I shall sing of the awen, which

I shall obtain from the abyss

Through the awen, though it were mute

I know of its great impulses

I know when it minishes;

I know when it wells up;

I know when it flows;

I know when it overflows.

–Taliesin, “The Festival” from the Book of Taliesin, 13th century

What the poet Taliesin writes of is the “Awen”, a central principle in the druid tradition meaning “flowing inspiration” or “divine inspiration.” In ancient times, bards embraced the flow of Awen to be masters of memory, sound, and expression. The bardic path was a lifelong pursuit and vocation; bards would spending many years (by one Scottish account, 7 years[1]) learning the bardic arts which included the arts of memory, diction, rhyming, and composition.

The flowing of Awen isn’t just an experience, it is a magical and meditative process. Perhaps you’ve…

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Sacred Tree Profile: Magic, Medicine, Folklore and Ecology of Ash (Fraxinus Americana)

The Druid's Garden

I remember the first time I met an Ash tree suffering from the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) in South East Michigan. She was a young ash, about 20 years old, about 4” thick at her widest point typical age, and had begun producing seeds. She stood proudly to the south-east of my sacred grove behind my pond, and I would visit her often. All of her elders in the surrounding area had been killed by the Emerald Ash Borer some years before. The EAB is a bright green beetle that came into the Detroit, MI harbor in 2002 and spread quickly into the surrounding ecosystem (now threatening ash trees along the midwest and eastern seaboard). The EAB larvae eats the cambium (green inner bark) of many ash species; however, the borer ignores trees that are young and instead goes for more mature trees that have a more developed cambium. As…

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Ozark Encyclopedia – C – Cranesbill

I love seeing this along the roadsides in Western Maryland.

Trinity of Polish Divinity: Summer Solstice, Water Rites & Magical Crowns

Avatar ~ secretsoftheserpent

If you dig far enough into any group’s history, you will find wars and conquest of one people over another. Of course, the victors write the history, but there are always those that have been Guardians to the whole truth.

In my humble opinion, the conflicts today are the same as when the first human bashed another in the head with a rock and took his stuff. Only the weapons, and the ways we communicate those actions have changed. A few have awakened and are trying to make true changes, but mostly it’s just talking heads.