Change

"Now ebb, now flood, now friend, now cruel g(f)oe;
Now glad, now sad, now weel, now into woe;
Now cload in gold, dissolvit now in ash;
So dots [does] this world transitory go."
-- William Dungar, "O Wretch; Beware"

The aftermath of order and chaos are natural frequencies that balance our lives. Custom and change are but their children, who allow new influences and possibilities into the world. When things become too formalized and ordered, they become stale and static, lacking the life and energy that only change can bring. Yet when change strikes, we feel out of control, disordered, even attacked by its sudden overturning of all that we have known. Despite that, change is not, of its essence, antagonistic to us, only to our habitual and clinging notions. Long periods of change and fluctuation can be very wearing, however, because we have no order or pattern to give context to our living.

The period leading up to the spring equinox is similarly a time of great upheaval in nature: the first full moon of March usually heralds high tides and strong winds that enliven the long-dead period of late winter. The change of spring is one that we welcome with all our hearts, but we appreciate it warmly only because of what has gone before it. Our ability to cope with change will improve if we discover the art of living in the present moment, of being at home where and when we are.

"What strategies do you use for coping with change? Meditate upon the fresh opportunities and energies that change is currently bringing to your life."
[From Caitlin Matthews' "The Celtic Spirit"]

Walking the Earth Sacredly

It is all sacred. Every hill and every valley. Our land is a living thing, not a grave of forgetfulness under our feet.
-- Owen M. Edwards, cited in Emyr Humphreys, "The Taliesin Tradition"

The way in which we walk the earth matters greatly, but our feet do not always remember this. Instead of walking the earth sacredly, we tend to stamp with proud disrespect in every stride. How can we remember the sacred dimention of the earth? Only when we realize it as a living entity does this understanding come home to roost. Nearly everyone has at some point experienced the impinging of a greater living presence when we have seen a beautiful view or stood at a powerful land feature through which the earth's soul is clearly discernible, but this feeling fades away once we are back in our home surroundings.
To get a sense of the living presence of the earth, as an ensoulded being, we can chose to purposely notice the abiding life of the earth by sitting in nature and focusing upon its breathing, its rhythms, and its soul. This requires that we filter out our own concerns and presence and focus instead upon the earth's. Whenever we give up this kind of time and attention, the rewards are striking. We learn, at first hand, the beauty and presence of the sacred earthy; we hear its ancient stories, songs, and myths; we become aware of the humbling fact that we are a part of the earth, not the earth of us.
With this realization, we can take up a new relationship with our planet, walking gently and with remembrance, dancing the song-lines of the living mythic landscape in our soul's circuit.

"Today, wherever you walk, be aware of each step as a blessing upon the earth."
[From Caitlin Matthews' "The Celtic Spirit"]

Fallowness

Fallowness

"All Nature seems at work,

Slugs leave their lair -

The Bees are stirring - birds are on the wing -

And Winter Slumbering in the open air,

Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!

And I the while, the sole unbusy thing,

Nor honey make nor pair, nor build, nor sing."

-- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "With Without Hope"

When fallowness strikes, it is important to place it in the context of the creative cycle. After the period of conception - an exciting period during which we sparkle with ideas - comes the time of gathering and preparation, when things get moving. This is followed by a period of growth, which cannot be hurried, and then by the moment of ripeness, when the idea must manifest or the project get off the ground. This is followed by a time of enjoyment and appreciation, when we can share our manifest idea or plan with others. Then we must let our idea go to make its ways through the world. After all that has happened, we come to the time of fallowness.

To honor our own creative cycle and patterns, we must respect this period and learn to be as empty and receptive as we can. After any birth and manifestation, we are too tired to immediately re-conceive: we need this time of rest when we lie as fallow as the unplowed field that the farmer sets aside for several seasons to regain its fertility. Let us honor fallowness, our uncreating emptiness, by cutting ourselves some slack and giving mind and heart time to recover their former savor in a new season. Fallowness is the ground of conception: when the soil is ready, the seed will fall and germinate.

"Consider helpful strategies to sustain yourself through these empty times

in ways that honor fallowness creatively."

[From Caitlin Matthews' "The Celtic Spirit"]

Advice

Advice

"He who won't take advice will take the crooked track."
-- Scots Gaelic proverb

It is often said that advice is a two-edged weapon: it can both harm and help, depending upon how and whether we take it. Young Peredur (Perr-EDD'yr) of the Mabingion who was brought up in purposeful woodland seclusion by his mother, sought to go to the court of Authur. Peredur's mother gave him advice so unwordly and indiscriminate that it subsequently led him into the discourtesy of the grossest kind.

Without discrimination, advice can be worse than useless. When good and thoughtful advice is offered to us, we must have the wit to weigh it for its worth and implement it as sensitively as we can, balancing it with the prevailing circumstances that surround our case. When we offer advice to others, it must always be set within the context of our experience rather than based on someone else's criteria.

Age and wisdom tend to give advice to youthful inexperience, but it is not always welcome. The reactionary stubbornness of youth often chooses to take the longer road of personal example in order to gain wisdom. The crooked track that then unwinds may be like that traveled by Peredur - a road fraught with obstacles and difficulties. Only when we have traveled such a road and labored to clear the obstacles can we finally have a true context for advice that is offered.

"From the experiences of your life to date, what are the three best pieces of advice that you could offer someone about to make her way in the world?"
[From Caitlin Matthews' "The Celtic Spirit"]

Solitariness

Solitariness

"It is a good thing to be happy alone. It is better to be happy in company, but it is good to be happy alone." -- Thomas Traherne, "Centuries"

Among tribal and traditional peoples today, few choose to be solitary. Purposeful periods of solitude or seclusion are normally experienced only by young people facing their rites of passage - times during which they are taken from their families to be instructed in tribal lore and adult responsibility. In such rites, each young person generally endures an short period of isolation wherein he encounters the spirits of the tribe in a visionary way. Awareness of the otherworld and the way it impinges upon our own reality is one of the fruits of solitariness.

When we are far from the interaction of society, when the chatter and comment of our minds is stilled, then it is possible to enter into a deeper relationship with the universe that we inhabit. The revelations of solitude are often profoundly moving and though we may share them in conversation with friends afterward, we do not find it easy to reach into the depths that we have inhabited within our solitude nonce we return to company again.

To be content with one's own company is an art that cannot be taught; it is something we each have to learn as our lives unfold. When there is nothing to distract us, we return to the primal ground of our being, where we can begin to learn who we truly are and discover our context within the rest of the universe.

"Whether you are naturally solitary or gregarious, enter the spaciousness of solitude and be aware of your true self and its context."

{From Caitlin Matthews' "The Celtic Spirit"]

In Our End is Our Beginning

In Our End is Our Beginning

"Our final bliss, perfectly passionate, perfectly kind;
It is our first love, long since left behind."
--Ruth Pitter, "Good Enthroned"

The surprise, delight, or astonishment that passes over the face of the dying as they glimpse what lies beyond is frequently remarked upon by those who attend a deathbed. Those who have kept vigil feel a sense of shared privilege when they observe this, a feeling of exaltation that rises up above sorrow, weariness, and bereavement. What has happened here? At the very verge of consciousness, the dying see briefly beyond the horizon that lies between life and death. What they recognize there is not a barreness or an absence of everything; rather, it is more life, a recognition of whatever they once thought lost to them forever. That which they relinquished or neglected in years past, as well as the very potential of the soul, is rediscovered in an instant.

The wise treat death as a friend who will restore them, not only in body but also in spirit, to everyone and everything they have ever loved. Living with death as a friend, as a daily companion, is not a morbid practice. It helps to reconnect us with our beginnings, when our hopes and potential were still strongly flowing; it casts aside fear and strengthens the life that we still enjoy. If we substitute the image of our soul's beloved for the popular image of death, we will immeasurably help ourselves. Death is the soul's friend, the turner of the key, who liberates us to inhabit new freedoms and who reintroduces us to old loves so that we can find our way back to the primal beginnings of our soul's story.

"Consider what hopes you have for your own death, even though hopes is not a word you would normally apply to dying. If you have a strong fear of death, ask help of your soul's beloved - your deepest spiritual source of assistance and support - in redefining your view and creating a more confident attitude."

[From Caitlin Matthews' "The Celtic Spirit"]

The Doors of Perception

The Doors of Perception

"If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear as it is, infite." -- William Blake - "A Memorable Fancy"

The doors of perception are the senses - not only the physical senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, but also the subtle senses of inner vision, resonance, instinct, discrimation, and empathy. Without the cooperation of these two sets of senses, we cannot perceive truly.

To be able to perceive everything as it really is means retraining and exercising senses that we have often neglected. Meditation can hone our subtle sense, as we reach beyond the physical for the unseen reality and its meaning. Using a range of senses, we rely on our tactile and empathetic senses to combine with our hearing and resonance so that like a bat or a whale, we have a sense of space, distance, and mass. Or we may find that our sense of smell/taste combines with our instinct and discrimation to give our visual field a sense of color and quality that is both accurate and surprising.

When the doors of perception are cleansed, we receive earlier warnings of m matters that are likely to be dangerous or problematic for us; we are subsequently able to make better decisionhs, draft more accurate forecasts, and read the character of the universe in an altogether better way.

"Practice using your subtle senses in combination with your physical senses today. Your eyes tell you one thing about a person, but what do your ears tell you? Is the message different? What do your deep instincts and discrimination have to say?"

[From Caitlin Matthews' "The Celtic Spirit"]