Trefocal - Three Words

In Auraicept na n-Éces, there is a tract on Poetic methods and knowledge that says of Trefocul:

…for the limbs of science are equal to the limbs of man, for there are
365 limbs of a man, 365 measures of poetry, 365 days in the year, and 365 herbs through the earth, so that the protection of the Trefocul encompasses them…

This is reminiscent to me of the tale of Airmid and Miach and their knowledge of herbs and healing.

Additionally, there is part of a poem on Trefocul in the same tract. It is about the "Laws of Barddism" (Bairdne) or the "Laws of Poetry" (Filidecht), but I think it also gives us windows into the minds and ways of the filidh and through them to the Ways of Draíocht:

Trefocul
Trefocul which poets plead
To defend their lawlessness,
Is no more than a burden of a children's part
From something, I reckon, which they understand.

Shields and pure countenances
Ward off many blemishes
As perfect Adna has devised them,
It is no profit not to turn them.

Twelve "errors" it is clear to you,
The poets must know them;
Etain has found no profit in them,
She has woven the beauty of poetry.

Twelve shields and twelve countenances
She has appointed to guard oneself against them,
The blemishes without a weak bare rhyme,
They succor them with their number.

The countenances of defense which I shall mention,
"Hardening" and "singular" that are not unsharp,
Right "ennobling", "enslaving"
The "staves of words" for true measurement.

"Interloping syllable" entire.
"Theft of a long" it is true,
"Theft of a hard" it is not wrong,
"Change of initial" for its visitation.

"Apocope of initial" ,
"doubling of initial" in front,
"Mod speech" with its modes,
It is a twelfth dear countenance,
"Prefix of gender" for reckoning it.

The shields of defense throughout the world
Are "hyperbole" and "retarding"
Ancient poets have found out those
Two "metathesis" and "internal
division."

It's "full" is not full without foundation,
Its "reduplication," its "diminutive,"
A memory to each noble old bard
Its "exaltation," its "humiliation."

I reckon "man-throwing" with venom,
And "change of final,"
"Apocope of final," it is troublesome,
"Doubling of final" of a good word.

Those are the twelve shields,
The learned are in the habit of observing them,
And the twelve countenances which have been granted,
The four and twenty divisions.

The poets that do not know this,
No back to essay poetry is on them.
How can they conceal their wrongs?
How can they ward off "errors?"

Is it one countenance or one lofty shield
Which saves from blemish each full rough,
Or the twain that are thrown around every blemish?
Not thence, from considering it, will harm arise.

Whoever he be that sings
with his understanding;
Through his intellect rough and dangerous;
It is difficult and it is troublesome
To take account of the Trefocul.

Trefocul the three words
A knowledge of its secret is very hard,
Thirty-six up to this point
Are found through its specifics of Gaelic.

A study of these concepts and the people that are mentioned this tract on Trefocul would serve each of us well in our own efforts to travel the Druid Way.

What are the levels of meaning to be found here?
How were they applied?

How can we still use them today?

I'll probably include this article in my third book of the Ogham Keys to Wisdom series, The Song of the Forest. It was originally composed and copyrighted by me in 2003 on the alt.religion druid newsgroup of Usenet and in the Bards forum of the Summerlands.

Searles

Music, Sound and Form

The Ogham were said by some to have been formed by Sound and Form (as its parents). What better child of Sound and Form would there be but Music? It is a theory of Seán Ó Boyle that the Ogham represent the notes of a Celtic harp. My thoughts on Ogham go beyond this musical notation into realms of mantra and mantic states. In this, I do not think I am far from what Alain Danielou proposed when he said in Music and the Power of Sound:

"If we were able to reproduce the exact relations that constitute the natural names, we should recreate beings, things, and phenomena, because this is the very process of creation, explained by the Vedas and also indicated in Genesis, or in the Gospel of John when the 'creative Word' is spoken of. If, however, exact relations cannot be produced, approximate relations have a power, if not of creation, at least of evocation; sound 'works now in man's small magic, just as it first worked in the grand magical display of the World Creator.'

'The natural name of anything is the sound which is produced by the action of the moving forces which constitute it. He therefore, it is said, who mentally or vocally utters with creative force the natural name of anything brings into being the thing which bears that name.'

By the artificial construction of harmony we can go beyond the phenomenon of sound vibrations and perceive not sounds but immaterial relations through which can be expressed realities of a spiritual nature. We can thus lift the veil by which matter hides from its all true realities"

It is my experience that the Ogham can be used in such a way to produce altered states of consciousness and to open the doors to levels of reality. In a true language (such as Ogamic Irish) with nature words and names, there is a power to the harmony of sounds and the letters that give them birth/form. Everything has a music that is natural amd uniquely characteristic of it alone. The fundamental sounds determine the "Music of the Spheres." Each of these "spheres" can be represented by an Ogham, a note and a sound as well as a quality, an essence and a level of awareness.

For starters, the Ogham can and should be used as a means of transitioning between normal consciousness/reality and mystical/altered consciousness/reality in much the same way that Amergin does so in his poem that is sometimes known as the "Mystery." what Amergin did was to chant and to "become" a variety of mystical/magical symbols for states of being and reality in his poem of mastery over the cosmos. The Ogham characters each have at least three kenning-meanings associated with them from historical/traditional Druidic lists. These meanings can be used to form relationships to create transitions in states of being in a manner similar/parallel to the Tree of Life structure that is used in Cabala (after all, the Ogham are primordial sound/form; even trees in Druidic traditions).

The keys to doing all of this in a Druidic way are to thoroughly understand the traditions, tales and values/concepts associated with the Ogham symbols. This is really not much different from the analogous ways that other Magical systems work to establish esoteric hierarchies. Of course, some will say this is "smoke and mirrors" but to me those who say such things just display an ignorance or an avoidance of Celtic/Druidic ways when they don't put forth the work to actually understand such things. The Druidic Way is not for those who want easy/instant solutions.

Another parallel for this use of Ogham, tone and mantra/chant among Druids and the Filidh (their inheritors) is to be found in the use of Sanskrit letters, symbols, sounds and correspondences among the Brahmins and Yogis of India. In their system chant and mantra are the foundation of meditation and the pathways to enlightenment. Almost any Hindu or Vedic site on meditation or Yoga will give information similar to this found at Universal Mantra.

"The Yogis of the past, found that within our body and mind there is a vibrational activity, and this activity creates sounds. In their deep meditations they listened all this sounds and they cataloged them, they found fifty sounds, and now this sounds are the fifty letters of the Sanskrit alphabet. "

"In the tantric science of meditation these sounds are used to awaken higher stages of consciousness and they are combined together to create Mantras, special words based on this sounds."

Other sites for this sort of information can be found at: The River of Heaven which says:

"Hence the Yoga of sound is meant to take us back from our gross sounds to their idea content to the perception they represent and ultimately to the pure being behind that perception. It is not a process of merely saying sounds or thinking about words but tracing the origin of sound and meaning back to awareness itself by the power of meditation."

Awen and Imbas

"This information could be almost anything: events from a person's past life, a detailed history of who and what had happened to an object or even how and why the subject was bespelled or enchanted. The examples that I've seen seem to suggest to me that a spontaneous flow of information and/or poetic verse might accompany the first contact that occurred between the seer and the object. This verse would then be interpreted based upon the vast storehouse of Druidic knowledge that had been accumulated through many years of study, experiment, observation and experience. It is this interpreting of the extemporaneous recital of verse that involves the act of 'cracking open the nuts of wisdom'."


Damh the Bard tells us:

"During a Druid ritual, the Awen can be intoned as a single monotone note using three syllables "Ah-oo-en" (some Druid Orders intone the three letters I. A. U. in a similar way). The power held within the Awen mantra can be used in many ways - from initiating poetic inspiration, to drawing down the blessing of the God and Goddess or evoking a change in the atmosphere of a ritual circle. It is truly a sacred word. "

So it also was and still is among Druids regarding chant and mantra for meditation. Rudimentary use of this was first attempted by Iolo Morganwyg in the Barddic Mysteries and the Barddas, when he suggested that the Awen was represented by three rays/sounds/letters (which are I A U as given above). These are the "fifth", "primary" and "third" elements in the Ogham vowel group or Ailm Aicme. In any esoteric alphabet, the letters represent primary states and tones. In the Ogham, each grouping can have a relationship to the elements/qualities as well as the directions and parts of being. A study of some of the Irish tales has suggested associations for these to me that mesh in a web of interlinking meanings as well as tonic qualities.

One practice that could come out of this use/cross-referencing of Ogham to sound, is that an entire symphony of meaning could be arranged in a melody of notes while colors, lists and other associations (like blossoms and smells) would also allow a multileveled matrix/field-like approach to any esoteric or mundane situation/ritual using the Ogham lists (which were a part of every File and Druid's education). What this means is that there is a ready sourcebook in Druidic memory and tradition for spellwork, medicine, poetry and ritual to be found in the Ogham as music, symbol, talisman and knowledge indices.

I could go on at length about this (and have in books, seminars and classes on the subject) but these few short remarks should point to the wealth of knowledge that awaits one who seeks the knowledge that is to be found along the Druid Way (and especially through the use of Sound and Form and their child which is the Ogham).

How Druids Created the World

Several years ago, I visited my imbas to see if there was a story of how the Druids created the world (as they claimed in the Senchus Mor).

Here I present a hypothetical discussion between a Druid and his student that is modeled after and based on other similar teachings regarding cosmic order and organization that exist in many Indo-European traditions. The 'Colloquy of the Two Sages' contains a similar form of esoteric questioning and answering through the art of Ogham kennings. So does the 'Cauldron of Poesy.' The model for the text of this conversation is directly based in large part on the sixth Brahmana of the Third Division of the Brhadara aranyaka Upanisad that is recorded between Gārgī Vācaknavī; (the student) and Yājñavalkya (the teacher or Sage) found at:

http://www.chibs.edu.tw/academic/projects/mukherjee-work/articles/html/1993b.htm

The following tale is what leaped out of the darkness at me:

How Druids Created the World

"Then the student asked him: 'My teacher', said she, 'since everything in Creation is woven, like warp and woof, on water (i.e. the flows of creation or the powers of the universe which are brí and bua), on what, please tell me, is water woven like warp and woof (amhail deilbh, amhail eanglaim)?'

The teacher answered, 'On the winds (gaoth), my student; on streams of water and whirlwinds (sruth bua: caise uisce, gaoth ghuairneáin).

'On what then, are the streams and winds woven?', asked the student.

'On the worlds of the open sea and the enclosed lands and the columns of the sky (an fharraige choimhthíoch is tír is Maige Tuired), my student.' answered the teacher.

'On what, then, pray, are the worlds of the open sea and the enclosed lands and the columns of the sky woven?' inquired the student.

'Not hard to say', answered the teacher, 'On the worlds of the spirits of the air, the forests, the depths and the mountains, my student. (the Sídhe)'

Next the student questioned, 'On what, then, please tell me, are the worlds of the spirits of the air, forests, the depths, and the mountains woven?'

'Easily answered, on the wheel of the Sun (Roth Grían), my student.' replied the teacher.

'On what, then, pray tell, is the wheel of the Sun woven?' was the next question put forward by the student to the teacher.

'This too is easily answered', he said, 'on the houses of the Moon (Tiath an Éasca).'

Then the student asked, 'On what, then, please tell me, are the houses of the Moon woven?'

'Ni hansa, on the plains of the Cattle of Tethra my student.' answered the teacher

'On what, then, pray, are the plains of the Cattle of Tethra woven?' inquired the student.

'On the lands of the gods (Maigh Mhór), my student?' said the teacher.

'On what, then, pray tell, are the lands of the gods woven?'

'On the Cró of Lugh, my student.', was the answer given.

'On what, then, please tell me; is the Cró of Lugh woven?'

'On the treasures of the cities of Findias, Gorias, Murias, and Falias, my student.' was the enlightened reply from the teacher.

'On what, then, pray tell, are the treasures of the cities of Findias, Gorias, Murias, and Falias woven?'

'On the powers and skills of Draíocht and the mastery of the Dagda, the God of Druids, my student.' was the steadfast answer given by the teacher.

'On what, then, please tell me, are the powers and skills of Draíocht and the mastery of the Dagda, woven like warp and woof, like Land, Sea and Wind, like Sun and Moon, like the Cattle of Tethra and the worlds of the gods?', asked the student finally.

Then the teacher, instead of answering the question directly, warned the student 'not to ask too much about things that are not easily understood but which must be experienced and mastered through training.'

This is thought to mean that the teacher did not give the answer in plain words, but through the means of kennings or by having the student learn the ways through pathworking. It is clear from the Druid's statement, as well as from other passages in the ancient wisdom, that he had Tír na Bhithbheo (Annwn, Alltar, Tír na n'Óg, Tír Andomain), the eternal Otherworld, the unknowable, sacred reality, in mind within which everything else is based, and from which, everything is sourced and reborn. Here also is to be discovered and understood the fundamental relationship existing between the different components of the three worlds, as well as the balances existing between the deities/powers of Order (i.e. the Tuatha Dé Danann) and the deities/powers of Chaos (i.e. the Fomorii/ Tuatha Dé Domnann).

Searles O'Dubhain