Our New Tour Vacations

New Tour Vacations from Celtic Ways

I now have two new tour itineraries for 2007 that have evolved from requests by tour organizers. I feel honoured and thrilled that people have taken quite a bit of time to explain to me what they would like to see and do in Ireland in relation to services that can see we provide.

Both tours are week long vacation but anyone can request to join in for part of the tour, even for just a day or part of a day. Day tours will no longer be advertised because our vacation offers are proving to be popular before I even get them onto my web site.

"Veil Between Two Worlds"

A tour that follows much of my book to be published this year. This is a vacation in Ireland that is more than a touring visit but includes a journey through ancient Celtic traditions. This vacation tour is available for most weeks of the year.

Previous travellers that joined us shared their experiences and explained how our tours and retreats restored, revitalized and rekindled new fires into their lives. Our "Veil Between Worlds" vacation now combines visits to sacred spaces, such as stone passage cairns and sacred wells, with ancient stories and introduction to the wisdom and paths of the ancient Celtic shamans.

During the daytime our travellers enjoy exhilirating views from little known hills, valleys, lakes and rivers. Travel is moderated and relaxed because we also spend quality sanctuary time in ancient sacred spaces for reflection, thanksgiving and even healing.

Evenings are shared with words from bards, music meditations and lively traditional ceilis around turf fires. You will be welcome to share your music, story and writing talents.

As we are not aligned to any religion or doctrine you will find yourself feeling free to be yourself with your own faith. You will also be accompanied by fellow travellers who you will feel are "your kind of people".

Please explore our "Veil Between Two Worlds" itinerary

"Ancient Temples Of Ireland"

Recently, a couple of group leaders told me that their groups wanted to see as many ancient sites all around ireland that I could pack into a week. They were not interested in spending time doing meditations, writing, chanting, firewalking and other things we do.

Their requests created our new wonderful "Ancient Temples Of ireland" vacation. This is a tour that travels a circle around Ireland and introduces any visitor to many of Ireland's ancient sacred sites as well as providing quite a complete experience of Ireland's landscapes and people.

You may not have heard of many of the sites we visit because they are not found in Ireland's guide books and brochures. Many of these hidden sites are along narrow lanes where visitors can enjoy a taste of real Ireland amongst its most stunning scenery.

Starting at Shannon Airport, we visit The Burren, Cliffs Of Moher, Galway, Ancient Royal Site of Connaught (The Tain), Carrowkeel Passage Cairns, Keash Caves, Markree Castle, Labby Rock, Brighid Stones, Shannon Pot, Loughcrew Passage Cairns & Ancient Art, Kells High Crosses, Tara Hill, Dublin Museums and Book Of Kells, Glendalough, Wicklow Gap, Piper's Stone Circle, Rock Of Cashel, Stone Circles Of Beara (Kerry). You can take the whole vacation or part of it.

We also provide plenty of time for joining in traditional Irish craics, ceilis and for doing your gift shopping and postcard mailing.

If you have never been to Ireland and prefer active adventure amongst Ireland's ancient sites rather than relaxation and spiritual pilgrimage this is the right vacation in Ireland for you. Note that instead of starting at Dublin we start and finish at Shannon Airport which is very convenient for most visitors from North America.

Please explore our "Ancient Temples Of Ireland" itinerary

"Two Worlds Passage"

I said two new vacations for 2007, but here's a third. This third vacation is due to commence during 2008 but we will have one vacation date, last week of July, in 2007 where we will be presenting this itinerary under another name where our guides will be Heather Ash Amara and Raven Smith. I'll explain this in a later blog.

However, "Two Worlds Passage" goes more into learning ancient based traditions and less on visiting sites compared to our "Veil Between Two Worlds" itinerary. This vacation will include firewalking, sweat house cleansing, labyrinth meditations, sound healing, orgone energy recharging, wild food gathering and cooking, introduction to herbalism and additional ancient traditions and wisdom.

We welcome your enquiries for last week of July and all through 2008

A Veil Between Two Worlds

The Book

I am currently taking a break from writing articles for this blog to complete my book "A Veil Between Two Worlds" intended for release at Beltaine 2007.

This has been an on and off project during 2006 that is now arriving at an exciting conclusion

My book is both a story and guide book combined.

The book is the story of Brighid visualized as it may be told by Lugh of the Tuatha De Dannan who's harp and its music are the Veil between Earth and the Otherworld.

My story morphs and incarnates through the ages from before the arrival of the Tuatha De Dannan to Ireland until its surprise conclusion dedicated to the day you read it.

There's fantasy, colour, honour, sanctuary, a bit of blood spilt, lots of love, moments of tears, lots to smile about and should provoke some oral response from spontaneous gasps to infectious chuckles.

These are stories that are similar to what have been told many times before with writers changing the names of the people and locations to disguise their sources. I have retained locations, using the most ancient names I could find, and retained the names of characters of the stories.

All of this takes up more than 60% of the book.

The rest of the 40% of the book will be dedicated as a guide to locations that my story travels through. This section will be a compendium with photos, geographical information and additional historical information that may be more grounded than my story but usually not so interesting. Most important, I'll explain how you may travel to and find these places, just in case you would prefer to do this instead of joining one of our guided tours.

The Music

"A Veil Between Two Worlds" book will also be accompanied by a music CD recorded by singer harpist, and a lovely story teller too, Claire Roche. During early Spring "A Veil Between Two World" documentary DVD will be produced along with short movies for your portable media such as iPods and multimedia cell and mobile phones. And the movie? Hmmmm, watch this space.

The Tour

Already I have received wonderful interest from people I have shared this project with, mainly from folks that have shared my tours.
This has attracted several requests for 7 day vacations in our hidden Bréifne region of Ireland to live through this story.

Our 7 day "Veil Between Two Worlds" tour itinerary will be featured and bookable for many of the weeks during 2007 and 2008

Those of you who wish to join us for less than 7 days will be invited to join us en route if seats and accommodation are available.

Live Performances

During 2007 USA visits by Claire Roche and myself are being planned for end of May and end of September and a UK visit during early November. Claire will be in Australia during end of February, all of March and early April. Enquiries also welcome from New Zealand.

Please click here for any enquiries about providing you with live shows and workshops

I look forward to sharing more news about "A Veil Between Two Worlds" and many more related articles through this blog spot, probably re-commencing late January when my script will be in the hands of the publishers and Claire's CD will be in the hands of the mixers.

Meanwhile, in the spirit of sharing spirituality without alignment to any religion or creed other than the single loving spirit that creates, nurtures and guides us all myself and Claire wish you all a safe passing through the mid-winter,

We raise a glass to you all
and we look forward to sharing some time, events and travels with you during 2007 and beyond.

The Jedi Faith

Campaigning for the "Interstellar Day Of Tolerance"

Last week I caught a news article on Sky News where an Irish journalist was interviewing a couple of followers of the "Jedi Faith". The cause of the interview was that 390,000 people in the UK claimed their religion was the "Jedi Faith" on the 2001 UK Census forms and, thus, making the faith the fourth largest religion in Britain.

The interview was with Umada and Yunyun, aka John Wilkinson and Charlotte Law. They have recently lobbied the the United Nations to consider the UK Census result to recognize the "Jedi Faith" as a real world religion and that the the annual International Day for Tolerance on November 16th should be re-named as "Interstellar Day of Tolerance".

During this interview I found myself jointly amused and in support of their cause. Their teachings, according to Umada and Yunyun, are simple and peaceful leading with "tolerance for all people and their beliefs", "letting the force be with you", the lightsaver being a symbol of defence and protection and "never serve the dark side".

There's obviously a lot more to what the Jedi Faith follows but its not what I want to theme this article on. My interest is in questioning where this faith may come from.

From entertainment to faith

A mass reaction is "how can a faith from a movie become a real faith?". I feel answers may come from understanding how our major ancient religions originally spread and where the Star Wars films evolved from.

I'm not sure how major religions like Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism first spread but I am aware that the Christian religion as first spread by Bards a long time before Preachers. That's not surprising considering the colour, mystery and content of the ancient stories. The bible is full of incredible gripping content that film makers of the last 100 years have attempted to capture and hold viewer's attention. I'm sure most people's knowledge of the Bible has come from films and the story telling of Sunday School teachers than from preachers and Bible reading.

For one, the ancient Bards obviously loved the Psalters of Psalms for reading and even setting to music. Before Christ, in Ireland, Druids despatched Bards to the people to serve the druid's wisdom through story and song. The early Celtic Christian priests are said to regard Jesus as the "Druid's Druid". At the crowning of King Aiden in Scotland Columcille quoted "My Druid is Christ". The "Battle of Books", I mention in my last article, was a battle over the copyright of a book of Psalms that some say was unique as it included musical notation.

So, the Bards shared Christ through "entertainment", a performance that got people's attention and they remembered "scenes" that they formed into faith that became a code for their daily lives. There were no movie theatres then so is the Star Wars story the same as a bardic tale but presented in film rather than live to a live audience? Its the content that creates the Jedi Faith and not the locations but a little of the costume is mimicked. Likewise when following the Christian Faith we do not have to be in the Holy Land but our priests, monks and nuns do wear some garments of styles that date back to those times.

What interests me more is where Star Wars, the script, comes from.

Those of you reading my past blogs will already understand my passion for Mummers Plays and even read some explanations of Star`Wars connection to these.

Before Christ the druids used ceremonies which were a kind of theatre to demonstrate the passing of one season into the next through images and caricatures. Even Christians who condone the use of images and idols in faith naturally think of the devil in the image of a dark figure with horns, arrow head shaped tail and carrying a three pronged fork. Most of us know the "devil", evil and dark side do not look like that but its an image that says something to us. When I was a child in England the road sign warning us of a school ahead was of a torch and not an image of a school building or children like it is today, but it told us a school was ahead.

These early images became Sacred Plays and Mystery Plays with characters of Christ, Mary, Joseph, wise men, shepherds, and all kinds of evil men too. It was always the play and its images that said something more than the people. During the time of the Crusades, and just after, these plays became Mummer's Plays, community drama acting out the same as Sacred Plays and ancient rituals at times of both ancient and Christian celebrations. Mummers Plays evolved to include local characters of heros, villians, healers and tricksters. From the Mummer's Plays we had Punch & Judy Puppet Shows, and then Pantomime which is something completely different in the USA. Of course with a name like Pantomime its a merging of celebration theatre and Greek mime.

The foundation structure to Star Wars Episodes 4, 5 and 6 is that of a British Pantomime, which has evolved from the Sacred and Mystery plays use to show the life and faith of Christ. It has the same basic characters of hero, prince, princess, evil villain, maid, the healing wise man, and bungling buffoon comic or comics who accidently save the day. In fact, I went to a Christmas Pantomime in Bristol in the 80s and the pantomime was called Star Wars that I was told was a Colin Wakefield script. I have since seen Star Paws billed that someone told me was adapted from a Norman Robbins script.

Is this a faith from our ancestors?

Also of interest is that amongst the myths that George Lucas collected was our own local Lugh Of The Long Arm and Balor Of The Evil Eye story from the Tuatha De Dannan, when he visited here. Luke was son of Darth Vadar, Lugh was grandson of Balor.

What about "The Force"?

When I was a child, around 6 years old, and quite naive of religion I used a nearby passage barrow to my home as a "den". This was at least 15 years before Star`Wars was released but I remember feeling aware of a guiding spirit that I used to call "The Force", but unfortunately I cannot remember why as it did not seem to be forcing me to do anything. I imagine with George Lucus it is short for Lifeforce but the shortened word "Force" is more fitting for an action packed movie.

To find out more

With a listed 390,000 people following its is surprising that there does not appear to be a spiritually charged web site to support this gathering. Umada and Yunyun, who went to the United Nations, do not appear to have a web site, or its well hidden in the search engines. I certainly could not find a web site representing the 390,000 followers in Britain. An opportunity for someone?

There's the Temple Of The Jedi Order web site that looks more like a Marvel comic production with seemingly as much leaning on the Star Wars films as there is on the Jedi Faith.

The Jedi Sanctuary web site is much more attractive. It attempts to focus on the Jedi much more than Star Wars but is an essay site, a bit like this blog, rather than social or congregation site. It is hosted by members of the Universal Light Church.

JediFaith.com is purely forum. I did not join so I cannot comment. Home page is bare and a bit "Barbi".

As you may gather, you are unlikely to find me greeting you for my tours dressed in a Jedi cloak and pointing sacred sites out with my Light Sabre.

However, I am intrigued that along with the 390,000 British Jedi Knights other census results show 70,000 Jedi knights in Australia, 53,000 in New Zealand, and 20,000 in Canada. USA figures are unknown.

I woke up from a dream a couple of nights ago after a voice, in the dream, called out "Trust comes from Facts while Faith comes from Fiction".

I welcome any of these folks to share the sactuary of our local sacred sites where I am sure they will find themselves at one with "The Force".