366 Celt: A Year and A Day of Celtic Wisdom and Lore

The Path of Sacred Animals (#litres_trial_promo)

The Path of Faith (#litres_trial_promo)

The Path of Brigit (#litres_trial_promo)

The Path of the Storyteller (#litres_trial_promo)

The Path of Magic (#litres_trial_promo)

The Path of the Three Noble Strains (#litres_trial_promo)

The Path of the Grail (#litres_trial_promo)

The Path of Romance (#litres_trial_promo)

The Path of the Spiral (#litres_trial_promo)

The Path of Imbas And Awen (#litres_trial_promo)

The Path of Sacrifice (#litres_trial_promo)

The Path of the Future (#litres_trial_promo)

The Path of the Diaspora (#litres_trial_promo)

The Path of the Ogham (#litres_trial_promo)

The Path of the Mystic (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

Bibliography (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

INTRODUCTION (#ulink_a76782a4-dbd8-54e3-aaf2-7696a116c919)

“IN CONVERSATION THEY SPEAK IN RIDDLES, FOR THE MOST PART HINTING OF THINGS AND LEAVING A GREAT DEAL TO BE UNDERSTOOD.”

Thus did the classical writer Diodorus Siculus describe the druids, the original keepers of Celtic wisdom and lore. What we mostly know about the druids reveals just how much we do not know: we know they did not write down their lore, we know that they were not only spiritual leaders but also scientists/intellectuals; and yet even so we know that they were the ritual priests, the soothsayers, and the interpreters of omens. And apparently, they did it all with a rollicking good humor, and uncanny ability to speak in oblique and mysterious ways.

The Celtic world is a world of poetry before philosophy; of mysticism before theology; of magic before logic. Storytelling matters more than the ability to explain something in dry, step-by-step detail. The Celts are, and always have been, a people with one foot in the otherworld, and thus are governed by the enigmatic conventions and customs of that spiritual realm: where time is meaningless, love is forever, and dancing just might never ever end.

The book you’re holding is written with the spirit of the old druids in mind. Riddles and hints matter more here than direct explanations or matter-of-fact descriptions. This is a book of meditations, but what does that mean? Some of the pages that follow invite you into a world of fairies and goddesses; others sneak significant symbols past you in the guise of a summary description of this or that aspect of the tradition. There are 366 pages of thoughts and ideas and invitations into the inner world—read them a day at a time, or get wild and swallow up a week or even a month at a single sitting. I decided to number the entries, rather than date them—daily meditation books seem so structured and tight, if you read “May 17” on any other day it’s just, well, wrong. That, of course, is an invitation to utter chaos, at least as a riddle-talking Celt sees it. So I decided to circumvent the chaos and give each reader the freedom to explore these 366 “morsels” in whatever way works best for you.

The entire collection is organized in 40 different “paths,” each one consisting of 3, 9, or 21 meditations. No one path is required as a prerequisite for any of the others. Once in a while paths crisscross and you’ll encounter the same figure or event that you bumped into three or four paths back. The Celtic tradition just kind of works that way.

Feel free to jump around between the paths, or even within any one path. Read these pages in order, or not. The choice is yours. 366 pages later, you’ll have covered a nice slice of the Celtic terrain. And you’ll still be an absolute beginner in the world of the Celts. Listen to the druids: they’ll have more riddles to offer you. Some will open up amazing shafts of light that will illuminate and inspire you. Others will leave you scratching your head and wondering, “Huh?” That, too, is part of the territory.

May the blessings of the four directions, the three realms, the two worlds, and the one source fill all your days with laughter and joy.

Carl McColman

Summer Solstice 2004

Note on spelling: The names of Celtic deities and heroes can be spelled many different ways. For the sake of simplicity, I have chosen to conform to the spelling found in MacKillop’s Dictionary of Celtic Mythology (Oxford University Press, 1998). Brigit poses a unique problem since both a goddess and a saint bear the same name. Following MacKillop, in this book I have identified the goddess as “Brigit” and the saint as “Brigid.”

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THE PATH OF APPROACH (#ulink_83ab6e74-2052-5f66-a880-47bafda9c5cb)

The Celts are the people of the end of the world. Just as the tip of the Cornwall peninsula is called Land’s End, so too has Ireland been regarded since ancient days as the last stop before the mysterious otherworld located over the waters. Today that sense of mystery has been lost by knowledge of global geography—a traveler leaving the British Isles heading west arrives not at Tír na nÓg but rather comes to Boston or New York. But if we insist on approaching Celtic wisdom with a purely materialistic sense of things, then we run the risk of missing out on the glory and grandeur of their mystical sensibility. Britain and Ireland and Brittany may no longer be the ends of the physical earth, but they can still represent for us a final stopping place before that immense and mysterious journey to the spiritual world that lies just beyond the reaches of the senses.

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THE PATH OF APPROACH

Who are the Celts? Are they simply the people of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Brittany (with Galicia thrown in for good measure)? Or does the Celtic world include anyone who can trace his or her ancestry back to one of these lands? For that matter, may we suppose that the Celtic experience also embraces anyone who comes to live in a Celtic land, or even anyone (of any ancestry or ethnicity) who feels called to explore the wisdom and spirituality of this ancient family of cultures and languages? Maybe the question needs to be put another way. What makes the Celtic world Celtic? What separates Celt from Saxon, or Roman, or Slav? Ah, but these are not the questions to be asking. Celtic wisdom (and spirituality) invites us to come together, not be separated off from one another. The Celtic way is the way of hospitality and of convivial fellowship—worrying about the impertinent details of life that separate us can wait for another day.

So if we need a definition of the Celtic world, let’s leave it at the world that has its roots in languages such as Gaelic, Irish, Welsh, Breton, Cornish, and Manx. But although the Celtic experience begins with language, it doesn’t end there. Culture, nature, a sense of place and tradition, and a deep love for Spirit all contribute to forging the Celtic identity.

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THE PATH OF APPROACH

How can we approach Celtic wisdom today? Especially for those of us who live far away from the islands of our ancestors, what does it mean to walk a Celtic path? There is no single or straightforward answer to a question like this. The Celts are not so much philosophers as poets, not so much architects as artists. Celtic lore invites us to discover meaning through myth and symbol and dream; to celebrate life through the crashing of wave on rocks or the whisper of a winter wind. There can be no “Point A to Point B” logic behind following the Celtic way. Surely, we can study the bards and the druids and the saints, learn their stories, and consider how their lives illuminate our own. Indeed, no better way to embrace Celtic wisdom exists, at least as far as I can tell. But keep in mind that you or I can hear the same stories or ponder the same legends and draw quite different conclusions about the heart of the path we are called to walk. This is as it should be. For the Celtic path is not one of corporate standardization, but rather celebrates the same kind of abundant diversity that characterizes the natural world.

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THE PATH OF SOVEREIGNTY (#ulink_bdc388c7-2886-5350-b712-c53a3474288d)

A part-historical, part-legendary Irish hero named Niall is said to have encountered a goddess who called herself Sovereignty. He was in the wilderness hunting with his brothers, and they stumbled across a sacred well attended by an ugly old hag. Thirsty, the oldest brother approached the water, but the crone blocked his way. “You can drink all you desire, young man, but first you must give me a kiss.” Revolted at the mere thought, he backed away. The second oldest stepped forward, but received a similar challenge from the hideous woman. Each brother in turn declined the request for a kiss, until the youngest, Niall, stepped forward and offered the hag a full embrace. Their lips locked, and magic happened. When Niall stepped back, he found that the old crone had transformed herself into a radiant, lovely lady. “I am Sovereignty,” she said, “and since you alone of your brothers has accepted me in my dark aspect, now I accept you as the king.” And so it was that Niall became the king of the land.

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THE PATH OF SOVEREIGNTY

Why was it important for Niall—or for any king, actually—to accept the ugly side of Sovereignty as a prerequisite to enjoying her beauty? Perhaps this story contains an ancient truth. Sunlight only shines for half of a day. Light emerges out of darkness, and so to reject darkness means to reject the original state of all things. Niall’s brothers made the mistake of passing judgment on someone they deemed as ugly, repulsive, unattractive. Only the youngest brother could see that a kiss was a small price to pay for the nourishing waters. So what if the old woman wasn’t so much to look at? And of course, by accepting her, he proved himself worthy to see that her decay is only part of her story.

There’s a phrase for you: “only part of her story.” Each one of us is a magnificent story, filled with heart, emotion, dreams, and desires. We also have our share of loss, disappointment, and sorrow. Think of when you encounter someone: an angry person standing in line at the post office; a harried mother with rude, bawling children; a government employee who’s not interested in all the reasons why your taxes were paid late. When we encounter such people, we only encounter part of their stories. Sometimes, the parts we see are not to our liking. Perhaps we can take a lesson from Niall, and remember that there’s more to them than meets the eye.

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THE PATH OF SOVEREIGNTY

Irish myth tells how when the first Celts came to Ireland with the intention of settling, they met three goddesses—Banba, Fódla, and Ériu—each of whom offered to help the Celts in their quest to conquer the land, if only they would name the land after her. Ériu was the last of the three that they encountered, and they met her at the spiritual center of the land, and she offered the greatest amount of help to the invaders. So they promised her primacy in terms of the land bearing her name. And indeed, to this day Ireland (in Irish, Éire) takes its name from this goddess. The suggestion is clear: the land is divine, and the land is not only named for a goddess, but in a very real way the land embodies the spirit of the goddess. It’s the spirit of Sovereignty, encoded in the very land.