Honourable companions,

In the last two years and especially in the summer of the year 2002 I have been backpacking, hitch hiking, and car pooling with friends across Ireland, visiting its numerous heritage sites and scenic landscapes. These experiences have forced me to realise something that may be distinctly unwelcome to readers and friends back in Canada. I am very close to being convinced that Celtic paganism cannot be exported outside of a Celtic country, and that no one can fully and completely understand Celtic paganism unless, at the least, they visit a Celtic country for an extended time, and at best, they make a commitment to living in one. Those living in other countries may use Celtic religious and spiritual techniques to integrate themselves with the spirit of the landscape but they do so for the place where they live, not for the place where Celtic spirituality originated. In cultivating a consciousness that is connected to the land, they are surely doing good paganism. But they are not connecting to a Celtic land. This small and trivial point I now believe has much more significance: its consequence is that no one who lives outside of a Celtic land can have complete comprehension of Celtic spirituality, nor can such a person practice Celtic spirituality completely. Celtic paganism is deeply and inextricably rooted in the Celtic landscape, and thus no one can realise its full flowering of expression elsewhere.

This evening before I sat down to write these words, I was standing by the edge of Galway Bay as the sun went down. Across the bay the light on the hills of county Clare changed from the bright orange of the setting sun to a contemplative blue-grey shadow, almost featureless, under a sky that was still bright though the sun had already disappeared. The backdrop of reddish orange on the horizon was reflected in the glassy stillness of the water, giving the impression that the opposite shore was suspended in space. The thin crescent moon was following the sun into its setting-place behind the city, and for a time the face not illuminated by the sun was visible, ghostly and translucent, blue-grey like the hills of Clare, across the bay. An experience of this kind easily inspires the impression that one is looking not at this world, but at a magical Otherworld. And surely this must have been what the ancestors were seeing when they told the stories of the resting-places for the great figures of our heroic past.  

In todayšs pagan culture, we are accustomed to thinking about other-worlds as separate planes of reality that layer over the world in which we live and which are accessible by spirit flight, psychic vision, or after our deaths. This much is inherited from the Christian notion of Heaven as well as from nineteenth century occultism. But such is not the Tir Na n-Og of legend, for had a geographical position: it was an island chain that could be found at the place on the western horizon where the sun set, "beyond the ninth wave". What makes it an Otherworld in this situation is not its supposed separation from the physical world but the limited ways in which one could get there: only certain magical means will get you there, especially including the invitation of one of its residents. Other magical realms like Tir Na n-Og also exist in Irish tradition, and are located under the surface of the water in certain bays, inlets and lakes, or inside certain hills and mountains. What makes them "other" worlds in this situation is not their removal to a psychic plane but the shift of perceptual consciousness that enables one to see the world differently‹one is still looking at a feature of this world, but looking at it with a peculiar perceptual attitude, "the eye of piety", that enables one to see what does not normally meet the eye. I do not choose the phrase "the eye of piety" at random: these were the words by which a visionary living in the west of Ireland described to William Butler Yeats the manner in which the Second Sight reveals the presence of gods, faeries, ghosts, otherworldly castles and islands.

From a perspectival attitude, I must affirm that spiritual experiences through the landscape and climate are available anywhere, to anyone. Yet the spiritual experiences available to one who lives and travels in a Celtic territory are of a kind that cannot be had anywhere else. It may even be claimed that the very landscapes themselves by their presence, spiritually or "merely" perspectivally, suggested the stories that are told about them and the heroes and gods who lived on them. With this in mind, it is possible to understand that my argument is not only based on perspective but also on narrative. Someone might answer that even if one does not live in a Celtic land, surely one could gain enormous spiritual inspiration from Celtic storytelling. Again, my point is not to disagree, but to draw attention to how incomplete onešs understanding and appreciation of the stories would be if one does not live in a Celtic land. 

Before I moved to Ireland, I used to read Lady Augusta Gregoryšs book Gods and Fighting Men with the kind of interest and attention to detail that one might have when approaching a religious text‹surely this wasnšt Gregoryšs hope for its reception, but I have found it inspirational this way nonetheless. However, I normally skipped through the sections where she gives lists of Irelandšs most important lakes or other landscape features, as I regarded such lists as tedious and not particularly necessary. As I went travelling through Ireland and was able to see some of these places for myself, such passages suddenly became very important. It was comforting and uplifting to know that Lough Corrib, only a few short miles to the north of Galway City, where I now live, is one of the chief lakes of Ireland.

In the story of the Welsh hero Taliesin, for instance, we hear that early in his life he had been put in a leather sack and dropped into the sea. Aside from the shamanic and psychological interpretations that this story has been subject to, it is also an oblique reference to the coastline around Cornwall and south Wales. High cliffs overhanging deep waters make the ocean treacherous, with raging whirlpools and dangerous currents. But there are a few bays and inlets like these where, it was discovered, someone set adrift in one of the traditional fishermenšs leather boats, without a sail or an oar, would get a wild ride for a few hours but eventually land safely on the beach. If the occupant panicked and tried to paddle off, or swim for the shore, he would drown, but if he kept his wits, trusted the boat, the sea, and indeed the god of the sea, he would be unharmed. This particular moment in the story of Taliesin refers to initiatory ordeals of this kind. The full force of its meaning would be lost on someone who did not know this particular fact about the sea at these places, or had never seen these places for himself.

The connexion between our lives, stories, rituals, and consciousness with the land, or more broadly to the triad of the three Œrealmsš of land, sea, and sky, is surely at the heart of paganism, and so this point may well be acknowledged and agreed by those who are "on a Celtic path" yet living elsewhere in the world. But it is important to understand the nature of the Celtic traditionšs connection to the land correctly. Celtic narratives and traditions are not tied to an amorphous, abstract "everywhere" or "anywhere". They are tied to very specific locations. The events of Celtic mythic storytelling are not said to happen in otherworldly places or in times that are somehow outside of history‹they took a place in and around Ireland, Britain, Scotland, Wales, and other areas which were inhabited by Celtic people. Various Neolithic monuments, for instance, older by centuries than the Gaelic-speaking people from whom are descended the modern Irish, were said to be the burial places of gods and heroes, or the entrances to their kingdoms. These otherworld-entrances are real places that can be visited.

The connection between narrative and the land is not a tenuous one. From a purely logical perspective, an event without a place to happen is an absurdity. But more to the point, the place where the events of the story happened is a part of the story itself. There is a definite correlation and correspondence between the act of narrating a story and the affirmation or confirmation of onešs place in the world. To tell a story is also to locate yourself in relation to the characters and localities of the story. We tell mythological stories in order to know who, where, and when we are.

Onešs understanding of the story is incomplete without an experience of places, both where the story happened and the proximity of onešs own place to the places described in the narrative. And onešs experience of a place is enriched by knowledge of the story associated with it. This is possible because onešs experience of the world is articulated and shared with others through the signs and metaphors given systematic unity through narrative storytelling, and additionally this is possible because narrative storytelling is grounded in a pre-understanding of the structure of the world, especially as it appears to perception and consciousness. 

This may seem a bit heavy-handed to readers in Canada and other countries, who canšt travel easily nor can take extended vacations overseas. It may sound as if I am telling them that they are not to practice the spiritual paths that they have chosen because of an accident of nature, the country in which they were born. However, my case for the non-exportability of Celtic paganism is based on direct experience rather than on a cultural definition to do with history, language or ancestry, and that is an important distinction. As such experiences are at this time not available to most people outside of Ireland, I therefore propose the following rule: all those who are on a Celtic path who do not live in a Celtic nation must make a pilgrimmage to an ancient sacred site on the Isle of the Blest or the Isle of the Mighty, at least once in their life.  This pilgrimmage is to last no less than one full cycle of the moon, and is to include one full day and night keeping vigil at one of the heritage sites. 

If the Moslems can make it to Mecca once in their lives, surely we can do the same. I might some day, with the help of other knowledgeable folk, catalogue the sacred sites that overseas pilgrims could choose from.

There is a connexion of spirituality to the land, and Celtic spirituality is connected to this land, the Isle of the Blest (Ireland) and the Isle of the Mighty (United Kingdom). This connectivity can not be exported. I stood on the summit of Knock Na Rae in county Sligo, and there is no way I can covey to you the complete account of what it felt like to be there. Folklorists have found, for instance, that those whose families are followed by a Bean Sidhe do not hear the keening in a foreign country. Sometimes their relatives hear it back in Ireland, announcing the death of a family member overseas, but this is rare. The local spirits are the animated presence of the land itself and therefore they do not travel. Perhaps a good case can be made that the gods are better able to roam the world than the local spirits are. But I have found that their presence is much stronger here than anywhere else, and they communicate with far more clarity. This is their home. I have found that the characters of our sacred storytelling are much more alive in the landscape where the events of their lives actually took place. I did not know that I did not understand them properly until I lived here.

2.

So, what are those who live in other countries to do? What is the situation of someone who is from a Celtic family but not living in a Celtic country? What is the situation of someone drawn to the Celtic path but has no familial or material connection to a Celtic land? The situation is in some sense one of exile. On leaving the home and native land, the exile takes along the stories and songs of the homeland, and certainly keeps her identity as someone from that homeland. I would not cease to be a Celt if I travelled to Botswana or China. But in those places I would find myself in a land where the stories and songs of the land are not my own. I become a stranger, I become one who is displaced. The situation of the offspring of an exile is in some ways even more strange, for the child would grow up in a Celtic family and thus have at least partial access to Celtic traditions (i.e. their access would likely be through only one source, their parents, and not through additional sources like school teachers, GAA coaches, etc.) Yet she would find herself in the situation of being unable to claim the land where she grew up as the land of her people while at the same time being unable to claim the land of her people as her own. The offspring of an exile can make these claims only partially, only tenuously: no matter where she goes, she is at least partially a stranger. As each new generation is born, the distance is greater.

The problem can be overcome in some respect by the creation of new narratives. One should not try to stretch roots that are weak, but one should try to plant new ones. One should live one's life in such a way that it will be memorable enough to form the foundation of a new narrative for a new Druidry in the country where you live!

Those living in countries that have been colonised by Europeans may find that there are stories for certain places already planted in the landscape where they live. In the village where I grew up, in Ontario, there was a story embedded in the place where two rivers that flowed along the bottom of a gorge come together. There were two lovers who were forbidden to marry each other because they came from the same tribe. At the ford of the two rivers, they jumped off the cliff together and died in each otheršs arms. The place has been known ever since then as Loveršs Leap. The Druidry of other countries will not be the same as the Druidry in Ireland, Scotland, and other original Celtic nations; in the same way Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all have unique characteristics in each nation where it exists that overlap partially but not completely with the traditions of other nations where the same religion is practiced. Irish Catholocism is not like Italian Catholocism. Similarly, Irish Druidry will not be the same as Canadian Druidism‹and within Canada, it may be different again from one province or region to the next.

It might be objected that it is wrong to appropriate the stories of another culture as onešs own, even if they are the stories of the land where one lives. Yet there is a story that those from immigrant families may claim as their own and are not appropriated from indigenous cultures, and that is the story of immigration itself. The national history of countries that were built by immigration, such as my Canada, serve this purpose admirably. Canadašs great achievement, and its ongoing unfinished project, has been and remains to bring together as one community people from so many different cultural backgrounds, especially the English, the French, and the Native.

3.

There is an important difference between GT/CR and Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The "great" monotheisms in the Mosaic tradition do not claim to be the spiritual tradition for a particular time, people, or place. These religions claim to be the spiritual truth for all people, all places, and all times. Christ died to redeem the whole world of its sins, so they say, and ressurrected to guarantee the promise of salvation for all humanity. In the intellectual literature of christianity (which I have to study from time to time, given my occupation) this particular point is asserted again and again as one of the most important points of principle that separates Judaism, Christianity, and Islam from "mere" paganism.

As another example: In the autumn of last year a friend and I visited Dun Aengus, which is a very old stone ring fort, located on Arainn Island / Inis Mķr, just off the coast of Galway Bay. This ring fort is perched on a 500-ft. cliff over the Atlantic ocean, and has three rings, not just one, as well as a wide cheveau-de-frise (ring of sharp broken rocks, meant to stop the advances of soldiers on horseback). It's the largest of its kind in Europe. While I was there, someone who looked like a travelling new-age hippy came through, and stood on the central platform where my friend, the other tourists of that day, and I were quietly enjoying the view. She then started intoning letters from the Sanskrit alphabet. My first thought was annoyance: for one thing, everyone there was enjoying the quiet, and for another, Sanskrit is not the language of Ireland's spiritual forces. Then it occurred to me that in Hindu tradition, Sanskrit is the language of the spiritual forces of the whole world. The seeker probably believed that what she was doing was perfectly appropriate, for if Sanskrit is indeed the language of the spiritual forces of the world then it is not a foreign language in Ireland.

The point here is that unlike Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and some Eastern traditions including Hinduism and Buddhism, Paganism is not an universal religion. It does not claim to be the "one true religion" for all time, all places, and all people. This is in fact something of a point of pride for most pagans as well: it is usually thought that universal religions like those ones, because of their principle of universality, invariably involve themselves in the problem of imperialism and colonisation: the evangelical mission to convert others, which can, and frequently does, disrespect the autonomy of individuals and the uniqueness of foreign cultures. In its extreme form, these missions become Inquisitions and Crusades.

By contrast, classical Paganism was the religion of a particular time and place, not meant to be exported, not easily practiced away from the places that figure into its narratives, and modern Paganism claims only to be the religion that is "right for me", as Pagans often say.

The emphasis on the local, the particular, and the specific time and place, at which a certain spiritual path may be found to work, distinct from or even contrary to a path that claims universality, is at the very heart of polytheism. The universal tradition, the tradition that claims to be the path for all places and times, is at the heart of monotheism. To the degree that we are genuinely committed to a non-evangelical religion, the religion cannot travel outside of the physical, social, and environmental contexts and circumstances in which it was created and where it is best suited to serve the spiritual needs and aspirations of the people who practice it. People in Celtic diaspora countries or elsewhere in the world should not claim that their Druidry is an authentic or exact replica of the Druidry of an original Celtic nation, but should claim that their Druidry is the Druidry of their own nation, their own region, or even of their own tribe and clann.

I must qualify this broad statement somewhat. Wicca is sometimes somewhat closer to a universal religion. There is one Goddess for all the world, incorporating into Herself all Goddesses, and one God for all the world, incorporating into Himself all gods. The numerous gods and goddesses of world mythology are claimed to be aspects or avatars of one central deity, The Great Goddess (even the male deities are sometimes claimed to be an aspect of Her) in much the same way that in onešs own life, one may have different ways of behaving in different social company. Like most people, I have a personae which I present as my public face among my family, that is different from the one which I present to friends, which is different again among colleagues at my place of work, and so on. And with regard to sacred geography, although Wicca recognises certain places as being more spiritually potent than others, the Goddess is identified with the planet Earth itself which is common to all. In this respect, Wicca is closer to being a Universal religion than other forms of modern Paganism.

But generally, the contemporary Pagan traditions that derive from the revival of certain cultures, including but not limited to Celtic traditions, are not universal religions. This small and terse point has wide implications that are only now dawning on us.

Could CR / GT some day become a universal religion? In its present form, I think not. The original traditions on which CR / GT is based were never meant for everyone, and the practice of its principles and traditions can never really be complete without also connecting to the language(s) and specific heritage sites in and around which they were first invented. On the one hand, the more strict and disciplined is one's reconstruction, the more vulnerable it is to becoming a certain kind of exclusive racism, or to transforming from a happy intentional community into a deliberatly isolated tribal group attempting to function as an independant military/political unit, as observed by my colleague John Machate. On the other hand, the more compromises and concessions one makes for modern life, the less strong becomes the connection to the Old Ways, and hence the less justification there is to call it traditional Celtic at all.

Could Druidry become a universal religion? Again I am not so sure. But unlike the local spirits of place, which cannot be connected with except at the actual place where they reside, the Gods can be contacted everywhere. Surely Brighid would be less of a Goddess if there were places in the world where She cannot be reached! In this there may be some potential. But there are other problems involved there, which I need to think through still. And one of them, of course, is the very question of why we should even want a universal religion at all.

Cathbad

September 2003