Weeping for the stone

   I try to be philispohical about the vagaries of life. Bad things happen, and often these bad things are senseless, and there is just as often nothing constructive to be done. War and death and suffering are a constant of life and as much as I might detest them, as much as I might hate watching the news and seeing them, there is little to do but keep on going. Maybe its a type of desensitization, a way to avoid constantly dwelling on things I can't change. Life goes on, and I try to keep that perspective. Sometimes, though, an event will occur that - for whatever reason - sticks with me, digs in, something that I just can't let go of.
   I read today that the Lia Fal on the hill of Tara in Ireland had been defaced, attacked with a hammer, causing damage to all four sides of the stone. Reading the article caused an immediate and visceral reaction, a blend of grief and anger that simply will not go away. It saddens me that the stone is permanently changed, damaged, although I appreciate that it could have been much worse. It makes me furious that this damage was intentional, an act of focused will by a person, who repeatedly bashed at the stone. I want justice for the spirit of that place, but more than that I want vengence. I felt the same way a year and a half ago when someone cut down the sacred Thorn tree in Glastonbury. They never caught the people responsible for felling the thorn tree and I suspect they will never find out who hammered chunks out of the Lia Fal. It's appalling to me that anyone could do these things, and more than that I don't understand why.Why do people feel the need to destroy things that are significant to other people? What purpose does it serve to destroy an irreplacable 3500 year old standing stone? Of course my head knows it could have been for anything from a political statement to drunken mischief, but my heart revolves over and over on the permanence of it. I don't agree with or advocate anyone destroying anyone else's sacred history - whether its ancient monuments to Buddha or historic churches - no matter what reason the perpetrators come up with.
   Places have spirits, and sacred places have a special spirit to them, a feeling that is unique. Historic places that have seen people coming and worshipping or paying them honor for hundreds of years, or even millenia, have an energy that is an extension of this spirit, in my experience. I think that is why people are drawn to travel to sacred places, to touch the stone and wood that our ancestors have touched back through the ages. There is a feeling of connection that comes from experiencing a sacred site that grounds us, that makes our faith tangible. It is tragic to see that connection attacked, that sacred place desecrated, whether or not it is myth or fact that makes it sacred.
   As an Irish (and Norse) pagan there are a few sacred places that I want to go to before I die, to feel that energy, to know the spirit of that place, and to connect to the pagan gods in their old holy places. One day I will travel to Ireland, and I will walk up the hill at Tara and touch the Stone of Destiny, as legend says the old high kings did, as the stories say the gods themselves did in bringing the stone to Ireland from Falias. This is something I have dreamed of doing for many years but have never yet done. I felt increased urgency when the M-3 was being built with its henge-destroying disregard for history, and I feel even more urgency now, as it appears no sacred site is safe.

picture is held in the common domian, and is courtesy of wikipedia

  

Living Honor

     What does it mean to live an honorable life? Many modern pagan groups have outlined a list of basic virtues to nurture, and honor is usually included in each of them, but what is it to to live honorably? How can we know how to shape our actions to live honorably when honor is often a difficult and obscure concept to define? The best approach, I think is not to look at honor as a single concept but rather to view it as a series of inter-related actions - because honor is an active principle not a passive idea - and look at how those actions combine to form a larger concept of honor. For those following an Irish path or looking to Irish myth for inspiration and guidance there is an abundance of suggestions on living with honor to be found, but the Instructions of King Cormac Mac Airt is one of my favorites. 

     There are several Irish texts that offer instructions on how a King should live in order to be a good King, and these texts serve as good instructions for anyone to study on how to live a good honorable life. One of the best of these is the Instruction of King Cormaic Mac Airt, a dialogue that occurs between Cairbre and Cormac, where Cairbre is quizzing Cormac about the proper qualities of a King. The answers given describe the characteristics a King should embody, but these characteristics are equally applicable to any  person seeking to live a good life. These characteristics can be divided into two categories: ways that the person should act towards others, and ways that the person should uphold themselves.

     The dialogue response begins with Cormac describing ways that the King should act in order to uphold his own honor. The first of these is by having good geasa, or ritual taboos that are positive. This could apply to anyone who has a geis on them, if only in the way we choose to look at the ritual taboos that bind us; we can choose to see our taboos as positive or negative and how we react to them shapes their nature on some level making them either a gift or a burden. The next line advises the King to be sober, good advice since drunkenness is often a source of trouble. The King is advised to be an invader as well, which is a slightly more obscure line; however I believe that this advice pertains to ambition and the need for any person to have a healthy sense of what they can achieve. Only by pushing outward and seeking to expand can we truly achieve our own potential. The following lines suggest a good King should have good desires and be affable, telling us that people should seek to want what is best for themselves and have a friendly nature. A good King should be both humble and proud, meaning that we should be humble in knowing our own limits and admitting to our own mistakes but also proud of what we do achieve and owning our own success; only through a balance of these two can true success be found. In the same way we should be quick and steadfast, meaning we should act quickly when speed is needed but also have the stamina to stick with anything and see it through.  A good King, or a good Druid, should be a poet, versed in legal lore, and wise, as well as temperate. All of these qualities should be embodied in the King for them to find the inner strength to live honorably in all these ways, because these external expressions reflect the character within, but they are equally applicable to anyone else seeking the same thing.

    Cormac also touches on ways that a good King should interact with others, beginning with being generous, decorous, and sociable. These three features all intertwine to support each other, and to support the proper social order where the King sets the tone for the Kingdom, but it is possible for anyone else to also live by these maxims and seek to express these things as well. Along with this go other suggested actions according to Cormac, such as feeding orphans, giving good judgments, raising up the weak, quelling wrongs, and loving truth while hating falsehood, all of which can be embraced by anyone seeking to live in honor. To seek to live these qualities is to seek to live Truth and support the right order of the world. The truth of this statement is seen in the final passage where Cormac describes what will occur in the kingdom of a good King, should he follow all this advice. We see the description of a good King ruling over a fertile land, with oak trees full of acorns, fruitful earth and rivers full of fish. In the same way if we as individuals seek to embody these characteristics and live these actions then we can also bring blessings upon the world we live in and make the quality of our own lives better. 

Dark Night of the Soul

  It would be accurate to say that I am having a dark night of the soul period right now, as I understand the concept. I have been increasingly questioning whether reconstruction is the right thing for me and my place within the larger spiritual communities I have chosen. While I can't imagine my life not being based on a reconstructionist methodology I also realize that my main focus is and always has been actual practice, in a way that sets me at odds with my community sometimes. When in doubt I would rather act without any evidence to back my actions up than not to act at all. And I struggle with constantly feeling like what I do isn't "right" enough, a feeling that has put me in a place where I would almost rather not do anything at all than feel like what I am doing is wrong. Perhaps you can see how antithetical that feeling is to my own natural inclinations.
  My connection to the deities and spirits I honor hasn't lessened but I am in a place now where I feel like I am getting nothing out of the ritual itself. It feels empty and forced. I can remember when I first began on my spiritual path how much joy there was in ritual, not only a feeling of connection to the deities but of celebration. I fear that I have gotten so used to listening to my head that I have totally lost my heart.
   After some deep soul searching I came to several realizations. My approach to religion will always be reconstructionist in nature because I am just the sort of person who wants to know not just the how but also the why. I question and seek sources and love to puzzle out what is genuine and what is false. I also realize that I am an innovator and that I like spontaeous, organic ritual, even when it doesn't conform to the historic standard. I like structure and flow that is grounded in solid methods but I also need to feel free to express my own unique take on things. I realized that I felt like a bad heathen for not getting to any heathen events, and that I was being unfair to myself by letting other people's emphasis on the value of community participation influence me. Neopagan is not a dirty word, nor should I avoid doing what makes me happy because I worry about what other people will say. Witchcraft isn't a dirty word either, and it is an integral part of who I am. Too much of my spiritual life has become about outside approval and validation, instead of genuine experential connection.
   Most importantly, I think, I realized that I was feeling too scattered because I had fallen into such a rigidly seperated approach to religion - heathen in box a, CR in box b, witch in box c. I didn't feel like a whole person anymore, but rather as if I had different lives in different contexts. Perhaps, ultimately, the source of my own unhappiness was myself, as a sought something that I would never find.
   All of this insight was great, but beginnig to understand what the problems were didn't actually change anything. I sat down and looked at what used to give me the sense of joy in religion that I was missing and at what core concept, if any, ran through all the diverse threads of my spiritual life and came to two conclusions: I wished I could go back to being 11 again and following eclectic Wicca and the one common denominator was my identity as a witch. Now of course I can't actually go back to being a preteen, but I can try going back to neopagan Wicca and seeing how that feels. Perhaps it will be like trying on outgrown clothes. Or perhaps it will rekindle that spark I have lost. I don't know, but the only way to find out is to try it and see where it takes me. Maybe I will realize very quickly that I need the diversity and division. Maybe I will find a more holistic feeling. It's an experiment, a risk, but I'm going to give it a try.
  My commitment to my local community hasn't changed -those gloriously eclectic neopagans - I will still serve as I always have. I will still be me. The gods I am devoted to are still with me, and I am not letting go of them or of my connection to the daoine sidhe or my ancestors, so this won't be exactly like it was before. It will be different, just like I am different than I was 22 years ago. It will be an adventure.

recommended reading

  Well I finished writing my newest book and am back to blogging. There are several pagan recommended reading lists floating around including one at Patheos and another at Huffington Post so I thought I'd offer my own suggestions here, but I'm limiting it to 10 each to keep myself from going totally overboard:

Heathen Recommended Reading List
1) Essential Asatru by Diana Paxson - a good introduction to the basics of belief and practice, particularly useful for those coming from a neopagan background
2) The Prose Edda - I suggest reading multiple translations to get the best understanding of the material
3) The Poetic Edda - multiple translations are your friend
4) Norse Myths by Kevin Crossley-Holland - Modern language retellings of the Eddic myths
5) The Road to Hel by H.R. Ellis Davidson - an essential look at beliefs about the dead and afterlife
6) The Well and the Tree by Bauschatz - discusses cosmology from a heathen persepctive
7) Our Troth, volumes 1 and 2 - a very thorough look at everything from belief to practice, and a wonderful reference to have on hand
8) Elves, Wights, and Trolls by K. Gundarsson - a look at the heathen belief in Otherworldly spirits, often not emphasized in american Heathenry but very important to understsnd
9) Living Asatru by Greg Shelter - short but useful look at living modern asatru
10) We Are Our Deeds  by Eric Wodening - a very in depth look at modern heathen ethics

Irish Reconstruction Reading List
1) the CR FAQs - the best basic start to understanding recon from a Celtic viewpoint
2) the Sacred Isle by O'hOgain - discusses Irish religion from pre-christian times through conversion.
3) Festival of Lughnasa by Maire McNeill - an in-depth look at the historic and modern celebration of Lughnasa, including a good deal of folklore and mythology
4) The Lebor Gabala Erenn - the story of the invasions of Ireland by the Gods and spirits and eventually humans.
5) Cath Maige Tuired - the story of the battle of the Tuatha de Danann with the Fomorians.
6) the Year in Ireland by K. Danaher - an overview of holidays and folk practices throughout the year.
7) The Silver Bough (all four volumes) by F. MacNeil - Scottish but extremely useful for understanding folk practices and beliefs
8) Fairy and Folktales of the Irish Peasantry by Yeats - a look at folklore and belief
9) Lady with a Mead Cup by Enright - useful look at ritual structure and society in both Celtic and Norse cultures
10) Celtic Gods and Heroes by Sjoestedt - discusses both the gods and tidbits of folklore and mythology

What books would you recommend?

a more traditional view...

artwork by Peter Arbo, 1874

manuscripts and life

  So I am behind on blogging this past week - I will very likely be very minimally blogging this month as I am under contract for a book and the deadline is the end of this month. I'm very excited about the book itself and I think it's coming along really well, but at this point it's taking as much free time as I have after family and school. I plan to get back to regular blogging as soon as the manuscript is completed.
  For anyone who is curious the book is part of a series for children being put out by a small pagan publishing company. My contribution is a book on the modern Fairy-Faith, its beliefs and practices, for children ages 8 through 12. (Although I think it would be just as useful for adults) Writing for children in this age group has proved the most interesting challenge so far as there is a need for a balance in being age appropriate without pulling any punches or soft peddling the information, but I have had my own in-house expert helping - my oldest daughter, who is 8 and a half. I'm very excited about the project, as someone who has taught classes on the Celtic Otherworld and Fairies (Daoine Sidhe) for over a decade and honored them all my life.

                        Beltane candles burning on a small fairy altar at Pandora's Box

 Happy Bealtaine to everyone! May your summer be blessed.

thoughts on the Ogham Tract

     The Ogham Tract is one of the most interesting and useful texts to study for those interested in Irish mythology and divination. Within the text the mythological origins of Ogham are outlined and several different types of Ogham are discussed, although only the Tree Ogham and Word Oghams are gone into with any depth. The sections detailing these two types of Ogham are invaluable, however, for those who seek to use the Ogham for divination since they attach significant meaning to each letter, and these meanings can be used as the basis for a system of symbolism.

     The first section looks at the mythological history of the Ogham, using the typical question and answer style so often seen in Irish texts. The first question asks about the place, time, inventor and cause of the creation of the Ogham and the answer, while apocryphal, are illuminating. We learn that the Ogham was created in Ireland during the time that Bres ruled the Tuatha de Danann, before mortals came to Ireland, and that it was invented by the god Ogma to prove his inventiveness and to give the educated something the uneducated didn’t have. This tells us not only that the Ogham is believed to have divine origins, but also that it is believed to have been created as something to be reserved for a select few. The second questions asked relate to why it is called Ogham, who are the “father” and “mother” of the Ogham, what was first written in it and why “b” is the primary letter. The name is explained as a play on words from og-uaim meaning perfect alliteration and is an allusion to the poets’ art and possibly the very mnemonics that are used to remember the meanings of each letter in each type of Ogham. The father of Ogham is, of course, Ogma, and the mother is said to be his hand or blade; this is a beautiful description of the balanced act of creation involving both passive design and active carving.  The final answer contains another fascinating bit of mythology, that is that the first thing written was “b” and that it was written as a warning to the god Lugh that his wife was about to be kidnapped to Faery. Interestingly it is said that “b”, which in tree Ogham is associated with birch, was written seven times on a switch of birch; this not only reinforces the connection between the letter and the tree but also offers a possible magic charm to be used.

     After this section the divisions of Ogham are discussed, with the idea of dividing the Ogham into four groups of five. It also mentioned that they can be separated into three groups of eight based on the Tree Ogham, divided by chieftain  trees, peasant trees, and shrub trees. A second origin of Ogham is mentioned, the school of Fenius, which adds three dipthongs to the twenty consonants and vowels. Then a brief outline of the Tree Ogham is given, followed by the more in-depth description of the Tree and Word Oghams, and then very brief descriptions of many other types of Ogham.

     By studying the trees associated with each letter and then the descriptions given for each correspondence to the Word Ogham a clear pattern of symbols can be developed for use in divination. Using the Ogham for divination can be effective and useful if the symbolism of each letter is fully understood. Many people err in only looking to the Tree Ogham for meaning when divining with the letters, when in fact the other types of Ogham reinforce and add detail and depth of meaning providing clearer readings. Ogham can easily be used as the primary means of divination for both personal daily use and at ritual, but it is important to understand the meanings of each letter as fully as possible. Interestingly the “Boy Ogham” is actually a method of divination in and of itself that uses the mother’s name written in Ogham to predict the gender of her unborn child by dividing the name at a certain point, which is unfortunately not specified in the text.

     The Ogham Tract may at first seem of interest only to those seeking to learn about divination since that is what Ogham is most known for these days, yet the tract contains valuable mythology as well. Studying this text is useful to anyone because it expands our knowledge of Irish mythology with small details and also highlights the exclusive place of Ogham literacy when the Tract was written. And of course it is invaluable for those seeking to use the Ogham for divination as well. No matter what your focus is, if you are interested in studying the Ogham, this text is useful and should be studied.

 further reading on the Ogham:

 Ogam: Weaving Words of Wisdom by Erynn Rowan Laurie

 Ogam: the Celtic Oracle of the Trees by Paul Rhys Montfort

 Ogham, the Secret Language of the Druids by  Robert Ellison

 Celtic Tree Mysteries: Secrets of the Ogham by Steven Blamires

  The Book of Ogham by Edred Thorson