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Winter Solstice 2006
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Greetings!
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.
This is a brief newsletter to wish you a happy Solstice, Christmas and New Year. It contains an excerpt from the book I'm finishing entitled "Divine (and Daily) Planning" on how we can stop time flying by organising our activities and paying proper attention. (I first wrote 'praying proper attention' — a Jungian slip!)
It struck me that these thoughts were appropriate for the Gregorian New Year, and followed well from my points about gratitude in the Samhain 2006 newsletter.
I also include some links for last minute alternative Christmas gifts. 'Tis the time to bring light from the darkness. There's also a link on local UK projects to help nature in your area. Finally, I've written a bit more on the Sumerian spirituality workshop I'm leading in Edinburgh on February 22nd.
Enjoy!
Le Beannachdan,
With Blessings,
Dr. Geo Athena Trevarthen, Winter Solstice 2006
Events
There are three events coming up in Edinburgh over the next few months.
The Edinburgh International Festival of Middle Eastern Spirituality and Peace 2007, http://www.mesp.org.uk
I'll be teaching a one-day workshop I'm very excited about. Through various synchronicities, visions and research, Sumerian traditions have become central to my spiritual path over the last fifteen years. There are themes in Celtic tradition which can be further illuminated by looking at their Sumerian antecedents. This is the first chance I've had to share any of these teachings, so I'm really looking forward to it.
Sumerian religion fascinates me as part of a continuum. While it's impossible to be clear what elements came from what source thousands of years ago there are lots of possible influences on Sumerian religion.
Some ancient spiritual influences may go back to Çatal Hüyük, an important Neolithic site. It dates from the 8th to 7th millennium BC. Çatal Hüyük is near Konya in Anatolia in Eastern Turkey, and is the biggest town of the early Neolithic in this area, with 7,000 inhabitants at its peak.
The Sumerian continuum comes all the way forward to the present, in large and small ways. For example, we have sixty minutes in our hours because they divided time this way for religious reasons.
Abraham, founder of Judaism, came from the great Mesopotamian city of Ur. The Sumerians had a particularly strong focus on a personal God. This prefigures Jewish, Christian and Muslim theology.
More recently, medieval angelic magick, such as that practiced by John Dee in the 1600's, owes a lot to Sumer. The workings of some ritual magicians to the present day represent a 'Sumerian revival' of sorts...I could go on but...
The basic course description is:
1) The Treasures of Sumerian Spirituality (Day Workshop)
Sumerian tradition is literally an 'Ur' spirituality, taking us back to the 'trunk of the tree' from which facets of many Middle Eastern and Western traditions have branched. Studying it can bring us to a deeper holistic understanding of the underlying unity of all spiritualities, and the deeper meanings of themes in many traditions, ranging from Judaism, Christianity and Islam to Western mystery traditions such as alchemy and ritual magic. Here we'll have the rare opportunity to experientially explore some of these themes through discussion, meditation and Sumerian chants. Topics will include Sacred Marriage, especially as an alchemical, internal process, Sacred Sovereignty, or governing your own life, bearing the oscillation of union and loss nobly in life, and, one of the central pillars of Sumerian religion, our relationship to what we might call a guardian angel, a personal manifestation of the Sacred.
2) The Magic of Harry Potter
The fictional world of Harry Potter has inspired a huge response from children and adults alike. Here, we'll explore the narrative themes in the books and films, trace their roots back to myths, legends and ideas about magic and spirituality, and discuss their literary and cultural significance to us today.
Contact: Office of Lifelong Learning
3) Shamanic Spirituality Conference
Shamanism is well-attested in Celtic cultures over a wide range of times and places. We find it in the classical authors descriptions of the 'visionary' Celts and in later Irish and Welsh literature. We also find shamanistic techniques in use up to and beyond the 19th century in Scottish and Irish folk traditions. This lecture explores some effects of shamanic practice on the Celts, distinctive features of Celtic shamanism, and why the existence of Celtic shamanism was so hotly debated until recently.
The Shamanism Conference is organised by:
Edinburgh International Centre for World Spiritualities
Good Works
Here are a couple of other links for last minute Christmas giving. In the UK, Oxfam has the Oxfam Unwrapped program. You can give all kinds of great gifts to people in need on behalf of your loved ones.
In the US, Mercy Corps, a highly respected and efficient charity, has all kinds of gifts available, and a gift finder to help you pick something your loved one really cares about in your price range.
The Hunger Site allows you to help a variety of causes for free with a mouse click, and linked sites give other seasonal giving opportunities and a wealth of ethical gift choices.
Among other alternative gifts I'm giving, I'll be sending two girls in Afghanistan to school this year on behalf of a friend with whom I share many happy school memories. It's nice to think of two other girls having the chance to enjoy the same!
Websites
This UK site gives advice on how to help nature in your local area.
Article
Divine (and Daily) Planning
Creating order in your daily activities is part of creating a strong mental and spiritual foundation for your life. You may not think that time management has a lot to do with spiritual growth, however, time is the one unrenewable resource God's given us.
My Grandmother used to quote a Victorian 'ad' saying, "Lost: one golden hour set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered as it cannot be returned."
Of course, there is actually infinite time. We are physically finite. We don't run out of time, we run out of us! (I'm paraphrasing a bit of wisdom here from the science fiction series Babylon 5)
Of course, running out of time or running out of ourselves creates a similar effect. We may experience time as fleeting, especially at 'peak' moments. We might like phases of our lives like university years, early romantic times with a spouse or raising young children to last longer. We can experience these times as lasting longer if we focus appropriate attention on them.
Creating a routine for doing so automatically makes it easier. How many times have you experienced a week flashing by where you feel you've done little or nothing that's meaningful to you? All you've done is pay bills, run errands, run to work, and so on. As Hyrum W. Smith notes, you've spent time on the 'urgent' rather than the truly important. (See his book The 10 Natural Laws of Time and Life Management.)
We've all had weeks when we've barely noticed our loved ones and surroundings, let alone our souls. Scheduling time to notice what matters is a first step. If your child's dance recitals or weekly lunches with your best friend or your meditation time are part of your routine, written in ink, you'll be there.
Consciously planning your activities means that you're consciously choosing what you're doing with your life day to day. Most of us don't.
An Irish tale, De Gabáil in t-Síde, the Taking of the Síd Mound, illustrates a good point about time. (Translated by Hull in Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 19, p. 57)
It tells how Óengus came to win Bruigh na Boinne, the Neolithic monument of Newgrange, from the Dagda, the Celtic Father God. The Dagda had given out all the Síd Mounds, (the spirit dwellings in the hollow hills of Ireland) when his son, Óengus showed up.
The Dagda had nothing left to give him, but Óengus said that he'd be content if he could have just Samhain night and day in the Dagda's own house — Bruigh na Boinne. (Samhain is Halloween, the old Celtic New Year.) The Dagda agreed, but when he returned, Óengus wouldn't leave.
You see, in Old Irish, there's no article like 'a,' it's implied by context, so to say 'a day and a night' sounds just the same as saying 'day and night.' Óengus had been given Bruigh na Boinne for 'day and night' and argued that "It is in days and nights that we spend our lives." Therefore Bruigh na Boinne had been deeded forever.
In short, how we spend today is how we're spending our lives.
Think about that.
Given that reality, take some time to write down what, and who, is really important in your life, including values, hopes, dreams and ideas.
Allow traditional values to find their level.
There are reasons that most people say that family comes first for them. Most older people looking back on their lives don't regret the weekend at the office they missed, hell, they don't even remember it. No, they regret the weekend with their child, or their best pal and the birthdays and holidays that they missed.
Your office hours, your weight and your net worth will not be on your tomb stone. Your relationships will be. The ways you healed, helped or brought beauty to others' lives may be touched on too.
Take time to reflect and write about this over the next few days or weeks. On the winter solstice Bruigh na Boinne is illuminated by the light of the rising sun, as are quite a few Neolithic monuments. Our ancestors saw this as a time to bring light into darkness. It's a good time of year to reflect, to cast light on the unexamined aspects of our own lives.
It's a good time of year to start a journal. I like to write each day to notice and to love my time here on earth. Each moment is so precious. Noticing the moments slows time. Paying attention to what we love gives us an experience of enjoying it longer.
As you write or reflect, really look at how you spend your time. You could try tracking your time for a week. You may find it useful to be precise and use a day planner or photocopied sheet with lines labelled 1 through 24. Make a brief note for each block of activity, i.e., 7, woke, breakfast, 8, bus to work, 9 to 12, work and so on.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy suggests assigning a numerical value from 1-10 to activities for the pleasure they give you and the sense of mastery or skill you feel doing the activity, 10 being the highest. Besides pleasure and mastery, a sense of value also contributes to your sense of well-being.
How truly valuable or important to you is the activity? Does the activity contribute to your core values, like being a good parent, friend or spouse, or spending time on a cherished creative or charitable project?
This kind of ranking can help us measure what we're most keen on and also tells us if we're truly paying attention to what matters most to us.
Some things, like good diet and exercise, may not always rank high on your pleasure or mastery scale, but health is an essential value. If you lose your health your ability to do everything else is impaired.
At the end of each day, write what you feel you've accomplished, the time that was well spent.
While doing this, one of my students realised that she kept talking about how much she wanted to write fantasy novels, but never did anything about it. There wasn't a half an hour each day, or each week, that she set aside to write.
Although she felt writing was her 'life's work' she realised that three hours a day of television and zero hours of writing meant that watching television was more her life's work than writing. At that rate she was even more a dishwasher or toothbrusher than a writer.
Confronted with this sort of realisation, you may feel inspired to make some changes right away. If so, great, but it's also okay to be still and build up a bit of a head of steam. It's better to consciously act than reflexively react.
There's another important point to bear in mind about the Bruigh na Boinne story above.
Óengus is traditionally associated with love. The fact that he outwits the Dagda to win Bruigh na Boinne implies that love brings us eternity. In love, we pay attention, we notice every aspect of our beloved. We gain that eternal sense in time. Joseph Campbell said that now is actually the best time to experience eternity. When we're in heaven we'll all be too happy looking at God to notice eternity.
In the stillness of the long nights of winter, and winter dawn's return of the light, take time to notice and enjoy eternity.
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