british druid order_ awen - the holy spirit of druidry

British Druid Order: Awen - The Holy Spirit Of Druidry

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by Greywolf

The quest for Awen is a quest for the spirit of Druidry itself, and, as such, it brings togethermany paths. We may pursue the quest as historian, linguist, poet, philosopher, priest,magician, shaman, and in many other guises. Each, in its own way, helps us to gainunderstanding and, as we walk the Druid path, one of the things we discover is that inunderstanding lies strength.

The first recorded reference to Awen occurs in Nennius' Historia Brittonum, a Latin text of circa796 CE, based on earlier writings by the Welsh monk, Gildas. After referring to King Ida ofNorthumbria, who reigned from 547 to 559, Nennius says that:

"Then Talhearn Tad Awen won renown in poetry."

Tad means 'father', so Talhearn is the Father of Awen. This doesn't tell us much about whatAwen is, but, if we accept Nennius as a reliable source, it does show that Awen existed as aconcept at a time when Diarmait mac Cerbaill still reigned as the last semi-pagan High King ofIreland, and only a century or so after St. Patrick's mission to convert the Irish to Christianity.The last pagan Romano-British shrines had only fallen into disuse over the previous two orthree generations; St. Columba, himself the great-grandson of a pagan High King, had yet tofound his monastery on Iona, from which he set out to convert the pagan Picts, and St.Augustine's mission to the pagan Angles would not start for another fifty years. Our firstreference to Awen, then, dates from a period when Britain and Ireland were still in transitionfrom paganism to Christianity. This, along with other evidence set out below, points to Awenbeing a concept carried over from pagan Druidry into Christian Bardic tradition.

To discover what Awen is, we should first look at what the word means. The feminine noun,Awen, has been variously translated as 'inspiration', 'muse', 'genius', or even 'poetic frenzy'.The word itself is formed by combining the two words, aw, meaning 'a fluid, a flowing', anden, meaning 'a living principle, a being, a spirit, essential'. So Awen may be rendered literallyas 'a fluid essence', or 'flowing spirit'. The next stage of our quest takes us to the survivingworks of the Bards of medieval Britain, who were both the inheritors and the medium oftransmission of remnants of pagan Druid tradition.

The so-called Four Ancient Books of Wales; the White Book of Rhydderch, the Red Book ofHergest, the Black Book of Caermarthen, and especially the 13th century Book of Taliesin,contain a number of poems which refer to Awen. These verses vary widely in date. Some maybe as old as the era of the Cynfeirdd, or 'Early Bards,' which began in the 6th century, whileothers are much later, composed shortly before the compilation of the manuscripts in whichthey are found. The earliest poetry consists largely of eulogies on dead heroes, and containsfew allusions to religion of any kind, but,throughout most of the period in question, Bards wereavowedly Christian, and this needs to be borne in mind when we are seeking references topagan tradition in their works. In seeking to establish what medieval Bards understood by theterm Awen, we are hampered by the fact that their poetic style is often enigmatic and allusive.They had no need to explain what Awen meant to them; they already knew well enough, andwere evidently happy for outsiders to the poetic craft to make of it what they could.



There are, however, clues to be found in their writings. The 12th century poet, Llywarch apLlywelyn (c.1173-1220), also known by his splendid Bardic name, Prydydd y Moch, the 'Poet ofthe Pigs' says:

"The Lord God will give me the sweet Awen, as from the cauldron of Ceridwen."

Ceridwen and Taliesin: the Goddess and the Bard

Here, although the Bard identifies Awen as a gift from God, he states that it is given "as fromthe cauldron of Ceridwen". Who then, is Ceridwen? Elsewhere, Prydydd y Moch refers to her as"the ruler of Bards (rvyf bardoni)", a title accredited to her by several others. Our mostextensive single source of information about her comes from a late prose tale entitled Chwedl[the Story of] Taliesin. A 'historical' Bard named Taliesin has been identified as having lived inthe late 6th century, although, of the 77 surviving poems attributed to him, including thosewhich comprise the Book of Taliesin, most were composed much later. The earliest survivingversion of Chwedl Taliesin is found in a 16th century manuscript which evidently contains mucholder material since it refers to motifs found in poems dated as early as the 9th century.

In the story, Ceridwen is said to dwell in the midst of Lake Bala in Powys, with her husband,Tegid Moel ('Beautiful Bald One'). They have three children: Morfran ('Cormorant'); Creirwy('Crystal Egg'), the most beautiful maiden in the world; and Afagddu ('Utter Darkness'), themost ill-favoured man. To compensate Afagddu for his ugliness, Ceridwen decides to make himall-wise by brewing him a magical cauldron of Inspiration (i.e. Awen) "according to the arts ofthe Fferyllt ('Alchemists, or Metal-workers')". The cauldron must brew for a year and a day, andCeridwen sets two people to tend it while she goes out gathering herbs; a blind man calledMorda ('Good Sea' or 'Great Good'), and a child named Gwion Bach ('Little Innocent'). On thelast day, three drops of liquid fly out from the cauldron and burn Gwion's finger. He puts it tohis mouth and instantly gains the three gifts of poetic inspiration, prophecy, and shape-shifting. Unfortunately, the rest of the brew is deadly poisonous andthe cauldron bursts itssides. With his gift of prophecy, Gwion knows that Ceridwen will try to kill him for having takenthe draught meant for her son, so he uses his shape-shifting ability to flee in the shape of ahare. Ceridwen pursues him in the form of a greyhound bitch, so he turns into a fish. Shetransforms into an otter bitch. He becomes a bird; she a hawk. He becomes a grain of wheatand hides on a threshing floor, but Ceridwen becomes a black hen and swallows him.

'The Hostile Confederacy', a poem from the Book of Taliesin, refers to this part of the tale asfollows:

"A hen received me,With ruddy claws, [and] parting comb.I rested nine nightsIn her womb a child,I have been matured,I have been an offering before the Protector,I have been dead, I have been alive.....Again advised me the cherisherWith ruddy claws; of what she gave meScarcely can be recounted;Greatly will it be praised."

After nine months, Gwion is reborn from the womb of Ceridwen, who cannot bear to kill him "byreason of his great beauty", so she ties him in a leather bag and throws him into the sea on theeve of May Eve. On May Day morning, the bag is pulled from a weir and opened. The firstperson to look upon the beautiful baby in the bag says, "Behold, a radiant brow!" And so thechild takes the name Taliesin, which, in Welsh, means 'Radiant Brow'. Taliesin, although ababy, is immediately able to compose perfect impromptu verse by virtue of the Awen receivedfrom Ceridwen's cauldron. He goes on to achieve fame as Primary Chief Bard of Britain.

This tale parallels many others in British and Irish Bardic literature and folklore, whereindividualsreceive gifts of wisdom, power, or poetic inspiration from Otherworld women. Therole of Ceridwen in this story, coupled with references to her in Bardic poetry, have led most



commentators to conclude that she is a pagan Goddess. Her name means 'Crooked Woman', or'Bent White One', suggesting an association with the crescent moon.

The Cauldron of Inspiration

It is tempting to interpret the whole story as an instruction manual for Bardic initiation. Gwionencounters three receptacles of transformation: the cauldron, the womb, and the leather bagfrom which he finally emerges as Taliesin. He encounters each through the actions of Ceridwen,who acts as initiator throughout. We could further speculate that the three receptaclesrepresent a series of initiations into the three 'grades' of Bard, Ovate, and Druid: the drink fromthe cauldron opens the mind of the Bard to the gift of Awen; the sojourn in the womb of theGoddess gives the Ovate wisdom to understand it; the ordeal of being cast into the sea in theleather bag (perhaps a coracle?) enables the Druid to conquer the ultimate fear: the fear ofdeath.

The gifts bestowed on Taliesin by the magic drops from the cauldron can also be equated withthe three 'grades': poetic inspiration for the Bards; prophecy for the Ovates; shape-shifting forthe Druids. It is also tempting to envisage the cauldron of inspiration as containing someintoxicating drink. In support of this, there are various references to mead in the Taliesinpoems, notably 'The Chair of Taliesin', which refers to aspects of the brewing process as well asto a variety of herbs, and ends with the lines:

"Radiance pervades the brewer,Over the cauldron of five trees,And the flowing of a river,And the spreading of heat,And honey and trefoil,And supreme mead intoxicating,As metal to a warlord,The gift of the Druids."

North European traditions contain many instances of spiritual or magical gifts being conferredby drinking mead. The Norse God Odin drinks the magic mead, Kvasir, from a cauldron calledOdhroerir, 'Inspiration', having seduced the giant's daughter who is its guardian. Irishmythology even presents us with a Goddess, Meadhbh, whose name is the same as that of thedrink. It should be borne in mind, though, that our ancestors had a very different relationshipwith alcohol; beer and mead being their staple drinks due to the fact that the brewing processkilled off the bacteria which infected water supplies. Even so, it is more likely that Bards useddrinking from the cauldron of Ceridwen as a metaphor for receiving poetic inspiration.

Ceridwen and her cauldron are mentioned in a number of poems, including one preserved inthe Book of Taliesin, from which the following lines are taken:

"Shall not my chair be defended from the cauldron of Ceridwen?May my tongue be free in the sanctuary of the praise of Gogyrwen.The praise of Gogyrwen is an oblation which has satisfiedThem with milk, and dew, and acorns."

There is considerable uncertainty as to the meaning of the word Gogyrwen, or Ogyrwen. IoloMorganwg identified it with the symbol of three light rays (/|\) which he and others also giveas a symbol of Awen. Pughe's Welsh Dictionary defines Gogyrwen as 'a spiritual being or form;a personified idea'. W. F. Skene claims that it is a synonym for the Goddess Ceridwen. Morerecently, John Matthews has suggested that it might be a title applied to Goddesses in general,and to Ceridwen in particular. A reference in 'The Hostile Confederacy', to "seven scoreOgyrwens in the Awen" certainly indicates that the term could be used in the plural. Itsmeaning can be interpreted as 'Youthful Fair One', a not unreasonable title for a Goddess onewishes to be on good terms with. From the lines quoted above, it seems that Gogyrwen may bepropitiated with offerings of "milk, and dew, and acorns", all offerings associated with the FaeryFolk.

Another Taliesin poem, 'The Chair of the Sovereign', refers to the;



"Height whence came the Wise One of the Cauldron.Ogyrwen of the three Awens."

"The Wise One of the Cauldron" is presumably Ceridwen. A poem attributed to the BardCuhelyn begins;

"According to the dignified ode of Ceridwen, the Ogyrwen of mixed seed,The mixed seed of poetry, speaks to the extensive skies enclosing beauty."

Reference to "three Awens" and to the "ode of Ceridwen" remind one that chanting the wordAwen three times is one of the methods employed by some Druid groups for opening theindividual spirit to the spirit of the Goddess as source of inspiration. The chant takes the form ofa long, low, vibratory mantra, similar to the Hindu Om, or Aum. That Awen was sung, orchanted, in the past is clear from a number of medieval poems, including 'The HostileConfederacy', where the Bard says:

"The Awen I sing,From the deep I bring it,A river while it flows,I know its extent;I know when it disappears;I know when it fills;I know when it overflows;I know when it shrinks;I know what baseThere is beneath the sea."

Awen, the 'flowing spirit', is here referred to as a river, apparently drawn from the sea by thepoet's singing. The 'sea' may be taken as a reference to the all-encompassing spirit thatsurrounds us, the 'river' being that portion of it which the Bard draws to himself through hisinvocation.

The Cell of Song

So Awen may be obtained by drinking from the cauldron of the Goddess, and through singingor chanting. Other references, although much later in date, give us further ways in whichAwen, or inspiration, may be obtained. The Memoirs of the Marquis of Clanricarde, published in1722, contain an account of a Bardic school in Ireland, which tells us that:

"It was... necessary that the Place should be in the solitary Recess of a Garden or withina Sept or Enclosure far out of the reach of any noise... The Structure was a snug, lowHut, and beds in it at convenient Distances, each within a small Apartment without muchFurniture of any kind, save only a Table, some Seats, and a Conveniency for cloaths tohang upon. No Windows to let in the day, nor any Light at all us'd but that of Candles,and these brought in at a proper Season only... The Professors... gave a Subject suitableto the Capacity of each Class, determining the number of Rhimes, and clearing what wasto be chiefly observed therein as to Syllables, Quartans, Concord, Correspondence,Termination and Union, each of which were restrain'd by peculiar Rules. The saidSubject... having been given over Night, they work'd it apart each by himself upon hisown Bed, the whole next Day in the Dark, till at a certain Hour in the Night, Lights beingbrought in, they committed it to writing. Being afterwards dress'd and come together intoa large Room, where the Masters waited, each Scholar gave in his Performance, whichbeing corrected or approv'd... either the same or fresh subjects were given for the nextDay... The reason of laying the Study aforesaid in the Dark was doubtless to avoid theDistraction which Light and the variety of Objects represented thereby commonlyoccasions. This being prevented, the Faculties of the Soul occupied themselves solelyupon the Subject in hand, and the Theme given; so that it was soon brought to somePerfection according to the Notions or Capacities of the Students."

The conditions described here are clearly a form of what we would now call sensory deprivation.The researches of Dr. John Lilly (The Centre of the Cyclone, Granada, 1973) and others haveshownthat this technique can give rise to extremely vivid visionary experiences. The



whimsically named Martin Martin provides an account of a similar practice in use among Bardsin the Western Isles of Scotland in the late 17th century:

"They [the Bards] shut their Doors and Windows for a Days time, and lie on their backswith a Stone upon their Belly, and Plads about their Heads, and their Eyes being cover'dthey pump their Brains for Rhetorical Encomium or Panegyrick; and indeed they furnishsuch a Stile from this Dark Cell as is understood by very few..."

Perhaps the stone referred to here is the legendary Glain Naddair, or 'Adder Stone,' believed tohave been created by covens of copulating serpents on Midsummer's Eve, and credited withprotective and healing properties. Philip Carr-Gomm (The Druid Way) has recently suggestedthat a somewhat weightier stone was used in order to create "one over-riding sensory input inorder to block out all others".

Martin's remark about the style of composition produced by this technique being "understoodby very few" certainly describes well enough the allusive and mystical style of the medievalWelsh Bards. There is no explicit reference to such a technique being used in the Bardic collegesof Wales, although there are allusions which hint at it, such as the following lines from a poemby Iolo Goch:

"The dark island, the cell of song,So once was called Anglesey of the green nape."

Similar vision-inducing techniques were common in classical Greece, where many oracularshrines had an inner sanctum in which priestesses, priests, or visitors would sleep inanticipation of receiving healing or instruction in dream visions. A similar technique seems tohave passed into Christian usage in Ireland under the guise of St. Patrick's Purgatory, a cavernon an island in Lough Derg, Co. Donegal, in which pilgrims spent a day and a nightexperiencing visions of "the sorrows and the pains of evil men and the joys and bliss of goodmen". Local folklore held that Lough Derg was the last bastion of Druidry in Ireland. The 6thcentury Irish missionary saint, Columba, was said to have spent three days and nights alone ina darkened house, during which the Holy Spirit gave him the power to see "many of the secretthings that have been hidden since the world began".

A related technique, which survived in folk memory into the 19th century in Scotland, involvedbeing wrapped tightly in a bull's hide and laid beside running water, or a waterfall, for a dayand a night. The bull's hide restricted movement and helped maintain body temperature, whilethe sound of running water provided the sensory block. This is reminiscent of an incident in 'TheDream of Rhonabwy', a story contained in the collection of medieval Welsh folk tales andlegends known as The Mabinogion. In this tale, the hero enters a strange hall, the soleinhabitant of which is a toothless crone (a 'Crooked Woman'), where he falls asleep for threedays and nights on a yellow ox-hide and has a vivid divinatory dream.

The folklore surrounding certain megalithic chambered tombs in Wales tells how spending thenight inside them will render one either mad or an inspired poet (though some would questionwhether there is a difference). Irish literary tradition contains many stories of people sleepingon prehistoric burial mounds, referred to as sidhe or Faery mounds, and being visited byOtherworld women who bestow poetic inspiration or wisdom on them. It is possible that suchtales reflect a distant echo of rites carried out by the builders of these tombs, 5000 years ago,for archaeology has shown that their use was as much ritual as funereal. Massive stonechambers with covering earthen mounds would certainly have been effective in depriving thesenses of sight and hearing. Both archaeology and tradition suggest that these ancient moundswere places where the living might contact ancestral spirits to gain power, wisdom, orinspiration. Perhaps, then, the Bards of Britain and Ireland, lying in their dark cells in the 17thcentury, were enacting a rite whose origins lay with priest-magicians of the Neolithic period.

A Bardic Vision

An extraordinary account of the descent of Awen in the form of a hawk is given in a letter tothe 17th century antiquary, John Aubrey, from the Welsh poet, Henry Vaughan (1621-1695),who writes:



"As to the later Bards, who were no such men, but had a society and some rules andorders among themselves, and several sorts of measures and a kind of lyric poetry, whichare all set down exactly in the learned John David Rhees, or Rhesus his Welsh or Britishgrammar, you shall have there, in the later end of his book, a most curious account ofthem. This vein of poetry they call Awen, which in their language signifies as much asRaptus, or a poetic furor; and in truth as many of them as I have conversed with are, asI may say, gifted or inspired with it. I was told by a very sober and knowing person (nowdead) that in his time there was a young lad fatherless and motherless, and so very poorthat he was forced to beg; but at last was taken up by a rich man that kept a great stockof sheep upon the mountains not far off from the place where I now dwell, who clothedhim and sent him into the mountains to keep his sheep. There in summer time, followingthe sheep and looking to their lambs, he fell into a deep sleep, in which he dreamed thathe saw a beautiful young man with a garland of green leaves upon his head and a hawkupon his fist, with a quiver full of arrows at his back, coming towards him (whistlingseveral measures or tunes all the way) and at last let the hawk fly at him, which hedreamed got into his mouth and inward parts, and suddenly awaked in a great fear andconsternation, but possessed with such a vein, or gift of poetry, that he left the sheepand went about the Country, making songs upon all occasions, and came to be the mostfamous Bard in all the Country in his time."

This account is strongly reminiscent of the spirit or vision quest, or journey to obtain power,undertaken by medicine men and women in many different cultures. Such quests frequentlyinvolve journeys into mountains, or remote wilderness areas, where initiatory dreams areexperienced, as well as encounters with power animals, or spirit helpers who appear in animalform. These, like Vaughan's hawk, sometimes enter the body of the shaman. A hawk was, ofcourse, one of the shapes assumed by Ceridwen in her pursuit of Taliesin, but what of the"beautiful young man with a garland of green leaves upon his head?" Perhaps he is somegreenwood God of summer; perhaps he is Taliesin.

Divine inspiration appearing in the form of a bird is a not uncommon theme in Europeanpaganism. An oracular shrine at Dodona was founded after the God Zeus, in the form of a dove,spoke from the branches of an oak tree. The priestesses who interpreted the voice of the God atthisshrine (from the rustling leaves of the sacred oak) were known as Peliai, 'Doves'.

The poetic genius of Taliesin, obtained from the cauldron of the Goddess, was held in greatrespect by generations of Bards, who, over a period of several centuries, continued to attributepoetry to him, and to view him as the pre-eminent master of their craft.

Prophetic Poetry of the Awenyddion

The second gift of the cauldron is prophecy, and prophecy by means of Awen, as practisedamong a specialist group of diviners, is described by Giraldus Cambrensis in his Description ofWales (trans.Lewis Thorpe, Penguin Books, 1978, p.246ff.), written in the late 12th century.Giraldus says that:

"among the Welsh there are certain individuals called Awenyddion who behave as if theyare possessed... When you consult them about some problem, they immediately go into atrance and lose control of their senses... They do not answer the question put to them ina logical way. Words stream from their mouths, incoherently and apparently meaninglessand lacking any sense at all, but all the same well expressed: and if you listen carefully towhat they say you will receive the solution to your problem. When it is all over, they willrecover from their trance, as if they were ordinary people waking from a heavy sleep, butyou have to give them a good shake before they regain control of themselves... and whenthey do return to their senses they can remember nothing of what they have said in theinterval... They seem to receive this gift of divination through visions which they see intheir dreams. Some of them have the impression that honey or sugary milk is beingsmeared on their mouths; others say that a sheet of paper with words written on it ispressed against their lips. As soon as they are roused from their trance and have comeround from their prophesying, that is what they say has happened...



"In the same way, at a time when the kingdom of Britain still existed, the two Merlins,Caledonius and Ambrosius, each foretold of its destruction, and the coming first of theSaxons and then of the Normans...

"If you should ask... by what supernatural agency such prophecies are made possible, Ido not necessarily say by sorcery or by the intervention of evil spirits. It is true thatknowledge of what is to be is the property of God alone, for only He can foretell thefuture by His omniscience freely dispensed from on high...

"It is not to be wondered at... if those who suddenly receive the spirit of God as a sign ofgrace come down from above should for a time seem to have lost their reason."

The final two paragraphs remind us that Giraldus was both a Welshman and a Christianclergyman, hence he cannot bring himself to accuse his fellow countrymen of commerce with"evil spirits", but equates the gift of Awen inspiring these trance mediums with "the spirit ofGod". It would appear from Giraldus' description that Awenyddion were able to enter prophetictrance states at will, without the use of rhythmic drumming, singing, dancing, or psycho-activeplants resorted to in other traditions.

Inspired prophets such as those described by Giraldus were widely known throughout thepagan Graeco-Roman world. Their prophecies were usually delivered in poetic form, sometimesbeing worked on by professional Bards retained for the purpose at oracular shrines. Theprophetsthemselves could be either male or female. In Greece, the women were frequentlyconsidered to receive their inspiration from the God Apollo, the men from the Muses, who wereApollo's handmaidens.

Taliesin's prophetic gifts are celebrated in a number of poems, where he rehearses eventssincethe creation and predicts the fate of the British until the end of time, as in 'The Four Pillarsof Song', where he sings of the Saxon conquest of Britain:

"Oh! what misery,Through extreme of woe,Prophecy will showOn Troia's race.

A coiling serpentProud and merciless,On her golden wings,From Germany.

She will overrunEngland and Scotland,From Lychlyn sea-shoreTo the Severn.

Then will the BrythonBe as prisoners,By strangers swayed,From Saxony.

Their Lord they will praise,Their speech they will keep,Their land they will lose,Except wild Walia."

This reminds us that knowledge of the future is both a gift and a burden, for the future holdsbothjoy and sorrow. With knowledge of the future, the gift of Awen also brings memory of thepast, and Taliesin not only claims knowledge of past events, but also to have been present atthem, as in the following verse in which he recalls events from the Bible, from classicalantiquity, and from British myth and legend:

"Primary Chief Bard am I to Elffin,And my original country was the region of the summer stars;



Idno and Henin called me Myrddin,At length every king will call me Taliesin.I was with my Lord in the highest sphere,On the fall of Lucifer into the depths of hell;I have borne a banner before Alexander;I know the names of the stars from north to south;I have been on the galaxy at the throne of the Distributor;I was in Canaan when Absalom was slain;I conveyed the divine Spirit to the level of the Vale of Hebron;I was in the Court of Don before the birth of Gwydion;I was instructor to Eli and Enoch;I have been winged by the genius of the splendid crozier;I have been loquacious prior to being gifted with speech;I was at the place of the crucifixion of the merciful Son of God;I have been three periods in the prison of Arianrhod;I have been chief director of the work of the tower of Nimrod;I am a wonder whose origins are not known;I have been in Asia with Noah in the Ark,I have seen the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah;I have been in India when Rome was built,I am now come here to the remnant of Troy;I have been with my Lord in the manger of the ass;I strengthened Moses through the waters of the Jordan;I have been in the firmament with Mary Magdalene;I have obtained the Awen from the cauldron of Ceridwen;I have been Bard of the Harp to Lleon of Lochlin;I have been on the White Hill, in the court of Cynfelyn,For a year and a day in stocks and fetters,I have suffered hunger for the Son of the Virgin,I have been fostered in the land of the Deity,I have been teacher to all intelligences,I am able to instruct the whole universe;I shall be until the day of doom upon the face of the Earth,And it is not known whether my body be flesh or fish.Then I was for nine monthsIn the womb of the hag Ceridwen;I was originally little Gwion,At length I am Taliesin."

This poem may be read as a series of incarnations through which the poet has passed. Such areading brings to mind Julius Caesar's comment that:

"The cardinal doctrine which [Druids] seek to teach is that souls do not die, but afterdeath pass from one body to another."

"I Have Been in Many Shapes"

Other poems recall non-human transformations, as in the most famous of all the worksattributed to Taliesin; Cad Godeu, 'The Battle of the Trees', where the Bard says:

"I have been in many shapesBefore I took this congenial form;I have been a sword, narrow in shape;I believe, since it is apparent,I have been a tear-drop in the sky,I have been a glittering star,I have been a word in a letter,I have been a book in my origin,I have been a gleaming ray of light,A year and a half,I have been a stable bridge



Over confluences of compassion,I have been a pathway, I have been an eagle,I have been a coracle on the brink,I have been the direction of a staff,I have been a stack in an open enclosure,I have been a sword in a yielding cleft,I have been a shield in open conflict,I have been a string on a harp,Shape-shifting nine years,In water, in foam,I have been consumed in fire,I have been passion in a covert.Am I not he who will singOf beauty in what is small;Beauty in the Battle of the Tree-topsAgainst the country of Prydein."

Alwyn and Brinley Rees (Celtic Heritage, p.230) have pointed out that "Taliesin is everything,and it is a fair inference that among the Celts, as in India and other lands, there existedalongside the belief in individual reincarnation, a doctrine that there is essentially only OneTransmigrant". In other words, Taliesin, through contact with Awen, discovers his identity withthe divine, becoming, in effect, a supreme, all-wise, and omnipresent God. There are clearparallels here with Hindu spiritual traditions, where one way of attaining enlightenment is tomerge one's identity with that of a chosen Deity.

Hinduism has a Goddess-spirit which parallels Awen in many ways. In its universal aspect, thisspirit is called Shakti, and is represented as a Goddess who is the active, creative spirit ofDeity, partnered and directed by the wisdom of the God, Shiva. The power of Shakti manifestsin many, or all, other Goddesses, including the awesome Kali, with her rosary of human skulls,and the beautiful river Goddess, Sarasvati, patroness of music and learning. In Tantric traditionwomen identify themselves with Shakti, men with Shiva, and ultimate spiritual fulfilment is tobe found in union between the two. This doctrine was formulated during the same centurieswhich saw the composition of the Taliesin poems.

In Bardic tradition, individual women can become incarnations of Awen, or the Goddess asmuse. In the 'Dialogue Between Myrddin and Gwendydd', the Bard and his muse refer to eachother in reverential terms:

"I ask of my Llallogan,Myrddin, wise man, soothsayer,A song of dispensation, and from me,The maid who bids thee, a song of summer."

I will speak to Gwendydd,Since she has addressed me in my hiding-place.With their secrets in the first of tongues,The Books of Awen tell of invocations,And the tale of a maiden, and the sleep of dreams.

I reaffirm the stirrings of thy creator,The chief of all creatures,Gwendydd fair, refuge of song."

The poems quoted above suggest that Bards sought to identify themselves with the divine, andsome may have done so by identifying themselves with Taliesin as the archetypal Awen-inspired Bard. His role in relation to Ceridwen seems to indicate that Taliesin should also beregarded as a pagan deity, or at least as semi-divine. Ceridwen herself is seen as the giver ofAwen, the divine creative energy, and, therefore, as initiator and muse. Her role is echoed inthat of many women in Celtic mythology who cause, drive, or inspire the actions undertaken bythe male heroes, whom they also suckle, nurture and often teach. Men in the legendsfrequently seek power and knowledge, which are often either embodied by, or under the controlof, women. Female Bards would presumably have sought to identify themselves with the



Goddess, either directly, or perhaps through devotion to Taliesin, much as Hindu women mightapproach deity through devotion to Shiva, perhaps in his incarnation as the divine lover,Krishna. Such quests for realisation of the self as one with the divine make sense of thestatement in the medieval Irish text, Senchus Mor, that:

"druids ... said that it was they that made heaven and earth, and the sea, &c., and thesun and moon, &c.."

Such a level of personal identification with Deity is not part of mainstream Christian tradition inthe West, although the Eastern Orthodox church has always embraced the concept of theosis,or the divinization of self. In the century during which the Book of Taliesin was compiled, therewas a monastery at Mount Athos in northern Greece where the monks used physical means,including breath control, to attain higher states of consciousness, culminating in a vision ofdivine light, and total union of the self with God. Similar ideas were current in the West throughthe teachings of mystics such as Bernard of Clairvaux (1115-1153), who taught that thesummation of the mystical life lay in consciousness of the divine within.

This aspect of Bardic tradition may not, then, be regarded as completely heretical in 13thcentury terms. What remains problematic is how Bards in the Christian Britain of the periodcould have reconciled an apparent reverence for the pagan Goddess Ceridwen with theirprofessed faith in Christ. It has been suggested that Bardic references to Ceridwen demonstrateno more than an antiquarian interest in their own traditions. My own feeling is that thereferences are so strange, and so tied in with the occult and mystical concept of Awen, thatthey can only represent a genuine pagan survival, or rather, a remarkable semi-pagansynthesis, based partly on the Celtic past, but merged with spiritual ideas current in othertraditions of the period.

The Bardic Goddess

The nearest equivalent to Awen in the Irish Bardic tradition is Dan, or Dana, a term which hasa number of related meanings, including 'a gift, treasure, spiritual gift or offering', 'art, science,calling', 'the art of poetry', 'poem' or 'song'. In Ireland, the term Aos Dana (literally; 'People ofArt') denoted anyone who practised the Bardic arts. The word may also be related to Danu,Dana, or Anu, the eponymous mother-Goddess of the pagan Irish pantheon, the Tuatha deDanaan, or 'Tribe of Danu'. One early text describes poetry (i.e. Dana) as "multi-formed, multi-faceted, multi-magical, a noble well-clasped maiden" who appears to Bards during the processof composition.

The Goddess most associated with the Bardic Order in Ireland, however, is Brighid, whosename means 'Maiden,' or 'Fair Woman,' although it can also be interpreted to mean 'the Powerof Fate'. According to the 9th century Irish manuscript, Cormac's Glossary, Brighid was Goddessof filidecht (i.e. 'Bardism'), healing, and smithcraft. The same source refers to her as

"A Goddess worshipped by poets on account of the great and illustrious protectionafforded them by her."

With the coming of Christianity, the pagan Irish Goddess was replaced by a saint bearing thesame name, who took over many of the attributes of her predecessor. This is clear from theepithets attached to the saint's name in Scottish folk tradition, which include 'BrighidMelodious- Mouthed', 'Brighid of Prophecy', 'of the Harp', 'of the Slim Faery Folk', and 'of theTribe of the Green Mantles (i.e. the Faery Folk)'. This canonised Goddess is also linked with amagical fire, with childbirth, with a mysterious white serpent, and with intoxicating drink. Herfeast day at the beginning of February marked the first stirrings of spring, when the Serpent ofBride was said to emerge from its hole, where it apparently spent the winter, suggesting that itrepresents the Goddess's power of growth in nature.

The power of Shakti, which we have likened to Awen, is identified, in its microcosmic form, withthe Goddess Kundalini, whose serpent energy sleeps in the lowest of the body's subtle centresuntil awakened by the practice of Kundalini yoga. Neiddred, 'Adders, or Snakes', has long beenan alternative name for Druids, and in the Taliesin poem, 'The Cattle-fold of the Bards', thepoet identifies himself both as Druid and serpent:



"I am song to the last; I am clear and bright;I am hard; I am a Druid;I am a wright; I am well-wrought;I am a serpent; I am reverence, that is an open receptacle."

We have seen that one of the primary attributes of Brighid's British counterpart, Ceridwen, isherCauldron of Inspiration. In Irish myth the primary deity associated with a similar magicalcauldron is Brighid's father, the Dagda ('Good God'), called in one text the 'God of Druidry'.

What then have we learned about Awen? We know that it is a flowing spirit, a kind of lifeessence, a source of spiritual strength, prophetic insight and poetic inspiration associated withdeities called Ceridwen and Taliesin in Britain, and Brighid and the Dagda in Ireland, all ofwhom are associated with magic cauldrons and intoxicating liquors. It is quite likely thatindividual tribal groups had their own deities associated with the `flowing spirit.' Meadhbh andDana have already been mentioned, and it seems not unreasonable to suggest that our Druidancestors regarded all deities as sources of, or conduits for, Awen. We have seen that Awencan manifest in a variety of forms such as liquid, a hawk, a woman, or the taste of honey onthe lips. We also know that it can be contacted by drinking from the cauldron of the Goddess,by singing or chanting, by controlled trance induction, by vision quest, or by sensorydeprivation. Modern Druid groups also use various forms of meditation, visualisation and ritual.

Awen has counterparts in other cultures. We have already mentioned the Hindu Shakti, calledthe Great Mother of the Universe, and the Christian Holy Spirit, which the early Gnostic writer,Irenaeus, called the First Woman, or Mother of All Living. Both are regarded as the energythrough which Deity creates the universe, as well as being linked with healing and prophecy;gifts also associated with Awen. Mircea Eliade (Patterns in Comparative Religion, p.21) saysthat...

"The Sioux call this force Wakan; it exists everywhere in the universe, but only manifestsitself in extraordinary phenomena (such as the sun, the moon, thunder, wind, etc.) andin strong personalities (sorcerers... figures of myth and legend, and so on)."

The Melanesian term, Mana, has been used as a universal term for such spiritual forces.

Not all people and things are equally endowed with this spiritual force; some possess it verystrongly, and become, therefore, objects of power and reverence, while others seem to lack italmost entirely. It is possible for individuals to accumulate this energy in themselves, and tochannel it into other people or into objects, for the purposes of healing, inspiring, orempowering.

The ways in which we have envisaged Awen so far have, perhaps, made it seem occult andmysterious, and so it is, yet its inspiring energy is all around us if we can but learn to sense itspresence and open ourselves to its gifts. It may be experienced in the thrill of standing on awindswept hilltop, or walking through a moonlit wood, or by the sea-shore, or being out in anelectrical storm, or performing ceremonies at ancient sacred places, where it accumulates likewater running into a hollow. It is sensed in that strange, tingling thrill that comes on firsthearing an inspired piece of music, or a poem, or on seeing a magnificent painting. It is aresponse to the inspiring spirit channelled into a work of art by its creator. The poet RobertGraves has described it as a prickling sensation on the back of the neck. Some experience it asa tingling in the palms of their hands, like contacting a static charge, or as a glowing warmth inthe region of the solar plexus. It leaves one feeling uplifted and energised.

One summer afternoon, I stood in a wood with about a dozen Druids. We joined hands andasked Spirit for guidance. A great silver bowl, about eight feet in diameter, appeared above ourcircle. Above the bowl a woman's hand, pale and slender, emerged from the air. From herfingers ran a stream of silver liquid that quickly filled the shallow bowl, which overflowed,sending streams of silver down upon the heads of those gathered in the circle. Such was myvision of Awen on this occasion.

But this vision was personal to me. It is for each individual to discover the way, or ways, inwhich Awen manifests for them, just as we must find our own creative talents through which tomake manifest its gift of inspiration, and must each find our own relationship with Deity. And



so we see that Awen lies at the heart of the Druid tradition, for it is Awen, the Holy Spirit ofDruidry, that provides our true link, not only with the past, but with the deeper reality of thepresent, and with the infinite possibilities of the future, and which gives as its ultimate gift therecognition of our own divinity.

This article is extracted from Druidry: Re-Kindling the Sacred Fire, copyright BDO, 1999.

© British Druid Order

british druid order_ awen - the holy spirit of druidry

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