The Cailleach Bheurr

Long, long ago, there lived an old woman known to all living near her and even far beyond her ken, as Cailleach Bheurr. She did not belong to this world, having oft been heard to tell any who dared to ask her, ‘’When the ocean was a forest with its firewood, I was then a young lass.’’ Well be that as it may, and sure there is none of us who have need of doubting what she said, the Cailleach Beurr somehow managed to escape the clutches of death in a way that no one else ever could.Well then, on the western side of the island where she lived in her cottage alone with just herself and her animals with whom she was often heard to converse for long periods of time, and who, or so it seemed to any who happened to be passing by, that they answered her in their own language, a language that she appeared to understand. Not far from her home there was a beautiful lake with crystal clear blue water that reflected the glory and majesty of the luminous sky that always seemed to spread itself out above it, and this lake, it is said, never was ruffled by any a nere wind or breeze passing by, so that the surface of the lake shone and glimmered like a glittering mirror that seemed always to show the face of eternity in its depths. But it is also told how every one hundred years a strange thing used to happen in these whereabouts., and the strange thing was this, that about 2 years before another century ended or began, depending on how you saw it, or perhaps better said depending on your age at the turning, the appearance of the cailleach would alter beyond recognition, so that she would grow old and grey , haggard and stooped. But while at these times she may have looked just like any other old person, yet she was different from all others, as unlike them, she had the ability to change her appearance, and turn herself back into a young girl. She did this very easily by rising early just before sunrise and before any other living creature, human or animal, had risen to greet the day, and then she walked far out into the lake of Loch Bá. And so it was that in this way she became young again, constantly renewing herself and her life every hundred years.

But on one fateful morning, around the time of the changing of the centuries, the cailleach was walking down to the shore of the lake just as the golden rays of the sun were beginning to shimmer in the east when what did she hear but the barking of a dog from far off in the distance. It was then that the cailleach knew that she was doomed, and as she felt the life force drain from her body, she called out in a loud voice

‘’It’s early the dog spoke, in advance of me,

The dog, in advance of me; the dog in advance of me.

It’s early the dog spoke, in advance of me,

In the quiet of the morning, across Loch Bá.’’

Commentary on this folk tale: 

[from The Book of the Cailleach: Stories of the Wise-Woman Healer, by Gearoid O Crualaoich]

‘’Evidence of the identification of the cailleach of this story with the archaic female sovereignty personification of landscape in the Celtic, and possible pre-Celtic, ancestral, cosmological tradition can be glimpsed in the assertion…that she was alive in a predeluvian era ‘when the ocean was a forest with its firewood’. The concept of the ancestral otherworld, the sacred, cosmological domain that surrounds and underlies human experience of physical reality, as a domain located beneath water, constitutes a recurrent theme in the allusion to the otherworld at the learned and literary level of early Irish tradtion.’’

Note also that the cailleach is a hag-goddess, usually translated in contemporary times as a witch, who found cyclical renewal in sacred waters. But note also how the hag-goddess was overwhelmed by the loud noise of a barking dog, a herdsman’s dog, who barked before she could reach the life-renewing sacred waters of the lake. ‘’The landscape is now speaking with the voice of human society, and the goddesses reign which marked the pre-human and natural world, has come to an end. A momentous cosmological shift has occurred.’’

The Dream of a Contemplative Life

One of my alter ego identities (I have a few!!) is that of a contemplative monastic, living in seclusion and following the ancient rhythms of soul time. The word ‘hour’ comes from the Greek ’hora’ which refers to a measure of the soul, and not a measure of time. Each hour would then come bearing its own gifts and deep meaning which I would spend reflective time excavating. The name of my monastic settlement would be The Monastery of the Sacred Feminine and it would be set in the midst of a forest, with small huts sprinkled here and there around the area, and inhabited by other contemplatives like me. We would converge twice daily to meet in the communal sacred space, there to sing songs of praise and thanksgiving, expressions of our gratitude where each morning we would rise and learn anew what it is to be grateful just to be alive, to awaken and greet the new day as the gift that it is. Together we would re-affirm our commitment to opening our innermost selves to allow the breath of the Divine Feminine to blow through our souls. The rhythms and repetitions of the chants and bells would wash over us and draw us up into the heart of She Who Is. Such a mystical beginning to the day would water our souls with an underground river of love and mercy and carry us through the hours that lie awaiting our presence to them.

Parting company we would each walk slowly and mindfully back to our individual holy places, wherein we have created our own ritual spaces containing totems and talismans on our altars that act as reminders of the Divine. This is the place where we would balance our time with meditation, reading, writing, and holy leisure when whatever it is we create would be done as a dedication and gift to the Sacred. As it comes from Her, it returns to Her. In such a place as this we would be already living in paradise, because our time would not be the time of the outside world but the time of the soul, and so our souls would be linked together in a luminous web of connections between the sensible world and the other world, that which some call heaven. And so it is that I would walk in 2 worlds, keeping one foot in each. The sensible, everyday world would beckon forth those who would care for it for a couple of hours every morning, and this would require leaving my cell to work in the fields or the kitchens. Meals also would call us forth to be eaten silently and with care and attention for the gift that they are. Throughout the day the bells would ring to remind us, time after time after time, to listen, to hear the lesson of the hour, and to look deep inside ourselves to see if our intentions are pure; to see to what extent our wishes and desires are in alignment with the Love of the Eternal Feminine. Later when dusk turns to darkness we would meet again in the sacred space and together sing and chant our gratefulness for the day that She Who Is shared with us, before retiring for meditation and interior searching of our deepest inner selves, to review our actions of the day and the intentions that lay behind them. Then we would lie down upon our little wooden beds and resting our heads upon the pillows, close our eyes and place ourselves, body and souls, into the hands of the Divine Feminine.

Meditation

MEDITATION

Sitting still,

breathing deeply,

empty mind,

floating in a sea of tranquillity.

Occasional clouds,

unbidden thoughts,

pass by,

moving on

and out of the picture.

Diving deep

leaving the surface behind,

I surrender to the Presence.

Goddess Booklist–recommended reading

What follows is a short list of books and web sites that I found most useful so far, on my quest for the Goddess.Carol C. Christ, LAUGHTER OF APHRODITE

———-, ODYSSEY WITH THE GODDESS (Continuum, 1995)

———-, REBIRTH OF THE GODDESS

———-, SHE WHO CHANGES (Palgrave MacMillan, 2003)

—Carol C. Christ has written a series of books charting her growth and experiences with Goddess spirituality. While the first 2 show her move from God to Goddess, Rebirth of the Goddess is the first systematic feminist theology of the Goddess. She Who Changes outlines the intellectual underpinnings upon which her theology is based. Obviously the first 2 titles above are the easiest to read, although the latter are not difficult given Carol’s wonderful ability to make a difficult subject accessible. I would highly recommend any and all of these books as a way into the whole area of Goddess spirituality and theology.

Tikva Frymer-Kensky, IN THE WAKE OF THE GODDESS (Fawcett Columbine, 1992)

—This is a book of feminist scholarship on the subject of ancient pagan goddesses and how they were gradually overthrown by male gods, and ultimately by the biblical god. Not your average bedtime reading, but worth it all the same!

Caitlin Matthews, SOPHIA, GODDESS OF WISDOM, BRIDE OF GOD (Quest Books, 2001)

—A book written by a well known teacher of Celtic spirituality about the many faces of the Goddess as She has been manifested in the Western tradition as Sophia, Goddess of Wisdom. One such manifestation looked at is the Black Madonna.

Rosemary Radford Ruether, GODDESSES AND THE DIVINE FEMININE (University of California Press, 2005)

—This would be an essential book as far as I am concerned! Rosemary is a feminist theologian long engaged in theological enquiry in feminist, environmental and related issues. Here she presents the definitive account of goddesses from prehistoric times to contemporary interpretations. However be warned–she examines the mythology carefully resulting in the rejection of certain premises that would be considered almost sacrosanct in some goddess circles, eg the myth of a peaceful matriarchal society that predated patriarchy. Personally I would consider that while such myths are very consoling, it is always better to be open to the truth whatever the ‘truth’ is understood to be at a particular point in time.

China Galland, LONGING FOR DARKNESS: TARA AND THE BLACK MADONNA (Penguin, 1991)

——–, THE BOND BETWEEN WOMEN (Riverhead Books, 1998)

—One woman’s search for the Sacred Feminine and where the search brought her, including the goddesses she ‘met‘ on her journey. Both books very easy to read as well as being informative. Recommended.

Sue Monk Kidd, THE DANCE OF THE DISSIDENT DAUGHTER (Harper Collins, 2002)

—Absolutely essential reading for anyone either on the journey, or about to embark on the quest for the Sacred Feminine. Refers to goddesses in the context of her personal search.

GODDESS WEBSITES

http://spiralgoddess.com—A wonderful site with enough to keep you entertained and amused for a long time! Pour yourself a cup of coffee or herbal tea, pull up your seat and enjoy!!

http://www.imagesofdivinity.org—This is China Galland’s web site. Wonderful images of the Black Madonna.

http://sagewoman.com—A goddess based magazine. Interesting reading.

In Defence of Dreams

What, if any, is the connection between the Book of Dreams and the Book of Life? Are hopes and aspirations real in the sense that they are like energy waves that can travel along some metaphysical pathway from my mind (or is it my heart that they come from?) to be felt at some unknown level in the universe and there to be transformed into new energy which finds its way back home along the previously travelled path? Is this what the metaphor ‘bringing the soul back home’ means? Is it really that the journey out and the journey back are roads going nowhere, just spiralling staircases that sometimes I climb up or slip down? Is this all there is to it? Is this it?

But I want my dreams. And I want to write them down in the Book of Dreams. So it is that I announce loudly like the crier standing in the middle of the city square, that I choose to believe that what I dream of shapes the road I walk on. It is my dream that plants this tree here and that flower there. My dreams don‘t make them grow, they have no power over life and death. These are forces that have the power to destroy my dreams and make me question their validity. But still it remains that it is my desire to dream them into existence that might drop the seed in that exact place. After that I must needs wait and see if there will be anything to be seen.

And what is my dream? I want to be good, pure of heart, and strong and courageous enough to have faith and hope that my dreams will come true, even if it seems as if the whole world conspires to make it not so. I don’t know if there is a God or Goddess, but I hope that God knows I’m good.

On Using the Earth to Create

There are many marvelous stories of potters in ancient China. In one of them a noble is riding through town and he passes a potter at work. He admires the pots the man is making: their grace and a kind of rude strength in them. He dismounts from his horse and speak with the potter. “How are you able to form these vessels so that they possess such convincing beauty?” “Oh,” answers the potter, “you are looking at the mere outward shape. What I am forming lies within. I am interested only in what remains after the pot has been broken.”

— M. C. Richards quoted in A Potter’s Companion

Meditation on Brigit, Ancient Irish Goddess

Late on the eve after setting up the altar and shrine to Brigit, Triple Goddess of Ancient Ireland, and to her descendent, St. Brigit, inheritor of many of her divine traits, I sat on the earth covered floor in a womb-like cavern with Her altar before me. The cave was bathed in a rich and welcoming darkness, with the only light being that which shone forth from the flames of 19 tiny candles, each one symbolising the 19 Priestesses who tended Brigit’s sacred fire through the millenia. Taking a necklet of 19 milky-white stones into my hands I closed my eyes and invoked the presence of the Goddess through the repetition of a very old prayer, fingering a bead with each repetition:‘Brigit, Mary of the Gaels, be with us.

Brigit, Mary of the Gaels, surround us with your mantle.’

After reciting this mantra for some time, I felt myself being enclosed in a warm wrap. Finding myself unable to open my eyes and suddenly feeling an overwhelming desire to sleep, I lay down on the ground and let myself slip away through the mists of time and space, until I found myself in an enchanted glade in the middle of a circle of oak trees. In the centre of this glade there was a well, and sitting on the edge of the stone wall that surrounded the well was a beautiful Lady wearing a long blue mantle. A white serpent meandered slowly in and around her feet She smiled a welcoming smile at me, and beckoned at me to come join her. When I reached her side she lowered a silver cup into the well, and filling it with the clearest, most sparkling water I have ever seen, she pulled it back up and handed it to me indicating that I should drink it. Never have I tasted such water. This was nectar for the gods indeed. Then she spoke in a soft and gentle voice, ‘My name is Brigit, the Exalted One. I have many names and many gifts to bestow. Today I offer you the gift of the eternal waters of the Sacred Feminine. Taste and be healed, whole and free.’

Then She disappeared from whence She came, which was a place beyond my ken, for now at least. Perhaps the day would come when I might be able to follow Her holy steps. I remained at the well until twilight fell and it was time to return to my own world.

A note about wells: Since ancient times wells have been associated with the presence of a goddess, and were seen as the entrance to the womb of mother earth, the source of life. Wells are generous gifts of life from the Cosmic Matrix, and symbols of the source of life. Drinking Brigit’s holy water heals us by clearing our hearts, minds and souls of all our fears and anxieties. So return here often and drink deeply from Brigit’s well.

Note: The mantle, water, serpent and necklet are all healing symbols long associated with the Goddess Brigit.

Brigit’s Altar

Ancient Ireland was a land filled with gods and goddesses. One of the most revered was Brigit, who was associated with the gifts of poetry, healing, nurture, fertility, fire, and smiths. The Christian Saint Brigit inherited many of the Pagan Goddesses traits. It is now accepted that both the Pagan and the Christian Brigit are so interwoven that it is pointless to try and separate them. So it is that the two Brigits meet and converge at the overlap of the two worlds. Brigit’s feast day is February 1^st, Imbolc, a major feast in the Celtic year. This is also known as Candlemas Day when candles were blessed by the Saint. Brigit’s church was built in a traditional druid’s oak grove.

Elements to include on Brigit’s Altar:

—White candle: The sacred flame of Brigit continues to burn in the monastery in Kildare, Cill Dara, ‘The Church of the Oaks’, in Ireland. Before that it burned for the Goddess Brigit and was tended by 19 priestesses, each of whom looked after the flame for a day, then on the 20^th day, Brigit herself tended the flame. Today one of the Sisters of the Solas Bhride Community tends the sacred flame. A white candle should be dedicated specifically to the Saint and kept on her altar. White is the main colour associated with Brigit because it is the colour of her sacred food, milk; also a symbol of purity.

—Brigit’s Cross: Design based on an ancient sun symbol. It is woven from dried grasses. Many Irish homes still hang a Brigit’s Cross over the threshold into the kitchen, the heart and hearth of the home. (We have one in our home as a reminder to seek Brigit’s protection.)

—Bowl of water: To signify Brigit’s sacred cauldron filled with healing herbs.

—Anvil, or other metal smith’s tool: Symbol of the patroness of blacksmiths. Smiths work with metal, water, fire and air, making them the alchemists of the elements.

—A white snake: A serpent token, a healing symbol, supposed to emerge from the hollows on the morning of St Brigit’s day.

—Prayer beads or necklace with 19 milk-white beads or stones.

—Symbol of her mantle which was a healing cloak. It is said that she once hung her mantle on a beam of sunlight.

If I look again, what will I see?

I am about 18 months old and the baby of the family. I have 2 older brothers – Dan who is 5 and Richard who is 7. At this time in my life they don’t really figure enough to exist in my memories. On this day I am sitting in my high chair in the kitchen, which is positioned just behind the kitchen door, to the right of the fire place. There is no fire lit in the grate today. It must be summertime. Mammy is feeding me my dinner. She is sitting on a chair directly in front of me, holding a dish of dinner in one hand and a spoon in her other hand. She wants me to eat faster, but I am not co-operating. Unusually mammy is wearing her good clothes. She smells fresh and clean, and she is wearing lipstick. She looks pretty. I like it when mammy looks pretty. Right now I have her attention, sort of. Usually she never rushes me when she is feeding me, and often smiles her tired, slow smile. But today is different. There is almost an air of impatience about her. The woman who helps her out sometimes comes rushing into the kitchen and announces loudly that she will feed me and that it is time for mammy to go. Mammy rarely goes out anywhere, even to the local shops. She starts to get up, half-heartedly handing the bowl and spoon to the other woman. I cry out. I don’t want my mammy to go. I don’t want her to leave me. I don’t want to stay with someone who has no love for me at all. The woman grows more insistent. Mammy is indecisive. She wants to go. She is under pressure from this other person to do what she said she was planning to do, but I am crying, and she doesn’t want to leave me sad.

And then the realisation hits me. My first memory is one of separation. Mammy and I are not one after all. Mammy is one person and I am another. And I have the power to either stop my mother from going to Dublin, or to allow her to go. It has nothing to do with the other woman at all. If I keep crying, mammy will stay. I want her to stay. I don’t want her to go. My stomach is churning at the fear that mammy might leave me behind. I want to scream, ‘Don’t go mammy. Don’t leave me with this woman who I don’t like and she doesn’t like me’’. But I don’t say these words. I keep them inside of me where they live on forever. Instead I stop crying and smile a watery smile at mammy. She hands the bowl and spoon over to the woman, and kisses me on my cheek and walks out the kitchen door. I hear the front door opening and then it is very gently pulled closed behind . I weep, and wait.

—-Working on the above memory has completely altered my life long interpretation of what happened on this day. I have always believed that the primary point here was my sense of power over my mother; that it was down to me whether she went to Dublin on that day, or not. But in writing down the events of that afternoon, I can see now that that was not the significant factor at all. What really mattered, what entered my soul that day was a sense of loss and loneliness that has never left. Did this mark the break in the symbiotic relationship between mother and baby, and the consequent emergence of the individual? Is the ego based on a sense of lack?

Only Women Bleed

It is ‘’that time of the month again’’ we whisper to our friends, who look sympathetically at us and nod their heads knowingly. During these special days Mother Nature calls us back and embraces us once again in her fold. It is as if an invisible force pulls us out of the everyday realities and we are transported to another realm, a place where we just seem to sit and watch. There is no sense of a need of having to do something, or go somewhere, or achieve anything.

These are good days, special days, days that remind us women that we were born connected to the earth and that this connection is part of the very life force that continually creates and re-creates the world. But the paradoxical thing about this special time is that even as we feel more connected to the life force of the earth we also simultaneously feel that our very life force is draining out of us.

During these days it is as if I am sinking deeper and deeper, lower and lower into a dark, cavernous space; a female place, a place where only women can go. It is a womb-like space — blood flows from the woman’s womb downwards into Mother Earth’s womb, the Womb that is the matrix of the world and all the life contained within it. Bleeding women co-create within the cosmic matrix. This is the secret, silent time of the month. There is nothing to say. All words drop away to leave behind, in their wake, a presence within the absence. The blood of women: a metaphor for life on earth, for the Sacred Feminine. The hours of the bleed move forwards. Sinking into moments of oblivion as the flow becomes heavier. Deep, bone-marrow tiredness. Cramps to remind us of how our lives are closely connected to our bodies.

Women, unlike men, can never forget that they are not merely spiritual beings, but are rather spiritual entities encased by bodies, living elements from the centre of the matrix. Our bodies and our spirits are never more united than at this time of the month, apart from those other special times of female embodiment like pregnancy, child-birth and breastfeeding. But the difference between those times and now are that the times of bleeding extend from puberty to menopause, and so they lay a special claim to a particular type of female knowledge — womb-knowledge, which gathers wisdom as the girl-child grows and develops with her changing body altering almost imperceptibly through the seasons of her life, until she eventually grows into her wise self, her authentic being, which has always being there, but takes many moons to excavate.

The flow goes on and seems to move through my body like a river, a river that carries me along with it. The river is my life force, the juice of my marrow. It comes from me even as I seem to float along on it. The river is a deep red and I begin to feel that there is only this redness, only this river. Life and blood are all of a piece. Now I begin to fade. My life light is extinguishing. I am becoming transparent. I look into the mirror and I don’t seem to be there. I have grown unreal, perhaps surreal. Maybe I have entered the other realm, the other side of here and now. Perhaps I am merging with the spirit world. As I gaze upon my reflection I wonder who this being , this vision of paleness and waness is, standing directly in front of me, even as I know that it is I, yes me, although the sheer lack of energy and apparent lifelessness renders me quite unable to attempt any understanding of what I have just come face to face with — am I here or am I not? Still complete and utter exhaustion can be so very , very grounding — the fertile place that I am inhabiting is deep, dark and peaceful. Oh I am so awfully tired, so lifeless, so lacking in energy, that it is almost impossible to do anything other than simply look, and somewhere deep in the recesses of my shadowy mind, I wondered briefly if this image was real or an illusion, before turning away to return to the reality that is my life, to do whatever it was that needed doing at that particular moment. And if that particular and especial thing didn’t need to be done at that particular time, then something else would have quickly moved in to fill a potentially empty space. Time? What does time mean, or even matter, when you cannot even catch hold of an image of yourself in the mirror?