stirring clockwise?

[piperdbh]

I read somewhere (or made it up) that the ancient Celts (or Gaels, Picts, Saxons, Angles, Planes, Jutes, Hemps) or somebody would do circular things (like stirring a pot) only clockwise, and never counter-clockwise, because the sun moves clockwise and they believed it to be a not-good-thing to move contrary to the sun. Have the rest of you heard this, and if so to whom does it refer?

[The Wizard of BC]

Most of what people think they know about the very early cultures is myth. Prior to the development of writing we know nothing of daily life.

The Celtic peoples are those who share a common oral language. They left very few written artifacts.
We have artifacts of stone, bone, and other durable materials.
We have burials and middens.
But most of what we know about the people themselves comes from the writings of others.

If it weren't for a few Roman mentions of the name Pict we would know even less of these peoples. If they even existed as a separate and identifiable culture to themselves at all.

Saxons and Angles are the Germanic peoples from the Alps north to the low countries. We know quite a bit about them until they formed what we call the Anglo-Saxons of the British Isles. Again not a lot of written documents left.

Of all the groups you list we know more about the small details of daily life of the Planes, Jutes and Hemps.

I doubt that the Planes would do anything in only one direction. They still know to this day that if you turn left and walk far enough you find the end and will fall off unless you turn around and walk the other way. They keep this knowledge fresh in their everyday lives. You can still find pockets of Plane culture today were everything done in one direction if followed by the exact same motion in the other direction. They go to work in the morning exactly so many step to the ESE and at night they travel home the exact same number of steps in the exact opposite WNW direction.

Of the Jutes and Hemps we know a great deal. They were prolific writers. Although much of it is unintelligible until after you have been initiated into their secrets and have experienced their rituals first hand.

[Chas]

Before the invention of clocks (and more to the point their faces) there was no such thing as clockwise. The Celts or Gaels, Picts, Saxons, Angles, Planes, Jutes, Hemps all pre-dated clocks so they would have been talking about something of which they had no understanding.

Regards

Chas

[tripleblessed]

As above, not a lot written. There are, however unbroken lines of tradition in many areas of the Isles if you can see what's before you, and a few unbroken lines of priests/priestesses (along with a lot of modern faux, channeled or made-up stuff). Visiting standing stone sites and other old holy sites I have seen bent grass offerings to the Mother, an ancient prayer or statement of devotion. Alongside this unbroken line,there is the tradition that sunwise (not clockwise) and widdershins (not counterclockwise) are both done, appropriate to the task. Not usually mixed. Sunwise for strengthening or healing, widdershins for weakening. Some teachers open some rituals with sunwise motion and close with widdershins. Some not so much.

As an exercise, visit Stonehenge. Tourists are led widdershins around by the audio guided tour, and to me the site felt dead. After overhearing a hippieish couple gushing about the energy of the site, and smiling knowingly to myself (in the 60s, I, being straight, had to get many an over-indulging friend through the night), decided to check it. Walking sunwise produces a very different experience. After walking sunwise more than once, then passing through the entrance into the inner stones, one can feel a palpable and very visceral energy shift, as if passing through an invisible curtain, and feeling the tug as it passes through you. Everyone following me had a similar experience without being coached. If one can't or doesn't experience this, perhaps one's bloodlines are not as Celtic or Gaelic as one has been led to believe. Or perchance one needs more practice.

[usonian]

tripleblessed beat me to the word 'Widdershins', which does have some superstitions associated with it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widdershins ... but as Steve said above, a lot of 'history' that gets repeated about ancient peoples and cultures is often conflated with myth.

[Geoff Withnell]

Clockwise was know as deasil (your spelling may vary, lol)

tripleblessed beat me to the word 'Widdershins', which does have some superstitions associated with it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widdershins ... but as Steve said above, a lot of 'history' that gets repeated about ancient peoples and cultures is often conflated with myth.

[sydnie7]

Mix in some long-standing prejudices against all things left-handed (for example, the Roman word for all things left has sinister implications). But as others have said and will, I'm sure, continue to say -- lots of guesswork and projection involved the farther back you try to go.

[Tobus]

Assuming there's any truth to this myth, I wonder if it is a case of these people building a tradition based on natural observations of the Coriolis Effect without really understanding the underlying principles involved. It seems to be common amongst primitive peoples that they build superstitions around natural laws that we understand today through science.

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

It has to do with whether one is left handed or right handed. It is easier to stir clockwise if you are right handed, anti-clockwise if you are left handed. It is a function of how the wrist moves.

[CDNSushi]

I was told a story some years ago, about a young man who apprenticed in a Japanese restaurant, where his main job was preparing the rice. He was instructed in a very specific manner of washing (rinsing) the rice before it got put into the rice cooker. He was to put the appropriate measure of rice into a vessel, which would then be filled with cold water. Then, he was to stir it counter-clockwise, and ONLY counter-clockwise, three times. Rice, it was explained to him, grows in a clockwise direction, and it had to be stirred counter-clockwise so that it would realize the life that it could have had, if it hadn't been harvested. Then, as he was stirring the rice, he was instructed to say a prayer of thanks to rice, for its sacrifice, and for providing nourishment and sustenance.

So perhaps pre-Christian Celts also held some sort of comparable, animistic or shamanistic beliefs that would parallel something like this. Traditional Japanese Shintoism believes that spirits (kami) inhabit everything -- from rice, to trees, to mountains, to streams. So a fairly elaborate system of doing things has been established in response to those beliefs.