Category: Religion

Unhealthy Habits and the Role of Monasticism in Healing our Scattered Minds

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Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been blogging about my problematic relationship with technology as a source of distractions and my unhealthy habits surrounding compulsions to check emails and keep up with what is happening online. 

After writing last Sunday about considering the possibility I might be able to check my emails once a day or even take a day off I realised what a huge hold this habit has over me and something within me said, “Enough. I’m not going to be ruled by this any more.” I made the decision to cut my email checking down to just twice a week, Wednesdays and Saturdays, and have managed it. 

As part of the process I have spent some time reflecting on where it is coming from. As mentioned in a previous post I believe it to be caused by a combination of pernicious influences without and anxieties within. 

I haven’t always had this habit. I didn’t have it when I was at university when I only had email traffic from tutors. I certainly didn’t have it at all when I was working with horses (when I worked in Hertfordshire and lived in a mobile home on the yard I could only check once a week on my employer’s computer!). 

I believe it began around around 2011 when I started getting involved in local community groups such as South Ribble Transition Towns and a number of local poetry groups and in the latter took up a co-ordinating role. It got worse when I was also acting as editor for Gods & Radicals, so dealing with a lot of email submissions, then on top of that took a part time admin job at UCLan which involved a lot of emails and multi-tasking and left me very burnt out.

I had some time out after that and recovered a bit but didn’t address the problem of my anxiety as I was using alcohol several times a week to blank it out.

When I was volunteering in conservation and during this period gave up alcohol I began feeling better, but when I got paid work it involved more admin. When I was a trainee with the Lancashire Wildlife Trust I was doing my admin, including dealing with emails, 7 – 9am before my drive to the Manchester Mosslands to be onsite for 10am then driving back at 3pm to deal with the last of my admin 4 – 5pm. Having two hours of unpaid driving made for long days and I got very anxious about missing emails or not answering them correctly particularly in relation to plans for contract work.

Then, when I worked in ecology, I had to multitask a lot when I was in the office. Organising surveys often took as much work as doing them. Surveys for great crested newts and bats needed at least two and up to eight to ten people, with maps to be printed, meeting times and places arranged,  all the equipment got together (there is a lot of equipment for bats!) and we were constantly having to rearrange with the weather and it was very stressful. 

When I was writing an ecological report I had to keep my emails open to co-ordinate surveys and in case my employer sent me quotes to send out to clients and then to reply to clients about quotes as well and it was overwhelming.

After I resigned from that job, which left me very burnt out, instead of taking time to process what had happened I poured all my energy into my writing and escaped my feelings of failure by exercising and weekend drinking.

Since I came to Paganism and through it Polytheism I have been good at serving the land and my Gods through outdoor work and creativity but no good at looking after my mental health or working on my spiritual development. 

That has begun to change as I have been drawn to Polytheist Monasticism, taken vows as a nun of Annwn, committed to becoming Sister Patience and been spending more time in meditation and contemplation.

I have come to believe that, if the mind is a whole, and is more than a thinking thing (the origin of the concept of ‘mind’ comes from the Greek psyche and means a lot more – ‘animating spirit’, ‘soul’,’ and comes from the root psykhein ‘to blow, breathe’*) then forcing it to do more than one thing at once is in opposition to its nature. 

It’s common to see the mind referred to as a muscle. I believe it’s more than that, but let’s take that analogy. Trying to work a muscle in more than one direction at once is going to result in weakness and tears and an ineffective muscle. 

I think that’s what’s happened to my mind. The last few years of doing a lot of both paid and voluntary admin work along with being part of the blogosphere and engaging with social media for short periods have weakened my mind, left me scatty, scattered, and far more prone to being dominated by my anxieties and prey to compulsions from within and without.

Identifying what ails me has helped me to see my solution lies with monasticism. The origin of this term is in the Greek monos, ‘one’, ‘single’, ‘alone’**. It might be seen as the practice of spending time alone, apart from secular society, off the Internet in order to recover the lost wholeness of our scattered pysches.

When I speak of alone I mean away from other humans – at least noisy ones – to better hear the voices of the land and the Gods and one’s own soul. Shifting our focus from the barrage of human noise on and offline to one thing – this might be praying to a God, meditating on a myth, spending time in nature, working on a novel, perfecting a poem, crafting a necklace or a shawl.

These practices feel very important to me at the moment as an antidote to the effect our increasingly technologised jobs have on our minds. I am currently in the privileged position of being to live as a nun until my savings run out with minimal online commitments such as running the monastery, sending material to my patrons, and maintaining this blog. 

I feel like I’m well on my way to conquering my email and blog checking habits, having got them down to twice a week and having countered my fears of critcisms for not responding sooner with the knowledge that the people who matter to me respect I am a monastic and need to spend time offline. 

Already I have seen improvements in my ability to focus in meditation, maintain the flow of my writing and be my more mindful when working in the garden. Small changes, I know, but steps towards healing my scattered psyche.

* https://www.etymonline.com/word/psyche
** https://www.etymonline.com/word/mono-

The Question of Technology and Technological Askesis

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In the first two of his essays, ‘Four Questions Concerning the Internet’ (1) Paul Kingsnorth identifies the force behind the Machine (technology/the internet) as Ahriman, an evil and destructive spirit in the Zoroastrian religion (2).

He argues that ‘the sacred and the digital not only don’t mix, but are fatal to each other. That they are in metaphysical opposition.’ ‘The digital revolution represents a spiritual crisis’ and ‘a spiritual response is needed.’ As an aid to living through ‘the age of Ahriman’ he suggests the practice of ‘technological askesis.’ He notes that the Greek word ‘askesis’ has been translated as ‘self-discipline’ and ‘self denial’ and that asceticism forms the ‘foundation stone of all spiritual practices’. Its literal translation is ‘exercise’. ‘Asceticism, then, is a series of spiritual exercises designed to train the body, the mind and the soul.’ 

As a nun of Annwn in the making I can relate to much of what Kingsnorth is saying. As an animist and polytheist I perceive technology and the internet to be a living being with a will of its own although I’m not sure it can be reduced to one supposedly evil spirit. I tend to see it as the co-creation of many humans and many Gods, some more benevolent, some more malevolent. Unfortunately as the hunting ground of many malicious humans and non-human entities including the one I identified as the King of Distractions last week.

I personally do not agree with the statement that ‘the sacred and the digital don’t mix’ are ‘fatal to each other’ ‘in metaphysical opposition.’ I think their relationship is more complex and ambiguous. The internet can certainly steer us away from the sacred if we’re mindlessly scrolling or using it merely for entertainment. Yet it can help us deepen our relationship with the sacred if used mindfully to view content and engage in dialogue that is thoughtful and meaningful. 

Without the internet I would not have managed to reach the small but much appreciated audience I have today through my blogging and my books. The Monastery of Annwn would not exist as a virtual space of sanctuary where members feel safe to converse on the deeper aspects of spiritual practice and we wouldn’t be able to hold on-line meditations and events.

Although I didn’t have a name for it ‘technological askesis’ is something I have been practicing for a while. Firstly by leaving social media. More recently by blocking off my time on week days from when I get up at 4am until around 3pm to focus on my spiritual practice and writing and only when I have done my deeper work answering emails and using the internet. 

This has helped me to be more focused and less scattered. It hasn’t been easy – not being able to check my emails has been like an itch I can’t scratch and I’ll admit I’ve given in to checking them again at around 6pm ‘just in case there’s anything I need to deal with so I can relax for the evening.’ It’s possible next week I will set them back to 6pm so I only need to check them once and I might even try a day without checking them at all (!).

As I write this I see that going to such lengths and the amount of restraint I am having to use shows that I am under the sway of forces difficult to control within and without. I have an addiction to checking my emails and my blog and much of it comes from anxiety so might be labelled ‘email/blog anxiety’. I get anxious about ‘missing something’ or having one or more email or blog comment that is long or difficult to answer and getting overwhelmed. My checking is for reassurance – making sure ‘there are none there.’ 

Of course this is a bit silly as I have placed strict limitations on what I subscribe to and my communications and correspondences are usually from friends and thus friendly and encouraging and usually quite positive. 

I think when tackling the internet the best way forward is being mindful of how we are relating to it in terms both of our inner impulses and the forces without. Of how we are using it and how it is using us. Of the complex net of relationships it has brought us into, friendly and unfriendly, human and non-human.

  1. ‘The Universal’ HERE ‘The ‘Neon God’ HERE
  2. Ahriman’s nature is described by John R. Hinnel: ‘He is the demon of demons, and dwells in an abyss of endless darkness in the north, the traditional home of the demons. Ignorance, harmfulness, and disorder are the characteristics of Ahriman. He can change his outward form and appear as a lizard, a snake, or a youth. His aim is always to destroy the creation of [Ahura Mazda] and to this end he follows behind the creator’s work, seeking to spoil it. As Ahura Mazda creates life, Ahriman creates death; for health, he produces disease; for beauty, ugliness. All man’s ills are due entirely to Ahriman.’ HERE

Black Mirrors

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‘The first time I saw an Athonite monk pull a smartphone out from the pocket of his long black robes, I nearly fell over backwards… the pit that appeared in my stomach when I first saw a monk on the Holy Mountain with one of those black mirrors in his hand came from an instinct I’ve long had: that the sacred and the digital not only don’t mix, but are fatal to each other. That they are in metaphysical opposition.’
~ Paul Kingsnorth, ‘The Neon God‘

He sees a monk on mount Athos take a smart phone 
from his black robes and nearly faints in horror

whereas I run on – a nun of Annwn
with an Apple watch on my wrist telling me
when I have completed split one, split two, split three,
the exact mileage I have done, my pace, how many calories burned,
congratulating me when I close my move ring and exercise ring,
teaching me to breathe by mimicking
my breath with a cool blue cloud.

When I look into the black mirror I wonder
whether it is a parasite or a companion,

a trustworthy advisor
or a replacement for my body’s knowing.

I pose the question – IS TECHNOLOGY HOLY?

The black plastic reminds me of the primordial material,
the dark matter of the womb from which the universe was birthed,

the cauldron from which spilled the elements that would make
ion-x glass, liquid crystalline, an aluminium case,
a polyester with titanium strap,

the lithium ion rechargeable battery

(from cobalt mined by children in the Congo).

By age, height, weight, gender, heart beat movement, workout type
it measures whether my day has been a success.

Like counting the fall of apple, cherry
or orange blossoms I wonder
if it is beyond good
and evil?

It keeps
my horarium
for now and warns me
when the sun will be too hot
and when my heartrate is too high

but what the cost is yet to be considered…

The Place Where Tears Come From

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For Gwyn on Calan Mai

There is a place where tears come from
that reminds me of You

and here we are
on the day of Your death.
The death You are fated to die every year.

Every year a part of me dies with You
like a tear to be buried
in that place

of cold stone

to rise again 
like spring water 
on the day of Your return.

We will rise again from burial.
We will repair what has been destroyed,
by the deepest Annuvian magic turn sorrow into joy.

Review – The Path of the Sacred Hermit by Avallach Emrys

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The Path of the Sacred Hermit: Exploring Monasticism in Modern Pagan Spirituality is the first book by Avallach Emrys. Avallach is a novice monk with the Gnostic Celtic Church of the Ancient Order of Druids of America and  the Order of the Sacred Nemeton. He is also a monk with the Monastery of Annwn and has played a much appreciated role in setting up our forum.

This is the third book I know of that has been published over the past few years on the topic of Pagan and Polytheistic Monasticism (1) as the movement, originating in the early 2000s (2), continues to grow and define itself.

In his introduction Avallach makes it clear this is not a scholarly book but one created ‘as a novice… for other novices’. It is a ‘book for beginners’.

He defines Pagan Monasticism as: ‘A way of life that returns us to a focus on the simple things: our connection to the natural world, our connection with the Divine, and our connection to each other. It is a life of service, devotion, and contemplation.’

Speaking of what Pagan Monastics do in terms of monastic spiritual practices he lists prayer, meditation, ritual, ceremony (including celebrating Holy Days), making offerings, shrine tending, divination, and keeping daily offices/a monastic horarium. He notes that ‘Pagans also engage in study and learning’, service to the community and environment, and self-care and self-improvement such as regular exercise and healthy eating. 

It is of interest, that in contrast to monastic traditions in other religions and the definition of Polytheistic Monasticism put forward by Janet Munin (3), that Afallach does not mention renunciation or any strict rules controlling behaviour.

Avallach goes on to say that Pagan monastic practice is based on four components – ‘discernment, discipline, devotion and contemplation’. I thought this explicated a strong and firm foundation and has led me to contemplate how these four components manifest in my own spiritual path.

A brief history of monasticism is provided. Also coverered are key elements of monasticism one would expect to find in a beginner’s book such as monastic vocation (and suitable vocations for paid work), commitments and vows, life as a monastic and the challenges of creating physical Pagan monasteries.

In the Appendix are writing exercises and prayers by the author written for commitments and Holy Days and for honouring individual deities such as Brighid and Cernunnos. Some of these include Latin translations. As I can’t read Latin I can’t vouch for their accuracy but I found this impressive as a devotional act in itself. 

I felt this book covered the basics of Pagan Monasticism very well and provided some sound components to help a beginner to start practicing. Much of it resonated with me as Brythonic Polytheist, such as the section of devotion. ‘Devotion means giving your heart and mind to the deity or deities you worship and committing yourself to their service. It means making them the focus of your life and seeking to live in accordance with their will.’ 

Another thing I liked was the repeated emphasis on doing ‘what works for you.’ The following passage, I felt, was of utmost importance for a beginner – ‘don’t feel like you must do everything that traditional Monastics do in order to be considered a “real” monastic. Instead focus on small commitments that work for you.’ Not feeling monastic enough is an obstacle that has hampered my own spiritual progress and taken joy from my path.

This book is not without its flaws. The language is quite repetitive and the author explains that in the introduction, stating that he chose that style to convey a ‘concise and easily-readable message’.

Whilst in some places the approach to deity resonates in others I found it a little problematic. Avallach says, ‘One way that pagans connect with the divine through devotional prayer is by honouring deities associated with different aspects of life such as love, fertility, or protection. For example, a pagan seeking to improve their love life might choose to honour Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love’ or when ‘trying to conceive’ honour Freya ‘for fertility’. Whilst understanding the need to keep things simple I thought it might be worth adding a cautionary note that one needs to build a relationship with deities before asking for ‘blessings and guidance’ and it’s not always the obvious deities who choose to relate to us and answer our prayers.

I was also a little unsure about the author’s claims about the existence of historical ‘monastic magick’. He notes it has been found in ancient Egypt in the ceremonies of ‘temple priests and priestesses’ and in ancient Greece in the context of the mystery cults but I’m not sure how many of these practitioners identified as monks or nuns. However, this isn’t my area of expertise, and as there are no footnotes, I couldn’t check the sources.

Overall I feel this book makes a valuable contribution to the Pagan and Polytheistic Monastic movement and succeeds in fulfilling the aim outlined in the introduction of providing a guide for novices written by a novice monk.

The Path of the Sacred Hermit is available through Barnes & Noble HERE.

  1. The first is A New Monastic Way: Modern Polytheistic Celtic Monasticism by Oisin Dolye (2017) and the second is Polytheistic Monasticism: Voices from the Pagan Cloisters edited by Janet Munin (2022).
  2. With Matreum of Cybele which has been running for 20 years https://www.gallae.com/
  3. ‘Monastics are those who take solemn vows to live centred on their relationship with one or more Holy Power. Anything which impedes or compromises that relationship is left behind or minimized as much as possible. They are renunciates, offering up wealth, social status, a conventional career, and family life on the altar of devotion.’ Polytheistic Monasticism: Voices from the Pagan Cloisters edited by Janet Munin (2022), p.2

Not Quite an Anchorite

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‘This is a point in our lives where we decide (or are forced) to throw the anchor down, to live in one place, have a teacher, dig in.’
– Martin Shaw

The word ‘anchorite’ or ‘anchoress’ comes from the Greek, anachoreo, meaning ‘to withdraw’.
– Mary Wellesney

I am not quite an anchorite.
I have not yet been buried alive.
Not with Christ. Not even with Gwyn.
I do not live in a cell twelve metres
by twelve metres with servants
to bring my food, remove my waste
and feed me books in exchange
for insights from a tiny window called a squint.

I have not yet given up all my worldly possessions or ambitions.

I like to run and might have been one of the nuns
who ran away like Isolde de Heton from Whalley Abbey
in the 1470s but not for forbidden children or men

but simply for the desire to roam however far
my walking, running or cycling legs will carry me
through the labyrinth of this land following the streets
that lie on older streets, on pilgrim’s paths and padways
and Roman roads and horse paths and deer paths.

The horses in me bolt from their stables when kept in too long.

They run with the hounds before the wolves and ravens,
the owls with their crazy eyes mad on psychedelics,
the portents from the stars and our gardens.

Honesty is here and all the pavement plants.

I am told I must be ‘a guide to the soul.’

I fear my revelations will be mundane and suburban.

They will include words like ‘cloths’ and ‘washing’ and ‘washing up’
but also honesty, Lunaria annua, enchanter’s nightshade, 
Circaea lutetiana, ivy, hedera, yew, Taxus buccata.

In a vision I am a hell-hound prowling around my anchor.
I am the anchoress who howls and where my head is I do not know.

Rescuing the Wrens

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I dream of a wren’s nest on a wooden beam overhanging tidal waters. Then I’m holding it. It’s warm and soft and feathery and filled with baby wrens. I’m afraid for them. I fear they will fall into the water. 

The scene shifts and I’m watching from beyond as the wren chicks fall as I feared, but before they drown each of them is saved by a kingfisher with a blue-grey beak, who plucks them out and places them on the nearby sands. 

I’ve been struggling of late. Minor health problems. Exercise niggles. Burning myself out by working 7 day weeks even though I’m not in paid work. Problems with my spiritual practice and lamenting having no human teacher, no existing structure or tradition to turn to. 

I’ve been losing wrens.

Wrens. They’re secretive birds. A lot of people can’t or don’t see them. I’m not brilliant with birds or bird calls but I often spot the ‘little pointy tails’ in the undergrowth before hearing their loud song and I also see wren chicks around this time of year. In the Wildwood Tarot they’re associated with voice and prophecy and folklorically they are a sacrifical bird killed around mid-winter.

Kingfishers. Contrastingly I don’t see kingfishers often and when they do show up I know something deep and numinous is happening. The last time I saw a kingfisher it was connected with the death of a friend and spiritual guide.

The message of this dream seems to be not to be too harsh on myself or on our fledgling spiritual traditions. To stop getting frustrated and jettisoning my wrens. 

This time the kingfisher has shown up to save them. I’m not sure who the kingfisher is. Glas y dorlan ‘blue of the riverbank’. Maybe Nodens, the Fisher King. Maybe a messenger of His or of His son, Vindos/Gwyn, my patron. Or maybe something or someone else turning up to remind me I have been guided less formally by a number of different mentors in different ways along my path*.

Perhaps here is represented the Monastery of Annwn and the polytheistic movement as a fledgling endeavour. Although we have no structure or tradition we have each other for support and the saving grace of our Gods.

*To name them Phil and Lynda Ryder in Druidry, Brian Taylor in animism, Greg Hill in the Brythonic tradition, Jason and Nicola Smalley in shamanistic practices.

*Images courtesy of Wikipedia.

On Conversions and the Need for Deeper Truths

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Over the last few days I have been taking some time out from writing my novel in progress, In the Deep, after completing the second draft and realising some of the content has strayed from the imaginal into the imaginary. Not being sure how to remedy it I turned for insights to one of my favourite mythtellers Martin Shaw. I found the wisdom I needed in his video ‘On the Fall and the Underworld’ where he warns to be aware of engaging with avatars rather than divinities themselves, giving the example of ‘Baba Yaga with her teeth pulled out’. I had fallen afoul in this mistake in some of my later scenes with the winged serpents.

I also discovered, at first to my surprise, that Martin, whose works are deeply Pagan and animistic and based in his experience of extended wilderness vigils recently converted to Orthodox Christianity. I felt less surprised as I learnt about how this happened in relation to the rest of his personal journey in his dialogue with Mark Vernon ‘The Mossy Face of Christ’. Following a one hundred and one day vigil in a local wood in Devon he had an Old Testament style vision and retired to bed to hear 9 words that led him to the conclusion he must return to his ‘original home’ which was Eden. This was followed by a series of intense dreams featuring Jesus and the son of God moving into his life in a similar way to which He wrecked the temple in Jerusalem. Martin grew up in a Christian family and his practice already resembled that of the Desert Fathers and the peregrini who set out for wild places to find God.

Of course I could not help but relate this to the conversion to Orthodox Christianity of his friend, Paul Kingsnorth, whose writing I also admire, in particular ‘the Dark Mountain Manifesto’ (which was written with Dougald Hind in 2009). Kingsnorth writes of his experiences in ‘The Cross and the Machine’. Here he speaks of carrying an Abyss within him, of needing ‘a truth to surrender to’. He did not find this during his time as a Wiccan priest. Following a series of dreams he found it in Jesus and in Orthodox Christianity and his Abyss was filled.

‘In Orthodoxy I had found the answers I had sought, in the one place I never thought to look. I found a Christianity that had retained its ancient heart—a faith with living saints and a central ritual of deep and inexplicable power. I found a faith that, unlike the one I had seen as a boy, was not a dusty moral template but a mystical path, an ancient and rooted thing, pointing to a world in which the divine is not absent but everywhere present, moving in the mountains and the waters. The story I had heard a thousand times turned out to be a story I had never heard at all.’

There is much in both Shaw’s and Kingsnorth’s experiences I relate to as someone who received a calling to devote their life to a Brythonic god – Gwyn ap Nudd. The shock of a deity who was not expected stepping into one’s life and coming along and turning everything upside down. Inititally resisting. Submitting to the call in spite of being unsure what it means and being terrified what others will think.

I’ve also been tempted by Christianity. Like Kingsnorth I rejected it but still found myself hanging around churches and I additionally had a calling towards monasticism. As I approached my 35th birthday I was desperately aware this would be my last chance to become a Christian nun but I didn’t take it. I also had a couple of encounters with Jesus whilst working as a cleaner at a local Catholic school. His presence was everywhere and whilst I was cycling home I saw His face before me trying to mouth something in Middle Eastern. He then turned up at our dining table and I told Him politely I was already taken by Gwyn.

Looking at Shaw and Kingsnorth’s converstion to Christianity I can fully understand the need to respond to this strange and rebellious and self-sacrificing God-become-a-man, to take up the cross, to walk in a 2000 year tradition that has its book, its churches, its liturgy, its mysteries, its mysticism. That Christianity provides better trodden and more accessible ways to deeper truths than we find in modern Paganism and Polytheism as we have little over fifty years of development (if one claims Wicca and Pagan Druidry as points of origin).

Although I feel this impulse Christianity is not for me and the Christian God and his son/incarnation, Jesus, are not my God(s). I belong heart and soul to Gwyn.

As a polytheist nun who recently founded an online polytheistic monastery, the Monastery of Annwn, (of which Gwyn is the patron) I wish whole heartedly we had longer and more explicitly sacred texts than the fragmentary material from medieval Welsh literature, longstanding prayers and rites, systems of meditation, moreover physical monasteries. But we don’t. So our small group is having to make things up as we go along – sharing and co-writing prayers, joining together in meditation, discussing our experiences, putting together rituals. Our deeper truths too are there. We’re touching on mysteries and finding our mysticism. I believe this can be done just as well in Polytheism as in Christianity with a little patience.

I find it interesting to note the cross over between the impulses towards a rewilding of Christianity with the likes of Shaw and Kingsnorth and the call for more depth and discipline within Paganism and Polytheism with the Polytheistic Monastic movement.

Prayer Beads of Annwn

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As a gift for my dedication as a nun of Annwn my friend Aurora J Stone made me some prayer beads. Crafted in the colours of Annwn from howlite (white), carnelian (red) and onyx (black) and the smaller ones from bone they include animals and symbols I associate with my patron God, Gwyn ap Nudd – a horse, a hound, an owl, a raven, a star, a spiral and the Awen. They are the most beautiful and meaningful gift I have ever been given.

When I received the beads earlier in January I was unsure what to do with them. I learnt that in the Christian tradition the person praying starts with the charm (the Awen) and the nearby symbols then moves onto the central bead, which is the invitation to prayer. There are then set prayers to be recited with the beads moving around in a clockwise direction from start to finish.

As we don’t have a set way of praying with beads or a body of prayers for Gwyn and the deities of Annwn in the Brythonic tradition I created my own by listening to the beads and for what came through from Gwyn and from the Awen. They are written below. The words in bold represent a bead or a symbol and can work as a pause for deeper meditation.

Prayer Beads of Annwn

Dedicated to Gwyn ap Nudd and the Mysteries of Annwn

The Awen: Annuvian Awen prayer*

Your Star: the first to shine and the last to die**

Your Spiral: I walk with You from beginning to end

~

Invitation:

Gwyn ap Nudd, White Son of Mist
by this white bead of howlite,
I respond to Your call 
to prayer –
let it be a doorway
to Your deep mysteries,
a gateway to the depths of Annwn.

~

Your Hound: the opening howl

~

Black is for dark,
for the darkness of Annwn,
for the Cauldron of Pen Annwn,
for the womb of Old Mother Universe.
For the primordial material and the black dragon,
for the chaos and terror before the birth of stars and worlds.

~

Your Owl: wisdom in madness

~

White is for spirit,
for the spirits of Annwn,
for the horses and hounds of Your Hunt,
for the fury held in Your kingdom and in You,
for all souls gathered at the end of time,
for the divine breath uniting all.

~

Your Raven: croaks over gore

~

Red is for blood,
for the heartbeat of Annwn,
for the heart of Your Kingdom and the berries of the yew,
for the river of blood uniting us with our ancestors,
for our sacrifices and our eternal battles.

~

Your Horse: carries me home

*I wrote this in English and fellow awenydd Greg Hill translated it into Welsh HERE.
**This echoes a poem for Gwyn called ‘For the First Star’ by another fellow awenydd and Gwyn devotee Thornsilver Hollysong HERE.

Ten Year Anniversary of Dedication to Gwyn ap Nudd – from Glastonbury Tor to Beyond the Expected

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Glastonbury Tor

On star circled tor You stand lawless vigil.
Tower swallows cloud in Your endless waiting.
Years I have run the edges of Your world
Yet quietly my destruction You disdain.
Call to the stars shining out the full moon,
One blast of Your horn draws my soul back home.
In Your sublunar shrine springs from Annwn
Pour a cauldron of infinite wisdom.
Daughters of Avalon dance at its ridge.
Their shadows twist to the roaring song.
I see You, White Keeper of Time and Mist,
Watching patiently beyond mortal bonds.
The moment rings clear as Your guidance sure:
Let the words be spoke and the path be walked.

Hail Gwyn ap Nudd, King of Spirits! (January 26th 2013)

I wrote this sonnet ten years ago following my initial dedication to my patron God, Gwyn ap Nudd, at the White Spring beneath Glastonbury Tor. It was a magical and transformative moment and has changed and shaped my life.

My service to him as his awenydd ‘person inspired’ has gifted me with meaning and purpose beyond the rules and norms of this world. I’ve written three books for Him and the other Gods and Goddesses of ancient Britain and the spirits of the land along with countless poems, stories, and articles.

My relationship with Him continues to lead ever deeper into Annwn and into His mysteries. To getting to know myself better and more wonderfully to know Him. Most recently it has led to me becoming a nun of Annwn.

To mark the occasion my friend Aurora J Stone* made me some prayer beads. They are the colours of Annwn – howlite (white), carnelian (red) and onyx (black) and feature animals and symbols I associate with Gwyn. A hound, a horse, an owl, a raven, a spiral and a star. Aurora lives near Wells and very kindly laid them out on Glastonbury Tor to pick up some of its energy and sent some leaves and twigs from the tor when she posted the package. Receiving them around this time felt symbolic of the completion of a ten year journey.

Last night I journeyed with Gwyn to see what lies ahead. I can’t disclose what He showed me yet but His main message was that I must go ‘beyond the expected’.

This spoke to my fears about my series of books focusing on Gwyn’s story from origins to end being less accessible to my existing audience because they go beyond known Brythonic lore into personal gnosis and the realms of fiction. His words reassured me that this is exactly what I need to do. It also seemed meaningful that I recalled it was on my initial dedication day He appeared to me as a black dragon and that deciphering how Gwyn ‘White’ takes this form is one of the mysteries behind me writing these books.

I cannot guess what the next ten years might hold but ‘beyond the expected’ sounds like an exciting prospect.

*You can find Aurora’s writing online at ‘Grey Bear in the Middle’ HERE.