Cernunnos and Yoga, Conclusion (For Now)
At first, I titled this entry “Cernunnos and Yoga, Part 3,” but it began to occur to me that some readers might think I was flogging the horse to death, that I would continue with further horned god installments until asked by interested parties to “cease and desist.” Hence, instead of “Part 3,” I call this entry “Conclusion (For Now).” Cernunnos is a subject that deeply interests me, and like General MacArthur and the Philippines, to this subject, eventually, I shall return.
I was so proud to have discovered what appears to me to be some ancient Indo-European link between Cernunnos and spiritual practices of prehistoric India; I felt like a pioneer in scholarship! Then I made the discovery that the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids (OBOD) has long suspected this link, actually mapping into their teaching the yamas, or virtues of early yogic instruction. There is even a budding discipline called “Celtic yoga,” which combines elements and techniques of Celtic spirituality with some of those found in ancient Hindu teaching. In fact, Philip Carr-Gomm who, from 1988 until 2021 was the head of OBOD, has personally trained in yoga and includes it in his spiritual teaching.
I would like to make three remarks, and then close this subject, leaving the freedom and delight of further Cernunnos exploration to those who have a yen for it. For now.
First of all, I cannot recommend yoga highly enough. Whether such teaching was associated with Cernunnos or not in antiquity, it is still a practice which can be adapted to virtually any spiritual path. What makes yoga especially worthwhile is that it addresses the physical issues of the body while simultaneously challenging and helping heal the spiritual condition of the practitioner. As one learns how to employ the body to bring peace and order to one’s thoughts, one also learns simultaneously how to invite health to the body through the awareness of the quieted mind.
Second, the regular, age-appropriate, daily practice of yoga returns mobility and strength to aging bodies. I am much more agile and fit at 70 than I was at 50, when I started. I have seen my middle-aged back problems and sciatica issues reduced to almost zero in old age. Additionally, thanks to yogic breathing and a little mild physical conditioning, I can run indefinitely without getting out of breath. Finally, combined with meditation, I find yoga to be one of the best tonics there are for coming to terms with fear, and dealing with stress.
I may not have made the case conclusively that yoga might be part of the Cernunnos path, but it seems clear that, for future votaries of the Horned God, it could be.
Laying yoga aside, let’s not forget the connection with nature to which the Horned God invites us. I don’t think the iconography of Cernunnos leaves any doubt that a regular interface with nature is an absolutely essential part of a spiritual walk with Him. There are infinite variations in what people can do to get themselves into the sunshine, into the fresh air and under the stars. If hiking and exploring remote areas is one of the things you like to do, it might be helpful to remember that the creatures who live out there aren’t fans of shouting and percussive noise, and are generally really turned off by frenetic and sudden activity. While there is certainly a place and time for trying to hurtle down the John Muir Trail in record time, for swinging off a rope tied to a tree to do a cannonball into a scenic lake, for engaging in competitive volleyball under the trees, and even for cruising in a high-speed boat across that lake with skiers trailing behind and a giant mounted boom-box vomiting forth loud music–while there is a time and a place for these fun things, let us remember the consequences as well as the pleasures. As the poet Wallace Stevens points out in his poem “The Blue Guitar,” music can shape the world through the perception it inculcates. And our noises and actions, if overly assertive, can turn a beautiful natural setting into nothing more than a backdrop for our unquiet and troubled soliloquies on the stage of human theater. Nature can only become itself and reveal its sacred secrets to us when we let it become the center of attention and not ourselves. The rest, as the bard reminds us, is silence.














