August has been a busy month – socially, and in terms of holidays and druidry. So at the end of August begins our stories about Lammas, Lughnasah, or Lunasa – whichever you prefer. I used to call it Lammas, but I’m coming around to the ideas of using Lunasa, as it contains a more direct reference to the inspiration for the day.
Lammas (or Lunasa, Lughnasagh – The Assembly of Lugh) was about a meeting with a faery. It seems so obvious now, but the signs were constructed in a long draw-out jigsaw, and the final pieces only came together as I write this post. Sometimes the obvious is not obvious until it makes itself so. I discovered that I would be having this meeting, this assembly, at the Summer Solstice on Glastonbury Tor. I think even then, because it was Glastonbury Tor, I knew which faery I would be meeting – Gwyn Ap Nudd. He is also known as Lugh (Light), and Herne (The Hunter).
Certainly all the indications were such – it had to be someone powerful, I needed to go through an elaborate ritual of gathering the fruits of the summer, and I would need to provide a gift of these fruits at a banquet where I would meet him. A few words of advice had come through from Kal’s spiritual mentor Cailleach too. She had advised that I “must find the banquet“. Indeed, I would have to gather the flowers of the land on the day of the festival from all the places I visited that day. The flowers did have to be found. The place and the time had also to be right, astronomically and in terms of the time of the year. After a chance encounter on this blog I knew the place. The time and star positions were going to be Lammas and in view of the constellation Orion – The Hunter. Gwyn, of course, is also The Hunter, hunting the Scorpio constellation across the sky, so I’m told.
As a courtesy to my “informant” I will not be discussing the place where the meeting would take place, but I will describe what happened. However, that’s a few posts away. For now, there were preparations to be made, and the first was a suggestion of Kal’s – Bryn Celli Ddu.
The site is usually very well maintained, energetically speaking, but this day we both independently discovered that some balancing work could be done. When we conferred about it we decided to go about it in our own ways, but agreed that it needed doing. Only a marginal tinkering, this time, just to being the site into harmony with our energies, and vice versa.
I dowsed for the place to do this work from and found a place to the upper side of the entrance to the mound. On the opposite side Kal was already sat so I asked him if that was “his spot” to which he responded that it was indeed. Of all the places we could have chosen, we chose opposite sides of the entrance. I sent female energy around the outside of the site and dowsed later that it blended with the existing female flow.
Kal, it turns out, had been sending male energy the other way round. Without any preparation we found ourselves working harmoniously in a balanced way until the site dowsed as being perfectly in harmony between male and female, and that this was consistent with the energies of the moment (positions of moon, sun and stars at this time of the year). The female outer ring and male inner ring around the mound were moving freely, and flowing to a design that we had dowsed on several occasions now (see our site maps of Wales for a clue to that formation’s general layout).
Going deeper into Lammas
It was time to go inside. Incense was lit and placed around me, then I found the correct place to position myself using the dowsing rods. I could actually feel the correct place, so the dowsing rods were merely a crutch to add a little visual confirmation to what I was feeling. Standing on the appropriate power centre I asked my spirit guide to assist with adding a few layers of protection as I worked. Nothing felt untoward in that space, but I have learned lessons the hard way recently and wasn’t about to forget my ‘chores’.
I balanced myself – moving energy between my upper and lower energy centres – roughly at the point of my “third eye” chakra and my sacral chakra. Eastern systems refer to these energy centres as the “upper and lower dan-tien”. When the two centres had energy flowing freely between them I was ready, and so I began to connect out into the chamber to feel for any sentient responses.
Then I relaxed, pushed my aura outward and listened carefully, asking only “What do I need to know for my meeting with Gwyn today?“. I heard the phrase:
“You are in a balance between light and dark”.
As I came back to conscious awareness I realised that the power centre I was standing in was also a balance – between the light from the back of the chamber and the gloom of the interior. I really was in a balance of light and dark today! This was of significance for my upcoming work. It was preparation, but maybe it was a statement about me in a much deeper way too. What would my meeting with Gwyn reveal? Was I at a point where I could be taken down a light or dark path? Hmmm…
Walking back to the car I saw the shadow of the hedge that lines the pathway forming a perfect display of the balance between light and dark!
The signs were good that the day would be fruitful, but I was aware that I was at a potential tipping point, and that it might be a tricky balancing act to maintain this stillness and balance. We drove off around the southern end of the island of Anglesey making our way towards the inevitable meeting.
