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Betwixt and Between
The Four Ancient Books of Wales, a fourteenth-century Welsh manuscript, contains a poem that expresses well the Celtic notion of the ensouled universe, of nature entwined with the human psyche. The poem is addressed to the Creator.
Who infused through my head
A soul to direct me.
Who has made for me in perception,
My seven faculties:
Of fire and earth,
And water and air,
And mist and flowers,
And southerly wind.
The verse is remarkable on two counts, First, it clearly associates the soul, which resides in the head, and its powers of perception with the external elements of nature. Second, it adds to the traditional four elements three unexpected candidates: mist, flowers, and southerly wind. When we reflect on these three, we find that they combine the original four. Mist is a combination of air and water; the warm wind is air and fire; the flower is a product of these three plus earth. Here, as in other contexts, we find once again the Celtic love of things that are neither this, nor that. Things, betwixt and between, things that are blends of opposites. Mist, southerly breeze, and the fragile flower are also ephemeral, suggesting the transient state of the soul (consciousness) ever poised to evolve into something else.
from Fire in the Head by Tom Cowan
