An experiment
It being my Brighid shift today until dusk, I've been giving a lot of thought to how to approach her in different ways. Something came to mind influenced by Hindu and Buddhist practices of envisioning and then embodying the deity with all its attributes. I thought it would be an interesting experiment, and I invite you to join me in this if you're so inclined.
The practice, as I understand it, begins with the visualization of the deity. Of course, the Celts not being a people particularly inclined to personifying deity until after the Roman period, we have no examples beyond Christian saints of what Brighid might look like. Therefore, I invite you to create that vision with me.
In speaking of her attributes I will take an example from Hinduism and portray her displaying them in many hands, like a string of snapshots of a dance in motion, individual frames of perception portrayed in one moment. Your vision of her may vary, but I will share mine for the moment, with an explanation of the symbolism of what I see.
She is a tall woman, clad in a long tunic of ever-shifting glas, expressing the coming together of the three realms.
Her eyes are piercing as arrows, fire bright -- too bright to see their color.
Her lips are closed, preserving the silence of mysteries too profound to speak.
Her hair is brown like the hazels of wisdom and falls over her shoulder in three braids, each of them braided of three strands for the nine hazels that surround the well of wisdom.
Around her head is the blinding brightness of her wisdom and the hero's blazing ferocity.
Over her shoulders she wears the tugen, the bird-cloak, with the top made of the shining teal necks of mallards and the bottom half the necks of swans and many other birds in many colors. This is the cloak of her bird-shape that gives her flight and carries her in her Otherworld journeys.
In her hands before her, she plays the harp, the instrument of poets and magic, weaving spells and creating the fabric of reality.
Raised in one strong right hand she wields the hammer of the smith, forging her people in creative fire to make them strong and durable.
In her left hand, lowered, she holds a dandelion plant in bloom, root and leaf and bud, her sacred herb and a symbol of healers. Wrapped about this arm is a speckled, ram-horned serpent, the sacred serpent who comes out of the ground on her day, who is poison but does not bite.
Raised above in her left palm is a flame, the spark of imbas within the hearts and minds of her worshippers.
Below, in her right hand she holds a cup that pours forth a stream of water from the well of wisdom, a flowing stream of the senses to quench the burning of her people and temper them for their tasks and that distributes the powers of truth and leadership.
At her right foot is an oystercatcher, a waterbird of white and black and red, who transcends the three realms and dwells within all of them.
At her left side is a white, red-eared cow, giver of milk and butter for purifying warriors and giving plenty to those who work the land.
Her right foot is upon the earth, firm and stable, rooted as a mountain.
Her left foot is poised upon the edge of a cauldron, neither within nor without, neither raw nor cooked, neither raised nor lowered, but between all times and places.
Taking the form of Brighid in our meditation, we become her wisdom, her skill, her grace. We are the poet, the smith, the healer, the warrior, the giver of swift judgment. We breathe her within each of the three cauldrons within our bodies and they burn and spin within us, brewing the mead of poetry. Becoming one with her breath and her soul, we give birth to our poetic power as she is mother and midwife of Gods. At one with her pain at the death of her son, we sing the keening song of the sorrow that death must encompass all that lives. With the serpent upon her arm, we go down into the depths of the earth in winter, only to rise again renewed with the dawning light of spring. With the oystercatcher and her feathered cloak, we rise in flight with her spirit, seeing the world from a new perspective. With her sacred red-eared cow, we give nurturing hospitality to all who seek it.
We hold Brighid within our hearts. We are her hands in the world. We are vessels of her grace.
The practice, as I understand it, begins with the visualization of the deity. Of course, the Celts not being a people particularly inclined to personifying deity until after the Roman period, we have no examples beyond Christian saints of what Brighid might look like. Therefore, I invite you to create that vision with me.
In speaking of her attributes I will take an example from Hinduism and portray her displaying them in many hands, like a string of snapshots of a dance in motion, individual frames of perception portrayed in one moment. Your vision of her may vary, but I will share mine for the moment, with an explanation of the symbolism of what I see.
She is a tall woman, clad in a long tunic of ever-shifting glas, expressing the coming together of the three realms.
Her eyes are piercing as arrows, fire bright -- too bright to see their color.
Her lips are closed, preserving the silence of mysteries too profound to speak.
Her hair is brown like the hazels of wisdom and falls over her shoulder in three braids, each of them braided of three strands for the nine hazels that surround the well of wisdom.
Around her head is the blinding brightness of her wisdom and the hero's blazing ferocity.
Over her shoulders she wears the tugen, the bird-cloak, with the top made of the shining teal necks of mallards and the bottom half the necks of swans and many other birds in many colors. This is the cloak of her bird-shape that gives her flight and carries her in her Otherworld journeys.
In her hands before her, she plays the harp, the instrument of poets and magic, weaving spells and creating the fabric of reality.
Raised in one strong right hand she wields the hammer of the smith, forging her people in creative fire to make them strong and durable.
In her left hand, lowered, she holds a dandelion plant in bloom, root and leaf and bud, her sacred herb and a symbol of healers. Wrapped about this arm is a speckled, ram-horned serpent, the sacred serpent who comes out of the ground on her day, who is poison but does not bite.
Raised above in her left palm is a flame, the spark of imbas within the hearts and minds of her worshippers.
Below, in her right hand she holds a cup that pours forth a stream of water from the well of wisdom, a flowing stream of the senses to quench the burning of her people and temper them for their tasks and that distributes the powers of truth and leadership.
At her right foot is an oystercatcher, a waterbird of white and black and red, who transcends the three realms and dwells within all of them.
At her left side is a white, red-eared cow, giver of milk and butter for purifying warriors and giving plenty to those who work the land.
Her right foot is upon the earth, firm and stable, rooted as a mountain.
Her left foot is poised upon the edge of a cauldron, neither within nor without, neither raw nor cooked, neither raised nor lowered, but between all times and places.
Taking the form of Brighid in our meditation, we become her wisdom, her skill, her grace. We are the poet, the smith, the healer, the warrior, the giver of swift judgment. We breathe her within each of the three cauldrons within our bodies and they burn and spin within us, brewing the mead of poetry. Becoming one with her breath and her soul, we give birth to our poetic power as she is mother and midwife of Gods. At one with her pain at the death of her son, we sing the keening song of the sorrow that death must encompass all that lives. With the serpent upon her arm, we go down into the depths of the earth in winter, only to rise again renewed with the dawning light of spring. With the oystercatcher and her feathered cloak, we rise in flight with her spirit, seeing the world from a new perspective. With her sacred red-eared cow, we give nurturing hospitality to all who seek it.
We hold Brighid within our hearts. We are her hands in the world. We are vessels of her grace.
Well done
Re: Well done
When I was part of a flametending group, I'd visualise her essence kind of enveloping me through the flame as I lit it for my shift. Everything else seemed to develop from there - thoughts, feelings, kennings. Sometimes she was there quite strongly, but always slightly remote. I'm not meant for her, but my time as a flametender helped me a lot in the early days of exploring CR.
I still feel a connection with her, which probably isn't a surprise given her strong presence in Scotland...Mostly I honour her at festivals and when it feels appropriate, though, rather than my personal, everyday devotions.
i love the peek into the way you visualize Brighid. i, too, have visualizations for her (and for each of my Gods); they are different for each of her aspects. i guess i don't have a super-Brighid as you do -- MahaBrighid. ;)
Because we have so few ritual practices that we can point to for certain within CR we do need to look at the potential uses and benefits of techniques from other cultures. Some folks are working with possession techniques from Umbanda. Some are working with yogic techniques. Others are looking at various circumpolar sweat traditions to try to understand what may have been happening with Irish or Gaulish sweat houses. Many people are looking at the sacred poetic traditions of different cultures to understand poetry and prophecy within a Celtic context. And when we look at things like this example of a "deity yoga" for Brighid, we can also consider how visual icon traditions might help us in our task of understanding and approaching deity.
-a man sitting cross-legged on the branches of a tree
-a stag below the tree
-a blackbird on the man´s shoulder
-a silver vessel on his hands, full of water
-a salmon inside the vessel
-the man cracks a nut, eats half of it and gives the other half to the blackbird
-the man takes an apple from the vessel, eats half of it and gives the other half to the stag
-the man sips water from the vessel and so does the salmon inside it
...well, what do you think?
This has me thinking on a tangent I was going on earlier in my own head about personifying one's deity, etc. I'll see if I can flesh this out more.
She is all that....
(Just wandered up links to your main blog to make sure I had the correct spelling of your real world name)
Lovely
Thank you.
Re: Lovely
In some ideas of where the Celts came from, they came from some mountains near India. I have always wondered how much of Hindu systems are carried into Celtic spirituality. They certainly are not one and the same, but some similarities could occur. Perhaps that is why Indian food is the unofficial CR food ;) The atmosphere in Hindu Restaurants is so welcoming to us and our gods, and frankly the food is better!
Have you read J.P. Mallory's In Search of the Indo-Europeans? He covers a lot of the territory about origins and influences there.
*waves hi* This is Karen btw. We met last year when lwood and I were in town for the Nordic knitting festival. I've friended you; hope ya don't mind. :-)