The Tasks of a Druid

The Tasks of a Druid

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


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

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

Rediscovering the Sacred Places

Rediscovering the Scared Places

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


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

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

Our True North

Our True North

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


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

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

Reality and Belief

Reality and  Belief

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


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

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

Respect

Respect

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


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

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

Forgiveness

Forgiveness

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

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

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

Prophecy

Prophecy

"O hear the voice of the Bard
Who present, past and future sees,
Whose ears have heard the holy Word
That walked among the ancient trees."
      ___ William Blake, "Songs of Experience"


   Celtic tradition has abounded in prophets: King Arthur's Merlin, the uncanny Brahan Seer, Thomas the Rhymer, the Welsh awenyddion (ah-wen-ITH'ion) or 'inspired ones,'  and many unnamed seers and seeresses of history. The ability to see through the veil from the temporal world into the world where time is always now is one that runs in blood and surfaces in certain family lines and in lone individual alike.
   Moments of true seeing and true utterance happen to everyone. They occur when we see clearly through the veil between the worlds, all unbidden, and observe what will be. Then we experience the slowing down of time, the growing sense of communion with precise coordinates of knowledge that click in our brain into startling patterns of revelation. Because our society tends to ignore such revelation, we usually shrug off what we have experienced as something of little importance, ignoring these subtle messages.
    These moments sometimes happen when we are on the brink of decisions, meetings, or agreement ts: we suddenly have a sense that we are present at something momentously charged and potent, maybe having a flash vision of a future event when the fruits of the decision have matured.  We may experience a sense of warning, a flash of insight that tells us clearly that the person we are meeting does not mean us well. We sometimes even remember past insights and visions that we indeed predicted and are now actually living through. At those times the same sense of timelessness and encompassment rises within us.

"Use your prophetic soul to look between the worlds to understand a recent action's consequences."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]