Читать книгу 366 Celt: A Year and A Day of Celtic Wisdom and Lore - Carl McColman - Страница 16

The Irish language does not have a word for the coronation of a king; instead the ceremony by which a new king was installed was called the banais righe, or the wedding-feast of the king. Who was the king marrying? The goddess, of course: Sovereignty herself, in one of her various forms. Ancient annals describe this wedding-feast as involving two elements: the goddess (or a priestess assuming the role of goddess) offering a sacred drink to her new “husband”—perhaps mead, from which the goddess Meadbh takes her name; and then the consummation of the marriage itself, symbolizing a sacred union between the land and the people—land symbolized by the goddess, and people symbolized by their king. So here is a profound clue into the heart of Celtic wisdom: life is lived truly and bountifully out of a harmonious, marriage-like relationship between humanity and nature. Nature is not some inert resource for us to exploit as we wish, but rather is divine, and can be related to as a Divine Feminine: a goddess.