Latest / Coffee & Divination / Kristoffer Hughes on Awen, Art, and Inspired Divination

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Kristoffer Hughes on Awen, Art, and Inspired Divination · Coffee & Divination

• 0:00
  Speaker 01: So Awen and the meaning of Awen, consisting of two syllables, Awen, essentially translates, it poorly translates, it doesn't translate perfectly, it still loses some nuance, but it translates loosely as blessed or holy breath.
• 0:15
  Speaker 01: And that in a nutshell, the Awen is the creative force of the universe singing in praise of itself.
• 0:23
  Speaker 01: And that everything in the universe, you, me, a blade of grass, a tree, a seagull, we're all verbs of the universe.
• 0:34
  Speaker 01: We're something the universe is doing, like actively doing.
• 0:37
  Speaker 01: And as verbs of the universe, we can express the creative output of the universe through art, through bardism.
• 0:49
  Speaker 01: That that's how we express that creative force of divine inspiration.
• 0:56
  Speaker 01: And in doing so, the universe is...
• 0:59
  Speaker 01: experiencing more of itself.
• 1:01
  Speaker 01: And that regardless of where we are, what culture we come from, inspiration and creativity is something that unifies us in a way that other things might struggle to do so.
• 1:21
  Speaker 02: Welcome to Coffee and Divination, a podcast about the arts of obtaining hidden knowledge in changing times.
• 1:28
  Speaker 02: Join me, JoAnna Farrar, to chat with experts from around the world on tarot, runes, geomancy, and the many ways divination can help us navigate and plan our paths ahead.
• 1:39
  Speaker 02: I'm excited to share today's episode with you, which is with the author, teacher, and druid priest and leader, Kristoffer Hughes.
• 1:49
  Speaker 02: Kristoffer is chief of the Anglesey Druid Order, and he is also the author of numerous books, including From the Cauldron Born, The Book of Celtic Magic, As the Last Leaf Falls, and Cerridwen.
• 2:01
  Speaker 02: He has created numerous tarot decks as well, including the Celtic Tarot, the Yuletide Tarot, and the Bee Tarot.
• 2:08
  Speaker 02: In this conversation, we explored the living currents of Awen in a number of different forms, including art, song, and poetry, as well as how bardic fires of inspiration inform divination in our practice.
• 2:20
  Speaker 02: If you enjoy this episode, I'd ask you to please leave a five-star review for Coffee and Divination and share it with others who may enjoy these topics.
• 2:29
  Speaker 02: You can always subscribe on YouTube if you don't already and join our newsletter to find out more about upcoming workshops and other events.
• 2:38
  Speaker 02: Thanks for listening and enjoy this conversation with Khristopher Hughes.
• 2:41
  Speaker 02: So it is my absolute pleasure.
• 2:44
  Speaker 02: I am so very happy to welcome onto the show Kristoffer Hughes, who is someone whose work I have admired for many years now.
• 2:51
  Speaker 02: and who I'm sure many listeners to the show are very familiar with as well.
• 2:55
  Speaker 02: So thank you for being on the show.
• 2:57
  Speaker 01: You're very welcome.
• 2:57
  Speaker 01: It's a joy.
• 2:58
  Speaker 01: It's a delight.
• 3:00
  Speaker 02: I'm very happy to hear that.
• 3:01
  Speaker 02: So we have a traditional first question on the show, and I promise it's not a trick question or anything, but given that this is a podcast that is, you know, primarily centered around divination and those arts, the question is, what was your first introduction to divination?
• 3:17
  Speaker 02: Was it, you know, some people it's, you know, part of their family, there's a family story, There's something when they were three years old, they saw tarot cards for the first time.
• 3:25
  Speaker 02: But what was your introduction?
• 3:27
  Speaker 01: So I'd not come across any kind of divinatory tool at all in my youth until I was about 13 years old.
• 3:35
  Speaker 01: And I lived on the island of Anglesey in a small town called Cadgubby.
• 3:41
  Speaker 01: And we had a gorgeous, musty, untidy little secondhand bookstore that I used to frequent regularly.
• 3:51
  Speaker 01: fairly often.
• 3:52
  Speaker 01: And one day I was in there, being an avid reader, just going through all of the boxes that probably came from house clearances.
• 4:01
  Speaker 01: And in this box of old Mills and Boone romantic novels and some other old battered paper bags, right underneath the bottom of this box, there was a deck of cards.
• 4:13
  Speaker 01: And it was, I think it was a very early version of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck.
• 4:20
  Speaker 01: It was in a box that no longer had The lid on it, it was battered.
• 4:25
  Speaker 01: It was tea and coffee stained.
• 4:28
  Speaker 01: It had been through the wars.
• 4:30
  Speaker 01: It had been through the mill, this deck.
• 4:32
  Speaker 01: The edges were blackened.
• 4:34
  Speaker 01: They were grimy, but there was something about, I didn't know what they were.
• 4:39
  Speaker 01: I had no idea what they were.
• 4:40
  Speaker 01: I took them out of the box.
• 4:41
  Speaker 01: There was a full deck in there and I was instantly intrigued.
• 4:47
  Speaker 01: And I think the word I would use would be enchanted by them, but I had no idea what they were.
• 4:56
  Speaker 01: So when I took this battered old deck up to the counter, the old man who worked in the shop, he kind of knew me, you know, from coming in every week.
• 5:07
  Speaker 01: And he looked at the deck and he looked at me and he said, do you know what they are?
• 5:11
  Speaker 01: I said, no.
• 5:12
  Speaker 01: I thought, but I want them now.
• 5:14
  Speaker 01: So I put my 20 pence piece, right, so 25 cents.
• 5:23
  Speaker 01: So literally a quarter of a dollar on the counter.
• 5:26
  Speaker 01: And I ran with my, my heart was in my throat.
• 5:31
  Speaker 01: I was excited for some reason and exhilarated by the discovery of this mystery.
• 5:38
  Speaker 01: And I took the deck and myself to this little den that my friends and I had created just on the edge of a park on the coastline, just adjacent to the sea.
• 5:47
  Speaker 01: There was a storm coming in from the west.
• 5:51
  Speaker 01: It was very dramatic.
• 5:51
  Speaker 01: It was like something from a movie.
• 5:53
  Speaker 01: And I was sitting in this den with raindrops coming through, you know, the shoddy roof that we'd built, looking at these cards with all of these images, these powerful words, death, lovers, strength, ace of cups, all leaping out at me.
• 6:12
  Speaker 01: And I had no idea what they were.
• 6:14
  Speaker 01: But in that moment, in that place, it's as if it's a, it's like it's a movie scene in my head, in my memory.
• 6:23
  Speaker 01: I remember everything about that hour or so that I spent in that den with this pack of cards.
• 6:31
  Speaker 01: I had no idea what they were.
• 6:32
  Speaker 01: And I had to take myself to the local library about a week later to try and discover if anybody there might be able to help me discover what they were.
• 6:44
  Speaker 01: And of course, the librarian knew exactly what they were.
• 6:46
  Speaker 01: So she led me over to some appropriate books, but they were the kind of books that that you don't really see anymore.
• 6:55
  Speaker 01: I think the book was called something like Everyday Fate and Fortune.
• 7:00
  Speaker 01: And it was old, it was from the 1950s or 1960s.
• 7:05
  Speaker 01: And it did have a section on tarot in there, but Tarot of Marseille.
• 7:11
  Speaker 01: And so I knew what they were and I was utterly engrossed.
• 7:17
  Speaker 01: And for some reason in that library, looking at all of these books, that were available in a small Welsh town, I had a sense that somehow or another they were going to be a part of my life, not just a part of my childhood.
• 7:34
  Speaker 01: And of course, I was perfectly right in those feelings.
• 7:39
  Speaker 02: Yes, absolutely.
• 7:40
  Speaker 02: And that is, it's always really interesting to hear how cards appear for the first time because yeah, they are, they're amazing, especially when we first open those, that box and see them.
• 7:52
  Speaker 02: So yes.
• 7:53
  Speaker 01: Yeah.
• 7:54
  Speaker 01: That thrill.
• 7:54
  Speaker 02: Yes.
• 7:55
  Speaker 02: So for those who may not be as aware, obviously, you know, I have said a little bit about you for those who have not already read your books, but can you maybe give us a brief kind of look at how you came to follow a druid's path and how you know these early um inklings of this led into the path that you now are on very very clearly as a leader
• 8:21
  Speaker 01: but peculiarly my discovery of the tarot was in no way an indication at the time of anything spiritual it was a mystery it was an intrigue but i was 13 years old you know so it was just an exciting little period in my life that I wasn't aware at the time that it was going to lead to anything like the exploration of spirituality.
• 8:45
  Speaker 01: So when that happened later on in my late teens, I tried Christianity, but it just didn't quench my thirst for what I needed, something that would sing to my spirit in a way that Christianity just wasn't able to do.
• 9:02
  Speaker 01: And nobody in my family had any spiritual inklings whatsoever, like not a single person.
• 9:08
  Speaker 01: We never went to church.
• 9:09
  Speaker 01: I come from a very non-religious family.
• 9:12
  Speaker 01: My parents' opinion were, it's up to you to discover any form of religion or spirituality.
• 9:19
  Speaker 01: We're not going to send you to Sunday school.
• 9:21
  Speaker 01: We're not going to send you to any of these.
• 9:23
  Speaker 01: You need to make that decision for yourself, which I'm very grateful for.
• 9:26
  Speaker 01: So we weren't forced into anything.
• 9:28
  Speaker 01: But of course, being a teenager in Wales in the mid-1980s, there wasn't anything to explore other than Christianity.
• 9:38
  Speaker 01: So I explored that and I just didn't get it.
• 9:42
  Speaker 01: I was baffled by it.
• 9:44
  Speaker 01: I don't get this at all.
• 9:45
  Speaker 01: And so it just didn't resonate with me.
• 9:48
  Speaker 01: So I started to look at what else possibly was around me, speaking to other people in my family, in my circle of acquaintances.
• 9:56
  Speaker 01: And the peculiar thing about growing up in Wales is that Druids in particular are endemic to our culture.
• 10:05
  Speaker 01: They're just here.
• 10:07
  Speaker 01: a part of our culture.
• 10:08
  Speaker 01: We've never been introduced to them.
• 10:11
  Speaker 01: We've never had any formal introductions to them.
• 10:13
  Speaker 01: They're just always there.
• 10:15
  Speaker 01: So the National Eisteddfod of Wales, which is an annual cultural festival, which is enormous.
• 10:25
  Speaker 01: It's absolutely enormous.
• 10:26
  Speaker 01: It's televised 24 hours a day.
• 10:28
  Speaker 01: It runs over 10 days.
• 10:29
  Speaker 01: 150,000 to 180,000 people attend the festival.
• 10:33
  Speaker 01: And I always go.
• 10:36
  Speaker 01: And from when we're very young children, if you speak Welsh, if you come from a Welsh family, the second you can articulate more than three words together, you're kind of trained into the Eisteddfod into music and art and drama and all of the creative bardic expressions that are at the heart of the National Eisteddfod and supervising that particular festival and holding space as the ritual and ceremonial facilitators of that festival are Druids.
• 11:13
  Speaker 01: Druids are the Gorsedd of Bards of the island of Britain.
• 11:16
  Speaker 01: So they've always been there.
• 11:18
  Speaker 01: But for some reason, I didn't put two and two together and made that connection between the Druids of the now, any connection that they had to the Druids of the then, and any connection that they may have had to a spirituality.
• 11:32
  Speaker 01: That took another couple of years before I realised that there was another way of approaching spirituality that didn't necessarily have to be poly and monotheistic so i started looking at the new age world i guess we we used to have i don't think it exists anymore but we used to have a monthly magazine called prediction magazine and that ran for oh it ran for for decades and decades and it had all sorts from tarot articles to mysticism to witchcraft and spiritualism and, of course, Druidry.
• 12:10
  Speaker 01: So through that magazine, I realised that there were people out there beyond the National Eisteddfod of Wales that identified as Druids.
• 12:18
  Speaker 01: So I very quickly found them.
• 12:20
  Speaker 01: I started reading some books from some of the older early 20th century academic scholars, historians about Druids and then realised that, oh, hold on a second, this isn't just a part of my landscape.
• 12:35
  Speaker 01: This has always has been a part of my landscape.
• 12:38
  Speaker 01: So let's explore that.
• 12:40
  Speaker 01: And very quickly, I realised that it was something that through language, through history, through heritage, through culture, it connected me to my land, not to the Middle East or not to Rome, but rather to the very fabric of my land and my people.
• 13:01
  Speaker 01: So suddenly I felt at home exploring this idea of a contemporary spirituality that had its foundations and roots in the past, but wasn't necessarily of the past, but rather something of the now as well, which is a peculiar thing, right?
• 13:18
  Speaker 01: Because usually when in discussions about contemporary Western paganism in general, when people consider Celtic paganism, there's a tendency for people to consider or use the term Celt or Celtic in the past tense, which to a Celt is really peculiar and almost slightly offensive because we um we still exist right we're still here we didn't go anywhere and um so it was a bit of a fusion of all of that stuff really but i'm still convinced to this very day that tarot was the door you know it was the gateway drug to this entire spectrum of
• 14:06
  Speaker 02: Soo-woo.
• 14:12
  Speaker 02: Through tarot and then into other art forms.
• 14:15
  Speaker 02: It's interesting, my father was British, he was from Yorkshire, and when he first heard that I was interested in witchcraft or something, he said, well, you know there's Druidry.
• 14:28
  Speaker 02: He'd heard of Druids, and he was like, well, they're real.
• 14:30
  Speaker 02: I don't know if this witchcraft thing but there were even a British gentleman who was like you mean druids
• 14:38
  Speaker 01: ah that's hilarious but that's that's peculiar right as well because there's there's this peculiar cultural paradigm that in England, particularly today, if you were to say that you were a witch, people wouldn't necessarily have a knee-jerk reaction.
• 14:57
  Speaker 01: They'd be like, oh, I know what that is.
• 14:59
  Speaker 01: I've seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer and read a book, even if they know nothing.
• 15:02
  Speaker 01: But if you say you're a witch in Wales, there's a peculiar reaction because the Welsh people don't necessarily know what that is or what it looks like because we don't have those words in our vernacular.
• 15:15
  Speaker 01: It's a very complicated history.
• 15:17
  Speaker 01: the magical landscape of Wales.
• 15:19
  Speaker 01: But you say you're a Druid.
• 15:21
  Speaker 01: And they know what that is.
• 15:23
  Speaker 01: And yet the distance between myself and England is only 95 miles.
• 15:30
  Speaker 01: And that border is invisible.
• 15:34
  Speaker 01: It's not really there.
• 15:35
  Speaker 01: Foxes cross it without even realising that they have.
• 15:39
  Speaker 01: And yet there's this cultural shift in people's perspectives when it comes to the spectrum of the magical and the numinous.
• 15:49
  Speaker 01: But that's a really lovely comment that your father made.
• 15:54
  Speaker 01: Let's live that.
• 15:55
  Speaker 01: You know they're real, right?
• 15:58
  Speaker 02: Yes, exactly.
• 15:58
  Speaker 02: And I think that's also an interesting thing that, as you're saying, the festival that you are going to is a massive part of Welsh culture, and whether or not people that are going to that festival would ever have anything to do with what someone else would consider neo-paganism, it is just endemic and rooted in the culture.
• 16:18
  Speaker 02: So it is not necessarily to do with a religious structure, but it is inherent in the culture.
• 16:24
  Speaker 02: And so that is slightly different from when we're talking about other cultures where people are sort of reconstructing or re-creating traditions because this is, it has roots outside of religious tradition.
• 16:35
  Speaker 02: Is
• 16:36
  Speaker 01: that accurate?
• 16:38
  Speaker 01: That's totally accurate.
• 16:40
  Speaker 01: It's...
• 16:40
  Speaker 01: which I guess is why there is some divergence, perhaps, not much, within what is referred to as contemporary pagan Druidry and cultural Druidry.
• 16:53
  Speaker 01: They're both Druidries.
• 16:55
  Speaker 01: They're just approaching the philosophy, perhaps, or the reason why they're Druids from slightly different angles.
• 17:04
  Speaker 01: So that's not to say that there aren't other people who are spiritual or even religious within the, you know, the cultural druidic movement, because there certainly are.
• 17:15
  Speaker 01: I mean, I'm in that as well.
• 17:17
  Speaker 01: I'm an initiated druid within that tradition.
• 17:19
  Speaker 01: And I'm certainly a pagan druid as well, you know.
• 17:23
  Speaker 01: But you don't have to be.
• 17:25
  Speaker 01: They're just druids.
• 17:27
  Speaker 01: And druids are there to perpetuate Awen, which is the divine force of inspiration.
• 17:35
  Speaker 01: So I guess it doesn't really matter how you define the divine.
• 17:41
  Speaker 01: That's really difficult for a Welsh person to say.
• 17:43
  Speaker 01: LAUGHTER to define the divine is kind of irrelevant within a cultural spectrum because that culture encompasses all the colours of the rainbow and every spirituality and religion you could possibly imagine in what is a very multicultural, diverse country.
• 18:06
  Speaker 02: Yes, and you have already mentioned a word that I was planning to ask you to define for listeners because I am sure it is going to be a part of pretty much all the rest of our conversation today.
• 18:18
  Speaker 02: And that word is Awen.
• 18:19
  Speaker 02: And I'm sure many of our listeners are familiar with definitions of that, but I would be particularly curious to hear your sort of quicker, you know, introductory sort of look at that word and why it is particularly important for Druidry and also, you know, other forms of magical practice.
• 18:39
  Speaker 01: I think the Welsh language is peculiar, right?
• 18:42
  Speaker 01: Because the peculiar thing about the Welsh language is that that it evolved hand in hand with Bardism and poetry.
• 18:50
  Speaker 01: So the language evolved with that system.
• 18:53
  Speaker 01: So the words that we use in the language usually have a multiple of meanings.
• 19:00
  Speaker 01: And the words are telling a story.
• 19:03
  Speaker 01: They're telling a story of their origination and perhaps of a worldview or a philosophy or an idea.
• 19:09
  Speaker 01: So Awen and the meaning of Awen consisting of two syllables, Awen, essentially It doesn't translate.
• 19:17
  Speaker 01: It poorly translates.
• 19:17
  Speaker 01: It doesn't translate perfectly.
• 19:19
  Speaker 01: It still loses some nuance.
• 19:20
  Speaker 01: But it translates loosely as blessed or holy breath.
• 19:26
  Speaker 01: And that in a nutshell, the Awen is the creative force of the universe singing in praise of itself.
• 19:35
  Speaker 01: And that everything in the universe, you, me, a blade of grass, a tree, a seagull, we're all verbs of the universe.
• 19:46
  Speaker 01: something the universe is doing, like actively doing.
• 19:49
  Speaker 01: And as verbs of the universe, we can express the creative output of the universe through art, through bardism, that that's how we express that creative force of divine inspiration.
• 20:10
  Speaker 01: And in doing so, the universe is experiencing more of itself.
• 20:15
  Speaker 01: And that regardless of where we are, what culture we come from, inspiration and creativity is something that unifies us in a way that other things might struggle to do so.
• 20:32
  Speaker 01: It's something that we feel a compulsion to do at times, something we feel that we need to do rather than want to do.
• 20:44
  Speaker 01: And to people within the Welsh culture the name we give that Awen as blessed holy breath is that the song of the universe is blowing through all things the music is always the same but the lyrics always change depending on who is singing the song and that our job is to keep singing it and keep inspiring the world and inspiring each other and it gives rise to its symbol which is three rays, which I think you can probably see around my neck, which is a central ray and two on an angle.
• 21:23
  Speaker 01: And they represent to know truth, to love truth, and to maintain truth.
• 21:29
  Speaker 01: And that those are the first triadic tenets of the Awen, that we do what we can to maintain, to know, and to love that which is righteous or that which is true in our lives and in the world.
• 21:48
  Speaker 01: And that we can express that through our creativity.
• 21:51
  Speaker 01: And that when creativity or inspiration is missing or lacking, we all suffer as a consequence thereof because then we fall into the antithesis of that, which is, you know, in the Druid tradition of Wales, the Awen is an anabolic force and its antithesis is catabolism.
• 22:16
  Speaker 01: So when we're not inspired and when we're not serving to inspire, we fall into catabolism rather than Anabolism?
• 22:25
  Speaker 01: And I find that quite interesting as well, you know, that so much power, so much credence is given to the force of inspiration.
• 22:38
  Speaker 01: And at the National Eisteddfod of Wales, which I go to every year in August, I find it quite humbling that as a nation, Wales doesn't offer the highest accolades that that culture that it can give to any individual, to a military commander or to a politician, it gives the highest accolade to a bard, to a poet, who become our chief bard, chief bow poet for the remaining 12 months.
• 23:16
  Speaker 01: So that at the very top, if you like, of the structure of Welsh culture, the very pinnacle of it is a poet.
• 23:25
  Speaker 01: I think there's something really beautiful and humble about that.
• 23:29
  Speaker 01: And that they are, in a way, a representation of the power and fulfillment of Awen.
• 23:36
  Speaker 01: And their job is to inspire us.
• 23:40
  Speaker 01: Not to tell us what to do, never that, but to inspire us, to create, to be creative, to express that Awen in the world.
• 23:49
  Speaker 01: And so flippantly, I refer to that as a DTI or a Druid Transmitted Infection.
• 23:54
  Speaker 01: And the infection is inspiration, right?
• 23:59
  Speaker 01: So there isn't an ointment or a tablet to get rid of it.
• 24:01
  Speaker 01: Once you're inspired, all you can do is pass that inspiration on.
• 24:05
  Speaker 01: And if you don't and allow it to fester, I think we do a disservice to the universe.
• 24:14
  Speaker 02: Absolutely.
• 24:14
  Speaker 02: It's a very complex topic.
• 24:18
  Speaker 02: I am a fan of your Cerridwen book as are my o coven mates.
• 24:23
  Speaker 02: And I know that you have a, for those who have not read that book, there was an excellent discussion about Alwyn in that book.
• 24:28
  Speaker 02: And I really do enjoy part of how you also spoke about Alwyn in that book was in the connection to the ways in which Alwyn then transmits itself or translates itself through human action and through sort of like inspiration that then has to have structure and pattern within it.
• 24:49
  Speaker 02: And I'm sure we're gonna talk about that when we get to like more of a conversation around divination forms, but how do you kind of think about the act of being inspired or sort of like having that connection to Awen while also sort of the need for structure or training methods or example, like to kind of think of poetry as an example of like the different forms of poetry, that there are rules and structures that they are flowing within.
• 25:18
  Speaker 02: But sometimes I feel like, especially in our Western culture, it is, people will think of inspiration as something that just strikes and then it's, I don't know, it hits you and then it just washes over you in a wave, but there's also like a need to be able to do something with it, you know?
• 25:34
  Speaker 01: Yes, and I think structure is important.
• 25:37
  Speaker 01: I think there are two different types of Awen that we might receive.
• 25:44
  Speaker 01: might receive our end or feel it blowing through us by going to a concert or listening to an engaging speaker or attending a class and there might be one line or one sentence that that individual says that blows through us and causes us to think oh gosh I'd not thought of that in that manner before or I'd not engaged with that thought like that before and I think that's a sudden a acute form of inspiration where the person's intention may not have been in that moment to have been inspirational and yet their actions were inspired and somebody else will catch it and they might run with that and offer structure to the breath that came upon them.
• 26:38
  Speaker 01: But then I think the structured form of Owen is what we see particularly particularly within the Welsh Bardic tradition, where it is honed and, like you said, particularly in poetry.
• 26:52
  Speaker 01: Poetry in Welsh is extremely strict, extremely strict.
• 26:55
  Speaker 01: And we have systems, one of the systems is called ccynghanedd, which essentially are words that are held in chains.
• 27:05
  Speaker 01: So they're bound, or rather they're restricted only in a manner in that...
• 27:13
  Speaker 01: their meaning becomes extremely clear in the way that they've been composed.
• 27:19
  Speaker 01: And the reason for that structure is that it casts the light of the Awen in a particular direction for a particular desire or for a particular outcome.
• 27:33
  Speaker 01: Otherwise, inspiration can become vague and ethereal and too numinous for us to be able to do anything with it.
• 27:42
  Speaker 01: So when a poet comes along and uses a particular form of or a songwriter or a dancer is doing something that has taken time to hone they're doing it in order for it to be transmitted in that particular stream of inspiration that has primarily inspired them.
• 28:05
  Speaker 01: So whether you're writing a book, writing a poem, creating a dance or a drama, all of these things are structured in such a way that it allows the Awen to come into existence long enough for other people to actually have a direct experience of it.
• 28:22
  Speaker 01: Otherwise, it doesn't have anything to hold it and it just floats away, you know?
• 28:28
  Speaker 01: So that all of the disciplines within art, whether you're learning music or learning poetry, I think is to hone your inspirational qualities in a way that others can then be inspired by them and have a sense of what you felt as you were creating it, but that that feeling might change when it passes to that other person who might feel compelled to then go and create something, maybe using a different method or a different discipline.
• 29:02
  Speaker 01: And that's what I love about particularly the Welsh bardic tradition is that it's a celebration of that.
• 29:11
  Speaker 01: But also an encouraging of it so that you can attend classes or attend workshops to hone those skills which are primarily to do with inspiration and that the motive or the mo for for doing that is is just inspiration is to pass that inspiration on which again i think is very humbling and and very simple in its intention and integrity and Yeah, I love it.
• 29:54
  Speaker 01: I love the fact that we can have moments where the Awen hits us like a spark of light and we gasp and clutch our metaphorical pearls.
• 30:04
  Speaker 01: But at other times it comes to us in a more structured way where we can sit down with it and ponder over it or listen to it in a way that allows it to seep into us in a different manner.
• 30:19
  Speaker 01: So yeah, I think there's two ways in which...
• 30:23
  Speaker 01: our end can impact upon us but what it does we are certainly aware of it you know, whether we call it Awen or not, I guess we're all aware of moments when we are inspired.
• 30:36
  Speaker 02: Absolutely.
• 30:38
  Speaker 02: So I had the chance to meet you for the first time at the Sacred Space Conference this past month.
• 30:45
  Speaker 02: b And some of my friends also came to some of your workshops.
• 30:49
  Speaker 02: And of course, from your writings, but then also what you did in person with people, there was an element, and of course, like I said, this is also in your writings, of the importance of singing that is emphasized and what you did in the workshops there also involved singing.
• 31:07
  Speaker 02: And as someone who's a musician, I am in complete agreement with you and love the inclusion of that.
• 31:13
  Speaker 02: But there's also a story that you tell in one of your books, I can't remember which one now, of someone asking you to do a connection activity with a tree.
• 31:23
  Speaker 02: And you then sat there and was not quite sure how to connect with that tree while other people did.
• 31:29
  Speaker 02: And there are a number of ways that you've talked about using song to connect with other forms of life other beings and I really love that and I feel that that ties nicely into our discussion of how Awen you know connects us and allows us to communicate so could you maybe talk about why song
• 31:46
  Speaker 01: oh gosh yeah yes totally so so it is considered that um the Awen is a song uh it's a song that the the universe is singing and and as I mentioned earlier the music is always the same the lyrics are always is different and that everything in existence sings inwardly and outwardly of the Awen, of that first initial burst of the universe coming into being.
• 32:11
  Speaker 01: And of course, the peculiar thing is, is that in modernity, we actually know that the universe sings.
• 32:18
  Speaker 01: It sings a single note in the key of D, 27,000 octaves below middle C, and it's constantly singing.
• 32:26
  Speaker 01: And then each sphere, each planet, each nebula, each solar system, then has its own music.
• 32:33
  Speaker 01: And here on our planet, which is a fascinating thing, and I keep reading up on all of these papers that are being written about the hum of the Earth, about how the Earth itself is also humming, that there's a song, and some speculate that it's something to do with the resonance of the oceans, and others think it's something more atmospheric.
• 32:54
  Speaker 01: But when you read between the lines, it also boils down to the fact that they probably don't really know for sure, which I love.
• 33:00
  Speaker 01: because there's mystery there, but that the earth herself also sings.
• 33:04
  Speaker 01: So in the Druid philosophy and worldview, everything is singing of its own experience, singing of its own being.
• 33:14
  Speaker 01: And because everything is singing, that's one thing we all have in common, animate and inanimate, we are all singing.
• 33:23
  Speaker 01: And the amazing thing about, because I come from a medical background as well, I worked as a coroner for 32 years and pathology and anatomy and physiology were a deep aspect of my career and also of my passions.
• 33:42
  Speaker 01: And the amazing thing about song, and we see this not just, well, I'm about to see it at the National Eisteddfod of Wales as I always see it there with all of the singing, but whether we are singing in ritual, singing in groups or just singing around a campfire, there's this peculiarity a peculiar thing that happens, right?
• 34:01
  Speaker 01: And it's called synchrony, where song music, and particularly human voices, not just human voices, it applies to any animal that can sing or emit a sound, that very quickly, if we take humans as an example, if we start to sing together, very quickly we start releasing particular chemicals within our bodies.
• 34:27
  Speaker 01: And the very first one to be released oxytocin which is the they call it the cuddle hormone which makes us feel good and makes us feel connected to one another and that happens through song and through music and and then very quickly after that we start to release dopamine which is the feel-good hormone and then within several minutes later we start to release immunoglobin a which heightens and boosts our immune system but simultaneously while all that is happening our brain waves start to synchronize until they fall into the exact same pattern.
• 35:04
  Speaker 01: So scientists have recorded this with humans and particularly in a cave in California with a load of bats.
• 35:10
  Speaker 01: So they were able to measure the electromagnetic spectrum of these bats and how all the sound waves started to move into synchronization.
• 35:21
  Speaker 01: And in humans, it happens to our brain waves as well, which I find quite fascinating that we even use within our vernacular.
• 35:28
  Speaker 01: We're on the same way length you know and that's exactly what's happening and that it happens through song so in welsh culture we don't make we don't differentiate between a song as in a ballad or a disney tune and a poem they are both what we refer to as a can c hyphenated a n and a can means song but if you're up or Orating a poem, in Wales it will be in strict metre, in any number of different metres, you are still considered to be singing.
• 36:08
  Speaker 01: Or whether you're up singing a show tune, that's still singing.
• 36:14
  Speaker 01: So that concept of can, of song, of sound is inherent.
• 36:21
  Speaker 01: And of course, when you consider that our means, blessed holy breath, it's our breath that carries that.
• 36:26
  Speaker 01: And that's the unique thing about living on a planet with an atmosphere is that we're able to give that experience to the universe that it doesn't have on Mars.
• 36:36
  Speaker 01: or Jupiter, or out of the depth of deepest space where it's just a vacuum.
• 36:45
  Speaker 01: Whereas here we have this tool that connects us to the entire biosphere.
• 36:51
  Speaker 01: So I always think that, and it's a bit of a pet hate of mine as well, seeing people go into sacred sites and leaving physical offerings.
• 36:58
  Speaker 01: I'm like, don't do that.
• 37:00
  Speaker 01: It's littering.
• 37:00
  Speaker 01: Some of us have got to go there and clean that muck up.
• 37:04
  Speaker 01: Go and sing.
• 37:06
  Speaker 01: You have this tool.
• 37:07
  Speaker 01: in your chest and it sings you sing to sing to it and it will sing back to you and Yeah, that's a bit of a soapbox I like to get on every now and again.
• 37:20
  Speaker 01: Sing to it.
• 37:25
  Speaker 02: Well, and I will just interject.
• 37:27
  Speaker 02: I think it's because our, at least, perhaps I'm speaking more of American culture, but there is sort of the prejudice of, oh, no, but I can't sing.
• 37:35
  Speaker 02: There's professionals.
• 37:37
  Speaker 02: And then it's sort of that, you know, a little bit too much of an emphasis on needing to be an expert or needing to have some sort of qualification.
• 37:45
  Speaker 02: And what you're saying of like everything's everything, you know, which means we are meant to share that.
• 37:52
  Speaker 02: Totally.
• 37:54
  Speaker 01: And I always think, you know, I think it's utter poppycock that people have been led to believe that they can't sing and that perhaps in modernity we may have professionally gatekept those talents and skills as it has to be superior.
• 38:14
  Speaker 01: Yeah.
• 38:14
  Speaker 01: But we've been singing forever.
• 38:17
  Speaker 01: If there's anything that unites us, it's sitting around a campfire and singing without feeling that we're unable to.
• 38:30
  Speaker 01: I think that's probably a fairly new thing in the human experience, or in the human condition, to be judged for.
• 38:38
  Speaker 01: And yeah, in a forest, you come across a rowan tree, you don't have anything to offer it, I would argue.
• 38:44
  Speaker 01: Yes, you do.
• 38:45
  Speaker 01: Just sing to it.
• 38:46
  Speaker 01: If you feel a connection to that tree in that moment, sing to it.
• 38:49
  Speaker 01: And it doesn't matter if there's anybody there who can hear you.
• 38:53
  Speaker 01: The tree will hear you and will sing back to you.
• 38:57
  Speaker 01: And I love that about my culture.
• 39:03
  Speaker 01: It encourages so much of that.
• 39:05
  Speaker 01: We have extremely vibrant pub scenes where people...
• 39:12
  Speaker 01: just sing folk songs they don't have to be accompanied by any instrumentation or anything they just sometimes they are and sometimes there are groups in there jamming away you know and usually they're folk groups of some description but gosh i've been to so many taverns where there isn't a piano there isn't anything it's just people singing because it unifies them somehow it brings people together and yeah and I love that that is a vibrant part of not just my culture and my life in general but of my spirituality as well because it just has to be in there somehow it would feel odd and naked without it I
• 40:04
  Speaker 02: completely agree and I think that that ties in also to the concept of how song and all of these forms that we've been talking about are also connected to what the nature of magic is in general because some of the roots of a lot of these like you know charm and stuff like that they come from the same roots of singing and there's a lot of connections between song and what it means to sort of change the universe to change the nature of reality which you have thought in a number of places in your books and I was wondering if you could just for people who may not have thought of like music necessarily, or this song connected to, uh, magic, what would you, how would you define that?
• 40:43
  Speaker 01: Oh, totally.
• 40:44
  Speaker 01: I mean, as in define magic.
• 40:47
  Speaker 02: Oh, well, I mean, that would be a rather ambitious thing to have you two sentences.
• 40:52
  Speaker 02: There we go.
• 40:52
  Speaker 02: Um, but, and it's, it's connection to Owen and singing or this kind of creative inspiration.
• 40:59
  Speaker 01: Oh, totally.
• 41:00
  Speaker 01: Totally.
• 41:01
  Speaker 01: I mean, even as I mentioned briefly earlier on that, there are huge physiological changes that happen to the mammalian body when we sing.
• 41:10
  Speaker 01: And we know that sound waves, short waves, long wave therapies are used to open the chemical and electrical gates of cells within the human body for healing and repair in therapeutic treatments.
• 41:25
  Speaker 01: It's using sound to alter the convention of a cell.
• 41:34
  Speaker 01: And if that happens on a cellular level, then I hasten to add that that probably also happens on a subtler level as well.
• 41:44
  Speaker 01: And that because everything is singing in unison, we can sing concordance into that.
• 41:52
  Speaker 01: So for me as a druid and also a magical practitioner, because I practice magic as a part of my druidry, it will almost almost invariably include or involve song.
• 42:05
  Speaker 01: And whether that song is orated or lyrical, it will be an integral part of it.
• 42:14
  Speaker 01: And we see that as well, you know, in common witchcraft practices of rhyming in verse.
• 42:21
  Speaker 01: Well, as a Welsh person, I still consider those people to be singing, right?
• 42:25
  Speaker 01: Because that's still a can.
• 42:26
  Speaker 01: And that rhyming in verse is not only having a profound effect on the individual who's doing it and on the group who's doing it, but it's also having an energetic influence on the surrounding world.
• 42:41
  Speaker 01: And as magical practice, condition as an occultist we also then believe or have a knowing that that is affecting the energetic world where our intentions and integrities and um magics are being directed towards.
• 43:01
  Speaker 01: So I think that when I look back at magical practices here in Wales, particularly through our folklore, it almost always involved some form of can, of song in one shape or another, and almost always in verse, so that it gives you then that rhythm and that rhyme so that it becomes lyrical.
• 43:29
  Speaker 01: It's moving, it's shifting, it's energetic.
• 43:32
  Speaker 01: So yes, again, magic without music, magic without song.
• 43:38
  Speaker 01: I think Ken is naked.
• 43:41
  Speaker 02: Yeah, yeah.
• 43:42
  Speaker 02: So kind of looking at this from then the perspective of divination, we can talk about just how Awen sort of interacts with the concept of divination and looking at the past, the present, or the future, because obviously any of those three.
• 44:00
  Speaker 02: But what would you say is...
• 44:04
  Speaker 02: the way to begin a discussion of how Awen interacts with the concept of divination and the process of divining and sort of gaining information that way?
• 44:15
  Speaker 02: I
• 44:16
  Speaker 01: think...
• 44:17
  Speaker 01: I think primarily because Awen is a divine force, but it's also blowing through us, which implies that we are embers from that bonfire, from that conflagration of the divine, that it is blowing through us and then we are blowing through others.
• 44:38
  Speaker 01: And I think when it comes to divination, for me, the most engaging, most powerful type of diviners are those who are inspired by the system itself and inspired to do that particular work.
• 44:55
  Speaker 01: Something has pulled them into that spectrum to do that work to begin with.
• 45:01
  Speaker 01: So for me in that bookshop in Cannguby, all the way back centuries ago now, it seems, that was a moment of inspiration, but a moment of inspiration that I wasn't able to articulate because of my youthfulness.
• 45:16
  Speaker 01: But it was still a moment of Awen it was the divine speaking you know through a deck of cards through the images painted by pixie 80 years previously so there are levels and levels of inspiration of of Awen.
• 45:41
  Speaker 01: So that's the word I would use in my culture.
• 45:44
  Speaker 01: The Irish would call it imbas, and other cultures will probably have their own terminology for it.
• 45:50
  Speaker 01: And that when it comes to divination, of course, it has the term divine in there.
• 45:56
  Speaker 01: So to me, as a druid, the Awen is also flowing through the systems of divination because they are ultimately linked to that force or to that source and how it's blowing through people so we can see that particularly like in tarot we can see an echo of the divinity within ourselves in the major arcana cards but then we see how inspiration and life flows through us and into the apparent world in the minor arcana so that you've got this level of the divine filtering down into the experience of the of the human condition and then that then blowing out into the world.
• 46:45
  Speaker 01: And, you know, and I'm aware of the words that I'm using of something emerging and then blowing, blowing through.
• 46:54
  Speaker 01: And, of course, that blowing through comes from my bias of understanding what Awen means, you know, of the breath of the divine is flowing through us and that there are tools we can use to, again, to provide us structure to bring the Awen down so that it's not ethereal and numinous so that it can be actually focused on and then worked with and then taken from that moment and carried forth into another moment so whether the querent I would hope a querent would come to me not only would they hopefully receive clarity to whatever issue or question that they had but that they also left feeling inspired by the time that they had spent with me, the cards, and by proxy, the divine through the Awen which I channel every time I go into a divination session.
• 47:53
  Speaker 01: I purposefully shift myself into the currents of Awen so that the divine wind blows through me and through the system that I'm using, which is usually Tarot.
• 48:07
  Speaker 02: Yes, and
• 48:07
  Speaker 01: that's...
• 48:07
  Speaker 01: In a roundabout way.
• 48:09
  Speaker 02: Yeah, no, no, absolutely.
• 48:10
  Speaker 02: And I have questions about that process in general.
• 48:15
  Speaker 02: But you are very also well known for the decks that you have created.
• 48:21
  Speaker 02: And I believe right before we started recording, you told me that there were some awards that were just won.
• 48:26
  Speaker 02: So congratulations.
• 48:28
  Speaker 01: Thank you very much.
• 48:29
  Speaker 01: We did.
• 48:31
  Speaker 02: The Bee Tarot is a favorite of mine, and I'm sure a number of listeners.
• 48:35
  Speaker 02: When was the...
• 48:36
  Speaker 02: Impetus, when you sort of...
• 48:38
  Speaker 02: What inspired you?
• 48:40
  Speaker 02: What was the moment when the Awen hit that you said, you know what?
• 48:43
  Speaker 02: In addition to these beautiful decks that already exist, I need to create my own.
• 48:48
  Speaker 02: What drew you to that?
• 48:51
  Speaker 01: To initially working with design or just the Bee tarot?
• 48:56
  Speaker 02: Not necessarily the B tarot,
• 48:58
  Speaker 01: but just...
• 48:58
  Speaker 01: Oh, right.
• 48:58
  Speaker 01: Okay.
• 48:59
  Speaker 01: I think...
• 49:00
  Speaker 01: I've always been a tarot collector, probably to my detriment.
• 49:08
  Speaker 01: Because there's so many of them.
• 49:12
  Speaker 01: Oh my word.
• 49:13
  Speaker 01: But I tend to usually, if I go to do a reading, I only have maybe two or three decks that I will automatically reach for.
• 49:23
  Speaker 01: And for a number of years, even though my favourite is Pixies' and Arthur Edward Waite, Rider Waite Smith.
• 49:31
  Speaker 01: That's my favourite.
• 49:33
  Speaker 01: But that's because it was the first one I was ever exposed to.
• 49:37
  Speaker 01: So I think that stuck and will never, I'd never go away.
• 49:41
  Speaker 01: But as I progressed and as I developed as a tarot reader, as a tarotist, I kind of wished that there was a deck that was able to incorporate some of the wisdom and the magic from my culture.
• 49:58
  Speaker 01: And there wasn't one in particular.
• 50:02
  Speaker 01: There were some Celtic type tarots out there.
• 50:06
  Speaker 01: Courtney Davis, I think, created one.
• 50:10
  Speaker 01: in the 1980s, I think.
• 50:11
  Speaker 01: And it was beautiful.
• 50:15
  Speaker 01: I mean, the artwork in it was beautiful, but it was, I think, trying to capture all of Celtica, which is just too vast.
• 50:23
  Speaker 01: That's like six nations, six different cultures.
• 50:27
  Speaker 01: It was a huge undertaking.
• 50:29
  Speaker 01: And yet the artwork was beautiful, but it still didn't quite do it.
• 50:35
  Speaker 01: And I wanted something that captured some of the magic of my own culture, but didn't take away from the mystery school of the Rider Waite Smith system.
• 50:44
  Speaker 01: So I toyed with the idea for a number of years.
• 50:48
  Speaker 01: It was a long time.
• 50:49
  Speaker 01: And then I just happened to have a conversation with who was to become my tarot editor at Llewellyn Worldwide.
• 50:58
  Speaker 01: And she encouraged me to write some thoughts down and see whether they could help me bring something to life that would encompass both those loves well three loves really the system of tarot the riderway smith and my love of celtic wisdom and so i did i sat down with it for about a year and pondered and took time over it and llewellyn liked the idea and and that was it but then i and i kind of got the bug then I just got the bug then for, I enjoyed the process so much.
• 51:43
  Speaker 01: And I think what I enjoyed, the thing that gave me so much pleasure was with the Celtic Tarot and the Yuletide Tarot.
• 51:55
  Speaker 01: So Chris Down who illustrated the Celtic and Erin Brown who illustrated the Yuletide Tarot, neither one of those knew anything about Tarot, nothing whatsoever.
• 52:06
  Speaker 01: Erin Brown didn't even have a clue that there was an esoteric world out there beyond movies.
• 52:13
  Speaker 01: She's lived her life as a children's book illustrator, but I saw her work and thought, can we please get her?
• 52:20
  Speaker 01: And luckily we managed to get her to do it.
• 52:23
  Speaker 01: And it was seeing the delight and the joy in those two people as they learnt tarot.
• 52:31
  Speaker 01: And we worked on these projects for three years.
• 52:34
  Speaker 01: It took three years to bring them to life.
• 52:36
  Speaker 01: That's like a master's degree in tarot, right?
• 52:40
  Speaker 01: They were immersed every single day in tarot and they both fell in love with it.
• 52:47
  Speaker 01: Nadia Turner, who did the B tarot, is not unfamiliar with tarot.
• 52:53
  Speaker 01: So that was a different experience again because I was working with somebody who had a familiarity and was able to inject quite a lot of her inspiration into the deck as well.
• 53:02
  Speaker 01: So it came about in that manner and I think...
• 53:07
  Speaker 01: I can probably continue to design tarot because I just love tarot so much.
• 53:14
  Speaker 01: And it lends itself so beautifully to adding other layers on top of it without being detrimental to the existing layers.
• 53:25
  Speaker 01: And we keep bees at home.
• 53:28
  Speaker 01: We have bees in the backfield and we've kept bees for over 20, 25 years, I think.
• 53:34
  Speaker 01: And they're such a...
• 53:37
  Speaker 01: a beautiful, magical component of our lives.
• 53:44
  Speaker 01: And we have a catch hive right in the backyard.
• 53:47
  Speaker 01: So if there's a stray swarm wandering around, we have a catch hive and we invariably will catch a swarm from somewhere.
• 53:59
  Speaker 01: And in that moment when they're swarming, they're not interested in you whatsoever.
• 54:05
  Speaker 01: They don't perceive you to be a threat.
• 54:07
  Speaker 01: Their bellies are full of honey.
• 54:09
  Speaker 01: They're carrying stock.
• 54:11
  Speaker 01: They're just looking for a new home.
• 54:12
  Speaker 01: And you can stand in amongst them and they will be all over you.
• 54:18
  Speaker 01: And I remember doing that and feeling the magic of the bee queendom around me tangibly.
• 54:29
  Speaker 01: And then them disappearing into this hive, into the darkness of the hive and still able to communicate with one another.
• 54:36
  Speaker 01: And then I'm like, oh, do you know what?
• 54:38
  Speaker 01: That would make a really nice tarot deck.
• 54:40
  Speaker 01: Because human beings have always had a connection with bees.
• 54:45
  Speaker 01: They've been such an integral part of our evolution, of our development.
• 54:51
  Speaker 01: And they nourish us.
• 54:54
  Speaker 01: They guide us.
• 54:55
  Speaker 01: They're a part of our folklore.
• 54:57
  Speaker 01: So the tricky thing with the bee tarot was limiting it to 78 images.
• 55:05
  Speaker 01: because that was brutal.
• 55:09
  Speaker 01: That was a brutal task because there's so much globally in relation to the bees, so many myths and folklore.
• 55:17
  Speaker 01: And we had to limit it to 78, but I'm very happy with how we did it.
• 55:22
  Speaker 02: Yes.
• 55:23
  Speaker 02: And I think that that ties in because in, I mean, you have done work with also with animal bones as like part of bones and other forms that are, that are not tarot based, but that are still very rooted in the natural world involving herbs and people when they think of Druidry probably also immediately think of Oum.
• 55:42
  Speaker 02: And there is that sort of connection to the natural world in all of those different forms.
• 55:49
  Speaker 03: Yes.
• 55:50
  Speaker 02: The exact medium changes whether it's cardstock and images with artists or it is something that you've captured by a thing you found and you put into a bag.
• 56:01
  Speaker 03: Yeah.
• 56:02
  Unknown: Yeah.
• 56:04
  Speaker 02: Are there times that you, like you've said that you mostly work with tarot and clearly created, you know, beautiful decks that many people work with.
• 56:14
  Speaker 02: Are there, what is the conception or when you are sitting down to read, are there times that you will say, no, this is not the time for tarot.
• 56:21
  Speaker 02: This is the time for another form of divination.
• 56:25
  Speaker 02: Like what would push you to use something else?
• 56:29
  Speaker 01: Yeah.
• 56:29
  Speaker 01: That would be an exception.
• 56:33
  Speaker 01: I tend to, my factory setting is to always reach for tarot.
• 56:36
  Speaker 01: I do use a bone oracle.
• 56:38
  Speaker 01: I have a bone oracle, but I generally only use the bone oracle around Kalangayav, Halloween.
• 56:47
  Speaker 01: I tend to only use it around that time.
• 56:51
  Speaker 01: And so my connection and relationship with the bone oracle is limited to a particular time of the year.
• 57:01
  Speaker 01: And although I'm a druid, I'm not a massive lover of Oum.
• 57:08
  Speaker 01: It's just something I quite enjoy aspects of it, but it's not something that I've ever felt compelled to use fully as an everyday system of divination.
• 57:23
  Speaker 01: There are times where I will use it, but again, they're They're usually for my own personal meditations or contemplations, or we might use om in a group practice within the Anglesey Druid Order, or there might be a class on om.
• 57:42
  Speaker 01: So it's there as a part of my divinatory spectrum, but it isn't my go-to tool.
• 57:51
  Speaker 01: And whilst the bones, I really enjoy working with the bones.
• 57:55
  Speaker 01: it feels that that is a sacred component of the three knights of Halloween.
• 58:05
  Speaker 01: So it's a part of the practice of that particular period.
• 58:12
  Speaker 01: And usually I don't cast the bones for other people either.
• 58:21
  Speaker 01: I usually cast them to receive messages for myself and for the year to come and to have a connection with ancestral spirits.
• 58:32
  Speaker 01: So even though they're divination or they're oracular Those systems I'm using within my practice as a druid, not necessarily as service to other people, whereas the tarot is certainly service to the other people, but also service to my spirituality.
• 58:53
  Speaker 01: But it doesn't matter where I am.
• 58:55
  Speaker 01: I'm sitting at my desk now and I'm surrounded by tarot cards.
• 58:58
  Speaker 01: They're everywhere.
• 59:01
  Speaker 01: They're behind me.
• 59:03
  Speaker 01: They're up here.
• 59:03
  Speaker 01: They're just everywhere.
• 59:05
  Speaker 01: Because...
• 59:07
  Speaker 01: that's my but again you know it just it just goes back to that moment that one moment in that second-hand bookstore that had evidently such a massive impact on my life that it's now ingrained into my very fabric
• 59:36
  Speaker 02: And I think I'm trying to formulate a way of asking this question, kind of giving me a little bit of a trick right now.
• 59:43
  Speaker 02: But in your book on Cerridwen, you mentioned how, you know, Ronald Hutton and lots of other scholars have been, you know, have looked at a lot of these different mythic figures and goddesses and gods who are very important in the neo-pagan community.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 02: Cerridwen is clearly one of them.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 02: And there is now, like, obviously we all now at this point can understand and talk about how some of these figures were not seen as goddesses in ye olden days of, you know, 3000 years ago, perhaps.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 02: And yet they are spirits who have come forward and have very, very strong impacts on people and entire cultures.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 02: And I, I've been thinking about that in connection to what you were saying about the sort of like the figures on the opened when you were a child, kind of having that impact on you.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 02: And I'm wondering, what is your conception of sort of the archetypes of tarot?
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 02: Do you feel like they are something akin to deities?
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 02: Are they something that are, they're nameless and they're beyond that?
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 02: But it also, it kind of feels like there's something about that liminal nature of Ceridwen becoming a goddess, tarot decks having spirit within them.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 02: And I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 01: Oh my word, that's a kettle of fish.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 02: I know it is.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 02: I know that's why I was having trouble even formulating the question, but.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 01: So my approach to tarot and the archetypes of tarot, even though I'm a Druid, my spiritual practice is a Druid, I'm also a Kabbalist, right?
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 01: So I study Kabbalah in the Toledano tradition and I have done for quite a long time now.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 01: And I was introduced to Kabbalah through my love of tarot by a very, one of my earliest inspirers, one of my earliest mentors.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 01: Her name was Mavanwi Davis and she lived here in North Wales in the coastal town of Hill and she was a cauldron of different influences but she had a love of tarot and I met her through my love of tarot and she was also a Kabbalist.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 01: She was a member of the Society of the Servants of the Inner Light.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 01: And she introduced me to the tarot and Kabbalah.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 01: So the tarot was my gateway drug into spirituality and Druidry and also into Kabbalah.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 01: And so in my very early, so this is like in the 90s, the mid 90s, that I was being introduced to the tarot on the tree of life and that the archetypes of the major arcana of the tarot from the paths on the tree of life and the minor arcana the fruits if you like the the sephira the the discs on the tree and she she explained it to me in such a naturalistic way using the terminology of trees which of course as a druid as a welsh person i'm i was i was well up for that and oh i get this trees you know so my perception of the archetypes in the tarot are primarily informed by my Kabbalistic studies in that I perceive the archetypes to be the apparent emanation of the divine moving into the manifested world.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 01: So beginning from no thing, you know, an abstract beyond an abstract that to even call it a nothing is to call it something and immediately limits it.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 01: And I'm that the Fool, for me, I've always considered that if there is one archetype in the tarot, it's the Fool, because I consider that the Fool is the only true tarot card, that even though there's 78 cards in an ordinary deck of tarot, I believe that there's actually only one card in the tarot, and that's the Fool, and every other the 77 cards of the tarot live inside the fool and they are emerging and emanating from the fool and then meeting these archetypal forces that are ancient and timeless and part of the human condition, parts of the very fabric and song of the land itself in relationality with us so that we meet the fathers and the mothers and the mothers and the magicians and the lovers and the chariots and the deaths and the strengths.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 01: And...
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 01: So I don't necessarily perceive them as deities, although I can't see that that would be a far stretch either for anybody to consider them to be deities.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 01: But I certainly perceive them as archetypes that are, again, are blowing through the universe.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 01: And as things become closer to different expressions of manifestation, they're encountering these different archetypes at various stages of life or various stages of experience but that ultimately we are the tarot being the fool and that as fools as the only card the true card in the tarot deck we carry those archetypes within us and they emerge re-emerge disappear they emanate in different times of our lives.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 01: And the fact that these archetypes are also timeless components of the human condition, the fact that they may appear antiquated or they may appear ancient, I don't think diminishes the fact that they are utterly timeless.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 01: That the imminency of the tarot is also imminent within the human condition and experience.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 01: And that behind it all, when you consider the fall, the traditional fall on the Rider-Waite-Smith card, and you see that, you know, which is peculiar.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 01: I've only ever heard a handful of people go, why is the sun white?
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 01: I say, well, it's because it's Cata, right?
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 01: It's Cata, it's the crown at the top of the tree of life.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 01: And that beyond the fall is, is just the no thing of the divine blowing through us and it's up to us to step off that cliff and straight into the experience of living with potentially the hands of these archetypes to guide us to sometimes discombobulate us but to ultimately be a part of this experience that we've got, this amazing experience we've got of being alive.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 01: So that was a rather convoluted answer.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 02: No, I think that makes absolute sense.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 02: I mean, well, it makes a lot of sense and yet is also transcendent and, you know, try to put words.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 01: But do you know what I mean, though?
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 02: Oh, of course.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 01: And
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 02: that also kind of speaking of the speaking of the ineffable.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 02: Ha ha ha.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 02: There's there is one question that is outside of the the realm of tarot, but I am just curious to hear your thoughts on, because it is the stories from Wales of, and I'm going to attempt pronunciation of a word, so here we go.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 02: awenyddion.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 02: Did I do okay?
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 02: awenyddion.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 00: You did really well.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 00: Okay, I got it.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 00: Really well.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 02: Which is a description of potentially sort of more of the possession-based sort of like France form of divination or prophecy.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 02: As someone who comes more from the Hellenic side of the Neopaganism, I immediately think of the practices of Delphi and the other oracles of ancient Greece.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 02: And I was wondering if you feel that that is a fair comparison from your experience or your research and what can you tell listeners about that?
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 02: Oh,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 01: totally.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 01: Absolutely.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 01: I think the awenyddion A are the Welsh equivalent of the Oracle of Delphi.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 01: And And that awenyddion, according to folklore and our history, were...
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 01: people that you went to to seek clarity or advice.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 01: However, the utterations of the awenyddion were not necessarily clear, succinct, or sensical at all.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 01: They may speak in utter gibberish.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 01: So they had other people there to interpret.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 01: So a bit like what was happening in Delphi, there were people to interpret the oracles utterances, which may have been utter gibberish at the time.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 01: And that because the awenyddion or the Awenydd, so awenyddion is the plural of Awenydd.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 01: So the singular person would be an Awenydd, those who are inspired.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 01: And they would use various tools to enter a deep trance state in which they went directly into the stream of Awen.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 01: And the Awen would come out of them in a beautiful, hot, illuminated mess.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 01: And then it would be up to the different oracles around them to then catch the elements of that Awen and give it shape and form and structure for the querent to understand, right?
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 01: Which I find quite fascinating, particularly with its parallels with ancient Europe.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 01: And...
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 01: So to a modern druid, so all of the druids of the order that I had, the Anglesey Druid Order, they're druids, right?
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 01: But they're actually, when they complete our training, they become this.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 01: So they become an Aweniv.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 01: They become those who are inspired and then they're tasked with the responsibility, which...
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 01: kind of means they also have the ability to respond to the Awen, to being an Aweniv in the world.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 01: And sometimes that does involve going into trance states and accessing the Awen and speaking in gibberish.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 01: At other times, it involves other forms and expressions of inspiration.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 01: And so the function, if you like, of the Aweniv and the awenyddion has kind of moved on a little bit from the times of Geoffrey and Monmouth and deep folklore into the transcendent ability of the Awen to cause enormous changes in an individual and in other people's lives, which is what we see, which is what's captured essentially in the rituals of the gorsed of bards and the druids of the nationalised stedvard when they chair or crown the chief bard.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 01: There's a transcendental quality to that in which that person becomes an Awenid They become...
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 01: almost an oracle, I guess, through their work, through their ability to inspire.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 01: So, yes, I love that word.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 01: And that's always impacted on me, even as a very young child, that term.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 01: I was familiar with that term.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 01: So I think it was only a natural development that the Druids of the Anglesey Druid Order would be called Awen of Yon.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 02: Yes, it's a very fascinating and beautiful word.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 02: I agree.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 02: So as we kind of like come to sort of the end of our interview, I always like to, there's two questions.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 02: And the first one is more related to how you would, what advice you would want to share with people about either how to better integrate divination into their practice or why you think it might be important.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 02: because I'm always curious for people who do this, what is it that is a guiding principle for you of why you think it's important or what you hope it also brings to other people when they practice these arts?
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 01: Totally, yes.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 01: I think the reason why is that it's an expressive tool that connects us directly to the divine.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 01: So if we consider...
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 01: just a deck of cards.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 01: I mean, on the surface of things, they're just pieces of paper, right?
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 01: But they're significantly more than that because these have evolved as thought forms within a particular structured system that was inspired by the divine.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 01: So whether it's systems like Kabbalah or just systems within the tarot as a mystery school, I always consider that wherever I am, whatever I'm doing, I'm only this far away from guidance, advice, and help.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 01: So whether it's my deck, and these have been designed by me, illustrated by Nadia, there's still a part of Patricia Coleman-Smith in there because they're still based on her work.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 01: Pixie is in there.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 01: Arthur Edward Waite is in there.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 01: Other people of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn are in there.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 01: All of the other people who have ever used us system, they're in here.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 01: And Alistair Crowley had a fascinating way of describing the animistic force and essence of tarot cards in his book of Thoth.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 01: And that really struck me as a young person.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 01: And I was young when I read the book of Thoth.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 01: And I really fixated on that particular passage in his book of the power of the anima within the tarot.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 01: So that in a way, using tarot as an example, because that's my factory setting, I guess, is that these are the faces of the divine coming into manifestation and the divine coming into manifestation also through me and through the querent and through the world.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 01: So I'm only ever this far away from being able to touch the face of the divine through this, what I consider to be an incredibly powerful thought form that it's alive, it's emergent, and they reveal emergent truths in a way that I've been reading tarot for nearly 40 years and they still continue to surprise me, astound me in their ability to be direct when somebody approaches me approaches them with sincerity and gentility and curiosity and that to me divination isn't just a sensationalistic tool for fortune telling I think that fortune telling is one of the least exciting and interesting parts of divination I think the most interesting part is that it causes us to connect to the very essence of our fate to understand our destiny and to navigate the fortunes of our lives and that it can help us to refocus perhaps on the lots that were dealt to us into our bag as we stepped in the guise of the fall off that cliff.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 01: It causes us to be able to look back into that bag and go, what was put in there just before I stepped off the cliff?
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 01: And that the tarot can actually guide us back to that.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 01: And it does so because it's intimately connected through this mystery square to the power of the divine, of that no thing beyond all things.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 01: And I think it's remarkable that human ingenuity and imagination was able to deduce that and define that and then express that in 78 cards and to make that fit beautifully and almost seamlessly with other esoteric systems that still carry that same thing thought form so as as somebody who uses the kabbalah with the tarot it's kind of like a double whammy right well it's like a triple whammy for me it's the um hermetic movement like the golden dawn it's the kabbalistic movements particularly the toledano tradition that i that i follow and and and also my druidry is all in there so and as a druid i like things to be in threes
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 02: Yes, I mean, that is usually the way of things.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 02: So,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 01: yes.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 01: sitting down and studying the mystery school that they come from, because that connects you even deeper to the immense cauldron of potential magic that underpins the system, regardless of what form they take.
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 01: They're connected.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 01: As Alistair Crowley said, they're alive, you know.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 01: I love that because that's just the nice bit of woo-woo that I need in my life.
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 02: Yes.
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 02: And then that back to the animism of the cards are alive as absolutely.
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 02: That is a really beautiful thing to end on.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 02: And I really appreciate all of that.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 02: I have probably another 40 questions on my list.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 02: So I hope that we will be able to find another time to have you back on.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 02: And I deeply appreciate it.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 02: Is there anything, of course, there's going to be links to everything in the show notes.
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 02: Is there anything in particular that is coming up that you would like to share with people or.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 02: So,
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 01: um, um, Well, I've got a book that's just about to be released.
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 01: Seeing that I just mentioned fate and destiny and fortune, I've written a book about Ariane Rod, who's the Celtic goddess of fate, destiny, and fortune.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 01: And that's coming out towards the middle of August from Collective Inc.
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 01: for Moon Books.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 01: And so it's my first time writing for Moon Books because I usually write for Llewellyn.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 01: And so, yeah, that's been really...
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 01: really nice, actually, to be able to focus on Arianrhod, because there's not an awful lot of material about Arianrhod to maybe warrant a full-sized book, but to be able to write one of these pagan portal books, which are very easy and accessible to people, while still being able to honour the scholarship and cultural significance of Arianrhod has been a bit of a delight.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 01: Yeah, so that's coming out soon, and then I'm working on another two-tarot project Tarot book.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 02: Well, there we go.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 02: So when that's out, then I'll have another conversation.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 02: That sounds wonderful.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 02: Well, I will put links to everything that I can in the show notes for people.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 02: And I want to thank you so much for your time.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 02: It is very much appreciated.
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 02: And thank you so much.
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 01: Thank you.
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 03: Black moon above, stars overhead Don't you dare guide me back to my bed The river is frozen, the pollen pads bare Don't wait for me, darlin', there's thorns in my hair