Tag: Meditation

Review – Making Friends With Yourself by Sarah Presley

Leave a comment

Sarah Presley is a meditation teacher and author based in Bristol. Her book, Making Friends With Yourself: A Practical Guide on How Meditation Can Take You From Overwhelm to An Inner Calm, is part memoir and part practical guide. 

Presley shares her journey ‘from illness to wellness’. She speaks of how she came to suffer from ME and resulting anxiety and depression due to a high pressure job. She then goes on the describe her discovery of meditation and how this enabled her to establish a sense of calm and formed the ground for her recovery, leading to a successful career as a holistic practitioner and meditation teacher and to co-running the British School of Meditation.

Presley provides an account of why she meditates and how meditation can help others, including the science. She then shares some of the foundational forms of meditation along with her favourites, documents how they have helped her, and shares guided meditations for the audience to read and listen to (there are audio links to her website included). The forms of meditation include: breath awareness, mantra, body scan, guided visualisation, mindful movement, loving-kindness and gratitude. 

In her introduction to meditation, Presley talks about how she was initially resisted it because of her preconceived idea it meant silencing the mind and only calm people can do it (this is very common). Once she gave it a go she discovered: ‘we are not attempting to silence the inner dialogue. We are instead offering the mind something on which to focus which allows us to be in the present moment. This could be your breath, your body, a word, a phrase, an image, a movement, or an object.’ Distractions are normal. Noticing and returning to the focus is ‘the art of meditation.’ 

Later in the book, she talks of thoughts as our ‘friends’ and shares ways of recognising, labelling and coming to gain a witness perspective on them. Throughout, a non-judgemental attitude to thoughts and emotions is advocated.

As an autistic person who struggles with anxiety, I related strongly to Presley’s words on this subject. She speaks of how naming and fearing her anxiety perpetuated her panic and of how meditation gave her the space to be able to view her anxiety and  its effects on her mind and body from an observer’s perspective. This led her to changing its name to ‘Mavis’, giving it less power.

‘Giving anxiety a new name now meant I could view the part of myself which was feeling anxious and scared. I would be more aware of when Mavis was arriving and be able to engage the rational part of my brain to ask if the situation I was in required a visit from her. Or even if she had already stormed in, I was able to ride out her visit knowing she would be leaving soon after. After all, she was just doing her best job to protect me from what she perceived as danger. I realised the overwhelming feeling of panic wasn’t attempting to trip me up but instead was giving me something I could use to learn and grow. Most importantly, I accepted and made peace with Mavis being in my life.’

As a shamanic practitioner, I understand how dis-identifying from anxiety, viewing it as a part of oneself with a distinctive and unique personality with a function and needs, and accepting it as part of one’s life can be helpful. 

Presley goes on to share how mantra has been a big help in dealing with anxiety. When she first came across meditation and the mantra ‘Om’, she experienced a ‘a huge amount of resistance to repeating’ it due to cliched media portrayals. Instead, she chose the words ‘happy, healthy and strong’.

Presley describes how ‘mantra’, from man ‘mind’ and ‘tra’ vehicle is a ‘mind vehicle’ ‘you use to replace your thoughts’. Likewise, I have sometimes found, when I’m hyper-stimulated, anxious, or overwhelmed, more focused meditation doesn’t work and the only thing that can cut through the racing traffic of my thoughts is a single juggernaut-like thought or word – mantra. 

Presley also deals with worry and anger. For worry she recommends guided visualisation (or guided experiencing) and provides a lovely meditation where ‘worry’ is written on a pebble and then discarded on a beach. For anger, which can often be locked in the body in the form of myofascial knots (I am oh so familiar with these!), she prescribes mindful movement. She also explains how loving-kindness helps alter our neural pathways and heals the heart. 

This is a very lovely, personable and practical book that teaches all a new-comer needs to know about meditation and provides some interesting facts and personal anecdotes that will be valuable to experienced meditators too. Its strengths lie in the knowledgeable and compassionate approach taken to using meditation to help deal with difficult emotions – a territory Presley charts well. I would recommend it to all people who are interested in or already practice meditation and to those who are struggling with similar issues.

You can buy this book from Sarah Presley’s website HERE.

Awareness as the Greatest Offering

Leave a comment

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. 

Meditation as a Foundation for Shamanism

Leave a comment

On Meditation as a Ground for Ecstatic Experiences

In a shamanic journey we travel in spirit from Thisworld to the Otherworld. These experiences are ecstatic, from the Greek ekstasis, (from ek ‘out’ and stasis ‘stand’). They take us out of ourselves. Thus, they can be ungrounding. 

It is therefore important that we start fully grounded and in our bodies before we begin a shamanic journey and that we return to a grounded presence at the end. 

Unfortunately, in our fast-paced techy modern world, few of us are really in our bodies. We’re absorbed in what we see on screens, racing about, planning this, doing that. When we’re not working we’re looking to the future, anticipating, worrying, or ruminating on the past, what we could have done better.

Having a daily meditation practice can help. In this article, I will outline the meditation practices that I use myself on a day-to-day basis and in preparation for a shamanic journey and with clients in shamanic sessions.

Body Awareness

In a body awareness meditation, we shift our attention from the everyday thoughts and worries that are our usual mainstay to our bodies. 

It is easiest to bring our attention to the most dominant physical sensations first – the contact of the feet with the floor, the seat beneath us, our backs against the chair, the touch of clothing on skin and the air upon our faces. 

We might then feel into our whole body and the sensations we are experiencing or shift our attention through the different areas, for example beginning with the feet and working upwards through the lower legs, upper legs, groin, torso, hands, lower arms, upper arms, shoulders, neck and head.  This can be combined with breathing into and relaxing these body parts.

It’s really common to experience tension and discomfort we were formerly unaware of. We often forget about our bodies. We turn to work and even to shamanism to escape our pain and the stress and the trauma we are carrying.*

Body awareness meditation makes us aware of and can help us accept these feelings by witnessing them without judgement whilst in a safe space. 

It helps us to get to know and befriend our bodies as living, intelligent organisms, rather than as cogs in the techno-modern machine. 

Beginning a shamanic journey in our bodies and in good relationship with them makes for a smoother start and for an easier return. It also helps with the integration of spiritual insights and healing into physical reality.

Breath Awareness

Breath awareness meditation can also help us to shift our attention from our everyday thoughts and to build our ability to focus on one thing. The breath is used as the primary focal point in meditation traditions around the world because it is always with us, from life until death, here and now.

In this kind of meditation, we simply sit and observe the breath as it moves in and out without attempting to change or force anything. We might choose a certain point of focus such as the nostrils or the belly or shift our focus around. 

As thoughts arise, we do our best to acknowledge them and let go. This is rarely easy. Most often, before we know it, we’re lost in thinking and some time has passed before we realise. Yet, the more we practice, the quicker we get at catching ourselves. It’s best to remain positive about these moments of recognition rather than beating ourselves up. The more we practice, the better we get at catching ourselves and the longer we can focus on the breath.

Focusing on the breath is good preparation for the shift from the outer to the inner senses when we begin a shamanic journey by visualising our departure point. 

Sensory Awareness

I suggest that clients include this type of meditation in their personal practice if they have difficulties engaging the inner or ‘clair’ senses on a shamanic journey. 

Paying attention to the outer senses in meditation and when engaging in everyday activities can help strengthen the ‘clair’ senses – clairvoyance (clear seeing), clairaudience (clear hearing), clairolfaction (clear smelling), clairgustance (clear tasting), clairsentience (clear feeling) and claircognizance (clear knowing). 

In a sensory awareness meditation we can focus on the whole gamut of experience (open awareness) or upon what we can see, hear, smell, taste or feel. We can attend to each field of sensing as a whole or hone in individual sights, sounds, smells, tastes or feelings and examine them in minuscule detail. Knowing them better we can practice replicating them with our inner senses.

We can consciously keep hold of a memory of a particular place or being and use these memories when we visualise our departure point and spirit guides. Such practices make it easier for the spirit realm to speak to us through the ‘clairs’.

Learning Meditation

These meditation practices ensure we begin and end a shamanic journey present and grounded in the body, improve our ability to focus, and to engage our ‘clair’ senses and receive information from spirit whilst journeying.

All can be learnt alone relatively safely, but instruction and guidance can help. I started learning these kinds of meditation through the Breathe and Flow Expand meditation programme on their yoga channel then went on to do the excellent Introduction to Meditation course at the Mandala Yoga Ashram. Plum Village have some free guided meditations on their Youtube channel and provide introductions to mindfulness in the Buddhist tradition.

My shamanic guidance sessions on building a shamanic practice cover basic meditation (although I should note I am not a qualified meditation teacher).

*It’s important to note that body awareness may not be suitable for some people such as those with a lot of pain, heavy trauma, or who are neurodivergent and cannot stay still or are troubled by bodily sensations.

Review – Neurodiversity Tips for Mindfulness Teachers by Leizl Laidlaw and Christoph Spiessens

1 Comment

I’ve recently read an excellent booklet called Neurodiversity Tips for Mindfulness Teachers by Leizl Laidlaw and Christoph Spiessens. In this booklet, they present ‘7 Spokes of the Teaching Wheel’ with the aim of making mindfulness teaching more neuro-affirming. Whilst the target audience is mindfulness teachers, I found many of the tips relevant for my practice as an autistic shamanic practitioner who works with neurodivergent individuals.

The booklet is well laid out, well explained and accessible, in line with their values. It begins with a definition of neurodiversity and why awareness of the needs of neurodivergent (ND) communities is important. I particularly liked what they had to say about the benefits of authentic expression of one’s own neurotype for ND teachers. This is followed by a glossary listing neurotypes and neurological differences such as ADHD and alexisomia. 

The 7 spoke wheel is then introduced with its practical guidelines. The first spoke is ‘Compass’. Its focus is ‘safety’ and it offers direction and alignment. It emphasises the importance of communicating an ND-inclusive approach from the beginning in terms of creating ‘clear, welcoming, and informative course information’ and providing different options for pre-course meetings, then goes into disclosure and access needs and pre-course conversations.

The second spoke is ‘Considering’ and its focus is ‘autonomy’. Here it is emphasised that ‘neurodivergent people are experts on their own experience’ and ‘differences are not pathologies’. The section on ‘programming and pacing’ outlines some considerations that are incredibly important for me as an autistic person. The absence of these, in the past, has led to me becoming extremely agitated in group settings and not returning. ‘Keep things predictable’. ‘Give clear time boundaries’. I cannot list the times I’ve been in a meeting or a workshop and there has been no timetable, or it has not been adhered to, and the conversation has steered away from the main focus onto an entirely irrelevant tangent. This is incredibly draining for autistic brains, which thrive on routine and predictability. 

The third spoke is ‘Connecting’ and its focus is ‘respect’. Here we find guidelines for disclosing one’s own neurotype and being respectful of others by ensuring to name sarcasm and to avoid involuntary microagressions. This prevents neurodivergent individuals from feeling stupid because they don’t get a joke (this often happens to me as an autistic person – I’m always the last to get it!).

The fourth spoke is ‘Congruence’ and is about ‘explaining’. It involves being open about one’s own needs and ‘what’s happening in real time’ as well as being aware of what is happening for others. The fifth spoke is ‘Conducting’ and focuses on ‘adjustments’ such as being careful with metaphors, providing alternative anchors and alternatives to visualisation. The sixth spoke, ‘Conveying’, covers accessibility. For the seventh spoke, ‘Community’, ‘the unifying theme is difference’. This provides tips on helping everybody to feel safe and affirming each person’s unique contribution. 

This book was helpful for me as an autistic shamanic practitioner who works with neurodivergent clients. Through it, I have discovered some neurological differences that I identify with or have seen in others that I was beforehand unable to name. One of these was: ‘Alexisomia: difficulty recognising or describing bodily sensations, such as hunger, tension, or comfort/discomfort’. Another was: ‘Misophonia: Strong emotional or physical reactions to specific everyday sounds. Examples include chewing, throat sounds, tapping, rustling, or repetitive environmental noises.’

I have learnt a lot about providing and maintaining a supportive space for neurodivergent clients and checking in about and accommodating for their needs. I have already noticed that not all people can visualise or understand metaphorical language and this booklet has expanded my awareness of this. It has also made me more aware of the need to provide alternative anchors during the grounding meditation that I provide to ensure that the client is present and in their body before undertaking a shamanic journey to the spirit realm.

In terms of congruence, I’ve learnt that it’s better to be authentic and to let a client know that I am autistic and that I struggle with processing large amounts of information (for example if someone is talking abut their ancestral lines I easily get confused) and ask them to slow down and repeat themselves rather than pretending I have understood and managed to take everything in. Also, if I’m having an off day, explaining that I’m struggling with autistic overwhelm or burnout and I may need to ask them to repeat their words.

I’d recommend this booklet to all shamanic practitioners and to others who practice and teach in the spiritual communities on the basis of its value for raising awareness of neurodiversity and for providing practical tips that can help us, together, to shape more neuro-affirming spaces.

You can purchase a copy of the PDF on the website of Christoph Spiessens HERE.

Hanged Woman

Leave a comment

Suddenly,
from out of nowhere,
flying at me like a mad dog,
just one tooth at the end of a wooden haft,
the spear that was thrown long ago,
that should have pierced me
before I started running.

It’s finally caught up.

It opens me
and inside I am empty
and hollow as the old yew tree
on which my ragged carcass is hung.

And of course the ravens come.

And of course He’s amongst them –
my God who hung on the yew 
in raven form for nine nights
pierced by the same damn spear.

I always knew my turn would come.

And so He comes to sit beside me
and I go to visit Him and we are one –
the tree, the spear, the hung, the void,
the hollowness within and without.

And this moment is within us. 

This drawing and poem record a rite I undertook before the Winter Solstice in 2025 – nine days in meditation at the Abyss with my God. Looking back, on the one hand it had worth as a devotional offering, but on the other it wasn’t the healthiest of impulses. It opened a can of worms leading to my recent insights about how my monasticism and asceticism had partly been driven by the unhealthy restrictive and self-destructive impulses that also drove my eating disorder.

Food Noise, Noise and Meditation

Leave a comment

A few months ago, I learnt how the new weight loss jabs not only help people to lose weight but dampen ‘food noise’. I hadn’t heard of ‘food noise’ before and quickly found out that the term was coined in the 2000s and relates to ‘food-related intrusive thoughts’ – the constant chatter about food that goes on in a person’s mind even when they’re not hungry. I recognised it immediately as something I used to experience (along with ‘alcohol noise’) and still experience to a certain degree. It has been labelled in eating disorder communities as ‘the eating disorder voice’.

Other the past few years, I had worked out that my food and alcohol related thoughts were just a couple of the varieties of the many types of noise generated by my over-thinking mind and had learnt to quieten them with meditation. Thus, I was shocked and intrigued to find out that an injection can mimic the effects of a practice I had taken a number of years to develop and still struggle with. This got me researching how the weight loss jabs work and how they affect the same neural pathways that are affected by meditation.

The medications in the weight loss injections are called GLP-1 receptor agonists. They are synthetic variants of GLP-1, an essential gut hormone, which lowers blood sugar, reduces appetite, and brings about feelings of satiety. Variants include semaglutide (Ozempic and Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro). 

When a person eats a meal, GLP-1 is released, and travels through the bloodstream and the vagus nerve to the brain, where it causes appetite suppression. It also goes to the pancreas, which produces insulin, lowering blood sugar. 

GLP-1 ‘effectively shuts down areas in the brain involved in feeding response, homeostatic controls, energy balance and decision-making about food—as well as the liking and wanting of food and impulsive behaviours associated with eating.’ Thus, it dampens cravings and food-related thoughts.

Researchers have identified that GLP-1 shuts down the Default Mode Network – the background setting of the brain which drives mind-wandering, ruminating on the past, planning for the future, and self-reflection. This is responsible for us getting stuck in negative thought loops and food-related thoughts.

Like GLP-1, meditation, which involves training the mind to concentrate on one object of thought of a time, also shuts down the Default Mode Network. It not only stops ‘food noise’ but all other types of noise as well. 

GLP-1 has also been shown to have an effect on the reward pathways that are not only associated with addiction to food but with other addictions. ‘Neurons that produce dopamine—a chemical with pivotal involvement in mo­tivation and pleasure—project to the nu­cleus accumbens, a midbrain structure im­portant for experiencing reward… Like other brain structures, the nucleus accumbens has GLP-1 receptors. Studies have shown that in ani­mals, dopamine release peaks after they eat a sweet meal of sucrose—and after they are exposed to cocaine or opioids.’ GLP-1 dampens this effect, meaning the peak to such rewards is no longer received, weakening these pathways.

Meditation strengthens our ability to recognise cravings as just thoughts and not to act on them, thus weakening the neural pathways of food addiction. Both could thus be helpful for people with binge eating disorder and bulimia.

It’s notable, here, that restrictive eating disorders, such as anorexia, re-wire the brain to get the dopamine hit from restricting food intake and / or over-exercising to lose weight. Meditation can also help with addiction to restricting and excessive exercise.

It has been shown that people who use weight loss injections usually gain weight afterwards if they do not continue to follow a healthy lifestyle. Combining taking a GLP-1 receptor agonist with learning meditative techniques can help people to lose weight and keep the weight off.

SOURCES

Cook, Geoff, Quieting “Food Noise”: How GLP-1s and Mindfulness Rewire the Default Mode Network (DMN) and Reward Circuits, NIH, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41502834/
Young, Lauren, ‘Ozempic Quiets Food Noise in the Brain—But How?, Scientific American, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ozempic-quiets-food-noise-in-the-brain-but-how/

Autism and Coping with Overload

4 Comments

Introduction

Over the past few years, since my late diagnosis of autism in 2021, I have been researching its affects on the brain, body and nervous system in order to gain a deeper understanding of the ways being autistic has impacted my life. 

Looking back it has brought many benefits such as being incredibly focused on my special interests, creativity, intuition and the ability to think outside the box. However it has also has its costs. My struggles with sensory and information overload have made it impossible to hold a regular job and being unable to handle publicity played a role in my failing to make a living from my writing.

This led me to seeing myself as a failure and not understanding why. My autism diagnosis coupled with more recent learnings has revealed the reasons I find everyday life overwhelming and helped me develop better coping strategies. I’m sharing my insights here in the hope they will help others.

What is autism?

The term ‘autism’ was coined by psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler in 1911. It is composed of the Greek autós ‘self’ and ism ‘a doctrine or theory’ and was used ‘to describe a schizophrenic patient who had withdrawn into his own world.’ (1)

It was first used as a diagnostic category in 1943 in a paper by a physician called Leo Kanner in a paper titled ‘Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact.’ Here he speaks of eleven children with shared symptoms –  ‘the need for solitude; the need for sameness. To be alone in a world that never varied.’ (2)

The Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders 5 uses two criteria  to diagnose autism – ‘Persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction’ and ‘restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities.’ (3)

Part One: The Causes of Overload

Autism and Neurodevelopmental Differences in the Brain

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disability that has its basis in differences in the brain that began developing in utero. In The Autistic Brain autistic authorTemple Grandin speaks of some of the ‘anomalous growth patterns’ that she has discovered in her brain through neuro-imaging and how these relate to her life experiences. She tells us that her ‘cerebellum is 20 percent smaller than the norm’ explaining her lack of balace and motor coordination. (4) Her left ventricle is 57 per cent longer than her right extending into her parietal cortex – a disturbance which she associates with her poor working memory and lack of maths skills. Having more connections between her inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF) and inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF) explains her excellent visual memory.

Most interestingly for me she notes: ‘My amygdalae are larger than normal. The mean size of the three control subjects’ amygdalae was 1,498 cubic millimeters. My left amygdala is 1,719 cubic millimeters, and my right is larger still — 1,829 cubic millimeters, or 22 percent greater than the norm. And since the amygdala is important for processing fear and other emotions, this large size might explain my lifelong anxiety… Enlarged amygdalae are also often seen in people with autism. Because the amygdala houses so many emotional functions, an autistic can feel as if he or she is one big exposed nerve.’ (5) 

I found this incredibly relatable as my sensory sensitivities and emotional responses to them have often made me feel like ‘one big exposed nerve’ too. Likewise my fear of being overwhelmed by sensations and emotions and having shutdowns and meltdowns has resulted in struggles with anxiety. These insights inspired me to learn more about the amygdala and its function.

The Amygdala and Emotional Responses

An excellent description of how sensory experience is processed and delivered to the amygdala and how this brings about an emotional response is provided by Bessel van der Kolk in The Body Keeps the Score. 

‘Sensory informationabout the outside world arrives through our eyes, nose, ears, and skin. These sensations converge in the thalamus, an area inside the limbic system that acts as the “cook” within the brain. The thalamus stirs all the input from our perceptions into a fully blended autobiographical soup, an integrated, coherent experience… The sensations are then passed on in two directions—down to the amygdala, two small almond-shaped structures that lie deeper in the limbic, unconscious brain, and up to the frontal lobes, where they reach our conscious awareness… The central function of the amygdala, which I call the brain’s smoke detector, is to identify whether incoming input is relevant for our survival… If the amygdala senses a threat… it sends an instant message down to the hypothalamus and the brain stem, recruiting the stress-hormone system and the autonomic nervous system (ANS) to orchestrate a whole-body response. Because the amygdala processes the information it receives from the thalamus faster than the frontal lobes do, it decides whether incoming information is a threat to our survival even before we are consciously aware of the danger. By the time we realize what is happening, our body may already be on the move.’ (6)

Van der Kolk not only describes brilliantly how the amygdala brings about our emotional responses but explains why we respond to situations which are threatening or overwhelming with extreme reactions such as outbursts of anger, panic attacks and in the case of autistic people meltdowns and shutdowns before the conscious mind comes on board. 

Intense World Syndrome

Van der Kolk links his insights into the amygdala to responses to trauma and in particular to PTSD. These connections also seem valid for autistic people for whom living in a world of sensory and information overload can be traumatic.

This is described in the ‘Intense World’ paper, published in 2007, as ‘intense world syndrome’. The authors say ‘excessive neuronal processing may render the world painfully intense’ resulting in autistics retreating ‘into a small repertoire of secure behavioral routines that are obsessively repeated.’ ‘Impaired social interactions and withdrawal may not be the result of a lack of compassion, incapability to put oneself into someone else’s position or lack of emotionality, but quite to the contrary a result of an intensely if not painfully aversively perceived environment.’ (7) For an autistic person sensory overload is traumatic and leads to them withdrawing from the world.

Sensory Gating Deficits

Another factor relating to overload in autistic people is differences in sensory gating. In Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm Stephen Buhner describes ‘sensory gating channels… as tiny apertures or gates or doors in specific sections of the nervous system’s neural network… like a series of locks on the river of incoming sensory flows.’ (8) He speaks of how, as we grow up, these channels, for most people, narrow and close. Those with ‘gating deficits’ (such as autistics) remain open and they are more likely to suffer from sensory overload which can lead to ‘a breakdown in cognitive integrity.’ (9) 

Part Two: Coping with Overload

Self-Awareness and Befriending Inner Experience

In The Body Keeps the Score van der Kolk describes methods of coping with trauma that can also be harnessed by autistics to help cope with extreme emotional responses to sensory overload. Fundamental is restoring the balance between the rational and emotional brains, the pre-frontal cortex ‘the watch tower’ and the amygdala ‘the smoke detector’ or ‘alarm system.’

He says: ‘the only way we can consciously access the emotional brain is through self-awareness, i.e. by activating the medial prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that notices what is going on inside us and thus allows us to feel what we’re feeling… and learning to befriend what is going inside ourselves.’ (10)

He tells us that ‘those who cannot comfortably notice what is going on inside become vulnerable to respond to any sensory shift either by shutting down or by going into a panic—they develop a fear of fear itself… The price for ignoring or distorting the body’s messages is being unable to detect what is truly dangerous or harmful for you and, just as bad, what is safe or nourishing. Self-regulation depends on having a friendly relationship with your body. Without it you have to rely on external regulation—from medication, drugs like alcohol, constant reassurance…’ (11)

Van der Kolk here describes my personal experiences perfectly. For most of my life I’ve been alienated from my body and the confusion of sensations and emotions that it throws at me and I’ve always felt out of control. Due to not being self-aware I have struggled in social situations with family, friends and work colleagues due to not being able to read people or control my reactions. I’ve been subject to outbursts of anger and panic attacks and depended on alcohol to tolerate socialising and to down-regulate afterwards. 

Becoming more self-aware and befriending my inner experiences has led to a more conscious and caring attitude towards my body and to feeling more in control.

Movement and Meditation as Medicine

Van der Kolk tell us: ‘If you want to manage your emotions better, your brain gives you two options: You can learn to regulate them from the top down or from the bottom up… Top-down regulation involves strengthening the capacity of the watchtower to monitor your body’s sensations. Mindfulness meditation and yoga can help with this. Bottom-up regulation involves recalibrating the autonomic nervous system. We can access the ANS through breath, movement, or touch.’ (12)

He says: ‘In contrast to the Western reliance on drugs and verbal therapies, other traditions from around the world rely on mindfulness, movement, rhythms, and action. Yoga in India, tai chi and qigong in China, and rhythmical drumming throughout Africa are just a few examples. The cultures of Japan and the Korean peninsula have spawned martial arts, which focus on the cultivation of purposeful movement and being centered in the present… These techniques all involve physical movement, breathing, and meditation.’ (13)

Van Der Kolk’s words really resonated with me because I have have been led my a combination of guidance and intuition to these practices. When I was diagnosed with anxiety in 2004 I was put on Venlafaxine and advised to take up exercise. I started going to the gym and learning a martial art – Taekwondo. Both forms of movement have helped me to regulate my stress levels. 

Since then physical exercise has been a massive help in self-regulating. I’ve been through periods of long-distance walking and running, practicing martial arts, cycling and my current passion is strength training.

Meditation is something I’ve found much harder. As someone who is incredibly imaginative and has a busy mind I’ve always been good at visualisation meditations but meditation in the more traditional sense of focusing on one thing or simply witnessing thoughts has been more difficult. 

I dismissed these practices as ‘Eastern’ and ‘not for the Western mind’ until I started practicing yoga in 2023 as a result of a sports injury and advice from my PT. One of my teachers, Bre, of Breathe and Flow, said if we find something difficult it’s often the thing we need most. So it was with yogic meditation.

As I have persevered I have found that focused meditation helps slow down my thoughts and calm my mind and training my witness helps prevent me from become so caught up in overwhelming sensations and emotions.

Disovering that by changing our breathing patterns through breathwork I can also change my emotions and my thoughts has been a life-changer.

Rhythmic drumming has also been helpful. As someone who has been practicing shamanism for many years being able to use various drumbeats such as the journeybeat to shift into trance and a slow heartbeat to calm my nervous system have helped me to cope with being overwhelmed.

Moving Up and Down the Polyvagal Ladder

Another discovery that has changed my life is learning about polyvagal theory. I first came across this on a Radical Embodiment course with my supervisor Jayne Johnson and Alex Walker. Introduced by Stephen Porges in 2004 it posits three states of the nervous system – social engagement (ventral vagal), flight or fight (sympathetic) and freeze (dorsal vagal). 

Coming to understand and be aware of these states has aided me to become able to move through them. When I feel anxiety and a shift towards flight or fight checking in with my nervous system to see what it needs to feel safe. When I feel myself getting burnt out and moving towards shutdown / freeze cutting down on social activities and taking time alone to rejuvenate.

Mastering the Gates

Buhnen mentions that having open sensory gating is not always a bad thing. In face ‘gating remains very open, especially among young children, artists, schizophrenics and specialists of the sacred such as shamans and Buddhist masters, and those ingesting psychotropics.’ (14) ‘In cultures that recognize the importance of this capacity, this group of people are trained to use their enhanced perceptual capacities for the benefit of the group.’ (15)

He speaks of how we can intentionally shift gating by ‘1) having a task that demands a greater focus on incoming sensory data flows, or 2) regenerating a state similar to that which occurred during the first few years of life, or 3) by altering the nature of the gating channels themselves by shifting consciousness.’ (16)

Focusing on a single task, whether it’s writing a poem or article, gardening, or lifting weights, has always been a great way of staying present and not getting overwhelmed by troubling sensations and emotions. Over the years training in both shamanism and meditation has enabled me to get better at recognising and shifting between states of consciousness. 

A yogic practice that I began learning in August last year on a course in meditation with the Mandala Yoga Ashram has been particularly helpful. This is Antar Mouna ‘Inner Silence’. In the first stage you focus on sensations – sound, touch, inner sight, taste and smell. You practice focusing on, for example, louder sounds, softer sounds, all the sounds, then shifting to touch, then all the sensations at once so you’re in a sea of sensations. Fundamental is not attaching any place or meaning to the sensations but simply experiencing them as they arise in themselves. I believe this to be a form of mastering sensory gating. It has been very useful in helping me to shift my attention away from and be less bothered by noise from my neighbours.

Slowing the World Down

So far I’ve mentioned things autistic people can do to cope with overload. It would also be of benefit if the world was a less overwhelming place. Grandin cites autistic author Donna Williams: ‘the constant change of most things never seemed to give me any chance to prepare myself for them… Stop the world, I want to get off…  stop the world, at least slow it down… The stress of trying to catch up and keep up… often became too much and I found myself trying to slow everything down and take some time out.’ (17)

Like Williams I’ve also found it difficult to keep up, in the workplace, in the blogosphere, on social media with quicker and quicker platforms appearing. As the world is not slowing down I’ve been left with no choice but to get off. I’ve abandoned hope of regular work, left social media, and cut down from reading around 50 different blogs and websites to a small select few.

Monasticism – Embracing Withdrawal

When Bleuler defined autism he depicted withdrawal into oneself as a disorder. Withdrawal is often associated with mental health issues and withdrawn persons are invariably encouraged to ‘come out of themselves’.

In contrast to this, within monastic traditions, withdrawal from the world is advocated as a positive movement and a necessary condition of attaining greater self-knowledge and knowledge of the Gods and of the universe.

For me being able to withdraw, having a safe home, a room I have made into a sanctuary, being able to spend time in prayer and meditation with my Gods and guides is essential for enabling me to go out into the world and do the shamanic work in person and online I eventually hope to make a living from.

I believe the world would be a better place if there were more quiet spaces, more sanctuaries, more monasteries to provide the opportunity for withdrawal. If withdrawal was embraced and not pathologised.

Shamanic and meditative techniques are time-tested methods of dealing with overload and trauma and it is in helping others to practice them and providing safe spaces to do so that is where my current passion lies as a nun of Annwn.

Footnotes

(1) https://www.news-medical.net/health/Autism-History
(2) Grandin, Temple; Panek, Richard, The Autistic Brain, (Ebury Publishing, 2014), p12
(3) Ibid., p121
(4) Ibid., p36
(5) Ibid., p41 – 42
(6) Kolk, Bessel van der. The Body Keeps the Score, (Penguin Books, 2014), p60 – 61
(7) Grandin, Temple; Panek, Richard, The Autistic Brain, (Ebury Publishing, 2014), p97 – 100
(8) Buhner, Stephen Harrod. Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm, (Inner Traditions, 2014) p31-33
(9) Ibid. p 33
(10) Kolk, Bessel van der. The Body Keeps the Score, (Penguin Books, 2014), p206
(11) Ibid, p97
(12) Ibid., p63-64
(13) Ibid., p207-208
(14) Buhner, Stephen Harrod. Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm, (Inner Traditions, 2014), p48
(15) Ibid. p43
(16) Ibid. p59
(17) Grandin, Temple; Panek, Richard, The Autistic Brain, (Ebury Publishing, 2014), p98

Building Brythonic Polytheistic Monastic Practices Part Two – Meditation

Leave a comment

Meditation is most developed in the Hindu and Buddhist religions. The earliest references to meditation are in the Vedas from around 1500 BC. In Hinduism the aim of yoga – a combination of meditation (dhayana), breathwork (pranayama) and body postures (asana) – is to still the mind, liberating it from sensory distractions and ultimately from the cycle of death and rebirth, unifying the self (atman) with the Gods (the Brahman or Shiva). In Buddhism the aim of meditation is to reach enlightenment, which resulted in liberation from the cycle of reincarnation as a buddha ‘awakened one’.

These forms of meditation begin with training the mind to focus on one thing – usually the breath. Other subjects of meditation include nature and virtues. Both employ the chanting of sacred syllables to still the mind. Tantric practices involve meditating on and attaining union with a multitude of Deities.

In Christianity meditation is a form of contemplative prayer. Discursive meditation is rooted in the scriptures and involves imagining oneself in the stories, in the shoes of the protagonists, to develop a deeper understanding. Lectio Divina focuses on passages of scripture and has four phases – Lectio (read), meditatio (reflect), oratio (respond) and contemplatio (rest).

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find any references to meditation in ancient polytheist cultures. The only evidence I have found is the image of the antlered Deity on the Gundestrup Cauldron (150 BC) who is sitting in a meditative position and bears a striking resemblance to Shiva the ‘Lord of Yoga’.

The cauldron is of Celtic La Tène period design and the antlered figure has tentatively been identified as Cernunnos, ‘Horned’, which might be a Gaulish title for Vindos / Gwyn ap Nudd, who I believe is pictured on another plate plunging dead warriors into a vessel headfirst to emerge as riders on His hunt. 

*

When I came to Paganism and Polytheism the first type of meditation I came across was guided meditation, which involves being guided by written words or voice into imaginal landscapes to meditate in safe places or meet with Deities. 

Examples include meditations leading to an inner grove, a spring, or a tree, or another form of sanctuary, meeting Brigit at a well or Cernunnos in a woodland. To the best of my knowledge this type of meditation originated in the Western esoteric tradition with groups like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Thelema and was later taken up by Wiccans, Druids and polytheists.

The way I see guided meditation to work is that one must first consciously imagine the scenery (our imagination is one of the tools by which we connect with the Divine) and this act of imagining creates an interface through which the spirit realm speaks. In my experience it is an act of co-creation. Some comes from one’s own imagination and some from the spirit realm in varying degrees and intensity. On some occasions I’ve remained within my imagination and felt like the scenery and Gods are nothing more than cardboard cut-outs and on others I have found myself in lands that are not of my imagining, entirely other, having genuine conversations with the Gods.

Through Druidry I learnt ways of working meditatively with the Brythonic myths by entering into them and standing in the shoes of some of the Deities. Most notably Afagddu, when Taliesin stole His awen and the Cauldron of Ceridwen shattered leaving Him with its poisoning of Gwyddno’s lands.

I also developed a practice akin to Lectio Divina drawn from creative writing workshops in which I meditated on a line or a scene from a medieval Welsh story or poem, then did free writing around it, then crafted it into a finished piece.

*

It’s only over the last couple of years I’ve looked into more traditonal forms of mediation. As a Brythonic polytheist I steered clear of the ‘Eastern’ traditions until I learnt that India and Europe shared an Indo-European culture and there are lots of resonances between Hindu and Brythonic beliefs.

Last year I started practicing yoga and integrating meditation, breathwork and body postures into my practice on the basis of a revelation of the Gundestrup Deity as ‘Meditating Gwyn’ as a way of unifying myself with Him.

At the core of my practice is uniting my breath with Gwyn’s breath, my heart with His heart, being as present in my body as possible so He and my other spirits can experience presence in Thisworld through their union with me.

When I first tried focused meditation I found it incredibly difficult (and still do). I avoided it for a while sharing the beliefs of many others that Eastern meditation isn’t for Westerners and isn’t suitable for our busy Western minds.  This changed when I discovered the Breathe and Flow yoga channel and Bre mentioned that if something is difficult it’s often the thing we need most. 

I started practicing focused meditation with their Expand programme and particularly benefited from their meditation, ‘Refocus’, which describes the benefits of stilling our busy ‘monkey minds’, shifting from sympathetic to parasympathetic states of the nervous system and rewiring our neural pathways. This meditation is very useful as every couple of minutes there are reminders, if thoughts have begun to trickle in, to return the attention to the breath. When I meditate alone it often takes longer to catch myself thinking.

Learning from Breathe and Flow that by focusing on and changing my breath I can control my mind and my emotions has been life changing in helping me manage my anxiety and panic which were beforehand often out of control.

I’ve been inspired to adapt some of the pranayama practices to fit with my spiritual path. Sama vritti, ‘box breathing’ (inhale, hold, exhale, hold), I do to a count of seven heartbeats to unite myself with ‘the Breath of the Gods’. Nadi shodhana, ‘alternating nostril breathing’ I use as a way of balancing the red and white dragons, fire and mist, strength and calm. Dirga ‘deep breathing’ and ‘sleep breath’ (4-7-8) I associate with the healing states of Nodens.

As I have learnt the body postures I have come to link some with my Deities and with various animals in the Brythonic myths. Suptka Baddha Konasana ‘reclining bound angle pose’ is Anrhuna as Mother of Annwn and Parsva Savasana ‘side corpse pose or foetal position’ is foetal Gwyn. Tadasana ‘Mountain Pose’ and Utkata Konasana ‘Goddess pose’ invoke the strength of Anrhuna. Adho Mukha Svanasa ‘downward dog’ and ‘Uttana shishosana ‘puppy pose’ are Gwyn’s hounds or the healing dogs in the temple of Nodens.

The medley of animals, Marjaryasana ‘Cat Pose’, Bitilasana ‘Cow Pose’, Mrigasana ‘Deer Pose’, Catur Svanasana ‘Dolphin’ puts me in mind of the animals surrounding the antlered God on the Gundestrup Cauldron and I wonder if the flows between the poses might have been based around stories featuring sacred animals such as the search for Mabon.

The power of these practices and the changes they have brought about in my life have led me to believe that what we know about the Bardic Schools and their twenty-year programmes for memorising poetic forms and traditional tales is but the remnant of a deeper spiritual tradition in which the stories were meditated on and embodied and lived as mythic realities.

Twelve Days of Devotion to Gwyn ap Nudd – The Birth of Gwyn

Leave a comment

Over the twelve days of devotion (25th of December to 6th of January) I focused on the birth of Gwyn and was guided through a series of practices. I was called to chant, sing, meditate, draw and embody Gwyn and His mother, Anrhuna. On this last day I bring them together to share as an offering to Him and to my online community hoping it will inspire others to delve more deeply into the mysteries of His birth in the future.

Mam Annwfn

Chant: Mam o mam o mam o mam o mam o man Annwfn.

Embodiment practice*: Lying in a modified version of Suptka Baddha Konasana (reclining bound angle pose) with left hand on heart and right hand on belly.

Meditation 1: I am the Deep and I am its mother.

Meditation 2: My heart and His heart beating as one.

Unborn Gwyn

Chant: Gwyn heb ei eini, Gwyn fettws, Gwyn breuddwydio, Gwyn dreaming, foetal Gwyn, unborn Gwyn.

Embodiment practice: Lying in Parsva Savasana (side corpse pose or foetal position). 

Meditation 1: I dream the universe.

Meditation 2: I am promise.

Birth

Meditation 1: 

Where shall I birth You 
into the world, 
my son, my king, 
my patron, my muse, 
my inspiration, my truth? 

Meditation 2: 

A mother’s longest hours 
like mountains, heaving belly, knees bent, 
reaching the peak, screaming, running down holding a baby
knowing prophecy is born in moments of pain,
the first cry of an infant mouth.

She Holds Her Son

Song: 

She holds Her son 
between space and time
in the place that’s Hers
and His and mine.

The Newborn

Meditation 1:

Born with a laugh 
to change the world
wise a changeling 
speaking in riddles
comes a newborn
to break all the rules.

He sings:

Hear the heartbeat, hear the drumbeat, hear the call.
Feel the heartbeat, feel the drumbeat stir your soul. 

Sing, chant, dance, drum with newborn Gwyn and the shadow nuns. 

WE ARE REBORN
here, now, in this moment, always, forever.

Inspiration

No-one knows the day or hour of Your birth because You were born before the universe.

*

You have as many births as the facets on your jewel – their number is infinite.

*

The geni in ca fi’n geni ‘I am born’ stems from the Proto-Indo-European root *gene that gives us ‘genesis’. With You, with each child, a universe is born. 

*

Each of us contains a universe, like a cauldron, and it’s only when our cauldrons crack and the relationships between the constellations of our presuppositions break down we perceive the sea of stars, the darkness of the Deep, the vastness of Annwfn, the Abyss, the Void. 

*

Floating on the starry tide, the infinite waters, You are always being born.

*I have been drawn to use yoga poses in my practice on the basis of gnosis about shared Indo-European origins of Brythonic polytheism and Hinduism. I have found likenesses between Anrhuna and the Hindu Goddess of primordial waters, Danu, who gave birth to the dragon, Vritra, and the Davanas. Gwyn shares many similarities with Shiva.

Meditating Gwyn

Leave a comment

My breath with Your breath,
my heart with Your heart,
my feet on Your path,
You and I as one.

This piece of devotional art represents a face of my patron God, Gwyn ap Nudd, who I know as Meditating Gwyn and the Inspirer. Gwyn first appeared to me in this form when I started to take seated breathing meditation seriously after finding techniques that worked for me from yoga.

Several years ago I received the gnosis that the meditating deity on the Gundestrup Cauldron is likely to be Gwyn (who may also be Cernunnos ‘Horned’ by another title) and Gwyn’s appearance in this guise confirmed it.

I had not thought of Gwyn, as a warrior-hunter God who gathers the souls of the dead, as being associated with meditation until He took this apparel. Yet it made sense in terms of my experience of Him paradoxically being not only the storm of the Wild Hunt but the calm at the heart of the storm. It also ties in with His likeness with Shiva, the Hindu Lord of Yoga, with them both being creator-destroyers with connections with bulls and snakes/serpents depicted in similar poses.

Since then Gwyn has continued appearing to me in this guise when I meditate, helping me to align my breath with His breath, my heart with His heart, keep my feet on His path and enter union with Him.

Whilst this image resembles the image on the Gundestrup Cauldron in many ways, it differs in others. You will probably notice Gwyn’s antlers don’t look like real antlers. They look more like radio antennas. I asked Him about that and He said it represents His ability, when meditating, to tune into what is happening in Thisworld and the Otherworld and sense the deaths of those whose souls He needs to gather.

Gwyn and the serpents have jewels in their foreheads. This addition has come to me in personal gnosis as I’ve journeyed with Him into the deep past, before the world was created, before humans, when He lived in Annwn amongst serpents. He and the serpents all had these magical jewels. I found no evidence of this for a long while until I saw a bronze head with a forehead jewel from Furness, Lancashire in Pagan Celtic Britain. I then learnt the serpent associated with Shiva, Nandi, has a magical forehead jewel. There are also three jewels in Gwyn’s belt which, to me, are the three stars in the belt of His constellation, the Hunter (Orion).

He wanted hair. Although Gwyn is not pictured on a cauldron I kept His silver-grey apparel as I see Him as having grey skin in His more primordial form (Creiddylad has green skin, Nodens/Nudd blue, Anrhuna grey) which I later realised fits with representations of the Gods in the Hindu and Buddhist yogic traditions.

This image on the Gundestrup Cauldron has also been associated with awenyddion ‘people inspired’ who likely used meditation and journeywork to travel to Annwn to bring back inspiration for their poetry. I see it as an image of Gwyn as the Inspirer which can be imitated by His Inspired Ones.