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Ronnie Smith's Mystic Land and Celtic Saints is a wonder-full expression of Celtic poetry, scholarship, and art; an amazing creation that needs to be read meditatively so that its spirituality can sink deeply into one's heart. It is divided, as the title suggests, into two major sections: one on the nature and sacred landscape of Celtic lands, and the second on the rich heritage of the Celtic saints. Poetry and commentary are intertwined, so that the reader can appreciate poetry that sings, and scholarship that teaches much about Celtic history and holy sites. The art that accompanies the text beautifully illustrates the beauty of the poetry itself. Landscape from Skellig Michael, off the western coast of Ireland, to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, off the coast of northern England, as well as numerous other thin places are poeticized; well-known saints from the Patrick, Brigit, and Columcille to lesser-knowns like the bee-keeper Gobnait, the virgin Keyne, and the protector of hares Melangell are shown to be spiritual mentors for today. This book truly is, as Smith suggests in his introduction, a "pilgrimage" well-worth undertaking. Smith's book reveals how he himself stands in the ancient Christian tradition of the Celtic nature poets who from the 4th through the 13th centuries lived and wrote about the awesome wonder of nature itself.
Ed Sellner is professor emeritus of theology and spirituality at St. Catherine University, St. Paul, Minnesota, where he taught for 35 years, and the author of numerous books on Celtic spirituality, his most recent, Celtic Saints and Animal Stories: A Spiritual Kinship (Paulist Press, 2020).
