REVIEW “Singing the Dawn - Rebirth of the Sacred Feminine” by Anne Kathleen McLaughlin

 

   I have enjoyed this book. It is a sort of fantasy but it isn’t a genre novel. In fact, it is religious fiction that embraces much of Irish myth but is at its heart modern goddess spirituality. A tag the author uses in a post about the book explains what I mean here: "Brigid as Face of Sacred Feminine.”   Singing the Dawn envisions a place beyond the ninth wave — a place unseen by others — where for twelve centuries women have tended, alone or in a community of hermits scattered across seven islands, the memory and rites of the sacred feminine as represented in Brigit. The protagonist is a disillusioned Catholic nun from Ontario, Canada who had hoped to open up the understanding of God within her community to embrace the female as well as the male. When an opportunity to visit a mysterious island becomes available to her, through a note found hidden in the wall of a stone shrine to Saint Dymphna in Ireland, she finds herself joining this secret order of women.    

Part of the book, as she spends time with each of the solitary members over the course of several months, reads a little like an immram: a form of mediaeval Irish tale that sees the protagonist travelling from island to island off the west coast of Ireland — truly, travelling in the Otherworld — and meeting wonders there.   

Because this is meant to be a contemplative tale, it does not rip along plot wise, but wends quietly. This makes it a good book to pick up and read a few pages and then put down again for another time, although it also lends itself to a good long read.   

I tend to like my portrayals of Irish myths, legend, and history to be as close to what I understand to be correct as possible, so there are moments in the book where I grind my teeth a little. On the other hand, I know that there are many Irish people who perceive them in the ways that are written here, so I can’t grind too hard. (It was in Ireland that I was first shown the book by someone deeply devoted to Brigit, who strongly encouraged me to read it.) I do appreciate that the author, who is herself a Grey nun and is Canadian, as am I, does bring Irish myths into the story and uses them as teaching tales. She doesn’t just draw up a beehive hut and a nun and then make it all up from there. (Occasionally, one of the characters will tell a tale from another context, or one created by the author for her purposes.)   

Does the book succeed as a spiritual tool? I think this would depend on the reader entirely. I did find that I was drawn a number of times to think about my own spiritual life when reflecting on what I had just read, and I did have a few moments of new insight, which is far more than I normally would in reading a novel. I appreciate that. And as someone with an urge toward shared contemplative life, I enjoyed imagining this group of women, each on her own small island beyond the ninth wave, held together by their love for their community and a desire to nurture the Sacred Feminine Presence and continue her devotions until the world was ready to embrace Her.   

The author classifies this book as Celtic Christianity, but it is easy to see it as something that has moved beyond that religion into goddess spirituality entirely, as God doesn’t show up much at all. I can see it appealing to a diverse if not an enormous audience. Its specialty of divine womanhood is one that the main masses of readers are not likely to be interested in, and its sedate pace would put off a reader who is only there to be entertained. But for the right person, it can be an uplifting and thoughtful journey.         

Image: of book resting on quilt. Behind it, also on the bed, is an open laptop with a fullscreen image of a tea candle burning.    

    

Review: "The Celtic Quest: A Contemporary Spirituality” by Rosemary Power

 

I saw this book on a shop shelf at St. Mary’s Abbey in Glencairn, Ireland. I thought at first that it would be another book intended to inspire the spiritual seeker, and, given the place and the publisher, that the seeker would be a Christian.

That is partly right. It is aimed in the main at Christians, but it is in fact an examination of a spiritual path which the author clearly defines as *modern*, and which is based on a small number of carefully selected writings, taken out of context, which give a partial and distorted image of the original cultures and spiritual paths.

Power is herself Irish and is a member of one of the communities that is most strongly associated today with the “Celtic” — the Iona Community in Scotland. Her intention in examining the history of Celtic Christianity, its aims and values, errors (deliberate and not) and strengths is not to tear down the structure but to reveal it, and to suggest ways to grow past the flaws and create a broader and deeper spirituality.

Although I am not a Christian I am very interested in what she reveals here, as it has many shared roots, strengths, and flaws with the Celtic in Neo-Paganism, both of which spiritual paths have spread misconceptions about the cultures whose writings and art have been used by them. I agree that a close examination of the details of these paths is needed and can only strengthen them as they continue into the future. Although a bit dry in places (and a bit needfully generalised in the early chapters), it is a fascinating story and one that, if more widely known, can help to counteract some of the misconceptions we continue to perpetuate.

One specific example:

Power tells the story of a poem dated to the 10th or 11th century which is included in Kenneth Jackson’s A Celtic Miscellany (1971). The poem contains images that will be familiar to many, particularly, “I should like to have a great ale-feast for the King of Kings; I should like the Heavenly Host to be drinking it for all eternity.”

The poem goes on to outline the speaker’s wish to embody important Christian virtues, from Faith and Repentance to Long-Suffering and Mercy. Jackson says in his notes, “A religious poet imagines himself as a tributary tenant of God, rendering the Irish legal dues of lodging and entertainment to his overlord and his retinue.”

Why, then, do we all think of Saint Brigit when we hear of beer and God?

Esther de Waal published a folk version of the poem in A World Made Whole — Rediscovering the Celtic Tradition (1991) which loses the penitence and gloom and becomes pure celebration. This version was taken from the introduction to an English translation of Blasket Island storyteller Peig Sayers’ autobiography. But it is de Waal who attributes it to Saint Brigit. There was no hint of a connection with her before that time.

I highly recommend this book to both Christians and Pagans to whom it is important to get things straight. The real history is far more interesting than made up ones.

I would take exception to one point Power seems to make in the section entitled, “Can the historically wrong be theologically right?” She says, “Celtic spirituality has been criticised for its limited use of sources, for being naïve, but not for being destructive.” The implication being that whatever else it may be, it hasn't done any harm. Perhaps she is thinking that it hasn't done any harm to the adherents themselves. To my mind, despite all of the good it has done for its adherents — and it has done good — by creating and spreading misinformation about the cultures the original texts are taken from, it has done harm to those cultures themselves.

P.S. I’ve just put my review on Amazon and the book is very expensive there. Try bookfinder.com or interlibrary loan!