The Heart of Samhain

I was asked very recently why Druids celebrate such a dark festival as Samhain. What is it about this shadowy and occult time, where the land is overrun with ghosts and ghouls, that makes us want to associate ourselves with it. I found it a really odd question, but I think it’s a topic that, unless you are involved with Paganism, can be confusing. To the mass populous Samhain is Hallowe’en. A time when children knock on the doors of strangers asking for sweets, when demons and ghosts run riot, where we carve pumpkins into scary Jack o’ Lanterns. So in a way it’s not surprising that some wonder why we would celebrate this as a spiritual festival. So I replied that it isn’t dark. That the darkness some people perceive comes from a fear and distance from death.

The feast of Samhain comes from a time when people didn’t have world trade. They couldn’t just pop to the supermarket to buy their food. They had to grow it all themselves. Samhain as Summer’s End marks the obvious slip into the darkness and cold of the Winter. There would be the slaughtering of cattle and salting of meat to preserve it, the bringing in of crops, and some would look at the older members of their community and wonder if these frail people would live to see another Spring. The Sun’s arc is in decline, bringing shorter and shorter days, and with these thoughts of darkness and death comes our memories of those that have past on before. The Otherworld lies close at this time of year, and sometimes it feels so close you can almost touch it. So, being so distant from those tribal peoples what relevance does Samhain have today?

Today most of us are so distant from even the idea of death that we find it dark and scary. Dead bodies are taken away, hidden from view, filled with chemicals, then put straight into a box, then into the ground or cremated. Death is such a part of life that this distance is, in my opinion, unhealthy. Many of us British people take that another stage further with the idea of having to keep our chin up, or that emotional-baggage inducing stiff upper lip. So many of us either will not allow ourselves to mourn, or are not allowed to by our peers. The act of crying is such an important part of letting go that in the end this pent up emotion has to come out in some way, and sometimes this is in illness or misplaced anger. So during our Samhain ritual we say that all the time the names of our loved ones are spoken into the air, they will know they haven’t been forgotten, and sometimes that very simple act of saying their name out loud, of bringing their faces into our memories, is enough to break that barrier of held grief, and allow people to begin to let go. A powerful and truly human thing.

A part of any spiritual path deals with what happens after we die. In the end none of us will truly know what will happen until we take that journey, but while we are here these spiritual teachings can bring us comfort and peace. As a Druid I believe in reincarnation. That when I die my spirit will travel to the Blessed Isles of the West, to rest, reflect on my life, and then to return to the Cauldron to be reborn again. I don’t know this, but I feel that it’s what will happen. I wonder if our journey after death reflects our beliefs in life. We shall all find out in the end, and maybe that is the real essence of Samhain that people find frightening and dark. That death is life’s one inevitable, and every day we are making our way on a journey towards that moment. Let’s spend the majority of our lives living, but once a year it’s good to ponder our mortality.

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Anderida Gorsedd Spoils of Annwn camp

The theme of this year’s Anderida Gorsedd Autumn camp was the Taliesin poem The Spoils of Annwn.

From Friday night through to Sunday midday around 80 people worked with the powers and hidden mysteries of this poem that has been attributed as the origin of the Arthurian Grail Quest. On Saturday night the people at the camp boarded Arthur’s ship Prydwen that has been built in the field, and crossed the Waters of the West to walk through the Spiral Castle of Caer Siddi and travel to the Seven Caers – to look deep into the Cauldron of Annwn.

The following short film was taken during Saturday night with sensitivity to the magic of the moment, and I’m so glad it was as it captures the magic of the Anderida camps beautifully.

Questions, questions

One of the mainstays of my spiritual practice is to ask questions of myself and my teachers. I remember, as a child, asking questions of the vicar who would come into my school. These were good questions, questions like “How does the wine turn into the actual blood of Christ?” “How did Jesus manage to roll back the stone placed at the entrance of his tomb? Surely he was really tired!” But these were never answered adequately enough for me. All I usually got was, “Keep reading the Bible, and stop asking questions.” But I’ve never stopped asking questions of my spiritual teachers, or of myself, and I think this is a really healthy approach to one’s religious and spiritual path.

There have been some tough questions too over the years too. Like How can you call yourself a Druid? and If you revere Earth-based Gods, what about the rest of the Universe? These are great questions, and although some have been cast my way by people who have asked themselves these questions, and have not been able to find the answer within themselves, so have stepped off their path and onto another, I have each time found my own answers. So although asking, and being asked these kinds of questions has sometimes challenged the very foundation of my spiritual beliefs, I have to thank the people who asked them, as each time they help me to see clearer my Path through the Forest.

So I say never stop asking questions of yourself, or your teachers, if these questions need to be answered. Sometimes the answer will take a while, but the clarity that the search brings is priceless.

Magic in Avalon

Here is a lovely video presented by the website Druidic Dawn taken at the Order of Bards Ovates and Druids ceremony on Glastonbury Tor at this year’s Summer Gathering.

Land, Sky and Sea on video

I just found this on YouTube. I love stumbling upon videos where people have placed my songs and this one just nails it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Story of the Song – The Greenwood Grove

From the album The Hills they are Hollow.

As with many of my songs I had the tune for this song for a number of weeks before the lyrics finally arrived. Looking back I think I wrote two sets of lyrics for this and both ended up in the bin. But finally I was noodling with the tune on my mandolin in the living room and it was the chorus that came first.

Come follow me, come dance with me,

Come with me to the Greenwood Grove such magic there to see,

The Lord of the Wild with his Faerie Kin,

Deep within the Greenwood Grove,

We’ll dance the Magic Ring.

I remember looking at these words and thinking, ‘the only way I’m going to find out what this song is about is to do as the chorus asks, and follow the Lord of the Wild into the Grove itself.’ So I carried on playing the song, and closed my eyes.

Music takes me away. I can lose hours simply playing an instrument, closing my eyes, and riding the notes to wherever they take me. On this occasion I was taken into a woodland (no surprise there then!) and pretty soon I heard the sound of music being played, coming towards me through the woods. I hid behind an oak and waited as the music drew closer and closer. A huge horned figure led a procession of dancing spectral figures past me. Then came others walking behind, laughing and smiling, and others on horseback. Now I’m quite familiar with the stories of Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer, but I had to follow, I had to, the music was irresistible.

I kept a small distance so as not to be seen, and soon the host began to gather in a clearing up ahead – an almost perfectly circular Grove. There was a hill in its centre that reminded me of a large round barrow, and the large horned figure slowly climbed the hill, and silence began to fall around the glade. He had a large club in one hand which he raised above his head, then brought it down onto the hill which resounded with a deep, hollow, sound. He raised it again, and once more it fell upon the Hollow Hill below, and then again, and again, until I realised he was creating a consistent bass rhythm, as other drums began to join him. The figures began to circle and dance in a magical ring dance around the edge of the Grove, then from the hill emerged a Man of Birch, followed by a Lady of Rowan. Other leafy-faced figures began to step from the Otherworld, through the Hollow Hill into the grove, and join the dance. I realised I was watching the Spirits of the Ogam trees join the dance, and in that moment the words of the song began to form.

I am the Birch of the new beginning,

The Rowan star with magic guarding…

The images around me began to fade, and I became aware that I was still playing the tune on my mandolin, and had been throughout all of this, and that it was this tune that the Faerie Host had been dancing to. I became more and more aware of the room around me, until I opened my eyes, and began to write. It was finished in no time at all after that. A gift from the Spirits of Nature!

Art is Magic – Alan Moore

Cerri showed me this piece and I posted a link to it on my Facebook page but I think it’s so good that I’m going to blog it too.

This piece is dark, and honest, as Alan Moore speaks his truth directly with no frills or fluffy language, and to me it sums up how I feel about Art and it’s relationship with Magic. To me the Bardic Path is a magical and Shamanistic tradition and an artist, be that a musician, writer, painter, sculptor, like the skilled storyteller, can change consciousness and guide us through Other Worlds. See what you think.

There is no separation, you are part of me

As I sit here writing this I can look outside and see clear blue skies, the Bluebells are growing, the Daffodils are in flower, and the Willow is budding. Spring is knocking on the door and, as I do every year, I give thanks to the turning seasons we have here in the UK.

I watched the new science program by Professor Brian Cox last night during which he tried to show the life cycle of the Universe. It was an amazing program that illustrated what lots of us already know – that to have life there needs to be change. The Universe is on its own journey through its own seasons and it is only during this time in its existence that life is possible, not just here on Earth but anywhere in the Universe. I found that incredibly inspiring – not just how lucky I am that, of all of the creatures in the Universe I could have been, I am a Human Being, but now that I have even been born at all! In countless years from now the Universe will have passed the point where life is possible. These ideas push my spiritual beliefs and make me look at what that means for the Green Man, for this beautiful and precious Earth. That’s a topic for another blog post in the future though, because what is currently on my mind is not the end of the Universe, but where we are right now, deep in the life of it!

The feeling I have inside at this point of the year is almost indescribable. I am not a fan of the Winter but I am deeply grateful that we have that dark time for without it, there would not be this moment when life is just about to burst back once more. Every year my life has this renewal, a rebirth with the year. I too have retreated into the darkness over the Winter, and like the plants, trees and animals I am a part of this rebirth.

I also watched Countrytracks last night during which the presenter went to a lonely island off the western isles of Scotland. She said, “No one lives here, but there’s lots of wildlife.” I had to laugh as within that comment she illustrated what many humans honestly feel, that they are separate from nature and are not Wildlife. But it is obvious to me when I go outside at this time of year that I am Wildlife – I am feeling the same as the bird, the waking insect, the opening leaf and flower, and it’s wonderful! Even in what appears to many as a ‘mundane’ reality I can encourage this same sense of renewal and leave behind those things I no longer need, knowing that they’ve fed and nourished me (even if sometimes it doesn’t feel that way!) during my dark time, because now is the time for my rebirth. Let’s face it, the energy that feeds plants and trees comes from waste, I’m pretty sure I’m the same too! There is no separation, I am Wildlife, a part of the life of this planet, of this Universe.

So I give thanks for my life, for who I am, where I live, what I have in my life, and the wonders of nature that surround me, and are within me!

Major Influences Part 2 – John Denver

My Dad was, and still is, a big country music fan. My very early introduction to music consisted of Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Don Williams, Emilou Harris, Dolly Parton but above all of these was John Denver. His songs were the soundtrack of my childhood, and of all of the country music I heard in those early days it’s really only John’s that has stayed with me. You only have to listen to the opening bars and the groove of Song of Awen to realise what an influence on my music he has been.

John Denver was a true country boy. Living in the mountains his inspiration came from the sights and sounds that surrounded him. Nature really is the best artist, and his lyrics and melodies manage to capture that essence of wildness that so many modern Pagans seek as part of their spiritual path. Add to that his voice, one of the purest voices in music with a natural vibrato and quality that I don’t think any other singer has matched since, and you have a near perfect singer/songwriter for a budding Bard. John Denver’s songs convey a connection with the Natural World that speaks directly to the heart. I regularly, even now, find tears of joy streaming down my face when I’m listening to his songs. I find myself nodding my head saying, “Yes! Yes! That’s it! You’ve got it, you understand!” Here are some examples of what I mean –

The Eagle and the Hawk

I am the eagle, I live in high country
In rocky cathedrals that reach to the sky
I am the hawk and there’s blood on my feathers
But time is still turning they soon will be dry
And all of those who see me, all who believe in me
Share in the freedom I feel when I fly

Come dance with the west wind and touch on the mountain tops
Sail o’er the canyons and up to the stars
And reach for the heavens and hope for the future
And all that we can be and not what we are

Rocky Mountain High

Now he walks in quiet solitude the forest and the streams
Seeking grace in every step he takes
His sight has turned inside himself to try and understand
The serenity of a clear blue mountain lake

And the Colorado rocky mountain high
I’ve seen it rainin’ fire in the sky
You can talk to God and listen to the casual reply
Rocky mountain high

Sunshine on my Shoulders

sunshine, on my shoulders – makes me happy
sunshine, in my eyes – can make me cry
sunshine, on the water – looks so lovely
sunshine, almost always – makes me high

if i had a day that i could give you
i’d give to you a day just like today
if i had a song that i could sing for you
i’d sing a song to make you feel this way

if i had a tale that i could tell you
i’d tell a tale sure to make you smile
if i had a wish that i could wish for you
i’d make a wish for sunshine all the while

He started the Winstar Foundation, a charity that promoted sustainable living, back in 1976, and was a keen environmental activist. His song Annie’s Song is still one of the most romantic, beautiful love songs ever written. Who knows what other great songs lay in wait from the Awen of John Denver, but sadly we will never know as on 12th October 1997 he got into his experimental light aircraft which crashed, taking his life and with it, his genius. Forever missed, his music will always live on in the hearts of those who believe that ‘they would have been a poorer man if they never saw an eagle fly.’

Blessed be John Denver.

My Red and White Dragon

The young Myrdhin when taken to the doomed tower of King Vortigern saw a vision. He saw that beneath the tower were two dragon eggs out of which hatched one white dragon and one red dragon. There have been many theories as to what this vision might have meant but the most popular is that it describes the oncoming battle between the Britons (the red dragon), and the Saxons (the white dragon). The red dragon is still on the Welsh flag, but the English sadly adopted the George Cross.

For many years it was thought that the English were the descendants of the Anglo-Saxons, a simple dividing line that separated England from Wales, Scotland and Cornwall quite neatly. But some years ago extensive DNA tests revealed that it was not that simple. That a good majority of people living all over England also had within them the genetics of the indigenous Briton, as well as the Saxon and (in some areas) the Viking. This suggested that although there certainly were battles, these battles were not constant over time, and that the Saxons, rather than invading and forcing the indigenous population to the western fringes of the island, actually lived together with the Britons, and obviously found companionship in each other, and gave birth to children of both Briton and Saxon parents.

Therefore I know that within me flows the blood of the red, and the white dragon, and I find that very exciting. I am Briton, and Saxon (and many other things too I’m sure!). I have spent, and will continue to spend, much time with my inner Briton, and right now I can feel the eyes of the white dragon turning its gaze towards me – beginning to stretch its wings. Among the voices of the Horned One, Arianrhod, Blodeuwedd and Taliesin, I also hear strange voices in another language speaking of Woden and Wayland. The Gods of the Briton and the Saxon are not at war within me, they are seeking a better understanding of each other, as they meet in this one body. Who knows what I might hear them say, what they might tell me, but their songs need to be sung too.