landscape in the celtic environment

8/13/2019 Landscape in the Celtic Environment

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Environmental sculpture NotesCeltic Landscapes

1. The romans were accustomed to carve pairs of footprints on a stone with the inscrption pro itu et reditu - for the journey and return. They used them for the protective rites ofleaving and for thanksgiving for a safe return when the traveller would place his /her feetin the footprints to makr the beginning or end of the undertqking.

2. Wherever the tradition is still spoken of, it is said that the ritual culminated when thekings foot was set in the print, the Celtic equivalent of crowning the monarch.

3. Rock chairs either natural or manmade gives the sitter the power to command both on a physical and at a psychic level. They are infused with the primal strength of the rock.

4. Also some times used for healing as well as meditation. Certain seats on high points werein places that served as windows to otherworldly visions. At one seat in wales, it was saidthat anyone spending the night there would, on the next morning, be either dead, insaneor a poet of the highest inspiration.

5. When the earth is viewed as a slain primordial giant, the navel is located at the center.Such central points exist throughout european tradition. Omphalos - navel of the world. Usually it is represented by a dome-shaped stone that signifies stability or eternalexistence. It is the alchemical lapis something that can never be lost or destroyed.Through the omphalos runs the vertical cosmic axis linking the upper worlds with lowerworld by means of the middle world. Although located in specific places, the navel of theearth is within the individual - its existence in physical reality is the outward expressionof any inner reality.

6. Rocking stones - large boulders perched on others in such a way that they rocked but didnot fall. Sometimes the grinding produced eerie sounds.

7. Wishing and cursing stones . Scrapings from holy boulders megaliths, etc when mixedwith holy well water was considered an eficacious remedy for many ills.

8. Ogham is a cipher whose principle is that each letter is indicated by the number of

strokes that signifies its place in a group. It is possible the ogham reproduces a form of bodily sign language being written across the edge of the stone with strokes that couldsignify fingers. Far more than a system of writing, each ogham character was assignedcorrespondences with in the animal and plant kingdoms, wtih colors and even with tonesin harp tablature.


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9. Labyrinth is a path that leads from the outer world to the inner world. At the center is theomphalos which although it can be seen, can be reached only by travelling the whole

pathway. Sometime portable labryinths (usually carried by wise women in Celtic trad)these stones were used to commuine with the otherworld through states of alteredconsciousness. The wise woman would trace her finger through the labryinth back and

forth whilst humming a particule tune until she reached an altered state.

10. Water from holy wells comes directly frm the waters that exist unseen beneath the earth,the mysterious chthonic realms of annwn. With this water we are participants notconsumers. We have a personal relationship with the origin. Each holy well is unique,excpressing the personality born of the subtle interaction between geology, topographyand human activities.

11. Celtic sacred waters are associated with the three archetypes of light, the sun, the eye andconsciousness. When we use sacred waters we commune with these archtypes whichmanifest themselves to us as deities, legends, traditions and folk practices.

12. Water is symbolically feminine and generally are the preserves of goddesses. Had healing powers, protection powers (Excalibur and the lady of the lake)

13. Holy wells are not wells in the sense of deep stone lined shafts, but rather are naturalsprings enhanced and protected by constructions or buildings, with provisions fordrinking, bathing, contemplation and worship.

14. The cream of the well was the first water drawn just after sunrise.

15. According to the principle of correspondences, where topo features are equated with partsof the human body, springs correspond to the tear ducts. Therefore there is a strongconnection between wells and the human head. Human skulls were often kept at holywells for the use of pilgrims. The head is venerated as the place of the soul andconsciouness.

16. As a place of the sun at night, the well symbolises the inner light of life as contrasted withthe outer light of the visible world. The abyss from which the waters issue represents thehidden source of wisdom in the unconscious which we can tap if egoism is relinquished.The well itself is the channel from the unconscious to the conscious.

17. Also part of the Celtic well head mythos are the legends that relate how many a healing or prophetic source sprang up spontaneously when some one was beheaded. ( lots of saintsassociated with this at the christian era).

18. Certain Celtic holy waters (lakes, streams, wells) contained fish that were forbidden (geis)to be molested or caught. Symbolically the fish that lives in a well swims in the channel


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between the unseen and seen. The fish denotes that our unconscious mind is not empty ordead but contains living qualities of which we are scarcely aware. In order to enter intothe healing process we must est a relationship with our unconscious to restore inner

balance. So if we go to the well and glimpse a fish, the unconscious opens itself up to us.In this altered meditative state the mysterious depths freely reveal those elements

previously hidden.

19. Ichthyomant - a person residing near a sacred well - perhaps the well priest - whointerpreted the movements of the fish to visitors seeking cures or answers.

20. Well dressing - rags, ribbons, flowers, moss, humanoid dolly figures.

21. Common to all holy wells is a belief in the power of transformation.

22. Mountains are places of vision both physical - since you can see loger - and because the power of inner vision is enhanced there. They are paradoxical places where the weather

and seasons differ from the valley below - full of winds, snow, silences, Anyone whoreaches a place of vision on a mountain will have done so through undertaking a lifethreatening pilgrimage whose effect will have been transformative.

23. While mountains function as sacred places of high heavenly sun beings (usually male)they are rooted to the earth (usually female). As high points of the earth, mountains arededicated to the earth goddesses.

24. The dedication of holy mountains to sight and the sun reflects the classical tradition thatcertain mountains express the qualities of one or other of the even planets of the mundanesystem.

25. Cairns - conical piles of stone by the trackside or on hill tops are spiritual way stationsthat commemorate those who have passed before, both travellers in this world and thedead. It is customary for the traveller to leave a stone at any cairn they pass. Because thestone is symbol of self, each passer by thus leaves something of themselves in the stone

pile.

26. Cairns occupy liminal areas, places of transition in history (battles), travelling (mountain passes ), and territory (boundary between counties and countries.), and sometimes cover burials.

27. They were called in Roman times mons jovis since they were dedicated to Jupiter. Latertranslated into Mount Joy.

28. There is an important principle of correspondences in geomancy which facilitates therecognition and creation of new sacred places. When someone recognises a place that


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resembles or reproduces the essence and virtues of another, then the new place reflects both the particular essence of the original and its deeper archetypal qualities.

29. Caves are associated with breath. They parallel the throat and is a place where the earth breathes. Like holy wells, they lead from the daylight world into the dark underworld of

permanent night. To enter the underworld of the unconscious is to take a step towardstransformation, we breathe the breath of earth making contact with the unconscious - itmay bring a drastic change in personality.

30. Caves can be lethal or inspiring. - places of breath or suffocation or noxious fumes. Thoselistening to the natural breath of the world sometimes hear voices. Sound is the link to theotherworld. Muscians (like bagpipers, reed players) and seers uses breath to make musicand pronounce oracle. Caves were primarily places of women mysteries.

31. In some ways they are the oldest sacred places, before there were temples, there werecaves for religious ceremonies. Healing powers to certain caves as well since some of

them had natural springs..

32. Rock basins are kept full of water by constant dripping though the cave roof, and this sithe key to some cures. The remarkable clarity of sound made by water when it drops intoa rock basin in a cave was ascribed the power to restore hearing.

33. Caves are also for secrets.

34. In the classical world, caves were often places of sacred sexuality. Children conceived insuch places are inspired with the spirits of the cave. The parallel between the womb andthe cave is significant. It is a double birth - form the human womb into the earth womb.

35. Souterrains- trenches and chambers dug in the earth and roofed with flagstones - usuallyin long and winding passages with abrupt changes of level or ther features to disorientatethe visitor. The passage leads to a larger chamber/s roofed with stone. There may be side

passages known as creeps through which one may go on hands and knees. The purposeof these structures remain a mystery.

36. Frequently found to contain skulls, bones of animals, broken ceramics, eggs, stone balls, bone rings, whetstones and thimbles.

37. Islands are inherently sacred, being places cut off by water from unwanted physcial and psychic influences. In general they were deemed to be under a specific diety. Like thelands, islands are ensouled with legendary symbolic and historical names. Groups ofislands may display a rich complexity of legendary and sacred themes.


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38. Islands enable people to adopt modes of living that are separate from the everyday worldof the mainland. Spiritually they are the undying lands, the otherworldly abodes of thedead. For the living they have been hermitages, monasteries and communes.

39. Islands were considered neutral territory under the rulership of the island god/dess rather

than human jurisdiction.

40. Measurement. The grain of barley was the basic unit. 27 barleycorns make a natural orwelsh foot. This is subdivided by threes. Three barleycorns make a thumb, three thumbsmake a palm and three palms a foot. The Druids cord . It is a rope composed of thirteenequal sections marked with twelve knots. Among other things, it enables the user to layout a right angle and the seventh part of a circle.

41. City Unlike the middle eastern concept of the city surrounded by desert and therebythreatened with desolation, the Celtic city had to keep out the prolific wild nature thatthreatened to engluf it. Beyond the Celtic city was not the desert, but rather the wild

wood. Outside the boundaries of the central order lay living chaos in the shape of darkforests, unclutivated land, trackless wastes, wil animals, lawless people, evil spirits andmonsters.

42. The image of the city itself is a grid laid upon the earth with the omphalos and the cosmicaxis at the centre.

43. Dancing Places . When performed ceremonially at the right time and place, a dance is asacred act. I n almost every village, there is a village green usually at a top of the hill orat least a higher level than its surroundings, usually a levelled area with a small mound atthe centre where the musicians sat. This central point was decorated with oak branches .As ceremonial paths marked permanently upon the ground unicursal labyrinths are a formof dance place in which people progress along the gyrating pathway, to reach the centre.

44. It was customary to cut labryinths in the turf. Called caerdroia a name that has theBivalent meaning of the city of turnings and the city of troy (welsh believe they aredescendants of Brutus the Trojan.

45. Sacred Earth Earth or dust taken from sacred stones, ancient tumuli, graveyards and thetombs of saints has a magic virtue which caries the essence of the sacred place. Red earthwas dug ceremonially at various places because this was not dead dust, but the portion ofthe living ensouled earth in which the spirit is revealed in the material.

46. When a new holy place wa established, virtuous soil was sometimes transferred in largequantities from an older one. This is the principle of transference of sactity whichunderlies the practice of transferring sacred objects from one place to another, orreproducing replicas of sacred places.


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47. Celtic lazy bed system of horticulture In order to bring fertility to the rocky land of thewales, fertile strips of between 3 to 9 feet wide are built up within enclosures made ofrocks using local peat, crushed seashells and soil brought from elsewhere. These gardensare images of paradise where the fruits of the earth and herbs are grown.

48. By de-naming the land (modernisation, proseltyization) brings psychic and phsycialdestruction driving out the earth spirit and rendering the land spiritually dead.

49. Hungry grass fear gortach is said to grow at a place where an uncoffined corpse was laidon the ground on its way to burial. This affects the quality of the place permanently inthat those who step on such a spot are doomed to suffer insatiable hunger.

50. Stray sod foidin seachrain anyone who steps on this becomes disoriented - similar to thegateless field. Travellling a footpath a wayfarer climbs a stile and enters a fieldsurrounded by an impenetrable thorn hedge and bank. Although the traveller knows hislocation perfectly well, the way out of the field cannot be found, neither can the entrance.Sometimes the traveller winds up sleeping on the ground before waking the next morningto find he has slept next to it.

51. Crossroads. Places where tracks join/cross are places of transition where the cosmic axis between the underworld and the upperworld intersects with middle earth. They are placesat which the distinction between the physical and non material worlds appears lesscertain.

52. In classical times they were marked with a Herm, an ithyphallic image of mercury, psychopomp of the dead and deity of the crossroads. Frequently Herm was accomp[anied by a tree and an altar upon which wayfarers would make offerings. Mercury - originatorof all the arts, the right path, patron of trade and riches.

53. In northern europe the crossroads divinity was the god of hanged men, for crossroadswere especially sacred t the dead.

54. Until 1823, the law of england and wales decreed that suicides should be buried atcrossroads with a stake or iron or ashwood through their hearts. Other buried there werethe liminal inhabitants of society - gypsies, outlaws, witches.

55. Fish carved on a boulder showed it was safe to cross the river at this point.

56. Sacred circuits involve the pilgrim visiting specific sacred places in a certain order.When these take place, the spiritual content of the landscape is raised temporarily to ahigher level by the presence of these pious people. The pilgrim experiences a

progressional series of stations, some of which bring new experiences, and some of which


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repeat and reinforce earlier ones. Each serves to heighten awareness, bringing archetypalspiritual qualities into consciousness.

57. For example the saints pattern at St Gobnat at ballyvourney.Start 1. Modern image of the saint, 2. next drink from ancient holy well 3. path leads to a

round enclosure which archaeologist excavation has shown to be a prehistoric building for metalworking whose deity Gobniu is recalled by the saints name,.4. A stone pillar stands at the centre which the pilgrim must use a stone to inscribe a cross. 5. Thento a churchyard which has a modern church and the ruins of an ancient one 6. At theeastern end of the ancient one.

58. Lych way the path taken by corteges carrying corpses to their burial place. Sometimesfinished was a circuit three times sunwise of the church before services, and anotherapproach sunwise to the cemetery.

59. Dreams and Voices Many sacred places come into being or are rediscovered through prophetic voices, dreams, and visions in which some mysterious element of the landscapespeaks to people through their unconscious.

60. Look up William Lethaby - Architecture, Mysticism and Myth. This book tells of a nallembracing world tree that carries the stars for its fruit in the dark heaven of night. Thisis the jewel bearing tree.

61. Phantom Lights On or above the ground are said to denote fairy ground. Lights may beground based hemispheres, a sphere of light floating a few feet above the ground, ahumanoid shape, a single pillar of light, or a column with cross ars. Often they containshimmering, iridescent patterns.

62. Corpse candle. A flame or ball of light that is seen to travel closely above the groundfrom the graveyard to the dying persons house and back again. It is said to take the routethat the funeral cortege will use, disappe3aring at the place where the grave site will be.

63. Temples Early Celtic religion was both aniconic and atectonic. Deities were not housed in buildings and there were few figurative images. Later stone structures were built, butwere roofless. The celts who attacked delphi in 278bce were astonished to find statues ofgods. Under Greek and roman in fluence, the Celtic temple came into being.

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Things that remain unseen in our normal state are nevertheless capable of exerting anoticeable influence upon the physical world. Places where the other world can becontacted are those where the anima loci projects herself into the phenomenal worldwithout the necessity of a special mediator. They can be recognised by sensitive orspecially trained people, those to whom traditional society ascribes the power of thesecond sight. But the presence of the divine is only fully accessible to everyone when it is


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represented by a visible symbol through which some of its mystery may becomprehended.

65. Sacred Tree one of the basic beginning of the process of recognition of the anima loci isthe honouring of the sacred tree of life - the indwelling place of the god/dess who

manifests their presence there. At the foot of this tree offerings are placed. Next a fencegoes around the sacred tree. Within this an offering table and other sacred objectsincluding aniconic and iconic images are set. Ceremonies to keep the anima loci presentare enacted; and the memories of these ceremonies on the material and psychic planesremain to empower the sacred place further.

66. Devotees brought as offerings animal skins, skulls, bones, horns , eggs, garlands offlowers, sheaves of corn, flowers and fruit, ropes, nets, tools and weapons. These votiveofferings and the remains of sacrifice are the fabric of ornament on temples . Almostevery design component of the classical temple derives from one or more of theseelements.

67. In a temple, the diety is now present permanently - their deity need no longer be asked tocome. It is a place of presence. In its structure the temple should reflect the nature of thedeity so in their form and symbolism, temples and later churches embody the image of thetutelary deity, each of whom is a specific interpretation of the cosmic human being.

68. But where there were no temples people continued to cast pins into holy wells andhammer nails into sacred trees and posts.

landscape in the celtic environment

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