The Dance Of Life

The Elf Knight & The Faerie Queene

noreply@blogger.com (Celestial Elf) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:15:00 +0000

Soon to be a machinima film by Celestial Elf and World Tree Music,
please watch this space.

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme;
Remember me to the one who lives there,
He once was a true love of mine.

Tell him to make me a cambric shirt,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;
Without any seams or needlework,
Then he'll be a true love of mine

Tell him to find me an acre of land,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;
Betwixt the salt water and the sea sand,
Then he'll be a true love of mine.

Tell him to reap it with a sickle of leather,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;
And bind it all in a bunch of heather
Then he'll be a true love of mine

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme;
Remember me to the one who lives there,
He once was a true love of mine.

Lyrics of Scarborough Fair- World Tree Music.

Scarborough Fair is a traditional ballad of Great Britain which presents an unusual tale of unrequited love, as a young man tells the listener to ask his former love to perform a series of impossible tasks, such as making him a cambric shirt without a seam and washing it in a dry well, if she completes the tasks he will take her back....
In the version as sung by Gretchen Cornwall of World Tree Music,
the roles are reversed, the singing narrator and task setter is the young woman herself.
Many suggestions concerning the original plot have been proposed, including the hypothesis that it is a song about the Black Plague
(1348 +1350), but these are not proven.

The ballad appears to have derived from an earlier Scottish ballad, '
The Elfin Knight' the oldest extant version of this ballad being c 1600-1650 and may well be earlier, in which an Elf filled the role of the young man, but here he threatens to abduct the young woman to be his lover unless she can perform an impossible task, no longer an unrequited love but an obsessive, demanding one.
The association with Elves is significant, they appear in many ballads of English and Scottish origin as well as folk tales which often involve trips to Elphame or Elfland (the Álfheim of Norse mythology), a mystical realm in these accounts portrayed as an eerie unpleasant place. Such Elves were considered to be accountable for many mysterious occurrences in earlier times, including the stealing of brides.

However and contrastingly, according to Nick Caffrey, the earliest noted versions of 'The Elfin Knight' tell of a young maiden who magically summons the Elfin Knight to her bedroom to become her lover..

The Elf Knight

'The elfin knight sits on yon hill
Ba, ba, ba, lilli ba
He blaws* his horn both loud and shrill *(blows)
The wind hath blown my plaid awa'...

(This verse appears to be taken from 'Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight', in which the Elf's horn is magic and arouses desire in the hearer.)

'I wish that horn were in my kist* *(chest)
Yea, and the knight in my armes two

She had no sooner these words said
When the knight came to her bed.'...

But he tells her she is too young and sets her impossible tasks for her to perform to deter her. When she counters with demands of her own the Elf Knight declares that he is already married with children, at which point she rejects him and he disappears.
As Nick states and is especially true for the English versions of the song, it is important to establish this full story because many of the later versions retain only the de-contextualized tasks which by themselves do not always make any obvious sense.
He also notes that The riddles in British folk-songs and ballads usually take the form of a confrontation with the supernatural, or the Devil in some versions, where the soul of the mortal, marriage or seduction may be the prize. (The Living Tradition, Folk Music)

Queen Elizabeth Ist; Gloriana-The Faerie Queene

Although there is no stated link between these ballads and the English Courts of the time, in Spenser 's famous poem The Faerie Queene (c 1590+1596) which celebrates the Tudor dynasty with Queen Elizabeth Ist featuring as Gloriana-The Faerie Queene and encompasses a presentation of 12 virtues through the Arthurian knights in a mythical Faerieland
(based on the virtues of Aristotle's ethics), Spenser described the men of Faerieland as called Elves, the women as Faeries.
Spencer's association of Queen Elizabeth 1st with the Faerie Queene is particularly relevant as she took occasional counsel from the famed Alchemist John Dee who straddled the worlds of science and magic and devoted much time to attempting to commune with angels and bring about the pre-apocalyptic unity of mankind.
Following Mary Queen of Scots death in 1558, Elizabeth succeeded to the throne and became famous for her virginity to such an extent that she was called The Virgin Queen, was allegedly married to her country, and a cult grew up around her which was celebrated in the portraits, pageants, and literature of the day.

Acrasia’s seductive Bower of Bliss

In canto 1 of the second book of Spenser's Faerie Queen, 'he was an Elfin born of noble state' sets the otherwise apparently human nobleman and Knight, Sir Guyon, as the Elfin Knight. The Fairy Queen ordered him to locate and destroy Acrasia’s seductive Bower of Bliss, which he completed sucessfully and thus became an embodiment of the virtue of Temperance.

The similarities between Caffreys's earliest version of the Scottish ballad and Spenser's English Court literature, that they both uphold the same honor of temperance, or chastity, suggests that there is a causal link between them.

There may not have been much discourse between Scottish folk musicians and English Courts at this time due to various animosities including the former being predominantly Catholic and the latter Protestant.
However, if the poem preceded the ballads, because the Scottish had had strong associations with the French since 1295 (the first treaty forming the "Auld Alliance" between Scotland and France against England) they may have heard of the poem by these means.
Should the ballad versions alternately precede the literary, this could equally be interpreted as showing how high culture often draws upon local traditions and stories to structure its intellectual endeavors, giving local anchorage to their more wide reaching concerns and perhaps shows more sharply how English tradition has similarly drawn on the Scottish over time...

Tam Lin & The Faery Host - by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law

In another Scottish version, the Tale of Tam Lin the Elf Knight, Tam Lin was enchanted and kidnapped by the Elf Queen to Faerie land where he was bound by her spell. He explains all this to a mortal maiden who fell in love with him, and he was rescued by her because the steadfast love of a mortal woman broke the Elf Queens enchantment over him. That the Elf Queen is here wicked and the mortal woman good, could possibly be another political reference of the times.

In explanation of the subsequent de-contextualised English versions of the ballad, which appear to present the moral inversions of a less virtuous Elf/young man who seeks by impossible means to entrap his intended, and the conversion of the intemperant Acrasia replaced by a more virtous woman, Queen Elizabeth's fame as a virtuous Virgin Queen and her popularity in England would have likely made the earlier accounts of the ballad, with its virtuous and Scottish Elf Knight and immoral woman, less than attractive to a country who supported their Queen and possibly used such popular ballads to celebrate contemporary culture as well as carry mythological moral messages.
In this view it may be that the English versions do not just represent de-contextuallised accounts of an earlier tale, but had actually been rewritten to purposefully demonstrate popular allegiance to an English Queen and her Country.

In the English version, the ballads title refers to a trade fair that took place in the resort town of Scarborough during the medieval times and one possible explanation for use of the refrain 'Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme' based on the speculation that the four herbs held healing properties (parsley to remove bitterness, sage to cleanse, thyme for courage, and rosemary for love) is that these meanings were intended to develop as the song was sung, to remove curses and create a protection against evil enchantment.
It has also been suggested that these herbs were specifically used to ward of the Black Plague, particularly the smell of the dead or dying, because according to popular belief in Medieval times, it was the smell of the plague which was carried infection and the use of these herbs would cleanse air.

Plague Doctor carrying Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme

However alternate refrains from the oldest versions of 'The Elfin Knight' contain the phrases 'my plaid away, my plaid away, the wind shall not blow my plaid away' (or variations thereof ) which reassertion of the lady's protection of her chastity, suggests that the use of 'Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme' may therefore be an alternate rhyming refrain for the English version with specific intention to act as a Charm of protection of her virtue 'My maidenheads I'll then keep still...Let the Elphin knight do what he will...'.

The earliest commercial recording of the ballad was by actor/singers Gordon Heath and Lee Payant who recorded the song on the Elektra album Encores From The Abbaye in 1955
Paul Simon learned the song in London in 1965 from Martin Carthy, who had picked up the tune from the songbook by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger. Art Garfunkel then set it in counterpoint with "Canticle" with new, anti-war lyrics and it became the famous lead track of the 1966 album
Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.

be you elf, knight, maiden or Queene
~ Bright Blessings ~

Blood and Mistletoe :

noreply@blogger.com (Celestial Elf) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 11:03:00 +0000

Blood and Mistletoe:
The History of the Druids in Britain;
by Ronald Hutton.

Very enjoyable scholarly assessment of the historical perspectives on and contingent development of more modern Druids.
Hutton portrays the origins and alternating fortunes of the Druid, how they have been reimagined, reinterpreted, and reinvented to portray them as patriots, scientists, philosophers and priests, or alternately as corrupt, bloodthirsty and ignorant, fomenters of rebellion, or forefathers of Christian Religion and along the way how they have become either by example or exclusion, guardians of tradition.
Such an extensive work merits a repeated reading, here is a brief review of the many areas that he explores.

These figures dressed in cucullus found on a shrine on Hadrians wall.
The Druids may have worn similar attire

Setting out with an exposition of the ancient literary references such as that of Pliny, Julius Caesar and etc which cast doubt over the Druid's roles and presented the conquering forces of Rome as that of civilizing a savage and cruel religion, Hutton thoughtfully presents a fascinating and objective assessment of their actual value as historical documents and reveals the many influencing factors at play in them...

Following a period of little interest, the historical threads pick up in the late medieval period, as Hutton explores how subsequent notions of Druids were formed and employed in the service of national prestige and also the reverse engineering of their alleged role in supporting Christianities apparently literal historical accuracy and ensuing spiritual eminence.

At the end of the 15thc the new Humanist movement in scholarship with its aims to recover and build upon the knowledge of the classical ancient world, gave rise to a concurrent celebration of the indigenous peoples as honorable ancestors with a culture of some merit and in this context increasingly presented the Druids as the nearest thing that Europe had had to scientists and philosophers.

Despite the lack of evidence, the German Humanist Conrad Celtes claimed that the Druids had fled there across the Rhine to escape the Romans and hide in German forests, which along with the fact that the Rhineland had been part of the Roman province of Gaul, established their reclamation as of a shared Gallic ancestry.
Basing their accounts on Caesar's comments of the Druids as meeting at Carnute where the Druids of Gaul had met each year, Symphorien Champier seems to have made the case for the druids as French noble ancestors, and in 1585 the French author Taillepied was the first author in any language to devote a book to them.
In this new favorable view, which deftly set aside Caesar's comments about sacrifice as an unimportant fringe activity, the popularity of Druids rose to the extent that by the early 16thC the Druid and Christian cult had been united with claims of the cathedral of Dreux being founded by them following a prediction they had made over a coming saviour and by 1552 Rabelais could refer to them as 'familiar beloved figures'.

They also appeared in a book published in Paris 1526 'Scotorum Historiae' about Scotland written by the Scottish Hector Boece who nationalistically claimed the Druids main meeting place as the Isle of Man and thus shifted their central locus From Germany and France to Scotland.
Whilst the Scots were taking advantage of this new pro-Druid perspective, the Irish already had Druids built into their national literature via Irish sagas and saints' lives recorded by Christian monks where Druids are accorded high social status until the coming of Christianity when the role of the Druid in Irish society was rapidly reduced to that of a sorcerer who could be consulted to cast spells or practice healing magic and their standing declined accordingly , and the Welsh who claimed direct descent and therefore unbroken lineage from the ancient Britons themselves.
The English annexed these various views into their own greater history with a view to establishing cultural supremacy of the whole archipelago, with which they could rival the French.

Tudor England however during late 16thC and early 17thC saw, rather than an ongoing rise in the popularity of Druids, a decline based on a number of factors including that the Irish writers presented the Druids as main opponents of their Roman Catholic Saints, the Welsh were co-opting them from the Scottish, and the English at this time did not wish to associate with the Welsh, plus identification of Druids with the poorly regarded Scottish and French may have been a further deterrent in and of itself.

Following this decline of favor, a resurgence of interest was slow but steady and backed with good credentials.
John Aubrey (1626–1697) was an English antiquary, natural philosopher and writer best known as author of the short biographical pieces 'Brief Lives'. He was also a pioneer archaeologist, who recorded (often for the first time) numerous megalithic and other field monuments in southern England, and is particularly noted as the discoverer of the Avebury henge monument. He presented his findings about Avebury to the Royal Society of London in 1663 (The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge) .
In 1722 Edmund Gibson's published his enlarged edition of 'Britannica' which established a credible orthodoxy of interpretations of Britain's megalithic monuments as the holy places of its prehistoric inhabitants.

Then the antiquarian Anglican vicar William Stukeley (1687–1765) who proclaimed himself a 'Druid', wrote a number of popular books in which he claimed that prehistoric megaliths like Stonehenge and Avebury were temples built by the Druids.

Stukeley had been inspired by Issac Newtons interest in the cosmological significance of numbers and measurements in ancient Hebrew architecture, particularly the Temple of Solomon which was a subject of wider interest at this time) as representation of the cosmos. Stukeley's view was that these were all in their turn inspired by ancient Egyptians and early Druids, which furthered the growing impression of Druids as nature priests and worthy ancestors devoted to God.

(Ross Nichols)

Promoting the view of a powerful relationship between Christianity and Neoplatonism, Druids at this period were claimed to have been both subscribers to, or creators of Plato's philosophy of reincarnation, and the original discoverers of literacy, science and philosophy which they allegedly taught to the Greeks, their religion was thus held to have prefigured that of Christianity and all the alleged Druid symbolism was identified as coded references to the one greater faith that would come.

Soon after the publication and spread of Stukeley's writings, other people also began to self-describe themselves as 'Druids' and form societies: the earliest of these was the Druidic Society, founded on the Welsh island of Anglesey in 1772. Largely revolving around ensuring the continued financial success of business on the island, it attracted many of Anglesey's wealthy inhabitants and donated much of its proceeds to charity, but was disbanded in 1844.
A similar Welsh group was the Society of the Druids of Cardigan, founded circa 1779, largely by a group of friends who wished to attend 'literary picnics' together.

The third British group to call itself Druidic was English rather than Welsh, and was known as the Ancient Order of Druids. Founded in 1781 and influenced by Freemasonry, its origins have remained somewhat unknown, but it subsequently spread in popularity from its base in London across much of Britain and even abroad, with new lodges being founded, all of which were under the control of the central Grand Lodge in London. The Order was not religious in structure, and instead acted as somewhat of a social club, particularly for men with a common interest in music. In 1833 it suffered a schism, as a large number of dissenting lodges, unhappy at the management of the Order, formed their own United Ancient Order of Druids, and both groups would go on to grow in popularity throughout the rest of the century.

The wider British society began to accept the claims for a Druidic role in Biblical times, that they were either noble and inspired forerunners of the Patriarchal fathers of Judaism before Christianity, or alternately that they shared a similar view of Religion and were therefore very ready to embrace 'the word' (of Christ) when it arrived in Britain, either way the Druids Prehistoric and specifically Biblical associations seemed assured.
William Stukeley can be seen then as the man who did most to persuade the English that the Druids had been the builders of England's spectacular prehistoric monuments which inturn secured their role in the British imagination as a whole as wise and worthy ancestors.

We also learn of the remarkable and imaginative Welshman Iolo Morganwg (Edward Williams 1747–1826), an influential Welsh antiquarian, poet, collector, and literary forger who began to perpetuate the claim that he was one of the last initiates of a surviving group of Druids who were descended from those found in the Iron Age, centered around his home county of Glamorgan. He subsequently organized the performing of Neo-Druidic rituals on Primrose Hill with some of his followers, whom he categorized as either Bards or Ovates, with he himself being the only one actually categorized as a Druid. He practiced a form of religion which he believed the ancient Druids had had, which involved the worship of a singular monotheistic deity as well as the acceptance of reincarnation. Widely considered a leading collector and expert on medieval Welsh literature in his day, he asserted that he had found and translated various ancient medieval and ancient welsh bards texts (which have become standards of subsequent neo Druidical tradition) although after his death it was revealed that he had forged a large number of these manuscripts including the Druidical Triads such as
The Three Triumphs of the Bardic order; Learning, Reason & Peace...
The Three Unities Of The Cosmos; God, Truth and Liberty.

He presented Roman Catholicism as the corrupted form of the teachings which had prevailed earlier and so set about a call for revival of the ancient ways by creating the kind of Druid literary evidence which was lacking historically but that he felt should have existed.
Despite the false nature of their origins, his literary contribution has significantly influenced the Welsh Gorsedds , the Gorsedd Beirdd Ynys Prydain itself was founded in 1792 by him along with much of its rituals.

By the 1860's whilst druids had dominated the perceptions of the ancient Britons, portrayed varyingly as savages or heroes, they had become central to Britain's story of its own prehistory.
Yet, although previously exemplified among the Pre-Raephelites and Romantic Poets, the artistic movement now began its Gothic phase and this prioritized the dark gloomy aspects of nature and existential despair over the earlier romantic immanence and delight of nature and in the Druids.
Further in this downplaying development was the arising of a more critical scholarship in part following on such luminaries as Charles Darwin whose Origin Of The Species decisively removed the stamp of literal authenticity from the Bible as a historical record of early times and in so doing also removed the need for people to identify their Druidical ancestors as related to that story.
Archaeological and Geological Science now replaced theological perspectives and in this light the origins of the many megalithic structures came under a sustained barrage of academia, which found little or no direct evidence for the Druids at these sites.

The rise of late Georgian and early Victorian Britain as a technological and industrial force displaced quaint ruritanian ideologies further, as the culture realigned itself with the earlier Empirical Roman culture, justifying their world wide land and resources grab and subjugation of wider world peoples as a spiritual mission to Civilize and Christianize them for their own good.
In this context the nature Druids were portrayed once again as forlorn savages easily identified with some of the tribes people now discovered around the world and whilst the latter were held to be less evolved morally or culturally, so these sweeping and disparaging generalizations were applied retrospectively to the formerly applauded Druids.
With a view to why the contemporary writers of note had not taken up the Druid cause, Hutton explains how they had apparently become such a standard trope that they did not hold any novel appeal, although less erudite literature salaciously celebrated this fall from grace with imaginative and avid accounts of the atrocities that it was suspected the Druids had carried out, both satisfying the repressions of the age and reinforcing their view of themselves and their culture as superior.

Yet at the end of this period the rise of clubs and societies which also include freemasonry as well as social clubs, brought about an increasing number of new, Druid fraternities, which at start seemed more to be about song and community, but as time wore on and they grew in membership, stature and influence, becoming increasingly akin to benevolent societies, designed to provide assistance to their membership in times of need.

We are then introduced to George Watson MacGregor Reid (1862?-1946), another remarkable and colorful character, this time Scottish, who held a philosophy based on his view of a Universal Bond and who led 'The Druid Order'. The Church of the Universal Bond was a religious group founded in Britain in the early twentieth century by MacGregor Reid, promoting socialist revolution, anti-imperialism and sun worship.
Initially aligned with Zoroastrianism, by 1912, MacGregor Reid was becoming more attracted to Druidry, especially as Stonehenge was at the time being seen as a solar temple.

His church began holding rituals there and their worship was permitted to continue when the site was given to the state in 1918. He and his group are first recorded there in June 1912. During the succeeding two summers they clashed with the owner and the police, because of their wish to hold rites in the circle and their disinclination to pay the recently imposed admission fee.

Although only commanding around 50 adherents in its early days, the church was instrumental in forming the link in the popular imagination between Stonehenge and Druids despite the efforts of archaeologists to discourage it. In 1924, the Office of Works permitted the church to scatter the ashes of cremated former members at Stonehenge, which drew significant protests from the Society of Antiquaries, the Wiltshire Archaeological Society, the Royal Archaeological Institute and famous archaeologists such as O. G. S. Crawford. The outcry persuaded the government to withdraw permission and in 1932 the Church officially moved its rites from the monument to Normanton Gorse nearby.
MacGregor Reid thereby made the name of Druid into both a vehicle and metaphor for English Cultural radicalism, and founded the enduring tradition which through succession continues unbroken to this day
(perhaps with the current day protests over access and admissions fees to Stonehenge of King Arthur Pendragon).

After the Second World War, MacGregor Reid's son Robert took over leadership of the church and it was able to regain midsummer access to Stonehenge throughout the 1950s, 60s and 70s, to the dismay of many leading archaeologists.
When Thomas Maughan was elected chief in 1964, some senior members and the Order's Maenarch left to form the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids.

The growing Stonehenge free festival caused the monument to be closed at midsummer in 1985 and the Church faded into obscurity but has maintained a presence at the re-opened solstice festivities since 2000.

Despite the kind of mysterious and magickal account which one might have hoped for in such a book as this, perhaps a 'history' written by Iolo Morganwg would have served such a purpose better, this study provides the most objective and thorough account yet written of the little we know about the ancient Druids and their subsequent reinvention and revival to this day. Throughout the book Hutton's prose is informed by many personal and some humorous details which furnish a much more engaging presentation than either a work of speculative conjecture or one of chronological charting might have done.
Suggesting then that the Druids displacement from the national imagination has occurred because of the earlier success integrating them into established structures of thought against which later artistic, religious and scientific developments defined themselves by contrasting orientation, ethics and methodologies, this book also portrays the far reaching influence of three very imaginative men, William Stukeley, Iolo Morganwg and George Watson MacGregor, ranging from classic English eccentrics to reactionary rogues who between them have created and characterized the nature of a Druid as we think of them today.

(Green Man by Miranda Mott)

~ Highly Recommended ~

How To Avoid (Or To Invite) Enchantment by Faeries, Elves & Elementals

noreply@blogger.com (Celestial Elf) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:55:00 +0000

How To Avoid (Or To Invite) Enchantment by Faeries, Elves & Elementals; by celestialelff

To begin with, as holds for all enchanted realms and beings in view,

you should realize these represent the spirits of nature,
diversities of natural phenomenue,
which are divided and multiplied through
energies, frequencies and vibrations known as -
Earth, Air, Fire and Water.

But these ancient associates and size-less makers of space,
are mere shadows of their actual selves and their Otherkin race,
which are beyond our more usual capabilities of cognition
with even sharp wide eyes,
bright and subtle they are,
more true than even legend or sighs.

Should you have recently been,
Or expect to imminently be
Abducted or Enchanted by
Elves, Faeries and Magickal Otherkin,
And if you are quite certain and completely decided
that you would really rather not go,
And you absolutely won't think on it again,
Here is a small collection of useful tips to protect you.

Protection from Elven or Fae Enchantment;

A rather strange protection from abduction by Faeries and Otherkin was traditionally to wear your clothes inside out, which both confused and startled these creatures to such an extent that they would rather turn away than spend any time with you at all...

Additional methods include,
to find and keep on your person a four leafed clover,
to wear old cold iron, or carry salt (and a piece of bread)
in your pocket all over.

Amongst the laws of enchantment however some advice is contrary,
such as the carrying of a rowan wand or living beneath tree,
as rowan trees in some tales are shown to be sacred to the Fae,
whilst in others it is itself cited a protection to keep them away...

Ringing of Bells (particularly Church Bells) also have an ambiguous role,
whilst sometimes stated as protection against enchantment and abduction,
conversely
Faeries riding on horseback, such as the Faerie Queene,
often have bells on their harnesses
(both heard by the ear and by the eye also seen)

from The Druids Dream

This example may be a distinguishing trait between the Seelie Court from the Unseelie Court, Fairies may use to protect themselves from the more wicked members of their race, or may simply be an example of the inscrutable and undefinable nature of their hidden face.
That their ways cannot be identified with any degree of certainty,
this is an immutable fact beyond all controversy.
(source' Anon.)

Emergency Procedure

In Case Of Elven or Faery Abduction;

x x x x x x x x

In certain circumstances you may wish for rescue
or release from such an enchantment,
and the first point of note is that they exist in a time outside of time,
which means that your call for help and ensuing response
could be delayed,by as much as a hundred years,
or more if the witting wood has strayed.

It may however still be a comfort to know that there exists
such an option.

Come under full moon on a wrathful stormy night,
Wearing only old clothes, before the Guardian bring your light,
Follow the first raven's instructions and his path upon height,
Run faster than fox up the rainfall and jump through the sky bright.

from The Lammas Wickerman

Once you have completed this simple symmetry,
you must yield in a rhyme,
very important at such a plaintiff time,
as the rhyme generates a rhythm undulating in space
which they can more easily apprehend in their supernal grace,
now you must tell the reason why you must leave,
(you may use the voice which your throat cannot make)
(if that helps you to breathe)
and beware shedding of tear
these will simply be accepted as an offering-the sacred waters of life,
the assumption your petition misunderstood-they will leave you
like a fishwife.

Then you should find yourself revolved to the place of your leaving,
although you may still appear to be ethereal and ghostlike without feeling,
until you have been formally released
under bright-star with moon-beaming.

Alas as all things Fae in regard of time,
the duration is at best unknown,
at worst uneven.

If this is not the case and you find yourself to be still wretched and lurking,
you must repeat the process until you hear the last raven laughing,
this is the sign that the Elves and Fae do not consider you
a significant loss,
their magick world will continue well enough,
with or without you and your gloss.

Having succeeded in your escape, if ever you do....
you may now have to contend with a very changed world
that you are returned to.
Years, maybe hundreds, have passed since you left,
and indeed your own-self may seem very changed
too.
People to whom you speak may hear only backwards sounds talking,
and when you write it will be in symbols that none understands.
The Fae and others do not practice the Arts of written language
as we know of them.

But you are a clever soul and will know what is best.

x x x x x x x x

( corners from This Is Halloween )

Because many contest that mortals are not made for Fairy bliss,
Caution I Have Advised and Caution Have Given.
I cannot say fairer than this.

* * *

Alternately, should you welcome the super - natural ways of beyond
and actively seek enchantment with the same to make bond,
we move on now to present the other side of the case,
as in Elven tradition - both sides of the story we fairly embrace.

so dear reader, please settle yourself well,
and when you are ready,
read on for a spell....

Invocation of Elven or Fae Enchantment;

To walk the paths of enchantment will mean a significant shift in your life,
you may have to leave friends and family far behind,
to give up your home and this life,
to follow the mysterious byways beyond knowing
and live with the people beyond strife,
be ready for change, an eternity resplendent and rife.

Of-course everyone has heard of the enchanted life mystery,
in olden days magickal bells would ring
for the man or woman of particular virtue or beauty,
as taken they were to the Otherlands home of the Fae.
However, listen a moment and take heed afore you go on your way,
for in these worlds of beyond,
the people may seem strange and unknown manners be donned
so some say....

Firstly, you need to get there,
a journey which starts wherever you are now,
although in some circumstances such as that of Brigadoon,
a walk in the gloaming before you find the path how,
or perhaps take a dragonfly if you have one to hand,
or any other conveyance that will bring you to the land.

Such traveling is best undertaken at full moon and alone,
and because we travel O best beloved to the outsides past birthstone,
the 'times' of most power on the earth,
when the veils between worlds no-longer postpone,
such as Beltane and Samhain, the most inward foreknown.
Certain places are also preferred for the same reasons as above,
such as the boundaries between realms as scent of foxglove,
or a high mountain range
or a lake or seashore
(bogs and marshes lead to darker realms which we therefore abhor),
these areas harbor many portals beyond..
choose the directionless inflection and let the journey respond.

Birds are an ideal mode of transport to the other realms,
as Susanna Clarke has portrayed;
'There is nothing else in magic but the wild thought of the bird as it casts itself into the void. There is no creature upon the earth with such potential for magic. Even the least of them may fly straight out of this world and come by chance to the Other Lands...'
(Susanna Clarke; Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell)
Wrens, Ravens and Owls are therefore most readily purveyed.

Song (and music) is another wonderful vessel
by which to cross the spaces between,
as in the tale of the Brigadoon Piper and The Highland Boobrie
we've seen.
Indeed and again many thanks to Susanna,
we have a perfect description of the power of music's magickal manner
'when the fairy sang the whole world listened...(the) clouds pause(d) in their passing...(the) hills shift(ed) and murmur(ed)(and the) cold mists dance(d)...the world is not dumb at all, but merely waiting for someone to speak to it in a language it understands...'
Music can thereby open the gates to the inner worlds
and the immanence of beyond,
for those so called, this path may be
the most accessible of choices
with which to abscond.

Once embarked on this mission
you shall naturally wish to invite an otherworldly guide,
to assist you on your way lest unwary denied,
and here the usual caution against being led astray
by the Elves and Fae need not apply,
although
if any who appear are of particularly grim countenance
or are already known as mischievous -
you may graciously decline their ghastly talking touchstone.

from The Beltane Blessing

The simplest agreement as follows will serve,
yet make no pact of quantity or duration, be wakeful, observe;
'Aid me and I will Aid You'.

For some people, especially those born with the gift of Second Sight,
such as Artists, Poets, Musicians and Healers of Light,
contacting the Fae is as easy as walking into wild forest,
or tumbling upon heath and calling out for the solace.

For others, an incantation of your own devising may be employed,
(be aware that the Fae have infinitely long memories and will easily spot a copy, and whilst you may invoke the Mephistophelean decree, nevertheless a counterfeit incantation is no guarantee) even so,
here is an old folklore spell I found long ago
and whilst unsure if work it still will,
you may model your own upon it and that the purpose surely shall fill.

To be incanted at midnight, on a full moon,
under an adjacent hawthorn tree,
if it is a rowan then you must adjust the chant thus accordingly.
Repeat thrice whilst walking widershins around the very same tree,
in right hand a lit candle, in left blossom or green branch of the tree,
but you must be very sure 'twas one given and not taken by thee;

'Here I be, neath bless'd Hawthorn tree,
I call upon You , the unformed, unseen,
In peace and goodwill convene from your dream,
Open to my words and Let My Sight See'

from Taliesin's Battle Of The Trees

Be careful and courteous and kindly though thou,
as they may object to being rudely invoked anyhow,
although if they do not come at your fist attempt don't you see,
the beings beyond time have a different sense of urgency.

* * *
For any who may have strayed over time from these natural proclivities,
you may regain your Second Sight or Psychic Vision ethereally,
become restored - a Walker Between Worlds,
by apprenticeship to a Druid, Shaman or Witch,
One in whom the Cosmos unfurls.

from The Beltane Blessing

Whether they be of this world or another or other,
now living, or not yet, or no longer,
no matter.
As long a you follow the guidance with open heart sincerely.

Under tuition you will perceive
the diverse dimensions between physical and spirit,
you will open The Veil Between Worlds
and draw back The Mists with merit,
as this world falls away and away, further now, and far gone...
it is here that beings from either side are aplomb.
Here to communicate and to crossover with each-other,
the Gateway to the Land(s) of the Fae
the very fundamental fulcrum.

A few pointers about the manners
you shall be expected to show;

Once
you meet the Fae and the Eleven and such,
whilst they will rejoice you and shew delight much,
it is advised you never to look straight in their eye
or their hand seek to touch,
this is considered the height of ill breeding,
and of their patience, nonesuch.

Also
avoid thanking them as this they will take,
to form a contract of debt you might rather not make,
- they shall expect to call for your service
until such a time as they choose,
the debt discharged or the mystery bemused -
(which in a land outside time may be very long time indeed)

Finally -
avoid talking about them to others of earth or beyond,
which is rude by anyone's standards and they will of-course despond.
This last point may explain
the lack of evidence in the earthly historians accounts,
such as we have relying largely on conjecture they pronounce.

from A Christmas Carol

As you have arrived here by design and intent,
you may forgo the usual prescriptions
to avoid eating their food- drinking wine, even being wed.
Indeed you should join in their celebrations and feasts
of which there are many,
With great delight then and joy do make merry.
Any refusal may offend and other than this,
the worst that can occur - it will merely bind you to bliss,
from inadvertently slipping away in a dream of mind wakefulness,
or being 'rescued' by any meddler from the earth
who does not know of us.
Similarly the more usual caution over accepting gifts or payment
from fairies no-longer apply,
As you make your home among them,
To their ways you may fly.

In general the people of the beyond are very genteel in their ways,
and they will expect as much courtesy and grace from you
for the infinite stay of your days.
To win their goodwill,
be generous and fair in all your dealings above and below,
keep all your promises bright so that everyone will know.
Perform any act of kindness, any sacrifice for love,
share of your best and your charmed life will sing like a dove.

Despite the often mysterious confusing ways which they speak,
they prefer you to be straightforward, be forthright, polite and neat.
They expect appreciation
(not thanks, see the caution above)
for the magickal gifts they bestow
upon you, the open hearted whom they cherish just so.
They welcome human companions that are thoughtful and true,
fond of solitude and contemplation and gentle reader,
this does mean you.

from A Christmas Carol

Free spirit of merriment and good fellowship above all,
they await your intention and invocations call.

* * *

To the enchanted folk both high and low,
Blessed Be and Come and Go.
I make a reverence of deepness grow,
I yield the heart that your spirit may flow.
You who are Awake beyond all kinds of Knowing,
Sacred Seeds of Light are sowing.

To the enchanted folk both high and low,
Blessed Be and Come and Go.

heigh ho!

c.Celestial.Elf 2012

The tale of the Brigadoon Piper & the Highland Boobrie

noreply@blogger.com (Celestial Elf) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:44:00 +0000

The tale of the Brigadoon Piper
And the Highland Boobrie they say,
Tells of how they played their Bagpipes
For they have returned from away...

Every hundred years on sweet Brigid's Blessday
At Imbolc the enchanted village appears,
As church bells peal through the mists they-
Both Piper Tam and the Boobrie will play.

If you hear their tunes ring out in the dawning,
You will hear the path of their piping all day.
This is the song of their calling
Luring honest men and bonnie lasses away...

And some O'er time they have taken,
As mortals ran to follow their way.
But all true Scots know the secret,
Come you may come, but go you never shall, nae'

In the timeless land beyond magick,
Some say 'tis the home of the fae.
In the mysterious village of Brigadoon,
Both Piper Tam and the Boobrie will play.

c. Celestial Elf 2011.

Machinima Film Soundtrack
The tale of the Brigadoon Piper & the Highland Boobrie by celestialelff

Just The Poem
The tale of the Brigadoon Piper & the Highland Boobrie (poem) by celestialelff

Brigadoon was a 1954 MGM musical feature film by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe which tells the story of a mysterious Scottish village that appears for only one day every hundred years, though to the villagers, the passing of each century seems no longer than one night.
Lerner's name for his imaginary locale was probably based on the real Scottish village called Alloway which has a bridge over the river Doon, in the heart of Robert Burns country.

Brig o'Doon has magical literary connotations, as it appears in the Robert Burns poem Tam o'Shanter when Tam escapes a witch by crossing the bridge over the river Doon - witches, of course, can't cross running water.

In the film version, the villages enchantment to appear only once every hundred years is viewed by the residents as a blessing rather than a curse, for it saved the village from destruction.
Brigadoon has elements of fairy legends about it which say that any mortal who enters fairyland will never be able to return, and according to the villagers covenant with God, no one from Brigadoon may ever leave, or the enchantment will be broken and the site and all its inhabitants will disappear into the mist forever.

In the original film, two American tourists lost in the Scottish Highlands stumble upon the village just as a wedding is about to be celebrated, and their arrival has serious implications for the village's inhabitants.

Other sources suggest that the fictional village's name was constructed from the Celtic word 'briga', which means 'town' (such as in the old city names of Segobriga and Brigantium) and the Scottish Gaelic 'dùn', which means a fort, e.g., Dundee or Dunfermline.
The name may also be a reference to the Celtic Goddess Brigid, as in 'Brigid's Hill'.

* * * *

The Boobrie is a mythical water bird of Scottish Highlands folklore.
It is said to be similar to a great northern diver, but with white markings and the ability to roar, it lives in very long heather and haunts lochs and salt wells.

According to the most authentic reports, the animal was endowed with the power of assuming the forms of three different animals; those of a most enormous and ferocious water-bird, of a water-horse or each-uisg, and of a water-bull or tarbh-uisg.

Whether there is any truth in these legends,
we cannot be sure,
but if you should hear the haunting Bagpipes
of the Brigadoon Piper and the Boobrie floating O'er hill and glen,
whilst you may be drawn to follow the happy songs,
we must advise caution.

nb for any who may be interested, here is an advisory post on

How To Avoid (or Invite) Enchantment by Faries, Elves & Elementals
Including Previously Unreleased
Emergency Procedure
In Case Of Elven/Faery Abduction

* * * *

Auld Lang Syne

noreply@blogger.com (Celestial Elf) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 13:21:00 +0000

A short rendition of Auld Lang Syne
equivalent to the first verse and chorus.
Auld Lang Syne is a Scots poem written by Robert Burns in 1788 and set to the tune of a traditional folk song, its traditional use being to celebrate the start of the New Year at the stroke of midnight.

When Burns became a Freemason at the age of 23 he quickly absorbed the symbolism of the Craft and for him, Auld Lang Syne is a heartfelt expression of his love of mankind and his ideal of International Brotherhood.

The dance routine is to form a circle in which everyone is equidistant from the center, demonstrating they are all equal.
At the beginning of the song all stand with hands by their sides, symbolizing they are relative strangers.
The early verses should be sung (or hummed) very softly as everyone reflects on both memories of earlier times and on those who have since passed to the Grand Lodge Above.
When they come to the last verse, "And there's a hand, my trusty frier (friend)...", each then extends his right hand of fellowship to the person on his left, then the left hand to the person on his right.
This symbolizes two things: firstly, that they are crossing their hearts; secondly, that they automatically form a smaller and more intimate circle of friendship.
Now they have an unbroken chain of of close friends.
The tempo should then rise and, to the tapping of feet, all enthusiastically sing the final chorus.

AULD LANG SYNE

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne

[CHORUS]
For auld lang syne, my dear
For auld lang syne
We’ll tak a cup o’ kindess yet
For auld lang syne

And surely ye ‘ll be your pint’ stowp
And surely I ‘ll be mine
And we ‘ll take a cup o’ kindness yet
For auld lang syne

[CHORUS]

We twa hae run about the braes
And pou’d the gowans fine
But we ‘ve wander’d monie a weary fit
Sin’ auld lang syne.

[CHORUS]

We twa hae paidl’d in the burn
Frae morning sun till dine
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
Sin’ auld lang syne

[CHORUS]

And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere
And gie ‘s a hand o’ thine
And we ‘ll tak a right guid-willie waught
For auld lang syne

[CHORUS]

For auld lang syne, my dear
For auld lang syne
We’ll tak a cup o’ kindess yet
For auld lang syne

……………………….

English Version:

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
And days of long ago

[CHORUS:]
For old long ago, my dear
For old long ago,
We will take a cup of kindness yet
For old long ago

We two have run about the hillsides
And pulled the daisies fine,
But we have wandered many a weary foot
For old long ago

[CHORUS]

We two have paddled in the stream
From noon until dinner time,
But seas between us broad have roared
Since old long ago
And there is a hand, my trusty friend,
And give us a hand of yours,
And we will take a goodwill draught
For old long ago

[CHORUS]

And surely you will pay for your pint,
And surely I will pay for mine
And we will take a cup of kindness yet
For old long ago.

[CHORUS]

* * *

As well as celebrating the New Year, Auld Lang Syne is very widely used to symbolize other 'endings/new beginnings' - including farewells, funerals and graduations.
In Scotland, it is often sung at the end of a céilidh or a dance and in many Burns Clubs, it is sung at the end of the Burns supper, on or near the poet's birthday, 25 January, sometimes also known as Robert Burns Day or Burns Nicht.

Take A Cup Of Kindness Where'er Ye Go ~

Merry Cthulhumas!

noreply@blogger.com (Celestial Elf) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 21:40:00 +0000

The Highlander; Cthulhu Enigma

Inspired by my Scottish friend who plays the Bagpipes and my current reading of H.P.Lovecraft,
This film presents an unexpected twist in the Highlander story.
It could also be seen as portraying the loss that befalls those who seek gain at any cost, as the Highlander prophecy may still ring true that 'there shall be only One' but it might not be the One that was expected...
On a deeper level, the film provides an opportunity to consider the inherent violence of any cultural 'Grand Narrative', to think about Moral Dualism, Polytheism, Pantheism and the Eternally Unknowable Infinity.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

The Highlander;

Connor Macleod in The Highlander film is part of a powerful, extra-dimensional life-form that entered our physical realm to experience humanity, but because it was incompatible with Earth biology, the Entity divided into smaller units of energy which entered different locations throughout history in hosts known as 'Immortals' who live forever, some as Good, some Evil. The divided being lost its self-awareness and could not achieve its agenda, so to recombine itself the Entity compels its Immortals to duel each other to the death (via decapitation), the victor absorbing via the Quickening the experience and energy of the defeated. This battle through the ages is called 'The Game' and when only few remain at the 'Gathering' they shall battle to the last for the ultimate Prize of All Knowledge and Power. Despite Connor's evident good nature, not everyone thinks the Immortals a good thing. The Watchers are a secret society founded centuries ago who grew concerned about the winner of the Prize and his power over the Earth, and a small group among them called the Hunters decided the Immortals are unnatural, immoral and must be removed....

Connor MacLeod; The Highlander

Cthulhu;

H.P.Lovecraft's story 'The Call of Cthulhu' published in 1928, established the 'Great Priest Cthulhu' as a malevolent entity '...octopus, dragon, human caricature....with rudimentary wings' trapped in a Cyclopean underwater City in the South Pacific called R'lyeh. Central to Lovecraft's mythos, the Old Ones formed a Cult and Religion which worshiped the Aliens as Gods. In a universe ruled by the Outer Gods, the Great Old Ones, and the Other Gods, Cthulhu is the bridge between the Other Gods and the Earth Gods. Cthulhu came to earth aeons before mankind and waits in his submerged city for the day when he will rise to command the world, while His Esquimaux wizards, Louisiana swamp-priests and multifarious followers chant the legend; 'Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn' (In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming). Lovecraft used Sumerian, Egyptian and Greek mythology as a basis for his monstrous demigods, he said that his messenger-god Nyarlathotep was a member of the Egyptian pantheon and identified the Phoenician fish-god Dagon (formerly Oannes) with the Great Cthulhu himself, thus becoming the first person to link Alien astronauts to ancient Religions.

Cthulhu
* * * * * * * * * *

Oannes, Religious Origin of Cthulhu;

Oannes (also Ea/Enki) from 5000 BCE is the Babylonian Water God and leader of a group of beings such as Himself, with the upper body of a man and the lower of a fish. According to the Babylonian priest Berossus 3BCE , He taught mankind how to build cities, found temples, compile laws, survey lands, and grow food. He also taught them mathematics, the sciences, and every kind of art. The Assyrians referred to these amphibious 'dragon men' as Kulullu. The religious use of the fish symbol to denote Deity has continued through the millennia and is now affiliated with orthodox Christianity, in the fish symbol associated with Christ, which is called by the Greek word 'Icthys' meaning (like 'dag') 'fish'.
A Further Christian connection to Oannes has been identified in the John the Baptist story, which seems to echo this much older, pagan story of Oannes, the initiator god. Nightly Oannes would rise from the sea and teach arts, language and sciences. Whilst In the Christian story, it is Jesus who plays the 'communicator God' these two figures, Oannes and John the Baptist, share not only a name, but a job description...initiation by water. (Source, The Wild Hunt).
Clearly the link between the secret wisdom of the Ocean delivered by one who comes from beneath the waves is powerful and has survived across time and cultural boundaries. Despite the physiological and mythological similarities however, Lovecraft's cthonic Cthulhu differs significantly from its inspirational origins in that the latter is apparently benevolent while the former is attestedly malevolent. Although in a Lovecraftian view, the broader cosmological and psychological contexts of these perspectives could reveal unknown motives behind both, was Oannes 'goodness' to help us for ourselves or serve other ends, was Cthulhu's malevolence 'against us', or merely to keep us away from Alien geometries beyond our mortal comprehension...

Oannes, Ea/Enki

Oannes and the Theosophists View;

Theosophists have guessed at the awesome grandeur of the cosmic cycle wherein our world and human race form transient incidents. The Theosophist Madame Blavatsky explained Oannes amphibian nature and nocturnal return to the Sea as implying that He '...belonged to two planes: the spiritual and the physical. For the Greek word 'amphibios' means simply ‘life on two planes’... and was often applied in antiquity to those who had made themselves almost divine through knowledge'.'(The Vessel of God) This perspective complements Lovecraft's Great Cthulhu who is from beyond the Earth and wields hidden powers for unknown purposes. That we may equate 'spiritual' with an elevated meaning often immutably and anthropologically concerned with our human well-being may not necessarily apply however, as many mythologies of ancient times also attest of spirits and Gods that were less than humanocentric. Such acknowledgement of the deities life and purposes other than a preoccupation with humanity may reveal them to exist in a wider natural cosmos and also sets them closer to Lovecraft's disinterested deities of the beyond.

Madame Blavatasky, Theosophist

Scientifically Speculating, Carl Sagan Says;

Especially striking about the Oannes legend is that the stories are so consistent over thousands of years. Carl Sagan has commented '...the Oannes legend, and representations especially of the earliest civilizations on Earth, deserve much more critical studies...with the possibility of direct contact with an extraterrestrial civilization as one of many possible alternative explanations.' (Source)
Such a view clearly supports the potential for an Alien/Deity hypothesis and would nodoubt have been welcomed by H.P.Lovecraft.

Scientific Origins and Influence of Cthulhu;

During the late 19th century the remarkable advances in technology which accompanied the industrial revolution opened up new vistas for the imagination to explore.The dizzying speed of progress of this time was compounded by an expansion of the unknown. Each new development, instead of reducing the number of questions as had been expected by pre-modern philosophers, instead compounded them exponentially, each new discovery only increased humanity's knowledge of its own ignorance. Thanks to Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution, Scientific Materialism became the unofficial religion of the intelligentsia, the first fictional accounts of extraterrestrials emerged in works like H.G.Wells' War of the Worlds and by the early 1920s, aliens entered the mainstream culture through the new media of film in Jules Verne's 'From the Earth to the Moon' which featured extraterrestrials. Many naive viewers at this time believed the were aliens real because they could not grasp the concepts behind such a radical change in entertainment as the movie. Soon after, Einstein's theory of relativity opened a door into teleportation, timetravel, alien geometry, and radically altered peoples' notion of space-time itself. By the late 1920s Lovecraft wrote that Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones came from dark stars and had an outpost on a planet he called Yuggoth, the ninth planet in our solar system, mere months before Pluto was discovered. In this fertile environment, the fictional world of H.P. Lovecraft has given rise to many diverse theories about alternative archaeologies, ancient astronauts and new religions.

Ernst Haeckel

Cthulhu and Von Daineken's Chariots Of The Gods;

Lovecraft's idea that extraterrestrials were humanity's earliest deities came to popular attention with Erich von Daniken's 1968 best-seller Chariots of the Gods in which he postulated that the ancient works of man, from the pyramids of Egypt to the Nazca lines, were the work of extraterrestrials who came to earth and gave civilization to mankind. In fact, only one of Von Daniken's major claims is missing from the Cthulhu story, that the ancient gods created mankind in their own image and Lovecraft answers that in his 1931 story 'At the Mountains of Madness' where explorers find an incomparably old city in Antarctica with sculptures that tell a horrifying story of how the Old Ones created Earth’s lifeforms: 'under the sea, at first for food and later for other purposes...'. To explain the Von Daniken link, Lovecraft's work had inspired the editors of Planète to write a book, Le Matin des Magiciens (The Morning of the Magicians) and Von Daniken is known to have exploited this book as his major source. From Egyptology to human cloning, Cthulhu still stalks the vistas of the human mind though he has vanished from direct sight and cloaked himself in the guise of science, what began as fiction has become in the minds of many incontrovertible fact with consequences far beyond the make-believe of Lovecraft's fantastic fiction.

Cthulhu and Scientology;

In a more modern context, Cthulhic influence may also be apparent in
L. Ron.Hubbard's Scientology religion, founded in 1952 on the premise that Aliens entered a cosmic battle a million years ago and the losers fell to earth where they genetically modified Homo erectus to carry on their genes. Whilst there is no direct evidence that Hubbard read Lovecraft, since both men wrote sci-fi for pulp magazines in the 1930s, it is unlikely that Hubbard was unfamiliar with his rivals work.(Source Jason ColaVito.)
These authors and many more following the Cthulhic trail have produced many unforeseen consequences affecting life today...

* * * * * * * * *

Cthulhu and Moral Dualism;

Dualism is any theory that recognizes only two mutually irreducible principles, often considered to be mind (conscious experience) and matter (occupying space and being in motion). Ethical or Ethico-religious dualism asserts that there are two mutually hostile forces or beings, one being the source of all Good, the other the source of all Evil and that the universe is just a battleground for these opposing beings. This orientation can easily be seen throughout history and more recently in a number of mono-cultures which employ various forces to destroy or perhaps merely enslave and exploit their cultural or religious opponents. August Derleth's book 'The Return Of Hastur'(1939) which referenced Lovecraft's Cthulhic mythos, echoed this view by proposing two groups of opposed cosmic entities: The Old Ones, Elder Gods of cosmic Good, and those of cosmic Evil. Dereleth's interpretations have however been criticised for attempting to reshape Lovecraft's amoral continuity into a stereotypical conflict between the forces of objective Good and Evil.

To move beyond such moral dualisms is important for a greater appreciation of the Cthulhic mythos and Lovecraft's literary creation affords us an opportunity to apply this unfettered view to the wider world. That 'there is no sharp distinction betwixt the real and the unreal; that all things appear as they do only by virtue of the delicate individual physical and mental media through which we are made conscious of them'. This perspective could inform our lives, freeing both individuals and societies from a prosaic materialist spiritualism, 'as this less material life is our truer life, and that our presence on the terraqueous globe is itself the secondary phenomenon'. Whilst as children of the Earth we may always be afraid of the unknown and unknowable, to explore the dream-narratives as Bruno Bettleheim suggests in his Uses Of Enchantment, to reconcile myth and dark fairy-tales of witches, abandonment and even to look beyond death, may afford those so moonstruck a glimpse of of unthinkable galaxies & unplumbed dimensions. In such a view, Lovecraft's Eldritchian ambivalence could serve to turn us away from preoccupation with man's relations to man, to gaze instead united in awe upon the vast inexorable mysteries that lay beyond.....

* * * * * * * * *

Conclusion;

Connor Macleod embodies the balance of good, although he is ultimately unknowable as he will become a part of the recombined Entity with Ultimate Power over the Earth and all its peoples,
like a Monotheistic God.
Cthulhu does not conform to any anthropomorphic outlook but represents the indescribable ambivalence of unknowable universal forces, which as Lovecraft was deeply suspicious of modern technology and the poorly-understood powers it vested in mankind, possibly presents a caution for scientific exploration that charges ahead where angels may fear to tread, currently for example into the genetic or sub atomic realms. However as Quantum theories on the nature of existence claim that our act of observation influences the outcome of any given situation, by extrapolation it is easy to understand that if we are entrenched in specific perspectives, we may falsely assess any situation to conform with our own views and thereby be closed to the infinite alternatives that could have existed otherwise. Particularly relevant here is that the tenebrous Cthulhu hails from an effulgent pantheon of Old Other Gods and as such for me represents their pluralist Polytheist Pantheism.

In this context, my film catharticaly presents through the symbolic sacrifice of Connor (the good) and the unexpected victory of Cthulhu (the malevolent), the existential Gift of Uncertainty (rather than a possibly 'incorrect' and potentially limiting certainty) and an opportunity to look beyond the primitive myopia which magnifies the earth but ignores the vast Universal background, from the comfort of our own homes.
'To trace the remote in the immediate; the eternal in the ephemeral; the past in the present; the infinite in the finite; these are the springs of delight and beauty'.

And we may hope that the real Cthulhu whoever he may be, might sleep awhile longer....

Ia Ia Cthulhu Fhtagn!

H.P.Lovecraft 1890–1937

Merry Cthulhumas to All,

And to All a Tentacly Good Night!

TinTin + HPLovecraft Kindle ScreenSavers

noreply@blogger.com (Celestial Elf) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 17:58:00 +0000

Gathered from many decadent, diverse and accursed websites across the infernal internet, I thought some of the less unmentionable amongst you might enjoy these hideous and non-Euclidean Kindle Screensavers blasphemously based on an indescribable conflation of Herge's heroic character Tintin and H.P.Lovecraft's loathsome and singularly maddening manuscripts.....

Tintin In R'Lyeh

At The Mountains Of Madness

The Dunwich Horror

The Whisper In Darkness

Dreamers Of The Deep

The Shadow Out Of Time

Tintin And The Reanimator

Tintin In Innsmouth

From Beyond

For any so depraved as to crave unsettling gibberous things such as Cthulic ululating mobile telephone 'ring-tones'....
of similarly abnormal and squamous, even spectral hue's,
the Eldritchian and tenebrous tentacular tones of Yog Sothoth, Tekeli Li! and more!!!
are kindly made available for 'download'(?) at
The Cthulhoid Chronicle (here).

Further Incomprehensible Madness, Cthulhu Chic has made available for 'download' for free
The Complete Works of H.P. Lovecraft for Nook and Kindle here.

Merry Cthulhumas!!

A Christmas Carol

noreply@blogger.com (Celestial Elf) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 11:45:00 +0000

To share a slightly different outlook on the Christmas Festival I wrote a short song modeled after Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol but inspired by the earlier Pagan traditions of the Season.
According to historian Ronald Hutton, the current state of observance of Christmas is largely the result of a mid-Victorian revival of the holiday spearheaded by Dickens' Christmas Carol. Hutton argues that Dickens reconstructed Christmas as a family-centered festival... in contrast to the earlier community (and church)-based observations which had dwindled during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Most of our actual British Christmas customs the tree, the turkey, the stocking, the cards and Santa Claus have only appeared since 1840.

This season was always however a time for community, charity and sharing, as the poorest, oldest and feeblest members of a community would become physically vulnerable to hunger and cold. Their morale would take a further dent if they saw their neighbors making merry all round them and were unable to share in any of it. If they then died, this would not be good for the consciences of their survivors; if they lived, they could bear nasty grudges. Hence, from the time that evidence survives, midwinter was a great time for the giving of food, drink or money to the less fortunate. In the Middle Ages people known as Hogglers or Hognels would often volunteer to collect and distribute them. In addition, poor women and children would go from door to door asking for such gifts, a custom known, according to your region, as Thomasing, Gooding or Mumping. The fitter men from the poorer families would visit their wealthier neighbours with plays, dances or songs, and earn the goodies in return; that is why customs such as mummers' plays, sword dances and carols are so important at this time. So when your doorbell rings and you find a choir yelling 'Good King Wenceslas' outside while a collector holds out a tin for a good cause, you are sharing in (a tradition)... thousands of years old.
(Ronald Hutton, Stations Of The Sun;)

Whilst the trappings of the modern Christmas are relatively recent, this festive season has been celebrated since history began.
In Ancient Northern Europe the mid-winter Solstice (between 20th/23rd of December) was called 'Modranicht' or 'Earth Mother's Night' and as the shortest day of the year it effectively represents the turning point of the season.
In Northern Europe the winter festival was called the Yule (Juul). As the people thought the Sun stood still for twelve days in the midwinter, plunging Mother Earth and all her growing things into the dark, coldness of death, it was thought that spring could not come without their celebration of midwinter.
More on the Yuletide here.

Of Father Christmas, mythologist Helene Adeline Guerber suggests the Northern traditions indicate Santa as the Norse god Thor. Contrastingly from Iceland the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda poems
describe Odin as riding an eight-legged horse named Sleipnir (Santa originally had eight reindeer, Rudolph was nine) .
More on the origins of Santa Claus here.

Further, that the three greatest Neolithic monuments of Ireland, Scotland and England the massive tombs of Newgrange and Maes Howe, and Stonehenge itself are all aligned on the midwinter sunrise or sunset, shows how important this festival was even in the Stone Age.

With an eye to current world affairs and the rise of Global Corporatism, I have included a protestors scene, with a call to Occupy Christmas as an opportunity to reconsider what the festival may mean now.

✻ ✼ ❄ ❅ ❆ ❇ ❈ ❉ Occupy Christmas ✻ ✼ ❄ ❅ ❆ ❇ ❈ ❉
to learn about the causes of Occupy I recommend Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine

I replaced Dickens' Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future with a mischievous Jack Skellington as Sandy Claws who finally gets his Christmas mission right, after a fashion), and instead of the more usual three visits through time in the life of Ebeneezer Scrooge, my character 'Scourge' is given 3 visions instead, to the Three Realms of Celtic mythology;

The Celtic view of the Otherworld consisted of three distinct realms, these being Sea, Land and Sky, their counterparts being Underworld, Earth and Otherworld.

Tir Andomain, Realm of The Underworld and the Sea.
This is the realm of the Ancestors and Gods and Goddesses responsible for the cycle of life, death and rebirth, the realm of the past.

The Meath, Realm of the Land (Earth) represents the present and the physical. We are beings of this realm that we share with the animals and the nature spirits.
Here we see the poverty of Dickens' London as families live in sheds and children carol sing not for pocket money or treats but for essential foods.

The Magh Mor, Realm of Sky and the Otherworld.
This is where most of the Gods and Goddesses dwell, the realm of the future and the place that grants inspiration, creativity and wisdom. The realm of sky is the pathway of the Sun, Moon and constellations, as well as the wind and weather. Many Gods and Goddesses have influence in all three realms, just as the Land has it's influence on the other two realms; caves, burial mounds, wells and springs are entrances to the underworld, while trees which exist in our realm are viewed as linking all three together. Represented here as a Celtic Afterlife peopled by Four Elemental Spirits of Air, Fire, Earth and Water.

As Air; Dian Cecht, Psychic Guardian and Healer of the Tuatha Dé Danann ~ The Hawthorn was a symbol of psychic protection due to its sharp thorns. Spirits were believed to dwell in Hawthorn hedges, which were planted as protective shrubs around fields, houses and churchyards. The Goddess Brighid was also associated with the Hawthorn, which is one tree which has managed to breach the divide between Paganism and Christianity and Dian Cecht was Brigid's male counterpart.Hawthorn individuals are represented by a Masculine polarity and the color purple.

As Fire; Aibheaog is an Irish deity who represented fire, and yet she had a magical well which promoted healing. She is associated with wells and the number 5. Rules Over: Healing, Midsummer well rituals.

As Earth; Cernunnos. Although Cernunnos is a Gaulish horned god, his worship was widespread in the Celtic era, and he was venerated over the channel in Britain in various similar forms.
In appearance he had stag antlers sprouting from his head, wore a torc around his neck, and was depicted with a ram headed serpent. He may have been seen as lord of the animals, and the spirit of the woods, a powerful archetypal nature spirit and male partner of the earth mother. Later, in Christian times his image was transposed on to that of the Devil, who also appeared with horns.

As Water; Coventina, a Celtic river goddess known for healing, also associated with renewal, abundance, new beginnings, life cycles, inspiration, childbirth, wishes and prophecy. In worship to her coins and other objects were tossed into the wells as offerings for sympathetic magick. These wells represent the earth womb, where the Celts felt her power could be most strongly felt. Her symbols are the cauldron, cup, water, coins, broaches and wells. From Scotland comes her association with the underworld, where she was the Goddess of featherless flying creatures which could pass to the Otherworld. Being a river goddess she is connected the ebb and flow of time.

With a hope that this film may remind us to think of more than just family gatherings and presents, that it may be a magical time to think with our hearts and consider the wider picture.
To focus upon the whole rather than any portion, to live more meaningful lives, we may honor these the Three Realms and each-other throughout our daily lives.

A Yuletide Carol by celestialelff

Tis the Modranhit of Midwinter,
To the Three Realms we will go,
Through the portal to Tir Andomain,
Through the Silence beneath the Snow.

Deep within the center,
With the Ancestors in the past,
See the Joy of their Yuletide,
Beyond Time's Oceans Vast.

The Rising of the Sun,
The Running of the Year,
The Setting of the Sacred Moon,
And the Circle is ever clear.

And look now upon the Earth Realm,
To the Meath beneath the Sky,
See the people in their families,
From their community awry.

Hear the Thomasing and the Gooding,
And the Mumping of the Children,
Both Ignorance and Want do Cry Out,
No more Cup Of Memory here....

The Rising of the Sun,
The Running of the Year,
The Setting of the Sacred Moon,
And the Circle now Draws Near....

Come beyond now to the Magh Mor,
Beyond the graveyard in the Sky,
To the Afterlife of the Otherworld,
Once again the Joy does fly...

Be Blessed then by this Vision,
Of the Three Realms you have made,
Join the Circle of your past life,
To your Future, Present saved.....

The Rising of the Sun,
The Running of the Year,
The Setting of the Sacred Moon,
And the Circle has come Here.

c Celestial Elf 2011.

Merry Christmas!

The Song Of Amergin, A Samhain Story ~

noreply@blogger.com (Celestial Elf) — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 10:01:00 +0000

In my adaption for machinima film, King Arthur having recovered Bran The Blessed's talking Head, brings this head to a Samhain gathering where Bran recites The Song of Amergin to the assembled gathering.....

On The Song of Amergin,
The Song of Amergin is an ancient Celtic poem which speaks of the origin of the Universe, the nature of the Gods and the path to Wisdom.
Taken from The Irish Book of Invasions first written down in the early medieval period, this poem is attributed to Amergin (Irish;Amhairghin) chief Bard and Druid of the Milesians.

Long after the magical Tuatha Dé Danann, the Faerie Clan who were considered as Gods, had established their kingdom in ancient Ireland or Éire, a new invasion took place and the first Gaelic people arrived.
The Tuatha Dé Danann's High King, The Dagda, invoked his powers to repel the strangers, he sank their ships and prayed to the winds to keep them out.
They landed however and Amergin sang a poem of thanks, aligning himself with the powers of the Land. Through his Awen (poetic inspiration) he became the elements and the Cosmos, charging them with his flowing spirit and limitless understanding, he overcame all obstacles and his people took guardianship of the Land.

& How Graves Reveals A Dolmen Stone Alphabet;
Robert Graves has said that 'English poetic education should really begin not with Canterbury Tales, not with the Odyssey, not even with Genesis, but with the Song of Amergin'
By answering a series of riddles in an ancient Welsh 'Book of Taliesin', Robert Graves first uncovered 'The Battle of the Trees'. This was a poetic ‘battle’ apparently charged with the purpose of preserving the hidden Druidic knowledge of a secret tree alphabet or Ogham, from the uninitiated during a time of cultural upheaval as the newly arrived Christianity sought to replace the earlier pagan and Druid traditions.
Then considering its Irish poetic counterpart 'The Song of Amergin', Graves discovered the use of a similar alphabet that also operated as an ancient Celtic calendar.

By strictly adhering to the poem’s structure, Graves worked out the proper sequence of the Irish alphabet, which was then comprised of 13 consonants and five vowels. (It is only later that it grew to 15 consonants).
‘The clue to the arrangement of this alphabet is found in Amergin’s reference to the dolmen,’ says Graves. “It is an alphabet that bests explains itself when built up as a dolmen of consonants with a threshold of vowels.’

Dec 24-Jan. 20 B
I am a stag of the seven tines, (Birch/Beth)

Jan. 21—Feb. 17 L
I am a wide flood on a plain, (Rowan/Luis)

Feb. 18—Mar. 17 N
I am a wind on the deep waters, (Ash/Nion)

Mar. 18-Apr. 14 F
I am a shining tear of the sun, (Alder/Fearn)

Apr. 15-May 12 S sun,
I am a hawk on a cliff, (Willow/Saille)

May 13-Jun. 9 H
I am fair among flowers, (Hawthorn/Uath)

Jun. 10-July 7 D
I am a god who sets the head afire with smoke, (Oak/Duir)

July 8-Aug. 4 T
I am a battle-waging spear, (Holly/Tinne)

Aug. 5-Sept 1 C
I am a salmon in the pool, (Hazel/Coll)

Sept. 2-Sept. 29 M
I am a hill of poetry, (Vine/Muin)

Sept. 30-Oct. 27 G
I am a ruthless boar, (Ivy/Gort)

Oct. 28-Nov. 24 NG
I am a threatening noise of the sea, (Reed/Ngetal)

Nov. 25-Dec. 22 R
I am a wave of the sea, (Elder/Ruis)

Dec. 23
Who but I knows the secrets of the unhewn dolmen?

Poem by Amergin, Translation From The White Goddess, by Robert Graves.

The Song Of Amergin by celestialelff

Graves maintains that the architectural structure of the Dolmen with its horizontal capstone resting above two upright stone pillars, served as teaching tool for Druid priests on which the Irish alphabet was superimposed in sequential form on three separate slabs.
So for example starting upwards from the bottom left of the first stone are the letters B, L, N, and F. On the capstone from left to rights are the letters S, H, D, T and C. Descending downwards on the right pillar are the remaining consonants, M, G, NG, and R. Hidden below this stone formation thus reflecting the Celtic belief, ‘As above, so below,’ are placed the threshold of vowels, A, O, U, E and I.

Thus this alphabet Dolmen may serve as a calendar, with one post for Spring, another for Autumn, the lintel for Summer, the threshold for New Year's Day.

Of Graves Dolmen Ogham, Merlin and Stonehenge;
Graves' revelation of the dolmen being used as teaching model for the Irish alphabet makes the myth of Merlin transporting the stones of Stonehenge from Ireland to Salisbury enormously intriguing.
Perhaps the stones he ferried were more of a stone alphabet like runes. If so, there is a strong possibility of a similar alphabet in use at Stonehenge and this might also explain the legend of Merlin’s alleged role in its construction..

William Blake. Jersualem.

Taking Grave’s analysis of the Song of Amergin a step further, the final riddle, 'Who but I knows the secrets of the unhewn dolmen?' raises questions about whether Stonehenge could be 'read' like a book.
Graves suggests that much like Braille, the dolmen’s dimples, indented grooves and angles are an essential part of reading the alphabet and hence the stone.

example 1. Ogham stone.

example 2. Ogham text.

''If one Dolmen can be used as a teaching tool on which the Irish alphabet was placed, could not an entire circle of stones tell a tale?
If it were possible, we can surmise that it could be a revelatory, almighty epic''. ( Munya Andrews )

Of Bran The Blessed;
Brân the Blessed (Bendigeidfran, the 'Blessed Raven') was a central figure in The Mabinogion, counted as Britain's greatest champion before King Arthur and one of the 'Three Blessed Kings of Britain' according to the ancient Triads.
He was also Guardian of a magical Cauldron of Knowledge and Rebirth from the Goddess Cerridwen.
There is an ancient Celtic tradition about Cauldrons of rebirth, into which wounded, dead or dying soldiers were plunged, and came out healed and reborn.

Several scholars have also noted similarities between Brân and the Arthurian character of the Fisher King, keeper of the Holy Grail which also bestowed health, healing of wounds and disease upon its bearers. Further conjecture suggests that Cerridwen's cauldron is in in fact the Holy Grail for which King Arthur spent his life searching as noted in Taliesin' poem, the 'Spoils of the Annwfn'

Following a conflict over Bran's sister Branwen,(the White Raven) after her wedding to the Irish King Matholwch (the Bear), Bran offers him reconciliation in the form of his Cauldron. However Matholwch mistreats Branwen in Ireland and she sends word for Bran to rescue her. On their arrival the Irish offer peace but actually plot treachery and a vicious battle breaks out.

The result of the battle was very catastrophic, every Irish citizen but five pregnant women lay dead, and of the mighty armies of Bran, only seven men survived.

These men were instructed by the mortally wounded Bran to decapitate him and bear his head to Caer-Lundein (London) to bury it at Gwynfryn, the 'White Mount' (where the Tower of London now stands) to protect the Isle.
On their return voyage the men chanced to enter the Otherworld and for seven years the seven survivors (symbolic of the seven planets that regularly descend into the Underworld and then rise from it) stayed in Harlech, entertained by Bran's head which taught them everything he had learned from the Goddess' Cauldron, passing on his wisdom for all future generations.
That Bran, the Raven's severed head was also capable of prophecy connects him with the ancient Celtic practice of augury, divination through bird flight.

The group set off again and land to spend a further 80 years outside of time, in a castle on Ynys Gwales, Grassholm Island off Dyfed, where they feasted in blissful forgetfulness and joy.
Eventually they take the head to the Gwynfryn, the 'White Mount' thought to be the location where the Tower of London now stands, and buried it facing France to ward off invasion.

According to the Welsh Triads, as long as Bran's head remained in The White Tower facing France to ward off Saxon invasion, Britain would be safe from invasion, which it was for many generations before it was dug up by the pious King Arthur. 'Arthur disclosed the head of Bran the Blessed from the White Hill since he did not desire that this island should be guarded by anyone’s strength but his own' - Welsh Triads.

King Arthur had declared that he needed no talisman to protect his own country and dug up Bran's head as proof that he could perform the requirements himself.
Sadly, he did not succeed and internal political conflict led to his death and to the increase of Saxon settlements in Britain.

King Arthur Pendragon. 2011.

More recently and following the ancient prophecies and the Celtic belief in reincarnation, the returned King Arthur has reburied a symbolic Ravens skull at The White Mount, Tower Of London, in an effort to resurrect the protective power of Bran in these troubled times.

A footnote upon Samhain;
The night of Samhain (pr; SOW-in, SAH-vin, or SAM-hayne) marks one of the two great gates of the year; Beltane and Samhain being the doorways that divide the year into Light and Dark.
Samhain itself is a Gaelic word signifying the end of summer and begins at sunset October 31.
This is believed by many to be a magical time when the boundaries between the worlds of the living and dead become thinner, allowing spirits and other supernatural entities to pass between them.

Traditionally, Samhain was a time to take stock of the herds and grain supplies, to decide which animals would be slaughtered for the people and livestock to survive the winter. Bonfires played a large part in the festivities celebrated down through the last several centuries, and villagers were said to have cast the bones of the slaughtered cattle on the flames hence the name 'bone fires', some say these bones should then be 'read' for their prophetic powers.
With the community bonfire ablaze, the villagers extinguished all other fires. Each family then solemnly lit its hearth from the common flame, thus bonding the families of the village together.
The pagan Romans also identified Samhain with their own feast of the dead, the Lemuria,(observed in the days leading up to May 13).With Christianization, the festival in November (not the Roman festival in May) became All Hallows' Day on November 1 followed by All Souls' Day, on November 2.
Over time, the night of October 31 came to be called All Hallow's Eve, and the remnants festival dedicated to the dead eventually morphed into the secular holiday known as Halloween.

However, historian and author Ronald Hutton points out that while medieval Irish authors do attribute a historical pagan significance to the Beltane festival, they are silent in this respect in regard to Samhain, apparently because no evidence of pagan ritual as a Northern European festival of the dead had survived into the Christian period. According to Hutton, most of the popular myths about the origins of Halloween can be tracedback to two nineteenth century British authors: Sir John Rhys and Sir James Frazer (The Golden Bough) who speculated about connections between Halloween andpagan Celtic rituals, but provided no valid evidence to back up theirclaims. At the time they were writing, modern folk customs weretypically seen as remnants of prehistoric religious rituals whichsurvived among the common, uneducated country folk long after theiroriginal purpose had died out.

Whilst historian Nicholas Rogers notes that 'some folklorists have detected its origins in the Roman feast of Pomona, the goddess of fruits and seeds, or in the festival of the dead called Parentalia, by contrast Mr. Hutton claims it is more typically linked to and derived from the Catholic holidays of All Saints and All Souls Day. This festival began on All Hallows Eve (hallow is an archaic English word for 'saint') the last night of October, included a Church mass for the dead, torchlight processions and bonfires.
Objectively, Mr. Hutton does include the evidence for both of these latter in the earlier festivals.
Ronald Hutton, The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britian, Oxford University Press, 1996 (See the followingchapters: 35. Samhain, 36. Saints and Souls, 37. The ModernHallowe'en)

The 'Surviving' Samhain and Halloween Tradition;
Conjecture over other aspects of this festival and following extrapolations from Beltane, the other great turning point in the Celtic world, supports many peoples views that a commemoration of the deceased could indeed have been an ancient tradition as the people saw nature fall to decay so thoughts naturally turned to loved ones also passed away. Many customs were also established, such as the approaching time of darkness being regarded with suspicion and a need for protection by bonefires and charms. Gatherings were held and still are, feasts and gifts were shared, blessings were given and invoked and the presence of spirits traveling between worlds is felt, these traditions inform our belief and practice today.

In such a view, offerings may be made to welcome specific ancestors and a community's beloved dead home, songs, poetry and dances can performed to entertain them.

The opening of door or window to the west lit with a candle or lamp is thought to aid their passage home and conversely candle lanterns carved with fearsome faces are placed in windows to ward off any unwelcome evil spirits abroad on this otherworldly night.

The custom of wearing costumes and masks, fancy dress or disguise has developed at this time and been considered an attempt to copy the spirits or to placate them. Such 'Guising' has been a part of Christmas and New Years Eve customs in Britain andother parts of Europe since medieval times. By the nineteenth centurythe practice had also become a feature of Halloween in Scotland and Ireland.
The practice of Trick-or-treating apparently originates in the late medieval practice of 'Souling', when poor folk would go door to door on Hallowmas (November 1), receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls' Day.

Sacred Samhain and Happy Hallowmas,
By Stone and Star
Celestial Elf ~

From Community To Individual and Back Again; On The Seasonal Festival ~

noreply@blogger.com (Celestial Elf) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 09:58:00 +0000

Ronald Hutton's The Stations of The Sun, A Review;

At the outset I had hoped for a more 'traditionally' pagan account of the ancient seasonal festivals, their origins and meanings.
I was initially surprised and eventually delighted to find however that although this work is more of an Academic compote of facts and dates and included ongoing assessment of earlier authors often unfounded but sometimes inspirational conjecture than I had anticipated (of Sir James Frazer et al) nevertheless this is a very enjoyable, remarkably researched and admirably objective book-collection of essays.

That much of this morass concerns the developments and impacts of constantly changing traditions due to Christian Reformation and Counter Reformation (certainly comedic at this distance in time), the ongoing process a seminal crucible (reminding me of both grail and cauldron) proved revealing, as the general view of folk traditions and their origins seems to usually favor the more arcane sources, this book by contrast documents only definite evidence, largely that of written records, of church, kirk and council across the land.

Toasting The Yule Log

With a nod to the Scandinavian Yuil, as well as the Roman Kalendae, we embark on an exploration of the traditions of Christmastide, the Twelve Days, the Rites of Celebration, Purification and of Charity which included the remarkable Clementing, Elementing and Souling, even Thomasing, Gooding, Mumping and Corning (as well as more) regional begging customs, by which means the poor would recant rhymes for contribution of food for a feast of their own.

A Heaving

Similar appeals for reward included the Hocktide 'heaving' at Easter, in which gangs of men assaulted women for favor and groups of women also pursued and caught men for same, at its best a raising up on a lifted chair as proxy 'Lord' to commemorate the ascent of Easter, the surrogate released upon a reward of money or a kiss, at its worst a mere grasping by hands and throwing upwards as an occasion for assault and robbery.
The ongoing exposition of numerous social customs of this kind, both dazzle the mind with their quantity, as well as provides a clear insight into how poverty was communally accepted, dealt with by innovative appeals to the community at large and that these were often 'sanctioned' by inclusion of some short Christian phrase in the introductory verse or chant.

Medieval Carolers Singing

The author traces the development of such customs and portrays their eventual descent into more high spirited, reckless and even angry demands for assistance that could be met with threats and violence if not accepted.
Once national schools were established and later a more centralized protection for the poor was introduced, such earlier community traditions dissipated further, demonstrating the authors argument throughout this book of the movement from a community sharing seasonal rituals and traditions including those aspects of display that were geared to earn rewards, to the de-socialization of such community into a society characterized by its more insular and private approach to seasons and their festivals or traditions.

A Solitary Witch

The Christianization of earlier traditions also has its place in this book, as for example the feast marking the end of winter and start of the summer months ahead at February 1st, Imbolc (the etymology of its name relating to ewes milk and thus new life) initially dedicated to the Irish goddess Brigid, but who was later morphed into the Christian St Bride.
This is an important theme of both this book and of the mythological psycho-social developments of these Isles. Most surprisingly the often claimed genesis or inception of many Christian traditions in the pre Christian, infact seems to have increasingly worked in reverse. As religious conflicts in the land over changing orthodoxies developed, the Catholic tradition with its wealth of near magical rituals was vigorously being uprooted from the public and community sphere of practice by the ascent of the puritan Protestant, the ensuing personal spiritual void resulted in many cases in the earlier magical Catholic rituals being carried on privately at home and eventually (d)evolving into allegedly ancient 'survivalist' 'folk-traditions'. Conversely, some of the Christianized traditions do appear to have had earlier sources such as the Rogationtide and Pentecost processions, at which time the people marched en mass around the crop fields, singing hymns at chosen stop points as the church ministers blessed the crops.

Beating The Bounds

The book does feature ancient tradition where evidence has supported this, such as for example the affirmation of the Beltane as an accepted fire festival in certain regions of Northern Europe and the outlaying regions of the British Isles (unlike the later Samhain, for which evidence of a major 'Celtic' fire festival is less apparent). With greater detail due to the weight of evidence available however, Hutton explores the cultural progress towards our more modern current perspectives, for example plotting the development of the 'May' (which unsurprisingly did have ancient antecedents in the delight of Spring returned) as people initially adorned self and home with garlands and greenery, which in time became a tradition of young women selling garlands, later children took over this role, and in their turn both to manage the unruly and the revenue these were eventually taken over by schools and local institutions. By contrast, the Mummers Plays with their essentially Christian derived themes of battle, death and resurrection, were more officially sanctioned groups from the outset and had less to do with earlier pre Christian traditions.

Group of Mummers

Raising The May Pole

Despite growing religious and institutional involvement in previously communal activities and traditions, the populace applied themselves with great enthusiasm to any occasion of social bonding, often at some cost to the societies they lived in (other than merely of money or means) such as the many community Maypoles stolen by rival villages and towns resulting in pitched battles between the two, the anarchic Saturnalia of Misrule as witnessed at the Shrovetide street 'foot-ball' games played across whole towns which could involve thousands of people and provided an occasion for licensed misrule resulting in damage to property and individual (although less violent than the serious riot and rebellion which was reserved for the Summer games as a time more suited for battle on the streets or field).

The Church Ales or festivals also developed their Abbots of Unreason and a myriad practices of inversion and nonsense (Samuel Butler now we know where your inspiration came from).
Charting how an apparently arcane 'folk tradition' once also considered a surviving pagan fertility rite had originated in high social circles of the Royal Courts and devolved into the rural communities, Hutton's' research into the Morris dancers is fascinating for its explanation of how we may create 'new' ancient traditions.

Modern Jack in The Green, Hastings

Perhaps my favorite exposition in this work is that of the origins and evolution of The Jack in the Green, identified as a 'survival' of an ancient pagan fertility rite by the Frazerite Lady Raglan of the Folklore society in 1939, established on her view linking the dancing Green-Man in May day processions with the foliage faces on church walls. This was a lineage unresolved till 1979 Roy Judges study revealed the true origins to be somewhat less arcane, and linked them to a more traditional social ritual evolved as so many traditional customs of display were, to celebrate the new season with a display deigned to garner reward.
To explain, during the17thC, London milkmaids danced the streets on May Day with their pails covered in flowers which symbolized the Springs new growth and so presented the promise of new grass for the cattle thus promising fresh milk, cream and butter. These displays earned them money as reward and therefore can be seen to serve a double purpose, of advertising their wares, as well a gathering much needed financial support after a lengthy winter without much income. They later left the pails for lighter wooden frames similarly covered in flowers and greenery, and later still were imitated in their greenery attired frames and street dancing display by the London Chimney sweeps whose claim for sympathy at this time was based on the end of winter cold meaning no more fires or work for them till next fall.

May Day Jack In The Green

Hutton surmises this work with a number of provocative and insightful observations, for example that the notion of a distinctive 'Celtic' ritual year with four festivals at the quarter days and an opening at Samhain, is a scholastic construction of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries which should now be considerably revised or even abandoned altogether.
Whilst the debt to a medieval, magical Catholicism seems to be growing apparent in my reading of serious studies of the origin of neo-pagan traditions, Hutton's final words over the changing Christian influence upon the traditional festivals of the year are revelatory.
He establishes that soon as the system of salvation through ritual was scrapped at the Reformation, the merry making began to be regarded as a liability by the social and religious elites....thus the
''evolution of a religious ideology ...(had) produced a society imbued with a general taste for ceremony and acted as a means to endorsement of secular festivity.
In other words, Merry England was inspired by the fires of hell''

Finally that 'the rhythms of the British year are timeless and impose certain patterns on the calendar customs', to celebrate spring, to make merry in summer and draw close at fall, despite government and mass media atomization of community, seems a fair conclusion.
Overall this book suggests to me that whilst certain traditions may not have an established ancient provenance, nevertheless because people are increasingly applying such meanings to the seasons cycles as an inherent pagan response to nature itself, we may now be seeing a further reversal of the community oriented neglect of seasonal festivals and a resurgence of a more nature based community oriented society at large.

Not a book for the exclusively poetic or mythologically minded, but if read in the objective manner with which it is presented, this book provides a wealth of insight and understanding into the seasonal festivities as they have evolved in these British Isles and the influence they bear on modern pagan perspectives, Recommended.

Happy Reading,
Celestial Elf ~

Taliesin's Battle Of The Trees

noreply@blogger.com (Celestial Elf) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 09:46:00 +0000

I have set Taliesin's Battle Of The Trees within two other pieces, firstly Tacitus' report of the Roman invasion of the Druid island of Angelsey, followed by another poem from those by Taliesin which had been mixed in with The Battle of The Trees in a method of concealment to hide the poems meaning from those without understanding.

The Battle Of The Trees / Cad Goddeu ;

The tops of the beech tree have sprouted of late,
are changed and renewed from their withered state.

When the beech prospers, through spells and litanies,
the oak tops entangle, there is hope for the trees.

I have plundered the fern, through all secrets I spy.
Old Math ap Mathonwy knew no more than I.

For with nine sorts of faculty God has gifted me,
I am fruit of fruits gathered from nine sorts of tree--

Plum, quince, whortle, mulberry, raspberry, pear,
Black cherry and white, with the sorb in me share.

From my seat at Caer Fefynedd (Kire Fev-Un-eThh), a city that is strong,
I watched the trees and green things hastening along.

Retreating from happiness they would fein be set
In forms of the chief letters of the alphabet.

Wayfarers wander, warriors are dismayed,
at the renewal of conflicts such as Gwydion made.

Under the root of the tongue, a fight most dread,
and another raging, behind, in the head.

The alders in the front line began the affray.
Will and rowan tree were tardy in array.

The holly, dark green, made a resolute stand;
He is armed with many spear points wounding the hand.

With foot beat of the swift oak heaven and earth rung;
"Stout Guardian of the Door", his name in every tongue.

Great was the gorse in battle, and the ivy at his prime;
The hazel was arbiter at this charmed time.

Uncouth and savage was the fir, cruel the ash tree--
Turns not aside a foot breadth, straight at the heart runs he.

The birch, though very noble, armed himself but late;
A sign not of cowardice but of high estate.

The heath gave consolation to the tail spent folk
The long enduring poplars in battle much broke.

Some of them were cast away on the field of fright
Because of holes torn in them by the enemy's might.

Very wrathful was the vine whose henchmen are the elms;
I exalt him mightily to rulers of realms.

Strong chieftains were the blackthorn with his ill fruit,
The unbeloved whitethorn who wears the same suit.

The swift pursuing reed, the broom with his broad,
And the furse but ill-behaved until he is subdued.

The dower scattering yew stood glum at the fight's fringe,
With the elder slow to burn amid fires that singe.

And the blessed wild apple laughing in pride
And the Borchan of Maeldrew, by the rock slide.

In shelter linger privet and woodbine,
Inexperienced in warfare, and the courtly pine.

But I, although slighted because I was not big,
Fought, trees, in your array on the field of Goddeu Brig.

translation from Robert Graves book ''The White Goddess;''

The Battle of The Trees by celestialelff

Calligraphy by Josie Brown, kindly allowed for use here under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported

The Book of Taliesin dates from the 14th C. and collected 56 of the oldest poems in Welsh, those attributed to the 6th C. poet Taliesin would have been composed in the Cumbric dialect of the north. The manuscript preserves a few hymns, a small collection of elegies and also enigmatic poems such as The Battle of Trees and The Spoils of Annwfn, in which the poet claims to have sailed to another world with King Arthur and his warriors.

The Battle of the Trees poem itself, whilst currently "pied" with approximately four other poems, is set during a war between Arawn King of Annwfn or the Underworld, and Amaethon a ploughman. This war is prompted by the latter's theft of three magical creatures from the underworld, a dog who was the guardian of the secret, a white roebuck who hides the secret, and a lapwing who disguises the secret.
Regarding the secret powers possessed by these otherwordly creatures, it is said in the Triads:
there are three primary essentials of genius;
an eye that can see nature, a heart that can feel nature, and a boldness that dares follow it.

Druids taught in Triads or groups of three, which embodied the traditional Laws, Customs, and Wisdoms, of the ancient Celtic people, such as "Truth in heart, strength in arm, honesty in speech." or "Three things not easily restrained, the flow of a torrent, the flight of an arrow, and the tongue of a fool.''

The poem famously details the legendary Gwydion's account of the trees of the forest which he enchanted to fight as his army against Arawan.
Within the ranks of Arawn's forces were a number of mighty warriors, and one of these was invincible as long as his name remained a secret.
Gwydion the enchanter rightly guessed the secret name and won the battle saying these words:

Sure-hoofed my spurred horse,
On your shield Alder sprigs,
Bran is your name, Bran of the branches.

Sure-hoofed my horse of war,
On your hand are sprigs of Alder,
Bran you are, by the branch you bear.

However as Robert Graves explores in his book 'The White Goddess' the poem is particularly notable for its striking and enigmatic symbolism and the wide variety of interpretations this has occasioned.
Graves suggests that the trees in this poem correspond to the ancient Ogham alphabet, in which each alphabetic character represents a specific musical note, seasonal cycle, mythological tale and deity.
This method of association was a teaching aid in the letters and the trees associated with each, and its use in this poem was a poetic plea for the continuance of the use and teaching of this alphabet;
''This alphabet utilized thirteen consantants and five vowels. The consantants form the thirteen months of the annual cycle, while the vowels set forth the five year cycle of this Celtic calender. The letters/trees within the poem are not set in their proper order, I believe, in a further attempt to "encode" the information given in the poem so that only a person versed in this alphabet could utilize it.'' Robert Graves.
Each tree had a meaning and significance of its own, and Gwydion guessed Bran's name by the Alder branch Bran carried, the Alder being one of Bran's prime symbols.

Graves thus argued that the original poet had concealed Druidic secrets about an older matriarchal Celtic religion for fear of censure from Christian authorities, that Arawn and Bran were names for the same underworld god and that the battle was probably not physical but rather a struggle of wits and scholarship: Gwydion's forces could only be defeated if the name of his companion, Lady Achren ("Trees"), was guessed, and Arawn's host only if Bran's name was guessed.

Blessed Be /|\ ~

Machiavellian Monetarists Eat Earths Existence / Sci Fi For Real!

noreply@blogger.com (Celestial Elf) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 17:31:00 +0000

Naomi Klein's book
The Shock Doctrine;
The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
reveals an astonishing and factual account of
the evolution of a terrifying new economic model...

that of Milton Friedman's Chicago School NeoConservative
'Free' market policies,
where endless deregulation and privatization
generates
massive growth for private business,
at a cost often of life and liberty to the less financially well endowed.

Analyzing in an objective manner
the methods employed and their achievements
over more than 30 years,
the economists practice could be summarized
in the Orwellian doublethinkist views that ;
War is Peace,
Death Is Life &
Greed is the Greatest Good.

THIS BOOK
Should possibly be compulsory reading
for Anyone who wants to Live.

Revealing how Milton Friedman's Monetarist Economic theories of
NeoLiberalism / NeoConservatism,
echoing the m.o. of Electro Shock Therapy
in its early years
which sought to erase the ailing personality all together and then
impose a new one on the blank slate,
has similarly sought initially to exploit and latterly to bring about and then exploit conditions of economic disaster in various nations.
Acting at the point similar to that when an individual looses all comprehension of who they are or what they should do,
the practitioners of Economic Shock Doctrine strike at the very moment when a nation is most disoriented and in need of assistance or support.
This is apparently the best time in response to their plea for help from the
International Monetary Fund and World Bank
(originally Humane and Humanitarian bodies protecting world society from the rise of any destructive economic forces)
for financial aid to repair disaster damage,
they provide such aid with strict conditions that the countries who asked
will open their markets,
deregulate their economies, sell of their assets and
surrender their present and long term futures to the global stock-markets.

Should they meet resistance to this wholesale colonial capitalization and economic genocide of formerly independent nation states,
This is the time to send in the Army, initially the national army but later as privatization at home (USA) began to pick up speed, an outsourced privatized army from mercenaries around the world was employed....

Stripping states of their democratically elected powers and their public utilities which were formerly held and employed on behalf of the nations people to further their economic independence and national standards of living, the ceaseless, heartless rise of the Machiavellian Monetarists devastatingly portrays the soulless and insatiable consequences of applying materialist economic values to humanist and environmental concerns.

Whilst the book does conclude with some hopeful outlooks
as the Latin Americas now recover
from their abuse under the economic Shock Therapy doctrines
and reject any further involvement with the IMF, WB or similar,
practicing an almost Scandinavian sort of Democratic Socialism
or Third Way,
as they helpfully share and supportively trade their resources with their neighbors outside and independent of the global stock market.

I would also recommended that
whilst somewhat out of date in its details and simpler in its portrayal,
in its general arguments
Schumacher's Small Is Beautiful;
Economics as if People Mattered
is an excellent alternative approach to the economics
of a world worth living in.

Schumacher provides a series of
more inclusive, compassionate economic and business examples,
which would protect
individuals as well as the earth's-eco and biosphere's.
Such examples would simultaneously provide lives and societies with
meaning and value,
whilst ensuring that our common heritage
the sacred Earth,
of which we may one-day be honored to consider ourselves Guardians,
would flourish in perpetuity.

By Stone and Star,
Celestial Elf ~

Ash Wand

noreply@blogger.com (Celestial Elf) — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 16:37:00 +0000

Made my brother an Ash Wand from a piece of uncut Ash
from the wild and ancient woods of Cumbria ~

Magic Wand of Ash

The Ash appears in Norse myth as Yggdrasil,
the World-Ash or Tree of Life from which all the worlds spring.
It is the pathway or bridge by means of which
the wizard may travel among the worlds.
Poseidon, Odin, and Thor each wielded a spear of Ash,
symbolic of an irresistible magical Will and invincible protection.

The Greek goddess Nemesis carried an ash wand
as symbol of divine justice.
With it, she ensures that fortune is shared among all people
and not only by the few.

In Celtic mythology,
the Ash was sacred as a tree of enchantment
for its ability to span
the Three Worlds of Manifestation of Past, Present and Future.

The Ash Wand's Magical Properties:
The Ash wand is especially to be used in healing
for promoting brain power, aiding in communication, intelligence, wisdom.
Use this wood to remove mental blockages and to assist in word use and understanding.
It is the wand of the poet, and scholar.
It promotes spiritual love and health.
It protects against unwanted change.
And it brings balance to the mind.
Use also for protection from drowning and to enhance the skills of arts and crafts, justice
and weather magick.

Ash Wands have both Male and Female aspects;
the Female side being connected to Life Giving Waters,
Birth, Healing and Protection
the Male side as the Center of the Universe
and
represented by the Wand or Spear.

The Druid's Oath
“We swear by Peace and Love to stand
Heart to heart and hand in hand.
Mark, O Spirit, and hear us now,
Confirming this, our sacred vow.”
(repeat three times)

The White Goddess

noreply@blogger.com (Celestial Elf) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 23:13:00 +0000

Whilst some have disputed Graves historical inaccuracies in The White Goddess, im not reading this for its historical account, but rather for its mytho-poetical inventiveness and inspiration, of which I would say that it delivers handsomely.

The attempt to reconcile the Ancient Hebrew, Greek and Celtic civilizations with an Aegean/Tuath De Danaan Diaspora is fascinating and demands that the reader have a fairly wide background in cultural and mythological studies.

Speculating on the Cad Goddeu, The Battle of the Trees, a medieval Welsh poem from the Book of Taliesin, that the trees that fought in the battle in which each tree had a meaning and significance of its own. Graves argues that the original poet had concealed Druidic secrets about an older matriarchal Celtic religion for fear of censure from Christian authorities and that the 'battle' was probably not physical but rather a struggle of wits and scholarship. They did this he claims by employing the secret sign language called Ogham, in this case the Tree Ogham in which each tree holds a representative symbol, sound, meaning, set of mythologies and etc..
The particular poem and its meanings is he claims further concealed by the device of being 'pied' or mixed up with a further four poems, only those in the know would be able to correctly untangle and decipher their original order.

However and due to the excessive overloading of references and origins, at times it seems that Graves has almost become one of his ancient Cambrian Awenyddion' the magical minstrel poets who disguised their wisdom under the pretence of being possessed by spirits, as they did not deliver the answer to what is required in any connected manner..."but the person who skillfully observes them will find after many preambles...and incoherent though ornamented speeches, the desired explanation conveyed in some turn of word"
He could not have described his own method more perfectly, persist and you will find his meanings become clearer.

Nevertheless, despite the erratic, over-rich and often obscure prose, his reconciliation of the Tree Ogham Alphabet with the calender of the Year, the stations of both sun and moon, is an inspiring and potentially convincing demonstration of how the ancient mythographers (may have)created meaning and managed the seasonal and social rituals of their times.
Reaching further, his exposition and extrapolation of Biblical and earlier mythologies and their themes is remarkable.

I value and recommend this work to any more serious and patient reader (who is preferably well read mytho-historically) for its hidden gems, its tremendous scope and its imaginative-inspirational qualities.

On A Modern Druid's Education

noreply@blogger.com (Celestial Elf) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 10:16:00 +0000

Having an interest in The Druids, Nature and the Ancient Ways, I have from time to time been asked whether I could recommend any books for beginners or others to get a sense of what modern Druidry may entail...

The role of Druids in Celtic society was a broad and influential one that included Teachers, Healers , Bardic-Poets, Musicians, Shaman, Priests, Astrologers, Historians, Judges and Advisers to Kings.
Following the etymology of the name Druid, dru as 'oak' or 'doorway' and wid as 'to see' or 'wisdom', the name means 'oak-wisdom', although Irish druí and Welsh dryw could also refer to the wren, connected with an association of that bird with augury bird in Irish and Welsh tradition, thus the Druid is someone wise in the ways of nature, the seen and unseen.
Inspired by these traditions and the pre-Christian Celtic folktales, legends and mythologies which valued the spiritual within nature, some modern Druids commit to a guardianship of our environment and planet, to practise the ideals of the sacred and the spiritual by honoring the natural world.

In the past, a Druid's education may have taken anywhere from 12 to 20 years, beginning around the age of five or soon after any person was deemed gifted by the divine, it began with a study of the tales and traditions, included Poetry, Nature and Law and continued with Communication and Music, a set of skills not unfamiliar to the teachings of similar cultural leaders in the classical antiquity of ancient Greece and Rome..

Today some Neo Druid and Reconstructionist Druid groups offer an education in these traditional subjects, giving tutored instruction progressing from the training of a Bard, moving through the Ovate grade to culminate in the ultimate achievement of becoming a Druid. Such tuition is naturally embellished by their own school of thought and necessarily funded by subscription to pay for the tutors guidance and support. But because there is no single sacred text or surviving body of doctrine upon which to base such teaching, whilst some of the books and course material used may be widely available from libraries and shops, others may be exclusive and available only from the organization involved..

Not all Druids today however believe the same things, or in the same routes of learning.
Some believe that the spirit is led by higher powers along its path to the gods, to apprehend the spirits and faerie folk, to travel the inner paths to the other-worlds, and to manifest healing and wisdom upon the earth.

Many who have not followed any formalized training nevertheless do also have powerful skills, and for them the distinction between the roles or formal acknowledgement of achievement is less important than the insight and abilities themselves.
The difference between these two approaches to Druidry could be considered the same as that between a college education and a vocational apprenticeship. In learning to practice such wisdom intuitively, they have learned the secret of setting aside worldly concerns and by embracing all that life has to offer have discovered the many truths transcending all.
Bringing this inner light back to the people, interacting with all things respectfully and as an act of devotion, this is the sign of a true Druid.

Central to modern Druidic belief is a love of nature combined with a pragmatic understanding that spiritual insight be expressed by responsible action in our daily life, shared with and on behalf of the community for its greater good.

Winston Churchill being installed into the Albion Lodge
of the Ancient Order of Druids August 1908

To support an understanding of how we may continue to honor the ancestral spirits and follow the traditional paths of wisdom,
I have gathered here a short reading list for any who may wish to add an academic or historical basis to their insights and practice of Druidry.

However I would mention that whilst rooted in the traditional Druidic lore of yore, this list also establishes a clear link between reflection on the ancient paths and action in this modern world.

................................................................................

Introductory;

''The Trials of Arthur'' Arthur Pendragon and CJ Stone.

Detailing the return of England's Ancient Leader, King Arthur.A Hearty and Heartfelt account full of derring do and of Down To Earth Druidry, following the path of Action and introducing the aims of the Loyal Arthurian Warband Order of Druids,The L.A.W. Arthur has risen to meet the challenges before him with delight and good humor, Recommended.
Reading Level: Standard

''The Apple Branch;A Path to Celtic Ritual'' Alexei Kondratiev

Nicely written introduction to Celtic-inspired rituals and ceremonies. The author has done a lot of research and understands Celtic society and culture. It could be argued that Kondratiev's NeoWiccan background throws things off a bit - but it's still worth reading, because Kondratiev manages to avoid a lot of the overly-romanticized fluff that appears in many of the books purporting to be about Celtic Paganism.
Reading Level: Intermediate

''The Stations of the Sun'' Ronald Hutton

Comprehensive and engaging, this colourful study covers the whole sweep of ritual history from the earliest written records to the present day. From May Day revels and Midsummer fires, to Harvest Home and Hallowe'en, to the twelve days of Christmas, Ronald Hutton takes us on a fascinating journey through the ritual year in Britain. He challenges many common assumptions about the customs of the past, and debunks many myths surrounding festivals of the present, to illuminate the history of the calendar year we live by today.
Reading Level: Advanced

...............................................................................

Historical;

''The Celts: A Very Short Introduction'' Barry Cunliffe.

The Celts have long been a subject of fascination, speculation, and misunderstanding. From the ancient Romans to the present day, their real nature has been obscured by a tangled web of preconceived ideas and stereotypes.Cunliffe seeks to reveal this fascinating people using an impressive range of evidence, and exploring subjects such as trade, migration, and the evolution of Celtic traditions. Along the way, he exposes the way in which society's needs have shaped our visions of the Celts, and examines such colorful characters as St. Patrick, Cu Chulainn, and Boudica.
Reading Level: Standard

''A Brief History of the Druids" Peter Beresford Ellis.

Contrary to the portrayal of them that we see in a lot of New Age books, the Druids were not a bunch of tree-hugging "get in touch with your feelings" peaceful clerics. They were in fact the intellectual social class of the Celts -Judges, Bards, Astronomers, Physicians and Philosophers. Although there is no written first-hand record of their activities, Ellis delves into the writings of contemporaries from other societies such as Pliny the Elder and Julius Caesar, whose Commentaries whilst politically partisan, do include frequent first hand references to the people he encountered in the British Isles.
Reading Level: Intermediate

"Women of the Celts" Jean Markale

Jean Markale takes an in-depth look at the society of the early Celtic tribes, and focuses on the role of women within that societal framework. There's not a lot of information on Celtic mythology - but there's a treasure trove of background on Celtic society, sociological theory, sexual standards, and economics. He also discusses legal issues that permitted the women of the Celts so much more freedom than their counterparts in other regions of the world, particularly the patriachalist Rome.
Reading Level: Advanced

''Blood and Mistletoe: The History of the Druids in Britain'' Ronald Hutton

This book is, quite simply, a tour de force. Interpretations of Druidry through the ages, treated to scrupulous scholarly dissection, in a masterly fashion. From Caesar, a truly machiavellian author, onwards, a succession of agenda-laden activists, scholars and authors have fashioned an image of druids for the popular imagination to suit the political and cultural points they are making. By examining all these written sources in the context of the social, economic, political standpoint of the various authors, a magnificent tapestry is gradually woven of English history and the men who have affected it; with. always, the misty figure of the druid just glimpsed to colour the narrative. Through the chapters we run - through the ages, and the gamut of emotional responses to the term druid; from disgust and vilification for a blood-soaked and savage priesthood to awe and wonder at the disseminators of the mystical wisdom of nature, pausing in admiration for them as radical freedom fighters along the way.
Reading Level: Graduate

..............................................................................

Poetical;

''The Mabinogi and Other Medieval Welsh Tales"

There are numerous translations available of The Mabinogion, which is the Welsh mythic cycle. However, Patrick Ford's is one of the best. Many modern translations of the work are heavily influenced by a blend of Victorian romance, French Arthurian tales and New Age imagery. Ford leaves all of that out, and offers a faithful yet eminently readable version of the four tales of the Mabinogi, as well as three other stories from the myth cycle of the early Welsh legends. This is a primary source of Celtic legend and myth, so if you're interested in the exploits of the gods and goddesses, as well as the mortals and demigods of folklore, this is a great resource to use.
Reading Level: Standard

''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'' Burton Raffel (Translator), Neil D. Isaacs

One of the greatest works of the Middle Ages, in a marvelous new verse translation Composed in the fourteenth century, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is as beloved as it is venerable, combining the hallmarks of medieval romance-pageantry, chivalry, and courtly love-with the charm of fairy tales and heroic sagas. Blending Celtic myth and Christian faith, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a Middle English masterpiece of magic, chivalry, and seduction.
Reading Level: Standard

''Taliesin: The Last Celtic Shaman'' John Matthews

Taliesin, Chief Bard of Britain and Celtic shaman, was an historical figure who lived in Wales during the latter half of the sixth century. Encoded within his work are the ancestral beliefs of the Celtic and pre-Celtic peoples. In addition, his verse is established as a direct precursor to the Arthurian legends - and Taliesin himself, shaman and shapeshifter, is said to be the direct forebear to Merlin. Matthews sheds new light on the poems of Taliesin and on the vast body of allusion, story and myth that grew from his body of work and shamanic practice. This book reveals Druidic prophecy, methods of divination and the rites, rituals and beliefs that were essential to Celtic spiritual practice. It also features Taliesin's works as keys to the Arthurian legends.
Reading Level: Intermediate

''The Bardic Handbook The Complete Manual for the 21st Century Bard'' Kevan Manwaring

This complete manual for the Twenty-First-Century Bard contains all you need to know to start you on the Bardic Path. Here you will find inspiration and instruction, whether you want to dedicate yourself to the Way of Awen, or simply wish to improve your public-speaking skills and be able to express yourself with confidence. Learn how to enchant an audience with gramarye, through poetry, storytelling and songcraft, and how to use the magic of words to bless, honour, heal and celebrate your identity, community and heritage.With an easy-to-follow 12 month self-study programme and week-by-week exercises and mini-lessons about bardic lore, this book will lead you along the Way of Awen.
Reading Level: Advanced

''The White Goddess: a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth'' Robert Graves

This labyrinthine and extraordinary book-length essay on the nature of poetic myth-making, was the outcome of Graves's vast reading and curious research into strange territories of folklore, mythology, religion and magic. Erudite and impassioned, it is a scholar-poet's quest for the meaning of European myths, a polemic about the relations between man and woman, and also an intensely personal document in which Graves explored the sources of his own inspiration and, as he believed, all true poetry.
Reading Level: Graduate

''Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being'' Ted Hughes

Might best be compared to Robert Graves' book The White Goddess in terms of its scope and intent, it is a rich book filled with what I would call poetic as well as literary insights (like Graves' work). The section where Hughes breaks down Shakespeare's language showing how within each contrasting set of phrases he was communicating both to the rabble on the floor and the intellectuals in the gods is stunning. A worthwhile read for anyone who loves to spend time at the juncture between myth, literature and poetry, remarkable.
Reading Level: Graduate

...............................................................................

Spiritual;

''Way of the Peaceful Warrior'' Dan Millman

You've learned body control and even some mind control, but your heart has not yet opened. Your goal should not be invulnerability, but vulnerability - to the world, to life, and therefore, to the Presence you felt. I've tried to show you by example that a warrior's life is not about imagined perfection or victory; it is about love. Love is the warrior's sword; wherever it cuts, it gives life, not death.' This is a book I would give to anyone to read for pleasure and to those following the path of the spiritual warrior. It demonstrates that the true essence of a champion is indeed the culmination of a strong body, mind, as well as spirit.
Reading Level: Standard

''The Complete Illuminated Books William Blake'' John Commander (Foreword by), David Bindman (Introduction)

In his Illuminated Books Blake combined text and imagery on a single page in a way that had not been done since the Middle Ages. For Blake, religion and politics, intellect and emotion, mind and body were both unified and in conflict with each other. There is no comparison with reading books such as Jerusalem, America, and Songs of Innocence and of Experience in Blake's own medium, infused with his sublime and exhilarating colors. Tiny figures and forms dance among the lines of the text, flames appear to burn up the page, and dense passages of Biblical-sounding text are brought to a jarring halt by startling images of death, destruction, and liberation.Blake often spoke of Albion, England’s great, mythological past, ruled by Druids. To quote Peter Ackroyd: “All his life, Blake was entranced and persuaded by the idea of a deeply spiritual past, and he continually alluded to the possibility of ancient lore and arcane myths that could be employed to reveal previously hidden truths.”
Reading Level: Intermediate

''Sun of gOd: Discover the Self-Organizing Consciousness That Underlies Everything'' by Gregory Sams.
"Sun of gOd presents a perfectly outrageous hypothesis: The sun is a conscious, living organism residing in a thriving galactic community, thinking stellar thoughts that span the entire universe. Surely this is nonsense. Except that the more you read the more a conscious universe begins to make sense. Gregory Sams' book is a clearly written and persuasively reasoned argument to think about the sun in a radically new and refreshing way." -Dean Radin, PhD, Senior Scientist, Institute of Noetic Sciences
Reading Level: Advanced

''Living With Honour: A Pagan Ethics'' Emma Restall Orr

Living With Honour is a provocative and uncompromising exploration of how Paganism can provide the philosophical guidance to live honorably in a twenty-first Western society. Part One explores the history of Paganism, its undercurrents of anarchy, heresy, environmentalism and animism, finding its place within the history of Western philosophy. Part Two addresses key moral issues from that animistic perspective, beginning with the foundation of human relationships and attitudes towards the Other. It book explores how we value life, and firstly human life, looking at dying, suicide and euthanasia, birth, abortion and IVF. It then examines the human abuse of nonhuman animals, discussing sentience, personhood and inherent value. Finally, it focuses on current global crises, exploring need as opposed to desire.'This is an excellent pioneering work, erudite, courageous and imaginative, that provides a new kind of ethics, linked to a newly appeared complex of religions, which are founded on some very old human truths.' Professor Ronald Hutton, world expert on paganism and author of The Triumph of the Moon and many other studies.
Reading Level: Advanced

''The Sacred and The Profane: The Nature of Religion'' Mircea Eliade

In the "Sacred and the Profane", Mircea Eliade describes two fundamentally different modes of experience: the traditional and the modern. Traditional man or "homo religious" is open to experiencing the world as sacred. Modern man however, is closed to these kinds of experiences. For him the world is experienced only as profane. It is the burden of the book to show in what these fundamentally opposed experiences consist. Traditional man often expresses this opposition as real vs. unreal or pseudoreal and he seeks as much as possible to live his life within the sacred, to saturate himself in reality. According to Eliade the sacred becomes known to man because it manifests itself as different from the profane world. This manifestation of the sacred Eliade calls "hierophany". For Eliade this is a fundamental concept in the study of the sacred and his book returns to it again and again.The "Sacred and the Profane" is divided into four chapters dealing with space, time, nature, and man. To these is appended a "Chronological Survey Of the History of Religions as a Branch of Knowledge."
Reading Level: Graduate

................................................................................

Environmental;

''Copse: Cartoon Book of Tree Protesting'' Kate Evans

The rise of the environmental direct action movement in Britain in the 1990s is documented nowhere as well as it is here. Kate Evans was at most of the major protests, and tells her own story, but also uses interviews with more than 50 others who were there too. All the warmth, the drive, the integrity and drama of these extraordinary events is told with a disarming honesty and and involving humanity. It becomes clear that these were no heroes of the mass-media's 'eco-warrior' stories; these were simply people with a will to affect the things that affect them, and who realised that morals and motivation are enough.The book does much to break down the barrier of spectator and participant, making you realise the ordinariness of the campaigners, and also encouraging you with a comprehensive 'how to' section at the back and a massive list of relevant contactsIf you want to understand what it's all been about, this book is as accessible as it is comprehensive.
Reading Level: Standard

"Small is Beautiful" E.F. Schumacher.

Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered is a collection of essays by British economist E. F. Schumacher. The phrase "Small Is Beautiful" is often used to champion small, appropriate technologies that are believed to empower people more, in contrast with phrases such as "bigger is better". The point of this book is to assault what is meant by progress and try and understand what has gone wrong when we live in almost obscene wealth while large parts of the planet barely get by. This book is a call to arms, to understand things we all seem to have forgotten: what is value? what actually matters in life? should the means always justify the ends? what is work for? and who put all these economists in charge?
The Times Literary Supplement ranked Small Is Beautiful among the 100 most influential books published since World War II.
Reading Level: Intermediate

''This Borrowed Earth'' Robert Emmet Herna.

Lessons from the Fifteen Worst Environmental Disasters around the WorldOver the last century mankind has irrevocably damaged the environment through the unscrupulous greed of big business and our own willful ignorance. Here are the strikingly poignant accounts of disasters whose names live in infamy: Chernobyl, Bhopal, Exxon Valdez, Three Mile Island, Love Canal, Minamata, and others. And with these, the extraordinary and inspirational stories of the countless men and women who fought bravely to protect the communities and environments at risk.
Reading Level: Intermediate

''No Logo'' Naomi Klein.

In the last decade, No Logo has become a cultural manifesto for the critics of unfettered capitalism worldwide. As the world faces a second economic depression, No Logo's analysis of our corporate and branded world is as timely and powerful as ever. Klein also looks at the workers who keep these companies running, most of whom never share in any of the great rewards. The president of Borders, when asked whether the bookstore chain could pay its clerks a "living wage" wrote that "while the concept is romantically appealing, it ignores the practicalities and realities of our business environment". Those clerks should probably just be grateful they're not stuck in an Asian sweatshop, making pennies an hour to produce Nike sneakers or other must-have fashion items.

Throughout the four parts ("No Space", "No Choice", "No Jobs", and "No Logo"), Klein writes about issues such as sweatshops in the Americas and Asia, culture jamming, corporate censorship, and Reclaim the Streets.

Reading Level: Advanced

''Landscape and Memory'' Simon Schama.

An extraordinary survey of European attitudes to and conceptualizations of nature over the course of the last 500 years or so, and how our ideas of nature have shaped how we interact with it. In a wide sweep of history that encompassess as unlikely a set of figures as Varus, a Roman general responsible for a catastrophic lost battle in the Black Forest and a 19th century French founder of the concept of "eco-rambling", Schama has produced a stunning work that seeks to answer the central question: is our view of nature ruled by the mind, or by magical human interpretations? There are few books that could match this pyrotechnic display of learning and exposition of aesthetic views of nature that have shaped warfare,politics,religion and modern ecology. It is impossible to view today's environmentalism before reading this provocative and insightful book the same way as when one puts it down. Reasonably scholarly but still quite readable.
Reading Level: Graduate

Come forth into the light of things, let Nature be your teacher.

William Wordsworth. ~

Compiled by Celestial Elf /|\

On Wicca and the Christian Heritage: Ritual, sex and magic.

noreply@blogger.com (Celestial Elf) — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 09:35:00 +0000

Five Star Book Review;
Joanne Overend's
Wicca and the Christian Heritage: Ritual, sex and magic.

Warning, this is a very academic work steeped in a breathtaking complexity of reference and cross reference that launches the reader into an unexpected examination of the conflicts between the Christian Churches..
However, quickly (in an academic sort of way) the text becomes imbued with the intrigue and mystery of the 'episcopanes vagantes' or wandering Bishops, as in a ripping-yarn-like-account they set about creating offshoots and unauthorized new lines of religious movements and churches.

The ensuing revealed history is fascinating as it presents the developments of their heterodox churches with increasingly less attachment to either the Protestant or the Catholic churches, the former regarding the latter as practitioners in witchery via their priest-craft of mass and transubstantiation etc, the Anglican church's endeavors to assert a lineage direct from ancient Jerusalem via Joseph of Arimathea's mission to Glastonbury thus sidestepping the subsequent Papal Creed and Catholic church of Rome in favor of a more natural form of Christianity....

The author then examines in some detail the definition of Ritual and its meanings within the old Catholic tradition, the new Anglican church (with its claim to older traditions than the Catholic), the Catholic v Protestant dichotomy between Ritual as The Spiritual Experience which transforms lives v Protestant prioritization of Understanding as the primary factor of a spiritual life.
Against this background, the new Wiccan claims to be ''The'' 'Old' Religion, their founders Christian associations, that for example Crowley was brought up among Brethren, that Gardeners involvement with Spiritualist churches, the interest in The Golden Dawn and the Rosicrucians, as well as claimed descent from the even older ones of Egyptian mystery religions, sets the pathway to consider Wicca in terms of its defining aspects of ritual and practice.
Ritual is revealingly portrayed across the diversity of traditions in addition to a thoughtful, non salacious handling of the aspect of sexual control, rebellion and practice across the diverse traditions.

Specifically the comparison of the Catholic medieval condemnation of witchcraft (comprised of unorthodox and elderly single women, herbalists, Jewish and other culturally excluded people and groups) the later comparison by Protestants of Catholics themselves with this same group based on their magical rituals, and the subsequent development of Wiccans and others who practice various forms of ritual, along with the lines of inception by which the latter have come to create their new/old traditions is fascinating.

Strongly Recommended for any who wish to 'Understand' the origins of the new/old traditions of Wicca and Paganism, but not essential for those who prioritize experiential spirituality over cognitive reconciliation.

The Lammas Wickerman

noreply@blogger.com (Celestial Elf) — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 15:10:00 +0000

The Druids Oath;
We swear by Peace and Love to stand, heart to heart and hand in hand,
Mark, Oh Spirit, and hear us now, confirming this our sacred vow!

Lammas;
The mighty wheel of the year has turned upon us once more,
And I give thanks for the bountiful harvest.

All hail the Sun, whose golden rays have bestowed magic
upon the growing fruits of our lands.
All hail the Sun, He has ripened our fields
And blessed us by grain without number.
This joyous time is the first harvest of Lammas!
So All hail the great Sun And He will come again.

And now all about us as days do shorten,
We stand ready for the dark time ahead.
With corn stored in abundance against the cold darkness of winter
We face the bleak hardship without any dread.
So mote it be!

Lammas c. The Bard Of Ely, 2011. Poems Narrated by The Bard of Ely.
Welsh Translation kindly provided by Gareth Owen
Rheolwr y Theatr(Manager) Theatr y Pafiliwn/Pavilion Theatre, Rhyl.

The Lammas Wickerman by celestialelff
Grateful thanks to The Bard of Ely for use of his song I AM (feat Ed Drury).

Lammas, also called Lughnasadh (Loo-Nah-Sah) in commemoration of The Celtic Sun God Lugh, occurs at the beginning of the harvest season, in the Northern Hemisphere 1st August, in the Southern February 1st.
The word Lammas itself derives from the Old English celebration of loaf mass, harvesting the first grains which by nightfall made the first loaves of the season. As the grain is cut, some is stored to create new life in the spring. To harvest before Lammas could only be because the previous year's harvest had run out, a serious problem in agricultural communities, hence thanks for a harvest on time.

Lugh, also known as the patron of Bards and Magicians, came to be associated with grain in Celtic mythology because Tailtiu his foster mother died from exhaustion after clearing the great forest so the people could cultivate the lands. Before she died she told them that her son Lugh, the Sun King, would pour his spirit into the grain to sustain them over the long fruitless winters. People honor Her gift and the crops with a day of thanksgiving for the harvest, a harvest festival.

Grain has been associated by many cultures with the mystery of death and rebirth for centuries, celebrated by deities such as the Sumerian grain god Tammuz.
In English folklore, the folksong representing John Barleycorn as the crop of barley, corresponds to the same cyclic nature of planting, growing, harvesting, death and rebirth.
Sir James Frazer cites this tale of John Barleycorn In The Golden Bough as proof that there was a Pagan cult in England that worshiped a god of vegetation, who was then sacrificed to bring fertility to the fields.
It is tempting to see in this tradition echoes of human sacrifice as portrayed in The Wickerman film (1973), but that is not really what this time is about.
Whilst there was a Celtic ritual of dressing the last sheaf of corn to be harvested in fine clothes, or weaving it into a wicker-like man or woman, it was believed that the Sun 's spirit was trapped in the grain and needed to be set free by fire and so the effigy was burned. This tradition is thought by many to have been the origin of the misconception that Druids made human sacrifices, along with Julius Caesar's politically motivated accounts.

In Scotland, the last sheaf of harvest is called 'the Maiden', and must be cut by the youngest female in attendance.
In other regions a corn dolly is made of plaited straw from this sheaf, carried to a place of honor at the celebrations and kept until the following spring for good luck.

The Bard of Ely is an eco-warrior, poet, author, Arthurian Druid, master of herblore, singer-songwriter, techno-folk fusion pioneer, actor and performer originally from Cardiff, Wales.

In medieval Gaelic and Welsh society a Bard was a professional poet, employed to compose eulogies for his Lord. In the Viking courts of Scandinavia and Iceland their counterparts were called Skalds.
The Bardic poets were often accorded nearly divine rank and had a freedom of movement to cross political borders denied even Kings, because the magic of their poems and chants was believed to hold the power to topple Gods or conjure whole nations out of thin air.
Just as Druidic mythology points to knowledge as the key to self awareness, which is symbolized by certain holy-places of great importance, these mythic 'places' may be both inaccessible but also not inaccessible at the same time, it requires a leap of faith to find them and that leap of faith is expressed in the Bard's poetic proclamation.

In the tradition of Welsh Bards such as Aneirin and Taliesin, The Bard of Ely shares his skills as Principal Bard of the Loyal Arthurian Warband Druidic Order (Stonehenge) and Gorsedd of Bards of Caer Abiri (Avebury), as well as across the wide reaching area of his creative and spiritual mission.
In 2002 and 03, The Bard of Ely was both compere for the Avalon Stage at Glastonbury Festival and played there, as well as appearing at the Green Man Festival. He has also collaborated with Crum (keyboard for Hawkwind) who has remixed a number of The Bard's songs. The Bard of Ely's albums are available from DMMG Records and at iTunes.
As a writer He has authored Herbs of the Northern Shaman and written widely, including for Permaculture and Feed Your Brain magazines, and collaborated with CJ Stone for Prediction and the NFOP magazine. You can find about more about The Bard of Ely at his Blog.

Bright Blessings to you ~
/|\

On The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles

noreply@blogger.com (Celestial Elf) — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 09:28:00 +0000

Five Star Book Review;
Ronald Hutton's
The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles.

Remarkable amount of research has gone into this tome.
At times the book seems an almost random and endless list of unrelated items linked only by the authors suppositions that we cannot draw any meaningful connections between the varied aspects and artifacts of antiquity, which whilst perhaps literally true, I found to be a perspective that neglected the implied spirit of the ancient religion(s) and that's his point, that he finds nothing is specifically implied by the evidence and that all subsequent conjecture is only deduced from incontrovertible evidence.

At other times the author seemed to hold an almost ambivalent attitude against the new Pagan's uptake and intermingling of the 'Old Religion(s)' but he does this with such good humor and charming acknowledgement of their own beautiful or innovative if not actually historically true basis that it would be hard to object to his observations.

For myself I would underline that the very evidence referred to does specifically portray that ancient religious traditions in the British Isles did draw from earlier traditions and by necessity did incorporate, or become subsumed by newer traditions that arrived on these shores, that something of the former always informed the latter across the ages and that this practice is still (or once again)flourishing in the modern uptake and reinvention of the Pagan sacred miscellany..

Certainly not a page turner unless you are an avid archaeologist, but still highly recommended as a wonderful source of the progression of evidence over the centuries and how this may have some bearing on the current Pagan 'Renaissance'.

King Arthur's Summer Solstice

noreply@blogger.com (Celestial Elf) — Thu, 26 May 2011 10:58:00 +0000

My name is Arthur, I am he,
Once and Future, born to be.
Celtic Chieftain, Knight of Old,
I am the story as foretold.
Loyal Knights, must come to me,
Bowing to their destiny.
Where ’er we find them, we’ll right wrong,
For this must always be our song.
The Cauldron and the Cross unite,
Christian and Pagan, join our fight.
To re-unite the Celtic creed,
In it’s time of greatest need.

From the Rallying Song c. Arthur Pendragon 1987

There are tales, and there are stories,
Of Arthur and his Knights.
Of Standing Stones and Circles,
And ancient Battle sites.
But the place that figures most, is not a place at all,
‘tis Castle Camelot, without a Castle wall.
You’ll not find it on a map, or posted on a sign,
But it’s there wherever we gather and partake of the wine.

From Castle Camelot
c. Arthur Pendragon 1989

And its here and now, Stonehenge, Summer Solstice,
Come and Join Us.
c. Arthur Pendragon. 2011.

King Arthur's Summer Solstice by celestialelff
King Arthur's original poems narrated by King Arthur.
Original soundtrack King Arthurs Summer Solstice c. Celestial Elf 2011.
Celestial Elf is a member of Druids of the Second Realm, a seedgroup in SL formed by members of the RL Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids .

On King Arthur Uther Pendragon;

King Arthur Pendragon, crowned 'Raised Druid King of Britain' on 3 January 1998 on the ancient Coronation Stone by representatives from 5 Druid Orders, is also the Titular Head and Chosen Chief of The Loyal Arthurian Warband, Lawband, Clawband and Warband, or as may be called, Wizards, Witches and Warriors. King Arthur is a Pagan Priest, and Druid Swordbearer with an unshakeable belief in the Divine and his place in this system and most widely known for his role as an environmentalist, and Eco-warrior. What is best for the nation (Pendragon)must come first, what is best for the tribe (King) second, and what is best for the man (Arthur) last. His battles with the British Government (in the form of English Heritage) and campaigns for the right of everybody to enter Stonehenge at the Solstices have earned him great respect among many.
In 1998 with assistance of Liberty who acted as his Counsel, Arthur claimed to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg that because of the exclusion zone around Stonehenge, his freedom of thought, conscience, religion and expression were restricted. Although the court decided in favour of the UK government, Arthur can be justified in claiming victory as the exclusion zone around Stonehenge was never repeated and in 2000 full public access to Stonehenge was officially granted for those celebrating the solstices. King Arthur has also written of his experiences in The Trials of Arthur: The Life and Times of a Modern-Day King

Druid members of LAW may be found at Avebury on the nearest Saturday to celebrations of the eight-fold wheel, in London on Primrose Hill on the nearest Sunday to each Solstice and Equinox and at Stonehenge on the dawn of the Solstices and Equinoxes, performing public Ritual and Ceremony (English Heritage & Wiltshire Constabulary permitting).
The Loyal Arthurian Warband is a vast network of people working together throughout the world towards a vision of Truth, Honour & Justice.

The Historical-Literary Origins of King Arthur;

King Arthur was a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, depicted in the 12thC by Geoffrey of Monmouth as the King who defeated the Saxons and united Britain, Ireland, Iceland, Norway and Gaul (History of the Kings of Britain). However the earliest literary references to King Arthur are in ancient Welsh and Breton sources, in which King Arthur defends Britain from human and supernatural enemies and is a magical figure associated with the Welsh Otherworld of Annwn. In the early 19th C, reawakened interest in King Arthur, established a new code of ethics for 19th-century gentlemen based on the chivalric ideals that he embodied and in the 20thC interest has continued through novels such as T. H. White's The Once and Future King (1958) and Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon (1982). T. H. White's novel was adapted into the musical Camelot in 1960 and this was made into a film in 1967. A recurrent and now realised theme of Arthurian literature is the notion that he would one day return to save his people.

The Sumer Solstice;

The ancient Summer Solstice festivals are still widely celebrated in Britain, Cornwall, Ireland and parts of Northern Europe.
In the northern hemisphere, the Summer Solstice is when the sun reaches it farthest point north of the Celestial Equator. This day has the greatest amount of time between sunrise and sunset making it the longest day and shortest night of the year and falls around June 21st every year. In the southern hemisphere, the winter and summer solstices are reversed.
In Norse traditions this time of year is as sacred as the Yule. The sun goddess Sunna is celebrated as she drives the sun-bearing chariot across the sky and Balder, the God of light, is honored and sacrificed, to be reborn again at Yule.

The Midsummer Solstice, also referred to by Neopagans as Litha, signifies the turning point of the Summer Season in the cycle of the year.
The Goddess is now at her most fertile as the seed planted earlier in her womb grows with the sun. She blossoms as the Earth overflows with flowers and fruit and the first harvest is a time of special joy. Handfasting ceremonies and weddings at this time demonstrate enduring ties with the Druids' celebration of this day as the 'wedding of Heaven and Earth' resulting in the belief of a 'lucky wedding in June'.
The Sun King is also at His strongest now, and due to the merry making of Beltane and His marriage to the Goddess, He has become a father bringing the heat of Summer and the promise of a great harvest which ensures the continuity of life in the face of the oncoming darkness of winter.
Wiccans and other Pagans incorporate the dying vegetation God into their rites, as the Oak King God of the waxing year gives way to the Holly King God of the waning year. In this tradition the two sides of nature and of ourselves are honored, the light and the dark.
Forces of magic also abound as fairies, elves and other spirits roam our world, because this Solstice is one of the turning points of the year, a time when the veil between worlds is at its thinnest. The most well-known example of this is in Shakespeare's play "A Midsummer Night's Dream" which has Oberon and Titania as fairy King and Queen.
This Solstice is celebrated most notably in England at Stonehenge and Avebury, where thousands gather to welcome the sunrise.

About Stonehenge;

Stonehenge has been used over 5000 years as a temple, burial ground, a place of gathering, for magic, for ritual, and as an observatory.
Built between 3200 BC and 1600 BC, Stonehenge lies 9miles north of Salisbury Hill in Wiltshire and is the world's earliest earthwork to contain specific lunar and solar alignments, composed of earthworks surrounding a circular setting of large standing stones. That the Summer Solstice Sun rose close to the Heel Stone, and the Sun's first rays shone into the centre of the monument portrays the particular importance placed by its builders on the Solstice and Equinox points of the year.
Many spiritual beliefs still center on Stonehege, considering the location a cross roads of power and central hub of influentual ley lines alive with earth energy.
I include one such view here;
Stonehenge is actually far more than a marvellous astrological device, or a place for religious celebration... it was actually a trans-dimensional portal, a place where incarnate humans could communicate with spirit, where energies (or information) are 'communicated' from one dimension to another...Wisdom flowed from higher dimensions to the 'priesthood', to help the growth of humanity...linking lower energies (or humanity) and higher wisdom.
It is not a coincidence that Stonehenge was located in Britain, as Britain lies on an important planetary ley line configuration, which has long acted as a portal to bring changes to humanity, and that is why Britain has produced so many pioneers in many fields, and still today encourages transformation. Stonehenge was designed as a device to help this planet evolve, it is a Stargate!'' says Sahar Huneidi.

Happy Solstice to You !

The Life and Times of a Modern-day King

noreply@blogger.com (Celestial Elf) — Wed, 25 May 2011 09:31:00 +0000

The Trials of Arthur:Five Star Book Review;
Arthur Pendragon and Christopher James'
The Trials of Arthur: The Life and Times of a Modern-day King.

Brilliant Book detailing the return of England's Ancient Leader, King Arthur in person.

Providing an account of his early life as John Timothy Rothwell, his progression from Biker Gang to British Army and subsequent return to the highways and byways as King John, so named by his friends because he held parties in the ruined castle at Odiham known as King Johns Castle.

As circumstances continued to present inescapable similarities of events and of personal identity, and following his Druid belief in reincarnation, he officially changed his name to became Arthur Pendragon on 11 June 1986.
Following his new calling, his campaigns on behalf of the people of Great Britain against injustice done to them such as in The Poll Tax, and on behalf of the natural sites of Great Britain such as most famously, Stonehenge, have lead to his arrest over 30 times.
Taking his responsibilities to heart however, no such inconvenience be it obstruction by the Law or by adverse weather has slowed down Arthur's actions on behalf of the people and the land.
For example of his dedication, he has stood vigil in all weathers fair and foul at Stonehenge to protest against and raise awareness of the British Governments control over the ancient religious site (in the form of English Heritage ) who have restricted access throughout the year and charge an entrance fee to enter this scared site.
His actions have to some extent proved successful as now Stonehenge is made available for all people to celebrate the Solstices.

Rightly earned then and as if an apparition from medieval times, Arthur was crowned 'Raised Druid King of Britain' by representatives from 5 druid orders on 3 January 1998 on the ancient Coronation Stone at Kingston Upon Thames. The small group of robed characters stepped magically past the everyday streets of a thriving shopping center in the town as Arthur climbed upon the Stone, all the bustle of the 20th C and its busy life providing an unlikely backdrop for this remarkable event.

A very Hearty and Heartfelt account full of derring do and of Down To Earth Druidry, following the path of Action.
Wether real or no, King Arthur has risen to meet the challenges before him with delight and good humor, Recommended.

To The Venus Project;

noreply@blogger.com (Celestial Elf) — Wed, 11 May 2011 18:37:00 +0000

This machinima film is a fictional message from a post apocalyptic and pro sustainablility future world to the current day Venus Project and its founders.

Greetings to the people of the planet of the Earth,
to the 21st Century before freedoms birth,
Greetings and thank you for the gift that you gave us,
And to Jaque Fresco for the path that he showed us.

Our historians detail of your troubled times of life,
Of the crimes of Great War and of Poverty and Strife,
The suffering and the conflict endured beneath corporate powers that sell,
The pollution of planet and recurring nightmares that fell.

Cyclical, endless and ancient hierarchs its true,
But listen a moment and you will find the way through,
Give a thought to the causes of the problems portrayed,
Step out and beyond from the pointless charade.

Whilst rooted in confusion and greed and neglect,
Centralized self interest did rule as much as could get,
But the lack of balance between nature and her people,
Was paid by the countless and voiceless as their masters did trample.

Our mission in this message is to remind you now, how,
You chose to emerge all those eons ago,
Your heart-mind remembered that we are all one,
A family of life-kind under the very same sun.

The day you said stop, and all the world stood still,
You threw aside chains of deceit, fear and ill will,
You began the great Venus Project with its bright principles fair,
United creation, carbon emissions reduced and CO2 cleansed from the air.

From outside of the deeps and the depth of all space time,
We send you our thanks for the courage it took,
To emerge from beneath the tyranny of your lifetimes,
To evolve beyond fear and approach life with a new look.

Listen a moment longer and you might see ahead,
Our world following where your exemplary vision has led,
A cybernated eco-civilization where technology serves that all may thrive,
A permaculture planet, bio diverse, blue-green and alive.

Abandoning the treadmills of competitive possession,
Turning platitudes into plowshares, well wishes into action,
Setting the obsolete and dangerous power systems aside,
For clean solar and wind, water and thermal energies supplied.

Your restructuring of society brought peace to the earth,
Planetary sustainability beyond politics poverty and war,
Your well conceived vision bypassed the impending apocalypse,
As people and planet restored, realized the abundance of life.

And as all nations embraced the new resource based economy,
Our mythologies tell how the geo-political collapse fell away,
And the community of Life-kind on earth at last flourished,
As humanity embarked on its true finest day.

From our sustainable cities, circular on sea land and in air,
With each concentric region ergonomically planned,
From the central hub, home of our community endeavors,
From the hearts of our speakers, we send joy, thanks and blessings.

To the Venus Project by celestialelff

c celestial elf 2011

nb for any who may be interested in the problems of machinima making, please see Viewless at Venus for an interesting encounter.

What is the Venus Project?

The Venus Project ( http://www.thevenusproject.com/ ) was started
around 1975 (formally called "Sociocyberneering") by Jacque Fresco and
founded on the idea that poverty is caused by the stifling of progress in
technology, which itself is caused by the present world's profit-driven
economic system.
Presenting a bold, new direction for humanity that entails nothing less than the total redesign of our culture, resolving the serious problems of unemployment, violent crime, replacement of humans by technology, over-population and a decline in the Earth's ecosystems.
According to Fresco, poverty, crime, corruption and war are the result of scarcity created by the present world's profit-based economic system.
The Venus Project is dedicated to confronting these problems by actively engaging in the research, development, and application of workable solutions through the use of innovative approaches to social awareness, educational incentives, and the consistent application of the best that science and technology can offer directly to the social system, The Venus Project offers a comprehensive plan for social reclamation in which human beings, technology, and nature will be able to coexist in a long-term, sustainable state of dynamic equilibrium.
Fundamental to the project is what Fresco calls a "resource-based economy". Such a system uses existing resources, rather than money, to provide an equitable method of distribution in the most humane and efficient manner. It is a system in which all goods and services are available to everyone without the use of money, credits, barter, or any other form of debt or servitude.
Fresco argues that the world is rich in natural resources and energy and that, with modern technology and judicious efficiency, the needs of the global population can be met with abundance, while at the same time removing the current limits of what is deemed possible because of notions of economic viability.

Fresco provides an example of this confusion in the following quote: "At the beginning of World War II the U.S. had a mere 600 or so first-class fighting aircraft. We rapidly overcame this short supply by turning out more than 90,000 planes a year. The question at the start of World War II was: Do we have enough funds to produce the required implements of war? The answer was No, we did not have enough money, nor did we have enough gold; but we did have more than enough resources. It was the available resources that enabled the US to achieve the high production and efficiency required to win the war. Unfortunately this is only considered in times of war."[13]

Fresco states that for this to work, all of Earth's resources must be held as the common heritage of all people and not just a select few; and the practice of rationing resources through monetary methods is irrelevant and counter-productive to the survival of human civilization.

The Venus Project was featured prominently in the 2008 documentary film Zeitgeist: Addendum, as a possible solution to the global problems explained in the first film and first half of the second film.
Following the movie, an organization called the Zeitgeist Movement was established to promote the aims of the Venus Project.
JOIN THE VENUS PROJECT HERE; ( http://www.thevenusproject.com/en/get-involved/global-activism-teams )

On Sustainable Cities;

A sustainable city, or eco-city is a city designed with consideration of environmental impact, inhabited by people dedicated to minimization of required inputs of energy, water and food, and waste output of heat, air pollution - CO2, methane, and water pollution.
A sustainable city can feed itself with minimal reliance on the surrounding countryside, and power itself with renewable sources of energy. The crux of this is to create the smallest possible ecological footprint, and to produce the lowest quantity of pollution possible, to efficiently use land; compost used materials, recycle it or convert waste-to-energy, and thus the city's overall contribution to climate change will be minimal, if such practices are adhered to.

It is estimated that around 50%[2011] of the world’s population now lives in cities and urban areas. These large communities provide both challenges and opportunities for environmentally conscious developers. In order to make them more sustainable, building design and practice, as well as perception and lifestyle must adopt sustainability thinking.

On Permaculture;

Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that are modeled on the relationships found in natural ecologies.
The ecological processes of plants, animals, their nutrient cycles, climatic factors and weather cycles are all part of the picture. Inhabitants’ needs are provided for using proven technologies for food, energy, shelter and infrastructure. Elements in a system are viewed in relationship to other elements, where the outputs of one element become the inputs of another.
Within a Permaculture system, work is minimized, "wastes" become resources, productivity and yields increase, and environments are restored.
Permaculture principles can be applied to any environment, at any scale from dense urban settlements to individual homes, from farms to entire regions.
While originating as an agro-ecological design theory, permaculture has developed a large international following. This "permaculture community" continues to expand on the original ideas, integrating a range of ideas of alternative culture, through a network of publications, permaculture gardens, intentional communities, training programs, and internet forums. In this way, permaculture has become a form of architecture of nature and ecology as well as an informal institution of alternative social ideals.

the butterfly's tale ~

noreply@blogger.com (Celestial Elf) — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 08:45:00 +0000

When we grew up the world was all magic and still full of beauty,
The butterflies flew high and the flowers grew tall.
But like canaries in a coal mine without light or air or freedom,
When their world came under stress, the time of death they heard call.

Technological agriculture's destruction of the worlds balance and flow,
Undermines natures resources essential for our wildlife to grow.
And the loss of many countless species will be catastrophic for mankind even so,
As these ecosystem pollinators brought essential plant-life profusion which medical research did know.

In England since the scientific 1970s five species of butterfly have already become extinct,
The remaining 54 diminish faster than any other birds or plant species interlinked.
Yet only now are they recognized as irreplaceable indicators of environmental change,
And as representatives for the crucial diversity of the wildlife community free range.

Hundreds of butterflies, beetles and dragonflies now at risk of vanishing all across Europe,
With almost one-third of 435 butterfly species suffering retrogression closeup,
Loss of environments caused by intensive farming, climate change and tourism destroying their natural habitats strange,
Irrespective of their significant role as pollinators in the ecosystems which they arrange.

And of the American butterflies and of their wild milkweed,
Home of The Monarch butterflies caterpillar, the butterflies seed.
The milkweed has also suffered since genetic alterations were introduced to our crop feed,
The purpose of this biotechnology to kill all except the crop that we need.

But more than just milkweed and other weeds have languished and decayed-
As The Duke of Burgundy, The Grayling, and Greenweed, The Large Blue, Speckled Footman and Painted Lady are all afraid,
Chasing the Large Copper of Ireland, the Giant Swallowtail from Jamaica, the Atewa of Ghana, American Silverspot and Apollo from the Alps to their ultimate end,
We face an ever silent spring as our neighbors and companions, the creatures who peopled our world endure a downtrend.

Yet some believe in a world teeming with life,
And establish Geo-dome sanctuaries amidst the wreckage of this modern strife,
Legally protected lands of untrammeled natural diversity
Respite for natures finite species to shelter from our adversity.

Acting as guardians of this new day of bio-diverse global harmony,
To protect our common heritage from some sterile future ahead,
Helping all the people understand the connection between the creatures and the planet,
How the butterflies are integral, the earths freedom worth more than farmstead.

As a symbol of our spirits and transformation since very ancient times,
The butterfly or soul-mind according to the Greeks sacred sign,
Of life after death as crawling caterpillar gives birth to flying grace,
So our souls are called now, to save this ethereal race.

And on this small earth we've got to learn to live together....
Although we're wearing different faces and we fly with different feather,
If we can save the butterflies, and see the wildness rebound,
We can also save ourselves, lets join the Butterfly Ball and turn this world around.

The butterfly's tale by celestialelff

c. celestial elf 2011

....................................................................................

Once there were swarms of butterfly's, even as recently as the 1970's butterfly's were widespread and populous, but more recently you will be lucky to see one or two compared with the riches that previously adorned our countrysides, river-ways, forests, fields and skies..
In 1892, SG Castle Russell wrote of his walk through The New Forest, South England: "Butterflies alarmed by my approach arose in immense numbers to take refuge in the trees above. They were so thick that I could hardly see ahead and indeed resembled a fall of brown leaves."
A few centuries earlier, Richard Turpyn recorded a probable mass migration to or from Britain in his Chronicles of Calais during the reigns of Henry VII and VIII: "an innumerable swarme of whit buttarflyes ... so thicke as flakes of snowe" that they blotted out views of Calais for workers in fields beyond the town.( Patrick Barkham, The Guardian UK.)

Whilst the collecting of British butterfly's has now ceased to be acceptable, yet butterfly populations have continued to plummet.
Industrial agriculture and the loss of 97% of England's natural grasslands and wildflower meadows, planting of conifers or letting our broadleaved woodlands become too overgrown for woodland flowers, plus the ever increasing sprawl of motorways and urban development have contributed significantly to this demise..
In addition, climate change makes it all the more complicated, because as well as new predators, new diseases do destroy native trees, flowers and insects that butterfly's depended on.
Alien and Invasive weeds also crowd out butterfly food plants, thus depriving the survivors of both home and sustenance.

The United Kingdom's largest native butterfly, The Swallowtail, was easily found all across the fens of East Anglia, until the draining of these wetlands for agriculture had caused its extinction, it is now confined to the Norfolk Broads.
The Pearl-Bordered Fritillary which was known as the 'Woodman's Friend' because it would follow foresters around as they coppiced or cut down patches of trees because they were attracted to the flowers that blossomed in the freshly cut glades, has also undergone a dramatic decline since this traditional way of 'harvesting' wood has died out.
But even before climate change, another man-made event, the introduction of the rabbit-killing disease myxomatosis in the 1950s, caused the decline of many grassland butterfly's which had relied on large rabbit populations to keep the grasslands short and full of flowers.

The last species to become extinct in Britain was The Large Blue (Maculinea arion) in 1979, however in the 1980s conservationists brought stock from Sweden and successfully re-established the butterfly on a small field on the edge of Dartmoor. Professor Thomas, the man responsible for this return of the Large Blue butterfly to Britain after having worked out vital aspects of its unique lifestyle – specifically that the caterpillar is taken into an ant's nest to be reared by the ants – has stated "What is bad for butterfly's is bad for all species – including our own.
( The Independent UK )

Other and less fortunate Species that have become extinct in the UK include;
The Mazarine Blue (Polyommatus semiargus) a small butterfly still found across Europe which feeds on red clover. The last colony in Britain died out in 1904.
The Black-Veined White (Aporia crataegi) still common in Europe, this relative of the Large and Small Whites has been extinct in the UK since 1925, perhaps because of the increase in agricultural chemical useage at that time.
The Large Tortoiseshell (Nymphalis polychloros) which was very common in Southern England until after the war, became extinct after Dutch Elm disease destroyed its main food source.

Around the wider world the story is much the same, as the Large Copper of Ireland, the Giant Swallowtail from Jamaica, the Atewa of Ghana, the American Silverspot and the Apollo from the Alps have all become extinct.
In The United States of America the Monarch butterfly also faces drastic reductions following destruction of their milkweed seeding plant due to bio technological agricultural chemicals used in killing the non crop weed.
The amazing Monarch butterfly's which migrate southward in the autumn to places where the climate is less extreme, and are guided by the sun's orbit as they travel through North America, moving at a pace of about almost 50 miles a day, although some are thought to have flown up to 80 miles in a day. At the end of October and the beginning of November, after traveling two months, these remarkable butterfly's settle into hibernation colonies in the mountains of central Mexico, where they spend the winter hibernating.

On a brighter note,
We have finally made a beginning in conserving the right kind of Eco-systems for these fragile species and have even begun creating bio diversity areas to protect and nurture them.
Sir David Attenborough the BBC's Natural history broadcaster launched in 2008 a £25m conservation project to reverse the 'silent natural disaster' that is threatening butterfly species across the UK.
This project, the Butterfly World, is the world's biggest butterfly house and has approximately 10,000 tropical butterflies of 250 species flying under its dome at any one time in the world's largest such display, in addition to extensive gardens and meadows to attract native British species, as well as education and research facilities. ( Butterfly World )

How we can all play a role in preserving these important and beautiful creatures ?
Butterfly's visit gardens to drink nectar from flowers and many nectar producing plants are hardy perennials which are easy to grow.
The most direct method by which any budding Lepidopterist may support the reverse in butterfly populations then, is to plant and encourage suitable nectar producing plants.
The best plants for butterfly's are the Buddlea, Ice-plant (Sedum), Lavender, Michaelmas Daisy (Aster) and Marjoram (Origanum).
But the butterfly caterpillars also need feeding and for this purpose you might plant Holly and Ivy in sunny positions where they can grow tall and flower.
Also keep your Stinging Nettles as these are home for the Comma, Small Tortoiseshell and Red Admiral butterfly's.

Included here is a link to The National Trust (UK) Top 20 butterfly sites;
( The National Trust )

Bright Blessings ~

Beltane Blessing; 30 April-1 May

noreply@blogger.com (Celestial Elf) — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 10:03:00 +0000

It is established and steadfast and bright and true,
That from Beltaine eve, Summerland magic leaps through,
And as a cup full of the fullness of natures invocation,
Generous as three times thrice the incantations wisdom to view.

Before the Sky and the Earth and the Sea, they have all called together,
Before the Sun and the Moon and the Stars, they have spoken as one,
By the breath of the Taliesin and of the Ganna Bandruich,
Upon the height of the hill of the many feathered winds,
Of the Eight Lesser Winds and Four Major Winds and a Wind Above all the winds as yet still not hewn,
From the Druids tongue of flames, a roaring fire will be declared here, twice in the runes,
It is a Blaze that will go all around them to the left and to the right,
To purify the night, turning aside adversity and transformed in its shape,
To burst forth the day of flowers, which is certain.

Star light shining bright empowers the Queen of the Faeries this night,
Be also empowered O people of the world lest you melt in her powerful sight,
Be not a ghost all spindled in Wonder exceeding Wonder,
But see the Fairy Host dancing within forest field and river, chanting and singing petitions of hope in the heart,
Each of a hundred-fold Sidhe will go around you and around you,
And they will come upon Him as it is always arranged,
And they will Vanish in the morning light, interwoven with the cool dew and the soft light,
And they will yield away completely, melt into forever the home of the fey.

I do bestow a fishfull sea and fertile lands soon prolific with prosperous harvests,
And green and fruited trees drooping down with the heavy growth of the fruits upon them,
And waxing fleshfull fleeced and round of sheep, goats and cattle amongst the fresh filled pastures roaming,
And delight as the Maidens sweet as wild honey each, and as fair as the lily after spring has spoken.

Joy/As May Queen manifest and with her the Green Man to the Great Rite eternal today,
A Sacred Marriage shall arise among them as in precious Chalice they set Earth's Athame..
Opening here the secret gates behind the departed darkness of night,
And outside of the brilliance of the brightness of day,
And our flowering ones will lead us in to the Summerlands, the excellent lands, in the most beautiful way.

Be celebrated each and all then in this dance of the May,
As maids skip a ring, A' conjuring the new Summer in,
Weaving lives, love and laughter, beside and before you, weaving bright welcome gladness all around.

And By the essence of the Oak, of Rowan and of Hawthorn in hedgerow,
By the magical energy within which I turn,
Peace Joy and Abundance to the Sky and to the Earth beneath Sky,
And to all of the peoples upon the Earth on this day
And of the binding of this blessing, I do myself bind it,
To the heart be it binded, a deep blessing from today.

It is established.
Beltane Blessing (Beannachadh Bealtain) by celestialelff
c. Celestial Elf 2011.

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On the tradition of Druid Rhetoric and Poetry;
Whilst Druid's occasionally carried magic wands and stones, in the majority of cases the Druids' only magic 'tool' was their voice and their words...
They were sage advisers and most often called upon to counsel Kings and other social leaders.
Above all else, they were exemplary poets and in Ancient Ireland this position was honored with status and rights surpassing even that of the Kings whom they advised.
The Rosc that such Druid's wrote(pl Roscanna)is a rhetorical, usually magical, chant, more than just a poem, these are poems that can invoke or topple the Gods and conjure whole nations from thin air.
Intended to be obscure, full of puns, and often set in deliberately 'pseudo-archaic' forms intermixed with more modern idioms, these poems were not public proclamations but 'magic' spells and prophecy, conceived to draw mystic power from having multiple meanings and ancient obscure diction.
This multi-faceted aspect of the language of Roscanna has the same insistence on ambiguity which one finds in ancient Celtic and Irish art wherein a given figure is not merely a spiral or a face or an animal or a leaf, but is all of them at once in an exquisite gestalt.

So it has been said ~

Of Taliesin;
Taliesin is probably the most famous of the Cynfeirdd, the early Bards.
As such he has assumed an almost mythic status to the extent that two distinct Taliesin's have emerged: the historic figure of the late sixth century and an entirely mythological figure whose legends were chronicled into the Ystoria Taliesin (Tale of Taliesin) by Elis Gruffydd in the mid sixteenth century.
His name is derived from the proto-Celtic elements talo(forehead) and jes-t-īn-o(bright) and has been interpreted as 'radiant brow' possibly referring to his blonde hair, but equally possibly representing the radiance of his gift of poetry, his awen.

Of Ganna Bandruich, the Female Druid;
Whilst most Roman records referred mainly to male Druids, the existence of female Druids is confirmed by the written sources from the Greek and Roman who were fascinated by the role of women in Celtic society.
The Celtic culture as a whole was known to accord equal status and high regard to their women folk in contrast to Roman world where women had no political rights and very limited civil rights, Roman women could not for example own property or inherit land, were kept in seclusion and considered 'chattel'.

Because the rights of Celtic women were many times better than the rest of Europe, we can make an educated guess that a persons gender mattered little when one wished to study the Druid ways.
All that would be needed is a strong memory and intellect and the desire to learn.
In addition there are references to bandrui in the medieval Irish tales, ban signifiying female and drui for Druid.
Conchobor Mac Nessa's mother Nessa was a druid, Finn was raised by a female druid and Scathach is explicitly called both a flaith or 'prophetess' and a druid and she prophesies about Cú Chulainn.

Of the name Ganna, Dio Cassius mentions that a Druidess named Ganna went on an embassy to Rome and was received by Domitian, younger son of the Roman Emperor Vespasian, this serves as precedent for the name here used..

.................................................................

On the Beltane Festivals;
Beltane or Beltane is the Gaelic name for the festival that rightly begins on April the 30th or Beltane's eve and continues on 1st May and is a celebration of purification and fertility.
The name originates from the Celtic god, Bel - the 'bright one', and the Gaelic word 'teine' meaning fire, giving the name 'bealttainn', meaning 'bright fire'.
Marking the beginning of the Summer season with the lighting of two great bon-fires on Beltane's eve signifies a time of purification and transition, these fires may be made of the nine sacred woods, Alder, Ash, Birch, Hawthorn, Hazel, Holly, Oak, Rowan and Willow.
Heralding in the season in the hope of a good harvest later in the year, Beltane festivals were accompanied with ritual acts to protect the people from any harm by Otherworldly spirits.

Significantly, as the Goddess (Brigid) moves through her various phases, Beltane sees the womanly aspect of the Summer Goddess banish the Old Crone aspect of the Winter Goddess in readiness for the maternal time and the fruits of nature to follow.

As this is one of the magic turning points of the Sacred Seasons, the veil between worlds is thought to be especially thin, and as a result many of the Fairy Host, the Sidhe and the Tuatha De Danann may be seen crossing between the worlds.
Particularly, the Faery Queen is thought to travel about on this night and if you gaze too long on her enchanted beauty she may whisk you away to live in her Other realms outside of time for an eternity.
The Faery Queen also represents the May Queen, although in practice the honor is usually carried out by young women who are soon to be married.

The May Queen's role in the Beltane proceedings, along with her May King, mythically a Jack in The Green, the Green Man or Horned God, is to take part in the Great Rite and so Open the way for the Summer.
This is the Sacred Marriage of the God and Goddess, often reenacted by a symbolic union during which the Athame (magical knife symbolizing male energy) is placed by the King of May into the Chalice (Sacred Cup symbolizing female energy) held by the Queen of the May.
For a more detailed account of how this ritual was enacted in earlier time,
I refer the reader to Marrion Zimmer Bradley's moving account in her fiction The Mists of Avalon.

Following this union which serves to Open the way to the Summer Lands,
festivities ensue, particularly that of dancing around the May Pole.
The May Pole itself is a symbol of the union of the God and the Goddess, as the red ribbons represent the fertility of the Goddess, the white represent the fertility of the God.
Men begin the weaving by dancing under the upheld ribbon of the first women facing them, accompanied by music, drums beating or chanting. The dancers move forward, stepping alternately over and under each person who’s dancing toward them.
The dance continues until the Maypole is completely wrapped, then the ribbons are tied off and the wreath from the top is tossed to the earth to bring its gathered power into the ground.

Whilst such public festivals are not as widespread as they once were, famously at Padstow in Cornwall there still is held an annual 'Obby-Oss' day, which is believed to be one of the oldest survivng fertility rites in the United Kingdom.
St. Ives and Penzance in Cornwall are now also seeing a revival of similar public festivities.

Other Beltane Lore;
During Medieval times, a man might also propose marriage by leaving a hawthorn branch at the door of his beloved on the first day of May.
If the branch was allowed to remain at her door, it was a signal that the proposal was accepted. If it was replaced with a cauliflower, the proposal was turned down.
Crosses of birch and rowan twigs were hung over doors on the May morning as a blessing and protection, and left until next May day.
Going 'A-Maying' meant staying out all night to gather flowering hawthorn, watching the sunrise and making love in the woods, also known as a 'greenwood marriage'
The dew on the May day morning is believed to have a magical potency - wash your face and body in it and you will remain fair all year.

Blessed Beltane to You ~

the bee myth

noreply@blogger.com (Celestial Elf) — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 07:09:00 +0000

An Environmental Machinima film based on Willi Paul's modern myth, The Bee Cave Spirits; ( http://www.planetshifter.com/node/1638 )
Set in a post Distopian society of a not too distant future, this film introduces the cause of bees and their integral value to the eco-sphere.

Bees in Traditional Culture;
Throughout history in many world cultures a mystical relationship to honeybees can be found.
In the Ancient world the Great Mother was known as the Queen Bee and her priestesses were called Melissae.
They served the Bee Goddesses and functioned as Oracles carrying the golden wisdom of the Goddess to her people.
The honeycomb was even considered by the Greek Pythagoreans to be a symbol of the Goddess' qualities of love and harmony, because of its hexagonal shape which in being composed of two triangles, one pointing upwards (Fire) and the other downwards, (Water) symbolized the perfect union between the opposites.
The Druids of Northern Europe reverenced the bees for their ability to pollinate flowers and crops, which was regarded as a sacred charge because honey was seen as a precious gift from the Mother Goddess herself.
Many Native American Indian tribes also used honey and other bee by-products, including the early Maya and Aztec Indians who kept bees and collected honey from the wild bees.
However the bee population of North America and Europe is now in serious decline, which threatens disaster to our food crops as they are dependent upon the bees to pollinate them.
The increase of commercial agriculture with its use of pesticides and destruction of wild plants and flowers upon which the bees forage upon contributed to this problem.
As bees are then an indicator of cross species health on 'Mother Earth', they are interestingly also an allegory for mankind's psychological and spiritual well-being...

Introducing Permaulture;
Permaculture, based on ecological and biological principles, is a holistic approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that are modeled on the relationships found in natural ecologies, harmoniously integrating the land with all of its inhabitants.
Whilst it is understood that earlier peoples did farm in cooperation with the Earth and her seasonal cycles, that for example the Druids in the North and other social leaders did much to manage and advise their communities on how and when to sow and tend crops and animals, following 'modern' Industrialization these techniques had been abandoned in favor of faster turn around of product for the market.
In our time however, Bill Mollison, who could be called the instigator of a Quiet Revolution, launched with his book Permaculture One (1978) an international resurgence of land-use structured on cooperation with nature.
( http://www.scottlondon.com/interviews/mollison.html )
Within this Permaculture system, the ecological processes of plants, animals, their nutrient cycles, climatic factors and weather cycles are all included, work is minimised, "wastes" become resources, productivity and yields increase, and environments are restored.
The fundamental ‘core values’ of Permaculture are often summarized as;
1. Earthcare – recognising that the Earth is the source of all life (is possibly itself a living entity — see the Gaia theory) and that we are a part of Earth, not apart from it.

2. Fairshare - in which animals are treated as co-habitators and co-workers of the Earth, eating foods normally unpalatable to people such as pests ie slugs and termites, and supplying valuable mineral rich fertilizer through their droppings.

3. Natural Energy use: e.g. employing a cave for preservation due to its ideally dry, dark and warm conditions, using the integration of co-operative crops rather than weeding as the growth of field flowers among corn allows the bees to better pollinate, and employing some 'weeds' to keep others at bay due to the nature of their chemical interaction with the soil, thus avoiding pesticides and chemicals which undermine the Earths ability to host its cycle of growths, in contrast to more usually practiced Industrial Agriculture which intensively exploits the soil, plants and animals.

For more information on Permaculture please follow these links;
( http://www.permaculture.org.uk/ )
( http://www.permacultureusa.org/ )
Blessed Bee !

The Mermaid Queen

noreply@blogger.com (Celestial Elf) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 22:11:00 +0000

The Celtic legends of Mermaids may have their origins in the part-man part-fish Sea-God Oannes who was worshiped by the Babylonians around 5000BCE,
who was also the Sun-God, rising out of the sea each day and disappearing back under the waves each night.
He was a civilizing force for the good, bringing light and life to his people, representing the positive values connected with the sea.
Oannes' Goddess counterpoint was Atargatis, a Semetic moon Goddess who became the first official Mermaid and represents nature herself..

The Mermaid is the most persistent and pervasive symbol of the old Goddess energy that represents women, particularly their mysterious, life-generating element.
However, battling the Ancient ways in an effort to establish itself, the early Christian church promoted the ideas that mermaids were dangerous temptresses and had no souls, but embodied the lure of fleshy pleasures to be shunned by the God-fearing.
The anti feminine propaganda was also carried out against many harmless old women who were put to death as witches by burning or hanging for practicing traditional herb-lore.
Similarly the Goddess-Mermaid was stripped of all her spiritual qualities and relegated to be an evil Siren of the seas.
Such views have endured in the many sailors stories that simultaneously tell of one family of mermaids, the Nereids, who were protective of sailors, whilst another, the dangerous Sirens, lured men to their doom.

In contrast with such negative portrayals, the earlier myths and legends such as those of the Isle of Iona, off the west coast of Scotland, present many tales in which Mermaids and Druids abound in happy community.
Known as the Isle of Druids and once called Innis nan Druidhneach, Iona is known to be a 'thin place' where the veil between worlds can be traversed, a place where the sense of the sacred seems more pronounced than in more mundane parts of the world.
Iona was also a seat of learning long before the first Christians first came to these lands.
There are tales that a new Divinity will take human form on the Isle of Iona, this time in the body of a woman, an amalgam of the Divine Sophia and the Goddess called by many names including Brith, Brid and Mary of the Gael. It is said that when She arrives, the world will know peace.
Today the remains of over 350 standing stones are still to be found on Iona....

In this film we also see the Selkie, who according to Celtic folklore is mythological shapeshifting sea fairie, usually living in the form of a bright-eyed seal and found in Northern Scotland and the Shetland Islands.
In earlier times Selkies often came to land in a human form, where they would dance, especially on the night of the full moon.
In taking human form the Selkies would shed their Seal-skins, and hide them in a safe place.
There are many tales from the clans of leaders taking Selkie wives by stealing their skins, because Selkies are said to make good wives, although they always longed for the sea, and would return to their Seal form as soon as they gained repossession of their skins.
Fortunately for us, our Selkie was not pursued by anybody, but runs free to this day, as far as we know.

Following Lisa Thiel's lead in her beautiful song, in this film we celebrate the life giving goodness of the Goddess of the Seas, the Mermaid Queen restored.
For the sake of narrative unity, I have named our Scottish man Morcant-Taisch, composed of two ancient Celtic names, MorCant meaning Sea Circle, or Circle of the Sea, and Taisch being the Celtic name given to those with the Second Sight.
Morcant-Taisch then has been blessed with the Second Sight and sees the Queen of the Mermaids visiting her ancient kingdom of Innis nan Druidhneach, The Isle of Iona.

Grateful thanks for Lisa Thiel's permission to use the Song of the Mermaid Queen (C) 1990 Lisa Thiel,
And David J. Macvitie for Kaan Pipes Intro instrumental, from Circle of the Seasons (c) 2005 Lisa Thiel
via Sacred Dream .com ( http://www.sacreddream.com/ )