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

So how does neart function in our ordinary lives? Let’s begin with faith. Believing something can often be the very essential key to making it so. People who believe in the power of prayer are far more likely to report it making a real, observable difference in their lives. For those who don’t believe, maybe it’s just a matter of prayer not being given credit where it’s due—or perhaps, lack of faith can be an obstacle to the flow of energy (read: neart) in our lives. You want a miracle? Begin by believing it. No, not just paying it lip service; but choosing to live your life in a way that creates the amazing open-minded possibility that a four-alarm way-too-big-to-be-a-coincidence miracle just might manifest for you. Sure, not everyone gets miracles: as a friend of mine put it, “the Goddess is not in the habit of breaking her own laws.” But once in a while, it seems that the laws of nature do get bent, or slipped around. And it’s neart that’s doing the bending and slipping.

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Choose to open your mind and heart and soul to the power and flow of neart. It’s exciting to believe that, at any moment in time, at any place anywhere, something amazingly wonderful, entirely unexpected and undeserved may possibly happen. With a belief like that, it’s so much, much easier to live by hope, rather than to sink in cynicism and despair. Yeah, sure, the odds may be against a miracle—well, the odds are against winning the lottery, too, and how many of us pop a dollar (or five) across the counter at the gas station, “just in case?” Belief in neart doesn’t even cost us anything! My father is the kind of guy who never spends more than a dollar a week on the lottery—but he does it every week, fifty-two bucks a year (cheaper than going to a rock concert). And he says, “as soon as I buy that ticket, I just assume I’m a millionaire. And if I don’t win, well, I’ll just buy another ticket. Then I’m a millionaire all over again.” Dad doesn’t live extravagantly—he’s a stickler for paying the credit card off in full every month, no exceptions. But he lives by faith. And so the neart flows through him.

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Opening up to the flow of neart is a lot like believing in God (or the Goddess, or the gods and goddesses. Choose the way of describing Ultimate Reality that is most in keeping with your religious or spiritual viewpoint). It’s a decision, a choice, a commitment. It’s saying “YES” to the universe, to possibilities, to hope. It’s deciding that it’s a whole lot more fun, effective, and meaningful to live from a sense that the cosmos is good and nurturing and plentiful, than to shrink within a self-armoring idea that there’s never enough, every one is out for themselves, ultimately there is no meaning. Sure, when life kicks us in the teeth it’s so very tempting to become cynicism’s lover. But ultimately that’s one affair that just leads to an ever-yawning downward spiral of despair. It can be cool, hip, intellectual, ironic, fashionable to be the cynic, the skeptic, the professional doubter. But at the end of the day, it really doesn’t feel very good. Meanwhile, my dad’s just as happy as can be—carrying his million-dollar lottery ticket around. Sure, call him naïve or even Pollyannaish. But who’s got the smile—the real smile, that goes way down deep inside?

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Take this question of believing in neart a step further … once we choose to believe in a force for life and power and miracles, then we actually are capable of experiencing that energy flow through us. Maybe it’s a physical sensation—similar to reiki, which can be experienced as a warmth or tingling sensation flowing through those who use the energy when doing healing-touch work with others. Or maybe it’s not so much a feeling, but a telltale pattern of serendipity and good things that flow through our lives and the lives of those we know and love. In other words, we can recognize it by the trail it leaves behind—a trail of happiness, of satisfaction, of a sense of Divine presence moving through the world. It creates a swath of joy, and anyone who believes that such a thing exists can start to see the evidence for it. A teacher of mine instructs her students to look for three miracles in their lives every day. Inevitably someone asks for a definition of “miracle.” Must it be something supernatural? Well, not necessarily—“miracle” is related to “mirror,” and refers to a reflection of Divine power in our lives; a reflection of neart. And that can come in small as well as huge ways. At least three times a day.

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The Celtic tradition has a reputation for being optimistic. Certainly Celtic Christianity is a remarkably positive expression of the Christ path, and Celtic paganism (with its emphasis on the beauty of nature, the nobility of the hero, and the immortality of the soul) has its clear positive orientation as well. I rather think this upbeat characteristic of the Celtic path begins with the reality of neart. If we live in a universe pulsating with power and abundance, then ultimately our problems are solvable, surmountable—there’s nothing to fear. It’s reminiscent of Jesus’ overarching message: Be not afraid. How sad that so many of his followers are wracked with fear, fear of offending God, fear of damnation, fear that others will be lost just because they live or think differently!

Optimism is a choice. It’s the product of faith, for it requires a hopeful approach to life. Faith says “I believe in neart,” while optimism says “I’ll experience its blessings most any day now.” They go hand-in-hand for those seeking to live a life of spiritual wisdom.

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Neart is more than just a psychological strategy for cultivating hope and faith and optimistic thinking. It’s also a cause for living a life according to the dictates of those positive values. If you want water to flow through a pump, you have to prime it. If you want neart to flow through your life, you “prime the pump” by creating the space for the abundance to manifest. That space is created through hospitality, generosity, and charity—good Celtic virtues, all! The only way for neart to flow to us is by creating the means for it to flow through us, which means finding ways to give it to others. Funny—the same thing is often said of love: the best way to find it is to give it away. It has been said that in heaven and hell, we have no elbows. Those who suffer in hell struggle with their inability to feed themselves, since an arm that won’t bend cannot bring food up to the mouth. But in heaven, this same physical circumstance is no problem: for you see, everyone feeds someone else. And no one gets left out.

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Celtic folks love to talk of “the thin places,” those places where the veil separating the physical world from the otherworld are even thinner than normal. Examples of thin places include churches, holy wells, sacred sites like stone circles or old monasteries, and places of great natural beauty and power. I first heard of this concept from a priest in Glendalough (a thin place if ever there was one). But I’ve come to think that the thinness of a thin place doesn’t just provide access to an unseen inner world. Perhaps more important, it provides access to neart. Call it energy, call it hope, call it a fuel of miracles. For those who choose to see, it’s as plain as the noses on our faces. Thin places are places of nourishment and rejuvenation—for they provide us with ready access to that energy that keeps us connected to blessings. The energy is more than just the bringer of blessing—it is blessing itself.

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THE PATH OF THE SAINTS (#ulink_5d65d01a-11a7-52d5-aefb-080a7184dc2d)

Ireland has been called “the island of saints and scholars.” But the other Celtic lands have produced their share of holy people as well. The coming of Christianity to the Celtic world was revolutionary on more than one level: not only did it forever change the way that the Celts viewed spirituality and the cosmos, but perhaps even more importantly, the Celtic tradition influenced how Christianity was practiced, giving birth to a unique expression of that faith, marked by optimism, mysticism, and deep love for nature.

Saint Patrick is probably the only Celtic “super-saint,” which is to say a saint whose fame and popularity extends well beyond the Celtic world. But other saints, like Brigid, Columcille (Columba), Brendan (called “the Navigator” because of the legend that he and his companion monks sailed from Ireland to North America—in the sixth century!) and Columbanus all have enjoyed their own measure of fame. And what’s truly lovely about the Celtic world is the abundance of lesser known (and in some cases only regionally venerated) “saints.” Many of these folks have never been officially canonized, but that never stopped their small-scale cults from flourishing. In a way, the Celtic veneration of saints echoes the older veneration of pagan deities—the emphasis was not on the big names that everyone knew, but on the local figure, who may never have been famous but who gave a particular place its own unique sanctity.

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The monk and evangelist Mungo, also known as Kentigern, lived in the sixth century. Of noble British birth, he became a missionary in northwest England and Scotland, and is today perhaps best known as the founder and patron saint of Glasgow. The city’s Coat of Arms indudes four symbols associated with Mungo: a bird, a fish, a bell, and a tree. The bell commemorates a legend in which the saint received a bell as a gift from the pope, while the three symbols from nature each correspond to a miracle associated with Mungo: the bird symbolizes a robin that Mungo raised from the dead; the tree represents a miraculous fire he kindled with frozen wood; while the fish depicts a salmon he caught which had the queen’s lost ring in its belly, thereby saving her from her husband’s wrath.

The nature symbols correspond to the three great realms of nature: the fish represents the lower regions of water (sea, river, lake, well); the bird represents the upper regions of the atmosphere (the sky), while the tree symbolizes the land herself. Land, sea, and sky: one of many sacred Celtic trinities.

Mungo spent time in Wales but eventually returned to Glasgow and was buried at the site of Glasgow Cathedral, where today the crypt is still said to house his remains.

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Ita is a lesser-known Celtic saint, remembered today mainly through her pupil: Brendan the Navigator, one of Ireland’s most colorful and renowned of early saints. Ita was the abbess (the leader of a monastery) of a community located in County Limerick. She was often described in early biographies as the “Brigid of Munster,” suggesting that she played a role in the south of Ireland similar to that held in the east by her more famous contemporary. It’s a marketing trick that is as dangerous today as it was a thousand years ago: compare yourself to someone more famous, and you’re at risk for never getting out of their shadow. Even so, Ita remained a popular saint in the south of Ireland and has been immortalized for her role as Brendan’s first teacher. The Navigator continued to seek her counsel long after leaving her fosterage. Unlike the many Celtic saints who were famed for their travels, Ita apparently loved the place where she first put down roots, and remained in Limerick until her death in the year 570.

It is said that one of the most important things any of us can do is raise or teach a child well. Perhaps Ita should be the patron saint of those who nurture greatness among those of the next generation.

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Piran is the patron saint of Cornwall and of tin miners (the tin trade being particularly important in Cornwall); he is possibly the same figure as the Irish saint Ciaran, the founder of the monastery at Clonmacnoise. Legend holds that Piran once escaped from captivity in Ireland and sailed to Cornwall using a millstone for a raft! Apparently the good saint had quite the capacity to work miracles—after all, sailing a stone boat makes even walking on water seem, well, easy. Today, scholars question just how historical a figure he is, wondering if, like other Celtic figures such as Brigid and even Patrick, his story may actuatlly reflect more myth than fact. Well, maybe it does. But in the Celtic world, myth matters. Celtic spirituality envisions a world where anything is possible: where saints can cause a millstone to float or perform all sorts of other miracles. Why believe in such impossible tales? What good can possibly come out of crazy tales of miracles and floating rocks? We know that the human mind is an amazing instrument, and that often the key to miracles such as healing serious diseases, or summoning superhuman strength at a moment of crisis, begins with the power to believe. When we consider how a saint could make a millstone float, it opens up just a glimmer of possibility—Pearce’s “the crack in the cosmic egg”—that allows miracles to really happen. Just because we believe.

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If Ireland had produced Saint Francis, he probably would have been named Kevin. The reclusive founder of Glendalough has numerous legends and stories associated with him that underscore his reputation as a friend of nature and a lover of animals.

One tale recounts how the saint was praying by one of the lakes near his hermitage, but his prayer book slipped and fell into the water. Even today such a turn of events would be an annoyance, but consider how valuable books were in ancient times; this would have been quite a problem. But before Kevin could even jump in after the book, an otter, sensing the sanctity and compassion of the man, grasped the book and returned it to its owner. Other stories tell of bears seeking refuge from hunters in the cave Kevin used as his hermitage, and of birds coming to perch on his shoulders or his head while the saint stood quietly at prayer. One day while praying, Kevin discovered that a blackbird had begun to build a nest on his outstretched hand. Filled with compassion, he could not bear to disturb her motherly work, and so stood still as she completed her nest, laid her eggs, and eventually hatched and raised her young. Finally, when the babies were old enough to fly, Kevin at long last allowed his arms to rest.

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March I is the feast day of the patron saint of Wales, Dewi (or David), who died on that day in 588. Known for his austerity and simplicity, Dewi founded a monastery where no wine was drunk nor meat consumed, and work was largely done in silence. As a bishop, Dewi worked hard to preserve the autonomy of the Celtic church in Wales from the encroaching power of the more Roman-style Christians of Saxon England; he is also credited with refuting the Pelagian heresy during his ministry (Pelagius was a Celtic theologian whose ideas were eventually denounced as heresy, particularly by Saint Augustine). It is said that he founded twelve monasteries, and that he traveled to Jerusalem where he was consecrated an archbishop. But these stories may well be little more than legend. Despite his reputation as a strict and austere monk, David’s dying words may be the best insight into his character, and clearly reveal how the saint embodied the delightful charm of the Celtic spirit: “Brothers and sisters, be joyful and keep the faith.”

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Cuthbert of Lindisfarne was a visionary from early in his life; according to the English historian Bede, Cuthbert’s gift began with a vision he received the night of Aidan of Lindisfarne’s death. At the request of a Northumbrian king, Aidan had left the monastery at Iona to found a Celtic community at Lindisfarne, the holy isle off the coast of northeast England. At the time of Aidan’s death in August of 651, Cuthbert was a shepherd; while watching over his flock, he saw the angels escorting Aidan to heaven. This inspired him to enter the monastic life as well. In due course, his journey took him to Lindisfarne, where he eventually served as prior before retreating to a nearby island to live a hermit’s life. But like Kevin of Glendalough, he would not be left alone, and so eventually he accepted the call to be consecrated bishop of the holy isle. Also like Kevin, he had a reputation as a friend of animals; his ministry was characterized by gentleness and care for the poor. He died only two years after his consecration as a bishop; today his remains are buried in Durham Cathedral, after having been relocated repeatedly to hide them from the Vikings.

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The patron saint of Scotland is Saint Andrew, who of course was one of Jesus’ disciples and never set foot in the British Isles. Andrew is associated with Scotland because, according to legend, a ninth-century Scottish king, preparing to go to war against his English rival, received a vision of Saint Andrew’s cross. The king promised to make Andrew the patron of Scotland if he emerged victorious that day, which he did. But if there were to be a Celtic contender for the position of Scoland’s patron, it would likely be Columcille (Columba), an Irish-born missionary who founded the legendary monastery of Iona, a small island in the Hebrides. Columcille came from a prominent Irish family, and had a distinguished career as an Irish monk; but when a conflict over a manuscript that Columcille secretly copied led to violence, the mortified priest chose exile and, following the dictates of his spiritual mentor, dedicated his life to evangelism. Iona became a leading spiritual center in Scotland, and a site where many Scottish kings were buried (including Shakespeare’s Macbeth). True to his Celtic blood, Columcille once said that he feared the sound of an axe in the woods of Derry more than he feared hell itself.

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