| Page 2 Tripple Goddess Each goddess in this triad has her role to play in our existence; with her we come to be and are sustained in the midst of life. With her we also pass out of existence. Anu is the goddess of sustenance, nurture and abundance. She is sometimes thought of as the mother of the gods, and as such she is an ancient manifestation of the divine feminine in Celtic mysticism, perhaps even pre-dating her first appearance in Ireland. She is the source of our existence; thought of in terms of our coming out of the darkness into the light at a spring, a cave, a lake, or from out of the sea itself. Go to the sea in your imagination. Imagine standing on a beach, seeing all of the evidence of organic life being washed up out of the surf; dead jellyfish, seashells, strands of seaweed, and so forth. Go to a spring in your imagination and feel the holy power of her presence. Here the gods are born and go downstream. We path back up the stream to its source too late for an encounter, yet echoes of this event survive in the loric patterns of the place. Go to a cave in your imagination. Enter it. Feel the darkness encompass you and know that it is out of the dark that you have come and that, regardless of what one might believe about the Otherworld and an afterlife, to the darkness we will return. The cave is like the womb and the tomb. Such dark places can be both nurturing and frightening. It is the mystery behind and within all things that sustains us; Anu symbolizes this primal experience. Once we emerge from the darkness, we must be sustained, and here Anu also comes into play, for she is associated with the cattle that have long been valued among Celtic people. She nurtures us with her milk; a symbol of sublime sustenance in life. Her role as nurturer may be deduced from the fact that in County Kerry, Ireland, there are two hills known widely as The Paps of Anu. We go to her when we need ‘fed;�?when we need to tap into the primal energies behind and within everything. Once we re-connect with her, we experience again the abundance of life and its inner vitality. Danu is a goddess of movement, tides and process. Everything connected with water and everything that water symbolizes for human beings; their survival, refreshment and pleasure �?is the domain of Danu. Not the sourcing nature of springs and the sea, but the flux and flow of existence, the movement of the blood within our veins and the movement of energy through synapses in our brains. She is goddess of rivers and streams. Her name is plausibly connected with the Danube River, along whose banks Celtic tuatha originally dwelt in central Europe. The Tuatha Dé Danann (“People of Danu�? may have been a court of gods & goddesses connected with Danu in earlier times. Go to a moving body of water in your imagination. Feel its power; sense the rhythms of its current, manifold and intermingled like a Celtic rope design, moving downstream from some source in the hills or mountains. This movement is our life; it is our process �?change, growth, transformation �?from birth until death. We are constantly in flux; nothing stands still in life for very long. ‘Stillness�?is only an ultimate ideal in patriarchal, earth-hating religions that try to get us out of our bodies and flee the flux. For the Celts, however, the flux and flow is what life is all about. While we need places to rest and be still for a while, there is no virtue in ultimately stopping the movement that we are. Walk down to the river or stream. Feel the vibrations in the stone and dirt beneath your feet, caused by the hum or clamor of the water flowing. This is your life; we are all a response to the movement of the cosmos �?we are watery and fluid. Once we realize this we become better able to work and play, create, change and anticipate trouble. The flux and flow of the current of the river is the song of Danu. The fish in the water represent her gift to us, not just in terms of bodily sustenance but also in terms of spiritual insight. When we go catching the Fish of Wisdom, it is Danu who is runing us new perspectives and intuitions in the course of our flow; the pattern of our own inner currents. It is Danu who helps us to discern where we are going and how best to get there. Tailtiu is the goddess of vigor, strength and endurance. She is a primary Earth Goddess in ancient Irish traditions. She is the mother of the god Lugh, after whom the festival of high summer �?Lughnassadh �?is named. Her story connects her with the land, revealing her to be benevolent and self-sacrificing, willing to be oned with her people; their interests, aspirations, trials and cares are hers as well. The story of Tailtiu that we have from mediaeval Irish sources concerns the creation of County Meath; the ‘central�?county in Ireland where the High Kings presided at Tara. It is said that Tailtiu was eager for Tara to be built and that, in her enthusiasm, she joined her people in clearing trees and plowing the land. She tore out a great lot of trees herself. She then harnessed herself to the plow and pulled it across one field after another. At the end of nine days Meath had been cleared and plowed, but Tailtiu was weakened by her efforts and died from exhaustion on the third day after the work was finished. Everyone mourned her, and in her honor her son declared that he would establish a festival. This festival, to be held on the 2nd of August would be convened each year at Telltown, where his mother had died. It would be a time of sporting events, vigorous games and the presentation of works of art in Tailtiu’s honor. All of the people who had worked by her side and seen her enthusiasm and endurance, vowed to establish this festival and celebrate it ‘until the sky falls into the sea and the mountains themselves collapse.�?nbsp; The festival established by Lugh would become Lughnassadh in later Celtic spirituality. After this, Lugh set up the funeral pyre and cremated his mother’s body upon it. Thus the goddess was returned to the body of the Earth, of which she is the manifestation and protector. If you want to think of the planet as a ‘living being,�?think of it as Tailtiu. She is connected with grain and certain kinds of fruit, especially grapes and apples. Eating a wild apple while sitting beneath the boughs of the tree from which it fell is said to invoke the aid of this Earth Goddess. If you ask her for a taste of Wisdom while eating the apple, she may appear to you as “Mistress of Cider�?and grant your request. Tailtiu is sometimes connected with Cernunnos, the God of the Wildwood, who represents the fecundity, wildness and richness of Nature. As life is fecund and the Earth is fertile and wild, the Celts saw gods like Cernunnos populating the Wildwoods and Fields. He is known as the “Lord of Wild Animals�?and as the consort of Tailtiu as well as the consort of the Moon Goddess. Crabapple Thickets in the woods are enchanted places where the Faeryfolk oft come to meet with mortals and establish friendships with us across the sÃdhe (thin places between the worlds). It is said that epiphanies (moments of sudden poetic insight) sometimes occur in these thickets, especially when one of the ripe little fruits falls to the ground. Go to a Crabapple thicket (either in your imagination or else in the external world) and sit there, meditating on Tailtiu and her connection with apples. Hold a Crabapple in your hands and chant her name until you feel her presence and your own deepening awareness of connection with the Earth. As deer often frequent crab-apple thickets, you are also chancing an encounter with the Horned God by being there, especially at dawn or dusk. B. BOANN—BRIGHID—CERIDWEN (Goddess of Creativity, Inspiration, Vision) Whereas ANU—DANU—TAILTIU are goddesses of sources and destinations, BOANN—BRIGHID—CERIDWEN are goddesses of inspiration and creativity. They preside over the realm of the imagination and are primary manifestations of the Muse in Celtic spirituality. This Triple Goddess is concerned with enervation, innovation, intuition and all of the ways in which we experience inspiration in the midst of life’s spiral patterns, in its changes and challenges. The Boann is Goddess of the Boyne and Mistress of the Well of Segais. She is the All-Mother of the Irish Celts and one of the Tuatha Dé Danann (“People of Danu�?. Her story is intimately linked with the 70-mile long Boyne River in NE Ireland. The Well of Segais �?located at the source of the Boyne �?is a pool around which stand nine sacred Hazelnut trees. The Salmon of Wisdom swim in the waters of this sequestered sylvan pool. Long ago, in the Mists of Time it is said, the Boann started the waters flowing by touching the stones that became the source of the Boyne. The Boann was married to Elcmar, a mortal man, and also the Daghda; the All-Father of the Irish Celts. She lived at Brug na Bóinne; the Faery Mound long identified with Newgrange along the banks of the Boyne. There she raised her son Angus Óg; the Irish God of Love. As Mistress of the Well of Segais, she is also associated with Nechtan �?the God of the Well �?who greets and attends to those who come to the source of the Boyne looking for inspiration and creative empowerment. Brug na Bóinne is a mysterious fortress riddled with passageways and chambers, rooms where mortals might dwell as well as chambers that only the Sluagh-SÃdhe (Faeryfolk) may occupy. Outside this fortress were three ancient trees �?all magical in nature �?that were always heavy with fruit so that visitors might be refreshed when they arrived, no matter in what season they came to the Brug. Some say these were Apple trees; others that they were Hazelnut trees, like those at the Well of Segais. Imagine them as one or the other, as you are led. Inside the Brug there was always a fire in the hearth, and always a spit over the fire on which meat or a stew was cooking for the benefit of guests. Thus Brug na Bóinne was a touchstone of hospitality in the mythic landscape; countless pilgrims and questers have been hosted by the denizens there. Go to the Brug in your imagination. If you knock at the main gate, either Elcmar or Angus will come to greet you. If you ask for hospice, they will grant it. Imagine staying at the Brug overnight and then visiting the Well of Segais in the morning, seeking a Hazelnut of Inspiration or at least a taste of the clear, fresh waters of the pool. Necthan will greet you there. As you become familiar with this symbolic landscape, you will eventually encounter the goddess herself. To meet the Boann is to connect with the source of creativity. Brighid is Mistress of Fire, Smithing and the Hearth. Domestic in her ministrations, she is the mistress of all those skills that have something to do with managing the homestead of the creative life; thus she is a goddess of cattle and crops as well as smithcraft. She is the Lady of Fertility, the source of the fecundity of the harvest as well as the vigor of the Poetic Mind. Like Angus Óg, she was a child of the Daghda. She domesticates the Fire of Inspiration and keeps it burning in the hearth; one of several symbolic focal points of Celtic creativity, art and healing.
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