‘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.