The Voyage of Bran mac Feabhail

The Voyage of Bran is an old Irish story in the tradition of otherworldy sea-voyages [1]. It contains clues and hints to a different way of seeing the world. Bran, a king in Ireland, is called to the otherworld by a ‘women from unknown lands’ who appears from nowhere in the middle of a feast and sings to Bran of a magical land across the western ocean. She tells him to ‘begin a voyage across the clear sea’ to reach the Land of Women. Bran sets off, and on his way he meets the Irish sea god Manannán, who sings about a strange vision of the sea around him, and about the land across the sea. Bran goes on and finally arrives at the Land of Women, where his adventures really begin!

The story was written down in the 8^th century, and seems to have a connection with Lough Foyle, the estuary of the River Foyle on the north coast of Ireland.

A Woman from Unknown Lands

Bran was out walking alone and heard music behind him. As he turned about, the source of the music still remained behind him, so that he could not see it. He turned again and again, but at last the sweet music lulled him to sleep. On awakening he saw a branch of silver with white blossom lying on the ground next to him. He picked it up and took it home.

That night, as Bran was with his guests in the royal house, a woman suddenly appeared in the middle of the house, dressed in strange and rich garments. She began to sing about the apple tree of Emain (Emain Ablach is the otherworldly apple orchard – an Irish equivalent of Avalon):

A branch of the apple tree from Emain
I bring like those one knows
Twigs of white silver are on it
Crystal brows with blossom.

She goes on to sing of a paradise in the western ocean, a distant isle with happy people playing games and sport, without illness or death, but everywhere riches, beauty and joy. The verses are well worth a read.

She ended her song with a plea to Bran:

Not to all of you is my speech,
Though its great marvel has been made known:
Let Bran hear from the crowd of the world
What of wisdom has been told to him.

Do not fall on a bed of sloth
Let not your intoxication overcome you
Begin a voyage across the clear sea
If perchance you may reach the Land of Women.

As she finishes her song, the silver branch that Bran was holding flew out of his hand into hers, and taking the branch with her, she leaves.

‘Manannán’s boat’ from the Broighter Gold [2]. Photo by Sailko, via wikimedia

Meeting Manannán

The next day Bran went to sea with three companies of nine men each. They headed west for two days and nights, and then they saw a chariot coming across the sea towards them carrying the sea-god Manannán mac Lir. From the chariot he sang of his strange vision of the sea around them as a flowery plain:

Bran deems it a marvellous beauty
In his coracle across the clear sea:
While to me in my chariot from afar
It is a flowery plain on which he rides about.

What is a clear sea
For the prowed skiff in which Bran is,
That is a happy plain with profusion of flowers
To me from the chariot of two wheels.

He goes on to sing about how the salmon leaping from the sea are really calves and lambs, and how Bran’s coracle is passing over a wood of beautiful fruit.

The poet and mystic John Moriarty, called these verses “the greatest theophany ever accorded to the ancient Irish. And these, the most reassuring words ever addressed to them from the Beyond. Sung to them out at sea, sung to them across the heads of the horses of Manannán, they are our Bhagavad Gita, they are our Song of God.” He goes on to explain that Manannán is showing how our world can be perceived differently, more richly through what he calls ‘silver branch’ perception. [3]

Manannán went on to sing of other things, about the heavenly qualities of his land:

We are from the beginning of creation
Without old age, without consummation of earth
Hence we expect not that there should be frailty
The sin has not come upon us.

…

It is a law of pride in this world
To believe in the creatures, to forget God
Overthrown by diseases, and old age,
Destruction of the soul through deception.

Manannán’s song went on to explain that he was on his way to Ireland in order to father a son who would be called Mongán mac Fiachna. Finally, Manannán ends his song:

Steadily then let Bran row
Not far to the Land of Women
Emne with many kinds of hospitality
You will reach before the setting of the sun.

The Land of Women

They rowed onwards, past the Island of Joy, until eventually they came to the Land of Women, where the Queen welcomed them from the shore. She threw a ball of thread to Bran, and as he caught it, it stuck fast to his hand, allowing the Queen to pull them into port. They stayed on the island with the women, feasting and happy, for what seemed like a year, although it was many.

Eventually one of Bran’s men called Nechtain was seized with homesickness. After a good deal of discussion, they decided that it was time to go back to Ireland, although the Queen continued to warn them against it. With sorrow, the Queen accepted their decision, but she warned them that when they returned they must not touch the land.

The Return

They left the Land of Women, and eventually they saw the shore of Ireland ahead of them, and as they came into the shallow water at Srub Brain, a crowd of local people shouted greetings to them. When Bran called out to them, saying who they were and where they had been, the people look puzzled, and then said that they had heard tales of Bran’s famous voyage, but as legends from ancient times.

Homesick and impatient, Bran’s companion Nechtain leapt from the ship onto land, but as soon as his foot touched the ground he was instantly transformed into a pile of ashes, as if he had been dead one hundred years. Bran and the rest of his companions saw that they could not return, and so Bran told the people of his wanderings, and then, bidding Ireland farewell, they set off again across the sea.

The Lough Foyle Connection

Srub Brain (‘Raven’s Headland”), where Bran and his companions make landfall, is usually identified with Inishowen Head in Donegal, by the mouth of Loch Foyle. [4] According to legend, Lough Foyle is named from Feabhal son of Lodan who belonged to the mythical Tuatha Dé Danann. [5]

The Wikipedia page on Manannán contains information about the modern statue of Manannán by Loch Foyle and the Broighter Hoard [2] which was found nearby, including a golden model of a boat thought to be a votive offering to Manannán.

John Carey, in his article on the Lough Foyle Colloquy Texts, discusses two texts associated with the legendary origin of Lough Foyle, which have a possible relationship with the Voyage of Bran. The texts both refer to a legend that Lough Foyle was part of a flooded ancient kingdom – perhaps an alternative way of looking at Manannán’s song.

The first text, The conversation of Colum Cille and the youth at Carn Eolairg, is a conversation between Saint Columba and a youth who might be Mongán mac Fiachna, the son Manannán sings of fathering when he meets Bran. Mongán speaks of Loch Foyle in the same way that Manannán talks about the sea when he meets Bran, and then seemingly the Saint and the youth spend the day talking about “the heavenly and earthly mysteries.”.

The second text, The conversation of Bran’s druid and Febul’s prophetess above Loch Febuil, is a conversation with references to rather mysterious events which perhaps come from an earlier version of Bran’s voyage, including a well (which in other legends can be an entry to the otherworld, as well as a source of flooding), a snare, and treasures of a troop of women, and the ‘stony grey sea’ where a ‘plain of white flowers’ used to be.

There’s plenty to ponder in the Voyage of Bran!

*Manannán mac Lir*, sculpture by John Sutton – photo by Kenneth Allen, via wikimedia

Notes:

[1] The translation I have used is by Kuno Meyer, Published 1895. The text and notes are available here: http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/vob/vob02.htm

[2] The Broighter Gold was discovered near Loch Foyle in 1896. The gold boat may have been a votive offering to Manannán Mac Lir. It is probably a model of an ocean-going vessel, of wood rather than hide-covered, complete with seats, oars, rowlocks, steering oar and mast. Currently in the National Museum, Dublin.

[3] Quote from John Moriarty’s book Nostos: An Autobiography. More about Moriarty and silver branch perception can be read here: https://celticjunction.org/cjac/arts-review/issue-12-lughnasa-2020/the-silver-branch-perception-of-john-moriarty/

[4] See https://www.logainm.ie/en/111204

[5] See https://web.archive.org/web/20180816130059/http://www.placenamesni.org/resultdetails.php?entry=17099

Thornborough Henges

The Thornborough Henges in North Yorkshire are a set of three huge circular henges, each around 250m in diameter, spaced out by about 500m on an approximate northwest-southeast alignment. They date from between 3500 and 2500 BC.

Looking south (the nearest henge is wooded!). Image via wikimedia.

What stands out to me about the henges?

They’re very big! They were built with a bank maybe 4 metres tall around them, and inside the bank a flat space and then a ditch around the flat Central area. Apparently they had 700 people there one recent Beltane!

With the banks at full height you’d only see the sky from within, no hills on the horizon. The banks were apparently faced with white gypsum. I wonder if they posted people or symbols or lights on the bank marking the stars rising and other astronomical events?

At the entrance to the central henge, with the wooded henge in the background.
From my visit in Summer 2025.

Orion

The three henges are not quite in a straight line, but seem to have the same alignment as the three stars of Orion’s belt. Also, before the henges were built there was a straight cursus (or ditch) dug at right angles to the line of henges, and passing through the central ring. It was roughly pointed towards where Orion would set in the West at the start of autumn. The cursus would have been cut through the trees, so maybe it was a sight line?

Is this apparent alignment with Orion a coincidence? Well other sites might have similar alignments. According to Sigurd Towrie, there are sites on Orkney that might have a similar mirroring of the belt-stars. There’s also a (controversial) theory that the pyramids in Egypt align with the belt.

What might Orion have meant to stone age people? Personally it’s my favorite winter constellation – easy to spot even in London, and somehow a comforting presence on clear winter nights. Perhaps to them it was a marker of the season, or perhaps a reminder of something more. Sigurd Towrie’s article also discusses Stonehenge, and the theory that it may be associated with a mid-winter healing deity. Did Orion represent this ancient prehistoric god? A deity who presided over the darkest time of the year?

I recommend a visit to Thornborough Henges – especially on a clear winter’s night!

Impression of Thornborough Henges ca 2,500BC
by Peter Dunn.

Samhain in the House of Don

Samhain is an ancient Celtic festival marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. Observed from sunset on 31st October to sunset on 1st November, Samhain holds a significant place in the spiritual calendar of the British Isles. Because it marks a kind of ending, divination rituals, such as scrying, were common as people sought guidance for the transition into darkness and then forward into the coming year. Offerings of food and drink were left outside homes to appease the dead and ensure a bountiful winter. Communities would light bonfires on hilltops to ward off evil spirits and honour ancestors, a practice still echoed in some rural areas today.

During this liminal period, it was believed the veils between the worlds of the living and the dead was stretched to their thinnest, allowing spirits to cross over and interact with the mortal realm. This sense of crossing boundaries and venturing into the Otherworld is echoed in The Mabinogion, where journeys between worlds and encounters with supernatural beings are recurring themes.

Closely intertwined with the mythic, Samhain’s customs have evolved and merged with other traditions, shaping the modern celebration of Halloween. We have six ‘houses’* in our tradition, and for the past few years this celebration has taken place under the auspices of the ancient mother goddess Don. We have chosen to work with the story of Ceridwen from the Mabinogion, using the themes in a variety of different ways to uncover what is hidden within the myth. When delving beneath the clothing of the myth we look for the principles and meaning underlying its content, and this can lead us into working with the abstract as well as the concrete.

Central to Samhain in the past were the themes of death and rebirth and rituals intended to protect people from mischievous or malevolent spirits. Disguise, and masking were often part of this and Ceridwen’s myth echoes these customs, with its story of shape-shifting and enchantment. The Mabinogion stories are full of journeys through thresholds to other states of being.

For many, Samhain remains a time for reflection, remembering loved ones who have passed away, and embracing the changing seasons to connect participants with the deep mythological currents of the land. Our old myths remain a source of inspiration, reminding modern celebrants of the ancient stories that shape our understanding of life, death, and the mysteries in between. In planning this weekend, we hope the old stories will cast their spell again.

*Note: Our six houses are the houses of Arianrhod, Don, Morgan, Lleu, Llyr and Bran.

There is also a seventh house, Broda, about which more soon.

The Diamond Mirror and the Four Worlds – Part 3, The Dragon World

In previous articles I’ve talked about the Familiar World and the Elemental World. Now it’s time for the Dragon World!

In mythology, dragons are powerful creatures, much bigger and more powerful than people. They can be symbols of impersonal energies, which may be outside or inside of us. How can we deal with these energies?

The story of Lludd and Llevelys in the Mabinogion tells of a plague caused by fighting dragons “The second plague was a shriek which came on every May-eve, over every hearth in the Island of Britain. And this went through people’s hearts, and so seared them, that the men lost their hue and their strength, and the women their children, and the young men and the maidens lost their senses, and all the animals and trees and the earth and the waters, were left barren.” King Lludd finds a way to make the dragons sleep, so they can be buried in the earth in Dinas Emrys, where they protect the kingdom. Later on, in another story, the young Merlin reveals the hiding place of the dragons.

Cropped image of the Two Dragons at Dinas Emrys from History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth – Public Domain

Dragons in Us

The Dragon World corresponds to the level of true thought (or abstract thought) on the Diamond Mirror. This is a level of mind that we’re not usually aware of, although we sometimes see the results in a flow of inspiration, or in solving a difficult problem. A characteristic is the enthusiastic rush of energy from the dragon’s passing.

We need protection from the dragon’s power, which can be destructive, and within us there is a natural guard, a sentinel, which keeps us safe. We can leave food for the dragons on the threshold, and they can do us favours in return. It is also possible by carefully setting aside our own preoccupations to ride a dragon. This can be a symbol of mastery of impersonal energies.

Dealing with the Abstract

When I try to solve a difficult problem, I often start by working in the realm of association and meaning, perhaps reading about it, or talking it over with someone. Then sometime it helps if I leave it to the ‘subconscious’ to work on it. I might make a cup of tea, go for a walk, or sleep on it. Later on, I often find the solution is ready. I’m not really aware of the process itself.

An example of this problem-solving method was the way that the German chemist Kekulé worked out the structure of the benzene molecule. After thinking about it without success, its ring shape came to him after he had a dream of a snake seizing its own tail, the ancient symbol called the Ouroboros.

Benzene molecule and Ouroboros

Poetic Inspiration

“… poetry is composed at the back of the mind; an unaccountable product of a trance in which the emotions of love, fear, anger, or grief are profoundly engaged, though at the same time powerfully disciplined.”
– Robert Graves in his Oxford Addresses on Poetry (1962)

In Welsh mythology, the inspiration of the bards is called awen. It’s described in The Book of Taliesin as proceeding mysteriously from a cauldron:

ban pan doeth peir
ogyrwen awen teir

“the three elements of inspiration that came, splendid, out of the cauldron”.

The word ‘peir’ (cauldron) can also mean ‘sovereign’ often with the broad meaning of God or the Divine. In either case, the mystery is that inspiration seems to come from the unseen realms.

Modern Druid symbol for Awen, the flowing inspiration

Entering the Dragon World

I think it’s possible to be more aware of the dragon world by leaving behind our sense of ‘I’. This can happen in meditation, where we learn to step over a threshold. It’s like going through a gate that protects one world from another, so that the sense of ‘I’ doesn’t get overwhelmed by deeper processes, and deeper processes are not interfered with by the sense of ‘I’.

I’m sitting on the lakeshore in amongst the reeds. I want to listen to the reeds, so I sit there quietly and try to pay attention. As time goes by I become aware of something unusual going on – there is a sense of communication taking place, although it doesn’t feel like ‘me’ doing the communicating. I picture it as the spirit of the reeds talking directly with my spirit – some larger part of myself that I’m not normally aware of. It is communicating with the reed, and I am just picking up on the backwash of this exchange. It is quite frightening to feel that something is going on in me that I’m not in control of. It would be easy to switch off, or to let the fear take over, but I try to keep with the experience and just keep the awareness of that strange conversation that seems to be taking place.

The Dragon of Radnor Forest

The Dragon and the St Michael Churches

In legend, Radnor forest is the place of the last dragon in Wales, and it sleeps. Roundabout the forest are five St Michael Churches which supposedly control or contain the dragon. All are built on ancient mounds and surrounded by yew trees. They are (anticlockwise):

Cascob (North-East)- It’s near where John Dee’s family came from (see below), and a magic spell was found in the churchyard and now hangs in the church. There’s also a special fluted yew tree there.

Rhydithon (North) – on the A488, didn’t seem too interesting. https://www.jlb2011.co.uk/walespic/churches/llanfihangelrhyd1.htm

Cefnllys (North-West), near Llandidrod Wells, now isolated without any road access – https://www.britainexpress.com/wales/mid/llanfihangel-cefnllys-church.htm

Nant Melan (South), near the A44. It was handed to the Knights of St John, and is built on the same plan as Kilpeck Church in Herefordshire. https://cpat.org.uk/Archive/churches/radnor/16855.htm

Discoed (East) has a very ancient yew tree, dated at 5000 years old. I want to visit it! https://www.britainexpress.com/wales/mid/discoed-st-michael.htm

John Dee

As mentioned above, John Dee has a connection with Cascob Church. See also https://www.radnorfforest.co.uk/news-views/legands which says

The Welsh grandfather of Elizabeth I’s advisor, Dr. John Dee, purchased the estate of Nantygroes which Dr. Dee continued to maintain and visit. Nantygroes is relatively close to Llanfihangel Cascob, as the crow flies. It’s interesting to note that ”Dee claimed descent from Llewelyn Crugeryr, a thirteenth-century chieftain whose Castell Crugeryr mound can still be seen by the A44 just west of the Fforest Inn.” (The Folklore of Radnorshire © Roy Palmer 2001, pg. 105; Logaston Press 2007).

Nant-y-Groes is in the Lugg River valley on the B4356 near Pilleth. See https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/30849/

Here’s a picture of a rainbow over the hill behind Nantygroes:

Walton Basin Area

The Walton Basin is on the south east side of Radnor Forest (around Evenjobb), and there was a lot going on in this area in the Neolithic period, including the largest prehistoric timber enclosure in Britain!
https://cpat.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/How-the-West-was-Won-Panel-1.pdf

Particular items include:

Hindwell Enclosure Timber Circle

This large timber enclosure was just south of Evenjobb. Nothing to see now I don’t think, but the road pattern follows the outline of the (huge) enclosure.
https://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=19715

Four Stones Circle

This is a nice little circle of four stones, just inside a field by the road.
https://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=349

Whimble Hill and the Mystery Hill!

There is a barrow, 19m in diameter and 1.2m high, set upon Whimble, a conical hill, and it has a more recent cairn, 11m in diameter and 0.6m high, superimposed upon it.
https://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=34221

Now… There’s a hill which dominates the view from the East. Here’s a picture taken from the road through Evenjobb, showing a rounded hill poking up in Radnor Forest. It seems significant that is overlooks the whole of the basin. Is it Whimble Hill? What do you think? Whatever it is it make me think the dragon is somewhere there! I want to explore there some more!

The House of Llyr

by Ligia Luckhurst

The task of the House of Llyr is to make the unfamiliar familiar, and the familiar strange.

The House is where Llyr is person because nothing can be, except through a person and as a person. The House is where he may be approached in person by other persons.

Llyr

In Welsh, Llyr is called: Llŷr Llediaith, meaning “half-speech”or “half-language”, “speaking with a foreign accent” (Wikipedia).

Llyr is form-bestowing: delimiting the limitless so that there can be this or that. A limit is a shared boundary, however, and any form Llyr bestows is also the form of Llyr as he does so. That is why Llyr is known as a shapeshifter, forever in motion, unsteady, groundless, never uttering the final word, yet uttering one anyway, with a foreign accent, as he streams shaping the fields of appearance but never stopping to become a field of being.

Measure-bestowing, Llyr is himself without measure, unseen and undisclosed by what he discloses.

Any imparting of form is an arrest – a bringing to a rest. Any arrest is violence. Any violence is traumatic to a greater or lesser degree, and met by resentment and resistance. Partaking of the boundary he imposes, Llyr resents and resists himself. That is why there is no peace in the House of Llyr.

Committing violence, as well as being at its receiving end, can lead to enjoyment of negativity. Enjoyment comes from that part of our actions which is in excess of what is necessary. Llyr can thus be unnecessarily cruel.

Llyr in mythology

Llyr is born of the Lord of Waters and the Lady of the Fields of Space. Enticed by dreamers, he rises wherever air and water meet. It is an ever-changing boundary, incessant movement – a shimmer caught by the corner of an eye, or the wild rage of a storm.

Ler or Lir means “sea” in Old Irish which was very different from Middle and Modern Irish: the sea in Irish appears as “an fharraige” in Google translator, or yet “muir” as in “muir Eireann” (the Irish Sea). “Ler” is here the nominative form, and “Lir” the genitive one (“He is Ler” and “I see Lir”). He is thus (the god of) the sea, and he is thus because, in mythical times, there cannot be a sea that is just a body of water: it is always also that which makes water be water to us.

What is the shape of the ocean, what is its true form? Is it the shape of the vessel that holds it, as is often said of all water? The shape of the ocean basin? With each tiny wave – or a huge one – it changes in every instant; a fuzz of shapes that only acquires a stable form on a map, which is but their imaginary average. Not only that, but the shape of the vessel – the ocean basin – is not stable: the movement of water wears the rock of the shore here and washes sand onto it there. And what of the surface of the ocean, unlimited by any shoreline? What is the shape of that? Not only does it move, but also evaporates all the time wherever it meets the air. The shape of the sea, even if it could be accurately recorded in an infinitesimally brief moment, would not last beyond that moment. It would change immediately and never in all eternity return to its previous form. That is why the sea and its father the ocean are, in mythology and psychology, associated with dreams and the unconscious which can never fully be the case, and belong, at least partly, to the Otherworld. In our dreams, we can interact with the dead. In many mythologies, the journey to the Otherworld, which is also the World of the Dead, involves crossing a large body of water.

In the Mabinogion, Llyr is the father of Bran, Branwen, and Manawydan by his spouse, Penarddun. He is imprisoned by Euroswydd, who then marries Penarddun. Two sons issue from this marriage: Nisien and Efnisien, Nisien being the good brother and Efnisien the bad one. This looks very much like the replacement of the old Bronze Age gods by human heroes, ushering the age of Law and responsibility and therefore direction, destiny and meaning into the Garden of Eternal Return which revolves by itself.

Llyr withdraws behind the screen of his children: in Irish mythology, like in the Welsh one, he does not feature much in stories, and the attributes of the sea god are mostly given to his son Manannan, also known as the God of the Otherworld (Emain Ablach). Like his seldom mentioned father, Manannan is a shape-shifter and comes to women, sometimes, in the shape of a sea-bird or heron, and sometimes in the shape of their own husband.

The “Children of Lir” (Irish: Oidheadh Chloinne Lir) is a tale from the post-Christianisation period in which Lir’s children – four of them, not three, and bearing different names from their Welsh counterparts – are transformed into swans by their jealous stepmother Aoife. She gets punished to spend the rest of her life as a loathsome demon of the air, but Lir’s children must spend three hundred years as swans on Loch Dairbhreach, where Lir contemplates them, listening to their song and speech. The swans then move to the ocean to spend another three hundred years on Sruth na Maoilé, and the final three hundred at Inis Gluairé, suffering terribly from darkness, rain and cold.

At the end of their allotted period of torment, the swans return to their father’s abode, only to find it abandoned and overgrown. (Here, as in Welsh mythology, Lir/Llyr withdraws, cold, morose, remote and shockingly uninterested, even forgetful, of his children’s undeserved fate.)

Finally, at their wit’s end, the swans seek refuge with a Christian saint, St Mochaomhog, on Inis Gluaire. He binds them with silver chains and they do not resist (silver being the metal associated with Lir). They are coveted by the King of Connacht’s wife, but the saint refuses to hand them over. Angered, the King grabs them to snatch them away, but, at the instant of his touch, they turn into withered, emaciated old people and die, having requested and received Baptism by the saint.

The Willow and the Crane

The crane is sacred to Llyr/Lir whose son Mananan keeps his magical objects, or the treasures of Ireland, in a crane skin bag. Eating cranes was taboo in Ireland and was considered unhealthy in Britain. The crane robs a warrior of his courage and announces death. It represents the warrior’s anima in her spiteful, peevish, malicious hag aspect.

Further afield, the crane is sacred to Hermes/Mercury in his role as guide to the Land of the Dead and inventor of the alphabet, much in the same way as the ibis, a bird from the crane family, belongs to the Egyptian god of writing and wisdom, Thoth.

By means of letters, the crane brings treasures over from their Otherworldly – transcendental – state into earthly manifest reality as knowledge. Letters are here the form which directs the movement of the treasure-substance.

The willow is associated with water and the moon. Willow is one of the nine woods used for the Beltane fire. Among them, it represents the tree of death.

The medicinal properties of the willow are numerous. Its bark contains salicin which forms the active ingredient in aspirin.

In Roman mythology, the willow is sacred to Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, who invented numbers. In Greece, it is associated with Orpheus who carried willow branches on his journey through the Underworld. Like the crane, the willow provides the means of bringing forth the hidden treasure of the Otherworld and making it manifest as knowledge: number, sound, song. But – again, like the crane – the willow is associated with the unstable, the illicit and the fey. Willow trees stalk travellers at night, muttering at them. Lovers who live together outside wedlock are said to have been married round the willow tree. One can use willow twigs to conceal one’s smell from large carnivores – to mask one’s identity.

Spring Equinox at Arbor Low

This year I spent the spring equinox with friends in Derbyshire, visiting two of the stone circles from the Bull Tor triangle. The journey between these circles and the exercises carried out at each of them are the subject of the book The Dancing Circles (see an earlier article here). This time we visited Arbor Low and Eyam Moor Stone Circle, and I have a little bit to say about our time at Arbor Low.

Arbor Low Stone Circle by Graham Hogg, via Wikimedia Commons

Thursday was unusually warm and sunny, but approaching Arbor Low in the morning there was a white haze blanketing the hills, like a cocoon under which spring was being prepared. The trees were beginning to bud, and crocuses were in flower in the circle itself. Sky larks were trilling in the air above us.

The exercise for Arbor Low aims to still the mind, and consists of visualising the sun’s progress through the sky from sunrise to sunset, taking about ten minutes for the entire imaginary arc. The equinox is a good day to do this exercise, because the sun rises due east, sets due west, and rises to a point due south of the zenith at noon. This arch of course extends under the earth, where the sun travels at night, making a circle with a spindle through the centre which points towards the north star.

The exercise did seem to work, and perhaps there is something about the nature of the sun’s motion that helps. We know it moves across the sky, but it looks stationary. The exercise brings an awareness of this contrast into the mind, so that we can experience both change and stillness, and perhaps be aware of the bigger world we live in.

Happy Equinox!

Lyn Webster Wilde 1950-2024

Lyn invited me to a week on Orkney at Lammas 1998, to help out with a British Mysteries course she was running. There were six of us altogether, mainly strangers to each other, driving up from London in a rickety van. On the way we stopped off at stone circles and Lyn began to show us how to work. We lay in the grass trying to soak up the feeling of the places and we got used to working together. She gave us each a role from the myth of Arianrhod so that together we could begin to develop a body of experience, and then she gave us exercises to get to know each other and the roles we had taken on.

When we arrived at our destination in Orkney, we had to clear out a hall we were going to use for movement work. Among the stack of chairs we came across a note written on a scrap of paper “Can you spin gold from straw?” which we took as a kind of motto for the week.

The work was sometimes practical and sometimes very subtle. We were trying to explore a world at the threshold of perception. One time, our group was walking on a road by the sea, and we stopped to watch the light playing on the water (both symbols of the house of Arianrhod). At that moment we looked down and discovered an object lying in the road at our feet which turned out to be of great significance to the house.

Lyn also had an ability to generate energy, working with us in a kind of feedback loop to make connections and see what needed to be done next. “Yes, yes!” she’d shout as bit by bit we uncovered or perhaps made the house of Arianrhod on Orkney. As our energy built we spent a night out in the Orkney ‘mizzle’ at a stone circle. During the night, perceptions changed and the stones seemed to move and breathe, and in the dawn light a magical flight of birds seemed to appear and disappear to nowhere. We returned, exhausted, and excitedly began planning the next stage of our week – a labyrinth dance on the beach.

* * * * * * *

Fifteen years later, Lyn began work on her film, The Dancing Floor, intended to capture some of the energy and ideas that she had been working with. She wrote a script and then began work on a 15 minutes pilot with help from many friends and artists. She also produced a dance project which was performed at Brechfa Chapel and in Hay-on-Wye. The film of the dance and the pilot are, I think, a great legacy of Lyn’s work.

Rod Thorn

Festivals

A friend suggested that we include a new category of posts – about the festivals. It would be nice if people were to add their comments and experiences to the posts as well. Here’s the starter she provided:

Autumn Equinox

To mark the Autumn Equinox, I sat in silent contemplation of a small bunch of Hawthorn berries – haws. They were a trigger for seeing the huge cycle of Life which our lives and our species are part of. Nature prepares a fertile ground for the fruits to fall when they have what is necessary to nurture the new forms as they become. What have we been given to create and nurture the seeds of the future? What fruits and seeds do each of us have to plant in what ground? Children yes, but many other seeds also. We have all been given more to pass on than we realise. Skills, ideas, art forms, ways of living, of seeing, of making, healing, helping, guiding; what we have received, and have to give to others is endless. Some may fall on stony ground, that is the way of it, but some may fall in a rich fertile bed and it is also possible for us to assist in creating that bed.

Sinking into the dark of the year gives us a time to withdraw, to consider our acts, our thoughts, our efforts. To discover ways to prepare the ground of Being to receive the seeds of Knowledge, Wisdom and Understanding which lie buried within us, to help them develop and see where and how they may be planted to enhance this Life on earth.

And here are some other posts about Festivals

Morgan the Huntress

Posted on behalf of House Morgan.

Morgan hunts. Hunting, no matter the quarry, is a passion which requires skill. The hunter is driven to stalk, track, probe, uncover that which is issuing the summons, the call from a hidden place.

In the stalking, catching, but not necessarily killing, the prey is the passion that drives a true Hunter. Shooting may now involve a camera rather than a gun, hunting that special sharp ‘shot’. Skinning, stripping the surface, the outer layers from a ‘kill’ may involve words rather than a knife; may be more concerned with revealing a plot, a scam, a crime, a hidden identity, a hidden agenda.

The Hunter/Huntress, is found in many mythologies due to the vital place hunting held in tribal life. It remains active in many societies today, but is it still relevant? It depends on what you call hunting, and how you relate to the driving force behind it. Hunting was an ancestral necessity, an aspect of the instinct which ensured our survival and that of our tribe. The hunter held a highly responsible place in the life of a tribe. What skills they had! What faculties did they use? Seeing, dreaming, stillness, silence, their extraordinary sense perception on high alert, their whole body consciously aware of the presence surrounding them. Some hunted alone, some hunted in packs where every member knew each other’s skill and presence.

But hunters exist on other levels too. Those who seek knowledge, researchers in every sphere of life are hunters, what they hunt will, in one way or other, change their life and the life of others – revelation is always a risk and the hunter must act accordingly. Hunting is a visceral act, feeling the thread, the connection, to that which is hunted. The researcher or detective knowing they are on the brink of a discovery become remote, their passion palpable, their instinct alert, poised to recognise the revelation and pounce at the precise moment. Investigative journalists also, and barristers questioning a suspect or witness in court; they are all driven to hunt for truth. This is the root of the myths of the fantastic animal that leads the hunter into the Otherworld.

But is it possible to operate as a hunter in everyday life? To stay awake, alert, extend your senses to the limit. To develop extra-ordinary senses that receive information without immediately placing meaning onto it. To stay awake, to stalk the mystery, moving slowly, quietly, becoming still, remaining hidden, ‘touching the world lightly’. To use your senses to inform, your mind to question, your will to keep on track.

The hunting of living creatures requires study; study of their habitat, their habits, their food, their needs, their routines, all these are clues necessary to a successful hunt. If you were being hunted, how easy would it be to trap you? Are you aware of your habits, your routines? Times, places, travel, work, recreation, contacts, attitude, responses; is your life predictable, are you predictable? Is it possible to outwit a Hunter/ Stalker and lead them away, misdirect them?

Being alert, attentive, vigilant, reading the signs, the hunter patiently waits and watches, if something is hidden they will uncover it; unless they recognise and acknowledge the need to call off the hunt.
Gathering may complement hunting. Traditionally, they have been considered two separate activities but are they so different? What are the qualities they share? Use of all the senses. Attention to season, terrain, memory. How were new foods discovered? New plants for healing? How did they find out what part is active, leaf, flower, root, seed? Again, the honing of all the senses in the service of Attention is essential; error leads to sickness and death. This is the true meaning and purpose of sensitivity. Are you sensitive?

As the advent of agriculture and associated husbandry led to the development of civilisation the need to hunt for food dwindled. But is physical food our only requirement for growth and sustenance? Consider the food required to fulfil our other needs; food for the mind, the heart, the spirit. The hunt for your path, your partner, your profession or career, your passion. What feeds your passion, what gives your life meaning?

Archeologists hunt our past to enrich our future. Their discoveries of ancient ruins, ancient languages, the earliest writings, the earliest music, our measurement of time and depictions of early god forms have all been revealed by these passionate hunters. Without their findings most of our diverse cultural heritage would remain lost and our lives much the poorer. And those who hunt their ancestry, currently a very popular activity, how does it feel to recognise a name, date, place that fits? You’ve been hunting.

Hunters methods are subtle, invisible, how do they track the mysteries that lie beneath the surface? Some call it the Underworld as much of what we value begins as hidden treasure – gold, silver, jewel, histories, seeds, truths – all lie beneath a covering, a surface. Truth can be staring us in the face, but perhaps we prefer not to see it.

But the greatest hunter is Death. Death stalks you all your life and can take you at any moment, are you prepared? “In a world where death is the Hunter, my friend, there is no time for regrets or doubts. There is only time for decision.”*

How can you prepare? By hunting that which feeds the deeper parts of you and store its power for use when needed. The greatest power to draw the Hunter is Knowledge, Knowledge not information. Information is what intrigues the mind and forms signposts along the way.
Knowledge that transforms the being, nurtures the soul and frees the spirit.

* Carlos Castaneda Journey to Ixtlan

House Morgan

Ynys Prydein – the British Mysteries

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