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We’re Not Going
To Tell You What This is…at First
In this year of pandemic, when our lives have changed so dramatically, we are all learning how to create new, meaningful events in our lives. It’s not about just filling time, our days are about actual real discovery and true delight.
The other night I backed into my driveway at home. In my neighborhood everything is dark. When the moon is not out, I can see all the stars in the universe. On this night, at the end of the driveway was this spectacular arrangement of white and green lights, white light flowing down, green shooting in. I sat mesmerized. I’d never seen anything like it. I watched for the longest time with the eyes of a child. It was so beautiful in the black velvet night, I stepped out of the car, took my smartphone out and recorded the light show. Again, it was beautiful. It was surreal.
This morning, I showed it to my son and said, “What do you think this is?”
He said, “It looks like Dessert Storm, Wolf Blitzer and the aerial assault of Baghdad.”
“It does,” I said. “This was at the end of my driveway, last night.”
“It was?” he said.
“It was lit icicles with light trailing down and a 12-foot Christmas tree with green lights that had fallen over. The combination, 100-feet away was breathtaking. If you look closely you’ll see the star at the top of the Christmas tree.”
Here is my advice for the new year we are all coming into. Look for the ordinary and be present to it. Look for the unusual, or in this case, the icicles and fallen Christmas tree…a problem that may actually be beautiful, fascinating, or intriguing. To do this well, we have to slow and we must be present to many moments throughout the day. In this state of being, we will discover much that is new and beautiful, too.
Celtic Dreams
And the Druids of Blue Mountain
These are our ancestors. I know they are mine, and perhaps your ancestors too.
I know them. I own them. I can feel them in my bones. The Druids were Celts. All our ancestors were somewhere, living, breathing, walking around, talking, learning, loving.
This painting captures a moment. Was it real? Did it really happen? Yes and no. Is there a Blue Mountain? I don’t know… probably. This painting stepped out of someone’s imagination and it probably captures a shard, a piece of some echo of a memory, passed down through a hundred, a thousand generations.
We all have historical memories, some more clear than others. This painting has haunted me for several years. It was at the antique store at Fort Andross, Maine. Every time I passed it I was drawn in, its ghostly images call out to me. I know this place. I know these people. They believed in nature. Were they perfect? No. They were successful enough that I have descended from them and I am here in the 21st century to speak to this memory.
Why all this Druid talk? The Druids were Celts, lovers of intricate knot patterns and lovers of wind, rain, blue skies and sunshine, lovers of the coming of spring and the finality of fall. They were close to the earth. I can smell the wood smoke. I can see the hearth fires burning.
In fact, when you look at what the Celts did in metalwork… they were masters. There are volumes written on Celtic art. They were so prolific, so obsessed with beautiful detailing, it was like they couldn’t make a metal tool without decorating it beautifully. Then there was the jewelry: great gifts and treasures to humanity that we are still deriving inspiration from. The present day Irish are the inheritors of much of this grand Celtic art.
What we share with you today is for the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day, and the Irish, the keepers of Celtic traditions.
Inspired by the Celts and their love of knot patterns, both of these items we describe in greater detail.
Celtic Imagination
I think about these people often. I think about how I am here because they survived over 100 generations. I think about my people 3,000 years ago. The land they lived on, their homes and hearths, what they ate. I think about their religious beliefs and I think about this painting which may capture some aspects of their world, even if now some of it is only imagined.
I looked at this painting in an antique store for a long time. It’s colors, it’s rhythm spoke to me, and because it said the same thing every time I went back, I bought it. I probably have 20 books on the Ancient Celts, their knot patterns, stone work, gold and silver work. My people go back to Northern Europe, and in truth, all of our ancestors were around somewhere 3,000 years ago. I feel this ring deeply. Especially the deep engraved Celtic patterns on the east and west sides. This says something that echoes and resonates within me. It says something similar to the painting, different, yet similar.