The Strong Protectors

The Strong Protectors

"Each day and night
That I recite the genealogy of Brighid
I shall not be killed nor despoiled,
I shall not be imprisoned nor wounded."
    ____ Scot's Gaelic blessing (trans CM)

   There is a strong tradition throughout the Celtic realms of special protectors who stand between our world and the otherworld. These are the 'greater dead,' the ancestors who do not pass into the next phase of their tuirgin but stand ready to intercede, facilitate, and assist us. In early times, these figures behaved as protectors against attach and invasion. One such protector is Eoghan Bel, a sixth-century Irish king of Connacht, who insisted on being interred standing, with a spear in his hand. Similarly King Arthur did not die but is held to be ready to come again from Avalon to Britain's defense.
    These early traditions were not overthrown but were supplemented by other strong protectors. The saints who had power to stand between mortals and the dangers of the natural world, for example, would also intercede to the Divine on behalf of beseechers.  This guardianship could be invoked by pilgrimage, visiting the tomb of St. David in Pembrokeshire, Wales, was said to ensure that you would not go to hell, as was the annual barefoot climbing of Croagh Patrick Mountain in County Mayo, Ireland. The recitation of Brigit's genealogy not only protected the speaker but made him part of the saint's family in a special way. The strong protectors are not superbeings, gods or spirits in their initial appearance; they are mortals who become endowed with supernatural power after their death, vehicles of special grace. They form an ancestral hotline that stretches directly between ourselves and the sacred, unseen world, every ready to assist us.

"What are the strong ancestral protectors to whom you appeal?"
[From: The Celtic Spirit Caitlin Matthews]

Defending the Territory

Defending the Territory

"Peredur saw a chess-board in the hall, and
the chess-men were playing against each other,
by themselves.  Now the side that he supported lost the game, while the other side set up a shout, as though they had been living men."
   ____ Peredur, from The Mabinogion (trans CM)


     In Celtic tradition, gaming boards represent the land itself, and the pieces represent people who fight over the rulership of the land. Games of this kind teach players to defend their territory and to hazard their pieces in defense of the king. In an age that expects us to be open, pleasant, and friendly, we could perhaps learn some salutary lessons from the 'wood-cutting' of the gaming board and rediscover how to better protect the territory of our soul. We do not want to live our lives on the defensive or on the attack, but by being always open and welcoming to everyone we meet, unaware of the need to protect our own very necessary boundaries, we expose ourselves to the danger that our soul will be encroached upon by people whose smiles hide manipulative or malign intentions, people interested (perhaps unconsciously) in coercing us to render our services without any reciprocation whatever.
    Those who live as if the world and its contents were set there for their personal convenience have no notion of boundaries, and they will steadily encroach upon the territory of others unless they are checked or challenged.

"Meditate upon where your personal boundaries are and set checks and challenges to those who attempt to come across them without your express permission. Where are you encroaching upon the territory of others?"
[From: The Celtic Spirit by Caitlin Matthews]

Cause and Effect

Cause and Effect

"A stone thrown into water measures its own depth."  ___ Welsh proverb


    When people live their as though there were no cause and effect within it, great harm comes. When they believe that this world is the only world there is, they live less carefully in respect to cause and effect. Unaware of the correspondences of the apparent with the unseen world, they perform actions and harbor intentions that have a ripple effect. When a stone is thrown into water, we are aware only of the ripples on the surface of the pool; however, when the stones lands at the bottom it displaces something else.
    A careless word, uttered without proper attention, lodges somewhere. A thoughtless deed performed however secretly, leaves its impression somewhere. When our actions and intentions measure their depth in the otherworld, we may not  be immediately aware of what has happened, but the sonic resonance of their falling return to the world in a variety of ways, as a fresh set of ripples in another part of our world. Unchecked anger, spiraling fear, the theft of manipulation of the rights of other beings - these are but a few causes that have terrible effects. Anger directed at another is like an actual weapon that impacts upon its target. By ignoring the subtle messages of the unseen realms that lie about us and interact with us at every moment, we cut ourselves off from sources of spiritual joy and alignment. The result is a dispirited or stubborn self-dependency whose boundary of responsibility stop at the egocentric limits of the self. The universe is larger than we have conceived it: it encompasses not only the explored physical cosmos of our kindred beings but the unexplored physical otherworldly family.

"Consider the wider cause-and-effect patterns that interweave you with both worlds. What effects have you noticed?"
[From: The Celtic Spirit by Caitlin Matthews]

The Sacred Lore of Tradition

The Sacred Lore of Tradition

"The songs of our ancestors are also the songs of our children."
     ___ Philip Carr-Gomm, The Druid Way


    The true meaning of tradition entails the handing over by one generation to another the sacred lore by which life can be lived.
The sacred lore of tradition is a living, moving thing, flowing like water from one age to another, reforming itself from one generation to the next, adapting to the needs of the new. Each one of us is a tradition-bearer, though we may not think of ourselves as such. But when we need the sacred lore of tradition - when a family reunion comes along, when death hovers close, when the community gathers together - a sense of unworthiness, a suspicion of fraudulence, a foreboding of inauthenticity shadows our steps. We reach for the ancient song of our ancestors and falter because we have not personally rewoven the sacred theme into our own time, place, and living. We are often driven to borrow the traditions of other people because our own have been mislaid or forgotten.
     Without us, the children will have no songs. Without our humble efforts to grasp and transmute the sacred lore that descends to us, there will be no tradition. Before that fate comes upon us, let us silently ask the ancestors for help. Pray that the song of the sacred lore may be sung, that we may catch its echoes and through the understanding of our hearts, find the melody that harmonizes with our times.

"What beneficial traditions have you inherited? How do they work best now?"
[From: The Celtic Spirit by Caitlin Matthews]

Image: The Remmemberer (Heirophat) card from The Celtic Wisdom Tarot tarot deck by Caitlin Matthews

The Golden Age

The Golden Age

"The sleeping place of the Age of Gold is in
the depths of every human heart."
    ____John Cowper Powys, Morwyn


    Within Celtic belief, the Golden Age is a paradign of the living otherworld, where there is no winter, no death, no disease, no want, no work. In every age, we look back to times we judge to be less imperfect than our own. Grandparents remember better times than they see ahead for their grandparents; traditional craftspeople remember times when their craft was truly valued, before mass-produced goods; soldiers envy troops who could fight on horseback or hand to hand without facing mass annihilation. The grass is always greener and the times always more rosy in retrospect.
    The Edenic principle of Paradise has replaced the picture of the classical Golden Age within our own times, growing out of a story of disobedience that bruises the human heart and echoes after us, becoming the pretext for ideological brutality to all living beings, animals, and people. The reaction against this has created other Golden Ages: the Matriarchal Golden Age, when women were supreme and the Divine was predominantly seen as goddessly; the Golden Age when all ancestral doings were good. wise, and true.  Our longing for a Golden Age is not a fantasy of a historical reality; rather it is a real remembrance of something profoundly, mythically, true. Its images shimmer upon our inner sight like a mirage - a recognition of the eternal living otherworld whose lands we travel to when we dream, meditate, or make soul-flight to its regions, a realm to which we instinctively belong.

"What is your vision of the Golden Age? How does it sustain hope in you?"
[From: The Celtic Spirit by Caitlin Matthews]

Mother and Child

Mother and Child

"Despite the bitterness of every sickness,
The strife that's the gift of each living soul;
The child born of one's fair body,
That is what lives in the mind."
   ___ Gormlaith, "Trum Anocht Mh'Osmadh," in Osborn
  Bergin, Irish Bardic Poetry  (trans. CM)


    The bond between mother and child, between child and mother, is regarded as a sacred one in most cultures - a bond that is upheld by most legal systems, at least while the child is young. In cultures where women are less respected than men, motherhood can be a potent tool of repression, however. Motherhood has become a sacred cow over which politicians argue and bicker, alternately nodding respectfully and pulling it off the highway as a massive obstruction. Our society is ambivalent about the rights of mothers and their children, especially as the strain on the nuclear family to earn a decent living cuts across child-rearing and child-support issues.
    The child-mother bond goes through a series of different phases. After the intimate nurture of babyhood and infancy, the mother becomes the watchdog vigilante - often sharp-voiced and forthright - determined to ensure the safety and well-being of her child. After the child leaves home, the role of mother as caregiver evolves into a variety of different areas, depending on the mother's adaptability. The distance of age and maturity on both sides of the relationship can bring a mutual appreciation of great beauty. Every human being comes from a woman's body, and though the mother and child may be unknown to each other after birth, nothing can rend the sacred bond that lies umbilically between them.

"Meditate about the mother-child bond in your own experience."
[From: The Celtic Spirit by Caitlin Matthews]

image by Maja Sommersted

Divine Powers

Divine Powers

"Three things possible to none but God: to penetrate the eternal without loss of truth; to recreate the new from the old without destruction; to be able to change every shape but remain changeless.
   _____ Welsh triad (trans CM)


    The ability to penetrate the eternal without loss of truth contrasts with our own patchy perception and understanding of the unseen realms. Even though imagination is a faculty of the soul, and it blends the information received by our inner and outer senses together, it can give us only partial understanding.
     Science can now breed other life forms, DNA, or tissue, but not without the death of the donor or loss of integrity to the tissue in question. The issue of genetic research is surrounded by fear and desire. The ability to change every shape and yet remain changeless can be imputed only to those able to live through time and its many evolutions. Only the Divine does this. Although it is believed by many cultures, including the Celtic tradition, that the soul passes into many shapes, subtle changes do occur over the flow of time and nature of place. The unchanging nature of the Divine is only reflected in our world, never fully revealed. We truly apprehend only a few potent images suggesting a totality that is forever hidden from us while we live on this side of the worlds.

"How do you perceive divine powers from your own spiritual experience?"
[From: The Celtic Spirit by Caitlin Matthews]