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THE CELTIC CONNECTION * NOVEMBER 1996
QUALITY CELTIC JEWELLERY
C & A Jewellers 671 Fort Street Victoria, BC V8W 1G7
MYTHOLOGY
Are you getting married or engaged
or looking for the right gift for a special friendship?
The Claddagh Ring says it all.
It's a wedding ring, an engagement ring and a friendship ring.
We have a large selection of claddagh rings, pendants and earrings.
Any and all enquiries welcome Repairs guaranteed
Call Adrian O'Brien (Dubliner) Phone/fax (604) 381-2174
The British jsanger
BUTCHER SHOP
CHRISTMAS ORDERS AR BEING TAKEN NOW!
*Fresh New York Turkey - Right off the farm! (Limited supply)
♦English Gammon Ham ♦New shipments arriving daily of British Groceries and candies *Cadbury Christmas Stockings & selection boxed chocolates
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985-2444
The Otherworld Beckons in Samhain's Dark Season
By CYNTHIA WALLENTINE
mJTOVEMBER EVE IV begets the chaotic ■* w season of Sam-hain, a time when all manner of apparitions roam unobtruded, across the mortal landscape.
The area of the Otherworld is a wild and natural place and thus creatures of that land take all manner of shapes and guises.
Unwitting travellers who set foot on the midnight road might easily see their last moonrise in the gleaming eyes of the "baobhan sith," the female vampires who walk the Scottish Highlands.
A family's sorrow might be foretold in their loved one's fearful glance at the haunting red eyes of the "Shriker," a hound of hell come to collect a mortal soul.
Although closer examination of these tales might lead some to scoff, these stories and their fantastic occupants both instruct and allow us a fleeting connection to a natural world from which cur modern society is divorced.
Much has been written on the varieties of ghosts and shades who share our earthly plane and
which for many reasons appear now and again to the living.
Many of us have seen a ghost and generally find the experience highly charged and unforgettable. Often times such an experience will launch an individual into a journey of self discovery, initiating them into a relationship with their inner self and bridging the distance between personal and universal experiences.
Other spectres serve to lessen the shock of an impending event, illness or death, either of oneself or a loved one. The "Fetch" is the image of a man or woman which may appear in one place as the physical body actually lies in another.
This double (or "doppleganger") may presage an impending split of the soul with its body, and is seen by friends or the subject himself or herself.
The Celtic death messenger, the
Banshee, appears to and is heard by family and friends. Her mournful wails hasten their attendance at a loved one's sickbed.
The only harm attributed to the Banshee is that which she deals upon men of uncivil nature who accost her in her nightly keening.
From this, we can deduce it is unwise to harass women or travel in the dead of night — both admonitions which hold well today.
While serving to inform (and entertain) our ancestors, these strange creatures of the Other-world joined the gap between the known and unknown worlds, thus providing some comfort and even predictability to a universe which could not otherwise be controlled.
These spirits still exist today, not as inventions, but as extensions of the mind. The ghosts, guides and angels we see and hear serve to reconnect us with our forgotten nature and the soul's journey.
They beckon us from the twilight of our consciousness, with some unremembered, slightly frightening familiarity, to join them for a spell in their darkly splendid world.
HOURS: Mon-Fri 9:30-6. Saturday 9-6. Sunday closed
Irish Only TV Station Launched
By ULTAN MACKEN DUBLIN — A long-cherished Irish dream was realised on October 31, when Telifis na Gaeilge, a new national television station devoted to the broadcast of programs in Irish, was launched.
The service will transmit for seven-and-a-half hours a day, the majority of which will be wholly Irish programming with English subtitles.
The birth of the new station has not been entirely free from controversy. Critics are calling the enterprise a waste of money. Excess advertising revenues from RTE helped with the initial start-up, including the construction of a £16 million administrative building at Baile na hAb-hann, Spiddal.
The Government has agreed to contribute £10 million annually but 30 jobs have already been created at the station, with an estimated 260 more in the tertiary production companies which have been commissioned to provide programs for the channel.
The new station was officially opened by one of the prime movers behind the entire development, Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht Michael D. Higgins.
NEW CELTIC DEVOTIONAL
CELTIC DEVOTIONAL — DAILY PRAYERS AND
BLESSINGS By Caitlin Matthews Publisher: Gill & Macmillan ISBN 0-7171-2450-9_
Reviewed by J. Wanamaker What is a Celtic Devotional! Caitlin Matthews explains, "This book is for people of a lively,
3uesting spirit who want to lay own a personal pattern of spiritual practice but who do not wish to practice this within a specific religious framework."
Her book is divided mainly into the four Celtic seasons: Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane and Lughnasadh, with the days split between them, complete with morning and evening devotions.
Chapters include: Opening the Soul Shrine, How to Use This
Book, the Perpetual Lunar Calendar (very handy for those of us not living near an observatory) and a special section called: The House of Life, where additional blessings, prayers and invocations can be found.
Matthews has "chosen to work within the broadest lines of Celtic spiritual tradition, where no soul is condemned as being beyond salvation, but is treated as integrally holy and full of potential; where no part or inhabitant of the universe is thought of as life — or soul-less; but is honoured and respected as a habitation of Divine life."
Hard-bound and richly illustrated with illuminations which echo TheBookofKells, it is a well-designed companion piece to Caitlin's Celtic Book of Days.
Ancient Stones Discovered
DUBLIN — Archaeologists working at Knowth, in County Meath, have discovered six decorated stones which date back more than 7,000 years. The stones are said to "represent the finest examples of megalithic art across Europe".
— The Irish Emigrant
