Day Eight of Twelve Days of Devotion to Gwyn ap Nudd
On this eighth day,
I consider Your hound
and find myself staring
into the jaws of death.
His mouth is wide open,
his throat a long corridor
to Your realm – the pass
of the dog’s mouth.
His name has been translated as ‘Death’s Door’.
In passing through it we practice death,
time after time until his jaws
close forever
and there is no return.
Day Seven of Twelve Days of Devotion to Gwyn ap Nudd
On this seventh day
I consider Your horse –
Carngrwn from battle throng
and wonder why You introduce him
before You introduce Yourself
when You gather the soul
of Gwyddno Garanhir.
Is he so much a part of You,
of Your identity and of Your destiny,
leading You away by the bridle to battles
in both Thisworld and the Otherworld
You must speak his name first?
Your horse before Yourself
Your role as Gatherer of Souls?
This horse You ride must be relentless
carrying You to battles everywhere at once.
Many his round-hooves cutting reeds, churning mud,
many his fetlocked legs, many his proud heads,
many his foaming mouths chomping the bit.
You must be many too gathering souls
from here, there, everywhere, no rest, no relent.
Your horse, Your destiny, Your love and Your lament
forever living on whilst the Warriors of Britain lie dead…
The first half of 2022, for me, was characterised by a disappointing departure from a career in the environmental sector. This was because I couldn’t meet the demands of higher than trainee level jobs due to a lack of people and project management skills and struggles with irregular routine, travel, night work, multi tasking and working under high pressure due to my autism.
This left me burnt out and not so much depressed but facing a depressing reality. In spite of being academically intelligent I will always be restricted to menial day jobs. When I first got my autism diagnosis I was told it would mean I could ask for ‘reasonable adjustments’ in the workplace. However, this did not mean I would be able to stay in jobs where I did not meet all the criteria.
On the upside, my career failures led me back to my spiritual vocation as an awenydd dedicated to Gwyn ap Nudd and what I am really here to do. To where my true passion and abilities lie in my creativity as a writer and poet and journeyer of the deeper realities of thisworld and the otherworld of Annwn.
Whilst I was struggling in my ecology job I was led back by Gwyn to a writing project I began in the first lockdown in which I drafted a book called The Dragon’s Tongue, a Brythonic origins myth, drawing on other Indo-European parallels.
I’d given it up partly because the plot was incoherent and partly because a part of me didn’t want to retell our dragon and giant slaying myths, how the culture Gods have come to dominate the Gods of nature and of Annwn, even though my work was exposing the violence and hegemony by writing the otherside.
What good could come of picking at and opening old wounds when, instead, I could be out on the land, healing the earth by re-wetting and growing and planting?
These questions have remained in my mind as I have been recalled to my mythic project which is manifesting as a three part series of novel length called The Forgotten Gods. The first book, which I am currently focusing on, is called In the Deep. It is a dark and violent book. It begins in Annwn with the slaying of the Dragon Mother, Anrhuna, and the tearing of her children, Vindos and Kraideti*, from the womb by Lugus, one of the Children of Don. Kraideti is taken to the stars and Vindos is flung into the Abyss. The book focuses on His crawling out to win the kingship of Annwn, to find His lost sister and to defend His realm against and to take vengeance on his enemies.
There’s a lot of violence, there’s a lot of descent, but there is also transformation and healing for Vindos succeeds in building from the bones of dead dragons the beautiful kingdom of Annwn we know in our myths today and transforming the sorrows of the dead, who He rules over, into joy at His feast.
Kraideti has a role, with Anrhuna’s dragon children, in the creation of the world and bringing of life and discovers Her power as a Goddess of seasonal sovereignty.
I don’t know why I’ve been given these stories to work with only that I have to. Perhaps there is a process of mythic and/or psychic healing taking place or perhaps the Gods have got me writing them for their own undecipherable reasons.
I have learnt to accept that inspiration does not come with an explanation.
Philosophical ponderings aside, on a practical level, I completed my first full draft of In the Deep before my winter solstice deadline at 127,000 words and 317 pages. It is mainly prose, with interspersed poetry, and of novel length. The core plot works. It has found its form. I am now working on the second draft, expanding and developing sub plots, characters and depictions of the worlds.
Another way in which I have been fulfilling my spiritual vocation is ‘building the Monastery of Annwn’ as ‘a virtual space and place of the sanctuary for those who worship and serve the Gods and Goddesses of Annwn’. This task was assigned to me by Gwyn in April and, since then, I have set up a website and opened the monastery to members. We have formulated ‘the Rule of the Heart’ and ‘Our Nine Vows’. Four of us took the vows in October and are living as monastic devotees of Annwn. We have also started running a monthly meditation group focusing on reading Brythonic texts in a lectio divina style. Beginning with ‘The Conversation of Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwyddno Garanhir’ we have had an excellent introductory talk by translator, Greg Hill, and participants have experienced powerful and insightful meditations.
In terms of outdoor work my departure from an environmental career and commitment to monasticism has led me back to taking better care of our garden and of my local greenspace, Greencroft Valley, where I’m hoping to team up with a newly formed group called ‘Guardians of Nature’ based on the Alderfield allotment to further develop the wildflower meadow and run some local history and plant and tree identification and folklore walks.
In my spiritual practices and writing and work for the monastery I am fulfilled. I am doing what I am really here to do. And I am able to do it because I’m living off savings from my environmental work, live with my parents and receive board and food in exchange for housework and gardening, and receive a very small income from patreon supporters and from book sales.
If you would like to support my writing and receive a quartlery newsletter, exclusive excerpts from In the Deep and other rewards please consider becoming a patron HERE.
*These are ancient British names for Gwyn ap Nudd and Creiddylad. Whilst Vindos is partially attested Kraideti is partly reconstructed, partly made up.
Day Six of Twelve Days of Devotion to Gwyn ap Nudd
On this sixth day
I consider winter.
How I wrote a story about
You winning the gift of ice from an ice dragon
and holding it in the palm of your hand as a snowflake,
yet it escaped You and grew to be a monster
bringing about an Ice Age.
This year people hung snowflakes
in the houses across the road.
Days later followed an Arctic Blast
reminding we who imagine winter of its harsh realities.
The snowflake is back in Your hand – innocent,
so completely perfect in its symmetry
but I will remember how it grew
to become a monster.
Day five of Twelve Days of Devotion to Gwyn ap Nudd
This fifth day
I consider Your battle.
How Calan Mai seems far away
but already we’re both counting down
the moons, the weeks, the days.
How every year you face
fighting a battle you cannot win,
how every year you have shown up anyway
for the seasons must turn, the ford must be crossed,
from death new life won, flowers from pain.
I think with shame of the times
I have failed to show up.
There will be no more excuses this year.
Day Four of Twelve Days of Devotion to Gwyn ap Nudd
I come this fourth day
to consider Your beloved.
How, at the beginning of time
You shared a womb, hearts beating as one.
How You were torn apart, separated, found each other.
How She foresakes You for another lover every year.
How, with each separation, Your love grows stronger.
I think of how I was separated from You
and it took me thirty years to find You
although our paths crossed
and I did not recognise You in the books,
the land, my dreams, although I was searching…
I think of all the times we have been separated,
when I have been woman and/or man,
tree, plant, animal, stone, fungus and bacteria,
how my love for You has grown stronger
since the beginning of time,
the shattering of the cauldron,
since when we all shared a womb.
Day Three of Twelve Days of Devotion to Gwyn ap Nudd
On this third day
I consider Your hunt,
Your hunt for the souls of the dead
and of the living – for shapeshifting magical creatures.
How You are a hunter of soul itself appearing
like an epiphany in the soullessness
above streets and towerblocks
in the modern world,
breaking through
our isolation and depression,
awakening souls to other souls
and to the urge to hunt within us all.
How You awakened the huntress in me
and took me to places I would never have explored.
How you placed my soul in my hands changing
like a Rubix cube into countless animals
and departing as a snake.
You are a hunter of souls
and one day all souls will be gathered
in You, all the magic, all the magical creatures.
I will live until this day through many lives devoted to You.
Day Two of Twelve Days of Devotion to Gwyn ap Nudd
On this second day
I consider Your boyhood,
all the boys you have been.
The boy in the serpent skins
born to transform a land
of bones and gore
into beauty,
Your return
as a wolf cub
or a boy in wolf skins
to Your awenyddion letting us
sit You on our knees,
tell You stories.
How when
You were a babe
You never cried but howled.
There was a little of Your boy in me
when I was growing up –
I always hated dolls, played
with Thundercats and Ninja Turtles
and wrote about characters from
Streetfigher in the back
of my exercise books at school.
There are parts of me that refuse to grow up
and keep returning to the playground
where I swing over the top
of the swings
that are no longer there on Middleforth Green
knowing You will catch me
and take me to
the stars.
Day One of Twelve Days of Devotion to Gwyn ap Nudd
On this first day
I consider Your birth,
how you were torn from the womb
and flung into the Abyss,
how You were born
falling
and wonder
if I was born falling too.
For it seems I have never stopped falling,
spiralling downward through life,
never up the career ladder,
deeper into the well,
into the Deep,
into You.
I think of how we have both
crawled from the Abyss
and reclaimed our kingdoms –
Yours built out of dragon bones
and mine from words.
I have built mine for You
and welcomed You in as You
have welcomed me into Yours
and each in the other’s we
have been reborn.
For the last couple of years, as a Pagan/Polytheist alternative to the traditional ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’ (26th December – 6th January) I have been practicing twelve days of devotion to Gwyn ap Nudd, my patron God, as a Brythonic Winter King.
This year, over the twelve days, I am going to be meditating on the following aspects of His identity and mythos and writing and sharing devotional poems addressed to Him.
I. Your Birth
II. Your Boyhood
III. Your Hunt
IV. Your Beloved
V. Your Battle
VI. Winter
VII. Your Horse
VIII. Your Hound
IX. Your Doors
X. Your Kingdom
XI. Your Cauldron
XII. Your Death
If you would like to join in with this or do something similar for Gwyn or your personal Gods please feel welcome and let me know how it goes.
The Sanctuary of Vindos 