Over the past few years my Gods have been encouraging me to draw more (even though I am not very good at it) and I have been inspired by the work of Ceri Davies at Below the Wood* who has been recording spiritual experiences in words and images.
Recently when I journeyed to ask my guides how to improve my journeywork a black serpent showed me ‘I must begin a journey book’.
Up until now I have been recording my journeys in word documents on my computer and they tend to get filed away and not looked again. I guessed there is something in the old fashioned way of working with hand and pencils on paper and the time and effort this requires that honours the journey, fixes it in memory and brings its transformative potential into the world.
The first step in the process was buying the right book. This wasn’t hard. Knowing Jason Smalley has a shop** selling products based on his animistic photography of our local landscape I looked there first and immediately found the ‘Storm Raven’ journal. This fit perfectly as my patron God, Gwyn, is associated with ravens and the stormy nights of the Wild Hunt as well as the calm in the midst of the storm.
Since then I have been recording my journeys and have felt their effect more greatly in my life.
In one of my journeys behind a waterfall I discovered ‘three joys’ who appeared as three cranes to gift me ‘the dances of creation and destruction’ and ‘the standing crane’.
In a journey I narrated to my spiritual mentor I met a bear spirit who took me to witness the unfolding of a numinous vision of a dark castle in a pool with shadowy entities entering and leaving with gifts. I was told I was ‘not allowed to go in’. ‘I must stay still’ and ‘be the witness’. This was very hard as I like to do and understand things rather than simply witnessing. This has stuck with me as a lesson in the appreciation of mystery.
At the Way of the Buzzard*** Bear Necessities retreat a bear full of stars appeared to me and in a shapeshifting experience showed me how to be more grounded in my body by being aware of all my muscles and slowing down.
Drawing my journeys has not only helped imprint them in my mind but in my body and it is noticeable that I am being encouraged towards embodying insights physically and through movement practices to bring them into my life.
It’s harvest time. I’ve been gathering in the apples from our back garden. I’ve also started to take some time out to reflect on what I have harvested on a spiritual and creative level whilst, although living with my parents, spending most of my time in solitude since leaving my ecology job in August last year.
I’ve been through a lot of changes. It was a big blow realising that the limitations of my autism rendered me incapable of coping with the demands of working in either conservation or ecology due to my inability to manage projects and people, multi-task, or work flexible shifts or do night work.
Yet my patron God, Gwyn ap Nudd, gifted me with two tasks that gave me purpose and hope. The first, writing a series of books titled The King of Annwn Cycle imagining His unknown story from His birth until the end of the world. The second building the Monastery of Annwn of which He is also the patron.
For the first few months I threw myself into those tasks with utter joy and was completely absorbed in the awen working on my first book In the Deep. I took initial vows as a nun of Annwn on the new moon in October and being part of a group of monastic devotees devoted to the Annuvian Gods and Goddesses has been an ongoing source of inspiration and support.
II. Losing Hope
Yet over the winter I had a few things that derailed me. Blocks with the book after realising that due to it being a personal vision of Gwyn’s story with only subtle links to the existing myths it is unlikely to reach as wide an audience as my work that explicitly related Brythonic content to our environmental crisis.
Minor health problems. Tests around raised liver function that never came to anything. Rosacea. Runner’s knee. Then in spring, just as my knee issues were easing and the weather was getting better I went and pulled my sciatic nerve in my glute and had to reduce my running and strength training.
At this point I was also struggling with breathwork meditation. Gwyn began encouraging me to learn to focus on my breath prior to covid and has told me holding spaces of calm free of chattering thoughts is one of the most important things we can do for the world on an energetic level.
Failing to master my internal chatter alone I tried looking to Buddhism and considered going to meditation classes at a Preston’s Kadampa Buddhist Meditation Centre. To prepare I read one of the books by the Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Riposte who founded the Kadampa tradition. It led me to the realisation the path of freeing oneself from the suffering of earthly existence isn’t for me and left me feeling profoundly unspiritual so I did not go.
On top of my feelings of despair about being called to write a series of books that would never sell, dread of my savings running out and having to return to menial work, and my nerve pain, this led to me feeling ‘there is no hope left.’
The very moment this thought popped into my mind, when I was open and vulnerable, on my way home from a local walk, my nerve bothering me, I met a person who somehow knew my name and that I ran an online monastery and invited him to join and he caused trouble and had to be thrown out.
This was a big lesson on my failure to address the negative thought patterns that had got a hold on me. I’ve long been quite good at serving my Gods but terrible at taking care of my mental health and spiritual development.
I’ve served as a vessel for Their inspiration without taking care of the vessel.
III. Taking Care of the Vessel
My recovery from what I now believe to be ‘power loss’ began with a ‘power retrieval’ journey with the Way of the Buzzard Mystery School.
Therein I was given a set of ‘wolf’s teeth’ and told that I must be ‘fiercer’. This went against my preconceptions of what being a nun meant as I was striving to be humbler. Yet I took my teeth and the advice. When I reported this to Gwyn, not long before his death and departure on May Day, He told me by the time He returns at the end of August He wanted me to own them.
Shortly afterwards, on the suggestion of my personal trainer, I started practicing yoga to help with my sciatic nerve problems and with flexibility. I had never considered it before due to issues around its appropriation by westerners.
However I decided to give it a go and immediately found a Youtube channel called Breathe and Flow led by a pair of practitioners who make clear from the start the poses are just part of a wider spiritual practice and philosophy and who make the effort to incorporate breathwork and meditation into their classes.
At once I found both a physical practice to help heal my sciatic nerve pain and improve my flexibility and mobility and support with breathwork and meditation.
When I started reading up on the religious and philosophical background of yoga to my amazement I found out the Hindu God who is Lord of Yoga is Shiva and He bears similarities to Gwyn as a destroyer and transformer. They both have associations with bulls and serpents and, to my surprise and delight, Shiva’s serpent, Nandi, has a magical jewel on his forehead. In my personal gnosis Gwyn and the serpents of Annwn have similar jewels.
The images of Shiva and the meditating deity who I believe to be Gwyn on the Gundestrup Cauldron bear a striking resemblance. As I persevered with my meditation practice over the summer, although asleep, Gwyn began visiting me in spirit form, as ‘meditating Gwyn’, in the likeness of this image. As if he had been cut from the cauldron, in shining silver, to help me with my breathing. I finally found the practices I needed to take care of my vessel.
Another source of help and support has been working with a supervisor and therapist, who is also a shamanic practitioner and I was put in touch with by Nicola Smalley who co-runs the Way of the Buzzard Mystery School. This is the first time I have had a human teacher and it has taken a long while for the circumstances to come into play that have made this desirable and possible.
When we were looking into my fears around panicking/freezing/melting down when faced with unexpected difficulties, particulary in social situations, we journeyed together on it and she saw a red dragon on my shoulder breathing fire and was told by Merlin that I must learn to ‘tame the dragon’.
This unsurprisingly led ‘my red dragon’ to rebel which I gave voice to in a poem*. Yet a tarot reading revealed that what Merlin was calling for was the need not so much to tame the red dragon but to balance her energies with those of the white dragon through meditative traditions and taking responsibility.
Of course, in the Welsh myths, it is Merlin who reveals the red and white dragons battling beneath Dinas Emrys where Vortigern wants to build his fortress following their burial by Gwyn’s father, Nudd/Lludd. Amazingly my supervisor knew nothing of my connection with these myths prior to the journey.
I have begun a process of transmuting the anger of the red dragon to strength and the panic of the white dragon to calm in my yoga practice by coupling them with holding postures on either side and with alternating nostril breathing along with trying lion’s breath to release the fiery energy.
V. Unblocking the Flow
Prior to this I had considered alternative options for possible paid work – running courses and workshops or writing a book on Brythonic Polytheism as quite a few people have asked me for reliable material. However, whenever I have attempted to put something together I have met a block.
On the one hand I felt with my background in research into the Brythonic tradition and my experiential relationship with a few of the deities I was in a position from which I could deliver this. Yet I also knew my approach is highly personal and idiosyncratic and critical of the medieval Welsh texts, penned by Christian scribes, in which Gwyn and the spirits of Annwn, the witches, giants and ancient animals are demonised and repressed.
I’m not a person who could deliver the literary background formally, without opinion, without a few of the teeth and claws of the spirits of Annwn getting through.
When I entertained the idea again this year I was told by Gwyn to set it aside and ‘stop thinking about money’. Yet my feeling this might be a future obligation and potential source of income in spite of my blocks continued to persist.
I finally let go of this once and for all following a conversation with my supervisor. She advised that rather than acting from my sense of obligation and presuppositions about what the world wants and needs I should follow my inspiration, the flow of my creativity, asked where my passion really lies.
I said, “in my books”, “in Gwyn,” “in the Annuvian,” “in all He and the Otherworld represent”. She told me this is what I should focus on and write about in spite of my fears about my work not being well received or making money.
For the past year I had increasingly been struggling to create blog content based on what I think my readers want in terms of Brythonic content and poetry. My prayers and songs for Gwyn had all been from the heart but I’d had to drink alcohol to force the poetry out and I hadn’t managed to write much about the other Brythonic Gods and Goddesses in spite of my intent.
As soon as I let go of what I felt my obligations are I had two new poems come through without the aid of alcohol pretty much complete and was inspired to write a couple of pieces on my ‘forbidden pleasure’ – dark fantasy.
VI. The Dark Magician’s Door
At the time I was considering where my future prospects and obligations lie I dismissed the possibility that I might gain a larger readership for my books, which I would describe as mythic fiction containing elements of heroic and dark fantasy, by engaging more with the world of fantasy and its readers.
I flirted briefly with the idea of starting a new blog for thoughts on fantasy and reviews but decided it would be too time consuming and didn’t like the idea of having two blogs and profiles. I also got put off by the fact a lot of engagement takes place on social media and this is an absolute no-no for me. I took one look at Twitter and felt like I was staring into the pits of Hell.
I also dismissed the idea of posting fantasy content on this blog as I have tried it in the past and it hasn’t been well received. I decided there are enough people in the world talking about fantasy and not enough talking about the Brythonic Gods so I should continue to make that duty my focus.
I then had a seemingly unrelated experience that led to my giving up alcohol for good. I used alcohol to self-medicate my anxiety from my late teens until 2020 when I began giving it for periods and cutting down a lot. The habit of weekends and occasional mid-week drinking had snuck back during my difficulties with my sciatic nerve pain even though my body was rebelling against it – expunging it with night sweats and its stink in my piss and shit.
I really wanted to give it up for another long period but was having no success.
Then I had a dream in which my dark magician guide (who is a character in a fantasy novel who has been with me since I was around thirteen) showed up with a vision of planks leading up and down a wall to different doors, told me he was angry I had ‘closed his door’ and left through it.
The next morning he appeared again in my meditation, vivid as in a dream, in Annwn, beside the Abyss, with the part of myself who is addicted to alcohol, sweating, writhing, stinking of its excesses, wrapped in a white shroud. He told me it was time I gave up alcohol for good and that I must cast her in. Although this completely terrified me I went along with what he said. Afterwards I reported it to Gwyn and solemnly promised Him I would not relapse.
Knowing I would never have the comfort of alcohol again was scary at first but has proved to be a big release with the part of my mind obsessing about whether I’ll drink then feel guilty and like a failure having finally been laid to rest. It has opened a lot more space for communion with my Gods and creativity.
I forgot all about the dark magician’s door until the block allowing me only to write Brythonic content and poetry for my blog was released and I came up with new poems and the fantasy book reviews I had denied myself of writing.
I’d closed his door – the door to fantasy – and now it stands open again.
VII. Returning to Orddu’s Cave
Over this year of solitude I have harvested a good many things. I have produced a finalish draft of my first book, In the Deep, and am well on my way with the drafting of my second book, The King and Queen of Annwn. The building of the Monastery of Annwn is going well with our development of our shared practices, meditation group and first year of online rituals.
I’ve come a long way in discerning the direction of my path as an awenydd and nun of Annwn devoted Gwyn and learning to follow my inspiration.
Another important learning is that whereas in the past I forced myself out into various communities, spiritual, creative and environmental, I am happiest when I am alone or interacting with very small groups of like-minded people.
There is a lot of stigma around solitude identifying it with mental ill health. Yet, for me, and I would warrant a lot of autistic people, it is a source of well being.
This has led me back to the cave of Orddu, the Very Black Witch, an inspired one and warrior woman intimately connected to Gwyn who was slaughtered by Arthur.
I no longer see it as my duty to sing back the traditions in which the King of Annwn and his followers are demonised and killed but to join the inspired ones past and present who are perceiving new visions from the Cauldron of Inspiration, brewing them in their own vessels, birthing them in words. Owning my wolf’s teeth, my black beak and claws, all that Arthur forbids.
In my cave, my room, my monastic cell, I tend my cauldron and my awen sings.
*This is the poem recording my initial rebellion against Merlin’s words.
The Dragon on my Shoulder Breathes Fire
I. She sees the things that are unseen but are – the dragon on my shoulder breathes fire.
Not just any fire but Annwn’s fire, the type that warms the belly, implodes the head, bursts forth as poetry (on a good day) but is otherwise expressed as anger.
Anger that will not be satiated by death or by the spilling of blood.
Where do dragons come from?
II. There are fire eaters and fire breathers and those who swallow stars not to make a living but to avoid our soul’s death.
Dragon fire has been within us all along.
III. Red is danger and danger is anger with a letter d at the front.
Red and hatred have the same vibe. Red, goch, iron, the red at the earth’s core. My temper will not be tempered – my metalwork got melted down.
I did not master fire.
Instead I released the dragon soaring soaring from the forge wept the day I did not save my Lord from Arthur’s sword.
But it was I who freed the fiery serpents sizzling, hissing, spitting.
IV. Now a large grandfather clock is ticking down to doomsday. The dragons are fighting again and will not be quieted.
Merlin tells me that I must ‘tame the dragon’.
Why, oh prophet, diviner, madman, must I try to tame what cannot be tamed?
Why, oh son of a demon, who prophecies in dragon fire are you speaking this Arthurian language of taming?
All I know is you have demons inside you too, in your heart, in your head, that both of us like to sit beneath the apple trees.
The dragons are within me.
The Island of Prydain.
The dragons are within you too.
The dragon on my shoulder breathes fire and she sees the things that are unseen but are.
He came into my life around 2012 when I started this blog and joined the strange world of the blogosphere. His presence was invisible at first and it took me a few years to perceive his influence. I started this blog to share inspiration and find and connect with like-minded people and I succeeded in those aims. Only I found that during that process ‘something’ had gained power over me. I was not only reading what inspired me and felt important but trying to keep up with every last thing on the blogosphere, on social media, not wanting to miss out or get left behind.
In 2015 when I was doing my best to fit the mould of being a politically-engaged Pagan there were days when I did nothing but scroll the internet for information to make the right replies on blogs and Facebook and Twitter feeds.
Around that time there were some really nasty arguments between right and left-wing polytheists that led to the breakdown of the polytheist movement. It was a horrible thing to see and this, on top of being burnt out from having forced myself into activism, led me to stop blogging and abandon social media.
I went to Wales. I had some experiences with Gods and giants. I came back.
Since then I have been more mindful of my internet use and how it uses me. After a couple of brief flirtations I have abandoned Facebook and Twitter. I follow only blogs that inspire me. I steer clear of arguments. I limit my engagements to old-fashioned forums at the Monastery of Annwn and The Cloister.
Yet still I’m distracted which I find to be a terrible irony for a nun of Annwn, one who is devoted to the Gods of the Deep, is writing a book called ‘in the Deep.’ When I need a break or when I get stuck I’m tempted to check my emails or look at a blog, then one thing leads to another and I’ve lost half an hour.
The problem of attention theft, of stolen focus, and the resulting atrophy of our deep work muscles is something we have been working with at the Way of the Buzzard Mystery School* and has been picked up on by fellow Polytheist Monastic Danica Swanson.**
Since then reclaiming my attention and retraining my deep work muscles has been a large part of my personal spiritual development as a nun of Annwn. But it hasn’t been easy. I’ve had a lot of resistance to keeping my focus on one thing at a time, whether it is meditation, writing, gardening, running or a gym work out. I’ve had a lot of minor things go wrong recently from personal and family health issues to a stolen bike and a troublesome member at the monastery. I’ve used them as excuses for letting distractions have their way.
In spite of my best efforts I have been struggling to focus on one thing at a time to the point I have felt that ‘something’ is actively stealing my attention.
Returning to look at the Way of the Buzzard journey circle in January 2022 ‘Reclaim your Attention’ last night I noticed the intention was to journey on ‘what is getting in the way of your attention?’ I intended to do so this morning but instead woke up with the answer – ‘the King of Distractions.’
Having dreamt a couple of days ago about our house being burgled and linking this to the man of enormous stature with a huge hamper who stole food and drink from Lludd in Lludd ac Llefelys I realised I had found the culprit.
I then had the gnosis that the King of Distractions has been here, not only in my house, but in my very room since I started blogging. He has been sitting beside me, stealing my attention and focus away from the things that really matter, putting them into his huge hamper, filling it full, as my mind grows weak.
(‘And nothing amazed Lludd more than that so much could fit into that hamper!’)
He’s been following me about taking my mind from nature on a walk, bike ride, or run, from what I’m doing with my body at the gym. He’s been next to me when I sleep, waking me up with distractions, robbing me of my dreams.
It thus seems meaningful that Lludd/Nudd/Nodens, God of Dreams, defeats this man and that his identity has been revealed to me by sleeping and dreaming.
In Lludd ac Llefelys the man achieves his theft by sending everyone to sleep. As the King of Distractions he makes himself invisible by putting us into a sleep-like trance in which we are barely aware of what we’re doing as we flick onto our emails or onto the internet and begin scrolling from this to that.
On Nos Galan Mai Lludd manages to defeat the man by immersing himself in a tub of cold water every time sleep comes upon him. He then confronts him in a violent battle in which sparks fly from their weapons, throws him to the ground, and demands that all his losses are restored and the man becomes his vassal.
Whilst immersing myself in a tub of cold water every time I’m distracted isn’t very practical it could serve as a good visualisation aid against the King of Distractions. As could visualising beating him off, sparks flying, forcing him to give back what is in his hamper and putting him in his place.
An additional tactic is to put up some defences. Thus I’ve drawn up a schedule in which I’ve restricted my internet usage to checking emails once a day in the late afternoon when my other work is complete and limiting catching up on blogs and reading articles online to Saturdays.
I’m hoping this will help me reclaim my focus and strengthen my deep work muscles so I can make better progress with ‘In the Deep’ and my spiritual practices.
*Nicola at the Way of the Buzzard blogs about stolen focus in her post ‘Attention’ HERE. ****Danica Swanson proposes ‘Creative Incubation’ as a remedy for stolen focus and the atrophy of deep work muscles HERE.
‘Hail is cold grain and showers of sleet and sickness of serpents.’ – Hagalaz (rune)
I. I come to You my mind a wasteland, the poles, the solstices of my world out of kilter and something awakening beneath the ice
to ask the somewhat selfish question – “What ails me, my Lord?”
It echoes down through the centuries reminding You of Your father’s wound and the wound You suffer every year battling against Your rival,
the wound to my navel after my dedication to You, the pit of snakes in my belly button,
the heroes flung into it, sucked dry.
II. “What ails me, my Lord?”
I’m back at high school again with serpents twining around my chair legs,
staring down into the depths of the ink well I never used.
I’m chewing my pen, ink is dripping from the side of my mouth, from my finger tips and I’m raising my hand to ask for more paper, bleeding words,
rising to the challenge of the exam,
exulting in the quiet of the other pupils, this scratching of pens the one thing I can succeed in.
III. “What ails me, my Lord?”
I think of the serpents who twist around my arms and sit deep in my belly and I wish I could tie around my ankles to hang like You over the Abyss to gain the wisdom that explains this…
the way by lack of courage or confidence I am always climbing the first three rungs on my ladder and then falling back down into my pit of snakes.
IV. “What ails me, my Lord?”
I’m back at the surgery again and the nurse is wondering if I’m dead, tapping my veins, trying to awaken them to life.
I’m explaining the junctions and showing which ones work.
Where blue flows to red and is tested then incinerated by the fiery serpents.
V. “What ails me, my Lord?”
My beast looks too much like an ink spodge test,
then I see my father splattered on the settee like a murder victim from a third rate horror movie doing nothing as always.
I cannot find his wound or his serpents.
Instead I sink into mine and awaken them again, the wounds made by all the surgeons, all the psychiatrists
by all the snakes fighting back, by all the horror movies and I hear
Your laughter, Your divine laughter, in my veins like poetry, not the canned laughter of the television he sits in front of.
VI. “By asking the question you have opened the door.
Although all our blood and poetic truths cannot save the world or heal our ailments
by this opening your serpents might return to health and an answer might come through.”
*This poem is addressed to my patron God, Gwyn ap Nudd.
I wrote this poem last year. It is based on drawing the Hagalaz rune at one of the Way of the Buzzard journey circles over four years ago. I had a powerful experience that led me to investigating ‘the sickness of serpents’ not only in the Norse but the Brythonic traditions. It lies behind my series of books in which I explore the relationship between Vindos/Gwyn and the serpents of Annwn. The poem references gnosis received whilst writing these stories.
There is also an allusion to a series of blood tests I had last year relating to slightly raised liver function levels. Two ended up as four as on one occasion they did the wrong test and on another my blood coagulated in transit. It made me start wondering ‘does something want my blood?’
At the time I was writing about the conflicts in Annwn between the red and white serpents. As an answer, when I was sitting in the waiting room, on the white board a young girl had drawn a tower block with a huge winged serpent towering over it, which she was colouring it in red. I found out, after testing, blood gets incinerated and received the answer ‘the fiery serpents’.
One of the results of the blood tests was that I have low iron levels. I have felt a lot better since eating more red meat particulary liver (sympathetic magic?) and believe this was behind me feeling tired and low most afternoons.
The final check relating to my raised liver functions is an ultrasound this Thursday so I will finally find out ‘what ails me’ (physically at least). If I do have minor liver damage it likely relates to having used alcohol to self-medicate the anxiety that comes from my autism since my late teens. I only started addressing this after making my lifelong dedication to Gwyn in 2019.
See her dancing on the circumference of the world, on the point of the compass that divided night from day, on a needle point with a thousand devils.
See her tip the globe
and go off dancing on the ball point of her foot shaking her rattle at the heavens
dancing between the fortresses in the summer stars and the winter stars who call forth the Lords of Annwn
summoning
all the horses from the Song of the Horses and all the oxen from the Triad of the Three Prominent Oxen and all the dead from the Stanzas of the Graves
to the city where the people have made a patchwork dragon
from old discarded clothes and are parading it down through the subway from the drunken streets.
Someone lifts an umbrella spinning in the colours of her soul.
A wooly mammoth appears and joins the dance as she passes by.
It is said she will leave no corpse or she will leave a multitude of corpses of those she has possessed and one day they will be resurrected to dance with her again haloed in star dust spinning…
The spinning of the stars / the spinning of the Abyss…
She broke the surface of the waters of the cauldron and stole the awen not for herself but to scatter the drops in the darkest most mysterious and most unexpected places.
Who will find them in the necropolises we have built, in the nameless archways, in the manes of horses, in the terrible names I cannot speak to thee tonight or ever?
I wrote this poem after drawing the Ecstasy card from the Wildwood Tarot as part of a reading I did on the morning of my dedication as a nun of Annwn.
On the one hand I was slightly surprised as ecstasy isn’t the first thing I associate with monasticism (although there are examples of ecstatics even in the Christian tradition – most famously the ecstasy of St Theresa*) but on the other I was not as ecstasis is central to my path as an awenydd and devotee of Gwyn ap Nudd, a ruler of Annwn, in the Brythonic tradition.
On my walk the previous day, Gwyn had already shown me by leading me from the roads where the Benedictine Priory once stood on Castle Hill to the wooden sculptures I have come to know as ‘the Oldest Animal of Peneverdant’, He wants my vocation to remain shamanistic and animistic.
Another interesting coincidence is that the girl in the tarot card is holding a rattle. In a journey previous to this I had been given a rattle by one of my guides and used it in a dance to awaken a serpent. This prompted me to buy a rattle from my friends, Jason and Nicola Smalley, who live nearby in Anglezarke and run the Way of the Buzzard Mystery School. Coincidentally, after my ‘Strength’ blog post I found a rattle crafted with the focus on strength. I knew it was the right one and have been using it to connect with the serpents since and now… they’ve taken over my writing and come into my life…
I’m 41 today and looking at this card reminds me of the birthdays when I used to go out clubbing and how my first experiences of ecstatic states and with the spirits of Annwn came from dancing all night in night clubs and at festivals.
Those days are gone but accessing ecstatic states through drumming, rattling, maybe even dancing, are going to remain central to my path as an awenydd as I continue to explore what it means to be a nun of Annwn.
*The famous sculpture ‘the Ecstasy of St Teresa’ is based on her experience of a seraph piercing her heart with a ‘long spear of gold’ which she describes as leaving her ‘on fire with a great love of God’. Her ecstasy was depicted in a mural on the bike sheds in my local playing field and always spoke to me when I walked past. They were sadly knocked down a few years ago.
He started appearing in my tarot readings at the beginning of the year: the Hooded Man. In my reading for 2020 on New Year’s Eve in the place of ‘home’, then again and again, strangely, mysteriously, as we shifted from a stormy winter to a glorious spring and I was spending more time with people outdoors.
In the Wildwood Tarot the Hooded Man occupies the traditional position of the Hermit. His ‘Position on the Wheel’ is ‘the mid-winter solstice’. Dressed in a black cloak adorned with holly he stands amidst the snow with a wren at his side, a staff in one hand, a shining lantern in the other. He points towards a doorway in a great tree with a wreath upon it, offering solace from winter’s harshness.
The main meaning of this card is ‘this is the time of solitude and contemplation’. Why was I getting this card when I was busying myself with work parties five days a week and preparing for an internship at Brockholes, which involved outdoor work and engaging with large groups of volunteers?
The answer came as the arrival of coronavirus, as the lockdown, the perfect reason to respond to his call. But what did I do for the first three weeks? Spend my time watching what everyone else was doing, beating myself up for not being busy, for not having a proper job, resisting the call of the Hooded Man.
And yes, I felt it, and he spoke to me clearly. On one occasion this was through the new module on ‘Holly’ in the Tree Spirit Medicine course on the Way of the Buzzard Mystery School. The course leaders, Jason and Nicola associate holly with ‘sanctuary, resilience, and protection’. These were qualities I felt I needed to draw upon and immediately I associated them with the Hooded Man. I journeyed to holly to ask ‘how to slow down and participate in the Hooded Man’s sanctuary.
Holly said:
The berries of life are not always yours.
So what is yours?
How will you grow your berries?
What can you offer?
How will you shape your sanctuary?
I took this to mean that I couldn’t just barge into the Hooded Man’s sanctuary and assume his berries (the hard-won fruits of many years of solitude and contemplation) are mine for the taking. That I must take the time and effort to shape my own sanctuary, grow my own berries, share them with others.
What was particularly significant about this journey is that the day afterwards, after I had cut back and cleared the blackberry bushes which were taking over the bottom of my parents’ garden, I found a little holly sprig. Immediately I knew this was ‘the Hooded Man’s corner’: a place I could find sanctuary.
But still I resisted for fear that retreating would make me less of an awenydd to my community and gods. When I first set out on the awenydd path it was with the purpose of serving Gwyn and the spirits of the land through sharing poems and research on mythology and my personal journey.
Somewhere along the line, when I was involved with Dun Brython, when Greg Hill and I founded ‘Awen ac Awenydd’ I felt these responsibilities were nudging me toward community leadership. However, Dun Brython never grew due to a lack of interest in Brythonic Polytheism. Whilst the Awen ac Awenydd Facebook group generated some interesting discussions, the participants didn’t mesh enough to develop a shared practice, and the plans for a physical meet-up failed completely.
I reached the conclusion that Facebook is not a suitable platform for building meaningful relationships and left. ‘You’re not a follower but you’re not a leader,’ the words of my wise friend, who read my tarot, haunted me. What am I then? What is the role of an awenydd who neither leads nor follows?
“You must focus on your gift,” the voice of my god from within.
Reflecting on the nature of this gift I realised that it is the awen and the meaning of ‘gift’ is manifold. The awen is not only my gift, my talent, my role in the world, my destiny, but is given by the gods and something I have a responsibility to give back to others. This being gifted with and my giving of awen is of value in itself. I don’t need to be a leader or a spokesperson for my path.
This revelation came as a huge relief and has given me clarity about where I’ve made mistakes in the past. After watching a podcast with Martin Shaw on ‘Pandemic and Mythic Meanings of this Cultural Movement’ in which he posed the question ‘would this not be a good time to re-establish a relationship with our souls?’ I realised over the past few months I have neglected my soul’s journey.
When I journeyed to the Hooded Man for advice on how to focus on this he said I need to ‘clear space outer and inner’ and ‘cultivate a longing for the mysteries’ in the place of my anxieties.
What was of interest, and slightly disturbed me, was that he told me has had burning ambitions, been riddled by doubts, that he has made made mistakes, that his aura of calm is the result of centuries of inner work. That sometimes it is just a facade that covers over the conflicts he feels within.
For some reason I thought he had always been the Hooded Man at perfect peace in his self-mastery. Yet a story, or many stories, lie beneath the the hood of this man who has many faces.
It happened when I was gearing up. Having given up my placement with Carbon Landscapes in Wigan as it was too office based I had returned to volunteering with the Lancashire Wildlife Trust closer to home and got the conservation internship at Brockholes.
One hundred per cent practical outdoor work, and just a 6 mile cycle ride away at a place I know and love, it promised to be my dream job. I’d completed my first 10k race in New Longton and was training for the City of Preston 10 miles. I was also preparing for my Taekwondo grading, on the Spring Equinox weekend, to gain my blue belt.
Then it struck. A series of lightning-like strikes. I’d heard the thunder. The first rumblings from China, the news the storm was getting closer, that it had hit Italy, Spain, France, arrived in the UK. We joked about it at first. Me with my perpetually runny nose, like a toddler, in spring, due to my hay fever. Anyone who coughed or sneezed, “I haven’t got coronavirus.” We’d seen it on the news but it didn’t seem real, like our little island with its green hills and fresh air granted some form of immunity. We’re British, right? We won the war. Then people started getting sick and started dying.
Around a fortnight ago hand washing or using antibacterial gel before eating became mandatory. On Monday the 16th of March when I was out with the Mud Pack at Brockholes the next step was stopping sharing PPE. No more slightly musty gloves from the collective stash. I was given my own hi-vis in preparation for beginning my internship on the Thursday. Still we worked together building a hibernaculum for great crested newts and ate our lunch outside on a day bright as coltsfoot.
On Tuesday the 17th of March we received an email saying we could no longer share lifts in the van or meet together inside. On Wednesday the 18th of March, another glorious spring day, I went out on another work party planting sarroccoca and eleganus amongst the daffodils on the rock garden on Avenham Park. There was little joking, even amongst the guys from Preston City Council, who were helping out. Everything felt ominous. Still, it came as a shock when I got home to find out all LWT volunteer work parties had been cancelled until the end of April along with my voluntary internship.
In some ways it was a relief because I live with parents who are over 70 and in ill health. I’d been torn between the choices, if I was to continue volunteering, of moving out or risking their lives. So I accepted it was for the best I isolated with them, just going out to do our shopping and to exercise.
Still, I was bitterly disappointed. After winning the struggle to give up alcohol and manage my anxiety without it, and feeling I was finally coming home from my exodus with Carbon Landscapes to the place and the job role in my local landscape where I truly belonged… this!
Yet, I also felt, in some ways my gods had been preparing me for it. If I hadn’t given up alcohol there is no way I would have coped with the situation or with the responsibility of looking after my parents. When considering whether to quit my placement I’d heard a clear voice telling me to “come home.”
Another point is that, at the beginning of January, after I had a mild attack of exercise-induced asthma as a consequence of running my fastest time of 25.21 for 5k on the Avenham Park Run, Gwyn told me during this Taekwondo belt (green with a blue tag representing growth toward the skies) I needed to ‘learn to breathe’. Since then I’ve been trying to discipline myself to spend time in stillness, focusing on my breath, in my morning and evening meditations, but not always managing it.
(What has struck me and many others is that breath is central to this situation on many levels. Coronavirus attacks the lungs and those who get seriously ill face a battle for their breath which, in some cases, can only be won with the aid of mechanical ventilators, and in others not at all. The places worst hit have been cities where the air is badly polluted. Now flights have stopped and most people have stopped commuting by car, the skies are clear of contrails and air pollution has dropped.)
At first, after all that gearing up, I felt like Wily Coyote poised in mid-air off the edge of a cliff with my legs still running. Over the past few days I have been striving to ground myself, to slow down, to process the changes, to find space to breathe. Not easy when surrounded by panic.
My first response was to hit the news and social media to find out what’s happening and what everyone’s doing, leading only to tight chest, shortness of breath. To rush to formulate my own words, to share poems addressing the situation. Like I have some kind of gods-given responsibility… whilst aware of adding to the din of others doing exactly the same and increasing the massive strain on the internet that we forget is causing air pollution as we don’t see the power stations.
“Slow down,” the message kept coming through, from the stopping of traffic the virus has caused. As I ran more slowly, no longer worried about beating my best times, happy to be in the moment, feet steady alongside the Ribble in time with her flow where the daffodils watch with sad beautiful faces.
“Slow down,” as I began to take my time in my parents’ garden instead of rushing through the tasks. Appreciating the sunlight on the pastel colours of the hyacinths and the scent of the magnolia, the steady chuck of spade in earth and textures of compost from the bottom of the heap rich from years of decay.
“Slow down,” every time I sat before my mantlepiece in my bedroom where I keep altars to my deities, feathers and stones, to which I’ve recently added photos of my family ancestors knowing I’ll need their help.
I had developed a new routine based around prayer, writing, housework, gardening, shopping, and exercise when lockdown struck. It didn’t hit too hard as I was already living under those rules.
I’m anticipating a greater slowing. Right now I feel like I’m in ‘defence mode’ with my main prerogatives being to tend to the needs of and protect my vulnerable parents and to maintain my own health. I have also offered to run deliveries on my bike for family and friends, including the older members of my poetry group, if they end up isolating either due to illness or the government order.
An important point of support has been the Way of the Buzzard Mystery School online journey circles and coaching calls. I have been involved with Jason and Nicola’s drumming circles at Cuerden Valley and the Space to Emerge camp since they began and have appreciated being able to continue getting together to do journeywork and discuss the current situation from a shamanistic perspective.
With my daily routine and a support network in place I’m hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. If the UK follows Italy’s curve it is possible that my friends, family, and myself, may be not only be slowed down but locked away by illness, that we may be halted by the life-or-death battle for our breath. That we may have to face the final stopping – death – as usual a topic few think or talk about.
I’ve long had a plan for my funeral but am aware it will be invalidated by these circumstances. There is a huge lack of information about what will happen to the bodies of those who die of coronavirus in the UK. How they will be dealt with, where they will go, how their passing will be acknowledged.
Yet this great slowing gives us time to pause for thought – about the fears we’d rather not face and the solace we can find in each moment of these spring days so beautifully bright in contrast.
The Sanctuary of Vindos 