Jason Kirkey > Quotes

“There is a saying that 'the psychotic drowns in the waters that the mystic swims in.' The health and structural integrity of the ego means the difference between spiritual emergence, the unfolding of a transpersonal identity; and a spiritual emergency a crisis brought on by the same unfolding, during which the foundations of sanity can be shaken.”
― Jason Kirkey, Salmon in the Spring: The Ecology of Celtic Spirituality

“The interior landscape responds to the character and subtlety of an exterior landscape; the shape of the individual mind is affected by land as it is by genes.”
― Jason Kirkey, Salmon in the Spring: The Ecology of Celtic Spirituality

“When we repress our intrinsic and inherent connection with the Earth..... we cut ourselves off from the most vital depths of our humanity as well.”
― Jason Kirkey, Salmon in the Spring: The Ecology of Celtic Spirituality

“Our identity is intimately tied to the stories we tell about ourselves and the world, both consciously and unconsciously.”
― Jason Kirkey, Salmon in the Spring: The Ecology of Celtic Spirituality

“Tradition can be double edged. It can provide a map for us, guiding us along routes that others have taken, and give us heart in difficult times. It can also condition us to experience reality in a very narrow range, fogging over the freshness of the world with a dullness of expectations and belief.”
― Jason Kirkey, Salmon in the Spring: The Ecology of Celtic Spirituality

“The reality of industrialism.... is that for each boon it grants to our lives it offers a corresponding note of destruction. One person’s bar of chocolate is another person’s slave labor; one city, the destruction of a watershed. Everything comes at a cost”
― Jason Kirkey, Salmon in the Spring: The Ecology of Celtic Spirituality

“In Ireland, the rivers find their source in the Otherworld; specifically in an Otherworld well or spring which, bubbling up from the earth, is surrounded by trees of wisdom. Five streams, said to be the five senses, flow from the spring. Salmon swim in that spring and eat the hazelnuts which fall, occasionally, into the water.  To eat a salmon from this water is to receive poetic inspiration and to drink from the water itself, in ecological interpretation, is to enter into a way of being that is consonant with the underlying patterns of the cosmos.”
― Jason Kirkey, Salmon in the Spring: The Ecology of Celtic Spirituality

“In contrast to the historical-religious approach of the Reconstructionists are the modern Druids, practitioners of Druidry. Historically it is possible to trace the roots of this movement to the 18th century English revival, which had more in common with Freemasonry than with any ancient Celtic religion. The approach today has been influenced by the environmentalism of the 60’s and is altogether more wild and pagan than the Romantic gentry of England intended. Druidry is an ever shifting thing; to some a religion, to some a philosophy, to some a spiritual path. Although it includes historical inspirations from the ancient Celts, it is more focused on the present and exhibits more freedom in its innovations.”
― Jason Kirkey, Salmon in the Spring: The Ecology of Celtic Spirituality

“To be native to a place means that our minds are rooted there, derive their nourishment from the familiarity of the landscape and from the stories that are woven into it. Mind is deeply involved with the land.”
― Jason Kirkey, Salmon in the Spring: The Ecology of Celtic Spirituality