Celtic Landscapes

Land of the soul, earth I tread in hermeneutic trance,
Where the word roams everywhere, marking out shrines;
I walk the acres and gather them into me,
Communing with their memory and emotions,
Following the ancient tracks and paths of the spirit.
I am the man of the crossroads and the ford,
Will o’the wisp over water, churchyard and marsh,
Floating globe of fire and pillar of light.

See the moves upon the chessboard,
And the geomancer marking out the patterns of cities;
If the land is in order, right order will prevail among men,
Peace and plenty will be assured.
Her gods and goddesses enact their cyclic fates;
I am the man of the wild wood and the sacred grove,
I am the red wolf beneath the moon;
The wind in the hilltop grove is a sea of voices,
Prophesying in arcane tongues and riddles;
I am the man of the apple orchard,
To whom the summer’s juices are most sweet;
Always I have the blackthorn and the rose bush;
My word are the many-branching wood of night and day;
I am the traveller who sleeps in the branches
And dreams what dreams the fairies send.

O, Sacred Triad, immanent in all!
All things are threefold, all in process;
I make the invisible visible and honour the souls of places;
Stones, springs, mountains, islands, trees,
I recognize and salute them;
In them are heaven’s mind, inspiration and healing.
Harmony is of me, through me and for me;
The power of making and singing, binding all as one.
The nurtured earth blossoms; flocks and herds prosper;
Fields and orchards bear fruit; good will thrives between men;
The wind breathes joy into all quarters;
Tides ebb and flow; night and day live in each other;
The gyre lifts all in its thrall.
I, the soul’s astronomer, keep vigil by night;
Dragon’s servant, I cleave to the winding path;
Human and animal, mortal and immortal,
I create myself by thought alone,
Flowing with the cosmos, merging with all things.

The first woman was a rowan, the first man an alder,
And at death we enter the trees once again;
All trees are sacred to me, heaven’s rivers of light,
Conducting the lightning of our veins,
Striving ever upward, and rooting downward,
Praying and singing in the elements.
O to see the tree sprout from the seed
And thrust upward, outward, thrive and expand, leaf and bloom,
Cast its seed on the wind, wethaer the seasons, the years, with courage,
Gather its beautiful death, its climax, into itself,
The very order of the cosmos folded into its shape,
Nature and circumstance conspiring its destiny,
Twisting its character to suit the god within.

I see the oak struck by lightning,
The thunderbolt cutting a spiral through its trunk;
Rocks and stones are manna to my fingers,
I read in them the footprints of heroes and gods;
In my rock-hewn throne on the hilltop,
I contemplate and command,
Charged with visions and annunciations,
Transfigured by the circling stars.
My heart is the womb-stone at the world’s centre,
The axis of the universe and all its worlds,
The hearth where the first fire is lit,
From which all other fires are ignited.
I see the sun shining through ice-crystals,
Diffracted into the cross and circle,
And I roll the sun wheel round the heavens.
I am the rocking-stone of heaven and earth,
That speaks when the wind blows across the moon.

Pilgrim on the way, I build a cairn of prayer-stones
Wherever I stop, on the way to the shining mountain;
I read all arts and sciences in the stones of memory,
And cherish the green stones that save men from drowning.
I draw water from the holy wells,
And sleep by the well of secrets with the night sun,
I am the omniscient fish in the well,
Shimmer of iridescence in the darkness.
The sunrise in my eyes makes my skull the well of heroes.
I hear the singing of birds in the weird cave,
The noises of demons and monsters in the woods;
I feel the earth breathing, and the voices of women
Sound like the voices of the dead.
This music in my veins will surely kill me!
Have you glimpsed the Western Isle in the misty sea?
Sometimes at sunset its dark silhouette appears
In a second horizon above the distant waves,
But before anyone can reach it, it is gone