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Shamanism Shaman Shamanic Journey Healing
Celtic Shamanic Traditions
According to the Celtic Shamanic traditions the ethers and dimensions were fluidic and malleable. To them the ethers and dimensions were fluidic and malleable. If one could cognize the underlying matrix and reason for being of the hare, then one could become the hare at least for as long as one could hold the focus of "hareness".
Even if one did not want to experience being a particular animal, acquiring some of the attributes of the animal might be desirable such as the swiftness of the hare. All of the Celtic highly skilled artists, builders, craftsmen, farmers, merchants, and smiths who shared common customs and spiritual traditions were content to remain a shamanically pastoral and agricultural peoples, living in harmony with the land and the seasonal cycles
The Celts preferred to perform their rituals outside in the Natural World underneath the never-ending circle of sky in forest clearings. in open air shrines, and in sacred groves. The Celts preferred the hallowed places and natural sanctuaries of the Earth. All of the animals, forests, lakes, mountains, rivers, and trees were blessed and holy to the Celts and worthy of their utmost reverence. The Natural World inspired their imaginations and enlivened their art.
The Divine Forest, typified by the Sacred Grove or Nemeton was hallowed ground for the Celts who worshipped and revered their Goddesses and Gods in natural spaces. Sacred Groves were the settings for ceremonies, meetings, and sanctuaries. For instance the Galatian Celts met at the Oak Sanctuary once a year to discuss crucial tribal concerns.
Woods were so sacred to the Celts and played such a significant role in their overall cultural existence that at one time the Celtic heartlands in Northern Europe and Southern Germany were almost entirely covered with trees. All trees were sacred to the Celts because they were imbued with the holiness of Tree Spirits, one of the many spiritual kindred sharing the planet with humans.
Their leafy tops moved with the currents of the sky winds and their roots burrowed deep into the moist nourishment of the earth. They had their heads in the clouds but their feet were planted firmly on the ground. The World Tree or Tree of Life was a symbol ladened with many sacred meanings to the Celts and acted as a visual portal key opening doorways to hidden knowledge and ancient genetic memories.
Each year most trees lived
a condensed lifetime over cyclic seasons that fostered continued growth through
periods of dormancy, renewal, growth, and decay from full blossom growth, to
golden leaf days, to icy stillness, to budding rebirth once again. The forest
was a sacred place filled with wooded sanctuaries and shrines.
Depiction of Celtic Shaman Daghda of the Tuatha dé Danann
Holding Up a Wheel on Plate C of Gaulish Gundestrup Cauldron
The Druid who travelled widely among the Celtic tribes, were also the shamanic keepers of the Celtic Calendar which corresponded the months with the Celtic Tree Alphabet and the vowels of the Ogham. So for each of the months there was a corresponding tree from which an overall Tree Calendar emerged.
The Celtic Year then was divided into thirteen months with an extra day or two adjustment at the end of the year. Even though there were thirteen months in the lunar Celtic Calendar, only eight seasonal festivals were celebrated. The two solstices and two equinoxes marked the passage of the four seasons, while, the four fire festivals inbetween the passages commemorated the changes that ensued.
Druids then often acted as Shamans and Shamanism was practiced by the ancient Celts. Some of the most superbly crafted and enchantingly enduring of the Celtic tales (like those about Taliesin, Fionn mac Cumhail, and Amergin White-knee) were richly textured with symbolism about alternate realities, animal totems, divination, drumming, ecstatic dance, journeying, healing, oracles, shamanic trance, shapeshifting, soul loss retrieval, spirit guides, transformation, and vision quests.
Working within the context of the Celtic Cosmology, the Druids used their power to access the Otherworld and their knowledge of what they had personally seen to help and benefit others. Celtic Shamanic traditions included deeply held beliefs in an afterlife, fairy mounds, immortality, magic, nature spirits, and supernatural and mythical beings and monsters who made their home in the Otherworld.
The boundaries between this world and the Otherworld were adaptable, fluidic, and malleable. All mortals had the ability or aptitude to cross over the thresholds between lands and realms and to travel back and forth between them. During Beltaine and Samhain the boundaries betwixt and between worlds disappeared for a time, for a spell.
The ancient Celts were devoted to maintaining their spiritual balance and sacred connectivity with the Natural World by treating all things hallowed with the respect and reverence they deserved. The living waters of rivers, springs, and wells were venerated because they were believed to have both magical and curative powers.
Fairy Mounds, the Wee
Folk, Mineral Spirits, Hollow Hills, Leprechauns, Animal Spirits, Holy Wells,
Sacred Lakes, Tree Spirits, the Sidhe...the Celtic world was alive with the
vibrancy and the glittering glories of hosts of Fairies; of the elemental beings
of fire, earth, air, and water; of the holy divinity of the land, the sea, and
the sky...Go
back
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Celtic Shamanic Traditions,
Druid as Shaman,
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Native American Shamanism,
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Cosmos Astronomy,
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Shamanism
Shaman Shamanic Journey Healing Copyright © 2002-2008 Maureen Grace Burns, Blessings Cornucopia. All Rights Reserved.
Public Domain Image Depiction of Celtic Shaman Daghda of the Tuatha dé Danann Holding Up a Wheel on Plate C of Gaulish Gundestrup Cauldron,
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Gundestrup_C.jpg]. Accessed December 27, 2006.
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