The Wildest Branch is a blog, inspired by the wildest branch of Irish mythology.

Yes, of all the branches in Irish mythology, one stands out. Not the ones over Connla’s well, not the apple branch of Cormac, not the nourishing apple branch of Maelduin.

I’m thinking of the wildest branch of all the branches in Irish mythology – the silver branch.

What a shocking thing it must have been to Bran to hear it singing. What an incredible and instant change it brought over him, over his life.

What a shock it was for me to read what John Moriarty wrote about silver branch perception.

The silver branch is the wildest branch, and the ongoing journey to silver branch perception is the wildest undertaking any of us can take on.

So, what exactly is “The Wildest Branch” the blog? Well, it’s probably not going to be about what I had for breakfast, at least not very often. Political rants will also be very few and far between. No how-to’s. Some posts likely will be opinionated, but there won’t be any of “they do it all wrong, here is the right way” kind of stuff. A buffet, take what you want, leave the rest. Please comment either way.

You see, sometimes being human is just too big for religion.

Usually, being religious is too small for the Gods, and sometimes being human is small enough to need the Gods.

Always, God is too big for one name.

This blog is a way of learning.

A way of forcing away the mundane things that vie for my attention all the live long day.

It is a way to shut the brain-committee up and talk with the soul and with the heart. A way for me to explore the things that my soul cries for, the things that it has perhaps experienced, the things my head seems all too often not to have enough room for.

It is a way for me to explore and learn about my greater self, about your greater self. (What blessing that my terminal uniqueness has ended!) A chance for me to dive into some of the central questions of my life, of the human condition.

Perhaps it is a way to venture into becoming, into the firming-up of an ongoing transformation.

Perhaps it is the way for me to leave aside labels, wanted, unwanted, conscious labels that drive us to be what we think the label describes, what others think the label will make us be. Perhaps I am just trying to transcend the conditioning of the eleven thousand labels and adventure out into the unknown potentiality.

Perhaps that is all that this is – potentiality.

The potentiality of a threshold.  Away from the shores of the old, not yet on the shores of the new – there is the threshold; there is the potentiality where anything can be, where nothing can be wrong or right,  where things can only just be what they are at the moment, in harmony with what they are at the moment becoming.

Perhaps that is what this truly is, just an attempt to be a part of that potentiality. To be one with the potentiality.

Perhaps.

Or perhaps it is just the urge to create, the urge to express. Imbas. Awen. Inspiration. Poetic half or slightly-more-than-half madness of trying to say things that can’t be said. Perhaps all of my ramblings have no meaning other than being what they are; of being simply the clumsy attempt at the expression of what longs to be expressed.

That said, this is my attempt to embark on a lyrical journey along the oftentimes hidden paths of culture, mythology, and religion into a mysterious otherworld that is at once personal, collective, and trans-human. Distant and immanent, I hope to find here a spirituality that can transcend, include and integrate any form of religion or spirituality, and hopefully in the end, show a way to how it can be a living, meaningful, and engaged way of being in the modern world.

Realizing that absolute truth, and the seeking thereof, is a cruel joke played on us by the brain-committee, this blog is but a glimpse of observations made, of painful and joyful lessons learned, of things that work for me. Perhaps you will enjoy some of what you find here, perhaps not. Perhaps you will find something that resonates, perhaps not. If you don’t though, I invite you back nonetheless, for perhaps in the future we will together find something that resonates within both of us. Even if thousands of miles apart physically, perhaps we will find something still very close to both of us.

This blog is a way of learning.

About Me

 

40something father of 3, divorced, long time U.S. expat, semi-contemplative, solitary practitioner of old and new ways, no religion, student at Wilson-Smith.

Former soldier, former driver, IT professional, writer, poet, musician…    seeker.

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For several years now, I have been an informal, (mostly) non-academic student of mythology, mostly Celtic, and from that, mostly Irish. By non-academic I mean experiential. I’m more interested in the truth of being human that we find in mythology. I’m more interested in what the stories mean in my heart; as a mirror of my ongoing human journey. I’m more interested in the clues we find in myths, clues that can point the way to a more authentic experience of spirit and humanness.

Having been more or less on a pagan path, specifically a druid path, for over a decade now, I am sympathetic to paganism, and of course especially to druidism.

Having been raised in a fairly conservative Christian family, I am also sympathetic to Christianity, more so now than then.

Not having been overly exposed to it, but having spent some time with Buddhists, I am also sympathetic to Buddhism.

Knowing very little bit about it, I am also sympathetic to Sufism. Also to Hinduism. Jainism. Shamanism.

In short, I am sympathetic to the journey, in which ever form that might take. Really, I am sympathetic to any authentic, non-fundamentalist belief, any and all of the many true faiths that our human condition has led us to express.

But in all of them, I am especially sympathetic to the wild, the contemplative and the mystical expressions.

Having found temporary identities in one or the other of them over the course of my life, in none of them do I find a home. In myself, I find neither a need nor a desire to belong to any of them any longer. I do have a need to belong though, as all humans do, and this need is expressed in my longing. It is in this longing that I find my belonging.

In a sense, I am voluntarily a man without a country and a man of many countries. My adult spirituality has been especially informed by the Celtic tradition, and I have every reason to believe that will continue to be the case, but for several months now, I have been emerging from a self-imposed exile from the rest of the world’s traditions. I am finding more and more a need for freedom of exploration and re-exploration of potentiality.

Somewhat a fading of identity, this is at the same time a transformation of identity; a death and rebirth, an intentional death of an old identity and an intentional rebirth with memory.

Not knowing, not needing to know where it will take me, it is a magnificent journey.

After I finally forgot my birth, I went away from home, quite some time ago now, to make my fortune. Unknowingly though, I was on a search for a school of thinking (of deconstruction if truth be told), where I really did not intend to spend much time. But like Ulysses it seems, I told the Gods my plans, and they only chuckled.

Now, close to the Isle of the Raiders, far from the Isle of Women, I wonder. Will I exact revenge, or will I learn the things that Maelduin learned?

For now, I will continue the struggle to express that which cannot be expressed – the longing for oneness with nature, spirit, and soul.

For now, against better judgment, I will stay here and try to figure out why. No bother,

We can welcome responsibility
like a long lost friend,
and reestablish laughter
in the dolls house
once again.
-Dead Can Dance

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