A Cauldron of Bright and Dark Knowledge
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
RTE News video of sunrise at the Winter Solstice
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)
