by Searles O'Dubhain

Searles O'Dubhain was a leading voice in American Celtic reconstructionism and the founder of the Summerlands, a long-running online resource for Druidic practice. This post from alt.religion.druid (May 2006) offers a characteristic piece of Searles' learning: a meditation set in motion by reading Geoffrey Keating's seventeenth-century History of Ireland, which triggers an insight about the Ogham kenning for the letter Luis (Rowan). What begins as a linguistic puzzle opens into a teaching on fire-scrying, sun-staring, Mug Roith the blind seer, and the relationship between external and inner sight. The post is a small but complete demonstration of how Searles worked: moving fluidly between Old Irish scholarship, personal experience, and living Druidic practice.

One constantly learns along the Druid way. Here is something I learned today, coupled with things I already knew. This came out of some life experiences that I've had as well as those shared with me by others. When I was reading about the "Wattles of Wisdom" in Keating's History of Ireland, it triggered an association for me that makes this particular kenning easier to understand:

"Word Ogham of Morann Mac Main: Lí súla ('delight of eye', literally 'brightness of the Sun'). That which we can see and know is that which is pleasing to us. The dawning of a new day brings us unlimited potential as in the 'eye of the Sun.' It is at dawn or dusk that one can safely look without pain into the Sun. These are the times when it was thought that spirits moved more readily between the worlds. Perhaps this is a remark concerning 'Sun staring' or blindness?

I'm reminded of an experience that a Ceremonial Magician once related to me that he was taught by spirits encountered at Stonehenge. He was told to stare at a lighted candle just prior to entering into meditation. Upon closing his eyes, the image of the flame would remain for several minutes within his field of view and consciousness. This flame would open his mind's eye to new visions and allow him to 'burn' extraneous thoughts and images that could interfere with his efforts. One can stare at the Sun in the same way without lasting damage to the eyes (though it's recommended not to do this when it is high in the sky or through any type of lens or focusing device). Using the Sun to trigger this process is a danger that can be safely replaced by a candle flame or even a hearth fire.

One can see in many ways even when blinded. The wattles of wisdom were used by Druids in divination to gather esoteric knowledge. Mug Roith was blind, yet he could see when he flew upon the smoke produced from the fires of the Rowan trees; Revelation."

Here's the reading from Keating that triggered this understanding for me:

"As to the druids, the use they made of the hides of the bulls offered in sacrifice was to keep them for the purpose of making conjuration, or laying geasa on the demons; and many are the ways in which they laid geasa on them, such as to keep looking at their own images in water, or gaze on the clouds of heaven, or keep listening to the noise of the wind or the chattering of birds. But when all these expedients failed them, and they were obliged to do their utmost, what they did was, to make round wattles of the quicken tree, and to spread thereon the offered in sacrifice, putting the side which had been next the flesh uppermost, and thus relying on their geasa to summon the demons to get information from them, as the conjurer does nowadays in the circus; whence the old saw has since been current which says that one has gone on his wattles of knowledge when he has done his utmost to obtain information.

— Geoffrey Keating, History of Ireland, p. 351."

Perhaps this is a form of fire scrying? I know that the element of fire in this kenning certainly helps me understand why Brighid was associated with the Ogham Luis (Rowan).

Colophon

Written by Searles O'Dubhain ([email protected]) and posted to alt.religion.druid in May 2006. Searles was the founder of the Summerlands (summerlands.com), a foundational resource for Celtic Druidry online, and one of the most prolific and thoughtful practitioners on alt.religion.druid over two decades. This brief meditation connects the Briatharogam kenning for Luis to Keating's account of Druidic divination and the tradition of fire-sight; it shows Searles' characteristic method of reading Old Irish sources as living material for practice.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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