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 addressed to the Irish hero Bran mac Febal by an otherworldly woman who summons him to set forth on his quest to the Land of Women - a place that in early Celtic tradition was considered to be the abode of bliss, satisfaction, and achievement.  She urges him to clear his sights, attend to the task at hand, conjure a vision of beauty and delight, and set off toward it. Regions of the Celtic otherworld can be reached by a voyage of the soul across the severing waters of the west, containing a series of islands that must be encountered in sequence before the traveler comes to the innermost Land (or Island) of Women. The wisdom-keepers of the soul-voyage reveal themselves as a sisterhood of women who guard the mysteries of life. In Britain, there is the myth of Avalon being guarded by Morgen and her eight sisters; in Gaul, there are reports of sisterhoods dedicated to teaching, fostering, prophecy, healing crafts, shape-shifting and weather magick.

  While we may not be summoned 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 empowerers who maintain the dynamo of the world. To do this work, they need our assistance and application. If we make our voyage toward them, we will indeed find our way to the goal of desires.

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

From "Celtic Inspirations" by Lyn Webster Wilde --

Beyond the Visible

For the Celts the visible world was interpenetrated by an invisible 'otherworld' of elemental beings and gods. Mountains or hills were the abode of the sky gods, and sacred to him under his various names- Lleu, Bel and, later St. Michael. Trees connected the upper and lower worlds, and rivers were often named after the goddesses, such as Don and Verberia, who brought the waters of life to mankind.

Sensing the Landscape --  The Celts sensed the presence of their gods and goddesses everywhere - in mist hanging over a valley, trees sighing in a gale, or rain turning meadow to lake overnight.
   Landscape and weather were the fabric of their lives, and to be weather-wise was crucial for survival. This may be why the Celts had such a keen awareness of the supernatural enlivening the physical senses also awakening the subtle antennae of the spirit.

   If you are curious about what lies beyond the visible, first tune in to the physical world. Get out more, even in the cold or wet. Walk. Watch. Stop and listen. Notice how you feel. The Otherworld may have opened its gates.

 

Burdens

Burdens

"God fits the back to the burnden."
      __  Scots proverb

   Whether great or small, burdens fall. We may feel that we do not deserve our particular fate, that some spiritual credit must be stored up somewhere that will remit our burden. If this Scots proverb were sritten the other way around - that God fits the burden to the back - perhaps we would feel better about the whole story business; but it is not. When burdens fall upon us, we cannot shift responsibility for them; they are indeed ours to carry. But our carrying power is something we cannot know until we try. Certainly there are many who have sunk under the strain into the distress of physical or nervous breakdown.

  We can prepare our back for heavy responsibilites by bearing the strain with fortitude and human resourcefulness, by not giving up but seeking better and more effective ways. The most effective of those ways, the greatest help in fitting our back to carry whatever has befallen us, is simple beseeching: asking for help of our most powerful spiritual sources to open the ways to possibility, to enable fresh persepctives that take the doggedness from our step, to bring the balm that will draw out our pain. Neither the good, the bad, nor the fortunate are spared from the burdens of life, but we can find ways of coping if we ask for help.

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

Kindling the Hearth

Kindling the Hearth

"Mother of our mothers,
Foremothers strong
Guide our hands in yours,
Remind us how to kindle the hearth."
___ Caitlin Matthews, "A Blessing for the Hearth 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 customery 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. 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, acknwledging 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 everyday."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Scavengers

Scavengers

"As I was walking all alane (alone),
I heard two corbies making a mane (moan);
The tane unto the tither did say,
"Whar sall we gang and dine the day?"
    ___ "The Two Corbies", anon. Scots Folk Song


   The two corbies in this song are ravens who are conferring about where they are going to dine. One tells the other that he knows where there is a newly slain knight and predicts that they will dine sweetly. Birds of prey, many kinds of insects, and other scavenging animals clean away the carcasses of the dead. Their very necessary way of life keeps our world free of decay and corruption. The work of the raven and other scavengers helps keep our world clean, as many of our prehistoric forebears realized: the practice of excarnation, whereby bodies are left in high places on remote platformsto be stripped of flesh by the elements and the scavengers, was widely practiced throughout the northern hemispheres in early times.

  We can learn from the action of the scavengers by applying its priciples to our own lives. If we think for one moment about what our world would look like without decay, we shudder. The same work of decay needs to be applied to ourselves. Without periodic clearing out and rooting up of old concepts, ideas, and burdens, our being would soon become as noisome as any bloated carcass by the highway. When we investigate what is hindering our spiritual path, we often find that it is something we have been holding onto, rather than any external circumstance.

"What is hindering you? What needs to go away? Meditate upon this and write down one major burden or worn-out notion that is obstructing your progress. Go outside and burn the paperon which you wrote, letting go of your burden as the ashes fly free on the wind."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Chosing a Soul-Friend

Chosing a Soul-Friend

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


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

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

The Renewing Spiral of Life

The Renewing Spiral of Life

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


  The Rev. Robert Kirk was a Scots clergyman with a great interest in faeries and the second sight. His research caused him to talk to many Gaelic people who had firsthand knowledge of these matters. He formed a whole philosophy of the faery world, including this understanding of the spiraling pilgrimage of life. The wisdom of any turas lies not in the arrival, but in the traveling. With our modern goal-centered, destination-seeking persp0ective, we have forgotten this concept of the renewal of the spiral of life. We pay attention to the end, to the centiricate of achievement, to the self-congratulation of conclusion, when we should be more involved in our spiraling progress through life. Each year, on our own spiral path, things change and yet remain unchanging, freshly and eternally rediscoverd, a delight to our senses, powerful enough to move our soul. This unchanging renewal is chanted by mystics all over the world who declaire that 'there is nothing new under heaven.'

  Yet these eternal things do not feel stale or repetitive to us when we experience them. They are rediscovered in moments when we have been exiled from or have neglected their savor and wonder: the unstained clarity of a new day, the urgent grasp of sexual need and its assuaging, the laughter of our child, which stays the same whatever age he reaches. All these things are ever new and always the same; time and perspective alone have renewed them for us.

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

Sacred Encounters

Sacred Encounters

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


   Many people who are about to embark upon their spiritual quest come to consult me. They are curious about what they will find and who will they encounter. They have hugh expectations about the sp0iritual 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, animal 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 practice or quest undergone. Whether that person treks into the realms of Christianity or the regions of Buddhism, this same being will turn up - sometimes bafflingly out of place, sometimes very much at home - in her meditations and dreams.

   The most potent spiritual help may come from nameless and sometimes unknown figures who appear in meditation, soul-flights, dreams and visions. Occasionally, however, our helpers are well known - great figures of history, myth, or religion. At those times we may feel humbled or overwhelmed by the sacred encounter, as well as suspicious that we may have made up the encounter from an overactive imagination. Listen to advice and wisdom that these figures give you. If they come to you; see if it works practically, if it is trustworthy. If everything checks out, you may well be privileged to be accompanied by a sacred being who is known and loved by many. But remember that our spiritual guides and teachers often take forms different from the ones we exptect. Do not reject their teachings simply because their appearance does not accord with your expectations. If the help is good, then so is the teacher.

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