William Blakes Fourfold Vision–Imagination is Eternity

 Now I a fourfold vision see,

William Blake

And a fourfold vision is given to me;
‘Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
And threefold in soft Beulah’s night
And twofold Always. May God us keep
From Single vision & Newton’s sleep!

Maybe today, we need more of the mystery that was William Blake's approach to the world.

 Blake’s contemporaries often regarded him as eccentric or mad. But today we can be found singing Jeruslalem with gusto at proms––even if we don't understand a word of what he  meant––yet still drawn to the idea that the 'dark satanic mills' can be defeated with 'mental strife'. 

 Blake was a mystic, an early Rosicrucian. He studied British (and Norse) mythology and works of Jacob Boehme, and his favourite book, it is said, was St John's  Revelation, and he'd experienced visions and 

His who tried to explain his constant prophetic visions through his poetry and unique art. It seems that he was telling us about human imagination. How through vision, meditation and other penetrating thought methods––shamanism included, I think––it reveals the truths of existence. ‘If the doors of perception were cleansed,' he wrote, 'every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite.’ 

I first encountered this idea at a Temenos Meeting at Lampeter University, where Susanne Sklar explained how Blake's Fourfold mythic system is designed to change the way we think and see, leading us into a world where imagination and forgiveness are social structuring principles, and how he evolved these theories throughout his working life, culminating in his book Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion, in which he imagines how war, poverty, and repression no longer exist when Jerusalem, which Blake seems to witness as a feminine-divine, rises and we enter the state of Eternity.

Blake spoke a lot about  fourfold vision' but he didn't invent the term. He would have known very well that it is in the Bible and in 

Jacob having his mysterious dream of angels going up his Ladder.  

Paradise Lost, (Blake wrote a long poem about Milton).  Also,  before Blake was born, Thomas Boston's book of theology entitled  Human Nature, in its Four-fold State, names these 'states' as Ulro, Generation, Beulah, and Eternity. Blake refers to these in Jerusalem.  Because the four visionary paths mean different things depending on the interpretation, I wonder if these inner names offer clues to what what Blake actually meant. 

Blake considered 'single vision'…Ulro…to be the way a person sees the world in either/or dynamics,  beliving only in the reality that one can see in front of oneself. In the quote at the top of this blogpost, Blake mentions Newton’s sleep, believing it to be the sleep of reason where the world is viewed solely through the narrow lens of science. Rather, Blake urges people to be 'twofold always', recognizing that everything is multi-dimensional with layers of meaning, one leading to another. Twofold Vision…Generation…invites a focus on patterns and interconnections within relationships, a constant search for sincronicity, and an understanding of omens and oracles. 

Threefold Vision…Beulah…concentrates on relationships. In Hebrew, Beulah means 'married', and in this instance, it suggests  a constant search for personal connection, the lived experience of empathy, and intuitive, emotional engagement with others. This vision acknowledges that as we encounter the world, we are changed. Blake explained the way he saw things in a letter to the Reverend Dr. Trusler, in 1799: I know that This World Is a World of IMAGINATION & Vision. I see Every thing I paint In This World, but Every body does not see alike. To the eyes of a Miser a Guinea is more beautiful than the Sun, & a bag worn with the use of Money has more beautiful proportions than a Vine filled with Grapes. The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the Eyes of others only a Green thing that stands in the way. ... It's nice to acknowledge that Blake's own marraige to Catherine was a happy union that lasted to his death. 

the fourfold imagination

Eternity––the fourfold vision experience––includes and makes sense of the best of the other states. Reasoning, basic drives, love and other emotions and, most important, imagination, to innterelate and allow a person's senses to be open. This can lead to immense 'seeing', or visionary experiences. Therapist Hugh Palmer says; Fourfold Vision, combines precision, relationship, empathy, and creativity in a dynamic, ethical interplay. This state of eternity might offer the artist a window, or mirror, or culvert or path towards new and original thinking, be it in paint, stone, words or any other creative outlet. 

Anyone who has taken a shamanic journey will have quickly found themselves shaken out of their single vision status and into recognising there is more inside and outside the world than we can simply see. The fourfold vision offers a 'glimpse of eternity' and a shamanic journey can offer someting very close to that; a relationship with the ancestors, an ability to learn in new ways and a chance to bond and communicate with spirit guides and deities. 

Blake was revolutionary in every way, as these words might show; Nature has no Outline, but Imagination has. Nature has no Tune, but Imagination has. Nature has no Supernatural and dissolves: Imagination is Eternity.

His poem,  Auguries of Innocence, is a statement on the right to life and freedom without qualification, suggesting he would have been just as comfortable and outspoken if he'd lived in the 21st century:

A Robin Red breast in a Cage

Puts all Heaven in a Rage.

A dog starv’d at his Master’s Gate

Predicts the ruin of the State.

Each outcry of the hunted Hare

A fibre from the Brain does tear.

The wanton Boy that kills the Fly

Shall feel the Spider’s enmity.

Each couplet is an illustration of a philosophical perspective suggesting that so long as anyone is imprisoned, none of us is free. It is the ultimate call for justice that includes all creatures.

Blake lived almost 70 years, and just before his death, he created the picture below,  The Ancient of Days Striking the First Circle of the Earth, after reading again, in Paradise Lost, …He took the golden Compasses….

The Ancient of Days Striking the First Circle of the Earth

The Siberian Shamanka: What we Know About Pre-historic Shamanism, PART ONE.

:   

Ice Maiden

I am the young girl:

warm-skinned,

beating-wild heart,

galloping with my tribe

across bleak plains,

calling to the wind.

I am the young woman:

dressed in silk tussah,

red-piped;

tasselled girdle;

boots, knee-high.

I am the story teller:

gold-leaf camels parade

my three foot crown;

prancing deer with

curling antlers

race across my skin.

I am ancient bones:

six dead horses

guard my grave-gate;

spices and mutton

nurture my silence.

I am the young girl:

I am treasure:

twenty-five centuries of

frozen sleep

and now they come to wake me;

warm water seeps through my ice mask,

but I do not smile

as the blue sky greets me.  © Theolyn Cortens 2000

What is a shaman? How far back into history can we trace shamanic work? The answers are startling, intriguing and convincing. They show a firm line from this century leading right back to the Mesolithic. 

But first we go back two thousand, five hundred years, and journey to Siberia.

The Siberian Shamanka (Shaman) showing tattoos

It was the summer of 1993. This was archeologist Natalia Polosmak's fourth season working with her team on the Altai Mountains, where the permafrost is a guardian of ancient secrets.

Diggers reported they had discovered a block of ice in which lay the mummified body of a 25-year-old woman.

Natalia found that this Siberian Ice Maiden was of Scythian descent––a tribe that roamed the steppes throughout the Bronze Age. The grandeur of the burial could only mean she was a princess. She was housed in a small cabin, and its wood has allowed her burial to be dated, indicating that the Ice Maiden was buried in the spring, at some point during the 5th century BCE. The Ice Maiden had intricate designs adorning her skin and lay surrounded by her six horses. Autopsy also revealed that the this young woman had suffered from breast cancer, and was using  cannabis to relieve her pain. 

Reconstruction of the tomb chamber of the Siberian Ice Maiden. Top, above, her costume reconstruction. Both can be seen in the Anokhin Museum.

Her costume was well preserved. Her blouse was wild silk, her full skirt was brilliant dyed. She wore a long cloak of marten fur, knee-high boots and a choker of wooden camels. Her headdress was particularly spectacular, and it seems to consist of her own elongated hair. Alongside her was a polished mirror (used for centuries as a divinatory tool) and the herb coriander, as seeds in a stone dish. 

the deer tattoo
.

It is her tattoos that lead archeologists to believe she was a shaman. She was marked with a deer motif on one of her shoulders, and on her wrist and thumb. 

The Sythians were a fascinating nomadic tribe which, by the time of the ancient Greeks, had settled on the Black Sea. To gain a colourful and beautifully realised picture of that time, try reading Naomi Mitchison's The Corn King and the Spring Queen (1931, available from Amazon), a fabulous story of these ancient peoples.

But the Ice Maiden is by no means the oldest representation of shamanism discovered by archeologists. Shamanic activity and shaman costumes and tools  have been found around the world and indeed, in the United Kingdom. The  power to transcend spirit worlds, and to return with healing and knowledge can be traced into the distant past. In fact, as far back as the Mesolithic Period, around ten thousand years before our times.

I'll be returning to this subject in PART TWO of "What we Know About Pre-historic Shamanism". Watch this space! 

How My Sprit Guide was Born to Me

In a previous post, How Can your Otherworld Spirit Guide Help You?  I talked about my strongest spirit guide, Esmerelda, who has been with me for over 24 years, In the blog, I explained how she always nursed her baby… 

…for the first fifteen years that I knew her, and treasured our relationship, I hardly ever saw her without that child. A boy, with a blond head of curly hair. His eyes are blue, but more strangely, his body is golden.  When I asked the name of her babe, she told me to call him the Golden Boy...

But ten years ago, something happened in a shamanic journey that seemed remarkable.

I was at a Shamanic Gathering, over a hundred people, at the Earth Spirit Centre in 

Earth Spirit Centre

Compton Dundon, near Glastonbury, Somerset. Nick Breeze, the writer and editor of Sacred Hoop, was showing us how he starts his day. He takes his drum and strokes it, then gently begins to tap the skin with the beater. He walked our circle, to open the quarters, starting in the South as he is of the Tibetan tradition, and then encouraged us to move, sway, walk, even dance to the beat of his drum. 

I began to circle. my arms slightly out from my body, my eyes closed. Quite quickly, Esmerelda was there, behind my trance-eyes, drifting down from a cloud. She took my wrist and pulled me upwards until we were facing each other. As always, she was nursing her babe. She smiled at me, briefly (she's not one for over-effusive greetings) then took the Golden Boy from her breast and held him out for me. He yelled, of course,  and wriggled, his podgy legs beating against her stomach.

"Take him," she said.

I was a little worried, I'd never held him in all those years. But I put my hands under his arms and brought him to me, cuddling him into my body, chucking him up and down. 

I asked when I could pass him back; I felt really uncomfortable with him wriggling in my arms. 

"Never," said Esmerelda. "He's yours now."

She disappeared, and I found myself in my sacred grove, the circle of native British trees I use as my 'safe home'. I was still holding the Golden Boy, but when I looked at him, he'd grown...a lot.

Rather like children in the Branches of the Mabinogion, the Golden Boy was already big  enough to put down on his little legs. He ran around my circle widely, as if he'd be desperate for this day, and as he ran he grew, until he looked about ten, or eleven. 

When I heard Nick's call-back sign, heralding us to stop dancing and journeying, I called out to him. 

"I have to go now. Can you get back to your mother?"

He was splashing gladly in the stream. "I'm okay here," he called. "I'm yours now. Besides, I can look after myself – I'm nearly fifteen!"

And later, when I worked out the dates, I realised that he was right. 

Since then I find the Golden Boy comes to me as much as any of my guides, but especially when the journey is fast. Golden Boy doesn't seem to be able to walk at a stately pace, like older guides. He runs – everywhere. He runs, and I run behind, following his naked, golden body where it leads me. The glory of going on a shamanic journey is than running doesn't make you puffed, and flying, and swimming underwater, are both perfectly safe. 

When Esmerelda came to me during a journey, I asked her about her her son. 

"I love that boy. I dedicated myself to his care. He's young – he runs – but he's your own guardian now."

Only then did it occur to me that she had brought the Golden Boy up just for me, to represent her, when she was no longer able to be my guide.

Nowadays, she does look older, greyer. She has always been a strong woman whostood in her own sacred power, but now, there is a sense of aged, even agelessness divinity about her, a  rapture in her face that suggests she is elevated in blessedness. 

In shamanic work, I've encountered and work with a variety of spiritual allies – animal  guides and spiritual guardians, formed deep personal bonds with many of them. 

I believe that these guides and guardians choose us, even when it feels as if we are chasing...or even creating...them. 

Through deep journeying, it is believed by many shaman that there are many sorts of guides within the spirit world. As well as the animal guides, often a person's totem animal, which I think of as the 'gatekeepers' (almost the bouncers!), keeping us safe on. our journeys, there are many layers of guardian, including ancestors, angels, nature spirits and, it is said, ascended masters; those spiritual teachers who once lived on Earth but, after much elevated work, have ascended to a higher level of consciousness. I think Esmerelda is now an an ascended master; nursing the Golden Boy for fifteen years certainly deserves some sort of award! 

I honour her greatly, but thank her profoundly for gifting me such a young and vibrant Golden Boy!

The yew tree in Compton Dundon Churchyard

Bluestone Mysteries: How the Ancestors Honoured these Stones

 

https://www.wessexarch.co.uk/
our-work/amesbury-arch

Opening a prehistoric grave, finding the skeleton of an ancient person, and sifting through  grave goods, placed with love, at the time of the burial, must be fantastically exciting. Full marks to the way archeologists go about their work nowadays, showing a wide understanding along with a growing respect for the people of the past.

 

When the Amesbury Archer was uncovered, in 2002, it was described as one of the richest finds in decades. The young man, who died around 2,300BC, was buried three miles from Stonehenge, and a companion (likely a relation), was buried very close. DNA has shown that he'd come from somewhere in what is now Switzerland, and that when he died he might have been in terrible pain for years, from a shattered kneecap and an abscess in his jaw. The idea was posed that such people might have come many miles to Stonehenge, because this was a centre of healing. And this has been reinforced by tiny fragments of stone found among the grave goods, that turn out to be chips of bluestone, possibly left in-situ in pockets or drawstring bags kept near their skin, something that reminds me of the way we love to wear or carry powerfully healing crystals nowadays.

Whatever made these tiny stones so precious and powerful? Maybe the answer is in the story of why bluestones were erected so far away from their origins. 

Carn Meini, the Dragon's Back

For over 1,500 years, sacred (and heavy!) work took place on Salisbury Plain in five constructional stages. That's the equivalent of working on a temple from the time of King Arthur to the present day.

The  bluestones were the third phase of this construction (after building the woodhenge and the earthworks). 

They were sourced from the Preseli Hills (Mynydd Preseli) in west Wales, only half an hour's drive from where I live, but more than 140 miles (225km) away from their resting place. This makes Stonehenge very unusual -– almost all the other stone circles are quarried from fairly local stone. 

There are two of the types of Bluestone present at Stonehenge; dolerite and rhyolite which can be found in three very specific outcrops in the Preseli Hil – Carn Goedog Carn Meini and Craig Rhos-y-felin. I am lucky enough to have been to two of these ancient quarries.

https://blog.stonehenge-stone-circle.co.uk/tag/craig-rhos-y-felin/

Carn Meini is an outcrop of spotted dolerite bluestone rock eroded into jagged shapes, locally called The Dragon’s Back. I've been past these wonderful stones many times, when walking the Golden Road, and when holding rituals at the Gors Fawr stone circle  which stands directly below the outcrop.

Carn Meini has a very strong radiant quality. It’s not surprising the bluestone found there was used and loved so much in the Neolithic. Even so, it is amazing that bluestones found their way from a very powerful and ancient site in Pembrokeshire to another very ancient and powerful site over two hundred miles away, but the truth is stranger even than any fiction by Bernard Cornwell.

Perhaps even more spiritually  energetic and atmospheric is Craig Rhos-y-felin, less than a mile north of Care Meini. The photo shows the excavations that took place a few years ago, by the National Museum Wales. What they found there excited them. Because bluestone outcrops are formed in huge, natural, vertical pillars, they think it would have been possible to break off ‘monolith-sized’ slabs by hammering wooden wedges into cracks and wetting them thoroughly. As the wood swelled, the slab would simply split, ready to be carted away. This would have been equally possible at Carnivore's Meini, but at Rhos-y-felin, these slabs are long and strong, and would make marvellous standing stones for a ritual circle.  

The last time I was there, it was August, and the sun was burning down on us. The sensations that came from the place were sacred and full of old god energy. The fallen stones were as hot to the touch as an iron.The little stream running to the side was clear and cool, and all around it grew wild flowers.  Rare marsh fritillary butterflies were flitting around as if it was just an ordinary day to them, while we were in absolute paradise, gazing up at the outcrop as it loomed out of the flat ground like a cathedral. 

I'm pretty sure that this had to be the first sacred place of these early people – think of Ayers Rock in Australia. So, why not take a bit of the sacred away and create a second sacred place? I lay flat on one of the fallen slabs and closed my eyes, sensing the still, silent power of this place. It was a profound experience to journey here, in what felt like a holy sanctuary.

I couldn't help tapping the slabs of rock with smaller pieces of bluestone. Scientists discovered that they give off metallic sounds when tapped. And they are also two to three times more magnetic than most stone. Did early man encounter the dragon of Carn Meini and the towering temple of Rhos-y-felin and discover these magical propensities?

The National Museum of Wales took much evidence away from their dig at this wonderful rock face, including quarrying tools (stone wedges and hammerstones), which confirmed that the site as a Stone Age quarry. Most importantly, hazelnut shells and charcoal from the quarry workers’ campfires have been radiocarbon-dated to reveal proof that people quarried at both sites from around 3400BC.

Professor Mike Parker Pearson (UCL Institute of Archaeology) was puzzled at these early dates “It could have taken those Neolithic stone-draggers nearly 500 years to get them to Stonehenge, but that’s pretty improbable in my view. It’s more likely that the stones were first used in a local monument, somewhere near the quarries, that was then dismantled and dragged off to Wiltshire.”

Parker Pearson looked at the work of Welsh geologist Herbert Thomas, who in 1923 worked out that Stonehenge’s bluestones had been moved to Salisbury Plain by people – not carried, as some had speculated, by Ice Age glaciers. Thomas concluded that the bluestones originally formed a “venerated stone circle” somewhere in Wales. To prove this theory,  Parker Pearson needed to find that original site and set about searching for a Welsh stone circle that would conclusively link to the stones on Salisbury Plain.

Waun Mawn

They first looked at Waun Mawn, an arc of stones located just three miles from the quarries There are four remaining stones, one standing and three prostrate and they dismissed the site after a brief survey.

   He says; 'After having no luck with other circular monuments in the area, we returned to Waun Mawn for a final speculative dig.To everyone’s delight, our dig supervisor Dave Shaw discovered two empty stoneholes, one on each end of the arc of stones, where missing stones had once stood. Subsequent digs unearthed further stoneholes, arranged in a circle with an identical diameter to Stonehenge’s enclosing ditch.'

The next link in this chain of bluestone mysteries, would be to date these holes to find out when the bluestones were at Waun Mawn. Their erection and dismantlement turned out to be in the middle to latter part of the fourth millennium BC. This means there was a circle here, and it was constructed before the initial construction of Stonehenge.

'Most strikingly,' Parker Pearson revealed, 'we also discovered a stone chip in one of the stoneholes at Waun Mawn, which must have become detached from the bluestone pillar that originally stood there. It was confirmed as unspotted dolerite, a rock type represented by three stones at Stonehenge.

One exceptionally clear imprint  showed an unusual pentagonal cross-section. A computerised model of the Waun Mawn imprint and Stone 62 at Stonehenge showed that they fitted together perfectly: like a key in a lock.

The new discoveries also cast doubt on a popular theory that the bluestones were transported by sea to Stonehenge – taken southwards to Milford Haven, paddled up the Bristol Channel and along the Bristol Avon towards Salisbury Plain. But these quarries are on the north side of the Preseli hills, so the megaliths could have gone overland to Salisbury Plain. 

 But why would these stones be moved?

Posthole map

  I  think this might have to be to do with the

   Amesbury Archer, a young, sick man from

     Europe,  and the chip of bluestone found 

   in his pocket.   

   Ancient man may not have had Facebook, 

      but they were communicating; sharing. 

  engineering, astrological and scientific  

   knowledge, and also taking more deeply,

    about  spirituality, about shamanic

 experiences, about ancestors, and about

   the power of the naturally world. 

As someone who uses shamanic techniques in their day-to-day life, I know the importance of working with, and honouring, our ancestors. As a Druid, I'd say it is one of the main aspects of Druidry. But we shouldn't forget that the ancestors also honoured their ancestors; and within the hundreds of years that bluestone circle at Waun Man stood, and was ritually used, by those living around the Preseli Hills, those people had become the honoured dead to others around the British Isles; and beyond. It is unlikely we will every know why one circle was brought to another woodhenge, but what is clear is that now –– today in 2024 we can honour that, and bring those feelings of sacred work into our own lives. 

As ever your thoughts and comments are gratefully received.

You can watch the programme BBC TWO made on the finding of the original bluestone circle here

How can your Otherworld Spirit Guide Help You?.

"Mother" (c) Nataša Ilinčić

 She is tall, firmly built with dark, messy hair. There are fine lines around her mouth, which is almost always closed in a thin, foreboding line.  She wears a dark, flowing skirt, reaching to the ground, but above her waist, she is naked. She is nursing her child. She is always nursing her child to her breast –– for the first fifteen years that I knew her, and treasured out relationship, I hardly ever saw her without that child. A boy, with a blond head of curly hair. His eyes are blue, but more strangely, his body is golden. 

Isis with Horus
https://www.glencairnmuseum.org/newsletter/2020/11/12/
divine-mothers-power-and-protection

 She is my spirit guide. When I first asked her name, she told me; Esmerelda. When I asked the name of her babe, she told me to call him the Golden Boy.

I wonder what this symbolism meant to me at the time I met her, towards the end of the previous millennium. 

Goddesses who suckle babies are well-known and can represent abundance, nutrition, protection and love.  Isis is portrayed with Horus throughout  the ancient Egyptian period. She's become a powerful symbol of rebirth beloved of Ancient Egyptians, Romans and modern pagans alike.

The other suckling mother, is Mary, mother of Jesus, of course.  

I believe that Esmeralda is a highly evolved spiritual being, possibly as ancient as the early goddesses. Like all spirit guides, Esmeralda advises, nudges, and comforts. Like all spirit guides, she comes to help  me navigate my way through the otherworld, in order that I can use what I gain and learn once my eyes are open and I go about my life. My connection with her is  powerful and transformative for me; sometimes the things she says, or gives me or shows me can really make a difference to how I  experience my life.

I first met Esmeralda twenty-five years ago, in a shamanic journey.  At first, I found her rather daunting. Beginning to journey into the otherworld can feel intimidating or confusing for those who are just starting out, and it can take time to get to know and respect (and love) your spirit guide. At first, I would have to work hard to find her on a journey; I needed to creep past tigers or scale steep cliffs or work my way through underground caverns before she appeared. But once I came upon her –– sometimes quite unexpectedly –– she would offer what I needed. I learnt that, although she can be forbidding and stern, Esmeralda will always cared for me

 Nursing woman | Old Kingdom Egypt Giza

Once, I was journeying after finding myself in a difficult position in life; work was frustrating and everything in my family life seemed to be going round in circles. I was exhausted all the time. I journeyed with the intent of finding 'vigour' but by the time I finally found Rosmerta I felt completely bushed, even though I was, of course, simply lying on my sofa, with a scarf over my eyes. 

She came close to me, rested the Golden Boy on the grass beside us, and put her hands on either side of my head. Instantly, I fell asleep.  Possibly I slept for just four of five minutes; when I came back into myself, the drumming was still going and she was sitting on a rock, waiting for me. We spoke of life and of fear. Esmeralda's mouth is almost stationary when she talks, and her words form in my head. She reminded me that these feelings are the same for everyone; we don't share what we feel so deeply with each other. She reminded me of a previous journey I had taken some months before.

                      Nursing woman | Old Kingdom Egypt Giza

'You still have your Rods of Power'.

She was right; a journey into a strange building where I discovered these wand-like rods. I had forgotten about them, but I knew where I had hidden them, in my safe circle of trees, where I start each journey. I went to the bole of the biggest oak, and there they were. 

The Rod of Bran, who's head is buried at the Tower of London, which aids journeying

The Rod of Creation and wisdom, which is shaped from bone. 

The Rod of Hazel,  which can be used with any cauldron, and brings forth the power of my Muse 

The Power Rod, a wooden rod with a fork, which is stripped of bark and dipped in gold,  it is transformative, healing and turns drear to joy, so clearly the right rod for this occasion, where I felt completely spent with life and needing a bit of vigour. I pulled it out from the oak roots and raised it above my head and called out to the universe;

 PLEASE ENDOW MY SPIRIT WITH VITALITY!

PLEASE ENDOW MY BODY WITH STAMINA!

PLEASE ENDOW MY MIND WITH FORTITUDE!

And then I lay, quietly. In reality, I was on my sofa, but in my journey, I was on the cool grass of my tree-lined circle, allowing the power that had been outside my grasp only an hour earlier, while Esmeralda scooped up the Golden Boy and disappeared through the trees.

Celebrating Samhuin; Through the Gates of Annwn

         Gwyn ap Nudd: Wild God of Faerie, Guardian of Annwfn - Watkins MIND ... www.watkinsmagazine.com       

Winter looms on the horizon, the Wheel of the Year turns once more, the boundary between our world and the spirit world is fragile and thin. In cultures all over the world, the spirit of Death has been celebrated at this time of the year. 

How do you celebrate Hallowe'en, the night of all souls, which the Irish call Samhuin, and the Welsh call Calan Gaeaf?

 Is it for you a chance to move through the veil between the worlds and communicate with those you loved, and have lost in this world? 

Or is it a chance to drum into trance and search for ancestor wisdom?

Or do you search for the gods and goddesses who are associated with death and darkness, such as Gwyn ap Nudd, Arawn, Hecate, the Morrighan, Anubis and Osiris, Hades, and, of course Hel, daughter of Loki, with her bones on the outside of her body, portrayed in black and white,

Do you avoid it altogether, as a time when death is abroad and best avoided?

Or do you just think that we imagine such things, and make it all up, as the darkness descends at this time of year, that silly idea of a thinning of a veil between worlds, and that other being can contact humans at these times?

Certain, we must surely agree that somewhere in all the ancient myths there are acorns of truth. The last time I was in Ireland, my taxi driver explained, as we passed a fairy hill, that the Sidhe lived beneath it, and that the farmer would never drive a tractor across it. 

The  otherworld had many names across the world we now think of as Celtic, including Tir-na-nog, the land of Youth, Tir-Innambeo, The Land of the Living, Tir- Tairngire, The Land of Promise, Tir N-aill, the Other World, Mag More, The Great Plain,  The Isle of Women, Isle of Apples. This otherworld was located quite far away, over sea or though mist, or deep below the ground. It was thought of as a world of peace, harmony and abundance, where no ailment or death could be found. Hy-Brasil (from Gaelic, “Isle of the Blessed”) was an “enchanted island“ off the coast of Ireland – seen by many people over a thousand years, but never remaining in one location, it then disappeared from maps completely. 

In The Adventure of Bran,  Son of Febal from the seventh century, Bran travels to Hy-Brasil a paradise supported on golden pillars. No one is ever sad or ill there; they are always happy, continually playing games to musical accompaniment. When early sailors crossed the Atlantic and landed on the coast of South America, they imagined they had found Hy-Brasil at last, and that country is called Brasil to this day.

I'm not sure we do need to wait until Samhuin to contact the ancestors, though. In lockdown, we did a summer outdoor ritual which focused on those relations recently passed; our parents, our grandparents and their parents. Read it here.

There is another side to Samhuin, which is to explore, in this winter darkness, our own weaknesses and difficulties. Often, this is harder than speaking to loved ones who have passed into the next life. Old wounds might be ignored in the busy light of day, but in candlelight on the 31st of October, when the veil is thin, they confront us, allowing us to pass over normal boundaries and examine our human condition in the raw. These wounds, personal, family, historic or from a wider experience, can be forceful, they can create a disconnect, they can chip away at our soul, and destroy our enjoyment of life. They can obstruct us, actually create a spiral where we can't heal them because the wounds prevent that healing.  Going on such a journey at Samhiun, meeting ones otherworldly allies and speaking honestly with our guides and guardians can help reverse this spiral.

The Spoils of Annwn is an ancient Welsh myth that tells of a heroic journey of King Arther and a group of warriors. They take their ship Prydwen (wen means white, pure, or blessed) on a perilous voyage into the otherworld. They visit seven different forts on seven otherworldly islands in search of a magical cauldron. 

My first words were spoken concerning the cauldron: from the breath of nine maidens it is warmed. It is the cauldron of the Head of Annwfn; what is its purpose with its dark rim and edged with pearls? It will not boil the food of a coward; it is not destined to do so.

This poem was written down in the fourteenth-century Llyfr Taliesin (Book of Taliesin)  It is hauntingly beautiful, There is a translation of this poem in Robert Graves' The White Goddess.

 It can be used to create ritual, or it can be use to access a shamanic journey. Studying it closely brings it alive. To me, this white ship is a trancelike journey to meet ancestors and learn from them, while also learning more about one's "self", and one's "life journey". In ritual, we can visit each castle or 'Caer' and look at them from whatever approach we need on our journey; maybe aspects of our characters, or goals to drive towards, or weaknesses we'd like to be strong about removing from our lives.

One thing is clear though, it's not a place for the fainthearted. The texts reminds us constantly that; And when we went with Arthur,/   dolorous visit, / except seven/    none rose up.  Other translations say ...none returned.

Stay safe in ritual by laying down ground rules with the other ritualists, and discussing the ideas beforehand. Stay safe when journeying by knowing you can return to your 'home space' the chosen place that should start and end a journey, and by calling your animal allies to you to accompany you and guide you on your way...and on your way back.