Engaged Druidism A Practice Handbook

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

Contents

Introduction

Part I: Daily Practice

The Physical Senses

Place Bonding

The Sacred Senses

Elders of Nature

Working with an Altar

Becoming ‘An Sith’

Sitting Meditation

Dreamwork

Healing Breaths (Willowwind)

Body Practice

Art as Contemplative Practice

Journaling

The Sacred Dreamtime

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

Part II: Transformative Practice

Stepping Back into the Body of the Ancestors (Frank MacEowen)

The Otherworld Journey

The Cauldrons of the Soul

The Irish Spirit Wheel as Problem-Solving Tool (Frank MacEowen)

Pilgrimage

Vision Poetry

Storytelling

Prayer Fast

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

Introduction

A deep and personal spiritual practice is an essential part of all of major traditions of the world, and is also a cornerstone
of engaged druidism. By engaging in the practices outlined in this handbook, we can deepen our experience of the tradition
of druidism and broaden our personal spiritual lives. The effects of these practices will be seen and felt on all levels of our
interior and exterior lives.

While many of the world’s traditions prescribe a rigorous and pre-defined set of practices and rules, this is not the

intent of this handbook. The practices you will find here are suggested practices. You are encouraged to find your own way
– if a practice does not resonate with you, there is no requirement to engage in that practice. You are also encouraged to
adapt the practices to your needs, or to add new practices that you feel are meaningful to you.

Having said that, keep in mind that spiritual growth can be uncomfortable and resistance to a practice is often

times a subtle form of denial or avoidance of that growth. Resistance to a certain practice might indicate that there is
something within that practice that is extremely important for your growth. Before discarding any of these practices, you
are encouraged to honestly ask yourself questions that will clarify the reasons for any resistance you might feel.

The practices outlined in this handbook are organized into two types: daily and transformative. The daily practices

are intended to provide a regular grounding in the tradition to allow us to go about our daily activities from a position of our
authentic presence. It is sometimes difficult to incorporate these daily practices into our busy schedule, but the results of
this daily grounding are great and you are encouraged to do so. Although the daily practices offered are all deeply
transformative, there is a second section dedicated to more intense practices which are aimed more specifically at radical
transformation. The transformative practices, such as Pilgrimage, are neither practical nor intended to be practiced on a
daily basis. The results of these practices can be quite profound, and it is desirable to have sufficient time away from daily
work and obligations to adequately experience them. You are encouraged to practice these as often as seems meaningful to
you and if possible, while not daily, on a regular basis.

If used properly, both of these types of practices can form a solid foundation for our inner and outer lives. There

are no diplomas to be earned in these practices. There is no graduation from any level to the next. You are encouraged to
return to practices you have already done, for at each stage of our journey, these practices will have different meanings and
will open new vistas for our growth.

This handbook is an integral part of the Anam Thuras Wisdom Center (ATWC) courses for engaged druidism. This

handbook is available to all members of the Foundation for Engaged Druidism, and though the ATWC courses will add
depth and breadth to these practices, enrolment in the engaged druidism courses is not a requirement.

Finally, as no one is an island, there is a dedicated discussion board on the FfED forums for the discussion of

these practices. You are encouraged to visit this board and share your experiences with other people who are using these
practices in their lives.

We wish you the deepest of blessings as you embark on this journey of engaged practice.

Part I:

Daily Practice

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

The Physical Senses

This practice is quite simple, but the experience can be quite profound. How often do we attend to the

physical presence of nature? Even when out on the land, many of us have a tendency to become distracted. We

find our minds wandering from us, and suddenly we aren’t in nature at all! We are back at the office, class, old

arguments, or thinking ahead to what we will have for dinner.

The practice, then, is this: spend some time out in nature; as much time as you can give. It doesn’t

matter particularly how. Go for a hike, sit under a tree, wander aimlessly through a park, or go wading in a

stream. Attend to the physical presence of nature. You might find it helpful to spend time with each of your

physical senses individually.

What do you hear? Spend time just listening to nature, both its sounds and silence. What do you see?

Spend time focusing on color, light, shadow, movement, and stillness. What do you smell? Spend time with

the smells of nature; smell the flowers, the grass, and soil. What do you taste? Don’t be afraid to get in there!

What does the air taste like? If you know of the edible plants in the area, taste them (warning: do not do this

unless you are absolutely certain of the plant).

Now bring your awareness back to the whole picture, and just spend some time being mindful and

aware of it all, whatever information registers to your senses.

You might also try the following when you have finished: repeat this sensory exercise in a town or city.

What do you notice about the way your senses reaction in both areas. Where do they open up the most? Where

do they shut down? Spend as much time with this exercise as you’d like and I invite you to come back to it

often. Spending time with and attuning to the physical presence of nature can reveal just as many treasures to

us as speaking with the spirits and attending to the non-ordinary layers of reality.

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

Place-Bonding

Go out into the green world of nature; the wilder the better. If the only place you can get away to is a

local park, the backyard, or even just a house plant, then that is fine. Whatever is available will work.

Find a place that you are drawn to, which is comfortable enough to spend a bit of time in. It might be

a particular tree, a stone, beside a stream, a clearing in a forest, you’re favorite corner of the yard, or

your beloved venus fly trap.

Make yourself comfortable and just take some time to arrive. Tune in to your physical senses. As the

saying goes, “notice what you notice”.

Begin by becoming aware of yourself as being the “watcher” of the place. Now shift your perception,

and become aware of yourself as the “watched”. Continue shifting back and forth between these,

noticing what you notice.

Next, bring your attention to the physical presence of your place. Sit with this for a while.

Now imagine for a moment that what you are feeling as the physical presence of the place is also the

spiritual presence of the place. Sit with this for a while.

Cycle between this experience of the physical and spiritual presence of place. Notice what you notice.

Now become aware of yourself as being part of this place, as much as the trees, the plants, the streams,

the house cats, etc. What is it like to participate in the experience of place?

Some questions that I would like you to spend some time with after this exercise:

While doing this exercise, did I experience something that I would consider sacred?

10.

Of the two experiences of place; the physical and the “spiritual”, which one did you perceive as the soul of place?

11.

This exercise asks you to contemplate a fundamental gap between nature and soul. What are the problems posed

by perceiving the physical and spiritual as a duality?

Optional: Try the above exercise in an urban setting. What do you notice?

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

The Sacred Senses

This awareness practice is concerned with cultivating our senses to perceive the sacred inherent in each

moment. Often when the way we approach the day-to-day minutia of our lives is one of mindlessness – we

close ourselves off, going from task to task until we have the space to relax. Usually when we are granted this

space we choose to relax in ways which continue to contribute to a lifestyle of shutting down and tuning out.

We watch TV or we spend excessive amounts of time at the computer. Neither of these things are inherently

bad of course, but they do not foster the openness of spirit that is available to us in each moment of our lives.

Imagine another way of approaching your life and the world, one in which each moment is infused

with a quality of the sacred. I do not believe that sacredness is something that an object, place, or person can

possess. Rather, I think that it is a mode of perception, something which is going on at all times and which we

can choose to participate in or not.

The practice is a simple one: start with just a single day. Commit yourself to openness; to relating to

every thing that you do or experience throughout the day as infused with the sacred. Everything as mundane

is tying your shoes and brushing your teeth, to the more profound acts of meditation and love-making. What

happens to each task when it is infused with these qualities? What happens to your day when it is infused with

these qualities? Now imagine that you lived your entire life with this awareness? What would happen to your

life if it were infused with these sorts of qualities?

Now live your life from there. That of course is easier said than done. But it is a practice, like any other.

This is part of what we have talked about as “warrior training” fearless cultivation of openness, gentleness,

and mindfulness. Just like the practice of meditation, when you try to live your life from here, you’re mind will

sometimes wander away. When you notice this happened, simply return your awareness to the sacred, like

your return the mind to the breath during meditation practice as described later in this handbook.

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

The Elders of Nature:

Conversations with Nature

Everything is a spirit. This is essentially the animistic understanding of things. There is a quote by

Father Thomas Berry which I like, and is relevant here: “The world is not a collection of objects, but rather a

communion of subjects.” The wind has its spirits, the trees, the grass, the mountains. “Objects” also are spirits;

from drums and rattles, walking sticks, and wind chimes to coffee mugs and wall hangings. In fact there’s

little reason to believe that even the computer I am writing this on is not a spirit.

Certain spirits however, most notably certain spirits in nature, hold a different sort of space than others.

The dana-spirits are a way of articulating a cross-cultural phenomenon in the primal Irish tradition. In Japanese

Shinto religion it might be expressed as kami, in Tibetan Buddhism they might be called dakinis. In Ireland,

these spirits were collective known as the Tuatha Dé Danann, the Sidhe (alternately Síth or Sí in modern Irish),

and later in folk memory as the Faery People.

When we talk about dana-spirits though, it is not solely the Tuatha Dé Danann that we are speaking of.

The Tuatha Dé are dana-spirits, but this term can also apply to certain ancestral spirits, or the spirits that

inhabit certain places in the natural world, or certain objects. I am particularly fond of a waterfall in Glendalough,

Co. Wicklow, Ireland, which I recognize as a dana-spirit. The simple definition of a dana-spirit might be,

anything that invokes the quality of Dana or a quality of the sacred.

However, I prefer to use Patricia Monaghan’s definition of the kami, which she uses to illuminate the

idea of the goddess in Ireland. She writes that, “It describes these moments and places and myth and beings in

which divine presence makes itself felt. The blossoming of cherry trees, a sharp outcropping of rock, the sun

bursting through clouds: these are kami because they remind us of the order - the divinity - into which we are

born. In Ireland, similarly, the goddess is experienced as a hierophany, a breaking through, of divine power

into our human consciousness, with specific natural settings and moments as the medium of communication.”

The practice then is this: go out into nature, to a place that is special to you, or which you feel drawn to.

Go there with the intention of identifying a dana-spirit in that area, an elder spirit that serves as an ambassador

of the numinous into the place. To do this, simply tune in to the place while you wander through. Pay attention

to your feelings, your senses (both physical and non-physical), and where your gaze is most drawn to. Which

features of the land seem to be “holding the space”? What evokes a quality of divine beauty that sings to your

soul?

When you have identified that spirit, you might consider making an offering (I often use tobacco in the

States or whiskey). Next, just spend some time with it. You might open up a dialogue. Speaking with nature

is different than speaking with other humans. Obviously stones and trees don’t speak English (or any human

language for that matter). They have a different language. Much like we read a book though, we can read

nature too – the shadows falling across the face of a stone, the rustle of tree leaves, the gurgle of a stream, or the

singing of birds. These are all languages in their own right, and if we practice openness, and listen deeply with

our intuitive senses, then in time these languages can become as clear as when speaking with old friends.

In any case, just the simple act of spending time in the presence of these spirits is enough. Notice how

it affects you, how in the space they hold they seem to provide a doorway to the liminal, where we encounter
the numinosity of soul. These are the real elders of the tradition. These are the real druids.

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

Working with Altars

Altars and shrines have been used in a variety of traditional spiritualities and religions. They can be a

potent way of orienting ourselves to the world as well as the inner dimensions of the psyche and soul. Over

time an altar can take on a life and spirit of its own, becoming a being in its own right; practice becomes a

dialogue of waking up to the inner configuration set up on the altar. For this reason working with an altar as

a form of regular daily practice can be powerful. What follows are two sets of instructions for setting up and

working with an altar. Due to the personal nature of this practice though, it is important to feel free enough to

alter these as is appropriate. You might consider trying it as it is written, and as you continue practicing to

refine it in ways which feel more organic to yourself.

The Four Winds Altar

The primary mandala of Ireland is embedded deeply into the configuration of the land. Mandalas,

though often associated with Eastern religions (the word mandala is a Sanskrit one, meaning “circle”), they are

in fact found all over the world, and given a variety of names. The mandala, in terms of Jung and archetypal

psychology, is the archetype of wholeness. At the center of every spirituality, religion, and psychology (and it

is only within the era of modern psychology that psychology and religion have become separated) are a set of

assumptions about what is good and healthy for an individual. In most animistic and shamanistic cultures we

find that the assumption is based on observations of that full circle of the horizon. Therefore it is the search for

wholeness, the center of the circle or mandala, which becomes the modus operandi of the culture.

In Ireland this “mandala” is spoken about in terms of the layout and configuration of the island itself.

Ireland is divided into four provinces, with a hidden fifth province in the center. As the story “The Settling of

the Manor of Tara” describes, the order of things is disrupted when this basic pattern of human life is forgotten.

In the case of the story, the Great Feast of Tara could not commence until the pattern was recalled. And what

was that pattern? Not hard: learning in the west, battle in the north, prosperity in the east, music in the south,

and kingship in the center (see the essay The Four Winds: Mandala of Wholeness by Jason Kirkey or the book The

Celtic Way of Seeing by Frank MacEowen for a more thorough discussion of these divisions). These are the

associations of each division of Ireland, each airt and province, (Connaught, Ulster, Leinster, Munster, and

Meath respectively) and so because the human heart and mind mirror the earth they are also the divisions we

might find within ourselves.

If these orientations speak to you then you might consider setting up an altar dedicated to their energies

and teachings. This can be as complex or simple as you like and the symbols need not be actual representations

of each association. It would in fact be a far more powerful experience if the symbols you choose are things

which you associate with the symbolic meaning of the directions. Explore the airts and their meanings; both

what they mean personally to you and what they mean on a more mythic and collective level. There are no

right answers. At the end of this section you will find a suggested daily practice for working with your altar.

An Elemental Altar

The inner and outer landscapes are not separate. They are the wildness of the world and the wildness of

the self. One of the primary systems of orientation in nature-based spiritual traditions is the elements; a way

of locating our own bodies in the world by way of correspondence with nature. The fire in the sun is the

heat of our body; the ocean the blood and water which we are made up of; air, our breath; and the earth our

body.

Most modern people working in a Western tradition of paganism work with the “classical” system of

the four elements, as described above, from Greek thought: fire, air, water, and earth (spirit is sometimes

added to this, taking the place of the Greek aether). Although many have argued that the druids used a similar

system, this is open to debate. In any case, working with these elements is not inappropriate to the Celtic

tradition. It is however not the only way.

There are a variety of lists, often of up to nine elements, which are speculated to be a part of the native druidic

traditions of Ireland. These dúile, the Irish word for “element” can be found in several lists, many from the

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

Scottish text compiled by Alexander Carmichael called the Carmina Gadelica. There is however at least one Irish

source of interest, and that is an old prayer often called St. Patrick’s Breastplate, but also known by an older

name, The Deer’s Cry. This prayer is speculated to predate Christianity, and certainly at least the listing of the

dúile seems to have druidic origins.

I arise today

through the strength of heaven,

light of sun,

brilliance of moon,

splendour of fire,

speed of lightning,

swiftness of wind,

depth of sea,

stability of earth,

firmness of rock.

(translated by W. Stokes and J. Strachan)1

This is only a small section of the longer prayer of the breastplate, a morning prayer, invoking the

strength and power of the cosmos into the day. As I have stated there are several other lists to be found as well.

This suggests that there was no uniform system of classifying what the elements were. Perhaps a search for a

uniquely Celtic system of the elements is fruitless because there was not one homogenized teaching on this

subject? Rather it seems that there may have been many lists of elements, none more primary, more authentic

or correct than another.

What was important, perhaps, to the Celts was the philosophy which lay behind any articulation of the

elements: that within ourselves we may find the elements of nature, and that within the natural world we

might find reflections of ourselves. The human being becomes a microcosm of the world, and the world a

macrocosm of the human. Classifying the many shapes of the world was not centrally important, but rather

what was important was that there were shapes, and these shapes were infused with divine consciousness.

The Altar as a Place of Practice

Sit down at your altar. Spend at least 5-10 minutes meditating, settling the mind. For this particular

practice meditation is not the focus, but if you have a longer period of time to spend at the altar you might

choose to extend this period. 10 minutes is good as a starting place, and the length can be increased as you

develop in the practice. See the meditation section of this handbook for suggestions on practice and sitting

posture.

When you have finished meditation, move your attention to your altar. Spend at least two minutes,

with each direction, including the center. You are invited to increase this time as you wish. Contemplate

each direction. To begin, do not intellectualize them. Just place your attention with them and “notice what

you notice.” What is your experience of them? Before you move on to the next direction contemplate what

these teachings or energies mean to you, and more importantly, ask yourself “how can I bring this teaching

into my life today?” Consider dedicating yourself to the embodiment of that direction today. This same

practice can be used for the elemental altar as well. If you resonate with a different orientation it can easily

be used with that as well.

(Footnotes)
1 quoted in: Ó Duinn OSB, Seán. Where Three Streams Meet: Celtic Spirituality. Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland: The
Columba Press, 2000. p. 179

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

Becoming ‘An Síth’

This last awareness practice is something that I have come to call “becoming an síth”. An Síth, literally

translates to “the peace” and it refers both to the Faery People, often called the People of Peace, as well as to the

peace of the land. As Frank MacEowen describes it, it is a way of “tapping into the nonordinary reality of a

place, without neccessarily taking a shamanic journey.”

Becoming an síth is a way of merging with the land,

of attuning to the currents of Dana there. In the first article in this text, Wild Mind, Wild Earth, we talked

extensively about the memory of places and the land. Becoming an síth is also a way of tuning into the memory

of a particular place. That said, it has tremendous value, both as a means of attuning to the rhythm of nature

and soul, but also as a source of nonordinary information that is stored in the inherent wisdom of the land.

In the Second Battle of Magh Tuireadh, when the invading Milesians (the Gaelic people) defeated the

Tuatha Dé Danann in battle, the land was divided in two. Everything above the land went to the Milesians,

and everything below the land went to the Dé Danann. This provides us with a potent metaphor for our

practice of becoming an síth: “the land beneath the land”. In other words, the dwelling place of Dana, and of

the memory of the place, is within the nonordinary spiritscape of the land, which we might think of as existing

as a strata below the physical earth that we walk on.

To begin the practice, go to a place in nature that is special to you. Although it is quite possible to use

this practice to connect with particular features of the land, such as certain beloved trees or stones, this time try

using a more undefined larger area: a place. A particular patch of woods, a park, a rocky ridge in the mountains,

etc.

Go there and sit down. Feel the physical presence of the place. Feel this for a while, and then shift your

attention, as if you were moving through that layer of reality. Sit with this for a few moments.

Consider that the physical presence of the place, is the soul of the place, the power of the place. As if

shifting to a slightly different strata of experience, begin to focus now on the soul of the place. Sit with this for

a few moments.

Once again, consider that the soul of the place, is the numinosity of the place, or the sacredness of the

place. Focus your attention now on numinous quality that the place holds. Sit with this for a few moments.

Again, consider that this numinous quality of the land is the currents of Dana, flowing through and

enlivening everything here. Shift your attention to the experience of Dana in the land. Sit with this for a few

moments.

One more time, shift your awareness. This time however, recognize that by thinking of the place as

other you are essentially separating yourself from it. Allow yourself to dissolve that barrier by knowing that

you are in the same flow of Dana as the place, and that just as you are a part of nature and a part of Dana, you

are merged now with the land. You are an síth. Stay with this for as long as you would like, continuing to

notice what you notice.

(Footnotes)

MacEowen, Frank. The Spiral and Memory of Belonging: A Celtic Path of Soul and Kinship.

Novato, California: New World Library, 2004. p. 139

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

Sitting Meditation

Meditation is a basic practice of mindfulness. Mindfulness does not mean a distracted mind full of

thoughts, but rather a state of sensitivity and awareness to the presence of mind in oneself. Simply put,

meditation is a technique of slowing down and cultivating the awareness to observe one’s self. Because

meditation is a practice, it is important to develop the discipline of actually doing it. Meditation is also a process.

There is no easy step-by-step guide to perfecting the practice. It is something you cultivate. That said, below

is an outline of a style of sitting meditation which the Tibetan Buddhist teacher, Chogyam Trungpa, called

Shambhala meditation. It is a secular form of meditation meant to be part of ‘sacred warriorship’.

•

The Posture: Sit on the floor with your legs crossed comfortably. You may want to sit on a cushion to

elevate yourself a bit, and provide comfort for longer meditation sessions. If you’re unable to sit on the

floor it is alright to use a chair. Keep your back straight and upright. Place your hands on your thighs.

Keeping them on your thighs rather than your knees or resting in your lap will help straighten your

back. Keep your eyes open, looking at the floor (or wall) about 6-8 feet in front of you. The mouth can

be slightly open allowing for easy breathing.

•

The Practice: is simple: follow your breath. Breathe in deeply but comfortably, and then out. To begin,

apply your awareness to the tips of your nostrils. Feel the cool air entering and the warm air as it

leaves. As your mind settles, you might loosen the reigns of your attention and just focus on the out

breath, or go even further and place your awareness in the gap between breaths. Because it is the nature

of the mind, thoughts will no doubt arise. Without judgment of analyzation, label each thought that

arises: ‘thought’, and then let it go, drifting through your mind like clouds. Visualizations are also

thoughts, let them go too. Whatever you are feeling, you also do not need to “think” about it, or tell

yourself the story of why you feel the way you do. Just allow yourself to feel whatever you are feeling

without judgment or thought. You will know when your mind has wandered when you have either

forgotten why you are sitting, or you have lost track of your breath. Label whatever you were thinking

as: ‘thought’, and then return to your breath.

It sounds much simpler than it is of course, but stick with the practice and you will no doubt find it to be

immensely illuminating. For a more detailed study of meditation and the path of sacred warriorship (a path

which I think is incredibly relevant to the Druid path and awakened Celtic warriorship) I highly recommend:

Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior by Chogyam Trungpa.

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

Dreamwork

One powerful way of working with the unconscious is through dreams. There are many theories

about what dreams are; ranging from the purely scientific to the overly fantastical. Dreams can be interpreted

in a variety of ways, ranging from the purely objective to the deeply archetypal, but for the purposes of this

practice, we will be focusing on dreams as symbol-laden stories from deep within the unconscious. These are

stories which are not only trying to communicate important messages to the ego self, but are also transformative

experiences rooted in the unconscious.

One important point to note about dreams, which was made by noted psychologists such as Robert

Jordan and James Hillman, is that in every dream the ego character (the I in the dream) is wrong. Dreams do

not play the flattery game with the ego – they are meant to assist us in our growth and transformation. Because

of this each dream serves as an invitation and initiation to growth and transformation by symbolically suggesting

the ways in which the ego is mislead, acting “too small”, or wrong. Dreaming is the soul’s way of taking a

magnifying glass to our mediocrity so that we might grow beyond it.

This of course is not the only perspective. Sometimes dreams are actually just mirroring back to us a

process at hand, compensating for unconscious or unexpressed psychic content, and perhaps even serving in a

prophetic manner. Here, however, we will be focusing on the initiatory aspect of dreams. There are several

methods of working with dreams, a few of which we will discuss below.

Remembering Dreams

Many people complain of being unable to recall their dreams after waking. There are several

methods that can help you to remember dreams. The most often cited one is of course keeping a journal and

a pen by your bedside, and writing them down right when you wake up. Waiting to write down dreams is

a problem because they quickly dissipate from the conscious mind. You might also re-play the dream(s)

again through your head, like watching a movie. Narrate the dream to yourself (or another person) in first

person, slowly, as if it were all happening at that moment. You might also consider getting a voice activated

recorder to speak your dreams late at night instead of waking up to journal. Another option, if you are

pressed for time in the morning or during the night, is to write brief notes about major elements of the

dream, and later when you have the time to use them as a means of re-entering the dream and journaling.

All these techniques help to ingrain dreams into your psyche; to make the unconscious conscious, which is

the purpose of dreams. Before going to bed, you might draw a spiral going inward, with the intention that

you will have a dream (perhaps on a specific topic). The spiral serves as a potent symbol of going inward

towards the unconscious.

Dream Interpretation

There is no code for interpreting dreams. A dream dictionary will help you about as much as

viewing another’s medical records will tell you about your own health. It is true that some dreams contain

archetypal symbolism from within the collective unconscious, but for the most part a dream dictionary is

only a waste of time and will lead to confusion. If you are compelled to use a dream dictionary or better yet,

a dictionary of traditional symbolism (unrelated to dreaming), make your personal associations first.

Each symbol in the dream should be interpreted by the dreamer by way of personal association. After

this analyzation of the individual symbols a wider perspective can be gained of the dream as a whole. Do not

be tempted to free associate. If you dream of books and your personal association with books is the novel you

just read, don’t start making associations about characters or situations from that book. Although free associating

can be a powerful way to ‘get to the bottom of things,’ in dreamwork it tends to take us away from the actual

content of the dream. After each personal association with a dream symbol, return to the symbol itself and

make your next association from there.

For example, let us say that you have dreamt that you have lost your glasses in a train station and the

conductor won’t let you on the train without them. The first thing to do before analyzing the dream is to

consider your situation in the waking world. For the sake of this example let us say that you have just lost your

job and are feeling stuck in life. You might interpret glasses to be a symbol of clear vision, train stations to be

waiting places, trains as long journey, and the conductor as the doorkeeper between waiting and taking the

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

journey. As such you might interpret the overall dream to mean that you are at the cusp of a serious life change

(long journey) but will continue to stay at the edge of the cusp (station) unless you can “find” your ability to see

things more clearly (lost glasses). As a transformative power this dream is probably trying to push you towards

taking that step over the edge, to a life change necessary for the growth of your ego.

The Dream Journey

Sometimes our dreams remain obscure to us even after our attempts to interpret them. In such instances

it can be helpful to journey back into the dream. This can be done in several ways. You might use the technique

with the spiral described above to attempt to incubate a recurrence of the same dream in deeper detail (without

changing the essentials of the “plot”). You might use what Jung called “active imagination” to speak with

some of the dream characters. This basically involves talking to yourself. You take on the role of “you” in the

dream (i.e. your ego consciousness) and let your unconscious speak as the other characters. You might feel a

little silly doing this at first, but it can be quite a powerful technique.

Another option is to more literally journey into the dream, using shamanic techniques to enter

nonordinary reality, and re-experience the dream. With this method you can approach the dream in a more

conscious manner, speaking with people or taking conversations to deeper levels with some of the characters

of the dream (for example, perhaps the conductor could tell you why you cannot board the train without your

glasses, or perhaps one of the people in the train station knows where to find your glasses). For more on

shamanic journeying, please see the next chapter.

(Endnotes)
1. Plotkin, Bill. Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche. Novato, California: New World Library,
2003. p. 140

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

Healing Breaths

by Willowwind

This breathing cycle, sometimes called the healing breaths, comes from the teachings of the Sufi master

Hazrat Inayat Khan. Since Inayat Khan was born and raised in India, this cycle most likely has it source in

yogic pranayama techniques. (Note: this is not a proprietary teaching. It can be found in various published

sources) Inayat Khan did not in his original description of this practice associate the elements with the types of

breath but it has become traditional to do so. (Inayat Khan’s original practice was 20 breaths, five each of the

first four techniques. The fifth breath was probably added by his student SAM Lewis who was also a Buddhist

master.)

This practice is usually done first thing in the morning, before eating, but it can also be done before meditation,

prayer or other spiritual practices. Learning to breathe more deeply is not to be forced in this tradition. The first

three months, the breath should be felt to reach the solar plexus (heart). The second three months they should

reach the navel, during the third three months the abdominal region. Eventually, they should reach the base of

the spine. As time progresses, the breaths should become deeper as well as longer. It is preferable do practice

this outdoors or in front of an open window. It can be done lying down if a person has health or mobility

problems.

Traditionally the breathing is done to a rhythm of 4 counts in, four counts hold, four counts out, being

sure to expel the breath completely. However, this can be shortened at first if this is the personal need and

lengthened later as the practice develops. The goal is to slow and deepen the rhythm. This should not be forced

but develop naturally.

The breaths are as follows:

Earth breath – 5 breaths in and out through the nostrils, concentrating on awareness of the element of earth.

Water breath – 5 breaths in through the nostrils and out through the mouth concentrating on awareness the

element water.

Fire breath – 5 breaths in through the mouth and out through the nostrils concentrating of on awareness of

the element fire.

Air breath – 5 breaths in and out through the mouth concentrating on the element air.

Ether breath – 5 very subtle breaths concentrating on the element ether.

You can make a correspondence with the four directions as you do this with ether representing the

center. One way to deepen this practice is to choose or make a verse with syllables that will give you the right

number of counts and repeat this to yourself as you breathe.

One example would be to use lines from the well known Deep Peace poem in association with the elements.

For instance as you do the earth breath you could use “Deep peace of the quiet earth “.

As this is more than four syllables you would need to practice of bit with the tempo and might need to shorten

it at first, for example: deep peace/quiet earth. Similar useful line might include “Deep peace of the running

wave”, “Deep peace of the flowing air to you”. There is no particular line for fire or ether in this poem of which

there is more than one version. You might use “Deep peace of the shining stars” for ether or “Deep peace of the

Sovereign Queen”. Ultimately, this is your practice. Choose lines that feel right for you. The Deep Peace poem

was originally an eolas of healing so it seems appropriate to combine here. There are many other lines relating

to the winds and elements also. But this is also a chance for inspiration and creativity to fashion a way of

marking the rhythm that works best for you.

Two syllables in, 2 out works well for someone just starting out. This should take you to the heart level

mentioned above. Four in, 4 out is the prescribed degree for someone who can breathe deeper. The full breath

is 4 in, hold 4, out 4. Some experienced practitioners make it longer, so the number of syllables depends of the

level of practice. The traditional phrase used in Sufi practice with this is Ya Shafee, Ya Kafee. It means “O

Divine Healer, O Divine Remedy”. Ya Shafee, Ya Kafee has an implied pause to make 4 counts. The most

difficult part is the exhale because it is important to get all the stale air out of the lungs.

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

Here are some examples in Gaelic for a two count cycle, courtesy of Aidan. You can make it four counts

by either repeating the phrase or holding the syllable longer.

Inhale: síocháin (SHEE-chawn) lit. peace

Exhales:

Earth: talamh (TAH-loo) lit. earth, soil

Air: aer a shéid (ERR HAYDGE) lit. aer that blows

Water: uisce (ISH-kuh) lit. water

Fire: tine (CHEE-nuh) lit. fire

Spirit: Deithe (JAY-huh) lit. gods

During the breath also try to feel the connection with the element in question. This is not just a physical

exercise, although it has great physical benefits. It is also a form of meditation or even prayer.

Here is an approximate 4 - 5 count sequence in English as an example for those working with a goddess

aspect.

Earth is her body; like earth I create

Water is her womb; like water I cradle

Fire is her spirit; like fire I consume

Air is her breath; like air I cleanse

Aether is her soul; like aether I rejoice

Note from Willowwind:

When I first began to work with this practice, my breath was very shallow and tight in my chest. It occurred to

me that I had never been taught how to breathe deeply and fully. Breath is also related to relaxation so tension

shows up very quickly. I suspect this may be the case for many people raised in contemporary Western

culture. Breath is deeply connected to spirit in almost all cultures. Working with it can be of great benefit

physically, emotionally and spiritually. The lowered oxygen in-take and tension associated with tight, shallow

breathing has negative impact on the body and mind both short term and long term. The wisdom of this was

preserved in Asia and is available for Druidism to re-discover and integrate. Some experienced practitioners

feel that even if you do nothing else, you should cultivate a breathing practice.

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

Body Practice

Many of the practices described in this handbook are oriented towards inner dimensions of the psyche

and soul. However, it is important to remember that we are body-mind-soul’s, and thus that work with the

mind or soul must be tempered with practice with the body. Because this area is so broad, and because many

of the specific practices involve forms that are far too detailed and complex to relate here, I will keep this to a

brief reflection on contemplative practice and the body.

Whether your practice is t’ai chi, yoga, rock climbing, or running the involvement of the body in practice

is an important component of the contemplative life. Too often, especially in the more “New Age” circles,

spirituality and contemplative practice is used as an escape from reality. It may seem strange, but even

meditation can be used as a means to anesthetize ourselves to reality, rather than courageously facing it and

engaging with it. Part of this is residue from the classic Western split between spirit and matter which polarizes

the body and soul as opposites; that which involves the soul and nonmaterial and spiritual and that which

involves the body is material and nonspiritual. This relic will not aid us here however. As John O’Donohue

says, “the body is in the soul.” There is only one world, and it is spiritual-material. Like ourselves, the spiritual

is the subjective interior (not inside, but hidden and invisible) of the material, as the mind is the subjective

interior of the body. Alienation from one is alienation from the other, and thus it is important that we cultivate

awareness both of our interior dimensions of the mind and soul as well as our bodies. Our bodies are the earth,

and like a ‘dream-ladder’ we can more deeply connect with the earth through the body.

There are many approaches that one can take to this form of practice, and many variety of forms and

disciplines that one can employ. T’ai chi, yoga, lu-jong, hiking, running, swimming, qi gong, aikido, or even

hurling (an ancient Irish sport, still played today) are just a short list of possibilities. It is important that you

find a practice which you enjoy and connect with. Some forms, like yoga, require a certain degree of instruction

to learn the form and method, while others, such as hiking or running, can be done independently. With these

more free-form practices you will need to find your own way of making it contemplative (though it may

happen for many folks naturally). Consider starting out using a similar technique as sitting meditation. Let

your awareness of your body be the focus of your attention and mindfulness. When your mind wanders bring
your attention back to the awareness of your body.

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

Art as Contemplative Practice

Often people think of spiritual practice in a way that is limiting; sitting meditation, t’ai chi, yoga,

prayer – all practice rooted in an inherent spirituality or religious tradition. This misses out on one of the most

widespread and potent contemplative traditions: the tradition of art. Painting, drawing, writing prose or

poetry, photography, working wood or stone, or any of the hundred and thousand of disciplines are all essentially

contemplative in nature. Art has both a transformative and contemplative function.

Much of what I intend to say in this brief discussion is directed specifically to poetry. It is worth

pointing out for the sake of clarity that it is just as valid for any artistic process. In describing my own experiences

I hope to illuminate how you might turn your awareness toward your art in a way which fosters the

contemplative and transformative spirit. In this way the lines between art and artist are blurred, as do the lines

between life and art.

As the poet David Whyte often says, “poetry is the art of overhearing yourself say things you didn’t

know you knew.” There’s a lot to unpack in that statement. For one, he establishes poetry as an act of listening.

He doesn’t even mention writing or speaking; both functions are secondary to the act of listening; listening to

the self and listening to the world, and you’re lucky catching an auditory glimpse of the dialogue between

them. We are of course not talking about a literal listening here. In The Celtic Way of Seeing Frank MacEowen

says, “By seeing, I do not mean with the eyes exclusively. A partially or completely blind individual still has

the capacity to see in the Celtic way; we all do… [Y]ou are essentially being invited to explore an intuitive way

of seeing, a spiritual way of seeing, a way of seeing in which the heart, the inner reaches of the mind and soul,

even the body, are transformed into a set of ‘eyes.’”1 We could say the same for listening. We are not talking

about something we do exclusively with the ears, but rather the entire body-mind-soul becomes an ear with

which we can listen to our own heart and the heart of the world.

Poetry is the art of listening, but the result of listening must be in the voice and the speaking of difficult

truths, whether to yourself or from the rooftops to the world. This is why art is the perfect compliment to

contemplation – true listening results in true speaking. When I sit down to write a poem, the poem is only as

good as the depth of my listening. The deeper my ear runs, the deeper and better the poetry which emerges.

When we come into contact with such depths it instigates a transformative process. This is no different than

sitting meditation, where our simply paying attention to our experience, hopefully perhaps glimpsing a gap in

our ego-run experience where we can tune into something more primordial, pure, and indestructible. It is no

different than entering the green world of nature, to find a more dynamic experience of the self through contact

with what is Other.

I will end this section with a poem, as well as recommending two sources of material for those who

wish to explore this topic further: Clear Mind, Wild Heart: Finding Courage and Clarity through Poetry, an audio

lecture series by David Whyte is an excellent resource of poetry as a contemplative practice of life and art.

Additionally, Free Play by Stephan Nachmanovitch is a wonderful book exploring art as a contemplative and

transformative practice.

THE POET

by David Whyte

moves forward

to that edge

but lives sensibly,

through the senses

not because of them.

Above all he watches

where he steps.

As if it matters

where he leaves his prints.

The senses overwhelm him

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

at his peril.

Though he must be taken

by something greater.

That is what he uses

senses to perceive.

The poet’s

task is simple.

He looks for quiet,

and speaks to what

he finds there.

But like Blake

in his engraving shop, works

with the fierceness

of acid on metal.

Melting away apparent

surfaces and displaying

the infinite

which was hid.

In the early morning

he listens

by the window,

makes

the first utterance

and tries to overhear himself

say something

from which

in that silence

it is impossible to retreat.

(Footnotes)
1 MacEowen, Frank. The Celtic Way of Seeing: Meditations on the Irish Spirit Wheel. Novato, California: New World
Library, 2007. p. 6

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

Journaling

Journaling is an easy practice to turn into a meditation. Bill Plotkin, author of Soulcraft, offers advice

in this practice:

In a soulcraft approach to journal work, you write to connect with your depths. You write as a way

of tracking and cultivating a relationship with the sacred, the numinous, the mysterious. You record

your memories, dreams, reflections, visions, trances, hopes, emotions, major life transitions, and

meetings with remarkable people (including those in the form of animals, birds, plants, trees, rocks,

wind, rivers, mountains, and stars). You chronicle your experiences with soulcraft practices. You

track the strands and themes of your soul story and, when the time is right, weave them together

into a single personal mythology.1

There are as many approaches to journaling as there are people. Below is just a short list of general

themes you might focus on:

•

Dreams

•

Personal mythology (see the section on storytelling)

•

Frank MacEowen suggests in The Celtic Way of Seeing using the four winds as guiding principles in

your journal work, with five sections, one for each direction as well as the center, with relevant

entries in each section, to track your relationship with the winds (see the article Mandala of Wholeness

or Frank’s book, The Celtic Way of Seeing for more information on the directions and for a more

elaborate exploration of this method).

•

If you are in a transitory stage in your life you might track what is dying and what is being born in

you.

•

Reflections in nature – what do you see, hear, smell, feel, taste, and touch? Observe yourself in

nature. Who do you become in relationship with the Other-than-human world?

•

Track your unfolding relationship with your deepest nature.

(Footnotes)
1 Plotkin, Bill. Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche. Novato, California: New World Library,
2003. p. 195

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

The Sacred Dreamtime:

Doorways to Eternity

Before we attempt to enter the Sacred Dreamtime, consider how your current life, on the physical and spiritual levels,
has been determined by your past choices and decisions.

•

Write a journal entry describing this, and your feelings on it. Name two or three specific instances where a
decision made in the past is determining your life right now.

•

Consider your perception of time and write a journal entry describing this.

Exercise

There are many doorways to the Sacred Dreamtime, but one that is nearly always effective is the doorway of the senses.
It is ironic that the senses are also the very things that often prevent us from entering the Sacred Dreamtime with
distractions of noise, vision, or smells. It is by learning to use the senses differently that we can enter the Sacred
Dreamtime. We must train our senses to be all-encompassing, even as the Sacred Dreamtime is all-encompassing.

Normally, our minds focus on the strongest sensation it is experiencing: the loudest sound, the brightest color, the
strongest scent. This leads our senses to be exclusive, excluding all other sensations for the sake of experiencing the
strongest. By practicing two exercises, we can train the senses to be all inclusive, mirroring time, mirroring the sacred.

•

The first is this: experience all sensory inputs to one of your senses simultaneously. Do not allow your mind to
focus on any one stimulus. Let your thoughts float and soar experiencing all input as one. For example,
attempt to hear all sounds at once. Do not allow your sense of hearing to “latch onto” any one sound, but
receive all sound as one sound. This is sometimes difficult and requires concentration, but even if you can do
this only for a space of one or two seconds, the results are great.

•

The second practice is to deeply experience one sensation - this is the exact opposite of the preceding exercise.
For example, focus your hearing on one sound and experience all nuances of that sound. Let the sound enter
through your hearing and expand to fill your entire being. Exclude all other sounds. This is very similar to
shamanic drum work and can be very rewarding.

•

Do one of these exercises three times a day for ten days. Although being in nature is ideal, I have done these
exercises in busy railway stations and other “busy” places. There is no need to do it for hours. Try for a few
minutes. If you find yourself being distracted, relax and try again. You will find that it becomes easier with
practice.

•

On at least three days, do this exercise for an extended time (30-60 minutes) in a place that calls to you.
Again, a wild place in nature is preferred, but not required.

•

After the exercise write a journal entry describing your emotions, thoughts, and/or visions you experienced
before, during and after the exercises. For the exercises done in a certain place, include any insights or
visions you had of the story and soul of that place.

•

Contemplate on how decisions and choices made from the Sacred Dreamtime might be different than those
made in “normal time”. What are the foundations of the decisions? What are the motives behind the
decisions? How does it feel? How might these different decisions effect your life?

Part I:

Transformative Practice

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

Stepping Back Into the Body of

the Ancestors

from The Spiral of Memory and Belonging: A Celtic Path of Soul and Kinship by Frank MacEowen

Used with permission from the author.

The point of this work is to gain awareness about the living realm of energy connected to our ancestors.

We are not “worshiping” ancestors, and we are not holding a séance. Although I view this process as a shamanic

method, another way of looking at it is as a transpersonal method of personal growth. The more awareness we

gain about the various elements that make up who we are, including ancestral energies and issues, the greater

range of consciousness we will have. In essence, these types of techniques serve as tools that can guide us in our

evolution into multisensory, multidimensional beings.

I built this stepping back ancestor process on a breathing practice that forms a crucial aspect of the

work. This method is unique because it involves two rather different energies: solidity and anchoring combined

with a kind of wildness or whirlwind quality. The anchoring element comes from the fact that you will be

standing for the entire process, with your feet planted firmly on the floor, while the whirlwind energy stems

from the activated breathing practice itself. “Activated breathing”, as I call it, is used in many traditions, including

Sufism, kundalini yoga, and the Holotropic Breathwork

of Stanislav Grof. This kind of focused breathing

enlivens the cells of memory and, to use the vocabulary of Scottish seer R.J. Stewart, “arouses the blood”.

The breathing practice1 uses a cycle of ten breaths. The first five breaths are very deep and slow. Try

that now, taking five deep but slow breaths. As you take in these deep breaths allow yourself to contemplate

for a moment the notion that the element of air is permeating your entire being. On a physiological level, when

we breathe it causes a salt solution to percolate up and down the spine. When we breathe in and out, this very

simple practice harks back to our origins beneath the ebb and flow of tides in the great salt oceans. Feel the

power of the oceans flowing up and down your spine; feel the ancient wind and the binding power of the

element of air entering your lungs.

Another five breaths immediately follow the first set, but while these breaths are also very deep, they

are what I call “quickening” breaths. These breaths occur rapidly, as if your breath were a bellows fanning a

small, flickering flame in the center of your forehead. Both sets of five breaths involve taking in a lot of air

through the mouth into the lungs, but the second set is then exhaled with great force. Try these breaths now,

five deep but quick breaths, stoking the fires, fanning the flames of inner vision. You will activate this breathing

practice a number of times with this technique of shamanic work. You will know when to use this technique

when I say simply, “begin the breathing practice now.”

This practice is your vehicle for shamanic memory. Once you have completed the cycle of ten breaths,

which are designed to relax the body while also stoking the visioning eye, activating the nonordinary senses

and expanding our kinesthetic senses, on completion of each breathing cycle, you will simply return to your

natural rhythm of breathing. In between each breathing cycle are specific instructions to guide you that are

precisely augmented by selected music.

The important thing to know about shamanic breathing is that it can be an effective replacement for

entheogenic catalysts. In entheogenic shamanism the practitioner’s nervous system is surrendered to the

patterned flow and directives of a plant spirit. Like with drum- or rattle-guided shamanic journeys, with

shamanic breathwork you are always in control. Your own breathing puts you, in effect, in the “driver’s seat.”

Breath is your accelerator and your brake. Breath is your guide. With this method of shamanic journeying you

can go as deep as you want, or you can use the technique as a less intensive contemplative meditation.

Upon completing each cycle of the breathing practice you will take a very small step backward, only

about the distance of your shoe size. We are not trying to cover distance with this step, just to feel like we have

shifted our position. A final element, invoking the ancestors, is optional. I always include it, but it is not required

to work with this technique successfully. I drum, chant, set up my altar and ask for the life-affirming presences

among my ancestors to act as a support. If this practice fits into your belief system and cosmology then I

recommend doing it. If you are not comfortable with it, let it go. You will still experience a benefit from using

this technique as a transpersonal practice.

The sequence, then, goes like this:

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

1. Take five deep and slow breaths, plus five deep and quick breaths

2. Take a small step backward, approximately seven to ten inches, and stand still again.

3. Return to your normal breathing rhythm

4. Allow your consciousness to be directed by the visualization

5. When told to do so, begin the breathing practice again

6. When you have finished the ten breaths, then step back again, and so forth.

Before I share the detailed instructions for this stepping back process, I would like to address some frequently

asked questions:

Q: Should I explore my paternal or maternal side?

A: Initially, it is best to just go where you are pulled. You will be effortlessly pulled toward one parent or

the other, into one family line or another, and some people report switching over to the other family line

midway through the process. This is not a matter of trying to replicate my shamanic dream experience, but

of encountering who and what you need to become aware of. Trust that you are being taken to where you

need to be taken

Q: I have a major resistance to exploring one of my family lines because I have ill feelings toward them.

Can I still do the work?

A: I firmly believe that in ancestor work we are often guided precisely into the area where we have resistance

or fear, because there is something there we need to see, something that needs to be transmuted or released.

We can become catalysts for the ancestors through this work. Usually, when we fear something, that is

precisely the place we need to go. If one of your parents or grandparents is responsible for some kind of

wounding or trauma you need to know that they are not able to wound you within this experience. You

may experience difficult emotions surrounding them, but this is just awareness, and, I assure you, behind

them, somewhere back in the line of your ancestors, lies someone very valuable and worth connecting to.

Q: What if I don’t have any information about my ancestors?

A: It does not matter. We are not hunting for dates of birth and death, the departure records for ancestors

who left Ireland or somewhere else in the world, or the specific names of our ancestors. Rather, we are

seeking to experience – through nonordinary sense perceptions – the dynamic reality of ancestral energy.

Try as much as possible to leave your questioning mind, your analytical faculties, by the wayside. You can

analyze your experience later on.

Q: What if I am an orphan and don’t know who my parents were? I have foster parents whom I love very

much. Should I just use their family lines?

A: Again, it is not necessary for you to have factual knowledge about your parents or ancestors to glean

information about them through this technique. We are tuning in on the level of the soul and heart, not on

the level of facts – though very often the perceptions people have during this work are verified later through

normal fact-finding methods. At a later point, I encourage you to access and connect with the ancestors of

your foster parents, since the custom of fosterage was extremely important in the Celtic world, and the

lines of these people are extremely sacred, something Celtic mystic Tom Cowan calls one’s “milkline” (as

in the people who have nourished you). But for this initial experience try working with the energetic stream

of your biological ancestors, even if you do not have factual information about them.

Finally, before moving on to the actual instructions, I would like to share some last suggestions and

reminders about the stepping back process:

•

Find a room large enough for you to take five to six small steps backward without bumping into

any furniture.

•

Turn off the ringer on your phone and set up a space where you will not be disturbed by family or

roommates.

•

Either have an anamcara (soul-friend) read you the introduction script provided, or record the words

into a small tape recorder and play it back.

•

Start disk two of Steve Roach’s CD The Serpent’s Lair.

•

Allow the music, as well as your own breath, to support you.

•

Follow the induction sequence carefully.

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

•

If at any point you feel dizzy or unable to proceed with the technique, open your eyes, sit on the

floor, and ground yourself. This technique should not be performed while under the influence of

drugs or alcohol, and if you have heart problems, asthma, or are struggling with mental health

issues, it’s a good idea to consult your physician or psychologist before doing the breathing practice.

•

When you are done, return to the present, ground yourself, drink lots of water, and record your

experiences in a journal.

Stepping Back Induction Sequence:

A Shamanic Breathwork Technique

for Ancestral Awareness

•

Take three deep breaths to begin. Feel what it is like to have this body, with its particular weight and

structure. Be aware of your posture, what kinds of tensions exist in your body, and how you feel in

your body. Take a few moments, as you breathe in your natural rhythm, to reflect on the following

questions: How do I feel about the earth? [Pause five seconds] What are my dreams and joys? [Pause

five seconds] What are my struggles? [Pause five seconds] What is my vision of my future? [Pause ten

seconds].

•

Now I invite you to begin the breathing practice, taking five deep and slow breaths, followed by five

deep and quick breaths. [Pause to allow enough time for the breathing practice, approximately forty-

five to sixty seconds.]

•

Now, take a very small step backward, about the distance of your shoe size.

•

You are now standing in the body of one of your parents. [Pause five seconds] What is it like to stand

in his or her body? [Pause ten seconds] Does it feel good or is it uncomfortable? [Pause five seconds]

Whether this person is alive or has passed on, allow yourself to really feel what it is like to stand in his

or her body by imitating their posture. [Pause ten seconds] How does your father or mother stand in

the world? [Pause five seconds] Allow yourself to become aware of any images, sensations, or

impressions as you connect and commune with the energy of your parent. [Pause ten seconds] What

do they think of you? [Pause five seconds] What does she feel about the earth? [Pause five seconds]How

does he experience the land? [Pause five seconds] What are his joys and dreams? [Pause five seconds]

What are her struggles? [Pause five seconds] What qualities has she passed on to you? [Pause five

seconds] What gifts or abilities can he offer you today? [Pause five seconds] Take a few more moments

to make note of any final impressions, sensations, feelings, or images. [Pause fifteen seconds].

•

Now, knowing fully that you can return to this level of awareness about your parent at any time, I

invite you to begin the breathing practice again, taking five deep and slow breaths, followed by five

deep and quick breaths. [Pause forty-five to sixty seconds.]

•

Take a very small step backward.

•

You are now standing in the body of one of your grandparents. [Pause five seconds] What is it like to

stand in their body? [Pause ten seconds] Does it feel good or is it uncomfortable? [Pause five seconds]

Whether this person is alive or has passed on, allow yourself to really feel what it is like to stand in her

body by imitating her posture. [Pause ten seconds] How does your grandparent stand in the world?

[Pause five seconds] Allow yourself to become aware of any images, sensations, or impressions as you

connect and commune with the energy of your grandparent. [Pause ten seconds] What does he think of

you? [Pause five seconds] What does she feel about the earth? [Pause five seconds]How does he

experience the land? [Pause five seconds] What are her joys and dreams? [Pause five seconds] What are

his struggles? [Pause five seconds] What qualities has your grandparent passed on to you? [Pause five

seconds] What gifts or abilities can she offer you today? [Pause five seconds] Take a few more moments

to make note of any final impressions, sensations, feelings, or images. [Pause fifteen seconds].

•

Now, knowing fully that you can return to this level of awareness about your grandparent at any time,

I invite you to begin the breathing practice again, taking five deep and slow breaths, followed by five

deep and quick breaths. [Pause forty-five to sixty seconds.]

•

Take a very small step backward.

•

You are now standing in the body of a great-grandparent. [Pause five seconds.] This may be someone

you did not know, but it does not matter. Allow yourself to feel his or her energy. Open your heart and

senses and allow the energy of this ancestor to be present. [Pause ten seconds.] What is it like to stand

in this ancestor’s body? [Pause ten seconds] Does it feel good or is it uncomfortable? [Pause five seconds]

Whether this person is alive or has passed on, allow yourself to really feel what it is like to stand in his

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

body by imitating his posture. [Pause ten seconds] How does your great-grandparent stand in the

world? [Pause five seconds] Allow yourself to become aware of any images, sensations, or impressions

as you connect and commune with the energy of your great-grandparent. [Pause ten seconds] What

does she think of you? [Pause five seconds] What does he feel about the earth? [Pause five seconds]How

does she experience the land? [Pause five seconds] What are his joys and dreams? [Pause five seconds]

What are her struggles? [Pause five seconds] What qualities has he passed on to you? [Pause five

seconds] What gifts or abilities can she offer you today? [Pause five seconds] It is possible that this

great-grandparent is from a different landscape than the one you live in now. What impressions do

you have of where he lives? [Pause five seconds.] For a moment, return your awareness to the posture

of this great-grandparent. [Pause five seconds.] Allow your hands to form naturally a gesture that

expresses the energy and presence of this person. Just note this. [Pause ten seconds.] Take a few more

moments to make note of any final impressions, sensations, feelings, or images. [Pause fifteen seconds].

•

Now, knowing fully that you can return to this level of awareness about your great-grandparent at

any time, I invite you to begin the breathing practice again, taking five deep and slow breaths, followed

by five deep and quick breaths. [Pause forty-five to sixty seconds.]

•

Take a very small step backward.

•

You are now standing in the body of a great-great-grandparent. [Pause five seconds.] This is someone

you never knew. You may or may not know any facts or details about them, but it does not matter.

Allow yourself to feel his or her energy. Open your heart and senses and allow the energy of this

ancestor to be present. [Pause ten seconds.] What is it like to stand in his or her body? [Pause ten

seconds] Does it feel good or is it uncomfortable? [Pause five seconds] Allow yourself to really feel

what it is like to stand in her body by imitating her posture. [Pause ten seconds] How does she stand in

the world? [Pause five seconds] Allow yourself to become aware of any images, sensations, or

impressions as you connect and commune with the energy of your great-great-grandparent. [Pause

ten seconds] What does he think of you? [Pause five seconds] What does she feel about the earth?

[Pause five seconds]How does he experience the land? [Pause five seconds] What are her joys and

dreams? [Pause five seconds] What are his struggles? [Pause five seconds] What qualities has she

passed on to you? [Pause five seconds] What gifts or abilities can he offer you today? [Pause five

seconds] It is possible that this great-great-grandparent is from a different landscape than the one you

live in now. What impressions do you have of where she lives? [Pause five seconds.] For a moment,

return your awareness to the posture of this great-great-grandparent. [Pause five seconds.] Allow your

hands to form naturally a gesture that expresses the energy and presence of this person. Just note this.

[Pause ten seconds.] Take a few more moments to make note of any final impressions, sensations,

feelings, or images. [Pause fifteen seconds].

•

Now, knowing fully that you can return to this level of awareness about your great-great-grandparent

at any time, I invite you to begin the breathing practice again, taking five deep and slow breaths,

followed by five deep and quick breaths. [Pause forty-five to sixty seconds.]

Note: As you do the final cycle of the breathing practice, the person assisting you should say the following

words (or record these on the tape you will use): You will now travel farther back in time to an ancestor you

did not know, someone who lived a very different kind of life from the one you lead today. This primal

ancestor, this ancient one, lived in greater connection to the earth, the seasons and rhythms of nature.

•

Take a very small step backward.

•

You are now standing in the body of a primal ancestor. [Pause five seconds.] This is someone you

never knew. Allow yourself to feel his or her energy. Open your heart and senses and allow the energy

of this ancient one to be present. [Pause ten seconds.] What is it like to stand in his body? [Pause ten

seconds] Does it feel good or is it uncomfortable? [Pause five seconds] Allow yourself to really feel

what it is like to stand in her body by imitating her posture. [Pause ten seconds] How does he stand in

the world? [Pause five seconds] Allow yourself to become aware of any images, sensations, or

impressions as you connect and commune with the energy of your primal ancestor. [Pause ten seconds]

What does she think of you? [Pause five seconds] What does he feel about the earth? [Pause five

seconds]How does she experience the land? [Pause five seconds] What are his joys and dreams? [Pause

five seconds] What are her struggles? [Pause five seconds] What gifts or abilities can he offer you

today? [Pause five seconds] What impressions do you have of where she lives? [Pause five seconds.]

For a moment, return your awareness to the posture of this ancient ancestor. [Pause five seconds.]

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

Allow your hands to form naturally a gesture that expresses the energy and presence of this person.

Just note this. [Pause ten seconds.]

•

You may be the first person in a very long time to turn your awareness to this ancestor. If it feels

appropriate to you, I invite you to make a commitment to this old one, this primal ancestor, to maintain

an awareness of them in some way. Communicate this to him or her now. [Pause ten seconds.] Ask this

ancient one if she possesses any particular quality that can aid you in cultivating it for yourself. [Pause

ten seconds.] Take a few more moments to make note of any final impressions, sensations, feelings, or

images. [Pause fifteen seconds].

•

Now, knowing fully that you can return to this level of awareness about this primal ancestor at any

time, I invite you to slowly sit on the floor wherever you are standing, place your palms face down on

the floor, and begin to ground your energy. Take three deep breaths and open your eyes.

(Footnotes)

If you have a medical condition, do not attempt this or any breathing practice without consulting a medical expert. If

you feel faint, cease the breathing practice, sit down on the floor, and place your palms on the floor.

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

Shamanism and the Otherworld

Journey

There is much debate on the subject of “Celtic shamanism”, and whether Celtic culture can be considered

shamanic at all. The term “shaman” originally comes from the Tungus tribe of Siberia, though scholars such as

Mircea Eliade, have identified countless cultures around the world with their own variation of shamanism and

shamans.

As Eliade defines it, shamanism is an “archaic technique of ecstacy”. This is where many Celtic scholars

disagree with the idea of Celtic shamanism. The claim is that Celtic religion was far more votive than it was

ecstatic in practice. An abundance of such practices like the making offerings of swords and cauldrons to bogs

and rivers certainly mark it as a votive expression of spirituality. However it also ignores a plethora of ecstatic

practices, such the incubation of poetry by sensory deprivation and trance, to accounts of imbas, or poetic

madness, as in the case of Suibhne Geilt. More than this however, the notion that Celtic culture was not shamanic

stems from a misunderstanding of what the purpose of shamanism in a culture is.

As valuable as the research of Eliade and his colleagues is, it makes the mistake of misidentifying the

major role of a shaman as a healer or traveler between worlds. These are no doubt true, but they are only

partial and secondary roles. The primary role of a shaman is as intermediary between the human and natural

communities; between humans and the green world of plants, animals, insects, birds, mountains, and bodies of

water. The ability to heal the community, tell the future, or make judgements comes from the upholding of

reciprocity between the community they serve and the natural world of which they are a part. The ability to

travel between the worlds exists because of the need for this relationship. This adds a new dimension to our

understanding of “Celtic shamanism”.

It is worth pointing out that in Celtic society it was the role of the Druid to mediate the reciprocity

between the tribe and the land. This role also fell to the one in the position of the sacral king, who was ritually

married to the goddess of the land. But it is the Druids who were truly responsible, as they oversaw the rituals,

and no king could speak before their Druid had spoken.

There could be (and are) whole books written on Celtic spirituality and cosmology as understood from

a shamanic perspective, as well as from the angle of comparative studies to other cultures. That is not my aim

here, nor is to prove that the Celts had shamans. It is enough that in the present, there are people of Celtic

descent, living on Celtic lands, who speak Celtic languages, who are reanimating this ancient practice within

the spirits of their own cultures and landscapes. No other proof is needed. Ancient or new, Celtic shamanism

exists.

Another dimension of shamanic cultures often ignored by anthropologists is that although the shaman

may have been a central (and simultaneously fringe) character of these cultures, the people of the community

were also oriented to the same shamanistic cosmology and set of practices. Just so in Celtic society, the Druids

may have been responsible for meditating on behalf of the community, each individual was responsible for

their own personal relationship with the land and the deities. These people have been termed “shamanists”.

The the objective of this practice is not to make anyone a shaman. Rather it is about exploring shamanic

practice from the perspective of a “shamanist”. We are truly working towards the creation of what Tibetan

Buddhist teacher and lineage bearer Chogyam Trungpa called an “enlightened society” then we need both

shamans and shamanists. Both play crucial roles.

Shamanism is not a religion. I think Frank MacEowen sums it up nicely: “shamanic practice is more

akin to Zen in some ways, in that it is a practice, a philosophy, a way of life, and a particular perspective that

can be applied to any condition or situation. Shamanism is the oldest psychology, a true science of consciousness

and the soul.”

Just as shamanism can be applied to “any condition or situation”, so too can it be practiced

along side any religion. Even certain Christian theologians are starting to talk about and practice a tradition

called “Creation Spirituality”, which takes much inspiration from shamanic world-views, and recognizes that

the primal vision of Christianity was very shamanic and mystical in nature. Whether you think the ancient

Druids served shamanistic roles in society, or if you are just looking to compliment your practice with

shamanism, it no doubt integrates easily into the primal Celtic vision.

Part of this ease of integration (as well as another point of correlation between traditional

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

shamanism and Celtic cosmology) is that the cosmological structure of the universe is similar; both world-

views include a tripartite vision of the realms. These worlds are generally spoken of as the Underworld,

Middleworld, and Upperworld. In the Celtic vision this is Sea, Land, and Sky respectively.

Shamanism is closely related to animism which sees the world as an enlivened and enspirited place.

Each tree, stream, stone, and mountain has its spirit and everything possesses innate consciousness and

intelligence. This relationship to life serves as the backbone of shamanism. Everywhere we go we are

confronted with consciousness. With this comes the opportunity for relationship with all things. Where as in

non-animistic visions of life, a rock is just dead matter, to a shamanist it is a being and a spirit, and thus

deserves our respect. When we can relate to all the world as consciousness it is as the prolific teacher, Father

Thomas Berry writes, “the world is a not a collection of objects, but a communion of subjects.”

Shamanism may be a derivative of the animistic worldview, but it is more than that: it is a practice.

Shamanism is essentially a practice of altering one’s consciousness from “ordinary reality” to “nonordinary

reality”. This is traditionally accomplished in a number of ways, ranging from breathing techniques,

drumming, the imbibing of entheogenic substances, etc. What works best for one person won’t necessarily

work best the for the next, and it is important for each practitioner to find what is most effective for them.

Even the traditional method of laying down and altering consciousness doesn’t quite work for some.

Certain people also have a difficult time visualizing, which is usually the way “journeying” is

approached. To these people though, there are other methods of achieving the same states of mind. Use

your body, feel or hear your way through a journey. For me, what is often the most effective is drumming.

However it is not the sound of the drum that ushers me into an altered state of consciousness; it is the

physical act of playing the drum, of opening myself and letting the spirit of a rhythm move through me that

characterizes my shift in consciousness. Find what puts you in contact with your unconscious, and use that

as a method of journey.

We journey for many reasons. When most people journey for themselves it is usually for healing or

the discovering of wisdom that will help us grow into a more authentic relationship with soul. The ultimate

goal of this practice is to lead you on a shamanic journey. The cultivation of this skill will aid you in the

exploration of your own psyche (a word which means “soul” but is often translated as “mind” in the West)

throughout this practice and in your life. Below is a brief guide to this practice, presented in a “traditional”

style of approach. Adapt it to your individual needs. For more in-depth studies, please see the end of this

section for recommendations for further reading.

A Shamanic Journey

Start by formulating a specific question or problem you want to explore. Perhaps you have been

experiencing a recent bout of illnesses, one after the other, and are starting to believe that they stem from a

spiritual imbalance. You might journey to find the cause of these illnesses so you can correct it. Or maybe a

love one has just passed away, and you are seeking a method to work with your grief process. You might

journey for this purpose. If you are unaware of any issues in your life at the present that might be benefitted by

a journey you might simply go with the intention to connect with a spirit helper in the form of an ancestor or an

animal spirit. Whatever the purpose of your journey, narrow it down to a specific question that you can hold

in your mind, and use as a point of intention.

To begin the journey itself, start by readying a place to lay down and be comfortable and undisturbed

for a period of time of thirty minutes to an hour. You might want to put a blanket beneath you and pillow

under your head. Don’t make yourself too comfortable though, because the goal is not to fall asleep. You can

also sit upright in a chair, or crossed legged on the floor, if that is more comfortable for you. From here there

are several methods you might use to facilitate the necessary shift in consciousness:

Music. This can be anything from drumming, rattling, or chanting, to a CD of drumming, rattling,

chanting or even certain soundscapes. The music of such people as Steve Roach and Byron Metcalf has

been intentionally designed to be “entheogenic”, and to alter consciousness (recommended: The Serpent’s

Lair by Steve Roach and Byron Metcalf available through

www.steveroach.com).

Breathing. Various breathing techniques can be used to achieve the transition to nonordinary reality.

One potent method is what I call the “fire breath”; deep rapid breaths for a sustained period of time.

You might try alternating between the fire breath and deep slow breaths, in sets of ten (you can play

with the number to find what works best). As you practice the fire breathing feel yourself transitioning.

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

This could feel like a number of things, depending on what you associate a shamanic journey with.

Maybe it feels like turning inwards. Or it may feel like going out, and leaving your body. One note of

warning however: it is unwise to practice any sort of intense breathwork such as this, if you have

breathing or heart problems without first consulting with your doctor. If at any time during the practice

you begin to feel faint, dizzy, or a headache develops then stop the exercise, breath normally, and place

your hands palm down on the floor to ground your energy. It is normal however, especially with the

fire breath, to feel the effects physically, often as a burning or tingling sensation in the head (hence the

traditional “fire in the head”). Simply be mindful to your condition and honor your limits.

Visualization. This method can be, and works best perhaps, when combined with one of the other

methods. It is common for people to shift into nonordinary reality by way of visualizing a gate of

some sort; a physical doorway, climbing up or down a world tree, entering into a well, going through

mist, crossing a stream, etc. These visualizations can act as cues to the mind that it is time to alter the

consciousness in a certain way, especially the continued use of a particular chosen image. You might

try visualizing such an image while doing breathwork, drumming, or playing soundscapes.

Entheogens. This method is not being recommended, but I felt it important to say a few words about

entheogens here. The word entheogen means “revealer of the divine within”, and is a term used for

organic hallucinogenic substances when used for ritual, spiritual, or shamanic purposes. It is anything

but casual “drug” use. Rather entheogens, in the shamanic tradition, are seen as plant spirit-teachers,

and are thus given respect and honor, rather than being abused as they so often are in modern Western

culture. When drumming or doing certain breathwork, the practitioner remains in control of their own

state of consciousness. However, when using entheogens you surrender that control to the plant spirit,

whether mushroom or vine. The effective use of these teachers in transformative ritual or shamanic

journeying requires the guidance of a seasoned practitioner who is capable of guiding such work.

Unfortunately due to their illegal status, in most cases, elders who possess the wisdom of appropriate

use for entheogens are hard to come by, and there are few legal settings for safe practice.

The actual shifting of consciousness can often take some time, depending on your state of mind when

trying to journey, your adeptness at the practice, and the technique you are using. If you are unsuccessful in

your first, or even several first, attempts do not be discouraged. Keep practicing. It can be a difficult skill to

learn and is far from easy to master. Although the shift in consciousness can be subtle sometimes, it is likely

that you will know when it happens. There is a particular feeling of “arrival”. Your intention of travel is to the

middleworld, so bring your attention there. At the end of this section is a brief review of the three realms to

assist you.

Take stock of your surroundings when you arrive. If you “see” your environment with your visioning

eye, what does it look like? If you are unable to see in this way, how does it feel? Seek out the base of the world

tree here. At its foot you will be met by your guide on this journey. With the assistance of your guide journey

to find an answer to the question that you formulated before taking the journey. If you did not formulate a

question you might simply spend this time speaking with the guide who showed up for you. Remember that

often the occurrences of a journey happen in a symbolic manner. In such cases, or when the events of a journey

seem cryptic or confused, you might try treating them as you would elements of a dream.

When you are finished with the journey return to the place that you began. If you used a visual image

of a “gateway” to arrive, you might cross it again as a cue that the journey is ended. However, this is not

necessary. To end the journey you need only bring your awareness back to your own body. Slowly begin

flexing your muscles, starting with your fingers and toes, moving to your arms and legs, and then your head.

When you feel ready, open your eyes and sit up. Place your hands palm down on the floor to ground your

energy. You will likely feel a bit odd and discombobulated for a brief period after the journey. Drink some

water or eat some food to help with this, or engage in any grounding activity. You might want to take this time

to journal about your experience, while it is fresh in your mind, if you are so inclined.

A Brief Guide to the Three Realms

Sea (Underworld) - As a psychological state this is the dark realm of the unconscious. This can be a place of

both great fear and great healing. The repressed contents of our psyche dwells here, and so Jung’s archetype of

the Shadow (the shadow being something like a splinter personality made up of the repressed contents of our

psyches; positive and negative) plays an important role. It is also the dwelling place of soul’s roots, and thus

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

contains our dán or soul image. As a spirit-realm, the Underworld is home to the ancestors and gods and

goddesses of the land and earth. Its darkness is the darkness of the womb of the earth, and so it is also the

numinous realm of Dana in its myriad of forms. The imminent sacred.

Land (Middleworld) - The middleworld is perhaps the simplest of the three realms to understand, because it is

the one in which we dwell. Psychologically the middleworld is our normal waking consciousness; or egoic

consciousness. As a distinct realm, it is ordinary reality. The here and now of our everyday lives. That does

not mean that it is an easy place to be. The middleworld is a threshold between the Underworld and Upperworld,

and so a harmony of the influences from the other two worlds is important to a soulful life in the middleworld.

The middleworld is the world of outward action and embodiment of the inner states of consciousness and the

fruition of wisdom from the spirit-realms.

Sky (Upperworld) - Just as the Underworld is the place of the imminent sacred, the Upperworld is the realm of

the transcendent sacred. The Underworld is within our world, the Upperworld is what is beyond our world. If

we use Bill Plotkin’s definitions of Spirit and Soul, then the Underworld is Soul and the Upperworld is Spirit.

It is the realm of poetic inspiration, wisdom, vision, and enlightenment. As a spirit realm it is home to

transcendent deities.

(Footnotes)

MacEowen, Frank. The Spiral of Memory and Belonging: A Celtic Path of Soul and Kinship.

Novato, Calif.: New World Library, 2004. p. 208.

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

The Cauldrons of the Soul

The cauldron is an important and recurring motif in the Celtic tradition. It is the womb of the goddess

and the earth, and thus a symbol of rebirth and initiation. It appears in countless stories: as the Grael of the

more ancient Arthurian sources; as a vessel for brewing awen, the liquor of inspiration in the story of Taliesin

and his initiation; and as the Dagda’s “cauldron of plenty”. Additionally the Gundestrup Cauldron was found

in a bog in Denmark, showing what appears to be some sort of initiation ritual on one of its plates. It is a

pervasive symbol, offering enlightenment, prosperity, and nourishment, which seems to be common to all

Celtic people.

With this text I would like to explore another context in which the cauldrons are used as a symbol for

very similar themes: the cauldrons of the soul, more commonly known as the cauldrons of poesy to the scholarly

community. In the 16

or 15

century a poem was transcribed in an Irish legal codex, appropriately told by

Amhairghin, detailing the process by which poetry is made. In short, it describes three internal cauldrons, in

which poetic verse and wisdom is incubated and dispensed. The following is a preliminary introduction to the

topic.

The three cauldrons are given the names Coire Goiriath, the cauldron of warming; Coire Ernmae, the

cauldron of vocation; and Coire Soís, the cauldron of wisdom or knowledge. Each of these is said to be located

in a part of the body, with the cauldron of warming being in the belly or the womb, the cauldron of vocation at

the heart, and the cauldron of wisdom in the head. Each of the cauldrons is also said to be in a certain position

naturally in people. The cauldron of warming is upright, indicating health and vitality. The cauldron of

vocation is “upside down in unenlightened people; it is on its side in those who practice bardic and poetic

skills.”1 This ties in closely with the difference between an aes dana, the people of skill or art, and an ordinary

person: the aes dana drink from both the “streams of the senses” and the “pool of wisdom” in the Land of Truth.

Those who practice poetry, or in more general terms, those who tap into the inherent creativity of the soul and

the Otherworld, have their cauldron of vocation tipped on its side, dispensing art. Others’ cauldrons are

inverted, “indicating a closed circuit of experience,”2 as Caitlín Matthews says. The cauldron of wisdom is

born on its lips, inverted, and before it can be turned the cauldron of vocation must also be activated.

The Cauldron of Warming (Coire Goiriath)

It seems no coincident that the cauldron of warming is located where traditionally many cultures have said our

life force exists, such as the Chinese tan t’ien, and the first two chakras of Hindu philosophy which seem to

embody many of the same properties as the cauldron of warming. In the Irish tradition we might say that the

cauldron of warming is the receptacle of our life force, of Dana if you will. Not much is said of this cauldron in

the poem, so it is perhaps safe to say that its function is as simple (and important) as providing the nourishment

of life that keeps us breathing and moving. We might imagine, if Dana is what fills this cauldron, that the

process of turning the other cauldrons happens through a process of raising this energy though the body;

similar perhaps to the Hindu kundalini awakening.

The Cauldron of Vocation (Coire Ernmae)

In the text of the poem this cauldron is intimately connected with joy and sorrow, and it is said that by these

emotions it is turned. For this reason I have also heard it referred to as the cauldron of longing. Interestingly

however it is not named anything that one normally thinks of in relation to emotions in the text; it is called the

cauldron of vocation, and is said to be our connection with the poetic arts. What is interesting about this is that

the Irish word for both a poem and for destiny is dán. This seems to suggest that this cauldron is important for

the uncovering of our “soul-gift”, the gift which lies in our soul which we were, in a sense, born to birth into the

world. This action of engaging with our own creativity is the motion which allows the cauldron of wisdom to

be turned as well.

The Cauldron of Wisdom (Coire Soís)

Finally we come to the cauldron which is our connection with vision, poetic inspiration, and Otherworldly

wisdom. To turn this cauldron is to drink from the pool of wisdom, the Well of Segais. It is likely that this

cauldron’s association with the head is the reason that many scholars have interpreted Celtic headhunting and

head revering traditions as a sign that the Celts saw the soul as residing in the head. Personally I am drawn

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

more to Irish philosopher John O’Donohue’s explanation that the body exists within the soul, rather than vice

versa. This does not discount native Irish sources, which place an emphasis on the head. Rather it suggests

that the soul is pervasive to the whole being, but that within the head, the third cauldron of the soul connects us

in a very deep way with our spiritual power and with the Otherworld. An interesting way one might look at

these upper two cauldrons is to be in a relationship similar to the Zen concepts of kensho and satori. Kensho is

a brief glimpse of enlightenment, a flash of insight such as a peak experience which reveals the illusory nature

of the self in the Buddhist tradition. Satori however is much deeper, a constant state of dwelling in such

knowledge. Likewise, the cauldron if vocation is a taste and understanding of our dán, but the cauldron of

wisdom is the integration of dán into our lives.

An Exercise

Sit or lie down as you would for a meditation exercise. If you are sitting on the ground or a cushion,

cross your legs loosely, and keep your spine erect. If you are sitting in a chair keep your feet firmly on the

ground. Take a few moments to connect with your breathing. You don’t need to change your breathing, just

notice it. It may change naturally as you place your awareness on it, become more full and deep. Don’t force

it, just let your breathing become natural.

Now, place your hands on your belly, on the cauldron of warming. Gently breathe into where your

hands are. Allow your breath to become deep and slow. Place your awareness in your breath, which is entering

this cauldron. What do you notice? Is your life force flowing freely? Is something stuck or constricting the

movement of life force? If so, examine this. You may choose to try the following breathing exercise or not.3

Allow your breathing to become more rapid, but maintain its depth and fullness. Breathe quick deep breaths,

as if you were hyperventilating (a technique called “holotropic breathwork” used by transpersonal psychologist

Stanislav Grof, but found as a technique for altering consciousness in many traditional societies). Maintain this

breath for as long as you are able or for as long as it feels appropriate. Allow it to be your guide as you explore

your cauldron of warming.

When you feel complete with this part of exercise move your hands up towards your heart area, the

cauldron of vocation. Breathe into your heart, using your hands as a guide to where your breath is being

placed. Allow your awareness to drift up from the cauldron of warming into the cauldron of vocation. What

do you notice? What position is the cauldron in? Is it inverted? Is it on its side? Is it upright and bubbling? Do

not place judgment on the position of this cauldron. Just notice it, and try to become aware of what conditions

might turn it, or further support its development. As with the pervious cauldron you may want to go deeper,

and use a similar breath to guide your explorations with this cauldron. The breath here is a long deep inhalation

followed by a quick exhalation, as if you are sighing.

Finally, move your hands up to your head, and let your breath fill your head. Allow your awareness

to drift up from the cauldron of vocation to the cauldron of wisdom. What do you notice? What position is this

cauldron in? What is its activity? It is unlikely that this cauldron will be completely upright. What might be

blocking it? How does your relationship with the other cauldrons seem to affect this one? Be honest with

yourself. There can be a tendency here for the ego to reinforce itself by giving us visions of fully upright

cauldrons, suggesting spiritual mastery. In all cases try to see through what you might want to think, to what

really is. What conditions might support the further growth and development of this cauldron?

When you feel complete with the exercise, slowly begin to come back to your awareness of the body.

Move your fingers and toes, your arms and legs. When you feel ready sit up if you were lying down, and open

your eyes. Place the palms of your hands face down on the floor if you feel ungrounded. Eating and drinking

is a good way to support yourself getting back into your body after this type of work. Try to take it easy with

yourself for at least thirty minutes after this meditation.

(Footnotes)
1 Matthews, John and Caitlín. The Encyclopedia of Celtic Wisdom: A Celtic Shaman’s Sourcebook. Rockport,
Massachusetts: Element Books, 1994. p. 225
2 Matthews, p. 231
3 Like all intense breathwork, you should not attempt this part of exercise if you have heart or respiratory problems
without first consulting your doctor. If at any time during the exercise you start to feel faint or nauseous, stop the
breathwork, and place your hands palm down on the floor. Eat some food or drink the water to help ground yourself.

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

The Irish Spirit Wheel as

Problem-Solving Tool

from The Celtic Way of Seeing: Meditation on the Irish Spirit Wheel by Frank MacEowen

Used with permission from the author.

An added dimension of using the Irish Spirit Wheel (and the journal if you so choose) is exploring the wheel as

a proactive problem-solving tool. This can be a very clear method for getting at the heart of a situation and for

opening yourself to ways of bringing about the proper order of things.

However, as with all problem solving methods, the person seeking understanding and resolution must be

willing to embrace the truth that presents itself to her through the energies of the wheel and her own heart-

centered intuition (another way of saying the Celtic way of seeing). The Irish Spirit Wheel, like any good

counselor, isn’t going to tell you what you’re hoping to hear. If you work with its energies in an honest and

forthright manner, however, it will guide you to clarity. Below is a simple five-step process for bringing some

of the deeper questions of your life to the Irish Spirit Wheel for the sake of gaining deeper clarity:

1. Carry your problem or situation to the CENTER of the wheel. How does the issue relate to your

sovereignty, destiny, or sense of mastery? Does the situation, person, or issue promote or diminish

your sense of person sovereignty? Remember the words of poet David Whyte: “Anything or anyone

that does not bring you alive is too small for you.”

2. Carry your problem or situation to the EAST. With the inspiration or an energy-sensitive householder,

have you done what you can do to optimize your energy around the issue? Does your body relate to

the issue; have you taken care of the “house” of your body? In what way can you extend hospitality to

yourself around the issue? Are you sabotaging the prosperity in your life in some way? What can you

do to sculpt a more sustainable way of being in relation to the issue? Hint: You already know.

3. Carry the issue or problem to the SOUTH. How have you adhered to or forgotten your own rhythm

(the music of your soul) in relation to the problem or issue? What do the wisdom energies of the

SOUTH suggest you need to restore yourself to your proper rhythm? Is part of the issue related to a

fundamental lack of inspiration? Are you feeling disconnected from something, very far from the kind

of harmony found in music? Suggestion: Spend time in nature and surround yourself with music that

uplifts rather than depresses you. The energies of life augment whatever energies we surround ourselves

with.

4. Carry your issue to the WEST. What are you longing for? Does the issue relate to some deeper

knowledge that you need? Perhaps you are already “in the know” but you need the boldness of the

NORTH to act on this knowledge. Contemplation: If you were told that you had three weeks or three

months to live, what would you do differently?

5. Carry your issue or problem to the NORTH. Are you “doing battle” with something? Is it with

someone else, a situation, or a part of yourself? Does some part of you need to experience some

tempering or refinement for the issue to be resolved? Are you aware of any habitual ways of thinking

that consistently limit you? Do you have any “power leaks” that need to be addressed?

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

Pilgrimage:

The Contemplative Nature Walk

Sometimes nature is a mirror for the soul. We see, reflected within the twisted knots of branches and

the swirling patterns of the currents in a stream, a reflection of our own nature. I suppose it is not without

purpose that we have terms such as “human nature”. The simple act of just being out in nature can be

therapeutic. Not only because it often has the tendency to relax us and soothe us, but because if we truly

pay attention we might see ourselves more clearly in it, than we can see in our own reflection in the

bathroom mirror.

Walking too can be a therapy. It has a way of “moving energy” when we are stuck, or limited by the

confines of the walls of our own houses or apartments. The Danish philosopher Kierkegaard once stated,

“Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness that would have me; I

have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot ‘walk’

away from it.” There is a good reason that many psychologists, ecopsychologists and wilderness therapists

have noted the wisdom of taking their practice out of the office and into the green world of nature. It

combines the healing power of nature with the healing power of walking.

And that is where our practice here begins. Go into nature, the wilder the better, but if all you can

get to is a city park, that too is alright. When you go, take a question, problem, or issue that you have been

facing with you. Simply bring it with you, let your self be saturated with it, and just walk through the soul

of nature. Notice what you notice. Maybe it will come within your own process of thinking and mulling the

question over. Maybe it will come when your eyes catch sight of a mother duck tending to her children,

suggesting to you that a solution to your problem might be to simply spend more time with family. There

are no rules to how nature will mirror the contents of our own soul – it is a fluid and dynamic process that

only requires our openness and willingness to come face to face with the honesty that it presents. What

follows is an in-depth reflection on the stages of pilgrimage or the contemplative nature walk.

Pilgrimage has a long and diverse history in many spiritualities and religions as a contemplative practice.

From Tibetan Buddhist circumambulatory rites around sacred mountains, dangerous Celtic Christian circuits

to sites such as Skellig Michael, or the Islamic hajj to Mecca – all of these and more provide us with a framework

of sacred travel; a practice of awareness, contemplation, and an enlivened relationship with the terrain of our

voyages.

Although pilgrimage is most often associated with a journey to an actual location, usually of spiritual

import, I maintain that the experience and practice of pilgrimage has as much to teach us about our daily lives

as it does of those in which we travel. All of our life is a journey, and we are capable of bringing meaning to

each moment. Whether we are simply traveling to work in the morning, taking a journey to a sacred site, or are

navigating a difficult time in our life, the art of pilgrimage has something to teach us. Our footsteps through

this terrain, whether internal or external, can be approached as prayer. There is a similarity between this

process of pilgrimage and the initiatory journey because both deal with cultivating a relationship between the

ego and the soul. One might say that initiation is a kind of pilgrimage, but that pilgrimage is the way we walk

the path itself.

What follows us a brief exploration of pilgrimage and each of its identifiable stages (many other versions

of the stages also exist). Although no specific practices are offered in this section, it is meant to illuminate the

practice of the Contemplative Nature Walk and offers a model both of growth and journey that can be adapted to

many more specific practices.

Longing

It is longing, what the Welsh refer to as hiraeth, a deep longing of the soul, which calls us to journey.

More than half our lives are lived below the “ground”, so to speak; within the underworld of our unconscious.

Psychologist Carl Jung writes that, “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by

making the darkness conscious.”1 Longing is the force in our lives that conspires to make this darkness conscious,

by calling us to the cliff-edge of our life. This is the frontier of pilgrimage, and the unknown horizon is our

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

destination. Longing, not to be confused with the selfish desires of the ego, is rooted in the soul, and a cultivated

relationship with it can act as a trustworthy navigator on our pilgrimage through life.

Perhaps we are called the make a journey to the homeland of our ancestors, to make a major life change

such as marriage, children, or a change of career. Perhaps we are called to plunge deep within ourselves and

find our true gifts and quest in life. All of these things, if truly grounded in the sustainable vision of our

unfolding souls, are the calls of pilgrimage. The call is an imperative set before us to grow beyond the comfortable

confines of our life, and to seek new meaning and direction within the unknown. This imperative can be

ignored, but tends to continue to re-assert itself to greater and greater degrees until ignoring is no longer an

option, and it is followed.

Severance

Severance is an important stage in this process, but one which I think sometimes is taken for granted,

and not honored and approached consciously. To make our journey, whether through the soul or across the

land, we are required to let go. It may be the temporary letting go of our homes, our families, and our friends

– or the more permanent letting go of a way of life, habits, or patterns of thoughts. Whatever it is, in order to

give ourselves to the experience wholeheartedly, we must also give away that which will not serve us through

the journey.

I have made several pilgrimages in the past, and have developed a particular approach to this stage of

the journey. I act, as fully as possible, as though I do not know if I will be returning. None of the pilgrimages

I have taken have been particularly dangerous or harrowing; the most that may have happened to me was the

possibility of cold rain on a mountain in the spring of Ireland. And yet by bringing this awareness of severance;

of being prepared for anything, including death, a deeper understanding and a deeper surrender to the process

was allowed.

In some cases severance could even be the purpose of a pilgrimage. That night on top of Knocknarea

in Ireland, a soft drizzle of rain began coming down, and I contemplated returning to the warm hostel where I

was based in Sligo. I did not know at the time why I had come to the mountain, only that I was following my

longing. I brought with me two stones which I had taken from Ireland on my first trip, over a year earlier, and

left them on the cairn there, said to be the grave of Queen Maeve. I did not leave however, but stayed until the

sun rose that morning. Later, I wrote these lines in a poem in honor of the experience:

Then you must

give everything you

ever knew

to the darkness of the

night,

you belong to

whatever returns

with the rising sun of dawn.

Sometimes we must give up everything to learn what is truly ours.

Voyage

Pilgrimage asks us to give up everything, so that we might learn what is truly ours; and at the same

time it also asks us to adopt something new. It asks us to adopt a new way of “walking”, one with a rhythm

that honors the voyage. There are ways of moving across the land, and of moving through the terrain of our

souls, which places us in the role of participant, rather than observer.

When we move across the land, how often do we retract into the unconscious chatter of the mind,

missing the landscape stretched out before us? How often do we actually take the time to attend to the feast

coming in through our senses? Most of us are not accustomed to moving this way, and so it can present a

challenge at times. The way of pilgrimage asks us to walk gently with a deepened awareness for the environment

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

we are within. It is not just walking or just traveling; it is a sensuous participatory rhythm which forms a

dialogue with the land. When we open our senses – attending to the sights, the smells, the tastes, and the feel

of our environment – we simultaneously open ourselves to an awareness of the dreamlike quality of our more

subtle experiences.

This is the place where inner and outer pilgrimage meet. Whatever the journey, our way of moving is

the same. This sort of awareness brings us to the place where the boundaries between inner and outer are

dissolved. There is no “this land” and “this mind”, but rather one continuum of consciousness, arising here as

a tree or stone and here as a thought or feeling. The way a waterfall cascades down a granite wall could tell you

just as much about your life and situation as your thoughts and mind could. The way of doing this is softening

the gaze and opening the soul to the shaping power of the land.

This holds just as true for the inner pilgrims of mind, traveling perhaps through some difficult

circumstance. Too often our interior gaze is too harsh and penetrating. This sort of gaze may be suitable for

watching television, but can see nothing of the soul. John O’Donohue calls this “neon vision” and writes that

“This neon light is too direct and clear to befriend the shadowed world of the soul. It is not hospitable to what

is reserved and hidden.”2 To befriend the soul we must soften this gaze.

Threshold

There comes a time in our journey when we reach a threshold. The threshold is a powerful place of

transformation, recognized as such in the Celtic traditions, where mist, twilight, dawn, the seashore, or crossroads

are recognized as symbols of the juxtaposition of opposites. Within the threshold these opposites are united.

This union of opposites creates a liminal space, a potent transformer of consciousness. Threshold, however,

also signifies a doorway, and this liminal space acts as just that.

When we travel, whether we travel on land or through the soul, we do so most often with purpose.

Even if we have no destination, we hold an intention which guides us. Arrival to destination or intention is the

reason for which we travel, and the threshold is the space in which we are prepared for that arrival. In order to

arrive we must be transformed in some way, for that is the purpose of pilgrimage. The common saying that

“the journey is the destination” holds true here. The journey fundamentally changes something about us,

allowing our arrival to whatever destination or intention we set out towards. Without the threshold of

transformation our arrival would be hollow.

If we knew what the threshold would ask of us, I think often we would never set out in the first place.

Sometimes we choose to take pilgrimage, and other times we are thrown into it without ever consciously

making a decision. Even in pilgrimages made intentionally we never know the price that we will later be asked

to pay. This is why when we set out we let go of everything, as if we may never return, because we must be

willing to pay that price. Often pilgrimage can ask us the most frightening thing; to change our fundamental

being in this world, moving from the egocentric to the soulcentric. The threshold is the true purpose of our

pilgrimage.

Arrival

We think we travel to meet an arrival, but as I have said, the true purpose of pilgrimage is the threshold

of transformation. We can never know what sort of arrival waits for us at the end of our journey. We do not

know the condition of our arrival, or even sometimes, whether we will arrive where intended or not. As David

Whyte says, sometimes “the nature of our struggle disqualifies us from the very garden we have so long

desired.”3 We cannot dictate the journey, but rather it co-arises as a conversation between our own bodies and

the terrain through which we travel.

We do not always arrive where we want or how we want and the reason for this is the threshold.

Sometimes we were heading to the wrong place, or heading to the right place for the wrong reasons. The

threshold strips these from us, leaving only what truly belongs to us, or rather what we belong to. We may arrive

weary and bruised in a place we had never anticipated, but we can be sure that if it the place where our longing

lead us, then it is exactly where we need to be.

Arrival can be joyous or it can be painful. Sometimes we arrive exactly where we hoped, a beautiful

“Promised Land” in our psyche or our lives. Sometimes though, our arrival is tinged with the pain of loss. We

may know it’s just where we need to be, but that doesn’t make it any easier to arrive, whatever beauty may

follow. In difficult arrivals it is easy to feel as though we have been abandoned, but important to remember

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

that we have not been; longing will always continue to carry us towards new horizons. There is always beauty

to be found, even in the painful places, if we can maintain the open softness of our gaze.

Return

The journey metaphor often leads people to believe that the so called “spiritual journey” is a linear one.

This is not true. If anything it is circular or spiral. It takes us to our depths, or out beyond the edge of ourselves,

but just as important as this is the return home, or back to our center.

In 2004 I made my first pilgrimage to Ireland. It was an incredible time, and one which I will not soon

forget. It was also a very transformative experience. I was there with a group for the first week and a half,

visiting sacred sites and doing ritual work. My plan was to stay for another month afterwards, and continue

the pilgrimage on my own. By the end of the group trip however, I was hit with what my friend, who was

leading the group, called the “cosmic two-by-four”. I got on the bus back to Dublin, planning to spend a night

there and then make my way to Kildare. When I arrived I broke down in tears, knowing that my time here had

to come to and end. I was being overambitious with my time and energy, and was not properly honoring the

process of returning home. The transformations I had undergone through the trip were now surfacing in a

way that I could not ignore, asking to be integrated.

Return does not mean forgetting the journey, and coming full circle without any of the boons of the

voyage. Pilgrimage changes us, and it must be recognized that any return, be it to a physical home, or the

“center” of our psyche, will require some adjustment from us. This is similar to the upward spiral of the

initiatory journey. We gain our new vision, but we must take that back to our lives. Returning is the stage of

our journey in which we begin to embody the pilgrimage and arrival. If we stayed forever we could never do

the real work of integration.

Integration

The work of integration is where we come face to face with the sustainability of our vision and arrival.

In order for us to truly reap the benefits of the journey we must integrate it into our lives in a way which

supports our deeper unfolding and engagement with the spirit of life. This task can be, and often is, a life long

pursuit. Pilgrimage brings us a treasure house of insight and transformation, and richer and richer rewards

can always be uncovered – even years after we thought we had “processed through it”.

In Four Quartets T.S. Eliot wrote the following lines that speak to this process of homecoming and

integration:

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

The integration of a pilgrimage is both the act of coming home and developing a new, hopefully more

aware and enlivened relationship to the place we left. Whether we left our homes, or went within to search the

hidden corners of our soul, we must return to the center, and bring new life and vision to it. If we stay small

and hidden we will never grow, but the transformative power of the threshold itself can not create this growth.

The threshold provides the impetus, but integration of the threshold is what makes it real for us.

As I have stated several times throughout this essay, the process can be a painful one, but ultimately

rewarding. I wrote the following poem after reading some lines by Rainer Maria Rilke, and was inspired by

the power of his words to reconcile dissonance with beauty. I thought similar words might be said to someone

after the ordeal of a pilgrimage. The poem is called “And the Song Goes On.”

Whatever the shape of your

faithful vessel upon arrival,

whatever lives or dies within

through the fierce trials of

the voyage,

whatever your grief of loss

or joy of love

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

you will always have

the singular pillar

of breath to turn you

towards the embrace

of the one song

you were born to sing.

The sun rises for another dawn

and the geese return from their

winter migrations

announcing their arrival

through the clear air

and always the sure return

of life moves in to claim us.

And looking back towards

the dark voyage

of an arrival we could never

have anticipated,

suddenly all our struggles are

confirmed

as we tracked the footsteps

of our breathing to

this moment of renewal.

Whatever our darkness,

our brokenness,

the longings lost to us

to the unrelenting waves

the song always goes on,

resonating in the dark

and secret chambers of the

hidden night of your soul

– beautiful.4

(Footnotes)
1

“The Philosophical Tree” (1945). In Collected Works 13: Alchemical Studies. p.335

2 O’Donohue, John. Anam ara: Spiritual Wisdom from the Celtic World. New York: Bantam Books, 1997. p. 109
3 Whyte, David. Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity. New York, New York: Riverhead
Books. p. 140
4 Kirkey, Jason. Portraits of Beauty. Boulder, Colorado: Hiraeth Press, 2006. p. 101

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

Vision-Poetry

Up until at least the 17

century in Ireland, a practice which has roots stretching back to the time of the

Filidh, and probably as far back as the druids, continued. We know that in the times of the Filidh their training

would consist of being given a particular topic, going into a dark hut, laying down and placing a stone on their

chests. The student would then compose poetry.

What is likely to have been taking place here was a technique of altering consciousness, the stone being

used as a means to focus the awareness and to perhaps keep them from falling asleep. We know very well that

sensory deprivation is a viable method of inducing altered states of consciousness. The same technique may be

used by us to compose what we might be called “vision-poetry.” I have used this method many times and the

results are always different but always interesting. Sometimes the poetry has come out good in the artistic

sense—sometimes not—but the real fruits of this practice are the insights and awareness which it generates.

The aesthetic aspects of the poem can always be worked on later. What follows is a brief instruction. Feel free

to experiment to find what works best for you.

•

As was stated this practice was used with the students contemplating specific topics. Much

like a shamanic journey you will benefit from going into the practice with a topic or question

in your mind. Perhaps spend some time contemplating or meditation on this question or

topic.

•

Darken a room and lay down. Have a pad of paper and a writing implement next to you. You

may want to have a flashlight or candle at hand as well so you do not need to immediately turn

on the lights. Try to get the room as dark as possible. You may need to blindfold yourself or

place something over your face in order to block out the most amount of light.

•

Place a good sized stone on your chest. It should be heavy enough to feel the weight of but

light enough that it is not causing discomfort.

•

Now begin breathing, becoming aware of your breath; cool on the tips of your nostrils as you

breathe in, warm on your nostrils as you breathe out.

•

If your attention wanders return it to the breath.

•

Once your awareness is well anchored in the breath, move your awareness to the stone.

•

If you attention wanders return it to the stone.

•

Once your awareness is settled in with the stone, move your awareness to the question or topic

in your mind.

•

If your attention wanders return it to the question.

•

As you hold this question or topic in your mind let it arise poetically; find an image that

speaks to this question and let it become a poem.

•

When you are ready begin writing. You may not want to move, but just have the pen and

paper ready at your side, scribbling as you lay there. You might, instead of writing, even want

to invest in a tape recorder and speak into it to stay in the moment. Or, if you can sit up and

open your eyes and stay within the “vision” then you might want to sit up, light a candle or

turn on the flashlight and write.

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

Storytelling

Like art, storytelling can be a powerful form of practice as well. It could be approached in many ways,

from learning and telling the myths of the tradition to using it as a tool for teaching and communicating ideas

and experiences. What makes storytelling such a unique form of practice is that, unlike many other forms it

requires us to be in dialogue. We may never sit in a dark Irish pub telling stories to a captivated audience (but

its certainly worth aspiring to) but whether our audience is a close friend, a community we are a part of, or a

natural being such as a tree or rock – we are engaged with an Other, even if it is an imaginary Other. To tell a

story effectively we must know and be comfortable with our “voice”. I use the word voice in the largest sense

of it; our ability to effectively and confidently communicate our depths.

For this section though, I would like to focus on one particular story, a story which I feel we all benefit

through know and telling. Knowing and being able to tell this story is the ground on which we might build a

larger storytelling art and practice. The story which I am talking about is each of our own stories, our “life

myth.” This is related to the art of journaling.

In order to tell our life myth we must become acquainted with the idea of our life as story. So often we

consider our lives to be history, but most accounts of history lacks the dramatic and emotional impact of true

storytelling. This is why ancient people told their own histories through myth. Myth allows us to put parts of

ourselves into a language that is respecting of their depth, mystery, and complexity.

Write your story as if it were a myth, in symbolic language. Who are the characters? What are their

names? Where does it take place? What time period is it set in? Tell your story – the whole story – honoring

your wounds and defeats as well as your accomplishments and victories. You might consider looking into the

work of the mythologist Joseph Campbell (the hero’s journey, also called the monomyth may give you some

insight) and the depth psychologist Carl Jung and their work with archetypes and mythology might help you

go deeper into the symbolic substructure of your life. That is, of course, an intellectual way of working with it

that may aid certain people. Another way, or a way to use alongside, would be an intuitive “feeling out” of the

story and myth. If archetypes interest you, you could always go back when you have finished writing it and

see what connections you can discover.

Consider keeping this life myth and adding to it as your life unfolds. You may even want to go back

now and again and revise it as certain things become clearer to you, or you uncover deeper and deeper layers

of your own personal story.

When the myth is written, you might choose a close friend or a partner and tell it to them. If that feels

too exposing at this time you could tell it to a tree, a stone, a stream, or a place which you feel a connection to.

Let your story be a dialogue that brings you into deeper understanding of yourself and brings your life into

dialogue with the world. From there you will know what other stories need to be told.

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

Prayer Fast

Vision quests and prayer fasts are used in a variety of cultures as a means of cultivating a sustainable

vision for life and for marking major transitions such as growth from adolescence to adulthood. A story in the

Colloquy of the Ancients suggests that there may have been similar practices in Ireland. Whether it was practiced

by the ancient Celts or not is certainly a matter of debate, but it nonetheless remains a powerful practice,

particularly if you have an opportunity to fast at an ancestral sacred site. I would like to tell a story as a means

of illuminating this topic before giving some general instructions.

In 2006 while living temporarily in the west of Ireland I took a few days to go up to Sligo. On my first

trip to Ireland a little over a year and a half before I had traveled there with a group, to a mountain called

Knocknarea, where a massive cairn sits named Queen Maeve’s Cairn. That first trip was incredible formative

and initiatory, and when I left the mountain I whispered a promise that I would return, moved as I was by the

place. My time living there was no less transformative, and so I intended to fulfill my promise, and to bring my

travels full circle. Before I left I took two stones from my altar which had been there since I brought them back

from my first trip. I replaced them with a casting of the triple spirals of Newgrage, a symbol which I deeply

resonate with as a soul-image, and which is tattooed on my chest.

The center of my altar corresponds to the center of the Irish mandala, sovereignty. Maeve is without a

doubt a goddess par excellence of sovereignty; an intention and pattern was set. I was taking a pilgrimage to

come into deeper embodiment of my own sense of sovereignty and personal kingship. I walked from Sligo

town to the foot of the mountain (no short walk!) before ascending up. I summited shortly before the sun went

down and had my last and only meal of that day, two apples. The wind was incredibly powerful and I had to

take shelter beneath the cairn to avoid getting blown off the face of the mountain. Rain threatened in the sky.

For mid-April it was absolutely freezing, even with layers of thermals and sweaters. Extreme physical

conditions elicit extreme states of mind. As the night wears on I begin pacing back and forth to keep warm,

then laying on the ground, curled up in the fetal position to conserve as much of my own body heat as possible.

When my legs get cold I get up and walk some more. As I walk I begin to talk to myself. I try to convince

myself that this is a bad idea, and that I should go back down to the hostel where I have a room and a bed. A

conversation emerges between the parts of me which are afraid and the deeper parts of me that know. It is

essentially a conversation between my soul and my ego and it deepens as I continue pacing.

Then you must

give everything you

ever knew

to the darkness of the

night,

you belong to

whatever returns

with the rising sun of dawn.

When the sun rises I am still on the mountain, and the sun mirrors my own sense of personal sovereignty

which I earned that night through the conversation.

Often when people think of prayer fasts and vision quests they imagine profound trances and

“hallucinatory” states of consciousness evoking life changing visions. Sometimes what comes though is much

more subtle, much more intimate that you could miss it if you aren’t paying attention. All that is truly required

of us is to show up as completely as we are able.

Some General Guidelines

•

If you’re on your own and have never done this kind of work then it is recommended you just do one

day and night or just one night before you consider three days and nights. The above story illustrates

that profound initiatory experiences can be evoked in short periods of time. Quality not quantity as

they say.

Engaged Druidism: A Practice Handbook

•

If you are planning on three days and nights then it is recommended you seek out a wilderness rites of

passage group or at least take some courses in wilderness survival.

•

The Pilgrimage: Contemplative Nature Walk practice in this handbook may provide some relevant material

for how to approach your work. A prayer fast is a pilgrimage, whether you cover a lot of terrain or are

confined to a circle drawn on the ground.

•

Water is recommended even if you choose to fast from food, though in some cultures you do not bring

water. If you are in a dry area, bring it anyway, whether you plan to drink it or not.

•

Set an intention. Spend some time thinking about it, contemplating it, refining it. Carry that intention

with you, perhaps as a physical item which can act as a symbol for this.

•

Pay attention to the “severance” stage (as outlined in the Pilgrimage practice). When I fasted in the

above story, and on other similar occasions I have taken the attitude that I would not be returning from

my trip; that I was going to my death. This may seem morbid, but the way I was taught suggests that

the purpose of the vision quest is to bring to you a place where you are accepting of your own impending

death (which is impending no matter how you look at it), this opens the door to a state of mind where

a psychological death, a transformative or initiatory experience, is possible. It also has tremendous

power in terms of getting your priorities in line with your values. Say goodbye to your home and your

family and friends.

•

Show up. Be fully present to the moment of the experience. The rest will happen organically.

•

Just because you have a powerful experience during your prayer fast does not mean you are

automatically transformed. Be mindful of the necessary work of integrating your experiences upon

your return. Without integration work your ego is just masturbating. Integrating does not mean

trying to retain the state of consciousness you experience during the fast. You will likely feel “high” on

your return, and you can expect to “drop down” back into your normal state of consciousness. Integration

happens in your ordinary mode of consciousness. Be gentle with yourself on return. Plan to come back and

have at least a day without any major obligations to allow yourself to recuperate.

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