The Mrrgan's Cave, and Caves as Places of Power in Ireland - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

The Mórrígan's Cave, and Caves as Places of Power in Ireland

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Humans have long gone underground to do our sacred spiritual and magical world in this world, and connect to Other Worlds. Here we’ll examine Irish Caves as places of power through history - with a focus on Uaimh na gCat (the Cave of the Cats, Rathcroghan), known as the Síd ar Cruachán... the Mórrígan's 'fit abode'.

Hey. I heard you like Caves...

Close Your Eyes

I avoided her cave for more than a year. I meant to go down, hundreds of times I said to myself, "Tonight, I can go to the cave tonight." I visited my friends, as their home is near the entrance and they had offered to take care of my girls while I climbed down. I meant to go down, so many times. But something always happened, something always came up, something always got in the way. My own magical path had led me to the darkness. Before ever we thought of Roscommon, I was walking this road with fear in my heart and excitement in my soul. I was not on a quest into darkness for the sake of darkness itself, but I had worked in the light for so long. To restore the equilibrium, I had to descend the dark places, so I would be able to swing back onto an even keel. The balance was needed, but to find it I had first to go down. Life and death, I needed to experience both. I needed to feel hate as well as love, pain as well as pleasure, sorrow as well as

• joy. My life dealt me the hate. I felt great pain and great sorrow, when I lost my first two children to miscarriage. But I didn't
• understand. I got the hate, I got the pain, I got the overwhelming loss and sorrow, but the understanding eluded me.

Close Your Eyes

When I carried my first daughter, her twin was miscarried. I feared I would lose both, but my eldest was born to great

• celebration. I felt the love, I felt the pleasure, I felt the joy. I forgot the rest. Again, I did not understand.

When I carried my second daughter, the lesson was harder and clearer. As I bled, I was sure she was gone from me. I mourned her loss, but sheltered my hope, as we waited weeks to see if she had survived. She did - it was her twin who had left us. The advice to be ‘grateful I still had one baby’ was confusing to me; my inability to separate my love for the living child(ren) from my longing for the dead one(s) caused me much turmoil. Through all of this, I began to realise that they each had their place in my life, they each had their lessons to teach, and it was really alright to mourn one while celebrating

• another. Life and death exist together together: I carried both, I birthed both, I celebrated and I mourned both. Each has

their place. Each has their lesson. Finally, I understand. Journeying to darkness is not as simple as it is sometimes made out to be.

Close Your Eyes

Some folk would have you believe that meditating on a crow feather or a scrap of blood on some tissue is enough for you to 'meet the dark ones’, and then you can go on about your business in the usual fashion. This sort of thing can be a start, an introduction perhaps, but it certainly is not the end or all of the experience. Whatever we take on while on the Inner planes manifests itself on the Outer - in the real world, in other words. To start on this path can be the spiritual equivalent of taking a 6-foot staff and thudding on the massive oaken door of the Universe, with the mad cry of 'Hey you, here I am! Bring it on’, reverberating through the expanse of time and space. The Universe looks out its little spy hole at you standing there in all your glorious door-thudding insanity, and says, "Oh, its you is

• it. You want it? Fasten your seat-belt matey, coz here we go’. The ways in which the Universe chooses to manifest itself and

its darkness in your life are many and varied. It can be about facing your own fears, through self-examination and soul-searching. It can be about finally learning the lessons that occur and reoccur in our lives, through our mistakes and our life choices.

Close Your Eyes

It can be about dealing with death and pain, about picking yourself up after a fall or a knockdown, and getting on with it, assimilating the lesson in that. It can be about releasing your own demons, walking into the madness of your own soul and crawling out the other side. If you go the route of picking a fight with a specific ‘Dark’ deity, then the fun really starts. You get all the above, plus the fun and games of having a strong personality front on the Universe, a real live Dark One - with all its care and attention focused right on little old you. The Morrigan has always fully fascinated and truly terrified me. She is a goddess of great power and fear, great strength and potency, great honesty and hunger. She can be as nasty as a bed of snakes or as toweringly tremendous as a hurricane. She’s not a force to be trifled with, and I was quite happy to shy away from her intricacies and play quietly in the sunshine of my innocence. Unfortunately for me - or perhaps fortunately, in the grand scheme of things - she had other ideas.

To Know the Dark

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To go in the dark with a light is to know the light. To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight, And find the dark, too, blooms and sings, And is travelled by dark feet and dark wings.

• Wendell Berry, ‘To Know the Dark’.

In the Past

• Very few experience true darkness at night
• Have you ever?
• Brings an increase in sensory experience - dark dining
• Our ancestors knew...
• Role of darkness hugely apparent in the archaeological record
• Artefacts, remains intentionally deposited where light is excluded
• Caves, Megalithic monuments
• Barrows, cists, pits, bogs, tree holes - or just buried in the earth
• We view them in light, bring torches and spotlights… not as intended!

What it Does

• Darkness not an accidental feature of a site
• Fundamental, integral
• Absolute darkness is visual silence
• Retreats, seeking peace - tranquility and self development
• But how does that come about?
• Solitary confinement, deprivation of natural light
• Severe punishment - literal torture, ordeal
• Time in darkness dissolves supports, props, identity structures
• Inner (other world) experience is heightened

Rough Guide to the Archaeological Ages

Stone Age Paleolithic (95% of human history!) 3.3 million years ago Mesolithic (hunter gatherer) 8,000 to 4,000 BCE Neolithic (first farming) 4,000 to 2,500 BCE Bronze Age (Copper, then Bronze) 2,500 to 500 BCE Iron Age (Celtic/Gaelic Ireland) 500 BCE to 400 CE Medieval (Christianity in Ireland) 400 CE to 1536 CE

• Figurative and non-figurative Art
• Deep Caves of Western Europe - 40,000 yrs ago
• Landscape features mostly absent
• Horse, Red Deer, Bison or Aurochsen
• (Cave painting of deer at Lascaux, France)
• Maybe aesthetic appeal, hunting magic, information repository?
• Darkness forms the context for the paintings - lamps, flickering fires
• For survival - it was never necessary to go into deep caves
• Domestic activity - cave exteriors and large cave mouths.
• Where light stops, life stops.

Liminality

• Desensitising or removing seeker from the world above
• Places of separation, suited to transition - rites of passage, initiation
• Caves are seen as ‘osmotic membranes’ (Bjerck, 2012)
• “Barrier for organic and non-organic contaminants, solids dissolved in

water, heavy metals, radioactive and carcenogenic elements.” (Science)

• Art… ‘reality’, blurs, changes form, disappears, constant flux
• Caves in Italy (Neolithic) - cult and ritual
• Grotta di Porta Badisco, Grotta Scaloria, Pozzi della Piana
• 3 main ritual themes: Secrecy, Hunting Cult, Cult of ‘Abnormal Water’

Rituals

• Rites of Passage, incl. Initiations (Ruth Whitehouse)
• Changes in social roles and standing of participants
• Eg. Life Crisis Rites, Birth, Puberty/Menarche, Marriage, Parenthood,

Death, Initiation, Inauguration.

• Rites of Passage:

○ Segregation (detached from previous state, pre-liminal) ○ Marginal (ambiguous, in-between, unclear, liminal) ○ Aggregation (accepted into new state, post-liminal)

• Liminal state, correlated with invisibility - societally invisible. DARKNESS!

Rebirthing

• Darkness, confined spaces,

visual similarity…

• Caves = Wombs
• Participant enters tomb,

re-emerges from womb.

Experiences

• Ethnographic Parallels - other societies initiation rites
• Refs: M. Allen 1967 (Melanesia), F. Barth 1975 (New Guinea), L.L.

Langness 1977 (New Guinea), G.H. Herdt 1982 (New Guinea).

• Taken by force; suddenly, a sharp disorienting change
• Ritual specialists leading participants through the rites
• Ensuring correct performance, imparting secret knowledge
• Making sure the social transformation was successfully accomplished
• Known and trusted to participants, but in complete control
• Manipulated the initiates & cave environment for disorientation, fear.

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For the rite to be effective, it is necessary for the participant to feel a fundamentally changed person at the end of the ritual process and this can only happen if the emotions are engaged. Without this, the manipulation of symbols by ritual leaders, however creative and elaborate, would remain an arid intellectual exercise without the power to change people’s lives.

• Ruth D. Whitehouse, ‘Between symbol and sense’.

DARKNESS

• Standing for

invisibility, death & rebirth.

• Experienced as

disorienting, confusing, frightening.

• Transforming.

Neolithic Caving

• New Stone Age - 4,000 BCE to 2,500 BCE
• Two types of caves used for funerary and ritual purposes -

○ simple long narrow passage: Barntick Cave (Clare), Bats’ Cave (Clare), Elderbush Cave (Clare), Killuragh Cave (Limerick) and Knocknarea Cave (Sligo). ○ simple, single or double chambered: Connaberry Cave (Cork) and Kilgreany Cave (Waterford).

• Little to suggest Neolithic folk used large underground cave complexes
• Difficult to locate, or hidden - contributed to secrecy or liminality?

Bronze Age Caving

• Late Bronze Age - 1000 to 600 BCE
• Arduous Journeys into the Deepest, Darkest parts of the caves
• Intact Cadavers - Robber’s Den (Clare)
• Disarticulated Human Bones - Glencurran (Clare), The Catacombs (Clare)
• Metalwork Hoards - Kilgreany (Waterford), Brother’s Cave (Waterford)
• Animals Remains & Non-metal Artefacts (particularly Pottery) -

Glencurran Cave, Moneen Cave (Clare), Kilgreany Cave, Ballynamintra Cave (Waterford), Carrigmurrish Cave (Waterford), Brother’s Cave, Killuragh Cave (Limerick).

Doing… What?

• 700 ish caves recorded in Ireland (Drew 2004), only 75 excavated
• Deposits in caves were left open - safe, no expectation of disturbance
• Caves the domain of a select few - ritual practitioners, leaders?
• Relationship between cave and practitioner - designated working space?
• “Cave rituals possibly commenced with a community procession to, and

a gathering at, a cave entrance.” (Dowd 2016)

• Entering, disappearing - social, symbolic, ritual depart from Community
• Secrecy, specialized knowledge, spiritual attainment gained within
• Going into the Otherworld - community vigil until return?

• Time in the Otherworld - hours, days, weeks?
• Evidence of craft, food, manufacturing activity in caves
• Objects created from/for spiritual or ritual experiences?
• Made on site to absorb the special nature of the location
• Unusual predominance of clavicles in bone deposits - osteomancy?
• Using the emotional responses of community - extend duration in cave
• Evidence of dry stone wall building, passages blocked - extreme isolation
• Ritual participant emerging… disorientation, confusion, overwhelm
• Muddied body, clothing, hair dishevelled, bruises, wounds, injuries
• Physical and spiritual perils of navigating the Otherworld

Uaimh na gCat

Oweynagat, the Cave of the Cats. Ráth Cruachán, Roscommon.

• Original earth bank (no ditch) enclosure 21 metres diameter (69 ft)
• Approx 2 metres (6.5 ft) wide, set round with scattered standing stones
• Maybe a series of passages around the current cave (Waddell 2014)
• Ogham Inscriptions - unusual in Connacht
• Man-made souterrain attached to natural cavern
• Narrow and difficult to access point of joining the two - ‘membrane’?
• Stories of Otherworld ‘monsters’, challenges - emotions, initiation
• Stories of Otherworld Refuge (Táin Bó Fraích) - healing
• Stories of Wisdom and Knowledge (Eachtraí Nera) - prophecy

Image Caption

Image Caption

“Cave rituals possibly commenced with a community procession” (Dowd)

Guided Journey to The Mórrígan's Cave

Breathe. Don’t worry about breathing a certain way, or your position - just breathe deeply for you. Get comfortable for you. With your eyes closed, you feel your breath move in and out of your body. Focus on the dark space behind your eyes. Look at that darkness. Feel how it’s inside you, all around you. It encloses you and keeps you safe within. You can move through that depth of black space, navigate within it. And as you breathe, you feel lighter within it, as you breathe you become lighter - you can easily float through it. You are floating, and breathing – still and quiet within the

• darkness. It stretches out beyond your reach, but you can find your way through this

endless space, you are safe here.

You can move up and down, left and right, freely and easily floating in the space… Up ahead, you see a point of light, small and distant. Turning in that direction, you notice it gets brighter as you move towards it, growing bigger before you. You are aware of a path through the darkness, and beyond that the shape of a doorway, and you set yourself upon that path. There’s bare earth beneath you, and you are moving towards the doorway. There’s light beyond the door, and you push through into the light, you are following the path through the doorway, out into the fresh air and down, and down… you are moving

• n the path and it’s leading you down.

Observe what is to the left, and to the right of your path as you follow it down.

Look at your form as you move on this path, the way the ground changes beneath you as you make your way down, towards the beach, and you’re moving down towards the shoreline. Look out over the sea, the vast horizon as it stretches before you. See the waves as they reach the shore, coming to meet you on the boundary between earth and sea. This is the between place. You move along the shoreline, the boundary. As you go, listen to the sound the waves make as they break and flow towards you. Hear the birds that call to each other, and to you, as they fly overhead. You can smell the salt in the air, taste it on your tongue. Breathe it deeply and sense how it cleanses and refreshes you.

Reach down now, and take some of the beach material in your hand. Run it through your fingers, then let it rest in your palm. How does it feel to you? Enjoy the sensations of that liminal space, the place between places. Ahead you see a boat, waiting for you. As you reach it, touch its frame, say hi. This boat is your guide on the ocean. Look around it. Run your hands along it, even speak to it, if you feel that’s right. When you’re ready, move into your boat, your guide. Find your seat and settle in. The boat moves out to sea. Slowly at first - it’s very steady and secure, skimming over the

• waves. You pick up pace as the journey continues, and there’s no need for you to steer or

guide, the boat knows the way. This boat keeps you safe, and your journey true, as you continue on, across the sea…

Passing many lands, many islands that are not right for you today. Note the islands as you pass, but know they’re not yours, and not for now. Just observe as you pass, as your boat skims the waves and guides you onward. As the boat moves, serenity moves with you. You focus on that still centre – you, in the boat, on the sea - and look outward as you journey. You see a large land-mass up ahead, another shoreline - you've reached Ireland’s coast. Landing ashore, you pull your boat up on the beach, knowing it will stay right there and wait for your return. With your back to the ocean, you begin to move inland, spotting a path that leads you from the seashore ground, across low sand dunes, onto scrubby grassland... leaving the sea behind you.

Moving onto grassy land, you follow that path, leading you inland, and begin to look at the countryside as you move through it. What are you seeing, hearing? How does it feel? Soon you are travelling down small country roads, and distance passes quickly as you move through the land. The way you are taking winds and curves about, and you enjoy a light breeze on your face, and a growing sense of belonging, as you follow the path through the Irish landscape.

Ahead, the path leads down into a clearing, with a single hawthorn tree growing in the

• centre. It’s not huge, but big enough for you to walk around until you come to an Uaimh,

a small cave opening in the ground under the roots. It’s just big enough for you to enter, if you sit down and scoosh in on your butt, so you do that - going underground feet first. You feel the ground under you get damp and clay-ish, the wetness soaking through your pants as your eyes adjust to the darkness, and you find yourself in a small chamber. You can smell the clay too, feel it under your hands. Even in this dark, there’s enough light to see a long passage going underground to your left. The walls are calcified smooth, and damp, you turn your feet towards the passage because the roof is too low to stand and you shuffle down into the deeper darkness that descends below the earth.

You climb over smooth river stones and clamber over rocks embedded in the clay as you continue down into the cave. The walls narrow as the roof heightens, until you can stand and very carefully step down, but the slick cool walls touch your shoulders, pressing in towards you as you make your way through this tight passage. Then walls begin to widen away from you, and the roof seems far above, but the darkness is complete. No light penetrates this chamber. Nothing lives here in the deep earth - all is silent and cold... Call Her Name. Mór Ríoghain. Great Queen. Mór Ríoghain. Great Queen. Mór Ríoghain. Great Queen. Now, wait…

Knowing that this is the first of many such Journeys, it’s time to leave now. Say your thanks, and goodbye. Standing, you turn back the way you entered… keeping your right hand to the stone wall, you move forward carefully, hearing the echo of your movement within the deep space. Your foot squelches again out of the wet clay, a little wet seeps between your toes as you shift and find a solid standing to begin the climb out. The walls begin to narrow towards you as you step over smooth river stones and clamber

• ver rocks embedded in the clay as you make your way towards the point of light on up

above. You know the roof is sloping down and the slick cool walls touch your shoulders, pressing in towards you as you ascend.

Soon the roof is too low again for you to stand, so you must get on your hands and knees and crawl up towards the light, through the clay and the rocks, with the smooth calcified walls gleaming softly on either side of your way out. You feel the damp clay under your hands and knees, the wetness soaking through your pants as your eyes adjust to the light. You can smell the clay too, feel it under your hands as you find the bend and turn to face the exit by which you had entered, and know it leads up and out under the roots of the hawthorn tree, out onto the open grass of the clearing. You find the path that led you in, and it guides you through the landscape of this island.

You enjoy that light breeze on your face as you follow the winding, curving way back, back the way you came, as you follow the path back through the Irish landscape. Soon you are travelling down small country roads, and you can see that this same path ahead leads you back towards the sea, across the grassy land, over the scrubby grassland and the low sand dunes, and then the seashore material beneath you, with the sight and sound of the sea in front of you - as you move back to where your boat awaits, just as you left it, ready to take you back the way you came. As you reach it, touch its frame, say hi. This boat is your guide. Look around it and run your hands along it. When you’re ready, move into your boat, your guide. Find your seat and settle in.

Your guide moves out to the open sea, still steady and secure, skimming over the waves. You pick up pace as the journey continues, and there’s no need for you to steer or guide, the boat knows the way back. This boat keeps you safe, and your journey true, as you continue back, across the sea… coming back past many lands, many islands that are not right for you today, not now, not yours. Observe as you pass, as your boat skims the waves and guides you back. As the boat moves, serenity moves with you. You focus on that still centre – you, in the boat, on the sea - and look outward as you journey, back to that first beach. There is the boundary beach you first departed from, and as you approach it this shore feels familiar, like coming home.

Slowing down and gliding up to the beach, you take a minute to thank your guide, looking all around it again, feeling the sense of peace and safety it brings you. When you’re ready, you disembark, touching the place where sea meets land again. Now you turn and begin to progress back up the beach, back the way you came, along the shoreline, the boundary. Enjoy the sensations of that liminal space, the place between places. Reach down now, and take some of the beach material in your hand. Run it through your fingers, then let it rest in your palm. How does it feel to you? You can smell the salt in the air, taste it on your tongue. Breathe it deeply and sense how it cleanses and refreshes you.

Listen to the sound the waves make as they break and flow towards you. Hear the birds that call to each other, and to you, as they fly overhead. Look out over the sea, the vast horizon as it stretches before you. See the waves as they reach the shore, coming to meet you on the boundary between earth and sea. This is the between place. You continue to move back up along the shoreline, the boundary… seeing ahead the path that leads back up, away from here, away from the beach, and you follow it up along. Observe what is to the left, and to the right of your path as you make your way back up. Look at your form as you move on this path, the way the ground changes beneath you, as it changes to the bare earth of the first pathway you found, and you are moving upon the earth that will eventually lead you back into darkness.

Back to the doorway that you first came through. Reaching the doorway, you move back through it, from the light into the darkness. You feel that deep space fold around you, safe and comfortable as you move deeper into it, feeling like it is welcoming you back inside. You take a deep breath, knowing this security, feeling how it surrounds you. And as you breathe, you feel lighter within it, as you breathe you become lighter - you can easily float through it. You are floating, and breathing, still and quiet within the

• darkness. It stretches out beyond your reach, but you can find your way through this

endless space, you are safe here. You can move up and down, left and right, freely and easily within the darkness. Look at that darkness, feel how it’s inside you, all around you… it is you.

This is the dark space behind your eyes. Your eyelids are closed, and you can feel your lungs working in your chest as you breathe. You can feel where your limbs rest, so you move your body and have a really good stretch

• ut. Feel your bum planted safely in this world, you are securely inhabiting your physical
• body. Wiggle your fingers and your toes. Shift your arms and legs.

Get up if you’d like to, and move that body! Take a drink of water, maybe have a little snack if it’s handy there. When you’re ready, open your eyes, take a drink of water before you do anything else… and then write it all down. No filter, no processing, just record everything you remember. This is maybe the most important part of your Journeying practice – keep a record of everything.

Regular Journeys...

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