On the surface of another world, two robotic rovers roam a dusty red planet named for the Roman god of war. The rovers, "Spirit" and "Opportunity," were launched out of Earth's atmosphere in summer 2003, thus beginning their odyssey to Mars, the "red wanderer."
The god Mars further lends his name to March, the month that ushers in the vernal equinox, St. Patrick's Day and the juncture when winter's thaw liberates a new season of action.
The spirit of discovery has dwelled within the human heart from its first beat. The seeds of imagination that landed robots on Mars were sown long ago when the first humans wondered what might lie beyond the glow of their firelight. Indeed, one of the essential themes of Celtic mythology is that of the otherworldly voyage.
The moniker "imram" refers to an Irish story that describes a journey at sea, usually to otherworldly islands on the western ocean. It is the navigation to and between these super-natural islands that is essential. In Celtic mythology, the critical experiences are those that involve the Otherworld.
To the Celts, and thus to us, their heirs, the world of human and the world beyond are not mutually exclusive. They encroach upon, synergize and enrich each other. To deny the existence of the Other, by whatever name, is to deny the imponderable that fuels our everyday lives. As such, the journeys taken today, whether to a distant planet or through the vicissitudes of life, are tantamount to the ancient oceanic journeys through sea and psyche.
The hero of the immrama tales undertakes the quest voluntarily, usually beckoned by an alluring immortal being or fairy met on an otherwise normal day. Motivation for voyages in the Christian era, such as that of St. Brendan, took the form of discovery of new lands or the expiation of crimes. St. Patrick willingly returned to Ireland as a missionary, despite being abducted and escaping from that island as a young man. In our age, motivations are many - a comely partner, a search for new experiences, guilt or the growing awareness that more years have fallen behind than lay ahead.
Immrama are not the contemporary journeys of spirit that begin with a sudden loss or shock. Adventures in the underworld are known as "echtra" in Irish storytelling. The actual journey is a secondary feature of the echtra, not the primary framework as with an imram.
No, the imram begins on a day like any other. A breeze brushes your cheek and an idea forms in your mind. A friend makes a suggestion upon which you ruminate. Something subtle, music you cannot remember entices you to take a different path this day and the next and the next. Slowly it dawns on you that you are walking along the shore of a vast sea, oar in hand.
It is a curious feature of Celtic mythology and hence life, that one?s destination appears just as one accepts that one is aimlessly adrift. Like dream imagery, Otherworldly islands are an objectification of human experience -- an island of Joy, of Laughter, of Black Mourners -- as many as 33 islands. Abstract principles and forms find expression in these islands, white and black, femininity and masculinity, pillar, pedestal and arch.
As befits the interaction between this world and that, a few of these islands may truly be of this world; a "great Square Silver Column rising from the sea" might have been an iceberg and a "river that burns like fire" could have been a lava flow. As well, research and reenactment have proven that transatlantic voyages in curraghs could have allowed Irish mariners to reach Iceland, Newfoundland, Florida and the Bahamas.
Like the explorers of the immrama, we may visit some of these islands. To some we sail. On some we land. Still others we wisely avoid, lest the violent or seductive archetypal energies embodied there lure us prematurely from the mortal sphere.
Mythology reveals the fate of Otherworldly adventurers such as Oisin or Neachtan who return to Ireland, homesick to see the land and people they once knew. To their sorrow they find centuries have passed, no vestige remains of the life they knew. Once one has undertaken the Voyage, "Home" will never again be as it was. Those expecting such will find one's life crumbling to dust in front of one's eyes.
And in each life there are many journeys. Timeless inner questions fuel outward action, leading us onward and to the stars. There are some who believe the ancient immrama are the remains of an unwritten Celtic "Book of the Dead;" that is, a guide to the craft of dying and navigating the passages through which the soul passes. Passage from this life is a great journey, but no greater than those undertaken while we still breathe.
Our time in history is troubled. A single person's journey has the power to change our planet for the worse or for the better -- be it the leader of the world?s most powerful country or an aid worker in a strife-torn region. The choice and the journey are yours.
The snow drips to rivulets that pour into streams that restlessly make their way to the ocean. The equinox approaches, life flows, a new season of discovery beckons.