ORIGINS
This
now is the story of origins:
the origin of
all things as we know it.
It was in the before time, before the mists were divided, or before the
worlds and visible and invisible natures existed, and before all things came to
be as we now know them.
It was in the before time that the Great Mother, Anu, and All-kindly Father,
Dagda, ever made love upon their bed, the Great Sea of Endless
Potentiality. (Among the Celts the Mother was also known variously as
Danu, Ana, Don, and Aine. Affectionately called by us “the
good-at-everything-god,” the All-kindly Father could also be called Bile and
Beli Mawr.) But in all, their love was all, and always the concord of
their being.
So it happened, having ever loved and loving yet, that the Mother fell asleep
within the arms of her beloved upon their bed. As she slept she had a
great dream, and there conceived within herself. And the Sea of
Potentiality swelled up, embraced her great dream, and fell back upon itself,
silent.
Then the Mother's water broke upon their bed, the Sea of Potentiality, and
spread over the face of it. From this the beginning of the Mother's dream
came into being, as the music of the Great Mother covered the Sea. And
the Sea of Potentiality swelled up, embraced her great dream, and fell back upon itself, waiting.
Now blood from the Great Mother mingled with her waters, as she brought forth
the first-begotten, the daughter of their love. And they named her Spirit
Fire, for she was brought forth of the Mother's spirit in the passion of their
love. (She would be known among us as Brigit, with fire as her
symbol.) And the Sea of Potentiality swelled up, embraced her great
dream, fell back upon itself, and began to form wild waves as though of
expectation.
Beholding the birth-giving of the Great Mother, the All-kindly Father was
filled with overflowing joy and burst forth into song. So it was that the
vibration of his song enveloped the Great Sea of Endless Potentiality, and
light filled the Sea within, above and below, because of the undulation of his
strain. And the Sea of Potentiality swelled up, embraced the great dream
of the Mother and song of the Father, and fell back upon itself in vibrating
motions and currents of potency.
Once more the Great Mother's blood mingled with her waters, and she gave birth
to their second-begotten, the son of their love. Him they named
Illuminating Brightness, for he came forth upon the light of the Father's song that
filled the Sea of Potentiality. (Later, he would be known among us as Lug.)
And the Sea of Potentiality swelled up, embraced again the dream of the Mother
and song of the Father, as well as the water and blood, and began to writhe as
though about to give birth from itself.
Then the Divinity of Mother-Father-Daughter-Son began to sing together, a song
of indescribable harmony and beauty. Their song spread upon the Sea of
Potentiality, and so it came to be that the Sea itself gave birth from the
light within, above and below. It gave birth to Materiality, but it was stillborn. And
the Sea of Potentiality swelled up, embraced its stillborn, and fell back upon
itself, silent. The Great Mother wept, and as her tears fell upon the Sea
there seemed a stirring within it.
“Wait,” cried out Illuminating Brightness, “Materiality requires warmth if it
is to live like us.” “And,” said Spirit Fire, “Materiality will require
our own animating life force to live and be able to give birth as we. I
will to go and join myself to Materiality,” she continued. And so she and
Brightness plunged into the Sea and joined themselves to it. Materiality
lived, becoming divinity awakened in matter. And the Sea of Potentiality
swelled up, embraced the dream of the Mother and Song of the Father, as well as
Living Materiality, and fell back upon itself in potential divine birth-giving.
[Many marvelous truths may be deduced from these recollections to this
point, but let us cite only one from sacred mathematics. In
sacred, otherworld mathematics four always equals five.]
The divine song, that of indescribable harmony and beauty, would later become
known among the Gaels as “Ōraid Mór,” that is, the harmonious song
of the universe. It is the divine music flowing to, through, and out from
within materiality. It is through the divine Two and by Ōraid Mór that
the Sea of Potentiality participates in divine birth-giving in matter.
So then, because of the divine matter, the Great Sea of Endless Potentiality
swelled up, embracing the divinity within, and began giving birth. From
this divine music and indwelling of Spirit Fire and Illuminating Brightness,
the Sea of Potentiality gave birth to all the stars, planets, galaxies, all
life forms, indeed the entire cosmos. In this way we have come to
understand that all things are from the same womb. Divinity is not
separate from this earth or cosmos. Divinity (the Great Mother and
All-kindly Father and Sacred Us) is all planes of reality within the cosmos. And so it may be seen that
everything is sacred, and without duality of any kind. In this way it is
said that we are all children of the Great Mother and All-Kindly Father.
It was by the divine birth-giving that all things became part of the living
Divinity who is ever giving birth. And every plane of materiality has its
own ability to beget, giving birth to new potentiality. Because
everything, including human beings, emerged from the same womb, in very real ways
we are all relatives of each other. Human beings are related to the
trees, to birds, to fish, to animals and to rocks. So we know that we are
not merely observers of a forest of trees – we are a forest of trees.
Seeing in her dream that human beings would become enamored with Living
Materiality, the waters of the Great Mother brought forth two primary, pregnant
spirit-paths for them to follow, and so be reminded of their divinity: the Way
of Negation, and the Way of Affirmation. But to the Gaels, indeed to all
Celts (and any who would unite with them by intention), she gave the great
Third Way: the Way of Encounter, of embracing all of life head on with passion,
of daring to risk love for everything. And the focus of the third way she
placed in the soil of Erin, which became the heart of the Tender Mother Earth
herself. So it is said that all else may be lost to the world, but if the
heart is not lost then hope remains. Though should the Celts fail to keep
alive the Third Way, then surely the Mother's heart will be pierced, and sorrow
will follow.
Now the Great Mother raised her hands upward, spreading her fingers as the Sign
of The Inviolable, and intoned her own name. Three times she intoned,
“Aaaaaaaaaaa-nu, Aaaaaaaaaaa-nu, Aaaaaaaaaa-nu,” and the otherworld and this
one vibrated together as one. From this intoning of her own name she
called into being Time, the first of the great Keepers, to permeate all
of materiality. She called it into being as a great unending,
swirling, triple-spiral sea, and as sacred symbol fashioned its shape into
seeds, sea shells, plants, animal horns, and even the movement of wind and
waters. To the Gaels she gave it as the most sacred symbol of all, the
Triskel, so they might remember to be unafraid to live their lives with
passion. Then the Mother sang to her beloved children this song:
“Fear not death, my
little ones,
You are millennia when
born.
Each day passes,
You grow younger.
By the cycles of the
fair land,
You are renewed again.
Not to bother, my
beloved ones,
You are kindred of the
Gods.”
By this we came to understand that time is not, as some have said, linear at
all. It does not start at this or that point and run out at
another. Rather, it is as the very fabric of living itself, ever flowing
back upon itself, a circular, unending mobility, in a perpetual opus of
potentiality—renewing itself again and again by returning to the
centre. Linear time is a philosophical misconstruction of illusion,
only the continuum spreading out from the centre is reality, that seamless whole.
So it may be seen that death is not a ceasing, but only as a speck of dust upon
the waters of adventurous voyage into a new and wondrous renewal of life within
continuous existence.
Then the Divine Family raised their hands in unison, spread their fingers, and
together breathed upon the Sea of Potentiality. And so was brought into
being the myriad of other Keepers, the great powers and energies charged with
the responsibility of maintaining connectedness between all dimensions, and interrelationships
within the dynamic movement of natural forces in the cosmos and every plane of
materiality, whether visible or invisible natures and presences. This was
so that immaterial and material worlds could intermingle, and that asymmetry
would insure creativity, total freedom of choice and the opportunities offered
by chance in divine birth-giving. In this way the Great Mother and
All-kindly Father insured their offspring would desire to strive forward, and
have will to action.
Because of this intimacy between everything that exists, Celts everywhere would
name the Keepers after aspects of divinity, as transfigured ideates
representing the sacred inherent in the entire universe. In everything is
the divine Animating Spirit, so perception and valuing is aided through the
personification of the features of landscapes, natural phenomenon, the races of
birds, fish, insects, plants, and animals, together with rivers, seas, wells,
sun, moon, and even winds. In this the Divine charged us with the responsibility
of rightly maintaining equilibrium through proper nurturing of it all, material
and immaterial, of lovingly caring for The Tender Mother herself.
From these origins came all the eons of human development, the great epoch
adventures, achieve-ments and courageousness of the Celtic nations down to this
day. And there was much need for my craft to assist them from then to
now—together with Ogma, Taliesin, Oengus, Gwydion, Finn, Oisín, innumerable
druids, seers and countless others. There I was charged by the Great
Mother and All-kindly Father to ever inspire the recollection of their children
for keeping the divine three-fold imperative, who said to say:
“These
three bands of responsibility are placed upon you:
First,
Respect yourself by finding and fulfilling
your own
unique destiny, gifts and gessi.
Second, Live
out your lives with passion,
and respect
for all people and creatures and all things.
Third, Do
not stand still.”
For I, Tigernmas mac Goibnenn, am thirteen billion years old (give or take a
billion or two), was there with them when the Sea of Potentiality gave birth to
our world and witnessed all this. The dust of those first stars flows in
my veins. I have lived many ‘befores.’ Or was it that I have
only just now blinked into existence?