Lay the Spring Hearth

Since I stepped back onto my path again so many months ago now, things have not gone in such a straight line. I suppose that, all told, I should have expected a kind of spiral dance – but I confess I didn’t expect the barriers that have sprung up before me.

These are social and personal irritations, but the fact of the matter is that they have interfered with my ability to move in the direction I had hoped – a sign, perhaps, that the direction I had in mind is not the right one.  As we approach what I have called Gŵyl Braid y Canhwyllau (Brigid’s Feast of Candles), suddenly the way appears to be opening for a new beginning.

 But of course, I should have expected this for more than one reason.

When I began my journey in the late 80s, my initial experiences were intense and life changing.  In those first few months of discovery my previously academic interest in the mythologies of my homeland were transformed by a series of spiritual experiences.  In those first months, I forged ties to Cernwn, to Ffraid, to Brân, and to others.  I learned much from every quarter, but these three were my special inspiration.

Now that I am once again "rebirthing" it's sad that I can't experience those first moments of epiphany again, but you can cross a river only once of course. I have been looking forward to the next moments of revelation with much relish, but only now do I realise:

What a fool I was.

All this time, they have been waiting for me to come back to them. Not waiting to reinitiate but waiting to continue the conversation. And now that I realise it, the signs are so obvious. Indeed, the omens have been speaking to me nearly constantly since the summer, when I failed so spectacularly to manifest my desire to renew my practice.

I planned to renew my vows and thus my relationship with my gods at Summer Solstice. It seemed right to do so at a point in the year so significant and so much a part of my personal history (I had one of my most significant early experiences at the Summer Solstice). But of course you can't reinvent the past - my Zen practice should have taught me that if nothing else had!

And so my first effort came to nothing - everything imaginable came between me and a satisfactory Solstice celebration: work, family crisis, personal medical issues, weather. Ah well, I thought, I'll try again at the next festival. But yet again I was stymied. Ah, the equinox, I thought, when the veil thins! I should have thought! But again the stumbling blocks.

I grew frustrated then, and began to question myself and my motives. Was this really about reconnection with the gods, with returning to the path that had given me such joy? Or was it about escape? About taking a step back from dimensions of my life that have recently been like chains weighing me down?

The uncertainty ate at me from the equinox on, but after much soul searching I decided that one way or another I would mark my return to the path at the Winter Solstice - it was /right/ I told myself: the other times I'd chosen were good, but the death and rebirth of the Sun? What could be a more potent resonance with what I was aiming for?

What a fool I was.

Solstice came, and I did manage a celebration, fragmentary though it was. My rites ended up brief and lacking in the substance I had in mind, but they took place at a shrine to the rising sun, with a torii opening onto the Eastern sea. The resonance was good, but still I felt incomplete, as though I had more yet to do.

Sitting on the beach that day, I spoke to my son about the gods, about the Sea and the Sun. And as we sat there, with me telling stories and him glorying in the rush of surf and the biting wind, heavy with salt in the early morning, I was interrupted by the first moment of revelation:

A raven had come down to sit on the God Tree in the grounds of the shrine, and he croaked. He creaked and grunted, and made so much noise I had to stop and we laughed at how thoroughly he was scolding me.

But then, I started to tell my boy about the raven and what he means - in Canada, at home, among the gods...

And it was like lightning when it hit me.

A fragment of sun. A raven. A messenger of the gods, and particularly of Ffraid.

Ffraid had been a special companion all those years ago. Cats and birds, poetry and fire.

Yes, Cernwn had been central to some dimensions of my Practice, particularly in the sense of reflecting my Awen, but he had always taken a distant aspect - a valuable mentor and role-model, but somehow at arm's length. A distinguished elder.

Brân was more "friendly" (if such a word can be applied to a god!) but even with him the relationship was always "come on! Follow me!" Like an elder brother leading the way and challenging me to climb ever higher, to best myself.

No, it was Ffraid who greeted me at the door to this path, Ffraid who inspired me and gentled me when things were hard.  It was Ffraid who, aptly enough, had been a light in the darkness of my soul.  How could I have forgotten her?

What a fool I was.

But then, it makes sense that the truth would come to me when it did – I was at Isosaki shrine, on the coast of Ibaraki – dedicated to the great Shinto god Ohkuninushi, who is after all ruler of the unseen world – of spirits and magic.  (no doubt it is no coincidence that his animal is the prophetic hare).  The resonance should be obvious, and the reprimand from my Elder clear.

There I sat, after praying briefly at the shrine for guidance – over the hills behind me circled an eagle, in the branches behind me croaked a raven, and arrows of sunlight scattered down on the ocean beyond the gate.

A gate, no less, that was dedicated to the safety of those who would sail to the east – a sign of the god’s promise to lead them back to their home hearths.

And now, Gŵyl Braid is nearly upon us – I have spent the last week looking up at the sky and glorying in the horns of the crescent moon.  It is time for a candle, for a moment of communion with this goddess who opened the way for me.

It’s time to lay the spring hearth and come back home.