Original Meaning -

Hands – Friendship

Heart – Love

Crown – Loyalty

The Claddagh Ring for a Man

1689 - A Man in Slavery

In the original legend, we imagine a man thinking of his woman. Learning the art of shaping gold. Hoping to marry her and “let love and friendship reign”. This is beautiful and the intention is not to destroy romantic notions, but to enhance them. Bring them into an enlightened age. Make them more real, more naked. Love stories have become a bit Disney. Real stories have more mystery, more contrast. They are delicious because they are not all sugar. Our own stories are not all sugar. And they do not end or begin at marriage.

So I imagine a man in slavery, who must maintain a sense of integrity, safety and home while in exile. He is formed by the friendships with the men he meets on the way, the goldsmith who teaches him his craft. Friendship across cultures and circumstance. The maintaining of inner royalty when made a slave. The sovereignty and identity which is incorruptible, even in the face of tyrants.

I find overly symbolic statements of fidelity and loyalty suspicious. People love to own each other. Even now. Ownership kills that which is wild and free. This man, however, may have needed to remind himself of his loyalty and fidelity to the home he was taken from. To Ireland. He also hoped that his woman would wait for him. Perhaps he was mistreated, so he crowned his heart. He created the symbol of a heart which feels true to itself and its origins. The crown sits on the heart, not on the head actually, because the mind can be fickle.

Men and women alike need to know their deep sovereignty, the truth of our own hearts. The holding of the truth of one's heart with one's own hands. Always crowned. No matter the circumstances. Without this there is no true meeting of another.

This ring can therefore be worn by a man to remind himself of his own sovereignty and the truth of his own heart.

The Claddagh Ring for a Woman

Equally for a woman, the ring shape symbolizes not only the deep lake of her wisdom which springs from her womb or pelvis, even before it is understood by the heart. Crucially, it is also an image for the sanctity of her boundaries. None shall pass, unless I desire it. No social contract or expectation shall encroach on the sacredness of my divine self. But at the edge of these boundaries are my hands. My hands will let you enter if I desire you. My hands hold my heart, always safe, always true. And my sovereignty, my kingdom, my divine right sits above both, heart and womb, gathering the stars from the heavens, the warmth of the sun, the mystery of the moon.

In this sovereign state I can meet you. Without it, I will enslave you. Or you me.

Am I right in thinking we have lost a sense of our boundaries, just as we have lost an innate sense of direction. I believe humans used to understand in their bodies where we were in relation to North, South, East and West. Equally we used to know who and what was for us. Who and what was allowed to enter. In the age of social norms, advertising, maybe in an age where the mind reigns supreme, we now have the chance to rediscover our true boundaries. The ultimate safety of having true boundaries and the ultimate pleasure of allowing what is chosen, in. Because boundaries are not about other people. They are about YOU knowing how to keep YOURSELF to YOURSELF and drawing in your tentacles. From this place, the meeting of hands, lips, skin, mind and soul is true magic.

The Claddagh ring symbolizes a woman who knows herself and can live as herself.

And only in this sovereign state can you meet me.

The Claddagh Ring for Love

I often feel we have dishonoured the true heart of marriage and we have allowed it to be a function of a society which is built on our own enslavement. I don't even look at the 1600's, when the Claddagh Ring was made, when marriage was designed to perpetuate the strength of families or kingdoms. That was at least clear. An economic proposition. A conscious arrangement.

Now the water is muddy. There is love. There is status. There are social expectations. The strange insistance upon the nuclear family, consumer culture and a capitalist economy which requires us all to become married to our jobs to survive, to be stuck together in an endless routine and no escape if space is needed. Ownership of land, animals, the skies, each other.

Not to make this overly negative. Just conscious. We are only babies in our evolution and we learn by fucking things up. You really can’t learn without it. Fucking up well is probably the fastest route to true freedom.

I think marriage is the hottest furnace of the spirit today.

Much more difficult than solitude, much more challenging for people who want to work on themselves.

It’s a situation in which there are no alibis, excruciating most of the time…

but it’s only in this situation that any kind of work can be done.

Leonard Cohen (Drama Queen ;)

When the woman and the man are sovereign within their boundaries, true to their hearts and made regal in their love of themselves – then the Claddagh ring can become a symbol of love for a couple and only then.

You must understand the nobility of your being. You at the centre and everything else falls into place at your periphery. This is the arrangement which will create harmony between people. In all things, not just in love.

This in itself could describe the Claddagh Ring ——

“Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts”. (Khalil Gibran)

Full Poem -

You were born together, and together you shall be forever more.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Yes, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness.
And let the winds of heaven dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love.
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but each one of you be
alone – even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not in each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the Cyprus grow not in each other’s shadows

Kahlil Gibran. "On Marriage ."

I encourage you to use the Claddagh ring as a visual and tactile reminder of your divine and powerful place as the centre of your own universe as a basis for the deepest connections. xx

(This essay uses the concept of Women and Men. But any and all interpretations of gender are invited, encouraged and cherished!)

Read the Original Claddagh Legend Here…..