The Gaelic Roundtable for August: Personal Gnosis

This is my fifth post participating in the The Gaelic Roundtable blogging project, and August's subject is Personal Gnosis. The Roundtable asked:

"How important is Personal Gnosis to your practice? What emphasis do you place on it when reconstructing, reviving, or generally creating your faith? Do you enjoy hearing others’ Personal Gnosis, or tend not to seek it out? How does hearing others’ Personal Gnosis hinder or help your faith? And finally (if you are willing to share), what is some Personal Gnosis that you hold that is considered “unconventional” to the greater Gaelic Polytheist community?"

{For those who may be unfamiliar with what gnosis is within the polytheist context, I recommend checking out this short but very informative article: Vision: UPG, SPG, and CG.}

Both personal and communal/shared gnosis are quite significant in my own personal practice, as I find that it helps to answers questions left by the gaps in lore, myth and customs. It would probably be fair to say that its importance is secondary to those latter-mentioned influences, but plays a strong role nonetheless.

I very much enjoy hearing gnosis of others and I have found it extremely helpful in validating some of my own personal gnosis, as well as guiding me when I was inexperience and in a blind spot. One example of this is when I was first establishing a rapport with An Cailleach, there were some devotees to her that gave extremely helpful insight on things such appropriate approach and offerings to helping me understand some rather odd experiences I had that I attributed to her. 

While I don't know if it would be considered "unconventional" there is one sliver of personal gnosis that I don't recall seeing others talk about before. While two of the elements of what I call The Cosmology of Three Triads seems to be widely accepted, I am not sure if the third element and how I have grouped them would make sense to others or not.

The first triad is the Three Realms {widely accepted}:  Nem/Sky, Talam/Land, Muir/Sea

The second triad is Na Trí Naomh {widely accepted}: Gods, Spirits/Good Folk, Ancestors

The third triad is the Three Gifts: Fír/Truth, Aicned/Nature, Ecna/Knowledge

The third triad is inspired by Trecheng Breth Féne/The Triads of Ireland:

"Trí caindle forosnat cach ndorcha: fír, aicned, ecna."/"Three candles that illume every darkness: truth, nature, knowledge."

I see the interaction of these Triads in the following way:

Nem/Sky>Gods>Fír/Truth
Talam/Land>Spirits/Good Folk>Aicned/Nature
Muir/Sea>Ancestors>Ecna/Knowledge

I am not going to delve deeper on this particular personal gnosis in this post as it will probably end up making it a novel. I may go further into it with another post in the future.

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Sláinte!

Laurel