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Welcome to Tairis! Yes, I've been tinkering again...I've been tweaking bits here and there, reformatting some pages that looked a bit squished, and adding a few bits and pieces to some pages I thought could do with revisiting. I've added a new article on the realm of nem, or sky, which completes the group of articles on the three realms, and as a result I've decided to split to section on Mythology and Cosmology into two separate sections now, which will hopefully make things a bit easier to find. I've also made a small update to the first article I did for the three realms - Sources for the Three Realms - to incorporate additional information from an article I found recently: well worth a read. And now there's another new article, which explores some of the ideas surrounding the possible date of the pre-Christian New Year according to Irish sources. On the Tairis blog I've posted a rundown of my celebrations for Là Fhèill Brìghde, with pictures, and as a result I've updated the new page I did a few weeks back on Making a Dealbh Bride, to add my latest efforts. I hope, as always, that you enjoy and find something useful. A little background
So what's Tairis all about, then? I'm a Scottish Reconstructionist who is lucky enough to live in Scotland, and this website is all about the many different things I've been researching and looking into over the years. As I write, I learn, and it helps me to focus and think about things. Hopefully this site will give a good idea of how I interpret Scottish Reconstructionism, and in a wider context, Celtic Reconstructionism too (because that's the only perspective I can write from, really), and in turn maybe it will help those who want to pursue Celtic Reconstructionism for themselves. And hey, the next time my computer craps out, at least I won't have lost all my work... It's a path that requires a lot of legwork and for the most part I stick to what I know best - Scottish and, to a lesser extent, Irish beliefs and customs. I take a fairly conservative approach to my practises and generally stick to the Scottish side of things, but I do find that comparative work and research with Irish practice is very helpful since Scotland's Gaelic heritage owes so much to Ireland. Over the years I've developed a few rituals and ideas for how to practise and express my beliefs and some of those rituals and ideas can be found here and elsewhere. What I do is constantly evolving and hopefully I'll be able to reflect that by keeping the site up to date. Seeing as I've been kicking about on the internet for a good few years now, it seems a little rude to not give an address to contact me at - finally. So feel free to
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with your thoughts, questions, ideas. Be nice though, eh? I'm only human. And why 'Tairis'? To be perfectly honest, I stumbled across the word in Macbain's dictionary. Its meaning was given as, "the dairymaid's cry to calm a cow" and really, it just made me laugh. It sums up a lot of the things I love about Scotland - that there's a word for such an act, so integral to the culture, so succinct. And I like cows, so it seemed apt. More seriously though, other meanings are given: In Scots Gaelic, it means loving or kind; going back to early Irish, it meant loyal, true. All this speaks to the core of what I do and how I feel about the culture I live in and am now a part of. I love what I do, and at the heart of it, I see and seek truth in it. Beannachd leibh,
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