Wellsprings of the Deer
A Contemporary Celtic Spirituality
by
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There is a great need for spirituality in our world today. In its most elementary form a spirituality is a set of assumptions through which we can live our lives to the fullest in both humane and humanizing ways. Spirituality is a way of setting a course that will get us to a place worth being. However, all too much of what passes for spirituality today is simply a return to the power of the forms of the past. There is a great yearning for a simpler world in which less complicated ways of life would prevail. Unfortunately, that world simply no longer exists (if it ever did). We cannot go back to the past. We can, however, attempt to create a spiritual praxis for ourselves that will enable us to live in the midst of the world today in potent and transforming ways. *** The spirituality presented in this book may be imagined as a journey to a series of wellsprings. It is designed to enable you to quest for Wisdom along Celtic paths, resourcing yourself in ancient Celtic traditions while dwelling in the present. Each of the Nine Wayes represents a key Celtic theme which, when ‘touched’ by our study of it, will ‘tap’ a wellspring. Thus the Nine Wayes are sourced in Nine Wellsprings. These ancient themes will be tapped through a series of instructions that will articulate them in ways that will adapt them to our situation in the 21st century. This book contains a complete set of novice instructions in Celtic spirituality. You may think of it as a kind of ‘primer’ that will introduce you to all of the major themes of a Celtic spiritual life. The Introduction will explore the basic horizons of Celtic spirituality – both Pagan and Christian – delving into what a contemporary spirituality must provide its practitioners, so that we don’t end up ‘living in the past.’ Part I will then explore the older Pagan touchstones of a Celtic perspective, orienting you to the Celtic world in earthen terms. Part II then introduces a Celtic vision of Christ-Following. The Celts had a unique interpretation of the teaching of Jesus, based as it was in their own indigenous understanding of the cosmos. In Celtic legends, Jesus is a "hero of the sídhe," a spiritual guide who leads his deer to the thresholds of Wisdom. Those who have been Celtic in Christ down across the centuries have often recognized certain differences between their own path and that taught by other Christian traditions. By exploring Celtic Christ-Following as a legitimate element in any Celtic spirituality, we broaden our understanding of the inclusiveness of the Celtic Way. This makes for a richer spirituality, as we don’t have to choose between one dimension of the Celtic past and another. We can embrace it all. Part III then outlines the path to each of the Nine Wellsprings, beginning with basic instructions and ending with more elaborate interpretations, both poetic and mystical. The instructions will draw on both the Pagan and the Christian Celtic traditions, illuminating the themes of each Way from the best examples available. Each of the Wayes builds on the ones that come before it, creating an integrated set of disciplines through which you can seek the turnstiles of personal wholeness on your way to Wisdom. The Nine Wayes begin with basic, more naturalistic disciplines, and end with more mystical ones; i.e., those that put you in touch with Mystery. *** The Celts have a long and interesting history. It was the early Greeks who first applied the word Keltoi to certain ‘tribes’ living north of the Danube.1 As soon as Celtic people began appearing on the historical stage, they were treated as dangerous and unpredictable. They frightened the more ‘civilized’ people that they encountered south of the Alps. Repeated raids by Celtic war-bands only served to reinforce the fear the Celts had already inspired in many areas around the northern Mediterranean. Greek and then Roman writers treated the Celts either with disdain or a kind of backhanded respect. While they were sometimes portrayed as ‘ideal innocents’ living at-one with Nature, Roman texts describing their customs and culture are often little more than propaganda tracts written to justify the Romans conquest of Celtic territory. Though Modern historians and literary critics in the 18th and 19th centuries were deeply fascinated with the Celts and tried to bring their true identity to light, their work was sometimes just as colored by misconceptions. The Celts were painted as a breed of ‘Noble Savages’ in many people’s minds. While the 19th century Celtic Revival made significant advances in understanding the ancient Celts, it also put the Druids on a pedestal and perpetuated other unfortunate stereotypes. As a result of the ways in which the Celts and their history have been treated by enthusiasts and critics alike, it is often difficult to tell where fiction ends and fact begins, or vice versa, with regard to these enigmatic peoples.2 Only in the 20th century did archeologists really begin to make much progress in documenting the actual Celtic cultures that once dominated prehistoric Iron-Age Europe. To the surprise of many cynics, however, what has come to light via this investigation is sometimes just as interesting as the propaganda and stereotypes that it sought to supplant!
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About the Book
Wellsprings of the Deer
The text now called Wellsprings of the Deer has been in process since the late 1980s. It is structured around a series of Nine Wayes that arose out of the author’s attempt to understand what makes Celtic spirituality ‘unique.’ Mr. Whitsel says: "There is a gist and a rhythm to Celtic spirituality that, while it has many things in common with other spiritual traditions, also makes a singular contribution of its own." The Nine Wayes identify unique elements of ancient Celtic traditions and brings them to a focus in terms applicable to our life today. These elements come into focus by way of a series of instructions that eventually bring the reader to what the author calls "The Henge of the Hut of Wisdom."
The aim of the spirituality presented in this book is personal wholeness through the apprehension of wisdom; i.e., "that kind of knowing that enables us to more fully realize our humanity." By walking the path to each of Nine Wellsprings – the author suggests – the reader will learn ways of being the person they are best capable of being. The end result of heeding the instructions in this book will be a contemporary Celtic life sourced in ancient themes and intuitions.
Whether you are Pagan, Christian or secular in your orientation to life and the Celts, this book is designed to enable you to find your way to the WellSprings of the Deer. As it does not discriminate against one dimension of the Celtic Tradition in favor of another (i.e., the Pagan in favor of the Christian, or the Christian in favor of the Pagan) what the reader will find in these pages is an ecumenical and deeply poetic, imaginative approach to being Celtic in the twenty-first century.
About the Author
Montague Whitsel has lived most of his life in western Pennsylvania, becoming a poet as well as a devout student of both Celtic and Biblical mythology. His undergraduate work was in anthropology, history and philosophy, after which he pursued master's degrees in history, sociology and theology. He has been fascinated with religion since he was a teenager and has looked at it from both the inside (as a participant in wicche and goddess spirituality and later as a member of Catholic and Lutheran churches) and from the outside (as an historian and a philosopher with training in the social sciences). Montague Whitsel first became interested in the Celts while in high school in the early 1970s. Since then anything Celtic has fascinated him. While pursuing his various degrees he took any opportunity that presented itself to do research on the material culture, history, mythology and religion of Celtic peoples from their most obscure origins in central Europe around 1000 BCE down through the Celtic Iron Age and into the period of Celtic Christianity. More recently he has sought to understand the literature of modern Celtic countries, especially Ireland, also taking up an avid interest in Celtic Music and Art. Mr. Whitsel argues that the Celts made many unique contributions to the human spiritual quest. Their understanding of life and death, Nature and the Divine reflect intuitions that many people today could benefit from integrating into their life and worldview. As he began to share his enthusiasm for the Celts and their traditions with friends and students during the 1980s, a contemporary pattern for a Celtic spiritual life gradually emerged. This paradigm – called "the Nine Wayes" – is at the heart of the present book. As a Celtic mystic, Montague Whitsel affirms the value of both the Pagan and the Christian elements in Celtic traditions, as well as a Secular approach to being Celtic. All three of these options have been built into the Wellsprings of the Deer; the primer that Mr. Whitsel uses to teach Celtic spirituality.