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This is going to be a wild rambling thread with several loose ends and red herrings (if I do it properly!). Triggered by Michael’s post which I hope it will ultimately reinforce but which I don’t want to pollute by attaching these as follow-on comments.
Anyway, first comment: Brigit (the Celtic Goddess) was Aengus’ half sister (both children of the Dagda).
I reproduce below Yeats’ Song of Wandering Aengus because you can never read it too many times, because Aengus was clearly a proto-quester and because it brings me back to my early Ray Bradbury/ sci-fi days. More later…
THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS
by: W.B. Yeats
I WENT out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.I used to know that poem by heart; it’s the only Yeats I know, I just loved it when I first read it, so thanks for that. I had no idea that it might be referencing Celtic mythology, which I still know precious little about so I wont attempt to comment on it.
Celtic-Gnostic connections, hmm. It is thought that the early Celtic church had stronger links to the Egyptian church than to the western Latin church, and Gnosticism was apparently strong in Egypt (it’s where almost all of our surviving Gnostic texts come from, though they were originally written in Greek rather than Coptic). I believe that Gnosticism was deeply influenced by Egyptian ideas, as was hermeticism. We also know that the Apocryphon of John and other texts were known in Celtic Gaul, as Irenaus of Lyons wrote about them around 180 C.E.
I went to the Cygnus Day event in Glastonbury yesterday, and together with your posts it has sparked a few thoughts about Brigid:
a) I was wondering whether Brigid’s patronage of smithcraft links her with meteoritic iron, which would help to confirm her own stellar connection, and perhaps connect her with Egypt where meteoritic iron (bja) is known to have been important.
b) My understanding is that smiths are regarded as ‘magical’, smithcraft having an almost alchemical importance, which may relate to your comment that the swan is a symbol of the whitening process in alchemy.
c) Andew Collins argues that Brigid was a cosmic mother associated with the Milky Way and with Cygnus, and I argue that the Gnostic cosmic-mother Barbelo was also linked to the MilkyWay. As Barbelo is the cosmic mother of Christ in the Pleroma, this might help make sense of the odd Gaelic legend that AC mentions in which Brigid is the mother of Christ.
d) In connection with (c), the nativity panel of the Franks Casket shows the three Magi approaching the madonna and child. Between the figures of the Magi and the child, facing the child, is a bird. From its similarity to the birds in the Weyland scene I would guess that it is a swan.
e) In the meditation that closed Cygnus Day we voyaged up the Milky Way to Cygnus X-3, where we asked Brigid for ‘something’. She gave me a three-armed St. Brigid’s cross and a tablet with the three-hares on. OK, so they are symbols already in my head (and AC had earlier talked about the three-armed cross being related to the ‘bird’s-foot’ mark of Brigid), but I think I ought to take this seriously. Apart from the triple-ness of Brigid, it made me wonder if the three-hares are related to the triple-spiral pattern in Newgrange, which someone had suggested was also related to the primordial sound of AUM which traditionally has three elements (which resonate in three different parts of the body when you chant it, starting from the diaphram, then into the chest, and finally vibrating in the head; there is a fourth element, which is the silence after the sound. I can recommend giving it a try). We now know that there is a link between Newgrange and Cygnus, and between the swan/Sawaswati and AUM. And some think AUM became Amen in Hebrew, and perhaps Amun in Egypt.
I think that’s my lunch hour nearly gone, I’d better eat now.
Michael
Hi Michael,
You’ve totally pre-empted where I was going with this
“At various points throughout the Trimorphic Protennoia, the triple descent of Protennoia and the various forms in which she appears, namely as Voice, Speech and Word, are interpreted by means of concepts which are drawn from the Sethian baptismal terminology: the Voice is said to be the unpolluted spring from which flows Living Water, characterized as radiant light.” (Parzifal’s Blog: [url:2szi2dhg]http://parzifal.wordpress.com/2006/10/18/ritual-in-gnosticism[/url]).As mentioned, two of Brigit’s main characteristics are (1) association with Holy Wells (=living water) and (2) a constantly burning fire (=radiant light).
I would also point to “The Thunder, Perfect Mind” for more of the same (For I am the first and the last/I am the honored one and the scorned one/
I am the whore and the holy one/I am the wife and the virgin) but you’ve nailed it with Barbelo.With regards Godfrey de Bouillon (descendant of the Swan Knight), he is one of the nine worthies – and wasn’t it the picture of the nine worthies in Harvington Hall that led Andy and Graham to the knight’s Pool and the Swan’s neck? How’s that for a neat bit of symmetry?
But getting back to Yeats, as a schoolchild in Ireland you get so much of it pushed at you that you tend to form an instinctive aversion to it. I must say that I’ve been getting back into the poems a lot – and of course he was involved in magic up to his eyes. He and his wife produced a book (“A Vision”) based primarily on automtic writing and it’s from this that the poem of Leda and the Swan comes.
“A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs,
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?”In fact this was originally entitled “annunciation” and Yeats in his “Dove or Swan” section sees the past two cycles (or “gyres”) as being the old paganism where Zeus in the form of a swan rapes Leda (a kind of brutal annunciation) and the more recent being the age of Christianity where the annunciation is a far more gentle one but still accompanied by a bird (the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove). He thus contrasts the Dove (Christian) with the Swan (Pagan). For the future he predicts the return of Paganism – see his cracking poem “A Second Coming”. If you don’t know it, you’ll certainly recognise many of the lines as they are oft-quoted.
So I wonder does the swan in Gnostic writing represents the Christian divine light or the pagan divine light on the dark waters?
(And as for the concept of primal light – there’s a whole other thread!)
Cheers Simon, you’ve given me plenty to chew on.
The article on Parzifal’s Blog (which looks like a serious breech of Dr John Turner’s copyright, so I’ll print it before it gets taken down) is fascinating so far, haven’t been able to read it all yet.
I like your parallel between Brigid’s water and fire connections, and Barbelo’s water and light connections. It reminds me that I read in the online Jewish Encyclopedia that the Milky Way was known in Hebrew as the “Fire-Stream”.
This makes me think of baptism by the Holy Spirit and by fire (as in Matthew 3:11). I think it might be significant that John baptized in the Jordan, wondering whether the Jordan might have been seen as Palestine’s terrestrial counterpart to the Milky Way.
Christian divine-light or pagan divine-light? I don’t know, do they have to be different? The Gnostic texts are a heady mix of pagan, Jewish and Christian, philosophy and mythology. You could go mad getting your head around them; I’m already starting to froth at the mouth – perhaps it’s the onset of enlightenment?
I’ll have to read some more Yeats, I liked the annunciation poem. By the way, was Yeats in the Golden Dawn?
Cheers,
Michael
Ok – here’s another thread to weave into the Christian/Celtic fabric and this relates to my current mini-quest involving a “lost” St Anne’s well (see my “Well, well” forum post).
For this I am going to quote extensively from a book called “Where Three Streams Meet” by Seán Ó Duinn but I hope you will excuse my laziness and see how it hooks into the Brigit/Christian thread and possibly beyond!
Firstly, Ó Duinn looks at the name of the race who inhabited Ireland before the Celts, the Tuatha Dé Danann:
“The Tuatha Dé Danann…are the ancient goddesses and gods of the Celts of Ireland. But there may be among them older divinities from the megalithic period. While Celtic names such as An Daghdha (the good God), Aonghus Óg, An Bhóinn, Midhir, Manannán Mac Lir, Eithne, and others cluster around Brú no Bóinne, Newgrange itself was constructed thousands of years before the Celts arrived in Ireland. Did the Celtic gods and goddesses take over the sanctuaries of the megalithic peoples as acts of conquest, or was there a blending of different cultures – megalithic, bronze age and Celtic? This would seem to be what happened and perhaps the different peoples had many religious ideas in common…it seems from the folklore traditions…that the dead were also involved with the Tuatha Dé Danann.” (p. 60-61)
“The name Tuatha Dé Danann or Tuatha Dé Anann (Peoples of the Goddess D/Ana) is derived from Dana or Ana. The “D” of Dé may have come over in front of “Ana” to make it “Dana” for ease of pronunciation. Ana is the word for prosperity/fertility and “Ana” is the name of the Goddess of fertility.” (p. 55-56)
So from this it appears that Ana may be one of the “old goddesses” who was most associated with the province of Munster in Ireland. Another variant of the name that I will quote below is Anu which is interestingly the same as the old Sumerian God. Zeachariah Sitchin makes the connection between Anu and Ana, having them husband and wife. Perhaps it is merely the continuing influence of the ghost of great-uncle Myles
but I can’t help wondering about the linguistic similarities between the old Gaelic and Sanskrit words.Some unusual overlaps are then seen to happen (in the merging of the religions mentioned above). Ana becomes the Christianised St Anne, while the goddess Brigit becomes St Brigid. Another, separate(?) goddess, Áine, seems to act as a bridge between Ana and Brigit. Lets look again at what Ó Duinn says:
“Behind the ritual was the belief that Áine returned annually on the holy night [St John's Eve/Summer Solstice/23rd June] to celebrate her own rites. This belief also formed a major part of the cult of St Brigid…The regular, annual return of a saint from heaven to earth on his/her feast day does not seem to be part of the ordinary catholic tradition. In the case of St Brigid, it would appear that this was one of the characteristics of the goddess Brigid which descended to Brigid the saint on analogy with the annual return of Áine.” (p. 62)
This common archetype is also glimpsed in an old Gaelic Christian prayer which is summed up as follows:
“Another night prayer is concerned with disturbed sleep and puts the cross of Christ and the three holy women [St Anne, the Virgin Mary and St Elizabeth] as a protection against nightmare. These same three women
are invoked for a safe childbirth and this may have been the original situation for these three had unusual births. Mary was a virgin and Anne and Elizabeth were barren.” (p. 165)And finally, we have another connection between Ana and Brigit:
“Brittany is a Celtic country rich in ‘Pardons’ – local colourful pilgramages in honour of St Anne, Patroness of Brittany, the Virgin Mary and numerous local saints. It is surprising how many of these occur during the strictly Lughnasa period – from the third Sunday in July to the first Sunday of August…the Pardon of St Anne d’Auray takes place around her feastday on 26 July while that of Ste-Anne-la-Palud takes place later on the last Sunday of August.
It is thought that both places were probably pre-Christian cult centres of the Celtic goddess Anu…/Ana…who was assimilated to the figure of St Anne by early Christian missionaries.” (p. 322)Bearing in mind that Brittany is probaly named after Bree (the suggested root of Brigit) there seems to be an ancient tradition linking the two goddesses.
in summary, then, it seems that on good authority we can draw a parallel evolution between Ana and Bree and see a great deal of equivalence between them:
Pre-Celtic -> Celtic -> Christian
Ana -> (Aine?) -> St Anne
Bree -> Brigit -> St BrigidForgot to add this to my post above:
“I’m closer to the Golden Dawn
Immersed in Crowley’s uniform
Of imagery”
- David Bowie, QuicksandYeats was a member of the Golden Dawn alright until the internal bickering, which seems to have been so much a part of the movement, forced a split within the organisation. Crowley and Mathers, having both been members of the same clique within the Golden Dawn, fell out spectacularly after their attempt to gain control of the organisation failed. Both were expelled and while Crowley went his own way Mathers tried to establish a rival to the Golden Dawn called the “Order of the Alpha et Omega”. Yeats and Waite renamed their remaining portion of the original Golden Dawn “The Order of the Independent and Rectified Rite”. This itself split within a short time branching into “Stella Matutina” (which contained Yeats) and Waite’s group who later renamed themselves “The Fellowship of the Rosy Cross”.
There are some good summaries of this sequence on the web although I haven’t seen a family tree which would be the best way to present the series of splits.
Here are a couple of the better links:
[url:a63pwxrn]http://www.controverscial.com/Arthur%20Edward%20Waite.htm[/url]
[url:a63pwxrn]http://www.self-initiation.com/historyofthegoldendawn[/url]Funnily enough I had that Bowie song playing on my CD alarm all last week!
Thanks for confirming Yeats’s membership of the Golden Dawn. I’ve got a book somewhere in the cellar (“Modern Ritual Magic” by Francis King, a good book but ages since I’ve read it) with a good history of the Golden Dawn, its successors and influences. If I recall correctly, by the time Israel Regardie joined the Stella Matutina people seemed more concerned with gaining impressive sounding ranks and titles than they did with actually working the grades, influencing his decision to break the secrecy and publish all the material.
All the in-fighting and back-biting was such a shame, there is something quite beautiful about the Golden Dawn. It seems to be a problem that afflicts any form of organisation, but really the members of the GD should have been above that sort of thing. You could say the same thing about similar problems in mainstream religions.
“Inheritor of a Dying World, we call Thee to the Living Beauty.
Wanderer in the Wild Darkness, we call Thee to the Gentle Light.
Long hast Thou dwelt in Darkness. Quit the Night and seek the Day.”
-Golden Dawn Neophyte Ritual.Hi Michael,
The in-fighting within the ever-smaller splinter groups brings to mind the quote attributed to Kissinger: “There is no politics quite as vicious as academic politics . . . because in academia there is so little at stake!”
However, in their defence, the legacy of the Golden Dawn has been profound – not least its influence on Yeats’ poetry. Apart form the Bowie song, the Golden Dawn ritual you quoted reminds me of some Jim Morrison/Doors lyrics:
“Take a journey to the bright midnight
End of the night
End of the nightRealms of bliss
Realms of light
Some are born to sweet delight
Some are born to sweet delight
Some are born to the endless night”
- End of the Night“The Negroes in the forest brightly feathered
They are saying, “Forget the night.
Live with us in forests of azure.”
…
I’ll tell you this
No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn”
- The Wasp (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)Cheers,
Simon
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