Samhain

Samhain

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


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

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

Ancestral Dependence

Ancestral Dependence

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


    The Celtic peoples honored the keeping of remembrance, and repetition of genealogies and family lists. Such genealogies were 'memory resident'  in bards and poets, one of whose chief tasks was to recite these ancient lineages on  important occasions. In our society, we generally leave such matters to the professional genealogist or herald, and so our own memory dwindles. As a result of this neglect, strange obsessions sometimes develop. People with no knowledge of their lineage sometimes invent family trees or make outrageously unsubstantiated claims regarding their descent. Such acts have a terrible pathos about them. At the other extreme, we find those who dine out on their ancestral achievements without any attempt to make their own mark. Both they and the people who invent their lineage fall into the trap of ancestral dependence. Whether actual or invented, our lineage is a path that moves through us to our own descendants. Our physical bloodline may have many great and good ancestors among its number, but their deeds do not flow through our veins or belong to us unless we make them our by similar doing.
    Dependence upon the ancestors is often just a manifestation of laziness, a way of absolving ours4elves from total engagement in life; it is also a form of theft that robs our hard-working ancestors of their credit. We cannot live in the reflected glory of ancestral honors without absconding from our own lives and missing the very real opportunities to become worthy ancestors in our turn.

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

Ordinary Things

Ordinary Things

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


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

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

The Language of Winter

The Language of Winter

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

    John Moriarty refers here to the Greek myth of Persephone, who went into the Underworld with the god Hades. When sought by her mother, Demeter, she was licensed by the gods to return to the middle world again, as long as she had not eaten anything while in the Underworld.  But Persephone had partaken of six pomegranate seeds, and so it was judged that she could return to earth for only half of the year. During those six months that she remains in the Underworld, we have winter. Similarly the ways in which we think and speak, the concepts that we use to frame experience, give their own limited seasonal coloration to our culture. Meaning is submerged in the very words we speak about deeper mythic states, which is probably why we have such a correspondingly rich folk-story tradition, which speaks of nothing else.
    The revolt against the language of winter is everywhere around us as people attempt to explain their own subtle experiences. This revolt often expresses itself in extreme ways - as an unhealthy stretching out toward the bizarre, the unexplained  and the alien, when all the time the common has but subtle experiences of life are so ordinary. When we begin to use the wisdom of the pomegranate seeds of language with the insight of those who have experienced the deep riches of the Underworld, we will be liberated Persephones, able to bring beautiful spring to our bare acres of expression.

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

The Mantle of the Universe

The Mantle of the Universe

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


   To re-experience the integration of ourselves with nature, we have to take ourselves out of our four walls and set our life-story in the context of nature's terms. This means becoming especially aware of one area of the natural world - an area that is our listening place, an area where we tune out the old broadcasts of our separateness and return to the original station of the universe belonging. In that place we enter into a new relationship with nature, conducting a dialogue of one with the other, in which both parties speak and both listen to the other.
    In this communion, a further state of belonging may be experienced - initially just in brief glimpses, then sometimes for longer and longer periods. It is the condition that poet and mystic Thomas Traherne speaks of above: the temporary loss of our sense of identity, a softening of the hard boundaries that separate us from the tree and the animal, from the earth and the sunset. In this condition, we experience ourselves as no different from nature or anything within it. We come into true relationship with nature in such moments, which strip away our hubris, our control, and our feelings of separation and bring us once more under the mantle of the universe.

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

Criticism

Criticism

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


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

"Consider a recent situati8onh in which you were criticized or you criticized others. Was correction or reproach used?  What wisdom can you learn from the situation?"
[From: The Celtic Spirit by Caitlin Matthews]

Authority and Authenicity

Authority and Authenticity

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


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

"Answer these questions to get a sense of your own search for authority and authenticity:

* Whose approval am I seeking?
* Who encourages me?
* How do I gain vitality? What drains my vitality?
* Who.what do I need to control?
* To whom/what do I consistently relinquish power?
* What do I need for self-nurture?
* Which old  repeating patterns prevent me living in balance?
[From: The Celtic Spirit by Caitlin Matthews] 

Uninvited Guests

Uninvited Guests

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


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

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

The Land of Women

The Land of Women

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


     These words are addressed to the Irish hero Bran mac Febal by an otherwordly woman who summons him to set forth on his quest to the Land of Women - a place that in early Celtic tradition was considered to be the abode of bliss, satisfaction and achievement. She urges him to clear his sights, attend to the task at hand, conjure a vision of beauty and delight and set off toward it. Regions of the Celtic otherworld can be reached by the voyage of the soul across the severing waters of the west, containing a series of islands that must be encountered in sequence before the traveler comes to the innermost Land (or Island0 of Women. The wisdom-keepers of the soul-voyage reveal themselves as a sisterhood of women who guard the mysteries of life. In Britain, there is the myth of Avalon being guarded by Morgen and her eight sisters; in Gaul, there are reports of sisterhoods dedicated to teaching, fostering, prophecy, healing, crafts, shape-shifting and weather magic.
     While we may not be summoned in so dramatic a way as Bran, we each have a quest to which we are called. This quest concerns the fulfillment of our life's purpose and is about using our innate gifts in the widest possible way. The inhabitants of the Land of Women have no patience with sloth. They are the energizers, keepers and empowers who maintain the dynamo of the world. To do this work, they need our assistance and application. If we make our voyage toward them, we will indeed find our way to the goal of desires.

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

Kindling the Hearth

Kindling the Hearth

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

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

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

Sacred Encounters

Sacred Encounters

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


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

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

October

Month of October - penetrable is the shelter;

Yellow the tops of the birch, solitary the summer dwelling;

Full of fat the birds and the fish.

 ___anon. Welsh poem

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