Anam Cara

Individuality need not be lonely or isolated. Cicero said so beautifully, “Nunquam minus solus quam cum solus.” One can come into harmony with one’s individuality if it is viewed as a profound expression or sacrament of the ancient clay. When there is a real awakening in love and friendship, this sense of the clay within can dawn. If you knew the beloved’s body well enough, you could imagine where her clay had lain before it came to form in her. You could sense the blend of different tonalities in her clay: Maybe some clay came from beside a calm lake, some from places where nature was exposed and lonely, and more from secluded and reserved places. We never know how many places of nature meet within the human body. Landscape is not all external, some has crept inside the soul. Human presence is infused with landscape.

This profound and numinous presence of nature is brought out in the poem by Amairgen, chief poet of the Milesians, as he steps ashore to take possession of the land on behalf of his people:

I am the wind which breathes upon the sea,

I am the wave of the ocean,

I am the murmur of the billows,

I am the ox of the seven combats,

I am the vulture upon the rocks,

I am a beam of the sun,

I am the fairest of plants,

I am the wild boar in valour,

I am the salmon in the water,

I am a lake in the plain,

I am a world of knowledge,

I am the point of the lance of battle,

I am the God who created the fire in the head.

(ED. P. MURRAY)

This is traditionally believed to be the first poem ever composed in Ireland. All of the elements of the poem have ruminous associations in early Irish literature. There is no dualism here. All is one. This ancient poem preempts and reverses the lonely helplessness of Descartes’s “cogito ergo sum,” I think therefore I am. For Amairgen, I am because everything else is. I am in everything and everything is in me. This magnificent hymn to presence outlines the ontological depth and unity of the anam-ara experience.

The Celtic world developed a profound sense of the complexity of the individual. Often the places within us where conflict arises are places where different parts of our clay memory come together; the energy here may at times be unrefined, raw, or difficult. The recognition of our clay nature can bring us a more ancient harmony. It can return us to the ancient rhythm that we inhabited before consciousness made us separate. This is one of the lovely things about the soul. The soul is in the middle ground between the separation of the air and the belonging of the earth. Your soul mediates between your body and your mind; it shelters the two and holds them together. In this primal sense, the soul is imaginative.

THE BODY IS IN THE SOUL

We must learn to trust the indirect side of our selves. Your soul is the oblique side of your mind and body. Western thought has told us that the soul is in the body. The soul was thought to be confined to some special, small, and refined region within the body. It was often imaged as being white. When a person died, the soul departed and the empty body collapsed. This version of the soul seems false. In fact, the more ancient way of looking at this question considers the relationship of soul to body in a converse way. The body is in the soul. Your soul reaches out farther than your body, and it simultaneously suffuses your body and your mind. Your soul has more refined antennae than your mind or ego. Trusting this more penumbral dimension brings us to new places in the human adventure. But we have to let go in order to be; we have to stop forcing ourselves, or we will never enter our own belonging. There is something ancient at work in us creating novelty. In fact, you need very little in order to develop a real sense of your own spiritual individuality. One of the things that is absolutely essential is silence, the other is solitude.

Solitude is one of the most precious things in the human spirit. It is different from loneliness. When you are lonely, you become acutely conscious of your own separation. Solitude can be a homecoming to your own deepest belonging. One of the lovely things about us as individuals is the incommensurable in us. In each person, there is a point of absolute nonconnection with everything else and with everyone. This is fascinating and frightening. It means that we cannot continue to seek outside ourselves for the things we need from within. The blessings for which we hunger are not to be found in other places or people. These gifts can only be given to you by yourself. They are at home at the hearth of your soul.

TO BE NATURAL IS TO BE HOLY