The Salmon in the Spring
Preview The Salmon in the Spring Your book will ship in 2 to 3 business days after ordering. The Salmon in the Spring: The Ecology of Celtic Spirituality Advanced Press for The Salmon in the Spring: “Here at the end of the Cenozoic Era with the life systems withering away, a surprising creativity appears, a kind of mystical balancing act. The world’s spiritual traditions are entering into deeply engaged conversations through which the riches of each are ignited in new ways. With The Salmon in the Spring, Jason Kirkey has boldly carved out his place in this exciting work with his original interpretations of the concepts and stories of ancient Ireland. Our planetary conversation deepens considerably, for now the complex insights carried by such Irish words as ‘Dán’ and ‘Fírinne’ enter upon the world stage on an equal footing with the more familiar terms Dharma, Wu Wei, Dao, and Soul. Kirkey’s vision speaks directly to our present ecological challenge. Rejecting those nature-denying forms of spirituality that have been used too easily to justify our domestication of the planet, The Salmon in the Spring announces its thrilling spiritual foundation: “Our wild nature is our soul.” —Brian Swimme, California Institute of Integral Studies “The Salmon in the Spring is a bold book. It is bold because it—no less so than its author—isn’t content to rest back on its philosophical laurels and ponder by-gone eras. To the contrary, Kirkey and The Salmon in the Spring invite and initiate the reader into a deep dive within the interior space of the Celtic mystic, but in archetypal and pragmatic ways that make an important contribution to the domain of ecopsychology today.” —Frank MacEowen, author of The Mist-Filled Path, The Spiral of Memory and Belonging, and The Celtic Way of Seeing The Salmon in the Spring presents a new perspective on Irish myth, interpreting traditional tales through the lens of ecopsychology and Buddhist insight. Kirkey’s readings are clear, compassionate, and respectful of the tradition while at the same time offering relevant openings for a global interest in Celtic spiritualities and their potential as a source for ecological healing in a time of great crisis. With exemplary honesty about his sources and inspirations, Kirkey weaves a poetic and poignant argument for the necessity of reexamining Western mythic models as we search for balance in a swiftly changing biosphere. —Erynn Rowan Laurie, author of Ogam: Weaving Word Wisdom When I listen to Jason Kirkey retell the old tales and the ancient truths from the Celtic mystical tradition, I am encouraged that the wisdom of our ancestors can still inspire a modern spiritual life. His “silver branch perception” helps us re-imagine ourselves as a species so we can live sane and relevant lives. The Salmon in the Spring is an eloquent calling to be fully present and engaged in our time and place in both human and mythic history. —Tom Cowan, author of Fire in the Head and Yearning for the Wind One man’s journey to understand himSelf and what it is to be human in the time of the Great Turning. Dare to explore these pages and your own inner wisdom. —Jamie K. Reaser, PhD, ecopsychologists and co-editor of Courting the Wild: Love Affairs with the Land
* * * “What use are poets in times of need?” asks Hölderlin in his poem Bread and Wine. Now are undoubtedly times of need. As industrialized humans systematically degrade the ecology of the planet—polluting air, water, and soil; endangering wildlife to extinction; clear cutting old growth forests—we need to cultivate a new perception of the earth, one which is capable of inspiring us toward the reinvention of ourselves and initiating us into the cosmos. The Salmon in the Spring: The Ecology of Celtic Spirituality holds this question at its center, answering it through a deep archetypal exploration of Irish myth and landscape. Through storytelling, contemplative practices, and an examination of the cultural lineage of druids and Celtic poets, readers will be guided through an initiation of the senses back into the earth. The task of the poet—and also the task of writers, musicians, artists, teachers, storytellers, and philosophers—is to both articulate a vision of the world and through their work to alter our perceptions, to enliven our senses so that we might participate directly in the living cosmos. This is the use of poets, and others who find their vocation in the shaping of the soul, in times of need. In the ancient Celtic world all of these roles, and more, were held by the druids. Today, the Celtic people are reduced to the fringes of Europe and the druids are all but gone. Nevertheless, as the industrial West wakes up to the ecological crisis—to our pain of disembodiment and displacement from landscape and cultural roots—there is a widespread resurgence and interest in all things Celtic. Most people of European descent can trace at least some of their roots to the various Celtic cultures, some still thriving, others lost to the encroachment of civilization. People yearn to feel connected, to be native to a place and a story. In reclaiming the old Celtic stories into the soul, those who are estranged are invited to come home. At the center of the ecological crisis is a perceived dichotomy between mind and body, between humans and nature. Dissociated from the earth, nature and instinct run wild within our unconscious. The mythology of Ireland makes it clear what the consequences of this are. Ireland was once said to be inhabited by a race called the Túatha Dé Danann—wise kings, druids, poets, and other skilled people—who were at war with the Fomorians, a chaotic and destructive culture said by many interpreters to be the wild spirits of nature, threatening the human order of things. The Fomorians had a champion, Balar of the Evil Eye, in whose eye destruction was condensed. Seen through a modern lens, this war tells us what happens when nature is repressed to the unconscious and the life-affirming processes of the earth turn toward destructive ends, like cancer cells in the body. It is a story we find ourselves living in the midst of today, and the wisdom of Irish mythology is no less relevant to the soul, the answers and contemplations no less healing than they were over two thousand years ago. Although the world may have changed, and our experience of our stories with it—the stories themselves have remained the same. The need for stories has endured. In The Salmon in the Spring ecological vision is married to the Celtic tradition, the story of the New Cosmology is married to the old mythic stories of Ireland, resulting in an integration of ancient indigenous earth wisdom with the emerging paradigm. This new story, or new way of perceiving old stories, attempts to heal the human-nature relationship, first through descent to soul and the transformation of the self; and second by transcending the “relationship” altogether, cultivating direct perceptual contact with a universe that cannot be articulated except organically through experience, through our simple being in the world. The result, in mythic terms, is silver branch perception, a term coined by the late John Moriarty, referring to a perception of the sacred whole and the continuity between nature and mind. In this way The Salmon in the Spring posits a method of working with the ecological crisis as a shift in paradigm from scientific materialism to ecological and spiritual wonder. From the opening of the senses to the natural world, walking the four directional “mandala” of the Irish landscape, the descent and initiation into soul, and the cultivation of silver branch perception, this book calls readers to wake up to a new human story, one capable of ushering us into a new and ecologically balanced relationship with the universe. |
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