Above, crannog, yurt and view over Loch Tay from the yurt.

Greetings All!

This is Dr. Geo Athena Trevarthen's newsletter. You're receiving it because you or someone at that email address signed up at my website, www.celticshamanism.com. Please let us know if you wish to unsubscribe and notify us of any change to your address. Please also make sure that your email server and spam filter will accept email from tuath@btopenworld.com as that's where this mailing will normally come from.

Please feel free to forward it on to any who you think might be interested!

Below you will find my Solstice Newsletter, primarily the draft of my 2nd chapter of HEAVENISNOWHERE.

I understand some got weirdly scrambled newsletters last time. Sorry about that — not sure why. I want to get a bulk mailing program that will sort it out. I hope this one is okay. First, I want to let you know the details of the upcoming Beltane 2011 retreat.

I have firmly booked at the Loch Tay Highland Lodges. The dates are Saturday April 23rd to Saturday April 30th. On the 30th we will do our optional extension to Edinburgh to enjoy the Beltane frolics on Carlton Hill. (There's no extra charge from me but the tickets cost around £10. If people let me know in advance I can buy tickets for all of us and probably collect them before we go up to Loch Tay.) They haven't posted their current prices yet but I'll let everyone know as soon as they do. The website is http://www.beltane.org/festivals/beltane which will give you a sense of what they get up to!

There will be a maximum of 13 more people (two have already booked). As noted in my last email I am leaving it up to you to book the sort of lodging you want directly from the Loch Tay Highland Lodges.

  Since it is Beltane the workshop will focus on imbas or enlightenment and will include Old Irish chant, ritual and shamanic journeying.

The cost for the workshop itself is £275. This will include tuition and all activity costs, including admissions to the Crannog, a trip to the Fortingall Yew (probably the oldest living being in Europe and an ancient site of worship and ritual for millennia) and the Breadalbane Folklore Centre. I am also hoping to organise a boat trip around the lake with a storyteller but this has yet to be finalised and a session of archery — I've been starting with longbow and it superbly clears and focusses the mind. So this will be a chance to get your Celto-Zen Legolas thing going!  

A deposit of £137.50 is due on booking to Paypal email geotrevarthen@btopenworld.com
The remaining £137.50 is due on March 1st 2011 to Paypal email geotrevarthen@btopenworld.com
For those who want to got to Carlton Hill Beltane there will be an additional charge of around £10 for tickets, but don't send it until they post prices for this year, which they haven't done yet. I will let you know.
It is quite urgent that you book soon because it is Easter School Holiday week here and the Lodges will book up quickly.  

This fee does not include food or lodging. As mentioned in my earlier email, this is to give everyone the opportunity to get the lodging of their choice to suit their own tastes and budget. As to transport, there are two options. We will do one Edinburgh pick-up by bus at 12 noon on the 23rd. Bear in mind that there is limited luggage space, one moderate bag please! We will drop off back in Edinburgh on the 30th. Alternately, you can rent your own vehicle. The bus is obviously available for everyone on the local trips.

There are some final details to be organised but I am letting you know now because Beltane week falls in the Scottish Easter school holiday time this year and so, the Lodges are likely to book up very soon so it's essential that you book your lodging as soon as you possibly can along with the workshop.

Can everyone applying please send me your phone address and email and also if you are happy for your email to be given out to the rest of the group for travel and lodging coordination purposes, ie, a few of you may want to rent a lodge together.

The site map is here http://www.lochtay-vacations.co.uk/information-centre/location-map.htm . The workshop will be in the yurt, which is not shown but is located by the teepees (6 on the map above and between 1, reception and 3, the indoor riding school. I am staying in the Wendy House which is the far right one, and there are tent pitches directly in front. People might want to book the two teepees next to the Wendy House then we'd all be in a row, but book what you like.

Their website is http://www.lochtay-vacations.co.uk/index.htm .

Be sure to check if you need to bring linens pillows or towels to your accomodation.

We have one Quechua tent suitable for two to 3 people that we could bring up to rent out for £50. (First come first served) Large tent pitches are £18 per night. The tent is this one http://tente.quechua.com/en/tent/r-10,a-3,base-seconds-4-2.html At our last Pagan Federation Camping trip it was referred to by all and sundry as the Hobbit Pagoda. There are a couple of holes in the inner lining of one bed area, but they weren't a problem for us, just wanted to let you know. I may not have them patched yet. We also have two air mattresses, one double and one single, pillows and duvets we could bring for you.

For the night (or more) that you want to stay in Edinburgh there are many options. Cheapest and also near Calton Hill are various Youth Hostels. See here http://www.hostelworld.com/hostels/Edinburgh?source=googleadwordsuktopcities&gclid=CLO8o9z00qUCFcxO4Qod9TzUkA . The Castle Rock one would be very convenient as well as the Royal Mile one.

Here is a link for pricier hotels and B and Bs within 1 mile of Waverly Station (right next to Calton Hill): http://www.laterooms.com/en/p1301/pv3181d/k16287261_edinburgh-hotels.aspx?gclid=COOimZf10qUCFcxO4Qod9TzUkA&ef_id=Sx5noENIYWQAAGM7I5UAAAKA:20101204152942:s#ldskgn

Here is the official Edinburgh tourist board one for City Centre hotels: http://tinyurl.com/4uzyfzq

This is a bit of a distance but I have stayed here and found it pleasant and affordable: http://www.relaxguesthouse.co.uk/ 

http://www.edinburghfirst.co.uk/ is run by the University and is very nice and just the other side of Holyrood Park.

If anyone wants some individual time for healing or counselling after, you're welcome to come down to our place 40 miles south of Edinburgh for a session. Excitingly I have just bought a Mongolian yurt in which to shamanize! We are sure to have it up by then. If enough people are interested we could do a trip to the Eildons where Thomas the Rhymer went into Fairyland with the Fairy Queen.

Well that's about all for that. Feel free to email with any questions.

I hope you enjoyed the solstice. It feels a more significant one than the upcoming theoretically 'world ending' 2012 one. Here in the UK we had a total lunar eclipse paired with the solstice, which hadn't happened since the 1600's. The Big Black. A good ending and beginning time.

Appropriately for the season, the next chapter is on appreciation. I wish you a wonderful and gratitude filled Christmas.

Le Gràdh agus Beannachdan,
With Love and Blessings,

Geo

PS — the word processing program replaced all of these ' (apostrophes/single quotes) with this " (double quotes). Sorry about that but I thought it was better than risking sending you gibberish again. I have no time to delete them as I must bake for Scotland desserts for Christmas Eve dinner at my brother and sister in laws house!

Appreciation

Peace up to heaven,
Heaven to earth.
The Mórrígan in the Cath Maige Tuired

Lift a stone and I am there, split a piece of wood and I am there.
Christ in the Apocryphal Gospel of Thomas

The prayer that frames this book is an ancient Irish invocation to manifest the peace of Spirit throughout all levels of being. The Mórrígan spoke it after the Cath Maige Tuired or Battle of Moytura.

We can see the Mórrígan as a very primordial form of the Great Goddess in ancient Irish tradition, counterpart to the Father God, the Dagda. Her name can be translated as the Great Queen. Like the name Dagda, which means the Good God, its more a title than a name.

Many religions refer to their highest deities by title. The Mórrígan and the Dagda are also the only deities amongst the Tuatha Dé Danu who appear as giants in the story. The Tuatha Dé Danu's name can also be translated as the Tribes of the Goddess Danu or Anu, another name of the Mórrígan.

The Tuatha Dé Danu generally represent order and truth, the Fomoire chaos and falsehood, so the Battle of Moytura is a classical children of darkness versus children of light story (though it has some twists that I dont have the space to go into here). At the end of the battle, the Mórrígan invoked the peace of the Otherworld.

She said, Peace up to heaven, heaven to earth, earth below heaven, power in each, a cup very full, full of honey, mead in abundance, summer in winter, peace up to heaven, heaven to earth."

Connecting to the Otherworld brings peace because it gives mead in abundance — the nourishment and sweetness of Spirit, the intoxicating beverage that transforms perception.

The Mórrígan's potent act shows that this mead flows no matter what happens in physical life. Your cup can always be experienced as full, and the summer of Spirit can be yours even in the depths of winter.

I'll look at this prayer line by line in the following chapters, and I give it to you in its entirety below, along with suggestions for its use. For now, the most important thing to note is the interchange between spiritual and material realities at its heart. This process of interchange began with the first time heaven extended itself to earth: creation.

In the Beginning

Most traditions tell us that only Deity existed at first. Deity then felt a desire to create the cosmos, and poured creation from Itself. Jewish Kabbalistic teachings and the early Irish works of Eriugena (among others) state the idea of creation as emanation directly. The Bible and some other creation stories imply it. After all, if there was only God in the beginning, what else did He have to use to create the universe?

The Hindu Brihadaranyaka Upanishad describes it this way:

In the beginning this universe was nothing but the Divine Self.
It looked around and saw that there was nothing but itself,
Whereupon Its first shout was "It is I!".
(And that is why when addressed one answers first "It is I")
Then It was afraid.
(That is why anyone alone is afraid.)
But It considered:
"Since there is no one here but myself, what is there to fear?"
Whereupon the fear departed.

However It still lacked delight
(therefore we lack delight when alone) and desired a second.
The Divine Self then divided itself in two parts;
and with that, there was a male and a female.
(Thus our body by itself is like half of a split pea,
and why this space must be filled by another.)

The male embraced the female, and from that the human race arose.
She became a cow, he a bull, and from that cattle arose.
She became a mare, he a stallion, and from that horses arose.
Thus all pairing things were poured forth, down to the ants.
And the Divine realised "I am creation; for I have poured forth all this"
Whence arose the concept of "Creation".

Anyone understanding this becomes, truly, a creator in this creation.

Here we see that the universe flowed from, and yet remains one, with Deity. The universe is God getting to know God. Spiritual experience begins here. All experience begins here. If we can fully grasp this truth and its implications, it's all we need to know. "Whosoever understands this story becomes a creator in this creation."

Some Indian accounts describe the One who became self aware in the account above as a 'golden germ' or atom. Physicists speak of a 'perfect particle' that manifested out of nothing and shattered in the 'Big Bang.'

Why would it do this? Science and religion actually arrive at similar ideas. A perfect particle would be static, perfectly balanced, yet unchangeable. The explosion of that particle threw the universe off balance, disrupting perfection but allowing movement.  Similarly, various creation myths say that the Creator's evolutionary urge exploded Deity's flawless symmetry into all that is.

The concept of creation 'unfolding' out of a greater, yet more subtle, whole appears not only in Eriugena and the Upanishads, but in the work of physicist David Bohm. He said that the explicate physical universe unfolded out of a greater, yet more subtle, implicate order.

It's important to note the way science and spirituality enrich each other here. In my own life, my mother's spiritual truths have been deepened rather than displaced by my father's scientific research into the origins of the universe.

I grew up with Bohm's work because my father knew him from London University and researched similar areas. My father arrived at a "Theory of Dimensional Evolution," very similar to Indo-European and Kabbalistic creation ideas (though he never studied these himself). I can't possibly do justice to a theory that occupied fifty years of his life here, but will just mention a few points of extremely simplified correspondence.

He began with the idea of the space point, in essence, the perfect particle. That space point had an evolutionary urge to extend itself into a line, creating a second dimension in the process. The evolutionary urge came again to extend into the third dimension, and the fourth dimension is time. He saw the human urge for immortality as a further evolutionary step.

Obviously, I don't agree with my Dad on all points, since I believe we're all already immortal. Yet, as I'll discuss in the final chapter, I do think that our urge to extend our lives' impact in time is God given. I also think that 'dimensional evolution' is a good way to think of the creation process.

God becomes ever more complex and multi-dimensional through creation. There's a trinitarian structure underlying the process that can give us greater insights into it and help us apply it more consciously to our lives.

Trinities of Grace

In my dad's theory, the space point had an evolutionary urge to extend itself into a line, creating a second dimension in the process. Here, most obviously, one becomes two, yet it also simultaneously becomes three.

A line is like a stick. It has two ends, and somewhere between is a third point, the middle. At the same time, it is one stick, so it is simultaneously one, two and three.

One and one actually always make three. Union is not about duality, but trinity: there's 'one,' 'one,' and 'and,' the two points and their relationship, the third co-created entity.

Eriugena spoke of the Trinity as "three essences in one substance," and of God holding all polarities, so God can be seen as one, two and three.

One Welsh creation story says that creation occurred when God spoke "the Awen." The word means 'divine inspiration.' Its sound radiated down in the form of three bars of light (the Trinity) and three sounds, given as O-I-V. The story goes on to say that the letters stand for God's love, knowledge and truth, but there are other layers of meaning.

O can be seen as the feminine Divine Source, the deep, liquid clarity of God's knowledge or gnosis, like Sophia, the feminine manifestation of God's wisdom in mystical Christianity.

I is the masculine Divine Force, truth, since divine truth is the ordering principal of reality that manifests God's will on earth and was usually embodied by the king in Celtic culture.

V is the Creator or Initiator, a pyramid shape based in the heavens pointing God's manifesting power to the earth, associated with love, since desire was the Initiator's impetus for creation and love unites all creation. V could also, of course, be seen as the Divine Child, the Christ Consciousness, the Horus of the New Aion, the re-united and manifest power of God and Goddess.

The first two polarities, masculine and feminine, Force and Source, initiate a cascade effect of union and division in the Upanishads. The first division created the Trinity of Father, Mother and Creator, or Initiator, out of which all facets of the jewel of Creation arose.

The triune structure also pervades Celtic tradition from the 'Triple Goddess' who appears as maiden, mother and crone, to many depictions of deities with triple faces or heads, to the Tuatha Dé sometimes being called the People of Three Gods, to the custom of transmitting spiritual teachings as triads of points.

It was actually a Native Celt, Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers in 350 AD, who wrote one of the first influential works on the Christian Trinity. Athanasius, a Church father in Galatia, another Celtic region, wrote an additional important work on the subject, so the Christian Trinity doctrine may owe much to Primal Celtic tradition.

The Holy Spirit was originally the feminine component, as indicated by the statement that Christ was begotten of the Father, conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary. The ability to conceive is female. In Hebrew one name for this feminine facet of Deity is Shekhina.

The One and the Many

Several early Irish sources reflect the idea of creation as emanation, and of Deity consequently manifesting as One and many. One describes a wondrous tree with "its upper part above the firmament, its lower part in the Earth, and every melody in its midst." It grew down from a single root, with innumerable roots coming from it below. There were nine branches full of singing white birds, "every branch more beautiful than that above."

The tree is Christ, who is above all beings, yet born of the earth. The tree's melody is perfected bliss in the depths of divinity. Its single root is the Godhead, the 'roots' described branching from the single root are the apostles, disciples, and saints. The nine branches are the nine angelic orders, "with each order more noble than that before it." The birds are the souls of the just. After his description, the writer invoked God's mercy, that "those of us who dwell together here . . . may dwell among the branches of that tree."

The Battle of Moytura also describes various deities and beings as manifestations of one Deity. Before the Dagda, the 'Good God' and 'All-Father,' leads his people into battle, all the deities tell of their powers and what they'll do in the fight. One says he'll shake the mountains beneath the Fomoire's feet. Another says he'll dry up the lakes so they can't find water. Another will rain fire upon them.

Then the Dagda says, "I alone possess the power you all boast of."

"Truly you are the Good God!" They respond, acknowledging that they are all his aspects, and he the true source of their power.

This calls to mind one of the Indian Upanishads which says, "This that people say, "Worship this god! Worship that god! — One after another — this is his [Brahman's] creation indeed! And he himself is all the gods."

In this strand of native Celtic tradition, as in Indian tradition, all deities are ultimately seen as facets of one God. Of course, not only gods are aspects of God. All beings are God's manifestations.

Does this mean I'm speaking of monotheism, the belief in one God, or polytheism, the belief in many? Well you could actually see it as both or either, depending on your perspective. A story I learned at my Grandmother's knee about St. Columba illustrates the point.

St. Columba established his Christian monastery on the Isle of Iona, off the West Coast of Scotland, in the 5th Century. According to this story it had been a Druid sacred site and there was a period when both Christians and Druids lived there.

One morning, St. Columba came out to make his morning prayers, and he happened to encounter a Druid also making his devotions. As he praised God, hands upraised to the sun, Columba stopped him.

"You should not pray to the sun, but to him that moves it."

"Of course, you're right, brother," the Druid responded, politely, as this was certainly his intent, yet he was a bit puzzled. How could the one who moved it and his manifestation be separate?

The seals, the people of the sea, calling from the rocks, broke the silence.

"There are the voices of your other brothers." Columba said, a bit scornfully.

"Truly," the Druid replied, "those are my brothers."

A few moments passed while Columba pondered this. Finally, he responded.

"This time you are right. They are our brothers. We have both come to wisdom, you from the West, I from the East."

The God in All Life

If we are aware of the idea that Deity effectively 'dismembered' Itself in matter, worshipping a tree, or the sun, is never just worshipping an individual physical object, or even an individual spirit. It's also worshipping the unity of Deity that lies behind all forms and all spirits, the power that flows through everything and rests in nothing.

As far as Celtic tradition goes, this understanding reconciles the statements of the early Christian Church father, Origen with those of Caesar. Where Origen said that the Celts were monotheistic long before Christianity, Caesar said they worshipped many Gods. Both statements are true.

The earliest recorded native European traditions, and later Celtic Christian traditions such as the Scottish prayers recorded in the 19th century by Alexander Carmichael, seem to depict Spirit in both ways.

Tacitus says that Germanic tribes don't "deem it consistent with the divine majesty to imprison their gods within walls, or to represent them with anything like human features. Their holy places are the woods and groves, and they call by the name of god that hidden presence which is only seen by the eye of reverence.

Carmichael's Carmina Gadelica contains a prayer to the "God of the Elements," saying, "Thy joy, the joy, thy light the light, thy war the war, thy peace, the peace." Whatever is, is God's. He is the God of the Elements, not just the God over the elements. Other prayers describe the sun as God's eye and God's voice in the wind and sea.

In these sources we get the sense that Spirit manifests in myriad forms, but there's also a transcendant G-O-D in flashing neon block capitals.

Similarly, when I've talked to elders from shamanic traditions that may be perceived as 'nature based' and polytheistic, I've found that there's generally one Great Spirit or Absolute Deity somewhere behind the myriad forms.

The 19th  century explorer, Rasmussen, asked an Inuit shaman about his ideas of Deity. The shaman, Igujarjuk, said that there was a being called Sila, who could be heard out in the tundra. "And it speaks in a quiet voice like a child's voice, so one could be afraid, and it says, 'Be not afraid of the universe.'"

Monotheism doesn't just underly polytheism, though, the opposite is also true in a sense. Mystics in monotheistic faiths like Christianity may ultimately see God in everything.

St. John of the Cross said, "My beloved is the mountains and the lonely wooded valleys; strange islands and resounding rivers." In the Gospel of Thomas Christ says, "Lift a stone and I am there. Split a piece of wood and I am there." Nothing experienced this way is an alternative God, but rather a manifestation of God, a revelation of God in all Being, a cause for joy.

In the right state of awareness, praising all things is praising God. The sixteenth century Irish poet, Ghilla Brighde, defending 'secular' and praise poetry, said, "To praise man is to praise the One who made him, and man's earthly possessions add to God's mighty praise. All metre and mystery touch on the Lord at last. The tide thunders ashore in praise of the High King."

The distinctions begin to fade. My husband, David, and I were talking about this the other night. We theorised that polytheism is monotheism where you name the parts and materialism is where you only acknowledge the parts.

As we can see by looking around us, a view that sees the world as self-contained pieces, not a whole, hasn't served us well, environmentally, socially or spiritually.

When we see the world this way any one of the 'pieces' of our individual lives, be it money, beauty, ambition or romance, can inflate to godhood in our minds. All our eggs are in that one basket. The loss of that one part, if and when it comes, is then catastrophic.

Chief Rabbi John Sacks recently said that "Monotheism is saying that the only thing worth worshipping is everything. If you make any one thing your god then you're in trouble." I wholeheartedly agree. (That's why I've generally capitalised the whole but not the parts in this book, i.e., God/dess, Spirit / spirits, gods, deities.)

It puts a different slant on what we may think of as idolatry. If we conduct our daily lives in awareness of God in all creation, nothing that we pay attention to is set up as an alternative to God, so nothing is idolatrous.

By contrast, without this perspective, everything we pay attention to is separate from God and therefore set up as an alternative to God. Without the perspective that God is in All, paying attention to anything is idolatrous.

Animism and Shamanism

The perspective that God is in All means that matter is not 'fallen,' or less than Spirit. Your body is the densest level of your soul. Matter is simply a denser level of Spirit. Animism acknowledges this reality.

Animism is a world view that holds that there is no such thing as an inanimate object, that everything is imbued with Spirit. It's the world view of most indigenous cultures. It follows naturally from the idea of creation as the emanation of God into physical form, although not all animistic cultures share this idea of creation.

Eriugena, the 9th century Irish theologian I spoke of in the last chapter, had an essentially animistic view of reality. He saw everything as facets of the jewel that is Deity. Eriugena's term for these facets was theophanies.

Animals, plants, mountains, even ideas, are all theophanies. Experiencing them that way allows us to live in a much more in-spirited, inspiring and less lonely reality. It's a useful view that tends to make us kinder to other beings and the environment.

Eriugena's world view didn't stop with him, but continued into modern Celtic cultures. The great scholar, Proinsias Mac Cana, spoke of the sense of overlap or continuum between spiritual and physical reality in Celtic culture. He says that modern anthropologists "have commented on the deep and continual concern of the people in Irish rural communities of, say, thirty of forty years ago with the inter-relationship between the two worlds, and there can be no doubt that this is one of the underlying continuities from primitive to modern Irish society."

Eriugena described how this inter-relationship could take he form of what he called theosis, an experience of profound communion with the Sacred that is cultivated through visionary meditative techniques. These kinds of methods have come to be called shamanic.

Shamanism is a body of techniques for bringing the self into an experience of personal, interactive contact with the Sacred. 'Shaman' is a Tungus Siberian term which may relate to a word meaning 'to know.'

People often think shamanism is a 'primitive' form of spirituality, only practiced by Paleolithic hunter-gatherers and people in farthest Siberia. Many of their misconceptions come from some of the early, ethnocentric anthropologists who went looking for 'primitives' and therefore found them.

Many of them believed shamans were insane for seeing things that weren't physically there, so asking about shamanic techniques for enlightenment didn't occur to them. In the words of a Haitian proverb, "When the anthropologists arrive, the Gods leave the island."

The truth of the matter is that all forms of traditional shamanism are set in a religious and cosmological framework with refined concepts and the same concern for spiritual evolution as the more generally recognised religions. The shamanic techniques themselves can be applied as readily to attaining enlightenment as they can to finding a reindeer herd.

Most people find that shamanism enhances their current spiritual practices, whatever they may be. I've heard people say that they fully experienced the power of communion for the first time after they'd begun to journey, because they actually knew the Christ they were meant to be communing with in a personal way.

I've also heard people say that they accomplished more in one spirit journey than in twenty years of meditation, and could then return to that practice much more effectively. Contact with the Sacred is what makes this sort of dramatic progress possible — the sort of progress we see in the lives of the founders of all great religions.

This is the final reason that shamanism can't be seen as "primitive." Just about all religions and spiritual and magickal systems are rooted in shamanic vision, though sometimes only that of one shaman thousands of years ago. The very power of these shamans' experiences put most of their students in such awe of them that they felt they couldn't do the same. It's ironic, because all these great shamans kept telling their students, "You are as I am. You can do what I do."

Most people in shamanic cultures use shamanistic techniques to some extent. The person called by Spirit to become a shaman is a specialist in the techniques, using them to help others. The great scholar, Eliade, called shamans "technicians of ecstasy."

Some of the Druids, who were the spiritual specialists in Celtic culture (among other things) had a shamanic role. Their name, like shaman, relates to knowledge. The second part of the name comes from the same linguistic root we get "witness" from. It relates to knowledge of things personally seen. To personally see the Sacred is, by definition, shamanic.

As I've said, the techniques are compatible with any spiritual approach that is open to fresh revelation and doesn't consider itself to be the only road up the mountain.

Even if you do think there's only one 'right' religion, give the techniques a try anyway to better know the God you serve. Similar techniques have been used by some Animists, Jews, Pagans, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Hindus and others for millennia — because they work.

It's also my experience that people from diverse traditions can grow closer through shared spiritual experience. As my Scottish great grandfather used to say, "God is our home, and if you're home and I'm home we're no far apart."

Relinking

Religion is all about consciously renewing our connections to the Sacred with and within us. The word 'religion' comes from the Latin religio, meaning 'to link back' or 'relink.' Unfortunately a lot of religions have lost the techniques which make this much easier to do, like the use of chant or specific kinds of music and meditation.

When a religion loses its shamanic roots in personal experience, it's like a cut flower. It will live for a while, but has lost its ability to grow and sustain itself. In a 'cut-flower religion' the priests themselves ultimately don't know if there's a God. That's the state many religions find themselves in today.

So how do we re-link with God? First, we must remember God.

Earlier, I said that in one way, God was 'dis-membered' in the Creation process. Some creation myths go so far as to describe a primordial being dismembered and used to create the material world, like Tiamat of Babylonian tradition, Purusha of Indian tradition or the giant Ymir in Norse tradition.

By simply remembering God, we begin the process of re-membering God, of re-linking ourselves to the whole of Being. Prayer is one way we remember God. In fact, the Muslim word for the prayers they perform five times daily is zikr, which means "remembrance."

Prayer is often misunderstood. Some of us think of it as a wish list to 'god the Santa.' Prayer does pour our hearts out to Spirit, and that includes hopes, dreams and fervent wishes, but if that's all we do we miss out on a deeper level of communion.

If you think about it, it's also not the most courteous approach. How would you feel if you were approached for the first time by someone saying, "Hi, not sure what I really think of you but I have all these problems and maybe you could make me think you're okay if you solve them all for me."

Now think about how you'd feel if it went like this: "Hello, I'm so excited to connect with you, I love your work!"

An episode of the science fiction show, Dr. Who, reminded me of this point recently. When the Doctor gets annoyed with one of his human companions he regrets hooking up with another 'dumb monkey.' "It's never about showing you the universe, it's about what the universe can do for you!"

This really struck me. How often do we go to the universe, and to Deity, as wealthy beggars?

We say something to the effect of: "Well, thanks for all the stars and the ecosystem, food, health, body, relationships, parents, spouse, children, beauty, music, sex, laughter, long walks, popcorn, movies, train rides, cute babies, one-ear-up, one-ear-down dogs, cathedrals, candlelight, sunsets, smiles, laughter, hot baths and long sleeps but what I'd really like is..."

Except we often skip the 'thanks' part and go straight to those last five words.

Where is that at? Can't seeing, really seeing, the universe ever be enough, even for a little bit? Be honest, don't you ever get a little bit bored of wanting? I've come to find wanting an increasingly tiring pursuit. Cultivating gratitude gives us a welcome rest from wanting.

All this is why beginning prayer with thanks and praise starts us off on the right note with Deity, and beginning our days with prayer starts us off on the right note with reality.

Gratitude in the Morning

It's not Pollyanna-like to put gratitude at the heart of our approach to life. As I said in the last chapter, being grateful for what we already experience of heaven reveals more of heaven in our lives.

Praise blesses both the self and the universe. The Latin benedicere originally meant "to speak good things," to declare the goodness revealed all around us when we experience the universe as part of God. Praise sets a spiritual generator motion where the energy going out is a geometric increase of that put in. The Welsh poet, Waldo Williams said, the purpose of praise is to "recreate an unblemished world."

It does so, in part, by drawing our attention to how unblemished most of the world is, despite the evening news. Looking out my window at the surrounding countryside, God is happy as far as the eye can see, in each blade of grass, in the sun, the birds, the sheep and cows. This is true over much of the earth's surface and certainly in the heavens. That's a lot of happiness.

Praise is also an offering that we can make to God and the Spirits at any time and under any circumstances. It is the simplest offering. Offering anything automatically extends our awareness beyond ourselves, and expands our energetic fields, as our hands extend to give. It's good to open our relationship with any being in any reality on a note of generosity, even if all we have to offer in the moment is a smile.

We needn't limit ourselves to offering praise. The incense I light before spiritual practice is an offering as well as a sensory cue. When I'm at a sacred site I often pour out mead or whiskey, traditional Celtic offerings to the spirits, no pun intended! The point of offering praise, whiskey, or anything else is the underlying offering we simultaneously make — that of our self-absorption.

I once heard the Tibetan Buddhist tulku* (reincarnated lineage holder) Jetsunma Ahkon Llamo Rinpoche respond to a question about offerings. A strict natural foods dieter  asked about the extravagant displays of chocolates and sweeties on the temple altars. Did the Buddha like refined sugar?

The Buddha's not on a diet, of course, but Jetsunma also made the point that no physical object we offer the Buddha can make him any happier, he is, after all, enlightened. What pleases him about our offerings is that by offering anything we'd rather keep ourselves we're actually offering to release our self-absorption. In offering, we extend beyond the limits of the self to focus on the bigger picture.

Whatever horrible experiences we may have suffered, we are all here now, and that alone is miraculous. First, it means that every one of our ancestors from amoebas to primates, lived long enough to reproduce — for hundreds of millions of years. What are the odds of that? Next, it means that we have survived.

Morning is a very natural time to make prayers of gratitude for our lives, first, because we can. Arising to see the new day this morning meant we were all more fortunate than the 142,000 or so people who didn't survive yesterday, never mind the billions of other beings, from plants to animals. As an old blues song says, "Everybody wanna go to heaven, don' nobody wanna die tonight."

Gratitude is especially important when things are going wrong, as we'll discuss in greater detail later. When the shaman, Sandra Ingerman, was going through a depression, her spirits told her to make an offering of thanks out on the land every morning, no matter how awful she felt.

I've done the same sort of thing when depression has been trying to catch hold, and it really helps. It gets our energy, and focus, moving outwards again. I didn't feel it made a big difference every morning, but over time it created a huge change in my approach to life.

Attention

That's because the most basic power we have as sentient beings is the power to choose where we focus our attention. We magnify what we pay attention to, it grows larger in our minds and lives.

If you've ever obsessed about your weight you'll know just what I mean. You look much huger in the mirror to yourself than you actually are. If you're worried about debts, all you think about are bills and all you see are things you can't have. More positively, if you're having a baby, it suddenly seems that the world is full of pregnant women and babies. There actually aren't any more than there ever were, you're just paying attention to them.

In Old Irish, the word for praise is molaid, which means literally, to magnify. On one level, then, focussing our attention on good things is simply positive thinking that magnifies all that's right in our lives. Many studies show how optimism mentally and physically benefits us. Stress and negativity cause or exacerbate many physical and mental ills — but depression isn't destiny. Optimism can be learned.

It all begins with where you focus your attention and that constant process begins anew each day when you wake up. Think for a moment about how you began your day. Where did you place your attention? Were your thoughts something like "Ah! Another day in creation, let me take a moment to remember God and notice the Kingdom of Heaven."? Or were they, "Aieee, there goes the alarm, I'm tired, another day at the coal face, bills to pay, the children are up, uh oh, what was that thud...?"

Our first focus of the day sets the tone for all the rest. A few moments of positive focus first thing is one of the best gifts you can give yourself — and those around you. You'll be amazed by what a difference those moments make to your equilibrium throughout the day.

Another reason to put prayer first is that, like exercising first thing, it ensures you do it. Even if you choose to do more prayer or meditation later in the day when you're more alert, a few minutes of morning devotions gives you the satisfaction of beginning the day by doing something perfect, the right action at the right time.

It's common sense to begin with what we know is right. Many traditions practice prayer at sunrise because we know that the sun is doing what it should be, so the hope is that by aligning our actions with its actions we at least begin our day in right relation to the cosmos.

Of course, you don't have to pray at dawn, especially if you live in the North, where you'd be up at three in the morning parts of the year and noon other parts. Even St. Columba changed prayer times to reflect Iona's northern location.

Alternate States of Consciousness

So, giving thanks and setting a positive focus is one important function of prayer. Another is beginning the process of entering alternate states of consciousness where we can feel a more intense sense of connection with the Sacred.

You'll notice that I use the term 'alternate' in preference to 'altered.' That's because 'altered' implies that there's one 'normal' state of consciousness, and anything else is a potentially scary and abnormal deviation from it. We all know that's not true if we think about it for a minute.

Are you in the same state of consciousness when awake, asleep, dreaming, repairing a cup, walking the dog, having an argument, making love, wrestling with a computer problem or watching TV? As David Abrams points out, this last can invoke a particularly bizarre and dissonant alternate state, "Ten thousand dead in a Turkish earthquake, but first, a word about your hair." We have the ability to move fluidly between many possible alternate states, there is no one default position.

Prayer and meditation can invoke a range of positive alternate states that bring a sense of meaning, magick, purpose and peace to our lives. In fact the Old Irish word Síd, (pronounced Sheeth'-uh) means both 'peace' and the 'Otherworld' or spiritual dimension of reality. This tells us that a sense of peace goes hand in hand with a sense of connection to Spirit.

Kings were inaugurated on tumuli that were also called Sída* (the plural of Síd). Most often these were ancient burial mounds, seen as entry points to the Otherworld. This symbolically founded the king's rule on Spirit, and also symbolised that Spirit is here, that physical reality is the densest level of Spirit. The strong, stable peace of the Otherworld, the peace of spiritual awareness, can support you, and give you the only ground that is truly firm enough to stand on in life.

The multi-layered meanings of this word also give us an example of how sacred languages can deepen spiritual understanding and practice.

Languages of Heaven

In this and the next chapter I offer two prayers for your use. They're given in English, Old Irish and rough phonetic. I'm suggesting that you begin your daily practice with these, or choose other prayers or mantras that fulfill the same purposes, then go on to more spontaneous prayer. Set prayers can be useful to 'set' our intent. They give us a positive focus to start from.

Various religions use or have used liturgical languages, such as the Catholic Church's use of Latin, Islam's use of Arabic and Hinduism's use of Sanskrit. While we'll each do most of our prayers and practices in our native languages, and all languages manifest the Sacred, there are five reasons I suggest using prayers in other languages as a 'jumping off' point for spiritual practice.

First, we don't discuss the weather or the state of our bunions in Sanskrit or Old Irish, so using such languages helps us move out of day to day awareness.

Second, prayers in their original languages can evoke the power of the deities and traditions they're associated with. If you're devoted to Isis, ancient Egyptian or Coptic may particularly resonate for you. As a Christian, Aramaic, the language Christ actually preached in, may work well. Latin might appeal if you feel a connection with Catholic or ancient Roman traditions. Old Irish, the root language of both Scottish Gaelic and Irish, works well for some because it's a language of their ancestors, and because it expresses a strong sense of connection and co-creation with the Sacred.

Third, when we say traditional prayers in these or other languages, we also feel supported by the sense that so many others have said them, as though we are all speaking them with the same breath. In fact, when Tibetan Buddhists 'transmit' a prayer, it's said that they do so with the same breath a divine being used to give it to the first lama who received it. This 'breath of life' has carried the prayer's vibration from generation to generation.

The fourth reason is that some languages have multi-layered meanings and we may find it easier to hold all the layers of meaning in meditative awareness while chanting the original. Translations can be one-dimensional or flat out wrong.

Neil Douglas-Klotz's meditations on the original Aramaic words of Christ provide many examples. One is that the first line of the Lord's prayer in Aramaic, Abwoon d'bwashmayah, usually translated as "Our Father who art in heaven," can translate as "Oh Birther, Father-Mother of the Cosmos." One well known mantra gives us a good example of multiple layers of meaning.

OM mani padme HUM, literally means the jewel is in the lotus. This means the immanence of nirvana or illumination (the jewel) is in samsara, the cycle of death, rebirth and karma (lotus). It can also mean the arrival of the mind (the jewel) in nirvana (the lotus) or the icon of male (the jewel) and female (the lotus) joined. There are other interpretations as well. But finally, if you ever hear Tibetan monks chanting the OM you know exactly what it means in your bones — all and none of the above. As Joseph Campbell said, it's the very 'zoom' of creation.

This example also illustrates the fifth reason to use mantras or prayers in ancient sacred languages. The sound of Tibetan monks chanting the OM shows the power they have to carry us into a state where we can experience deeper, non-verbal, levels of meaning through sound itself. As noted in the last chapter, Welsh tradition ranks sound and symbol as better teachers than didactic methods.

Without further ado, then, here's the first prayer, affirming, and thereby praising and magnifying creation's good.

Peace up to heaven, heaven to earth,
earth below heaven, power in each,
a cup very full, full of honey,
mead in abundance, summer in winter,
peace up to heaven, heaven to earth.

Old Irish Síd co nem, nem co domun, Domun fo nem, nert hi cach, Slan for lan, lan do míl, mid co soith, sam hi nam, Síd co nem, nem co domun.

Rough Phonetic Sheethe co nyayv, nyayv co dovun, Dovun fo nyayv, nyert hee gach, Slawn for lawn, lawn do meel, meethe co soyth, sahm hee nahm, Sheethe co nyayv, nyayv co dovun.

Practice: Re-membrance

Get up in the morning and make a hot drink if you like. You needn't adopt any special posture, just get comfortable. (You could even stay lying down, but a rapid return to sleep might cut short any prayers, I know it would for me!)

If you can, face towards, but never look directly at, the sun. Facing the sun we face the source of our physical beings. Every atom in our bodies was once inside this star and it still sustains our lives. This makes the sun a very obvious theophany. Facing the sun as our physical source, we also symbolically face the spiritual source from which our souls emanated, the 'Sun' of God. The sun also burns through nuclear fusion, generating power by fusing rather than splitting atoms. It literally burns with the power of union, and union with the Sacred is what we seek.

Interestingly, the most frequent prayer gesture depicted in Celtic Pagan and Christian iconography is not clasped hands, but hands raised with the palms forward — a posture of exchange and co-creation, reaching out to Deity. Use whatever gesture feels right to you, or no gesture at all.

Begin with the prayer above, reciting it once or a few times. Really focus on feeling the meaning and sound of the words. The peace and power of the Otherworld extending through you to heaven, the power of heaven coming through you to earth. As we explore the meanings held by the lines of the prayer below in forthcoming chapters, the experience of saying it will become richer for you.

For now just focus on magnifying the peaceful, powerful exchange between all realms of being through attention, prayer and praise. Focus on this exchange benefitting all beings and revealing heaven on the earth.

One interpretation of the Star of David carries a similar meaning of exchange between realms. One of the two overlapping triangles represents the energy of kingship, based on earth and pointing or extending to heaven, the other represents the priestly energy, based in heaven and extending to earth.

When you've finished reciting the prayer above, pray in your own words to the Creator and the spirits in whatever form suits you. If you're stuck, try simply asking that God's will manifest increasingly in your life and the world, or praying that love, help and healing come to those in need, personally known or unknown to you. To paraphrase the Catholic morning offering, you can also offer the energy of all "the joys, works and sufferings of this day" as 'fuel' for Divine purposes. I like the alchemical idea that all I experience can be transmuted for good.

You can also talk to Deity about whatever's on your mind. It will grow easier for you to sense responses when you've learned the technique of the spirit journey. In the meanwhile, know that you can speak to Deity as you'd speak to a dear friend or parent and be open to any sensations of love, comfort and peace that may come. If you don't sense anything in particular, that's fine too. We're just starting out.

You don't have to take a lot of time. Begin with five minutes. We'll add some meditation time to this later.

Manifestation

You may have seen the East Indian greeting where you bow with palms together in a traditional prayer posture. That's because Hindu tradition acknowledges the Divine everywhere, including in each person. When you go to a Hindu household you really feel that you are a visiting deity.

Try treating one person in one interaction today like that and see what happens. You don't need to do anything outwardly different like bowing. Just bear in mind that a theophany is standing before you, a manifestation of the Creator.

Treating another person as a theophany means we first of all give them our full attention. I once felt a deep pleasure and tranquility come over me when I was speaking with a Buddhist monk. I became aware that it was because his attention was actually focussed on me and our conversation. He was talking, then listening, rather than talking, then waiting to talk. To have someone pay you full attention is a rare pleasure.

Treating another person as theophany is also to treat them with respect for their ideas and their being. If you're involved in decision-making, you'd try to arrive at the right conclusion, rather than trying to be right yourself.

You'd get beyond surface appearances if you knew a theophany stood before you. As already noted, Mother Theresa said that she saw Christ within everyone she cared for, and he himself said that whatever we did for another we do for him. The great Hindu mystic Ramakrishna used to annoy his disciples by leaping out of whatever conveyance he was riding in and worshipping old, diseased prostitutes as manifestations of the Goddess he adored.

This brings us to the fact that a theophany evokes love. You needn't be as obvious about it as Ramakrishna, or expect to feel overwhelming love. Just be aware that the person before you is a unique manifestation of God, physically limited in time, never seen before, never to come again.