Anam Cara

Contents

Acknowledgments

Prologue

1 The Mystery of Friendship

Light Is Generous

The Celtic Circle of Belonging

The Human Heart Is Never Completely Born

Love Is the Nature of the Soul

The Umbra Nihili

The Anam Cara

Intimacy as Sacred

The Mystery of Approach

Diarmuid and Gráinne

Love as Ancient Recognition

The Circle of Belonging

The Kalyana-mitra

The Soul as Divine Echo

The Wellspring of Love Within

The Transfiguration of the Senses

The Wounded Gift

In the Kingdom of Love, There Is No Competition

2 Toward a Spirituality of the Senses

The Face Is the Icon of Creation

The Holiness of the Gaze

The Infinity of Your Interiority

The Face and the Second Innocence

The Body Is the Angel of the Soul

The Body as Mirror of the Soul

For the Celts, the Visible and the Invisible Are One

The Children of Lir

A Spirituality of Transfiguration

The Senses as Thresholds of Soul

The Eye Is Like the Dawn

Styles of Vision

Taste and Speech

Fragrance and Breath

True Listening Is Worship

The Language of Touch

Celtic Sensuousness

3 Solitude Is Luminous

The World of the Soul Is Secret

The Danger of Neon Vision

To Be Born Is to Be Chosen

The Celtic Underworld as Resonance

To Transfigure the Ego—To Liberate the Soul

There Is No Spiritual Program

The Body Is Your Only Home

The Body Is in the Soul

To Be Natural Is to Be Holy

The Dancing Mind

Beauty Likes Neglected Places

Thoughts Are Our Inner Senses

Ascetic Solitude

Silence Is the Sister of the Divine

The Crowd at the Hearth of the Soul

Contradictions as Treasures

The Soul Adores Unity

Toward a Spirituality of Noninterference

One of the Greatest Sins Is the Unlived Life

4 Work as a Poetics of Growth

The Eye Celebrates Motion

To Grow Is to Change

The Celtic Reverence for the Day

The Soul Desires Expression

Pisreoga

Presence as Soul Texture

Weakness and Power

The Trap of False Belonging

Work and Imagination

Spontaneity and Blockage

The Role Can Smother

Sisyphus

The Salmon of Knowledge

The False Image Can Paralyze

The King and the Beggar’s Gift

Heartful Work Brings Beauty

5 Aging: The Beauty of the Inner Harvest

Time as a Circle

The Seasons in the Heart

Autumn and the Inner Harvest

Transience Makes a Ghost of Experience

Memory: Where Our Vanished Days Secretly Gather

Tír na n-Óg: The Land of Youth

Eternal Time

The Soul as Temple of Memory

Self-Compassion and the Art of Inner Harvesting

To Keep Something Beautiful in Your Heart

The Bright Field

The Passionate Heart Never Ages

The Fire of Longing

Aging: An Invitation to New Solitude

Loneliness: The Key to Courage

Wisdom as Poise and Grace

Old Age and the Twilight Treasures

Old Age and Freedom

6 Death: The Horizon Is in the Well

The Unknown Companion

The Faces of Death in Everyday Life

Death as the Root of Fear

Death in the Celtic Tradition

When Death Visits…

The Caoineadh: The Irish Mourning Tradition

The Soul That Kissed the Body

The Bean Sí

A Beautiful Death

The Dead Are Our Nearest Neighbors

The Ego and the Soul

Death as an Invitation to Freedom

Nothingness: A Face of Death

Waiting and Absence

Birth as Death

Death Transfigures Our Separation

Are Space and Time Different in the Eternal World?

The Dead Bless Us

Further Recommended Reading

About the Author

Other Books by John O’Donohue

Copyright

About the Publisher