Lessons from the Apple Tree.

So before I checked out my Kickstarter this morning I found a little thing on facebook about tree lessons for the day, mine was Apple. It was all about gratitude and blessings. I did a little prayer to myself and smiled. Then this happened........"
So it is finally here!!!
My Kickstarter got approval and funding is already coming in. This so wonderful! So amazing. Thank you all so much for giving me time,love and support all these years. I couldn't be where I am without the kickass-superhero-wizard/witch-moster friends I have.
I don't have a large enough font to scream thank you. Just know I am doing so."

MY KICKSTARTER

Now it is a little...rustic and my prizes are not heavy on stuff. I can not afford to buy or make a ton of stuff, otherwise I wouldn't need the Kickstarter!!! My wonderful editor Emily will no doubt want to tinker with it, as will my tech friend/director David, but it is up and running!

I have so many wonderful people to thank already. Okay so lets start. In no particular order, Ken, Shai, Angie, Emily, Emily R, David, Rosie, Gav, Coen, Ginger, Lynne, Steve, Amy, Anne-Marie, Suzi...and a whole host of others I have probably forgotten.
Some of you have been there for me online. Some in person. Some on Skype or the phone. I want to thank you all for the support,friendship and for believing in me and what I do!

Faeries
 
May your day be filled with faeries!
A blessing and a curse.
They see the good and the bad
A mirror to the worst.
If you scoff and giggle
If you roll your eyes and "Please!"
I hope some happy faery
Comes and steals your keys.

Welshness

I am studying an online course about Welsh Mythology right now and I am learning loads.
Some things I didn't know.

1) We have some of the best early literature, and the best preserved in the world.

http://bansheearts.com/2014/01/macha-she-would-not-stand-down/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/history/sites/themes/society/myths_red_book.shtml
http://www.llgc.org.uk/index.php?id=blackbookofcarmarthen

These books are beautiful, amazingly well written and contain knowledge and some oral histories that can be traced back to the 6th century.

2) Wales (and Cornwall) is the area the Britionian culture got shoved back to. At the peak of their culture and influence those of "The Mighty Island" controlled an area that included half of main land Britain (including most of Scotland) most of "The North" a large chunk of the Midlands and Somerset, Dorset and Cornwall. A lot of the poems and stories were written in Edinburgh!

3)There are loads of Mabinogi lovers from all over the world. Most of them seem to know a lot more than me!

4) Some of these quietly write books, translate difficult text, come up with new theories, and build websites for other Mabinogi enthusiasts. http://www.mabinogistudy.com/xz-articles/

5) As someone who LARPs the battle poems and so on are crazy good. The fact they are translated into modern English helps make them seem really fresh and potent. (Not the best translation but)

A man’s might,
a youth’s years, 
courage in battle. 
Swift long-maned horses 
beneath the thigh of a handsome lad. 
A broad light shield 
on the crupper 
of a slender steed. 
Bright grey-blue blades, 
intricate golden tassels. 
This is what will never be: 
emnity between you and me. 
 Better will I do for you, 
by praising you in song. 
Sooner to a bloodbath 
than to a wedding-feast! 
Sooner to be ravens’ food 
than properly buried! 
A dear friend was Ywain, 
a horror that he is under stones.
A sad wonder it is to me, 
in what country was slain 
Marro’s only son.

Find more here. http://druidnetwork.org/what-is-druidry/bardic-expression/poetry-and-prose/poetry-translations/

6) "King" Arthur was actually a bit of a cock in the early stuff, and was most likely given the name Emperor of Brition. His "wizard" or bard was never Merlin. His bard was Taliesin.  

7) There were three bardic schools. The head or chief bard at each school took on the name of the school when they took over. Only they could teach. The three schools were Aneririn, Merddyn(Merlin) and Taliesin.

8) Many of their older pagan Gods and Goddess have older Proto-Indo-European roots, some in common with Hindi.

9) My University days were not a TOTAL WASTE! I hated my degree. It was miserable. However I did take a theater and anthropology module, the reading of which has been helpful. Victor Turners work has a lot of echoes about the importance of ritual and play. Both things I have a big interest in.

10) We take for granted that we know "our" history when we really don't. Hundreds of people over many thousands of years worked hard to preserve something unique and wonderful.They are not just "tales" they are names, places, histories and ideas of a people. I am privileged to have had a brief glance beneath a curtain. While Wales has worked hard to preserve the knowledge, customs and language they are a treasure that belongs to the world if they only looked.

Practical Magick

So today I have been writing my script for my Kickstarter video.My butterflies have butterflies. I haven't even filmed it yet. I spent this morning nursing a poorly TK (in bed in his onesie and reluctantly taking medication) and writing the script while buying soup in Tesco's. All the while listening to Practical Magic soundtrack. There is something wonderful about wrapping music around yourself like perfume or a pretty scarf. It comforts me. The world seems to want to intrude today, whether it those scarey staring eye posters from the Government or the articles of the vile erosion of our personal rights everywhere, still the music dilutes that sense of pressure.
The world is a wonderful place full of love, hope and magick. It is inspiring, beautiful and full of positive possibilities. It isn't grey, wet and dreary, it is a silver blanket leaving gems and pearls of light on every surface.

In the dreaming.
When I meet people they can trigger memories within me. My husband and I remembered each other. It has happened on and off since I was 16. They do not always remember me. One of the first I had was being heavily pregnant and in a room that is on fire. I could not get out. I could not breathe. Other dribs and drabs would come back. At that age it is quite unsettling to remember such things.
Having been reacquainted with the person who triggered this memory I guided myself back to find more out about this life before bed last night. I expected this person to feature heavily or emotionally in this remembering but I remembered most a place, a low island in Scotland with a village made of stone. It had only one purpose which was to be a birth center for Kings, queens and other royal children. My mother ran this place. She was thin but wiry. Her hair was wrapped in blue clothe and she had piercing but twinkly eyes. I was the second of 4 of her daughters and while my sister married a King she resented me because I would inherit this place, and my mother's title. The jobs was not only getting the baby out but then taking the women to the sea. We would wash them and let the blood and first milk flow into the ocean. We would read the "Life map" or placenta and give that up to the ocean too. I remember the special wooden peg for the cord. I remember the silver axe and the gristly texture of it cutting. I remember the great fires in the "hot rooms" that newly washed mothers and they babies were placed. I remember long births. Slow births. Still births, where the child was give straight back to the sea wrapped in the "life map", some of it's mother's blanket and a lock of her hair.
All the time I remember my mother talking almost to herself as she lead me through all that needed to be done. I feel this closeness. Connected without expectation. Her unwavering belief in what we did and my ability to do it. There was such a strength to her, a power that radiated in her presence. Yet she was softly spoken. Sweet of voice. She had a metal rod that denoted her office. She would take it out into each storm. She would place it within a pit of wet sand. When lightening hit it she was the most radiant I have ever seen her. Her hair unbound and rain wet face. I remember seeing it and knowing that it would be my rod and it frightened me. Yet within the warm stone walls she told me I should be frightened. That all power can kill. That I must remember everything we are are borrowed except for our names and the children we bear. Then she would sing her lullaby to me the same way she would to every new babe and it made me laugh. I remember the smell of sheep fat used to rub on her sore knuckles, raw and red from water and cold and salt. I remember the blanket room, with boxes stacked from floor to curved ceiling. I remember the pregnant mother's room where the women would spin and some would weave. I do not remember any men. Not a father or brother. I do not know who the father of my child is anymore than before the dreaming. Or why I die within a fire. Yet I remember walking into the ocean to let my own blood and milk flow. Ah what makes sense in the dreaming does not make sense in the morning.
I do not know how much more or less I will remember as the day wear into it's silver winter noon colours but maybe there will be more. At least now there will be no less. 

Into the Cauldron.

I am currently (as well as being under the weather with a chest infection) exploring the mysteries and myths of my Welsh heritage. It is challenging. I recognize much and yet find it difficult to put into words the meaning and depth of all that is raised. I have bought more books (Victor Tuners work) but it is the soulful quality of this exploration that makes me feel...different.
Words and phrases, questions raised without answer that have me haunted by this half remembering. In this cauldron of rebirth, of inspiration I am wary of my own voice. Wary of things covered half in mist and myth. Only in the dreaming, only in the Veil does all this seem simple. The stag within my dreams that has been with me for years as a gentle, comforting presence.

The bird, the blood and the feather floating on the water.

 I am finding words for way I have always been.

 Annwfy, the deep, both here and there, close but separate, a thousand worlds in a drop of water.
Goddesses of flowers and owls and lovers who are consumed in their passion for each other. Horses, dogs and stags, there but not there like the long dead cat playing with my curtains. I could weep and I am not sure why. A feeling of connectedness and yet distance like the shiny spinning stars. It is like the feeling at Worlds End, heart stopping beauty and a feeling of peace, and yet, and yet it is a liminal space that can not last. It is a place to visit, to pass through to Dinas Bran, to the white roaring river, to home.

 I surrender. I relax into that space within myself that remembers. I remember the sea. I remember my hands covered in the blood of birth. I remember fire and death. Of not being able to breathe. Nothing else comes but it has been so long since I pushed that memory away. So then it becomes clear. To accept I must remember, for the dragon in my skin, in my bones, in my belly that knows, that always knows and remembers requires my attention. I must dream of the river, slow and deep. I must find the clearing and leave the boat. I will walk up the hill in the meadow hemmed with old tree down the mound. I must bend my knee and touch the bones, the skull, and dream within my dream, down, deep and deeper down. I will speak to the dragon.

It has suffered all my pains, my injuries, and it remembered. All the evil words and deeds. Every blow. very touch. So I honour the dragon and I give it my respect and my love. She will shed one tear I drink it down. I will surrender to the blackness that comes before.

Handfastings:Magickal marriage

The most basic gist of a handfasting ceremony is thus: you begin by blessing the space. Then you call on spirit to empower the space. Calling what is sacred to the couple to the space Gods/Goddess or the power of nature, trees, the moon, to bless and empower the joining. Then you bind them together (for however long they have decided). This joining is usually two hands.The bindings can be made of anything but witches tend to use their measures. This adds power and meaning but can cause problems too.The act of binding makes it harder for the couple to reach out to other people, makes it far more difficult to leave a relationship that has naturally ended, and can have other side effects.
 At this point they make their vows, "to all that is sacred I swear by the sacred earth of my body, the Moon above and the light within to love, honour and respect you...." This kind of oath and promise within a circle means breaking them has serious consequences. If you cheat on your partner or break these vows you are likely to upset more than just your partner. You have called the Gods and spirits their and oaths are important to them.
Next in the ceremony people usually drink from a blessed cup (mead/wine/ale) and share it around everyone there. You can then remove the binding as the symbol has taken hold.
As usual you then thank all you called into the circle and release the circle. A handfasting sounds great but I have seen people who would have been happier and healthier apart "stuck" together longer than they would have been but for the magickal binding. I have refused to do some handfastings because I was not happy that this kind of bind was appropriate or a good idea. A handfasting is super personal, much more so than any other kind of wedding I have seen. It binds the magick, karma and energy of two people and families and is not easy to undo. I think it is the most serious and joyous way you can show your love and commitment for someone. You call on all you hold sacred to bless and bind your lives together. That doesn't mean it always works. Yet the deep raw emotional power of such a service should never be under estimated. 
This spiritual handcuffing to another person makes "legal" marriage look tame. I have seen and know un-handfasting services too. Magickal divorce is sometimes the hardest and most painful of them all.
"Jumping the broom" is not "marriage lite". It is the most profound way of connecting with someone other than the Great Rite.