Frank MacEowen - The Celtic Way of Seeing: Meditations on the Irish Spirit Wheel

The Celtic Way of Seeing inspires and equips all of us, regardless of our personal heritage, to perceive the world around us with wiser and more compassionate eyes. By breathing new, visionary life into the ancient myths and rituals of the Celts, Frank MacEowen helps us map a better future for ourselves and for humankind.

Jack Maguire, author of Essential Buddhism, Waking Up:
A Week in a Zen Monastery, and The Power of Personal Storytelling

The Celtic Way of Seeing is an important contribution to the reclaiming of indigenous wisdom for modern life. Frank MacEowens deep insights into what he calls the Irish Spirit Wheel places it alongside the medicine wheels, mandalas, and sand paintings of other Earth-honoring cultures. I heartily recommend this book for everyone wanting to deepen their connections to the vast horizon of Celtic spirituality.

Tom Cowan, author of Yearning for the Wind

The power of personal experience to enlighten, guide, and activate resonates undeniably throughout Frank MacEowens The MistFilled Path. Peer within these pages into the mists of your own connection to our world and the divine. May this book guide you into heartfelt conscious action on behalf of all that is sacred.

Julia Butterfly Hill, activist and author of The Legacy of Luna

A rich and poetic book that seems to bring together the very best aspects of the Celtic vision of the world. Warm, personal, and adventurous, this is a book that should be read by everyone remotely interested in the human spirit.

John and Caitln Matthews,
authors of The Encyclopedia of Celtic Wisdom

The Mist-Filled Path reads like a memoir but with a call to action on every page.

New Times

A distinctive and evocative book that makes a worthy contribution to our understanding of Celtic tradition and, best of all, inspires us to participate in Celtic consciousness.

R. J. Stewart, author of The Merlin Tarot

The Mist-Filled Path is a beautiful and passionate description of a soul journey along the old Celtic roads between earth and sky. It is also a spirited invitation to collective soul recovery, inviting us to reclaim ways of being and seeing that were shared by our ancestors....This book is a gift and a delight.

Robert Moss, author of Conscious Dreaming, Dreamgates,
and Dreaming True

Frank MacEowen is an astute learner, a visionary teacher, and a sensual storyteller....Anilluminating and important work. I recommend it highly!

Oscar Miro-Quesada, Peruvian kamasqa curandero and founder of the Heart of the Healer Foundation

Frank MacEowen is one of the very few permitted to get a glimpse into the realm of the shining ones by ancestral guardian spirits of Ireland.

Martin Duffy, director of the Irish Centre for Shamanic Studies

For those who are exploring Celtic mysticism or shamanic spirituality, Frank MacEowens The Spiral of Memory and Belonging is an imaginative map of one wanderers journey through the kaleidoscopic realms of nonordinary states and personal mysteries.

Bill Plotkin, author of Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche

New World Library
14 Pamaron Way
Novato, California 94949

Copyright 2007 by Frank MacEowen

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Text design and typography by Tona Pearce Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
MacEowen, Frank.
The Celtic way of seeing : meditations on the Irish spirit wheel / Frank
MacEowen.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 127) and index.
ISBN 978-1-57731-541-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. CeltsReligionMiscellanea. 2. WheelsReligious aspects
Miscellanea. 3. Spiritual life. I. Title.
BL900.M443 2007 299'.161446dc22 2006038280

First printing, March 2007
ISBN10: 1-57731-541-3
ISBN13: 978-1-57731-541-4
Printed in Canada on acidfree, partially recycled paper

New World Library is a proud member of the Green Press Initiative

Distributed by Publishers Group West

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Chapter 2. The Knowledge Is in the Directions: An Abbreviated
Telling of The Settling of the Manor of Tara

I ts really about the sun. And the moon and stars. This constant rising and setting, the slipping of day into night and back again. The turning of tides, and time, and seasons. The ambiguous line we call the horizon plays a crucial role in helping us know who we are, where we are, and where we are going. The sun, moon, stars, and planets rise in the east, cross the sky, and disappear in the west in their endless circuit of eternal renewal. Something in that progression is supremely satisfying to the human soul. Something says to us that we too are part of this great rising, crossing, and setting. And return.

The horizon might be as old as the soul itself or even older and as enduring. And, like the soul, it always lures us further into our own lives and into the great mystery of Life Itself. The horizon is an edge, a spirit edge. It does and does not exist. Or, more accurately, it does not exist in ordinary reality, for we can never reach it or touch it or stand there. Horizons keep moving away, challenging us to go further. The line where sea and sky or hill and cloud meet is in some sense imaginary, yet we can see it. It does not exist, and yet it is so real that we cannot live without it. It is part of the landscape that we must know and also imagine if we are to live to our fullest potential.

Both the soul and the horizon are imaginal; that is, they are made up of images, constant presences that surround us, embrace us, move through us. We know they are there, those images, but often we are not aware of them. Or, seeing them, we fail to grasp their importance in shaping our lives.

If we are here for Soul-making, as John Keats tells us, then we must bring the images of our souls to life, bring them up over the souls own horizon into view. In doing so, we build up that wisdom for which the soul longs. Like stars waiting with their new light to rise over the eastern hill, our life experiences wait to be noticed, examined, reflected upon, and made conscious. Thus our experiences turn into wisdom. We fill the cauldrons of our souls with wisdom of the infinite infinite because it comes from beyond the horizon.