Shaman Pathways - The Celtic Chakras - Elen Sentier 2011

What are the Celtic Chakras?

Some people think there is no concept of “chakras” in the western tradition but this is not the case. Chakras are not a purely eastern concept but one found throughout the mystery traditions all over the world. I was interested to read what writer and novelist, Jim Donaldson, says on his website, “As ancient mythologies, apparently so idle and meaningless, are now perceived to embody truths, scientific and religious, so the seemingly foolish tradi- tions of nations, descriptive of their early history, are recognized to convey ideas more or less astronomical and theological.” It’s good to see other folk coming to realise that what has been scorned by academics in the past is very far from the rubbish and children’s fantasies we were told it was.

There is a strong body of knowing of the energy centres, and the pathways between them, that the cunning folk and spirit keepers of Britain have known from time out of mind but, in the way of all esoteric and occult traditions, it is very well hidden in the stories and song of this land. This book takes you to follow the quicksilver pathways of the goddesses Elen of the Ways, Arianrhod, Ceridwen and Fraid and so discover the ancient wisdom for yourself.

The eastern systems have for many years been quite well known; our western systems have been hidden in story, song and old lore. From years of reading, studying and experimenting with willing people I’ve been able to go deeply into the ancient stories of our land and figure out from their riddling what they tell about how the Earth works. That’s what Grammarye is about; it’s the old word for the lore, the wisdom teachings, used by cunning folk and I’ll be using the word in this book. Grammarye is a system to help us find and remember how the world works, how the whole fits together. It’s what physicists and mathemati- cians are working towards too. When you can get to talk to them privately, as I’ve sometimes been able to do, they freely admit that there is a lot of correspondence between what they see and think and the old stories of our planet. I’ve worked with many of the traditions from around the Earth, eastern and western; when you sit with them, ponder them, hold several threads together in your mind, you begin to see how they say the same thing, how their grammarye is of the whole world but expressed differently depending on the spirit of place who is guardian to that part of the Earth. Grammarye helps us to get into the sense and feeling of the land, brings us closer to the ancestors who hold the wisdom for us and expand our own knowing.

I find I’m asked two questions when I first talk about the Celtic chakra system …

✵ How are the Celtic Chakras different from the eastern systems? I thought the word was Sanskrit and they were only an eastern concept.

✵ All the books I’ve read go through the chakras from the base up to the crown. Why do the Celts use a spiral?

Spiral Path

Stories are the main way for the Celtic shaman to learn grammarye, the lore, we follow the spiral path of story, never going straight at a thing but always following the twists and turns of the path. Elen of the Ways, the ancient reindeer goddess of the northern peoples who haunted the Boreal Forest (of which Britain was a part) and her sister goddesses show us the tracks and pathways for our lives.

The triskele spins and spirals its way through the Celtic chakra system. It threads its way through Celtic art but it is much more than just a beautiful pattern, it holds one of the funda- mental principles of the Celtic spiritual and mystery tradition, the 3-in-1.

There are three main forms of path for humans to walk through the spirit worlds; the straight line, the circle and the spiral.

✵ The straight line is simple linear time; from birth to death; folk tend to think of it as a progression each step following on the previous, continuous expansion from a point of no- thing-ness (like the Big Bang theory).

✵ The circle is also time; cycles and seasons, returning always to the same place.

✵ The spiral contains both the cycles and the sense of progression but without the restricting points of either continuous outward expansion or continual return to the same place. It has a sense of breathing; a sense of conti- nuity and newness … the and/and principle rather than the exclusive either/or that many folk live with.

The mathematician Kurt Gödel’s theorem of incompleteness expresses this nicely for our modern age and those who like a scientific correspondence (like me). Our ancestors knew but expressed it differently and perhaps more poetically. They knew and saw and worked with the spiral that happens throughout the natural world, from sunflower seeds to chakras.

The spiral path leads you through the chakras in a special way. The principle of spiral movement is fundamental in the Celtic tradition; you find it throughout art and stories. Perhaps the most famous Celtic symbol, the triskele, the threeness patterns you find in Celtic art, shows it best. The old saying, “a picture’s worth a thousand words”, was well known to our ancestors; here are some examples of Triskeles.

All of these are ways of showing us, giving us the grammarye, the structure of the web, the wyrd. The chakras within our bodies and within the land are a fundamental part of this.

Troy Town

The major difference with the Celtic system is that it works in a spiral rather than a linear fashion and is always dual — breathing in/out, feminine/masculine, all the pairs of opposites. The ancient labyrinth known as the Troy Town does this too; it spirals in then spirals out, continually; this is the way the energy goes both through and between the chakras and within each chakra.

This can be a bit hard to get one’s head around so the best thing to do is to give one’s head sixpence and tell it to go out to play, so giving the intuition space to work. Throughout my life I’ve always found that experiential learning is the most effective, both for myself and for the people I work with … do it first then talk (and think) about it once you have the experience inside you. On that note, let’s try a short journey to walk the spiral path through the chakras.

Journey: the Spiral Path

Unlike the way most teachers tell you to go, the Celtic shaman does not journey simply from bottom to top, following the rainbow colours. The Celtic shaman always works in spirals: this way you get to meet the chakras in the pairs (cauldrons) in which they function.

You spiral round and out from the centre, not from bottom to top. So …

Begin at the heart centre; sense, feel yourself centred in the heart; spend a few moments there getting to know the feel of your heart centre, see it new as though you had never seen it before. When you are ready, see a silvery thread going out from your heart. Follow the quicksilver path DOWN to the Heart’s partner the solar plexus.

Chakra Spiral

Spend a few moments with the solar plexus, sense, feel yourself centred in there; get to know the feel of your solar plexus centre, see it new as though you had never seen it before. When you are ready, see a silvery thread going out from your solar plexus. Follow the quicksilver path UP to the throat centre.

Spend a few moments with the throat centre, sense, feel yourself centred in there; get to know the feel of your throat centre, see it new as though you had never seen it before. When you are ready, see a silvery thread going out from your solar plexus. Follow the quick- silver path DOWN to the sacral centre just below the belly button.

Spend a few moments with the sacral centre, sense, feel yourself centred in there; get to know the feel of your sacral centre, see it new as though you had never seen it before. When you are ready, see a silvery thread going out from your sacral centre. Follow the quicksilver path UP to the crown centre.

Spend a few moments with the crown centre, sense, feel yourself there. You may find it quite entrancing so do your best to stay grounded; it is an amazing place and connects you directly to otherworld. It’s very important NOT to drift off, not to “go with the flow”, you need to stay with it and be able to continue your journey for you are by no means done yet. When you are ready, see a silvery thread going out from your crown. Follow the quicksilver path DOWN to the base centre at the base of your spine.

Spend a few moments with the base centre, sense, feel yourself centred in there; get to know the feel of your base centre, see it new as though you had never seen it before. It too can seem entrancing although usually less devastatingly than the crown. The base centre connects to the heart of the Earth so is also very powerful. Don’t get stuck there, be ready to move on for you are still not finished with your journey. When you are ready, see a silvery thread going out from your base centre. Follow the quicksilver path UP to the brow centre.

The brow centre is another amazing place. It is where all the threads from the other six centres come together and are integrated into a wholeness that is you in this lifetime. One of the phrases many folk use to describe it is the place of “bright darkness”. At first, this seems to be a paradox, how can darkness be bright? When you actually go there by doing this exercise you’ll see what it means, finding the words to describe it is far harder than actually knowing it. Spend a little time there but, again, do NOT get lost!

When you are ready to leave, thank the brow and all the centres for showing you themselves and say you will visit them again to learn more.

Now it is time to come home, to return to the everyday world. Take a deep breath and sigh it out, take another and sigh that out too, and a third. Swallow, move your mouth, wiggle your fingers and toes, rub your hands together then rub your knees and legs and arms, have a good stretch and a yawn, then open your eyes. Blink a few times, move your head gently on your neck, hunch your shoulders and let go, rub your feet on the floor. When you feel that you’re safely back in your body thank your body for being there for you to return to.

Make a few notes and drawings to remind you of your journey then make yourself a warm drink and have something nice to snack on. You may not realise it but you’ve done a lot of work just in that simple-seeming journey and you need to replenish your body for the energy it gave you while you worked.

This come-back routine is very effective, we’ll use it for all the journeys.

Abred

The Abred: Three Realms

The ABRED is a Celtic symbol already in use five thousand years ago. Three circles of the same size overlap to form a centre, repre- senting the totality of being. It is a Power- shape, a shaman’s tool. It represents the three spirit worlds and realms, at their three levels. It contains …

✵ In the outer ring you have the single parts — 1,2 & 3 — of the 3 circles

✵ At the next level you have the double parts — 4,5 & 6

✵ In the centre, 7, you have the place where the 3 circles all overlap and become one

This is what the Triskele is expressing.

All of this wisdom and grammarye is built from the simple drawing of the 3 overlapping circles. Our Celtic forebears were particularly good at fitting a quart into a pint pot!

In Celtic lore the Three Realms are named Ceugent (ky-gent, hard g), Gwyned, and Abred.

The following table of correspondences is useful to see how things relate.

CEUGENT 1st Realm

GWYNED 2nd Realm

ABRED 3rd Realm

Upperworld,

Middleworld,

Underworld,

Red light

Blue light

Green light

Smith

Healer

Poet

Maiden

Mother

Crone

Life

Consciousness

Mind

Cauldron of Warming

Cauldron of Vocation

Cauldron of Wisdom

Crown/Base

Heart/Solar Plexus

Throat/Sacral

Power

Love

Wisdom

Red Cup of Lordship

White Cup of Fostering

Black Cup of Forgetfulness

Journey: Torch Exercise 3-ness

This is a fundamental exercise for you; doing it is a consciousness-changing exercise.

You need

✵ 3 light-sources (lamps, torches) that each create a spot of light on the wall.

✵ A white wall or other uncoloured surface to project onto.

✵ 1 red, 1 blue and 1 green gel to cover each of the lights. Preferably use theatre lighting gels as their colour is very strong, but any art shop should be able to help.

✵ Set the light sources up to all point at one spot on the wall — this is important, spend time on it, if the lights don’t overlap you won’t get the full effect.

✵ Put a coloured gel onto each light-source.

✵ Turn on the lights, one at a time …

✵ WATCH the colours change as you add each light

✵ When all three are pointing at the same spot, what colour is the light on the wall?

✵ It should be White … if it isn’t jiggle the lights around until they are all aligned, all covering the same spot on the wall, from the same distance, then it will be white. Take time and have patience with yourself over this, it’s important for you to see it.

✵ Alignment has big implications … spend time getting it right.

✵ When you have the white light, pass your hand between the torches and the wall …

✵ What happens on the wall?

✵ What happens on your hand?

Do this several times until you are fairly clear in your mind what is happening.

You should be seeing rainbow-shadows on the wall as you pass your hand between the lights and the wall. You should also see rainbows on your hand.

This exercise shows you the three lights symbolising the source, the three-ness, of the triskele. The wall is like the Earth. In order to form colour and shape, to show differences, know boundaries. The white light is first split into its component parts by Movement, Beingness, Living, that dances between the source and Earth. This movement splits the light into the myriad rainbow colours of Life.

This is shown by the movement of your hand. The colours change both on the wall AND on your hand; so you are changed by the movement as the earth herself is changed by the movement.

Life is movement, change, continually dancing. The Dineh people, the Navajo, call it dammas, meaning “that which moves”. It’s known all over the world and called by different names; the awenyddion, the cunning folk, the shamans, dance, shift in the light, making patterns, shadows, helping reality to BE.