|
|
Books > Religion & Spirituality > Non-Christian religions > Pre-Christian European & Mediterranean religions > Ancient Celtic religion
Using story, scripture, reflection, and prayer, this book offers
readers a taste of the living water that refreshed the ancient
Celts. The author invites readers to imitate the Celtic saints who
were aware of God as a living presence in everybody and everything.
This ancient perspective gives radical new alternatives to modern
faith practices, ones that are both challenging and constructively
positive. This is a Christianity big enough to embrace the entire
world.
PLUS: This publication of strategies and tips is a unique,
easy-to-read guide. It contains 50 inspirational, rewarding, and
life-changing praises. PLUS: It is sized to fit just right into
your purse or pocket ...yet is powerful enough to bring your life
...to a place where you can see, to encourage you to ...be the best
you can be, and to help you turn ...key in your life, and unlock
your innermost strength.
In early Irish society there existed an honoured group of people
called the "Filid." They preserved the native stories and they were
learned in the magical arts. It is within this ancient tradition
that Ella Young (1867-1956) lived her unique and creative life. In
the late 1800s Ella began to gather the old tales that had been
handed down from family to family for centuries. She lived among
the rural folk in the West of Ireland and in the hills south of
Dublin. As part of her devotion to Irish culture she learned Gaelic
and, as a major contributor to the Celtic Revival, she taught
classes in the language and the myths. Ella's spirituality reached
deep into the land and into the heart of ancient Ireland. Others
have called her a seeress, a druidess, or a witch - the magical
name she gave herself was "Airmid" - the goddess of healing who
drew her powers from the fertile green earth. She knew first-hand
about the faery folk of Ireland - she heard their music and
listened to their stories. Ella was truly blessed - for her life
flowed in harmony with her beliefs, her nationalism, and her career
as an author and lecturer. This new collection of her writings,
edited and introduced by John Matthews and Denise Sallee, is a
deeply magical and evocative tribute to Ella's many gifts,
featuring some of the best of her poetry and mythical storytelling.
It was the Celtic bards who laid down the foundation of inner
wisdom that has come down to us as Arthurian legend, passing their
traditions to the Arthurian romancers of the 12th and 13th
centuries. Thus the Celts provide an immediate bridge that leads to
a very ancient world. Focusing on the Brythonic Celtic material and
the "Taliesin" cult whose lineage preserved the mysteries through
the Mabinogion and other texts, Awen: the Quest of the Celtic
Mysteries reveals the sources of the British sacred tradition right
back to the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, and, as some believe,
further back still to even more ancient sources. Awen is a Welsh
word often translated as "inspiration". However, in its fullness it
has a much deeper meaning, an irradiation of the soul from
paradisal origins. In the context of the Celtic folk-soul it casts
the paradisal pattern by which the people and the land were
harmonised. Through the aligned symbolism of the goddess, the
sacred king and the stars, a compelling picture is built of a
thriving mystery tradition which marries the constellations to the
landscape, exploring as an example the interwoven five-fold and
seven-fold stellar geometry of Moel ty Uchaf stone circle in North
Wales, and the stellar alignments on the landscape of Cadair Idris.
This book is a magical journey into the realms of the Sidhe, the
graceful "People of Peace" who are the overlords of the Faery
Kingdoms. With beautiful full-colored illustrations by Jeremy Berg
and text by David Spangler, author of Apprenticed to Spirit and
Subtle Worlds, this is a journey not only into a mystical realm but
also into the potentials of the human spirit and the possibilities
of a new consciousness within humanity. "This joyous and powerful
story sits well amongst other tales of faery and brings its own
enchantment. I really found myself carried off as I read, and
emerged at the end with a feeling of having been a lot further than
I thought. I'd put this right alongside Goethe's 'Tale of the Green
Snake and the Beautiful Lily' as of a kind that can only be written
by a true initiate. And the pictures which accompany it carry their
own power - drawing deep on the wells of lore and truth." - John
Matthews, author of The Western Way and How To See Faeries.
PREFACE: This book is what its authors believes to be the only
attempt yet made to put the English reader into possession, in
clear, compact, and what it is hoped may prove agreeable, form, of
the mythical, legendary, and poetic traditions of the early
inhabitants of our islands who have left us written records - the
Gaelic and the British Celts...... This early, illustrated works is
a fascinating and detailed study of the subject and will appeal
greatly to any historian or student. Many of the earliest books,
particularly those dating back to the 1900's and before, are now
extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing
these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions,
using the original text and artwork.
In the midst of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, a handful of
British intellectuals turned their backs on the social and cultural
trends of their time and set out to reinvent the spirituality of
the ancient Druids. The movement that rose out of this effort
played a central role in struggles for cultural identity in most of
the Celtic nations of Europe, provided inspiration to such
world-class creative talents as William Blake and Frank Lloyd
Wright, and inspired an innovative tradition of Western nature
spirituality that remains active to this day. The Druid Revival
Reader provides the first collection of original writings from that
movement. Its selections, beginning with William Stukeley's survey
of Druid theology from 1743 and ending with Ross Nichols' 1947
essay "An Examination of Creative Myth," cover two centuries in the
life of an evolving tradition. Edited and introduced by
contemporary Druid John Michael Greer, The Druid Revival Reader is
essential for understanding the sources of modern Druid and Pagan
traditions, and offers a wealth of insights relevant to the
ecological and spiritual crises of our own time.
Why do they still come? Fourteen hundred years after a handful of
Celtic monks withdrew to tiny islands in the sea, and almost a
thousand years after the last of them disappeared, a steady streams
of modern men and women make the difficult trek to these isolated
places. Why? What did the ancient monks know that we have
forgotten, or remember only dimly? What are we looking for when we
journey to such sacred places? We are looking, among other things,
for wisdom-for clues about how to live in a frantic, materialistic,
care-worn world that is, in many ways, hostile to life. And we
sense that those who lived here so long ago, though they have left
very little behind, have something to teach us. In Search of Sacred
Places: Looking for Wisdom on Celtic Holy Islands is the story of a
reluctant pilgrimage, taken by a man with no great faith in sacred
places. He is a man filled with modern questions and suspicions,
who nonetheless returns home from these thin places with a better
understanding of how to live. This book interweaves spiritual
quest, travel, memoir, history, theological reflection, cultural
analysis, and personal introspection-all conveyed in an engaging,
probing, and honest voice. It is a book for those on the hunt for
meaning who share the hope that God has sown it throughout this
world-perhaps more thickly in certain sacred places.
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the
original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as
marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe
this work is culturally important, we have made it available as
part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting
the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions
that are true to the original work.
THIS 34 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Signs and Symbols
of Primordial Man, by Albert Churchward. To purchase the entire
book, please order ISBN 1564591050.
Since its origins in the early eighteenth century, Druidry-a modern
movement of nature spirituality drawing much of its inspiration
from Celtic tradition-has evolved a rich body of ceremonial and
collective practice. Celebrated privately within groves this body
of lore provides a ritual framework for the celebration of the
seasonal cycle and the spiritual development of the individual.To
this wealth of tradition, The Druid Grove Handbook is one of the
few publicly available sources. Compiled from the records of the
Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA), and edited by the AODA's
current Grand Archdruid, widely read author and environmental
blogger John Michael Greer, it provides a detailed survey of the
evolution of AODA's ceremonial traditions, and the complete rituals
for opening and closing a Druid grove, initiating candidates for
membership, and celebrating the solstices and equinoxes, the four
primary holy days of the traditional Druid year.
The presence of gods was felt in every corner of the Celtic world,
and influenced all areas of life in Celtic society. This
fascinating book delves into these corners to examine all aspects
of the gods, ritual customs, cult objects and sacred places of the
ancient Celtic peoples. Miranda Green introduces the Celts and the
evidence that they left behind, placing them in their geographical
and chronological context, and continues on to look at Celtic cults
of the sun and sky, animals and animism, mother goddesses, water
gods and healers, as well as examining the influence of religion on
war, death and fertility. Embracing the whole of the Celtic world
from Ireland to Australia, and covering from 500 BC to AD 400, this
is a rewarding overview of the evidence for Celtic religions,
beliefs and practices which uses modern scholarship to bring a
mysterious and captivating part of European history to life.
THIS 46 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Druid Path, by
Marah Ellis Ryan. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN
1564596230.
This is a practical manual for divination using the ancient Celtic
characters of ogham writing. However, it is much more than that as
well. It opens the doors to the authentic understanding of ancient
Celtic cosmology and psychology in ways that have never been done
before. This, as much as the divinatory material, opens the reader
to vistas as yet uncharted in the fields of Celtic studies.The book
contains a complete system of oghamic divination, the lore of each
of the 20 ogham characters, a Celtic psychology and Celtic
cosmology as well as a complete suggested curriculum for training
in Celtic spirituality based on the ogham system. One of the most
important new features of this edition is the information
demonstrating the fact that the ogham system was not originally a
"tree alphabet." This book is a thorough and substantial rewriting
of a book by Edred Thorsson by the same name published more than a
decade ago. This new edition takes into account important new
findings in the realm of ogham studies and must be read and studied
by all those who first read the older edition in order that a
deeper and more authentic understanding can be reached.
An astonishing true story about one woman's journey to Ireland
where she lived in a cottage with leprechauns. These seldom-seen
beings taught her about the evolution of elementals-the race to
which leprechauns, faeries, elves, trolls belong. They explained
the importance of humans and elementals working together for the
betterment of both of their races and the Earth. "Tanis Helliwell
is a spiritual evocateur and deep seer who opens us up to other
voice...other realms..." Jean Houston, author Search for the
Beloved "This delightful book is not only great fun to read, but
makes most interesting and intelligent suggestions about the
reality and work of this particular branch of the nature world. It
can help us open our minds to fascinating dimensions that do exist
on the planet." Dorothy MacLean, co-founder of Findhorn and author
of To Hear the Angels Sing "Opening this book opens a door in the
imagination. Whether you take it as fact or fiction, this book
carries a message of planetary priorities." Julia Cameron, An
Artist's Way Tanis Helliwell, M.Ed., is the founder of The
International Institute for Transformation (IIT). She has
experienced and later worked with elementals, angels, and master
teachers on other planes since childhood. Living on the sea coast
north of Vancouver, Canada, she is the author of Pilgrimage with
the Leprechauns, Take Your Soul to Work, Embraced by Love, and
Decoding Your Destiny: Keys to Humanity's Spiritual Evolution.
It has long been held by most theologians, anthropologists, and
other academicians that the world has never known pure
Goddess-worship. In particular they deny that it ever existed in
the British Isles. In fact, the exact reverse is true. For the vast
majority of the islands history, the veneration of a female Supreme
Being (Mother-Goddess) was the only religion known. Indeed, until
the Early Neolithic Age (4,500 BCE) the concept of a male deity
(Father-God) did not even exist in Europe. As award-winning
Tennessee author and Southern historian Lochlainn Seabrook readily
shows in his important work, The Book of Kelle, proof of
Anglo-Celtic Goddess-worship is overwhelming and plentiful. The
nations of Britain, Ireland, and Scotland themselves, for example,
were all named after goddesses, as were many of their rivers,
islands, towns, hills, and mountains. Reinforcing this evidence is
the fact that many surrounding countries and regions also take
their names from female deities. Among these we have Italy,
Holland, Denmark, Crete, Malta, Albania, and Scandinavia, just to
name a few. Europe herself is named after a goddess, as is our
planet, and even our universe. While Mr. Seabrook touches on these
various topics, the final focus of the book is on the Goddess
Kelle, who gave her name to her most ardent followers: the Kelts or
Celts. Known by poets as the Blessed Lady of Ireland, Kelle s story
is a rich and fascinating one; one that Seabrook traces back to
early Asia, where she is still worshiped to this day as the Goddess
Kali. Lochlainn Seabrook is the winner of the prestigious Jefferson
Davis Historical Gold Medal, awarded by the United Daughters of the
Confederacy. Known as the American Robert Graves after his
celebrated British cousin, Seabrook is a seventh-generation
Kentuckian of Appalachian heritage, the sixth great-grandson of the
Earl of Oxford, the twenty-first great-grandson of King Edward I,
the fortieth great-grandson of British Queen Boudicca, and the
author of over thirty popular books. A specialist in thealogy
(Goddess-oriented religion), his works include: Britannia Rules:
Goddess-Worship in Ancient Anglo-Celtic Society; Christmas Before
Christianity: How the Birthday of the Sun Became the Birthday of
the Son; The Goddess Dictionary of Words and Phrases; The Quotable
Jefferson Davis; The Quotable Robert E. Lee; Everything You Were
Taught About the Civil War is Wrong, Ask a Southerner ; Abraham
Lincoln: The Southern View; The Unquotable Abraham Lincoln: The
President s Quotes They Don t Want You to Know ; A Rebel Born: A
Defense of Nathan Bedford Forrest; The McGavocks of Carnton
Plantation: A Southern History; Nathan Bedford Forrest: Southern
Hero, American Patriot; Carnton Plantation Ghost Stories: True
Tales of the Unexplained From Tennessee s Most Haunted Civil War
House ; UFOs and Aliens: The Complete Guidebook; and The Blakeneys:
An Etymological, Ethnological, and Genealogical Study.
THIS 34 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Signs and Symbols
of Primordial Man, by Albert Churchward. To purchase the entire
book, please order ISBN 1564591050.
Tanis Helliwell 's newest book Pilgrimage with the Leprechauns: a
true story of a mystical tour of Ireland is a romp to the sacred
sites of Ireland accompanied by a leprechaun who is helping her and
her thirty fellow pilgrims face their blind spots. They have a
topsy-turvy encounter with the mischievous, wise humour that the
Irish call "The Craic." In addition to being an amusing story,
Helliwell's book is chock fun of information about nature spirits
or elementals, as they like to call themselves. The trolls, elves,
goblins, and brownies are as real for the reader as the various
humans whom they partner. For anyone planning a trip to the sacred
sites of Ireland, or to Ireland itself for that matter, this book
abounds in nuggets as precious as the pot of gold that the
Leprechaun holds at the end of the rainbow.
This is Volume 2 of a wonderful collection of Glasgow Celtic
quotes, notes and anecdotes. A perfect gift to share with any of
your friends, family or colleagues. Every Celtic supporter has a
story to tell.
I returned to the village after a time away at university and,
seeking out my old friend, I came instead upon a mystery: Adam's
cottage, his garden, and Adam himself were nowhere to be found. The
author and minister Frederick Buechner wrote that "in one way or
another, man comes upon mystery as a summons to pilgrimage." And so
it was for me. To find my friend, or at least solve the riddle of
what had become of him, I embarked on a new journey of discovery.
Filled with shamanistic insights and magical experiences, this
spiritual memoir tells the true story of Ross Heaven's search for
Adam Dilwyn Vaughan. The enigmatic Adam, who introduced Heaven to
the lost art of sin eating and other Celtic traditions, left him a
gift--his journal. As Heaven travels on the dragon path, he
explores the mysteries of the Holy Grail, encounters spirit
healers, and experiences an incredible vision of the earth oracle.
His fascinating journey ultimately leads to powerful revelations of
his life purpose and the fate of humankind. This guide includes a
sin eater's workbook of simple Celtic divination, dreamwork, and
intuitive practices.
"The story is beautifully told, characters vividly described,
and for anyone vaguely interested in the way that dimensions
intertwine, this book is fascinating." --KINDRED SPIRIT
Primal Ancient Egyptian Magic Restored From the dawn of Magic,
there was a primal form of magic which was ancient before the
Pyramids were born. But unlike many religions, where belief and
worship of the forces of nature were persecuted until they died
out, Egypt built its new religions upon them. It is possible to
find a golden thread of shamanic practice that can be recreated and
still remain relevant and useful today. Nick Farrell presents this
system for the first time in his easy to approach and relaxed
style. It is a complete system in which a practitioner can
experiment with at their own pace.
|
|