By Saul Montes-Bradley

A long time ago, before men in black robes assumed the role of middlemen in affairs of conscience, spirituality was a tool used by our ancestors to better understand Nature and the nature of their surroundings. And there was an immediate correlation between deities –or the manifestations of deity- and life’s events.

Those events were never more important than when they marked changes in the seasons, the comprehension of which could determine the very survival of the individual or the tribe. The cycle of seasons, represented in Celtic mythology with a circle formed by a serpent biting its own tail, was paramount; and the calendar devised to anticipate changes in those seasons was punctuated by festivals dedicated to the divinities that best represented each season, or their attributes.

Some peoples celebrated these festivals during the solstices and equinoxes, marking the farthest, closest and intermediate points of the Earth to the ecliptic. The graphic representation was that of a cross within a circle. But the Celts also celebrated feasts at intervals timed to coincide with the middle point of the solar events.

Thus, as the apotheosis of summer was celebrated at the solstice, the beginning of summer was celebrated in a festival of light five weeks of nine days before the solstice and five weeks of nine days after the spring equinox. In May, Beltane, the light of Bel was dedicated to the god of light and fire, equivalent to the Roman Apollo, always represented with a radiating solar disc on his head. In September the feast of Lugg, a time to harvest. In February Brigg, in feasts that today we call Carnival or Mardi-Gras.

November, marked by the end of the harvest and the first signs of the approaching winter, had a dual feast of thanks for the plenty received and of propitiating the spirits of the dead. It was believed that the dead were closer to the realm of the living at the beginning of the season of darkness. These rituals have come down to us in all major religions as Thanksgiving, Succoth, Ramadan, as well as All Saints Day, All Hallows, and many other names. But 3,000 and more years ago, it was the feast of Cernunnos, the latinized name of Cerne or Herne, the Cern of the goidelic Celts and Dis-Pater (God-the-Father) of the Romans, father of Esus (Hu-Hesu) –the ever-dying God of the Winter solstice– and son of Galag (Cailleach, Gala, Mater), the mother of all and in all ever present.

Represented as a bearded, long-haired man with stag horns like a tree of life; seated in a lotus or meditative position, Cernunnus (the Horned One) held a circle of metal in his right hand and a horned serpent in his left. The symbolism is clear to the point of being self-explanatory: the eternal circle of life/seasons on one hand, and the serpent of knowledge/wisdom in the other. Like his predecessor Shiva, in his manifestation as Pashupaty, Lord of the Animals, Cernunnos was surrounded with animals and referred to as Lord of the Animals or Lord of Creation.

Cern, his Gaelic name, was also called Goda (the good God) in Galicia, Gabda in Eire and, of all things, Dadd (God-the-Father) by the Britons. Our own words for God and father have their roots in these names.

As Gada, he was also represented as an old man with a staff that could give or take life to up to nine men at a time, and with a cauldron which never run out of food.

The various representations should not be considered as resulting from confusion, as all Celtic gods had three manifestations having, among the many deities down to each family or even individual level the peculiarity of three major deities, each with three manifestations, each manifestation with three properties. Those with eyes to see will see.

Then, as we sit down to celebrate the end of a plentiful harvest, and give thanks to our deity for His or Her many Graces. As we fast during the day to feast in the evening. As we celebrate the season in its wonderfully diverse ways, let us not forget the "Good God" Cernunnos, God-the-Father of our Celtic ancestors and, perhaps, make a toast to the "Horned One." May his staffs continue to grant us Life in Wisdom and may his cauldron-cornucopia always provide to our sustenance!

Pashupati

Cernunnos

I am a stag of seven tines,
I am a wide flood on a plain,
I am a wind on the deep waters,
I am a shining tear of the sun,
I am a hawk on a cliff,
I am fair among flowers,
I am a god who sets the head afire with smoke.
I am a battle waging spear,
I am a salmon in the pool,
I am a hill of poetry,
I am a ruthless boar,
I am a threatening noise of the sea,
I am a wave of the sea,
Who but I knows the secrets of the unhewn dolmen?

(The Song of Amerghin)

 Celtic Cross

Hallandale, 19 November 2001

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