The OGHAM - Alphabet of the Trees - Celtic Shamanic Wisdom.
Ogma is the legendary originator of the tree alphabet; his epithets - Sun Face and Honey Mouth indicate he is a sun god of poetry. His other name, The Strong Man, identify him with the Hellenic hero or Hercules - a magic mixture of strength and eloquence. At Kilmartin, Argyllshire, Scotland. I found an anonymous booklet " The search for the letters and the meaning of Ogham" published by the Embers Celtic Spirit, retelling the "crucifixion" story of how Ogma was given the ogham symbols.
Taranis is the other God that figures in the legend. Taranis is the God of the Thunder of lightning, of the light, the sky and of the Cosmic Wheel.
This is the legend of OGMA and how this God found the letters and the meaning of the OGHAM, the alphabet of the tres. This story reminds us of the Wheel of Samsara and is also similar to the story of Odin the Nordic God and The Runes, the alphabet of the Vikings whose symbols are related to nature. In the case of the Celts and the Druids their religion or spirituality was centered in the forests where they lived and therefore the ELEMENTAL SPIRITS of the trees were the means by which they communicated with Divinity. These trees were the elemental intercesors of the Druidic peoples. In fact the word DRUID is composed of two elements DRU - VID which means KNOWLEDGE OF THE OAK.
The oak tree is at the heart of the Ogham as it is associated with the Summer solstice and corresponds to the zodiacal sign of LEO.
Oak is also the tree that is most associated with TARANIS because it attracts lightning.
In addition, although it is not well known, acorns are a nut that in ancient times were equally important along with wheat as a staple as they are full of nutrients, carbohydrates, amino acids, etc.
There is much more we could say about the Ogham but in truth nothing can replace direct knowledge of the trees through our contact with them, getting to know each one in turn, meditating on them and also becoming familiar with their uses and qualities.
THE LEGEND OF OGMA AND THE ORIGIN OF THE OGHAM
Ogma is the legendary originator of the tree alphabet; his epithets - Sun Face and Honey Mouth indicate he is a sun god of poetry. His other name, The Strong Man, identify him with the Hellenic hero or Hercules - a magic mixture of strength and eloquence. At Kilmartin, Argyllshire, Scotland. I found an anonymous booklet " The search for the letters and the meaning of Ogham" published by the Embers Celtic Spirit, retelling the "crucifixion" story of how Ogma was given the ogham symbols.
Ogma, bound on the Wheel of Taranis, hung at the centre of all the worlds and, as they revolved around him, dreamed.... Dreamed he saw again the change which came over the world the world he had known since he was young, saw the gods grow thin and vague as men forgot them, saw the face of the Mother grow dark and obscured with the smirch of a hundred fires ....saw this, and much more, and knew, with this seeing, that he must find an answer to the need they expressed.....
The road had been long. It had led him through ages of ages to the thrones of kings and the battles of heroes, whose shadows grew long upon the earth. It had led him to war and to despair, and to love and hatred in all their many forms; but not once had it led him to what he sought..... Thus he dreamed, bound upon the Wheel at the hub of turning stars, while all around him the tides of fate swept in and out like oceans in endless flux. For, as the Wheel Creation. On all sides, suns were born and died, worlds were made and unmade, civilisations rose and fell, and human children were born and lived and died in an endlessly repeating pattern....For they too searched: for meaning, to make some sense of the fragmentary world in which they so briefly flourished. Sought answers to a thousand questions - through signs and symbols - glimpses of a pattern larger than themselves.
With the last thought, Ogma stirred upon the Wheel. Pain flooded his limbs and he felt both heavy and light at one. Turning his head with difficulty he saw where the rim of the Wheel curved above him, felt as well as saw, the great spokes which reached out from the centre towards the edge where all was darkness, linking them in a moving whole. And, as he looked, he saw that upon each of the spokes was carved a sign whose meaning he sought to understand. Twenty-five signs he read, no two alike, though each one was linked to the other, formed in groups of five. Etched in silver they seemed, against the dark wood of the Wheel. Then he saw that each of the spokes were of a different wood: yew and oak and holly and ash and pine and birch - all set there by what art or mystery even Taranis could not have said, who but ruled the Wheel, but had not been party to its making.
Now, as his dreaming mind began to fill with images, Ogma struggled mightily against his bonds feeling the Wheel creak and groan like a living thing, whilst his own sinews cracked and his bones were wrenched apart by the effort. His heartbeat thundered in his ears and pain filled every part of his body. Wracked with agony he fought for freedom - and hold on to his failing consciousness . all the while seeing symbols of the twenty-five kinds of wood and of the trees from which they sprang .... gradually, gathering at the corners of his mind and pouring inward upon him, darkness grew overwhelming and drowning him as every last vestige of light was blotted out forever ... Still, at last, Ogma hung upon the Wheel which, in that moment, ceased to turn ....
In the darkness, Ogma wandered for a long while stumbling over broken ground, falling and rising, his dreaming mind filled with images of a dead world. Then, at last, he came to a place that was less dark - he could not say that there was light. In this dimness, he could make out the shape of a wellhead from which light dripped onto the earth. Ogma approached and looked deep into the well.
A terrible blast of light smote him, all the more fierce because of the darkness he had endured. And within that light floated objects, slips of wood on which had been carved the same signs he had seen on the wheel. With trembling hands he draw them forth - twenty-five of them and place them in a leather bag he found at his belt. For a moment the darkness had returned, then out of it - came light again. Ogma saw again and heard and breathed. He stood on a hill and above him the shadow of the Wheel stretched across the earth. But beneath it lay plains of greens and golds, of waving corn and soaring tees.
Bright rivers threaded the land in silvery stitchery; cities of white and gold sprang up beside crystal seas; men and women walked free of shadows, no longer lost and wondering in the midnight of their souls. As Ogma watched in wonder the Wheel swung free, ages came and went, the patterns of creation formed and dissolved - but each one made new. Remembering the patterns he had observed as he hung upon the Wheel, he saw now what was to be. Feeling at this waist he found the bag with the twenty-five sticks, each of them of a different wood, each with its own meaning, its own way of showing forth the patterns of creation .... For a moment long Ogma stood on the green hillside, then he set forth, down into the teeming world where now, at last, he need search no more, but instead could teach the meaning of the signs of the Wood to all people, setting them free of the Wheel forever. ...
