Anam Cara
A book of CELTIC WISDOM
By John o'Donohue

First of all, this was the perfect book for me to read at this time.

There are 6 chapters and I will note here with in that structure.  The book was checked out from the library ... It was so funny to feel my tension as I wanted to make notes in the margins as I have begun to do with some of my personal books.  I think it might be fun for my children to later see which ideas resonated or paused me ... This is a book which will be very hospitable to handwritten musing in the margins.  My idea is to make notes here, at True North ... Let the ideas sit for awhile then ask for a copy of the book for my birthday ... Re-read it with a pen in hand then compare that track through with these notes which will represent a second reading.  So many of the ideas expressed here feel whole ... They relax in to me and go directly to a place that has been waiting to hold them.  Some of the ideas I either don't understand, or I am less sure I agree with.  The book, as a whole, is ... very beautiful, tenderly, thoughtfully written with the authority of integrated mind and soul.  This was a smart, good-hearted man, willing to do some heavy lifting to arrive at these words.  The book soothes me.  Other then the Bible, I have never felt soothed by a book ... Yes, a poem ... a quote ... a passage or idea ... a story ... never the whole book.  You know what?  I think I am going to start looking for this as a used book.  I will like the feel of the old paper better then then new process.


Prologue (notes, 14 Sept. 2011)

"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 waits.  A world lives within you. No one else can bring you news of this inner world."
" ... the galaxies dance out toward infinity ... under our feet is ancient earth ... in your thoughts, the silent universe seeks echo."
"you gaze into these word-mirrors and catch glimpses of meaning, belonging. and shelter."
"Their (Celts) sense of ontological friendship yielded a world of experience imbued with a rich texture of otherness, ambivalence, symbolism, and imagination. ... The Celtic understanding of friendship finds its inspiration and culmination in the sublime notion of the anam cara " 
...  anam = soul + cara = friend ... soul  friend.  Friend of my Soul, Friend to your Soul.

"The anam cara was a person to whom you could reveal the hidden intimacies of your life.  This friendship was an act of recognition and belonging."
People wonder about soulmates ... this seems to me to be a soulmate.  Maybe. by it's very nature, they are not able to be as big a presence in your life as you wish ... or maybe they are, I don't know.  As a spouse ... maybe this is just cynical, but I wonder if it is even possible to maintain a very long term intimate relationship with a Anam Cara.  It would be ideal, I just don't know if it is possible. 

1 The Mystery of Friendship
2 Spirituality of the Senses
3 Solitude is Luminous
4Work as a Poetics of Growth
5Aging: The Beauty of the Inner Harvest
6Death: The Horizon is in the Well

To be continued.