The Lay of History

The Lay of History

"Were poetry to be suppressed, my friend, with no history, no
ancient lays, save that each had a father, nothing of any man
would be heard hereafter."
   ____ Giolla Brighde Mhac Con Midir, in Osborn Bergin, "Irish
Bardic Poetry"


    Celtic poets not only sang praises and songs to their patrons, but they were also the repositories of history and genealogy. These were passed down to poets from generation to generation, until the era when the church wrote them down.
   Before the coming of St. Patrick to Ireland, it is said that only three classes of people were permitted to speak in public with any authority: the chronicler to relate events and tell stories, the poet to eulogize, and satirize, and the brehon, judge, to pass sentences from precedents and commentaries.
    We may wonder at the way that poetry and history are conjoined. In order that historical, poetic, and legal traditions could be recalled accurately, memory was aided and strengthened by the 'thread of poetry' that bound together the teachings. The memory of these teachings can be likened to a preserving shrine or storehouse of knowledge, or to a bright candle of knowledge conveyed from one person to another. The memory of wise traditions is called 'the old road to knowledge' - the road by which people can walk to their ancestral wisdom.
   Our own chronicles normally record events, trends, and times, and are rarely seen as the preservers of wisdom. The poetry of the living knowledge of a skill is of more benefit than a bald recital of events: it becomes a road upon which we too can walk all the way down to the depths of time and find the ageless knowledge. Without its mythic levels, history is shorn of glory and usefulness.

"Meditate upon the history of your people. What parts of it come alive for you? Down which 'old roads of knowledge' can you walk?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Gifts of Directions

Gifts of the Directions

"Star of the East, give us kindly birth,
Star of the South, give us great love,
Star of the West, give us quiet age,
Star of the North, give us death."
   ___Fiona MacLeod, "Iona"


  Throughout the world, every traditional society has its own local understanding ab out the gifts of the different directions. These are seldom written down, remaining firmly embedded in consciousness and folklore.
   In Britain, the gifts of direction above are commonly accepted in many locations. The east - the place of beginnings, where the sun rises - guards the time of birth and development; the south - the place of growing, where the sun is at its warmest - is where our love is most strongly engaged; the west - the place of maturity, where the sun sets - is the place of vision; the north - the place of endings, where only the midnight sun shines - is commonly thought of as the place of death and still abiding.
   The gifts of the directions depend upon the location of a land mass on the globe and are affected by the prevailing winds, the nature of topographical features, the position of the sea, and many other factors. Many books attempt to assign fixed definitions to the gifts of the directions, but these cannot hold in every place on earth. The only way to learn more about these gifts is to seek them out in the place where you live - from your own experience, not from a book. Then you will truly be in a position to receive and experience those gifts for yourself and give thanks for their guiding qualities.

"Standing or sitting outside, face each of the directions in turn. With eyes closed, meditate upon each direction, feeling for its particular gift and opportunity. Try repeating this at different times of the day and night. How do these qualities intermesh with your life?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

The Habit of Familiarity

The Habit of Familiarity

"We are every day betrayed by the blank state of custom. The commonplace accessories ... weigh us down."
    ____Llewelyn, "Earth Memories"


   As the dark November days draw in, our working lives begin similarly to draw close about us. The daily round begins to grind: the very position of a desk or table, the same blank faces on the street, the systematic regularity become like the beat of a hammer, emphasizing how very dull and ordinary every day seems.
   How do we keep our lives fresh and sparkling with energy when we hit to doldrums of the habitual and the familiar? If our daily surroundings and routine are beating out a rhythm so regular and unchanging that we are going to shoot the conductor soon, then it is time to introduce a new melody, a counterpoint to the rhythm. That does not mean that we stop our daily tasks, only that we begin to dance through them in a more conscious way.
   When personal focus becomes one-eyed, it is always good to get another perspective, to invite a friend over, spring a change on our partner. If we are the routine-holders in our family, we have a special responsibility to ring the changes; without help, we can get into 'corporate' ruts so deep that we cannot leave them. If we live alone, we need to go out with friends, practice our special skill,s find the deep nurture of the things we enjoy.
    In nature, all life is stripping off its finery to reveal its essential bare self. If the surface of our life seems dull and unmoving, we have only to look deeper and find where our energy is tending. In what secret place is it biding to wake refreshed?

"What are your strategies for coping with the habitual? How can your own routines be enlivened?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Making Peace with the Ancestors

Making Peace with the Ancestors

"Dear ones in the house of the dead,
Can you forgive
An old woman who was your proud
Daughter, who now too late
Returns your love?"
   ___ Kathleen Raine, "The Oracle in the Heart"


   We often do not understand those who are closest to us until it is too late. This is especially true of our parents, upon whom we heap the faults of our upbringing. Parents struggle to do the best thing for their children, but these efforts are seldom appreciated until the children themselves become parents and enter into the war of attrition that we call growing up. When we are adults, our activities take us far from our parents' domain. The death of parents is perhaps the last part of growing up, usually happening when we are raising our own children, so that we stand midway between youth and age. Those who now find themselves the eldest generation of a family discover new responsibilities: as they become grandparents, they look to the new generation to solve old, long-standing problems. This ancestral bequest tends to gather weight and momentum as it rolls from generation to generation, sometimes becoming too heavy for any one person to carry.
   Making peace between ourselves and our ancestors requires two things: the ability to speak the truth lovingly, and the ability to forgive and let go of issues that have muddied the way between us and the dead. We need to offer a word of love, a sign of admiration or praise, a visit, a gift, even a phone call - some direct communication while there is opportunity, before the time for regret is all that is left.

"Make soul-flight to a place where you and a relative who is now dead used to meet together. Speak the words that you would have liked to say before death intervened. Listen to the words that your relative speaks to you. Thank and bless your relative."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Samhain Quarter of the Year

   The winter quarter of Samhain brings the gifts of restoration and renewal, as the cold weather closes in, so the soul is led to more reflective depths. It is traditionally associated with the remembrance of the ancestors, with the coming of death and the conception of new life. In the human growth cycle, Samhain corresponds to the period of old age when wisdom, freedom of spirit and clarity are experienced. Samhain is a good time to celebrate the lives of all wise elders, all those whose actions and ideas have brought resolution and peace, all holy ones whose sacrifice have brought new life and opened spiritual thresholds to all.
[From: "Celtic Devotional" by Caitlin Matthews]

Activities for the Winter Months

* Practice introspection, meditation contemplation, drawing upon the peaceful sanctuary of this season.
* Shift burdens by doing something about them (e.g. make your will) or by giving up unnecessary patterns.
* Remember your ancestors and celebrate their wisdom.
* In this deep season of darkness and introspection, seek the sun at midnight, the rich treasures that lie in the lap of Winter.
* Be aware of the ancestral teachers, the grandparents and elders of the spiritual traditions, whose footsteps have kept the pathways open.
* Cut back old growth in the garden and burn or compost it. Dig over the soil in preparation for the Spring.
* Walk and meditate outdoors for at least ten minutes daily.
* Identify the nature of the soil and rock-forms in your locality and how it affects the life-forms who lived upon the land.
* Be active, with like-minded others, in recording, preserving, living and learning about the ancient wisdom of indigenous people, especially those in your own land.
* As you travel through the land of Winter, relate your spiritual journey to the wisdom of this season.
[From: "Celtic Devotional" by Caitlin Matthews]

The Assembly of Peace

The Assembly of Peace

"It was their custom at the Feis of Tara to pass six days in feasting
together before the sitting of the assembly: three days before Samhain and three days after it, making peace and entering into friendly alliance with each other."
   ___ Geoffrey Keating, "Forus Feasa ar Eirinn"

   The Festival Assembly of Tara, at which the nobles and learned people of Ireland ratified and renewed laws, took place every three years. During the festival it was strictly forbidden for any robbery, assault or legal wrangles to take place. Anyone so engaged was summarily sentenced to death, and not even the king himself had power to pardon the one who had disrespected the assembly of peace. Samhain (SOW'en) marked the beginning of winter and the cessation of hostilities between warring factions. The poets and their retinues quartered with the rich households of Ireland until Beltane (BEL'tenn-a; May) so that the winter months might pass more quickly by their entertainment.
   Samhain means 'the summer's end.' In early days, this festival heralded a period when the gates of sid (SHEE), the faery gates of the Otherworldm were open and when the ancestors were nearer to the Otherworld than at any other time.
   After a preliminary evening of half-fearful, half-mischievous activities, the daytime of Samhain was one of gravity, wherein all the changes could be acknowledged and assimilated. Of all the Celtic festivals, this is the one at which we best experience the overlap of one world with the other. It is time to assemble peacefully and be conscious of the ordering of our affairs, bringing ourselves into alignment with the blessings, work, and opportunities of the darker half of the year,.

"Spend part of this day in assessing your place in life: look at the unfinished. Assess your current spiritual position, scrutinize your movtives, clarify your commitments, recognize and discard inappropriate patterns that no longer serve you."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

November

"Month of November - very fat are the swine;

Let the shepherd go; let the minstrel come;

Bloody the blade, full the barn."

     ___ anon Welsh poem

The season of Winter begins at Samhain, the Celtic New Year, on the eve of November. The meditation themes this month include destiny and fate, cycles and ages, fullness and emptiness, enduring traditions, overcoming difficulty by finding deep resources, the nature of action, and directions and spaces.



How to Use this Book (The Celtic Spirit)

How To Use This Book

   And here is another section in the beginning of "The Celtic Spirit" which I feel will help those who follow these posts most every day.

   This book contains 365 short meditations, one for each day of the year to enable you to walk along and learn something of the sacred wisdom of the Celtic path. Each page is headed by a short quotation from a Celtic source or from another inspirational source that acknowledges the ancestral wisdom of our culture. These quotations draw on a wide variety of eras, from ancient to modern times. They were chosen because they reflect some aspect of the sacred path.
    Each accompanying meditation was drawn from my (Caitlin Matthews) druidic and shamanic experience of walking between the worlds. You are invited to reflect upon each entry, to meditate upon each entry, to meditate upon the deep sources of the natural world, upon personal approaches to living as well as upon universal concepts that are relevant to us all. You may follow the sun's circuit and read a portion as set for each day (which is what is posted here daily), or you may choose to dip into the book, using the thematic index to draw upon those passages most relevant to your condition.
   Each month of this book provides interrelated themes for meditation within the framework of the four seasons and the Celtic festivals, which stand like sentinels to mark each part of the year's turning; Samhain (SIW'en) or Hallowe'en in November, which marks the beginning of winter; Imbolc (IMM'bolk) in February, which sees the season of spring; Beltane (BEL'tenn-a) in May-time, which marks the summer; and Lughnasa (LOO'nas-ah) in August, which guards the three months of autumn. The arrangement of the meditations in this book, from November to October, follows the old Celtic and agricultural cycle of the year from barrenness to plenty, rather than the more conventional calendrical year.

   Each meditation can be seen as a tree in the sacred grove of the year, a place of reflection under which the reader can seek sanctuary, peace, and restoration of spirit. Meditation is simply making a space of time wherein our souls can be purposefully engaged and focused. It deepens us, giving us soul-capacity.
    Finding a daily space in which to be still and receptive is a discipline in our busy world. Your place of meditation can be inside or outside, as long as it is free from disturbance.
   As you read each day's meditation, actively enable the words to go beyond this page by interacting with the subject. Regard each meditation as an extension of your own meditation space, so that it can become your own sacred grove. From that grove, you may discover pathways that gradually lead you from personal space in the apparent world into the universal space of the unseen world. As you contemplate, let the words and meanings become like sparks that leap from idea to idea, strongly connecting with your own understanding and allowing your own memory-resident realizations to join up in new conflagrations of inspiration.
   Many people have forgotten how to understand the soul; they do not recognize its signals any longer, mistaking deep soul-urgings for paranoia, creative inspiration for psychic disturbance. In such ways are the deep sendings of the soul dismissed and many wonderful opportunities lost! To be responsive to the messages the soul sends us, we need a deep listening ability to pick up the frequencies beyond the surface-level transmission of daily anxiety and business. These subtle messages are easily ignored as irrelvant or too difficult to deal with; sometimes they are mistakenly dismissed as self-delusions. The daily practice of meditation can help us retnne to soul's frequency again and gain a sense of proportion.
    On the days when you are ill, emotionally disturbed, or burdened by worry, do not be meditationally ambitious. Look after yourself, get some help, and temporarily reduce your commitments. Make your meditation time one of refreshment, concentrate upon your breathing, and commune with the inspirers and helpers of your spiritual tradition.

   At the end of each meditation there is an invitation for you to make your own contribution. Sometimes this involves considering an aspect of your own life experience, at other times you will be invited to make upon or visualize something. Some meditations invite you to visit a place by soul-flight: this means sending part of your soul out to that place and with your own vision, being aware of whatever happens there. Some meditations conclude with an invitation to put a concept into practice in your daily life, for spiritual wisdom evolves not in solitary meditation but when implemented in ordinary life. Such implementation helps us avoid the inbalances and delusions that may arise from a purely theoretical approach to spirituality.
   Some meditations end with a question. Questioning was a method of oral teaching given by the druids. Questions are like keys for opening doors. When we ask ourselves the right questions, the resulting synaptic leaps take us into profound areas of realization.
   It is easy to read a portion of this book every day. It is less easy to become involved in your own spiritual path. Some days you will not have the time, of course; but it is only by your own practice that the spiritual path opens. As you make your own sunwise turas round the year, you will make many interesting discoveries about yourself, your own natural mode of spiritual practice, and you will learn traveling the spiral path of the year.
   Many meditations suggest consulting your spiritual allies: this means consciously contacting the spiritual beings whom you hold as sacred guardians and guides on your path. Spiritual allies can include the manifest aspects of the Divine with whom you have close relationship, as well as saints and heroes, and the spirits animals, trees and places with you are strongly aligned.
   As a unique human being with an immortal soul, you have the capacity for discrimination, imagination, and spiritual adventure. Learn to commune with your soul, giving it space to speak to you. Cherish your dreams. Allow the inspiration of your soul to pave the way to creative endeavors that have haunted your unfulfilled desires for many years.
    As you meditate around the year, be aware of others who have walked this path before you. Their inspiration, endeavor, and hope have kept open the track. Remember too that the way you walk the path matters - it clears the way for those who come after you.
    I have alternated male and female pronouns throughout the text. Rough pronunciation of Celtic words is given in parentheses after the word in question - for example, Fionn mac Cumhail, (FINN mak KOOL) or Rhiannon (Hree-ANN'on) . Stress is given on the capitalized syllables. This book offers only approximate pronunciation, as Welsh and Gaelic have their own subtle consonantal and vowel qualities which are apparent in the spoken rather than the written languages.
   This book is set up for following the Northern Hemisphere seasons.  If you live in the Southern Hemisphere you should be following the book in reverse.  To post this book in reverse as well as in the Northern Hemisphere is not something I am prepared to do.  I apologize if this is going to make it difficult to participate in the reading of the essays.  My only suggestion is to go backwards in last year's postings and see if you can work with that method. To give you a place to begin look upon this month of November as being May in the Southern Hemispere and so on. 

The Celtic Spirit: Daily Meditations for the Turning Year

Introduction

I am beginning another journey through this book and thought it might be nice to 'introduce' the book and its purpose to those of you who follow the posts here.

"The limbs of science are equal to the limbs of man; for there are 365 joints in the body, 365 days in the year, and 365 herbs through the earth."
   ___ "Auraicept na nEcces,  anon Irish text
              
A Sunwise Circuit

    Increasingly today, ancient wisdom is seen as something archaic, and forgotten, of use only to learned exponents of arcane lore. But, truly, the wisdom of the ancients is no different from the wisdom that springs from our own life experience. I hope that you will find a deep connection between what is written in his book and your own daily life. 
    As season succeeds season and one year cascades into another, so our lives spiral into new constellations of understanding. If we look over the years, we will see the unique spiral of our life-course interweaving its dance with that of the planet's own revolutions within the solar system.
    The cycles of day and night are ruled by the sun, the cycle of months by the moon, the cycle of the year by the wheeling stars. In every age, human beings have looked to the heavens and been astonished and inspired. The course of a year is but a small compass for change in one human life, but it nevertheless provides a useful chart on which to plot our spiritual voyage.
   The nature of each season brings its own wisdom and insight, testing the practical grasp of our understanding from winter's cold grip through spring's unfolding and summer's heat to autumn's bounty - and on again. Through each season's eye we see the earth and its inhabitants. The changes in animals, plants, trees, and landscape reflect back to us the changes to which we ourselves are subject.
    In the apparent world - the realm that we perceive and know with our physical senses - the year turns its circuit of seasons, providing us with much wisdom. But the apparent world is not the only world with which we interact. Just as real, though perceivable only by our subtle senses, is the Otherworld, the world, the world of Spirit which all of us experience through the receptor of our soul.
   Throughout the year, our comprehension of the unseen changes in the country of our soul fluctuates. Sometimes we clearly hear the music of Otherworld leading us on; sometimes we have to strain to hear it; at other times it seems to be absent. The changing seasons in the apparent world teach us to trust that, though the skies be cloudy, the stars still shine in the dark or the day; that though there are no blossoms, leaves or fruit upon the tree, the cycle of growth will turn again. So too in the country of the soul, we trust that silence will be replaced by singing and that inspiration will flow once more.
   As we make our own pilgrimage round the seasons of the year, we simultaneously make what is called in Irish a turas (TU'ras) - a word that means 'journey', 'pilgrimage' and 'time' all at once. A turas usually refers to the circular, spiraling prayer and meditation form used by people in the Celtic countries as they walk sunwise around a sacred site.
    As our planet spins around the circling year, we too simultaneously experience the turning of our soul toward the source of greatest spiritual light. Each season is a mystical gateway of opportunity and understanding, a sacred time of wisdom. If we live with awareness of the year's cycles, we will achieve a direct alignment with those sacred opportunities.

   The essay post for today, November 1st, will posted in a separate entry.