Living in the World

Living in the World

"Were All the World a Paradise of Ease,
'Twere Easy Then to Live in Peace."
    ___ Thomas Traherne, "Centuries"


    When we first plunge into the full flood of response to our spiritual path, the world seems a wonderful place. Our ecstasy is often so persuasive that we enter a period of convert fervor and rapidly become bores, singing the delights of our chosen way for the benefit of any friends (or total strangers) unfortunate enough to meet us.
   For anyone descending from the spiritual high-ground, the next phase is the most challenging to our chosen way. All the delights, joys, and insights that we enjoy at the peak suddenly run up against all the lethargies, doldrums, and seemingly meaningless interludes of daily life. If our prayer life has been connective, it becomes prone to a strange interference in this phase; if our meditations have been colorful, they suddenly start receiving black-and-white transmission; if our spiritual allies have favored us with the intimate interviews, they suddenly become amazingly elusive. No one and nothing seems to be on the same wavelength anymore.
    The individual who finds himself in such a predicament needs to look at each new challenge to his new found spiritual peace as a practical opportunity to manifest some of his theoretical notions.
   It is not solely in the otherworld or in paradise that spirituality is to be implemented, but in the world in which we live. If our spirituality cannot supply us with resourceful encouragement, then it is very shallowly rooted in us. It is in the challenges to our spiritual peace that we find the solutions. Like a parched tree that has to send out deeper roots to sources of water, we also have to send our spiritual roots deeper in search of help. To live our sacred text, to implement our holy philosophy, there is no better place than here and now.

"Apply your spiritual wisdom to the most challenging daily trail."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

The Clan Bond

The Clan Bond

"The bonds of affection that unite the present chief and her clansmen in all the arts of the world is indeed a living tie that neither mountains nor a waste of seas can divide."
    ___ Sir Iain Moncrieffe, "The Highland Clans"


   Sir Iain Monfrieffe, the late Albany herald of arms, speaks warmly here of the late Dame Flora MacLeod, clan chief of the Clan MacLeod. The special bonds that bring the clan and its chief together are very different from those of president and citizen or of monarch and subject. The clan chief is responsible to the clan as the head of a family is responsible for her children; the clan's responsibilities toward the chief are like-wise familial and intimate.  Despite the decline of the clan system, the clans and their chiefs still gather in familial assemblies from all parts of the world to rejoice in each other's company.
    With the breakdown of extended families into nuclear units, few families can enjoy a similar intimacy and recognition. The strongest sense of clan affection is not experienced among those families that are members of the vast diaspora of immigrants who have left their homeland for a new country. The sense of clan may remain in the new land, with those from a particular area who have settled in a given region, or it may extend back over the water to the people of the old homeland.
    The sense of wanting to belong to part of our human identity, but even this special bond is shifting as human consciousness seeks a more personalized identity, as it reaches for a wider connection. We are all moving toward a greater clan bond that is planetary and universal. We are not altogether happy or convinced about this belonging: it lacks intimacy and could so easily come to nothing very much. Whether we can be part of this larger clan is yet to be seen.

"Which clan bonds include you in their embrace?  Which do you admit to?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Scandal

Scandal

"Fionn, Prince of the Fianna,
Shall deliver me from the lie,
The son of Cumhail of the sharp blades,
And Goll of the strokes shall be my shield."
    __ Scots Gaelic charm against ill-report (trans CM)

   In this Scots Gaelic charm, the speaker invokes the help of Fionn mac Cumhail (FINN mak KOOL), the great champion of the Gael, and one of his heroes, the hard-hitting Goll. When our own good name is brought into disrepute, through the spiteful words of others, we need strong heroes to champion us against a world of back-stabbing gossips.
   Ill report and scandal are like forest fires, sweeping through a circle of acquaintance faster than the wind. For anyone, regardless of prominence or anonymity in the world, the assault of scandal is the most difficult to parry or refute.  When the rights of livelihood or marriage or parenthood are stripped away as a result of false report, the injustice rankles to the core.
   Every person alive has a responsibility to those in his shared circle of life. If by one unregarded word of ours we cause pain or hurt unjustly, if we endanger the public esteem of someone without warrant, we are no better than the armed assailant, who mugs people on the streets. To steal someone's good name is theft, however we wrap it up. Scandal flourishes only because there are willing ears to receive it. If we close our ears to unjust gossip and restrain our tongues from passing it on, its muddy outpourings will cease to foul our lives.

"How have you entertained gossip?  How can you cease to be the exponent of ill-report?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Guardians of Power

Guardians of Power
"Who has seen the Cup flame in the West,
who has not also seen the breath of Nine
smoke on the air above the Cauldron's rim?"
   ___ John Matthews, "The King's Moon Rite"

    In British folklore, the Lord of the Underworld has a cauldron whose brew is available only to those who are courageous and worthy. In one of the earliest written texts to mention Arthur, the hero himself goes in quest of this cauldron as proof of his sovereignty. It is tended by nine women who heat and empower the broth by their exhalation: these are nothing less than the guardians of the powers of life.
     The nine sisters of the cauldron are the forerunners of the two Grail guardians of medieval Arthurian tradition: the beautiful Grail maiden who carries the blessed vessel and the ugly Grail messenger who stimulates the knights to quest for the vessel. Whether Grail or cauldron, the vessel in question bestows special qualities upon those who imbibe its contents, conferring immortality, healing, or specific virtues that manifest the quester's intrinsic life-purpose.
   These nine sisters are the ones who guard the vessel of life and grant every living soul special gifts. Each breath that they breathe across the cauldron of our life's essence imbues each of with our particular vocational gifts and tendencies. If we ignore the blessings of the guardians of life, we do not flourish easily: life is an uphill grind, and we have to reinvent the wheel at every turn. If, however, we examine the nature of our particular brew and discover with what blessings and potentialities we are each imbued, we can find a wonderful unfolding richness in all we attempt.

"List up to nine qualities that are blended in your unique brew of life. Speak to the Gifting Mothers and ask how their blessings may be used."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Misunderstandings

Misunderstandings

"The last thing I intended
Was for a deed to come between us."
   ___"The Song of Liadan," early Irish text (trans CM)


   Liadan (LEE'dun) and Curithir (KOO'reer) were poets who met while on their poetic circuit of noble houses and fell in love. Curithir suggested that they marry immediately, adding that any child of theirs would be famous. Perhaps piqued by his words and by the suggestion that Curithir thought more of any future child than of their very real love, Liadan took religious vows of chastity. When Curithir came to claim her as his wife, he was too late: she would not sleep with him, preferring to honor her poetry above her sexuality. The muddle was not helped when the lovers put themselves under the direction of the severe St. Cummine, who gave Carithir, the choice of seeing Liadan and not talking to her, or speaking to her without seeing her. Since he was a poet, he chose speech. In due time, the suspicious St. Cummine banished Curithir from his monastic settlement accusing him of sinful lust; Crithir then became a pilgrim and renounced Liadan's love. Liadan's subsequent poetry is a heart-rending, self-condemnation of her action. She eventually died while clutching the stone on which the exiled Curithir used to sit.
   When misunderstandings arise, they usually germinate in small and insignificant ways: a slighting glance, a failure to greet, a thoughtless word, a sense of exclusion or neglect - and so grow into substantial disasters. A phone call or letter or small token of apology can quickly bring reconciliation.

"Consider a situation in which you were misunderstood or were the agent of misunderstanding. What factors exacerbated the situation? How could the misunderstanding have been prevented? Is there a go-between who could have brought about reconciliation? Apply your realizations to a situation in which you are currently involved."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Pilgrimage Routes

Pilgrimage Routes

"Though the long tracks know no glad step,
And the circle goes unblessed.
From their long homes may the old ones
Welcome travellers upon their quest."
    ___Caitlin Matthews, "Pilgrims' Blessing"


   Pilgrimage is a step beyond tourism, which merely comes to look at place and enjoy them; pilgrimage involves a deeper engagement with the land, with the sacred nature of the experience that is had not only at the destination but along the route as well. Those who travel with spiritual purpose find pleasure and enjoyment no less than the tourist, but their experience is colored by the reality of their contact with the unseen world - not only with the apparent landscape about them, but with its inhabitants and guardians.
   When we re-engage with the sacred places of our spiritual heritage, the ability to be a pilgrim affects our experience of the places we visit: the ability to see beyond desacralization, the skill to travel the road with expectant and prayful hearts, the greeting we send out - before  we even begin to travel - to the ancestral guardians and spiritual presences who have awaited our coming this long time.
   In pilgrimage, it is the ability to give blessing upon the places we visit, rather than seek blessing for ourselves in our travel, that is most appreciated. In offering our blessing, we are able to resacralize both the way and the site: for if we become alive to the generous and sacred nature of each place, so may many others; and we will have become guardians and pilgrims of a new generation for all the generations to come.

"Make your own pilgrimage to a special or sacred place during the wintertime, drawing upon some of the ideas above."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]

Avalon: An Otherworldly Paradise

    The Isle of Avalon is an Otherworldly Paradise, a golden Isle of Blessed Souls where the goddess reigns forever. It is a magical land lying far to the west across the waters, veiled in mystery. Avalon means the place of apples and in many apple orchards of this beautiful land the red and gold fruits of the goddess's immortality grow in abundance. In some tales Avalon is one of the Fortunate Isles, a fabled Island of Women, where women and our mysteries reign and people lives a hundred years and more. Birds of omen, large and small, flock to the sacred land, singing with great sweetness of her beautyways. Here too there are animals, black or white with red ears, all beloved of her. In particular Avalon is a land of transformation, sometimes known as the Western Isle of the Dead, a place of dying, healing and rebirth.
[From: "In the Nature of Avalon: Goddess Pilgrimages in Glastonbury's Sacred Landscape"
by Kathy Jones]

Three Rocks of Judgment

Three Rocks of Judgment

"The three immovable and perfect rocks
on which the judgments of the world are sustained; the poet, the written word, and nature."
   ___Irish triad from Senchus Mor


    This triad speaks of the three kinds of authority by which judgments can be made: authority from the divinatory composition of poets, from the letter of the law, and from the law of nature. These are the three traditional 'courts of appeal' that sustain the law.
    The first court of appeal is the oral word, and its exponent is the poet. The divinatory prowess of the ancient poets was considered to be both wise and authoritative. The spoken word is still a lively defender and prosecutor in modern courts of law, able to sway juries and reveal discrepancies in evidence.
    The second court of appeal is the written word, which now has precedent over the spoken word in our society. The written word is not so flexible as its spoken counterpart and has tended, over the centuries, to become the 'dead letter of the law' rather than a perfect rock upon which judgments may be based. The written word is indeed a strong rock if it is administered and maintained by people of probity and good guardianship, but it can also be interpreted in narrow and unhelpful ways. Many traditional legal frameworks stand in need of redrafting to encompass the changes that have overtaken our world.
   The third court of appeal is nature itself, which has its own immutable laws to which both word and writing must bow. The natural laws cannot be overset by human judgments. They govern the whole round of life. As we seek to manipulate nature, to bypass its natural processes, we find out just how enduring and implacable its laws are. Beyond human memory and written judgment stands nature, the final court of appeal, reflecting the truth of our actions and desires.

"What are the three rocks that sustain your world?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]