Manawydan – A Pilgrimage

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It must be close to a decade now since I made my first conscious pilgrimage. A journey to the Norfolk village of Walsingham. At that point I didn’t even know that pilgrimage was still a ‘thing’. I had read Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath at college. And we had debated the purpose for people making pilgrimages in the middle ages. But by the time I took those tentative steps. Barefoot towards the Slipper Chapel. I was about as far removed from mainstream religion as you could get. So, I was unaware of any modern practise and was surprised to find a thriving tradition.

In fact the purpose for that entire journey was about as far away from Christianity as you could get. So the destination raised more than a few eyebrows. It was the culmination of a prolonged and often confusing contact with a particular spirit. I am not entirely sure what her motivations were in asking me to light very specific numbers of candles in each of the shrines I came across. Other than perhaps to bankrupt me, because votive candles aren’t cheap. But in my heart I suspect it was to install into me what now appears to be a life long fascination with ‘the journey’. And how it is both an act of magick and of devotion that transcends religion.

Artists house on the Camino, a stop for pilgrims

Since then I have marvelled at the very beginnings of humanity. At the Cradle of Humankind in the Sterkfontein caves in South Africa I took time to honour my ancestors. I have fallen in love with Lugo a wonderful ancient city on the Camino Primitivo (the original way) heading towards Santiago. There I felt the power of the Great Mother Isis. I have travelled alone from the very Northern tip of France to the Sierra Nevadas in Spain in a personal journey of enlightenment. Left offerings to the Goddess Minerva in an ancient thermal spring. Performed rites to Hekate, Asteria and Perses under a meteor filled sky by a crystal mountain lake. I have followed my nose and communed with the spirits of place in Carnac. Rested on the nearby tumulus St Michel. Stretching my mind far out to sense Glastonbury Tor and St Michael’s Mount far away along the serpentine line.

In recent years the focus of my pilgrimages has been almost singular. The Isle of Yns Môn. I travel along the North Wales costal route, and key points along that journey have become like a mantra. The droning of my engine. The sound of my car tyres on the Tarmac beneath me. Acting like the Buddhist prayer wheels. Rumbling out to the universe my devotion to the landscape around me. And an Island that always feels like home.

So this weekend saw me rise early on a cold and positively wintry morning. With parts of the country caught in the grip of the ‘Beast from the East’ I was uncertain how many would join us in a Pilgrimage to meet the God Manawydan. An event which I helped to organise for members of The Anglesey Druid Order as one of their “Deity Days”. Manawydan is particularly close to my heart as he was the first male deity I ever felt a true connection with. He reminds me of my own foibles, fragilities and sometimes downright bloody mindedness. He also ensure that I never forget to claim my sovereignty. Nor does he fail me when I have a need for certain types of Magic. But that is another post for another day.

We live in a results based world, where everybody talks in terms of where they went. What they achieved. What they hope to achieve. Always aiming for the final destination. Impatient to be anywhere but where they are right now. Of course I am not perfect and there are many ways in which I still live a thoroughly modern life. But when it comes to my Magick, my Spirituality, I try very hard to take time to enjoy the process. Therefore, my purpose of this day was not to ask him for anything for myself. Just to honour him with each step I took. To facilitate others coming to know him. And hopefully kindle a deeper connection with him.

His location in the Anglesey landscape is without dispute. His story, as we know it, starts with the marriage of Branwen in the 2nd Branch of the Mabinogi. The festivities taking place in the village of Aberffraw. Situated on the south western coastline of the Island. So it was pretty much a no brainer then to walk part of the famous costal path.

View on the Coast Path

We started from Llyn Coron (Crown Lake), through the village and along the costal path to the ancient city on the headland at the mouth of the estuary. Along the route we contemplated his nature and how it might inform our own actions. We left offerings to him and to the house of Llŷr. And we ritualistically left behind us, in small cairns, representations of that which we felt stopped us embracing Manawydan’s qualities of Humility, Justice and Magic. Particularly in relation to claiming our own sovereignty.

My offering in the humility cairn was a handful of pure white dog whelk and cowrie shells which I always covet when I walk along the sea shore. I had been systematically ferreting them away as we walked. For that stretch of coast line is particularly rich. Treasures to bring home and add to my collection. It pained me greatly when I realised that I couldn’t get more humble than to give away a thing I prized in honour and recognition .

The Scallop, A Symbol of Pilgrimage

So imagine my joy later as we were clearing the beach of plastic when I was rewarded with the most beautiful, almost perfect Queen Scallop shell. A symbol which has become almost universally associated with the act of Pilgrimage thanks to the Camino de Santiago. In my mind a clear sign that Manawydan was pleased with our endeavours.

If you would like to know more about The Anglesey Druid Order and what they do you can find them here and here.

The Eternal Flame of Bride

Of Oak Ash and Thorn, with the focus on Thorn

I think I could turn and live with animals

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Today I wrote the following statement:

One of humanity’s biggest problems is that we believe ourselves to be better than animals and less than the Gods

This is not a new thought for me. Probably one of the earliest realisations I had that my world view did not fit with most of civilised society was the revelation that most people do not believe that animals have souls. That there is no after life (heaven if you will) for animals. I knew then and there I wanted no part of any religion that placed me in an afterlife without animals. Despite my apparently outgoing and gregarious nature my natural state of being is introverted. At parties and gatherings you will find me with the pets and the children (those wonderful humans who have as yet not forgotten how it is to be animal). I am quite animalistic in my nature I trust slowly, love fiercely and have unwavering loyalty. And because of this I truly struggle with many aspects of civilised society, the delicate nuances we are supposed to perceive, the intricate games we are supposed to play.

I am loathe to use certain vocabulary as it has been abused by the new age community and the cultural misappropriation of such paths as the indigenous American population and their belief in totem and power animals make it even more difficult to express myself adequately. But I truly believe that connecting with the animal natures with yourself can make for a richer life both in the magickal and mundane realms. It is something our old Gods knew all about. Our Gods and Goddesses were often zoomorphic. Ceridwen knew how to change into a greyhound, an otter, a hawk and a hen. Dylan son of Aranrhod became a seal and returned to the waters. Rhiannon is made to take the form of a horse (or is it her natural form) as part of her punishment for the alleged murder of her son Pryderi. It is such a common phenomena that it might be argued that to be divine you have to access the animals within. Isn’t that an interesting thought, to become Godlike we must understand our animals. But how?

We can of course pay a small fortune to be taken on some Shamanistic journey to find our inner beasts. And I’m not going to decry that. It can work. But often our journeys to find our “divine animal nature” can be far more mundane and internal. For example after a week long retreat many years ago I was informed that my “totem” was a frog, a liminal creature capable of existing between the worlds of earth and water, a psychopomp and wise one. The Druid animal Oracle has a wonderful image of a frog, the like of which you could find in any garden pond. It states that the frog brings medicine and can help develop “sensitivity to others, to healing and to sound through your skin and your whole body and aura”. To be frank I pretty much snorted at this description, the only thing I had in common with a frog was that when I sang I croaked. And yet I couldn’t shake a certain feeling of kinship.

When it happened it wasn’t some fabulous realisation of some wonderful aspect of my being that made the connection. It was a realisation of a darker aspect of my nature, an understanding and acceptance of my shadow shelf that finally allowed me to make that bond. The animal Oracle also says about the frog that “There is a hidden beauty and a hidden power in all of nature”. And there as I was quite a few years later, meditating on the idea that a frog had a “hidden power” when ‘pop’ sat on a rock in my interior landscape was a South American red eyed tree frog. Although not poisonous this frog is brightly coloured to shock it’s predators into thinking twice about whether or not it is a tasty snack. Giving it a superlative glamour. And although small it is a fearsome predator in its own right. In addition many of its cousins are poisonous, you squeeze one of them too tight, or hurt them in any way and there is at best a good chance you’ll have hallucinations, paralysis and seizures and worse case, if you try and eat one of these little fellows, well if they are going down they’ll take you with them in the most excruciating way possible. Now that I could relate to.

You see connecting with any animal aspect isn’t always about the nice things, let’s face it nature just isn’t nice and neither are we. I am very distrusting of anybody who comes across as too nice, too smiley, too spiritual, they are the ones who normally have the most to hide and so far Ive never been proved wrong. My lovely friend Kath told me over a decade ago that I had an instinct second to none. Something I used to dismiss. But it is a divine animal trait in its own right, for after all why is it that a perfectly placid dog can suddenly take umbrage at a specific human being? We’ve all seen it. They sense something that apparently we can’t. Or maybe we can, if we learn to embrace our divine animals.

Sometimes the animals we are drawn to on the mundane are also teachers for us. My friends know of my passion for Otters. I call them my favourite water borne terrorists. Liminal like the frog existing between earth and water they are often associated with shape shifting and their almost immoral behaviour makes them tricksters of the highest order. They are mustelids meaning they belong to the same family as badgers, weasels, minks and Pole-cats. They are often social and playful, knowing the joy of play for the sake of play, expecting nothing more in life than what they have. Yet they can often kill for fun, not for hunger. They can be vicious and nip and bite, they can fight to the death. But all tricksters pretty much without exception are catalysts for change even if that is by viscous means.

Tricksters are highly intelligent, often seeing a bigger picture or path unavailable to others because they are blinded by dogma and social conventions. Hermes invented lying, and nearly all tricksters have an ability to be economical with the truth, as such the Otter is very good at letting you know when someone is lying to you, because if you’ve embraced that inner divine animal, you know a big whopper when you see one because you’ve considered telling the odd one yourself. Loki, another of the zoomorphic Gods plays a pivotal role in Ragnarok resulting in the death of the Gods. Again, if you’ve embraced that destructive side of your nature then it’s really easy to see when the walls are about to come toppling down. And of course sometimes you realise it’s necessary that you bring the walls down yourself. Anansi, Coyote, Kitsune, Gwydion, Efnysien, Reynard and Puck are all tricksters worth investigating, more than a few of them have a connection to an animal or a zoomorphic aspect. They can be the hero, the bad guy, the fool and the wise man all wrapped up into one. Yet you cannot deny their divinity, their connection to the sacred.

So here is a thought, perhaps the way to fix the world is to start behaving as if we are better than Gods and less than animals and work towards integrating those two aspects of our nature.

The Last Wolf of Albion

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I have to admit to feeling a little nervous about attending a Camp in Cumbria before March had even waved us goodbye. Reports of snow on higher ground by friends the previous week hadn’t helped that feeling. I may be a southerner by birth but my paternal family are all northerners and I’ll have lived under northern skies for fifteen years this September. I am a northerner at heart, and we are made of sterner stuff. So as Saturday dawned cool and clear I donned a thermal vest under my T-shirt and fleece and headed towards Grange-Over-Sands and the Humphrey Head Centre where The Druid Network were hosting a “Leap into Spring” event.

I love the Lakes with a deep abiding passion, many of my childhood holidays involved fishing at Arnside, woodland rambles near Kendal, minnow trapping at the Troutbeck, scrambling around at the feet of Shap. To name just a few activities. And it was during these holidays that my love of folklore and myth probably first took seed. Both my father and grandfather were excellent story tellers, and the raucous songs and tales they made up for my delight are memories that make me smile even on the greyest day. So it was great news to me that the location of my weekend adventures was purported to be the site where the last wolf was hunted down and killed and that a great story accompanied it. A story that has been brought to my attention, for no apparent reason a number of times over the last few months. So obviously it has some as yet unknown lesson to teach me. So as the start of my adventure through the landscape of the last wolf I thought I might share its sad tale.

The Last Wolf

Once upon a time, for after all it’s important for all good stories to start like that don’t you think? There lived a very powerful family who resided in a beautiful tower near the village of Allithwaite. In those days the landscape was different to the one we know now. It was a much wilder place. Inhabited by much wilder creatures. Possibly the most fearsome of which was a ferocious wolf. His howls could be heard all across Over-Sands and on moon lit nights the local peasants brought as many of their sheep inside as possible for the Wolf had a voracious appetite.

The beasts indiscriminate hunting went on for many years before the common folk could take no more and pleaded with their lord to help them. To rid them of this menace. Sir Edgar Harrington listened to his serfs and swore to rid them of the predator. He called to all the Lords and Knights across the region asking for aid. If they caught and killed the wolf then half his lands and the hand of his orphan niece Adela would be theirs as reward.

Now Adela was less than happy with this state of affairs, but as an Orphan ward there was little she could do. All she could hope for was that either that the wolf escaped to hunt another day, or that the man to which she would be wed was an honourable and decent man. She knew though that her heart would never belong to any other man than John. The son of Sir Edgar. As children they had played together and as they had grown so had their love. Once he came of age John had asked his father for her hand but had been refused for Sir Edgar saw great alliances that could be made with her marriage. John left in anger to travel to the Holy lands swearing never to return. Leaving a grieving Adela behind.

So as the appointed day arrived nobles across the land assembled. Forming the greatest hunt the land had seen since Arthur had valiantly pursued the elusive White Stag. Adela pleaded with her ward begging to accompany the men so that she may see the triumph of the man to whom she would be wed. Finally he agreed and as her horse was being saddled a mysterious knight arrived to join the hunt. Mounted upon the most magnificent glowing white Arabian stallion the knight refused to dismount or remove his visor whilst the final preparations were made. Instead he silently watched the fair maiden.

The horn sounded and the hunt began. The Wolf a wiley old beast led them a merry dance. The hunt zig zagged across the land, from Coniston to Windermere with many an erstwhile suitor falling by the wayside. Finally the chase led the remaining pack to Humphrey Head with the mysterious knight leading. He cornered the beast and speared him through his heart. Turning to Adela he lifted his visor to reveal to his prize that he was her long lost love. Sir Edgar seeing the truth of the situation summoned a learned Monk from Cartmel Priory who happened to be in the retinue. He instructed the Monk to marry the couple there and then. In front of the holy well that springs even to this day from the foot of the cliffs at Humphrey Head.

It is a truly wonderful tale, full of some very interesting motifs which could be remnants of long lost sovereignty stories. The maiden being married to a mysterious knight who is mounted upon an otherworldly white beast. But what is even more fascinating is that the myth has now become inextricably link to the geology of the land.

Firstly the Holy well which although somewhat sad and neglected still remains to this day. It is mineral rich and tastes a little like Alka Selzer with a slightly silky/slimey texture. And although the water is heavy with salts and minerals it is obviously unpolluted as small freshwater shrimps could be seen swimming in the small pools where the water collected as it trickled down to the marshes just a few meters below.

Secondly is the Haematite which can be gathered in the shingle at the foot of Humphrey Head. This is a black/reddish brown stone which is high in Ferric Oxide. It is sometimes known as Blood stone. A good way to identify the stone is to give it a quick lick and rub it against a rock, if it comes up red then you know you have the right rock. Of course if you have a magnet on your keyring you will also be able to test the stones as even if the Iron content is fairly low you will feel a slight draw to the stones. Might be a bit more sensible than licking them. But hey where is the fun in that! And if you do lick them, you can see how these stones have become linked to the story of the last wolf, their Magickal red stains are the drops of blood shed by the Wolf before he met his final demise on the cliffs above.

It is claimed that Haematite is great for protection, grounding and dispelling negativity. And I have used it for that purpose previously but the stones I gathered have now found themselves upon my Brigid altar, after all a Goddess of Smithcraft could definitely use some Iron ore.

It was a truly wonderful day full of myth and magick and a sense of sacred within the landscape. I cannot wait to go back to visit and explore more. Perhaps even discover other legends about the surrounding lands. The Woodspirit camp is being hosted there this year. That sounds like a promising adventure.