Subverting Calan Mai


A song for Gwyn ap Nudd
Who on Calan Mai must depart
Gwythyr’s blade I break and blood I staunch
Heal the scars on Creiddylad’s heart

Not murdered but gone
The bull takes his queens
And in Annwn they are renewed
Yet doors open wide between the two sides
And the old ways trickle through

I mourn his loss though I know he’ll be back
His heart beats ever still
Gwythyr’s blade is gone and there’s no blood to staunch
Creiddylad’s heart is renewed

So ‘til Calan Gaeaf she’ll stay
In Gwythyr’s arms she'll lay
‘Til the Huntsman collects her again
For wild delights on darkened days


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Aokigahara

She arrives dressed in all black and still clutching the one-way ticket in a small white hand.The bus is already a half kilometer down the road from where it dropped her off in the parking lot  The driver had left quickly, casting nervous glances at the trees as she'd disembarked and burning her with a look of sorrow. He'd known why she'd come of course, but that's only to be expected. This was Aokigahara after all. This was the infamous  Sea of Trees,  the place declared by the suicide manuals to be the  perfect place to die. There was an allure to this place (if one could be lured by death), and it had always been that way. Some say it started with the grandmothers who were left to die of exposure after their families judged them to be a burden. Others say it was more about famines and somehow less cruel. Nowadays though, it was where people came who were slowly being crushed. But whether that crushing came from societal pressure or from the shame of being unable to
Read more

Animism

Image
I've been reading a book on animism recently. Well, it isn't actually about animism, but the author gets it in that kind of 'bone-deep' kind of way that very few European-descended Pagans do. The book is Silence by the Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, and it has proven to be one of the best books I have ever read on animism in my life. I've seen a lot of modern (mostly European-descended) Pagans and Witches claim to be animist over the past couple of years, but for the most part their animism feels like an affectation to me. If anything, animism is something that seems to have become trendy. Thich Nhat Hanh probably doesn't see himself as an animist, and yet it shines through in his musings on how the trees on the banks of a river would feel if the sound of the river were to suddenly stop. It's there in the way he talks about acquiring a bell for practice - it is not simply a thing that is bought, but invited to come home with you. It'
Read more

A Raven's Story

“History is written by the victors” they say. But I say that it’s the stories that endure that define what is. Take the story of old Br â n the Blessed, for example. Oh, you haven’t heard of him? He was a mighty king once; so mighty he could wade across the sea to Ireland to rescue his sister. But he was also unlucky too, because for all the men he took with him, “ except seven, none rose up ”. Sound familiar? Even Br â n himself (mighty as he was) fell there. “Cut off my head” he’d said as he lay dying (or words to that effect). “Bring me back and feast with my head. Get Rhiannon to send some of those birds to sing to us and we’ll have a grand old time - it’ll be great! Head Br â n will be just as fun as full Br â n, and I won’t even rot as long as you keep that there door closed!” And so they’d taken Br â n’s head and returned home to Harlech. The seven feasted and the head spoke, laughed, told stories and jokes. The birds sang the sweetest of melodies ever heard, and for
Read more