Tag: Inspired Ones of the North

A Cup For You

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Orddu, ‘Very Black’, 
Last Witch of Pennant Gofid,
the Valley of Grief where the grief-crows
still flock over your bones.

A cup for you 
for the first time
in 1500 years poured.

Even if I offered a cup a day 
it would not make up for
Arthur’s draining of your blood.

I have bled enough 
and the time has come
to be strong in my heart –
I will not fall to Arthur’s sword.

I will pour a cup for you,
Orddu, Orwen, Ogddu…
for all your ancestors 
back to Eira, ‘Snow’.

I will restore the tradition
of the Inspired Ones of the North.

The Voice of the Dark Cave

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I.
You are not perfect
distant daughter of mine

and life is filled with lumps
and bumps and knots and cracks.

There will always be problems.
You will learn to solve them.

There will always be pain.
You will learn to heal.

That is the secret of our art –
of the inspired one and the witch.

II.
There is a cauldron in the cave
and a vision in the cauldron,

the lining of the womb
of Old Mother of Universe

and this is the Web of Fate.
You are the needle travelling

in and out of the weft of time
to re-weave the tapestry.

III.
You are not perfect
distant daughter of mine

and life is filled with perils
worse than the monsters of Annwn.

One-eyed giants, eyeless, blind.
You will learn not only to face

but to help these things
that should not have been made –

to help them return to the dark
of the Old Mother’s womb.

IV.
A universe is in the cauldron
and the cauldron is in you

kindled by the breath
of ninefold wise women,

by wisdom of the ancestors.
In it our visions boil and brew.

Be a strong vessel distant child
so this old world can be born anew.

These words were received from Ogddu on a spirit journey to the Cave of the Ancestors this morning. I believe Ogddu to be the mother of Orwen and grandmother of Orddu. Her name derives from ogof ddu ‘black cave’ and one of her epithets is ‘the Voice of the Dark Cave’. Receiving this poem from her confirmed that my choice to walk Orddu’s path and to begin working more deeply with this lineage of Inspired Ones of the North (who I perceive to be spiritual ancestors rather than blood ancestors) is the right one.