The Blessings of Brigid

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For a couple of years now I have been trying to make more of a conscious effort to really connect with the festivals on the wheel of the year. So at the end of January I found myself accepting an invitation to attend an hour’s silent vigil in the woods dedicated to the Goddess Brigid. I’ll be frank, whilst I love dark nights, woodland walks and candle-lit vigils I was rather perplexed as to my subconscious motivations. Brigid is not a deity Ive had a lot of connection with and nor did I really want to. To explain, I think how you interact with deities is a bit like how you interact
with people. There has to be a certain something about the person or nothing will never develop. They will remain just somebody you know in passing, might say “hi” to as you walk past in the street because you recognise them. But you wouldn’t necessarily stop and talk. And to be frank my previous interaction with Brigid had left me pretty much as cold as the Imbolc snow that so often scatters the ground at that time of year. So I think it goes without saying that I was more than a bit shocked when during the vigil a quiet internal voice instructed me to continue to light candles until Equinox.

Publicly Ive been wearing my Druid hat almost as much as I’ve been wearing my Wiccan hat of late so it occurred to me that this sudden tentative spark of connection may be related to that, Brigid is a goddess of poetry and often a patron to Bards. It also occurred to me that it was an aspect of Brigid I was feeling as a soul calling rather than an actual connection. At that early point of connection during the vigil it was close to seven weeks since I had set foot on Anglesey, the longest I have gone in well over 18 months. The author Kristoffer Hughes suggests that the Goddess of the river Braint which bisects the Isle of Anglesey is a localised version of the Goddess Briganti, whom many believe to also be Brigid [1.Hughes, K. The book of Celtic Magic, Llewellyn 2016]. Therefore although admittedly in a reluctant manner I started lighting a candle whenever I sat down in my study and when away, I made an effort, if only for a fleeting moment, to think of Brigid and her sacred flame. After all Imbolc to Equinox was not a long time, right?

Of course Spring is now most definitely upon us and Equinox is looming fast and I find that the whole catalog of synchronicity which has followed is such that I am now left without a shadow of a doubt that the relationship now has some form of chemistry going on. A spark of interest which wasn’t there before. What that interest is I have no idea, and whether there is a longevity to the interaction is equally mystifying. However, the more I read about her, the more I can see the similarities she shares with the two other Goddesses that have at one point or another shared my life. And there are a couple of aspects which have me positively entranced. For example, How can a fairy Princess, the wife of Angus the Ever young, a Tuatha de Dannan also be patron of smith craft, an occupation which even into history is an Iron rich activity?
I think sometimes, when connections are made you have to go with your gut and follow your nose, and just enjoy the journey, no motivations, no ulterior motive, no “What’s in it for me?”. So I find myself with a small shrine to Brigid on my window, and not unsurprisingly everything I needed for it to feel right was either made available to me or I had in my possession already. Including some beautiful glass crystals that reminded me of the “Guiding Star of Bride”

“Over her heart gleamed a star like crystal, pure as her thoughts and bright as the joy that Angus brought her.”

And with that I thought I would finish with an enchanting poem I found telling of the search of Angus the Ever young for his Princess.

Angus hath come — the young, the fair,
The blue-eyed god with golden hair,
The God who to the world doth bring
This morn the promise of the spring;
Who moves the bird to song ere yet
He hath awaked the violet,
Or the soft primrose on the steep
While buds are laid in lidded sleep,
And white snows wrap the hills serene,
Ere glows the larch’s vivid green
Through the brown woods bare. All Hail!
Angus, may thy will prevail
He comes, he goes, and far and wide
He searches for the Princess Bride[2. Mackenzie, D.A. Wonder Tales from Scottish Myth and Legend, Stokes 1917]

Of Ash, Willow and Ivy

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Trees, Ogham, musings
I had planned to start my new year with a study of the Ogham, I have a lovely journal that a friend gave me. Its hand made, quite literally of wood, so it seemed perfect for my needs. There was absolutely nothing stopping me. And yet January rolled past and Imbolc arrived and for reasons that completely escape me, nothing was written in my natty little journal. I couldn’t really put my fingers on why I couldn’t start.

The weeks passed by and I found myself getting increasingly irritated with my non action. Anybody who knows me well knows that whilst I have the propensity to be lazy my default mode of operation is busy, and doing more than most would deem possible. And I had free time because I had also decided that this year would be the year that I learnt how to say “no”. So I was only taking on projects that excited me. It isn’t even like I’m a complete towney who doesn’t know her chickweed from her cleavers, or oak from birch. This should have been easy, flowing, logical even.

The Ogham has been neatly compartmentalised into different aicme (groups), and in more modern times thanks to the ubiquitous Robert Graves they’ve been assigned months. So what could be easier. In January I would study The Rowan, February it would be The Ash, and so on. It was only when I was writing up some practical exercises that meant absolutely nothing to me that it hit me. I was so tied up with the book learning, the ordering, the sequences, that I was completely ignoring the experiential. The single most important thing. Without the experience then we are nothing more than armchair academics, not people fully here in the present, experiencing all that life has to offer. And then I froze, unable to progress.

I know I am not the only person to get this way. We spend our lives regimented, ordered, encouraged to fit into little boxes of explanation and routine. It allows us to make sense of the senseless and derive meaning from the meaningless (but more about that another day). But nature, it’s messy and higgledy piggledy. It happens when it wants, where it wants and pretty much how it wants. Yes there are structures and patterns within it, but it isn’t regimented. Ash Trees burst their buds when the weather has been sufficiently warm enough not because somebody once wrote that they had to sometime around Mid-March. So when we are presented with fuzzy boundaries we stop, try and make the patterns and connections, fit things into little boxes again before we move onwards. So there I was frozen. Then whilst preparing a lesson for a Tarot study group that I run, (which was also failing to fit into designated temporal and physical boxes) I read this lovely quote by the multi-talented Mark Ryan who co-created the original Greenwood Tarot, which has captured the hearts and minds of so many people.

The best advice I ever got about Tarot was: ‘Read the book, meditate with the cards, then put the book away and do your own thing’

I needed to do what I do best, get messy, get dirty, get loud, mix it up and work with what inspired me at the time it inspired me. Be wild, beautiful and unruly. Be that Midday or Midnight, March or May. Forget the tree calender, sure put it in my notes, its an interesting tidbit, forget documenting the trees according to some unfathomable pattern that only the mind of a 20th century genius poet could ever understand. Read the books, meditate on the tree and then put the books away and do my own thing.

Really sometimes moving forward can be as simple as that. Put the books away, sources are really important, but not to the point that you are frozen in academic analysis.

And of course the minute I let go, the inspiration began to flow. I realised that I’d been working with a number of Ogham woods for a very long time, it didn’t matter that they belonged to different aicme or that they might be studied out of order. And of course the irony the wood I chose as my first study was The Ash just as it’s calendar month came around, but you can rest assured the rest won’t fit into that construct. Continue reading →

If the Goddess doesn’t love you

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I actually thought I’d written about this before, but a search of the site suggests otherwise. I know Ive joked about it online in recent years and my close friends have heard this story at least once. And the synchroncities keep getting such that for at least 2 years I’ve been meaning to make this blog post. But something happened tonight that I feel its time to put my thoughts out to a wider audience. A few years ago now I had the pleasure of meeting Marian Greene, the author of A Witch Alone. Being a bolshy and decidedly arrogant young thing I didn’t hesitate to give her the benefit of my opinion regarding the quality of her work. Specifically what I thought of a particular chapter in her book The Path through the Labyrinth. It’s actually an excellent book, but somewhat dated, and is difficult to get hold of which is why I don’t recommend it very often. However, it has some interesting concepts and ideals that would leave some spitting feathers. I know I did.

The biggest gripe I had. In fact the primary reason the book hit the deck and the wall more than a few times related to the following paragraph

The Cup or the Chalice, Goblet or Cauldron should always be a gift of love, received by you unasked. If no one loves you enough to give you some symbolic token which can stand in for your magical cup, then the Goddess won’t love you either!

It took me a long time to get past that statement, how ridiculous and condescending. So much so that until recently the rest of the paragraph was lost in a haze of irritation and frustration. I think I even made several comments both at the time and in the intervening years that if “the gods” demanded such things as a criteria for their love then I neither needed them nor wanted them. How rude and presumptuous. And with those thoughts in my mind I went barrelling through my life. And life is hard and requires a lot of barrelling. It was easy to not worry about the rest of the paragrapgh. To forget it even….except I couldn’t.

To be worthy and respected, loved and wanted is the only way to thread the maze of relationships between the human and magical levels. Love yourself, become worthy of loving, love others honestly and you too will be loved and rewarded.

And why couldn’t i forget it you ask, well this is why I cant.

Let’s go through this little tale of joy. So the universe apparently likes to take the mick just a bit. My first chalice came fairly shortly after my first big public rant about how people in the closet would be crushed by such off hand statements about the Goddess’ love. A lovely lady named Jay and I were in the charity shops after doing a few days of intensive elemental and tantric work, there were two Agate cups the same, she grinned and so did I. It was a bond, and more so she wouldn’t let me pay but gave me one of the pair. A permanent and wonderful memory of our magick.

The second two are gifts from my mother, the first she commissioned when I became HPS of my own Coven and I bemoaned the inadequacy of Chalices in large rituals, so she had made a chalice in English elm that would hold a half bottle of wine and then some. Shortly after was my birthday so she also had a one person sized Chalice made. Then came a gift from my then best friend who wrote one of the most important rituals of my life. Followed swiftly by a birthday gift by my current High Priest and High Priestess. I am sure by now you are all laughing. But none more so than me, because when I was feeling very low today as the result of a few friendship transitions, I got given two stunning Olive wood cups by a wonderful friend.

Apparently the universe likes to remind me, that people do love me, when i hit down on the emotional elevator, somebody is there, when I have a major landmark, then apparently the goddess loves me enough that someone else channels it. And reminds me I am worthy and respected enough that the Goddess gives me cups*

*NB Please don’t ever stop giving me cups, it seems i need them and i certainly want them because if nothing else when i am feeling low i can look at them and remember when the Goddess loved me haha!

When is a Fairy not a Fairy

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The Lampades are underworld nymphs in Greek mythology. They are nocturnal and are recorded as accompanying Hekate in her night time travels. They are also closely linked to the rites of Demeter at Eleusis and so play a part in the initiatory process. It was probably this early connection with nature spirits that eventually led Hekate to be named as a leader of the fairies hoards in Shakespeares play.

And we fairies that do run, by the triple Hekate’s team, from the presence of the sun, following darkness like a dream.

– A Midsummmer-night’s Dream Act 5 Scene II

And it is probably Hekate’s guiding hand that first had me wandering through nocturnal landscapes in search of “the other”. Although in truth, all night time shenanigans and tom foolery is now entirely of my own fault, no deity blaming required. And in the last 6 months or so I’ve been doing quite a lot. Anyway, I’ve been out 3 of the last 4 nights either on my own or with friends and on each occasion there have been energies present to sense. And it would be very easy to always say that what we were experiencing was “Faeries”. But its not always the case and I figured that my insights and those of my friends were worth sharing.

Sunday saw me out with my friend Mark on an interesting guided walk facilitated by Northern Earth Walks. We heard about some of the more strange and unusual occurrences in Todmorden’s recent history including a lucky dog, UFO’s, a grizzly murder that could have been the inspiration for the game of Cluedo and to our delight the story of Old Scraper, a supernatural being who wandered a certain track upon on the ridge above the town. He was said to appear to any who raised a tool aloft. There was nothing for it. It was going to have to be investigated. So despite lacking tools bigger than penknives we headed up an increasingly steep and muddy track in hot pursuit of our quarry.

A View of Todmorden from Old Scraper’s Lair

The view at the top was pretty spectacular and as we walked we certainly sensed a number of things, but not all the same. In fact it appeared that two distinct sensations were present. And after some thought and discussion it was surmised that Old Scraper was probably neither entirely ghost nor fae, but something older belonging to the land, a guardian of a barrow or other sacred space long lost and forgotten. Left for potentially millennia he had taken on aspects of the elementals around him. Fed off the energy of the folklore surrounding him. Becoming part thought-form, part landscape, a hybrid, and as a result he had survived. I suppose the clue that he wasn’t entirely fae was in the manner in which he was to be summoned. With tools! It’s a pretty well known fact that most of the Fae aren’t so keen on iron, So you can be pretty sure that your average common or garden fairy wouldn’t have come within a million miles of somebody brandishing a ferrous object.

Formby Small

This blending is not an uncommon occurrence, particularly when the realms of mankind and faerie meet and is something I discuss in some detail in my upcoming book, Spirits in a Broken Land. But it isn’t the only time that a feeling or sensation is something other than unadulterated fair folk making you feel a little uncomfortable. Much has been written of late regarding the theory that the trees can, and do communicate with each other. As a result I am now starting to suspect that it goes much further than that. A mere 24 hours after my escapades in the woods, I found myself on the glorious Formby beach with my friend Brian. The evening was almost balmy for a January night and being the little creature of water that I am, I threw caution to the non existent wind and went wading far deeper than was probably wise. After a lovely warming cuppa to recover from my little splash about, we decided to take a wander into the woodland that borders the spectacular sand dunes.

As we walked into the woods the scent of fox was fairly overwhelming and at least one dog fox could be heard barking somewhere in the darkness in front of us. A three way crossroad lay before us. Which way to go, how would we decide? Left, we would go left. And the smell of fox grew stronger. Its that time of year, they are finding their mates and doing what all good foxes do to ensure that little fox cubs are brought into this world. But as we progressed a feel of unease fell upon us. Brian asked if I had noticed it. And indeed I had, a feeling like we weren’t wanted there. Which was strange as the woods had felt so calm and serene as we had walked down to the beach only and hour earlier. We debated what might have happened to change the feeling so drastically. We had seen two cars come streaking down the track towards the squirrel reserve only to turn round quickly when they saw us. Up to no good I suspect. But then it hit me, we would disturb the foxes, we were being warned away by the very place itself so as to protect the privacy of the woodland inhabitants. This was no malevolent fae, but a living breathing woodland caring for its inhabitants. How wonderful!

So it got me thinking. How often when we walk, we have these sensations and we always just give it the title of fairy or spirit of place. How inadequate these titles are, when sometimes its both more and less. Sometimes its so phenomenally mind blowing that you cannot help but believe that there is sentience and divinity in every atom of the world around us. So next time you go out walking. It doesn’t have to be in the dark, any time of day will do, just take a moment when that sense of otherness over comes you. Really sense it. Look at the landscape you are in, ask aloud for it’s story. Ask, is it really a fairy?

And So the Wheel of Hekate slowly turns