Contemplative Druidry | Contemplative Inquiry

April 12, 2015

GWYN, GWYTHYR AND CREIDDYLAD: A STORY FROM THE OLD NORTH

This post reblogged from Peneverdant looks at the traditional stories of the northern British (especially in north west England and southern Scotland) and surviving material from these stories in later Welsh literature.

The Sanctuary of Vindos

Culhwch and Olwen is one of the oldest and most fascinating repositories of ancient British mythology. It originates from two texts; a fragmented version in The White Book of Rhydderch (1325) and full version in The Red Book of Hergest (1400). The main narrative centres on Culhwch’s quest to win Olwen for which he enlists the help of Arthur and his retinue; a medley of historical and mythological characters.

Embedded within it we find fragments of other tales which may be of older origin and have stood alone. These include the hunt for the legendary boar Twrch Twryth and release of Mabon from imprisonment in Gloucester. Most significantly for me as someone who venerates Gwyn ap Nudd, we find the story of his rivalry with Gwythyr ap Greidol for the love of Creiddylad and their battle for her every May Day.

This story is central to understanding Gwyn’s mythology. Because…

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April 10, 2015

ORAN MOR THE MAGIC OF SKYPE

Last night (my time) I had a Skype conversation with a group of people mostly in Nova Scotia (their early evening) and a person from Washington State, USA (early afternoon). I had been invited by Alix Sandra Huntley-Speirs of Alba Nuadh: the Druid Arts of Nova Scotia, a group which can be found on http://www.albanuadh.com

The topic was the Oran Mor, including its relationship to the contemplative thread in Druidry. As it happens I’ve been quite recently re-alerted to the Oran Mor, and it wasn’t a topic within my book Contemplative Druidry: People Practice and Potential which we also discussed a little bit. Additionally, the Nova Scotia group are wanting to incorporate their sense of the Oran Mor into their work together. So this made for a dynamic and flowing conversation. From my point of view I certainly needed to respond and think and talk on the spot. So I believe did everyone else.

I felt that I had been privileged to enter an authentic space of co-creation. I had a certainty that something of significance will come of this, both for the group and also for those of us who were in (literally) different places. I can’t ‘know’ that of course, yet I feel it strongly. Speaking for myself, I moved on in an important way. I moved from a space in which I was focused on early meanings and subsequent interpretations of Oran Mor, and how they might guide me, to one where my inquiry has become more visceral. How will The Oran Mor live through me, in my body, heart and mind. How will it shift my experience, my life world?

I appreciate all the people who made this conversation happen, including myself, and to the technology. I know that Alba Nuadh want to continue the practice of Skype conversations and I recommend others to experiment with this medium for Druid conversations.

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April 8, 2015

ABOUT THE ORAN MOR (GREAT SONG)

In my last post, I presented my Amazon review of Jason Kirkey’s The Salmon in the Spring prefaced by his view of the Oran Mor (Great Song), itself somewhat indebted to earlier work by Frank MacKeown. This followed on from my recent reading of a post involving the Oran Mor by Alison Leigh Lily at Q&A: What is the Song of the World, which I picked up through a reblog on Joanna van der Hoeven’s Down the Forest Path, and reblogged myself on https://contemplativeinquiry.wordpress.com/2015/4/2/ . Kirkey essentially sees the Oran Mor as something like the Divine Ground, or the Tao of Chinese mystical philosophy, something that includes all beings whether they be mountains, salmon, humans, midges, wolfhounds, gods or sidhe.

Soon after I read the book I discussed my take on the Oran Mor in a local radio interview, which can now be found in the OBOD website on http://www.druidry.org/druid-way/other-paths/druidry-dharma/. Those interested can scroll down to AUDIO Druidry & Buddhism Stroud FM 141210.mp3. At that time I was more involved in Buddhism than I am now, but generally I still stand by the things I said.

Concerning the Oran Mor, I focused on implications for the personal spiritual path rather than wider issues of cosmology. I suggested that we are invited to do three things:

Learn to hear the Song. This is another way of talking about re-enchantment, the beginning of the conscious journey in paths like Druidry.
Find our unique note, or sound, and sing it. Whilst each note is meaningless, indeed impossible, without the Song, the Song is itself dependent on our individual contributions.
Learn to hear the silence behind and within the Song. For without that the Song, in our perception can become just a noise, even if a beautiful one. To awakening to a full awareness and appreciation of the Song, we need the dimension of silence and stillness as well as sound.

I have noticed one strange thing. When interviewed for Stroud FM (and about half-way through the piece), I confidently attributed these last sentiments to Jason Kirkey. But I’ve looked through the book again and I can’t find them there. So it seems to have been my way of inwardly digesting his book and in a sense the emergence of my own note in relation to the Oran Mor itself as concept, image and inspiration. Still, a mystery, and quite startling when I listened to the interview and then went through the text again. My self-image is one of being careful with attributions and acknowledgements. Perhaps that’s why I felt such a strong energetic pull when the Oran Mor was brought to my attention again.

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April 5, 2015

BOOK REVIEW: THE SALMON IN THE SPRING

This is the review of Jason Kirkey’s Salmon in the Spring which I wrote for Amazon in 2010 (and for Touchstone, the OBOD in-house journal). It was the book that introduced me to The Great Song/Oran Mor – earlier explored in Frank MacEowen’s The Celtic Way of Seeing and The Mist-Filled Path. MacEowen wrote the foreword for Kirkey’s book. Kirkey revises the traditional sense (in the Christian centuries) of the Oran Mor as a name for God. He says, rather, that “immanent in material processes is the implicate order of the cosmos: spirit, divine ground, Oran Mor (Great Song)”. I will say more about what this has meant both experientially and conceptually for me in future posts.

The review was a 5 star review and I strongly recommend it, as a book that manages both to be clear and to accommodate complexity.

“At the age of 12, Jason Kirkey had one of those ‘light bulb’ moments that can set a direction for life. A relative told him ‘nature does not require our belief. It is right there for us to experience’. Jason is from Massachusetts, of partly Irish ancestry and over time his new found awareness lead him to discover the ‘interplay of nature, story and ancestry’ as a practitioner of ‘Irish Earth-based spirituality and shamanism’.

“Jason presents personal story a thread within a larger, collective story; one in which spiritual traditions are moving through a process of re-imagination – of integration into the new story of the 21st century’. He describes going through a ‘dark night of the soul’ when an over-identified ‘attachment’ to his own tradition became narrow and constraining. He found resolution through the practice of sitting meditation and study at the Naropa University in Colorado. It wasn’t a matter of moving from one tradition to another, but of integrating the qualities of both.

“The Salmon in the Spring explores traditional stories – including the second battle of Maigh Tuireadh, Connla’s Well and the Song of the Silver Branch – in a process of creative revisioning for Celtic spirituality. It is a pioneer’s book and I recommend it to anyone interested in the possible futures of Celtic spirituality, Druidry and other paths in which the old stories are coming alive in new ways.”

Jason Kirkey The Salmon in the Spring: the Ecology of Celtic Spirituality San Francisco, CA, USA: Hiraeth Press, 2009

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April 2, 2015

REBLOG: Q AND A: WHAT IS THE SONG OF THE WORLD?

This is a reblog of a reblog, with Joanna van der Hoeven’s Down the Forest Path blog as the intermediary. I too find the Oran Mor a very resonant image. Great that’s it’s getting more attention.

Down the Forest Path

A brilliant blog post by Alison Leigh Lily, which has sparked something very special in my path through the forest!

The latest issue of the Alternative Religions Educational Network’s newsletter just came out this past weekend, and I was excited to be included as one of those featured in an interview with the editor, Christopher Blackwell. We chatted about my background being raised in a liberal Catholic tradition flavored by my father’s Irish heritage, and how that shaped my spiritual journey towards Druidry as I live and practice it today. It was great fun! One thing we touched on was the Oran Mór, or the Song of the World. Chris asked me to talk a little bit more about how this cosmological concept is reflected in my Druidry. You can read the excerpt here, or check out the whole interview.

via Q&A: What is the Song of the World?.

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March 30, 2015

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: STEPHEN BATCHELOR

Stephen Batchelor offers some thoughts on immediate experience and concepts of mind, soul and reincarnation.

“I had noticed that when listening to the song of a bird, it was impossible to differentiate the cooing of the wood pigeon, on the one hand, and the hearing of it, on the other. Conceptually the two were different, but, in immediate experience, I could not have one without the other, I could not draw a line between them, I could not say where the bird song stopped and my hearing of it began. There was just a single, primary, undifferentiated me-hearing-the-birdsong.

“Being-in-the-world means that I am inextricably linked into the fabric of this fluid, indivisible, and contingent reality I share with others. There is no room for a disembodied mind or soul, however subtle, to float free of this condition, to contemplate it from a hypothetical Archimedean point outside. Without such a mind or soul, it is hard to conceive of anything that will go into another life once this one comes to an end”.

Stephen Batchelor, 2011, Confession of a Buddhist atheist New York: Spiegel & Grau

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March 21, 2015

AT TATE LIVERPOOL

I spent time at the Tate Liverpool yesterday. Currently there is an exhibition of work by Leonora Carrington the mystical surrealist and feminist. It was almost too much to take in. For me the work, among other things, aptly illustrated one of her own comments.

“One cannot understand reality. Paradigms are a transitory convention for man. It is to our advantage to believe that we know, but it is obvious that absolute truths that were accepted in the times of Newton and Euclid do not exist.

“Sorcerers and alchemists know about animal, vegetable and mineral bodies. To hack away the crust of what we have forgotten and rediscover things we knew before we were born.

“There are things that are not sayable. That’s why we have art.”

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March 18, 2015

EVENTS UPDATE

The Contemplative Druid residential retreat (17-19 April 2015). at Anybody’s Barn, Birchwood Hall, Storridge, Nr. Malvern, Worcestershire WR13 5EZ. is now fully booked. However anyone interested should still contact us as there is a waiting list and there is the possibility of future residential retreats.

Looking ahead, we will have a presence at Druid Camp (29 July – 2 August 2015) and we will also be holding an open Contemplative Day in Stroud on 3 October 2015, from 10.30 a.m. – 4.30 p.m. at the St. Luke’s Medical Centre, 53 Caincross Road, Stroud Gloucestershire GL5 4EX. This will be facilitated by James Nichol, Nimue Brown and Elaine Knight. We will work with a maximum of twelve other participants, continue to build on the working methods we have developed in our local group over the last three years..

Contact grovelight@hotmail.co.uk for further information or to make a booking.

See http://contemplativedruidevents.tumblr.com for fuller events information, including the Stroud day on 3 October. For Druid Camp information see www.druidcamp.org.uk and www.facebook.com/groups/druidcamp/

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March 16, 2015

POEM: A POSTCARD FROM ICELAND

As I dipped to test the stream some yards away

From a hot spring, I could hear nothing

But the whole mud-slick muttering and boiling.

And then my guide behind me saying,

‘Lukewarm. And I think you’d want to know

That luk was an old Icelandic word for hand.’

And you would want to know (but you know already)

How usual that waft and pressure felt

When the inner palm of water found my palm.

In Seamus Heaney, The Haw Lantern London: Faber & Faber, 1987

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March 14, 2015

HEARTFULNESS & EMBODIMENT

I decided to kindle a Mindfulness 101 book* and do a spot check out how far my own practice meets ‘mindfulness’ criteria as currently understood. I was glad to find – as a wayward intuitive Druid – that I still seem to be incorporating the essential principles. I especially enjoyed the comment: “Ask someone from Tibet where their mind is and they may point to their chest – the word for mind and heart in Tibetan, and many other eastern languages, is the same. When we practice mindfulness, we’re recalibrating our centre downwards – as such, the practice might better be described as ‘heartfulness’ or even ‘bodyfulness’.” On this reading mindfulness becomes “an open hearted awareness of what’s happening, and learning from what we find” so that something which in English sounds like a quality of thinking in fact brings us down from our heads and into our whole bodies. Body sensations are driven at a deeper level than thought, which is why we can’t change how we feel simply be thinking about it. “By bringing attention to sensations within the body … we work with them more skilfully.”

My personal practice includes devotional, energetic and meditative elements with the meditative slightly more emphasised than the others. It includes a review of body, senses, life energy, feelings, thoughts and images. It also includes a period of either breath meditation or ‘choiceless awareness’. All of these elements are in the mindfulness book. What re-assured me most was the implicit validation of my recent choice of Duidsg mo chridhe/dooshk mo chree (awaken my heart) as an affirmation and reminder phrase during this period. This phrase comes from a Ceile De Fonn, and called to me strongly when I chose it. I’d already thought of ‘heartfulness’ as my preferred term for an awakened state – a fuller, more spacious and generous kind of presence than is conveyed to me by the term mindfulness itself. So I liked getting synchronous support from a book about mindfulness practice.

* Ed Halliwell Mindfulness: how to live well by paying attention Hay House Basics

Information about the Ceile De is available on http://www.ceilede.co.uk

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Tag: Contemplative Druidry