This collection is out now for Imbolc. Lots of good stuff. I have a few poems therein.
Happy Imbolc!
Category: Celtic Paganism
Kildare Reflections
In the spring I was diagnosed with cancer. This fall I went through two and half months of radiation ‘therapy’ and am presently recovering from the side effects of the treatment, which include much fatigue.
I had planned to post considerably more about my trip to Ireland, but haven’t had the focus for it. Going to Kildare was a pilgrimage and a journey for healing; I think I got quite a boost there.
Visiting the wells, praying at both the new and old ones, tying clooties and visiting Solas Bhríde, the ecumenical spiritual center established by the Brigidine Sisters were tremendously rewarding. The center was a real highlight with the chance to pray in front of the flame maintained since 1993, the wonderful hospitality and stories of Sister Phil, the walk in the labyrinth and meditation in the willow bothy, and just walking in beautiful grounds that include a rewilding area, full of the radiance of Brigid, Goddess and Saint.
The whole town seemed permeated with the Lady, from the market square in the center of town with its tall acorn lantern (where Mary Robinson, the president of Ireland lit the flame in the 90s), to the functioning Catholic parish church with its acorn sculptures outside. The famous medieval cathedral could only be viewed from outside and the grounds were still closed because of the pandemic (the helpful folks at the Visitor Center thought they were being silly to not open the outdoor area, oh well), so we couldn’t see the fire temple but so much else was experienced.
So here are photos of Kildare, Brigid’s town.
Waters of the Boyne
I’ve recently returned from a richly inspiring trip to Ireland and will be posting pictures and thoughts. Here’s the first.
Through a screen of leaves—ash and hazel and alder and others, including berries whose name I don’t know—I peer out at Brúgh na Bóinne.
The waters flow along in this river that transcends time, taking us back millennia to when early farmers first settled here and raised huge passage tombs and mounds and woodhenges. The leaves whisper of even earlier peoples, the hunter-gatherer-fishers of the Mesolithic who found rich forage here when the valley was all forested. As I gaze the waters meander onward toward the sea past the nearby town of Drogheda where we are staying. Into an uncertain future.
In the lore Waters take us into the liminal. By the water is a place of revelation, of eicse, which can mean inspiration, divination or the art and science of poetry. As Nede demonstrates in the beginning of The Colloquy of the Two Sages (Immacallam in dá Thúarad) when he goes to the shore and learns of his father’s death from the waves.
The sound of the waters do their liminal work—there seems to be a rapid just upstream, I think it’s probably a weir. A feminine voice gives a healing message in this spot of healing plants and ancient spirits. Is this Bóinn (or Boann), her waters ever flowing? She is the Boyne, right? Maybe she is a deep ancestor of this land, of this river valley, but one who flows in the sky too.
The presence of Nechtan also resounds, the waters mythologically flow from his well far upstream near the present day village of Carbury. Of course this was the well where his wife Bóinn transgressed walking tuathal, against the sun, violating the taboo of its only being able to be approached by her husband and his cupbearers. Bóinn, the river itself, and the river in the sky, the Milky Way. The lore tells us in this creation of the river, she was carried out to sea with her small lapdog, named Dabilla. Dabilla was turned into a rock off the coast, the small islets known today as Rockabill.
Below is a mythologically interesting (if not aesthetically) painting in the Millmount museum in Drogheda.
Was Bóinn already a goddess (presumably with a different name) long before the Celts when the great monuments were raised here? For a very insightful take on this and Bóinn in general there is Anthony Murphy’s (he of Mythical Ireland) book Bóinn: the Goddess of the River Boyne and the Milky Way. https://mythicalireland.com/purchase/mythical-ireland-monograph-no2-binn-goddess-of-the-boyne-and-milky-way/
He states, “The intent of this monograph is to present a comprehensive portrayal of Bóinn from all the manuscript sources about her, and to depict her as a deity in her own right who has immense significance to the early mythological history of the Boyne valley.” I think he succeeds—a recommended read.
The waters flow on, a beautiful music, flowing for millennia with its salmon and trout hopefully far into the future.
Appropriation of Celtic Symbols by Racists
There are a lot of words pouring out about the attempted coup yesterday in the US Capitol, which focus on the ‘Q Shaman’, a man from Arizona whose image is quite a concoction of appropriated Native American (Plains) bull horn headdress, the Norse Valknut and Thor’s Hammer tattoos, makeup of the US flag on his face, and another tattoo of a tree, which some sources have said is Yggdrassil, Norse tree of life.
For instance here: https://wildhunt.org/2021/01/heathens-respond-to-q-shaman-and-norse-imagery-in-capitol-riot.html
But it looks very much like the Celtic Tree image of the lovely Welsh artist, Jen Delyth to me, a representation of the bile, the sacred tree under which Irish chieftains were once inaugurated. I once had a t-shirt similar to this, which I wore to pieces:
I show this to emphasize that it is not only Norse pagans that have this problem. Celtic spiritualties are being appropriated and associated with the rampant white supremacist move in the US. This is also a problem with Druidism, Celtic paganisms/polytheisms in general. We need to be vigilant about these appropriations (and of course the people doing it).
The Q Shaman apparently had a mashup of beliefs, Christian, Odinist, Native American, etc. Stirred into a toxic brew of white nationalism and Q-anon conspiracy theory.
These are very frightening times in this country. I hope readers are well and safe.
Continue reading “Appropriation of Celtic Symbols by Racists”A Formal Prayer to Nechtan
I wrote this a while ago, but as the pandemic continues to rage and the political situation in the United States plunges into chaos I think it is a good prayer to share.
O Nechtan,
husband of Boann,
son of Labraid Loingsech,
hear our prayer:
May the power of your originating waters,
your pool,
your spring,
your well,
energize our lustrations,
our purifications,
our washings.
May this virus be washed away, back to
the infernal depths, where great heat
can take it apart, back to the primal sea
to recycle its constituent dismantled parts.
As we bathe in your vitalizing waters,
may proportion and knowledge thereof
return to our lands desecrated by ignorance
and malevolence as much as virulence.
May the pestilence that afflicts our world be washed away.
***
I find working with Nechtan that it is ideal to find a local place that resonates with his well, in addition to keeping a shrine with water on it. This can be a good start to doing journeywork.
Rosc
I recently took a class called Introduction to Rosc Poetry through the Irish Pagan School. It’s taught by Irish poet, Geraldine Moorkens Byrne and it is highly informative and inspiring.
The rosc is an ancient poetry form, magical, often political, sometimes prophetic. The Morrigan’s Prophecies are examples as are Amergin’s famous invocations of Ireland.
Here’s my homework. As readers of this blog are likely to know I am an ally of the Protectors of the sacred mountain Maunakea and the efforts to keep it free of a proposed observatory project called TMT (Thirty Meter Telescope).
False Tower
A false tower not built
the TMT, 18 story observatory
–like at Dowth
in darkness remain
only a plan, a bad plan
a troubling dream
vapors vanish in morning breeze
mammoth mountain rising from depths of sea
Maunakea
umbilicus of heaven and earth
red cinder and snow
even in tropic latitude
towering rampart
silver sworded
glacier scarred
summit above this world
you rise
majestic giant
Your Protectors undeterred
a great host
anchored in truth and ritual
victorious under sun and southern cross
highest mountain defeats
the Thirty Meter Telescope.
—Bressal’s* tower the spell was broken
Here too, this tower, it is not built
the spell is broken, the desecrators driven
far away over the vast oceans.
*King Bressal was noted in Irish place lore as having attempted to build a tower to reach heaven in the vicinity of Dowth (which means Darkness) with the help of his sister’s spellwork, which made an unending day for the laborers. But the king raped his sister and the spell was broken and the tower not completed. See Anthony Murphy’s Mythical Ireland for insightful elaboration. This king and sister have been in the news lately with the discovery of incest in remains at the Brugh. Perhaps a distant folk memory.
Check out course offerings from the Irish Pagan School here:
For Boann
For Boann
What could be more inspiring
than the Milky Way flowing
through the velvet midnight sky?
an appearance, an epiphany,
as the rains covered the heavens
earlier and later
but as I walked outside You
revealed
in starlight
star bright
milk white
illumination
In Irish lore Boann is the wife of Nechtan, keeper of the well holding wisdom. The rule was no one but he and his cupbearers could approach it. She transgressed, triggering a surge of rushing water, creating rivers (first the eponymous Boyne) and by implication human access to the waters of imbas. Her name in Primitive Irish was Bouvinda, showing association with a cow and illumination. The Milky Way can be seen as her river in the sky.
A Brigid Prayer
O daughter of the Dagda
O mother of the three gods of skill
O goddess of the poets,
May your fiery waters
Offer healing, may
Your rays falling from
Your bright countenance
Burn away this pestilence,
May your hammer break it up,
May your words inspire us to keep safe, and
May your cloak protect and shield us,
From injustice and abuse of the powerful,
Brigid, most kind and fierce!
Art attributed to Miranda Gray and Courtney Davis.
Fires of Justice
One of the things that I love about the Celtic traditions is the focus on justice, with deities from Brigid to Nuadha (just thinking of Irish) coming to mind. In different eras concepts on (in)justice will be different but in today’s world and certainly in the country whose passport I bear, justice is so much about race. Americans, especially white ones, have to understand how deeply racism lies in the DNA of the United States right back to how the country was shaped and structured from its beginning; this lives on in the force of those White Supremacist institutions today such as the Electoral College, the police whose origins were the slave patrols, etc. And let’s remember slavery still remains in the US prison system, literally. At this time for Celtic pagans of all varieties and stripes it is so important to say Black Lives Matter. And that people of all origins, ethnicities and races should be very welcome in our Celtic polytheist and Druidic worship. Hospitality is one of our primary virtues. I think we can all do well to think of ways to make our doings more hospitable.
However, If we’re honest we can see there are a lot of racists among Celtic pagans; in social media the slightest criticism can bring out the racists. Some even scream that politics need to be separated from religion/spirituality—as if that is a possibility. Often people like to point the fingers at the Heathens but it is very much around (and has long been) in Celtic milieus. One group recently got a lot of attention that was full on fascist (I will not mention the name). One common aggression is the asking POC why aren’t they going for their own ancestral traditions (the assumptions are great).
I lead small druid rites (in a practice that comes from an offshoot of ADF) on the fire festivals. The people who participate other than myself are POC. The gods do NOT care about ancestry, race or anything like that. It is humans who hold these abusive modern views. We need to be aware of the coding and dog whistles people use who may come to our groups, our gatherings, our virtual spaces. We need to ward against them. And for those of us who are white this means increasing our own awareness, an ongoing project*
May the compassion of Brigid and the cosmic fairness and measure of Nuadha come to our very troubled land. May the criminal injustice system be transformed into a justice system.
- For those interested in furthering their understanding of white racism here are a few books I’ve found helpful:
- Race Matters by Cornell West
- The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
- Ain’t I a Woman? by bell hooks
The Observatory, a Meditation
You’re walking up the mountain. You’ve passed the tree line and keep on going, taking occasional rest breaks as it can be hard to catch your breath up here. You tread on a red crunchy soil. After a while you realize there’s a large round building near the top. At first, you thought it was a cloud.
You’re much higher than you had realized as you turn and see the land you’ve walked through unfurling far below.
You turn back, taking in the sight of the domed building above you. There is a door ahead of you. The building is high but it is only when you enter that you realize that it is huge. Somehow the interior space seems to have grown. A matter of perspective, they say.
There is a long open staircase made of metal, which you can climb up to a ring of galleries. Alternatively, you might find an elevator to take you up.
You may find a guide here, or perhaps not. What is up there are a long series of windows (there may be as many as 70*). Through these windows you can look out onto many, many views. But sometimes they only give onto white, thick cloud banks, fogs. Look carefully. You may be able to see into the years ahead. Into possibilities, those that may be important for you and your community. Or into the Otherworld. The colors are liminal. Concentrate on them. Surrender. Can you step onto the clouds? Or see new constellations? With practice you can read them. The starlight can be intense. It can enter your cells. The atmosphere is thin.
Above this, in the center of the dome is an aperture. You can’t easily approach this but be aware it is there. It is possible a god may descend from there or maybe pop up through one of the hatches.
You can come to this tower when you really want to know something. You may not like what you see. Maybe it will be life changing, when life becomes insurmountable below. You may see things that better helps you navigate in the turbulence ahead.
*I mention this number because Merlin had an observatory with 70 windows and 70 doors as related in the Vita Merlini (Life of Merlin) by Geoffrey of Monmouth. The architect was his sister Ganieda. Unlike this one, their observatory was built in the woods. But this is just extra information.
Finnchuill's Mast 