From: "magistri sapientiae"

-*- Most often overlooked in the glorification of King Arthur and knights clashing steel, indeed, is the mystical notion of Sovereignty. Merlin's warning, as well as his other prophesies (the owl sitting on the tree branch, discoursing as calmly as any philosopher with Arthur out in the Oak Grove's Secret Cottage) all have to do with responsibility: for those familiar with the Ladies of the Fountain tale (Maidens of the Wellsprings), one knows that if you kindly beseech a Lady she may indeed grant the requested boon. For those Saxon 'swine-devils' ala 'Colgrin the Cold Grin of Death'et al, who arrived from the Continent with heads overflowing with tales of these 'magic females' that those oafish Celts just didn't know how to manage properly--shall we say?--why of course they did not hesitate to 'take one's pleasure,' in cahoots with a Vortigern the Collaborator type minor baron providing local access and cover...

One would think that foreseeing the possibility of 'the waters of Love' drying up weighed heavily on Arthur and his knights (hence the Wasteland)--just as Time has recorded the matter did with Fiann Mac Chumaill and the Fenians, a couple of centuries earlier in Ireland,as recorded in their Warrior Protocols...

best,
fidnemed [rudra/tom]

Where Have All the Mystics Gone?...

Date: 21 Nov 1996 08:06:06 -0000
From: ‘Rudra Mac Cuhmaill’; forasnai@hotmail.com
To: CELTIC-L@LISTSERV.HEA.IE

Subject: Re:Celtic...Religion[where have all the mystics gone?]

stitch or two by imbas [forasnai/rudra/tom] to follow...

CELTIC-L@listserv.hea.ie; From: Bette [ ] bette@ISM.NET; Subject: Re: Celtic Take on Religion (Was Re: Scottish Spirituality)
On Mon, 18 Nov 1996, Linda Merle wrote:

the Irish side of my family carries a fairy lineage of its own. And the way it works is that tradition is always regenerated from within. Thus it was not until the previous holders of the lineage died that we were even aware of such a thing, though as someone here said, fairy lore and banshees were a normal part of our culture. When the lineage holder passed, all my siblings and myself were contacted -- Anyone here familiar with RJ Stewart? Linda Merle

Linda-- Please do not take this offlist. Let the rest of us hear this conversation.
Bette

[comments by imbas forasnai/rudra/tom follows:]

Rather than having ‘subjective opinions’ reduced to rubble by bellowing hot blasts of ‘scientific analysis’ these ‘druids,’ referred to disparagingly as ‘human sacrificers,’ were first and foremost philosophers, of an Indo-European common language (quite a bit of similarity between Gaelic and Sanscrit) and heritage. The wisdom tradition, whether literally in ‘oak groves’ or not, was simply about ‘learning to see’ in a metaphorical way; I'm afraid, too, these wild tales of sacrifices and runes and pagan allegedly ‘natural’ superiority simply miss the point and indeed are not accurate, either.

First off, even the merchants from the British East Indies Tea trading company found this ‘simple tale,’ the *Bhagavad-Gita*, one of the 5,000-year-old Vedic texts from ancient Indain civilization, a most fascinating document, and an early (late 1700's, early 1800's) translation was highly revered among the American Transcendentalists like Emerson and Wordsworth (their English fellow Blake, too), who described reading this ‘philosophical battle,’ as it were, as providing a ‘great awakening.’ And that dour ‘old grouch’ Thomas Jefferson was reportedly most impressed by the early approximations.

How the Vedas relate to druids is belief in absolute truths knowable through a ‘seek ye the truth’ process not only ‘verifiable,’ but, too, as shown by the Essene Therapeuts of Moses and the Hebrew Sanhedrin, codified through writings by philosophers like Philo of Alexandria, most certainly ‘teachable.’ The *Bhagavad-Gita* contains one of the most classic definitions of knowledge yet, as ‘accepting the importance of self-realization, and philosophical search for the Absolute Truth’(13.8-12).

Three stages are involved: pratayaksa, empiric sense perception; anumana, theories based upon fact-finding investigations, and sabda, the philosophic reading of Vedic literature training one not in ‘rote-memorization’ but to *hear*, as an individual blossoming into one's own, the ‘ring of Truth.’ (While jokes by Rinpoches:teachers about ding-dong, nobody's home or your clapper is striking dead material are funny, an empiric reality underlies in that the psychic sound of truthfulness rings pure, clear and light--for all yet each in one's own distinctly realized way. To slight this wisdom tradition as ‘non-scientific rubbish’ would not only be most mistaken--as some Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tibetan Buddhist teachers, akin to the olden Celtic Druids, managed and manage to teach this type of ‘wisdom transmission beyond words’ in the exact same way our Celtic predecessors beseeched ‘Sovereignty’ as to ‘what to do,’ and I'm afraid the records of teacher:student encounters that have managed to survive and are even available in ‘public access’ libraries record many wondrous fruitful efforts of some devoted teacher, finally ‘getting lucky’ with a pupil, to be ‘pooh-poohed.’

laboremus,
imbas forasnai [rudra/tom], 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.’

--’Wealth that is acquired by proper means in a manner
That harms none will yield both virtue and happiness.’

To: "ARTHURNET"
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 09:46:41 -0700
From:"rig fenian"

---

I believe that Gildas registers in with the most information; he actually lists a "succession of petty tyrannos" that he blames for the ruin of Britain through vicious infighting--chief among these was a conscious Arthur dissembler who'd misnamed himself "Bear."

One sees through Gildas as well how the Angles and Jutes were even more clever than the Saxons in simply laying low and waiting for the Celts to beat each other up with the separatism so foreign to Arthur's networking.

A quick note about Vortigern from Gildas. His principal nickname was "the Collaborator" in that he consciously enlisted the Saxons (Colgrin the Cold Grin of Death) and the more brutal Vikings to do his dirty work--all the while proclaiming to his people that he just couldn't figure out how those pesky foreigners were getting the best of him. The Druids, including Merlin, were not fooled by him, however, and termed him Vortigern of the Repulsive Lips for the way his lips would curl into a sideways leer and his head nod from side to side (like a snake) as Heavenly Revelations of when his lying began. (The matter was further attributed to his poor choice of his own daughter for wife/consort and his penchant for despoiling the young "well maidens" type that he dangled as "war mbooty" for his invading hench-minions)...Of course Merlin was termed "the Devil himself" for said matter; his patron Uther the Pendragon poisoned in retaliation, too.

The son of Vortigern was primarily responsible for the further betrayal of Celtic Britain (Vortigern et al were Picts of the north, more akin to the Vikings and other "beserkers" than, say, the Irish or Welsh with Brittainy influences); the Druidic nickname for Paschert was "the Schmirker" for the screwed-up look to the lips and crossed-eyes that would grace the countenance of said Paschert when he attempted a look of inside superiority. Gildas reads with astounding insight when one so envisions his depicting of the degradations into tribalism with "the Black Heathen" (the Saxons), the "Yellow Heathen" (Vikings, beserkers), "Red Heathen" (the Picts), etc.

Mea culpa for not responding to the list member who enquired about my source for the "snake pit" demise version of Gueneviere; I've been a bit tied up. The one to consult who really knows her stuff on the matter is my business agent, Mrs. Maxine Hong Kingston, 413 Wheeler Hall, U.C. Berkeley, CA 94720. I'm certain that the source is Marie de France and the court lore of Eleanor of Aquitaine--as Mrs. Kingston is my expert on the theory that de France was a nom de plume for Marie of Champagne, allowing her a "voice" that the court lore of the time would frown into silence otherwise...

best,

Thomas Francis Noonan "Globe of Dharma Enterprises"

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/8501

"Freedom is best, I tell thee true,
Of all things to be won...
Then never live within the bond
of slay-ver-ee, my sonne..."
Olde Scottish verse,
oft sung by William Wallace

THREE answers to Anna Lundin's question:

Actually, that one is not too tough. Both Malory and Geoffrey of Monmouth name Constantine of Cornwall as Arthur's sucessor, and I am not aware of any sources that name anybody else as his sole successor. Of course, if we shift over to more historical sources, it is evident from Gildas that Constantine (who does appear to be firmly historical) was one of many rulers of Britain in the years after the Battle of Badon. -- David Knott
*************************
From: "Linda A. Malcor, PhD" Subject: Re: King after Arthur? Check the archives. We talked about this a while back. The nutshell answer is that it depends on which variant of the legend you are reading. Malory says that Constantine Cadorson was Arthur's heir, but there are almost as many other answers out there are there are retellings of the story of Arthur's death! Linda A. Malcor
********************

From: Alan Baragona Subject: Re: King after Arthur? It's not really that tough, as long as you realize we're talking about literature here, not history. Once you realize that, you just pick the author, look in the work, and see who is named as Arthur's successor, if anyone. For example, in Geoffrey of Monmouth, it's Constantine, the son of Cador of Cornwall. Authors who make Constantine the next king are following Geoffrey or some intervening source. Alan Baragona

--I culled my material from another list, 'Celtic-L,' from last year to supply a bit of hard to find source material; in particular, Jean Markale is not being given a 'fair hearing'...The book *Merlin*, as well as *Women of the Celts*, from Inner Traditions, last year or so, are both intriguing. He speculates, perhaps off the mark a bit, from time to time, but the cultural anthroploogy on which he bases his discourses is extremely well-delineated and described...[at ***, post]

The 'holy' business about the Grail stretches back, primarily, to the Puritans in England, late 1500's; the first real conscious 'revisionism' of Arthurian Britain by the Court Church--in which Arthur became the 'enemy' of Britain (then solidly Anglo-Saxon), Merlin the 'son of the Devil himself,' and the Grail a 'druid superstition' representing the Celt's 'lusting for wealth through alchemical transmutation' (the 'lead into gold' type of 'Faustian bargain' the Elizabethean court playwrights like Marlowe dramatized).

The sources I've quoted describe the Druidic origins of the Grail myth--Joseph Campbell is widely available and the best; Matthews is good, as well...(Campbell, who was married to a very gifted dancer, has wonderful material on The Lady of the Lake, too)

An ironic footnote to history is that William Shakespeare and another poet are believed to have collaborated on an Arthurian play--only to have met formidable resistance in the 'iron fist beneath the velvet glove' of Queen Elizabeth, whose playwrights not lapping out of the palm of her hand like 'good little pat-pat's' were dealt with secretly and severely as 'practicioners in the chapels of Satan' (the Puritans' term for the playhouses, most outside the town limits to escape the Sheriff of London...)

best Holiday wishes and hopes of having helped,
fidnemed/tom

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/8501

[reference material follows; the solid black marks for quotations mea culpa from server/browser transfer...:]

*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 compilationson what one Algernon Herbert, in 1891, termed the “neo-Druidic heresy.” From classical sources he culls Strabo (64 B.C.-21 A.D.) about the high esteem druids were accorded for resolving legal disputes; Diodorus Siculus (21BC) 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* of the Galatae [a Celtic Kingdom formed by the remnants of Senone Brennus ofGaul, circa 350 BC, in Bohemia and Asia Minor] and Brahmins [the priests ofVedic 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”

To: "CELTIC-L@LISTSERV.HEA.IE"
Subject: "Re: One Liners"

Bcc: "TFNOONAN@HOTMAIL.COM"

Date: Sun, 19 Jan 1997 13:14:52 +0000 Reply-To: “CELTIC-L - The Celtic Culture List.” CELTIC-L@listserv.hea.ie Sender: CELTIC-L - The Celtic Culture List. From: Shae [ ]@FORBAIRT.IE

Subject: Re: One Liners

Oscar Wilde--I should have thought of him! One of my favorites is: ‘Some know the price of everything and the value of nothing.’

'I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin'.
Groucho Marx.

Where's the Clan Absurdist?

Shae

[new material by rudra/tom follows:]

--Yes! Re-cov-ery of one's *humour* is most vital...

In the meantime, here's what is known in my Tibetan Buddhist tradition as a ‘Huang-Bo- ism,’ i.e., the stringing together of several shards, or ‘bits of mosaic,’ with the ‘thread’ of sutras:

[Said with regards to the treasonous minions of the Mad Chinese Emperor, such as the ‘Court historian,’ one Han Tse, and his state-propaganda efforts to exterminate by genocide the aforementioned ‘Chinese Buddha,’ old Huang Po, the mountain of the Dharma, and his sad-eyed-as-Hera-the-silken-Doe-eyed-students as ‘that lizard-king-devil and his zombie followers’ of that ‘foreign imperialist religion,’ Buddhism]

Rinpoche makes a sidelong look of disgust, wags a tongue unnaturally stiffened from side to side...

*MIDI music of that cartooney-looney Clem Kadiddle-Hopper kicking feet in the air to dented sounds of a cowbell*

...then shouts, ‘HELLO!...Ding-dong, lights are out and nobody's home! Elevator is stuck in the flood of your basement and never went to the top anyway!’

--Or, how about these ‘hot new websites!’

Fustilugs Anonymous:

http://www.eatshitanddie.org

Where those ‘biddies and baddies oh my!’ in ‘da know’ can ‘tune in and whip it good!’ Current topic of discussion is ‘caught by his own words’ moldy relic William Butler Yeats: ‘Some will ask whether I believe in the actual existence of my circuits of sun and moon...To such a question I can but answer that if sometimes, overwhelmed by miracle as all men must be when in the midst of it, I have taken such periods literally, my reason has soon recovered...’ (quoted in Seamus Heaney's *The Redress of Poetry*, p. 150). The controversy, *plat ala mode*, is over Lady Dorothy Wellesley's description of his ‘splendid laugh’...Was W.B. Yeats, ‘obviously’ a ‘white male patriarchial fascist,’ at the same time a ‘right-wing-spy for the British,’ whose Victorian ‘biddies and baddies,’ exhibiting the proper ‘widdle O’ of the blubbery lips as they ‘whistled while they whupped,’ were notorious for ‘forced kilt inspections’ degrading of political enemies and ‘others’ making chance, off-hand remarks exhibiting a ‘non-comprehension’ of ‘da pogrom,’ i.e., ‘Men are from Mars and women from Venus and Adam and Eve had the wrong idea, honey...’?

Teutonic Society of Closet Nazis

http//www.rubbishasdeywannabe.org

In honor of their founder, the infamous FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover, these ‘mean business’ types are for those seeking, in the words of Czeslaw Milosz, a *razing* resolution to ‘the centuries old mutual hostility between reason, science and science- inspired philosophy on the one hand and poetry on the other.’ Recent finding of note: this ‘Munich mindset’ in the international news is all ‘speculation and hearsay,’ the resounding conclusion ending any further discussions is that this ‘school of thought...never existed except in the deluded mind of the postulator...’

Bardo Non Bard

http://www.twilightzone.com

Presented for your voyeuristic sado-masochism *posing* as pleasure:

Should that ‘stuck-up smartie-pants’ Seamus Heaney and a pregnant woman he's escorting be ‘beat da crap outta youse’ with an aluminum baseball bat for ‘self-admittedly authoring’ the following expression: ‘...it is essential that the vision of reality which poetry offers should be transformative, more than just a printout of the given circumstances of its time and place. The poet who would be most the poet has to attempt an act of writing that outstrips the conditions even as it observes them. The truly creative writer, by interposing his or her perception and expression, will transfigure the conditions and effect thereby what I have been calling *the redress of poetry*. The world is different after it has been read by a Shakespeare or an Emily Dickinson or a Samuel Beckett because it has been augmented by their reading of it.’

Vote as ‘many times necessary’ to stack and slant! Website links to learn how to get ‘gringo greenbacks’ as part of the U.S. Gov't. ‘finks and humps, inc.’ while you're ‘doing it!’

[onam cara, rudra/joey frank/tom]

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