some of my pagan, shamanistic practices

in 1993 i read tom cowan's a fire in the head.* i was just beginning to explore 'celtic spirituality', with my only guide 'til then being mostly bede's ecclesiastical history, with its stirring hagiographies of the celtic saints whom he, great romanizer that he was, clearly admired. i was a little surprised this past summer to visit a friend who had a copy and who reminded me that i had recommended it to him a few years ago. most recently it has been his 1998 book, the way of the saints,** which has represented mr. cowan on my reading stand. but i reread some of a fire and found it as provocative as it had been 19 years ago, and decided to give a look to his shamanism as a spiritual practice for daily life,*** a book published just two years before the saints.

i have during the past twenty years become fairly well acquainted with most of the controversies and questions around 'celtic spirituality' and 'celtic christianity' and the 'celtic church.' many of them center on texts. there are those who deny that there was or is such a thing as 'celtic christianity' because after all the celts used almost exactly the same missal and breviary as the rest of the church in europe. while it is true that a lot of the new age neo-celtic folk are unaware of what that mass is like, and would probably be more or less appalled by it, the statement seems correct. at the same time i think the scholars who focus on the words used miss most of the spiritual life.

after what has come to be called 'the elizabethan settlement' in 1559 all of england, and the english church in her colonies, used the same book of common prayer. but it was used with a wide variety of practices and ceremonies. the physicality of the cross-vigil, in which a monk would pray the whole psalter with his (or a nun with her) arms held out in the form of a cross, beginning with blessing the four directions, has parallels and perhaps antecedents in the eastern church, but was probably rare in france and italy. praying while immersed in a stream or even the ocean seems a bit extreme to many of us. (i think i could do it if i still lived in charleston.) and animal companions, even if not called by the new-age term power animals, are common to celtic christianity and orthodox christianity, but they do sometimes show up in italy, more or less, as illustrated perhaps by st. francis and the wolf of gubbio. (although some contemporary 'scholars' want the wolf to be a voracious politician rather than a real wolf, the contemporary acceptable world having been reduced to economics and politics.)

cowan in shamanism says of a practice that it is 'quite simply something that one does.' (p. 16) so i thought this evening i might consider some of my practices that i find orthodox but at the same time pagan, with no apologies to either camp. as the sun approached the horizon, i went out to the field near my little cell and made an offering of tobacco in the form of a cigarette with the words of psalm 140 (141):

'Lord, I call upon thee; hast thee unto me, and consider my voice when I cry unto thee.

Let my prayer be set forth in thy sight as the incense; and let the lifting up of my hands be an evening sacrifice. . . . "

then, as the light of the sun faded, i went inside and lit the candles with the hymn

'O gracious light, pure brightness of the everliving Father in Heaven;

O Jesus Christ, holy and blessed,

As our eyes behold the vesper light, we sing thy praises . . . .'

and when i put out the candles tonight, i will say my own little version of a snorring prayer:

'blessed art thou o lord our god, who created the night and the day:

may we come to share in the inheritance of all thy saints, especially st. chad,

and may the darkness of this night be fruitful, through the prayers of the blessed thetokos,

mary, the mother of thy son, who ever lives and reigns with thee and the holy ghost, one god,

unto the ages of ages.'

these little acts are practices, and and i don't think they are too unorthodox. but are they shamanistic? cowan says in shamanism that 'shamanism is the intentional effort to develop intimate and lasting relationships with personal helping spirits by consciously leaving ordinary reality and journeying into the nonordinary realms of the spirit world.' (p. 2) what could be more shamanistic by this definition than the communion of the saints, saints being in cowan's words 'men and women who have never disappeared.' (way, p. 1). to live in the communion of the saints is to develop intimate and lasting relationships with those men and women who constantly remind us that a nonordinary realm, the realm of the kingdom of heaven, is at hand.

now, it may be that cowan is wrong about shamaism, and i am wrong about orthodoxy, and that to be orthodox i must say these words in latin. (although of course a strong argument could be made that the language of heaven is hebrew, or at least greek.) but for now i find my little practice keeps me in touch with the spiral of time that is perhaps only meaningful when it is seen as a doorway into the apprehension of eternity. and i see it as a reminder of the words of the gospel according to john, the gospel most precious to the celts, that 'the light [which] shineth in the darkness . . . was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.'

*http://www.amazon.com/Fire-Head-Shamanism-Celtic-Spirit/dp/0062501747/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327381483&sr=1-4#_

**http://www.amazon.com/Way-Saints-Prayers-Practices-Meditations/dp/0399525440/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327381483&sr=1-11

***http://www.amazon.com/Shamanism-Spiritual-Practice-Daily-Life/dp/0895948389/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327381483&sr=1-1

the theophany: water and the spirit

i confess i am addicted to post-apocalyptic-wasteland movies, perhaps because they seem so contemporary. the insane race of mad max continues on highway 101 all the way from port angeles, washington, to east los angeles, california. i find that a wonderful irony. roger corman is one of my favourite directer of b movies, and i remember one of his b or c p-a-w works in which everyone had been changed into zombies by drinking too many skinny decaf vanilla lates except one old man, his daugher, and her boyfriend. girl and boy have the task of repopulating the world, but first the zombies must be exorcised. how? the girl discovers that they are afraid of water. standing in the holy water of a stream in their surviving suburb, they are safe.

it is a common theme of folklore that evil spirits cannot cross running water. but it is also a common theme of folklore that something has happened, that the waters have somehow been bewitched (think the lion, the witch and the wardrobe, or genesis, with its garden, now lost, once watered by a river which became four.) what happens when the waters that were seen to be good in creation are fouled, when they no longer dispel evil although the bottle containing them is marked holy water (think the exorcist--but not for too long.)?

older than the celebration of christmas, the feast of the nativity, is the feast of the epiphany, or theophany. indeed the beginning our salvation is, in the liturgy of the church, marked by the annunciation to mary, the conception of the messiah, as the ancient hymn for that day notes:

Today is the beginning of our salvation,
And the revelation of the eternal mystery!
The Son of God becomes the Son of the Virgin
As Gabriel announces the coming of Grace.
Together with him let us cry to the Theotokos:
"Rejoice, O Full of Grace, the Lord is with you!"

again, the dangers and possibilities of the unborn child is common in folklore, with celtic tales especially aboundin with stories of pregnant women being sent to their death but who are rescued by some miracle, usually involving fish or animals.

but the mighty act of the holy one which began in the virgin's womb is hidden. even after the birth, only a few foreigners, some shepherds--not in ancient palestine a very respected folk--and two old people who were at death's door knew what had happened.

and then: behold! god the son enters into the waters, the voice of god the father is heard from heaven, and god the holy spirit descends like a dove. the restoration of the original goodness of creation has begun, the synergistic work, if i may be allowed a bit of theological jargon, of god and man in the person of the god-man jesus christ.

the waters of death become the waters of life. quickly this understanding of our own baptism becomes part of the tradition of the church (think paul's letter to the romans, chapter 6). and in a sort of parallel image, the church becomes a ship which carries us across the waters, no longer story but calmed at the command of the god-man.

there are so many parallels to this story in folklore, again especially celtic folklore, that i cannot begin to consider them in a blogpost. i will leave you with just one, and it is one of my favourites, connected as it is with the origins of christianity in britain. it is the holy isle of avilon, hidden in the mists, surrounded by the lake presided over by the lady, and visible only to those who have died to the ways of the common world, and initiated into the kingdom of heaven, the land of the apple tree.

circumcision: what's in a name

i have a friend in seminary who is a recent 'convert' to 'the big church'. he grew up a baptist, more or less, and is now being trained in the best post-modern, post-vatican ii, post-bultmann way. while there is much emphasis on 'relevance' to 'contemporary culture' there is very little emphasis on the liturgy as a repository of wisdom. he reported to me with some amusement that in the old hymnals there were hymns for circumcisions. he thought they were for the actual surgical event rather than for the feast of the circumcision of jesus. nowadays of course much of the western church has 'suppressed' that feast and replaced it with either a feast of the holy name or a feast of the mother of god. how was he to know?





we have just come through the darkest period of the year, a darkness which is said in the gospel to be the environment of the true light, which comes into the world at christmas, the nativity of christ. in the christian understanding of history, this incarnation of god the son is the pivotal event of the cosmos, and it is surrounded with a period of preparation--the western church's advent season and the orthodox nativity fast--and smaller feasts that expand on its importance.





it is, i think, helpful to look at this darkest period of the year in a way that goes beyond 'the shortest days' if we are to understand what is at stake. at no other time of the year are the forces of darkness, the forces of evil, working harder. in our 'contemporary culture' these forces take the form primarily of consumerism disguised as 'gift-giving', and are surrounded by great displays of electric lighting which give the illusion that the darkness has comprehended the light. satan comes once again disguised as an angel of light.





the best gift-giving after all recognizes the true potential of the recipient. the wise men brought gifts that were not 'useful' for a new-born, such as disposable diapers and baby lotion, but gifts that recognized him as the king of the world, who would die for his kingdom. i'm not sure what wii games recognize in our youngsters, but it does not seem to be something that develops their highest potential.





and our acceptance of 'artificial light' at all times in all places seems mostly to blind us to the uncreated light rather than illumine us in any way. it is, isaiah reminds us, the people who walk in darkness who have seen the great light. it's very hard at this time of the year to find a dark place to walk. the star followed by the magi has to compete in the sky with the glare of las vegas.


and the idea that sacrifice--especially blood sacrifice--is necessary for true enlightenment is entirely out-of-synch with the new happy-happy-joy-joy worship centers that have been built in the fast half-century, with a 'holy table' replacing the altar, the theology of the feeding of the 5,000 replacing the theology of the upper room.





but the background of all our solstice celebrations seems to have been a sacrifice, either of the king himself or of one of his children. we see remnants of this, suggest scholars such as shirley toulson*, in the festival of santa lucia, in the wild hunt of the norsemen which became tamed as our visit from father christmas, or the hunt for the wren. the church kept this understanding in a variety of ways, starting with the christ mass itself, the mass being understood as a sacrifice. then come the feast of st. stephen, who is credited as the first martyr, the first to witness with his death, and the feast of st. john, who alone of the apostles was able to escape martyrdom because he had not shunned the death of his master by crucifixion, and the feast of the holy innocents, in which the false king herod is ready to shed the blood of children in a vain effort to preserve his own life.





the octave of the christ-mass is the feast of the circumcision. (octaves have also been suppressed in the post-vatican ii church. but the idea is no less helpful, even if, or perhaps even more so, because, it is pythagorean. a vibration is repeated, resonates, at a higher frequency, the octave.) and so on the eighth day of his life, a jewish boy is circumcised, as a witness to the covenant between the holy one and the children of abraham, a covenant which is for the blessing of the whole world. the church sees that covenant as fulfilled with the circumcision of jesus, and a new covenant established with the greater sacrifice of his blood in the crucifixion.





none of this bloody stuff goes down well with our euphamistic 'christmas is for children' avoidance of the real stakes of the invisible struggle going on all around us. (although we don't shy away from shedding the blood of those who oppose our kingship over their oil, and we sacrifice our children in that war.) our pretence that there is no struggle will not make it go away, it rather encourages us to to think we can avoid taking sides.





yet we do know the struggle is going on. the vast popularity of the lord of the rings and of harry potter is evidence that our children do not believe us when we tell them everything is getting better. i have been intrigued by the controversies surrounding these books. critics of the potter books especially seem upset that they do not explicitly seem 'christian'. but the coming of the light into the world is bigger than our creeds--and i say this as someone who firmly believes the symbols of the faith. if we deny the riches of the traditions, whether they are the traditions of the one holy catholic and apostolic church or, the traditions of our grandfathers, even when we don't 'understand' them, then we should not be surprised when the traditions pop up somewhere else.





indeed the next big feast of the church, the epiphany, or theophany, centers around the baptism of jesus, by which all of the waters of the earth are made new, made part of the streams of living waters that proceed from the throne of the holy one. thinking about that puts our treatment of those rivers in a much bigger context. but that, as it is said, is a story for another night.

*shirley toulson. the winter solstice (london: jill normal & hobhouse, 1981).

the killing of the wren

this from alexander schia's e-postings seemed too good to miss:
http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/161911/e262f4ea61/1390005899/c3cece1dae/

a wealth of images

chanukkah. the consecration of the temple. the entrance of mary into the temple. the glory of the lord. the birth of the king. shepherds abiding in the field.

all of those images belong to this time of the year, and they are related in ways we don't always remember, but which are important if we are to understand how it is that the birth of jesus is the fulfillment of the desire of the nations.

most of the time we don't make much of the coincidence of chanukkah and christmas, except that they both somehow involve light and giving of gifts. (i had jewish friends as i was growing up whose families had chanukkah bushes.) nor are we, as christians at least, much aware that the word chanukkah is a pun on dedication, or that the festival is mentioned in the gospel according to john (10:22ff.) where curiously enough considering the story luke will include in his birth narrative, jesus talks about sheep.

chanukkah is the feast of the rededication of the temple during the maccabean revolt in the second century b.c. the books of maccabees did not become part of the jewish canon of scriptures as it was codified in the centuries following the destruction of jerusalem in a.d. 70, but they remain in the canon of the church, providing a fascinating background to the incarnation, and to the charges against jesus at his trial, for saying that he will tear down the temple and rebuild it. the story in 1 maccabees (4:36ff.), although it is the setting for the miracle of eight days of rejoicing, does not mention the talmud's story of the miracle of the small cruse of oil that kept the lights burning throughout the ritual that is the basis for the current celebration. but for my purposes, there is another thing missing, even more important.

when the first temple was dedicated, by solomon, 'the glory of the lord filled the lord's temple.' (i kings 8:11) there is no such event connected with the second temple, either at its first consecration, described in the book of ezra (6:3ff.), at the behest of kind darius of persia, nor at its rededication at the behest of judas maccabeus.

but the temple and its ceremony and centrality remained important in jewish understanding of their identity and their relationship to god, something it is vital to consider if we are to understand 'the christmas story.' jesus would replace the stones of the physical temple, the very stones, probably, thrown at him on his dedication visit to the temple, with living stones. the church would suggest that the first of those stones was his mother, the virgin mary, whose womb became a temple larger than the universe. and the imagery of the coming of the holy spirit in the book of acts is parallen to the description of the dedication of solomon's temple and of isaiah's and ezekiel's visions of the glory of the holy one. but before luke tells that story, he had another story of the glory of the lord.

it begins 'and there were shepherds, abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night. and, lor, the angel of the lord came upon them, and the glory of the lord shone round about them . . . .' the king born in the stable is the legitimate king. the temple he builds will house the glory of the holy one. darius, judas maccabeus, herod, all are impostors.

and now, the glory of the lord is not contained in a building made with hands, a problem solomon had understood when he built the prophetic temple. but the glory of the lord can dwell (tabernacle, as john would say in his gospel, relating again to the presence in the temple and in the tent of meeting) in open fields with shepherds and, most importantly, in the human heart, where mary, luke informs us, pondered these things.

after the destruction of jerusalem, christians, whether jews or now, spread into the world, as did jews, christians or not, all sent to be witnesses to 'the light which cometh into the world', whether understood as having happened or still longed for.

so, one of the mitzvahs of the hanukkah lights that is often not appreciated enough is that they are lights for the whole world. they are not to light the house--for that there is the shamash, the helper or servant. they are to witness to the miracle, and to be an object for pondering, for meditation. they are often put in windows, or at the door opposite the mezuzah.

and so it is with the christ, the newborn king. "he is a light to lighten the gentiles, and to be the glory of thy people israel."

or as isaiah foretold it: ' and the glory of the lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the lord hath spoken it. '

the woman clothed with the sun: our lady of guadalupe

'and there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of seven stars . . . '


as i write, one of those candles in a glass tube one finds in the mexican food section of supermarkets, with a paper icon of the virgen del guadalupe on one side, and prayers to her in spanish and english on the other side, is burning before the icons of my sleeping loft, icons of my patron st. chad, a saxon who was trained by the celtic abbot aidan and who came to be consecrated bishop of mercia--the welsh marches--by the roman-appointed archbishop of canterbury from tarsus, and of ezekiel, the hebrew prophet and priest who wrote in exile in chaldea.

the twelth of december is the feast day of our lady of guadalupe, commemorating the appearance in 1531 of a young girl to the peasant juan diego, to whom she spoke in his native languge, nahuatl, that a church should be built in her honor on the hill of tepeyac.  he told the story to his bishop, who suggested his story would be more convincing if there were some proof from the mysterious virgin, so juan diego returned to the hill.  the young woman, in deep winter, brought castilian roses into bloom from the dry desert soil, filling juan's cloak.  when he returned to the bishop and opened his cloak, the flowers fell out and in their place on the cloak, the tilpa which is still the center of the shrine to the virgen in what is now mexico city, was the image which is now the symbol of mexico and known in nearly every catholic parish in the world.

as so often happened, franciscans, in charge of the church that had been built on the spot of an ancient native  shrine to tonantzin, opposed accepting juan diego's claim, but the dominicans supported the aztec veneration of this image and understanding of our lady.  the archbishop, alonzo du montafar, himself a dominican, agreed to the veneration, gave the site to the keeping of the domincans, and called for the building of a larger church.  greater acclaim would follow.  in 1754, benedict xiv would declare the virgin of guadalupe the patron of new spain, pius x made her patron of latin america in 1910, and in 1945 pius xii would declare her patroness of all the americas.

it was only when i came to live in santa fe in 1989 that i began to understand the significance of the virgin of guadalupe. it was not primarily because of the great devotion to her there.  (the photograph above is of the new statue--some of my more protestant friends might call it an idol--of her outside the santuario de guadalupe, said to be the oldest shrine to her in north america.)  it was because in santa fe, where the valley of the river that gives life to the city seems itself like labial folds, a resonance made famous in georgia o'keefe's flower paintings, that i began to appreciate the importance of the mother.  it was there that i forgave my mother for what had seemed to me to be mistreatment of my brothers.  it was in santa fe that i began to appreciate the necessity of the virgin's willing partcipation in the salvation of the world, and there that i started my exploration of the many ways the virgin has come to be known to us.

when i moved to eureka springs the virgin of the life giving spring came into my life.  although eureka springs for the most part is a town given to the greed of selling t-shirts and 'lite beer,' the springs that gave the city a reason for existence are still there, still a gift of the mother.

now that i am at the corner of the united states, perched out towards the pacific ocean, living near a big field where i go to view the starry starry night, it is our lady the star of the sea who captures my imagination.





but for today's feast the important question remains, who is this young woman, this virgin, who spoke to juan diego in his own tongue?  is she really, as the franciscans said, the local goddess craftily reimaged  by an aztec painter inside juan hildago's tilma?  or is she, as the dominicans said, the very mother of our lord.  my response is, why must it be one and not the other?  why can they not be the same?  those who find the veneration of the virgin of guadalupe superstitious like to point out that the aztec tonantzin is coatlaxopeuh, 'she who crushes the serpent,' and not the virgin mary of our christmas carols.  ah, but the virgin of our christmas carols, quiet songs like 'away in a manger' is she not the 'woman clothed with the sun' of john's vision on patmos.  (i am delighted that both visionaries had the same name, john and juan.)

in a few weeks we will hear once again the angels' song to the shepherds of a savior which shall be to all people.  all people, not just to those living in judea.  we will respond with the symbol of the faith in which we say that savior rose 'in accordance with the scriptures.'  do we not deminish that rising when we insist that it is only in accordance with the hebrew scriptures?  we do well to remember that in those same hebrew scriptures, which we call 'the old testament', the holy and eternal one makes covenant with all people before abram is singled out, and the blessing through abram, renamed abraham, is itself for all people. 

like the people in jerusalem 'when the day of pentecost was fully come', juan diego heard the good news in his own tongue.  it is, i would suggest, part of of our task to hear the good news in our own tongue, to haste to bethlehem like the shepherds, who first 'found mary, and joseph, and the babe.'  let us like the magi follow the star we may be gifted to see, would be one of the people who look east.*

here at the corner of the world, for me that may be the star of the sea.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gER1FAfi3Oc&feature=related

the winter sky is always the most amazing to me

another advent light in the winter's darkness

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
   It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
   It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed.  Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
   And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
   And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
   There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
   Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
   World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

(gerard manley hopkins, jesuit pagan)

the darkness of the sun: from gilgamesh to grunge

last july* i wrote about my summer's study, which i called the apocalyptic summer:  explorations of the text and images and commentaries on the apocalypse to john the divine, the book of revelation.  one of the most important images in that book is the temple, and i became especially interested in the temple within.

that interest led to consider the journey within, journey into the heart, often the heart of darkness, the underworld journey.  it is a journey necessary for all of us if we are to find eternal life, but it is not something one is likely to hear about in sermons, not even on holy saturday, when as we say in the symbol of the faith, jesus the christ 'descended into hell.'  and yet it is a journey that has been wondered sung about for as long as we have written records and memories.**

to help with this winter reise, this journey into the inner darkness, i have moved for the winter into a tiny space in the dark of a clump of fir trees.  not quite so dark and confining as new grange, perhaps, but probably sufficient for a yankee.

yesterday i read david ferry's english rendering of the gilgamesh epic,*** as old a story perhaps as any we have.  it includes the hero gilgamesh's journey into the underworld to find the secret of life.  he is overwhelmed by grief at the death of his companion enkidu.  much as dante experiences in the divine commedy, there are layers to gilgamesh' journey.  this is ferry's wonderful wording of the third layer:

'The Scorpion Monster Being said to him:

". . .
This is the path of the sun's journey by night.

Lightless the sun utterly lightless goes
from the setting to the rising through the mountain.

This is the path of the sun, utterly dark,
twelve leagues of darkness through, utterly lightless.

No mortal would ever be able to go this way."
Gilgamesh said, his body seized in terror:

"This is the way that Gilgamesh must go,
weeping and fearful, struggling to keep breathing,

whether in heat or cold, companionless."
. . .

After the Scorpion Dragon Being spoke,
Gilgamesh went to the entrance into the mountain

and entered the darkness alone, without a companion.
By the time eh reached the end of the first league

the darkness was total, nothing behind or before.
He made his way, companionless, to the end

of the second league.  Utterly lightless, black.
There was nothing behind or before, nothing at all.

Only, the blackness pressed in upon his body.
He felt his blind way through the mountain tunnel,

struggling for breath, through the third league, alone,
and companionless through the fourth, making his way,

and struggling for every breath, to the end of the fifth
in absolute dark, nothing behind or before.

the weight of the blackness pressing in upon him.
Weeping and fearful he journeyed a sixth league,

and, blind, to the end of the seventh league, alone,
without a companion, seeing nothing at all,

weeping and fearful, sturggling to keep breathing.
. . .

[he similarly struggles without sight and with difficulty of breath for the eight, and ninth leagues, crying for his lack of any companion.]

'Just then, at the end of the ninth league, just once
the rough tongue of the North Wind licked his face.

It was like the tongue of a wild bull or a lion.
He struggled on through the darkness, trying to breathe.

. . .

through eleven leagues of the darkness, nothing at all
and something, ahead of him, a league ahead

a little light, a grayness, began to show.
Weeping and fearful, struggling to keep breathing,

he made his way through the last league of the journey,
twelve leagues in the darkness, alone, companionless,

weeping and fearful, struggling to keep breating,
he made is way and finally struggled out free

into the morning air and the morning sunlight.

He emerged from the mountain into a wonderful garden.
Gilgamesh looked at the garden and wondered at it.

The fruits and the foliage of the trees were all
the colors of the jewels of the world,

carnelian and lapis lazuli,
jasper, rubies, agate, and hematite,

emerald, and all the other gems the  earth
has yielded for the delight and pleasure of kings.

And beyond the garden Gilgamesh saw the sea.

(David Ferry, Gilgamesh:  A New Rendering in English Verse (Farrar, Straus and Giroux:  1992), pp. 50-53.)

and i do not think i am pushing stewart's thesis of the re-emergence of primal images and texts in popular music with sound garden's 'black hole sun.'****

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBXGxgreM1k



*(http://www.neocappadocians.blogspot.com/2011_07_01_archive.html)
**i can't recommend too much r. j. stewart's excellent book, the underworld initiation (http://www.amazon.com/Underworld-Initiation-journey-towards-transformation/dp/1892137038/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322869827&sr=8-1) in which he discusses, among other things, the survival of the necessity of the inner journey in folk songs.
***(http://www.amazon.com/Gilgamesh-New-Rendering-English-Verse/dp/0374523835/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322870187&sr=1-3)

yet another new year: advent in the western church

for the orthodox church, the new year began in september, following the jewish calendar, more or less.  for the celtic church, it began on all hallows' eve, the beginning of november.  the western church too is beginning its new year, on the sunday closest to st. andrew's day.  although it may seem there is quite a big of disagreement among these calendars, what they have in common is starting the new year as the time of darkness comes upon us.  the beginning of the new year has that in common with the beginning of the day, which also begins in the evening, as darkness comes upon us.  this understanding is more clearly kept in the jewish calendar and the with the (at least ancient) celts, but it still shows up in the great feasts of the church, which have proper celebrations for their first eves. 

with this beginning of the new in darkness is an understanding of the mystery of birth and of growth.  the seed must fall to earth and be buried in the darkness in order to sprout and yield fruit.  the human being begins life in the darkness of the mother's womb.  the resurrection of the christ comes after burial in the tomb and descending into hell. 

my winter's task is to explore what r. j. stewart calls the underworld initiation,* the time one must spend, in the celtic (shamanic or) poetic tradition in darkness, sometimes literally in a cave or burial chamber, in order to find the light, or enlightenment, or to give birth to a poem.  it is difficult, particularly in this loud world.  there are 'christmas'--more truthfully anti-christmas concerts--all around, and many other distractions.  i have been gifted with a very quiet and secluded space in which to spend the winter's darkness.  and i have been gifted the richness of stewart's long meditation on celtic myth and song which has influenced me to try to accept this gift of the winter.

for many people with less leisure and more demands upon them than i have, at least the western church gives them a four-week advent.  (the celtic and orthodox churches have a full forty day fast before the feast of the nativity.)  it can be for all of us a time of new birth, or new seed planting, of finding new poems and stories to guide us in our imrams, our journeys in life.  let us take advantage of it, and be quiet, slow down, and listen to the heartbeat of the christ within the womb of the virgin that we all are called to be. 

as gertrude mueller nelson says, 'it's advent, and the whole world is pregnant.'**

*(http://www.amazon.com/Underworld-Initiation-journey-towards-transformation/dp/1892137038/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322363543&sr=8-1)

**in to dance with god (http://www.amazon.com/Dance-God-Family-Community-Celebration/dp/0809128128/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322364225&sr=1-1)

equal opportunity extinction

i wandered into town last week and checked out from the library wade davis' the wayfinders,* and picked up at a free table some old copies of the latin mass,** publications which at first might seem to have little in common.  davis' book describes the loss of wisdom to the world from the loss of  marginal cultures and languages, the sorts of pockets of tribalism that are described with subtle arrogance by the national geographic society in its television shows and publications (and which is the source of  much of davis' income, oddly enough).  the latin mass is a defense of the pre-vatical ii roman catholic liturgy and culture, the sort of culture that is usually described in the popular press as superstitious and limited to a few followers of some rabid french bishop who include mel gibson.

and yet i think the two publications illustrate just how subtle the modern intolerance is.  the changes of vatican ii, which were quickly adopted by large parts of the non-roman christian establishment, were far more than a mere translation of the same meanings and doctrines into the language of 'the people'.  they were a victory of scholarship over tradition that was very common in the wonderfully victorious and bloody twentieth century.  with a few encyclicals the last compilation of the traditional wisdom of the western church was declared obsolete.  with the latin of the mass was also discarded the lectionary of the mass and the breviary, which over the centuries had been developed as a wonderful tapestry of scriptural teachings and imagery, which one who has not experienced would never suspect existed.  the victory was, as much as anything else, a victory over the priesthood, the whole idea that priests are necessary to a living society.  we have already reduced the notion of prophets to the wild man on the street corner with the sign saying the end of the world is near, and kings hardly ever happen.  again and again we have been told how ignorant priests have been and are. 

alas, we scholars, bless our little hearts, tend to be idiots, a sort of precocious children, and those who look to us for wisdom are misguided.  wisdom is far more likely to be found in the accumulated knowledge and experience of the elders.  the little old grandmother who spent years kneeling with her beads as the priest did his part of the liturgy and she did hers knows 'the meaning' of the latin mass at least as well and probably much more profoundly than any number of scholars such as josef jungmann.  there is a wonderful description of how the elders, the grandfathers and uncles, in a traditional society, pass on tradition in  kenneth brower's a song for satawal:***   the priests at the official school think they are preparing their students for the world, a word which at best would make them low-paid hotel employees at some polynesian resort, while in the boat house the old men are quietly teaching the young men the ways of the ancestors.  if the official schools knew what was happening, they would probably try to abolish it.  but they official schools are run by scholars, who don't recognize education when they see it.

so, i am hopeful.  despite the efforts of modernity to wipe out anything 'superstitious', our version of  'pagan', real education does continue.  earlier this fall i was in santa fe, new mexico, and i had the previlidge of attending the latin mass at the church of san miguel, perhaps the oldest church in el norte.  the priest was a doddery old man whose voice, even when the rubrics call for a loud and clear voice, was faint.  but he was attended by two young men, still in their teens with their acne and tennis shoes, who were hanging onto every word of the dead language the priest spoke.

*http://www.amazon.com/Wayfinders-Ancient-Wisdom-Matters-Lecture/dp/0887847668/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321227913&sr=1-3

**http://www.latinmassmagazine.com/

***http://www.amazon.com/song-Satawal-Kenneth-Brower/dp/0060150939/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321228050&sr=1-1

samhain/all hallows eve/all hallows

it's been a while--<a href="http://cyclesofpraise.blogspot.com/2008/02/19-fall-into-winter-all-saints-spring_08.html">three years</a>--since i wrote about al hallows, i think, and it seems a good time to reflect again on this holiday, considered by some to have been the most important to the celts, one of my favourites, and certainly one that is widely celebrated in pop culture with very little understanding of what's going on.  yet for all of us it is clearly some sort of hinge time, a doorway between the the last autumn harvest of summer's growth and the deep cold and dark of winter's threat of death.

in his insightful book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Underworld-Initiation-journey-towards-transformation/dp/1892137038/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1320031121&sr=1-2"><i>the underworld initiation</i></a>, r. j. stewart makes a strong argument that primary truths do not disappear, even when they are suppressed, and that there is not necessarily any 'original text' of sacred story.  but mainly what he writes about is the necessity of death, of going into the ground, for one's soul to develop, to let go of it's attachment only to the body so that it may come under the influence of the spirit.  (this is one of the the really basic truths that i suggested in my <i>cycle of praise</i> essay three years ago.  for the christian church, all hallow's with it's darkness and bonfires in the evening, is intimately related to pentecost, with its tongues of flame in the morning.

but we are not comfortable with that understanding.  shamans throughout the world are initiated by a death--indeed some say that they die every night.  in christianity this understanding is very clear, but often ignored.  the canticle of going to bed, the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucgV0CjFl9M&list=PL2E0F1C4269301714&index=30&feature=plpp_video"> <i>nunc dimittis</i></a> recognizes is.  it is recognized in the apostles' creed with the statement 'he descended into hell', even though  many protestant sects disavow it.  stewart recognizes that this necessity for the authentic man--the christ--to undergo this initiation is a recapitulation of all the various ways this understanding is expressed in all times and in all cultures. 

ah, but there's the rub:  if we, too, are willing to live authentic lives, we too must lose our lives.  ' except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.'  the feast of the fruit of the earth, samhain, is also the time when we enter the death of winter that we might participate in the feast of the fruit of the spirit, beltane (or as christians call it, pentecost).  we must face the darkness and embrace it, even if we do it in bizarre costumes of the underworld which we don't understand but which we would not abandon.  (well, we do abandon them these days, with our total avoidance of death, dressing up as cartoon characters or actors or whatever.  but even then there is perhaps a veiled recognition that this everyday 'me' is not the eternal 'me'.  the candy that we give out probably originated in the soul cakes that were fed to the dead.  the bonfires we light were once bonefires, in which the bones of the dead were burned to help their transition from the land of matter to the land of spirit. 

so, let us not just celebrate this wonderful holy day of halloween but explore it, mining its riches.  we need it for our salvation.

the birth of the mother of god

how does the eternal one enter time?  how does the creator participate in the creation?  much, perhaps, as a builder of a house enters that house:  through a portal, a door.  the image of the door is one of the many ways of  understanding the mother of god.  it is through the mother that the holy one enters time, and becomes an actor in time.

the first festival of the church year is the nativity of the mother of god.  much of  the post-renaissance western world  has lost this festival and the understanding of the primacy of the mother in the world, although it was certainly part of the understanding of the culture that built, for example, the cathedral of our lady of chartres.  since then we have adopted an athena-sprung-from-the-forehead-of-zeus image of the goddess, making the head and, although perhaps unconsciously, the phallus, our most important images of creation.  the eastern church has never lost an appreciation for the centrality of the heart and womb in the theosis of the world.

and so the celebration of the acts whereby the the holy one reconciles the world to 'himself.' starts with the birth of the mother.  it is an act of synergy.  as i sat in a coffee house this morning watching the creation of the light of a new day, a recording of the beatles' 'let it be' was playing:  'sometimes in my hour of darkness, mother mary comes to me, singing songs of wisdom, let it be.'  for the reconciliation of the world, the mother must say, 'let it be.'  then the holy one, beyond sex and gender (think of the words of genesis,  'in the image of god made he him, male and female made he them.' a sentence that is syntactically odd, reflecting both the limits of language and the ineffability of the holy one), became the father of the son.

and so it is throughout the world.  the mother, whether called 'goddess' or not, precedes the son, who becomes one with the father.  the son of mary, the mother of god,  is the one who is, in the words of the creeds, 'god of god, light of light, true god of true god, begotten before all worlds, by whom all things were made,' but he remains always the son of mary. 

there is nothing strange, therefore, that the iconography of mary and jesus should reproduce the iconography of isis and osiris.    what the christian creed proclaims about mary and her son is what is called sometimes 'the scandal of particularity.'  the things it describes happened 'under pontius pilate.'   the events, the situation, described by the isis and osiris myth is always true, but became history with mary and jesus.  truth became fact; it was always true, because the holy one is always true.  in religions throughout the world and throughout time  the 'godhead', to use a clumsy term common in western theology, is beyond sexuality, beyond identification with any one 'god' or 'goddess,' and enters the world through the 'goddess,' and then of 'god the son' it can be said, 'thou art that.'

there is also nothing strange therefore that in the history of religions we find images of the goddess that are very ancient, that 'goddess religion' predates 'god religion.'  this is a precognition that the holy must have a womb through which to enter the world,  a 'virgin womb' reserved for the holy alone.  what is strange is that we have so often forgotten that ancient understanding in our modern, 'scientific' hour of darkness.  may we listen to the words of wisdom when mother mary comes to us.

eternal life is knowing god

'god loved the world so much that he gave his only son,
so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost,
but may have eternal life.
. . .
and eternal life is this:
to know you, the only true god,
and jesus christ whom you have sent.'
(the holy gospel according to john, 3:16, 17:3)

i will not be looking for common threads in all religions in this blog.  i think that to do so, despite the popularity of such searches in the writing of people such as, for instance, karen armstrong, belittles all the religions involved.  it is a sort of replay of the last temptation of chirst, that all women are the same.  the wonders of individuals, either of women, or of men, or of religions, is in their differences.   to reduce them to their lowest common denominator is to reduce them to absurdity.  it is in their differences that one finds their richness.

at the same time, i am assuming that the desire, the most profound end, telos, of all religions is found in jesus christ, who has been sent by the father.  i realize this is a position somewhat unpopular today with many who consider themselves christians, because they find other religions somehow not just lacking or incomplete but evil, and from many who do not consider themselves christians because it assumes that christ is necessary for their religions.

to my christian brothers and sisters i offer no apologies.  i merely suggest that they consider what they might learn about the one lord of us all from what others expect of him.

to my non-christian brothers and sisters i offer this apology:  if you do not find that jesus christ is indeed at the center of the desire of your belief, then please excuse my looking at your belief as a way of understanding the one i consider the center of that desire.  i do not expect to understand all of the complexities and subtleties of all beliefs; i only seek to see how they at least begin to enlighten my own belief.

and so, with thanks to robert lentz for his icon of the celtic christ as lord of the dance, foretold by cerunnos, i am bravely starting my search.