Tag: Brythonic Polytheism

The Origins of Houses and House Spirits

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Introduction

In ancient and modern polytheistic and shamanic cultures, houses are viewed as inspirited and as being occupied by one or more house spirits. My recent efforts to build a better relationship with my house and house spirits has led me to researching how people in Britain and, in particular, in my local area and more widely across Lancashire, have related to theirs.

Living Lightly

The earliest people of Britain were hunter-gatherers. They were highly mobile. Those who dwelled in Lancashire spent their summers in temporary camps in various locations on the West Pennines and moved to larger and more static base camps in the western lowlands over the winter. 

I live in Penwortham in a lowland area close to the river Ribble. A couple of miles upriver was a camp at Walton-le-Dale where blades were made. The closest upland camps are on Withnell, Wheelton, Anglezarke, Rivington and Smithills Moors. 

These people lived so lightly on the land not a trace of their dwellings has been found. They slept in tents made from animal hides that they carried with them, supported by stakes made from dwarf birch and willow. The animal hides were viewed as imbued with the spirit of the animal who was killed and the stakes with the spirits of the trees who had been felled. Prayers and offerings were likely made to these spirits before and after their deaths. 

The First Houses

During the Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods, settlements were rare but did exist. The most famous example is Star Carr in Yorkshire. Here, the earliest house in Britain was found, dating to around 8,500 BCE. It consisted of a ring of 18 wooden posts enclosing a circular floor 3.5 meters in diameter. It was likely thatched with reeds from the nearby lake. Three later houses were found along with timber platforms from which offerings were made to the lake.

Reconstruction of Howick House in Northumberland, Wikipedia Commons

Another example is Howick House in Northumberland dating to 7500BCE. At Lunt Meadows in Merseyside, three houses dating to 6000BCE were found. Close by was an intricate arrangement of stones consisting of two granite boulders, stained red, with sparkling mica pieces, with struck blue flints and a smaller pebble. These likely served a ritual function. Also, a tree had been set alight on the site and a white flint blade deposited underneath it.

It has been theorised that, whilst most of the population remained mobile, some people might have lived permanently at these camps and made them ‘home’. Here, perhaps, we found the earliest house spirits. 

It is likely that offerings were made to placate the land spirits before building a house and to keep them happy whilst people were in residence. It’s possible that some of the land spirits who were recipients came to be house spirits.

During the Neolithic period, in southern Britain, people began settling in farmsteads and taking to small-scale agriculture but this was less common in the north. The earliest domestic settlement in my vicinity is Irby, on the Wirral, from the Middle Bronze Age. It’s a circular structure with post-sockets in which pottery and clay artefacts were found – likely offerings to the land spirits. Within was an oven, pottery and bronze work. Cereals were farmed.

Such farmsteads, and other roundhouses, were simple structures with a hearth in the middle and beds around the outside. People worked and slept in them and no doubt told stories around the fire through the winter months. These houses would have been alive with the spirit of the family, their work, their tales. The fire would likely have been honoured along with the house spirits.

Here, in Penwortham, there was a Bronze Age lake dwelling on Penwortham Marsh consisting of a brushwood platform and piles measuring 17m by 7m. This may have been occupied during the winter and by people travelling the Ribble in dug-out canoes (two of which were found in the nearby area).

Hill Forts and Foundation Burials

In the Late Bronze Age and in the Iron Age people began building hill forts. These ranged in size. Some were a single fortified building with defensive palisades, banks and ditches, whereas others contained whole villages with roundhouses, granaries and storage pits, and shrines.

It’s possible that an earlier small prehistoric fort (or burial mound) lay beneath the Anglo-Saxon fort that gave its name to Castle Hill in Penwortham. Along the Ribble, there were possible promontory forts on Frenchwood Knoll and along the banks at Fishwick Allotments, Red Scar Wood and Boilton Wood.

Hill forts across Britain are often associated with foundation burials. For example, there was an adult burial beneath Maiden Hill in Dorset and at South Cadbury in Somerset there were numerous burials in ritual pits. These may have been made to placate the land spirits and / or to incorporate ancestors into the house. These spirits likely became house spirits.

Maiden Castle, Wikipedia Commons

The tradition of foundation burials of humans and animals is long standing. Two human skeletons were buried beneath a house on Orkney during the Neolithic period and a sea eagle was also buried as a foundation deposit. At Cladh Hallan, in South Ouist, on the Outer Hebrides, two mummified skeletons were deposited beneath a Bronze Age roundhouse. These were composed of different persons showing a complex merging of ancestors and house.

Hill forts were seen to have their own spirit and to be inspirited by past owners. In medieval Welsh literature, we find references to Caer Gwenddolau (‘the Fort of Gwenddolau’) and Staffell Cynddylan (‘The Hall of Cynddylan’) about whose fall exists a lament describing it as ‘forlorn,’ ‘desolate’, ‘dark’.

Roman House Spirits

Unfortunately, the Britons didn’t write anything down, so we don’t know much about their specific beliefs about house spirits or their names. However, we do know about the traditions brought by the Romans. 

It’s worth noting here that Roman building traditions differed to the British. When they came here, they built houses with multiple rooms, including kitchens, dining rooms, baths and individual bedrooms. 

Examples here in Lancashire include the fort at Kirkham and the Roman town at Ribchester known as Bremetennacum, ‘the Fortress by the Roaring Ford’, due to its proximity to the River Ribble. There was also a Roman industrial site at Walton-le-Dale, continuing the earlier blade industry.

The Romans honoured a variety of house spirits. The Lares domesticus were house spirits and might formerly have been spirits of the land. The Lares familiaris were spirits of the family – family ancestors. The penates were spirits of the pantries and kitchen and often had altars in the cupboards and were seen to look after the food and were gifted with food offerings at mealtimes. The male head of the household had a genius who helped him to govern the home and the female a guiding spirit called a Juno. Each family also had their own patron God or Goddess and worshipped the local deities.

Roman Lararium (a shrine to the Lares), Wikipedia Commons

Whereas we see examples of Romans taking over British shrines and equating British and Roman deities via interpretatio Romana (for example, Belisama, Goddess of the Ribble, was equated with Minerva at Ribchester), we do not find any examples of British and Roman house spirits being equated. This is likely because household shrines were small and made of organic materials and did not leave any traces in the archaeological records. 

It’s likely that the Britons also honoured both spirits of the house and family and possibly had guiding spirits for their male and female lineages. 

‘Unclean Spirits’

With the coming of Christianity and its establishment as the mainstream religion in Britain following the conversion of Constantine in 312CE and the Augustinian Mission in 597CE, interaction with spirits became frowned upon. Pre-Christian sacred sites were replaced with Christian ones. People were told to pray not to the deities of the land but to the Christian God. ‘Unclean spirits’ were routinely banished by the Christian priesthood.

Still, amongst rural people, the older traditions lived on. These were recorded in later folklore. In his Journey Through Wales, in 1188, Gerald of Wales records the existence of disruptive house spirits in Pembroke. He refers to them as ‘unclean spirits’ who ‘have been in close communication with human beings. They are not visible, but their presence is felt all the same… They have been in the habit of manifesting them-selves, throwing refuse all over the place, more keen perhaps to be a nuisance than to do any real harm.’

In William Not’s house, ‘They were a cause of annoyance to both host and guests alike, ripping up their clothes of linen, and their woollen ones, too, and even cutting holes in them. No matter what precautions were taken, there seemed to be no way of protecting these garments, not even if the doors were kept bolted and barred.’ 

In Stephen Wiet’s house, the spirit argued with humans. ‘When they protested, and this they would often do in sport, he would upbraid them in public for every nasty little act which they had committed from the day of their birth onwards, things which they did not like to hear discussed.’

Gerald notes that Christian priests failed to banish these spirits with holy water. 

Bwbachan

In British Goblins (1880), Wirt Sikes records several stories of the Welsh Bwbachan, ‘house fairies’. He provides the following description: ‘The Bwbach, or Boobach, is the good-natured goblin which does good turns for the tidy Welsh maid who wins its favour by a certain course of behaviour recommended by long tradition. The maid having swept the kitchen, makes a good fire the last thing at night, and having put the churn, filled with cream, on the whitened hearth, with a basin of fresh cream for the Bwbach on the hob, goes to bed to await the event. In the morning she finds (if she is in luck) that the Bwbach has emptied the basin of cream, and plied the churn-dasher so well that the maid has but to give a thump or two to bring the butter in a great lump. Like the Ellyll which it so much resembles, the Bwbach does not approve of dissenters and their ways, and especially strong is its aversion to total abstainers.’

He records a number of tales of how these spirits have come to help on farms. In Glamorganshire, Rowli Pugh was down on his luck. An ellyll ‘elf or fairy’ offered to help on the condition that he bid his ‘good wife leave the candle burning when she goes to bed, and say no more about it.’ Every night, ‘his wife set the candle out, swept the hearth, and went to bed; and every night the fairies would come and do her baking and brewing, her washing and mending, sometimes even furnishing their own tools and materials.’ ‘Everything prospered’. Then, ‘one night… she took a peep at the fair family… through a crack in the door. There they were, a jolly company of ellyllon, working away like mad, and laughing and dancing as madly as they worked. Catti was so amused that in spite of herself she fell to laughing too; and at sound of her voice the ellyllon scattered like mist before the wind, leaving the room empty. They never came back any more; but the farmer was now prosperous, and his bad luck never returned to plague him.’

In a story that shares resemblances with others from across Britain, at Hendrefawr farm, in Merionethshire, a farmer is tormented by a Bwbach who he wishes would ‘flit’. To get rid of the troublesome spirit, he feigns leaving the farm, putting his household goods on a cart and leaving for England. When he reaches a ford called Rhyd-y-Fen, a neighbour asks if he is leaving for good. From the churn on the cart comes a shrill cry, ‘Yes, yes, we are flitting from Hendrefawr to Eingl-dud, where we’ve got a new home.’ The farmer, realising his plan has failed, takes the Bwbach back to their home. 

This shows that once a house spirit has formed an attachment with a certain family, they will often follow the family, rather than remaining with the new owners.

Brownies

Brownie, by Alice Woodward, Wikipedia Commons

In Scotland and some areas of northern England and the midlands, house spirits are referred to as brownies. In his Fairy Mythology, (1828), Thomas Keightley describes a ‘Brownie’ as ‘a personage of small stature, wrinkled visage, covered with short curly brown hair, and wearing a brown mantle and hood. His residence is the hollow of the old tree, a ruined castle, or the abode of man, He is attached to particular families, with whom he has been known to reside, even for centuries, threshing the corn, cleaning the house… He is, to a certain degree, disinterested; like many great personages, he is shocked at anything approaching to the name of a bribe or douceur, yet, like them, allows his scruples to be overcome if the thing be done in a genteel, delicate, and secret way. Thus, offer Brownie a piece of bread, a cup of drink, or a new coat and hood, and he flouted at it, and perhaps, in his huff, quitted the place for ever; but leave a nice bowl of cream, and some fresh honeycomb, in a snug private corner, and they soon disappeared, though Brownie, it was to be supposed, never knew anything of them.’

Here, we find some overlap with other British house spirits with the helping with household chores and enjoyment of offerings of dairy products. We also find the additional rule against giving other forms of payment, particularly clothing.

In other tales, Brownies given clothing take offence and depart. ‘A new mantle and a new hood; / Poor Brownie! ye ‘ll ne’er do mair gude!’ ‘Gie Brownie coat, gie Brownie sark, / Ye ‘se get nae mair o’ Brownie’s wark!’ A Brownie given bread and milk left taking ‘the luck’ of the house with him.

House Boggarts

Here, in Lancashire, house spirits often appear as troublesome boggarts. These spirits traditionally dwell in boggart holes and come to take up residence in farms and cause trouble, possibly because they have taken a disliking to the draining of their land by the ditches that drain the fields. 

In The Lancashire Dictionary, Alan Crosby defines a boggart as a ‘ghost, sprite, evil spirit or feeorin.’ He says, ‘There was scarcely an old house or a lonely valley which did not have its terrifying tales of creatures which roamed, shrieked and caused havoc – though most do not appear to have been especially malevolent, and some were just a nuisance.’

A farmhouse in Boggart’s Hole Clough in Blackley was haunted by a creature with ‘a small shrill voice’ ‘like a baby’s penny trumpet’ who played tricks on the residents and their children. Having decided to leave, as they made their departure they heard the shrill voice say ‘Ay, ay neighbour, we’re flitting you see.” Realising wherever they went the boggart would follow, they turned back.

The boggart of Barcroft Hall in Burnley was reputedly ‘a helpful little fellow’ until given a pair of clogs. After this he caused trouble, breaking pots and pans, making animals sick and lame, preventing the cows from milking and putting the farmer’s prize bull on the roof. Fed up of his tricks the farmer decided to leave. Crossing a small bridge he heard a voice call from beneath, “Stop while I’ve tied my clogs, and I’ll go with you!” The farmer resigned to go back.’

Here we find again the themes of ‘flitting’ and the rule against giving clothes.

Approaching House Spirits

The archaeological and literary evidence for house spirits suggests they originated as land spirits and became incorporated into the house and then became attached to certain families, who they would often follow. They exercise a certain amount of freedom, choosing who they serve, setting conditions, and causing trouble or departing if they are not met. Some are satisfied by any offering of food or drink whilst others demand dairy. Giving them money or clothes appears to be a universal no-no. 

Assessing whether your house has a house spirit and whether it is happy might be evidenced by the feel and condition of the house. Is the house clean and airy? Do you feel like you’re helped with the chores? Does anything get on its own? Or are things always breaking or being misplaced? Is everything always a mess? Do you find you’re plagued by mould and damp?

For those who feel comfortable it is a good idea to try to commune with the house spirit. This can be done in meditation or light trance. A candle can be lit and an offering of food or drink (dairy products if it feels right) can be made. 

Be polite and respectful. Don’t immediately ask for help or favours. Check in with the spirit about who they are, how long they’ve been there, what they need. Depending on your own and the spirit’s ways of speaking and listening, you might see and hear the spirit directly with your inner sense or might receive feelings, an inner knowing, or some physical sign like a creak or blast of wind. Be aware that such spirits have likely not been talked to for a long time and might be feeling hurt and resentful about their neglect. 

Afterwards, if drawn to, you might set aside a space for the spirit with a representation, a candle, or a place for offerings, as you both see fit. 

The spirit can then be consulted on questions relating to the house such as cleaning, decorating and renovation and even asked for advice on family affairs.

When considering moving house you might ask if the spirit wants to stay or leave. And… if you don’t… you might find that it comes flitting with you!

SOURCES

Barrowclough, D. Prehistoric Lancashire, (The History Press, 2011)
Crosby, A. The Lancashire Dictionary, (Smith Settle, 2000)
Keightley, T., The Fairy Mythology, (1828), https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/tfm/tfm130.htm
Harland, J. Wilkinson, Lancashire Folklore, (1867), Project Guntenburg Ebook (2012), https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/41148/pg41148-images.html
Lamb, J. ‘Lancashire’s Prehistoric Past’, Linda Sever (ed), Lancashire’s Sacred Landscape, (2010, History Press)
Lecouteux, C. The Tradition of Household Spirits, (Inner Traditions, 2013)
Sikes, W. British Goblins, (1880), Project Gutenburg Ebook, (2010), https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34704/34704-h/34704-h.htm
Turner-Bishop, A, ‘Fairy and Boggart Sites in Lancashire,’ Sever, L. (ed), Lancashire’s Sacred Landscape, (The History Press, 2010)
https://historic-liverpool.co.uk/lunt-meadows-mesolithic-settlement/
https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2024/research/hunter-gatherers-orderly-home/

The Sanctuary is a Place not a Product

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“The sanctuary is a place not a product,” says Vindos.

That’s easy for Him to say when He’s the King of Annwn. From the heights of His golden throne. When He’s got all the treasures of Annwn arrayed around Him. Heaps of golden coins. Plates. Cups. A horn of ever-flowing mead. A cauldron that feeds a kingdom of fair folk and all the dead who ever walked there. 

He who has no fear of hunger. He who has no fear of thirst. He whose four-cornered fortress belongs to Him, is part of Him, requires no mortgage nor rent. 

And it’s not as if I live in poverty. By the generosity of my parents, I have a roof over my head, enough to eat, a lovely garden where I grow wildflowers. 

But I won’t be able to live here forever. The day will come when I must stand on my own two feet. When I must earn my living. My shamanic work is paying far better than my writing ever did but still is not enough to live off.

I take a business course. I learn some useful things. I get pulled back towards the drive to endless productivity, endless growth, attempt to go back on social media and laughably end up faced with multiple dead ends. I’m banned from Facebook and Instagram. I refuse to go on X. I try Linkedin. It’s corporate, soulless, the Land of the Vampires. Drained, I make my escape.

“The sanctuary is a place not a product,” says Vindos. He tells me to embody sanctuary and this is not possible when I’m selling my soul. “Start at home. Heal yourself, heal your relationships, only then will others come for healing.”

Start at home. Do the moneyless work. Heal my own wounds. My relationship with this place, with my family, with my ancestors. A lifetime’s work. 

“Do your soulwork,” he says. “It will pay, if not in this life, in the next or the next.”

“And as for the sanctuary?”

“Between you and I and those who come it will take shape.” 

Let your soul rest

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Let your soul rest
gently as a butterfly on my chest

One of my practices during the heat and noise of summer is journeying to the Otherworld, where Vindos / Gwyn sleeps as Winter King, and finding rest with Him in His tomb in the Castle of Cold Stone.

Shaping Sanctuary

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On the Challenges of Shaping Sanctuary in Shamanic Practice

My relationship with my home hasn’t always been one of sanctuary. Some days, it still isn’t. I recognise the irony that as soon as I decide to offer some shamanic guidance on the subject, my mum’s ceiling starts leaking, and it turns out we need a new roof and have roofers banging on the roof for two weeks!

The term ‘sanctuary’ didn’t have much meaning for me when I was young. The first time I started thinking about it was when I watched the Disney film, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, where Esmerelda knocks on the doors of the cathedral crying, “Sanctuary, please give me sanctuary.” Thus, I came to associate sanctuary with churches and cathedrals. Places I felt banned from because I neither worshipped nor felt any connection with the Christian God. 

Still, home was a safe place. The only safe place. Safe from school. Safe from the bullies (although I always feared they would follow me home). There, I could hole myself up in my room with my Playmobile riding school, with a fantasy book, with a new story to write, with characters from it to draw. Unfortunately, it was a place where I shut myself away with chocolate too.

I’ve lived in this very same house, in Penwortham, Lancashire, since I was four years old. Only a few times, briefly, have I attempted to move away. The walls recall every single one of my temper tantrums, every argument with my parents, every time I stuffed my anger and despair down with food. They held me through those times. They stood there without judgement.

They held me through my difficult teen years when I blu-tacked onto them posters of Jon Bon Jovi, Guns N Roses, the Manic Street Preachers, David Bowie, Pink Floyd, Joy Division, Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails. As I hung them with feather boas and filled my room with glitter and balloons. As my taste in music and my life got darker, they bore witness to me smoking cigarettes and joints out of my window and my heavy drinking and self-harm.

Their holding of me largely went unacknowledged. I was far too caught up in my own world, my own pain, to be aware of anything or anyone else. 

This began to change when I discovered Paganism and Druidry. When I began to tentatively reach out for relationship with the other-than-human world. I’d long been able to perceive spirits, but, as someone with an overactive imagination, was unsure how to discern what was real and what was not. It turned out I needed to stop asking that question and trust my imaginal faculties (which have long been denigrated in the Western world). 

I made contact with the guardian of this patch of land who has been here long before the houses were built. I made a clay statuette of him and began making offerings of butter. However, these went icky and didn’t feel right. Although this is a traditional offering, I’m not sure that my dad’s Morrison’s Unsalted Butter had the same meaning as homemade butter made from one’s own cow milk in pre-industrial times. I’ve tried leaving processed milk at the bottom of the garden, but that was messy and smelt bad. So, I’ve settled for prayers and attention, and that seems to be enough. 

In spite of making contact with our guardian spirit and setting up an altar to my Gods and local spirits in my bedroom, my relationship with our house as a whole wasn’t good. Outside of my room, I didn’t feel it was truly ‘my home’. It didn’t cross my mind that relationship doesn’t equate to ownership.

Although I was religious and devoted to my Gods and spirits in many ways, totally offered myself in service to Them through my creativity and devotional practices, my relationship with my home and my parents was very poor. I spent much of my time shut away, drinking and writing, living my life through the Pagan and Polytheist blogosphere, ignoring the reality around me.

My parents didn’t take much care of the house either. My mum kept it clean and did a little painting, but largely, no decorating was done since we moved in. We live in a damp area near to a drained off mossland (Penwortham Moss). Damp was coming through the walls. There was mould in the bathroom. 

“You don’t speak very good house speak,” I was told by our guardian spirit. 

Soon afterwards, Covid struck. By this time I’d realised I was never going to make a living as a Brythonic polytheist author and was attempting to volunteer my way into conservation work. My work parties were called off. With nothing else to do, I turned my eyes to the house and garden. I took carloads of my parents’ accumulations to the Recycling Centre. I deep-cleaned. I began to tackle the damp and the mould but dared not touch the bathroom. 

This changed a year later, coinciding with the arrival of a birthday present – Dver’s Mycorrhizal Dionysus. The day it arrived, the mould began to spore. I donned a mask and a hazmat suit and managed to remove it from the walls and stripped off the painted wall paper, taking it right back to the plaster. (What kind of idiot puts up wall paper in a bathroom then paints over it?). This took me over three days and another three days to apply anti-mould paint. 

It wasn’t the last time the hazmat suit was required. We have a crumbling Artex ceiling in our dining room that I was forced to patch up and paint over. 

In all honesty, I didn’t work in relationship with the house very well. I was far too angry with my parents for the years of neglect and this coloured my work. 

Yet, when it came to decorating, I did ask what it wanted and listened to its replies. House speak is a bit different to communicating with a guardian spirit. The spirit of my house doesn’t appear in anthropomorphic form. Our communication takes place more through the felt sense, through groans and creaks, through visible signs. And, of course, events, like a leak or the gutter falling down. I got a feel for what colours it wanted then integrated this with my mum’s desires. (My dad refused to accept we needed to decorate at all). 

Over the past few years, I have re-decorated nearly the whole house. Two years ago, I did my room. As I got rid of the old chest of drawers and wardrobe, replacing them with my great grandmother’s chest of drawers (I’d downsized my clothing), I felt a sense of release from the past. Those wooden beings had borne witness to all my bad habits. They were thanked and taken to be recycled. As I cleaned and painted the walls, which were grubby with smoke from when I smoked and from my candles, I felt the darkness from past years lifting, their breathing anew. The new carpet was so thick and luxurious after the old one I rolled around it like a horse on a new bed (an impromptu ritual it seemed to appreciate). I remade my altar and reconsecrated ‘the sanctuary’. The atmosphere has been lighter since. 

I’ve done a lot of work in the garden too but that’s another story I won’t go into here. What is being asked of me now by my Gods and spirits is that I be aware and present as I go about the house. Treat it all as a sanctuary. That I embody sanctuary. That my embodiment of sanctuary is reflected in my everyday relationships with my house and with my parents.

This is the core of my current work. It’s very different to when I was doing deeper trance work and writing drunkenly and having lots of visionary experiences. One might say I have become very boring. On the outside, that is true for sure, but on the inside I have grown a lot in terms of recognising and challenging my bad habits and become a safer, more compassionate person.

The shaping of the Sanctuary of Vindos remains a work in progress. It is one that requires co-operation between myself, Vindos, the Spirit of the Sanctuary, my room, our house, and my parents. 

My meditation practices have helped me to regulate my nervous system better, but I’m still anxious, stressy and irritable. I have come to accept, as the Buddhists say, these seeds will likely always be strong within me. I am learning to water them less and to water calmness and gratitude more.

Life continues to have its ups and downs. Some days, I come close to living, breathing and embodying sanctuary. Sometimes, it feels as far away as the moon.

Whether a time will come when I feel worthy of offering ‘shaping sanctuary’ sessions I remain unsure. I would be interested to hear about the experiences of others of creating sacred space and ways of being amidst the complexities and the difficulties of the everyday world in their spiritual practice.

Awareness as the Greatest Offering

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On Reclaiming Awareness in Contemporary Shamanism and Polytheism

‘There is no greater offering than awareness.’ These words came from my patron God, Vindos, from an old, old form of Him who predates this name.

In prehistoric times, when Vindos was worshipped across Britain and Gaul, people lived in deep awareness of the natural world and its energetic and spiritual dimensions. This has been lost over the centuries. Indigenous cultures retain it and meditative traditions provide the key to reclaiming it within contemporary shamanic and polytheistic traditions in the West.

In this article, I cover how our awareness has been lost and look to the guidance of the yogic tradition and its Lord, Shiva, and to Vindos Himself, for how awareness might be reclaimed as the greatest offering. 

How We Lost Our Awareness

It’s my personal gnosis that Vindos, a God associated with hunting, wolves and dogs, has long been venerated by the hunter-gatherer peoples who populated Britain and Gaul and perhaps further afield. 

These people were animists, who saw the whole world as inspirited, from the animals, trees, plants and fungi, to hills, mountains, rocks, the smallest of stones. It was all viewed as alive and aware. Their culture was also shamanic. Through shamanic trance, they were able communicate with each individual awareness not only on the physical level but on energetic and spiritual levels and to access the universal awareness of the entire cosmos.

They were also polytheistic and worshipped numerous Gods and spirits. These included the Deities of natural features such as mountains and rivers and those who presided over functions such as birth, death, war and healing. These Gods were multifaceted and many performed multiple roles. 

The awareness of these people was expansive. For their survival, they depended on being deeply aware of the physical, energetic and spirit realms. 

The need for such finely honed awareness likely began to decline with the development of agriculture and more sedentary societies, who relied on the strength of their warriors and their defensive fortifications in order to live. 

With the coming of Christianity, awareness of the inspiritedness of the natural world and of its energetic and spiritual dimensions declined as people were told that nature and the body were sinful and that God and the saints resided in a heavenly realm only accessible to the righteous upon death.

Our scientific worldview eliminated the existence of spirits entirely, presenting the natural world as dead matter governed by scientific laws.

The industrial and technological revolutions have separated us further. For the most part, we experience nature and human relationships on screens.

We are suffering from myopia both theoretically and literally. This is epitomised by the 996 work culture wherein some people in the tech industry work 9am until 9pm six days a week – 72 hours in total at a screen. We lose hours, even days, scrolling news feeds and binge watching Netflix. 

The worst of the matter is that we’re not even aware of our unawareness.

Awareness in Shaivism and Yoga

In prehistoric times, the cost of a lack of awareness was death. I believe that practices designed to cultivate awareness in meditative traditions such as yoga likely date back to older animistic and shamanic cultures. These provide clues to the life-or-death matter of awareness and how it might be reclaimed.

In Insight into Reality: The Tantric Teachings of the Vigyana Bhairava Tantra, Swami Nischalananda, speaks of how yoga and tantra originate from ‘Shaivism, the Path of Evoking Shiva, a system of mysticism rooted in indigenous shamanism’. My explication of Shaivism derives from his work.

In Shaivism, ultimate reality has two sides. One is Parama Shiva – ‘Supreme Consciousness’ or Universal Awareness. The other is Shakti – matter and energy. 

Ultimate Awareness is the ground of individual awareness – that which remains constant throughout our lives and gives us the ability to know our sensory perceptions, emotions, thoughts, memories and dreams. Individual awareness is not limited to humans – all other beings are aware too. As individual awarenesses we are Shiva and as embodied beings we are Shakti. 

Unfortunately, too often, we lose touch with our awareness. This is not solely a modern phenomenon (although modernity has made it worse). It has its basis in the nature of our mind and our predisposition to lose ourselves in our thoughts and emotions. This tends to happen when we are looking ahead to the future or back upon events of the past. Our abilities to plan and to learn from our mistakes are important survival mechanisms. However, when we lose ourselves in simulations of what might happen (which is rarely the case) or what has happened (which is often skewed) we are unaware of what is happening in the here-and-now and miss out on life itself. Awareness is only possible in the present moment. 

The meditative techniques found in yoga and other traditions train us to become aware of what is happening presently by offering methods of stilling our thoughts and learning to witness them rather than being lost in them.

In Shaivism, when we, as embodied beings, realise our individual awareness, we partake in the unison of Shakti (matter and energy) with Shiva (Ultimate Awareness). The marriage of these Deities takes place through and within us.

The practice of awareness might thus be seen as the greatest of offerings.

Likenesses Between Shiva and Shakti and Vindos and Kraideti

Yoga and Brythonic polytheism have shared roots as Indo-European traditions. Both my research and personal gnosis suggest that Shiva and Vindos and their consorts, Shakti and Kradeti, shared similar roles. 

There are notable likenesses between Shiva on the Pashupati Seal and Vindos on the Gundestrup Cauldron. The Pashupati Seal, from the Indus Valley, dates to 2200 BCE. It depicts Shiva horned and surrounded by animals. The Gundestrup Cauldron was found in the Rævemose bog in Denmark and is dated between 150 BCE and 100 CE. On one of the panels is a horned figure with animals surrounding Him. He has been identified as Cernunnos, ‘Horned’, which may be another title of Vindos. Later known as Gwyn ap Nudd, He appears as a ‘bull of battle’ in a medieval Welsh poem called ‘The Conversation of Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwyddno Garanhir’. Shiva and Vindos share associations with bulls, serpents and destruction. 

Shiva is well known for His third eye and Vindos appears to me with a jewel in His forehead which grants the capacity of Clear Sight. Near me, in Furness, a bronze head was found with a hole for a jewel in its forehead. It resembles a bronze head of Bhairava (a fierce form of Shiva) from Nepal.

The consort of Vindos, Kraideti (1), later known as Creiddylad, shares similar qualities to Shakti through her associations with sovereignty and fertility in a medieval Welsh text called Culhwch and Olwen wherein Gwyn and His rival, Gwythyr, do battle every May Day for her hand in marriage. 

It might, therefore, be suggested that Vindos can be seen as Ultimate Awareness and Kraideti as primal matter and energy within Brythonic polytheism. As embodied beings, we are Kraideti, and as awareness we are Vindos. Our awareness can be the greatest of offerings to these Deities.

The Practice of Awareness as an Offering

Since I began practicing yoga, the core of my path has been ‘being present for Vindos’. It’s only recently that I have come to associate this, on a deeper level, with awareness and with uniting with Him as the Ultimate Awareness.

This is something I incorporate into my yoga practice. When I am practicing yoga – asana ‘body postures’, pranayama ‘breathwork’ and meditation – I do so with the intention of cultivating awareness and entering deeper unison with Him.

Yoga, or any form of mindful movement, breathwork, and meditation can easily be built into a shamanic or polytheistic practice. Moving and intentional breathing help to calm and slow the mind and emotions in preparation for meditation. In meditation, both the mind and the body become still and we achieve deeper states of awareness. 

There are many types of meditation that we can choose from. These include body awareness, breath awareness, sensory awareness, witnessing thoughts and emotions, bringing awareness to our energy body (in yoga the pancha kosha ‘five sheaths’ and the chakras) and visualisations of Gods and Goddesses.

Drawing on karma yoga, ‘the yoga of action’, and Bhakti yoga, ‘the yoga of the heart’, we can make awareness an offering during our daily activities. When I am walking, gardening, or doing housework, I strive to be aware of what I am doing in the present moment, what’s happening in my body, and of the myriad individual awareness with whom I am interacting. Where appropriate, I attune myself not only to the physical but the energetic and spiritual dimensions. I practice this as an offering to Vindos and Kradeti and to all the beings with whom I have the privilege of sharing this earth with.

For me, the greatest challenge is being aware in situations when I’d rather not be present – such as when the roofers are banging on our roof, I’m getting to the last rep in the gym, or I’m having an argument with my dad. It’s particularly difficult when I’m struggling with anxiety about surviving in a world where my gifts as a shamanic practitioner and author are tough to make a living from. It’s times like these that the practice is designed for.  

When I am aware, when I am the witness rather than caught up in my thoughts, fears and desires, I can see more clearly. I am no longer controlled by my emotions. I can recognise my habitual behaviours, begin to understand them, to release them, to make positive changes. 

When I am united with Vindos, His Clear Light (2) grants me Clear Sight and I am able to make choices and judgements from a greater perspective.

I recognise that not all who practice shamanism or polytheism will relate to these conceptions of Shiva and Vindos as Ultimate Awareness and Shakti and Kraideti as primal matter and energy. However, it might be possible to find Gods and Goddesses who do. If not, awareness can be an offering to the beings one is aware of, to Mother Earth, to whatever one holds sacred. 

The practice of awareness frees us from subjection to our thoughts and emotions and to the thieves of awareness who are rampant in our world. In each moment of each day, we have the capacity to make the greatest offering.

Let me be aware in every moment
for You Great Vindos.

Let my life
be an offering to You.

(1) I reconstructed this name from the medieval Welsh name Creiddylad. Craidd, in Welsh, means ‘core’ or ‘heart’ as does kerd or *ḱr̥d in Proto-Indo-European. The ending is simply fashioned to sound feminine and poetic.
(2) Vindos means ‘White, Blessed, Holy’. Vindonnus means ‘Clear Light’. He cured eye ailments and, as Gwyn, He removed the Evil Eye. 

The Art of Turning Sadness into Joy

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‘In Annwn below the earth…
there is one who knows
what sadness
is better than joy.’
~ ‘The Hostile Confederacy’

‘No mud, no lotus.’
~ Thich Nhat Hahn

If I was to define my core purpose in life at present, I would say that it is transforming suffering, within myself and within others, in service to my Gods. When I met my patron God, Vindos / Gwyn ap Nudd, I was struggling with suicidal ideation. He showed me the Brythonic Otherworld. He made me His awenydd ‘person inspired’ – a poet and spirit worker in the Brythonic tradition. He gave me meaning and purpose. My vocation has given me the strength to begin to heal my own wounds and, more recently, to help others.

Gwyn is a ruler of Annwn (the Otherworld) and a guide of souls. In  a medieval Welsh poem (1), He speaks of gathering the souls of the battle dead. He and His people, the spirits of Annwn, later known as fairies, who also appear as the Wild Hunt, are depicted taking the souls of those who have died suddenly or traumatically to the Otherworld. 

I believe Gwyn is the one in Annwn, in the poem ‘The Hostile Confederacy’, attributed to Taliesin, who knows ‘what sadness / is better than joy’. He’s seen countless sorrows, carries the weight of the battle dead, has gathered the souls of countless suicides, murder victims, those who have died in tragic accidents. Thus, He has an investment in the transformation of suffering so that such untimely deaths are less likely to happen.

Gwyn, as the Fairy King, and the fairies, are also renowned for taking living people, often those who have suffered trauma, to Their realm, or for leading them to wild places, where they mostly recover and then return. (2)

Gwyn and His people are associated with trauma and its healing. This usually takes place in the Otherworld or the wild. This is also shown in a fragment from the fourteenth century Latin document, Speculum Christiani, which describes how common folk in Wales invoked Gwyn to cure the evil eye: ‘Some stupid people also go stupidly to the door holding fire and iron in the hands when someone has inflicted illness, and call to the King of the Benevolent Ones and his Queen, who are evil spirits, saying: ‘Gwyn ap Nudd who are far in the forests for the love of your mate allow us to come home.’ This passage suggests that those suffering from the evil eye are ‘away’ and that Gwyn, who has a distant abode in the wild, is able to bring them home. 

In medieval Welsh literature and later folklore, the Otherworld is depicted as a place of green hills and lush forests where there are sparkling rivers of wine and mead. The fortress of its king, with towers of glass, lit from within, is the centrepiece. Within are shining treasures, an endless feast of meat, fruit and mead.

Activities in the Otherworld include: hunting, feasting, dancing and carousing. Coming back from the land of no pain is difficult. Some people crumble to dust, some go insane, others pine away, those who survive become poets. The saying ‘Dead, mad, or a poet’ summarises the outcomes.

In the Brythonic tradition, poetry provides the means of processing trauma, transforming suffering and giving voice to experiences of ecstasis and healing. Medieval Welsh bards, such as Taliesin, Aneirin, Myrddin Wyllt, and Llywarch Hen all gave voice to personal and cultural trauma. In, and through them, their suffering and the suffering of their people was transformed into some of the most tragic, beautiful and potent works of poetry within our heritage.

I also found that poetry could help me to transform my suffering and that of the land and the ancestors but, alone, it was not enough. A bardic lifestyle of drinking too much and writing and performing poetry, unsurprisingly, proved to be detrimental to both my mental and physical health. At this point in time, I was very good at having ecstatic, often drunken experiences, and writing lots of poems, but not very good at coming home.

I began building a better relationship with my body and a meditation and mindfulness practice during the period I was a nun and began training as a shamanic practitioner. ‘Being present for Gwyn’ became one of my core practices.

Gwyn, through His likeness with Shiva, guided me to the yogic and Buddhist traditions. Over the last few months, I have been greatly inspired by the works of Thich Nhat Hahn and the Dharma teachings from Plum Village. Unlike other forms of Buddhism I have come across that preach negation of the body and the world to achieve enlightenment and view animals as inferior, the Plum Village tradition is embodied, trauma informed, and is based on inter-being in respectful relationship with the world and all beings. Joy and enlightenment can be found in the present moment at any place and time.

The Plum Village teachings centre on mindfulness, which involves the practice of coming home to our breath and to our bodies in the here-and-now. Mindfulness is the key to transforming suffering. In his book, No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering, Thich Nhat Hahn outlines the Buddha’s teachings on suffering and its transformation in the Four Noble Truths.

The first Noble Truth is that there is suffering. Suffering exists within us on physical, mental and spiritual levels and outside us, in our families, friendship circles, within our ancestry, within our culture and within the environment. In the West, rather than being taught how to handle our suffering, we are sold countless forms of numbing and distraction. We drink it away, stuff it down, or lose ourselves in social media and other virtual entertainment.

In the place of distraction, Buddhism posits mindfulness – ‘the capacity to dwell in the present moment, to know what’s happening in the here and now… with mindfulness you can recognise the presence of suffering… it’s with that same energy that you can tenderly embrace the suffering.’ He speaks of taking care of our suffering as being like a mother holding her child.

The second Noble Truth is: ‘there is a course of action that generates suffering’. We are encouraged to look deeply at the roots of our suffering. These often lie in past trauma, ancestral trauma, and the fears and habits that result. They can also lie in our attachments to materialist ideals. Gaining insight into the causes of our suffering helps to prevent us from making the same mistakes.

The Third Noble Truth is: ‘suffering ceases (ie. there is happiness)’. The key to true happiness is that it isn’t an aim for the future, ‘I will be happy when this problem is sorted, I have my dream job, my health is better.’ Happiness lies in dwelling mindfully in the present moment and if we can’t do it now, this very minute, we won’t be able to do it when that future moment arrives either.

This was a big learning for me because I have always been future orientated and placed my happiness in the future at the expense of ignoring the now. ‘I will be happy when I have my shamanic practitioner qualification’. ‘I will be happy when I am earning a living from my vocation’. No. ‘If I can’t be happy with my life now I won’t be happy if I achieve these aims in the future.’

The Fourth Noble Truth is: ‘there is a course of action leading to the cessation of suffering (the arising of happiness’)’. The Noble Eightfold Path, provides a tried and tested framework for generating happiness. It consists of Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration. Mindfulness and ethical living form its core.

For me, the art of transforming suffering lies in a combination of mindfulness and shamanic work. Being able to go to the Otherworld and come home. Then, once I am home, making art out of the insights I have been gifted with.

When I gave up being Sister Patience, it was a shock to the system coming back to Lorna Smithers and all her shit (which I thought I’d transcended). Yet the shit has made good compost and flowers have grown from it in the form of three books (3) written in the last few months as well as recent articles.

If you’re interested in the process of transforming your own suffering through shamanic work, creativity, and coming home, I’m currently providing shamanic guidance sessions for £15 an hour at a student rate (contact lornasmithers81@gmail.com). 

(1) The Conversation of Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwyddno Garanhir (HERE).
(2) For example, see Sir Orfeo and the mythos surrounding Myrrdin Wyllt (HERE).
(3) A memoir – The Edge of the Dark (HERE), a poetry collection – They Called Me Pig (soon to come), and an epic novel called The Lost Shrine of Nodens, which will be published through Sul Books in May 2017.

Spring Offerings

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I hope everybody out there is well and enjoying the early spring flowers and lightening days.

Now is a good time to be tapping into the energies of the green things growing, the sap rising, the birds singing, the amphibians coming out of hibernation, the animals perking up. The Brythonic Goddess, Creiddylad*, who is associated with flowers and fertility, is taking Her first steps from Annwn (the Otherworld), so this is a great opportunity for connecting with Her.

I’m writing this post as I’m approaching the end of my shamanic apprenticeship and will only be charging student rates for a few more months (£15 for one hour shamanic guidance and £30 for a two hour shamanic healing). 

I’ve got some spring offerings that might be helpful for you:

Shamanic Guidance Offer

If you’re struggling to establish a regular spiritual practice why not book three shamanic guidance sessions to get you on a roll? These can cover anything from meeting animal spirit guides, tree and plant allies, ancestors, and Gods and Goddesses, to divinatory journeys on life issues. Book three and get one half price (£37.50 in total). More info HERE.

Shamanic Healing Offer

Have you got a feeling you need a shamanic healing but you’re not quite sure what it is? Book a divinatory journey session to find out plus the shamanic healing session and get the journey session half price (£37.50). More info HERE.

Blessings of the spring flowers from Creiddylad’s garden.

*You can find out more about Creiddylad’s story HERE.

What is Brythonic Polytheism?

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This is an article for those who are new to this website explaining what Brythonic polytheism is and its significance for me as someone living in present-day Lancashire.

Brythonic polytheism is the worship of one more of the many Gods venerated by the Brythonic peoples who inhabited most of Britain from around 4000 BCE to around 800 CE. During the Anglo-Saxon invasions, the Brythonic culture and language were replaced by English in what is now England, but continued to live on in Wales.

There are various sources of evidence attesting the veneration of the Brythonic Gods. The first is archaeological and includes Romano-British temples, shrines, inscriptions, statues and altars. The second is place names (such as Luguvalium which means ‘Strong in Lugus’). The third is Roman records. Although the Roman writers don’t say anything about the Brythonic Gods they do speak about how the Gallo-Brythonic Deities were worshipped in Gaul. The fourth is medieval Welsh literature and later folklore. Herein we find the myths of the Brythonic Deities rewritten by Christian scribes and traditions of interactions with the spirits of the Brythonic Otherworld (Annwn ‘Very Deep’ or Faery) recorded by folklorists. 

During the post-Roman period northern Britain and southern Scotland were known as Yr Hen Ogledd ‘the Old North’. In medieval Welsh literature there are numerous poems documenting the fall of the Old North to the Anglo-Saxons and recording the lore associated with it.

Early on my path to Brythonic polytheism I was called to look to the evidence for the veneration of the Brythonic Gods and spirits in my local area and to construct a practice based around it. I first found out that the Goddess of my local river, the Ribble, is Belisama, as evidenced by Ptolemy’s Geography, which labels the estuary Belisama aest. I discovered that there are altars to Matrona ‘the Mother’ and Maponos ‘the Son’ at Ribchester and to the Mothers at Lund, that Brigantia was worshipped in the Pennines and that two Romano-British statuettes dedicated to Nodens (as Mars-Nodontis) were discovered on Cockersand Moss. I began praying to and making offerings to these Deities and writing poetry for Them. I made contact and established relationships. Vindos / Gwyn ap Nudd (the son of Nodens / Nudd) appeared to me at a local fairy site in an intense theophany that led to me devoting myself to Him as my patron God. I also built relationships with the spirits of my house, garden and local valley.

I was initially surpised by Gwyn’s appearance even though the site mentioned is associated with a local fairy funeral legend. I didn’t realise He, the a Brythonic King of Annwn / Faery, was the fairy leader. It made further sense in relation to the statuettes dedicated to His father and to the place name Netholme (Nudd’s islet) near Martin Mere. Then, even more, when I read ‘the Conversation of Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwyddno Garanhir’ and discovered that Gwyn gathered the souls of several famous northern warriors and Culhwch and Olwen wherein Gwyn appears in two episodes (the Battle for Creiddylad and the Very Black Witch) that take place in the North.

Having a relationship with Gwyn and other Brythonic Gods rooted in the myths and lore of the Lancashire landscape and more widely of the Old North is significant to me for a number of reasons. These relationships are valuable in themselves as a source of companionship, joy, wonder and awe which moves my soul on the deepest of levels. They are also of value because they offer an alternative way of being rooted in connection with the land and local tales in opposition to the monoculture of modern technocratic capitalist society. The inspiration and guidance of these Gods and spirits provides meaning and purpose beyond the norms and rules that have led to our exploitation of the earth and both non-humans and other humans. Simply taking time out to pray, meditate, journey or create art is an act of resistance to productivity and constant screen time, as is walking, gardening and working on the land in communion with the spirits.

In Gwyn’s mythos I found a different seasonal cycle to work with – Calan Mai (Gwyn and Gwythyr’s Battle for Creiddylad), 29th Sept Gwyn’s Feast, Nos Galan Gaeaf (Gwyn’s Hunt) – as an alternative to celebrating the commercial festivals and the Wiccan / Druidic Wheel of the Year.

I’ve been a Brythonic polytheist for over thirteen years. My path has shifted and changed from being a performing poet and conference speaker, to working in conservation, to experimenting with monasticism, to my current shamanic work. Throughout, my constants have been devotion to Gwyn, creativity and having a shamanic practice and these remain my lifelines in a changing catastrophic world.

Folklore and Myth – Stories of the Gods? by Greg Hill

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Fellow Brythonic polytheist Greg Hill has recently put together an important booklet presenting ‘A consideration of the argument that Medieval Welsh tales contain elements of Brythonic mythology and a critique of the argument that because they share motifs with folktales they cannot count as stories of the gods.’

Herein he critiques ‘the refusal to accept that there could be any continuity of coherent narrative tradition from the Pagan Iron Age to the Christian Middle Ages’ in the works of Ronald Hutton.

This is a really important piece of scholarship arguing that through ‘folklore motifs… stories of the gods were carried through the generations to be made into written tales in the Middle Ages’ and experienced in place and time through ‘experience of the numinous’.

Please read the article HERE and share.

Prayer to Vindos for Clear Sight

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Vindos God of Clear Light
grant to me Your Clear Sight.
Free me from the fog of self-deception
and remind me of my deathless nature.

Audio HERE.

~

This prayer, which can also be sung as a chant, is based on the famous Hindu Mahamrityunjaya ‘Great Death-Conquering’ Mantra HERE – a prayer to Shiva for liberation from our attachments to ignorance and untruth and a reminder of our immortality. When I was studying yoga with the Mandala Ashram I sung it for 20 minutes every week. I have started singing this prayer / chant to Vindos for 20 minutes each morning for clearer vision as I face a difficult period after giving up being Sister Patience.