Meeting the Hawk of May 2011

I had been out on a walk along the Cheshire Landscape Figure of the Hawk on a previous evening and had seen the sun set below the crags near to the Sandstone Trail at the village of Willington in Cheshire. It was a walk that I remember doing in part when I first moved to Cheshire, but I had never been able to find the path again (although I had not really tried that hard). This time I stumbled across it again, and remembered how nice it was.

I noticed that there was a path marked on the map that followed the Cheshire Hawk’s outline exactly. On my first attempt to find it – let’s call the first outing a “scouting” episode – I was scouting the landscape, feeling for what I should do to further my quest, and knowing only that the outline of the Hawk of May in the Cheshire landscape was part of that work. On that first scouting journey it was going dark when I found the crag-side path, and I was literally stopped in my tracks by the appearance of a badger at a fork in the path that evening. Not wanting to scare the badger I was forced to take the lower path back down to the road. I vowed to return and to walk the path all the way along the crags at a time when Nature gave me the right signs.

I went back one cool but dry evening in early June. I was properly equipped this time with crystals, incense and the right intention – to meet The Hawk of May (Gwalchmai). I knew I had to get this completed before my Summer Solstice pilgrimage, and I wanted the “decks cleared” and this quest completed before then. Solstice is always an amazing but wholly engaging experience, so it was important for me not to have any residual side-quests going on.

Just a reminder, my Beltane quest had developed through the use of Tarot card that had been gifted to me by a friend who is very intuitively connected, shall we say? The cards (see previous post) had told me three useful things:-

1. I would meet the Hawk of May in the Underworld
2. I would need to provide him with an intuitively-selected gift
3. The result would metaphorically to be able to “control the winds” and take on “the power of lightening”.

All very mystical, unlikely, but exciting as a prospect, and certainly a challenge to my abilities. It also held the promise of an enhancement to my abilities – just like the last quest for Spring Equinox. I’m all for that! So now this brings me to the part where I went to meet The Hawk of May.

The Way Is Easy When It Is Right

I walked along the hidden path that hugged the crag above Willington and found that it was carpeted with soft small pine needles> The soft feel of the path made me hanker for walking un-shod again, so I took my shoes and socks off and walked barefoot along the path in the setting sun light.

As I walked along I set my mind to finding the first of my challenges: an “intuitive gift”. I found a rhododendron bush that had shed most of its flowers and which was so pretty with purple petals at the base of the bush that I asked if I might use these as my gift to the Hawk. When permission was granted from the bush I picked up a dozen or so of the velvety star-trumpet flower heads and pocketed them for later.

As I walked further I began to concern myself with finding a suitable place for a meeting of minds with the Hawk of May. I assured myself that I would know the spot when I found it, but after walking almost the whole length of the path I had not found a place that felt right, so I resorted to my dowsing rods. I asked the rods to find a spot where I could meditate to reach the Hawk of May and I found one – a small mossy clearing with a small oak tree next to it which was bathed in evening sunlight and smelt of rhododendrons and pine. The spot was half way down the crag’s edge just aside from a junction of paths and felt…right. I got to work with my preparations.

My first step was to cast a circle. I had been thinking recently on how I had neglected this particular aspect of my magickal work, but now it seemed wholly appropriate, if a little contrived. Practise will relieve this burden, I am sure.

Next I lit some incense and placed three sticks around me. I called upon the forces of the land, sea and sky to assist me with contacting The Hawk of May.  I also asked for my spirit teacher Theodora to be present to assist me, and I felt her presence behind me.

I meditated for half an hour going deeper and deeper until I crossed the threshold between the worlds. I was mumbling (er, no, “intoning”) the word “Gwalchmai” just to keep the focus on the energy form that I was trying to commune with. Each time I called upon the forces of Nature to assist me I felt the wind blow a little stronger, or felt the sun shine from out behind a cloud and warm me, or the earth felt a little more real for a moment, and I might shift position to accommodate its presence.

In my meditation I climbed down an imaginary yew tree and came out of a door at the base of the tree and into an imaginary world. Once I knew I was in this world I went into a nearby cave that I spotted and suddenly I was plunged into darkness. The only bright spot was a skull carving on the cave entrance, then it was all dark. At first this put me off, but then I realised I had to overcome that fear of what this might represent and just go for it.

I pushed onwards and very soon I was inside a square room, about seven or right feet high, and about twice that width and the same length. The room was composed of square blocks of stone about a foot in length and a half that width. There was some kind of recess at the back that was in darkness, but I knew something important was in there, something devotional. In front of the recess stood a man dressed in a costume. The costume had a hawk’s eyes and beak on the top of his head, and the beak came down to cover his forehead but did not cover his eyes. The rest of the costume was composed of feathers, although he hugged a cloak around his abdomen, as though the feathers were stuck to the outside of the cloak, and the beak were attached to the hood of this cloak.

I knew he was Gwalchmai – The Hawk of May. I bowed and introduced myself to him. I said who I was, and he nodded in acknowledgement, then his eyes bored into me and I began to know who he was without him having to say anything.  As his light green/yellow eyes gazed into mine when his head lifted to receive me in the room information seemed to flow between us. I knew he was an archetype of energy, an archetype who was far older than the Gawain figure that this name is now linked with. I knew he had no Arthurian link, but instead he was of magickal stock – I knew he was a druid or shaman figure from a time when men knew animals intimately. He was a fusion of this animal and human relationship. He was a hawk-man.

A Conversation with the Hawk-Man

Now I was outside of time and place, but maintaining the image took a lot of my energy. I had to be quick and to the point. I asked him if he might help me with my quest, and re-iterated that I had left him a gift for him “up above”. He seemed to acknowledge this with a faint smile, and then he asked me what it was that I wanted to know. His tone was deep, clear and impressive.

I remembered the tarot card I had drawn and the promise it gave. I said to the Hawk Man, “May I ask for the power to control the winds and call the lightening strike, but may they be held in trust by my spirit teacher Theodora until such time as I have learned how to use them properly?”

I don’t know why I devolved responsibility like that – it’s most unusual of me, but I saw the Hawk Man smile again, more broadly this time. I had done the right thing. I knew now there was no way he would have handed me those powers just because I had asked. Something happened, like the room going a bit blurry, and then it sharpened again. Something had changed. I thanked the Hawk Man and he slowly bent his head in acknowledgement. Then I turned and left the stone chamber and suddenly I was emerging from the cave past the skull, and climbing back up the yew tree and out into normal consciousness.

As I “awoke” a songbird began to really sing loudly in a tree just above me. It was the most beautiful singing I have ever heard a bird sing and I was almost moved to tears. I sat for several moments composing myself, coming round, and feeling the quality of the birdsong flowing through me in that late evening sunlight through the trees. I got a grip of myself and began to bring myself round properly. Then I packed away all traces that I had been there, and dissolved the circle with the incense and my intention. I picked up my dowsing rods. Had I met the Hawk of May – YES. Had I acquired some new powers? – NO. Had Theodora acquired some new powers? – YES. Interesting.

The walk back was done much more quickly. I had my shoes back on and just needed to get back to normality again, and then I would think about what this had all meant, how I could work with the powers I had asked for, and what learning I might need to do to access those powers.

As I walked back to the car up the steep hill road I was thinking that I had not actually seen a real hawk during the whole process of meeting The Hawk of May. Surely this was not right, I thought? I broke out of the dark canopy of closely-clustered trees and there was a swift smooth movement above and to my right. I looked up to see a hawk gliding merely twenty feet away from me into the tree that was just ahead of where I was walking. It paused for long enough that I noticed it, and then took off again across the field to my right, gliding easily across the newly-mown field and coming to rest in a lone tree at the field’s corner. I couldn’t have had a clearer sign – I was on the path with this work.

That was the sign for the conclusion of the quest for the Hawk of May.
Gwas.