The Dúile: The Shapes of the World

It has been stated that “the inner and outer landscapes are not separate. They are the wildness of the world and the wildness of the self.” To me, this means that the outer world of nature and the inner world of ourselves can be both light and dark, and order and chaos, much like in the battle of Magh Tuireadh. By this I mean that we not only physically experience order and chaos at different times yet also simultaneously, but that we also have periods where we are battling similar conflicts within ourselves while also experiencing a sort of peace or order internally. It is during the times of internal peace that we can see much clearer the sacred within ourselves as well as the sacred within nature, because our frame of mind is much more open to beauty during periods of order than during our chaotic times.

The Celtic conception of the divine can be described as an all-in-one threefold of the Shaping, Shapes, and Shapers. The shaping can be equated to a divine concept in that the Gods or Spirits are shaping the world in much the same way that the Tuatha De Danaan shaped the world in the early days, which has also shaped in part, what we have come to understand as a combination of Dana the mother goddess, Dana the spirits of the Earth, and Dana the consciousness. The shapes are the sacred; everything around us, everything we see, and everything we are. If we look at the world as individual pieces of a larger puzzle, we can see the beauty within each shape and appreciate the shapes for what they are. We can see each individual tree, flower, stream, and creature, and revel in the wonders of how it came to be what it is, and if we look closely we can follow its path and outline its very being. We can then step back and view the world as a whole and see the shaping as the foundation of what we hold dear; we can see Dana as consciousness and touch the world in a variety of ways, both physically and psychologically, and in this way the shaping is sacred as well. The Shapers are not only the Gods or Spirits, but we as the shapes are also the shapers in that we are not only physically creating other shapes but we are also shaping our views, thoughts, and ways, and adapting them to our ever-changing world in much the same way that Dana as the mother goddess has shaped the world as well as shaped the individual shapes.

I believe that we are all in the role of shape, shaping, and shaper. We are the physical shapes as residents of the Earth, but we are shaping the Earth, other shapes, and the divine, as we continue to grow and evolve. Because of this, it also makes us both shapers of a changing world as well as shaping the world. In another sense, we as shapes can be seen as being in a symbiotic relationship with the divine in that we need the three aspects of Dana to survive just the same as Dana needs us as part of the elemental world, because if there were no shapes present, then there would also be no need for shaping to occur, and that means there would be no need for the existence of both the divine and the shapes as shapers.