Personal – The Sanctuary of Vindos

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.

*Our primroses, after the Arctic Blast, looking like how I felt when I was burnt out*.

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.

*Our winter hellebores, flowering ‘late’ this year due to the cold snap, Creiddylad knows best…*

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.

*Hazel catkins in Greencroft Valley – a sign of new life as an old year dies and a new one begins.*

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.

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*These are ancient British names for Gwyn ap Nudd and Creiddylad. Whilst Vindos is partially attested Kraideti is partly reconstructed, partly made up.

For me the lockdown has been a safe bubble and has had a number of benefits. I’ve had the opportunity to cultivate a better relationship with my immediate reality at home, where I live with my parents. I’ve been doing more gardening and this has included food growing. We are now self-sufficient in lettuce, green vegetables, and fresh herbs. This has fitted with having more time to cook with them, to make tasty meals from scratch, my favourites being pea and mint soup and minty lamb stew.

The raspberries long ago strayed from their patch and ramble freely around the garden and they have gifted us a brilliant crop this year in spite of the rain.

I’ve had the time and space to begin repairing my mental health. I’ve struggled with anxiety all my life and, since my late teens, used alcohol as a way of self-medicating. I stopped drinking in January and, over the last few months, have completed a series of counselling sessions through the Minds Matter service.

This has resulted in me finding out that the source of my anxiety is likely having Asperger’s and that’s why I struggle with loud, noisy social situations, whether in public or online, and thrive on time alone or in quiet company, working on the land, in devotion to my gods, and nurturing my creativity.

In the place of alcohol, which obliviated my worries only temporarily, I’ve developed some worry management strategies. This has included keeping a worry diary and assessing whether a worry is practical or hypothetical. If it’s practical I have problem solving techniques to deal with it, and if hypothetical, a technique of setting it aside for a worry period so it doesn’t interfere with the rest of my day. This has made my worries seem less overwhelming thus I’m less worried about worry itself. Other small dietary changes like excluding caffeine and cane sugar have helped too.

The most major result is the realisation that my mental health limitations make it more important to focus on my gift – my awen, my creativity. This has led to my next book, The Dragon’s Tongue, in which I explore a myth of origins personal to me and my deities.

From the safety of my bubble I’ve been watching the lockdown ease. The shops, the hairdressers, the pubs opening, the traffic building up. I barely ever buy clothes, decided to clip my hair off, have stopped drinking, and rarely borrow my dad’s car, preferring to walk or cycle, so this hasn’t affected me much (although the busyness of the roads has made walking and cycling more unpleasant).

Yesterday, however, my bubble finally went pop. I cycled to Brockholes Nature Reserve for the first time since its reopening for a walk. My long term plan for finding paid work that doesn’t have a negative impact on my mental health has been getting a job in conservation which involves working outside alone or in the quiet company of other staff and volunteers. I was due to begin an internship at Brockholes to gain the necessary experience before the lockdown began and it was postponed.

On arrival I was pleased to see the meadows in flower with a mixture of lady’s bedstraw, thistle, vetch, ox-eye daisies, red campion, ragged robin, bird’s foot trefoil and other wild flowers.

Yet when I walked past the office I saw and spoke to the reserve manager, who informed me there have been staffing cuts. Everything is up in the air at the moment. If I was still to take the internship there would be less work and my opportunities would be limited to ‘income projects’ with less conservation.

The prospect of finding paid work with the Lancashire Wildlife Trust or any other conservation organisation is looking bleak. As is finding employment in any sector aside from key work. The future, due to coronavirus and the environmental crisis is a great unknown, with little chance of ‘normal’, much less ‘better’.

Still, I’m going to continue with my internship and other conservation volunteering whether it leads to paid work or not as I value the work of the Wildlife Trust and it is a way of serving my land and gods.

And I’m going to pull my bubble back around myself for a while and continue to use this opportunity to ‘tend to my domain – myth, gods, and the soul’, as my deity advised this morning.