Glastonbury's Bardic College

Prose

Sucellus

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He strikes well. Hard and keen and on the mark. The target responds accordingly: it reverberates. It is flattened. It crumbles. It moves. It dies. It comes to life.

Tomorrow, he has told us, he is going up with his dog to hit the peak of the mountain. He will take a sip from his saucer of mead, and then bend his knees as he raises his arms and his hammer over his head, until its peen rests on the slope behind him. The bristles of his beard will shiver in the air and under his breath, as he savours the taste of the liquor on his tongue. His dog’s tongue will pant, out of its mouth, on the mountainside.

And then he – Sucellus – will take a deep breath in, and an action that will start in that breath will move through his chest and his shoulders; will be sustained in his elbows and in the hammer itself, as it moves in a round arc to meet the mountain.

And the Earth will sing like a drum. And I don’t know what will happen then. It will flatten, it will crumble, it will move, it will die. It will come to life.

Prose

Bridie – the bright one

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Bridie – the bright one

(written in Dearbhalie’s Awen)

 

In the beginning there was light and only light.  True light. Peace that passeth all understanding. The burning heart of the father.  All that was… was all that was… and all that ever could be.  The light contained alpha and omega, up and down; in and out: father mother lover sister brother, truth forever and ever. 

In one unseen moment, all that was desired to know itself. How desire arose in such luminosity, we will never know. Light deisred to look upon its own glory; to caress another as pure, as guilless, as brilliant…  And so it split in two.  And broke its own heart.  

In that second; worlds aeons and universes came into being… realms beyond imagining.  From the lightest dimensions of song and touch, of rainbow refracted dreaming dance – to the lowest hell relams of darkest debauched grasping at otherness… beasts and demons tearing flesh from one another in the insatiable quest for wholeness. 

Only one remembered.  Brigid; goddess of the sun.  And she, also containing the cool waters and healing power of the moon.  The one who could re-unite the fractured pieces: sooth and succour, inspire and inflame… and call the lost children home. So Brigid, on the back of her swan, in full knowing and awakening, her crown open to the crystaline essence of truth, went into the world.  She was ll things to all people; maiden, mother, lover, friend, provocateur, instigator, crone.  Comfort to the lonely.  Fire to the weak. In her we would see our own true face reflected. But she would only come to the meak.  Those willing to sacrifice selfish gain for freedom. Those with hearts pure enough to lie with then lamb.    

So eons passed. Fires and wars ravaged the world.  People fought and made love and made objects; built towers and banks and systems of governance…and tore them down again.  And finally a few were tired. They became meak.  They lay down in the field and stopped ploughing.  They stopped their desparate struggle for more.  They said: there must be another way.  And they called upon Brigid.   Luminescent she came on the wing of her diamond bright swan.  So dazzling, they could not gaze upon her. And she said to them:

”You never left.  For all that you felt you were parted from your god in heaven; that you fell from grace… and you called to him, and you cried for him. You never left.

Lay down your ploughts, sickles and scythes…stop trying. Lay down your arms,  swords and whips and tanks; your burning bridges and falling towers.  Surrender it all.  Be as children. ”

And they fell before Bridged – the bright one- hearing what she said was true.  And each skull cracked open, surrendering lotus petalled to the light of the swans wing.  And each heart cracked open surrendering to the firey panacea of perfect life – the hearth – the centre of the being where all is reconciled.

And the sun and moon were joined in unison.

Otherness was banished.

And all sang together, one voice, in truth.

My First Poem, Poetry

My first ever poem

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This is my first ever poem, it was written when I was seven years old, in felt tip pen, on one page of an adventure gamebook called ‘Grail Quest: The Castle of Darkness’. This was the first book I ever bought for myself, it’s the kind of book where you role dice and fight monsters.

My justification for posting it here? Well, the books (they are a series) are set in a rather idiosyncratic version of Camelot and have more ‘Grail questing’ in them than I realised at the time;  for example, although even back then I recognised Merlin, who is the reader’s guide to the magic world of the books, one of the recurring characters is Pellinore… In this particular book he’s encountered on the way in and out of the Castle in question. You carry a sword called Excalibur Junior, and your character lives just a couple of miles outside of Glastonbury. More about them here.

The recurring character who’s important here, though, is the Poetic Fiend. The Poetic Fiend is a friendly vampire who writes doggerel, and encourages ‘Pip’ (that’s the name you take as the quester) to write himself. A blank page headed “Pip’s Poem for the Fiend” gives the space to do it.

Anyway – with apologies for my faltering junior school spelling – here’s what I, as Pip, wrote for the Fiend; my first ever poem, written in a magical reworking of Camelot, under the watchful eye of a friendly vampire. Those who’ve seen my performances at the Open Gorsedds will note I appear to have been obsessed with birds from the start.

—

PIP’S POEM FOR THE FIEND

All my poems
I forgot
I could tell you
Cwite a lot

When I go
I’ll sae goodby
I’ll come back
When I see a bird fly.

 

—

For my efforts, the Fiend rewarded me with one gold coin, and told me to “spend it wisely, on some foolishness”.

Nine Maidens, Poetry

The Power of Nine

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Oh you maidens, numbered nine,
Who dance your way cross
Land and time: witches, sisters,
Oracles, shape-shifters.
What’s your wisdom?
What can you teach us?

Nine skerry-brides powered the mill,
Ground out the world
From the ice giant’s bones.
Nine sisters were nine mothers
To the hero Hiemidalir.
Nine Valkerie bring the brave to Valhalla,
As nine Morgana guide Arthur to Avalon.
There’s nine maiden mountains
And nine maiden wells,
Nine maidens painted on a cave in Cogal,
Nine witches of Caer Lyow,
Nine sisters of Mont Dol,
Nine ladies of Stanton Moor,
Nine maiden circles at Maldron,
Boskaden, Tregaseal, Waldron,
Nine druidesses of the Isle of Sien,
Nine who dance the Full Moon Rites,
Nine maenads and nine muses,
And then, with Cerridwen,
There’s nine whose breath kindles the fire
That heats the potion with the power to inspire
With Wisdom, Knowledge and Prophesy,
The initiate, willing to risk
All that they are in the name of truth.

In time, out of time, by time, through time,
Everywhere you look, you find them.
Thrice times three, trinity of trinities,
Over and again in myth and legend
These nine maidens weave their enchantment.
What’s their secret? What’s the mystery?
What do we learn from nine maidens’ histories?

Nine is the number of initiation.
Nine is the number of endings and beginnings.
Nine is the number of inspiration.
Nine is the number of transformation.
Nine moons to bring forth a babe.
Nine planets spinning round.
Nine dimensions to time.
Nine is the centre of all things.
Nine is the still point in the wind.
Eternally reoccurring,
Thrice time triple, nine-fold magical,
The power of three by the power of three
Can bind the world to our will.

Oh, you maidens who ever weave
In and out the fabric
Of time and place and story,
You nine whose sacred breath
Warms the cauldron of Cerridwen,
I stand before you now
Calling on your power.
I am a willing initiate
And I would drink
Of the cauldron of inspiration,
Of the potion of truth,
Open to the wisdom
Of those who’ve gone before.
I would know the nature of Awen,
Flowing of spirit,
Essence of life in motion.
Speak to me now.
Speak through me now.
Speak with the true voice of prophesy.
However we have called on you before
We have never needed you more.

“You have chosen this incarnation
To be part of the transformation
Of this sick ‘civilisation’,
Of an end to waste
And an end to greed
And the dawning understanding
Of what you truly need.
Listen to your hearts
Find the truth that’s beating there.
Open to your longing
For right living in the world.
Know that it is possible
For the point of power is now.

These are the most important things:
Hold your vision. Love with passion.
Speak your truth, and also listen.
Open to the dreams that call you
To a truer manifestation
Of the spirit of creation
And honouring of sacredness.”

It is time to own your power.
Heed the maidens’ message.
Eternally reoccurring,
Thrice times triple, nine-fold magical
The power of three by the power of three
Can bind the world to your will.

Poetry, Twelve Giants

The Wheel of the Year

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In response to Tim’s request, i am posting this in the correct place!

My piece on this year’s theme, ”12 Giants: The Glastonbury Zodiac”. The first half is poetry, the second half (beginning ”The Babe in the Boat…”) is a song.

The whole thing is called:

“The Wheel of the Year”

I stand before you as a Poet, first,
A Bard deform-ed through an eversion, not aversion, to verse,
I’m not the world’s worst!
And I’m bursting with discursive inner-healing for the hurts –
I have a feeling that it works…

It’s starting to dawn on me
What I’ve achieved
And even though part of me’s fairly relieved
The Fifth Bard of Glasstonb’ry’s
To be believed

The Western Star of Hesperus
Glows Golden Apples in Eve of Venus
The Fisher King’s Salmon Wisdom
Sprung forth from Ceridwen’s Cauldron

Sunlight on a Winter’s day
Crisply foretells that we’re well on the way
Starlight o’er a Blue Moon Tor
Lights up the night till it’s May once more
The Holly Queen and the Green Man
See Wheels turning, still, they stand
And the next revolution counts
Each to their own in equal amounts

The Bardic year of Ynys Witrin
Spanning two St. Dunstan’s Days
Harmonising Ancient Rhythms
In both new invention and paraphrase

Then my own personal journey
From the Isle of Death to the Isle of the Dead
Seascaped Thanet to Glastonbury’s Promontory
Finding Heartfelt Harmony and Healing for the Head

Am now become an Elder Bard!
And today – JUST TODAY! – am only half
Of the Current Chair
Am aware that there (somewhere!)
Is the next incumbent
Waiting to be chosen
But for now this moment
In time is frozen

So here at the end
Which is also the start
Both Silver and Gold
We are Bards of the Year of the Hallmark!
And whichever way we look, we know
That the Wheel of the Year is on show…

The Babe in the Boat
Holds the Key to the Temple
And Augurs the Return
Of the Once and Future King
Sail across the Moat
To the land of the Templar
Lessons can be learned
So drink it in

WHEN THE TIDE’S IN
THE STARS ARE REFLECTED
AS ABOVE, SO BELOW
WHEN THE TIDE’S OUT
THE MAP CAN BE INSPECTED
THE WHEEL OF THE YEAR IS ON SHOW

The Lady of the Lake
Reflects the constellations
Mapping out the stars
On the earth for all to see
Arthur on the wake
Well-read in incantations
Taliesin’s Words
In Company

Arianrhod’s Maze
Which contains the pilgrim’s Path
Hides the Silver Thread
So the Seeker finds they’re lost
Lapping are the Waves
Round the Measure of Math
The Isle of the Dead
Is starcrossed.

© Tony Atkinson 2011

Poetry, Twelve Giants

Caer Sidhe

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Let us extol the illustrious deeds
Of rough brow’d giants and knights on proud steeds
Questing the Grail.

Across the land named Summer they ride
To reach the shores of these twelve hides
That never paid Geld.

King Arviragus granted to Joseph,
Uncle of Jesus, freedom from sherriffs
And royal judges.

Arrogant Tudors took Somerset’s plums
And gave them to those with oversized thumbs;
Their loyal drudges.

Through aerial photos and recent research,
They’ve found some strange shapes in these ancient earthworks
And an old ditch.

Was it laid out in some mystical path
By Sumerian ancients? Well you may laugh …
But not too much.

Did light-line ley forces lay out the landscape
To form in courses of meaningful shape?
Or was it all planned?

It’s too good to be true, too big to be seen
And what on earth can all these pictures mean?
Who understands?

Castle of Wonders, if giants you seek
Then follow the hunter to where dragons sleep
And dreams are made.

Before the Briton with brave cultured hand
Albion’s giants this realm did command.
Not all were slain.

So listen while I tell you a story
Of giants and bean-stalks, the whole jack-a-nory
In the form of a song.

It won’t take a moment, well, maybe twelve minutes,
One for each giant and then we’ll be finished.
It won’t take long.

—

Came over the bridge from Ivythorn ridge
A beautiful deer, with no sound.
The white dogs of death all panting for breath
Burst through, red-eared, with one bound.
And now we begin, with the Nephilim,
As the Hooded One bends his bow.
He aims past the hounds and beyond the bounds
Of all we can be and know.

Breathe to become, newly burst through the boundaries.
Blazing brow be reborn, boldly blossom in the dawn!
Feel the bliss, be as one. Discipline wins the marathon.
She is bright as the moon, sweeps all bare with her broom.

The lady glides o’er the rippling sea
On the Polden’s western side.
The cradle wind blew the sea-chest of Lugh
And Taliesin’s hide.
The wind will whip King Solomon’s ship
That Pedrog and Bridget brought
Across the languid grey lagoon
To landfall at Dundon Fort.

Laugh for your life, let the wind be your lullaby,
Lilting over the lake, linger long in its wake.
Look, listen, leap, little gold do we ever keep;
Listen, learn, it’s your turn to leave more than you take.

To enter the gate of the royal estate
Needs knowledge of natures nine.
Mananan’s domain, the wind and the rain
And the infinite stormy brine.
The naked knight is called on to fight
And arms, once denied, are sought.
Mighty Titans this very night
Will feel the knife and sword.

Tree trunk align with the spine of the universe.
Roots drink deep from the earth, like starlight your leaves shine!
Hanging all in between what you do and you really mean
Are the keys to the Tree of Life’s great mystery.

Venerable Bran sheds a tear in the sun
For the raven whose fate is foresworn.
The foolish march hare flees to Somerton Fayre
As the fawn and calf are born.
Mountainous Bran, with a fleet on each arm,
Whose force-field would fail if disclosed.
Valiant Lugh, Fomorians slew,
With one stone was Balor deposed.

Float, flutter, fly, face the fear of the day you die.
Pierce the veil, break the gaol, to the victor the tale!
Vindication will come, though the vain may confuse the dumb,
follow fools, you will fall; trust your heart, you will rule them all.

The Wimble Toot witch lives just down the ditch
In a tumble-down past Teifi’s Bend.
She puts up a fight to our surly knight
But he overcomes her in the end.
The spider she spins and silver swans swim
As he studies her secret arts:
The right use of shield; to ride in the field;
And how to strike straight to the heart.

Set aside space for the sacred in everything,
The soothing of sorrows, the suffering’s done.
Sleep, sweet soul, soft the soil nourished for swelling.
Soon the seed that was sown will be grown in the spring-time sun!

Fair is Olwen ferch Yspaddaden
Our hero’s golden-haired prize.
From owl-borne dreams, her prince she has seen
With a raven’s wakeful eyes.
The greatest quest has yet to test
Our hero’s perfidious heart.
Sings the white dove of unselfish love
For without it you’d better not start.

High on a hill is the home of my family.
With hedgerows hemmed in, I am haunted by dreams.
I hear the harp playing heavenly harmonies.
You shall have honey to feed the haughty May Queen.

By Lydford Green, the lightning struck tree
Will point us to the Grail.
Mordred aggrieved did treachery lead
And double death did he deal.
Where Monarch’s Way cuts the Roman road through
The sacred barge set sail.
Pendragon was borne to Avalon’s shores
His damage for to heal.

Do you dare to dive in to the darkness so dizzying?
Deal with despair and the demons you bear?
Drink the nectar divine from the depths of imagining;
Make truth your devotion and open the door to your dreams!

Here’s a tale of two tribes who both knew the truth,
But told it to different tunes:
The one side would hum to the tone of the sun;
The other the timbre of moon.
The Baltonsborough team, in temper so mean,
Attacked the next terrified town.
This troublesome mob on sharp thistles trod
And tangled in thorns, turned around.

Let’s call a truce and take stock of life’s treasury,
temper the steel with the teachings we learn.
The straight and the thin only lead us to misery,
For the truth sometimes twists, but mostly it tends to turn.

On West Pennard Hill the cauldron is filled
And poetry’s nine senses made.
The salmon prevails in Avalon’s vale
Beneath the orchards’ shade.
The unicorn cools its feet in the pools
By the coppice on the shore.
Cocky Jack quick strikes out with his stick
And Cormoran is no more.

Take care to choose consciously like a King or Queen,
Concepts and knowledge in wisdom’s control.
For the cauldron cooks not for the cowardly warrior
But the chalice will serve those who serve the creator of all.

Out of the fog come Gog and Magog,
The gate-keepers of the mound.
The phoenix emerged from grammarye’s urge
And the magic of Merlin’s gown.
Peredur vanquished madness and might
To achieve this penultimate quest
And was that night with marvellous sight
In meditation blessed.

Merry meet, merry part, may you all mingle merrily,
Many mouths may you feed with your manna and mead.
As the moon shimmers down, silver crowning the meadow-fields
Man and woman embrace the impermanence of mortality.

As you may have guessed, there’s one final quest
Against a gargantuan hog.
The bristling boar with threatening roar
Is brought down by Greid’s grey dog.
Billy goats pitch on perilous bridge
And gore the hobgoblin full sore;
His body they throw to the quagmire below
Then shave off his head to be sure!

Gird your loins, take the stage, play the game, gracefully engage.
Though the struggle be grim, truth and goodness must win.
For the greedy will fail and the underdog will prevail
For only the guileless are within grasp of the Grail.

The owl and the goose return to the shore
Of Walton Hill once more,
To wait for the running of the deer
And the light of the mid-winter’s dawn.
Embattling trees encircle Caer Sidhe
For a reckoning of the score.
Some lingering thrall for the sea’s roaring call
Heralds the end of our tour.

Let the bells ring! Now it’s time for us all to sing
One final refrain to this riddling rhyme
And the reason for this astronomical journeying
Is to wait for the hunter to rise again over the ridge.

Oh Albion! What have we done?
To our daughters and noble sons?

Events, Twelve Giants

Open Gorsedh 2011

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This year’s theme was “Twelve Giants: The Glastonbury Zodiac”. Carly Roberts was chosen to be the sixth Bard of Ynyswitrin on St Dunstan’s day 2011. Tim Hall won the Crown and Oshia Drury was awarded the Tim Sebastion Memorial Trophy in recognition of her musical service to the community. Molly was installed as this year’s Younger Bard.

This means Tony Atkinson now joins the ranks of the Elder Bards. This year we admitted eight new Bards into the Order at the Annual Open Gorsedh ceremony.

  • Cat Watling
  • Jana Runnalls
  • Kat Brown :: TSMT 2010.
  • Carly Roberts :: Bardic Chair 2011.

Thanks to everyone who came and made this such a strong and inspiring event!

Flight, Poetry

around the zodiac with my shapeshifting spirit guide

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again, just posting this in the correct place now…my winning piece from last year – (back when i was GlastoBard MMX)  !!!

<< around the zodiac with my shapeshifting spirit guide >>

 

I saw a noble Holy man

Through Michael’s tower, atop the Tor…

This Hopi showed me such Shamanic plans

Translucently, from way beyond the door –

“Just as a True Brave is a Chief

The Light have their own motif”

(He sang), “Course, what’s truly beyond belief

Is despite their many and varied Beliefs

Not one of them really Believes they believe…

If one wishes to learn how to fly

They should first be grounded.”

As we landed at Wick Hollow

His lesson was how language can fly

Both off the page and to the ear:

 

Well heard, then, The Word is infernally blurred

It’s internally skewed

Yet, in turn, is ETERNALLY LOUD!

 

And, floating, (above, beyond, across)

Is something sadly lost

(Not a freefall drop in the ocean of plop!)

 

Only cosense can ‘co-pilot’ quiet compliance

To coping, collective, co-operative, conscious –

Not the con science of conscience but the Up Wards of upwards.

***********************************************************************************

 

Appearing, once again, my Guide

Invoked in me Mindchemistry

Such as to summon up

The Silver Tongue and the Blarney Stone.

He stood by me now as a Leprechaun

But forthwith… Shapeshifted… into a Pixie…

“To see from above with detachment

Means first to sight from below.

What’s directly around you should astound you

Outside your insides”, he Piped, anext the Holy Thorn:

 

I’ve drunk Willy Wonka’s lifting drink in dreams

I sat up in my body, half-grounded, half ‘midst the astral plains

But i’ll fly at prescription and outrageous discrimination.

 

I’ve seen his outrage lift, as clouds disseminate with bluesky thinking

I’ve felt her tiniest footfall brush, flicked, windswept, such flyaway hair!

I’ve known our love to elevate such that it emanates around and between.

 

*********************************************************************************************

 

I turned to the Mahatma

(As he now showed himself)

– My Aether Guru smiled

Without moving his face.

“Take me to the next Level?” I inquired,

But realised here we were

And from between the Abbey Columns

We Stargated into the Portal

To Receive the Lore of Language

Elevated by subtlety:

 

The Cwn Annwn curs

(Those most Hellish hounds)

Appear, at first, to fly Valkyrie-like

 

In stealth and ravaging lurch

They savage and scavenge for wounds

Each on opposite battlefields, purest unalikes

 

But both Gwyn Ap Nudd’s sanguinest pack at work

And Odin’s noble soldier slakers, ‘twixt otherhoods,

Soar and swoop, detect, select, glide, quite alike.

 

*****************************************************************

 

Now Black Hawk stood before me,

Imploring me under his wing;

Perched, we were, on Gog and Magog in turn.

Up with the Lark, Lucid Dreaming,

Vision came upon me,

Projected on-the-wing from my Flight Attendant,

It was Suggested:

 

There’ll be Bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover,

There be Dragons and ‘Ell ’Ounds o’er Glaznbry Tor!

Where a man can emerge, Phoenixlike, at Winter Solstice –

A Somerian becoming a Phoenician!

Eaches’ flight, both from and to the Holy Apple Isle

Landed them HERE!

Where Bards trade and perform before

The finest fellow Bards,

Artists, Musicians, Magicians,

Healers, Actors and Dancers.

 

****************************************************************************

 

Just then, as I Scried, I Espied

My Companion and Muse

Was no man at all and Revealed

The True I.D. of this Paraglider

Was none other than Bridie, who sighed:

“The Sylph, at once Sylvan and Silver and Sylfaen,

Like Modron and Morgan and Magdelene;

The Maiden, the Woman, the Crone

Are the Daughter, Lover and Mother.”

And here, on her Mound,

I felt at one with the Earth and the World –

Rose again from her Womb

To hear Her Symphonise:

 

 

A Bard must take Wing,

They must Thrust with sheer Guts

And Lift through selfless soliloquy…

Float over hopeless with hopeful mot-justes…

Soar with inspired integrity…

And beat their metaphorical wings with Flapful Intensity…

Casting their words to the Heavens to Boost

The Air of their carefully pared-down panache…

Forsooth, seeking proof of what Appears to Hover over us

(Not Clouded or Blurred)

Till what’s onerous is feathered to (no more than) alas.

 

***********************************************************************************

 

We Circled now, between the White and Red Springs

And came to rest at Chalice Well.

My Guardian Angel, though nowhere to be seen,

Was right beside me all the while!

Her presence felt, her voice in my head simply said:

 

There are many Flightpaths to the same Knowledge;

Flight is merely a Launch without a Path.

In order to achieve Flight

The Bard must Consider

The Properties of their Words –

Levels of Thrust and Application…

The Balance of Lift and Drag…

Their Planform, both Aspect Ratio and Wing Loading…

That they may Ascend to Descend…

Sideslip and Whiffle…

Till all their Apparel

Is Knitted together like the Barbules of a Feather.

 

***************************************************************************

 

Fleeting in a Fly-past, over the Levels,

Rushing across Airways and riding Airwaves.

We saw Wells and Cheddar, Pilton and Ebbor,

Cadbury, Dundon and Burrowbridge.

“What does MAN want from Flight

But to See and Be Above?

COARSENING Nature’s plight

Devolves and Disenvolves us

– The Forceful Might

Wills His Will”,

Said the Goddess Sprite.

“This has always been Felt around Glastonbury –

Since Ynys Witrin and the Fair Avalon of Albion”.

Then, to our great delight,

We saw something more:

 

In Days of Yore ALL Bards would look to Birds

For Portents, signs from High Above this earth,

So what (ON Earth) have present Bards to Learn?

 

 

Look to the Skies!

A Murmuration of Starlings fell out of the Sky

At Coxley and murmur no MORE…

Volcanic Ash Clouds

Prevented the take-off of all flights

By a BloodRed Sunset, threatening something MORE…

Don’t tell the Bees!

Their number is in serious decline

Workers and Drones Swarm to the Queen till MORE…becomes less.

 

Jenny Wren, the King of Birds,

Perched on Golden Eagle’s Wings,

Once above the highest clouds,

Flew Higher than the weary one.

 

Will We, as Onenation, TAKE flight

To emerge, Phoenix-like, again, on the Other Side

Of what the Mayans described and Prophecised?

 

I check the Pilot Light –

Still Burns, But Shines in Our Eyes…

Yet, yes, we can still be

Ski Jumpers, Freefallers, Street Surfers,

Base Jumpers, Free Runners, High Divers,

Trapeze Artists, Wirewalkers and Glider Pilots.

 

 

 

But MAN has gone beyond the sky,

Infiltrated the atmosphere

And Wished upon a Star to be as Earth…

So I looked again to the Birds

For some Words which would Inspire Insight…

 

Herons clutch a stone in their claw

To prevent them, when dropping-off, from plummeting…

Hummingbirds hang, half-hiding magnificent industry

Through seemingly effortless stillness…

Hawks pierce with their allseeing eyes

But only strike when the time is right…

 

Alone, atop the Tor again,

I realise now I have always known

That when a Bard lets fly

We can either take flight

Or get in Formation!

 

 

© Tony Atkinson,  2010,  Fifth Chaired Bard of Ynys Witrin or Glastonbury or Avalon

Events, Flight

Open Gorsedh 2010

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Flight Poster The theme for 2010 was “Flight”

New members of the Bardic College:

  • Stuart Carr
  • Vanda Lloyd
  • Phil Stretch :: Crown 2010.
  • Harmony Davies :: Crown 2012 and 2013.
  • Michael Malik
  • Pok :: Honorary Bard.
  • Alison Hall :: Regular Judge.
  • Amber le Faye Moon :: Lady of Avalon 2010.

Declan Millar became our first Younger Bard; Kat Brown was awarded the Tim Sebastion Memorial Trophy; Phil Stretch got the Crown and Tony Atkinson was chosen to become the fifth Bard of Ynys Witrin.

All That Glisters, Prose

The Great Global Gowk-Hunt

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This was my 2009 entry for the Open Gorsedd on the theme “All that Glisters is Not Gold”. I almost certainly pronounced quite a few of these names quite wrongly, so apologies for any wincing this might have provoked at the time. In particular I was glad to think I was the only one who’d remember my attempt to get my mouth round the name of the Sidhichean when David Muir made effortless mention of them in his story in the trials this year.

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The Great Global Gowk-Hunt

When people talk about “fool’s gold”, they don’t just mean gold. It means anything that we can desire, and it means anything that can seduce us into believing it is that thing which we desire.

So a chair can be a kind of fool’s gold. So can bread rolls. So can a bird.

The cuckoo is a bird that first hatches in a nest that was built by birds that are not cuckoos and who are not its own parents. They then fool their adoptive parents into raising them as their own, and systematically dispose of each and every one of their would-be siblings by pushing the other chicks, one by one, out of the nest to their doom.

They are chirping changelings.

In Scotland, one name they have for the cuckoo is a “gowk”, and there’s an April Fool’s tradition up there called “hunting the gowk”. The game is that you give the person you want to fool a message, written down and folded over on a piece of paper, and you ask them to deliver it to a friend of yours but not to read. Your messenger is “the gowk”. When the message gets there, your friend opens up the paper and reads it and the message on it reads,

“Never laugh, never smile, Hunt the gowk another mile”.

Then he knows to get a new piece of paper, write the same message on that one, fold it over, and give it back to the poor fool with instructions to take this message on to yet another friend – and so on, until the gowk’s been hunted all over town.

There’s also traditionally a second day of foolish festivities in Scotland, on April 2nd. This one involves ‘rear-related jokes’, such as pinning messages onto people’s bottoms.

There is a group of fairies in Scotland called the Sidhichean (SHEE-ichan). And there’s a restaurant in Melbourne, Australia called The Cuckoo. And there’s reason to think that the Sidhichean might have played a great big game of Hunt the Gowk with all of the world’s divine tricksters, and chaos gods, and great wise fools, which resulted in the events that took place outside that restaurant in Melbourne on April 1st 2007.

It’s hard not to think, that on April 1st 2007, a little Scottish fairy Sidhichean might have wanted to have a little tricksy fun, and might just have decided on that day to flit over the North Sea to Scandinavia, and whisper in the Norse god Loki’s ear, “hunt the gowk”!

And it’s hard not to think that Loki, getting the game and wanting as ever to play, might have turned himself into a mare, and galloped down through North-Eastern Europe to the Slavic lands where he found mighty Veles and whinnied in Veles’ ear, “hunt the gowk”!

And that Veles went down to North Caucasia to whisper to Sosruko “hunt the gowk”!, and that Sosruko crossed the Black Sea to Greece and found powerful Eris and whispered in her ear “hunt the gowk”!, and that she must have gone West across Europe, spreading strife wherever she went, and whispered it to San Martin Txiki in the Basque woods, and that he travelled down through every woodland in Spain and in Morroco, and that on the West African coast he told little spider Anansi “hunt the gowk’!

And then – because we’re only halfway there – it’s hard not to think that Anansi might have spun his web halfway across Africa on April 1st 2007 to tell the Yoruban trickster Eshu “hunt the gowk’!, or that Eshu could have made his way along his roads and over his crossroads, with his hat black on one side and red on the other side, the rest of the way across Africa to Egypt, and told the mighty Egyptian Set, with his strange finny ears “hunt the gowk’!

And Set must then have found Yam in Syria making Chaos in a river, who flowed upstream to Old Persia where he babbled ‘hunt the gowk’ to the Arabian wise fool Nasreddin, who rode backwards on his donkey to India and told laughing Krishna, who bent down and boomed it at the Chinese monkey-king Sun Wukong, who bound a thousand miles South to the Philippines in a single somersault and told lazy Juan Tamad “hunt the gowk’!, who just about bothered to tell the little Indonesian mouse-deer Kantjil “hunt the gowk’!, who scurried all the way finally to the North coast of Australia, and there told the old Aboriginal trickster Bamapana “hunt the gowk’! who took him at his word, and made his way South to Melbourne, to the restaurant I told you about earlier.

The Cuckoo was Australia’s first Smorgasbord restaurant and is home to the world’s largest free-standing cuckoo clock. They have yodelling there as often as possible, and Father Christmas visits in June and July.

But in the reason it’s hard not to think that the trickster gods might have been involved in the events which took place at the Cuckoo Restaurant on April 1st 2007, and that Bamapana wasn’t there infesting things with his chaotic magic, is that the events that took place at the Cuckoo restaurant on April 1st 2007 were as follows – and this, my friends – is a true story.

On April 1st 2007, the Cuckoo restaurant in Melbourne was approached by a pair of people with the intention of robbing it. One of the robbers was called Donna Hayes and the other was Benjamin Jorgensen. Benjamin had a sawn-off shotgun.

As Benjamin and Donna approached the restaurant, so they saw the manager of the Cuckoo emerge with the takings – about $30,000 worth of cash. And they apprehended him and told him to hand it over.

But what the manager of the Cuckoo knew, and they didn’t, was that the bag was not, in fact, full of notes and coins, but $5 worth of bread rolls. And knowing this, and knowing the significance of the calendar date, the manager of the Cuckoo assumed that the man brandishing the sawn-off shotgun at him and demanding that he hand his bag of bread rolls over was joking, and he laughed it off.

Donna and Benjamin, meanwhile believing the bag to be full of huge amounts of cash, insisted, and duly the bread rolls were handed over, in the course of which Benjamin accidentally shot Donna in the arse.

They then ran as best they could, but in their confusion and stress, they picked out a car that was not their getaway car, a car which they frantically failed to open until such time as they were apprehended by what may well have been laughing policemen.

Now you can’t tell me that at a place called the Cuckoo, on April Fool’s Day, that a pair of robbers running to the wrong car with a bag of bread rolls and one shooting each other in the bum in the process is just a coincidence – and that someone with a bit of magic in them wasn’t hunting the gowk that day.

But it’s important to remember that for all the fools we’ve seen, we’re the biggest fools of all if we laugh too hard at the hapless gowks with the shotgun, because a bread roll at the right time is a wonderful thing – and no matter how much gold you’ve got in your pocket, it won’t do you any good to eat it.

All That Glisters, Poetry

All that glitters is not gold

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Have you heard of the tales of ‘glamourie’?

Long since practiced by ‘the sidhe’ and still practiced by ‘he’ or ‘she’

In this fair town of Glastonbury?

 

Beware the ‘glamourie’!

Gwynn up Nudd invited a Christian monk to see

His faerie halls and banquets of great revelry

But holy water he did throw upon Gwynns parade of pomp and show,

Left Gwynn abandoned on the Tor through wind and snow.

 

Strange masked face at the ball,

For nothing is ever at all what you think you see,

Watch out for ‘pixie trickery!’

 

Glastonbury draws ‘cosmic cadets,’

‘kaleidoscopic travellers,’

‘pagan princesses’ and ‘psychadelic faeries ‘(to name but a few).

 

Let us not forget to live in honour by stone,sea,leaf and tree..

What glitters most dances upon the sea,

In a droplet of dew lives aworld of endless possibility,

What glitters most are the waves of your soul,

Beating against your heart-shore to make you whole…

 

So do not be bought by these trinkets of a false spirituality,

Watch the mindless beaurocracy fall,

Replace it with something more beautiful,more natural,more magical.……

 

Share the ‘nectar of inspiration,’

Smoke that ‘pipe of peace,’

May the greed and destruction come to cease!

For you see all that glitters isn’t truly gold…

 

Be warned of ‘the glamourie’,

Don’t get burnt like the moth travelling to the light,

Be ,instead in your gold of pure delight..

Reach, ever-reaching back to stone, sea, leaf and tree..

Go beyond, far beyond ‘the glamourie’.

 

Dive into this moment, it’s already here!

Live a life of freedom, without the fear,

(Say the wise ones of today and yesteryear.)

 

Fill yourself with that golden light of you

In your own golden light be true.

To be me is far beyond ‘the glamourie’.

 

For we are the harmony, the harmony  is us,

It lives in the lovers first and last embrace,

In our most silent ‘heart space’.

For you do not need ‘the glamourie,’

just ….

b r e a t h e ….

For the gold…

the real gold….

the true gold is …..

to have a heart of gold…..

 

(Finalist  poem in 2009 Bardic Finals of Ynys Witrin)

All That Glisters, Poetry

9° = 2° Magus

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one of eleven pieces from my entry for the 2009 gorsedh (deputy bard year!) double acrostic in golden triads of olde english bang-bang-bang-crash style

9° = 2° Magus

THE CATACLYSMIC CROW’S ORIGINS
OUTLAST OLDER, OUTMODED NONPAREIL
NATURAL NESTLINGS’ NECROMANTIC TREMBLE

YAWNINGLY YOUTHFUL, THEY YEARN FOR AMORE
AS SYMMETRICAL SWAN SWEETHEARTS TRIP
THE LIGHT LAMPTASTIC, LUMINATING, YELLOW

KINGFISHER, KITSCH KIPPERTIE, IGUANA
INTIMATE INCANDESCENCE, ILLUMINATORY NAVEL
NOW PEACOCKS’ PATTERN PUZZLE’S GIVEN A KICK

SINCE UNIONS, AS UNICORNS, ARE UNIQUE IN EACH OUTCOME
OR CO-ADEPTS CAN CRYSTALLISE NONGENDER
NEEDLINGS, THOUGH, MUST NURTURE THE NUANCES OF THE SCARAB

CRIMSONLY, THE CONCUBUS CLIMBS DOWN FROM HIS REGALIA
REAUDITING THE AURICLE, THE AUGURAL ”HE ART” AND ”E AR”
AS PELICANS PLUNDER THEIR OWN PLUMAGE FOR THEIR CHILD

BE A PHAROS TO THE PHAOROAH OF REPHOENIXED EGO
EMBRYO ENHALOES THE ERSTWHILE ALOOF
AS SHAPESHIFTERS SHUN RETRIBU-SHUN! BEAMINGLY

RECALCITRANT CERRIDWEN’S CAULDRON FOR TALIESIN
TWINNED TEMERITY TO THE TWICEBORN’S HUMILITY
HOW THE SHININGBROW SHIMMERS AS SHOWTIME RESOUNDS

MY OWN MONKEY MISCHIEF IN ITS OVERFLOW
OUTWHEELS THE OUROBORUS, AS ONENESS TO ALL NUCLEI –
NON-SEQUITURS’ NONSENSICAL NON-ENTITY IS MISS-MAINTENANT

KEY TO THE KINGDOM OF KINDOM IS THE ELIXIR
EACH GOLDHAWK IS GOADING HOW GOLDEN’S THEIR YOGI
YIELDING FROM THE YOKING OF YINYANG, BECAME! (KNOWN)

© Tony Atkinson