A poetry collection charting the story of a personal alchemy and learning how to love based around my sacred marriage to my patron God, Gwyn ap Nudd, as Sister Patience of the Heart of Annwn.
Published posthumously as a way of saying a final goodbye to Sister Patience at summer’s end HERE.
‘Gwyn ap Nudd, helper of hosts,
Armies fall before the hooves of your horse
As swiftly as cut reeds to the ground.’
~ ‘The Conversation of Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwyddno Garanhir’
So far it’s been a grim month. Grey skies. Heavy rain. Storms.
The scythe of the Reaper has been swinging, chopping, cutting. The cut reeds have been falling swiftly. The huge round hooves of His horse, of the horses of Annwn have been trampling them into the rain-soaked ground.
Sister Patience, chop, cut, gone. The Monastery of Annwn, chop, cut, gone. My dream of living the rest of my life as a nun of Annwn, chop, cut, gone.
It’s happened so suddenly. Yesterday I spent a moment, like waking in the morning after a night I’d self-harmed, in shock, thinking what have I done?
Yet this was not the work of my blade but the Reaper’s blade…
Gwyn was there to reassure me, His hand on my shoulder (slightly bony) letting me know that it was for the best, that dying reeds have got to fall.
I could see the monastery was dying but Sister Patience felt alive to me.
“Sometimes you don’t know you’re dying until it’s too late.”
I trust His wisdom in taking a part of me – a sacrifice to save the whole.
What now? I stare down at crushed reeds in the muddy churned-up ground, attempting to scry a message from the mess of my life – the mash of criss-crossed stalks and the rain-filled half moons of the hoofprints spilling into pools.
There’s always been an obvious road that I’ve never managed to take. Write that much-needed book on Brythonic polytheism or Brythonic shamanism. Write some how-tos on how to meet the Brythonic Gods. It’s always been blocked. That dark hooded figure with His scythe in the way.
“That is not your work,” he slides a whetstone along the curved blade. “I want you to write the words that cut to the truth, that hurt, that have edge.”
I see I’ll always be an edge person. Not salesy enough to sell. Not humble or practial enough to crawl away from the blogosphere and get a proper job. Suburban in the sense of lower down rather than rows of identical houses with cut lawns (although I live in one). Far too English to be properly Brythonic.
I’ll never be able to say, “Look at my bright shiny life you can have this too!”
Yet, in giving voice to uncomfortable edges, to exploring the messier, lesser-spoken side of relationship with Gods and spirits I feel I have a place as a writer and guide.
A place of cut and trampled reeds, muddy waters, dark hooves, forever shadowed by the Reaper’s hooded form and His skeletal touch.
I.
I didn’t make a very good nun. The Dark Magician mocked me when I told him I was going to be a holy woman. I think he knew I did it to escape my name.
“Loo-nar,” they called me at school. Somehow they knew I’d be a loner. Loony. Pulled and pushed, against my will, by the tides of the moon.
How I wanted to get rid of that name. How I wanted to get rid of my memories: of how it was spoken with mockery, of how it was used by my parents and teachers to order me about as if they were magicians summoning and ordering a spirit, of how lovers I couldn’t satisfy spoke it.
I think I preferred ‘pig’ even in the mouths of the bullies and those who spoke it more jokingly because I snaffled up the leftovers using a hatred of food waste as an excuse because I couldn’t control my hunger when I was drunk.
And ‘Smithers’ was far too English for someone who worshipped a Welsh God.
To escape her lowliness, upon the calling of the Gods, Lorna Smithers tried to make a name for herself; standing on a stage in the centre of the Flag Market in Preston, in cafés, in pubs; posting on social media.
It was all too much – she vanished into the land and reappeared as Sister Patience.
II.
Sister Patience sprung up like a mushroom from an invisible mycelial network. Nuns of Annwn and Fruits of Annwn are similar things. They appear with birch trees – a pioneer species. Neither lasts for long. But they both prepare the way for future dreams, strange and hallucinatory, then they disappear.
III.
What can I say of monastic life? I might have learnt to play the Heartbeat of Annwn but did I live truly live in alignment with it? Was I truly alive?
Or did I just obsess about how well I did with giving up things?
I battled with food, alcohol, exercise, emails, blogging, books, all my addictions…
And some of them I conquered and some of those things I could not give up.
Exercise – the gym. The satisfaction of shifting more than my body weight on the leg press, getting one more rep in on my barbell bench press without dropping the bar on myself, removing another 2.3kg towards an unassisted pull-up.
Food – Gods damnit, I love food. I managed to eliminate all added sugar. I weaned down to oats, fish, meat, cheese, eggs, multicoloured fruit and veg – to what my body, my gut, spoke it truly needed. But could I fast for a day or even or a half day? No.
I came to realise that, as an active person, fasting is not my ascesis. I was not destined, like the saints, the boddhisatvas, the gurus, to be like a bee or a hummingbird, living lightly, drifting that way into inebriation.
I had too much guilt to carry. Like my running shoes. Deceivingly light. My final confession. Brooks Ghosts, women’s size 7.5, every 500 miles. Now I’m not running so much, I’ve cut down, but I still get my steps in on the treadmill, the elliptical, the stairstepper…
“Ghosts on your feet, my beloved,” the King of Annwn speaks with irony, hinting at the petroleum-based materials taken from the Underworld.
Yet, the original meaning of ascesis related to athleticism. Maybe I can be redeemed?
IV.
And what of those other athleticisms of monks and nuns for which they are revered? Of prayer and meditation? In my experiments, did I fail or succeed?
Unfortunately, there are few words to describe the silence that one enters into in deep prayer or deep meditation, but there were times I got there.
Instead, I might tell you of a rather guilty and hubristic dream in which Sister Patience and Saint Theresa of Ávila were both the recipients of offerings beside a pool in a woodland grove. Afterwards, they ran ecstatically, barefoot, in their habits, into the woodland, and I never saw them again.
Once, in the silences between chanting Om, I gained a sense of Absolute Consciousness. Was this Brahman, Bhairava, Shiva? Was Gwyn the equivalent in our Brythonic tradition? I have no answers.
The Christian tradition of kenosis, ‘self-emptying’, in order to be filled with the divine, relates to the shamanic concept of the ‘hollow bone’, to being an empty cauldron or vessel in the Brythonic tradition and still intrigues me.
I gained access to the witness part of oneself, which features in Eastern and Western traditions and is summarised in the Camoldolese rule: ‘Sit in your cell as in paradise. Put the whole world behind you and forget it. Watch your thoughts like a good fisherman watching for fish.’ In my personal mythos, this relates to Gwyn’s father, Nodens / Nudd ‘the Fisher King,’ to the patient Heron.
V.
I wasn’t a very good nun. I had no prospects of being a saint. Yet the insights I gained will be carried with me into being a good devotee of Vindos / Gwyn. Into being a good shamanic practitioner. I’m hoping that, in the future, the impulse to be holy will be tempered by the impulse to be human, and this will help me to serve my Gods and others better through my writing and shamanic work.
With the Monastery of Annwn, I took vows of simplicity and sustainability. I simplified my wardrobe, cutting it down to three sets of winter clothes, three sets of summer clothes, a couple of things for in between, and gym kit. All but my fleeces, coats, and waterproofs fit into my great-grandmother’s chest of drawers. I never buy clothes or shoes unless I need them. I once had altars to many Brythonic gods and various spirits, but as they were little used (the only thing worse than no altar is a neglected one), I rearranged them to reflect my near-henotheistic devotion to my patron God, Gwyn ap Nudd. I walk or cycle within my limitations as someone with knee issues and a cheap bike (after my last one was stolen), and do my best to buy local or at least British food.
Solitude has always come naturally to me. I love being alone (with my Gods), and only the call of the awen or the fulfilment of my shamanic vocation can happily draw me out of this state. Silence has been one of the greatest blessings. As an autistic person, exterior quiet has long been essential for me, but it’s only since exploring Eastern methods of meditation and Christian methods of prayer that I have managed, on occasion, to attain the inner silence needed to truly listen to the Gods.
I’ve lived in the same house in Penwortham pretty much since I was four years old, so stability really accords with me. Increasingly, I have no desire to travel. I’m happier and happier deepening my relationship with my home, garden, local valley, and walking and cycling in the local area.
When I learnt I must give up the name Sister Patience, I feared her sanctuary would have to go with her. I was saddened to think of the departure of its spirit. Yet Gwyn came along and asked that I dedicate it to Him by His older name Vindos. I was absolutely delighted. It felt so right (although I had a sneaking feeling that He might have been planning for this all along…).
Another word, which I can’t include as it doesn’t begin with an ‘s’ but does have ‘s’s’ in it, and forms the spiritual core of all the ‘s’s’ is godspouse. It was as Sister Patience I married Gwyn, as a nun of Annwn, similarly to a Bride of Christ. I’m glad to say that we’re still happily wed and our relationship will live on. In retrospect I guess it makes sense that a year after we get married He moves in!
Beneath is an image from the cover of a poetry book about our marriage called ‘The Heart of Annwn’ that I wrote for Gwyn and was planning to offer to Him when I retook my temporary monastic vows this year. The book wasn’t quite good enough and the vows will not be made, but I’m hoping I might one day rework it. For now, here is the image I was planning to use as cover art.
Letting go of my identity as Sister Patience has been somewhat of a relief. In many ways I felt like I was living a double life. I had to keep my birth name, Lorna Smithers, for financial purposes and appointments such as the doctor and dentist. Although my mum accepted my name change, my dad refused to (although he has recently started referring to me as ‘her’ rather than ‘Lorna’ to escape my admonishments). Other family members ignored my request. Whilst I felt comfortable telling my friends and personal trainer at the gym, I never found the right moment to tell my doctor, dentist, physio, hairdresser or former colleagues at the supermarket where I worked and still shop. It was a nightmare managing two email addresses (when you’re autistic and every single message has to be replied to, removed from the inbox and filed correctly before you can relax, one is more than enough!).
I also felt like I was trying to live up to an ideal I couldn’t match. No amount of positive affirmations or metta ‘loving kindness’ or tonglen ‘giving and receiving’ practice made me as patient and kind as I wanted to be. I’d think I was improving then have another blow up with my dad and be doubly angry with myself because it demonstrated he was right – that I’m not Sister Patience.
Yet without Sister Patience who am I? Settling back into the skin of Lorna Smithers has felt rawer and truer but hasn’t been a wholly comfortable experience. I’ve once again had to confront my past – something that from the perspective of modern society looks like a series of failures (failed philosopher, failed poet, failed author, failed nun…) but from an alternative one might look an authentic spiritual journey well lived.
And, of course, the definition of ‘failure’ is subjective. I might have failed to be an author in terms of making a living from it but I’ve still had books and articles published and received small payments along the way whether they are from book sales, Patreon support, or free subscriptions to magazines. So I can still claim to be an author. I’m also succeeding with my shamanic practitioner training and shamanic guidance and healing sessions along with running circles so can also claim to be a shamanic guide.
In my last couple of posts I’ve mentioned that I recently received the gnosis that I’m more of a hermit than a nun. I feel that’s true in my soul but it doesn’t match my outer reality yet – I still live with my parents and do not make enough money to cover my food and board let alone to live self-sufficiently. One of my readers, Caer, recently signposted me to a book called Consider the Ravens and therein it noted that any true hermit wouldn’t advertise themselves as such. There’s a dichotomy between being an author and shamanic guide who has to market themselves online and a hermit. There’s also a restless feeling I have unfinished business in the world. So, whilst hermithood is an inner reality and dream for the future, it isn’t something I can identify with wholly at present.
Author, shamanic guide, would-be-hermit, are the roles I now identify with, along with my devotion to my patron God, Gwyn ap Nudd, which has been ongoing throughout these upheavals (thinking about it, damn Him, He’s the one who has caused all of them!).
Being Sister Patience has made me a little stronger, a little kinder, a little more patient, likely in preparation for further challenges and tumult along the way…
The wind is blowing. The Reaper is busy with His scythe. After my insights about being more of a hermit than a nun a whisper on the wind, ‘Sister Patience must die.’ Three years ago I took temporary vows by this name as a nun of Annwn and, as the time comes to renew them approaches, I realise I will not be taking them again this year. Instead I must surrender this name, this identity, disrobing over the next few weeks, then giving it entirely back to Gwyn, from whom it came, on His feast day on September the 29th. I have learned many lessons and received many blessings from this name. Hopefully some of the virtues of Sister Patience will live on as I return to my birth name and continue to serve Gwyn as a hermit and shamanic practitioner.
A new moon. More change. I’m sitting, meditating in this space I consecrated to Gwyn ap Nudd and the deities of Annwn as a cell of the Monastery of Annwn, being guided to focus on my breath, my here-ness. On the process of becoming Sister Patience as I approach taking my temporary vows as a nun of Annwn. And I realise this virtual space, re-named Orddu’s Cave, isn’t reflecting this place or who I am.
I changed the name of this blog several weeks ago for a few different reasons. The title ‘From Peneverdant’ was no longer working for me as I live a good mile and a half from ‘the Green Hill on the Water’ after which my hometown is named. Away from the river Ribble, up Fish House Brook, through Greencroft Valley, close to its source on the edge of where Penwortham Moss was drained off. In the Kingsfold Ward very close to the once notorious estate known as ‘the Beirut of Preston’.
It was no longer reflecting my monastic turn, to the turning of my attention to tending this sacred space, the cauldron of inspiration within and without, our garden, continuing to volunteer in Greencroft Valley.
The tagline ‘In Service to the Old Gods of Britain’ was no longer working as my path was becoming increasingly henotheistic, centred on Gwyn, whilst continuing to honour His family and the spirits of Annwn and my local deities.
I felt a calling to reconnect with Orddu and her ancestors – the lineage of witches who lived in a cave in Pennant Gofid, ‘the Valley of Grief’, in an unknown location in the Old North. I found analogies between their cave-dwelling and my own retreat to my monastic cell yet ‘Orddu’s Cave’ began to feel too distant.
I now feel much happier with ‘The Cell of Sister Patience’ reflecting where I am and who I am.
I.
A small person
in a small room in a small suburb
looks up at her God riding dark and holy,
immense and terrifying through Van Gogh’s starry night
demanding that she become a creature of paradox closer to Him.
His hounds howl, His owls screech, His ravens scream,
yet His silence is what opens the skies
and cracks the earth of
her small place.
II.
She walks with Him
where monks once walked –
‘Monks Walk,’ ‘Castle Walk’, ‘Tower View’,
where the monastery once stood near Castle Hill,
tracing the labyrinth of the roads and houses instead,
Church Avenue from which the Fairy Funeral
was banished to Fairy Lane where
stands the leaning yew.
III.
He takes her
to visit the Oldest Animals of Peneverdant –
the tawny owl who speaks of the silence before owl time,
the hidden newt, the shapeshifting otter, the tickled brown trout
reminding her of laughter the sacred in all,
the common darter living out
her last days.
IV.
At the spring
which dried up long ago
but runs again for this night
He takes out her eyes, rinses them
clean and grants to her the gift of clear sight.
He takes out her tongue, drenches it in mead, makes it a scroll
of ancient vellum written in giant’s letters in a typeset
known only to monks and nuns of Annwn.
She translates it into nine vows.
V.
The next morning,
at sunrise, at moonrise,
when the Hunter is gone from the night skies
the three stars of his belt continue to shine in her eyes.
She consecrates her room as a monastic cell
and speaks to Him her vows
as a nun of Annwn,
seals her awen.
*This poem depicts experiences in the lead up to and upon my taking my nine vows as a nun within the Monastery of Annwn on this morning’s new moon. The God referred to is my patron, Gwyn ap Nudd, a ruler of Annwn.
I.
It started as a joke.
I can’t remember exactly when. It might have been around this last time last year. I was being characteristically irascible, rash, impatient, none of the qualities that you’d associate with being a nun.
“Sister Patience,” I heard the mocking voice of my patron god, Gwyn.
It irked me, but it also awoke and called to something deep within.
Rising to his challenge, “I will be Sister Patience,” I told him.
And that was how Sister Patience came to be.
II.
She came into my life as an alter ego at first, as I struggled through my traineeship with the Lancashire Wildlife Trust on the Manchester Mosslands, helping me shape and find respite in the sanctuary of Creiddylad’s Garden.
I wrote this poem about her last summer:
The Sanctuary of Sister Patience
Weeks of weeding
are fundamental to the path,
to the wedding of him and her and him –
Gwyn and Creiddylad and Gwythyr.
When Summer’s King vaults over the wall
all the flowers turn their heads towards him, as if to a beam of light.
All the plants need the light and dark reaction to photosynthesise and this is written on her habit in an obscure symbol on one of her voluminous cuffs.
He who stole the light of Bel and Belisama and gave it to mankind…
When he arrives in her garden it is yestereve, yesteryear,
and all the flowers are gloaming and he longs
to know what lies beneath her cowl
for her eyes are two moons
that will shine
upon a future world that will never stop flowering with its own weathernarium…
He is all heat and fire and flame
and she is patience…
in Annwn, in the soil, in the mycorrhizae,
in the roots, in the shoots, in the leaves, in the flowers, turning
towards the light and these are the mysteries –
the poetry of nature not
of the bardic seat.
Like the ranunculi
are the wanderings of
the wild nuns knowing no order –
their names a mixing of Latin, Greek,
Norse, Anglo-Saxon, Welsh, common and binomial.
This I was taught by the comfrey I bought
when I was first learning to ‘do magic’,
which worked its magic here,
filling my garden with purple flowers,
smelling soothing as the healing of bones,
one of the favourites of Old Mother Universe.
She loves the first one or two tiny cotyledons
of every plant reaching for the light not knowing their origins.
She carries the seeds of all the worlds in the brown paper envelopes
in her pockets rustling when she walks, so carefully labelled
in the language of Old Mother Universe only she knows –
the names, the dates, the places, so distant…
With them she will build her sanctuary
beyond the trowelling
of my pulse.
III.
Since then, slowly, imperceptibly, the miles between us have closed.
I’ve been patient. I’ve completed my traineeship. I’ve moved on into a new job as a graduate ecologist in which I’ve been faced with a whole new set of challenges. Not only learning to carry out new surveys but a whole new skillset on the admin side – providing quotes, carrying out desktop studies, writing reports, learning to see a job through from beginning to end.
It’s been a steep learning curve and not without its ups and downs. As an autistic person who likes routine and staying close to home I have struggled with travelling long distances to new places and, in particular, with night work.
One of the surveys is monitoring great created newt and wider amphibian populations as part of mitigation schemes on developments. This involves arriving before sunset to set bottle traps, waiting until after sunset to survey for newts by torchlight (as they’re active after dark), then returning early in the morning to empty the bottle traps. This work can only be done in the company of an experienced licence holder who is qualified to handle the newts.
It’s fascinating work and it is a privilege to see these beautiful creatures up close. It’s also a shake-up to my routine, most days get up at 4.30am to do my devotions, meditate, study, and go to the gym or run before cycling to work for 9am, finishing at 5pm, eating, winding down, and being asleep by 8.30pm.
I’ve been lucky to be part of a team who are not only incredibly knowledgeable and experienced, but also supportive and mental health aware. I’ve been able to be open with them about my autism and the anxiety that stems from it from the start. For now, my manager has allowed me to start no earlier than 8am, so that I have time for spirituality and exercise, which are both essential for my mental health, and to do only one night a week.
They have been patient with me and, although I’ve felt like I’ve been slow, looking back, over just a month and a half I have learnt a huge suite of new skills, from assessing habitats and writing species lists on Preliminary Ecological Assessments, wading up rivers looking for otter spraints and prints, investigating buildings for signs of bats, to mastering the routine admin.
When I’ve been tired and shaken and overwhelmed I have walked with Sister Patience and together we have shaped her sanctuary in Creiddylad’s Garden.
IV.
I have been patient.
The garden is coming into bloom.
I have found a job where I belong and feel fulfilled.
On work days I am an ecologist and, in my own time, I am Sister Patience.
I’m hoping the two sister strands of my life will one day intertwine to become one and that this job will provide the financial grounds to shape my sanctuary and, perhaps, one day, build the Monastery of Annwn*.
*Whether this is meant to be a physical or spiritual place I don’t yet know…
The Sanctuary of Vindos 