contemplation | Contemplative Inquiry

December 1, 2014

BOOK REVIEW: THE AWEN ALONE

The Awen Alone, by Joanna van der Hoeven, is an economically and elegantly written introduction to modern Druidry for readers with a serious interest in practising. I like the use of awen, Druidry’s subtle magic, as the key word in the title. In the way that the author uses the term, it gets us straight to the point of why we practice.

The introduction skilfully builds rapport by bringing us into the rhythm of a normal working day. Only it isn’t quite everybody’s normal – it’s a reframed normal for a re-enchanted world and an intentional relationship with it. Joanna starts, in a matter-of-fact way, with a “Hail to the Day and Days Sons; farewell to Night and her Daughters” and ends with “Farewell to Day and Day’s Sons; hail to night and her Daughters”. In between, there are grumbles about the price of ethical toiletries alongside an affirmation of their value; a commitment to emotional intelligence amidst the stresses of working life, a noticing of what is going on in the landscape whilst travelling and in the garden at home, a soft threshold prayer to Nemetona, Lady of the Sanctuary, and a period of formal meditation.

The messages I would get from this as an inquiring reader are the intended ones. Druid life is shown to be the same life as anyone else’s, albeit lived with a distinctive quality of wonder and attention. Moreover, it is entirely possible to live such a life without being part of a Druid community.

The book is carefully structured into three parts.

The first is about the basics of Druidry. It covers current views of Druid history; looks at what Druidry is; investigates the meaning of the key term awen (more about this below); explores deity in Druidry (some modern Druids are theistic and others not); affirms connection to ancestors (of blood, place and tradition); and describes the eightfold wheel of the year and its celebration.
The second is about Druidry in practice. This looks at the roles of meditation, prayer, inner pathworking (guided meditation), outer pathworking (walking with awareness outside); altar creation and sacred space; seasonal rituals and other work connected with the seasons; and craft names.
The third is about creating one’s own path and includes chapters on designing Druid ritual, daily practice and a more general consideration of “walking your own path”.

All of this work is well presented and gives a good overview of the way many Druids today think and practice. For me however, the really distinctive feature of this book is its discussion of awen. Awen is classically thought of as creative inspiration in a sudden, lightning flash form. But Joanna links awen, as inspiration, to the breath. The air we breathe is all around us. We take it in and give it back, a little bit changed. “The inspired Druid exhales the inspiration gained”. Awen is right here, in the web of what is, inherently present in the communication and relationships which make our interdependence work, enabling our creative choices and their results. For Joanna, awen is therefore linked also to our responsibility for personal awakening:

“Awake to our own energy and stretching out towards the energy of nature around us, we begin to see just what awen is. It is the opening of oneself … to see into the nature of all beings and indeed to see into the nature of simply being. … For awen to exist there must be relationship. We cannot be inspired unless we are open and we cannot be open unless we are in relationship, whether that is with the thunder, the blackbird or a god”. Joanna develops this theme further, seeing a cyclical process of giving and receiving at the heart of awen as we release ourselves “into the flow”. Ultimately we can be so attuned to “the threads that connect us all” that we can be inspired all the time – moving into the “bigger picture” of a compassionate and integrated life.

With this view of awen, at least as I understand it from reading the book, Joanna integrates her ‘Zen’ more fully into her Druidry. In the original Zen Druidry book, ground breaking as it was, I still had a sense of their being on parallel tracks. Thus The Awen Alone, although an introductory book, also offers an evolutionary step in the ‘Zen’ iteration of Druidry. For this reason it has importance not only to the inquirer and the newcomer, but to also to any Druid practitioner interested in the questions raised by this valuable work. Highly recommended.

Joanna van der Hoeven (2014) The Awen alone: walking the path of the solitary Druid Winchester: Moon Books

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November 28, 2014

OVERNIGHT STAY WITH K’O-KUNG

For me, this poem by Chia Tao is a contrasting twin to Poems Just Dotted Down in my last blog. On the one hand it is more self-conscious and struggling, and on the other more poignant and touching with the human face revealed. I like to read them together.

For ten li

I’ve been searching for the hidden temple

Up branches

Of the cold stream.

Monks sit Ch’an,

One with the snowy night;

Wild geese, approaching Ts’ao-t’ang,

Fly within hearing.

With lamp flames dying,

Our words are subdued;

The rest of our lives

Should be clouds and high peaks.

Up to now,

I’ve been sick a lot,

And the Enlightened Prince

Does not know my name.

From When I find you again, it will be in mountains: selected poems of Chia Tao (2000) Somerville, MA, USA: Wisdom Publications

Chia Tao (779 – 843) an erstwhile Ch’an monk, became a poet during China’s Tang Dynasty. Ch’an was the Chinese predecessor of Japanese Zen.

English translation by Mike O’ Connor.

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November 27, 2014

POEM JUST JOTTED DOWN

In the middle of the night,

I suddenly rise;

Draw water

From the deep well.

White dew

Covers the woods;

Morning stars

Dot the clear sky.

From When I find you again, it will be in mountains: selected poems of Chia Tao (2000) Somerville, MA, USA: Wisdom Publications

Chia Tao (779 – 843) an erstwhile Ch’an monk, became a poet during China’s Tang Dynasty. Ch’an was the Chinese predecessor of Japanese Zen.

English translation by Mike O’Connor.

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November 24, 2014

A CONTEMPLATIVE DRUID EVENT

Thanks to the interest generated by Contemplative Druidry, members of the Gloucestershire contemplative group have set up an entity called Contemplative Druid Events. So far we have a blog at http://contemplativedruidevents.tumblr.com/ and a forthcoming retreat.

The retreat is being held on the weekend of 17-19 April 2015 at Anybody’s Barn, Birchwood Hall, Storridge, Nr. Malvern, Worcestershire WR13 5EZ. Details of the retreat can be found on the blog.

I am excited by this prospect. It provides the opportunity to work with a larger group of people and to learn from them. Contemplative Druidry doesn’t come with a long specific tradition or an inherited set of practices and teachings. As modern Druids, we are engaged in an exploratory and co-creative enterprise. Events will extend the experience and understanding of participants and facilitators alike.

At the same time we do have a vision of what we are offering, and a sense of how the retreat will work. We will use the Friday evening to enter sacred space and move into introductions and a culture setting process. I consider the way in which we enter into relationship with the space and each other to be a highly significant part of the event and not just a warm up or preamble. It does much to determine the quality of living presence in the space, as important as any practice or activity. As for practices and activities – there will be sitting meditations and an introduction to what our existing local group calls “Awen Space”. Other offerings may include chanting, sacred movement, outside walking meditation and ‘lectio divina’ from the book of nature. We will likely make use of a fire pit on the Saturday evening.

The retreat also gives us the chance simply to be, alone and with fellow travellers, in a beautiful nurturing space. (After the opening process, every activity is an invitation to the participants, rather than a demand on them.) We will work with a maximum of sixteen people, including ourselves – there are five of us with facilitator roles from the Gloucestershire group. This is not the full capacity of the centre we are using, for we wanted a spacious environment on the physical as well as other levels.

I have a strong belief in this way of working and look forward to sharing it with new people.

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November 20, 2014

THE FEELING OF TASTE

Juicy apple, pear and banana,

Gooseberry … They all speak of

Death and life in the mouth … I have a presentiment …

Read it from a child’s expression

If she savours them. It comes from far, from far …

Aren’t you slowly becoming aware of something inexpressible in your mouth?

Where a moment ago there were words, a flowing discovery

Is released, startling, from the fruit’s flesh.

Venture to say what your apple is called.

This sweetness, which originally condensed itself,

Spreading out, slowly in being tasted rose up

To achieve a clarity, awake and of transparency,

Resonant of opposites, sunny, earthy, of the here and now – :

Oh the experience of it, the feeling, the joy -, immense!

From Rainer Maria Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus, translated by Robert Temple

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October 27, 2014

ORPHEUS, HERMES, EURYDICE, DEATH

Rainer Maria Rilke wrote his poem “Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes.” in 1904. It broke new ground in shifting the focus from Orpheus to Eurydice. The English translation below is by Stephen Mitchell.

That was the deep uncanny mine of souls.

Like veins of silver ore, they silently

moved through its massive darkness. Blood welled up

among the roots, on its way to the world of men,

and in the dark it looked as hard as stone.

Nothing else was red.

There were cliffs there,

and forests made of mist. There were bridges

spanning the void, and that great blind lake

which hung above its distant bottom

like the sky on a rainy day above a landscape.

And through the gentle, unresisting meadows

one pale path unrolled like a strip of cotton.

Down this path they were coming.

In front, the slender man in the blue cloak –

mute, impatient, looking straight ahead.

In large, greedy, unchewed bites his walk

devoured the path; his hands hung at his sides,

tight and heavy, out of the failing folds,

no longer conscious of the delicate lyre

which had grown into his left arm, like a slip

of roses grafted on to an olive tree.

His senses felt as though they were split in two:

his sight would race ahead of him like a dog,

stop, come back, then rushing off again

would stand, impatient, at the path’s next turn, –

but his hearing, like an odor, stayed behind.

Sometimes it seemed to him as though it reached

back to the footsteps of those other two

who were to follow him, up the long path home.

But then, once more, it was just his own steps’ echo,

or the wind inside his cloak, that made the sound.

He said to himself, they had to be behind him;

said it aloud and heard it fade away.

They had to be behind them, but their steps

were ominously soft. If only he could

turn around, just once (but looking back

would ruin this entire work, so near

completion), then could not fail to see them,

those other two, who followed him so softly:

The god of speed and distant messages,

a traveller’s hood above his shining eyes,

his slender staff held out in front of him,

and little wings fluttering at his ankles;

and on his left arm, barely touching it: she.

A woman so loved that from one lyre there came

more lament than from all lamenting women;

that a whole world of lament arose, in which

all nature reappeared: forest and valley,

road and valleys, field and stream and animal;

and that around this lament-world, even as

around the other earth, a sun revolved

and a silent star-filled heaven, a lament-

heaven, with its own disfigured stars -:

So greatly was she loved.

But now she walked beside the graceful god,

her steps constricted by the trailing graveclothes,

uncertain, gentle and without impatience.

She was deep within herself, like a woman heavy

with child, and did not see the man in front

or the path ascending steeply into life.

Deep within herself. Being dead

filled her beyond fulfilment. Like a fruit

suffused with its own mystery and sweetness,

she was filled with her own vast death, which was so new,

she could not understand that it had happened.

She had come into a new virginity

and was untouchable; her sex had closed

like a young flower at nightfall, and her hands

had grown so unused to marriage that the god’s

infinitely gentle touch of guidance

hurt her, like an undesired kiss.

She was no longer that woman with blue eyes

who had once echoed through the poet’s songs,

no longer the wide couch’s scent and island,

and that man’s property no longer.

She was already loosened like long hair,

poured out like fallen rain,

shared like a limitless supply.

She was already root.

And when, abruptly,

the god put out his hand to stop her, saying,

with sorrow in his voice: He has turned around – ,

she could not understand, and softly answered,

Who?

Far away,

dark before the shining exit-gates,

someone or other stood, whose features were

unrecognizable. He stood and saw

how, on the strip of road among the meadows,

with a mournful look, the god of messages

silently turned to follow the small figure

already walking back along the path,

her steps constricted by the trailing graveclothes,

uncertain, gentle and without impatience.

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October 26, 2014

ORPHIC HYMN TO NIGHT

Today, where I live, we changed our clock time. Yesterday’s 7 p.m. is today’s 6 p.m. and the evenings get dark. This introduces the Samhain season for me and all that it brings. Here is a Hymn to Night, conventionally ascribed to Orpheus. According to translator and editor Apostolos Athanassakis, they were most likely written in their present form in the early third century AD in Pergamum, a city in modern Turkey .

I shall sing of Night,

mother of gods and men;

We call Night Kypris,

she gave birth to all.

Hear, O Blessed Goddess,

jet-black and starlit, for you delight in the quiet

and slumber-filled serenity.

Cheerful and delightful, lover

of the nightlong revel, mother of dreams,

you free us from cares,

you offer us welcome respite from toil.

Giver of sleep, beloved of all,

you gleam in the darkness as you drive your steeds.

Ever incomplete, terrestrial,

and then again celestial,

you circle around in pursuit

of sprightly phantoms,

you force light into the nether world,

and then again you flee

into Hades, for dreadful Necessity

governs all things.

But now, O blessed one – beatific,

desired by all – I call on you

to grant a kind ear

to my voice of supplication,

and to come, benevolent,

to disperse the fears that glisten in the night.

Apostolos Athanassakis talks about Orphic hymns as instances of a devotional mysticism that uses “the power of clustering epithets” for the creation of “an emotional and spiritual crescendo that might raise our human spirit and help us approach the divine”. They remind him of Vedic hymns, Rumi’s verses within the Islamic Sufi world, and aspects of his own Orthodox Christian background. The hymns are beautiful to read – and it is worth remembering that they are designed for group practice in a charged, incense laden atmosphere, with repetition upon repetition, perhaps accompanied by swaying, movement or dance of various kinds.

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October 21, 2014

CONTEMPLATIVE DRUID RETREATS

Following the publication of ‘Contemplative Druidry’* I have been working on a residential retreat programme. It is likely that three of us from the Gloucestershire group (discussed in the book) will be offering a pilot next April, sponsored by OBOD (the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids). The proposed venue will take up to 20 people, which will allow us to do some real relationship and community building as well as sharing some of our practices. We don’t simply want to roll out a programme. Indeed, we hope to enrich our own work by learning from participants and extending our circle to include them if they wish it.

For me, the only way to strengthen the contemplative thread in Druidry is to build our work in a spirit of open inquiry and sharing, as well as holding a space for tranquillity and renewal through the practices themselves. This is why we are extending the work cautiously. We also hope to offer something at Druid Camp, Lughnasadh 2015, since many of the people in our local group and in the book are involved in The Druid Network. It’s not just an OBOD thing. Samhain this year will be the third anniversary of my commitment to a contemplative inquiry within Druidry. I’m looking forward to what the fourth year may bring.

*Contemplative Druidry is an Amazon CreateSpace and Kindle Direct Publishing venture, involving me in learning a variety of new skills, and is mostly based on interviews with people involved in Druid contemplative practice. It includes a foreword by OBOD’s Philip Carr-Gomm.

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October 19, 2014

CONTEMPLATION AND THE HIDDEN MOTHER

This is a ‘learning from other traditions’ post. Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk, writes about Chuang Tzu, an early Taoist sage and story teller.

“Chuang Tzu is not merely a professional recluse. The ‘man of Tao’ does not make the mistake of giving up self-conscious virtuousness in order to immerse himself in an even more self-conscious contemplative self-recollection. One cannot call Chuang Tzu a Contemplative in the sense of one who adopts a programme of spiritual self-purification to attain to certain definite interior experiences, or even merely to ‘cultivate the interior life.’ Chuang Tzu would condemn this just as roundly as the ‘cultivation’ of anything else on an artificial basis. All deliberate, systematic, and reflexive ‘self-cultivation’, whether active or contemplative, personalistic or politically committed, cuts one off from the mysterious but indispensable contact with Tao, the hidden ‘Mother’ of all life and truth. One of the things that causes the young disciple of Keng Shan Chu (in a Chuang Tzu story) to be so utterly frustrated is precisely that he shuts himself up in a cell and tries to cultivate qualities which he thinks desirable and get rid of others he dislikes. … The true tranquillity is Ying ning, tranquillity in the action of non-action, in other words, a tranquillity which transcends the division between activity and contemplation by entering into union with the nameless and invisible Tao.”

For me, there is a fine line between making a real commitment to contemplative practice and allowing it to become an idolatry. I find that it does ask me to be intentional, to devote time and effort, to be willing to learn the skills. So I have some sympathy for the immature student gleefully lampooned in the story. Yet I resonate with the larger point and look forward to shedding a residual anxiety and striving, a slightly distressed earnestness, in what I do. To release wonder more fully, to be immersed in exploration, and to experience connection with a Mystery that cannot, in the last resort, be named or possessed. I’m not sure whether this is what either Thomas Merton or Chuang Tzu were getting at, but it’s what I take from this reading.

Merton, Thomas (1965 &2004) The Way of Chuang Tzu Boston & London: Shambhala.

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October 14, 2014

AWEN MANTRA MEDITATION

As part of my solo practice, I sometimes do Awen mantra meditation. Aah comes in with the inbreath and wen goes out with the outbreath. Classically, I have followed these two syllables into a felt sense of what has been called the Shakti of the mantra, the power of the mantra, its inner pulsation and grace. In my embodied poetry of practice, Awen resonates like the primal breath and energy of the Cosmos, a subtle vibration underlying the apparent world, welling from a paradoxically creative emptiness. Visually, if my eyes are shut, the world tends to dissolve into a river of tiny lights, set wide apart from each other. If they are open, my visual experience of space changes and boundaries become more porous. This tends to be a place of deep receptivity and renewal.

Just lately I have been experiencing Awen mantra meditation differently. I believe this relates to being more active in the world – paradoxically through the contemplative Druidry project itself, with its relationship building, writing and now publicising ‘Contemplative Druidry’, and the beginning of plans for retreats beyond the local group level. I like this side of things more than I anticipated, because it connects me in a different way. And I also find that, in these times, the Awen mantra meditation becomes more focused and directional. I start to have the traditional understanding of Awen, as creative inspiration, more in mind.

So working with the mantra takes on a sense of dedication and intent, and also an aspect of invocation. There is still a receptiveness in there, of making myself available to Awen, as a vehicle for it. But it’s not in the manner of possession or channelling, or any obvious sense of psychism. I have to keep my wits absolutely about me, hold my intent actively, use discrimination and make decisions.

When my contemplative work became a project as well as a practice, I feared that I would saw off the meditative branch that I am sitting on, and fall into a sort of repetitive busyness syndrome. Now I see a greater range of possibilities. Life and awareness are always moving, always in process, and require different means of grounding and centring at different times.

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