The coracle, or skin-bag, contains the transformational forces being experienced through access to Awen; without the principle of structure, authority, and boundaries, there is nothing to contain and focus the transformative energy being experienced. Without the principles represented by Tegid, the forces of inspiration that lead to the act of transformation would dissolve and return to the void. Tegid is an essential component that “holds” the tale in place and provides it with a physical stage upon which to play out. Pure inspiration remains ethereal and unmanifest without the structuring nature of the physical world. Without the boundaries and limitations imposed by the physical, our inspiration remains just that: unmanifest. We need Tegid Foel to manifest them onto this plane. Without his influence, the tale would be devoid of security and stability—it would descend into anarchy and become disarranged. Awen would be too fluid and would run through the fingers to be absorbed by the void; Tegid provides the cup that contains our Awen.
Tegid is the tutelary archetype of the lake, and yet the waters themselves are representative of the Goddess aspect—unconscious, formless, emotional, and otherworldly. But for the qualities of the Goddess to be made manifest in this realm and for us to connect to the elements that embody her, she needs the containing boundary of the surrounding banks, which provide the structure, discipline, and boundaries—i.e., the material world. Both these elements combine to provide a link between the manifest plane, represented by the masculine force, and the unmanifest: the feminine force. Neither is greater than the other, but both are essential for making manifest the mysteries and bringing them to applicable cohesion. Ultimately the mysteries are useless unless we are able to set them on a stage that makes them manifest, tangible; anything less than this would simply be a mental exercise. All the other archetypes bring subjective, supernatural qualities vital for the assimilation of mystery, but without the principle of Tegid—the steadfastness and sureness of the physical world—they would lose their cohesion and dissolve into abstraction.
Tegid Foel is our connection to the physical plane and our localities; he represents the qualities of support and security, of stability and strength. He is an allegory for community and tribe, family and friends; he connects us by means of bone and blood to the soil and sap. We are all supported in one manner or another, whether in our personal, professional, or spiritual lives; support is vital for us to be nurtured and permitted to develop. In this light, Cerridwen and her children are supported within a family unit; if Cerridwen is out foraging every day for over a year, someone is maintaining the larder. This role is fulfilled by her husband; he supports the witch’s skills by providing for his family. He maintains the physical, visible world to enable Cerridwen’s pursuit of the occult arts. The roles here are not those of dependency, but rather of honourable reciprocation. For relationships to grow and fruit they must be symbiotic, each to his or her role, each one contributing to the family or spiritual unit in a manner that is conducive, not predatory or parasitic.
Tegid Foel represents what holds us and gives our lives structure and support. There is a degree of practicality here, for without support we may be unable to fulfil our goals or responsibilities. When we look at our own lives and examine the details that make up our everyday patterns, we will note the structures of support and stability, security and encouragement that bring meaning and reciprocation to our relationships. These are essential for us to be permitted to pursue our dreams, studies, career paths, and life choices in the knowledge that we are supported. This is not a selfish notion, for the concept of reciprocation must be utilised for these relationships to be symbiotic. We may need the support of a spouse or partner to look after the children whilst we pursue our studies with our covens and groves. I reiterate that this is not dependency, it is practicality. We live in a world where nothing is given to us on a plate; our lives are restricted by finances, working patterns and shifts, and family obligations. We may all dream of being full- time priests to the gods, but that is not the world we inhabit; our devotion to the old ways must be balanced with the sheer practicalities of twenty-first- century life. And to enable this we must have support systems in place that mould the physical environment around the spiritual in a beneficial manner.
Generally our support systems go unacknowledged—they morph gradually into the humdrum of existence, and we take them entirely for granted. The message of Tegid Foel is the conscious acknowledgment of the physical, material systems that give our lives the structure and support they require. The anarchic spirit may find this concept utterly anathema and condemn it at first sight, but to do so would be to dishonour the nature of relationship. As children we are supported by our parents and their interaction with the world—they nurture, house, and feed us. We reciprocate by caring for our parents in later life and raising our own children; the cycle repeats. In our educational years we are supported by our peers, encouraged by the unit of friends that arise from intense periods of schooling. These folk become the shoulders upon which we cry in our darkest moments and the invokers of laughter and the joy of love-filled companionships. Our careers are supported by the systems that enable the smooth running of any operation or task; nothing truly happens independently. Within our spiritual development, we are equally supported by means of our spiritual family groups—the covens, groves, groups, and orders to which we belong. Without these structures in place, we would be hard-pressed to maintain Awen’s form, and it may become too fluid to form shape and substance. To be in receipt of support is to also provide it—a one-sided relationship based on what one can gain is doomed to fail from the offset. To be in sacred, meaningful relationship is to swim in symbiosis.
The physical location and materials that make up our nonhuman support systems are also vitally important for our well-being. They provide us with a sense of place, of being, by connecting us physically with the world around us. We tend to choose our physical habitats carefully. A house is more than just a series of bricks and mortar to a practitioner of the mysteries; it is a home, an extension of the persona that inhabits it. An untidy house is an untidy mind, says the wisdom of the grandmothers, and there is a certain degree of truth in this old wives’ adage. Our states of mind affect the physical, and good mental health is reflected in good physical health. Our emotions are able to affect our environments in manners that are very real. The saying that “you could cut the atmosphere with a knife” is not a whimsical notion but one based on the activation of the subtle senses, which perceives something beyond the ordinary. The subtle world directly affects the physical world and vice versa; the proper and effective maintenance of both realms is an essential task for any student of the mysteries.
For this to take place, we need systems that guide and support us. We need teachers who can guide us, partners and friends who provide us with the time and energy to commit, and the physical materials needed to practically enable us to develop. For the modern Pagan, however idiotic the notion may seem, a car is equally as essential to those in isolated communities as the ability to imagine. We are communal pack animals; we thrive in community and need this aspect to be human. We are products of our time, and we cannot deny the world as it currently exists, warts and all. It is our world, and it supports us; our communities and families sing of exquisite connection to the material world whilst simultaneously reaching into the subtle realms. To acknowledge our relationships is to deeply honour them, so next time you feel like screaming at your mother for annoying you or verbally attacking your partner for leaving laundry about the bedroom floor, stop and think of what forged that connection in the first place. Examine your relationships and what effect they have on your physical/material world.
In some Eastern spiritual traditions there exists the function of denying the physical, of rising above and beyond the limitations of this dimension. This is not a function of the Celtic systems, which celebrate the essentialness of this experience as something that brings richness and individual expression to the o
verall knowing of the universe. Tegid Foel is our connection to the here and now; his message tells us to be of the world, for we are of the world—our spirits may exist between dimensions, in the space between place, but our corporeal forms exist in the here and now. This planet, this physical earth, is a vital cog on the wheel of experience, and by observing the cycles of nature, we glean an understanding of human nature and the wisdom that that entails. The physical and the spiritual cannot be separated whilst we are within human form; they are not destined to do so.
Exercise
What is the nature of your support systems? What are the systems you have in place that enable you to participate in the world? What are your relationships based upon?
When you study your life and the complex web of relationships within it, how do they appear? Chances are that you have probably never sat down and examined the nature of your support systems. This exercise gives insights into the functionality of our relationships and what role we play within them.
Contemplate your relationships by initially focusing on the most poignant ones. Take your journal and note the structure of the most immediate relationship in your life. Ask yourself these questions:
• What is the basis of the relationship?
• How did it form?
• What basic need does the relationship fulfil in you?
• What needs are fulfilled in the other by you?
• Who is the more assertive partner?
• What are the defining qualities of you and the other?
• Is the relationship based on an emotional connection or by means of obligation?
• What support does the relationship provide?
Contemplating the above will cause you to deeply question the nature of your relationships. The danger within any relationship is stagnation; the prevention of this is dependent on our ability to acknowledge the value—and sometimes the destructive elements—of them. Love and hate share the sides of the same coin; they are not opposites, for there is still a connection there—the opposite of these is indifference. Indifference in relationships causes the breakdown of the supporting systems that they contain. The Tegid element is removed. Consider:
• What are your Tegid traits—how do you connect to the masculine forces?
• In what way do you honour them?
• How does your virility and sexuality express your inner nature?
Record your experience in your journal.
[contents]
50. Peniarth MS 111.
51. NLW MS 5276D.
52. Wade-Evans, Vitae Sanctorum Britanniae et Genealogiae, 320.
Morda
the key to liminality
• • •
And she took a blind man to stoke
the fire beneath her cauldron,
and he was named Morda the blind.
Ystoria Taliesin
When we encounter Morda in the tale, only a single sentence alludes to his being. We are informed that Cerridwen “employed a young boy called Gwion Bach from Llanfair yn Caer Einion in Powys to tend the cauldron, and a blind man named Morda to tend the fire beneath it, and she entrusted them to not allow the boiling to cease until a year and a day had passed.”53
In Elis Gruffudd’s account, we are given the following snippet of information:
The story says that she took an old blind man to stir the cauldron and to tend it, but it says nothing of his name any more than it tells us who the author of the tale is.54
Another account, in the hand of Llywelyn Sion from the National Library of Wales, gives us another variant on the name: “and Dallmor Dallme to tend the fires beneath the cauldron.”55
The examples above, taken from three different manuscripts, provide us with a range of information about a character who is only privileged one sentence within the tale. So why the variation?
You will note that Elis Gruffudd’s account tells us nothing of his name. However, Elis also has the task itself presented differently. The majority of the manuscripts that contain the tale state that the blind man tended the fires whilst Gwion Bach stirred the cauldron. Elis claims it to be the reverse. It is possible that this is a scribal error and that he simply recalled the tasks in the incorrect order. We must also consider that Elis Gruffudd did not entirely agree with the obvious Pagan nature of the tale, as he clearly states in his version that it is “against reason and contrary to faith and piety.” With this in mind, it can be deduced that some of the information in his manuscript may be suspect and biased. Sion, on the other hand, gives us an entirely different name, yet it’s indicative of the character’s disability—dall is Welsh for “blind.” Therefore, before further analysis of the character’s attributes is explored, it is necessary to briefly examine the name of this seemingly elusive individual.
The name Morda does not appear in the Dictionary of the Welsh Language, but closer examination of its construction reveals subtle clues to the nature of this being. His name is composed of two elements: mor, meaning “sea,” and da, meaning “good”; combined, they can be interpreted as “good or fair sea.” You will already be familiar with the concept of the sea being a catalyst for Awen, for spirit and connectivity. Morfran Afagddu also shares a link to the sea, and Morda serves to reiterate this intrinsic connection to the realm of the spirit. However, the key to understanding the message he conveys is secreted within his proclaimed disability: he is blind. He appears in some manuscripts as Dallmor Dallme or Dallmor Dallmaen, meaning “blind sea, blind stone,” although it must be stated that nobody has yet satisfactorily interpreted the “Dallme” component except that it contains the prefix dall, meaning “blind.” However, in some texts where it appears as Dallmaen, the suffix maen can be taken to mean “stone” or “standing stone.” Morda the Blind exists between the worlds—he is a part of this world yet is somehow detached; he brings to the cauldron the magic of liminality. Liminality—from the Latin word limen, meaning “threshold”—is, I believe, the most important component of any spiritual quest, journey, or personal development. For it is within liminal space that we experience and connect; it is here that our concepts and misconceptions break down, where the spirit is challenged and the mind set free to explore what exists beyond normal human comprehension and experience. Morda had no external visual data to inform him of his surroundings; he was reliant upon his liminal senses to guide him.
• • •
The waters of Lake Tegid dance for four miles, a hidden world beneath its surface. The normally fast-flowing yet nonthreatening river that flows through this sacred landscape had, on a cold day in October, been transformed into a beast of uncompromising nature. The lake, prone to dangerous flooding, had forced the river to expand beyond its banks. Moody and lost in the rapture of her own being, in her own incapacity to remain on course, she stormed towards the sea. I closed my eyes, recalling the task that Morda had been given. I breathed with his mystery, listening to the tumult about me. A small footbridge stretched across the expanse of the river, a sturdy old thing but tired and in need of some repair. I have stood upon this bridge a few times over the years, but never had I experienced such power as this day. From over two hundred yards away the rumbling river pulsated the air, a distant heartbeat reaching out into the world, making herself heard, warning those who would approach of her mood. Soggy ground gave way to pools of yellow water as I approached the river herself, the air thick with mist, the thundering sound of the river now beating against flesh and bark. Normally the river cannot be seen until one stands upon the very bank and peers over the edge, but this day what seemed like thick, yellow clouds reached out of her body, some twelve feet above her normal level. The speed was terrifying, as was the deafening thunder of her course pumping through the land and all who stood near her. It seemed as if the trees leaned away from her in terror.
The bridge was sodden; water dri
pped endlessly from her iron railings, causing smaller rivulets to appear and flow across the wooden walkway. In places the wooden boards had been compromised, eroded by decades of wind and water; through these gaps I could see the raging river beneath, beating her way eastward. I had company this day; three of us stood upon the bridge watching the sheer power of the river as she turned the corner just ahead of our vantage point. What would normally be a ten-foot waterfall now defied description. A seething tumult of peat-stained water bulged from the landscape, fat, angry, and intent on one purpose: to force its way to the sea.
The power of her voice prevented any form of human verbal communication; however loudly one shouted, nothing could be heard. The bridge pounded beneath us, groaning against the constant punishment, begging for mercy. The beating voice of the river had a physical effect on our dense human forms—it began to hurt. We became lost in the story of water, of river and mountain, of rain and cloud. Standing on a bridge that crossed a threshold between the worlds, we found ourselves betwixt and between, neither in one reality nor another. The song of Morda rose from the maelstrom. The crashing river lay beneath us, yet she reached above us, around us, through us. Watching the water beneath me, my companions seemed to dissolve into the mist and spray, lost in their own rapture. Beneath me I watched the passing of time as water caressed and beat at rock and tree root. Stories of times long past and the terror of the present reached out to batter the senses from the banks of the river and from within its depths.
I stood above the raging torrent, watching it all flow beneath me, an observer. Yet lost in the rapture of the waters, trapped in liminality, I became immersed in the story unfolding beneath me and around me. My own perception of reality was about to be changed, to be defied, as all defined boundaries lost their cohesive ability to articulate their perimeters, to sing from the stability of their place within this sacred landscape. Perceptions and concepts began to dissolve within the maelstrom. My own mind lost its ability to remain within the confines of my skull—it lost its hold on the body it felt secure within and slipped, almost unwillingly, through the back of my head. As mist and vapour engulfed me, the blindness of Morda and his watery attributes overwhelmed me.
From the Cauldron Born Page 13
