From forasnai@hotmail.com Sun Dec 1 19:40:37 1996

Date: 2 Dec 1996 03:40:35 -000 Sun, 01 Dec 1996 19:40:35 PST

From: "Rudra Mac Cuhmaill" ;forasnai@hotmail.com

To: CELTIC-L@LISTSERV.HEA.IE

Subject: BARGAINS! BARGAINS! STEP RIGHT UP...

 

Now that I have your attention, from the Tom Waits' tune, allow the

appropriate sounds to sing in your ears as I make offering of the following

(yet again, as "nasty is as nasty does" computer hijinks minions wiped out my

first missive...) treasures, or *gTermas* gleaned from my Tibetan Buddhist

trove--with the admonition, too, that I have a "favor" to seek at end, and, in

the words of one of our tradition's favorite sayings, "Always look a gift horse

in the mouth, as otherwise the asshole will do you..."

 

* The John Matthews (b. 1948) book really worth perusing is "The Druid

Sourcebook," forward by Philip Carr-Gomm, Chief of the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids (Blandford, United Kingdom, 1996), especially his wry compilations on what one Algernon Herbert, in 1891, termed the "neo-Druidic heresy." Fromclassical sources he culls Strabo (64 B.C.-21 A.D.) about the high esteem druids were accorded for resolving legal disputes; Diodorus Siculus (21 BC) notes the "Pythagorean doctrine" among the Gauls and how the "Bards" auger by "watching the flight of birds"; that Roman Catholic "founding father" as was fellow noble Roman Augustine of Hippo, in "exile," Clement, from the Greek settlement of Alexandria (Egypt), writing that Pythagoras was "a *hearer* ofthe Galatae [a Celtic Kingdom formed by the remnants of Senone Brennus of Gaul, circa 350 BC, in Bohemia and Asia Minor] and Brahmins [the priests of Vedic India]"; and Cicero, who in "De Divinatiore," I, 41, writes of "Druids in

Gaul," one, Divitiacus, his guest, who claimed "knowledge of nature which the

Greeks call 'physiologia,' [and] by means of conjecture [made] predictions."

 

"Conchubhar son of Neasa was the first to recieve the faith when he heard

from Bacrach the druid that the Jewish people would put Christ to death by

torment...," from "The History of Ireland" by Geoffrey Keating, in Matthews as

"Cormac's Druids," p. 28; Matthews has, too, tales of Deirdre and Naoise, her

"black Irish" picked man, with hair "shining like the raven:crow's" and cheeks

rosy as "calf's blood," complexion "fair as snow," telling as well how the sons

of Conchubar paid with the wrath of Heaven and banishment-in-return for

"blackballing" Naoise and keeping Deirdre to themselves, nost "offensive" to

Brehon Law of Lady's Choice... And Matthews cites "The Book of Invasions" as

noting how the Druids were summoned as honored guests to facillitate conflict

resolution between the Athenians and the Philistines.

 

* Standish James O'Grady, writing of the ancient bards of Ireland: "But

perhaps the most valuable work achieved for Ireland by those ancient shapers of

legend and heroic tales, is like all that is best done in the world, incapable

of being definitely grasped and clearly exhibited. Their best work is probably

hidden in the blood and brain of the race to this day. Those antique singing

men, with their imagined gods and superhuman heroes, breathed into the land and people the gallantry and chivalrousness, the prevailing identity, the love of

action and freedom, the audacity and elevation of thought which, underneath all

rudeness and grotesquerie, characterizes those remnants of their imaginings and

which we believe no intervening centuries have been powerful enough to destroy. Theirs, not the monks, was the *pervidium ingenium Scotorum*,"

from "The History of Ireland; Critical and Philosophical," Vol. 1 (London and Dublin, 1881), pp. 60-61.

 

William Butler Yeats, in 1898 (his "Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems"

released in 1889) wrote O'Grady that he'd "done more than all the others to dig

away the earth that has lain so long on [the] beauty [of the ] miraculous

poetry in all our old legends," from "The Letters of W.B. Yeats," edited by

Allan White (London, 1954), p. 308.

 

* John Matthews has, too, "Elements of the Grail Tradition" (Element Books

Ltd., Unit 25, Longmead, Shaftesbury, Dorset, SP7 8BR; 1990) in which he uses

the following primary sources:

-- "The legends of chivalry are veiled accounts of man's external search for

truth. These beautiful stories are not, however, merely folklore. They are

parts of an orderly tradition, unfolding through the centuries and bearing

witness to a well-organised plan and program. Like the myths of classical

antiquity, the hero tales are sacred rituals belonging to secret Fraternities

perpetuating the esoteric doctrines of antiquity," Manley P. Hall, founder of

the Philosophical Research Society, in "Orders of the Quest; The Holy Grail"

(Los Angeles, 1976);

--"...make a really conscientious study of what external scholarship has to

say, so that one keeps one's feet on the earth and does not get lost in

cloud-cuckoo-land," Rudolph Steiner, "Christ and the Spiritual World, and the

Search for the Holy Grail" (R. Steiner Press, 1963);

-- "Whereas it is one of the glories of [the Grail Tradition] that in its

handling of religious themes, it retranslates them from the language of

imagined facts into a mythological idiom; so that they may be experienced, not

as time-conditioned, but as timeless; telling not of miracles long past, but of

miracles potential within ourselves, here, now, and forever," Joseph Campbell,

"Myths to Live By" (Souveneir Press, 1973);

 

* My personal favorite, the French historian Jean Markale, who prefaces

"Women of the Celts" (Editions Payot, 1972; English translation, Inner

Traditions, 1986) with the following Breton proverb from the Ile de Batz:

 

"Dounoc/h eo kaloun ar merc/ hed /vit ar mor donna euz ar bed"

("The heart of woman is deeper than the deepest sea in the world")

 

He terms the relationship between men and women in comtemporary society "a gigantic swindle...It is much more important to challenge the preposterous

relationship that has existed between men and women for centuries, even

thousands of years, than it is to burble on about 'class war,' because, if we

are successful in demonstrating the swindle (basically the aim of this book),

the whole of western society (including the so-called Marxist societies, which

are mere heresies of the West) stands to lose its basic assumption that 'man is

biologically superior to woman'." (pp.9-10)

 

"So we come to the later Paleolithic period, about 40,000 B.C., when, as

far as we know, man became artist, philosopher and *Homo religiosus* [the first

true human] for the first time." (p. 12)

 

"Here it is necessary to observe that the Celts, as inheritors of

non-patriarchal societies, stood halfway between these and the patriarchal

Indo-European societies other than their own. This fundamental observation is

based on the well-documented knowledge we have of Celtic law, where women

enjoyed privileges that would have made the Roman women of the same period

green with envy. Here was a harmony between the roles of men and women that was not dependent on the superiority of one sex over the other, but on an

equality in which each could feel comfortable. For we must avoid the opposite

error: men should not allow themselves to be dominated by women (even when they deserve it) or society would again be out of balance."(pp. 16-17)

 

"We know that the Celts, like all other Indo-Europeans, came from the

great plains of Central Asia. A very long time ago, some tribes from this

original Indo-European race made their way towards the valleys of the Indus and Ganges and the high plateaux of Iran. In Neolithic times a body of

Indo-Europeans migrated westwards, following the loess of the Asiatic plain,

which extended into Northern Europe--a logical enough route for a population

beginning to live from agriculture and livestock breeding. This settlement was

the result of many waves of migration, as the conditions of life improved and

the population increased. In this way, the first influx of Hellenes arrived

on the shores of the Aegaen Sea from a base probably on the periphery of the

Carpathians. *They were the famous Achaens celebrated in Homeric poems*. At

the same time another group migrated west and south, passing through the Harz

mountain region. The groups continuing west were the Goidels or Gaels, whom we find very early in Ireland, without knowing where else they settled along the

way [*"Gael" came to generically mean "Scot"*] Those going south were the

Italiots, amongst whom were the Osques, Umbrians and Latins, who merged with the existing population on the Italian peninsula. These migrations took place in the middle and late Bronze Age, i.e., from 1500 to 900 B. C.

Archaeologically this corresponds to the culture known as 'Urnfield,' because

of the custom of cremating the dead and placing their ashes in funeral

urns...The Celts were not very numerous: they were hardly more than an

intellectual, warrior elite possessed of certain technigues that enabled them

to dominate the earlier, non-Celtic population, imposing their way of life and

assimilating their predecessors. However, this assimilation was not a one-way

process. Just as the Greeks contributed to the radical transformation of early

Roman society...the ancient populations of Gaul, Britain and Ireland deeply

influenced early Celtic civilization. This explains the important

differences..." (pp. 21-23, in passim)

 

* "The Celtic Consciousness," edited by Robert O'Driscoll (George Braziller,

New York, 1982; copyright Celtic Arts of Canada, 1981) has many divergent

'angles of inspiriation," to auger to speak. Besides providing hints of why

the Roman's under the tyrannos of the Caesars decided to

state-socialist-neo-plutocracy propagandize against the Druids as "too

powerful" and the "other" of which we're sadly left in partially recorded

tales, i.e., his citing of Julius Caesar in "De Bello Gallico," VI, describing

the "nature of the Irish problem," if you will, with "The whole Celtic people

is greatly addicted to religion," a matter ole Julius took upon himself to "do

the right thing" and "disabuse" the Druids and Celts by exterminating them.

For other fascinating glimpses of *hubris* of a *monumental* mis-conceived

nature, see Seutonis, "The Twelve Caesars," as well, in which one will find the

"fits of epilepsy" that struck Julius at "inopportune" public moments--a matter

he blamed on the Druids, of course, seeing them as "vampires" that naive

diplomats like Cicero has invited and found "nothing the matter with, in fact

quite inspiring people.." An accounting of Julius's grand-cuz Caligula and his,

just like Julius, shaking a bony, curled-up-widdle-boy fist at Heaven as a

"last warning" to Jupiter occurs by Seutonis describing--at Capitola, I

believe--ole knock-kneed "Lil Boots' (picture "Lil Abner") ordering the removal

of a statute of Jupiter in the Heavenly King's chapel--at which the statute

starts belly-laughter roaring, causing the minions of Caligula to flee. When

Caligula decides to "do the dirty deed himself" he's knocked flat and

unconscious by a thuderbolt from on high...

 

Too, in memory of Sorly MacLean, this anthology has translation of some of

his poetry, excerpts of which follow:

 

The Sunny Fold/ A/ Bhuaile Ghreine

 

"To my eyes you were Deirdre
beautiful in the sunny cattle-fold
you were MacBride's wife
in her shining beauty.
You were the yellow-haired girl of Cornaig
and the Handsome Fool's Margaret,
Strong Thomas's Una,
Cuchulainn's Eimhir, and Grainne.
You were the one of the thousand ships,
desire of poets and death of heroes,
you were she who took the rest
and the peace from the heart of William Ross,
the Audiart who plagued De Born,
and Maeve of the drinking horns...

...it is my dilemma to seize
in tormented verses the longing
that takes the spirit of sad poets,
to raise and keep as I would like,
direct and well-formed in the poem for you,
old and new and full,
the form and spirit of every beauty:
together in the image of joy,
paen-like, deep, jewel-like,
the acuteness of France and Greece,
the music of Ireland and Scotland."

(pp. 265-267)

 

Now, as to *the favor*. I have a bit of a "background problem," in that I

was involuntarily taken from my natural parents quite young, three or so, and

I've few solid memories or tales to go upon in re-constructing some family

history. One ancestor, Harold Francis McNenny, I remember as my Grandpa Mac; he'd made good (1928) at a prestigious Cleveland, Ohio law firm as a patent attorney and lived in country, blue-blood Scotch Presbyterian splendour in Berea. Now I don't remember but one time supposedly we (my real parents) and I went to visit the McNenny Homestead in Deadwood, South Dakota, where the family scion had supposedly moved, from the Boston Brahmin social circles (he was a lawyer as well), to become the first Federal District Judge in the Wild West (mid to late 1800's) Territory--to try under federal law the punk gangsta who'dshot Wild Bill Hickock, bribed the jury, was acquitted and "laughed and laughed and laughed" about his ill-fame. At the federal trail, my forebearer--not

swayed by offers of casino loot nor threats of violence--properly entered the

"evidence" into the "forum" and, banging his gavel, gruffly said, "Hang him

high." Thereafter becoming known as "The Hanging Judge of Deadwood, South

Dakota." Quite a raconteur, I've heard, in addition, as he took a "fond

shining" to a Lakota Medicine Woman considered "too powerful" by most of her

own and gave her refuge on his ranch. Of course, one can understand that now,

as a result, I'm one-sixteenth Lakota...(Our supposed "family scandal")

 

If anyone has any access to information regarding these McNenny's, who

emigrated out of Northern Ireland and Scotland during the Great Hunger, as well as anything about my natural mother's family, who're French Celts, one branch from Brittainy coming here circa 1800, another, the women, being Bradford's and Henderson's, both darkly beautiful in that classic "black Irish" way, the female equivalent of Deirdre's Naoise, I would be most grateful (on or

off-list; unlike my somewhere relatives I have nothing to hide...)

 

laboremus,Rudra Mac Chumaill,Namgyal Monastery, Dharamsala, India

 

Our Day Will Come...in the meantime, as Gustave Flaubert said

of "la plat a la mode," let us not become "poisoned by the filth

of modern life"

 

When born into a "munus sine missione," a "vir fortis,"

one "gladiatorio animo,"

has only to "recto tibi invictoque moriendum est." (Seneca, "Epistulae," 7.4)

"Wealth that is acquired by proper means in a manner

That harms none will yield both virtue and happiness."

Gurudeva's Vedas, Trikural Verse 754

RUDRA MAC CHUMAILL

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