Meditation Traditions

Meditation Traditions of the Western Lands

The response to my meditation courses this year has been heart-warming as people have told me how the sessions have really helped them switch off, relax and calm their minds for the first time. People with anxiety, ADHD and autism have said the meditation has really helped them.
 
One of the most frequent questions  has been :

'Before your course I had never thought in terms of my own indigenous roots in these lands, please can you tell me more?'

This article is in response to this question but before we look at the source material let us briefly examine the word  'Tradition' and what it means in terms of the meditation practices that I offer.

In all the courses that I run I encourage the participant to connect with the tradition that unfolds within them, the thing that most resonates with them and informs them of their own inner worlds for tradition is always welcoming and inclusive but at the same time personal and intimate. I believe the tradition chooses you, it is the essence of who you are and is in the blood, bone and spirit of your being.  It may be that you are attracted to several traditions and each of them speaks to you in different ways. As each tradition informs us of the world that we belong to, it must also follow that there is a common thread that unites them all, I feel it is imperative that we find this common thread.

Reclaiming my own tradition.

My exploration of my indigenous roots has been a life-long pursuit. As with many Westerners in the 21st Century I felt I was exiled from my spirituality for it was divorced from my everyday life. It has often felt to me that life has moved on, that the spiritual life of the past has been replaced by a materialistic and separatist culture fed by a greed that gnawes at the soul that longs to feel complete. To be termed a ‘modern seeker’ or to have a ‘modern perspective’ on things just didn’t cut it for me. A modern person didn’t just pop out of the ground newly made for today’s society we are connected to an ancestral legacy going back to the beginning of things. We are all indigenous people of the land to which we belong to with our own spiritual lineage, which is wanting to hold us as we traverse our life experiences. Reclaiming our roots is the first step in connecting with the natural world for being present to nature means to know oneself.

The Irish tradition

There are three key reasons why I use the Irish traditions as my source material for courses:

• By entering the story of one land we excavate a deep furrow to reach the treasure of our inner worlds.
• Ireland has a huge body of extant Medieval source texts which connect us to a tradition borne from the Western Isles.
• The Irish mythology speaks to me in my heart and is the tradition I personally have a natural affinity with.

The recording below introduces the chant we often use before meditating followed by some written information on the story behind the invocation from the Irish tradition.

Our meditation starts with honouring the land. The land is the mother, the provider of everything we need and it is she who is honoured first in Irish lore. The land is often personified as a Mother Goddess and was seen in the landscape as the undulating hills or the life-giving waters. In Ireland there is a story of how the ancestors of Ireland took the land.  When they arrived their chief poet  Amergin white knee put his right foot upon Erin’s soil and he chanted the following words thus experiencing complete identification with the land and becoming all aspects of it from mineral and soil to plant and tree, to animal and bird to the landscape itself. 

He chanted: 
 
 ‘I am wind on sea, 
I am ocean wave, 
I am roar of sea, 
I am bull of seven fights, 
I am vulture on cliff, 
I am dew-drop, 
I am fairest of flowers, 
I am boar for boldness, 
I am salmon in pool, 
I am lake on plain, 
I am mountain in a man, 
I am a word of skill.’ 
 
Once they arrived they also had to make a pact with the three Queens of Ireland, the sovereignty of its land. They are called :

Banba ( the women of cows), the wife of MacCuaill, the son of Hazel.
Fodhla (the women of soil), the wife of MacCecht, the son of the plough.
 Eriu, the wife of MacGreine, son of the Sun. 

These traditional Gaelic names of women are the names of the land of Ireland however they can also connect us to which ever land we live upon at this time, for we chant with the intention of calling to the sovereignty of all  lands across the world, reminding ourselves that we are all part of the same deep ancestry. The words in the invocation below are from the text known as the Lebor Gabála Érenn - the book of the takings of Ireland.


Chorus:     

'Eriu, Banba, Fodhla, I seek the land of Erin,  
Fruitful be her seas, perpetually green her forest,  
I feel her in my bones, I feel her in my blood.  
 
I invoke the land of Ireland, surging is the mighty sea, 
Mighty is the upland full of meadows, full of meadows is the rainy wood, 
Rainy is the river full of waterfalls, full of waterfalls is the spreading lake, 
Spreading is the spring of multitudes, a multitude of people is the assembly, 
The assembly of the King of Tara, Tara is a tower of tribes, 
The tribes of the sun of Mil. 
Warriors of ships, of vessels, Ireland is a mighty vessel, 
Flourishing is Eber Donn, a very wise incantation, of the very wise wives of Bres, 
Outcry of the wives of Buaigne, Ireland is a vast woman, 
Eremon smote her, Ir and Eber entreated her. 
I invoke the land of Ireland.'

I hope this article helps in elucidating the source material behind the meditations we use. For a much more detailed introduction you may like to join the Woodland Bard Course by clicking on the button below:

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