I have been using my pen name of Gwas Myrddyn since I started this blog in the middle of 2008. It has adopted a personality all of its own now, and it feels like a well-worn leather glove which slips comfortably over me, shielding me with its anonymity. However, last year I was guided to move further out from its penumbra and allow more of the light to fall upon me – I had to become more involved as myself, to begin to dissolve some of the artificial barriers that I had put up between my self and my adopted personality. I did so reluctantly, but in small ways I have begun to emerge from the shadow of this name.
What I wasn’t expecting was that on a seemingly innocuous visit to a sacred site that I would discover just how meaningless my druid name had become now! Let me explain how I lost one name and found another.
The evening featured unpleasant weather. It was still too cool to be refreshing rain, and too windy to ignore it. All the way through Buxton and Bakewell Kal and I chatted enthusiastically whilst trying to ignore the elements around us. Kal assured me that everything would be okay, and that he wouldn’t need any weather-defying clothing. The rain got worse, but then as we came up the Harthill Moor road to a pot-holed lay-by the rain faded out like a ghost at dawn. Kal smirked as I changed into my waterproof leggings.
As we approached the outcrop known as Robin Hood’s Stride I took the footpath right. This leads past a very interesting set of rock formations – a couple of shallow caves hidden within the trees atop a steep slope. We ventured into the woodland and wondered what we were doing here. We should have been heading for the stone circle nearby, but something “pulled” me towards this place. I was about to get my dowsing rods out to find the location when I spotted something…
Kal called it the face of a grumpy goblin, but I saw something more familiar –a hawk entity. It was the Spirit of Place for this area, and I decided to find out why it had called me here as I was passing. I touched the stone and settled into a quick routine of connection. Soon we were locked in empathic communion, and our thoughts were rendered into a conversation.
I introduced myself. When I said my druid name ‘Gwas Myrddyn’, the Hawk spirit refuted it! I was a bit astonished – I hadn’t been expecting that. I asked the spirit whether he could tell me what my new name was, but he couldn’t do that. It wasn’t his place to reveal that information, was the response I felt and interpreted into words. The Hawk told me that I would find my new name at Nine Stones Close – the stone circle nearby.
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