Great Throughts Treasury

"“Holy” has the same root as “wholly”; it means complete. A man is not complete in spiritual nature if all his mind, heart, soul, strength are not given to God."

"The faery tradition is about spiritual forces, natural forces, embodied as beings that live in the land. If we want to be whole and healthy, we should know more about them, have a better relationship with them. And this is exactly what the old Irish faery tradition us: how to relate to these beings."

"The faeries are said to absorb the essence, the vitality, of the food and drink. The remaining substance must later be buried, and never given to a human or animal. This is an interesting idea, is it not? That the food and drink from the land have vital forces within them, that human hands can transform the raw food plants into food and drink, and that the transformed vitality can be offered back, sharing it with the spirits of the land. Even as a poetic or psychological practice, there is something deeply appropriate and satisfying in all of this."

"Thus the faery tradition inspires us, teaches us, that there are other ways to relate, other ways of living and dying. And in Irish tradition we learn that such ways are about our intimate relationship to the land and sea, the two powers of this world that shape us, nourish us, and enable all that we are. What is true of Ireland is true of all lands; but Ireland demonstrates this truth so amply for Westerners, with her potent faery tradition."

"The Fairy & Human Relations Congress is not a New Age forum event. It"