SOME NOTES
The poem started with an intuitive channelling of words, and I worked with it from time to time over a number of years – about ten – gradually interpreting its meaning as with a dream, and enhancing what I believe it wants to do. It wheels around in the lively air and landscape of a holy mountain on the west coast of County Mayo (Maigh Eo) in Ireland. The mountain is known as ‘Croagh Patrick’, which comes from the Irish ‘Cruach Phádraig’ meaning Patrick's stack, and has a chapel dedicated to him on top. St. Patrick is the Patron Saint of Ireland - famed for bringing Christianity. Locally the mountain is referred to as ‘the Reek’, which is a Hiberno-English word for a ‘rick’ or ‘stack’. I have come across an older name: ‘Cruachán Aigle’, which is thought to mean ‘Eagle Mountain’ and also heard ‘Sliabh Iolar’ which is the modern Irish form of this.
The poem combines 1) wanderings on and around the Reek, and 2) wonderings about the godess or ‘the feminine as symbolic’. The poem is also, as ever, from the great mulling of all experiences. It has thirty lines, which is harmonic with groups of three and the concept of realisation. The number three is a symbol of realisation in various traditions. I think that this is because, after the singular and then the pair, it is reminiscent of the arrival of a child; which in turn is symbolic of a new idea manifesting from the combination of previous states of being. I think this symbolism is also influenced by 3 being the product of 1+2.
Three female idols are involved in the piece:
1) Brigid, Bridget or Bride – the triple goddess of Celtic/pagan religion (a female trinity)
2) Mary of the catholic religion
3) Grace O’Malley - also known as ‘Gráinne Uaile’, the ‘pirate Queen’, and as a political leader
The usefulness of contemplating a god, a godess or other idol depends on the nature of the idol and the nature of the contemplation. Clearly it is a technique that has been/is used to indoctrinate and exploit people. However, meditation involving personifications can be a powerful means of self discovery, and of developing our ideas and what we truly want to be. I believe that it is more efficient for this purpose (and preferable all round) when we understand it to be an artistic endeavour of self expression and self creation. The poem intends to recognise ideals of womanhood, and to reclaim them as
our experience, our being, and
our potential – and as
something that we can change.
Numerous poetic texts and other art forms – some more consciously than others - use gods/godesses or heroes/heroines (as can also be done with more ‘ordinary’ characters), to show us ourselves, and to inspire us to over come our faults and our problems with our virtues.
Gods/godesses, as with other fictional characters, are modelled on us. We create them to be like us rather than the other way around. They have human type consciousness – which is important so we can imagine communicating with them. I believe that they are an imaginative extension of our self recognition, and of our ideas/ideals. They express
our consciousness of ourselves, our beliefs, desires and imagination (which all overlap/interrelate).
We are aware that we are aware. We are a thing that is aware of itself and of other things. As part of everything, we are the part that is aware. We are ‘the awareness of things’ in both senses of this phrase. We are the product of the unity that is the awareness of the unity. Perhaps due to this and also as an extension of relating to other conscious beings, we not only project our consciousness into imaginary beings, but into the things around us. Those gods/godesses or ‘spirits’ that are identified with other animals/trees/parts of the landscape/the earth/the sky etc., may thus also express
our consciousness of ourselves, our beliefs and our imagination to some extent, although they may more simply express
our consciousness of these things and all or part of what these things mean to us.
We are also aware that we are not aware of everything in every way, but we know a man or woman or
being who can!’ – Rather - from our awareness of consciousness and our awareness of the unity of everything, we imagine a consciousness of everything………
It seems likely that deities also result from the need to feel cared for, and thus are often conceived to be a bigger and all knowing parent. I think that imagining beings who know more about our situation than we do, in particular expresses
our desire to know more about our situation – both out of pure curiosity, and because to know is to be prepared; so again, out of a desire to feel safe - but as a more autonomous agent. Interestingly, the state of mind that can occur when meditating on/guided by an ideal can actually produce more clarity and knowledge. It can free us from unnecessary energy absorbing anxieties, and enable us to access appropriate information that we have stored but have not been sufficiently aware of - and to combine/apply this information for further understanding of the truth. So the process can help us to take care of ourselves.
All this adds to the poetic value of the godess as a metaphor (or personification) of a natural feature such as a mountain, or of the land/the sea/the biosphere/ the universe and ultimately eternity. Eternity is the mother of all moments, but also the moment itself, and its passing. One sense of the three in one. And the metaphor goes the other way as well; so eternity, perhaps, but certainly the universe, the biosphere, a mountain, air, water etc. can be metaphors for the self/aspects of the self.
It seems that we will fulfil our needs for ideals in one way or another. I wonder if, in Mayo, the popularity of the adoration of Mary (despite the way this has been used to subjugate and control women) and the admiration for Gráinne Uaile (despite the fact that, according to accounts, she was shockingly brutal at times), together have been important in fulfilling that need, all-be-it unsatisfactorily in some ways. They certainly represent passive and active aspects of the female principle: Serene, peaceful, accepting, sometimes quietly grieving Mary, and Gráinne Uaile the warrior from the rebel stronghold who is up for the crack……..Perhaps both were needed to take over from Brigid/other pagan female divinities who are often very feisty, desirous and desirable. The hero worship of Gráinne Uaile may also, at least in part, come out of the pagan tradition of veneration for the ancestors.
It is my belief that divinities were originally about both enjoying and working with nature for the common good. Pagan divinities were/are worshiped as
actual existence; often analogous to (and often also synonymous with) landscape features such as mountains, forests, springs or rivers, as well as with more human made features such as crops and dwellings. Likewise, divinities are known
as nature or known to be
representations of nature in aboriginal cultures world wide. Festivals were also about observation, appreciation and maximising the usefulness of
actual existence; they were held at scientifically and agriculturally significant times of the year – for example, solstices and equinoxes, and also to mark the changing seasons between these four points. This persists in some ways, but the deities were taken over or outlawed, and the festivals were taken over and shifted around by Christianity, to disconnect them from the ‘old ways’.
The Christianity that did this was by then a religion in the service of a ruling elite. How deliberate it was I don’t know, but the effects were certainly fortuitous for the increasingly distant rulers over ever larger areas: The people largely lost the power of shared awareness of conditions and what needs to be done for well being, and the autonomy to get on with it. They lost their communal relationship to their environment. Relationships to each other are also affected by this, as the individuals involved have become subject to a ‘higher power’. - Not a ‘higher power’ in themselves that they could access by envisioning their deities, but the egos of a ruling class imbued into establishment deities via the church. Community planning and action
to provide for the community was replaced by being told what to do, and celebrations of life and the abundant goodness of nature became celebrations of far off kings and queens, abstract gods, largely irrelevant stories and false dogma. This is not what he/she had in mind when whoever it was said ‘love one another’.
I am not trying to suggest that pre-Christian culture was perfect – only to expose a general trend. Pagan gods/godesses may well also have been used, at least occasionally, to wield power harmfully. But I believe that changes took place that have broken people’s relationships with nature and that the loss of the identification of deities/the sacred with reality was a factor in this. It is thought that the word ‘pagan’ comes from the same root as ‘peg’ and ‘post’, and that they all originate in a word meaning boundary marker of a village. The word came to mean ‘villager’ when invaders and subsequent rulers had a different set of beliefs, and has developed again since then. I think that this meaning ‘villager’ indicates that pagan beliefs were the cultural beliefs that had continuity from earlier times and practical value in that area for the whole community, rather than those which were imposed as a means of control by an exploitative ruling class.
It is also interesting that in pagan culture a pantheon of spirits is accessible in an ‘underworld’ rather than removed in a heaven above. Perhaps the coming of the dominance and righteousness of authority from an inaccessible ‘above’ in Christian religious imagery is reflective of this being the political situation. Which may have come first is a ‘chicken or egg’ question. – What is important is that they both would take part in creating and perpetuating each other. Notably only devils (modelled in appearance on Pan) remained in the underworld of Christian imagery – in an underworld that was only comprised of hell. In pagan imagery there is both good and bad to contend with in the underworld, which is consistent with it being symbolic of/a metaphor for our inner life, including what is now referred to as the ‘unconscious’ or ‘subconscious’.
The Christian Mary is sometimes referred to as ‘the star of the sea’, and with the coming of Christianity probably took over from the sea godess Marina (also known by other names) as well as corn and other earth godesses; but Christianity generally, in its more recent forms, has taken the idea of spirit and made it mean something different from physicality. So the land/sea/ourselves etc. were no longer sacred. They could thus be used without respect for their true nature, but as commodities to be owned by a minority and for the minority to make financial profits from.
I believe that although some messages that are good and worthy have remained in establishment religion, that these have been exploited to make the whole thing seem good and worthy; and that it has been used in cahoots with various hierarchical power structures, and latterly with capitalist rulers, to usurp our ideals in order to subjugate us. We have been given the false impression that Mary, Jesus, and God are not our natural imaginative expressions of ourselves and/or impressions of other manifestations of nature, but that they are separate from nature; that they exist in another realm as a different type of being - which, of course, has NOT been intended to mean an 'imaginary realm' nor that they are 'imaginary beings'. Also, they have been made not only celibate, but without sexual desire. So on more than one count they are ideals that it is impossible to attain. In conjunction with this, natural and healthy activities such as sex, and even dancing and music at times, have been associated with ‘sin’, and we have generally been made to feel inherently bad and guilty to make us more compliant to hierarchical authority.
So not only have we been cut off from our outer reality, but also from our inner reality. There has been psychological separation from our environment, each other and from areas of our own true nature - including denial of our creative imagination - leaving us powerless. But fortunately, not completely so. Increasing awareness of the truth of the matter makes us less and less vulnerable to deception. To truly free ourselves is to realise our equality with others and thus the unjustifiable nature of minority ownership/control. Such power structures tend to corrupt both the owners and the owned; being made to feel bad and unworthy is a large psychological factor in producing unhealthy, irresponsible and abusive behaviour – in actually making us bad……………….
We are lovely, complex, talented beings. We should venerate and adore all that is wonderful in us as well as being wary of our fallibilities. Although we are capable of the most dire horrors, we can also be perfectly loving and perfectly rational. Many of our mistakes are quite harmless, funny, easily corrected - and all our mistakes are a necessary part of learning. We are sacred in the real sense that we deserve respect and care, and to be invested with knowledge, responsibility and trust.
It is actually such love for ourselves which saves us from really harmful errors. It is the sufficient understanding of the whole that we call wisdom.
The realisation or remembering that all our idols/ideals are in some form
here and now and us, can be helpful and may be essential to appreciating ourselves; which further manifests as unity and healthy life. This is heaven, this is paradise, in the form of everything that is good for life, in the form of our love for each other and in our wishes and dreams of a better world; and we are the ones with the power to reclaim paradise as our own and to create a more manifest heaven for the future.
FURTHER NOTES
A Óileáin Muire – ‘O island Mary’
Ár Óileáin Mhuire - Our island Mary or Our lady’s island
grá mother - love mother . This a play on the similar sound of grá and gra in grand – which I believe may have the same root. It is also intended to indicate a grandmother equivalent of the granddad type personification of god.
The pooka – or Púca [Irish] is one of the myriad of Celtic faery folk. He is an adroit shape shifter, and may appear as a horse, donkey, goat, dog, rabbit, and sometimes a cat. His fur is almost always dark and he often has glowing golden eyes. If a human is enticed onto a Púca's back, he will give them a wild ride. - But unlike a kelpie which will take its rider and dive into the nearest river or lake to drown and devour him, the Púca will do the rider no real harm.
The Púca has the power of human speech, and has been known to give advice and lead people away from danger. Though the Púca enjoys confusing and often frightening humans, he is considered to be benevolent. In slang ‘pukka’ also means ‘extremely good’ or ‘perfect’. He appears in Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer night’s Dream’ as Puck.
The Púca is particularly associated with Samhain, the Harvest Festival, when the last of the crops are brought in. In some places anything remaining in the fields they say is ‘fairy-blasted’, and in some places reapers deliberately leave a small share of the crop, the ‘Púca's share’. This is a tradition of leaving something for wild nature, which the Púca symbolizes; caring for the other creatures with whom we share our environment and who all play their role in its health and richness.
I think that this is something that people were more aware of before capitalism became so dominant. The profit motive and the financial pressures that result, tend to encourage and engender unscrupulous behaviour towards our fellow creatures. Woodlands have been decimated to make giant fields, even the remaining hedgerow trees are often cut down – I don’t know why, fields have been ravaged with chemicals and every last scrap of produce has been sucked up by monstrous machines – much of it to be just thrown away uneaten onto the ever larger dumps waste.
It is respectful to remember that we have taken agricultural land from the wild and to fulfill our responsibilities as guardians and not destroyers of the wild places that remain.
The Púca is a creature of the mountains, hills and forests. In such regions there are stories of him appearing on November 1st and providing prophecies and warnings to those who consult him.
‘A fairy spirit in animal form. A wise but mischievous creature…..’ Quote from the film ‘Harvey’ - a 1950 film based on Mary Chase’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, directed by Henry Koster.