In this final part of the series I will be looking at how abyss mysticism and the visions of the Abyss shown to me by my Gods relate to the Brythonic tradition.
The Welsh term for ‘abyss’ is affwys ‘depths, bottomless pit, precipice’ (1).
In the Welsh Bible (2) the term tehom is translated as dyfnder ‘deep’ rather than afwyss ‘abyss’. In Genesis 1.2 ‘And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters’ – ‘Yr oedd y ddaear yn afluniaidd a gwag, ac yr oedd tywyllwch ar wyneb y dyfnder, ac ysbryd Duw yn ymsymud ar wyneb y dyfroedd.’ And in Psalm 42.7 ‘deep calls to deep’ – ‘geilw dyfnder ar ddyfender’.
The first recorded usage of affwys is in the 13th century in The Book of Aneirin. ‘Disgennwys en affwys dra phenn’ ‘descend into a deep abyss’ (3). This seems significant as Aneirin was one of the Cynfeirdd, a ‘prince of bards’, along with Talhaearn and Taliesin. It is also of interest in relation to Aneirin speaking of undergoing an underground initiation in this poem (4).
From thereon its use continues particularly in relation to Uffern ‘Hell’. ‘Yno y cloir ac rhoir rhwys yn Uffern a’i ffwrn affwys’ ‘there he will be locked up and cast into Hell and its abyssal oven.’ ‘Yn Uffern erwin aphwys’ ‘in Hell a harsh abyss.’
In The Book of Taliesin the term dwfyn is used to mean ‘depth’, ‘profound’ and ‘abyss or depths of Hell’ in the lines ‘dogyn dwyfn diwerin’ ‘the evil lot of the abyss.’ We also find the term diuant ‘space, void, annihilation, death’ as in ‘gogwn… pan ergyr diuant’ ‘I know why annihilation comes all of a sudden’ and ‘bet sant yn diuant ‘how many saints are in the void?’
Another term is agendor ‘abyss, gulf, depth’. Its earliest recorded use is in 1604. In a poem by Hugh Jones, written in 1759, we find the lines ‘Yna traflynca Annwfn / Y dorf i’r agendor dwfn’ ‘Then pass through Annwfn / the crowd to the deep abyss.’ These are suggestive of a group of people (the dead?) passing through Annwn to the Abyss and resonate with my experiences.
The notion of saints being in the void in the Taliesin poetry is also a fascinating one as we usually assume that saints ascend to Heaven.
Could this line instead refer to monastics who practice abyss mysticism? Who go to annihilation in the void? Monks of Annwn outside the Christian orders?
Because they wrote nothing down we know precious little about the religious practices of the pre-Christian Brythonic peoples and nothing at all about their inner experiences, relationships with their Gods, what went on in their souls.
There is no evidence for beliefs about Anrhuna, Nodens / Nudd and Vindos / Gwyn being deities who act as custodians of the mysteries of the Abyss or monastics who practiced abyss mysticism but it can’t be ruled out. Whether this tradition is old or new I have been called to it as a nun of Annwn by my Gods.
(1) https://geiriadur.ac.uk/gpc/gpc.html
(2) https://www.bible.com/versions/394-bcnd-beibl-cymraeg-newydd-diwygiedig-2004
(3) https://geiriadur.ac.uk/gpc/gpc.html I couldn’t find a full copy of The Book of Aneirin in modern Welsh let alone a translation into English to check the context.
(4) ‘I do not laugh the laugh
under the feet of creepy crawlies.
My knees stretched out in an earthen cell,
an iron chain
around my knees.’
Cited in Lawrence Eson, Merlin’s last cry: ritual burial and rebirth of the poet in Celtic and Norse tradition, January 2007, Zeitschrift fur celtische Philologie 55 (1)
The Sanctuary of Vindos 
I discussed the ‘underground initiation’ of Aneirin suggested in this verse in a blog post some years ago, which I can’t now locate. But the significant thing here is that the verse is isolated from the other parts of Y Gododdin in that it is not an elegy for the warriors that fell in battle but about the writing of the poem: “I – but not I – Aneirin / as Taliesin knows /… sang the Gododdin / Before the next dawn”. As if he went into a trance and was not himself when he produced the poem.
(i.e. the verse cited in your footnote 4) : verse 49 (lines 470-484) in Jarman’s Gododdin
Ah thank you. Yes got that in Jarman now. ‘I do not laugh / Beneath the feet of the feet of hairy slugs…’ in this version! Yes, it makes sense that he was ‘I and not I’ and maybe out of himself as a result of an underground initiation (involving hairy slugs!) when he composed it.
I just read through all five posts this evening (am catching up on my social media!). You’ve given me a lot to contemplate.
I find your predicament of the three doors all too familiar, I too have battled with existential crisis throughout my adulthood. Like you I can’t really ‘get on’ in life, but am also reluctant to step through that second door of bodily dis-carnation. We’re in the same boat. But what is the third door and what exactly does walking through it engender? If the first door represents living for the self, the ego, and the second door represents dissolution of the ego through death (at least on the material plane), then the third door must be between these two extremes. It is the middle road between selfish living and being totally without self. It could thusly be described as living selflessly. I believe the third door is the call to the true spiritual life which is preached in all religions, and exemplified particularly well through the character of Jesus Christ (whether one be a Christian or not). We who have failed at the other two thresholds must learn to live for other people. By turning away from our personal desires and devoting ourselves to the upliftment of humanity, we die to ourselves and become aligned with God. I would say that the third door leads one to become an angel. I’d like to hear what you think about what I’ve said, are you in agreement?
For me the third door is the path of change. Being willing to surrender to what the Gods want, to serving Them and others. So yes, the true spiritual life if you would. I wouldn’t attempt to equate myself with Jesus or an angel or even a saint but I aim to become a good nun.
Well I’d say if you’re aiming to become a good nun then that really means becoming an ‘Earth angel’.
From what I can see on this website your practice seems quite insular though. Just how would you serve humanity/others?
Have you ever considered helping the homeless, or the elderly?
If the spiritual life is foremost about cultivating love and compassion, I ask how can one do this without some form of charity or public outreach?
At the Monastery of Annwn we run public meditations and rituals as outreach and I volunteer in my local green space for the non-human persons who I view as just as important as humans.