Water is the daily necessity for earth's creatures. When the Continental Celts were looking for a new homeland, they ventured west from the known river valleys of the great landmass we call Eurasia. Just beyond the great mountains, the Alps, they discovered sweet and abundant water, fertile soil, expansive woodlands, and the plentiful fish, game, berries, grasses, fungi and broad-leafed plants necessary to support their tribe. We say the Celts originated in Alsace, in northeastern France, about 3,500 years ago. We know they didn't spontaneously generate. Where and how they lived before that time and place are questions whose answers lie in prehistory. We do know that Celtic spirituality was, in its roots, animistic (spirit was alive in every living thing), nonanthropomorphic (the source of life and death was water, land, plant- and animal-life), tribe-specific (in France alone there is evidence of several hundred deities) and a spirituality of place, of the major landforms that defined the world (rivers, springs, forests, animals, heavenly bodies). To the extent that Celtic spirituality was theistic, the creator/sustainer/destroyer of life was typically a goddess. The Celts who settled at the source of the great river system defining their homeland called the river Squan, a Celtic word describing the shape of a snake. Squan, then, was river and goddess. In my mind, She was Mother Snake, source of life, for her flowing waters sustained the tribe in the same way mother's milk nurtured children through infancy and early childhood. |
