Category: Gaelic Polytheism

If you haven't read the introduction to the first aicme, maybe go read that first and return, because today I'm just launching straight into the fourth aicme.

I associate Ailm with the winter, and from that, with Samhain, and then the rest of the aicme with winter and with the north, though again as far as I know there is no direct historical support for that.  I'm also adding in some keywords that come from my personal understanding of each fid that I've developed in my studies, but again, these are to be taken as one person's opinion, not fact.

Ailm – All Timeliness

Spirit: a bearded, hunched over old man, but with trickster vibes. Long white beard, robes a dingy greyish white and faded dark green, bald, light colored eyes (possibly green-grey), walking with a staff.  Reminiscent of Old Man Winter illustrations.

Keywords: a cry, a groan, a shout; branches creaking in wind and popping in ice; tip of your tongue, the moment before insight, brink of discovery; epiphany, eureka moment; clearing clutter out of the way to make room for insight, removing the extraneous so the pattern can be recognized; metacognition and self-improvement work; sovereignty and its importance; beginning of a legacy, head of a family, an important or exalted ancestor, a progenitor; ploughing metaphors, clearing away what will impede crops, readying the soil for planting, planning for the far future; looks to the far future but also the far past and recognizes the repeating patterns therein; certainty, integrity, clarity of purpose, a strong sense of self; applying knowledge and wisdom won through long experience and good judgement.

Onn – Onward Momentum

Spirit: androgynous, ash tree dryad

Keywords: movement, travel; going where you feel called, seeking your fortune, following your heart; heading towards one’s heart’s desire, toward self-actualization, self-realization, success; seeker, pilgrimage; take the good with the bad, the honey with the thorns; the continual work of study, or of relationships; buckling down for the long haul, perseverance, sustainability; building for the future; don’t take the path of least resistance, take the path that’s necessary and overcome obstacles as they appear, the only way out is through; moving with a clear goal/purpose even if the entire path is not yet clear; a need for action and movement instead of more strategizing, any way forward is better than stagnancy;

Uir – Unending Cycles

Spirit: grandmotherly, but a bit like the grandmother from the Halloweentown movies*, grey hair, light skin, brown eyes, seems almost human, but that “almost” is very key – no longer human but not distinctly one of the Dead, either. Crone Energy, but back still very straight and limbs very strong.

Keywords: half-wild places, useful “weeds”; living in harmony with your local ecosystem; land spirits and nature spirits; gardening and foraging; practicality, pragmatism, thrift, waste not want not, frugality, poverty; bodily death, graves, decay; ancestors, grief; untilled soil, a field left to lie fallow to renew the soil, crop rotation; our own fallow times, and rotation in our own lives to avoid burnout; slow earth cycles, the “longue durée”; nostalgia, honeyed memories, rose colored glasses; preparatory work, getting organized so you can do things later, getting ready to get ready; the inevitability of change and death, but also the inevitability of new life to take its place; reincarnation.

* Not kidding, unfortunately! Sometimes spirits just like a face we’ve already got in our heads, for aesthetic and associations.  Which is why everyone sees the gods a little differently!

Edad – Ending Mundanity

Spirit: shifting between and blending two forms. First, a washer woman, a bit chubby but with dense muscles beneath, in wet clothes, with light brown hair and hazel eyes, her light complexion reddened by exertion. Second, a skeletal-thin feminine spectre with corpse-grey skin wearing wispy rags. Neither time was there blood, but she wasn’t actively washing. Very Washer at the Ford vibes.

Keywords: death, ghosts, ancestors, deathwork, hauntings; wisdom from those who have passed on, mediumship, spiritwork; entheogens and similar spiritual tools and practices; mystical or occult initiation, especially when sudden or unexpected; moving out of the realm of “normal” experiences and being forever marked as changed by this; nothing will ever be the same again; near death experiences and the epiphanies they bring; piercing the veil, the second sight; destruction of the old self to make way for the new, dismemberment healings, a need to leave your old ways behind; initiatory crisis; an unavoidable turning point or pivot point; important personal gnosis; the beginning of the path of a mystic or a witch.

Idad – Indelible Memories

Spirit: elderly looking feminine yew dryad, with berries in her long hair

Keywords: Old age, the process of growing old, and elders in your communities; infirmity, deathbed, the process of dying; ancestors and ancestor work; long-lived, long life, survival, endurance, permanence; death bringing only a new beginning; cemeteries and graveyards; sagely advice, wisdom and culture being passed down to younger generations, enduring folkways, the fragility of oral tradition; generational and family line talents, blessings, curses; genetic inheritance and epigenetics; inheritance of all types; maturity, guarding the future, looking to the past to plan for the future; look at the big picture; wait for the correct time to act; slow change and transitions; gateway to the lands of the dead; the truth of the past and of a life, as seen in retrospect, hindsight; reflection on one’s past to trace the patterns revealed; things coming to a final end, families that have died out, folkways that have been lost.

And that's the last one!  Though I might do one on the forfeda, and I might share a few more lists later, if there's interest.

If you haven't read the introduction to the first aicme, maybe go read that first and return, because today I'm just launching straight into the third aicme.

I associate Muin with Lughnasadh and the early autumn, when grapes and blackberries both ripen, and thus the rest of the aicme with that season as well and with the west, though again as far as I know there is no direct historical support for that.  I'm also adding in some keywords that come from my personal understanding of each fid that I've developed in my studies, but again, these are to be taken as one person's opinion, not fact.

Muin – Madly Intoxicated

Spirit: fat (kinda Venus of Willendorf but more androgynous?), naked, reddish brown skin, either intersex or a sex-fluid shapeshifter (unclear if my focus not good or actually shifting form), short and close-cropped brown curly/coily hair, brown eyes with a twinkle of mischief.

Keywords: wine, mead, alcohol and drunkenness, in vino veritas, intoxication; release, loose tongue, uninhibited; ecstasy, passion, the heat of the moment; voice, communication, gossip, chatter, but also deep conversations; communication breakthrough or breakdown, misunderstanding; deception, flattery, manipulation, ruse, half truths, insincerity, skilled deception; heart on one’s sleeve; emotional knowledge, communication about or from emotional states, emotional literacy or lack thereof; a need for discernment.

Gort – Growing Continually

Spirit: masculine, the strongman build (dense muscles with a layer of fat over it, not bodybuilder type), light skin reddened/tanned by the sun, farmer or rancher vibes, wearing an open vest, brown leather, with no shirt beneath, and cloth pants, and a black-brown duster jacket (leather or cloth unclear), small bone colored bull horns peeking out of chestnut colored short wavy hair, brown eyes, seemed to have a tail.

Keywords: cultivation, farmstead, gardening; planting and minding things now for a later harvest; tenacity, determination, reaching upwards and getting there by any means necessary; domestic, hospitality; feasting, abundance, nourishment, food; the delights of friends and family (not the obligations), siblings especially; evergreen, fecundity, fertility; creation of sanctuary, cultivation of one’s home place; short term plans.

nGétal – Yesterday’s Wounds

Spirit: male, almost androgynized by extreme old age: crinkled, wrinkled, wizened, papery skin, age spots, but still surprising strength to his grip. Short and hunched, wearing a worn cloak – not quite threadbare but clearly long-used. Long pointed fingernails like claws. “Ugly” he insisted.

Keywords: healing, especially with water, folk healing ways, home remedies, folk herbalism; smoke healing, smoke cleansing; healing as removal, removing that which doesn’t serve, surgery; healing as a process, taking care not to let a wound fester; accidental wounds or those gained in conflict; physical cleansing and mundane cleaning; physicians and healers; letting an illness run its course; practical measures; doing mundane work alongside the magical and otherworldly; elf shot and related illnesses, and the curing thereof; removing stagnancy, improving circulation; ruminations and overcoming them.

Straif – Strengthening Changes

Spirit: slim, feminine, hair almost white with pale purple tones, long and straight. Skin moonlight white also with purple grey undertones, eyes dark purple. Wearing a sleeveless floor length dress that was so dark a shade of purple it looked black at first. How I might picture a luantishee.

Keywords: thorn, reminds me of thurisaz; protection as offensive action, holding your boundaries by any means (including violence); aggressive, combative, intense; a need to take stock of your defenses and strategize, increasing your defenses after they are breached; rising to a challenge, learning a hard lesson, what you learn and become after facing adversity; turning the tables partway through a conflict and thus coming out on top; banework, occult, “left hand path”, secrecy; transformation as a process: pressure and heat creating a new material; expectations are different from reality, expect the unexpected; a period of intense work and growth, referring to problems you’re currently going through, or a warning that there are some on the horizon.

Ruis – Raging Fires

Spirit: A bit like a satyr but bovine. Male, naked, with a broad chest and a round belly. Russet chest hair, slightly darker head hair, small brown eyes, round face with small bull horns on top of his head.  Lower half sort of furred, like a red highland cow; hooves, tail. Big smile.

Keywords: blushing, shame, guilt, embarrassment; past mistakes, learning from the past; transforming trauma, overcoming insecurities; wisdom coming from experience and age; heat, fever from emotion or illness, hot bloodedness; a hot temper, rage, frenzy, flaring into anger; lust, passion, arousal; primal energies, extreme emotional states, intense emotions whether positive or negative; struggle for dominance, struggle against authority or oppression; dysregulation, mental illnesses that affect emotional regulation, coming back into proper regulation; may intensify nearby feda.

Sorry this one was late – look for the fourth aicme at the end of the week!

If you haven't read the introduction to the first aicme, maybe go read that first and return, because today I'm just launching straight into the second aicme.

I associate hÚath with Bealtaine personally, from the association with hawthorn which blooms around then, and from that I associate the entire aicme with the Summer and the South, though again as far as I know there is no direct historical support for that.  I'm also adding in some keywords that come from my personal understanding of each fid that I've developed in my studies, but again, these are to be taken as one person's opinion, not fact.

hÚath – Humanity’s Hedge

Spirit: Feminine, so bright and beautiful she hurt to look at (this is how I experience a lot of the Gentry among the Aos Sidhe), with a sort of crystalline quality that’s hard to describe, and almost colorless, with white-bordering-on-gold skin and hair (crayon white, not human “white”), hints of ruby in eyes, lips.

Keywords: transitions, liminality; the fair folk, the unseen, the otherworlds and otherworldly beings; beauty hiding danger, horror hiding help, things not being what they seem, illusions; thorns preventing forward progress, hedges keeping things out as much as keeping you in; risk, chaos, anxiety, heart-pounding fear, nightmares; predators, and protection against them; fertility with the shadow of death; everything has a cost; a difficult and narrow path forward.

Dair – Dignified Steadyness

Spirit: Looked like an ent from Lord of the Rings, maybe 9ft tall? And vaguely masculine. Not bearded and not thin, unlike Treebeard in the movies – stout and strong and solid instead, like an oak with an enormous trunk.

Keywords: strength, especially for protection; the protection of solid walls and bolted doors; steadfastness, stability, unshakeable; rock solid foundations, legacy, longevity, building for the future; unyielding, enduring; patience, maturity; kingship and sacred kings; justice, law, righteousness; wisdom, deep truths and truth revealed; grounding, anchor; aging well, slow growth, the march of time; the strength of a community joined together.

Tinne – Tested Resolve

Spirit: vaguely humanoid but very androgynous; a bit like a dryad/satyr chimera.  Holly leaves and goat hooves and horns on their head that might be goat horn or might be thorns, very red lips and eyes.

Keywords: fire-hardened, forged, transformed by heat and pressure, steel tested in fire; transformation and transmutation; defensive, protective, guarding; prickly, holding at arm’s length; adversity and overcoming it, trials, meeting challenges; a phoenix rising from ashes, new growth after a forest fire but also the destructive catalyst; stripping away inessentials, back to the basics; training hard, mastery through dedication; martial arts, weaponry, warcraft; self-control, self-discipline, self-denial; a trial by fire, running a gauntlet; a likeliness you’ll emerge from this stronger, not broken.

Coll – Canny Guidance

Spirit: another dryad, but this one is femme and much more plump than usual depictions (more like Sergle’s art), with a round wide face and broad shoulders, hazelnut brown skin, green-brown eyes, wearing green maybe-leather clothing cut like a sleeveless crop top and skort but clearly not od human make.  Had a sort of warm and happy vibe, though it’s clear there’s more serious depth behind the smile.

Keywords: Deep wells of wisdom, knowledge, scholarly learning; enlightenment, insight; mysteries understood, the sweetness of a puzzle solved; integration of lessons learned; inspiration, communion, vision, revelation, imbas; initiatory paths; prophecy through unraveling patterns, seeing and reading the flow of fate/wyrd; going where life takes you, following the flow, trusting your path; stillness, silence, contemplation, the monastic, the hermit, the blind sage archetype; magic made through application of secret knowledge, the occult, esoteric; guidance from one’s spirit guides and allies, wise counsel sought and received.

Ceirt – Queer Wit

Spirit: corpse-pale greyish skinned woman dressed in rags that were once a white gown but are now dirty grey, like an illustration of a banshee, face that was not young and not old, sort of ageless, dark hair and eyes, wearing a veil, faded flowers in her hair (possibly a bridal outfit like the movie Corpse Bride?), wailing and shrieking and shaking when she first showed up.

Keywords: dead, mad, or a poet; crossing into the Otherworlds or land of the Dead; no guarantee you’ll come through your current trials unscathed; apples of life, apple branches of healing, both sweet domesticated and wild sour thorny apples; the possibility of renewal, transformation, or becoming broken by the process; possible deception, confusion, or obfuscation; falling off the bandwagon, relapse, and the lower half of a cycle, both the descent and turning the corner; anxiety, fear, burnout, as well as being overwhelmed by and struggling with these; mental illness, nervous breakdowns, madness; a need to balance both traditional and alternative approaches to medicine and healing.

Look for the third aicme in about a week!

A couple of weeks ago (ah, how time flies) I commented on someone else's post about ogham that some of my understandings were similar, and it spawned a brief conversation about how my understanding came about, and then I promised to share some of my insights... and then, well.  Life happened.  Samhain happened.  And now here I am in the second half of November, finally getting some of it down on paper and screen.  I'll start with a little background, though, on my personal study of ogham.

I don't recall when I first heard of ogham, but I can be almost certain that it was in the sense of the "alphabet of trees" or "tree calendar", both of which are pretty misleading. My first real contact with ogham, besides lists of trees that had more new age material than Irish material, was probably in one of Raven Edgewalker's classes at Sacred Space.  They do use the tree list pretty heavily (they're a plant witch after all) but, importantly, they explained that the tree list was only one list out of several, and that the ogham was, at its core, an alphabet of sounds, a framework from which to create poetry. That sounded much more interesting to me than just an oracle of trees, but it wasn't until I got my hands on a copy of Erryn Rowan Laurie's book Weaving Word Wisdom and found part of the Scholar's Primer (Auraicept na n-Éces) online that I started to truly understand what that meant.  Even after I'd read both books and bought a set of staves and started trying to study them on my own, however, I was still finding them to be a bit difficult to connect with. So when I had the chance to go to a ritual on connecting to Ogma and the ogham, I went.  Long story short, Ogma told me that he would not be teaching me the ogham "again", and that I'd have to put in the effort to really connect.  I think it was his nudge or guidance that helped me discover the 6 month intensive I ended up taking through the Irish Pagan School, though, and I am very grateful for that little bit of help.

In the IPS intensive, there were three parts to the study of every letter (called a "fid"): first, we read the corresponding sections in both Laurie's book (which I mentioned above) and John-Paul Patton's The Poet's Ogham.  Then, there was an hour or so of video lecture that went into the Briatharogham (also known as the "word ogham") in more depth, including some cultural nuances that might not be obvious to people who aren't immersed in Irish culture (that is to say: not the diaspora, those are two distinct cultures at this point).  The third part was a guided meditation journey to connect with the spirit of that particular fid, and it was those exchanges in journey space that really helped my connection with ogham flourish to the point that I felt I understood it enough to include it in my practice.  Each spirit helped me come up with a two-word kenning (in English, alas — perhaps in the future I'll have a good enough grasp of Irish), and gave me a staff in exchange for the gift I brought.  Many also gave me insight into other lists on that first journey — lists of plants and birds and even types of magic, that I've been developing for my own practice with their help.  I probably could have connected to the feda (plural of fid) if I had thought to try, but the curriculum developed by the IPS was really helpful for increasing my understanding of the historical materials, and actually managing to do the work in a timely manner!  I highly recommend it to anyone interested in deepening their connection to the ogham.

Back to the present, I started typing out the kennings and the descriptions of how the spirits appeared to me, and even without sharing the lists of trees and herbs and birds and types of magic, it got pretty long, so for today I'll just give you the first Aicme, the first set of 5.  If there's interest, I'm happy to share some of my personal lists later.

I associate Beithe with Imbolc personally, and from that association I associate the entire aicme with the Spring and the East, though as far as I know there is no direct historical support for that.  I'm also adding in some keywords that come from my personal understanding of each fid that I've developed in my studies, but again, these are to be taken as one person's opinion, not fact.

Beithe - Beginning Healing

Spirit: humanoid, slightly femme-of center, looked like a common depiction of a birch dryad (birchbark patterned skin, “hair” that’s twigs and moss, etc)

Keywords: new beginnings and trailblazing; cleansing and purification (and those as sources of healing); herbal healing and herb lore; conception, pregnancy, and birth both physically and metaphorically; serenity and tranquility; hope for the future

Luis – Lush Vibrancy

Spirit: humanoid, androgynous, also dryad-like, but shifting shape between several trees/plants

Keywords: lush greenery, vivid greens (physical and metaphorical); vibrant flame, shining light (again, physical and metaphorical); life force; growth, mastery; enlightenment, inspiration; intense, splendid, excellent; power and therefore also sorcery/magic

Fearn – Fierce Protection

Spirit: humanoid, something like a satyr, but from the lower leg, not the waist. I’m unclear if the hooves are bovine or cervine or what. Masculine in appearance with a broad chest, chestnut colored hair and some facial hair, but body hair not obvious despite not wearing a shirt (yes wearing pants that stopped at the knee though).  Horns also, but again unclear besides that they curled from the side of the head. Kind of a battle frenzy vibe.

Keywords: protection, defense, guarding; walls and shields (and metaphorically, boundaries and emotional walls and from there to stoicism and repression); necessary/unavoidable bloodshed or “egg cracking”; activism, reactive violence; the path of a warrior, first responders, vanguard; chivalry and also machismo in some cases.

Saille – Cyclical Currents

Spirit: humanoid, feminine – like a depiction of a “willowmaid”, so another more dryad-like spirit, drooping twig “hair”

Keywords: flowing water, tides, currents, eddies, the water cycle; rivers, underground springs, natural wells; repeated travel (esp in boats or across water, metaphorically repeated otherworldly travel); the underworld and grief; healing that happens slowly over time, grief fading in time, cycles of healing from trauma; clearing blockages and dams slowly (and metaphorically, emotional blockages); learning to let go, flexibility, lightness, unburdening your heart; emotional ebbs and flows, mood regulation and self regulation; subconscious mind; bodily cycles (such as menstruation or other hormonal cycles; also the ebbs and flows of chronic illnesses both physical and mental)

Nin – Knotted Weaving

Spirit: shifting through many forms at first, a commentary on my preconceived notions?  Settled on something that reminded me a bit of a warrior queen, vaguely like the Wonder Woman movie (2017) but with bark armour and leaves in her short hair, carrying a knotted net, a spear, and a spool of twine and had me help fix a piece of weaving on a loom, untangling and reweaving.

Keywords: fiber arts as magical arts (spinning, weaving, knot tying, knitting etc); fate-weaving, creating better futures; planning for a common future and working towards a common goal; community weaving, social contracts, networking, social support systems; negotiation, mediation, cooperation, and diplomacy; group governance, lawmaking, society-shaping.

I hope this was interesting for some of you.  Look for the next aicme next week!