II. Your Boyhood

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Day Two of Twelve Days of Devotion to Gwyn ap Nudd

On this second day
I consider Your boyhood,
all the boys you have been.

The boy in the serpent skins
born to transform a land
of bones and gore
into beauty,

Your return
as a wolf cub
or a boy in wolf skins
to Your awenyddion letting us
sit You on our knees,
tell You stories.

How when
You were a babe
You never cried but howled.

There was a little of Your boy in me
when I was growing up –
I always hated dolls, played
with Thundercats and Ninja Turtles
and wrote about characters from
Streetfigher in the back
of my exercise books at school.

There are parts of me that refuse to grow up
and keep returning to the playground
where I swing over the top
of the swings

that are no longer there on Middleforth Green

knowing You will catch me
and take me to
the stars.

I. Your Birth

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Day One of Twelve Days of Devotion to Gwyn ap Nudd

On this first day
I consider Your birth,
how you were torn from the womb
and flung into the Abyss,
how You were born

falling

and wonder
if I was born falling too.
For it seems I have never stopped falling,
spiralling downward through life,
never up the career ladder,
deeper into the well,
into the Deep,
into You.

I think of how we have both
crawled from the Abyss
and reclaimed our kingdoms –
Yours built out of dragon bones
and mine from words.

I have built mine for You
and welcomed You in as You
have welcomed me into Yours
and each in the other’s we
have been reborn.

Twelve Days of Devotion to Gwyn ap Nudd

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For the last couple of years, as a Pagan/Polytheist alternative to the traditional ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’ (26th December – 6th January) I have been practicing twelve days of devotion to Gwyn ap Nudd, my patron God, as a Brythonic Winter King.

This year, over the twelve days, I am going to be meditating on the following aspects of His identity and mythos and writing and sharing devotional poems addressed to Him.

I. Your Birth
II. Your Boyhood
III. Your Hunt
IV. Your Beloved
V. Your Battle
VI. Winter
VII. Your Horse
VIII. Your Hound
IX. Your Doors
X. Your Kingdom
XI. Your Cauldron
XII. Your Death

If you would like to join in with this or do something similar for Gwyn or your personal Gods please feel welcome and let me know how it goes.

A Message from the Reeds at Brockholes

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Winter Solstice 2022

‘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’

Three years have passed
since the last time I celebrated
the winter solstice here – the reeds still stand
as do the standing stones and the tradition
of dancing down the sun.

Who or what has fallen since the beginning of the disease?

More than armies, 181,000 deaths to this day.

The reeds still stand but something
was cut down within me when I cleared other reed beds
in the name of good service, knowing they would grow again, strove
to become a good custodian of the Water Country but was not accepted.

I fell and got trampled beneath the huge round hooves of Your horse.

I’m not dead yet, I picked myself up, got back on my bicycle

but appeared a stranger at the Pagan gathering
in my hi-vis jacket with my cycle helmet

needing to leave before it got dark

and chasing the sun west to the place I call home.

Here I attend the work of putting the cut reeds together again
reciting not the names of long dead warriors
Gwenddolau, Gwallog, Llachau…

but making a new bed

for the lost and weary souls
who half-died and want to grow tall.

The reeds say that we will grow again no matter
how hard we are trampled by the hooves of horses to the ground.

Running on a Treadmill in an Arctic Blast

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I am running on a treadmill because the roads and pavements are too slippery in this man-created world in a harsh and early unexpected winter.

I am running because I want to see my heartrate come up, to know I have a heartbeat, a pulse, after the shock of thinking climate change means warmth.

I am running because this is the only thing that keeps my feet warm, “Warm feet, warm feet,” my mantra, one foot, then the other, slowly the layers come off.

I am running to summon the heat from within not the electric heater.

I am running for endurance, I am running for  strength, I am running for salvation, breaking down my nine miles into inclines and sprints and imagining I am escaping grenades and bombs in some underground city of ice.

I am running because I am safe, I am privileged, I can afford to go to the gym.

I am running to escape my guilt.

I am running because keeping goals is the only dignity this world allows us.

I am running to escape my flaws, which are without number, cannot be counted.

I am running, but going nowhere, wondering if I might set foot on the spirit paths, if other runners go elsewhere and there is a place where treadmills meet.

I am running on a treadmill because no path is ever dark or challenging enough.

I am running the tread off the treadmill, aiming for the stars, hoping if I get to the North Star in this bitter cold I might be able to reset my compass, start again.

I am running on a treadmill in an Arctic blast and my feet cannot keep my pace.

*For over a week, due to an Arctic Blast, we experienced temperatures down to -6°C here in Lancashire and colder in other parts of the UK. As it snowed and then froze the icy conditions made it very difficult to walk on the pavements let alone run.

**With thanks to my local JD Gym in Preston for providing somewhere to work out (and run when the weather is awful) for a reasonable price.

I Hail You

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Gwyn ap Nudd, White son of Mist,
I hail You in the morning
and pray with You beside me
I will never be lost again.

Gwyn ap Nudd, Hunter in the Skies,
I hail You in the morning
and pray with You beside me
my hunt, my quest, will never die.

Gwyn ap Nudd, Bull of Conflict,
I hail You in the morning
and pray with You beside me
I will keep on fighting through this day.

Gwyn ap Nudd, Keeper of the Cauldron,
I hail You in the morning
and pray with You beside me
my life will be filled with inspiration.

Gwyn ap Nudd, Ruler of Annwn,
I hail You in the morning
and pray with You beside me
I will know the unfathomable depths.

Gwyn ap Nudd, Gatherer of Souls,
I hail You in the morning
and pray with You beside me
I will gather my pieces be whole again.

Gwyn ap Nudd, Lord of the Dead,
I hail You in the morning
and pray with You beside me
I will walk with courage until the end.

This is a prayer for Gwyn ap Nudd through which I have been praying to Him every morning as part of my developing monastic practice. Up until now all my poems for Him have either been for specific Holy Days or have been an expression of a particular experience with Him. This is the first time I have written something more formal, based upon His epithets, which could also potentially be used by others should they want a starting point for building a relationship with Gwyn.

Reciting a set prayer every morning (I have now memorised it) has been a new experience for me as my devotions up until now have been mainly spontaneous. I’ll admit somedays I haven’t felt like praying it, but have been glad when I have, and others I’ve really needed it. I have found it anchoring as an affirmation of Gwyn’s presence in my life and the gifts He brings and have experienced different meanings and nuances in the words as I have recited them on different days and in different circumstances.

If you would like to incorporate this prayer into your own practice please feel free to.

The Dancing Girl

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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 Will Guide The Dead Back Home

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For Gwyn ap Nudd

There’s a sea behind a river,
behind a brook, behind a stream,
and when the stars within it gather
He will guide the dead back home.

There’s an ocean in the cauldron
where the stars began to burn
and as our candlelight grows dimmer
He will guide the dead back home.

His is an infinite vocation
in those dark and starry seas
and when the stars depart their stations
He will guide the dead back home.

When the seas are black and bloody
and the stars are but black holes
all souls to Him He’ll gather –
He will guide the dead back home.

When the cauldron’s but a memory,
seas and stars are but a dream,
all souls in Him He’ll gather –
He will guide the dead back home.

This poem appears in the later part of my book-in-progress ‘In the Deep’ and was written by Maponos/Mabon for Vindos/Gwyn ap Nudd. 

It felt fitting I share it tonight, on Nos Galan Gaeaf, as a way of honouring Gwyn as He rides out with His hunt to gather the souls of the dead.

In the background are my doorway to Annwn and photographs of my ancestors.

On Becoming a Nun of Annwn

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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.

Strength

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It’s been a year since I joined my local JD gym in Preston and started strength training sessions with a personal trainer and I’m writing this post to share some of the benefits this has brought to both my physical and mental health.

As background I have run on and off since my early twenties as a way of keeping fit and managing my anxiety. However, I have struggled to maintain running longish distances due to a variety of issues such as runner’s knee and problems with my piriformis and hamstrings.

Over a decade ago a physio recommended strengthening my legs to help with my knee pain by doing squats and lunges but this seemed to make my knees worse and I gave up on this course of action and running for a while.

Since starting sessions with my excellent personal trainer, Marie Meagher, I have learnt that I am perfectly capable of doing squats and lunges. Initially my form was incorrect and, with her help correcting me, I have progressed to learning a variety of different forms (sumo squats, split squats, reverse lunges) and to adding weights such as kettle bells, dumb bells and bar bells. 

She has also helped me learn to use the resistance machines and free weights. When I first started at the gym all the cogs and pullies and weights and fastenings were utterly bewildering and I didn’t understand the exercises or know much about my muscle groups and the best ways of working them. 

I can now put together an effective workout incorporating a variety of exercises such as leg extensions, hamstring curls, hip adductions and dead lifts for my lower body or dead rows, chest and shoulder presses, and assisted pull-ups for my upper body. I know what weights to use, the right techniques, how many reps to do.

Strengthening my legs has worked wonders for my running. Before training, the most I had been able to run was 4, 7, and 10 miles a week with the occasional half marathon which usually left me crippled for a couple of days. I am now running 7 and 9 miles and a half marathon every week and have taken 15 minutes off my half marathon time from 2hrs 10 mins to 1hr 55 mins. 

I’ve also noticed the difference that doing exercises for my upper body, abs, and core has made when I’m doing outdoor work in my local green space or gardening.

It is now rare that I suffer from any of my former issues either during or after a run. Another big help has been finding a good physio, Phil Noblett at South Ribble Physiotherapies, who has been brilliant at sorting out my minor injuries and keeping me running. It’s been a big revelation that some of the niggles I’ve had are simply due to lactic acid build up and can be massaged out.

Learning about my different muscle groups, how to work them, and discovering muscles I didn’t know I had has provided me with much better knowledge of my body and a more positive and mindful relationship with it. 

My successes with strength training and running have also improved my mental health. Being physically stronger helps me feel mentally stronger and and provides me with a source of accomplishable achievements when I’m struggling in other areas of life due to limits with my autism and anxiety.

I have found both are better antidotes to stress than alcohol or overeating and am far less likely to do either as I know they will have a detrimental effect on my training.

Although I will never run record beating times or lift heavy weights it is an accomplishment, at the age of forty, to be the strongest and fittest I’ve ever been.

*With thanks to Marie for taking the photographs as this morning’s PT session.