Druid Mysteries

by Philip Carr-Gomm

  First comes the Bard, carrying perhaps a small harp. The Bard sits beside you and you have a conversation together. Ask about your creative self, the Bard within. What does he or she need in order to grow and flourish? When it is time, allow your sense of the Bard to dissolve, and see instead an Ovate coming into the clearing to talk to you, perhaps dressed in animal skins and bearing knowledge of the earth and the stars, of the secrets of animals and plants. Ask how the Ovate can live more fully in your soul. Then, when it is time, your sense of the Ovate dissolves, and you see a Druid walking towards you into the clearing – the personification of wisdom and calm, maturity and clear vision. Let the Druid speak to you and guide you, before allowing your awareness of him or her to dissolve.

  Imagine yourself thanking all three visitors and leaving the clearing. Let go of all images, focus on your breathing for a while, then slowly open your eyes, and feel yourself fully present in your physical body – here and now – filled with vitality and health.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE TURNING YEAR:

  DRUID SEASONAL CEREMONIES AND RITES OF PASSAGE

  Mankind has got to get back to the rhythm of the Cosmos.

  D. H. Lawrence

  SINCE THE ENLIGHTENEMENT 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, which 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 worldview that, in distortion, worships progress and goal-achievement above wisdom and compassion. One of the results of this change in our collective awareness from a belief in 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 Deity in the ‘temple not made with hands’ – in the ‘eye of the sun’ – in the open air, in the environment made by the god/dess not by humans. In Druidry divinity was seen as being in everything, omnipresent yet manifesting differently in stone and star, animal and tree. And you communed with and celebrated your oneness with nature by observing a pattern of eight special ceremonies around the wheel of the year – each one designed to help you get in touch with the rhythm of the season, and the life of the land around you.

  When I piece together all the explanations that my Druid teacher gave me, often in a café beneath his office in London’s West Kensington, I can imagine him explaining the festival scheme, the central observance-pattern of Druidry, to me 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,’ Nuinn says, leaning across the table towards me in the café while picking up a knife to illustrate his point. ‘And there 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 pauses and looks at me with a shrug, but then says, ‘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 says, gesturing to the plate, ‘Not this!’ He exclaims, putting the knife down with a touch of theatre as people start to look at us in the café.

  He then runs 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 puts the plate down to allow the waiter to serve our meal.

  ‘What is it that guides the course of this cycle – this circling?’ he asks me. My mind goes blank for a moment. ‘What lies at the centre of this wheel? What or who is responsible for its turning?’

  Then I get it: ‘My soul – my true identity that endures through every life!’

  ‘Exactly,’ he says, placing a pat of butter in the centre of his dish of spaghetti to mark the place of my soul.

  ‘Now let us forget the individual,’ he continues, ‘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 begins 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 asks, taking the opportunity finally to begin eating, and also taking great pleasure in the coincidence that now he needs to turn his spaghetti on a fork – which operation he naturally chooses to perform in the centre of the plate.

  Again, for a moment my mind goes blank. ‘God or the Goddess?’ I suggest.

  ‘Well, yes, Deity 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.’

  Leaning forward now, he peers at me intently for a moment, before asking his next question: ‘And what do you think the connection is between your cycle,’ he says, pointing to my plate, ‘and the cycle of the earth?’ pointing to his plate.

  At first I can see no connection – they seem as entirely separate as our two plates of spaghetti. Nuinn circles his plate with his finger once more.

  ‘Birth, death, rebirth. Winter solstice – the longest night. Will the sun be reborn? Yes! And here, opposite, at the summer solstice he is at his maximum strength, at the time of the longest day.’ Pointing to the top of my plate, he says, ‘Here you are born, incarnated as a spark of light, and there,’ pointing to the other side of my plate, ‘you are in the prime of your life.’ He suddenly grabs the pepper pot and makes a dash of pepper on my plate at these two points, saying ‘Summer, winter.’ And then two further splashes are made to either side: ‘Spring and autumn.’ Pointing at each mark, he continues, ‘Here we see how the cycles of your life and the life of the earth are entwined. The spring is the time of your childhood, the summer the time of your manhood, the autumn the time of your maturity in old age, and winter is the time of your death. At the centre of the turning wheel of your life is your soul. At the centre of the turning wheel of the earth is the sun.’

  He looks around the table for something to use, then with a flourish tosses a spoonful of parmesan into the centre of my halfeaten pile of spaghetti. ‘The sun and your soul! Now perhaps you can see why the sun is revered so much in Druidry.’

  At this point I experience one of those sudden rushes of insight in which everything seems to come together and make sense in one flash, even though one’s everyday mind cannot quite grasp all the connections.

  ‘This is perhaps why someone once wrote that the ancient Druids believed our souls originate in the sun,’ continues Nuinn. ‘According to this writer, they believed that between lives we go to rest on the moon until our last three incarnations on earth – when we are allowed to rest between lives in the heart of the sun, with those golden solar beings who guide the destiny of our planet.’

  THE EIGHTFOLD WHEEL

  * * *

  Such was my introduc
tion to the eightfold scheme that lies at the heart of Druidry, and indeed the Western pagan tradition of which Druidry is one manifestation and Wicca another. Both Druids and Wiccans celebrate these eight festivals, and in fact it was Nuinn and Gerald Gardner who introduced the eightfold scheme and much of the modern versions of these rites into paganism in the 1950s and 60s.41

  The scheme is based upon the deep and mysterious connection between the source of our individual lives and the source of the life of the planet, and it recognises eight particular times during the yearly cycle which are significant and which are marked by special observances.

  Of the eight, four are astronomical events, directly associated with the position of the sun in the sky, while the other four are related to the life of the land and the phases of the moon. If we associate the sun with the masculine principle, and the moon with the feminine principle, we can see that the scheme offers a balanced series of interlocking masculine and feminine observances. The solar observances are the ones that most people associate with modern-day Druids – particularly the summer solstice ceremonies at Stonehenge. At the solstices, the sun is revered at the point of its apparent death at midwinter, and of its maximum power at the noon of the year when the days are longest. At the equinoxes, day and night are balanced. At the spring equinox, the power of the sun is on the increase, and we celebrate the time of sowing and of preparation for the gifts of summer. At the autumnal equinox, although day and night are of equal duration, the power of the sun is on the wane, and we give thanks for the gifts of the harvest and prepare for the darkness of winter.

  In addition to these four astronomical, solar festivals, there are four times in the year which were and are also considered sacred. These are the times which were more associated with the livestock cycle, rather than the farming cycle. Since they are not tied to any specific moment in the sky, the day of their celebration is not critical and can vary according to local circumstances. Our geographical location, and now the effects of global warming, can mean that these four seasonal celebrations take place at varying times. In addition, those living in the southern hemisphere need to reverse the dates of all eight festival times, since their seasons are opposite to those of the northern hemisphere.

  At Samhuinn, at the beginning of November, livestock for whom there was insufficient fodder were slaughtered and their meat salted and stored. At Imbolc, in February, the lambs were born. At Beltane, in May, it was the time of mating and of the passing of livestock through two Beltane fires for purification. Lughnasadh, at the beginning of August, was the time which marked the link between the agricultural and the livestock cycle – the harvest began and both human food and animal fodder were reaped and stored.

  Together, the two sets of festivals represent our complete interconnectedness with the earth, the moon and the sun, and the animal and plant realms.

  As we contemplate the festivals over the next few pages we shall see how interwoven is the life of our psyche and of our body, of the planet and of the sun and moon – for each festival time marks a potent conjunction of time and place in a way that is quite remarkable.

  Looking at the complete cycle, we shall begin at Samhuinn (also spelt Samhain, and pronounced ‘sow[to rhyme with cow]-in’.) Samhuinn is a time which many writers have believed until recently marked the ending and the beginning of the Celtic year in ancient times. This now seems incorrect historically, but nevertheless those who celebrate this time today notice a definite shift in the life of the year – with it dying in some way and perhaps only really being reborn at the winter solstice, the time that scholars now believe marked the traditional beginning of the new year.42

  Samhuinn, from 31 October to 2 November, was a time of no-time. Celtic society, like all early societies, was highly structured and organised – everyone knew their place. But for that order to be psychologically comfortable, there had to be a time when order and structure were abolished – when chaos could reign. And Samhuinn was such a time. Time was abolished for the three days of this festival, and people did crazy things – men dressed as women and women as men. Farmers’ gates were unhinged and left in ditches, peoples’ horses were moved to different fields, and children would knock on neighbours’ doors for food and treats, which explains the origin of the custom of trick-or-treating on Halloween.

  But behind this apparent lunacy, lies a deeper mystery. Druids believe that this time of year has a special quality. As much of the plant world seems to die with the onset of winter, and as the nights draw in, the veil between this world and the world of the ancestors is drawn aside at this time, and for those who are prepared, journeys can be made in safety to the ‘other side’. The Druid rite of Samhuinn, therefore, is concerned with making contact with the spirits of the departed, who are seen as sources of guidance and inspiration rather than as sources of dread. The dark moon, the time when no moon can be seen in the sky, is the phase of the moon which rules this festival, because it represents a time in which our mortal sight needs to be obscured in order for us to see into the other worlds. The dead are honoured and feasted, not as the dead, but as the living spirits of loved ones and of guardians who hold the root-wisdom of the tribe.

  Next in the cycle is the time of the winter solstice, called in the Druid tradition Alban Arthan (the Light of Arthur). This is the time of death and rebirth. The sun appears to be abandoning us completely as the longest night arrives. Linking our own inner journey to the yearly cycle, the words of the ceremony written by Nuinn tell us to ‘Cast away whatever impedes the appearance of light’. In darkness we throw on to the ground the scraps of material we have been carrying that signify those things which have been holding us back, and one lamp is lit from a flint and raised up on the Druid’s crook in the east. The year is reborn and a new cycle begins, which will reach its peak at the time of the midsummer solstice, before returning again to the place of death-and-birth.

  Although the Bible indicates that Jesus was born in the spring, it is no acciden; that the early Church chose to move his official birthday to the time of the midwinter solstice – for it is indeed a time when the light enters the darkness of the world, and we see again the building of Christianity on the foundations of earlier belief.

  Today, many in our secularised culture really only have one marker for the year, and that is the period of Christmas and New Year. Druidry has eight markers, which means that every six weeks or so we have the opportunity to step out of the humdrum of daily life, to honour the conjunction of place and time.

  The next festival occurs at the beginning of February, traditionally on the eve of 1 February. It is called Imbolc in the Druid tradition, or sometimes Oimelc. Although we would think of Imbolc as being in the midst of winter, it represents in fact the first of a trio of spring celebrations, since it is the time of the first appearance of the snowdrop, and of the melting of the snows and the clearing of the debris of winter. It is a time when we sense the first glimmer of spring, and when the lambs are born. In the Druid tradition it is a gentle, beautiful festival in which the Mother Goddess is honoured with eight candles rising out of the water at the centre of the ceremonial circle.

  The goddess that ruled Samhuinn was the Cailleach, the Grey Hag, the Mountain Mother, the Dark Woman of Knowledge. But by Imbolc the goddess has become Brighid, the goddess of poets, healers and midwives. And so we often use Imbolc as a time for an Eisteddfod dedicated to poetry and song praising the goddess in her many forms. The Christian development of this festival is Candlemas. For years successive popes had tried to stop parades of lit candles in the streets of Rome at this time. They finally saw that it was impossible to put a stop to this pagan custom, so it was suggested that the populace take their candles into the churches to be blessed by priests.

  Time moves on, and in a short while we come to the spring equinox – the time of equality of day and night, when the forces of the light are on the increase. At the centre of the trio of spring festas, Alban Eilir (the Light of the Earth) marks the more rec
ognisable beginnings of spring, when the flowers are starting to appear and when the sowing begins in earnest. As the point of psychological development in our lives it marks the time of late childhood to, say, fourteen years – Imbolc marking the time of early childhood (say to seven years). We are in the spring of our lives – the seeds that are planted in our childhood time of Imbolc and Alban Eilir will ideally flower from the Beltane time of adolescence onwards as capacities and powers that will help us to negotiate our lives with skill and accomplishment.

  Beltane, on 1 May, marks the time of our adolescence and early adulthood. Spring is in full bloom, and twin fires would be lit at this time, through which would be passed the cattle after their long winter confinement, or over which those hoping for a child or good fortune would leap. When I was young, the Order celebrated Beltane on Glastonbury Tor. The celebration of the union of male and female is symbolically depicted there in the landscape – with Chalice Well representing the feminine and the Tor representing the masculine principle. We see the same theme in May Day celebrations, when dancing round the maypole celebrates the fertility of the land and suggests an echo of the ritual circle dances that might have been enacted in stone circles in ancient times at this season when the sap is rising.

  We have reached the time of the summer solstice, Alban Hefin, The Light of the Shore, by 21 or 22 June (the dates for each of the solar festivals vary each year since the events are astronomical, not manufactured like our calendar). This is the time of the longest day when light is at its maximum. It is at this time that Druids hold their most complex ceremony. Starting at midnight on the eve of the solstice, a vigil is held through the night – seated around the solstice fire. The night is over in a matter of hours, and as light breaks, the dawn ceremony marks the time of the sun’s rising on this its most powerful day. At noon a further ceremony is held.