Author: Steph

Summer Solstice

Steph

Summer Solstice 2015
I’ll start this entry with my latest bit of Welsh
Hirddydd haf da
Happy solstice!
I spent the morning of this day in the place where King Arthur fought his final battle on the midsummer of 537; Camlan.

I went by bus for it was too far off route to Dinas Mawddwy /Deenas mauo vrey/ ..the fort of Maud or to give her her more known name the goddess Ceriwdn who birthed Taliesin, but more of that later.

The battlefield is so very clearly the most obvious place to fight a strategic battle, at a ford over the river and on up a couple of fields to a loop in the river. I could almost feel the warriors clash.

I returned to Machynlleth for lunch and internet to catch you up with my adventures and left it too late by 1 minute to catch my afternoon train to Tywyn. Synchronicity this, for the next left in two hours meaning I needed to find a place to spend some time that was worthwhile to my quest for Merlin, and of course I found it.
The bookshop next to where I had stayed I remembered from having been with the man who was once my greatest love some years before. It had been closed since I arrived. Now, this Saturday afternoon, it has finally opened its doors. Its a dusty old rambling maze of a place, the sort of curiosity shop where you just know you’ll find something unexpected. I enjoy browsing old maps. I ask about books about Bardsey but the owner doesn’t know, and though he does know where there are books on myths and legends there are hardly any, but it doesn’t bother me unduly; I have found the Welsh section and am thrilled with what is there; a trove of books written, published and printed in Wales but written in English, at least enough of them to keep me happy.
I marvel at so much knowledge that you simply don’t come across in England. I realise that it is here in this land that I will find the ancient, supposedly lost, knowledge of our island, and I begin to, in this shop.
I pull from the shelves a small cloth bound volume in red with gold lettering as fresh as it were printed yesterday, though the spine has faded in the sun since it was written in 1887.

The Welsh Question and Druidism
It says, written by Griffith with his coat of arms beneath ‘the red dragon leads the way’ motto.

Inside the first few chapters are concerned with answering a bigoted Englishman’s letters to the Welsh Morning Post suggesting that, having lived in Wales some years, in his opinion it really should be under English rule and its language squashed! I am pleased to report that Griffith, a Welshman living in London, very ably cuts this ignoramus down to size.

It is in the second section of the book though that I find the magic that makes me buy the book, though, being a very collectible volume because of its binding (!), the owner clearly has no sense of its content being of any value, it costs more than I have ever paid for a book.

Somewhere into the middle of the very interesting discourse on Druidism is an explanation of the three orders that could be attained by ovates or initiates;

Elphin ( or elf)
Myddyn ( or Merlin)
Taliesin

Suddenly everything makes perfect sense to me. More than that but the initiatory stage of Myddyn is one of 13 steps, for each level has 12 stages to pass through.
The Merlin is one who embodies the marrow, the life of man, after the full o f life but half the understanding of the elf. It is only when an initiate reaches the level of Taliesin that he can said to be he of radiant brow, ie with a halo, it means continuing consuming desire.
The book goes on to explain that the tale of the birth of Taliesin is another way of explaining the journey to becoming a Taliesin through the cauldron of Ceriwdn, whose namesake is Maud, or Mawddwy.
When the old stories then tell us that the maiden took the Merlin’s power, it becomes the obvious that what we are dealing with is a Christian corruption of the ancient wisdom, the spiritual teachings of the druids they supplanted, that taught a person how a mature knowledgeable man became in effect a saint, an enlightened one.
I am sure more of this will become clear as I walk through n, but for now I just feel relief. The tales I have believed lost, as academic after academic dismisses the old ways as impossible to reconstruct are actually quite simply hidden from view of those who take what they find at face value.
I get on the train to Tywyn and enjoy unparalled views of the Dyfi estuary and alight in Tywyn to walk the three miles or so to Bryncrug where I shall pass the night where Cadair Idris can be seen.
My host in the Bed n breakfast I have chosen is a delight who believes that as we women get older we are free finally to accept our own selves, to dress and be as we please.
In the local pub I find mainstream culture prevails, so that though the food is good the men are drunk and loud by eight thirty, the music could contend with a nightclub for volume and I shudder to think that the old Welsh culture has been subsumed by this heathen culture of noise drunkenness and irreverence.
My being longs for the old ways and I begin to know that it is time to vote for Wales to have its independence so that it might start the long journey back to what is truly good and hope they will accept incomers with only a very small diluted amount of Welsh blood to come and reside in these lands of mountain and mist where still the oak reigns supreme.
My host Maureen tells me the tale of how she and her now deceased husband bought this place when it was a tumble wreck with a dirt floor. She insisted on buying this rather than others that were made re suitable she trusted the little inner voice that told her this was the place. That was 28 years ago and to look at the lovely house and out buildings now you could not have guessed what state it had been in. It is a good lesson that the inner voice us always right no matter how unlikely it may seem. Things will come to help them to work out if you follow your intuition.
Over breakfast I hear about Black Country dialects and how I must visit the Last Inn in Bamouth for a fresh water spring runs through it, just as I have imagined in my visioning of the place of refuge I seek to offer.
I set out to Fairbourne bright and early. I want to catch the train between two request stops because the alternative is to walk past several farms and I now longer find this a pleasure for too many farmers act as though the lane is there as much as their land and have territorial dogs.
I walk swiftly and purposefully but still manage to enjoy a backward glance at Birds Rock that looks like a birds head and, I gave been told over breakfast by my fellow guests that it gets covered in roosting commorants.
Once I am on the lane to the train stop I cannot help but notice

The way is strewn
With hearts and bells
As dog rose
And fox glove
Shed petals
Blown by the wind

As I round the bend
A farm for sale
Nestles
In a south facing
Lee of the Tal Y Gareg
In the bay
Of old Ceredigion

I am thrilled with possibilities and soon descend to the train halt where myself and two other walkers put out our hands for that train that leaves me five minutes later in Llwyngrwll where I am thrilled to see that the whole village is covered in knitted bunting and sculptures as a community fund raising endeavour.
Then I walk the next couple of miles along the main road, the railway far below by the sea, the high mountain looms high above and I small figure wend my way along the narrow freeway frightened again by another mountain pass.

Midsummer Birth and Revelation

Steph

23rd June 2015
There are not many days as glorious as yesterday was. It began by a walk up a steep lane from my hosts beautiful home to the pilgrims chapel at Llandecwyn. I am now clearly on the southern route for Bardsey island. The chapel exudes presence like a living being. There are not many places of Christian worship that I have visited that have managed to retain that through the years of ritualised dogma, but here the faith is still clearly a truly a living one and its vicar, who sadly died two years ago, a truly enlightened being.
Glynis, my host was a friend of Jim Cotter and I am sad to have missed him by two years. In the chapel are dusky pink copies of a service. It is full of poetry that is truly moving and heartfelt prayers to honour all diversity. His own poem Llandecwyn Praise moves along with a magic equalled only by Stephenson’s memorable ode to the mail train

Wells and lakes and waterfalling
Moliant I dduw
Mists and rainfall softly sweeping
Moliant I dduw
Sands that glisten tides that flow
Coiling river blust’ring wind blow
Waves that thunder, crashing surf glow
Moliant I dduw

It begins.
Praise to the divine, translates the Welsh Moliant I dduw.
Truly I feel my journey, having travelled through so many shades and flavours, has now reached the part of a true pilgrimage. My heart responds to the life felt in the little stone chapel where the road stops, perched a top a mountain. The track continues across the mountains but Glynis and I return, back past the exquisite natural lake just five minutes from her house.
As we walk back down she talks about the space and peace she receives from walking, and the group of ladies, Over the Hill, who meet to walk together for week or more every year. We recognise that it is only when we walk way from our daily lives, and I mean that literally, not metaphorically, that we are able to see the everyday stresses for what they are. There is something pure, simple and uncumbersome about walking, with so few possessions and so few decisions to be made. This is only the third time I have had a walking companion and I feel touched it should have Glynis. Llandecwyn has enchanted me , but now it is time to see the beings she has invited me here for.
We go by car for the bridge over the river is closed for repairs and must drive a dozen miles or so around to the next crossing. We are headed for the visitor centre where the ospreys may be viewed. When we arrive at the little camouflouge green portocabins with their wooden verandah and viewing platform the two young men on duty today are full of excitement to see Glynis.
There’s a crack in one of the eggs

They say. A chick is hatching.
Glynis and turn to look at one another, tears in our eyes, and Glynis rushes off to phone David, to tell him of the news.
Together we stand in front of the screen where we can watch live the happenings in the nest, which Glynis has pointed out on a demonstration model, is large and flat with twig sides and round and as big as would fit nicely in the centre of a double bed, atop a tree, like a plate on a spinning stick.
Little by little we watch a downy wing struggle desperately to free itself from a thick shell. People trickle in and as each are told the wonderful news they too sit or stand in front of one of the two flat screens to wait for the birth of a new Osprey, a species that almost became completely extinct in Britain due to human action.
It is clear that nothing movesa human more than watching a birth of a delicate vulnerable creature struggling into life. Men and women alike watch in awe, often in reverential silence eyes glued to the screen where for most of the time we can see only a wing as the female sits on herceggs again, keeping them warm.
We watch for more than an hour before Glynis has to leave. We have seen the baby bird’s head and beak emerging several times but it still hasn’t escaped the shell.
We speak of our thrill, Glynis is delighted about the end I will have for my tale of the ospreys and I am deeply moved by the synchronicity of the chick being born on midsummer’s day, St Johns eve, a day when I knew I would do something special, though I could never have imagined this.
The birth continues, the female is obviously completely engaged in her task, careful to keep her big talons away from the fragile happening but now and again inserting a claw or a beak close to the shell to see if she can help loosen it. Her efforts don’t seem to make much difference though and the chick struggles on. By now there are plenty of people at the tiny visitors centre, up to twenty of us at times, as some come and go. One local lady, clearly very involved with the ospreys talks and talks in her excitement and anxiety.
The male, the new father to be, sits on the edge of the nest or perches on one of its perching branches that extrude from the nest that was built some ten years before and kept in good repair by the original male, a few twigs each year to tidy it up. He seems to be keeping guard.
The hatching continues. For a time the little downy chick seems barely to move and I worry that he might die and there are others too who murmur in concern, but every now and again a little movement reassures us that s/he lives still. It is obviously really difficult work, being born from an egg.
The female begins to look about her keenly. Then we realise that the male has left. He has gone for fish the talkative lady explains. As soon as the chick can raise its beak in the air it will be fed. Ospreys live exclusively on freshly caught fish.
He seems to be fine for ages. The female keeps looking about here and I can almost feel her anticipation. She’s hungry and there is a chick that will need to take its first meal very soon.
We all wait anxiously for the male to come back. What a pressure. If he is unsuccessful the chick might died and his mate starve. The roles of each parent are well defined. During incubation both parents will take it in turns to sit on their eggs. Ospreys mate for life but I am pleased to see they take a new mate if one is lost to them.
I go outside to the viewing platform. Here high spec telescopes are trained on the nest, across the river towards the mountains, too far away to see with naked eye but through the lens we can see the nest and any bird that perches on its edge. There are three cameras trained on the nest so that activity can be observed. Though we watch on a screen from across the river it is clear we are as involved in the birth as any anxious relatives would be, perhaps more because we are able to watch every moment.
The men amongst stand in silence, reverently watching. Some of the women chatter anxiously like so many birds at roosting time. It is beautiful to witness just how much the human cares for living things when s/he is given the opportunity to be so close.
The male finally flies back, a fresh trout in his beak. He perches on the edge of the nest and eats the head. Then, it seems to take forever, he offers some to the female. When she has eaten a few pieces she begins to drop bits down towards the chick whose head is now out of the shell and lying down. Most bits miss him, Osprey beaks do not seem precise enough for feeding tiny mouths.
Eventually it is clear the small downy creature is out of the shell. It is half past two. We have been watching for four hours. It has received its first bit of fish and the female sits back on top if her clutch to keep the remaining egg and the newly born chick warm.
Never has time moved so smoothly, so in the right rhythm. Never have I seen a group of humans so quiet and attentive, all their living presence directed on one tiny scrap of life.
I leave the centre for an idyllic walk back to Maentwrog, Twrogs stone, where I will spend the night. I walk with views if Snowdonia. For a few miles I am walking east. I can see Snowden clearly in a way Cadair Idris simply didn’t permit.
It is an easy road walk, not much traffic, and plenty of Welsh woodland. In the village of Rhyd (/Reeed/) the children are coming out of school. It is a gentle, timeless scene, and I feel how much Wales still lives the life that in so many ways we English long for. How many of our little villages still have their school?
When I am almost back I stop at a little parking spot. It gives access into a section of Welsh rainfirest. The humidity here, I read, maintains mosses and kitchens not seen anywhere else ..traditional Welsh wildwoods. I find a velvetly moss covered oak to sit against and sit by a burbling brook and read the poetry I brought from Llandecwyn.
Here my church, I think, and stay for forty five minutes, just sitting.
I complete my walk to Maentwrog walking around the natural lake in Plas Tan y Bwylch, an estate that has miles of woodland walks open to the public. Courses are run at the big house and earlier in the day Glynis had taken me there to get a map and the friendly Welsh receptionist had shown me the ways into Maentwrog.
Two ducks not afraid to move from their sleepy grassy place by the Lake enthrall me. One has its head tucked under its wing whilst the other maintains a watchful eye. They let me come quite close and I feel huge peace and a sense of privilege and leave them to their prime position and find the track I need.
As I walk between old native woodland the smell of honeyed woodbine fills the air and as the beauty of this natural living place becomes almost too much to take in as I recall that my lifelong yearning for native woodland in England to return is here in Wales fulfilled, here they have not covered brooks in tarmac, or chopped down trees for cars or oblong homes, I find the ninth treasure in the stillness of the water; the patience that comes from knowing that still calm peace wells up from the inside, from the heart. I pick up a piece of slate, made smooth by the water, remembering the exquisite things that can be shaped from slate that I saw in Momo the Welsh art gallery in Mach, to represent this quality.
As I near the waters edge a shimmering turquoise damsel fly, identical to the dragonfly emblem I wear about my neck, symbol of this pilgrimage, flies through the bright yellow honey blossoms that grace the blue shimmering lake and green fern background, colours of my walk; personal power, love and communication, all brought together in service of the whole, I understand that that there is an endless expanse of love to receive, in the form of living beauty, and that my heart is not as yet open enough to receive it all.
It is bigger than I can comprehend. I feel my lack, my cup is not big enough to hold all of its essence. I understand that the grail, the chalice is this, each of our capacity to receive love from the very wellspring of the living presence of all beings and then radiate it out. I feel an orgasmic wave of energy running up through my legs but it does not reach my heart. My heart pounds with joy in as far as it is able, I feel the places where I am still blocked, where my life experiences have closed me to receive the full beauty and majesty of all that is. Yet I am thrilled still, I have sensed all that there is, just waiting for me to open further.
I reach the road and follow it round to Maentwrog where in my little old eco bed and breakfast house there is a view of the next ancient chapel on the southern pilgrims route to Ynys Enlii, just behind the bed and breakfast garden. I couldn’t have chosen better places to stay, yet I did not know of these chapels when I booked my stay in Maentwrog and was invited to Llandecwyn.
I leave this joyful midsummer post, St Johns Eve celebration, with this verse from the small places of pilgrimage leaflet;

A journey both outer and inner
A need to pause for breath
An introduction, a guide, a trail
A space to ponder and wonder
An offer of refreshment
A setting out again

And know it is exactly this, the message of my walk, and the sanctuary I wish to offer others as together we walk this path called life.

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Courage, Fear and Archetypes

Steph

24th June 2015
After tea and a rest in the railway cafe at Fairbourne and to avoid yet another stretch of main road without pavements I catch a bus out of Fairbourne to Arthog, a couple of miles up the valley, a place I cannot go by without visiting, this is where king Arthur’s body was taken after Camlan on route for Bardsey island, to see if he could be saved.

the battlefield of Camlan

The driver asks where I want to get off, Arthog is a long thin village stretching along the bottom of a mountain. I say I don’t know exactly, but maybe to drop me where there are most houses. He doesn’t know where the waterfall I have promised myself to visit to celebrate midsummer’s day, at least according to the solar calendar is. ( I will celebrate the lunar midsummer, St John’s Eve, in a couple of days. This feast day is very important in Brazil, part of the festas juninas,June parties, where the corn harvest is celebrated with traditional corn desserts). When we get to the first lot of houses and a bus stop the driver slows down, then, spying two men says
They’re local
I get off and call to the men, one young, one old, cups of tea in hand, heading for the garden in front of the old man’s house, across the main road in this thin sliver of land between mountain and estuary.
They turn with smiles and come to my aid. They know exactly where the waterfall is, the local Christian outward bounds group, of which the young man is a part, take children up there regularly. They tell me the various ways up to it, and suggest I also visit the lakes that are there too but I don’t think I will have time to do that much exploring and still get to Barmouth at the other side of the estuary in good time.
Well come and buy one of my postcards of my watercolours of it then
says the older man with glee. When we get to his house at the other side of the road where sweet smelling roses in a jug scent the lounge with its old beams and woodburner he shows me a collection of cards of local scenes. They are good and I buy one from him, his favourite of the lake. He worries if God will be displeased with him doing business on a Sunday but I say I am sure God will like us to talk to one another and that he can consider it an exchange for the directions. He signs it for me.
I set off up the narrow lane he has indicated. Immediately it is steep, steeper than any road I have climbed since my days in Ambleside in the Lake District, training to be a teacher and dragging myself up Scale How for maths lessons once a week with other weary students more than 30 years ago. It was a fifteen minute slog up a steep lane for double maths at the top. The tutors would drive up and every now and again stop to pick up a pretty girl student or a couple of the more boisterous lads. This lane was, if anything, steeper and went on for nearly a mile. It took me a lot longer than 15 minutes and then finally I reached the top. A gate to the side led to a property called Myrddin. I carry on till I find the track leading to the top of the waterfall. Here is an ancient ford, huge stones across the mountain river worn with use. It is very easy to imagine the Merlin and the others carryng their king across here having brought his body, probably by horseback, over the mountain passes from Dinas Mawddwy. I cross it and then cross back, so that I am doing the same as they would have done. On the other side is a flat plateau where I imagine them camping. There may have been a structure here. The old artist, Eric, has told me there used to be a judgement hall here where peasants could be tried, and I think maybe there was something there from before that even. It is certainly a very strategic place. The river has now to find its way down to the estuary below, and I know how steep it is, and that this is 200 feet above the road.
I find the footpath by the side of river easily. It is well signed and well kept.
I follow it down. It turns out to be much easier than returning down the steep lane would have been as it loops back on itself and has steps cut into it in places, all devices to make it less steep to walk down.
It is a well maintained path, but after fifteen minutes or so I begin to sense the presence of my old companion fear. I am not a person who enjoys the presence of adrenalin in my body, one who seeks out amusement parks for cheap thrills, so when I feel afraid I am not able to find any excitement in it. The issue, I realise, is that the gorge is steep, its vertical sides dropping away to my right, and it makes me feel dizzy which makes me unsteady on my feet making the otherwise perfectly safe path quite treacherous and potentially lethal.
I identify for perhaps the first time that I suffer from vertigo. Now I understand the knee shaking, mouth drying fear that comes upon me when I am high up. I also realise that it is not so much the situation that is dangerous, but my fear causes it to be so. What Ii carry around inside of me in the form of fear of heights causes otherwise perfectly enjoyable
places to be dangerous, not the place itself. It is both reassuring and frightening to understand that my vertigo is causing my current challenge. Having accepted it as such I stop trying to look at the waterfall which is gushing splendidly, majestically and in full spate down it’s rocky channel, almost vertically throwing itself from boulder to boulder splashing and coursing its way to the estuary far below, and concentrate rather on placing one foot in front of the other carefully focussing on tree roots, stony steps and flint chip path holders. It is as far from the
You’ll not be able to see it, its not raining
response the man at the miniature railway in Fairbourne has told me as it is possible to get. He told me too about the community initiative to try and get a new sea wall built. The townsfolk have been told that their town will be under water within the next forty years due to climate change. We exchange stories of how our local train line for washed away by the sea in last winter floods. Fairbourne is built on totally flat river flood plains, product of the Welsh gold mining that took place here, that and its little steam train that carried the gold to the next place.
I am saddened that my phobia prevents me from sitting on the path and gazing far down at the magnificent sight of the maybe half a mile long stretch of waterfall in its native woodland gorge, all lime greens and whitewater against black mountain boulders. It is a veritable wonderland, quite possibly the most beautiful and spectacular waterfall I have ever seen. I feel sad the locals of Fairbourne do not make more of their treasure of a more enduring kind.
I wonder if I will be able to work through my phobia. Both of my parents have a fear of heights so it is not so simple as merely seeking the source of my own bad experiences.I
acknowledge that much as I love journeys I am very hobbit like, I do not do adventures through choice. I remember the old TV comedy my father used to love, Dads Army, and the frightened soldier who always walked at the back looking fearfully from side to side. This is me in this context. This is the role I play, this is the character I am stuck in. This is the archetype I have become identified with through stuck feelings that I do not know how to shift.
When I see the road below me and the last few steps I slow to appreciate it, I have made it to safety, and then I realise that i am trembling. I carefully negotiate the steep stone steps and am on the main road, there is no pavement and I am struck by the irony of this, this is potentially far more dangerous than the path. I cross carefully and head straight into Catherine’s church directly opposite the path on the other side of the road. In one of the stained glass windows is a beautiful heart filled with flowers. I thank myself for being loving and kind to myself as I descended the gorge. I also appreciate just how beautiful the waterfall is and am proud that I have walked its length.
Down in the village I reencounter Eric and the young man. They are pleased I found their waterfall and impressed that I managed the path in flip flops. It is lovely to see them and I am sad to walk on. I am on the Mawddwy path though and it follows the bed of the old railway that went to Wrexham, where my great grandmother hailed from, and is a beautiful walk. I am not alone, I share it with other walkers and cyclists, it is Sunday afternoon.
We follow the flat wide path all the way to the viaduct that leads from the Fairbourne side of the Mawddwy to Barmouth a mile away. It is windy but easy walking and the views breath taking. In one moment I think Scottish glens, in another Tibetan mountains, in another Shangri La and Macchu Picchu. I did not expect such scenery on this my pilgrimage to Ynys Enlii, but now I am in it I can quite see how these mountain passes and river crossings are the perfect backdrop for the Arthurian tales I have come to explore and understand.
I have now left Cadair Idris behind, i never did get to gaze upon her but saw many of her brothers and sisters and now I stay for the night beneath another equally mighty rock in the township of Barmouth nestled around its lower edge.
In a guidebook I read that:

If you spend the night on Cadair Idris
Either you will die and in the night
Will wake up insane
Or you will wake up a bard ( or poet)

Given my fear of heights I suspect it is just as well I am already a poet for I fear the mountain top might leave me insane!
My days pilgrimage ends at the last Inn to admire the spring water that seeps in through the rockface it is built against and I am reunited with those that told me of it, in this mornings b&b.
There I will leave this Solstice longest day, with a verse from RS Thomas spied in another guidebook the other day

In cities that have outgrown their promise
People are becoming pilgrim s
If not to this place
Then to the recreation of it
In their spirits *

Certainly if nothing more comes of this walk of mine, I shall be closer to my knowledge of myself, an inner journey, to become closer to my heart.
As I review my day I realise that I have found the eight treasure; the courage to face your fears with loving kindness, and still go on. Whatever our personal Cadair Idris may be is ours to recognise, face and learn from.
* from Saints and Stones, Davies and Eastham 2002