Book Review - Anam Cara - A Book of Celtic Wisdom by John O’Donohue
It is strange to be here. The mystery never leaves you alone. Behind your image, below your words, above your thoughts, the silence of another world awaits.
‘Adam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom’ by John O'Donohue has been recommended to me many times over the years and I only recently got around to reading it. Being an early riser, I like to read a few pages of something thoughtful before my day starts. It’s part of my plan to start my day off on the right foot.
I live on the hill where St Patrick founded his church back in the 5th century. The area was originally thought to be a pagan sanctuary before it became an important monastic settlement in the 7th century. So I'm comfortable reading this book on 'Druim Saileach' - the ridge of the willow trees. Indeed, Eamin macha, ancient capital of Uladh, and a great Celtic site of spiritual importance lies just out the road from where I sit.
This book chimes with me from the first page.
Anam Cara meaning ‘Soul friend’
'Anam Cara’, meaning 'soul friend', is a classic of Celtic spirituality literature. O'Donohue suggests the word originates in Irish monasticism, where it was a monk's spiritual guide or teacher. This wise, compassionate book on Celtic Wisdom became my perfect companion during the early morning hours.
”Though the human body is born complete in one moment, the birth of the human heart is an ongoing process.”
John O'Donohue was an Irish poet, author, priest, and Hegalian philosopher. This is a spiritual book, but not tied to any one faith. It also helps that it's beautifully written and accessible, and he has a wonderfully poetic of phrase.
Friendship
‘One of the tasks of true friendship is to listen compassionately and creatively to the hidden silences. Often secrets are not revealed in words, they lie concealed in the silence between the words or in the depth of what is unsayable between two people.’
O'Donohue covers several topics in the book, short chapters broken in smaller parts that include solitude, wisdom, time and place, joy, mystery, death, transformation among others, and of course the mystery of friendship. It's not a book to be rushed. Indeed, as I listened to the birds and waited for my tea to cool, I sometimes never read more than a couple of sentences.
As you can tell from this post, I read a lot of what would be termed self-help, though I think self-discovery is a better term. I think we need to get out of the way of ourselves, that our true nature is already there and we have to let it reveal itself. Like when there's a grey sky, but we know that blue, the true nature, is behind it. Easier said than done, but books like this help us on our way.
Celtic Wisdom
There's something of a distilled Celtic wisdom to 'Anam Cara' - be it the ways of the older Irish generations, poets, the Celts, philosophers, and writers - O'Donoghue is skilled at knitting all this enlightened knowledge together. Of course, he has to be a poet philosopher at heart to recognise it in the first place.
I'm always interested in dualism in meditation, this idea that the nature of everything is awareness. I found it interesting that the Celts lived by this, that there was no separation between the seer and the seen.
Sometimes when I walk around the beautiful landscape here, it's easy to imagine the divinity that the Celts had for all around them - the rivers, the hills, the sky, and nature. I think you can tap into that oneness when you get out of the way of your thinking mind.
‘The Celtic mind was not burdened by dualism. It did not separate what belongs together. The Celtic imagination articulates the inner friendship that embraces Nature, divinity, underworld, and human world as one.’
Solitude
I found the chapter on solitude to be particularly rewarding, as it's something I have learned to enjoy. There are times it can lapse into loneliness, or you can crave it at the expense of others, so you have to be careful with it. But nurtured properly, I find it can be a place of great healing.
'When you cease to fear your solitude, a new creativity awakens in you. Your forgotten or neglected wealth begins to reveal itself. You come home to yourself and learn to rest within. Thoughts are our inner senses. Infused with silence and solitude, they bring out the mystery of inner landscape.'
Part of the beauty of this book and something that the author intrinsically recognises is that many of us lack a spiritual aspect to our lives. 'Anam Cara' allows us to tap into that side of ourselves again - O'Donoghue emphasises the importance of turning away from the world, and tuning into ourselves. That's when the healing starts.
‘In a vast universe … All of our life, everything we do, think and feel is surrounded by nothingness… This cosmic loneliness is the root of all inner loneliness…’
‘There is the infinity of space that reaches out into the depths of the cosmos… the infinity that haunts everyone and which no one can finally quell is the infinity of one’s own interior…’
In the early morning light, I particularly enjoyed o'Donoghues writing about aging and death -'A silent friend who walks beside us all our days'. I can understand why people find this such a useful book when experiencing grief.
Soul Friend
Anam Cara, meaning soul friend - to nourish not just our outer friendships, but our inner lives. This book is a wonderful mixture of mysticism, philosophy, poetry, and spirituality that has a lyricism and gentleness to it that will keep you returning to it.
A friendship blessing
'May you be blessed with good friends.
May you learn to be a good friend to yourself.
May you be able to journey to that place in your soul where there is great love, warmth, feeling, and forgiveness.
May this change you.
May it transfigure that which is negative, distant, or cold in you.
May you be brought in to the real passion, kinship, and affinity of belonging. May you treasure your friends.
May you be good to them and may you be there for them; may they bring you all the blessings, challenges, truth, and light that you need for your journey.
May you never be isolated.
Book Review - Anam Cara - A book of Celtic Wisdom by John O’Donohue
234 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1996