Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Wrestling Bears: Celtic Myths of Men and Their Passions
    Wrestling Bears: Celtic Myths of Men and Their Passions
    Wrestling Bears: Celtic Myths of Men and Their Passions
    Ebook127 pages2 hours

    Wrestling Bears: Celtic Myths of Men and Their Passions

    By Peg Elliott Mayo

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    We are all from Earth. We share needs for protection, instruction, validation and comfort from cradle to grave. We bleed. We weep in loneliness. We laugh. We fear. We aspire. We violate our potential and we fulfill it. There is no exclusivity in emotion and no monopoly in thinking for either gender. We are defined by our choices.
    We are shaped by our genes and influenced by culture and family. We long for the transcendent and fear the abyss. Our bodies speak in the complex language of sensation and retain our life experience in cellular memory. These human traits we share.
    Our bodies differ, fundamentally, individual to individual, gender to gender, youth to age. It is here the misunderstandings start. There are sensory things that defy communication: the taste of licorice, where the itch is exactly, what you mean by “blue,” how sweetly-touched skin feels. Strength and stamina vary.
    Primal reproductive drives must be recognized and honored, their manifestation governed by more than impulse. The devil’s in the details and culture creates the details, stereotypes and distortions which we have all acted out.
    The terrible schism many feel between Self and the Other Gender is born of fear and, too often, confirming negative experience. We must honor our own experience, else there is no learning. When critical experience has been painful, we learn to pull away, reject, close off. What is needed is balancing experience. We may learn early that the stove burns: what a chilly life if we forever avoid approaching a stove again.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPeg Elliott Mayo
    Release dateSep 10, 2012
    ISBN9781301810949
    Wrestling Bears: Celtic Myths of Men and Their Passions
    Author

    Peg Elliott Mayo

    Born March 31st,1929, Easter Sunday on the cusp of April Fools Day in the year the stock market died. So much for karma! Don, is the tall Shy Guy, spouse, creative force & phenomenal companion. Three living middle-aged offspring who are neither children nor “mine,” KT, Stan and Peter. When your “baby” is eligible for AARP you search for new descriptors. Three outstanding grand “children.” Jane and Anna Rose, college students, and Aaron a graphic designer, metal artist, gardener, creative force, all around good sport and friend. Home is a modest place on the banks of Coast Range Oregon river, 28 miles from “town.” I’m part of a mixed neo/retro hippie, artistic & staggeringly diverse forest community. Identity at various times: daughter, wife, widow, mother, grieving parent, Aries, failed factory worker, potter, basket maker, sewin’ fool, adequate organically-committed cook/food preserver, clinical social worker specializing in PTSD, loss, relationships & creative expression, hospice volunteer, tree hugging ecoappreciator, party girl, recluse, foolish risktaker, writer, computer graphics-photography neophyte, established writer & storyteller.

    Read more from Peg Elliott Mayo

    Related to Wrestling Bears

    Related ebooks

    General Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      All This Blood and Love

      Nov 22, 2017

      All This Blood and Love
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Inventions of Witches

      Oct 30, 2017

      The Inventions of Witches
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Song Starts In My Body

      Nov 1, 2022

      I wanted to see her body. I’m aware it sounds strange, even lurid. What I wanted was to see her read her poetry, and her body reading it. Something about Rukeyser’s writing made me feel that she was at home in her flesh, and I wanted to see her lovin

      21 min read

    • Article

      Viewpoint

      Oct 25, 2022

      Viewpoint
      3 min read

    • Article

      Perfect Prose II

      May 15, 2020

      Perfect Prose II
      4 min read

    • Article

      A Letter to My Sons

      Sep 25, 2019

      A Letter to My Sons
      7 min read

    • Article

      There Be Treasure, Danger And Death

      Dec 3, 2019

      What if I told you there is a treasure chest filled with precious gemstones, gold nuggets and priceless artifacts hidden somewhere in the Rocky Mountains? That an eccentric art collector buried an antique, metal box worth over $5 million dollars some

      7 min read

    • Article

      The Saving Grace of Mary Oliver

      Jan 22, 2019

      Oliver’s queer identity and search for meaning provided the subtle underpinning for much of her work and we—in search of understanding, comfort, fortitude—often saw ourselves and our questions reflected in it. The post The Saving Grace of Mary Oliver

      4 min read

    • Article

      How the Lark Got Her Crest

      May 30, 2023

      How the Lark Got Her Crest
      15 min read

    • Article

      THE EDGE Of Ourselves

      Mar 22, 2024

      THE EDGE Of Ourselves
      7 min read

    • Article

      'Unkindness Of Ghosts' Transposes The Plantation's Cruelty To The Stars

      Oct 6, 2017

      Rivers Solomon's novel is set on a giant generation ship, on an interstellar voyage of centuries, divided between the wealthy, light-skinned upper-deckers and the oppressed, laboring lower-deckers.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Learning To Walk

      Oct 28, 2019

      Learning To Walk
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Gift of Rereading

      Mar 17, 2023

      The Gift of Rereading
      3 min read

    • Article

      Tiddas Forever

      Feb 16, 2020

      Tiddas Forever
      4 min read

    • Article

      Southern Stand

      Mar 16, 2020

      Southern Stand
      5 min read

    • Article

      Young Hearts…

      Oct 24, 2017

      Young Hearts…
      3 min read

    • Article

      Readers' Letters

      Jul 26, 2023

      SIR: I have just celebrated my 80th birthday and been much acclaimed by my family and friends. Even the government has got in on the act, as it has increased my state pension by 25p a week. Unfortunately, my village shop has hardly anything to offer

      5 min read

    • Article

      My Story My Friend Cath

      Mar 25, 2020

      My Story My Friend Cath
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Daring Escape From Slavery, And The Love Story Behind It

      Feb 13, 2023

      This year marks the 175th anniversary of the escape to freedom of William and Ellen Craft, a married couple enslaved in Georgia. Devoted to each other and determined to start a family only once free, the duo devised a jaw-dropping plan to disguise th

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Essay On Faith

      May 1, 2022

      exordium While sound and seaworthy, I confess a life of false confessions, false hearts, ample contempt for bench warrants charging me with failures to appear. Let what interest death’s elbow grease won’t erase compound, judgments sealed in my ova, m

      4 min read

    • Article

      Natural Highs From Our Natural World

      Jan 22, 2024

      One of the most obvious reasons we read at all is to gain insight into the point of view of someone other than ourselves. Reading outside of our own experience can only serve to broaden our horizons and our minds, and this week we have a couple of sc

      3 min read

    • Article

      On Writing Poems Facing Into The Broken World

      Mar 1, 2020

      Kaveh Akbar and Jane Hirshfield have been in a running e-mail conversation since January 2016, when Akbar first contacted Hirshfield about doing an interview in his Divedapper series, before his first, widely acclaimed book, Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Al

      16 min read

    • Article

      The Whale Who Will Come Soon

      Sep 8, 2021

      The beachfront narrows to an ocherous ribbon, belted by blue, above and below. After a while, a handful of shearwaters appear in the air above the Cat Balou. The birds flash around us; like knife-thrower tricks at a circus. Diving through the water,

      8 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems by Phillip B. Williams

      Dec 15, 2017

      The masters are yet dead. Wanting to be human,I tried to rewrite The Waste Land. The canon’s reachcasts ruinous light. The masters’ pens breachthis page where, above, my own hand spectates. Babylonrisen, exorcism in reverse, whose nature upended now?

      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Wrestling Bears

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Wrestling Bears - Peg Elliott Mayo

      WRESTLING BEARS: Celtic Myths of Men and Their Passions

      Peg Elliott Mayo

      All Rights Reserved

      SMASHWORDS EDITION

      Gift for

      Aaron Joseph Elliott Willoughby,

      my grandson,

      Patrick, Stanley, and

      Peter Pleskunas, my sons,

      and, as always,

      Don Pauls and David Feinstein

      as well as the other

      riches of men who

      have blest my life.

      There are rocks over there, steer clear,

      There is a channel, however, over there.

      Joseph Campbell

      Table of Contents

      Dedication

      Glossary

      Preface

      Chapter 1 Transformation of Aaron Willoughby

      Chapter 2 Deft and Daft: the Time Between

      Chapter 3 The Pooka and Black Sea Cat of Donegal

      Chapter 4 Oisin

      Chapter 5 Donal

      Chapter 6 Esmeralda and the Not-So-Grand Opera

      Chapter 7 Mede: The First Remembrancer

      Chapter 8 The Enchanted Island

      Chapter 9 Hardhead the Smith

      GLOSSARY

      Beltain: May 1st on the Celtic Calendar: first day of summer.

      Byre: Barn.

      Carragh: originally a hide-covered, willow-framed open boat. It must be rowed, has no cover and floats like a leaf. Saint Brandon may have reached North America in one rowed by 8 or 10 men. He certainly reached Iceland. Later ones have tarred-canvas covers.

      Celestial Circle: A year. The Celts used a lunar calendar in conjunction with the solar one.

      Crannog: A human-made island in a lough. Built on alder pilings and woven of willow, crannogs were used for defense in areas where raths were impractical or impossible.

      Danu: the Spirit of Earth. Not a goddess, in the usual sense, of a personification.

      Druid: Seers, shamans who directed ceremonies and communed with the Spirits of the Place.

      Fir Bolg and Formonians: Monstrous and malign early inhabitants of the land whose shades still haunt the righteous. There may be some historical basis for the myths.

      Imbolg: February 1st (Bridgit’s Day). The first day if spring.

      Lugh: August 1st. First day of autumn.

      Lough: A lake. In Scotland, a loch.

      Maura-nee-Ortha: The feminine moon.

      Oegus: The masculine sun.

      Rath: A stone ring fort, usually on a hill, with a spring.

      Samhain: November 1st. First day of winter.

      Sept: Tribe or clan of loosely associated people.

      Slane: Sharp edged, hoe-like tool for cutting sods from turf.

      Tir na nOg: Faery land or the Land of Eternal Youth.

      Tuatha da Dannan: Faery folk.

      PREFACE

      Initiation

      In my long life I have loved many men. Indeed, it is my grateful belief that I have more non-blood brothers than any woman I know. Not brothers alone, of course, but every coloration of man: grandfather, father, husbands, lovers, sons, and—pleasure of pleasures—a grandson. Not every man has been a prince: I’ve kissed my share of toads.

      Just like women, a few men been foolish, insincere, hurtful, self-serving or dangerous. I do not endow each male I encounter with an automatic halo, even though experience has led me to be pleasantly expectant, but this is true of the women I meet as well. All I write is from my unique stance: I do not presume to speak for all women and I have not met all men.

      Above all other interpersonal missions, I resist the polarizing of people. Us-Them assumptions, emetic inclusive stereotypes and self-blinding prejudices are repugnant, obscene and infuriating. When I hear (Wo)men are. . ., I respond with the dry remark, All Indians walk single file—at least the one I saw did.

      Most conscious people will resist a comment that begins, Gays (blacks, Chinese, engineers, whathaveyou― Rarer challenges to gender-based global statements such as Women are intuitive, Men fix things or any variant on the noxious concept that men are from Mars, women are from Venus. No.

      We are all from Earth. We share needs for protection, instruction, validation and comfort from cradle to grave. We bleed. We weep in loneliness. We laugh. We fear. We aspire. We violate our potential and we fulfill it. There is no exclusivity in emotion and no monopoly in thinking for either gender. We are defined by our choices. We are shaped by our genes and influenced by culture and family. We long for the transcendent and fear the abyss. Our bodies speak in the complex language of sensation and retain our life experience in cellular memory. These human traits we share.

      Our bodies differ, fundamentally, individual to individual, gender to gender, youth to age. It is here the misunderstandings start. There are sensory things that defy communication: the taste of licorice, where the itch is exactly, what you mean by blue, how sweetly-touched skin feels. Strength varies and stamina.

      Primal reproductive drives must be recognized and honored, their manifestation governed by more than impulse. As is said, the devil’s in the details and culture creates the details, stereotypes and distortions which we have all acted out.

      The terrible schism many feel between self and The Other Gender is born of fear and, sometimes, confirming negative experience. We must honor our own experience, else there is no learning. When critical experience has been painful, we learn to pull away, reject, close off. What is needed is balancing experience. We may learn early that the stove burns. What a chilly life if we forever avoid approaching a stove again.

      Am I so foolish or delusional to think there are no essential difference between the male and female experiences? No, thank goodness. I simply do not want to allow those differences to define my relationships any more the differences of age, ethnic origin or ability to carry a tune to limit my ability to learn from and enjoy another person.

      In these stories, where I have taken the risk of speaking with a man’s voice, my intention has been to communicate empathy, camaraderie and esteem. I detest pseudo-sympathy, idol-making and falseness, in any form. I’ve done my best to be truthful. The insights and opinions expressed in the stories are the direct result of having listened to, observed and participated with men in many circumstances. A cool, but kindly, eye on the male condition, as expressed here, is intended to tell my sons, my multitude of brothers and my grandson that a woman close to them recognizes their complex humanity.

      Much of this book reflects my observations of nature and immersion in pre-Christian Celtic studies,

      The Great Spiral is also the Great Labyrinth. At the center of each is what we seek: knowledge, felt in the core of our being, that we are one with all Creation. A deathless soul, does not fear life or death. We consciously participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world.

      To live with ardor is to experience ourselves consciously alive. When we follow the heart-message of whatever fills us with passionate commitment is to experience life in all it’s nuance and incomprehensible complexity. It is to follow your bliss. No one says it is simple. No one says there is no price. Few approve. Fewer dare. If we will follow the yearning, in Yeat’s words, at the deep heart’s core, we will say, at the end of physical existence, we have lived. Anything less is tragedy.

      The Irish Celts, like tribal people from Australia to North America to China and on to the Arctic, commemorated the spiral in stone, metal, and in tattoos upon their flesh. The compelling vitality of the form, makes it seductive to metaphysical definition. Examples abound in the natural world. The pattern of seeds on the head of a sunflower is a spiral. Water eddies in spirals. The crown of the bracken fern and the tendril of the vetch are spirals as is the exquisite convolution of a snail shell.

      This book is my understanding, late in life, of male potential and challenge looking lovingly at one early in his years, my grandson.

      The title, Wrestling Bears, calls forth an archetypal image of man engaged in a formidable—probably impossible—task to dominate a great force. It suggests the courage, endurance and vision required to come to grips with massive power. It is how I see good men struggling to overcome what is base in themselves and what must be confronted in the world. I admire the foolishness and the raw strength implied. A man, having wrestled a bear, has learned something of the bear’s way of doing business, and is better equipped for the next, inevitable encounter.

      The stories were written at different times, from different impulses. They are, like the last meal before going shopping. That meal, in my son Stan’s memorable phrase, is shipwreck stew. The uncommon elixir, may however, be unexpectedly delectable. I’ve put in a bit about my intention at the end of each tale. The Enchanted Island also appears in Mister Gariety, Himself: A Tale of Some Incredulity. Mede: The First Remembrancer may also be found in RiverVoices: Celtic Myths for a Woman’s Journey.

      What follows is a letter I sent Aaron at a time of restlessness in his life. Though there was much I hadn’t confirmed about him when I wrote it and I would phrase differently today, it is still a good beginning to this book.

      April 1989

      Dearest Aaron,

      I understand that you’ve always intended to write. I’m glad you finally did. Sure makes getting re-acquainted easier! I’m fine. Things are interesting and creative for me, so I’m not into complaining about odds and ends.

      Now as for your powerful urge to get outta Dodge— HOORAY! You know that I believe LA is no longer habitable (nor NYC for that matter,) but that’s the least of it. As you said, you need a challenge to feel your balls. Of course. You, like every other male, must prove to yourself that you’re fit to stay in the gene pool. From the beginning of time, it has always been so. Women have other challenges while watching men’s spear-thrusting dances from the shadows. Women listen to las ovarios to hear our guides while gathering wood for our own fires.

      Men are different, but I believe I understand your kind better than many women. I have mostly been well-treated and taught by good men. Men have shared secrets with me, exposing their vulnerability. I think of your kind, largely as brothers. Brothers and sisters are peers, not authorities in the same way elder generations are. I’m not crazy about being seen as an authority, partially because it is so distancing, and partially because my areas of expertise are too narrow.

      Brothers tell you the truth, look out for you, share what they have and

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1