Jan 11, 2016

A Cauldron of Bright and Dark Knowledge

Beth Thomas Uncategorized Bright and Dark Knowledge, Ceridwen, spirit, storytelling, Taliesin 0 Comment

Wild Wisdom One, Saturday 19th December

Written by Jan

On a wild, wet and windy day we gathered again at Juliette’s lovely home to continue our journey through time and through the development of things sacred in our lands. We started with some quiet space and then reflected back on our first weekend and the sense of the earth, the cave, the dark places and the connection with the Great Mother and our ancestors. For many of us, the period since that first weekend had seen some challenges and our circle was a warm, safe place to share some of those challenges, to be witnessed and receive support.

We talked about the gathering of ourselves into a circle and Christmas cheer, but also the dark knowledge of sadness, fear and feeling thwarted or powerless. We welcomed the growing sense of community of our group but also asked ourselves how we truly build community and how we step into the world with Spirit. How, as we work together, do we have a self as well as being part of the whole? How do we revisit, hone and burnish our experience so that we learn without retraumatizing? Our sharing reflected the time of year: deep stillness, deep feelings both bright and dark.

And then some his/herstory. We moved on to explore the Late Stone Age, Copper, Bronze and Iron Ages. It is a vast tranche of time encompassing many changes, ending up in the time that is often attributed to “the Celts”; we learned that they were not a distinctive tribe, and that contemporary historians now see (to quote Sam): “Celtic culture as both a natural native evolution and a widespread meeting of ideas and art rather than peoples, helped through intermarriage and the trade of ordinary individuals ….rather than imposed by waves of powerful invaders.”

Once again, I am struck by how little we really know of our ancestors from those earlier times. It was still an oral culture, without blogs, and although archeology is giving us more and more information there are still so very many mysteries. I am not quite sure how to put this into words, but I am moved time and again by that not knowing: how wonderful not to be able to ask Wikipedia, how wonderful not to reduce all the possibilities into a single certainty, how wonderful to ponder and dream and imagine.

The intricacy and beauty of Celtic artifacts is stunning (try Googling the Battersea Shield or the Desborough Mirror), but I am personally intrigued by the earlier stone rows, stone circles and the extraordinary passage tombs aligned with the sun. If you have not seen any of these, here are two links to short videos about Newgrange (pictured above), the largest passage tomb in Europe.

National Geographic description of Newgrange

https://youtu.be/P6XAFJ_FdOA

RTE News video of sunrise at the Winter Solstice

https://youtu.be/IU5QHDgMEXU

We don’t really know what purpose these served, but to quote Sam’s words again: “It’s easy to imagine what a powerful ritual could have taken place there; waiting in the dark depths of the earth and the winter, in the womb of the Goddess and among the spirits of the ancestors… and directly sensing and experiencing the light coming into the earth, awakening ‘a dark and bright knowledge’ and perhaps emerging feeling spiritually reborn.”

Our story of Ceridwen, her cauldron and Taliesin is believed to be very ancient, dating back as far as the Bronze/Iron Age; the story was written down much later and there are many versions. The beautiful one that Sam shared with us painted a vivid picture of sacred and personal initiation with characters and happenings that gave us much rich food for reflection afterwards. As I look back on the story, I find myself thinking in particular about the way in which Ceridwen collected the bright and the dark knowledge to create the magical Awen that will give her son the strength of spirit, inspiration and poetry. She travelled the world for a year to gather what she needed from all places, all beings, in all seasons, in life and in death. Such purpose, such focus. The love of a mother and the wisdom of a goddess. The story becomes Taliesin’s, but I am drawn back to Ceridwen, her cauldron and the feminine creative force that knows that “inspiration, knowledge and poetry can only be found in all the bittersweet fullness of life”.

I hope that one day, a gifted storyteller will sip some Awen and be inspired to continue Ceridwen’s story………..

“Ceridwen” by Christopher Williams (1910)

Dec 8, 2015

Who lies in Civilisation’s cradle?

livingspirit3@gmail.com Uncategorized 0 Comment

Wild Wisdom Two, Saturday 21st November
“Ancient Greece & Rome”

Written by Clare

On Saturday 21st of November, in a bright room in Dartington, we entered into a world of lemon groves and thyme scented air. The Greek mountains of the story were buzzing with bees and the sound of goat bells clattered in a gentle, harsh calling. In the murmer of the azure blue seas there was a remembering from long ago; these were ancient mysteries that originated on the island of Crete. In around 1490BCE the mysteries moved across to mainland Greece.

What is so enticing about the ancient mysteries of Eleusis is that we don’t really know what went on. We have tantalising records of the preparation that initiates, known as mysti, undertook. But the initiates themselves wrote nothing. All we have are the observations of outsiders, some pieces of art…and a story. Yet even from the edges of a tradition that was enacted three and a half thousand years ago, the story offers us a way in….we followed the tiny crack in the ancient rock of history and there was a thrill that ran, somewhere deep in the channels of blood that course through the subterranean veins of my body…something that I know, yet can’t quite remember, like a dream just on the edge of consciousness.

And the mysteries of ancient Greece were dreamlike; nine days of fasting, consuming intoxicating drinks, dancing, costume, mask, an entrance into the darkness of a cave, the profound and fully embodied entering into a story. And the story is of a woman, a mother and her daughter.

Right here in the ‘cradle of civilisation’ in ancient Greece, at the very core of our modern culture, is a mother with her beloved daughter. How could we have moved so far away from this?

The mother is Demeter, earth and grain mother, and her daughter is the one who is called into the shadows, taken or enticed down into the underworld where she becomes Queen. There are so many layers to this story and we began, as a group, to fold back just a few of the red petals, but like the seeds of the poppy, there were just too many!

We left the thinking behind after lunch and created our own embodiment of the mysteries. On a dark November afternoon, the lights and the candles gradually went out as our ceremony moved on. Finally we sat, six women and one man, in silent darkness. The darkness of a cave. The darkness that cannot have changed so very much in all the thousands of years. Darkness is darkness.

And I was surprised to find a warm softness there. A part of me expected to feel the presence of the underworld, of death like a cold hard slab, but no. If it was death who was present, if it was Persephone, daughter of Demeter, who I met in the darkness, she welcomed me. Her body was warm and she comforted me. I could have stayed like a lover with her, whispering and giggling and feeling in the darkness a luminosity where self and other merge and there is no differentiation.

But there was a need to wake up. Once again the story brought us clues; the deep earthy humour of the Goddess Baubo, music, poetry and sunshine. Like staying in bed all day with my lover, keeping the curtains closed so we can make love. But the sunshine creeps in. The sunshine calls so invitingly, “Come to the beach! It’s a beautiful day!” So together my lover and I rose up, like the barley corn pushing its way up from under the ground called by the sunshine.

This was a day full of sensation and intrigue. The story, which appears so simple, combined with the history and our combined courage to step into imagination in a sacred way created something totally unique. Our experiencing of this myth, like the poppy seed, was multiple; imaginative, factual, emotional, intellectual, embodied and spiritual. It’s not possible to write this down – I can see why the mysti didn’t try! If you weren’t there, you need to come next year!

Clare Viner 07/12/2015