readoldthings

The Gorsedd Prayer is one of Iolo's most famous and enduring contributions, and forms a major part of the piety of many modern Druid organizations and individual Druids. In Barddas he gives several different forms, but that which is best known and used most often reads as follows:


Grand, Oh God, that we may unfold into light the knowledge contained in this prayer, for herein is the entirety of the Druid theology condensed.

Let's look at the beginning of the prayer, and what I think of as its first division:


We begin with an invocation of God.

Now, it is the nature of Druidry that no doctrine is given as an imperative, so that even a holy invocation may be modified according to the understanding of the individual Druid. Some pray, rather, "Grant, Oh Gods," or, "Holy Ones," "Goddess," or "Great Spirit." We will return to this point at the end. For now, let us consider the prayer as given: We begin by invoking God, with no specific denomination given. And so this is an invocation of God-as-such, or "Divinity Itself." This is identical with the First Principle, also called the Good or the One.

Now, the First Principle, being the Good Itself, wills by its very existence the good of all things; and being One, causes the unity of all things. To become unitedly that which we are is to become good, and this occurs only ever by participation in the First Principle.

Following the invocation of God, we first ask for three blessings: Protection, Strength, and Understanding. Each unfolds from the prior: From God, Protection; form Protection, Strength, from Strength, Understanding. We must therefore understand these three individually and as arising from each other.

"Protection" always means "to be preserved from harm." What is harm? Any deviation from the good-- and to be good, remember, is to be united, which is to say, is precisely to be. We first, then, ask for the preservation of our being and-- what is the same thing-- its union to God.

Being-Life-Intellect: We know these well as the three terms of the Intelligible Triad. Being is the first term, and the second, which unfolds from it, is power or life. Everything which is has a vitality to it: that which does not act at all is Dead and is very Death, which is Annwn and Cythraul. We therefore ask that, having been united to our true being, our true vitality may unfold. The third term of the triad is Intellect, which is the same as Understanding: This is true awareness, the capacity to, as it were, "turn around;" to look back upon our origin.

These terms, Being, Life, and Intellect-- or Being-Life-Intellect-- define the Divine Intellect, and they define every participant in the divine intellect. In Christian terms, they can be understood as the Father, the Holy Ghost, and the Son. In the thought of Proclus, they are the first Gods which proceed immediately from the One, and which unfold many succeeding triads which recapitulate the same basic scheme, until we arrive at those we know: Saturn holding the place of Being; Rhea, the place of Life; Jupiter, the Intellect. I have written elsewhere that in the terms of the Celtic theology we may understand the First as Hu the Mighty, the Second as Ced the Earth Mother, and the Third as Hesus, Chief of Tree Spirits, all of which unfold from and are supernally united to the OIW, the First Principle.

And so as we pray to God for Protection, Strength, and Understanding, we may be understood to say, "Grant that I may have my being perfected and united in thee."

At this point we are invoking the highest level of Being, the extremity of Gwynvydd at the unknowable boundary of Ceugant. As the prayer proceeds, we descend into the fullness of Gwynvydd, and then to Abred and Annwn, before returning again to our source, as we shall see.

Continuing the discussion of God in the Barddas, we read the following, in a section entitled the Bard's Enigma:


This is then given in several different forms. The point in every case is that God is ultimately utterly unknowable. This is why the sphere of God is called Ceugant, the "empty sphere."

John Scotus Eriugena-- the name means "John the Scot, the Irishman," distinctions among the various species of Gael having been apparently less important at the time than now-- was a philosopher of the Ninth Century. Another way of saying it is that he was the philosopher of the Ninth Century. He seems to have been among the best-educated men in Western Europe and one of the few who could read Greek and thus access many of the Church Fathers in their original language.

Compare Morgwanwg's Bardic Enigma with these passages from Eriugena's homily on the prologue to the Gospel of John:


Later, comparing John with Peter, he tells us:


For Eriugena, then, "that which is not" is the whole realm of boundless possibility uncomprehended by human or even angelic minds, and it is beyond this that God himself abides. The way of contemplation signified by John is the way of immediate knowing. The word "contemplation" in modern language refers to thinking, and "meditation" to the emptying of the mind. This is one of these oddities that come up every now and then in the history of language, like the transformation of the French word blanc, meaning white, into the English black, meaning black. In former times "meditation" meant thought, while "contemplation," especially in a spiritual context, meant the immediate presence and knowing-ness that is beyond thought.

Eriugena's great source was Dionysius the Areopagite, that mysterious figure of the Sixth Century who wove together Procline Neoplatonism with Christian imagery. Dionysius's Mystical Theology begins with the following oration to Divine Darkness:

In the New Testament, Dionysius is the companion of St. Paul. His letters to Timothy were lost in ancient times, but coincidentally rediscovered two years after Justinian's banning of the teaching of pagan philosophy. They then formed a major part of the foundation of Christian theology, east and west, for a thousand years. After this time, someone got around to noticing that Dionysius's writings sounded a lot like the writings of Proclus, the last great pagan Neoplatonist. Here is a sample of Proclus's discussion of the First Cause in his Platonic Theology:




This, then, is the tradition in which Morganwg is ultiamtely working. It can be seen at once as pagan and Christian, Celtic or Druidic and Platonic. But these are only labels. The enigma remains, the task remains: to abandon multiform knowledge; to leave behind both sensible perceptions and intellectual efforts; to recline, as it were, against the very heart of the Christ who is the summit of all Intelligibles and, soaring as an eagle beyond all that is and all that is not; to encounter there the Great Mystery hidden in a stillness ineffable beyond all silence, a gloom darker than all darkness.

In the Phaedrus, Plato tells us: 

Now, compare with the Fourteenth Proposition of Proclus's Elements of Theology: 


From this, we can derive the following doctrines:

1. All  thought can be classed under movement, both becuase it is the form of movement appropriate to the Astral level of being, and because it is (usually) tied to physical movement in the human brain. 

2. The ordinary course of thought is almost entirely automatic. Our thoughts are being moved, but we are not the cause. Though alive, we bear a resemblance to that which is dead or soulless, because soulless matter is always moved. Plato goes on to tell us: "Any body that has an external source of motion is soulless, but a body deriving its motion from a source within itself is animate or ensouled." Habitual, addictive, unchosen behvaior is seen as being caused by ghosts in the Chinese tradition, and people who give themselves over to such behavior become ghosts themselves. This is no mere metaphor. In modern America we refer to such people as "zombies," and too often we are all zombies. 

3. Insofar as we gain control over the movement of our thoughts, we become self-motive, and take a step closer to the Divine. We cease to be dead and become alive. 

This is what is meant by the following passages from the Barddas: 


4. Prior to the self-motive is the immovable: That which, while imparting movement to others, remains entirely still in itself. This is what is meant by Intellect or Divine Mind. It is only from this place of stillness that we can truly choose, because only that which is in stillness can choose either to move or not to move. 

It follows that our Great Pilgrimage is from Annwn, which is almost altogether alter-motive; through the circles of Abred, in which we attain to the self-motive; and to Gwynvyd, at which stillness becomes possible. We must then either divide Gwynvyd and say that its lower part is self-motive, its higher part immovable, or else we must say that it is the Self-Motive and, at its height, the Immovable, but that the Ultimate Immovable is beyond Gwynvyd. How can that be? The extremity of Gwynvyd borders Ceugant, and here is the closest to stillness and immovability that may be attained, but as all creatures have their origin and their being in the One, which is God, all creaturely stillness is surpassed by the eternal divine stillness. And so: 

Ultimate Stillness is found only in the One, in Ceugant beyond all Gwynvyd. 

Ultimate Death is found only in the Cythraul darkness below all Annwn. 

It is better to be able to function on multiple levels of existence than one only. Therefore, our journey is not merely to enter into the final stillness, but to become able to move from stillness to self-motion, from self-motion to alter-motion, according as we choose. But we can only choose rightly if we are united to God. 

This has further implications for the work of meditation. It seems to me that ordinary thinking is nearly always alter-motive. The work of discursive meditation is the work of becoming self-motive. The final work is to become immovable. But the immovable which never moves more closely resembles the Dead than the Living. The goal, rather, is to become immovable and yet able to impart motion. The immovable cannot be influenced; the self-motive is able to act. But the alter-motive too has its uses: the work of "creating good habits" is precisely the work of putting the power of alter-mobility to good use.  

I'm unusually busy this week, and so for today's post I need to choose between writing something short but clear or long but messy. Yesterday I chose "long but messy," so let's reverse course today, and resume looking at the Triads of Iolo Morganwg. The work that we have as "Barddas" was compiled after Morganwg's death by John Williams ab Ithel, and as such it contains a number of different documents, some overlapping, some rather different from one another. A brief but fascinating chapter in the "Theology" section is entitle Triads of Bardism. These are seven short triads which form a coherent whole. I want to look at each of them one at a time, and then see what picture emerges when all are taken together.

Here is the first of the Triads of Bardism:


Everything in our World Below, being one thing, is thereby rendered not another thing. As we have discussed elsewhere, Greek word ousia is often translated "being," but it especially means "particularity" or "particular being." In the physical world, ousia is primarily particular things as particular things-- and not members of a genus or species. "Hopper the Cat" is ousia primarily, "cat" secondarily, "animal," um, "tertiarily." and in the physical world, ousia is especially not-something-elseness. God, on the other hand, being one thing is also everything.

Nature, in common usage, means something like "woods" or "the out of doors." But it can be better understood by considering how we use it when we describe "the nature of" something. Why is my cat sitting on my keyboard? Why is she trying to catch the words I'm typing on the screen with her paws? That's just her nature. Why do I want another cup of coffee? That's my nature. From what are these particular natures derived? From Nature itself of course, which must mean something like "that which provides the particularity of things." But this Nature Itself will not be any one particularity, because then it would have a nature, rather than being Nature. It is a unity, then, and superessential-- above ousia-- but it isn't Unity Itself, because it is still involved in particularity. It can best, then, be seen as a medium between Finitude and our First Substance, which is Fire.

Fire unites all things to itself; to enter into fire is to become fire. And it is by fire that all things are rendered visible, and by fire, or its progeny, heat, that anything is able to move or act. Unity, Intelligibility, Act or Power are the three primary terms, the Triadic Unity which follows immediately from the First or Simple Unity. In the Oracles we read:
God proceeds these three, brings them forth, and from their mixture brings all the worlds into being.

And again we read,


And so we may see all these three, Finitude, Nature, Fire as proceeding from One Power, which is God. And that implies, too, that we can follow them in reverse order. From particular natures, we can ascend to Nature, from the contemplation of Nature to the contemplation of the Holy and Formless Fire which preceedes it; from the Fire which is all things united to that fundamental unity which is prior to all things, and calls them into being. 

 

Proclus's Elements of Theology, Proposition 1


The Identity of the Good and the One

Plato taught that the One is identical with the Good. In the Republic, discussing the establishment Justice in the Soul, he tells us that the just man is one who has become one out of many:


The identity of the Good and the One was the theme of Plato's only public lecture, the text of which is lost to us, but which was described by some of his contemporaries-- including Aristotle, who claimed not to understand it. (The failure to privilege Plato over Aristotle is the great mistake of Western civilization-- but that's a story for another time.)

The One is Superessential

Following Plato, Proclus will also tell us that the One is "Superessential." This is a word which has no English meaning, and the eye trained in American English tends to pass over it. In every day use, "essential" means "really important" and "super" means "really really," so at best, we get the idea that "The One is superessential" means "The One is a very big deal." 

Now the word "essential" is rooted in "essence," and thus shares the same root as the Latin word "esse," which means "to be." Knowing this, we can take a step further, and say that "The One is superessential" means "The One is beyond being." This is closer to the point, but we're still missing the target. The trouble is that this gives us the impression that the One does not exist, or that the entire thing is a sort of paradox. 

The Greek word which is translated as essentia in Latin or essence in English is ousia, and "superessential" is hyperousia. Ousia does not mean "being," or at least, not in the same way that we mean it in English. Originally it actually refers to the boundaries which mark a property line-- and, as an aside, it's worth remembering that "property" was not a secular concepts with the ancients as it is with us; rather, the boundary line between properties was a sacred thing, presided over by a God. That said, knowing this will help us get to the real meaning of the term. Ousia denotes a kind of particularity-- to be ousia is to be one thing above many. But the One cannot be one thing out of many, because then there will be things which do not participate in the One-- and here we're back to the problem of the parts of parts of parts of parts described above. Rather the One, the Good, is above particularity, not one thing in a set of things, but simultaneously present to but beyond all particular things. 

Neoplatonisms

Proclus was a pagan, and, indeed, one of the last great philosophers of the Pagan world. His six-volume Theology of plato is deeply concerned with applying the dieas that he learned in the work of Plato to the particular gods of the ancient Greek world. And so the Demiurge or Creator-God of the Timaeus, left unnamed by Plato, is identified with Zeus, the paradigm, or model on which he creates the world, with Ouranos, and so on through a cascading series of triads. The One, for Proclus, is called God or the First God, but is otherwise left unnamed. The One is without qualities, and so cannot be part of a triad, as are the gods that follow from him. But also for Proclus, all of the Gods are super-essential-- above particularity-- not just the One. 

Before Proclus, Plotinus's system was much simpler. For Plotinus there are three primary hypostases-- the One, Divine Intellect, and the Universal Soul. These can be identified with Ouranos, Cronos, and Zeus, with Zeus again as Creator, looking to Cronos as his paradigm. Myth plays a minimal part in Plotinus's system, and ritual no part at all; Plotinus famously refused to attend sacrifices, stating "It is for the Gods to come to me, not me to go to them." 

Sometime after Proclus, a writer who went by the pen-name of Dionysius the Areopagite assigned the entire Christian Holy Trinity to the place of the One. For Dionysius, the One is triadic, or, rather trinitarian. In place of the layered triads of Gods in Proclus's work, Dionysius has choirs of angels-- 9 in all, 3 groups of 3. But For Dionysius, only the Holy Trinity is superessential. The angels are not. 
 
After Dionysius, the Ismaili tradition within Islam preserves the One as completely unitary, with no triads or trinities, as in Proclus. But here the One is God, or Allah. Intellect and Soul are secondary entities, exalted indeed, but not the First. In this tradition, Mohammed is sometimes said to shine with "the Light of Intellect," and Ali with "the Light of Soul." Allah remains forever beyond knowing. 

Of course, many years even before Plotinus, Philo of Alexandria had applied Platonic principles to his native Jewish religion, reasoning that Plato must have studied the books of Moses. 

The Names of God

In the Barddas of Iolo Morganwg, we read the following:

And elsewhere:


But what does it mean that men worshipped the name of God, and not God himself? Why is it that the name of God cannot be pronounced?

Imagine a name. Don't pick a personal name-- just pick a noun, the first thing in your field of vision. Around me I see "computer," "coffee cup," "keyboard," and "cat." (Notice the hard-c sounds.) Each one of these words contains information. I hear the word "cat." Immediately, I am given access to certain information: Cats are four-footed predatory animals, companions of humans, smaller than dogs but larger than mice, given to sleeping, sulking and skulking. All this emerges from the word "Cat." On its own, however, "cat," k-a-t, is a mere syllable. To a Spaniard or a Chinaman, ignorant of English, it means nothing at all. On the other hand, let either hear the word "gato" or "mao," and they will gain access to the same information that I do when I hear "kat."

The particular cat sitting next to me right now is named Hopper. When I hear that name, "Hopper," and associate it with a cat, I gain a great deal more information. Hopper is orange in color, nervous around unfamiliar humans, frightened of dogs, affectionate with familiar humans and with other cats; he was found in a box and brought to a cat shelter in Santa Barbara, where he was adopted by a family for their son's 8th birthday. He is four years old, and I could go into detail about his biography, but I won't. 

Notice, though, that the name suggests a story. The name is not the cat. The story is also not the cat. A neighbor might have a different name for Hoppper, referring to him as "that orange cat," and might have a different story, like, "We see him skulking around here sometimes." 

Now a cat is relatively simple being-- though I suppose you shouldn't tell the cats I said that. But it's not just that "cat," "gato," "mao," "felis," and so on all point to the same thing. Imagine something greater than a cat, like the Earth. Imagine our American, our Chinaman, and our Spaniard-- and set the clock back far enough in history that they are ignorant of one another and unable to share information via the internet. One calls the planet we live on Earth, the other calls it Tierra, the third calls it Tiqiu. They mean the same, but both their name and the story which accompaines the name will be radically different. Moreover, and critically, it is impossible to really have the same experience of Earth and Tiqiu and Tierra. 

Now, cats, Hopper the Cat, and the planet Earth are all examples of particular ousias, as we used that term earlier. For Aristotle, both Hopper the Cat and the planet Earth are truly ousia, while a category like "cat" or "planet" is ousia secondarily. But all are ousia-- named, particular substances, things which are "this" but not "that." This is a useful way of thinking about things, which is why Aristotle's works were picked up and re-purposed by the later Platonic commentators, starting with Porphyry. 

But God, as we have seen, is beyond ousia-- or, in English, superessential. 

And please note well: While debates exist about the role of Platonic philosophy within the Christian  churches, the superessential nature of God is accepted by anyone. God as superessential and radically simple is Catholic doctrine. Dionysius the Areopagite is still venerated as a saint by the Orthodox, who are smart enough to not let historians dictate their religion to them.

Names are assigned to ousias, and stories follow from names. Names and stories are not meaningless. They have immediate power. Hopper is a very entertaining cat, I hear his name and I smile and feel like laughing. Other names provoke me to wrath, or sorrow, or delight, or wonder. Many of these names will be meaningless to you, because you haven't learned the stories. The name is the title, the story is the book.

God; The One, the Good; Ouranous; Allah; God the Father; Holy Trinity; YHVH; IAO; OIW. These are Names of God. Appended to each name is a story. God is bigger than a cat, and God is bigger than the Earth. A story about Hopper can be learned, in its basics, in an hour. That story will be limited, though, because he's a four year old cat; I can tell you all about him, but if you haven't lived all four years of his life with him, you won't know the details of the story as I do. But I also don't know the story the same way as the other members of my household, or the other cats, or the neighbors, or the birds that he likes to argue with. If a story about a cat can take four years to learn and still not be complete, what can we say about a story about God? Surely it takes a lifetime to learn. And even then it still falls short. And not partially short, as in the case of the cat. Infinitely short. What this means is that an infinite number of names, and an infinite number of stories, would never be enough to describe or contain God. And that, furthermore, means that we must allow many names, and many stories, if we want to know God at all. 

Arawn, Lord of Annwn

The above is a stylized image intended as a depiction of Arawn, Lord of Annwn. The source is a Google image search; the image is also used by a Druid order hitherto unknown to me, apparently based in Washington. Annwn is, as we have seen, the realm of the Dead, and according to the Mabinogion, Arawn is its ruler. 

The First Branch of the Mabinogion concerns the adventures of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed. At the beginning of the story, Pwyll finds that he has offended Arawn, and agrees to do whatever the latter asks in order to make amends. Arawn asks Pwyll to change places with him. For a year and a day, Pwyll will wear his semblance, rule his castle, and sleep in his bed. At the end of this time, he will meet with Arawn's enemy, who contends with him for rulership of Annwn. Pwyll must give him a single blow, but not more than this. 

Now, the Mabinogion is a literary and very much a medieval work, not ancient mythology, but traditional Celtic lore is woven into it, sometimes in a garbled fashion, and there is much we can learn from this story.

Pwyll's name means mind, perception or wisdom. During his time in Annwn, he lives in Arawn's home and sleeps in Arawn's bed, wearing Arawn's form. And Arawn's wife is the most beautiful in the world. Despite having every opportunity to have access to the lady, Pwyll declines, and does not lay a hand on her at night. At the end of his time, he delivers a single blow to Hafgan, Arawn's opponent, but refrains from striking again. Hafgan is defeated, the kingdom of Annwn is united under Arawn, and when Pwyll returns to his own realm of Dyfed he finds that it has prospered in his absence.

The Prince of Dyfedd and the Descent of the Soul

Let's look at this story in terms of the ideas we've been exploring. 

Pwyll's name means intelligence or mind; he thus symbolizes the incorporeal part of man. His name is significant in another way too, which we'll come to. By descending into Annwn, he descends into the World of the Dead. This world, as we have seen, is the world of Matter. Thus Pwyll's descent into Annwn is the soul's descent into the body. 

But it doesn't end there. 

By agreeing to Arawn's terms, Pwyll has accepted Justice. During his sojourn in Annwn, Pwyll demonstrates self-mastery or Temperance, especially in his refusal of intimacy with Arawn's wife. Facing Hafgan, he demonstrates Courage; administering but a single blow, he demonstrates Wisdom. Having done these things, he is able to return to his own realm, and to discover that it has been well-governed in his absence. He faces the temptations of both sex and violence, and responds with virtue. His soul is now rightly ordered, with strength acting in service to reason, and the desires no longer given free reign. 

Now it is clear that Pwyll and Arawn are mirrors of one another, and their respective kingdoms are also themselves. Pwyll's government of Annwn is also his government of Dyfed, and his transcendence of the limitations of the material world is his government over himself. His descent into Annwn is his incarnation in a physical body. His refusal of the temptations of the flesh allows him to unite his body under himself as ruler, and to begin the process of ascent from incarnation. He has, we may suppose, have faced Arawn in the forest hundreds of times before this in prior incarnations. Was his name "Pwyll," intelligence, before?

The Lord of Annwn and the Father of Lies

The Sophist is a dialogue of Plato whose subject seems straightforward, but may not be so.

One of Plato's concerns in his dialogues is the distinction of the real from its imitations. In the Gorgias, for example, he suggests that there is an art of health and strength, but also an art which imitates this. The first is the art of the doctor and the physical trainer, but the second is the art of the fashion artist the aesthetician. The first produces healthy bodies, but the second only creates a semblance of it. Or to give another example, the baker produces sweet foods which we love to eat; the doctor produces medicines, which are often foul but produce health. (At that time a doctor's job was to produce health, as odd as it may seem to us). Most of us prefer the semblance to the real thing, and this is our problem, but it doesn't say anything about the reality of the situation. If you were to set a doctor and an ice cream man before a jury of children, they'll obviously prefer the latter. Our souls, in their unpurified state, are those children. 

According to Plato, the Sophist imitates the Philosopher in just this same way. 


And so the sophist is explicitly declared to a magician or wonder-worker. The guest then divides the art of image-making into two forms, which will be very familiar to those who know anythign about the iconographic tradition in the Orthodox Church. There are images which are intended to resemble forms; these are called "icons." And then there are illusionary images, which are called "phantasms." 

The dialogue then makes a metaphysical point about the existence of non-being. 


And so the sophist imitates the philosopher in the same way that the baker imitates the doctor or the aesthetician the physical trainer. Where the philosopher leads the mind to truth, the sophist produces lies. In this way he is a kind of magician or wonder-worker, seducing the minds of wealthy young men. But-- critically-- the images themselves have a kind of reality, a being of non-being. 

The Sophist and the Sublunar Demiurge

The Sophist appears to discuss a particular class of people in Plato's day, viz. phony philosophers who sold their teachings to the parents of rich kids for money. According to Iamblichus, this is only a surface meaning. The Sophist is not a mere pedant for hire. Rather, he is an image of a particular feature of Iamblichus's cosmology, the Sublunar Demiurge. 

Now the word "demiurge," you probably know, refers to the creator of the material world. The work of the Demiurge is discussed at length in Plato's Timaeus. But to the later Platonists, there were three demiurgi. The first is the Father of the Demirurgi. The Second is the Heavenly Demiurge. And the third is the Sublunar Demiurge. 

Remember that, on the cosmology of both the ancient and the medieval worlds, our physical world begins at the Moon. Above the Moon there is order and stability. The super-lunar cosmos-- that is, the spheres of the planets, the Sun, and the visible stars-- is thus an image of eternity. Beyond this is the eternal Heaven of God. Below the changeable Moon, we have the realm of change, process, division, and decay. We thus have three realms, which we can call the Sublunar, the Astral, and the Celestial. Or in our terms, Abred, the depth of which is Annwn, which is the realm of change and death; Gwynfydd, the starry realm of luminous life; and the invisible Ceugant.

Now each of these three realms has its ruling Power, who is an image of the ruler of the next realm up. This is its creator or Demiurge. 

Were Iamblichus and the later Platonists correct in their beliefs regarding the Sophist? Well, we don't "really" know, but it would make sense. We know that Plato's inner teachings were not written down, but were kept secret. We know that in one of his letters, he tells us the following:


And we know that the Sophist was the first in a trilogy of dialogues, of which the first concerns the Sophist, the second, the Statesman, and the third was to have concerned the Philosopher. This would seem like an image of the three kings, the three demiurgi. (The Philosopher was either never written, was lost, or was kept secret.) 

In any case, we have the image of a creator-god of this material world. We have a material world which is a world of illusions, and also a world of death. And consider the following, from the Chaldaean Oracles: 



To be continued...

Today, a selection of triads from the Barddas preceding the previous one, which shed more light on it:
 In Iolo's vision, as we have seen, every soul has its beginning in Annwn, its progression in Abred, and its culmination in Gwynvydd. Humanity is at an intermediate state; still incarnate in Abred, but able, to a greater or lesser degree, to peer into the higher Reality of Gwynvydd. 

Abred is incarnate existence. Its lowest depth is Annwn, which encompasses the Underworld and the mineral creation, the closest possible there is to death. The Chaos prior to the creation is called Cythraul or Devil. This is evil absolute, and it is total disorder, total powerlessness. Through an act of mercy, God organizes the Cythraul, brings it into life and order. 

Now, creative act of God can be viewed in two ways. From the perspective of God, which is Eternity, the Cythraul is immediately animated, organized, and perfected. Time is a moving image of eternity, and within Time that which is immediate in Eternity must unfold sequentially. And so from the perspective of the human soul, the process unfolds across vast ages, as incarnation follows up incarnation until the soul reaches its plentitude in Gwynvydd. And even arriving in Gwynvydd the journey is incomplete. As Ceugant is traversed by God alone, it remains ever out of reach. In the same way, in Utter Chaos, not one thing can be said to exist, because to be "one thing" is to have both unity and particularity, and unity requires order, particularity requires distinction, and "to exist" requires God. Therefore the Cythraul too remains forever out of our reach, but in the opposite direction. 

From the perspective of God, the act of Creation is an outpouring of infinite love and mercy. Hence Plato, "|Good was he, and in one who is good there never arises about anything whatsoever any grudge; and so, being free of this, he willed that all things should come to resemble himself as much as possible." From the perspective of Cythraul, the act of Creation was a slaying; hence the deaths of Ymir, Tiamat, and all other primordial giants and dragons. From the perspective of Mankind, the creation is a journey, in which we rise from the cauldron of Annwn, traverse the circles of Abred, and find our completion in Gwynvydd.

If you've ever tried to help a drug addict, you can see the same process at work. From your perspective, you performed a work of mercy; from the addict's perspective, you took away their joy; the addict who recovers receives the act of mercy and begins a journey toward becoming who they were intended to be. The memory of their addiction, kept before the mind's eye, becomes an incentive toward recovery. Hence another triad: 

The next two Theological Triads of the Barddas read: 

These two triads are best read together and in reverse order.

The second triad is the familiar Intelligible Triad. The Supreme God is understood as having life, which in this case stands for being; knowledge, which is to say, mind or intellect; and power, which is life or activity. 

But in the prior triad, goodness, life, and power are said to proceed from the three unities, which are God or Being; Knowledge or Intellect; and Liberty or Soul. We can therefore see that life in this triad stands for being; goodness, in this case, for Intellect, for to know the fullness of Truth is to be good, and evil is always rooted in a lie; and power stands in for life or activity. These three are found at every level but resolve into unity in Ceugant, the Highest. 

Yesterday I shared a particular assignment of the classical virtues to the Four Elements, viz:

Fire: Temperance

This system of correspondences allows a Taoist adept, or a TCM practitioner, both to cultivate particular states of consciousness in themselves and even to treat disease in their patients. For example, a client suffering from a lung condition might be found to have been attacked by an excess of grief. This can be treated by a qigong exercise which at once opens the chest and activates the muscles along the lung meridian, while the patient visualizes inhaling healing white light into the lungs and exhaling smoky gray light containing grief and sorrow. This can be combined with acupuncture and massage focusing on the lung points, and regularly taking pungent herbs in soup and tea. 

Such systems of correspondences are not arbitrary, but they also aren't universal. It's neither one right way, nor anything goes. To give an example, the season of Winter may be plausibly assigned to the element of Water or Earth, as both are slow, heavy, and cold. It makes rather less sense to assign Winter to Air-- unless, perhaps, you live in a part of the world in which Winter is marked by wind storms. It makes very little sense at all to assign the element of Fire to the Winter season-- unless you're using the elements in a different way, which I'll discuss in a moment.

 Personal Elements

The arrangement of the elements that I provided yesterday is personal to me, as I said, but I want to talk a little about why this is so. 

The virtue of Courage is defined by Plato in the Laws as a knowledge of divine goodness that sustains us through every danger, and also through every pleasure. He is also at pains in the Laws to point out that Courage is the first and lowest of the virtues-- although it holds together cities like Sparta and Crete, it is insufficient to elevate the soul to the higher worlds. Aristotle, meanwhile, points out in Nichomachaean Ethics that Courage is not the opposite of cowardice, but a mean between cowardice and rashness. For Aristotle as for Plato, all of the virtues are means, with vices of excess and deficiency on either side. 

Now, when I consider the virtue of Courage, I find that I am not lacking in the ability to face danger. Not that I throw myself into dangerous situations on purpose-- not these days, anyway-- but I have on a number of occasions had the opportunity to face physical danger and death, and acted in a way that I felt was appropriate. 

On the other hand, one of my greatest vices is my inability to see projects all the way through. My harddrive is full of half-written novels, but no finished ones. I can read Spanish and Latin at a child's level (Iulia puella parva est); I can identify 1 or 200 words in Chinese and write the corresponding characters. I know the guitar well enough to play in a punk band, provided none of my bandmates is older than 16. I have a similar degree of proficiency in the dao or Chinese broadsword, and less in the jian, the Chinese straight sword. I recently acquired a bata, or Irish fighting stick, and if my pattern holds, in a year I'll know it well enough to fight an unarmed civilian.  

What's the point of all this self-effacement?

Only the following: When it comes to assigning an element to Courage, I ask myself: "What is it that I need in order to cultivate the virtue?" For me, the answer is stability and endurance. Of all the elements, Earth represents this most strongly-- to my mind at any rate. And so I assign the virtue of Courage to the element of  Earth, which is to say, I ask the powers of Earth for help in developing Courage. 

But that doesn't mean this is a universal assignment. If I had no problem with stick-to-it-iveness, but I was terrified of physical danger, I might invoke Fire for Courage, as I might find its burning strength a great help in facing my fears. If, on the other hand, my issue was one of rashness-- that is, an excessive love of danger for its own sake-- I might invoke the calming power of Water. Finally, if I simply needed help getting started on my projects or adventures, I might invoke Air.

And I repeat the process with the remaining virtues.

Justice is defined as a right relationship between things. Plato describes it in the Republic as every part of the soul performing its own correct task; Aristotle defines it in the Ethics as giving everything what is due to it. I personally, usually, invoke Water to cultivate Justice. The reason for this is that Water is binding, unifying, and giving. I have a tendency toward selfishness and an equal tendency to be temperamental; these things stand in the way of giving to others what is due to them, whether a tip at a restaurant or a kind word on the street, and in the way of proper relationships with the people in my life, who often need my love rather than irritation or sarcasm.

Wisdom is described by Plato in the Phaedo as a separation of the soul from the body, and contact with the higher reality of the spiritual world. To my mind Air perfectly symbolizes this idea, as Air is the element of the sky (which is the symbol of the Noetic world), the mind, and Form. 

Temperance, finally, means self-control, and for me this is symbolized by Fire, which is above all the element of power. Real power is power over the self, especially the lower self and its cravings. 

In order to cultivate these virtues, I often say the following prayer, especially in the morning:

May I take up my hammer to work,
May I take up my cup to give,
May I take up my book to learn,
May I take up my sword and live.

The hammer symbolizes the gnomes who labor in the north; the cup is the cauldron of life; the book is the wisdom of philosophy and nature; the sword is my personal symbol of success and self-mastery.

External Elements, and Other Arrangements

In a sense, this way of working with the elements is a form of medicine, taylored to the individual. When designing a system of magic or initiation, it seems that it is often more important to choose a more universal arrangement. 

It seems to me that a more universal Druidic arrangement might look like this:

Earth: Courage
Water: Wisdom
Air: Justice
Fire: Temperance

This again draws on Plato's Laws, which describes Courage as the first and lowest of the virtues, and Justice as a mean between Wisdom and Temperance. Water has straightforward associations with wisdom in Celtic lore, in the form of the Salmon of Wisdom who dwells in the sacred well. The animal associated with Justice is the Hawk of May, whose name, "Gwalchmai," is the Welsh form of Gawain, who was in the oldest tales one of the most important of Arthur's knights; his encounter with the Green Knight is itself a lesson in Justice. Temperance, finally, is assigned to Fire. In ordinary American English the word "temperance," if it's used at all, means something like "Not getting drunk," and maybe also "...and keep it in your pants, too." Its original meaning in Greek, dikaiosune, means "self-mastery." This is the final virtue, as Fire is the highest of the elements. 

The following arrangement works equally well:

Earth: Justice
Water: Temperance
Fire: Courage
Air: Wisdom

This arrangement follows the assignment of the virtues to the parts of the human soul, and the parts of the soul to energy centers in the body, in Plato's Republic. To the abdomen, which is called the "lower dantien" in Chinese internal alchemy and the lower cauldron in the Dolmen Arch system, corresponds the  Epithymia, which is the lowest part of the soul, the appetites for food and reproduction that we share in common with every animal. To this center corresponds the element of Water. The proper virtue here is Temperance, as Temperance is control over the appetites and the re-direction of the generative power of the lower cauldron toward productive ends. To the heart, which is called the middle dantien or middle cauldron, corresponds the Thymos, and the element of Fire. The Thymos is the seat of the social emotions, and here the proper virtue is Courage, which compels a warrior to stand with his comrades on the battle-field. The head, which is the upper dantien or cauldron, is the seat of the Nous, and the element of Air. The Nous is the reasoning mind, and also the part of the mind that extends beyond ordinary reason and is capable of direct contact with the higher worlds. Only the Nous can attain the virtue of Wisdom. 

Finally, Justice is the unity of all three parts of the soul, and their performance of their proper function, under the command of the Nous. United, the soul functions as a microcosm of the whole world, and thus the element of Earth is associated with the body as a united whole, and also has special reference to the lower body as it conveys the upper body through the material world. 

Ladders of Virtue

The later Neoplatonists assigned multiple definitions to each of the four virtues. These definitions then corresponded to the highest form of that virtue a person could achieve, depending upon their particular station in life. The virtues were arranged into hierarchies. In the writings of Plotinus, the virtues exist at two levels, the political and the purificatory. The political virtues are given the definitions of Plato's Republic and Laws; their cultivation allows us to exist together in society. But having established himself in the political virtues, the philosopher then cultivates the purificatory virtues, based on Plato's Phaedo, which aim at the union of the soul with God. This simple twofold hierarchy of virtue was then elaborated into four by Porphyry and seven by Iamblichus. 

It seems to me that a Druidical take on this system would work by assigning the elements to the virtues in different ways at different degrees of initiation. Perhaps one assignment exists at the first degree, another at the second, but at the third, the initiate must discover his own set of correspondences. There is much to think about here. 

In another world, I would like the following thing to happen. 

For a year and a day, the initiate prepares himself, studying the teachings, gathering in fellowship with others, spending time in nature. At the end of this time they prepare to make his Retreat and Obligation, if they choose. And that is done in the following manner.

In public, he sets one piece of technology on a large stone. Any old stone? No, the Stone of Rebirth. The spirit who dwells in the stone has conducted many on this journey.

A cell phone, an apple watch, a set of virtual reality goggles, a bluetooth headset. Now, it can't just be any old thing-- it must be something to which the initiate himself or herself has been attached. That phone you can't keep more than two feet away from. Not the one you need for work-- no, the one that you keep checking because someone might have posted a Tweet, or liked your video. 

Imagine the scene. It should be early Spring, I think-- a time for rebirth. The place is a large tract of forest land, managed and maintained by an assembly of Druid-monks who live in hermitages. Paths wind among the trees, guiding visitors through a network of shrines and small circles of standing stones. Here and there are small buildings, heated by wood stoves and lit by candlelight, that serve the various purposes of the monks. Everything here is sacred. Even the bathrooms are sacred. There are no septic tanks to be drained every year or two, but wooden humanure assemblies dedicated to the God of Decomposition. 

Beyond the well-ordered paths and woods tended by the Druids is an open wilderness, with only narrow to guide human visitors through the trees. Before this woodland is a wide open space, surrounded by evergreen trees. A sacred grove; one passes an image of Nemetona as one enters through an archway of woven branches. At the back of this space is another archway. Overtopping the arch is an image of the goddess Elen; underneath, a path leads through the archway, down into the deep wilderness beyond. 

And in the center of the clearing stands the stone of rebirth, over which a white cloth is spread. Here stands the Aspirant, dressed in ceremonial regalia. What color? Does he wear the green of the beginner, perhaps? Or the black of the last hour before dawn? Certainly, the sign of the Three Rays of Light /|\ is drawn on his forehead in charcoal, and the charcoal must have come from a fire which he tended overnight. And in either case, he is flanked by two archdruids in white robes.



The aspirant sets his iPhone-- the latest model, the 25, the one that can interface directly with the chip in your brain that was developed by early 21st century conservative folk hero Elon Musk-- on the Stone of Rebirth, and, standing nearby, a white-robed Archdruid passes him the Hammer of Sucellos, the Good Striker, who is also Silvanus, the Woodland God. The initiate raises it overhead and cries out, "I renounce thee, Ahriman!" 

And he brings down the hammer onto the cell phone and shatters it into a thousand pieces. 

The assembly of Druids raises a cheer. A light seems to shine from the aspirant's face; tears well in his eyes. He is free, really free! 

Songs follow, and prayers. The cloth is taken from the stone, holding the fragments of the iPhone, and disposed of; other Druids whose task this is are careful to gather any stray fragment that may have fallen onto the ground.

The Archdruid whose duty it is to conduct the Great Initiation leads him under the archway of branches, into the Wildwood. How long will he spend there? I want to believe that it will be forty days at least. Forty days, for the first initiation; seven, for a yearly renewal of vows; perhaps three, for an occasional retreat. Of course it will be at least a year and a day for priests, longer than that, for some hermits like the Taoist immortals or the medieval anchorites, who have now become legendary. 

Our initiate is an ordinary believer, dedicated to the New Way, but still a part of society. He will return in forty days. He will have written his own scripture, out there in the wild, and the Sacred Mountain will have given him a new Name, which he will keep secret.

He can, perhaps, expect persecution from society, which regards any sort of technological renunciation as treason, and declares the deliberate withholding of technology by parents to be child abuse. He may be imprisoned for his beliefs, or even killed-- yes, this has happened, and when it does the Druids gather the bodies of their martyred friends and bury them under the trees, and the spirits of those happy Dead are added to the rank of protectors in Gwynfydd. 

Or perhaps this is many centuries later, and the persecutions have long since come to an end, having served only to create an invisible army of Druid guardians. Time will tell. 

In either case, this is where I want to be, and where I want to live. I need a phone, these days. I have to check my schedule at work. And if I didn't have a phone, I couldn't listen to audiobooks during my two hours daily commute, and I'd know so much less. And, and, and... And there it sits, two feet away from me, as I type this.

Many years ago I made my own retreat into the Wildwood, and I climbed the Sacred Mountain and received my own secret scripture. And one day, I'm going to smash this phone with the hammer of Sucellos, and walk the paths of Elen into the deep woods, the realm of Silvanus, singing the Druid's prayer--

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