Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

I really enjoyed this book because it really gave a pure and honest picture of Celtic beliefs and wisdom.

This book's best taken in small doses, a few paragraphs at a time. Each chapter's broken up into such sections, ideal for guiding meditation or inspiring reflection. It's a volume I gave away as a gift and re-purchased for myself after I read it, knowing that I'd return to its contents again and again. O'Donohue's learned much from those with whom he lives and talks and ministers, and his frequent interspersions of Celtic tradition and current Irish-language proverbs and observations attest to the continuity of the Gaelic worldview within the larger Anglo-American hegemony that dominates our lives. One of the best recommendations for this guide is its refusal to romanticize the rural and rooted tradition's hardships as well as its comforts. The author comes from the people he writes about, and this grounding keeps his suggestions--however philosophical they may soar--concise, honest, and free of cant. The respect for the life lived under the radar and the flyover culture by those committed to the land energizes these stories. Mixing tales and legends and theology from the Irish perspective with contemporary analogies, incidents, and insights, this book somehow avoids touchy-feely simpering or wishful fairie musings. It's appropriate for those of any faith, any skeptic, or any with spiritual longing. Written by a priest, but never limited to a Christian presentation, the transparent ecumenism of the author's approach speaks to any reader wondering about the Big Questions. Humbly, eloquently, and frankly, it's like having a personal confessor or soulmate with whom you can sit and listen companionably. There's no sloganeering, no ten steps to salvation in ten minutes a day, and no assurances of glib piety. With an open-hearted wonder, serious but never glum intelligence, and a generous capacity to listen to others and to nature, the wisdom distilled by the author here issues gradually, to be sipped rather than gulped. Antidotes for our fast-food generation, which will only work their healing power if we follow the prescriptions and elixirs gathered in its pages.

As souls we explore life alone--and this has broken a lot of people, made them hurful and angry, sad. But still there has always been this need to express myself completely, to find those correct words, that absolute means of bridging all that separates me from another human being... It was a joy to have been recommended to this book, to see and think and reflect on where and how, why and for whom we can suffer so much alone when all we need to is express... A fantastic book, and one that I will share as a treasure not only as a tool for insight into my own soul, but as a gift to all of the special people in my life. It is a book about loving. Excellent!

The magic about this book is that it centers completely on the definition of the human experience and all the emotions that it entails. In addition it gives us guidelines usually through poetic pieces and beautifully scripted prose on dealing with many of life's issues.I read most of this book on a flight back home to Ireland. I just couldn't put it down. As cynical and routine that life sometimes appears each of us has a yearning to break the mold, break the routine and deep down find our way, our reason for being on this earth. O'Donohue reminds us regardless of who we are and what the material world values us at - our soul has a yearning to belong and live life spontaneously and to avoid the clutter of routine and the depression of complacency.There are important lessons in this book on the areas of love, death, belonging, depression etc. Finding your significant other for example is something that happens through fate. Death should be celebrated for the life that it gave an individual and the journey it now presents to the soul. Depression should be addressed not through constant interactions with pyschologists, who yes help, but confronting that which caused the depression in the first place and absorbing it as a strength rather than a weakness. I was in Ireland for a funeral, which though a sad event, i left feeling happy - This book reminded me of what a great gift life really is.