The Celtic Spirit: Daily Meditations for the Turning Year (Paperback)

by Caitlin Matthews (Author) "The season of winter begins at Samhain, the Celtic New Year, on the eve of November..." (more)
Key Phrases: spiritual nomadism, spiritual allies, druid path, Scots Gaelic, King Arthur, Golden Age (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"Because the Celtic Spirit's simplicity and gentleness cut across boundaries, there's something here for almost everyone." -- --Rocky Mountain News

"Because the Celtic Spirit's simplicity and gentleness cut across boundaries, there's something here for almost everyone." -- --Rocky Mountain News

Product Description
Discover the Living Wisdom of the Ancient Celts

The ancient Celts and their spiritual mediators, the Druids believed in the communion of all living things and sought harmony between nature and the human soul. Now, with this inspiring book of day-by-day mediations, renowned Celtic scholar Caitlín Matthews shows you how to reawaken the power of this age-old spiritual inheritance.

Using poetry, myths, reflections, rituals, and visualizations, Matthews leads you on a yearlong pilgrimage that will help connect the cycles of your soul to the circle of the seasons. From the winter months of Samhain the summer months of Beltant, from mediations on the gifts and blessings of life to the insights and promises of the soul, she enables you to complete your own sacred circuit of the turning year.

Brimming with the legends and lore of Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and Britain, The Celtic Spirit is a brilliant introduction to the sacred wisdom of the Celtic path--and a potent resource for daily spiritual renewal.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne; 1st edition (December 30, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062515381
• ISBN-13: 978-0062515384
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #423,186 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #8 in	Books > Religion & Spirituality > Authors, A-Z > ( M ) > Matthews, Caitlin
  #80 in	Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Mythology > Celtic & British Isles

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Author comment, November 30, 1998

By A Customer

This book is written for all who would like a daily touchstone for their own spiritual musings. I originally entitled it 'Meditations on the Druid Path' but that was rejected as not being sufficiently marketable!!! However, most of it stems from my own walking of the Druid path. Drawing upon all aspects of the druidic tradition - from ancient to modern - each day has its own meditation and reader's interaction point where you make the material your own. One of the most important aspects of spiritual life is its habitual, daily patterns which create pathways for the soul's progress. This progress is not 'progressive' in the modern sense, but more eliptical, like Celtic tracery and knotwork which itself is a reflection of the soul's spiralling trajectory. The seasons which accompany our spiritual practice are our allies and companions. Even the most ordinary occurences are material for our meditations. The full sum of our personal experiences open up our soul's path and lead us to form our own philosophy of life. Where Celtic names and titles are mentioned, I have provided pronounciation guides.

53 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good for daily meditation, but a little too "New Age"., August 31, 1999

By A Customer

Caitlin Matthews has done an excellent job of creating a Celtic-inspired book of daily devotions, each page including a verse, a short "sermon", and a suggested activity or subject for personal meditiation. She has also done a good job of keeping the different Celtic tribes seperate by including countries of origin with each verse or myth. (As usual, though, I haven't come across anything about the silversmith Celts in the mountains of Spain, but I believe that is probably the fault of history and not Celtic researchers. In all fairness, though, I haven't finished the year of devotions included!)

However, several of the verses seem to be excerpts from her own poetry. Having studied formalism extensively, it's apparent she is a fine writer, but I would have liked to have seen more historical verse used. (That's just my personal taste-- and I didn't take that into account with my rating.)

I only gave it four stars because so far there seems to be a little too much "peace and love and be kind to animals" propaganda in it. I am a strict vegetarian, myself, but it seems to me that such things are out of place in Celtic Reconstructionism and are better left to Primitive Reconstructionists like Wiccans. These are, after all, the hunter/herder/warriors whose strength and intelligence frightened the bejesus out of Caesar's troops. There is also a mention of the "Three-Fold Law" which seems to be a way to bring in the Wiccan crowd.

However, if you've started turning to the "Celtic Spirit" because you seem to have lost your way, or you feel some sort of daily discipline will give your life more structure, you could probably benefit from purchasing this book and reading a passage every morning. And for those of you historical purists, the historical and mythological passages appear to be accurate, and they provide a good introduction to each. In spite of my misgivings about the "New Age" nature of the work, I have continued to use it daily and am still finding it quite enjoyable.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well-Sculpted Daily Meditations, January 6, 2002

By	Frank MacEowen (California-Georgia-Ireland) - See all my reviews

Celtic spirituality is a vast domain, one that cannot truly be pinned down to one expression. Aspects of the Celtic spirit are, no doubt, Pagan in form and essence--involving elements of Druidism, folk "shamanism" and faery lore, while other expressions draw upon the rich tradition of Celtic-Christian mysticism. Woven in and throughout, almost as a kind of binding glue to the traditions, are the bardic traditions of verse, word, and story. Caitlin has done a marvelous job in The Celtic Spirit of expressing a footing in all forms of Celtic spirituality. This little book is an invitation, through the mode of a bardic-contemplative tool, to slow down each day, to meditate on some feature of the vast Celtic spiritual traditions, giving the reader the unmistakable sense that the Celtic spirit is not quarantined to some ancient, inaccessible past, but rather a living stream of inspiration that survives today.