our heart's desire.

"What is your heart's desire? Which former wishes are preventing you from attaining it? Cancel them, as suggested above."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

The image above is a tarot card from Ms. Matthews tarot deck "The Celtic Wisdom Tarot" deck... It is a card titled Revelation of Art, from the Minor suite of Water.  It's Soul Wisdom is: "Wishes come true for those who keep the longing alive. Ensure that you really want what you wish for. Rescind any wishes that are no longer appropriate. What is your heart's true desire? 

The Chalice of Rememberance

The Chalice of Rememberance

"And when the circling year comes round,
And Christmas snows have wrapt the ground...
Take the cup, and drink the wine,
'Drinc heil' - as I to thee and thine."
    ___ John Sobieske Stuart, "With an Antique
   Crystal Cup and Ring"


   When death or accident befalls us at time of holiday, it is very difficult to re-engage with the general celebration. Some people choose to go away at this season rather than to relive difficult memories that accompany this time. Even the angle of the light or the weather, the carols and songs, the smell of rich foods can enhance the memory of loss. It seems altogether easier to go away somewhere without memories than force a cheerful countenance or dampen the celebrations of others.
    This process of anniversarial grieving is not widely understood: family and friends may attempt to draw the bereaved out of her grieving solitude into the heart of jollification, baffled and perhaps angry at the lack of response to their generosity. Grief and loss are not processes that can be hurried, however; the grieving one cannot 'pull herself together' or to order.
    A bridge of hope and connection can be erected on the anniversary by a simple ritual known as the chalice of remembrance. A liquid-filled glass that all present can drink from is set in front of a photograph or emblem that represents the dead person. Then all present speak simply and directly to the dead person, drinking to him but leaving a little of the liquid so that the last drink belongs to him. The remaining liquid is left overnight with a candle burning and then poured out upon the earth the next morning. In this way, the anniversary is marked, the mourning shared, and the circle of love reunited.

"Meditate upon other ritual acts that might be used to help mark grief and loss in ways that bring
integration to the bereaved."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Being Human

Being Human

"What is the thing the Creator never saw, that kings see but seldom and that I see every day?
The Creator never saw another the same as his
self, kings are scarce and see each other seldom, but I see my own kind every day - other folk like myself." 
   ___ Scots Gaelic riddle (trans CM)


    During the twelve of Christmas, a Lord of Misrule was appointed to created games, riddles and forfeits to amuse the company. The riddle above with its witty answer, is a typical brain-teaser. This holiday time of gathering offers us the opportunity to consider what it is to be human. Being human does not keep us from kinship with others animals: the same life passes through our veins, we share the same ability to perceive with the senses, and our bodies die and decay in the same way. What makes us different from animals is our self-awareness and our ability to use our minds in complex and sophisticated ways; our application of language; our ability to record information outside of our memories.
    There are many stories of deities who have aspired to the human condition, gods and goddesses who have purposely chosen the gifts of mortality in order to share and exponentially understand what it is to be human. Within this extraordinary interchange, the divine becomes briefly human, just as through our spiritual striving we attempt to understand the gifts of mortality.
    This wonderful reciprocation of the earthly and otherworldly realms seems to be part of the mystery that underlies the depths of midwinter, a season that was understood in the ancient world to be the time when sacred beings incarnated, to be numbered among the peoples of the earth, to understand the gifts of being human. If our human state is to much sought after, how much more precious seems our mortality and its many gifts?

"What, for you, are the gifts of being human?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

The King of All Birds

The King of All Birds

"The wren, the wren, the king of all birds
On St. Stephen's Day was caught in the furze,
Although he is little, his family is great
So rise up, good people, and give us a treat."
   ___ "The Wren's Song"  traditional Irish lay


   The old Celtic custom of hunting for the wren, killing it, and passing it around the village in a holly-bush care in return for money, food or drink continues in Ireland on this December day, although a wren is no longer killed. Instead, wren-boys take an empty decorated wren-cage around their neighborhood and beg for treats. The origins of this custom are lost to us, but we may conjecture. A folk story common across Europe tells how the birds had a battle to see who would be their king. The contest required all the birds to fly into the sky and see how near they could get to the sun. As all the birds climbed higher only the eagle could be seen soaring above the others on its powerful wings. It loudly claimed the kingship, asserting that it had risen higher than the rest. Then a little voice cried out from its back, 'But I am higher even than you!'   It was the tiny wren, who was then made king of all birds.
    The wren or drelan, is the druid's bird, and its utterances and cries were once the subject of augury and divination by the ovates (or druidic seers). The oracular bird was clearly important to them and was protected throughout the year. Indeed, it is still thought to be unlucky to harm a wren. The sacrifice of living beings is very distasteful to us now, but our ancestors made offerings of precious life to create bridges between this world and the otherworld at certain times. The death and honoring of wrens seems to be inextricably associated with the returning of the sun: a rite of propitiation and celebration at once, a case of 'the king is dead, long live the king.'

"Set aside from your winter riches, your own charitable offering."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Sacred Life

Sacred Life

"Everything that lives is holy."
    ___ William Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"


   For hundreds of years, the false tale that whatever is alive is evil has been told: this tale has been told from fear and denial, from pain and rejection, as a way of explaining why things go wrong and why perfection cannot be expected. Many people regard the living world as a predominantly evil place, the only good beings are in heaven. Living defensively in the eye of evil is not a happy way to live. Fear and suspicion darken everything with a sad pall.
    The opposite view sees all life as worthy of respect, as potentially able to achieve its fullest stature. Of course, not every being alive reaches its potential; but then neither does it sink into irredeemable iniquity. Entertaining the possibility of all things living being able to achieve their potential of holiness is a powerful and supportive way to live.  But, like life-ways, even this view can be abused: when we live as though no harm could come, we are foolish rather than innocent.
   Life is a sacred gift that all beings receive. It is the manner of our living that makes all the difference. The way in which we relate to other living beings encourages them to change the world for good or violate the world for ill; the way in which we spend our lives illuminates or darkens those around us. But if we are not aware of the sacred potential in each living being, if we do not acknowledge it and respect it, we may become active agents of the soul's darkening. Everything that lives is holy because it is an abiding place of Spirit; every body is a home where the sacred gifts of Spirit may be born anew.

"Contemplate the living beings with whom you are in contact - not just human beings but the other living things of nature as well. Hold each of them in your heart and acknowledge their sacred gift."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Waiting for a Birth

Waiting For a Birth

"The world has tilted far
from the sun, from color and juice....
I am waiting for a birth that will
change everything."
   ____ Hilary Llewellyn-Williams, "The Tree Calendar"


    The rebirth of the sun begins on this day though it seems as short and dark as the previous ones. Although we prepare for the holiday season, there is another urgency in us - to consciously experience the mysterious change that comes over the world at this time, affecting all creatures.
   We do indeed wait for a 'birth that will change everything' and give us joy and fresh hope. For Christians this sense of waiting has its own special manifestation in the person of Jesus Christ and his Christmas birthday. But many earlier societies have also celebrated the birth of their special Revealer at this time, tuning into the implicit urgency for change and rebirth. Festivals of lights and stories of the triumph of light over darkness are celebrated and told. Our current bustle to conclude midwinter holiday preparations is like the mother's last-minute bustle to make things ready for the baby's birth.
    But what waits to be born for us at this time of the year?  It is a glorious, heroic light that blazes forth with the fierce directness of an innocence that we need now. It is a deep renewal in our lives that we crave; it is the rebirth of innate qualities that will not fail or become slothful or be deterred by obstacles that will be responsive and true, honest and enduring, bright and shining.
    In the busy celebratory days to come, take time acknowledge this very necessary rebirth that is happening within ourselves: time to draw apart and be still, to clear a space wherein we can be attentive to the change that is happening within us at the fulcrum of the year.

"Meditate upon what needs to be reborn in your own life. Which qualities, skill, and talents bring light and hope into your life?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

The Prayer of Midwinter

The Prayer of Midwinter

"Who is it who declaims the sun's arising?
Who is it who tells where the sun sets?"
    ____ Amergin, "Lebor Gabala Erenn"

    On the shortest day of the year, at dawn, a thin finger of dawn light passes into the aperture of Brugh na Boinne (BROOG na BOIN), otherwise known as Newgrange, Ireland. This megalithic enclosure was erected long before the Celtic peoples arrived in Ireland. We can all experience the wonder of this day if we rise before dawn to trace the track of the sun's turas on this, the shortest day of the year.
    Midwinter day gives the least period of light followed by the greatest period of darkness. For those who watched the heavens in ancient times, it must have seemed as if the sun was standing still or diminishing entirely. Nearly every culture has its own special celebrations to encourage the light on this day. Here is one that we can perform.
     Stand in the sunlight at midday, facing the sun, and tune your heart to the season of winter. If a song of thanksgiving rises in you, utter it. Now turn and face your shadow: this is the longest it can be at midday, far longer than it was at the autumn equinox. Consider the deeds of your life, the extent to which the shadow of your own influence has fallen upon the earth. Upon whom has it fallen? How has your own turas affected the world in which you live?  Turn once more to the sun and draw the sunlight deeply and thankfully into your body; feel it permeating your being. Be aware of the partnership between yourself and the vitality of life itself.
    Spend some time silently meditating upon the light in darkness: be aware of the potentialities of light that lie within the darkness; pray to become aware of the potentialities within your own soul, which are vaster and more mysterious than your manifest life.

"Commune with the shortest day and longest night, making your own prayer as suggested above."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

The Gifts We Really Want

The Gifts We Really Want

"Be sensible of your wants, that you may be
sensible of your treasures."
    ____ Thomas Traherne, "Centuries"

   At this time of year, when the commerciality of Christmas swamps sacred and seasonal considerations, we ask and are asked: "What do you want this year?"  True wants are not easily satisfied by prettily wrapped parcels; they are immensities of space within us that we often block up by needs and yearnings. To consider our real wants is often too frightening.l
    Our wants are sharper than multibladed razors with super-wrist action, more pungent than the lemon and ylang-ylang highlights of Excess - "the perfume that women will seduce for" - more gripping than the latest blockbuster video with scintillating SFX. Our real wants eat holes in us: never resting, never loving , never greeting, never finding, never seeking, never ever being satisfied deep down.
    Those ravenous wants define our treasures so truly. They create a Christmas list that no department store could supply: time to stop and enjoy, in a space of quietness and contentment, all the things we were put on earth do do; space to give and receive love reciprocally; grace to seek and find our spiritual joy; freedom from the tyranny of others' expectations and judgments; acceptance of ourselves as we truly are. But we can discover our true treasures and how near we actually stand to them. When we really listen to ourselves say, 'I haven't time to..... I never get to.....I'm sick of.....", we come within sight of our treasury - that wealth that goes on being unvisited year after miserable year.
   The miracle of self-permission and allowance, the willingness to receive, the gift of truth -these are the keys to unlock the treasury that has been open to us this long time.

"Make a list of real wants in order to find your treasures. Make a present to yourself of one of these by turning one of the keys above."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Suspension of Disbelief

Suspension of Disbelief

"People must believe what they can, and those who believe
more must not be hard upon those who believe less. I doubt
if you would have believed it all yourself if you hadn't seen some of it."
   ___George MacDonald, "The Princess and the Goblin"


    Our long-standing beliefs - whether they be about the scientific nature of reality and temporal time or about our spirituality - have a tendency to become hidebound and static, comfortable and unchallenging. When we encounter situations and things that push at the boundaries of our comfortable enclave of belief, we have two options: we can totally ignore the challenge, safe in the belief that we are right, or we can enter into a temporary suspension of disbelief while we entertain the possibility that things are other than we have believed them to be. The suspension of disbelief is something that happens every time we attend a play or a movie: we lose all sense of separation between audience and performer as we see the story unfold before us, as we become immersed in events and protagonists. At the end of a moving performance, movie, or  novel, we leave the world of that story and return to our own reality again.
    The strongest challenges to belief are the things that we experience: experience is a great changer and shaper of belief because it gives us pragmatic knowledge that offers tangible and physical proof,  even though its workings are often mysterious to us - we know what we experienced even though it may be 'unbelievable.'  This tells us that our perceptions are informing and changing belief. Sometimes the facts that we experience in our very body are so overwhelming that we have to enter into a suspension of disbelief, behaving 'as if' they were true in order to accommodate the experience.

"What is challenging your beliefs right now? Analyze the challenge using both sets of senses - physical and spiritual - to understand the experience."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Practice

Practice

"The three pillars of achievement: a daring aim, frequent practice, and plenty of failures."
    __ ancient Welsh triad  (trans CM)


    What our art or skill, achievement certainly starts with our focus upon the direction of our work. It comprises researching for whom we are working and why, discovering what effect we are trying to achieve, and having the dynamism and courage to aim high. As in archery, it is better to aim higher than you imagine your target sited. Modest ambitions aside, the one who aims too low often never gets off the ground.
   But it is by virtue of practice that we oil the wheels of our achievement. Practice is hard, unending and often dull. Those who practice an instrument or any skill know that it means daily effort and time.
However, the very nature of our habitual custom comes to our aid if we persist in practice. Very soon a new kinesthetic curve begins to be described as practice itself becomes habitual. We begin to feel that we have cracked the secret of success.
    The ability to assess our failures is a precious achievement in itself. If we are very fortunate, we have tutors and coaches who point neutrally to the source of the problem. Like surgeons excising a troublesome tumor, our teachers can anatomize our failures in ways that are scarcely less painful than an operation. Failure is not the end of the line: if we can think of it as merely the tryout for the next stage of our work, we can stand on its shoulders next time we try.

"What are you attempting to achieve right now?  Meditate upon the trajectory of your aims; discover and implement the right amount of practice; assess past failures and what you have learned from them."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

The Tasks of a Druid

The Tasks of a Druid

"The three tasks of a Druid, to live fully in the present; to
honour tradition and the ancestors; to hear the voice
of tomorrow."
    ___ Philip Carr-Gomm, "The Druid Renaissance"


   The most difficult task is to live fully in the present. We are nearly always ahead or behind ourselves, planning the future or reminiscing and reliving the past.
    For the druid, the past is a potent place, redolent of past glories and triumphs. Nostalgic for authority and respect, the druid, along with other spiritual seekers who follow an ancient path, is tempted to bathe indulgently in the rosy glow of myth and history. Yet the druid has to find ways of honoring tradition and the ancestors that truly respect them rather than enshrining and fossilizing them. And that can be done only in the now.
    The future is such an unknown quantity that it is easier to project scenarios of doom or bliss than to hear its echoes. It is peopled by our descendants and by the sacred lore of tradition that we will have surrendered into their hands for practical use. The only way to access that future voice is to listen now.
     As we meditate upon the conundrum of these druidic tasks, we find ourselves rebounding from invisible walls. The sixteenth-century German mystic Jakob Boehme knew the secret of this riddle: 'He to whom time is the same as eternity and eternity the same as time, is free of all adversity." 
      Those who walk the druid path and regularly walk between the worlds learn that time does not run in the otherworld: past, present, and future are all accessible in an eternal now. The traditions and ancestors live now; the future is seeded in the now. There can be no disrespect or sentimentality forward or backward in time without severe imbalance to the now of this present moment.

"In the silence of your own grove, your own sacred space, consider your own tasks upon the path and what they entail."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Rediscovering the Sacred Places

Rediscovering the Scared Places

"Through the medium of revelation, forgotten sacred places can re-manifest themselves."
   ___Nigel Pennick, "Celtic Sacred Landscapes"


   What makes a place sacred?  Is it some hallowed action? Is it the sitting of a shrine or temple?  Is it the occupation by people who have honored the spirit of the place? Although there is no part of the earth that is not intrinsically sacred in its own right, our recognition of a place's sacredness tends to rest upon what other human beings have done at that spot, what they have erected by way of memorial, what holy actions and rites they have conducted to hallow it.
    Certain spots draw us to them, there is no doubt.  Even if they harbor no ancient monument, if there is no story associated with their borders, we feel somehow at peace or exalted when there. It must be through just that intangible process that our ancestors discovered their own sacred places - places of natural beauty whose potency drew them again and again to spiritual exploration. Some places act as natural thresholds, junctions between this world and the other where we feel in communion with the unseen world and its inhabitants.
   Some sacred places can be lost through neglect and forgetfulness; others are lost by a gross act of desacralization. But a place can be rediscovered and resacralized if we attend to the spirit of the place and learn what it is that makes that place sacred. The prospect of the resacralization of the earth is just a lofty idea for many people, but it is one that all of us can foster, in cooperation with the spirits of the earth itself.

"Call to mind a place - it need not be recognized by others as a sacred place - where you have felt empowered and uplifted. Dwell upon the qualities and gifts that you associate with that site and how they make connection with your own spiritual path. Take the first opportunity you can to verify your meditation by visiting this place in person. Sense again the spirit of the place."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Our True North

Our True North

"There's one white star, of all the rounds
That wheels high overhead,
And it is hung on heaven's pole
And will not rise nor bed."
   ___ John Morris-Jones, "The North Star"


   If we could set up a stop-frame film of the solar year and point it up toward the northern heavens, we would see revealed the dance of the circumpolar stars about the polestar in a fantastic circle dance. Among the people of the north, the polestar is called 'the nail of heaven' because of its unchanging position in the sky: an unfailing and welcome guide to travelers and sailors in the darkest night. Discovering our own true north as the compass point of our soul's direction is a worthwhile enterprise on our spiritual path. Our true north may not be an actual belief system or ideology, not a religious figure or archetype, if we are still searching. It may be something that is nearer to an instinct or feeling of traveling in the right direction, something that we sniff in the wintry air or intuit from glancing rays of the sun through the leafless trees. Our true north is a homing instinct innate to each of us, privileged information that defines the nature of our goal - even though we may have no clear idea of that goal or of an otherworldly locus.

"In the middle of a darkened room, or in nature at night, with sufficient space about you for you to revolve with outstretched hands on the spot, close your eyes and, asking to be shown your true north - your spiritual home - slowly turn until you find the direction that feels right for you. Facing that direction, sit down and make a soul-flight toward it, asking for spiritual allies to aid your search. What kind of landscape do you pass through; what encounters do you have; who accompanies you?
If you have any difficulties, consult the spiritual allies in your company, asking them for help. Repeat this journey later to clarify your findings."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Reality and Belief

Reality and  Belief

"Nothing here is real and without belief."  ___Aidan Andrew Dun, "Vale Royal"


     Belief  continually changes the way we perceive reality. When a group of people speak of 'reality,' they are not actually understanding the same thing, since each individual invests reality with different sets of characteristics. Spiritual belief invests reality with many different qualities: simultaneously, a fundamentalist believer will see the world as a place of fear, a mystical believer will see it as a place of peace, a creative believer will see it as a place of potentiality, a pragmatic believer will see it as just a place to live. It is the same for ideological beliefs, which define reality by different criteria.
   Reality and belief simply cannot be disentangled from each other.
   Beliefs evolve their own mythology and symbolism, methods of encoding meaning into the perceived and observed correlative of life. It is only when our views are challenged that reality shakes. True belief brings trust with it, a trust that things will not change, that we will be supported. Belief can both support and enclose us, so that the nature of reality seems to become unchanging.
    The changing views of reality during this century have shaken many, causing fear and consternation. It is at this point of panic that fundamentalist beliefs become strangely attractive, for their dogmatic character ensures an unchanging stability for the fearful. For the rest, our own beliefs walk beside reality, giving it color, meaning and purpose. Its subtle messages are the signposts of a greater reality that embraces both the seen and the unseen.

"How do your beliefs color reality? Compare your views with someone else's."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Respect

Respect

"The three most ill-mannered sons of the earth:
a boy mocking an old man, a strong man swaggering in front of a sick one, a wise man jesting at the expense of a foolish one."
   ___ ancient Irish triad


    Good manners are nothing less than the respect that we owe a fellow being, an acknowledgment of another's presence and space wherein we retrain our own normal or unthinking behavior.
   The respect that is due to age has virtually evaporated in our society, which favors a fast-track youth culture. In the job market, on the streets, in the media, we see a growing disrespect for age. In this era when personal power and ability are paramount, to be sick is held to be the worst of misfortunes. Despite the wonderful technological discoveries that have banished so many diseases, fewer people are able to afford the health care that they need. People with mental disabilities and poor reading skills suffer a marginalization against which little headway is being made; the physically handicapped are little better understood than they, although at least society no longer mocks the unfortunate as a form of low-grade entertainment.
    The kinds of respect that we offer to other people are so often formulated from prejudged factors. The social status of an individual along with affluence, fame, or professional status; the relative age and importance of that person in society; his or her gender or religious background - all these factors color how we respond. Yet the respect owed to another human being bypasses all these designations. Respect
is a currency that must paid soul to soul, regardless of the externals.

"Monitor your own levels of respect today. Notice how they change according to the changing characteristics of those you meet. What factors change your behavior? In what ways can you exercise common courtesy to all equally?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Forgiveness

Forgiveness

"Pardon's the word to all."
   ____ William Shakespeare, "Cymbeline"

   The call to forgiveness - whether it be the laying aside of vengeance, the releasing of people from obligation, the canceling of debts - sounds a general amnesty between ourselves and those who have wronged us. If they are not dealt with, wrongs and claims against others can become like ropes that tie the soul of victims to the souls of perpetrators.
   The true meaning of forgiveness is releasing ourselves and others from the bonds of blame. If we remain in situations where we suffer wrong continually, we must face the priorities and strive to remove ourselves from this danger as soon as possible, or else we must forbear to condemn. Situations where our love and care are greeted with indifference, violence, and abuse are situations in which we endanger our very soul. We must get help or get out. To forgive does not mean to condone, but it does mean the end of condemnation.
   No person living is free of condemnation: we have all wronged someone at some time. Yet to set aside condemnation and release someone from the obligation of restitution takes great resolution and courage. To forgive is to detach the bond that keeps us locked in mortal combat with our enemy. The obligation to forgiveness grows stronger as time wears on, before we weave too strong a bond, before the anger, strife, or wrong pollutes our very soul.

"Meditate upon a situation that requires your forgiveness. Who or what do you release?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

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 many unnamed seers and seeresses of history. The ability to see through the veil from the temporal world into the world where time is always now is one that runs in blood and surfaces in certain family lines and in lone individual 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 knowledge 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 agreement ts: 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]

Perseverance

Perseverance

"An eident drap will pierce a stane,."
[A steady drop will pierce a stone.]
     ___ Scottish proverb

   One of the prime figures of perseverance within the Scottish tradition is King Robert the Bruce. The apocryphal story of his hiding in a cave and watching a spider attempt to make its web again and again tells us that this was how the Scottish hero mustered his own perseverance to struggle on. When life seems stacked against us, whence do we find the perseverance to continue?
    When is perseverance not enough? When we have tried to the limits of our ability, when we have tried all avenues of pursuit, when there is n o more help to be sought, it is reasonable to consider whether this project is the right one or if it is being approached in the right way. Sometimes a reappraisal of method can bring about a fresh change. If you are still pushing a rock up the mountain after a reasonable period of perseverance, it might be time to stop and reassess.
   Perseverance is not a common virtue these days, especially among those who expect quick or instant results. The ability to carry on with a project and see it through is often a painful, painstaking, incremental task that does not yield results in an obviously satisfactory way. It is a task scorned by many as a waste of time and effort. Yet many wonderful achievements have come to birth as the result of daily, incremental, crablike progress.
   We must have the patience of water itself, which cleaves the stone over many centuries.

"Are your plans on target; are they realistic and achievable? What changes would their manifestation bring to your life? Are you approaching your goals by the best possible route? Is other help available? What factors are still lacking?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Traveling Slowly

Traveling Slowly

"By increasing the speed at which we pass through the landscape we may greatly alter the time-sequences which are an integral part of our perceptive experience of it. "
   ___ Jay Appleton, "The Experience of Landscape"


    We notice and remember features about walking journeys that are not apparent to us when we drive. The spirit of the land cannot speak to us directly when we speed through it; it cannot catch our eyes through the outstretched branches of trees, or in the gleam of hidden water, or the deer-brown bracken of the hillside under the glancing winter sunlight.
   The time-sequencing of our landscape perception changes radically when we speed by unaware of what we are passing, or when we use a journey to work or read. We can pass through areas and have no recollection of having travelled through them.
    Our subtle perceptions are never engaged when we are car-bound because our senses themselves are not engaged; these outer and inn er senses are connected. The sense of our own velocity when we move under our own steam, rather with the help of wheels, imparts the message of the wind; the feeling of our feet upon the ground brings us into relationship with the presence of the land; our ears, unshielded by carriage walls, are able to tune into the subtle sounds of the earth; our noses can smell the distinctive scents of the landscape, most potent messages of memory. Infused into all these experiences, but predominating over them all, is the sense of the land itself and its own story into which we are straying.
   Were ever we walk, we enter the story of the land, becoming part of it. But only the one who travels slowly can perceive that story and learn from it.

"Take a walking journey along a route you would normally drive along. What is different? How did you relate to the land you journeyed through?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]


  

Tasks of a Bard

Tasks of a Bard

"The three chief endeavors of a bard: to learn and collect knowledge; to teach; to make peace and put an end to all injury.
To act contrary to these things is not usual or fitting to a bard."
    ___ ancient British triad

   How can these bardic tasks become part of our own spiritual path today?  How can they be integrated into our culture? Each society needs knowledge that informs and is appropriate for its members: it does not want to hear about bygone lore. This means that every would-be bard should indeed research to the very roots of knowledge the thing she wishes to convey, but she must also seek out the relevance and practical wisdom of that topic.
   The ancient bards could inspire, encourage, enchant their listeners.
The modern bard must learn the old art of oral performance rather than of written exposition. These skills may be learned from our spiritual allies, who are the true teachers of the bardic knowledge, as well as from situations in which the solution to difficulty is imparted by spontaneous, synaptic inspiration: where knowledge, problem, and answer line up.
   This leads to the making of peace and the cessation of injury - skills that we need very badly in our own time. The bardic performance can bring the end to hostility, especially if music is part of the picture.  In the presence of music, all people are brought into harmony and understanding as its universal language speaks to the soul. We may bring an end to injury and offense through the offices of a modern bard in times not so far distant from our own.

"Meditate upon the bardic teachers of your ancestry. Make a soul-flight to one of their schools and ask to meed with a bard who will teach you the skills necessary for bringing peace to our world."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Marriage Blessing

Marriage Blessing

"Length of life and sunny days, and may your souls not go
homeward till your own child falls in love!"
    ____ traditional Irish blessing (trans CM)


    For most people entering marriage today, such thoughts are far from their heads.  Indeed, many disillusional wedding guests sit and discuss - even they toast the happy couple - how long this marriage will last. Though the statistics show that many marriages now end in divorce, there are still a number of long-term relationships that continue - especially if the partners are supported by well-wishing and encouraging friends.
   When we celebrate a marriage, we are essentially celebrating the continuance of life: a factor that is now often subsumed in the mutual satisfaction of the couple, who may indeed chosen to have no children. Yet the heart of the marriage blessing enshrines the possibility of life's continuance: the birth of children and the perpetuation of humankind. The best-laid plans to defer a family until a more convenient time are often overturned by nature, which finds a way for life to flourish. In the eyes of new parents, the marriage blessing often seem to be a rather dubious or double-edged one, cutting short personal pleasures and dampening mutual delights.
    But the privilege of parenthood, the feeling of blessedness, is also experienced as children grow, change and surprise us. The true fruit of our partnership, they will grow up to marry and have children of their own, so that when our souls go homeward, our offspring will have the happiness, love, and initiation into parenthood in their turn.

"Make your own marriage blessing for those celebrating the beginning of their partnership today. Draw upon the fortunate elements of your own relationships."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Intellectual Stimulus

Intellectual Stimulus

"Too many men and women spend their time between an office and a home in a state of intellectual stupor." 
   ___ Llewelyn Powys, "Earth Memories"


    Among the bards and druids, the training of the mind and memory was of paramount importance; the continual use of memory kept open the neural pathways, making response quick and incisive. Speed of mind meant speed of tongue: the swifter-than-thought pronouncement of judgment or pithy and apposite verse was expected of bards and druids. While there are many professions today that use training methods to sharpen the intellect, most of us do not exercise our minds to any great degree. Instead of thinking deeply about a thing, we often summon up our sensations, emotions and instincts and create an opinion woven of these strands. Although the intellect needs stimulus and training, it still has its place in the scheme of things.
    In the wintertime, the air is clearer and crisper, the brain seems to work just that little bit more quickly than it does in the summer. Those of us who are intellectually flabby may find that now is a good time to exercise our intellect, to stretch it further than it is accustomed to. The process of learning something is one way to engage the intellect; if there is no time for that, however, engaging in deep discussion about a topic important to you with friends or reading something that stretches your conceptual apparatus is also beneficial. There are no set boundaries on the limits of human intellect: see how far we each can go!

"Exercise your mind in a new or different way: a new language, a different way of looking at the universe. Choose something that intrigues you and see how it connects with what you know."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

The Wisdom of the Word

    The use of words was one of the central aspects of ancient Celtic culture. Not only did words represent the medium of communication, they also formed the focus of spirituality and a repository for sacred wisdom. The Celtic culture had an almost exclusively oral tradition; this was the sole means by which the culture expressed its identity, its sense of history and continuity. The spoken words was used both to preserve Celtic mythology and for storytelling, including poetry and song. There were also a variety of lesser spoken forms, such as proverbs, sayings, riddles, prayers and blessings. The timeless treasures that survive from this tradition still have much to offer us today - as a means of gaining wisdom, rediscovering our native spirituality , and dealing with the challenges that modern living presents.

Defending the Country

Defending the Country

"They are passionately devoted to their freedom
and to the defense of their country, for theses
they fight, for these they suffer hardships."
____ Gerald of Wales, "Journey Through Wales"


    Love of freedom and the rights of free speech and free congregation are at the heart of the British character, and the response today is just as mutinous as in medieval times, when these words were written, if anyone attempts to overturn these ancient, druidic freedoms.
    The defense of one's country has become an issue of uneasy contemplation these days. Our minds stray to nuclear armaments and the unpleasant ironmongery that wreaks so much pain and destruction. We shy away from the consideration of national service, conscription, and other military preparations for defensive war. Yet if we look deeply at the defense of country, we discover that it requires something more worthy of us than naive back-stabbing of other nations, cultures, and religions. The essential freedoms and privileges that we enjoy are enshrined in our laws and statutes for all to read, but there are also more profound and subtle freedoms that we are all called upon to defend.
   The enemy to these freedoms is not always so obvious as a foreign power but is all about us, within our own society. It is our own disregard for the authentic loyalties of life that is the enemy attacking our country. We who live in our land are its defenders by our very way of life, by our attitudes, by our actions, by our intentions, by the integrity, joy, and engagement we bring to our country's life. To become a defender rather than an enemy, we must be in turn with our country in a deeply spiritual way.

"Commune with the spirit of the country in which you live. Ask it what are the freedoms and privileges that it guards. Ask how these freedoms are to be defended and what is the greatest threat to them at this time."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit5" by Caitlin Matthews]

Integrity in Work

Integrity in Work

"He should be constitutionally and habitually devotional, so that
blessing of God may be upon him, and what he does, and what he
may be conscientious to do what is right and beneficial in the
practice of his art."  
___ "The Herbal Remedies of the Physicians of Myddfai"


    Whether we work for an employer or are self-employed, whether we have retired or are taking a sabbatical from work, the integrity of our actions contributes to the universal web of life. If an employer begins to bend the rules for his own benefit, then his staff may be tempted to follow his example. One person's actions may affect the company in such a way that certain positions or products are canceled - for who robs one, robs all. Occupations that strip the earth of its resources or leave it polluted are easy to target as culpable of gross theft and planetary vandalism, yet the actions of everyone living enable such results to some degree.
   To be in right relationship to our universe, a certain integrity and code of practice in our work and actions is necessary. Most of us have no explicit code by which to steer, but what we value is revealed when we consider why and for whom we are conscientious in our work and actions. Surely it is not only our employer or fellow workers who inspire us to do well but whose who consume or use what we make, or our families who are supported by our work.
    Hands that work are the partners in manifestation of the unseen world wherein Spirit (by whatever form or forms we recognize it) is the keeper, maker and inspirer of all that is. Any code of practice must first apply to the sacred source of spiritual inspiration to keep its actions pure, to operate from the highest of motives, to irrigate all work from the wellspring of integrity.

"Draw up a short, realistic personal code of practice both for your occupation and for your actions in general."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Month of December - the shoe is covered with dirt;
Heavy the land, flagging the sun;
Bare are the trees, still is the muscle.

December sees the winter solstice and the return of gradually longer days. The themes of this month include the nature of work, revenge and forgiveness, gifts and blessings, belief and disbelief, and practicing being human.