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The Will of God is in the Wind
The Will of God is in the Wind
The Will of God is in the Wind
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The Will of God is in the Wind

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A book that captures the Celtic Spirit before and after the coming of Christianity - Amongst its pages you will find a collection and editing of many of the early writings of the Celtic peoples with essays and commentary on them. This book brings the Celtic age to life and captures the essence of what it meant to be Celtic before and at the dawning of the Christian age. The influnces of Celtic Christianity are traced and followed so that an understanding of what was before and what came after can be fully understood. From Stonehenge to Glastonbury we follow the rise of the beauty that was Christianity flowering in our green and precious land, the emerald isle that was and is Britain. We will examine the heresy that was Pelagianism and the influence of Columba, Cuthbert and Dunstan. We will asses the differeing claims of those who are thought to have first brought Christianity to these Islands. We will walk with Druids down sacred ailes and along lei lines. We will stride across the sacred landscape to stone circles, magalithic rings, monoliths and sacred groves. We will meet Caradoc and Arthur, Merlin and the threes apects of Morrigon. We will find sacred place that few go to and learn the reason for their creation and continued existance. We will, in the end, seek to cure the wounded land the is England and attempt to heal this island nation that we might once more make it the land worthy of our ancestors and a legacy for our children.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateMar 15, 2016
ISBN9781311158253
The Will of God is in the Wind
Author

Christopher H Shelley

At the age of twenty four, I moved away from home, and from the country that I love and went to live in Israel for nearly two years. Later I spent 24 years living in the USA, mostly in Los Angeles but latterly in Utah. I now live in a small suburb of the great port of Liverpool and in my spare time work in the charitable faith based community trying to make a difference.I have been writing all my life, and write about any thoughts ideas, places and people who are of interest to me. I have had several stories and articles published in magazines and periodicals including a prize winning submission to the TV series, "Who do You Think You Are". I have also been published in "The Lincolnshire Poacher" and several articles in "Huguenot Families" a publication of the Huguenot Socity of Great Britain and Ireland. Several of my poems have also been published.While searching for a Publisher and or a Literary Agent, a year or more ago, I discovered that Amazon and Kindle now encouraged authors to self-publish in a digital format on their website. I now have a flourishing portfolio of digital publications and am very successful online author, all my books achieving regular and encouraging sales.

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    The Will of God is in the Wind - Christopher H Shelley

    The Will of God is in the Wind.

    ( The Celtic spirit before and after the coming of Christianity)

    Introduction:

    "Deliver us from these human forms

    and reclothe us in light among the stars."

    Nosairi (Gnostic) prayer.

    The Celts:

    "Their aspect is terrifying...They are very tall in stature, with rippling muscles under clear white skin. Their hair is blond, but not naturally so: they bleach it, to this day, artificially, washing it in lime and combing it back from their foreheads. They look like wood-demons, their those of high rank, shave their cheeks but leave a moustache that covers the whole mouth and, when they eat and drink, acts like a sieve, trapping particles of food...The way they dress is astonishing: they wear brightly colored and embroidered shirts, with trousers called bracae and cloaks fastened at the shoulder with a brooch, heavy in winter, light in summer. These cloaks are striped or checkered in design, with the separate checks close together and in various colors.

    "They wear bronze helmets with figures picked out on them, even horns, which make them look even taller than they already are...while others cover themselves with breast-armor made out of chains. But most content themselves with the weapons nature gave them: they go naked into battle...Weird, discordant horns were sounded, [they shouted in chorus with their] deep and harsh voices, they beat their swords rhythmically against their shields." Diodorus.

    Their enemies feared them, and the stories about them were such as scared the children of Greek and Roman soldiers. Wild men of the north, fearless and warlike, indomitable and unvanquished. Even when they were defeated they didn’t stop coming - even when they were overcome in battle they wouldn’t stop fighting. War was like food to them and violence was like the air that they breathed - they were like wild animals untamable and uncowed.

    Such were the tales the Roman mothers might have told to scare their children however what the Romans and Greeks really knew about their Celtic neighbours was actually very little and what they shared with each other and with posterity was couched in terms that compared all and everything in unfavourable terms to the Roman ideal. Much of what they wrote was propaganda, in which the Roman's enemies were terrifying and their victories brilliant, in which the Romans were civilized and those who were not Roman were barbaric and uncouth.

    What they did not know and didn’t tell us was almost everything. These pagans that Rome despised were actually more civilized than they themselves . As artists they surpassed much of what was attempted elsewhere as an example: Dr J Anderson writes in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland:

    "The Gauls as well as the Britons — of the same Celtic stock — practised enamel-working before the Roman conquest. The enamel workshops of Bibracte, with their furnaces, crucibles, moulds, polishing-stones, and with the crude enamels in their various stages of preparation, have been recently excavated from the ruins of the city destroyed by Caesar and his legions. But the Bibracte enamels are the work of mere dabblers in the art, compared with the British examples. The home of the art was Britain, and the style of the pattern, as well as the association in which the objects decorated with it were found, demonstrated with certainty that it had reached its highest stage of indigenous development before it came in contact with the Roman culture."

    The Romans may have despised the Celts but the feelings were reciprocated: Tacitus wrote the words that summed up the opinion of the pagan of the conqueror and inserted those famous words in the mouth of Calgacus, last chief of the Picts, and this was what he suggested they thought of Rome:

    "Robbers of the world, having by their universal plunder exhausted the land, they rifle the deep. If the enemy be rich, they are rapacious; if he be poor, they lust for dominion; neither the east nor the west has been able to satisfy them. Alone among men they covet with equal eagerness poverty and riches. To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a wasteland and call it peace."

    This is the story of the uncouth barbarians that we call Celts. It draws together most of what was written about them and by them. Unfortunately some must be inferred and estimated, but when the best guess is made it is educated and based on what we are surer of.

    As we examine the Celtic spirit I wish to explore their beliefs, beginning with those of the Druids and their practice and wisdom.. I want to assess the arrival of Christianity amongst the Celts specifically the British Celtic people for I know them best. I want to see if we can now tell where they first heard the message of Christianity and from whom and how and where the teachings of Christ flourished . I will establish some of the ways that Celtic Christianity differed from the beliefs of Rome. I will attempt to show how the pre-Christian pagan beliefs influenced the new Christian religion and how the two religions co-existed for a time and became rather than rival religions more united as they grew together like two branches of the same tree, as they grew together rather than two different trees growing separately. One stealing the vitality, the water and the sun from the other. Then I will attempt to establish why the great Celtic church fell apart and disappeared and conclude by asking what if anything we can learn today from the Celtic spiritual legacy.

    I will begin however with the Druids, and will commence with the search for Avalon, the Celtic Otherworld, its Valhalla or its heavenly Neverland for I believe that in this search we can begin to understand the Celtic mind, and in finding Avalon we begin to see what they saw in the earth and amid the trees, in the message of the stones and in all living things.

    So let us go searching for Druids and find them first if we can upon the mystical island of Avalon.

    Chapter One: Avalon:

    "Come spirits across the ocean

    Join with your brother who waits here

    Take him across to the bright land

    Take him across moor and meadow

    Take him across a calm sea

    Take him across a blissful ocean

    Peace and joy on the day of his death

    As He finds his way to the white sun"

    ~ Druid prayer recited at funerals.

    .

    In December 1610, the vicar of St Helen's church in Sefton refused to allow the burial in the church grounds of a local woman named Jane Harvie. She was not welcome there, for even though the church were they came had once been Catholic it was Anglican now and there was no place for a heretic amongst the dead. An argument ensued for the family had carried her last remains many miles but the vicar was adamant and could not be moved. The bearers of Jane Hervie’s last remains had nowhere else to turn to make a place for her. There were no other churches, no other burial grounds. The body of this unfortunate woman, was then taken by her relatives and friends who buried her last remains in a shallow grave close by a tall stone cross. This was the closest that they could come to burying her in hallowed ground. Unfortunately, a few days later, the body was disturbed and desecrated by hogs which grazed on the common land and part of her corpse was eaten.

    Sefton appears in the doomsday book of 1086, the name rendered there as Saxtoun, meaning Saxon Town or Town of the Saxon’s and the parish church was built in the 1100’s. It is thought to have been constructed upon the site of a typically oval Saxon burial ground, evidence of which can still be seen in the contours of the land. What is more interesting for us is that in Celtic times, Saxon times and onward into the medieval times when people needed help finding their way markers were put up on the way to the church so that people would know they were going in the right direction . There remains today a series of Wayside Crosses that guide people to the church, and as the relatives of Jane Hervie carried her body toward Sefton Church it was these crosses that guided them there. The bearers often paused and rested near these crosses and it is probably that it was in the shadow of the last of these crosses that her shallow grave was dug and she was laid to rest.

    Some traditions endure long after the reason for their being is forgotten. Some ways of doing things persist even when the reason for so doing is lost or gone or unimportant any more. In ancient times stones where often used to mark the way and the more important the larger and more prominent the markers and so the way to Sefton Church, which was for many years the only church within miles, was marked by a series of crosses in a line which stretched to the coast in one direction and away to the south also.

    What those who erected the crosses may well have known but we have forgotten is that they built upon other markers and upon earlier traditions in just such a way as the catholic church was built upon the site of a Saxon burial ground. These traditions go back thousand s of years into the mist of our Celtic past and beyond.

    The early Celtic legends reveal, that just like Jane Hervie, the deceased amongst them were carried from their death beds to a sacred place where they would be lain to rest forever. Just as it was with the body of the dead of West Lancashire, so in more ancient Celtic tradition the way to the sacred burial place was shown by stone markers and the dead were carried in procession, like a modern funeral procession down a path way - a path that they called a "Path of the Dead.

    Now in our day the most illustrious of our people are buried in the most prestigious places. Our King and Queens, our Generals and our favourite politicians, our poets and our best composers, in fact all who we hold in highest esteem are buried in our most sacred and holy places. The cream of this nations manhood are thus lain to rest in Westminster Abbey, but many other saints and worthy men and women are buried in the other cathedrals, and in other exalted places here and there around the country. It has always been the case that the rich and famous get the best places and the best buildings to be lain in. Even so in Sefton Church we find that the class system is perpetuated and that the chosen and the elect like Sir Richard Molyneux (d1290) are buried within the church whereas the ordinary folk are left outside in the weather and the rain.

    Similarly, the Celtic dead were carried away to their last resting place, and, in their tradition and in their way, they were most often carried westward toward the setting sun, in fact the remains of the most remarkable and illustrious amongst them were carried off to sacred islands beyond the fringes of mainland Britain. These islands were equivalent to our cathedrals, and so as death and the eternal slumber of night came for them the best of them were carried to an island half way between earth and sky , halfway between sea and stars, halfway between last light of the sunset of their life and the darkness of their eternal night. Not everyone was taken to this ancient equivalent of our Cathedral or Isle of the dead. There were those who perished beyond the reach of their friends, in fire or drowned where they could not be found and others for reasons unknown were not carried as far if at all and were buried where they died or close to that place perhaps because no one cared to move them or they didn’t want their loved ones to lie so far away. Nonetheless wherever they were buried it was always in or near a sacred place or like Jane Harvie on or close by the road or path that led to the sacred sanctuary. Just as today the dead are buried near or round the church just so they were buried then, either in the sacred precinct around the holy shrine, or often on or by the road that led between such places. Not much has changed.

    These burial practices are not just part of a legend, nor merely a tale told to children but they are the memory of what was and there is evidence at least in Scottish records that the Kings and spiritual leaders, their poets and generals were carried to just such an island. To a special sacred place, a prehistoric version of our Westminster Abbey, a place set aside for their last remains. The fact that the Kings of Scotland were all buried together should not seem strange now or unusual, because, in fact, we still do this today and there is still a special place where our kings leaders and our most eminent men, are lain to rest. Then it was the island named Avalon in the English legends, though just as there are other churches and cathedrals where people are buried today, there were in ancient times more than one such place, more than one Isle of the Dead.

    'Many of the islands off the west coast of Britain, including Lundy were known to the Celts as 'Isles of the Dead'. They were regarded as holy islands which formed gateways to the otherworld and to which the illustrious dead were ferried, there to be buried with solemn rite amid the spirits of their forefathers.' - A.F. Langham, "The Island of Lundy

    As mentioned the most singular and best documented of such isles and the most well known place for the burial of the Scottish kings of is found off the coast of Scotland at Iona. There, on that sacred isle is a church where all the early kings of Scotland were buried beside many of the early saints and a lot of ordinary people too;

    The pilgrims travelled to Iona in life and in death. Many of the kings of Scotland, Ireland, and even of the Vikings, were buried there. Some of the most famous Kings of Alba, from Kenneth MacAlpin to MacBeth, made their final journey there - across the sound to Iona, onto the Harbour, and up the Street of the Dead to the burial ground, the Relig Oran. This royal tradition was only broken twice whilst The Western Isles stayed a part of the Kingdom of Alba - once by Constantine mac Aed ( buried St Andrews) and again by Malcolm Canmore (buried at Dunfermline). The last king to be interred on Iona was Malcolm's brother, Donald Bane, before Malcolm's son, Edgar, surrendered the island to Magnus, King of Norway, after he subdued the isles to his will in 1098 AD’

    Iona: Scotland's History from the BBC website (ttp://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/history/articles/iona/)

    Iona is therefore what we might call a Scottish Avalon, and that the dead kings and priests when they died were carried down the paths of the dead until their dead corpses and the entourage that accompanied them (druids and witches no doubt) arrived at the place where they were to be buried. There are hundreds and thousands of people buried on Iona(a survey conducted in 1549 listed 48 Dalriadan/Scottish kings buried here, as well as 8 Norwegian and 4 Irish kings.)

    Just as there are many Cathedrals now so then there were many places where the rich and famous could be buried. In Ireland there are legends that speak to us about similar islands of the dead and reveal at least one Irish Avalon for the Irish myths tell of Donn, he being the Lord of the Dead, and an island off the coast of Munster near to Dursey Island, which is called Tech, Duinn which means the House of Donn. Folklore has it that this is where the souls of those dying in Ireland are taken when the end is near for them.

    So having located ‘Isles of the Dead’ off the west coast of both Ireland and Scotland we must obviously seek to identify other such islands of the coast of England and Wales. We must see if we can locate THE Avalon of English tradition, finally, where, if we find this burial place of the kings, will we find if Arthur is buried there?

    As I began the search for the mystical island where Arthur lay, I turned to the paths that I thought would lead me there, the paths of the dead down which the dead and dying were carried on their way to their last and eternal rest. There are at least two lines, or paths of the dead, which end upon the island of Iona. These paths lead from holy site, to an ancient standing stone, past cross and sacred well, over church and shrine from one marker to another from the far coast across all of Scotland to Iona. These lines or paths are the so-called Lei lines, and are the roads down which the dead came. Thus I had come to realize that the two were connected, the island and the lines or paths that leads to it, and that thus if we found one and then the other we could prove the connection between them and perhaps we would then find Avalon.

    "Some research has suggested that leys are evidence of paths of the dead and other spirits. The existence of spirit paths is a belief that is held by many cultures around the world. In Ireland, Fairy paths follow straight lines. It is believed that building houses on these paths will bring bad luck. In the very harsh terrain of the Bolivian mountains where spirits are believed to reside, paths follow straight lines despite the challenging landscape. In China, spirits were believed to travel along straight lines. Straight lines were avoided at all costs unless decreed otherwise by the emperor. In Britain, evidence of spirit paths is found in the ancient earthen burial mounds that again, connect on straight lines"

    Lay Lines by kathy (http://paramyst.com/leylines.html)

    These paths are familiar to those who study the mystical landscape of Britain, though most do not recognize their purpose or import. Alfred Watkins, author of the seminal work on the subject which he called The Old Straight Track was the first to recognize the lines and it was he who first called them Lei (or Ley) lines. But there are many, who have come to believe in the lines, for these paths or Lei lines are those lines that connect special and religious places as they run straight across the country from church to shrine from standing stone to henge and circle. Few have found any purpose to these lines and the theories that abound are many and various. There are others that poo-poo the very thought, of course who point out with examples how easy it is to find a line joining several pubs, or garages or fish and chip shops. However though many of the lines are unsubstantiated or mere assumptions there are a few lines where the coincidences are too certain to be in any way circumstantial.

    I theorized that some of these lay lines were or are pathways or tracks, that led across the landscape of Britain like Roman roads as straight as a crow flies, and that those who died were carried in procession down these paths to the island at the paths end and that this was the reason for their existence and being. Taking the Scottish Avalon as the basis for the theory I now looked for similar paths and similar islands elsewhere in the British isles and the proof of the theory, and thus the discovery of Avalon would be found by discovering such lines and following them to their ends. If we followed such lines and if at that culminating location we found islands were the dead lay in megalithic tombs in neolithic splendor, well then we could conclude that the theory was correct and that we had discovered another Avalon, perhaps the Arthurian Avalon, of legend.

    There are many of these lines that end at islands just of the west coast of Britain . Another Lei line ends upon the isle of Lewis where stands the great stone circle of Callinish – a circle that the tiny population of that island could not have erected in a thousand years but a circle as grand if not grander in many ways than is Stonehenge itself . Here on another sacred island are many of the worthies of Scotland interred.

    The lei lines often seem to follow the path of the rising or setting sun at certain times of the year, or at least run from east to west though there are other lines that do not. Some join the main east-west lines and I think they are like tributaries on the river of death that carry the deceased from the place of their passing to the nearest of the great lines....and onward then toward the SUN... the white sun....

    Anyway extrapolating from the knowing gleaned from the conjunction of line and isle in Scotland we must look further south to find the mirror of that practice reflected in the Celtic ways of Wales and England and Cornwall, so that thus we might prove the theory

    This is actually at least to begin with quite a simple task.

    Like Iona and Holy Island, Bardsey Island is an island off the west coast of the mainland, and hence associated with the setting sun and the departure of the soul to the Otherworld. Like Iona, it became a most important burial place for royalty and holy men; some 20,000 saints are said to lie beneath its soil, though it remains to be seen whether this claim is supported by any archaeological evidence. Where precisely these thousands of remains would be buried, is a good question – with no apparent answer. But despite such possible exaggeration, its sacred nature is not in doubt; the Church even proclaimed that three pilgrimages to Ynys Enlli were equal to one to Rome; thus attaining the nickname of being the Rome of Britain. Philip Coppens

    Some of the early Welsh kings may

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