ANAM CARA
In the Celtic tradition, there is a beautiful understanding of love and friendship. One of the fascinating ideas here is the idea of soul-love; the old Gaelic term for this is anam cara. Anam is the Gaelic word for soul and cara is the word for friend. So anam cara in the Celtic world was the "soul friend."
In everyone's life, there is a great need for an anam cara, a soul friend. In this love, you are understood as you are without mask or pretension. The superficial and functional lies and half-truths of social acquaintance fall away, you can be as you really are. Love allows understanding to dawn, and understanding is precious. Where you are understood, you are at home.
The anam cara experience opens a friendship that is not wounded or limited by separation or distance. Such friendship can remain alive even when the friends live far away from each other. Because they have broken through the barriers of persona and egoism to the soul level, the unity of their souls is not easily severed. When the soul is awakened, physical space is transfigured. Even across the distance, two friends can stay attuned to each other and continue to sense the flow of each other's lives. With your anam cara you awaken the eternal.
JOHN O'DONOHUE
Excerpts from his book, Anam Cara
Ordering Info: www.johnodonohue.com/store
Co. Clare, Ireland
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May this be a morning of innocent beginning,
When the gift within you slips clear
Of the sticky web of the personal
With its hurt and hauntings,
And fixed fortress corners,
A morning when you become a pure vessel
For what wants to ascend from silence,
May your imagination know
The grace of perfect danger,
To reach beyond imitation,
And the wheel of repetition,
Deep into the call of all
The unfinished and unsolved
Until the veil of the unknown yields
And something original begins
To stir toward your senses
And grow stronger in your heart...
JOHN O'DONOHUE
Excerpt from the blessing, 'For the Artist at the Start of Day' in the books, Benedictus (Europe) / To Bless the Space Between Us (US)
Ordering Info:https://www.johnodonohue.com/store
The Burren, Co Clare / Ireland - 2020
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People have difficulty awakening to their inner world especially when their lives have become overly familiar... The first step in awakening to your inner life and to the depth and promise of your solitude would be to consider yourself for a little while as a stranger to your own deepest depths. To decide to view yourself as a complete stranger, someone who has just stepped ashore in your life, is a liberating exercise. This meditation helps to break the numbing stranglehold of complacency and familiarity. Gradually, you begin to sense the mystery and magic of yourself. You realize that you are not the helpless owner of a deadened life but rather a temporary guest gifted with blessings and possibilities you could neither invent nor earn.
JOHN O'DONOHUE
Excerpt from his book, Anam Cara.
Ordering Info: www.johnodonohue.com/store
Co. Galway / Ireland
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You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come, to take you back.
Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.
Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.
Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.
Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.
JOHN O'DONOHUE
Excerpt from the blessing, 'For One Who is Exhausted,' from John's books:
Benedictus (Europe) / To Bless the Space Between Us (US)
Ordering Info: www.johnodonohue.com/store
Ballyvaughan, Co Clare / Ireland - 2020
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