Journeys With The Goddess: Cerridwen, Goddess Of Inspiration

Our story today takes place on the shores of Linn Tiggid,

Or the Lake of Tiggid,

A mythical and magical place surrounded by rolling green hills in the north of Wales,

Soggy and soaked with the rains that blow in from the west.

And the lake,

The bottom is fathomless,

Dark and deep,

But its waters are sweet,

Flowing from the glaciers at the peaks of Snowdon down through the River Dee in an icy torrent that feeds it.

It is said that beneath this lake was an island beneath the waves,

And beneath this island there lied a great cauldron,

Deep and powerful.

And it was a great woman,

A wise woman,

Who could command its power,

For she had gathered the wisdom of the ages.

She had studied the books of the Druids and the ancient peoples,

And she had spent her days communing with the unseen realms,

Whispering to the plants and animals.

Her name was Cittedwyn,

And she was a woman of nature with ruddy red cheeks,

Long thick hair streaked with grey rough hands,

And she walked barefoot amongst the trees and the plants,

Collecting them,

Singing to them,

Learning their ways by close observation over the seasons.

She had studied the stars and spent many nights sleeping beneath the moon,

And when she walked the feeling of the air would shift,

The smell of the fresh earth,

The breeze after a hard rain,

The tang of new buds would waft from her skin and hair.

She was a healer,

And she was a mother.

Two children she had with her husband,

Teged Foil,

And she loved them dearly,

Even though the two children could not be more different from each other.

There was Crervu of the golden hair,

The softest pale skin,

The biggest doe eyes.

She was grace-embodied,

She was light-footed and smiling,

Always kind,

Always laughing.

And then there was Mofren,

The firstborn.

His skin was dark like a layer of ash,

And ember had dusted it,

His eyes two dark pools that felt like you were looking into a bottomless well,

And his manner was cold and uncaring.

He was selfish,

He was needy,

And when he was a baby he would cry and cry and cry no matter what Geridwen did.

Even his sister would come and try to comfort him,

Cooing to him,

And he would lay there screaming in the cradle,

And he would spit up at her and hit her with his little fists until she had to run away.

He wouldn't eat,

He hated the light,

And all of those around him became more fearful of him as he got older,

For he was a torrent of anger and woe wrapped into the form of a child.

But Geridwen was a very patient mother,

She never showed her frustration with him.

She was ceaselessly kind and caring,

She came to believe that the best thing for him would be for him to be out in the woods learning the ways of the forest as she had done herself as a girl.

But this just seemed to make him wilder than ever,

And this violence that she had never seen in a child before was beginning to make itself known to her,

And to frighten her.

People began to whisper and called him avagdhi,

Which meant utter darkness in Welsh.

And so Geridwen knew that the time had come to take matters into her own hands before he got worse,

The time had come for her to haul up the great cauldron that had been passed down to her from her mother's mother to her mother and her mother before that,

Waiting for its secrets to be revealed,

Waiting for its greatest use to come to fruition.

This cauldron was huge,

It was heavy,

It was cast iron,

Rough and deep.

She dragged it into a clearing in the forest.

She collected firewood until sweat was dripping down her back,

Lugging logs and tree branches to create a giant bonfire which the cauldron could rest within.

And when the fire was ready and burning hot,

She called upon the four directions.

She spoke to the elements,

To the ancestors,

And in her visions she saw that there were plants and things that she needed to collect as the seasons passed,

And that this potion would take one full year to complete.

She knew that through the wheel of the year and the cycle of the seasons,

Each element and each season had to be conjured through these ingredients,

As they contributed to the cauldron in the form of the spring rains,

The heat of the sun in the summer,

The leaves and the whipping of the winds in the autumn and the cold frost and snow of winter.

It needed to be imbued with all of these things.

And as she studied the stars and sought the ancient wisdom,

She was told exactly what to put into the mix which plants and herbs and flowers to collect.

Through Lammas,

Through Samhain,

Through Imbolc,

To Beltane,

To Lammas again,

When the mixture would finally be ready.

And so the secrets of the cauldron would not be revealed.

She called upon a blind man named Morda to tend to the fire and the serving boy that led him to stir it.

The boy's name was Gwion Bach,

A slight boy with dark,

Watchful eyes who never spoke a word.

And so a year passed.

The day approached that the potion was almost ready.

The first three drops would be tasted by her son.

And he would be touched by the Awen,

The seed of inspiration.

He would see all the wisdom of the world.

And with that taste,

He would be transformed into a boy of wisdom,

Of justice,

Of truth.

And then he would quickly change his ways.

This is what Cereduin planned,

But things,

Of course,

Did not turn out as she expected.

The day before the potion was to be ready,

The thick,

Liquid,

Viscous,

Greenish-yellow it began to splutter and boil more than it had before.

It had been simmering gently this whole year,

As she had been instructed to make sure.

But the night before,

The moon had been high and bright and heavy in the sky.

The blind man slept,

And the boy stirred.

His back was sore,

His patience was finished,

His dislike of Cereduin for forcing him to do this work with hardly any breaks or time to himself over the course of an entire year began to grow and become more and more poisonous as the time passed.

So he stirred slower.

He took longer breaks while the man slept.

And his anger increased,

And strangely as it did so did the turbulent mixture began to anger,

To boil over,

Hot,

Steaming like molten lava until three drops splattered the boy on his hand as he stirred,

Sizzling into his skin,

Searing into it.

He quickly put his hand to his mouth to soothe it,

And in that moment,

The Awen was unleashed.

And in that moment,

Gwion Bok saw all the wisdom of the world,

The stars,

The truth,

Fireworks,

An explosion of everything that came before and everything that would be.

It lasted just a moment,

But it felt like a thousand lifetimes.

Bliss,

Ecstasy,

Joy,

Sorrow,

All woven into one ecstatic moment.

And after that moment,

Gwion Bok would never be the same again.

And in that instant,

He also knew that he needed to leave this place immediately.

So in a flurry of this knowingness,

He pushed over the cauldron and cracked it into two,

This molten potion spreading across the land,

The blind man crying out in pain as it spilled over him,

Alerting Curidwen who was asleep in the hut nearby.

She awoke to his cry,

And the orange of the flames licking and leaping towards her for the fire that had heated the cauldron had spread and was burning the land around it.

And it was in those flames that she saw the form of the boy,

Silhouetted,

Running.

These moments,

They happen in double time,

Triple time,

Overlapping and winding into different dimensions,

Curidwen cries out and begins to chase him into the darkness,

Furious at what has just happened.

Past the molten potion seeping into the land,

She sees his form turn swiftly,

His silhouette against the light of the moon changing from a boy into a hare.

He runs faster and faster and faster,

Curidwen cannot let him get away,

And so she wills herself into the form of a hound to chase him,

To make time on him to get closer and closer,

Snapping at his heels,

Running across fields and down hills,

Up hills almost so fast their feet hardly touched the ground.

And then,

Just as she is about to get her jaws around him,

They reach the edge of the lake,

And he dissolves quickly,

Swiftly into the form of a salmon.

Without thinking,

She changes herself into an otter and the two glide and slip and swim faster and faster,

Each time the otter lunging at him,

The salmon slipping away.

They swim the length of the lake until on its shore another transformation.

We see the form of an eagle as it surges up from the surface of the water,

Upward in a flurry of wings and feathers piercing the night air.

Quickly behind him follows the form of a hawk,

Exploding too from the water and upward into the sky.

In quick pursuits they fly across the moon,

Through the stars,

Up,

Up,

Up,

And then just as fast down,

Plummeting,

Falling,

Tumbling,

As they claw and fight each other in the air,

Swirling downward,

Screaming out in anger and pain,

Down,

Down,

Down,

Until they both hit the ground in an explosion of feathers and force.

In that instant,

The eagle disappears,

And there is nothing,

Only silence.

A hawk with a broken wing pecks at the ground,

Calling out in fury,

For Gwion Bach has become a seed.

And so Curidwen shifts from the hawk form into that of a hen,

Pecking,

Pecking seriously now at the ground,

Seeking out that seed,

Eating every seed she finds whole.

Until gleaming beneath the moon,

She picks up Gwion Bach in the form of the seed and swallows him whole.

And from the form of the hen,

She returns to her form as a woman.

And now we see this woman with a growing belly,

Then a heavy belly,

As it swells,

Her womb stretching as the seed within her grows and grows,

And by dawn,

Is ready to be birthed into the form of a child.

Curidwen lies alone in the field.

She has done this before,

But she is angry,

And she is exhausted,

And the child slips out in a cry that almost rips the sky in two.

She reaches for him,

Ready to strangle him right there before he tries to turn into something else,

But as she catches him slithering and wet from between her legs,

Wiping the blood from his face,

She looks down upon him.

She gasps.

He is beautiful,

More beautiful and tender than any child she has held before.

He looks up at her,

His big,

Wide eyes full of the stars,

Of miracles,

Of joy and pain and all the knowing of the universe.

And she cannot harm him.

No,

She cannot.

And so she takes him to the ocean,

To a coracle,

And in a bag of crane skin,

She places him gently,

Whispering into his soft,

Sweet-smelling brow.

She almost cannot bear to give him up,

But she does.

She pushes the boat out to sea,

Watching until it disappears over the horizon,

Carried out to sea,

Protected by the gods of the ocean gently rocking him to sleep.

As one tear falls down her cheek,

She turns to return home to her own children.

And this boy,

He of the radiant brow with all the knowledge and inspiration he has taken from the cauldron,

The initiations he has gone through,

He floats away to one day become the great Taliesin,

The most talented of the Welsh bards ever to have lived,

Written of in tales and legends,

Far more than she who made him what he was.

Curidwen,

She returns to her broken cauldron to continue her life in its own spirals and designs,

Curidwen always reminding us that as one thing ends,

Another begins.

As one door closes,

Another door opens.

As the cosmos expands and stretches,

We live and die and learn and live and die and learn again.

And now,

With the embers of the story still burning within you,

Perhaps you'd like to journey inwards to meet Curidwen,

For now that you know her,

She wishes to know you too.

If you are willing,

Take a deep breath,

Close your eyes if they're not already closed,

And let everything around you fall away for the next twenty minutes or so.

Begin to feel your body grounded into the earth beneath you,

The weight of your bones,

The touch of the air on your skin.

This is your space,

Your threshold,

Your doorway inward.

Feeling your body as it rests on the earth,

Down through your sit bones,

Down through your hips,

Down through your legs and ankles and feet.

Imagining roots stretching down from your feet into the earth beneath you.

Down into the rich and fertile soil,

Down through the soil into layers of rock stretching down farther through crystal,

Into the center of a dark and fathomlessly deep lake,

Lake Ortegut.

Imagining now that you are sitting deep at the bottom of this lake,

Breathing easily through the water,

Looking upwards towards the surface,

Towards the light,

And hearing the muted sounds as you look up to the surface.

Here,

You feel safe.

The waters of the lake are warm and holding you,

Allowing you to rest on its soft bottom surrounded by dancing seaweed and life.

It is dim,

But you can see the movement of the grasses dancing around you,

The little bright fish as they swim,

The glow of phosphorescent starting here and there in sparks and flashes.

You feel held.

You feel the pulse of magic,

The excitement of the journey ahead and the creation that is to come.

This co-collaboration with the divine,

With the sparks like the light that is moving and dancing around you.

Looking up to the surface of the lake,

You feel like you are being held in a womb.

And I invite you to turn your attention to your breath,

Just noticing any sensations that are in your body,

Noticing any ways that you can relax more,

Can sink more into these sensations,

Letting any tension that you're feeling just dissipate and dissolve into the warm waters of the lake.

Breathing into those places of tension where energy is being held,

Noticing any changes that take place as you bring your awareness to the space around you.

And now you begin to feel a lightness in your body as you begin to gently float upwards towards the light,

Up slowly to the surface of the lake,

Feeling its magic and power spinning and weaving around you,

The phosphorescence guiding you upwards,

Swirling around you like fairy dust,

Infusing every molecule of your body with this magic,

With the spark as you float upwards towards the surface,

Noticing the entirety of your body,

Feeling the blood,

The pulsing,

The circulation,

Filling with this beautiful buoyant light,

This beautiful spark,

This glow,

This warmth filling your body.

And as you float to the surface,

You feel the breeze on your face,

You breathe the fresh air into your lungs,

You notice the smooth surface of the water and the beautiful night sky above you,

The moon hanging full and heavy in the night sky,

The surface of the water as it begins to ripple,

You see yourself almost as if you were floating above your body,

Floating on this vast and beautiful lake,

You look down and you notice how it feels to look down at your own form as it floats here.

You notice the quality of the light,

The color and the shifting shapes on the surface of the lake as they begin to form into an image,

An image surrounding you on this beautiful glassy surface,

This is a message for you from the lake,

I invite you to watch it as it takes shape,

This message just for you and you alone.

Perhaps the message is clear or perhaps you only see the surface of the lake and it is not yet time to know,

But from beneath the lake you begin to hear a voice ringing out beautiful and pure and clear,

Perhaps the message is in the voice or you hear the voice as it speaks or sings to you,

This is the voice,

The ancient voice of the lake from beneath the waters,

Listen,

What does it have to say to you?

Now you begin to float slowly towards the shore of the lake,

You allow your body to drift gently still being held,

Held in this womb,

In this warm and comforting place,

Feeling the lightness of your body as it floats gently towards the shore,

The breeze as it pushes you,

It's gentle caress moving you forward,

The forces of nature supporting you and in the space of relaxation floating,

Notice how your heart feels,

Bring your attention to that space,

Notice if it feels open,

If it feels like it's burning and yearning for something more or if it is content to be as it is,

Floating now towards the shore of the lake,

You make your way there and you sit up,

Feeling the soft sand and the grass around you,

You know that it is now time for you to meet the goddess,

You stand brushing the sand from you,

Bowing your head towards the lake,

Asking her to come forth if she wants to meet you and soon you hear her and you feel her in the rustle of the wind and the branches,

Perhaps her footsteps on the ground,

Her smell,

You feel that she is here with you now,

If you choose to you can open your eyes and look directly at her or you can feel her presence around you,

Noticing how she comes to you,

In what form she takes,

It may be that you meet her in the form of an animal,

She might come to you in the form of a light body or a presence or in the body of a woman,

Whatever way she comes to you is exactly how she is meant to meet you here on the shores of the lake.

I will give you a moment to meet her on your own and to say quietly to her any words you would like her to hear now.

After you have had some time to speak to each other,

I invite you to move towards a fire that is glowing nearby,

Just a small bonfire burning by the side of the lake,

Crackling,

This fire you move towards and warm yourself by,

Perhaps Curidwen remains with you and into the flames you gaze together,

Your hands outstretched,

Feeling the warmth,

Hearing the crackling,

Gazing together into the flames and perhaps here you also notice that there is a cauldron next to the fire and together you lift it and you put it into the flames resting above them,

This is your cauldron.

Curidwen guides you either through words or silently and you feel the steadiness,

The depth of her wisdom as it spreads over you in her presence,

You feel all that ancient knowledge that she carries being transmitted to you,

Perhaps in her voice or even just the way that she looks at you,

Trusting that you know exactly what to do next,

You know exactly what to collect and to put into your cauldron,

For this is a cauldron of transformation,

This is a cauldron that is made up of everything that has come before you and within it,

Within the flame and the spark you will create your own Awen,

Your own source of inspiration,

Perhaps it will bloom into a project or an idea or a dream that can be nurtured within this cauldron,

Only you know what will be and only you know what it will take to create this potion,

This Awen,

This divine source that will nurture your creations,

That will allow for you to transform into that which brings life,

That which nurtures the spark and allows it to grow and to form and be molded into whatever you want it to be and so you begin to place things into this cauldron,

Perhaps they are items that you collect from the shore of the lake or perhaps they are just colors,

Thoughts,

Ideas,

Images that you conjure in your mind that will give you some time to start to create your potion within the belly of the cauldron and when you have gathered everything you need,

You put it into this giant pot and you begin to let it boil stirring it,

Tending to it,

Knowing that within this potion,

This potent potion,

There is the whole universe all the wisdom,

All the beauty and you will taste just three drops of this potion when it is ready and within those three drops,

You will have all that you need to be transformed,

To create whatever it is that you want to create to be whoever it is that you want to be,

To plant the seeds of your own transformation you stir and stir,

Feeling the anticipation and excitement,

Feeling Karidwen's eyes on you watching over you,

Standing by,

And when she nods at you,

You know that it is time perhaps moments have passed or weeks or days or even a year you know that it is ready,

And so you take the large spoon that you've been stirring with and you gently dip it into the mixture,

Noticing the textures,

The colors of this magic potion that you have created the way that it moves,

And you bring it slowly to your mouth,

Preparing yourself to taste it knowing that nothing will be the same once the Awan has been tasted on your lips you lift the spoon to your mouth,

You taste the drops,

And you feel your whole body light up from within this taste like nothing you have ever tasted before,

The flavor spreading through your body igniting it,

Allowing whatever comes through your body now to be felt noticing muscle in the skin,

The pulsing of your blood being lit up from within by the Awan's magic,

By pure inspiration and once you have tasted and felt this transformation,

You take the cauldron and you tip it over gently into the lake allowing it to spread into the glowing water as an offering to divine creation as an offering to the goddess down into the earth,

Into the rocks and the crystal core,

Down into the bottomless lake this offering to the great cosmic mother and to Kuridwin herself for helping you along the way to discovery you bow your head to say a quiet prayer,

A blessing,

Or a word of thanks you watch the potion as it dissolves into the lake and you turn to Kuridwin looking into her eyes you speak to her any last words you would like her to hear perhaps leaving some space for her to speak to you now giving you any wisdom that you need to hear before you say your final farewells any way that you feel you want to close this connection perhaps by giving her a hug or bowing your head to her in prayer do so now she begins to fade back into the lake,

Leaving you for a moment of quiet contemplation looking out at the green rolling hills around you,

The surface of the water as it stills you feel the beauty surrounding you,

The peace within your own heart the excitement or whatever it is you feel in your own body,

Just being aware of that now allowing the memory of that feeling to imprint upon you so that you can remember it and carry it forth beyond this moment and with this feeling carried closely within you,

From the shore of the lake it is now time to return back down through the lake shore,

Through the roots that you cast down into this place through the crystal cave,

Through the rock,

The soil,

And back into your own body up through your feet,

Your legs,

Your hip bones,

Back to this place that you left giving yourself one final moment to notice any changes in your body any sensations that you are left with and when you are ready,

You can begin to move your fingers and toes and come back to this place,

Noticing your breath,

The space around you knowing that your experience here will remain within you,

To return to any time you need knowing that you can return to the Awen when you are ready to create,

When you wish to be inspired when you are ready to nurture the seed of creativity and transformation within you