Celtic Fae Witchcraft Deeper into Myth

Deeper into Myth

Ritual, Narrative and Transformation

Narratives, especially ones that are based on oral traditions, tend to have transformative and ritual threads woven through them. Human beings are creatures of stories, narratives. The stories we tell ourselves and about ourselves are informed by and inform our cultural identity and privileges.
They are our history; our propaganda, our hopes and our darkest deeds. There is a great power in speaking them aloud, as confession, as revelation, as humor and as apologies.

Narratives allow us to dream while awake, to learn lessons from the long dead and transform that knowledge, wisdom or ideal into our waking modern world. This is also the structure of a ritual. While not all rituals are narrative (though people are often drawn into making them one) all narratives, even biographies are dealing with the process of transformation. It is in seeing, listening and absorbing we attach value and attributes to the archetypes within us. Our dark villains, our heroic selves, our victim-hood, battles, flaws and losses: all given context and value through the frames of our stories. Our stories are also found in films, books, and plays, and most often as a an adolescent, music.

To have someone sing and "give voice" to our joy, and rage, heartbreak and ideals transforms us not only the first time we experience it, but every time we do. As we grow we might out grow the voice, we might add frames we never expected. Once joyful songs may become full of sadness or angry ones might bring us joy. It is our transformation that brings us anew to the narratives.

This is why both poetry, music and song, as well as ritual and spell work are part of The Dreaming within the Four Circles of Celtic Fae Witchcraft  .
Poetry, narrative and song are still deeply important and always ready to burst forth into The Pragmatic world of rational thinking. 
In practical terms this means, poetry, chants, song and story are not a sweet edition to a spell or ritual. They are often at the core. In speaking the names, in invoking Taliesin, Merlin, Bendigeifran, Cerridwen, Rhiannon, Cernunnos, Arhiannrhod, Mauve, Lugh, or a whole host of others, we not only share their story, they too share in ours.

Crow

The Ancient Ones

She who sings over the bones.

Gathers the fallen.

Scatters the stones.

Washes the bodies,

But eats the eyes.

To see.

To know.

To change.

To grow.

She is Raven.

She is Crow.

From Her blackness

Some stirring begins.

Exploding from Her body

A thousand black wings.

A new song starts.

It begins to rain.

A forgetful dream

Washes away pain.

To see.

To know.

To change.

To grow.

She is Raven.

She is crow.

Oh Ancient Ones

He who sings over the bones.

Gathers the fallen.

Scatters the stones.

Washes the bodies,

But eats the eyes.

To see.

To know.

To change.

To grow.

He is Raven.

He is Crow.

From His blackness

Some stirring begins.

Exploding from His body

A thousand black wings.

A new song starts.

It begins to rain.

A forgetful dream

Washes away pain.

To see.

To know.

To change.

To grow.

He is Raven.

He is crow.

   

Celtic Fae Witchcraft: Myth

Celtic Fae Witchcraft: 

Myth

A myth is a story. A mix of early and unknown histories. In modern terms they get a bad rap; as being a fabrication, an over simplification of unknown natural forces. Yet a myth is important not because it is true, but because it contains a truth. Maybe more than one. Myths are narrative heirlooms, worn smooth with the hands that used them over thousands of years. Sometimes lost, forgotten or broken only to be mended and re-used when the need arose. 

Myths are full of symbols and are waking dreams. Chock full of archetypes and ideas. 

Myths work, and still work because of a longing for something we can not quite name.

King Arthur.

If you want to look at the endurance of a myth this one is one of the best. King Arthur it's self is a re-telling of a much older myth about a God-King. His name was Bendigeidfran, or Bran. He too went on a journey to the other-land. Took a famous Bard-wizard with him (Taliesin was this figure in both of the earliest written accounts) and came home dead but not dead and brought the Ravens as a symbol of sovereignty and protection with him and he will "rise again" in a time of great need. In fact in the early accounts he is more "King Arthur" than King Arthur himself in the earlier versions. Another tale speaks of a Roman Emperor who had a dream of a woman from Britain who was so beautiful he sent ships and men all the way from Rome to find her, and find her he did. He came and met his bride and married her and "ruled the land wisely". His name was not Arthur. It is interesting how these stories have merged and blended.   

There are many things missing from the earlier versions. There is no trouble at home, his wife is a good and regal queen. Who holds her own female court. The Arthurian adventures are not his own but are tales of his daring noble knights instead. 

This makes sense because through the Mabinogion (one of the earliest British texts) the themes of instruction for young men or boys repeats. In fact some translations of the Mabinogion's name are just the stories for boys. It is not a book for kings on how to rule but for nobles on how to be noble.

It is difficult to know how old these stories were before they were written down. Yet some scholars believe they came into being some time around the 6th century AD. 

The women in these stories are both interesting and complex. They are smart and tough and often trouble!

While there are clear attempts to marginalize and down play the power held by women in the past as the myths became Christianized, the echoes of their power still exist. 

Many of the heroes and knights are even rescued by women as often as they are lead astray!

Of course the myth of King Arthur did not become fixed and solid. It continued to grow and adapt and change. It gain popularity again as a French retelling added more lust and longing in the 14th century. It was used as the ideal of courtly Kingship by Henry 8th. In fact any time there is struggle and strife, not long after King Arthur emerges to soothe the social fabric. Women became the seducers and corrupters, weak and poisonous. The childless queen was no longer noble but a dangerous liability shirking her God-given responsibility. A warning. 

Over and over again the stories of King Arthur are used to white wash and ennoble violence under courtly manners. A fantasy spinning further and further from his God-King beginnings and it's lessons of what it meant to be Kingly and noble.

There was once a good and noble king. A god-king. A giant of a man. He and his sister ruled the Might Isle. One day ships came, a king came from over the water and asked for his sister's hand in marriage.

He greeted them warmly. He was the best host. His sister agreed and on the sacred mountain they were wed. Her gifts to him were sows. Her gifts to him were horses.

Her other brothers were enraged. They were slighted. The disfigured the horses, they insulted this man they saw as unworthy.

Yet the noble king replaced the horses with his own. The noble king soothed and made peace.

So the sister sailed away, over the deep water to the land of her husband. At first he was kind and she bore a son. Then his men stoked his pride and his hate. He had been insulted and so the sister was punished a little more every year, made less every year until she was made to wash their feet and cook in the ashes. 

She found a small bird, a starling, black and white. She whispered her sorrows to it. It drank her tears. Off it flew, across the starry sky, across the deep sea to her brother's shoulder.

The good king wept when he heard his sister's plight and he gathered his army and his ships that night. All her brothers dressed in black and red face the dark bitter sea to rescue her. Taliesin came, the great bard came and his soft low song made a mist and fog and they went unseen.

The war band raged and pushed deeper and deeper into the land. The king of the land ran and ran back to his castle across a deep river. He burned all the bridges and beat his wife as his son looked on.

The good king reached the river and the army halted, his sister's brother howled like wild wolves. So he being a giant lay down, his fingers on one side, his feet on another. "A leader is a bridge" he said and he bid his men to walk on his body to retrieve his sister. They burst into the castle and found their sister chained near the fire. Holding her son in her arms. Her other brothers rushed and grabbed him and threw him into the great fire. Her screams echoing the sound of the ravens. The god king was injured and he asked to be taken home. Into the boats, across the sea and into a mist, into a dream. Only Taliesin saw it was a dream and woke the others who were lost in their sorrow. They took the still speaking god king's head to bury it in London. He would rise again, protect again, rise again should there ever be a great need. So long as the ravens stayed, so long as the ravens remained, he could rise again.

Many of the army, and his sister bereft simply could not live without him and withered and turned into birds. All save Taliesin. All save the bard who remembered and wept, who remembered and saved their names, and their memories for ever.     

Celtic Fae Witchcraft The Dreaming Circle

The Dreaming Circle.
Myth, Music and Magick

The Dreaming is not a fixed state in sleep, but the Mythic, symbolic places of ritual, music, poetry, story and song. Where this has multiple conflicting meanings and yet are at peace with each other. A transformative and informative state that is healing and full of wisdom. The dirt and bones of the Celtic lands are made of stories and songs. In their names, and in their namelessness. In the gaps where our histories were destroyed and stolen the watery power of Myths and The Dreaming filled them finding new ways to reach the surface. A 'tween place and a gateway, to the land, and to Annwfn there is a collective memory. Our stories and myths have much depth and are still not as explored as their more recent Anglo-Saxon copies. Arthur, Merlin, Taliesin our Celtic stories and myths. Yet the Dreaming is not about the past, it is always rooted in the "now" no matter the echoes of what was before.

Daily Practice of Dreaming

The Dreaming covers many things. Yet at it's base are Myth, Music and Magick. From healing narratives, cathartic songs, rites and rituals, poems and chants; it is a state of drawing "otherness" from Annwfn and holding it in the Land, if but for moment. It is strewn with the language of dreaming. The symbolic, the multitude of meanings, the overlay of messages and feelings.

A symbol is not a straight forward thing. It can have a localized meaning for a few or a universal one, or both. It can be good, bad, ugly and beautiful all at the same time, even to the same viewer. A symbol taps into what is our unconscious code. It is (unlike a sign) comfortable with paradox. A signal or sign is meant to be read and clearly read one way. A symbol, doesn't just have contextual meaning, meaning where ever and when ever it is viewed. 

Joseph Campbell in the Mythic Image put it like this:

"Mythic forms...may be regarded either as pointing past themselves to mysteries of universal import, or as functions merely of local ethnic or even personal idiosyncrasies. In India these two facets of all mythologies and their associated rites are known respectively as marga and deshi: marga meaning meaning "path" or "way", the path or way to immortal knowledge; and deshi, "of the region; local or ethnic," the peculiar sectarian or historical aspect of any cult, through which it constellates a folk, a nation or a civilisation. 

... both aspects are regarded - indeed they have to be, since universals are never experienced in their pure state, abstracted from their locally conditioned ethnic applications. It is, in fact, in their infinitely various metamorphoses that their fascination resides."

My first exposure to this was music. While still in the womb the language of music was around me. My mother, a violin teacher. After that it was the poems of eisteddfod. Words that were like music, to be spoken, aloud, and shared. Words that created pictures and told stories. In both English and Welsh. Poetry was alive. Anyone could submit a poem or recite one and "win the chair".

Rich families, poor families, and somewhere in the middle families all competed. All equal. Poetry can express things that very few art forms can. It is definitely part of The Dreaming. Music and poetry can cast a spell, an aura that changes all who enter into feel. Most folks can not explain it when it is there, except everyone also knows when it is missing!

The Four Principals

The Daily Practice of Dreaming

"Practice makes better." 

There is that old joke where a musician asks "How do I get to Carnegie Hall?"

The answer is "Practice, practice, practice!"

Magick and music are not just part of the same magickal circle of The Dreaming, they also share the bones of the same beast. You need a level of comfortable skill to be able to "wing it" and have it not be painful. That doesn't mean you "shouldn't do it". On the contrary, the only way to achieve the skills required are to practice. Meditation, ritual, and even prayer help flex the psychic muscles and build pathways within your mind. The point is not "perfection" because there simply isn't any to be had. However there is poise, ease and talent. 

Vital Refinement of Dreaming

Ritual, myth and music are some of the most healing practices for the self anyone can undertake. Ritual (by it's nature) is the process of change made external. On our soul and magickal journey's it easy to neglect our inner well being. We all have areas of growth, dark corners and sharp broken pieces. Yet in "singing over our bones" new things can grow. Where we find our hearts locked shut, myth, music and magick open them like flowers. It is a vulnerable thing, The Dreaming. Yet it is how we process our lives, our thoughts and feelings. It gives us access to our inner landscape and maybe into a shared collective dream. 

   Everyday Magick of Dreaming

Music, ritual and narrative are some of the most easily accessible power and magick to bring anywhere, and often over looked. Learning a chant for protection that you can sing or hum to yourself should the need arise doesn't require any special equipment and can be very powerful indeed. Your favorite song. banging a drum, or a homemade chant will always add to your work. 

As V once said "words will always have power".

Conscious Kindness with Dreaming

Hospitality, generosity and manners are deeply important in Celtic cultures. The social rules to music also apply to other areas too.

Read the room. If the room is tiny, watch the volume, if it's huge, make sure you can be heard. Are you in a fit state to perform? Being drunk might make you feel like you are amazing, but you may not seem that way to everyone else.  Make room for everyone in the space, and work with the energy or tone of the room (no-one thinks your trombone solo works after the soulful ballad even if you think it's hilarious). Let folks have their limelight, and step into yours comfortably when it is offered; this means not only one person is "doing the work" or flow is balanced. If you mess up, stand on someone's toes, play of key or the wrong song, apologize and keep going. Warm up, prepare, and have a clue what you are doing more than five minutes before you are set to do it. If you are organizing give people the heads up, let them know so they can prepare accordingly. Watch for visual clues (or nods) to what you are doing and when. Paying attention is important. Enjoy the experience, have fun with it. 

If you are doing a public ritual and their is someone "pulling focus" or "hamming it up" you have two choices. You can let them run with it. In the long run they will either learn or not. You could try and have a word with the person organizing the ritual/music/performance (which may or not be the same person) to ask them to "tone it down" or allow other people to have some time/limelight/attention. It might not go well but if no-one ever say anything they simply might not know how rude/difficult or cringe they are being. 

Celtic Fae Witchcraft The Pragmatic

The Pragmatic Circle

As I have previously written here Celts and Celtic cultures have a work ethic and pragmatic approach to all things. Even down to magick. If it doesn't work, then it doesn't matter how pretty it is. If it is a mash of borrowed bits and it does, do that. This is not done out of an irreverence for their own culture, magick or workings, but because the point is that it works. 

Pragmatic magick means learning to use what you have, especially if it is close to nothing. It means working harder for it, walking, working or making it from scratch, so be it.

 It's what you find in hedge rows and attics, it's stones from the beach. It's taking white thread and colouring it yourself. It making things that might not look like you would want to buy it at a shop that do the job.

Pragmatic Magick is growing things yourself (because you can't afford the big expensive plants but you can afford some seeds). It's finding fresh herbs in the supermarket on sale and planting those, or drying them.

It's in picking sheep's wool from the barb wire fence. Or finding what you need in the thrift store, charity shop or flea market. It's taking brass potpourri holders and re-purposing them into an incense burner.

It is of course connected with The Land.

Much of what you find or cultivate will be connected far more directly to where you are, it's power and magick than buying from somewhere. The first magick I remember doing I used an old white feed bucket full of rain water, a stick, and the herbs I found in the garden. I used the bucket as cauldron and drum. (It made a satisfying whomp when I hit it with my stick especially when full of water)  I raised my arms and lifted my chin. I gave water to the earth, so the rain would pass us by, just for one day. 

I wove garlands of wild flowers and long grass and gave them to my tree and to the "stone" (a standing stone at the other end of the farm).

This is the best kind of Pragmatic magick I can think of.

It's raw and wild and messy, but it's powerful. Not only because of how much of yourself and the land you put into it, but because there is a beauty in the "MacGyver" approach. 

There is a sort of Pintrest aesthetic which can be beautiful can make people reluctant to even try their own magick because it seems to fall so short from that "perfect" magick.

The practice of "perfect" spell work, ritual or song or only doing it when it "looks" right misses the point.  

Change. Magick is change. Doing it imperfectly (which is not the same as doing it half-heartedly or without research) is about directing change. 

The other aspect of Pragmatic Magick is that it should make the lives of you and those around you better. The idea that you can't or shouldn't use your power to benefit your life or that of those around is some weird pseudo Christian hangover. It lies in this false belief that to have plenty means to take from someone else, when there is more than enough.  That's not to say you should curse from sun up to sun down (that is it's own kind poison) or to try and control other people (it just doesn't work and will never make you happy).  It is charming your lipstick to draw the "right" one. Placing heather as a pot plant on your desk (red for pep and white to keep you calm). Or carrying a crystal or stone when you feel you need protection. 

The magick you weave is an expression of your aliveness, and being. It takes hard work to be good at it (like anything else) but no-one should tell you not to use it. After all doing a little magick today might stop you from having to do a lot of magick later! This is why Daily Practice is important. It connects you with yourself and your magick. 5 minutes every day is far better than an hour once a week and an hour once a week is far better than 6 hours once a month.

You have the power and the right to bring change into the world. It is a responsibility and you will mess up sometimes (as with all things) but that doesn't mean you should hobble yourself for the appeasement of others. 

Here is short check list of whether you should cast:

Does your gut scream to?

Can you nip something in the bud?

Is there a need?

Is there harm if you don't?

Does it make your life or someone else's better?

From a short blessing of your tea, to the finding a parking space, or magickally cleaning your space: let the power, your power flow into your life!

The Four Principles of Celtic Fae Witchcraft

The Four Principles of Celtic Fae Witchcraft

Daily Practice

Vital Refinement 

Everyday Magick

Conscious Kindness

Daily Practice 

This idea is one that time and time again bubbles back up. Of course touching all four circles everyday makes sense. Much like a musician or athlete we are building up and mental and spiritual set of muscle memories making it easier to dwell in each of the circles and in the 'tweens. Music and magickal growth have much in common.  Sometimes it is easy. The hands work, the mind finds a clarity and peace, the music flows and it is effortless. Some days it isn't. The hands won't work, it all seems a muddle and it's difficult and annoying. Both are important. The important part is to keep play the next day and the day after that. 

It can be as simple as to keep breathing, as simple as three breaths. Or to connect and honour one of the Five Sacred Things. Doing the work every day you can is important. There is no point berating yourself. If you too sick or have a something disrupt your daily routine (life happens), just make space for the magick in yourself and the world. It is important. Do it everyday you can. 

Vital Refinement

You are a work in progress. Always. You are learning and growing, and forgetting and slipping into bad habits. Like everyone else. Much as you clean a house with soap and smudge so you too need up-keep. Sometimes it feels great, clean and peaceful and then sometimes it feels impossible or pointless (it's only gonna get dirty again anyways) but it still needs it. It helps to have it as part of your daily practice. Little and often makes it easier when the "big" things happen. It is a a way of living truer to your heart and soul. It opens you up and it can be dark and messy but it is always, always worthy, because you are.

If someone else's "house" looks perfect, it only looks that way. They have "junk draws" like the rest of us! Sometimes it's messy while you are pulling out the things and deciding what to throw away and what to keep. It takes time and effort and is never ending but it makes space inside us to fully grow into ourselves. Some of us have attics of junk, some have basements, and some barely have space to sit down. It's not about "perfect". There is no yardstick to compete against someone else. 

It is about you and your "stuff". Doing your best with the things you made and the things that were given, whether you wanted them or not.

Everyday Magick

Magick is not something you, it's something you are. We are constantly pushing, shaping and changing the reality of the world around us. Every breath, every thought, every action rippling out into the Universe and echoing back. We change the world by simply being in it. 

Magick is not some foreign intrusion into the world. Magick is the untangling of the world around you so it flows. Much like the removing of sicks and rocks from a stream, it know which way to flow, even if you don't. From blessing your morning tea, to the family meal, to protection wards around your home, delaying the bus (to catch it) or healing a pet (if it needs healing). 

It can be part of your daily practice, or simply part of your day. It can be part of your vital refinement, or make your life a tiny bit better.

Conscious Kindness

In Celtic cultures, manners, kindness and hospitality are important. Not only as signs of a persons true worth (if the person is good to you but not to the waiter they are not a good person) but it is in empathy and connection we make the world better not only for ourselves but those around us. This is as important in the things we don't do as in what we do. Kindness and connection are skills that help societies function and tools that we are beginning to lack. 

Kindness is not always easy and to some it is a weakness. The vulnerability of true kindness can be frightening but without the world is less. Being polite, kind and hospitable don't just make the world around you better but it also ties into vital refinement, and daily practice.

The circles of these principles are not fixed lines but moving pools of light that crossover, touch and separate. These principles are about building or re-building a way of life. A way of being that brings a lot of joy and happiness. Peace where you could not imagine it. It's not an easy fix, and it will be imperfect. You will fail, but you will also learn that failing is not a flaw but a building block of success. That learning is hardwired into you and that hope looks a lot like stubbornness.

Bright Blessings xxx

Celtic Fae Witchcraft

Celtic Fae Witchcraft.

I have been sort of mulling over exactly what my spiritual and Craft path is.

Very early on I learned Wicca (Gardenarian Wicca to be precise). Then began my medium-ship, spirit and psychic training and then came study in the Faerie Tradition. At my core there is this overlap, a shamanic Celtic respect for the Five sacred things. A belief in the conciseness of the Universe. A belief in light and spirit and Goddess and Ancient Ones; rooted in the real world through magick and meditation.

I feel there are four circles in my Celtic Fae Witchcraft.

Annwfn

The Dreaming

The Land

The Pragmatic

These circles overlap in a ven diagram creating different shapes and symbols and blends in the 'tweens, as they should. They are not hard lines but blurred edges, like pools of light.


Annwfn:

The Otherworld. The Spirit Realms. The Summerlands.
The worlds and planes wrapped and merging with this one. Spirit worlds, planes and all the creatures and people, diva, and Fae that dwell therein. In Celtic culture these concepts were not "woolly ideals" but a complex blending that impacted their real lives everyday. Annwfn was just a breath away. A place you could stumble into or out of around any corner. Each forest, lake and river, each beach and mountain was connected to these other worlds.

The Land

"The land of my fathers is dear to me
Land of poets and singers, people of stature."

In Celtic traditions the land is a She. A mother, to her people. Celtic is a tricky thing. It is rooted in culture and identity, language and history but more than that it is rooted in the lands. The whole of Britain, Ireland France, Northern Spain and some of Germany can claim Celtoid roots and they certainly have an Indio-European common language, art style and similar beliefs. Yet they were and are a diverse group of tribes, warring and making peace. Borrowing and inventing ideas and technology. Many oppressed and displaced of Celtic origin moved all over the world, does that make them Celtic? Does someone who has Irish D.N.A  (of what ever percentage) living in the States have more or less claim than someone living in that culture today? In all honesty I don't know. I do know that having it "in the blood" is not enough. I know that living in a culture, feeling it's language on your tongue, getting the dirt under your finger nails, the rain on your skin makes for a very different Celtic experience than one reading about it under a Californian sun. Maybe it is just hiraeth.


The Dreaming

The Dreaming is not a fixed state in sleep, but the Mythic, symbolic places of ritual, music, poetry, story and song. Where this has multiple conflicting meanings and yet are at peace with each other. A tranformative and informative state that is healing and full of wisdom. The dirt and bones of the Celtic lands are made of stories and songs. In their names, and in their namelessness. In the gaps where our histories were destroyed and stolen the watery power of Myths and The Dreaming filled them finding new ways to reach the surface. A 'tween place and a gateway, to the land, and to Annwfn there is a collective memory. Our stories and myths have much depth and are still not as explored as their more recent Anglo-Saxon copies. Arthur, Merlin, Taliesin our Celtic stories and myths. Yet the Dreaming is not about the past, it is always rooted in the "now" no matter the echoes of what was before.

The Pragmatic

"Diwedd y gan y'wr geiniog" After the song comes payment.

The Celts have been abused and poor so long they wear it as a badge of honour. Generation after generation this breeds a sort of hardiness and pragmatism. Where they will eat things, drink things and cobble together things that work without embarrassment. They were often rural, and manual labourers, shepherds and miners, if they were lucky. They were also excellent smugglers, poachers and pirates The work ethic even in communities that simply don't have work still amazes me. There seemed to be only two states to me as a child, working or drunk. They are more comfortable travelling further, walking further, working longer and "doing" even while at "rest". Almost everyone I knew played something, or could sing. It may seem like a trope but work hard, play hard was just normal. Be it in the choir, pub or anywhere else.


While each "tribe" and each land from the counties of Ireland to the Cornish, Scottish and Welsh magicks, myths and beliefs are very different from one another the Mighty Isle once had a common language, had a similar culture to one another. These four circles were present in all of them. First as the Druid/ess caste, then they became a Bardic caste.  Their teaching becoming hidden in the plain sight of myths and songs, stories and ideas. While much of the modern Celtic magick stems from 19th Century English reconstructions it is possible to find a Celtic Fae path.
It isn't an easy one. It takes time and patience. It takes work and poetry. You have to walk through the Land, head through The Dreaming and brushing Annwfn bring it back to your waking living life.
It takes training and discipline. Many get lost or fixed in one of those places unable or willing to leave or explore the dark places between.

Bright Blessing xxx