bending and slipping.
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Choose to open your mind and heart and soul to the power and flow of neart. It’s exciting to believe that, at any moment in time, at any place anywhere, something amazingly wonderful, entirely unexpected and undeserved may possibly happen. With a belief like that, it’s so much, much easier to live by hope, rather than to sink in cynicism and despair. Yeah, sure, the odds may be against a miracle—well, the odds are against winning the lottery, too, and how many of us pop a dollar (or five) across the counter at the gas station, “just in case?” Belief in neart doesn’t even cost us anything! My father is the kind of guy who never spends more than a dollar a week on the lottery—but he does it every week, fifty-two bucks a year (cheaper than going to a rock concert). And he says, “as soon as I buy that ticket, I just assume I’m a millionaire. And if I don’t win, well, I’ll just buy another ticket. Then I’m a millionaire all over again.” Dad doesn’t live extravagantly—he’s a stickler for paying the credit card off in full every month, no exceptions. But he lives by faith. And so the neart flows through him.
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Opening up to the flow of neart is a lot like believing in God (or the Goddess, or the gods and goddesses. Choose the way of describing Ultimate Reality that is most in keeping with your religious or spiritual viewpoint). It’s a decision, a choice, a commitment. It’s saying “YES” to the universe, to possibilities, to hope. It’s deciding that it’s a whole lot more fun, effective, and meaningful to live from a sense that the cosmos is good and nurturing and plentiful, than to shrink within a self-armoring idea that there’s never enough, every one is out for themselves, ultimately there is no meaning. Sure, when life kicks us in the teeth it’s so very tempting to become cynicism’s lover. But ultimately that’s one affair that just leads to an ever-yawning downward spiral of despair. It can be cool, hip, intellectual, ironic, fashionable to be the cynic, the skeptic, the professional doubter. But at the end of the day, it really doesn’t feel very good. Meanwhile, my dad’s just as happy as can be—carrying his million-dollar lottery ticket around. Sure, call him naïve or even Pollyannaish. But who’s got the smile—the real smile, that goes way down deep inside?
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Take this question of believing in neart a step further … once we choose to believe in a force for life and power and miracles, then we actually are capable of experiencing that energy flow through us. Maybe it’s a physical sensation—similar to reiki, which can be experienced as a warmth or tingling sensation flowing through those who use the energy when doing healing-touch work with others. Or maybe it’s not so much a feeling, but a telltale pattern of serendipity and good things that flow through our lives and the lives of those we know and love. In other words, we can recognize it by the trail it leaves behind—a trail of happiness, of satisfaction, of a sense of Divine presence moving through the world. It creates a swath of joy, and anyone who believes that such a thing exists can start to see the evidence for it. A teacher of mine instructs her students to look for three miracles in their lives every day. Inevitably someone asks for a definition of “miracle.” Must it be something supernatural? Well, not necessarily—“miracle” is related to “mirror,” and refers to a reflection of Divine power in our lives; a reflection of neart. And that can come in small as well as huge ways. At least three times a day.
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The Celtic tradition has a reputation for being optimistic. Certainly Celtic Christianity is a remarkably positive expression of the Christ path, and Celtic paganism (with its emphasis on the beauty of nature, the nobility of the hero, and the immortality of the soul) has its clear positive orientation as well. I rather think this upbeat characteristic of the Celtic path begins with the reality of neart. If we live in a universe pulsating with power and abundance, then ultimately our problems are solvable, surmountable—there’s nothing to fear. It’s reminiscent of Jesus’ overarching message: Be not afraid. How sad that so many of his followers are wracked with fear, fear of offending God, fear of damnation, fear that others will be lost just because they live or think differently!
Optimism is a choice. It’s the product of faith, for it requires a hopeful approach to life. Faith says “I believe in neart,” while optimism says “I’ll experience its blessings most any day now.” They go hand-in-hand for those seeking to live a life of spiritual wisdom.
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Neart is more than just a psychological strategy for cultivating hope and faith and optimistic thinking. It’s also a cause for living a life according to the dictates of those positive values. If you want water to flow through a pump, you have to prime it. If you want neart to flow through your life, you “prime the pump” by creating the space for the abundance to manifest. That space is created through hospitality, generosity, and charity—good Celtic virtues, all! The only way for neart to flow to us is by creating the means for it to flow through us, which means finding ways to give it to others. Funny—the same thing is often said of love: the best way to find it is to give it away. It has been said that in heaven and hell, we have no elbows. Those who suffer in hell struggle with their inability to feed themselves, since an arm that won’t bend cannot bring food up to the mouth. But in heaven, this same physical circumstance is no problem: for you see, everyone feeds someone else. And no one gets left out.
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Celtic folks love to talk of “the thin places,” those places where the veil separating the physical world from the otherworld are even thinner than normal. Examples of thin places include churches, holy wells, sacred sites like stone circles or old monasteries, and places of great natural beauty and power. I first heard of this concept from a priest in Glendalough (a thin place if ever there was one). But I’ve come to think that the thinness of a thin place doesn’t just provide access to an unseen inner world. Perhaps more important, it provides access to neart. Call it energy, call it hope, call it a fuel of miracles. For those who choose to see, it’s as plain as the noses on our faces. Thin places are places of nourishment and rejuvenation—for they provide us with ready access to that energy that keeps us connected to blessings. The energy is more than just the bringer of blessing—it is blessing itself.
Ireland has been called “the island of saints and scholars.” But the other Celtic lands have produced their share of holy people as well. The coming of Christianity to the Celtic world was revolutionary on more than one level: not only did it forever change the way that the Celts viewed spirituality and the cosmos, but perhaps even more importantly, the Celtic tradition influenced how Christianity was practiced, giving birth to a unique expression of that faith, marked by optimism, mysticism, and deep love for nature.
Saint Patrick is probably the only Celtic “super-saint,” which is to say a saint whose fame and popularity extends well beyond the Celtic world. But other saints, like Brigid, Columcille (Columba), Brendan (called “the Navigator” because of the legend that he and his companion monks sailed from Ireland to North America—in the sixth century!)
