Urban Pagan: Liminal Days in the City

 

The Threshold of Winter

In my class on Urban Paganism, for the Irish Pagan School*, I talk about how the city - all cities, all villages and communities - have their own liminal days. Just as we see the passing of the seasons in the countryside, mark the advent of Spring by the unfurling of buds or the onset of winter by the cascading leaves, we can see the "seasons" of the city as we travel through the year.

Right now, over the last few weeks, we see one of the most powerful liminal times in city life. As the first blush of russet and orange spreads across the parks and hedges, in the city centre and the leafy suburbs alike, the billboards change from "Summer fun," to "Back to School." As August ticks past, we cling to the precious moments of freedom. Kids live in the moment, the Summer holidays are endless when you are young and the threat of classrooms and uniforms seems unreal. But parents know, oh we know! Part of us welcomes the structure of the school year and - if you are like me, and hate routine, perhaps you dread it as much as any child. 

We live in a kind of bubble over the whole of June, July and August. The length and timing of your school break may vary, but the emotions remain universal. The great promise of the holidays yields inevitably to the reality of juggling work and kids and weather and costs and time online versus time outside, until lack of structure becomes routine. But all the while, lurking behind these sometimes halcyon and sometimes fraught, long days and endless Irish twilights, September lies in wait. It will get us all, no matter how far we travel or how many poolside, sunscreen filled, ham and crisp sandwiches on picnics we provide.

The traditional first day of Autumn in Ireland has always been August 1st. The Irish for September is Mean Fomhair, Mid Autumn. But ah, the real moment we cross from Summer to Autumn is the day we go shopping for school shoes, grey trousers, navy tracksuits and A4 sized, hardback copies. This, more than any ripening of blackberries or fading of flowers, marks the moment we admit that the year is turning, the cold and dark are approaching and there will come a morning when we lay out the prescribed garments of the student, the sturdy and boring shoes of knowledge and the constricting tie of education. The endless quest for school lunch ideas brings us back, inexorably, into the clutches of the coming term.

But like any liminal moment, there is light as well as dark. They stand on the threshold of new experiences, of worlds opening up, of teams and matches and projects and the swings and roundabouts of friend groups and drama. They will emerge from this school year transformed, as they do every year, butterflies opening wings to the cheerful sun, eyes bright with new understanding, one step closer to adulthood. There are mid-term breaks, Halloween parties, Christmas and Easter and sports and art to break the year. 

And the whole city feels it, the old and young, the childfree and the child-rearing alike. The opening of the schools changes everything around us. Traffic patterns change as parents turn chauffeurs and bike lanes are filled with giddy wheelies and the lethal whirr of e-scooters. The pulse of the city quickens again between seven and nine in the morning, and those who live near schools steel themselves against the daily battle for parking in the afternoon. The shopping centres are emptier, the gangly teenaged giggle-fest moving to the weekends. Cinemas are once again the privileged ground of the retiree for matinees and coffee shops find half the tables available now that six teens no longer huddle over one diet coke and a packet of Tayto crisps for the morning.

As the shopkeepers put out "Treats" and spooky decor, and there is talk of wrapping paper and stocking fillers, we cross the border into Winter, into the magic at the heart of Samhain and the hopeful renewal of the solstice. We put on a different attitude, with the warm jacket and scarf. The first hint of all this comes with the packing of the schoolbag, the search for lunchboxes and pencil cases. Over the next few weeks we become citizens of a different place, haunting the playing fields of the GAA or the waiting rooms of dance and music classes, walking through a city that replaces the bright sunshine with twinkling lights and gaudy baubles, and where the sweep of headlights reflects our passing in puddles and shopwindows. 

Step now across the line, while the city stirs itself. Mark the signs of this great movement, make altars to the passing gods of School and Work and rejoice, for the city knows how to shelter us in Winter, as well as in Summer.

* Irish Pagan School, All Courses 

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Joy and Folkmagic - the missing ingredient

 

Further to some great discussions recently about folk magic traditions and their role in community building (both historically and in this fractured present) I wanted to share a few thoughts on joy and humour in folk magic. And in spirituality, in our relationship with our inner sacred landscapes and our deities.

For many people, trying to reconnect to their indigenous folk traditions, or trying to connect to those of their ancestors/those that call to them from another culture, can be a long and difficult path. If undertaken with respect and commitment this is necessary. Learning history, lore, traditions takes time and study. Without this you're just dressing up UPG in the trappings of a culture.

But it's also important to remember that the real daily practice of these traditions wasn't some dry, academic pursuit. In fact if we examine the many examples of folk magic in Irish folk lore, they often centre on particular liminal days especially the festivals inherited from our pre-Christian and early medieval past. Imbolc, Bealtaine, Lughnasadh and Samhain all have some common traditions and some unique to each, but part of the commonality is the way that magical practices were framed in the context of "play." They are often communal (e.g. building bonfires, telling fortunes by the fireside, Funerary games) and they involve teasing, humour, fun, laughter and joy. They are designed to invoke pleasurably mixed feelings of excitement, embarrassment, happiness. 

With funerary traditions, they were noticeable for bringing laughter into that most serious of events, Death. This was not some kind of disrespect towards the dead but rather a kindness towards the living. It distracted from grief, and at the same time, shielded the private grief of the family under a mask of public raucousness. It was often misunderstood by authorities both clerical and political, and the Irish wake was castigated for its lack of decorum, yet it remains one of the best psychological blueprints for healthy grieving. 

Whether seeking connection to deity, the Ancestors or the archetypes in the Otherworld, it is important to retain a sense of warmth and joy. Our gods, and our ancestors are not dry and intellectual concepts, but full of nuance. Their accessibility to us is something to treasure. They too demonstrate humour, and from the literature we know they took joy in ordinary life, in connections, in love and alleviated times of pain with music and joy.

In Draíocht Ceoil, the very nature of the tradition with its emphasis on music, singing and performance lends itself to joyous practice. Not only that but the legacy of the Filí (poets) with their elaborate word play and use of rich poetic forms for magical and mundane uses is impossible to separate from a joyful, vibrant sense of the power of sound energy. One of the three strains of magical music is Geantraí, the music of joy. 

All the careful study of musicology, of sound, of the affect of music on the brain or of the Old Irish poetic forms becomes mere ashes unless fueled and tempered by a love of music and words, by joy in their power. No great musical talent is necessary - we need to overcome self consciousness and raise our voices with pleasure. We need to let words resonate, roll them off our tongues, savour them. We need to invite joy into our practice.

It's the missing ingredient, and it's pure magic. 

Draíocht Ceoil, The Sound of Magic in Irish Traditions will be published by MOON books, date to be announced.

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Mael Bridge "A Brigit of Ireland Devotional" BOOK LAUNCH - I'll be reading #poetry at it #booklaunch #pagan #bridget #spirituality

 

“A Bridget of Ireland Devotional”

Join me at a FREE online Book Launch; a community celebration of Poetry and Devotional works I will be reading poetry tomorrow night Saturday 28th 9pm Irish Time (1pm Pacific Time) To celebrate the launch of Mael Bridge’s long awaited book, A Bridget of Ireland Devotional,” You are welcome to join us on 28 August from 1:00-2:30 PM Pacific Time (starts 9:00 PM Irish Time) for poetry, prayer, & song. To receive a Zoom link on the day, you will need to register (see link below), or you can watch on Facebook Live on my Page, Brigit's Portal. REGISTER to attend via Zoom. https://www.tickettailor.com/events/sunamongstars/556582 BRIGIT'S PORTAL to watch on Facebook (live or later). https://www.facebook.com/BrigitsPortal I am very much looking forward to seeing how our joint celebration unfolds. Brigit's blessings.

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Glowing Heart of Spirit

It surprised me to see
Spirit imprisoned.
We stood in the great space
the sacred place of Rome
watching the awe on the faces
of tourists and pilgrims;
and I looked up at Spirit
and wondered, what did she think
of it all?

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Solstice

Solstice is an event often represented among pagans as part of some wiccan calendar wheel or as a kind of national Djembe festival. This poem springs from an attempt to express the moment of Solstice both as an astronomical event and as a spiritual one. The suspended moment provides opportunity; the place, Royal Tara, provides the Brí and Bua - the accompanying energy and context for any moment of spiritual intensity. Unlike other poems I have written, which are flights of imagination, this like "Dowsing" is a real event recounted in poetic language; an inversion of reality and imagination.


Solstice


1.
Circular
these are the paths we walk
Spiral.

I turn inwards
following the threads
of a rambling thought
in the still-dark of dawn.
Once familiar shapes now
loom, catching me
unawares; opening my eyes
to their true nature
immutable, inscrutable;
more, suddenly, than the
gentle mounds, motherly breasts
undulations of Tara
I turn again
disoriented, in my own land.

II.

I am shaken
my presumption is revealed.
How I have said before
I know these things
I who missed the stark pride
of Lia Fail; the cool aching
slope of the mound?
I who was used to run
over the edge
of what this new light shows
to be a chasm?
Dizzying heights and depths
spinning in infinity

III.

I sink into knee-high grass
my senses filled, my eyes
dazed. The light eats sky
til only day remains.
the veil has descended
as the dark recedes
and all around me-
familiar terrain, well loved
tracks, the geography of
Tara reasserts itself.
But I have glimpsed
an inner scheme; overlaid
the landscape of my soul
with the bones of this place.
I walk the spiral
from the Royal mound
to Eireann; in the bowels
of the earthworks, on the edge
of the ramparts
marvelling.

IV.
As the full day blossoms
smiling on a motley group
of locals, pagans,
lost drunks and tourists
drums and voices raised
I struggle to reconcile
an eternal moment
an internal moment
with the careless gaiety
of an Irish feile in summer
that heartbreaking suspension
simultaneous dwelling
that - to me -
is Solstice.


Geraldine Moorkens Byrne 2006

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The Murder Of Cliona

Written for the "Emergency Edition" of the PPP last year; the Murder of CLiona refers both to our lack of respect and blindness to our destruction of the environment and to our strangulation of spirit, and thought, in our rather greedy modernity.
This is a companion piece to Cliona of the Ninth Wave which also references destruction and survival.

The Murder of Cliona

Cliona sits by the shore
Singing songs of love and loss
Like any underdressed lady of the sea;
passing as one of them, the myths and nymphs
Brushing hair with comb and bone
While all the time, counting waves.

The Ninth one is still hers. She yet
rides the horses of the surf
And Mannanán calls her from the west;
It would be best to return
not wait and hide and hope
for cornucopias of adoration

But she clings on still, a languid
survivor on a rock.
Connla calls by, Sinnan at his side;
they have long ago given up on us,
our ways beyond the
comprehension of mere gods.

They beg her, leave. Come with us
Into the glittering sunsets, into the
Land of Promises. Leave behind
the heartbreak of rejection. Sing with us
once more, don’t let them
poison you here, where you sit.

It’s true her hair is dull
her eyes are swollen and her lips
chaffed. O! mortals, you are killing
Her, killing Cliona of the Ninth Wave.
And yet she sits and waits,
Refusing to drown her hope.


Geraldine Moorkens Byrne

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Gods seen through splinters

This is an attempt to express both the nature of the Gods, through imagery and the impossibility of fully descibing them.

Gods seen through splinters

Aengus Óg is a wisp of red silk

 on a tablecloth of crocheted lace 

 with sparkling champagne in elegant flutes 

Morrigan is a stain of Rowan

 berries crushed blood-red into virgin snow

 by the outspread wing of a fallen crow

Áine is the burnished glow

 of a golden vessel on a marble hearth,

 reflecting the embered glow of the fire 

Cliona is the the taste of salt 

 on a breeze that whips up from the west 

 at twilight on a summers eve 

Chrom Dubh is the rocky outcrop

 on the hill above Lough Dan

 where froaghaon berries grow late under a pale blue sky

Dagda is the Waterfall 

 the silent noise of power 

 the inexorable progress of gravity 

Dana is the soft springy moss 

 between children's toes on a turf-grown plain 

 bog-cotton gaily growing amid rough grasses 

Mannanán is the slice of reeds on sand dunes

 unexpected sharpness against the bleached white

 of shells and bones and smooth round stones. 

 Geraldine Moorkens Byrne

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Ancestor

This was written in 2005 for a friend who requested a prayer suitable for a remembrance ceremony. Along with Lower Me Down (in the Where The Hazel Falls anthology) this was read at the funerary service. Since then it has been used several times.

Ancestor

If I should die tonight
and my bones laid in the earth
would my voice not be the wind
and the sun my smile?
I am the blood in your veins;
all the lives I have lived
have been, in this way,
transmuted to new life
flowing from your heart to mine.
I am the beat of the Bodhrán
and the touch of the line on water
I am the thought unbidden
the instinct that springs -
If you listen not to me,
then you ignore yourself,
and silence your own voice.
I am the string plucked,
the note quivering
the dream sung by voices
you remember from your cradle.
I am the silent watch of the nights
and the first breath of morning
because you carry me always in your heart

Geraldine Moorkens Byrne

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