Seeding the Wasteland

Seeding the Wasteland

"Learning the mysteries whereby wasteland
Becomes wheatland; grains must fall
Into the hungry earth and be swallowed whole."
     ____Caitlin Matthews, "Avebury Easter"


    When wasteland has become an ever-present reality, when something stricken has lain barren for many years, it takes special grace to recover again. It is not a matter of snapping back into normal mode or of pulling ourselves together. It is usually a matter of picking up the pieces slowly and painfully, an organic process that can take a long time. This reassembly is like a gathering of precious seeds and fertile fragments, a putting-together of the essential selves that form our soul, so that life's flavor and savor can return.
    The scattered seeds that hold the potential of our lives must come home and rest once more in the familiar soil of everyday living before the grain can germinate and send its long shoots toward the sun. This mysterious return is begun by preparing the soil to receive the seed. The farmer must remove all obstacles from the ground; the hatreds, fears, lies, and treacheries have to be relinquished. Then the plow must turn over the soil; all the deep needs of the soul must be acknowledged and an urgent request for help and return must be sent up. This is a time for singing over the ground of loss in consolation, and a time for singing for the scattered seeds to come back, letting them know they are welcome.
    The mysterious sowing happens in silence and unknowing, the soul seeds return and lodge in the deep earth. There they will rest, germinating in their own time, until the once-barren wasteland becomes fertile again.

"Look at the cause of your wasteland; then let go of the fears, hatreds, and other obstacles that impede your return to full health and wholeness. Now begin the work of welcoming back whatever qualities have fled. Be patient, persevering and hopeful."
[From: The Celtic Spirit by Caitlin Matthews]

The Hidden Truth of Dreams

The Hidden of Dreams

"Your dream tells a truth about yourself. A truth you hide from
while you are awake. A truth you need to know about yourself. For
your.... wellbeing."
    ___ David Rudkin, Penda's Fen


    Dreams are  messagers of the soul. Every one of us has dreams, whether or not we remember them. Dreams speak of hidden truths in oblique ways - truths that we have not been able to understand or assimilate in our waking lives. Their enigmatic symbolism cannot be decoded by books or dream interpretation that give pat or plausible answers for standard dream themes; dreams must be decoded entirely by the dreamer and scrutinized for their personal symbolism.
     What is the truth that we need to know about ourselves? Whatever we have covered over or hidden from in our daily lives has a way of breaking through in self-disclosing (and often pun-filled) ways in our dreams,  For example, we may dream of putting an annoying but senior colleague at work into the garbage, while in waking life we seriously wish that we could put a lid on his snide remarks.
     In a society that defines dreams as wacky or illusory, it can be hard for us to realize that they reveal to us the nature of our waking self-delusion. Dreams not only warn of dangers; they also reveal areas that we have never dared explore because of their power or wonder. Dreams bring us ato meet the potentialities of our soul in a remarkable manner: we may dream that we are flying, dancing, shining, meeting - deep truths that are the very essence of our well-being, that we can find, court, and assimilate if only we listen to our soul's messagers.

"Take one dream fragment from this week. Without giving it a psychological spin-dry, look at it honestly and see what truth it has to tell you. What emotions does your dream evoke? Where is your power free or suppressed? What is the overall impression or message it conveys?"[From: The Celtic Spirit  by Caitlin Matthews]

The Green Fire

The Green Fire

"Aengus mac Og is a deathless comrade of the Spring, and we may well pray to him to let his green fire move in our veins."
   ___Fiona MacLeod, "The Birds of Anegus Og"


    Aengus mac Og (ANN'gus mak OGE) is the Irish deity whose spirit inhabits the megalithic monument of Newgrange to the Boyne Valley of Ireland. His hostel on the banks of the Boyne is a traditional entrance to the otherworld, a place where souls congregate and rest. In their soul's circuit, several Irish heroes and heroines have become lost or disoriented. It is within Aengus's care that they are given time to recover.
    Birds and other animals begin to choose their mates as the growing year burgeons strongly in the strengthening sunlight. The green fire that runs over all the earth is sparked by this very sunlight and the deep germinating power of the earth. When plants reach toward the sunlight, the red, violet and blue bands of the light spectrum activate the chlorophyll pigment within each leaf so that it reflects green. This pigment alters as the year progresses, causing the leaves to change color, but from this time forward a medley of greens is apparent.
    This green fire is also within us - not in our physical bodies, as it is in plants, but in our emotional and creative lives. Spring fever has many manifestations, some almost hormonal. The creative urge of spring brings into being much verse, for example, as our emotional upheavals reach out for fresh life and vigor. To experience the green fire and answer its call is to commune with the green vigor of Aengus.

"Where is the green fire in your own life at this time? Take your emotional and creative temperature; also give yourself over to something pleasurable and enlivening this week."
[From: The Celtic Spirit by Caitlin Matthews]

Defending Ancient Springs

Defending Ancient Springs

"Where her head was lifted, a spring was found....
Healing for every disease is within it....
Making body and soul whole."
  ____ Life of St. Gwenfrewl, anon, Welsh chronicle (trans CM)


    The communion with the holy waters of a well or sacred spring is intrinsically part of Celtic tradition. All natural places of water have their own indwelling spirit, but many wells and springs frequently have holy, curative properties.
     The way in which we approach these sacred waters matters a great deal. The tendency among many people now exploring and discovering the sacred sources of land, heritage, and culture is to act as consumers, demanding that the sacred otherworld give to us unstintingly. We do not participate in the sacred by such action, rather, we disconnect ourselves from participation. We can so easily become takers rather than givers. The act of sacred participation always requires us to give the gift of ourselves, to honor the sacred presence, to respond and reciprocate with our very best. This means behaving appropriately when we visit: not using the sacred place as a site for mundane refreshment, for example, smoking or picnicking or listening to the radio or Ipod. When we come within the compass of ancient springs, we are on holy ground. When we take the waters, it should prayerfully and thankfully, engaging spiritually with guardian spirit of the waters.
     By not allowing ourselves to become consumers of the otherworldly gifts that present themselves so generously to us, by reciprocating with thanks, we permit those gifts to work their own healing, reconnective magic upon us.

"Find out where your own nearest source of sacred water is to be found. What are the traditions surrounding it? Go and visit it if you can, and experience the waters for yourself."
[From: The Celtic Spirit by Caitlin Matthews]

Invulnerability

Invulnerability

"I am an indestructible fortress,

I am an unassailable rock,

I am a precious jewel."

    ___ from an ancient Irish prayer

for long life  (trans. CM)

   To be vulnerable means never to be wounded. Yet it is the nature of life for human beings to suffer assaults from many quarters. Our bodies endure various accidents illnesses; our emotions are roiled by fierce winds; our minds are subject to doubt, fear, delusion.

    For those on the druid path, death is not the end. The soul passes into other forms to find rebirth again and again. Similar beliefs are still held around the world in many cultures. It is only in the West, where we have disbelieved in any other reality than the apparent world, that we have an awesome terror of death. For many people today, this life is all there is or will be. No wonder they live without joy or expectation!

     Only the soul is deathless. It is indeed our indestructible fortress, our precious jewel, our unassailable rock. So where, then, is the eternal vigilance in our care of the soul? Where are the limberings, the workouts, the exercise programs, the efforts at beautification and enhancement of the soul? If we truly wish to share confidently in the invulnerability of the soul. we need to polish our jewel and peer deeply into its primordial and unassailable facets to find the beauty that cannot die.

"What are the gifts of your vulnerability?"

[From: The Celtic Spirit by Caitlin Matthews]

Trees and the Life of the Planet

Trees and the Life of the Planet

"Every tree is a living watercourse; its roots, trunk and branches conduct water up from the soil to the leaves, from which it then passes into the atmosphere."
  _____ Nigel Pennick, Celtic Sacred Landscapes


    The interdependence of all living things is something we often take for granted. It goes unnoticed in the daily round, so we forget that what happens in one place has its effect upon another place. It is only now that deforestation has been revealed to be a terrible legacy to our children that we begin to appreciate the contribution of trees to the life of our planet.
   At this time of year, the spring rains have an important function in the revivification of the land, especially around the full moon. Trees are able to draw up the rainfall from their roots to their highest branches so that the canopy can become green again. As the leaves emerge from their buds, we notice a corresponding unfurling of spirit in ourselves as we respond with gladness to the annual regreening of the world.
    As those leaves unfurl, they exude oxygen, so vital for our planet's atmosphere and our own living breath. The carbon dioxide that humans beings exhale is absorbed and transformed by trees. Our lives
and those of the trees are beautifully and aptly intertwined as we share and replenish the atmosphere for each other. Our breath and the exhalation of trees have a symbiotic link that is necessary to our very life.
    Verdancy of spirit comes when the sap rises in our souls, when we return to a state of thankfulness and welcome the spring with joy.

Attune to the life of a tree that grows near you. Meditate upon the life that you share. Even better, plant a tree.
[From: The Celtic Spirit by Caitlin Matthews]

Young Love

Young Love

"Oh that I and my choice of partners were in yon glen up there, no witness beneath the white sun, save the bright star and the planets; no simple infant with no sense, no gabbling one there nor lying one to spread about the story."
    ___ Carmina Gadelica, (trans. and ed. A. Carmichael)


    The sexual passion that wells up in young lovers is akin to the urgent energy of spring. It is vibrant and undivertible, a deep sap that rises irresistibly to the surface. The need to be private, to experience the ecstasy of young love when it is running, is one that we all understand well. Within the family home and community, there are always people to snoop and spy, and soon the story goes around that a certain girl is going with a particular boy. Only in the broad expanse of the natural world is there any privacy for lovemaking.
   Regardless of the moral upbringing children are given, most find ways to express their potent sexual urges, whether they are mature enough to form lasting relationships or not. This period of sexual experimentation is one that all animals undergo. In humans, it rarely leads to marriage or a committed relationship.
    The fears of parents for their children around sexual matters are very real ones. Sexually-related diseases and life-wrecking consequences haunt parental minds at night, as do fears of emotional vulnerability and spiritual health. No amount of sex education can prepare young people for the immense power of physical desire, as life itself begins to pour through their bodies. We might as well try to push plants and saplings back into the earth as forbid all sexual activity. Life will find its way through our children, as it did through us. All we can do is ensure their well-being in the best ways we know how.

Consider your own sexual awakening. What advice can you offer the young and their parents, based on your own experiences?
[From: The Celtic Spirit by Caitlin Matthews]

The Greater Good

The Greater Good

"Three things for which a person might hazard his/her life and lose it: the search for truth, the upholding of justice, the performance of mercy."
   Welsh triad (trans. CM)


    The eternal search for truth engages many people in a dangerous quest, whether that quest be research into life-threatening diseases in an attempt to find a cure, the struggle of writers, poets, and activists to maintain the voice of truth in the face of restrictive regimes, or any of myriad other pursuits.
    The upholding of justice is a worldwide concern. Although we may complain that judicial systems are antiquated and need reform in the West, at least we have a system of justice, however, poorly we may believe it to function. In parts of the world, where dictatorship, war, and other evils reign, justice is a gun in the hand, and there are many daily who die in attempting to bring an end to unjust governance.
    The performance of mercy endangers life every day: wherever the land, the weather, or the prevailing conditions are dangerous, there are teams of rescue workers and health professionals who hazard their own lives in order to save those of others.
    Those whose view of humankind is a very low one, who believe humans to be intrinsically selfish and greedy, need only look at the lives of the defenders of truth, justice, and mercy to change their opinion. If we cannot venture our lives in defense of the three principles named in the above triad, then there is indeed little hope for our species; but there never seems to be a lack of compassionate people who put their own concerns aside and risk their very lives in defense of the greater good.

Make a blessing of protection for all who hazard their lives in defense of lofty principles.
[From The Celtic Spirit by Caitlin Matthews]

Power of the Word

Power of the Word

"Tongue is weak and tongue is woe,
Tongue is water and tongue is wine,
Tongue is chief of melody,
And tongue is thing that fast will bind."
   ____ "Prophecies of Thomas of Erceldoune"
        Scottish text (trans. CM)


    It is probably impossible to fully realize these days the power of the word in the Celtic world. In a society that used no writing, the word had a primacy that can scarecly be now imagined. The poets, druids, and judges were highly respected because what came out of their mouths was not only the lore of the tribe; it was also the truth. Like Thomas the Rhymer, the Scottish poet who entered the world of faery and won from the Faery Queen 'the tongue which cannot lie,' the gifted ones of the Celtic tradition could use their skills both mundanely and magically.
    While the poet most often used his skill to praise patrons, recite genealogies, encourage and enchant, he could also call upon formidable verbal powers to initiate change. A poet's satire was not just a painful lampoon that others would snicker about, it could actually raise blisters upon the face of the subject, bringing shame. It is said that a well-placed satire could even cause death.
    In many people, the tongue is untrained and weak, and some use it only for spreading gossip and for scaremongering. While speech can be workday or poetic, it can also be the music that enchants and inspires, the wine of praise; it can be used as a weapon to bind both in truthful promise and in smiting satire.

Strengthen the power of the word in your mouth by speaking only truth today.
[From: The Celtic Spirit by Caitlin Matthews]

The Increasing Year

The Increasing Year

"Three things which are always increasing: the light of fire, the intelligence of truth, the life of existence - these are victorious over all things and are the end of darkness."
    ____ Welsh triad (trans. CM)

    From this day on, the sun is climbing toward its zenith at midsummer in the northern hemisphere: a good day on which to consider the optimistic triad printed above, and the many things that are growing and increasing in our own lives and in the unfolding history of the world.
    The radiant spark of light is at the core of every creative being: it leaps from place to place, from heart to heart, changing and forever growing. Nothing can stop this spark from spreading through the world like fame through a piece of charcoal. It is becoming harder and harder to pull the wool over people's eyes, to deceive others for more than a short period of time. This is predominately because of better education and the discernment that derives from it.
    The many associations around the world that uphold human rights are in the business of protecting truth and justice. Countries and regimes that give truth nothing more than lip service are increasingly having to fight off criticism from without and dissent from within, as consciousness and truth increase.
   Our whole consciousness of what life is, of how we live it and how we ethically deal with it, is the next challenge that will increase the boundaries of our understanding.

"Meditate upon three wonderful things that have increased within your own lifetime. How have these increases changed the world?"
[From The Celtic Spirit by Caitlin Matthews]

The Prayer of the Spring Equinox

The Prayer of the Spring Equinox

"With the first rays of the sun on the plant's leaves its etheral spirit is strong enough to summon our convention-blinded souls to this primitive worship."
    _____ Llewelyn Powys, Earth Memories

    At last we have a clear sign that the year is rising from the enclosing darkness of winter into a warmer, brighter world. On this first day of spring, the sun is at its midway mark, halfway between midwinter and midsummer, when its glory will be greater still. This is a good day for beginnings.
    Make a gift of this day, dedicating it to the beginning of a new phase of your life, or to a new plan or enterprise, rather than doing your mundane work. Begin the day by greeting the sunrise, if you are able, becoming aware of the passing darkness of winter and seeing the sun as the herald of the light that will grow from now on.
    Stand in the light of midday, facing the sun, and tune your heart to the season of spring and all that it means to you. Be aware of how your own soul circuit and the circuit of the sun are being aligned and attuned to each other. Make your own prayer for this spring quarter on behalf of all beings. Then turn and face your shadow, feeling the sun upon your back. Your shadow is shorter than it was at midwinter and will shorten even more as the year grows.
    Project your thoughts and intentions forward over the next few months. Over what activities, plans and events is your shadow going to fall? Draw the light into your body and allow the sap-rising spring to penetrate to your soul. Be aware of the fusion between body and soul, of their unity with the light and the season. Open your eyes, becoming aware of your surroundings and your life's purpose. As you prepare to sleep, be thankful for the darkness and the rest that enable everything to grow.

"Stand in the sun at midday, as suggested above."
[From: The Celtic Spirit by Caitlin Matthews]

The Apprenticeship of Love

The Apprenticeship of Love

"Seven long years I served for thee,
The glassy hill I climbed for thee,
The bloody shirt I wrang for thee,
Will you not waken and turn to me?"
    ____ "The Black Bull of Norroway", Scottish Folk Story


    The Scots folk story The Black Bull of Norroway tells of a young woman who goes to a seer to get knowledge of her future love. Her future husband comes to her in the enchanted shape of a back bull. They become separated and the woman has to suffer many trials to find and win him again: she must climb a hill of glass with shoes of iron, apprenticing herself to a smith for seven years to make them, and in the end must wash her lover's bloody shirt to disenchant him.
   This story is nothing less than a tale about the apprenticeship we each serve to love. Although it is told about a woman's love-quest, it would apply equally to that of a man. The first stages of love are often as uncertain and headlong as the heroine's flight on the bull's back; neither partner is sure of the other, and there are many unrealistic expectations on both sides. Love may not be equal at the beginning, so one partner may need to be patient while the other discovers a similar depth of affection. The ability to be constant, consistent, and reliable is one learned over a long period; during this period, many relationships falter or come to grief. The glassy hill of love presents a great challenge to the faithful lover. The spiked shoes of iron are not made overnight. And many a shirtful of wounds may have to be laundered before old loves and hates learned in past relationships are leached out of the present one. Constancy, perseverance, and patience are the skills we learn in the apprenticeship of love.

"Meditate upon your own apprenticeship to love. What has your story got to? Which qualities need more development?"
[From: The Celtic Spirit by Caitlin Matthews]

   

The Gifts of the Awen

The Gifts of the Awen

"Then Ceridwen began to boil the cauldron... for a year and a day until three blessed drops of inspiration had been obtained from the brew."   ___Hanes Taliesin, Welsh text (trans. CM)


    When Ceridwen (Ker-RID'wen) brewed her cauldron of inspiration, she set a boy called Gwion (GWEE'on) to tend it. Three drops leaped from the cauldron and burned his hand. As he sucked the scalded spot to cool it, knowledge came to him in an instant. He hid in a variety of shapes, but while hiding as a grain of wheat he was eaten by Ceridwen, who was in the form of a red hen. Resuming her usual form, she conceived him in her womb; nine months later he was born and sent forth upon the waters in a skin bag. Eventually he was discovered in a salmon weir, where he was recognized as Taliesin (Tal-ee-ESS'in).
    The three drops of inspiration - the awen (AH'wen) - are encryptions of primal creative power, having the ability to change our lives. Their impact on Gwion was such that he had to be literally again in order to assimilate the knowledge he unwittingly gained. The awen is not merely an old myth, however; it is a living possibility. It arises when the rays of experience glance upon and inspire the dormant seeds of knowledge within us. The connective energy of inspiration runs through our being, bridging areas of ignorance, reconnecting areas of neglect, bringing into one teeming mass of imagery, metaphor and understanding all that we are about. The assimilation of this experience can take the rest of our lives, or we can welcome the manyfold experiences of our lives to help ripen our understanding from day to day.
    The gifts of the awen lie dormant within each of us, to inspire, connect, and creatively empower all that we touch. From the creative soup of our personal experience, we can leap out to play in the teeming waters of the river of life as wise ones who are able to assimilate all that befalls us.

"What are the three main inspirations of your life experience?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Privilege

Privilege

"There are three sorts of privilege: natural privilege, privilege of office, and privilege of land."
    ___triad from "Laws of Hywel Dda"


    In our time, many people are resentful of privilege whenever they encounter it, seeing only one half of the contract that privilege entails. Yet privilege is nothing less than taking on of responsibility and guardianship. Those who enter professional occupations take on onerous public duties and have a responsibility to those whom they serve, not to themselves. To whom more is given, more is required. Privilege of land is a special responsibility, whether we have only a garden to maintain or a large estate. The responsibility of caring for and not abusing the land under our charge is a heavy one.
    Keeping to our own part, to our own duties, enables us to be part of the whole. It is not one person's task to do everything. With our emphasis the nuclear family, we have lost the close sense of community whereby everyone contributes something and has his or her place. Instead, we aim to be superpeople. The privileges that are accorded to each of us depend upon our contribution to the whole. In modern terms, natural privilege now applies to each  person: we each receive the privilege of respect as a living being according to our responsiveness to our place to the world.

"Carefully consider the tasks and roles that you are currently maintaining. Are you contributing to your community, or are you taking on too many tasks?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Change

Change

"Now ebb, now flood, now friend, now cruel goe;
Now glad, now sad, now weel, now into woe;
Now clad in gold, dissolvit now in ash;
So dois [does] this warld transitory go."
    ____ William Dunbar, "O' Wretch Beware"


   The alternation of order and chaos are natural frequencies that balance our lives. Custom and change are but their children, who allow new influences and possibilities into the world. When things become too formalized and ordered, they become stale and static, lacking the life and energy that only change can bring. Yet when change strikes, we feel out of control, disordered, even attacked by its sudden overturning of all that we have known. Despite that, change  is not. of its essence, antagonistic to us, only to our habitual and clinging notions. Long periods of change and fluctuation  can be very wearing, however, because we have no order or pattern to give context to our living.
   The period leading up to the spring equinox is similarly a time of great upheavel in nature: the first full moon of March usually heralds high tides and strong winds that enliven the long-dead period of late winter. The change of spring is one that we welcome with all our hearts, but we appreciate it warmly only because of what has gone before it. Our ability to cope with change will improve if we discover the art of living in the present moment, of being at home where and when we are.

"What strategies do you use for coping with change? Meditate upon the fresh opportunities and energies that change is currently bringing to your life."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Solitariness

Solitariness

"It is a good thing to be happy alone. It is better to be happy in company, but good to be happy alone."
    ___Thomas Traherne, "Centuries"


   Among tribal and traditional peoples today, few choose to be solitary.  Purposeful periods of solitude or seclusion are normally experienced only by young people facing their rites of passage - times during which they are taken from their families to be instructed in tribal lore and adult responsibility. In such rites, each young person generally endures a short period of isolation wherein he encounters the spirits of the tribe in a visionary way. Awareness of the otherworld and the way if impinges upon our own reality is one of the fruits of solitariness.
    When we are far from the interaction of society, when the chatter and comment of our minds is stilled, then it is possible to enter into a deeper relationship with the universe that we inhabit. The revelations of solitude are often profoundly moving and though we may share them in conversation with friends afterward, we do not find it easy to reach into the depths that we have inhabited within our solitude once we return to company again.
    To be content with one's own company is an art that cannot be taught; it is something we each have to learn as our lives unfold. When there is nothing to distract us, we return to the primal ground of our being, where we can begin to learn who we truly are and discover context within the rest of the universe.

"Whether you are naturally solitary or gregarious, enter the spaciousness of solitude and be aware of your true self and its context."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Spring Cleaning

Spring Cleaning

"Old loaves, old insults, old wrongs, old hates,
old prides,old contempts, old horrows, old taboos, old totems...... [C]an I shed these
worm-skins of remembrance?"
    ____John Cowper Powys, "Obstinate Cymric"


   At this season, we are often driven into a bout of spring cleaning, throwing out the unwanted and bringing new order to our household. But what of the deeper hurts, the old anguish, the festering wrongs, and the immovable obstinacies of our very being?
    Select one such m,malingering obstruction to be removed from your mental attic by asking and answering the following questions:
* What past wrong or hurt embitters you the most?
* What past relationship still lingers painfully?
* What childhood horror shadows you?
* What traditional prejudice still clouds your horizon?
* To what or whom are you still shackled by hate?
* What long-dead voice of authority still have you leaping?
* What old story against yourself still rankles?

Now take a walk in nature, meditating upon the issue at hand. Let your eye fall upon that seem to speak to you about your own case: these might be fallen leaves, pieces of rubbish blowing about, feathers, berries, bark, mushrooms, flowers, and so on. Without damaging the landscape and its inhabitants, collect some of these things and assemble them into an emblem of your issue. These collected items can be tied together with string or woven together with grasses. Create something really beautiful. When it is complete make a small fire outside. Relinquish your issue to the cleansing flames and burn the emblem you have made, visualizing its influence passing away from you. Stay and watch the emblem turn to ash and be borne away.

"Make an emblem and burn it, as suggested above."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Meme Warfare:

Memes are ideas that travel. Memes spread and infect us - trends, logos, slogans, tunes, cultural norms, ideas about race and sex, domination and entitlement. In this culture, 3000 marketing messages are rammed into your neocortex every day. It's one-way nonconsensualo and violet. Potent memes can change minds, alter behaviors, and transform cultures. In an authentic culture, memes ooze down from the top, and the most repeated ideas win. We live inside this culture-manufacturing machine.

Global capitalism is in its cancer stage, and metastaizing to kill its host, our only planet. We're the first generation to get ournsense of the world mostly through one screen or another. Our 'truths' come from our machines, not from contact with the world, or each other. Abstractions seem more real than reality; logos, movie stars, the Dow Jones are more real than trees, starving children or climate change. We are fighting not just the destruction of nature, but the destruction of meaning. How can we win?

Not by technology, and not by force. Only by imagination: the ability to tell ourselves different stories. There's more to life than being rich, fast, young, thin, beautiful and technologically advanced. We need new ideas, new meaning, new memes. Social change agents spreading our ideas throughout the culture will create maps for getting to there from here. This is the literal battle for the hearts, minds, and attention spans of an ever more anestheized society. We can consciously, deliberately, and fundamentally redirect the trajectory of history.

What are the memes that clearly communicate Life - inter-connectedness, democracy, biocentrism, renewable energy, freedom? Think about it. Pass it on.
[From "We'Moon 2011" page 63]

Refusing Evil

Refusing Evil

"And Balor begged Lugh, shortly before his beheading: 'Set my head on your own handsome head and so earn my blessing. The triumph and terror that the men of Inis Fail recognised me: I would they might be recognised within my daughter's son."
___ Dunaire Finn (trans. CM)


    The primordial god Balor (BAY'lor) had only one eye, but it could sear and shrivel all that it looked upon so that few could overcome him. His grandson, Lugh (LOO'kh), was destined to overcome Balor and his magic. But even at the point of death, Balor attempted to subvert his bright grandson. Threatened with beheading, he saw a way in which his stolen power could live on: he bade Lugh place his grandfather's head upon his own in order that the young man might inherit Balor's deadly powers. In a dialogue reminiscent of that between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, Lugh does not submit himself to 'the darkening of the force'; he resolutely beheads Balor and casts his head into the deep waters of the western ocean.
   The ability to refuse evil and not be swayed by its persuasions is not strong in us if we are not in the habit of attending to the integrity and virtue of our soul. Evil does not always have a baleful eye, greedy teeth, and a dark cloak; it can appear in attractive forms that sway our opinion before we have given it heed. To work against the purposes of our soul, against the harmony of the universe, is to place ourselves in league with those who serve only themselves, who are interested not in preserving the web of life but in making life serve them. Evil can be increased if we give power to it; its diminishment lies in our refusal to serve it.

"Where has evil touched your life recently? Meditate upon how its power steals the power of the universe. Ask your spiritual allies to show you what protects you from evil."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

In Our End is Our Beginning

In Our is Our Beginning

"Our final bliss, perfectly passionate, perfectly kind:
It is our first love, long since left behind."
   ___Ruth Pitter, "Good Enthroned"

    The surprise, delight or astonishment that passes over the face of the dying as they glimpse what lies beyond is frequently remarked upon by those who attend a deathbed. Those who have kept vigil feel a sense of shared privilege when they observe this, a feeling of exaltation that rises up above sorrow, weariness, and bereavement. What has happened here?  At the very verge of consciousness, the dying see briefly beyond the horizon that lies between life and death. What they recognize there is not a barrenness or an absence of everything, rather, it is more life, a recognition of whatever they once thought lost to them forever. That which they relinquished or neglected in years past, as well as the very potential of the soul, is rediscovered in an instant.
   The wise treat death as a friend who will restore them, not only in body, but also in spirit, to everyone and everything they have ever loved. Living with death as a friend, as a daily companion, is not a morbid practice. It helps to reconnect us with our beginnings, when our hopes and potential were still strongly flowing; it casts aside fear and strengthens the life that we still enjoy. If we substitute the image of our soul's beloved for the popular image of death, we will immeasurably help ourselves. Death is the soul's friend, the turner of the key, who liberates us to inhabit new freedoms and who reintroduces us to old loves so that we can find our way back to the primal beginnings our soul's story.

"Consider what hopes you have for your own death, even though hopes is not a word you would normally apply to dying. If you have a strong fear of death, ask help of your soul's beloved - your deepest spiritual source of assistance and support - in redefining your view and creating a more confident attitude."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Horizons New

Horizons New

"Look, a mirage, like a round rim, a strange
Wizard's masterpiece about us;
An old line that's not there,
A boundary that never ends."
  ____ David Emrys James, "Horizon"

   Just as physical horizons lie just out of reach of our observation, so spiritual horizons stretch beyond our imagination vision. The new navigators and explorers of our times are those who wish to map the territory that lies beyond spiritual horizons. The next compartmentalization of the study of human consciousness into psychological and spiritual disciplines has brought us awareness of the paucity of our knowledge of those domains. Investigators who use the criteria of the physical world to investigate the spiritual world are somehow deflected from the evidence of unseen reality that people experience, claiming that those evidences are not objective or finite enough. It is obvious that such explorers will never travel beyond the narrow horizons of the physical world.
   The mapping of spiritual territory can never be a scientific colonist's task; it must pass into the care of navigators who use their own experience of the shimmering horizons to draw personal conclusions. When hundreds of such experiences are collated, certain understandings begin to form - understandings that may not lead to finite physical maps but will aid us in finding our way through lands that still bear the legend "Here be dragons" in our imaginations.

"What shimmers on the horizon between the worlds when you meditate?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Empowerment

Empowerment

"Power of sea be yours,
Power of land be yours,
Power of heaven."
   ___West Highland blessing

    When the life-force of the universe and the vigor that runs through our bodies are aligned with our spiritual core, then we experience our true power and live with it.  The difference between living with power and simply behaving powerfully lies in one thing: those who inhabit their power by aligning with the universe freely let power pass through them, whereas those who behave powerfully hold onto power like a commodity. When the power of the cosmos is restrained, unable to come and go like a tidal current or a mighty wind, it merely inflates the holder, it does not empower her. And when it is hoarded to aggrandize the holder, she risks disease, want, misery and a host of ills.
    We all have times when we feel powerless and insignificant, but the theft of power from another person or place cannot ultimately assist us. We may have a temporary sense of strength, but it does not last. It is only when we relinquish our fearful grip on our own power comes back to our core, empowering us again. Learning how to live with our power invokes living close to the truth that is within us and not deviating; it involves periodically checking out how we are behaving, how we are giving power away to things that do not need or deserve our intervention or assistance, how we are restraining or stealing power to create a cocoon of protection.
   Power cannot be owned; it is only on loan to us all.

"Check your own use of power in your life. What element of power that you have does not rightfully belong to you?  Give back the power that you have held onto so that the tides can flow again."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

The Seanchai's Art

The Seanchai's Art

"Lest he should lose command over the tales he loved, he used to repeat them aloud when he thought no one was near, using the gesticulations and the emphasis... as if he were once again the centre of a fireside story-telling."
    ___Alwyn and Brinley Rees, "Celtic Heritage"


    The Irish traditional storyteller Sean O'Conaill, a farmer and fisherman in County Kerry who died in the 1920's was a repository of ancient lore and story, an acknowledged seanchai (SHAN'a-ky) whose memory held a fund of delightful tales. These would have been recited in the evenings after work, or at special occasions and gatherings, but especially in the dark days of winter.  People have attested to listening to the same storyteller nearly every winter's night for fifteen years and hardly ever hearing the same story twice.
   The memory remains a formidable tool for the transmission of teaching and stories; however, it needs not only to memorize but also an audience or pupil to hear and receive the story. This second component alone gives life to what is memorized, which is why Sean O,Conaill needed to tell his stories to someone, even if it was only to the back of his old gray mare. Today many people are returning to storytelling and learning its skills in story groups or within their communities. Love of story is something that does not die. Perhaps as storylines and scripts in film and television become ever more mediocre and disenchanting, we will return once more to an appreciation of the seanchai's art.

"Memorize a story that you love well. After you have learned it, be aware of the nuances of voice and gesture that spontaneously accompany your recitation. Notice how your recitation alters among different audiences. What new meanings has an audience helped constellate for you?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

The Threefold

The Threefold

"The Sacred Three
My fortress be,
Encircling me.
Come and be round
My hearth, my home."
   ___Alistair MacLean, "Hebridean Altars"


    The reverence for the threefold is deeply ingrained in Celtic culture. This threefold conjunction is implicit within the creative process of beginning, middle, and end; in the three sacred seeds of wisdom that flash out of the cauldron of knowledge as primal sparks of inspiration; in the human family as mother, father , and child; in the apparent world as sea, land, and sky. Each of these threefolds offers an essential understanding of the nature of life itself and is recognized and revered as one of the supreme supports of the cosmos.
    Ancient Celts wisdom was encapsulated in triads, tersely gnomic renditions of precedents, proverbs, historical incidents and knowledge that could be remembered by everyone.  Triple-headed gods and threefold coteries of goddesses are also common in Celtic religion: a triplicity that is reflected in the Trinity - a concept thought by some scholars to have been developed by the Celtic St. Hilary of Tours in the fourth century.
   Today the ancient respect for three has become part of our concept of luck: "The third time's lucky." we say. Or if we have had two unfortunate happenings, we may wonder what the third misfortune is likely to be. Three is the number that comprises creation, destruction and maintenance of life. For all these reasons, the Celts could not revere a greater or more encompassing number than three.

"What are the three sources of supports of your life - those people, thing, or places without which it would have no meaning?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Mysteries

Mysteries

"The three things which surpass understanding; the work '
of the bees, the mind of women, and the flow and ebb of the tide."  ancient Irish triad

    Much of our world is mysterious to us. However much science explains to us about our surroundings, there remain many mysteries that still evoke wonder. Though the beekeeper is close to the work of the hive, for example, she remains essentially an outsider, able only to exploit the bees and their honey-making skill. The thought processes of women, totally congruent to the feminine understanding, as mysterious to men. The ebb and flow of the tide can be reckoned by mariners and the Coast Guard, but they are mysteries to those who have not observed them.
    These unhappy terrains of mystery do not yield themselves easily to us; they are not apprehensible or quantifiable after short study. Only by observing the movement of migrating birds over many seasons, for example, do bird-watchers understand a little of that process which is natural yet deeply mysterious to the causal observer. Even our own mysterious processes are graspable only when we give time and meaningful attention to them. This means long, patient observation and notation of our dreams, our intentions, our relationship to the world. When we become more sensitive to the subtle messages that are clearly transmitted to us, we come to a deeper understanding of ourselves and our place within the world.

"What intrigues you about your life?  Begin to gather information by observing and tracking your inner workings; then meditate upon your findings."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

The Underground River of Creation

The Underground River of Creation

"Apart from sleep where the creative act seems involuntary and instantaneous, it does appear  that a creative process goes on all the time beneath the level of conscious thought."
____ Neil Gunn, The Atom of Delight


    The underground river of creation curves on beneath the surface of life, its inspiring waters ever available to refresh and bring sparkle to daily life. People who feel that they are uncreative often complain that they do not know how to get access to these waters. Surely, these people assert, creative waters run through particularly gifted people only.
    The way to find the ever-flowing creative river is to dig an artesian well by means of engaging actively and consciously with our creativity.  By so doing, we allow the water to rise swiftly. The moment of creative conception happens in the dark, in sleep, in moments of forgetfulness, in lapses of concentration when we have been beavering to bring something wonderful to fruition - but to no avail.
As we continue to work, suddenly our project starts taking shape, though progress is still gradual, inching forward day by day. The creative process cannot be hurried without loss or miscarriage of our project. However much we want it to manifest, it has to have organic space and time. It has to rest, like the dough of good bread 'proving' in a warm place to double in size. The frenzy of kneading and pummeling will not hasten its arrival. The moment of manifestatio, when we share our creation with others, is only one among many moments of deep satisfaction, wherein we have drunk of the sweet waters that flow deeply through us.

"What are the processes of the plan you currently foster? At what stage are you at the moment?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

The Colors of the Winds

The Colors of the Wind

"\North European wind-lore teaches that the quality of the wind at the moment of the first breath determines the character of that life."  ____Nigel Pennick, Celtic Sacred Landscape

     In every land, the winds have different folklore associated with them; even within the same land mass, winds bring different gifts and messages. In inland areas, for example, the wind has a different quality to that which blows along the coast. Certain winds are thought of as bringing luck, health, sickness, disquiet, and so on, because they blow from a direction associated with those qualities. But there is no fixed lore on this matter. We can discover the qualities and gifts of the winds wherever we live in the world, seeking out their regional meanings from our own observation rather than relying upon findings and traditions from other lands and cultures - findings that have little relevance to our own situation.
   The weather vane of our own emotions and moods is very much attuned to the winds. Even in places where seasonal variation is less differentiated, the subtle changes in wind speed and direction, the change of tides and other subtle indicators have an effect upon us. Our living breath is seen as pertaining to the nature of the winds that prevailed when we were born: our first breath gave our bodies their initial contact with the greater world around us when we emerged from the womb. No matter how the winds blow thereafter, our bodies will have memory of that moment and carry certain predispositions of character.

"Make a point of checking the direction of the wind against your own prevailing mood each day. Stand where you can feel the breeze flow. Note your findings and record the weather that each wind brings with it. Use this as a compass of your own behavioral swings."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Confederate with Eternity

Confederate with Eternity

"If through the channels of our homely senses we learn to envisage with imagination the movement and murmur of life in our moment of time, we become confederate with eternity."
   ___ Llewelyn Powys, Earth Memories

    The many branches of science that observe the physical world and its relationship to the cosmos are profoundly privileged in that they bring their exponents into a close relationship with the teeming varieties of life. Since the Age of Reason, it has been customary for science to remain separate from what it studies and to ignore the spiritual connections between life on either side of the veil between the worlds. Fortunately, many scientists have discovered that the patterns revealed within the universe show an intelligent consistency and order that is both beautiful and implicit.
    We do not have to be forever open to unseen reality or credulous of every wonder to appreciate the implicit order of the greater universe. This is revealed every day through our ordinary physical senses. When we keep the vision of nature's revelation before our eyes and imaginations, each moment becomes loaded with eternal potential. To be confederate with eternity, we need the practice of life that gives us a special cynosure through which to view the whole universe in every precious instant.

"Go out in nature and be present to another life form. Using each of your physical senses, observe that life form. Now try being present to it with your subtle senses. What different kinds of understanding do have? What differences are there between you and it? What stimilarties do you share?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

The Therapy of Nature

The Therapy of Nature

"Common experience tells us that solitary walk by
the river or ocean, a few calm hours in the woods restore the spirit and may produce more insight....than the best labours of the professional analyst."  ____ Theodore Roszak, The Voice of the Earth, cited in Paul Devereus, Revisioning the Earth

   Now that the light is growing stronger and the first signs of spring are becoming apparent, it is good to explore the countryside and see its beauty with our own eyes. Nature is the best therapist for putting things into perspective. When we go purposefully outdoors, we enter our true, living context, becoming once more part of a world that is always there but whose gifts excluded when we live entirely within walls, under a roof. Early Irish poetry speaks again and again of Spirit as the thatcher who roofs the sky with stars and keeps all things under divine protection. When we exchange a tiled roof for the roof of the heavens, our soul has more room to expand.
    The ancients understood about taking problems for a walk: the measure pace of walking, the juxtaposition of the problem against natural surroundings, the submersion or abolition of worry in the face of the beauties and wonders of nature - all these factors enable us to discover a new perspective. Being under the mantle of nature, we receive a truer reflection of help, a more tolerant understanding, a more profound solution that encompasses not only our labyrinthine mental confrontations but our physical discomforts and our emotional longings.

"Take your own problems for a walk and be open to wider solutions and perspectives."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Desire of the Eyes

Desire of the Eyes

"What is it that will not stand lock nor chain? ___ The
eye of a person in the company of a friend: it will not
abide shutting nor restraint, but only looking upon."
   ____ from the riddle contest between Fionn  and
       Grainne, Scots Gaelic lore (trans CM)

   The riddling courtship of the aging Irish hero Fionn mac Cumhail and the young and lovely Grainne (FINN mak KOOL, and GRAWN'ya, respectively) comes to nothing when Grainne sets eyes on FIonn's best companion, Diarmuid.  Instead of marrying Fionn, Grainne runs away with Diarmuid. The desire of the eyes that they both feel cannot be tamed; they are helplessly bound to each other and have to retreat from Fionn's sight or suffer in a terrible eternal triangle.
   Desire of the eyes is an affliction from which we have all suffered whether the desire be for a person or an object. In any love affair, desire of the eyes is the first signal to those close to the couple that something is sparking, for they cannot tear their eyes away from each other.  The desire that links two people together in a mutual bond is a beautiful and potent force that other people do well to avoid: it has its own attractive energy with the power to short-circuit any interference.  But the unreciprocated desire of one person for an unwilling one is an unhappy bondage that sometimes leads to a series of possessive interferences: stalking, interception, even soul-theft or rape.  The doting parent who gazes u sparingly upon the apple of her eye with more pride than discretion inflicts the desire of the eyes upon her child; the lonely man who yearns after a woman who is ignorant of his existence inflicts unwanted attentions upon her.  Despite these potential distortions, desire of the eyes sometimes leads to a great love that (if it is mutual) no one may sunder to the world's ending.

"How does desire of the eyes affect your life? Is the attraction mutual or unreciprocated?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

The Harp

The Harp

"Healer of each wounded warrior,
Comforter of each fine woman,
Guiding refrain over the blue water,
Image-laden, sweet-sounding music!"
   ___"The Book of the O'Connor Don," Irish text (trans CM)


    The harp is one of the most characteristic instruments of the Celtic tradition. The harp of the Dagda (the Good God of the Gaelic gods) was magical. In it the Dagda had burned melodies that would not sound until he summoned them. It had three properties of 'strains' that all harpers in ancient times used in their music, each property having a different effect. It had the suantraigh (SWON'atree) or 'sleep strain,' which lulled people to sleep. It had the geantraigh (GEON'tree) or 'joy strain,' which caused people to laugh.  It had the goiltraigh (GOYL'tree) or 'sorrow strain' which caused people to weep. 
    These three harp strains are still the property of harp music today - music that can lull us into a restful state, bring tears of beauty to our eyes, or enliven us and set the foot tapping. With these three strains, harp music affects the soul: it pours comfort, balm, and rest into the soul laden with cares, burdens and anxieties, giving it rest with the sleep strain; it plumbs the depths of sorrow and grief, of loneliness and bereavement, with the sorrow strain; it reconnects those who are lost, stressed and humorless with the primal joy of life with the joy strain. The playing of the harps confers a special privilege upon all harpers: the ability to unlock the doors of the soul.

"Choose three pieces of music that represent for the three musical strains outlined above. Play them when your soul needs rest, relief or uplift."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

March

Month of March -- great is the forwardness of the birds;

Severe is the cold wind upon the headlands; 

Serene weather will be longer, than the crops.

  ___anon Welsh poem

 

March gives us proof that spring has really arrived. The themes this

month include observation and sensitivity to subtle messages, spring

cleaning and restoring, tribal and individual consciousness, constancy

and change, power and its abuses, creation and increase, public

service, creative fire.