For the Irish, winter has always been a time of gathering with family and friends around the hearth fire. Through Joe Neilan’s recollections, included in Joe McGowan’s book, Inishmurray; Island Voices, we can almost feel the heat of the fire and hear the music.

On a winters night we used to have a thundering big roaring fire. All the neighbors would gather into a different house every night and the’d start telling stories, singing songs, an’ reciting poems. The flute players’d be there an’ the fiddle. There’d be lilting and dancing. Someone would bring in the half door and the’d leave it down on the floor. You’d see an old woman coming in or an old man up to 70 or 80 years of age. The women in their bare feet, an’ they’d start step dancing an’ more of them lilting tunes along the fire, and singing, and the fiddle an’ the flute.

Then, after all the playin’ an’ dancin’, eveyone’d have a wee respite to draw their wind and the bottle’d go round till they all got a drink. Out of the drinking then they’d all start again. Everyone had to sing, and it was all the rale old Irish songs. Mostly in Irish the songs were sung. Out of the singing of the songs then they’d start storytelling. … One word used to borrow from another, one entertainment used to join another an it’d be two o’clock in the morning before the company’d break up, to make home for their own house.

Imagine. They had no money and no tradition of frenzied shopping or frantic holiday preparations. Their wealth was in community – and night after night after night of music and singing and dancing in bare feet.

Interesting. After writing yesterday about the gathering in Atlanta I received an email today from the folks who put on the event.

A few weeks ago, several elders from around the world gathered at Ancient Wisdom Rising in Atlanta. It was not business as usual. There was more urgency in how they spoke. Two main messages rang out loud and clear: only the heart will be able to guide us in the time that is coming…the mind will not have a clue. And the need for community. If you don’t have one, get one. If you have one, go deeper. We are going to need each other.

The email went on to ask for money, but this first paragraph caught my attention.

Yes, the elders did speak with urgency and concern about the state of our planet and people. And they spoke about the importance of community. But not from a perspective of needing to gear up for pending disaster. Water, check. Flashlights, check. Dried food, check. Community, check. It’s not that we are going to need community but that we have always needed community. Desmond Tutu and others have reminded us that for as long as memory the concept of I am because we are, has been embedded in the African people.

Being in right relationship with community is one of the three fundamental messages from Ireland’s indigenous spiritual ancestors. A message that is thousands of years old. A message that echoes through the rituals and traditions of this holiday season. Gathering with family and friends. Sharing stories around the fire. Celebrating. This is the light of community that feeds the soul. And for our Irish ancestors, hospitality wasn’t just a good idea, it was the law. Breaking the code of hospitality was as serious as stealing cattle.

Yes, community can be a messy business. Yet, as the elders and ancestors have always known, it is only through community that we thrive. Perhaps it’s less about community saving us than us saving community.