Insights on Shamanic Druidry, meditation and Celtic traditions An interview with Aindriú Peers by Ryan Stride Our next interview is with the founder of The Order of The Longing Look: Aindriú Peers. Aindriú is a shamanic guide and author who has spent many years committed to old spiritual traditions and meditation practices. He has vast experience of several or more Buddhist meditation paths and has gone on to connect deeply with old Celtic wisdom. This gives him a unique perspective from which to share his soulful insights. In earlier years he also spent a great deal of time as a Trappist monk. So we are truly honoured to have Aindriú come and share with us here and reveal more about these mystical realms. RS: Aindriú first of all, how wonderful to have someone here who, not only has long time experience with meditation, but also has a fascinating knowledge of spiritual practices from both Western and Eastern regions. So a very warm welcome to our blog on The Peace Dimension. Now before I start presenting you with some questions about your beliefs can I just ask where are you spending this lockdown period? AP: Thank you for the invitation! I’m spending lockdown in London, my home for the past two years or so. RS: How has it been for you during the last few months? AP: Fine, though it’s hard not to be able to have a cool pint of Guinness in the pub! I’ve also had to cancel three workshops in Germany, one in the UK, and move the planned trip to ancient Irish sites to September (22nd - 27th). I’m usually very direct with the participants on the workshops, so will miss the antics and laughs there too. RS: You have a great deal of experience with meditation and you are clearly someone who has embarked courageously into the inner journey... I don't think spiritual practices are simply a weekend activity for you or something that simply intrigues you as a subject to read about. So as someone who is very immersed in his path, has that allowed you to cope much better with self-isolation? AP: Well, as you mention in the introduction, I’m an ex-Trappist monk of some 21 years standing, so solitude and quiet are second nature. I’ve been enjoying breathing in the cleaner air and seeing birds and animals show themselves more in London. It’s good to take a break from travelling and I’m enjoying doing more online work with one or two people. RS: I am sure during this pandemic period you have been continuing your inner journey as per the Celtic traditions to other layers or domains of reality, so have you felt or even received any messages or an insight in regards to what is happening right now? AP: Great question. During the lockdown, for first time I made the link between more traditional inner landscapes of shamanic travelling (land, sea, sky) and the wider universe. My Upper-World ally showed me recently how to fly through the universe. We passed planets by, whose noise and activity I could hear, and even went to another dimension, a mirror-dimension, where the colours were opposite to what we would normally expect here. I was agog. On another occasion, I was minding my own business doing a little meditation one morning, and imagining how wonderful the world will be when love rules the roost, when I saw in my spirit some beings descending via the portal my vibration was holding open for them. I was surprised and delighted, they were coming to help. RS: That sounds like a fascinating and vivid experience; intense even. I am also liking the idea of a world where 'love rules the roost'. Now you have a thorough background in various Buddhist meditation traditions including the Hinayana and Mahayana schools. Buddhist practices often lay down some solid guidelines regarding meditation preparation and approach. When you were drawn into the Celtic traditions what were the key differences you noticed in these approaches to the inner journey? AP: Buddhist tradition can be quite strict and demanding, and as a young man this helped me. The ‘hate and envy’ in Buddhist or Christian communities that inevitably arise because there is a designated path to tread was less helpful. There is a subtle form of materialism even in spirituality. On the other hand, Celtic spirituality lacked clarity and quality content. It is often too diffuse and vague. With regard to meditation specifically, the Celtic traditions require only silence and stillness, in whichever way you manage to find that. There is no designated path to tread, and that can create space for new discoveries, like shamanism. Eventually, no matter what tradition you follow, the whole process turns around; we are, or we become meditated, rather than meditating ourselves. We start to generate our own tradition. RS: And invariably that requirement of silence and stillness has immense depth to it. Now the Celtic traditions seem to recognise energy lines through the body and earth. They also seem to have a belief in energy gates though perhaps not quite in the same configuration as the Eastern chakra system. What is your understanding of this? AP: Rather than read about an energy system in either body or earth, is it not better to try and experience it yourself? Investigation and discovery is possible both in meditation and in nature, in so-called ‘thin places’ where the Otherworld and this ‘reality’ align. I don’t teach about chakras east or west myself, good as this is. My time is filled with working with the imagination, second sight and with spirit-allies. In all these, I teach only what I have tested out and integrated myself. RS: This notion of teaching what we have tested and integrated makes a lot of sense. Something I also believe. I understand you also have an appreciation for Taoist traditions and perhaps can relate to some of the ideas in Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching. Now both the Taoist and Buddhist traditions including the Tibetan ones involve some kind of breath development. How is this approached in your Celtic practices? AP: The breath will deepen by itself, so just let it be. With practice, it becomes so fine you don’t know if you are even breathing. In old Taoist texts this is called womb-breathing. They describe stillness as a door to other possibilities, other perspectives. RS: You also seem to draw connection with the warrior heritage of the Celtic traditions - are there specific aspects of the Celtic warrior way that influence your way of teaching or guiding others? AP: The term ‘Spiritual Warrior’ is an oxymoron if ever there was one. There is no enemy. However the concept ‘warrior’ can help rouse courage when looking at your rejected self on the meditation cushion. The discipline of a warrior is needed to keep on meditating consequently (it gets worse before it gets better) until the ego is displaced from its seat, and all trauma re-integrated. The accomplished warrior looks at the world with fearlessness, and a calm brow. RS: Yes that makes a lot of sense. In regards to the shamanic aspect of the Celtic path that you follow, do you utilise Celtic shamanic drumming as part of your inner journeying? If so perhaps you could share a bit more about this with our readers? AP: I drum for the folks at my workshops. It’s not musical drumming but recreates the heartbeat of a child in the womb, or its mother’s heartbeat the infant hears, bringing the brain onto a different wavelength. This frees the imagination from the steel trap of rationality and conditioning. In the resulting light trance, I guide people with words as they explore their inner landscape and meet with whoever is waiting for them there. I show them how to build up a loving relationship with them. This is the start of living a “connected” life in which your allies will aid you in your present reality. It’s potentially life-changing. You know yourself never alone. RS: Could the lone seeker use recordings of this type of drumming to access the inner realms, if they have no access to a shaman or a drummer as I know there are now many YouTube videos where musicians share recordings? AP: Sure. Some people can’t keep rhythm for peanuts, so just find one you like. RS: You were also a Trappist monk for what many would consider quite a long period. Do you still relate to the knowledge taught in Christianity and how does that harmonise with the other traditions that you follow? AP: I believe in spirit, and Christ is for me the fullness of an accomplished Druid. God is, but formless, to be experienced rather than explained. The Church’s teaching has contradictory information, distorts God to be like man, and Pauline theology keeps people bent in fear and guilt. They use unconscious guilt to manipulate and subdue. My mum still believes in hell. So while using insights garnered, I don’t follow any traditions anymore. My guides work with me directly and the Druidic principles of second sight keep me sane. Beyond all the magic of Shamanic Druidry, the spirit is. Only the spirit is. Within the hologram of what we call life, I use magic to help unlock people’s unconscious guilt. They think they have separated themselves from spirit, but that’s not true. Deep within us all, the longing to go home still burns, the longing to return to where we have never left. RS: Today there is also a lot of talk particularly in these testing times of other forces that influence and affect the world in a very negative way. The internet is full of theories on some of the more sinister forces that try to control or even enslave humankind. Sometimes people associate these forces with those warned about in the old spiritual traditions. There is also the belief that those who connect with these forces utilise the negative side of occult knowledge. Could you share some light on this based on your own travels and experience? AP: The core of Druidic second sight is, “there is no body, no world, and no universe. It’s an illusion!” Ever had the feeling you’re in a dream or a movie? We live as if it were all real, everybody has to. But within this as if lies the door to freedom. Beyond the confines of time and space, our true identity, our true non-dreaming reality is already perfect, as God made us - however you wish to understand God. God did not make the world as it doesn’t exist, and it (God) doesn’t deal in illusion, has no knowledge of it. God isn’t cruel. It made us like it; happy, forever safe, eternally loved. Can you feel your heart smiling with relief? Druidic second sight gives eyes to see beyond the veil of illusion, and craftily to use it as a teaching device to confirm your true identity until the illusion is finally dispelled and all unconscious guilt released. There is only one ego (-projection), and only one spirit. Only one CAN possibly be true by definition, they are mutually exclusive. There is only one way out, only one way to awaken not in the dream but from it. And that way is to release it with quantum forgiveness. Forgiveness was central to Columba’s Rule on Iona. His father was a Druid, and he called out “Christ my Druid!” I’ve been to Iona as I feel a deep connection to Columba and his message of peace. RS: Now Aindriú at this point as we discuss these practices, for people reading this and wanting to know more I should mention your book which people can order on Amazon: Shamanic Druidry: The Order of the Longing Look. Would you like to say a few words about it? AP: It’s a raw, largely auto-biographical book, telling of how I became a punk, then a monk, and have now ended up as a crazy Shamanic Druid in the Merlin energy tradition. I believe I am the first to bring together shamanic inner journeying with Druidic second sight. RS: There are many people right now who are coping with loss, grief, change, financial struggle or other really strong challenges. Is there a message you would like to share with people right now who may be going through a lot? AP: Everything changes. Only one thing never does. Find it, and relax in the knowledge that you can never lose it. Look at all change from there, knowing that you are safe and infinitely cared for. Inspiration and opportunity follow this. Something new will present itself. Dare to feel the full hopelessness of everything. This is the beginning of Crazy Wisdom. After that, you will know where your help comes from. Later, instead of interpreting things according to who you think you are, interpret them according to what you really are. In other words confirm your identity as spirit and slowly withdraw your belief in the world, while going along with it and playing ‘normal’. Have fun, and laugh at ego’s game of friend or foe. RS: Aindriú in my interviews a question I ask our guests relates to this place of harmony and potential I refer to as The Peace Dimension which is also the title of my recent book. What does The Peace Dimension mean to you? AP: By forgiving in love (quantum forgiveness), not because that which needs to be forgiven is real, but precisely because it isn’t, we withdraw from the game ego wants us to get caught up in. By doing so, we forgive our own unconscious guilt. We raise our vibration above the game. This is what I understand as The Peace Dimension. Everything we experience in our dream of life, especially these ‘other forces’ can be used against ego because by forgiving them as if they never happened we undo the ego-thought system, with the spirit’s help. The Peace Dimension is the one above the battlefield, looking down on it in peace, no matter how bad it seems to get. RS: Aindriú thank you for sharing about these rich traditions. I look forward to keeping in touch with you and I wish you peace, good health and continued success with your book. The Peace Dimension by Ryan Stride is available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk Copyright © Ryan Stride 2020 All rights reserved Comments are closed.
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AuthorBorn in London, England, Ryan wishes to share with people how the mystical can be found in the moment, allowing great things to happen. Ryan is also a writer and social commentator who is currently working on a script and several new book titles. ArchivesCategories |