Celtic Symbols

Tibetan Bon shamans believe that we are already one year old when we are born. Our first year of life is spent in our conception and gestation in the womb, a time when we are conscious, aware, and learning about the world through the experiences of our parents (especially the mother, in whose energy field we reside). Their feelings and sensations are carried in the egg and sperm and then in the life force of the mother’s blood. As a consequence, we are all born with certain predispositions, leanings, assumptions about the world, psychosomatic behaviours, and inclinations. There is a ‘mood’ to our lives and, already, a life script in place that we will increasingly come to live by.

The same notion can be found in other traditions too. In one of Castaneda’s books, for example, the shaman don Juan reveals a Toltec formula for calculating the amount of personal power or energy available to us, which is very similar to Tibetan beliefs. “The Level of energy of all beings depends on three fundamental factors”, he says: “The amount of energy with which they were conceived, the manner in which the energy has been utilised since birth, and the way in which it is being used at the present time”.

And nor is this just a spiritual or esoteric idea. Modern day paediatricians have also found that emotional disturbances in newborns, as well as their sleeping and eating patterns, exactly reflect those of the mother, as if they have learned from her in the womb how they should ‘be’ in the world as soon as they are born. Even the nutrients carried in the mother’s blood which feed the growing child are packed with information. Whether the mother chooses to eat well during pregnancy or not, is stressed or relaxed, avoids alcohol or continues to drink, all say something wordlessly to the child about the emotional nature of the world he is coming in to and the worldview of his parents.

From such subtleties as these our lives become at least partly predetermined for us because we are already channelled in certain directions and the vastness of potential that we were becomes narrower as a consequence.

Real and physical outcomes can result from such a narrowing of focus. The French medical doctor, Patrick Obissier, found, for example, that it is possible to trace the root cause of any patient’s illnesses back to his parents and their unresolved psychic distress, which becomes part of the cellular memory that patients inherits from them. Diabetes, which creates excess sugar in the bloodstream, was triggered in his patients by feelings of powerlessness inherited from their parents. To compensate for this lack of power, the body would manufacture more sugar to fuel the muscles. For a cure to be effective, the psychic distress beneath the physical symptoms had first to be resolved or the propensity for diabetes would continue to be passed to the next generation, like a story told by a mother to her child.

In order to be healthy, whole, and well, therefore, our challenge is to free ourselves from the life scripts we have received.

LIFE STORIES AND MYTHS

The challenge is a real and difficult one. In Celtic mythology, it was known as geis (pronounced ‘gesh’) and is variously depicted as a curse, taboo, or a sacred quest. Often in these mythological stories, geasa (the plural of geis) are made against a warrior by a parent, wife, or other significant person, and compel him to do certain things or avoid others he might have sought out. The hero’s quest arises from his struggle to find a way around these circumstances. Sometimes he is successful – though not always in the most obvious or immediate ways – and these Celtic stories therefore offer us cautions and counsel in how to make the epic journey for ourselves.

In the legend of the warrior Oisin, for example, he is placed under geis by a lover when he is carried to Tir na N-Og, the Land of Eternal Youth by Niamh, the daughter of the faery king.

Under the spell of his abductor, Oisin marries her, but after three years he begins to wake from his enchantment and miss his father and homeland. Fearful that Oisin may leave her, Niamh allows him to visit his father but only on condition that he does not leave his horse to step upon the ground. Oisin promises he will not, thus accepting his geis. Almost inevitably, however, disaster strikes when he falls from his horse by accident. Three hundred years pass by in an instant and Oisin, now ancient and dressed in rags, is left blind and wretched, never to see his true family again.

Looking at this story as a metaphor for the human condition, and tracing its outcome to first causes, we see that the problem for Oisin was not falling to the ground, but his acceptance of Niamh’s conditions in the first place. Because once we buy into limitations and restrictions, we act in accordance with them, sometimes accepting them wholly and living our lives as others wish us to; sometimes, as in the case of Oisin, rebelling against them in the form of ‘accidental’ behaviours that manifest our desire to be free. Thus, any geis or thoughtless promise becomes, not just words, but the energy of others that infects us as we live their fears and dramas instead of pursuing our own truths.

How, then, can we overcome our limitations and free ourselves from this unhelpful chain of energy that we have become a part of?

THE STEP OF AWARENESS

“To escape from prison, one first has to know one is in a prison”, wrote Gurdjieff. Self-awareness, then, is the first step to freedom. We have to make conscious the myths of ourselves that we have bought into so these attachments can be released.

The shamanic traditions call this recapitulation: the revisiting of key life events and the dramas surrounding them so we can see the stories we have become part of and begin to let them go. A contemporary example of the process might look like this:

The Pure Essence of Self

Imagine in your mind’s eye the moment before your birth, a time when you were pure spirit, uncluttered by social definitions and no stories about you yet existed. Who were you then? What was your face before you were born, as the Zen masters ask?

This spirit made a decision to be born. It had a purpose, a mission to fulfil, in making this choice. What was it for you?

Knowing who you were and what your soul purpose was (and still is) and then comparing this with the way your life is now reveals where you are giving away power and the attachments you have made to your story.

The Conception Journey

As Castaneda explains it, a third of our energy comes from conception and gestation in the womb. The pure energy that we were becomes coloured by that of our parents and theirs before them. This is emotional or spiritual DNA, and it starts to shape us at a cellular level, perhaps leading to the issues identified by Obissier, which are of a physical as well as a psychological nature.

The next step in the recapitulation process, then, is to imagine yourself back in the womb, asking questions such as ‘Why did I choose this father/mother?’, ‘What do they have to teach me in line with my soul’s purpose?’, ‘What were my pre-birth and birth experiences like and how do these still affect me?’, ‘What have I forgotten about myself now that I knew then?’

People who make such explorations find that this seemingly simple process can produce profound realisations about who they (think they) are. One of my workshop participants, a 43-year-old woman called Lucy, had a difficult childhood and felt fearful, disempowered and uncomfortable around others as a result of her early experiences. She recounts her journey back to conception as “Amazing. I gained a sense of love I have never felt or witnessed between my parents. There was a loving passion which has only ever in my lifetime shown itself as anger and disagreement between them”.

This is new information which means, at its most basic level, that the habitual story is changing.

“Now I feel a greater understanding of my parents, my creation, and why I chose them”, she continued. “I understand more fully what fears, feelings and dreams my parents had for me prior to my birth and can appreciate the stress my birth and babyhood placed on them. For the first time I was able to experience the feeling of being created out of pure love and perfection”.

As Don Snyder puts it in his book, Of Time and Memory, no matter what our lives, we can all “hope that we are all preceded in this world by a love story”. If we can see that in our parents – and in ourselves – then something of our lives can change and we can find “the path back through stars and memory”.

The Story Unfolding

As soon as we are born our life stories begin to weave themselves more tightly around us. The process typically starts with throwaway comments (“He’s so like your father”, “He’ll be a doctor/teacher/play for England when he grows up”), all of which are instructions to a young mind that knows no different and regards the parent as an all-knowing God.

When our parents tell us we will become doctors, or “little devils”, or play for England, whether they are serious or not, it sets up a tension in our minds which, to find resolution, must result in a loss: either we reject the parent’s wishes or they reject part of us. Either way, the story remains central because some part of us is still defining who we are in terms of their words. If we do become doctors, then, is it really our choice? And if we don’t, have we failed our Gods? That is why, as parents we must be careful with our words, and as consumers of the word we must be cautious about what we give our attention to.

All of us have a story like this and it can be illuminating to write it down. If your life were a book, for example, what would it be – a comedy, tragedy, adventure? Who are the main characters? And where does it go from here?

Every author is, of course, free to change his story at any time and, as Ram Dass points out: “What, after all, is personal history if not a dream?”.

How would you rewrite your story to make for a more empowered future?

Cutting Ties

From your explorations so far, you may be aware of energetic links to others or to events that are more aligned to your ‘story’ than your true soul purpose and which are therefore not serving you. Through breathwork you can begin to remove the energetic attachments that hold you to this dream.

This part of the process consists of imagining yourself back in each of these events and then breathing in to reabsorb the energy you have been expending on them while breathing out the ties you have formed to the drama of that moment. Learn from the experience, too, that these are all situations in which you have a tendency to give away power because, knowing this, you can make sure you don’t do the same in future.

Forgiveness

The final step is to forgive; to understand that all of these events are also just stories and that, more positively, they reveal the things we need to work through to be true to our souls. Forgiveness, then, is another way of releasing our myth so we can return to spiritual wholeness.

Thus, in the Celtic tale related earlier, Oisin did not blame Niamh for the geis that he carried for, in his aging he became, symbolically, a man, standing on his own two feet, on his home turf, and free of the Land of Eternal Youth where power is wielded irresponsibly and promises are extracted with threats.

ALL IN THE MIND?

A question arises in all work that has to do with life scripts and the process used to unearth them: ‘Is it all just my imagination?’

This question is a chimera because it doesn’t actually matter if the events you saw ‘really’ happened exactly as you experienced them in your visualisations or not, because whatever you believe to be true you will make real anyway. Our entire lives are, in this sense, an act of faith, and wherever we place our belief those are the results we get.

If I believe I was an unwanted child, for example, as Lucy did, everything in my life conspires with me to create that story and I will grow up fearful of others and expecting to be rejected, and so I will create that very outcome. If I remember – or choose to believe – however, that there was love in my family, I can become more loving and loveable in my life and change my destiny now because I remember how love works, and not just the pains of my youth.

Having said that, there do tend to be remarkable correspondences between what we sense instinctively to be true and what did happen. Howard, working through this process, saw his mother’s attempt to abort him. Unbeknownst to his mother or to the doctor at the time, the attempt failed, and in his mind’s eye Howard saw himself being born and heard the surprised reaction of the surgeon who expected to be delivering a dead child: “It’s alive!” These were the first words he ever heard.

A little while after his recapitulation, Howard decided to speak with his mother about it. After her initial surprise it was clear that she needed to get something off her chest and she was frank and open about the circumstances of his birth. She confirmed that she did try for an abortion and that the words “it’s alive!” were spoken by the surgeon.

“This startling revelation led to a beautiful reconciliation with my mother”, Howard continued. “She told me what happened, about her motives, and about my father. This explained a lot for me because at a gut level I never trusted my mother, and now I knew why: unconsciously, I had known all along that she had tried to kill me.

“From this I also got a profound insight into what makes me the way I am, and I understood how that remark ‘it’s alive’ had influenced my life, as my response to living has always been ‘I’ll show them I’m alive!’ I sometimes wonder at the surgeon’s words though, and at how different my life might have been if the first words I had heard were not ‘it’, along with surprise at my existence, but ‘he’s a beautiful baby boy’ or something similar. I had bought into the story of ‘it’ and the disappointment I must have been”.

We know far more than we think and we carry the fears, hopes, and life experiences of our parents within our emotional DNA. These become our stories until we choose to take back our lives. Recapitulation is the first step to freedom.

This article is partly based on the books, The Spiritual Practices of the Ninja: Mastering the Four Gates to Freedom, published by Destiny Books in April 2006, and Darkness Visible: Awakening Spiritual Light through Darkness Meditation, also published by Destiny Books. Ross also runs workshops on the themes of this and his other books, including Darkness VisibleTM and The Four Gates To Freedom, which focus on the exercises in this article. The names of participants used in this article have been changed but their words are accurate.

In the County of Hereford was an old Custom at Funerals, to hire poor people, who were to take upon them all the Sins of the party deceased… The manner was that when a Corpse was brought out of the house and laid on the Bier; a Loaf of bread was brought out and delivered to the Sin-eater over the corps, as also a Mazer-bowl full of beer, which he was to drink up, and sixpence in money, in consideration whereof he took upon him all the Sins of the Defunct, and freed him (or her) from Walking after they were dead.

John Aubrey, Remains of Gentilism

When I was a child my family moved to the Herefordshire countryside, in the shadow of the Welsh Black Mountains and deep in the heart of Celtic mythology. At the edge of the village, alone and isolated from the rest of the scant community there was a small cottage, long fallen to disrepair; a place I was always warned to stay clear of. For in this cottage there lived a madman, who was somehow unclean and undesirable to the village… so they said. Inevitably I found my way to this place.

His cottage stood at a crossroads, just back from the road itself and surrounded by tall bushes and trees. It was a walk of about a mile from the village and there were no other houses anywhere near it. It felt somewhat like the fairytale cottage of a witch, a place you stumble upon in error, after which your life is never the same. As I stood looking at this mysterious cottage, whose lopsided architecture had begun to take on the form of the surrounding land, the door opened and its single inhabitant emerged.

He was old, thin, and dressed oddly for the times (the 1970s) in white collarless shirt, black trousers and waistcoat, like a 1940s off-duty doctor or the cinema version of a period railway signalman. A gold chain and fob watch hung from the pocket of his waistcoat. So this was the madman I had been warned away from. He began to talk to me about flowers and herbs and his life story. He had been a Sin Eater.

THE SIN EATER

There is little written or known of Sin Eaters. It is an ancient tradition, practiced in many countries of the world, and integrated into the Catholic ritual of the last rites. It is supposedly derived from the ‘scapegoat’ described in Leviticus xvi. 21, 22, where the wrongdoings of another are ascribed to an innocent. In the Hebrew ritual of the ‘scapegoat’, Aaron confessed all the sins of the children of Israel on the Day of Atonement, above the head of a live goat that was then sent out into the wilderness to die, symbolically bearing their sins.

As a shamanic tradition, a Sin Eater would be employed by the family of a deceased person, or sometimes by the church, to eat a last meal of bread and salt from the belly of the corpse as it lay in state. By so doing it was believed that the sins of the dead person would be absorbed and the deceased would have clear passage to the hereafter. The Sin Eater was given a few coins for his trouble but other than that was avoided (literally ‘like the plague’) by the community who regarded him as sin-filled and unclean as a result of his work. That is why Sin Eaters usually lived at the edge of the village and children were warned away from them.

The role of the Sin Eater was, in essence, that of a shamanic healer. It was his job to remove negativity and the spirit of disease from the dead (and, often, the living) and make the gods available to them. Their teachers in this work were the spirits themselves and, in the case of the Sin Eater I knew, the Old Testament which, read shamanically, reveals many rituals for cleansing and healing that have been mysteriously lost in the New Testament, which has also rewritten the nature of the god(s) from many to one (e.g. Genesis 1 26: ‘Let us make man to our image and likeness’. Genesis 2 22: ‘Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil’).

THE NATURE OF SIN

In Sin Eating tradition, a sin is a blemish or a weight on the soul which will hold it trapped in the Middle World in a sort of purgatory or limbo while that sin remains. The Sin Eater’s job is to free the soul by devouring this ‘blemish’.

The seemingly simple ritual of eating from the body of the deceased therefore masks a number of more complicated shamanic manoeuvres.

Firstly, the action of eating from the belly of the deceased is, of course, a form of extraction medicine. It is assumed that the ‘food’ will absorb the sins from the corpse since spirit craves matter and the spirit of the disease (sin) will therefore be attracted to the stronger life force of the ‘living’ food than the dead corpse. When the food is eaten, the weight on the soul is therefore removed.

The food itself varied according to the Sin Eater’s lineage. Sometimes it was bread and ale, sometime merely salt and water. The latter was more useful to the Sin Eater as salt water is an aid to purging, the unseen part of the sin eating ritual being for the healer to go out into nature following his corpse-side duties in order to vomit away the sins he was now carrying and allow the Earth itself to defuse them. In another variant the Sin Eater would free himself of the sins he had taken on by casting them into a body of water and reciting an incantation.

Secondly, as the Sin Eater went about his duties with the corpse he would also be praying for the soul to be free of its attachments to the Earth so it might enter the Kingdom of Heaven. This is, in effect, psychopomp work, the ‘escorting of the dead’. The belief of the Sin Eater is that the deceased carries guilt and shame within the soul as a result of his or her misdemeanours and inappropriate actions towards others – or, indeed, because of their actions towards the deceased. The soul, in fact, can be damaged in two ways: either because the person who carried it has acted in a way that has caused pain to another (a parallel here with the Buddhist notion of ‘right-living’ – that no matter what our interactions with others or what they do to us, there is a correct way for us to behave in order to preserve our spiritual integrity) or because they were the victims of shameful acts and now carry guilt which is actually not their weight to bear. The victim of sexual abuse, for example, may sometimes come to believe, at an unconscious or deep soul level, that they were somehow to blame or ‘invited’ such abuse. This may be incorrect but it is the belief itself and the shame of the event rather than the reality of what happened that causes the wound to the soul.

Thirdly, the ritual of sin eating is a community healing for the people present at the wake. When a relative or close friend dies, there is often a feeling of guilt on the part of those who live on – ‘why couldn’t I have done more to help?’, ‘why didn’t I pay more attention to him when he was alive?’ etc. This guilt arises as a result of the perceived sin of neglect on the part of the relative or friend. The ritual of sin eating helps to assuage this guilt as well since the relative can at least see that the deceased has been helped and healed through his employment of the Sin Eater.

HEALING THE LIVING

Sin Eaters rarely work just with the dead. Many of them, because of their closeness to nature and rural location, were also skilled exponents of folk medicine.

Folk medicine can be described as ‘root doctoring’ or herbalism, which works with both the medicinal properties and spirit of the plants. Thus, a tonic made from vervain was known to be helpful for easing depression, paranoia and insomnia (all symptoms of guilt or shame as a consequence of being in the presence of sin), but the plant could also be used as a talisman to drive away ‘evil spirits’.

By the same token, marigolds could be used to treat skin rashes, inflammation and ulcers (perhaps stress-induced as a result of the sinful situation), and at the same time, to soothe and calm the soul. The 13th century herbalist Aemilius Macer, for example, wrote that marigold flowers have the power to draw “wicked humours out”. (Interestingly, marigolds are used, even today, in Amazonian Peru in the shamanic practice of soul retrieval).

The client visiting the Sin Eater would find, first of all, a confessor to whom they would announce their sins. In this respect, the healer plays the role of anam cara – the ‘soul friend’ whose task it was to listen without judgement or prejudice to what was spoken, the intention being only to understand the nature of the problem and its impact on the soul. Even this simple action can have a profound healing effect since it unburdens the soul of its guilt, hence its enduring practice in Catholic confessionals, as well as its modern incarnation in counselling and psychotherapy (“the talking cure”).

Having heard his client, the Sin Eater might then offer advice from ‘the land of the dead’ (the spiritual world) for how these sins could be recompensed. The advice itself was often of a practical nature, the belief being that sins need to be reversed in this lifetime and with action in the world, rather than simple prayer, for example.

The penitent might therefore be advised to make an offering, not to the spirits, but to the person he had harmed. This is a quite different dynamic from the notion of ‘karma’, for example, where our good and bad deeds are weighed in the balance at judgement day and, perhaps, we must return in a new life to atone for our sins. In sin eating practice it is understood that ‘karma’ must be dealt with immediately in the here-and-now since any sin has the power to erode the soul, leading to ill-health and further corruption.

A potion of flowers or plants, as per above, might then be administered to the client in order to balance and soothe the soul. In this way, sin eating – a practice perhaps more than 1000 years old – recognises a mind-body-spirit connection that modern science is only now starting to acknowledge, for the plant medicine itself would work on the troubled body and mind as well as healing the wounds of the soul.

THE ALONENESS OF THE SIN EATER

The most paradoxical aspect of the Sin Eater’s life was his role of being central to the well-being of the community but also ostracized from it. The Sin Eater was typically a man who spent much of his life alone, disparaged by the community he served – and yet, in one way at least, the most important member of that community for without him no-one who had sinned could enter the Kingdom of Heaven. At the same time, he was regarded as unclean, as strange and mad – and yet, if he was unclean, it was because of the sins he was eating. The sins of the community, not his own.

We often find this solitariness among people of spiritual power. A time of aloneness is a requisite in many shamanic initiations and in some traditions the shaman will also live on the outskirts of the community, representing in a physical and symbolic way his dwelling on the threshold or boundary, the ‘betwixt and between’ place of human and spiritual connection. In our fairytales and myths, as well, crones, witches, and other unusual people tend to live alone in woods and shadowlands.

The emotional hardship of the Sin Eater’s life, along with the decline of spiritual belief in our modern cities are perhaps two of the reasons why sin eating is no longer a central practice in funerary rites, although it survives symbolically. In Ireland, for example, it is still common for the corpse to lie in state in the family home and at one such funeral I attended in the mid-1980s, a service was held over the coffin and our host then offered a glass of wine and a funeral biscuit to each guest, handing it to us across the coffin itself. The burial-cakes still made in parts of rural England (Shropshire and Cumberland, for example) are also symbolic relics of the sin eating tradition.

In other countries sin eating still continues in a more original form. In Bavaria, for example, a corpse cake is placed on the breast of the deceased before being eaten by the closest relative. In the Balkans a small bread image of the deceased is made and eaten by members of the family. In Holland, doed-koecks (dead-cakes) are eaten, each marked with the initials of the deceased.

As the modern world enters what we might call a sin-filled age of terrorism, warfare, and territorial invasion, perhaps it is time for a revival of this powerful healing tradition, for the sake of all our souls.

Samhain, pronounced sow-wen, is a Celtic word meaning “summer’s end.” It is also the Irish Gaelic word for the month of November. Samhain is the last of three harvest festivals in the Celtic year, and it is the Celtic New Year. The Celts only recognized two seasons: summer, and winter. So, with the last harvest, the summer ends, and the cold, dark, dangerous days of winter begin. Any food that was not brought in from the fields by the end of the day on October 31, Samhain, was left in the fields and not eaten. It was considered to belong to the fairy folk at that point, and would make anyone sick who tried to eat it.

The food in the storerooms by this time was all the food you were going to get between this first day of winter and the coming spring. It had to last through the cold, dark winter months. Starvation was always a possibility. Livestock was slaughtered at this time, both to preserve meat for the winter months, and to cull the herd. With fewer animals to feed, the ones that were left would have a better chance of survival until spring. This is one reason why death and the dead are associated with this day.

Facing the long, deadly winter, unsure of your food supply, with no central heating, you would have to brave the elements and the dangers of the forest to gather all the wood you would need to keep yourself warm. With the days getting shorter and shorter, you would start wondering if the sun was ever going to come back. The wild animals would get hungrier and more aggressive as the winter got harder for everyone. All made this day, marking the beginning of the winter season, one of fear and danger. But it was also a day of celebration, akin to the American Thanksgiving — thanking the gods for the blessings of a bountiful harvest.

To the Celts, “between” times and places were very important. At these points, the veil between the worlds is at its thinnest, and communication between the fairy realm, the land of the dead, and the human world is much easier. “Between” places include doorways between one room and another, or between inside and outside; or the seashore, marking the meeting of earth and sea. “Between” times include dusk and dawn, marking the transitions from night to day, and day to night; and in more recent centuries, midnight, representing the transition between one calendar day and the next.

The transitions between seasons are even more important “between” times. The transition from winter to summer at Beltaine (May 1), and the transition from summer to winter at Samhain, were the two most important days of the Celtic year; but Samhain was the most important, because it also marked the transition from one year to the next. Ergo, it is at this time that the veil between the worlds is thinnest, and communication between the world of the living and the world of our deceased ancestors, the fairy folk, and other spirits is easiest. This is also a good night for divination for that reason.

At this harvest celebration, when the veil between the world of the living and the dead is at its thinnest, one’s ancestors are therefore honored and venerated. Hospitality was very important to the ancient Celts. They would leave food out on their hearth, or out on their front step, as an offering to the spirits of their ancestors, whom they believed would visit them on this night. Offerings of food or milk were also left out for the fairies, and some Wiccans today invite fairy beings into their homes to share their hospitality with them for the winter. The Celts also extended this hospitality to wandering travelers and beggars, because Celts considered it very bad luck to withhold hospitality from anyone in need.

But the thinness of the veil between the worlds also allowed more dangerous spirits to wander into the human realm, so Samhain was also a time of fear and foreboding. These two ideas influenced our modern custom of “trick or treating” at Halloween (our modern name for Samhain). Today, wandering beggars in the form of children, dress up as horrible spirits that go from door to door begging for food, and threatening pranks if they are not appeased. That is a very recent tradition, however, invented in America.[1]

The carved pumpkins we call jack-o’-lanterns also have their root in ancient hospitality. The Celts did not have pumpkins in the Old World, as we have here in America; pumpkin is a New World fruit. So rather than carving pumpkins, the Celts used turnips and gourds. They hollowed out the inside, and put candles in them to create a lantern. Then they would set a light out each evening to let any wandering strangers know that hospitality was available at that particular home. However, to frighten away the evil spirits that might also be out wandering, these home owners would take the precaution to carve ugly faces into the lanterns, to scare anything nasty away.

Many ancient pagan holidays, including those of the Celts, were adapted by the Christian church in an attempt to convert pagans to Christianity. Many of the traditions of Yule, such as the decorated evergreen tree, became the traditions of Christmas. Many of the traditions of the spring equinox, such as decorating eggs, became customs of Easter. And many practices of Samhain became the traditions of Halloween.[2]

“Hallow” means “sacred.” For example, “hallowed ground” means a place that has been blessed and is appropriate for burial. The suffix “-een” is short for “evening,” the night before a holiday. Halloween, like our New Year’s Eve, is therefore the celebration before the actual holiday, in this case November 1, dubbed “All Saints Day” by the Catholic Church. Halloween is also known as “All Souls Day,” following the tradition that this is a time to celebrate the dead and commemorate them.

There are several misconceptions and outright lies that are spread by religious fundamentalists about Samhain every year, in an attempt to get Halloween banned. The first is that the holiday is of Druidic origin; the Druids were a priestly class of the Celts, but they were a very late manifestation of the Celtic religion. The Celts were practicing their religion for thousands of years before the priestly class of the Druids developed.

Another misconception is that the ancient Romans adopted Samhain and added their traditions to it; however, the traditions of Halloween, as we know them, have come down to us from Ireland. Ireland was never conquered by the Romans. Samhain was also celebrated by the Picts in Scotland, but the Picts were never conquered by the Romans, either. The only territory in the British Isles that the Romans successfully conquered was England.

Another error is that Samhain is pronounced Sam Hane and is the name of a Celtic god of the dead. The Celts had no god of the dead.[3] Samhain is also not pronounced that way, it is pronounced “Sow-ween,” due to the odd way Irish Gaelic ended up being spelled when written in English letters. There is a very minor character in Celtic mythology that has a name with a similar spelling, but he has nothing to do with death or with that particular holiday.

Some people also claim that at this holiday the souls of the dead were supposed to move into the bodies of animals if they had been “sinful,” and that human sacrifice was practiced. The Celts did not believe in sin, nor in reincarnation or the transmigration of souls. The Celts also did not practice human sacrifice, with the exception of the execution of criminals, which we still practice in America today.

Halloween in America is now a completely secular holiday. Though it still maintains some of its harvest festival roots, there is no longer any religious or spiritual significance to the practices of bobbing for apples, trick or treating, and dressing up in costume.

Samhain, however, is still observed by Wiccans and other Pagans for its spiritual significance in the Wheel of the Year, the cycle of holidays that mark transition points in the natural solar cycle.

[1] Because Samhain represented the transition between years, it could not belong to one year or the next. Since time did not technically exist during this period, other societal rules were suspended as well, creating the necessary atmosphere to allow people to vent frustrations, often by playing practical jokes on each other. This may be the precursor to the pranks practiced at Halloween today.

[2] A lot of the associations of Halloween, from black cats to dressing up in costumes, to witches, are more associated with Germanic tradition and Walpurgisnacht, which is associated with May Day, rather than the Celtic tradition or Samhain.

[3] A couple of sources list Gwynn ap Nudd as a British god of the dead, and Arawn as a Welsh god of the dead, but there is no Irish equivalent.

***

For Part II of this article, “A Subtle Samhain Celebration -or-What to Do If You Don’t Live Alone” visit www.careandfeedingofspirits.com. Part II provides instructions for how to take advantage of this season to contact deceased loved ones on the other side of the veil of death, as well as other subtle ways to mark the holiday. But hurry! It will only be available through October 31, 2008. After that it will go back into the vaults.

Have a blessed Samhain, and a happy Halloween!

BB,

Vivienne

Bibliography

Isaac Bonewitz, “The Real Origins of Halloween,” version 4.5, © 1997 and 2002, http://www.neopagan.net/halloween-origins-text.html, downloaded 9/19/03.

“Halloween Errors and Lies, or What Fundamentalist Christians Don’t Want You to Know,” version 4.4, © 1997, 2002; http://www.neopagan.net/halloween-lies.html, 9/19/03.

B.A. Robinson, “the Myth of Samhain, Celtic God of the Dead,” © 1998-2001 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, last updated 10/19/01, http://www.religioustolerance.org/hallow_sa.htm, 9/19/03.

W.J. Bethancourt, III, “Halloween: Myths, Monsters and Devils,” © 1994, updated 10/7/01; http://www.illusions.com/halloween/hallows.htm, 9/19/03.

Rowan Moonstone, “the Origins of Halloween.” http://www.geocities.com/athens/forum/5452/hallorig.html, 9/19/03.

They say there is nothing worse than a homesick Celt a long way from home or a bunch of Celts on a mission if they feel that culture is under threat.

I can talk about those issues above with a degree of the impunity being a fully paid up “Celt” myself being half welsh and half Scottish.

The problem most Celtic cultures and countries have is essentially one of a constant dilution off cultural identity down to the years. By this I mean that effectively the Celtic tribes moved from Central Europe westwards either voluntarily or were driven west by other tribes moving into Central Europe from their homelands further east.

This process of migration took place over several thousand years B.C. and in the time since any Celtic cultures or societies in existence have either been wiped out or severely depleted by later migrations into their territories.

Nowhere is this struggle for potential cultural identity more evident possibly than in Galicia in north-western Spain. There are several organizations in existence in Galicia who believe that their history and the Celtic influences in that history has actually been neglected for too long and been overshadowed by later developments from a Castilian / Spanish perspective.

Now this article is not a treatise or an attempt to try to cause potential revolution or secession rather it is an attempt to try and shed some light on what otherwise would be viewed as potential cultural paranoia.

Over the post 40 or 50 years various Galician Academics have tried to reconstruct their past and transform it such that it could potentially form the basis off a Galician nation.

The problem with all this is that yes logically there is plenty of evidence that there is a very strong connection between the communities and the ethnic cultures in Galicia and other Celtic nations such as Ireland. The trouble is that only in Ireland have they effectively and successfully preserved their ancient manuscripts and other various scholarly materials which effectively have stood them in good stead when trying to reach a consensus in any form of cultural identity.

In Ireland to be brutally blunt they were lucky in that whilst the rest of Europe was effectively thrown into cultural darkness during the dark ages. In Ireland the monastic heritage was such that in Ireland it kept alive the flame of culture and facilitated the reintroduction of many Christian beliefs and practices when elsewhere in Europe these had effectively been driven underground.

Else where, especially in mainland Europe they were not so lucky and therein lies the problem that many Celtic scholars who are based in the European Celtic Communities and territories face. The evidence of manuscripts and well-known antiquities are not so openly available if they exist at all and this can lead to overdependence on a history and culture based mythology and legend and not based on fact.

There is no doubting the racial and cultural affinity between the various Celtic communities in Europe of Galicia, The Basque Territories and Brittany with the Celtic Communities of the British Isles and Republic of Ireland, that much is a given.

It is more of a case in the responsible representation of that cultural identity within the greater National boundaries that these Communities find themselves within and how they reconcile any potential difficulties that they inherit.

It is a testament to the security and belief in their cultural heritage in Galicia that they have managed to achieve such a credible balance between the separate Celtic and Galician culture and identities and that from within the greater community that is modern-day Spain so well.

Tain Bo Cuailnge meaning the Cattle Raid of Cooley is a legendary epic from early Irish literature. The Táin Bó Cuailnge represents the oldest vernacular tale of Western Europe, predating both Beowulf and Homer’s Odyssey. It describes the invasion of Ulster by the armies of Queen Medb of Connaught and her husband Ailill intending to steal the Brown Bull of Cuailnge. They are faced only by the boy warrior Cuchulainn, the rest of the men of Ulster being incapacitated by an ancient curse placed by the ancient Celtic goddess of war, Macha. Cuchulainn is young enough to be free of the curse, he manages to hold off the invading armies until the Ulstermen are free of the curse. Aided only by his charioteer Laeg he wages a guerrilla campaign against the invading hordes. However Medb succeeds in capturing the bull but Cuchulainn prevents her from returning to Connaught by invoking the right of single combat at fords. For months Cuchulainn challenges and defeats warrior after warrior. The greatest of these fights is against his foster brother and best friend Ferdiad, a fierce contest rages for three days, Cuchulainn eventually killing his opponent with the mighty spear called the Gae Bulg. Eventually the Ulstermen are freed from their curse and one by one they appear on the battlefield and the final conflict occurs in which Medb’s armies are routed, however she manages in hauling the Brown Bull of Cuailnge back to Conaught where he fights her white bull, Finnbheannach. The Brown Bull kills him but is mortally wounded, it wanders around Ireland creating place names before returning home to die of exhaustion.
The world portrayed in the Tain is an essentially pre-Christian heroic age. War is conducted between warriors armed with swords and spears and mounted in chariots with drivers. Interestingly, it is also a world in which a queen may possess wealth independently of her husband and, indeed, compete with him and raise an army. The Tain Bo Cuailnge has survived in two main recensions, the first is contained in the Lebor na hUidre, an eleventh century text compiled in Clonmacnoise and in the fourteenth century Yellow Book of Lecan. A complete text can be compiled by combining these two sources. The second recension can be found in the twelfth century Book of Leinster.

Russell Shortt is a travel consultant with Exploring Ireland, the leading specialists in customised, private escorted tours, escorted coach tours and independent self drive tours of Ireland. Article source: http://www.exploringireland.net

Is there such a thing as ‘Celtic shamanism’? Probably not.

Do we have a native shamanic tradition within the British Isles? Certainly.

These two statements are in no way contradictory. It only seems that way because of the word ‘Celtic’.

‘Celtic’, in fact, has been so over-used and so abused in its usage, that we can no longer say with any certainty exactly what it refers to. Nor can we assume that the use of the word, by any two different writers or historians, means precisely the same thing.

The fact is that we have little hard evidence about the Celts and, given this vacuum, the people themselves, their practices and beliefs, have been variously mythologized, idealised, and/or demonised in order to create solidity out of Irish mist.

The ‘hard evidence’ and ‘real information’ we believe we have about Celtic ‘shamanic’ practices is not without problem either, since most of it was passed on orally and has been subject to elaborations, embellishments, distortions and, indeed, fabrication, over time.

It was not until the Christian colonisation of Ireland, for example, that the ancient stories, passed from mouth to ear across the generations, began to be recorded in writing at all – and then, we can imagine, they were ‘shrunk to fit’ the Christian agenda. Under this new spiritual regime, for example, the earth goddess, Brigid, is ‘miraculously’ transformed into St Bridget, with similar but quite different attributes to her natural predecessor and, of course, a new-found belief in the ‘one true [male] god’.

Notwithstanding the slight problem of a dearth of factual evidence, however, everyone seems to have their own ideas about the Celts. These ideas are really projections of ourselves onto the fog-screen of history and an archetypal reflection back to us of what we would like, or need, to be true. No doubt it fits our modern, urban, need for romance and escapism to imagine our ancestors as poetic warriors, living wild and free in great sacred forests, in idyllic communion with the whole of nature.

The Romans, however, had very different ideas, stemming, again, from their own (imperialistic) needs. To them, the Celts were savage barbarians, sacrificing their children, prizing the severed heads of murdered enemies, and living in the woods like animals, where they worshipped pigs and dogs and other lowly beasts. Such projections enabled the Roman leaders to justify their invasions of Celtic lands, where they would do us all a favour by ‘civilising’ the barely-human heathens who had the audacity to live there.

The Greeks, too, had their conception of the Celtic people, a somewhat different conception to that of the Romans. They called them Keltoi, which has connotations of ‘Hero’ and also of ‘Strangeness’. The Keltoi were the ones who stood outside of civilisation and had an unusual understanding of nature and the elements. To the ‘civilised’ Greeks, the Celts were still savages, but perhaps they also had something about them, some secret power or knowledge…

In summary, there are as many ‘Celts’ as there are windows into the human imagination. What we know (almost) for certain, is that they lived between 700 BC and 400 AD. Apart from that, their very tribal natures, as well as the different landscapes they occupied and the variation in natural resources available to each tribe, obviously meant vast differences between them in terms of beliefs, customs, culture and living (as well as ritual) practices. Even in the British Isles today, there remain huge differences between the way of life of the Scottish, Irish and Welsh-speaking peoples.

As Emma Restall Orr has written, in her commentary on the ‘classical’ Druid (the Celtic ‘priest’), as a man “in white robes, bearded, with ornate staff and golden sickle tucked into the belt”…

“In fact, this image of the Druid in white is little more than two hundred years old, created during a period of revived interest in the tradition when one picture from the classical literature of two millennia ago was chosen from many: Pliny’s image of the Druid cutting mistletoe from the sacred oak. If Strabo had been used, the stereotype might be rather different, but his Druids – in red, adorned with gold – had not perhaps the dignity and nobility that was needed”.

Despite its fanciful nature, however “it is this figure that is responsible for drawing many into the tradition. But what is that tradition?”

SHAMANS OF BRITAIN

Druidry is the native spirituality of Britain, which has its origin in the animistic principle of honouring the earth, the ancestors, the elements, and the connection between all things. “Druidry emerged out of the rocks and forests and rain of Britain, and its very nature is wrapped in the beauty, power and shifting stories of all that Britain has been over many thousands of years”.

For Orr, the focus of Druidic practice is ‘awen’, an old British/Welsh word which means ‘flowing spirit’. The word contains notions of creative genius and poetic imagination, in a similar way to the Irish word ‘imbas’, which refers to a sense of wonder and inspiration.

“Understanding that all creation is imbued with spirit (matter and physicality being the creativity of spirit), the Druid knows that it is in relationship, spirit to spirit, that inspiration is found… In recognizing the spirit of some aspect of creation, be it elemental, plant, animal, rock or human, we are given the opportunity to know our own spirit, to respond from our own spirit… Where spirit touches spirit, where there is communion on this level and the energy of life is exchanged, awen flows. [Awen] is the lightning that reaches between earth and sky, between lovers’ eyes.

“Yet simply breathing in the beauty of inspiration is not enough. It is the Druid’s responsibility to ensure that this energy continues to flow, spirit to spirit, for energy which is held in the body or soul stagnates and swells with sickness or pride. So inspiration must be expressed, the energy inhaled must be exhaled, and this is done through the Druid’s creativity”.

What we might call the Keltic ‘Path of the Hero’ had, we imagine, three ‘Ways’ or areas of expertise: The Way of the Bard, the Ovate and the Druid, each with its own means of inspiration and creative expression.

THE BARD is the poet and storyteller, who weaves magic and mystery with words, and can find mystic prayers, blessings and songs of empowerment, of protection, and enchantment. His words have the power to harm or to charm, to soothe and to transport the listener into the worlds of poetic imagination, where the wellspring of creative genius, the shamanic landscape, is to be found.

THE OVATE is the seer, who perceives the holism of the world, the bigger picture of life intertwining with forces beyond the mundane and the human. His is the power to foretell futures, to witness the past, and to understand its cosmic dance into the life-yet-to-come. Through this, he may unravel the past and shift the events of the present so that new potential and healing may come in to being.

THE DRUID is more fully the shaman, the rounded Man of Power, who knows the arts of the Bard and the Ovate, and is able to use these skills, and personal magic, to negotiate with the spirits, the elements, and the power of nature Herself, in order to bring back their gifts to the tribe. The church of the Druid is the sacred grove of the forests – a “church not made with hands” – which exists within, is part of, and represents the infinite power of Nature.

“The sacred text is the landscape within which we live. Its language is that of the deciduous forests, the ancient oaks, the heather-tinged moors, the meadows of grass lit with buttercups and daisies, the long dark winters that creep into the bones, the laughter and dance of chilly May evenings. Its path has been trodden for many thousands of years by those who found inspiration in the beauty and fertility of these lands”.

The very mention of ‘Celtic shamanism’ will inevitably lead to debate, discussion, and argument, notably between academics, frustratingly unable to pigeonhole the meaning of that elusive concept; but also among ‘new agers’ with a cosy modern notion of forest rituals and flowing robes; and among more conservative members of the public, who are likely to view it as in some way similar to ‘witchcraft’ or perhaps even ‘Satanism’. It seems that we all have a notion of who the ‘Celts’ were and of ‘natural British magic’.

For that reason alone, it may be best, in some ways, to forget the word ‘Celtic’ altogether (‘Keltic’ is, in any case, more accurate) – but not to forget the power of its tenets and beliefs.

Creative genius, poetic imagination, the power of Nature, and the living Spirit of the World; these are the things which will create positive change in our lives, the skills which need to be honed.

The beauty, intricate designs and symbolism of the Claddagh engagement ring and other Celtic engagement rings has built a following among many young couples today. In a world of turmoil, confusion and duplicity, many of the younger generations are revisiting their roots for direction and guidance. The Irish community is rich in mythology, spiritualism and cultural beliefs. The Celtic engagement ring is a sign of deeply held family customs and beliefs.

A Sentimental Gift is Found in the Celtic Engagement Ring

The Celtic engagement rings are known for the sentiment that is symbolized in each ring. The designer usually bases the design of each ring on a wedding sentiment such as “love for all eternity”, “tying the knot” and some other sentiments of love. Then the ring is designed to match and is named after the emotion or sentiment. Most rings have some sort of knot shape or combination of knots to symbolize the union of two lives. The most popular style of Celtic engagement ring is the Claddagh engagement ring.

The Claddagh is Rich in Irish Folklore

The Claddagh is the symbol for the Republic of Ireland, a design that is deeply embedded in the Irish folklore. The image on the ring is that of two hands surrounding a heart with a royal crown placed directly above the heart. The design symbolizes the welcoming hands of a marriage union; a strong and loving heart and the crown represent the proud people of Ireland.

Many Believe Irish Design isn’t “Irish” Unless it’s Made in Ireland

There is a common held belief that jewelry made in the Irish design isn’t real if it wasn’t made in Ireland. There are specific regions in Ireland that are responsible for custom design. So a couple shopping for the symbolism, sentiment and beauty of a true Celtic engagement ring would want to access Irish internet web sites or a visit to a jeweler of Irish heritage. However, keep in mind that in many traditional Irish circles, it is considered bad manners to wear the Claddagh if you are not of Irish descent.

The Claddagh Engagement Ring is Rich in the Irish Culture

The Claddagh Celtic engagement ring usually doubles as the wedding band. While the Claddagh engagement ring is available in a wide variety of styles, the specification to how it is to be worn is absolute. The importance of Claddagh Celtic engagement ring is significant with how it is worn on the young woman’s hand. When a woman wears a Claddagh ring, she must turn the heart inwards if she is unmarried and change the direction of the heart upon becoming betrothed. The heart facing outward tells the world that she is bound is marriage and has given her heart away.

For more information from Brian Welsch about Celtic Engagement Rings check www.ringsforengagement.com

Thousands years back Europe was Celtic England ruled over by Celts. They had developed the fantastic Celtic artwork. This artwork contains spiral, knot works, animal forms and interlacing patterns.

In 450 BC the Celtic artwork was brilliantly developed with swirling spirals and hidden faces of animals and human. The designs were made with the help of compasses and French curves were used in this Era. Then the knot works were introduced in Celtic arts in early Christian era. In late Christian era the Celtic artwork was used in gold, silver etc to make the finest jewelry.

Hallstatt is the first style in Celtic art that includes geometric designs. La Tene style includes leaf work and spiral designs. These designs specialize in developing faces which may appear and disappear. This is the cleverest method used in Celtic arts.

Knot work is the most famous style in Celtic art. Trinity knot has three knots weaving through itself or through number of strips. Spiral style may look like swirls double, triple or quadruple designs. They are mingled with one another like the English alphabet S or C.

Zoomorphic is that style in which animal shape like snake, bird, salmon and lion are used. The birds will normally be peacock or eagle. The early Celtic artwork did not use the shape of dragon. However modern Celtic art uses dragon in its design. The animals are normally designed as twisted with one another and therefore it resembles the knot work style to some extent.

Maze style is just like spiral designs and step style appears like tiles. People are also designed in Celtic artwork with different hair styles and dressings.

Generally, the Celtic art styles provide some symbolic representation. Knot work depicts the inter connectivity of life and human in the universe. Similarly the spirals define the personal spirit and it also determines the importance of holy sprits. Maze and steps style refers to journey of life. In Zoomorphic every animal depicts one quality. Lion stands for strength, Snakes for rebirth, Peacocks for purity and so on.

The Celts normally displayed their artwork in metal. Celtic jewelry had minute designs which were the finest artwork of Celts.

Irish Celtic artwork is more famous than other countries in Europe. Though Celts lived in England, Spain and France apart from Ireland, Irish Celtic art has great impact all over the world. The Irish art combines the knots, crosses etc. Celtic Crosses were the powerful symbols and so they are used even now in various art works. The Irish Celtic artworks reached its apex in the period of Vikings.

The Celtic artworks are one of the rich heritages in the world. The original Celtic art by a brilliant artist Jen Dellyth are developed to depict the Earth’s mysteries and mythologies. The Celtic tree of life is the most famous creation of Jen Dellyth. You can get the Tree of life artworks by this artist through online. These artworks come with signature of the artist. Every tree depicts some symbolic representation in a dark background. Tree worship was famous among Celts. Therefore, the artist selects the tree base to illustrate various myths in the world.