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Gael Song

Healing the Pagan-Christian Divide

An ongoing sadness of my life has been the great divide between Celtic Pagan practices and Christian ones. Folks I’ve met are nearly always vehemently for one and against the other. But I love both traditions (though each has some pretty hefty distortions that need to be healed!). My own inner feminine has been a Pagan Priestess over many lives, my masculine, a Christian Minister several times over. It isn’t always easy for them to get along, either. So, during this Christian Holy week, just past the celebration of Alban Eiler, I think it’s a good time to ponder the intermingling of the two and, hopefully, soften the miasma between more recent and older spirit ways.

As I moved up through planes of light on my own path of transformation over the past 22 years, I was led into understandings about the Ogham letters and their meanings. And one of the hidden Celtic streams associated with those symbols, I discovered with great surprise, was identical to the Christian calendar. So, let’s go through it, shall we? Over those 22 years of daily healing meditations, I moved up through seven heavens in the inner planes: sensate, soul, spirit, logos, cherub, centerpoint, and diamond core realms.

If you look closely at the structure of the human energy field, you can also see seven concentric rings of light or sheaths, matching those seven heavens. Folks move from outside to core in an ascension process during their personal transformation as the spirit initiations are completed: first earth, then water, air, fire, cherub, centerpoint, and finally diamond initiations.

In the seventh heaven, the highest one, the Diamond Core, there are also 15 cosmic light structures that regulate many, many cycles of life on earth and across the universe. See my first article for a fuller description of those, if you like. This time, we’ll focus only on the lowest of these light structures, the cosmic first chakra, the White Pentagram. It’s the light structure of the Goddess, the White Tara, and it overlights the birth of everyone’s inner divine child during each solar year, a bit of every individual’s divinity reawakened, always carrying one spark of the cosmic God/Goddess to be revealed on earth. But this cycle actually is the progress of the yearly growth impulse through those seven sheaths of light within. This time, the impulse moves from inner light sheath to outer, a descent process though the heavens, as some new part of the self is manifested into our physical world. And there are Ogham letters which signify the birth-pushing forces through these inner sheaths of light. But more to the point, these phases of the year and of this hidden druid cycle precisely match the Christian calendar! I found all this quite fascinating. Maybe the two aren’t so different after all!

The seeds of light for the year ahead, which include one major growth vector for every individual, are implanted into each person’s womb of light (both genders have inner male and female aspects of the spirit) on Midwinter dawn, Alban Arturan. Then these seeds of light steep in everyone’s pelvic bowl, the unconscious, for three days, while the Goddess chooses the exact timing and form the new growth impulse will take over the year ahead. So, after three days, the first seeds lift up and out of Her cosmic ocean, the very first inkling of what is to come. This is Christmas morning!

And the growth impulse enters the very inmost sheath of light, matching the diamond core, the seventh heaven. Always, the feminine lights up during the first half of these growth phases, the masculine during the second half. In the spirit world, I’ve noticed, it is ever ladies first! The inner divine child spark also grows from an infant form to an elder during the yearly cycle, so this first sheath contains infants of light, baby girl and boy. The Ogham letter A for Ailm, Elm, signifies the yearly growth through the core sheath then, when fears and blocks from the seventh heaven are brought forward into each person’s life to be faced and healed. Then the new aspect of self is fully released into the core sheath on Candlemas eve, the first birth. So, this long A sound means having the faith of a child and the fortitude to move through our deepest fears to birth new life. (The Ogham symbols for each letter are given below each paragraph.)

Then the growth impulse enters the centerpoint sheath, the next one out, on Candlemas day, Feb. 2nd, the date Mary brought Jesus to the temple for sanctification after his birth. Quite appropriate to this inner cycle! This second growth phase brings forward fears from the centerpoint realms, the sixth heaven, usually hurrying or overwork challenges (the sixth heaven holds the abyss, where intense fears were built into each one of us during our long-ago fall to earth), and the inner divine child looks like a toddler this time. The centerpoint phase ends on the eve of Lent. And then the divine child or yearly growth impulse enters the cherub sheath, the next one out, and the fears of that heaven come into each person’s life during the Lenten season. These fears relate to dark mother memories, ancient sacrifice or cruelty that once caused the closing down of each individual’s inner divine child.

On Easter dawn then, the three core fears of winter (that opened in early November, on the cross-quarter day, Samhein), heavy bands over the heart, are removed, and the divine child within is also born out of the cherub sheath. It’s the long O sound, Onn (ohn) or Gorse, the struggle and sweetness of growth, succeeding through both centerpoint an’ cherub challenges. So, it’s a VERY sweet morning, Easter, named after the Celtic goddess who overlights the inner climb through these two heavens, Eostre (or Ostara). On Easter dawn, I always go to a sacred place in nature to really FEEL and enjoy those dark bands coming off and my own birth out of the centerpoint/cherub difficulties!

Then there’s a period of rest and integration for a quarter moon, after which the logos sheath lights up. The inner divine child has become an adolescent now. Then, the inner feminine is fully built into this logos sheath by Pentecost, fifty days past Easter. The virgin goddess’s element is fire, too, so this passage can bring great passion into play. At Pentecost then, the virgin masculine half o’ the logos sheath within lights up until late June, as the old logos fears are faced (often male domination or brute force impulses). By John the Baptist Day, (June 24th), the masculine of the logos sheath is fully formed, and this new logos-self is birthed into the spirit sheath. This logos birth-pushing force is the long U sound, Ur or Heather, signifying the wild passion, backbone strength, freshness, and heart love of the inner virgins. And on this day as well, all fear debris of the first half of the yearly cycle is washed away within. It’s inner baptism, the halfway point of this hidden divine child stream for the year. No wonder it’s named for John the Baptist.

Then again, there’s a short period of rest. But usually, some project will surface that grounds the growth of the first half of the year into action. Then, the spirit sheath opens, the feminine, on July 22nd, Mary Magdalen day. That’s the time the Goddess sends some personal message to everyone, a hint of what the fears of the coming winter will be like. And the feminine climb, now in a mother form, lasts until August 15th, Ascension day, when Mary of the Christian tradition was said to rise up to heaven. The challenges of this level usually involve exhaustion, the inner mother giving so much to others that her own needs don’t always get met. And then, the masculine half of the spirit sheath opens with some strong action-oriented drive that’s needed to bring in the harvest for the year. This divine child, who looks like a father now, opens new intellectual interests for the coming year at this time, too. The divine child of the spirit sheath is fully formed by Sept. 9th.

But then, there come extra difficulties or delays that must be faced, heavy darkness as the dark child of the year or major fear impulse falls away on October 6th, one full gestation cycle after Midwinter. And the new child of light finally emerges two mornings after, on October 8th, both feminine an’ masculine fully formed in the spirit sheath. This is a momentous shift, for descent into the lower worlds is the major birth for the skyturn, when the most significant gains are achieved. This very long birth-pushing force is signified by the letter E, the long sound, Edad, Aspen, meaning significant victory over fear, with only a short way to go to completion.

October 8th is when the autumn celebrations begin, a moon of rest after the long trials of birth. And toward the end of this moon, some recognition of the newly born divine child will be given by the tribe. But within each individual, there can be lingering uncertainty about the new aspect being observed, for the deep fears that kept this part of the self hidden for so long are not yet forgotten. But it’s a joyous fulfilling time as well.

Then, on Halloween, the soul sheath lights up. Often costumes worn that night foretell the fears of the soul or second heaven that will be brought up during the next moon. But this shift is really on All Saint’s Day because in Celtic life, days were counted beginning at sunset. Soul fears can be quite dark and slippery, and nearly always involve letting something cherished go. But the healing of them brings the divine child through the soul sheath climb, though this inner child is in a grandparent form now!

The breakdown process greatly intensifies during the five intercessory days of the Celtic calendar, too, Nov. 24rd-28th, the old gratefulness celebration to the Goddess for the living of the year. And double II is the letter for this Goddess time, when the White Tara washes off all inner debris in the sheaths that have been lit up since John the Baptist Day; logos, spirit, and soul, all except the sensate that remains to be faced. This letter signifies the washing down of the inner self, cleansing and letting go, to make way for the new light seeds soon to come.

And finally, one moon before Midwinter, the sensate sheath opens, this phase identical to Advent. Often this moon entails facing strong challenges, too, for sensate is the densest level. But it’s the final climb of the passing skyturn. The darkest impulse of the sensate phase, the minotaur, opens on Midwinter Eve. And it’s the girl within who goes to meet it with that circle of light round her head to pave the way for the new implantation in the morn. At midnight then, both feminine and masculine divine children of the passing skyturn are fully born, the androgyne for the year, all the way through the sensate sheath! And the spirit world celebrates around them, for it’s the goal of all life on earth, the building of divine Ogham/Tara children into our sensate realms. And the birth-pushing force through the soul and sensate sheaths is the long I sound, Ioho, Yew, signifying some new aspect of the divine or forever self fully individuated into this world.

Then, the yearly cycle begins again on Midwinter dawn with the implantation of new divine child seeds for the year ahead. That’s the Ogham letter J, mistletoe, Iulioc, with no Ogham symbol for it, though. (There are short vowel streams of light, too, small a, o, u, e, and i sounds, which relate to the ethers within each sheath of light; mind, emotion, and action ones. But it all gets too complicated for a single article.)

And lastly, I’d just like to add that one morning several years ago, in the midst of a healing meditation, the similarities between Pagan and Christian traditions came into me with the most startling intensity. Usually, I invoke the White Tara and Oghama to overlight me in my healing times, the Celtic high Goddess and God. But for some reason that day, I called in the Magdalen and Christ, instead, for old time’s sake, I guess. And feeling those spirit Presences surround me, I suddenly realized They were IDENTICAL to the Celtic Ones! And I was utterly stunned, opening my eyes and literally shouting out, “WHAT have we been fighting for all these centuries then?” And I heard just one quiet word in my mind, “illusions,” Oghama/Christ’s voice. And a bright wave of joy washed through me as my inner feminine (Pagan to the core!) and my inner masculine (a very upright Christian that she persuades to dance skyclad in the moonlight now and then!) merged together in spirit in the deepest way possible. Ahhh! Thank Goddess for healing! I hope your day is just as glowing as that one! Blessed be.

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About the Author:

Jill Rose Frew, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist, energy healer, workshop leader, and author. She is hoping to found an intentional community in southern Scotland in the near future. For information, please see www.thehomestarcommunity.org

She is author of Guardians of the Celtic Way (her name was Jill Kelly then), and Alba RebornVolume One Revised, and Volumes Two and Three.

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