Post by Mysti on Jul 7, 2007 9:02:42 GMT -5
SAMHUINN
Old Age - Death
The Ancestors ALBAN ARTHAN
Conception/Incarnation
INSPIRATION IMBOLC
Infancy to 7 years
The Children
ALBAN ELFED
Maturity
50's - 70's
RECOLLECTION ALBAN EILIR
Late Childhood
7 - 14 years
RECEPTION OF WISDOM
LUGHNASADH
Adulthood
30's - 50's
The Family ALBAN HEFIN
Young Adulthood
20's - 30's
EXPRESSION BELTANE
Early Youth
14 - 21 years
The Lovers
Fire Festivals The Druid Circle of the Year Solar Festivals
by Philip Carr-Gomm
Mankind has got to get back to the rhythm of the Cosmos.
D. H. Lawrence
Since the Enlightenment our culture has projected the message that life is linear - that we are born, we grow old and we die, and that's it. The old message of the cyclicity of life, of life as a circle or spiral, that humanity intuitively knew from the dawn of time, and whose symbols were carved on stones all over the world, was replaced a few hundred years ago by the symbol of the straight line: the male, linear, scientific world-view that, in distortion, worships progress and goal-achievement above wisdom and clarity of being.
One of the results of this change in the collective consciousness from an awareness of the circularity of life to its linearity, has been a disconnection in the souls of many people from one of the most nourishing of spiritual sources, the realm of nature.
When I met the old Chief Druid, Nuinn, he spoke of a way that had never severed its connection with nature, and which conveyed a sense of the immanence of the divine in all things. In Druidry you communed with God in the 'temple not made with hands', in the 'eye of the sun', in the open air, in the environment made by God not by humans. In Druidry God was seen as being in everything, omnipresent yet manifesting differently in stone and star, tree and celandine.
I was introduced to a way of orienting my life that meant I could be in tune with nature, not separate from it. Looking back, I now realise what an extraordinary gift it was for me to have been given such a way of understanding life at such an early age. My teacher explained the festival scheme, the central observance-pattern of Druidry, to me one day in this way:
'Take your life and its events. Place them in one line with birth at one end and death at the other end', he said to me in a cafe, picking up a knife to illustrate his point, 'and you have an isolated line beginning in the void and terminating in the void. Other lines might run parallel to yours, collide or cross, but they will all end as they begun - with nothing.' He paused, looked at me with a shrug, and then said 'But we know life isn't really like that. We know that death is followed by rebirth because we see it with the rebirth of life in the Spring, and, if we are lucky, we remember it when we reach far back in our own memories. So life is like this,' he said gesturing to the plate, 'Not this!' [putting the knife down with a touch of theatre, as people started to look at us in the cafe.]
He then ran his finger around the circumference of the plate, saying, 'You are born, you grow old, you die' bringing his finger back to the starting point, and then again 'You are born, you are a child, a young man, an old man, you die. You are born, you die,' and so on, several times until he put the plate down to allow the waitress to serve our meal.
'What is it that guides the course of this cycle - this circling?' He asked me. My mind went blank for a moment. 'What lies at the centre of this wheel? What or who is responsible for its turning?' I got it: 'My soul - my true identity that endures through every life!' 'Exactly,' he said, placing a pat of butter in the centre of my dish of spaghetti to mark the place of my Soul.
'Now let us forget the individual,' he went on, 'and look at the world. The seasons are clearly cyclical - one following the other inexorably. So we can place them on a circle. That is the circle of the year. But the life of each day we can place on a circle too - it is born at dawn, reaches its peak at noon, and passes from dusk into night, before being reborn again the next day.' He began circling his plate with his finger, more gingerly now, to avoid the food.
'The circle of the year and the circle of the day have affinities. Winter is like the dead of night, when all is still. Spring is like the dawn of the day when the birds awaken and praise the sun. Summer is like noon - a time of maximum heat and growth. Autumn is like the evening, when the autumn colours seem like the colours of the sunset. So there are the two cycles of the Earth harmoniously brought together. Who or what do you think it is that controls the turning of this wheel?' he said, taking the opportunity finally to begin eating, and also taking great pleasure in the coincidence that now he needed to turn his spaghetti on a fork, which operation he naturally chose to perform in the centre of the plate. Again, for a moment my mind went blank. 'God?' I said. 'Well, yes, God is at the centre and is the cause of everything. But what specifically causes the cycle of the day and the seasons on Earth is the Sun. The Sun causes the wheel to turn.'
Old Age - Death
The Ancestors ALBAN ARTHAN
Conception/Incarnation
INSPIRATION IMBOLC
Infancy to 7 years
The Children
ALBAN ELFED
Maturity
50's - 70's
RECOLLECTION ALBAN EILIR
Late Childhood
7 - 14 years
RECEPTION OF WISDOM
LUGHNASADH
Adulthood
30's - 50's
The Family ALBAN HEFIN
Young Adulthood
20's - 30's
EXPRESSION BELTANE
Early Youth
14 - 21 years
The Lovers
Fire Festivals The Druid Circle of the Year Solar Festivals
by Philip Carr-Gomm
Mankind has got to get back to the rhythm of the Cosmos.
D. H. Lawrence
Since the Enlightenment our culture has projected the message that life is linear - that we are born, we grow old and we die, and that's it. The old message of the cyclicity of life, of life as a circle or spiral, that humanity intuitively knew from the dawn of time, and whose symbols were carved on stones all over the world, was replaced a few hundred years ago by the symbol of the straight line: the male, linear, scientific world-view that, in distortion, worships progress and goal-achievement above wisdom and clarity of being.
One of the results of this change in the collective consciousness from an awareness of the circularity of life to its linearity, has been a disconnection in the souls of many people from one of the most nourishing of spiritual sources, the realm of nature.
When I met the old Chief Druid, Nuinn, he spoke of a way that had never severed its connection with nature, and which conveyed a sense of the immanence of the divine in all things. In Druidry you communed with God in the 'temple not made with hands', in the 'eye of the sun', in the open air, in the environment made by God not by humans. In Druidry God was seen as being in everything, omnipresent yet manifesting differently in stone and star, tree and celandine.
I was introduced to a way of orienting my life that meant I could be in tune with nature, not separate from it. Looking back, I now realise what an extraordinary gift it was for me to have been given such a way of understanding life at such an early age. My teacher explained the festival scheme, the central observance-pattern of Druidry, to me one day in this way:
'Take your life and its events. Place them in one line with birth at one end and death at the other end', he said to me in a cafe, picking up a knife to illustrate his point, 'and you have an isolated line beginning in the void and terminating in the void. Other lines might run parallel to yours, collide or cross, but they will all end as they begun - with nothing.' He paused, looked at me with a shrug, and then said 'But we know life isn't really like that. We know that death is followed by rebirth because we see it with the rebirth of life in the Spring, and, if we are lucky, we remember it when we reach far back in our own memories. So life is like this,' he said gesturing to the plate, 'Not this!' [putting the knife down with a touch of theatre, as people started to look at us in the cafe.]
He then ran his finger around the circumference of the plate, saying, 'You are born, you grow old, you die' bringing his finger back to the starting point, and then again 'You are born, you are a child, a young man, an old man, you die. You are born, you die,' and so on, several times until he put the plate down to allow the waitress to serve our meal.
'What is it that guides the course of this cycle - this circling?' He asked me. My mind went blank for a moment. 'What lies at the centre of this wheel? What or who is responsible for its turning?' I got it: 'My soul - my true identity that endures through every life!' 'Exactly,' he said, placing a pat of butter in the centre of my dish of spaghetti to mark the place of my Soul.
'Now let us forget the individual,' he went on, 'and look at the world. The seasons are clearly cyclical - one following the other inexorably. So we can place them on a circle. That is the circle of the year. But the life of each day we can place on a circle too - it is born at dawn, reaches its peak at noon, and passes from dusk into night, before being reborn again the next day.' He began circling his plate with his finger, more gingerly now, to avoid the food.
'The circle of the year and the circle of the day have affinities. Winter is like the dead of night, when all is still. Spring is like the dawn of the day when the birds awaken and praise the sun. Summer is like noon - a time of maximum heat and growth. Autumn is like the evening, when the autumn colours seem like the colours of the sunset. So there are the two cycles of the Earth harmoniously brought together. Who or what do you think it is that controls the turning of this wheel?' he said, taking the opportunity finally to begin eating, and also taking great pleasure in the coincidence that now he needed to turn his spaghetti on a fork, which operation he naturally chose to perform in the centre of the plate. Again, for a moment my mind went blank. 'God?' I said. 'Well, yes, God is at the centre and is the cause of everything. But what specifically causes the cycle of the day and the seasons on Earth is the Sun. The Sun causes the wheel to turn.'