Lenten Rose

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If only life was so simple.

Like you I try to hide my face and my tears
for my boy-god and my longing for some kind of miracle.

I did not plant you, but I grew up alongside you
and have known you for almost forty years.

So close you were invisible
and I never asked
your name.

Hellbeborus, ‘to kill, to injure, food.”

You are dark green evergreen life and bones.

You remind me of cartilage creaking in my bad knees
when they are not tracking right like the sound
of a rocking horse or a rocking chair
or the fall of a doll’s house.

Memories creak and my attempts to forget them.

If not for my knees I would run forever,
until skeletal – the perfect rose.

Like you I am happy to stay in place
repeating the same patterns and the same cycles
yet the world will not have it that way – it likes to break us
and remove us from our habits and our homes

to journey by candlelight or dead starlight
to the land of the King of Bones

whilst the sound of spring flowers
opening is the sound of something happening.

The lampshade over my face disguises my identity.

All I want is to stay another forty years, repeating the same patterns
over again, but I hear another king is trying to build a road
to Annwn from the bones of his enemies.

This poem addresses the hellebores in my back garden. It is partly based on frustrations with minor health problems. I have recently been diagnosed with rosacea (facial redness) and it has made me feel even less like showing my face in public. After cutting down my running over winter, as I’m increasing my mileage, my anterior knee pain ‘runner’s knee’ has returned. After hoping strength training had cured it, it is holding me back from attaining my goal of returning to 30 miles a week. The boy-god I speak of, also the King of Bones, is a guise of Gwyn, my patron God, a King of Annwn, has been appearing to me in as I write about Annwn before the creation of the world, long before humans and medieval tales.

On Conversions and the Need for Deeper Truths

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Over the last few days I have been taking some time out from writing my novel in progress, In the Deep, after completing the second draft and realising some of the content has strayed from the imaginal into the imaginary. Not being sure how to remedy it I turned for insights to one of my favourite mythtellers Martin Shaw. I found the wisdom I needed in his video ‘On the Fall and the Underworld’ where he warns to be aware of engaging with avatars rather than divinities themselves, giving the example of ‘Baba Yaga with her teeth pulled out’. I had fallen afoul in this mistake in some of my later scenes with the winged serpents.

I also discovered, at first to my surprise, that Martin, whose works are deeply Pagan and animistic and based in his experience of extended wilderness vigils recently converted to Orthodox Christianity. I felt less surprised as I learnt about how this happened in relation to the rest of his personal journey in his dialogue with Mark Vernon ‘The Mossy Face of Christ’. Following a one hundred and one day vigil in a local wood in Devon he had an Old Testament style vision and retired to bed to hear 9 words that led him to the conclusion he must return to his ‘original home’ which was Eden. This was followed by a series of intense dreams featuring Jesus and the son of God moving into his life in a similar way to which He wrecked the temple in Jerusalem. Martin grew up in a Christian family and his practice already resembled that of the Desert Fathers and the peregrini who set out for wild places to find God.

Of course I could not help but relate this to the conversion to Orthodox Christianity of his friend, Paul Kingsnorth, whose writing I also admire, in particular ‘the Dark Mountain Manifesto’ (which was written with Dougald Hind in 2009). Kingsnorth writes of his experiences in ‘The Cross and the Machine’. Here he speaks of carrying an Abyss within him, of needing ‘a truth to surrender to’. He did not find this during his time as a Wiccan priest. Following a series of dreams he found it in Jesus and in Orthodox Christianity and his Abyss was filled.

‘In Orthodoxy I had found the answers I had sought, in the one place I never thought to look. I found a Christianity that had retained its ancient heart—a faith with living saints and a central ritual of deep and inexplicable power. I found a faith that, unlike the one I had seen as a boy, was not a dusty moral template but a mystical path, an ancient and rooted thing, pointing to a world in which the divine is not absent but everywhere present, moving in the mountains and the waters. The story I had heard a thousand times turned out to be a story I had never heard at all.’

There is much in both Shaw’s and Kingsnorth’s experiences I relate to as someone who received a calling to devote their life to a Brythonic god – Gwyn ap Nudd. The shock of a deity who was not expected stepping into one’s life and coming along and turning everything upside down. Inititally resisting. Submitting to the call in spite of being unsure what it means and being terrified what others will think.

I’ve also been tempted by Christianity. Like Kingsnorth I rejected it but still found myself hanging around churches and I additionally had a calling towards monasticism. As I approached my 35th birthday I was desperately aware this would be my last chance to become a Christian nun but I didn’t take it. I also had a couple of encounters with Jesus whilst working as a cleaner at a local Catholic school. His presence was everywhere and whilst I was cycling home I saw His face before me trying to mouth something in Middle Eastern. He then turned up at our dining table and I told Him politely I was already taken by Gwyn.

Looking at Shaw and Kingsnorth’s converstion to Christianity I can fully understand the need to respond to this strange and rebellious and self-sacrificing God-become-a-man, to take up the cross, to walk in a 2000 year tradition that has its book, its churches, its liturgy, its mysteries, its mysticism. That Christianity provides better trodden and more accessible ways to deeper truths than we find in modern Paganism and Polytheism as we have little over fifty years of development (if one claims Wicca and Pagan Druidry as points of origin).

Although I feel this impulse Christianity is not for me and the Christian God and his son/incarnation, Jesus, are not my God(s). I belong heart and soul to Gwyn.

As a polytheist nun who recently founded an online polytheistic monastery, the Monastery of Annwn, (of which Gwyn is the patron) I wish whole heartedly we had longer and more explicitly sacred texts than the fragmentary material from medieval Welsh literature, longstanding prayers and rites, systems of meditation, moreover physical monasteries. But we don’t. So our small group is having to make things up as we go along – sharing and co-writing prayers, joining together in meditation, discussing our experiences, putting together rituals. Our deeper truths too are there. We’re touching on mysteries and finding our mysticism. I believe this can be done just as well in Polytheism as in Christianity with a little patience.

I find it interesting to note the cross over between the impulses towards a rewilding of Christianity with the likes of Shaw and Kingsnorth and the call for more depth and discipline within Paganism and Polytheism with the Polytheistic Monastic movement.

Introducing the Boy in the Serpent Skins

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Who would go
with the boy in the serpent skins
draped over one shoulder fastened with a bone pin

to the world of dead dragons at the bottom of the Otherworld?

Who would go with him clambering over the corpses where his hands
and feet are always bloody because the aftermath of the battle is endless?

Who would follow him down the trails of the scales of dead serpents
to where they have sloughed off their skins, one, then another?

Who would face what lies beneath, the glistening organs,
the hearts, the lungs, the livers hung up in caves,
the bowels woven into a pattern on a loom,
the heart strings strung on a harp?

Who would walk amongst those who took the pickings?

Who would run ragged through the caves of a hundred claws?

Who would refuse to admit defeat to the jaws that hang on the walls?

Who would take off all their masks and skins and expose not only raw flesh
and organs but what lies underneath
and hope it is a soul?

~

Vindos/Gwyn ap Nudd first appeared to me as the Boy in the Serpent Skins during some journeywork I was doing to find out more about his boyhood as part of the process of writing my novel-in-progress In the Deep.

The book begins in Annwn, ‘the Deep’, prior to the creation of the world. After his Dragon Mother is slain by the Children of the Stars and he is flung into and escapes the Abyss, the boy finds himself alone except for the corpses and ghosts of dead dragons and the devouring serpents who lie beneath. 

Over the past six months I have been journeying with him to find out more about this phase in his life and how it has been shaped by the challenges of the serpents and his descent and initiation into their savage and visceral culture. This has provided the raw material for a good part of the story of In the Deep.

In the image beneath he is pictured as he appears to me with grey skin, white hair and a white jewel in his forehead*, wearing white serpent skins fastened with a bone pin. He has seven fingers and toes with claws.** He carries a handful of white dragon jewels in his right hand and in the left a serpent’s tooth. Above him are the four winged ghost serpents with whom he forms a bond and come to serve him as his messengers – Tero, Goro, Fero and Kilya.

*I had thought this was an appearance unique to me until by coincidence I was re-reading Pagan Celtic Britain by Anne Ross and came across an image of a bronze head with a jewel in its forehead from Furness, Lancashire, not far from me!

**This is not unknown in Celtic mythology. In The Tain Cu Chullain is described thus – ‘Each foot had seven toes and each hand seven fingers, the nails with the grip of a hawk’s claw or a gryphon’s clench.’ Cu Chullain’s former name was Setanta and he might have been known in northern Britain as Setantios, a possible deity of the Setantii tribe here in Lancashire. 

You can support my work in return for exclusive excerpts from In the Deep HERE.

Prayer Beads of Annwn

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As a gift for my dedication as a nun of Annwn my friend Aurora J Stone made me some prayer beads. Crafted in the colours of Annwn from howlite (white), carnelian (red) and onyx (black) and the smaller ones from bone they include animals and symbols I associate with my patron God, Gwyn ap Nudd – a horse, a hound, an owl, a raven, a star, a spiral and the Awen. They are the most beautiful and meaningful gift I have ever been given.

When I received the beads earlier in January I was unsure what to do with them. I learnt that in the Christian tradition the person praying starts with the charm (the Awen) and the nearby symbols then moves onto the central bead, which is the invitation to prayer. There are then set prayers to be recited with the beads moving around in a clockwise direction from start to finish.

As we don’t have a set way of praying with beads or a body of prayers for Gwyn and the deities of Annwn in the Brythonic tradition I created my own by listening to the beads and for what came through from Gwyn and from the Awen. They are written below. The words in bold represent a bead or a symbol and can work as a pause for deeper meditation.

Prayer Beads of Annwn

Dedicated to Gwyn ap Nudd and the Mysteries of Annwn

The Awen: Annuvian Awen prayer*

Your Star: the first to shine and the last to die**

Your Spiral: I walk with You from beginning to end

~

Invitation:

Gwyn ap Nudd, White Son of Mist
by this white bead of howlite,
I respond to Your call 
to prayer –
let it be a doorway
to Your deep mysteries,
a gateway to the depths of Annwn.

~

Your Hound: the opening howl

~

Black is for dark,
for the darkness of Annwn,
for the Cauldron of Pen Annwn,
for the womb of Old Mother Universe.
For the primordial material and the black dragon,
for the chaos and terror before the birth of stars and worlds.

~

Your Owl: wisdom in madness

~

White is for spirit,
for the spirits of Annwn,
for the horses and hounds of Your Hunt,
for the fury held in Your kingdom and in You,
for all souls gathered at the end of time,
for the divine breath uniting all.

~

Your Raven: croaks over gore

~

Red is for blood,
for the heartbeat of Annwn,
for the heart of Your Kingdom and the berries of the yew,
for the river of blood uniting us with our ancestors,
for our sacrifices and our eternal battles.

~

Your Horse: carries me home

*I wrote this in English and fellow awenydd Greg Hill translated it into Welsh HERE.
**This echoes a poem for Gwyn called ‘For the First Star’ by another fellow awenydd and Gwyn devotee Thornsilver Hollysong HERE.

Ten Year Anniversary of Dedication to Gwyn ap Nudd – from Glastonbury Tor to Beyond the Expected

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Glastonbury Tor

On star circled tor You stand lawless vigil.
Tower swallows cloud in Your endless waiting.
Years I have run the edges of Your world
Yet quietly my destruction You disdain.
Call to the stars shining out the full moon,
One blast of Your horn draws my soul back home.
In Your sublunar shrine springs from Annwn
Pour a cauldron of infinite wisdom.
Daughters of Avalon dance at its ridge.
Their shadows twist to the roaring song.
I see You, White Keeper of Time and Mist,
Watching patiently beyond mortal bonds.
The moment rings clear as Your guidance sure:
Let the words be spoke and the path be walked.

Hail Gwyn ap Nudd, King of Spirits! (January 26th 2013)

I wrote this sonnet ten years ago following my initial dedication to my patron God, Gwyn ap Nudd, at the White Spring beneath Glastonbury Tor. It was a magical and transformative moment and has changed and shaped my life.

My service to him as his awenydd ‘person inspired’ has gifted me with meaning and purpose beyond the rules and norms of this world. I’ve written three books for Him and the other Gods and Goddesses of ancient Britain and the spirits of the land along with countless poems, stories, and articles.

My relationship with Him continues to lead ever deeper into Annwn and into His mysteries. To getting to know myself better and more wonderfully to know Him. Most recently it has led to me becoming a nun of Annwn.

To mark the occasion my friend Aurora J Stone* made me some prayer beads. They are the colours of Annwn – howlite (white), carnelian (red) and onyx (black) and feature animals and symbols I associate with Gwyn. A hound, a horse, an owl, a raven, a spiral and a star. Aurora lives near Wells and very kindly laid them out on Glastonbury Tor to pick up some of its energy and sent some leaves and twigs from the tor when she posted the package. Receiving them around this time felt symbolic of the completion of a ten year journey.

Last night I journeyed with Gwyn to see what lies ahead. I can’t disclose what He showed me yet but His main message was that I must go ‘beyond the expected’.

This spoke to my fears about my series of books focusing on Gwyn’s story from origins to end being less accessible to my existing audience because they go beyond known Brythonic lore into personal gnosis and the realms of fiction. His words reassured me that this is exactly what I need to do. It also seemed meaningful that I recalled it was on my initial dedication day He appeared to me as a black dragon and that deciphering how Gwyn ‘White’ takes this form is one of the mysteries behind me writing these books.

I cannot guess what the next ten years might hold but ‘beyond the expected’ sounds like an exciting prospect.

*You can find Aurora’s writing online at ‘Grey Bear in the Middle’ HERE.

What Ails Me?

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‘Hail is cold grain
and showers of sleet
and sickness of serpents.’
– Hagalaz (rune)

I.
I come to You
my mind a wasteland,
the poles, the solstices of my world
out of kilter and something awakening beneath the ice

to ask the somewhat selfish question – “What ails me, my Lord?”

It echoes down through the centuries reminding You of Your father’s wound
and the wound You suffer every year battling against Your rival,

the wound to my navel after my dedication to You,
the pit of snakes in my belly button,

the heroes flung into it,
sucked dry. 

II.
“What ails me, my Lord?”

I’m back at high school again
with serpents twining around my chair legs,

staring down into the depths of the ink well I never used.

I’m chewing my pen, ink is dripping from the side of my mouth,
from my finger tips and I’m raising my hand
to ask for more paper, bleeding words,

rising to the challenge of the exam,

exulting in the quiet of the other pupils,
this scratching of pens the one thing I can succeed in.

III.
“What ails me, my Lord?”

I think of the serpents who twist around my arms
and sit deep in my belly and I wish I could tie around my ankles
to hang like You over the Abyss to gain the wisdom that explains this…

the way by lack of courage or confidence I am always climbing
the first three rungs on my ladder and then falling
back down into my pit of snakes.

IV.
“What ails me, my Lord?”

I’m back at the surgery again
and the nurse is wondering if I’m dead,
tapping my veins, trying to awaken them to life.

I’m explaining the junctions and showing which ones work.

Where blue flows to red and is tested then
incinerated by the fiery serpents.

V.
“What ails me, my Lord?”

My beast looks too much like an ink spodge test,

then I see my father splattered on the settee like a murder victim
from a third rate horror movie doing nothing as always.

I cannot find his wound or his serpents.

Instead I sink into mine and awaken them again,
the wounds made by all the surgeons, all the psychiatrists

by all the snakes fighting back, by all the horror movies and I hear

Your laughter, Your divine laughter, in my veins like poetry,
not the canned laughter of the television
he sits in front of.

VI.
“By asking the question you have opened the door.

Although all our blood and poetic truths
cannot save the world or heal
our ailments

by this opening
your serpents might return
to health and an answer might come through.”

*This poem is addressed to my patron God, Gwyn ap Nudd.

I wrote this poem last year. It is based on drawing the Hagalaz rune at one of the Way of the Buzzard journey circles over four years ago. I had a powerful experience that led me to investigating ‘the sickness of serpents’ not only in the Norse but the Brythonic traditions. It lies behind my series of books in which I explore the relationship between Vindos/Gwyn and the serpents of Annwn. The poem references gnosis received whilst writing these stories.

There is also an allusion to a series of blood tests I had last year relating to slightly raised liver function levels. Two ended up as four as on one occasion they did the wrong test and on another my blood coagulated in transit. It made me start wondering ‘does something want my blood?’ 

At the time I was writing about the conflicts in Annwn between the red and white serpents. As an answer, when I was sitting in the waiting room, on the white board a young girl had drawn a tower block with a huge winged serpent towering over it, which she was colouring it in red. I found out, after testing, blood gets incinerated and received the answer ‘the fiery serpents’. 

One of the results of the blood tests was that I have low iron levels. I have felt a lot better since eating more red meat particulary liver (sympathetic magic?) and believe this was behind me feeling tired and low most afternoons.

The final check relating to my raised liver functions is an ultrasound this Thursday so I will finally find out ‘what ails me’ (physically at least). If I do have minor liver damage it likely relates to having used alcohol to self-medicate the anxiety that comes from my autism since my late teens. I only started addressing this after making my lifelong dedication to Gwyn in 2019.

XII. Your Death

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Day Twelve of Twelve Days of Devotion to Gwyn ap Nudd

I come this twelfth day
to consider Your death.

How I have seen You die
so many times yet that

You should die forever
is unthinkable, unbearable…

For when You have gathered
the last stars at time’s end

there will be no tears left,
no-one left to cry them,

and who would gather the
soul of the Gatherer of Souls?

XI. Your Cauldron

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Day Eleven of Twelve Days of Devotion to Gwyn ap Nudd

I come this eleventh day
to consider Your cauldron
and how it will not boil
a coward’s food.

“Why, then,” I ask,
“do You allow me to eat from it
when so many times I have failed
to live up to the demands of the world,
to match up to its worthy warriors and bards?”

You tell me that I “lack not courage but confidence”
and remind me that everything I believe in I have done –

I have stood and recited poems for You before
a world that once derided You as a devil
and now derides only those who
dare speak openly about
their religion in public.

I have climbed mountains,
run half marathons,
forded a river
in leaking waders.
Ascended Glastonbury Tor
in torrential rain in the dead of night
to gift to You the first book I ever published.

I have stood before Your cauldron made my dedication to You.

I have fled the world, but I have not fled from You, my God.

I pray that You, Your cauldron, will grant me
the courage to face my fears.

X. Your Kingdom

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Day Ten of Twelve Days of Devotion to Gwyn ap Nudd

I come this tenth day
to consider Your kingdom.

What is a kingdom?
What is a king?

Is it a matter of inheritance
or something within?

The devils
who God was said
to put in You to prevent
the destruction of the world?

The spirits and monsters of Annwn
whose fury You contain within Your realm,
in whose nature You partake and who are part of You?

You are a ruler, You are a leader, You are many,
one of them too, yes, they, themselves…

You rule an other kind of kingdom.
You are an other kind of king.

Like all good kings
You and Your land are one –
both Gwynfa and Gwyn,
King and Annwn.

IX. Your Doors

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Day Nine of Twelve Days of Devotion to Gwyn ap Nudd

On this ninth day
I consider Your doors.

How they are without number
yet You can name every one of them.

How I searched for Your doors
but could not find them
until I stopped
looking

and You
opened a door
and galloped through.

Since then I have known
all manner of doors in many places –
seen and unseen, in caves, springs, trees, walls,
holes in the sky, hell holes, gates guarded by fierce hounds

yet I have found the best of doors
is always an open heart.