Before you and Carol had lunch at Penn Station the Gilkey Windows tech came out and finished up covering the new piece below the bottom of the sliding glass door and also the replacement wood below that. You are quite pleased with how uniform the area now looks. Also, earlier you were searching through your book, Heloise & Abelard by James Burge and found this about the “first move”:
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. . . Abelard summarizes the whole first move – whoever made it and whoever planned it – with the simple phrase “Quid plura?” (Need I say more?). The next thing he gives us, however, is a description of their sessions together that is both charming and credible:
“. . . and so with our lessons as a pretext we abandoned ourselves entirely to love. Her studies allowed us to withdraw in private, as love desired, with our books open before us, more words of love than reading passed between us, and more kissing than teaching. My hands strayed more often over the curves of her body than the pages; love drew our eyes to look on each other more than reading kept them on our texts.” (Abelard, Autobiography)
From: Burge, James. Heloise & Abelard (A New Biography), San Francisco: Harpers, 2003. p. 94.
I have never been in such a teacher-student situation as this in my life but I very well understand how such a scene could have taken place in today’s world as well as in the Medieval world. I do not know the Druidic rules on relationships between teacher and student but I assume there were some private ones between Merlyn and Vivien early on. Otherwise where is the developing tension in their early relationship?
In research I found the following work online and I see it as a modern interpretation of ancient Druidism.
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DRUIDISM AND THE WAY OF THE DÁN
By Jason Kirkey © ( Copied with Jason Kirkey's permission. rho)
However, what I think is more fascinating, and perhaps even more appropriate is what each of us believes from the depths of our hearts, when we are truly in the stream of the Celtic spirit. For if our minds and hearts are open, and we enter this stream, inspired from the past, but working in the present, then can we not say that this is the only authentic druidism that exists? What can possibly be more authentic than the present moment?
And so it is with this in mind that I suggest a different path of druidism, based on the present, and centered in the heart and soul of each of us who walks the way. This can take many forms no doubt, varying with each person. From my own explorations into this path of working, I have discovered for me what it means to be a druid, which includes some points which may or may not be common across the board, when we truly begin to center our passion in the present moment. I do not claim that my way is ancient, that it is anything beyond my own invention based on my own experiences of the Celtic and druidic mind and spirit. I call it the Way of the Dán. I share this for one simple reason. I think one of the main purposes that people seek out nature based spiritualities such as druidism, is so that they can find healing of their Wounded Souls which is caused by the alienation, disenfranchisement of the self, and loss of the sacred in modern society. However, many, including myself for a period of time, found that once we tried to fit ourselves into the boxes presented in many versions of druidism, we encountered the Wound once more. The Wound was caused by putting ourselves in boxes, and so it cannot be cured by doing the same.
Dán is an Irish word which has many meanings. All at once it means art, poetry, destiny, fate, and faculty. The words which are most interesting to link are art or poetry and destiny or fate. I see the idea of Dán as being a sort of Irish Tao, it is the natural flow of the universe, the poetry of our lives. When we enter this flow we are in harmony with the universe, and we are constantly being shaped by it, though through that process we become a co-shaper with this universal energy, which is sometimes called Dana.
One of the things I found missing in druidism was mysticism. There is spirituality, philosophy and sometimes even religion in it, but not often mysticism. Mysticism is the struggle of the individual to attain understanding of the nature of reality, and to transform consciousness into harmony with that vision. This can only be done through the self. It should also be noted that this mysticism could be interpreted as what is often called "Celtic shamanism".
. . . I see that path consisting of many aspects, many of which can be found in the mystical traditions of all cultures, including Celtic. The first step usually consists of an initiatory or rebirth experience, where the person spiritually dies and is reborn anew. In The Tao Te Ching is says that, "to die but not perish is to be eternally present". In these experiences there is a crisis with the self, and it is burned away. We are then reborn from our ashes with a vision for our new existence. We are faced with a choice though. We can either surrender to this force, to the dán, or die (literally or metaphorically, depending on the severity of the initiation crisis). It is here that we most often realize that non-dual nature of reality, when all apparent dualities vanish and we are left with nothing but oneness and our harmonization with it. Having bridged within ourselves the gaps between dualities, the apparent gap between Spirit and Earth, we become a threshold, a doorway for others to cross through.
From: www.druidry.org/obod/druid-path/dan.html
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From the above let’s assume this is where the tension began – both decided they wished to be in harmony with the universe but they came to the joint decision they wanted to transform their consciousness into the natural harmony together than individually, that as both were “innate masters of the art” they would be more powerful linked together. - Amorella
“One of the things I found missing in druidism was mysticism. There is spirituality, philosophy and sometimes even religion in it, but not often mysticism. Mysticism is the struggle of the individual to attain understanding of the nature of reality, and to transform consciousness into harmony with that vision. This can only be done through the self.” (Jason Kirkey ©)
In Merlyn’s case his present circumstance is not due to himself but to his ‘election’ by the Dead (and by the Supervisor) to return to the Living (and still be with the timeless Dead). – Amorella
I like this, Amorella. It gives me leave to continue along this path and their initial relationship while living as well as present relationship while dead.
Good. Post. – Amorella
Nearly bedtime. You have another image that you think may help with metaphysical geography. By all means, include it. - Amorella
The image is an abstract but it reminds me of the velocity of a bullet shot through the air. The turbulence causes ‘holes of no-thing’ to appear – the absence of physical matter and mass – a dimensional ‘pool’. One pool ‘flowing’ no-thing into another pool ‘flowing’ no-thing. An artificial movement of ‘Being’. What makes ‘it’ artificial? Our limited sensory input. Our sense of reality distorts the real reality. We are the distortion, not the rest of reality. This is the reason our species, at times, feels that nature is not all there, that a mystery exists. We are it. A hypothesis. Perhaps it would work as such whether we are Living or Dead. It is a rather limited fun thought with which to end the day in any case.
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