by Searles O'Dubhain

The Ogham alphabet of the ancient Celts was not only a writing system but a cosmological map — each of its letters corresponding to a tree, a part of the body, a domain of the cosmos, and a quality of the soul. In this ritual practice guide, Searles O'Dubhain — one of the most prolific teachers on alt.religion.druid — draws on the Ogham to construct a nine-stage meditation for opening the sacred ways before ritual work. Rooted in the Irish concept of the Nine Dúile (the nine primal elements of a person, from bones to spirit) and the Three Cauldrons of Poesy, the meditation guides a practitioner from embodied awareness down through dissolution and into contact with the divine, then returns them to themselves.

Posted to alt.religion.druid in November 2005 at Samhain's ending, "Opening the Ways" is a rare example of original Druidic liturgical practice composed for the modern revival. O'Dubhain's approach is both scholarly and genuinely mystical — grounding Celtic spiritual vocabulary in embodied experience.

The Ogham are the artificial letters just as the trees are the natural letters. Using the Ogham one can construct a sacred grove or space in much the same ways that the trees form a Nemeton. Each tree of the forest has many images and qualities that it and its family sustain. The trees and the plants are the first and the oldest qualities of life. In seeking to connect to first principles, a Druid should always build the grove and the ways with the trees of the Ogham if not with Nature's grove.

A parting of the Mists and an opening of the ways should be a part of every Druidic ritual. Between Stone and Sky and Land and Sea there is the flame of awareness and the light of consciousness which is in truth a name and a power within each of us that must be spoken aloud and which seeks a calling forth. Here is one way that the ways are opened using the Ogham:

An Ogham Meditation

Beyond nine waves and back again
Is both the passage to judgment
And the establishment of Being

I selected nine Ogham fedha to receive some guidance in the development of a meditation technique. The purpose of using this technique was to allow individuals in ritual to separate themselves from mundane reality by making the inner journey to self that strips away attachment to the world. In the process of this inward journey a person travels through each of the nine Dúile and the Three Cauldrons. Each Dúil is a unique stage of awareness and energy. How we enter and orient these parts of our cauldrons determines the success of our experiences and our meditation. We start at the bottom with the heaviest elements and climb through each on the tree of our being until we reach the boundaries that are at the thinnest highest levels. That is the moment when we can pass through the veils of the worlds and embrace new realities and states of being. The descent on this tree is taken one limb or level at a time, though as is usually the case, return is always easier than going.

The next diagram represents the nine Ogham that were selected to represent the Dúile of this meditation. The corresponding meanings and associations of these Ogham Fedha to one another and the Cosmos will open a doorway between our Present reality and the ways of the Otherworld.

The Tree of Our Being

The Present Self — Our Conscious Awareness

                        Emotion

            Inheritance          Inspiration

            Focusing             Intuition

                        Encompassing

                        Senses

                        Bounty

                        Self Image

                        Intensity

                        Instincts

            Lessons              Understanding

                        Existence

                        Destiny

            Examination          Authority

                        Fertility

Read the Ogham selections above from bottom to top starting at the lower left-hand corner and from left to right around the diagram. Their meanings and correspondences to the Dúile are itemized in the list that follows.

This selection of Ogham fedha represents the duine (person) and their consciousness (mothú) that seeks the present situation. Each dúile represents a separate quality of the self (féin) that has a connection to a corresponding part of the Cosmos.

A Table of Meanings

The following Ogham fedha and their characteristic associations are a part of this reading and meditation:

The Inner Journey

The Ogham have been consulted for this meditation and these are the meanings that they have assigned to each part of it. We will begin with where we are in time and space so that we may journey to other times and other places. We must first place the house of our bodies in order so that when we leave it behind in our journeys, it will be safeguarded and well.

Deep within our bones we must examine how we feel as well as where we stand. Drop the loads and cares of everyday worries and relax in waves of soothing relief. Relief washes over us as we draw energy from the earth beneath us. This relaxation of our framework establishes the beginning of our nine waves of natural awareness. The bones will know with certainty when it is time to put away the cares of the flesh. The first wave is to settle into place.

As the waves of relaxation roll into our muscles and our joints, let go of the questions for now. Lift your arms and legs one at a time and as they fall feel the questions leaving for now as they go to be with the answers that are surely to be found. For now, we best answer our question by quieting our confusion. Follow the bones in relaxing the flesh. The second wave gives form to our being.

Now we are motionless and our bodies are quiet within. No longer are our cares or our questions causing us to shift about in preparation for further movement and action. It is time to break the connection of worldly awareness. We must become austere in our feelings and reactions to the world. We must no longer care about comfort, hunger or need. We must ignore the body's cries for food, for comfort, for response to any touch. If something is uncomfortable, shift now and drop in waves again until relaxation is achieved. Go beyond a need to be aware of where and when you are. Go within on a wave that flows into your heart. The third wave isolates the inner self from the world.

The Cauldron of Formation is filled with the Three Waves of Existence.

There is only breath, blood and mind within our being now. We are no longer a creature of place. We are now creatures of time and its many flows. We must not exult in this new being but seek to calm it by releasing our emotions from the tracks and bindings that we have placed upon ourselves. Listen to the heartbeat as it guides our flowing. We are being pumped down a river to our ancestors. Our troubles are not our own. They are all of our family's concern. Our family is a web of beings. We are not alone. The beat of our heart is slowing as we fall into the well of inheritance which is the spirit of family. A wave of blood becomes a river and that river is the ocean of life. When we are in its flow there will be a silence at the center. The fourth wave is the silence of release.

No longer should we focus on the working. Time enough on this endless journey for that. What gives us life is our breathing and it is time for the creator of life to beat that drum for us. We must become as newborn babies and breathe in the rhythms of birth. Draw deeply of the air down to the toes without exertion. Naturally fill your self with the gift of repeating life. Breathe as a baby breathes until the song of your breath is a refrain without effort. The fifth wave is the center of life.

Now we must spread our awareness into the waters and the winds of being. We must encompass all of time and history that have brought us here. We are here through a web of being and our lives are sustained by the connection of self to selves — we are one and we are many. It is time to release a needless hold on the sustaining of life. The web of being sustains us in its place. The sixth wave is the opening of self.

The Cauldron of Vocation is filled with the Three Waves of Maintaining.

Now it is time to quit trying to shape the nature of our inner awareness. We must surrender our need to follow the chains of thought that keep drawing us away from the center. No questions now. No intensity of thought at all. Only an awareness of what isn't. Seek what is not. Only focus on the nothingness of your own thoughts. Send them into the depths beyond. Surround yourself with a vast, empty, dark space in a center that is your safety. Thought and intensity perish as awareness expands beyond the distractions of self. Feed the darkness until it grows. The seventh wave is the darkness of dissolution.

Within the void of nothingness we float in non-being and non-thought. Nothing touches us. We are not here now. How can this be? We must be somewhere? Perhaps we are coming back to our selves? There is an approaching something. It grows without our awareness. We thrill to nothing, yet we tremble in the anticipation of a new existence. The eighth wave is the cresting expectation of imminence.

Now is the no time and here is the not place. We are not at the center. We are not beyond the boundaries. We are the doorway between the two. We are beyond thought and awareness. We are a light at the edge of forever. We are a pathway that goes but also stays. We come from beyond our selves to our selves. The gods come and we are taken.

The ninth wave goes beyond everything. We are everywhere and nowhere. We are in time and we are above time. We know without thinking and the gods know us as we know them. The ninth wave is an ecstasy of the gods.

The Cauldron of Celebration is a fertile embryo of Creation.

Now we may continue in our working.

The Return Path

The spindle of The Weaver touches the Darkness and a ring of gold shows us our way. The return path is a golden thread of awakening consciousness within a womb of darkness. We are reborn to ourselves and separated from the at-one-ment of spiritual unity. We bring back a mind and spirit that is filled with ideas and creative energy. We are the Golden ring of fertile Creation.

We search for the thread of the vine of life across a dark Sea. As we grasp the thread of the vine of life that connects us to our existence in this world, we are aware of the many other threads that return to their owners in the world beyond the Not Place. We exist in this world and the next and we sail the Sea between them.

The spiraling vine is our lifeline to our familiar world. We gather speed in our descent back into our bodies and our lives. Our heart beats its rhythm to us as a homing beacon. We are surging waves of binding intensity in our accelerating return home.

As we approach an intuitive awareness of our selves and our surrounding, we are encompassed by the strength of family, of a body that is ours and of a world that awaits our actions. It is through the strength of oak that we travel the way home ourselves.

Our moment of quickening is at hand as the breath of life fills our lungs. We begin to breathe more quickly now as our will takes control of our breathing. We are enlivened by the breath of life and wonder.

The beating of our hearts becomes a sensation as well as a sounding drum. Our cares return to us and our feelings as well. We inherit a sense of emotional attachment by the pulsing of our beating hearts.

The sense of our selves returns to us. The outer world is just beyond our form and shape. We sense its nearness and its many uncertainties as unknown sensations touch us. We are the opportunity for the familiar and the unexpected.

The yellow Sun of birth warms our flesh. Within the body of our awareness are the seeds of lessons learned during our inward and outward journeys into realms of being and non-being. The gift of health flows along our forms and as the familiar form of our body exults in its earthly connection.

The ash of our hearth tells us that we are home and the knowledge of our bones tells us that we have never left. We are the Weaver's Beam of the doorway and the loom of life. We are the examination of initiation and the foundation of purpose.

We are home now, where the hearth is. We have gone beyond nine waves into alternate realms of being and non-being. We have experienced the freedom of spiritual flight and now we enjoy the comfort of a well defined sense of self and bodily well being. We are our own persons and are once again separate and aware beings. It is a separate life, yet a community of spirit.

It is enough, and more than enough.

It is ours.

Biodh Sé!

Colophon

Originally posted to alt.religion.druid by Searles O'Dubhain in November 2005, at Samhain's Ending. O'Dubhain was one of the most prolific and substantive contributors to alt.religion.druid, authoring dozens of original essays on Ogham, Celtic cosmology, ritual structure, and Druidic philosophy. This meditation combines three strands of authentic Celtic lore — the Nine Dúile from early Irish cosmology, the Three Cauldrons from "The Cauldron of Poesy" (attested in a 7th–10th century Irish text), and the Ogham alphabet — into an integrated ritual opening for Druidic practice.

The Nine Dúile (primal elements of a person): bones, flesh, skin, blood, breath, mind, face, brain, head. The Three Cauldrons: the Cauldron of Formation (sustaining life), the Cauldron of Vocation (sustaining skill and art), the Cauldron of Celebration (the seat of wisdom and inspiration). The Ogham fedha selected here trace the journey through the body upward toward the threshold of the gods.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Original Message-ID: [email protected]

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