Avalon Within

by Jhenah Telyndru

  Each of these five sites corresponds to a Station in the Avalonian Cycle of Healing, and connecting with each area of the sacred landscape—either literally, as by undertaking pilgrimage, or energetically, as through Immrama or trance journeying—will bring insight to the sister energy dwelling within us. As we come to understand archetypal patterns encoded in the essence of each geographic area, we begin to activate the corresponding energies in our inner spiritual landscapes, allowing us to harness the catalytic energies of these power spots in our own transformations. For example, connecting with the energies of the Red Spring can assist us in the work of the Station of Descent as well as lead us to a greater understanding of this area of the ancient Avalonian landscape. As we progress through the Avalonian Cycle of Healing, we will find that harnessing the Hermetic Principle of Correspondence, best distilled in the axiom “as above, so below; as below, so above,” leads us down the path to revealing Avalon Within.

  Five Seeds Correspondence Chart

  While there may never be definitive proof that Glastonbury was once indeed the Island of Avalon, it has held the energies of Avalon for centuries, and has done so for spiritual seekers of the Holy Isle into the modern day. Fabricated or authentic, there is an energetic connection to Avalon that overlays the town of Glastonbury like an ancient mist, constructed over time and through the workings of the collective unconscious. It is through this overlay that a real and transformational connection to Avalon may be made.

  And so we begin our quest for the Holy Isle with an act as simple as it is symbolic. Standing at the doorway to the inner realms, we affirm our dedication to the rarifying Cycle of Healing and to our commitment to the revelation of true wisdom by lifting a glorious, red apple to our lips, and taking a deep and conscious bite. It is not accidental this potent symbol is intended to be devoured; knowledge becomes wisdom only when integrated into our essences. Now the journey can begin.

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  Entering the Cauldron

  Thither after the battle of Camlan we took the wounded Arthur, guided by Barinthus to whom the waters and the stars of heaven were well known. With him steering the ship we arrived there with the prince, and Morgen received us with fitting honour, and in her chamber she placed the king on a golden bed and with her own hand she uncovered his honourable wound and gazed at it for a long time. At length she said that health could be restored to him if he stayed with her for a long time and made use of her healing art. Rejoicing, therefore, we entrusted the king to her and returning spread our sails to the favouring winds.

  Vita Merlini, Geoffrey of Monmouth

  One of Avalon’s most enduring legacies is its renown as a wondrous Island of Healing. Like Morgan of Avalon who gave refuge to the wounded King Arthur and promised to restore his vitality with her healing arts, the cornerstone of the Avalonian Tradition today is the restoration of personal Sovereignty—the authentic core of the self which is our strongest and deepest connection to the Divine. In Arthurian legend, the Holy Grail healed the Fisher King of his grievous wound so that he might once again be sovereign over his land—a land that suffered as he suffered. In Welsh mythology, Bran the Blessed possessed a wondrous Cauldron of Healing that could resurrect the dead. These vessels—the cup and the cauldron—are powerful symbols of the Divine Feminine, and so women of Avalon today look to the goddesses of the ancient Britons to guide us on the path to wholeness. The goddess Ceridwen especially has much to teach us about the transformational power of the cauldron to assist us in our soul healing through the process of coming into our true wisdom.

  The Lady of the Cauldron

  Our primary source of information about the goddess Ceridwen is the Welsh Tale of Gwion Bach. Living in the center of Llyn Tegid, a lake in the Penllyn area of northern Wales, Ceridwen is married to the giant Tegid Foel, and has two children: a daughter named Creirwy, one of the most beautiful women in the world, and a son, Afagddu, hideous beyond description, and whose very name means “utter darkness.”

  In order to help Afagddu overcome his physical deformity and take his place in the world, Ceridwen brought to bear her knowledge of magic and herb craft to create a brew that would bestow the gifts of wisdom and prophecy to whoever drank it. Creating such an elixir was an enormous undertaking, requiring the liquid to brew for a year and a day. During this period, Ceridwen gathered the required herbs and put them in a water-filled cauldron, each at their proper times according to the cycles of the moon, sun, and stars.

  She set a blind man named Morda before the cauldron, charging him to keep the fire beneath it burning, while a young boy called Gwion Bach was tasked with continuously stirring the steaming potion as it simmered. At the close of the year and a day, Ceridwen positioned Afagddu in front of the cauldron to await the brew’s completion. She sat down to rest, weary from her mystical exertions, and had barely closed her eyes when the elixir was done at last. Three shining drops emerged from the depths of the cauldron, and before anyone knew what was happening Gwion pushed the waiting Afagddu aside and received the streams of wisdom for himself. At that moment, the poisonous dregs of the brew shattered the cauldron into pieces, and spilled its foul liquid over the hearth.

  The terrible sound caused Ceridwen to awaken, and Gwion—now possessing the gifts of wisdom and prophesy—knew she would stop at nothing to destroy him for what he had done. He set off running, transforming himself into a swift hare, but Ceridwen pursued him in the form of a greyhound. Narrowly escaping her sharp teeth, Gwion jumped into the lake, turning himself into a salmon. Ceridwen was right behind, however, in the form of quick-swimming otter.

  Gwion launched himself into the air at the last moment, flying above the water in the shape of a wren. Escape was not to be, however, for Ceridwen soared after him in the form of a mighty hawk. The chase continued, and sharp flashing talons raked across Gwion’s borrowed shape. He quickly turned himself into a grain of wheat and fell onto the threshing floor of a farm below. Hiding among thousands of other grains, Gwion believed himself safe, but Ceridwen found him, and as a hungry black hen, scratched and pecked her way through the wheat until she finally devoured him.

  Nine months later, a son was born of Ceridwen’s swollen belly—Gwion’s final and greatest transformation. Although her anger at him had not subsided, Ceridwen could not bring herself to destroy the beautiful infant. Instead, she swaddled him in a leather bag and set him adrift on the sea in a little coracle. On Calan Gaeaf, he was discovered in a salmon weir by the Welsh prince Elphin. Upon unwrapping the baby, the prince was amazed by his illuminated countenance and named the boy Taliesin—“Shining Brow.” This twice-born son of Ceridwen grew to be renowned for his poetry and prophecy and became the greatest bard Britain had ever known.

  The Path to Wisdom

  There are many layers of meaning encoded in the myth of Ceridwen. It is a metaphorical encryption of a Druidic rite of passage; Druidic lore speaks of a dedicant having to undergo a symbolic three-fold death through the Three Realms of Land, Sea, and Sky. This is echoed in a Celtic triad, which proclaims:

  The three foundations of learning:

  Seeing much; studying much; and suffering much.

  It is believed her myth can also be used as a key to unlock the bardic art of obtaining Awen—the Divine spark of inspiration. While some account Cerdiwen’s name to mean “white sow” reflecting Her aspect as the Devouring Mother (the Crone of death and rebirth), She is most primarily the patroness and muse of bards, bestowing Awen or inspiration from Her Cauldron of Wisdom. As such, there is an etymological school of thought that believes Her name derives from the words cyrdd—meaning “song”—and wen—meaning “white/shining/holy.” Having attained enlightenment in rebirth from the Cauldron, Taliesin becomes the greatest of all bards—the paragon to which all bards aspired. Hoping to obtain a degree of his wisdom and art, the ancient bards honored their source and called themselves “Cerddorion,” the Children of Cer
idwen.

  Women of Avalon see Ceridwen’s story as an allegorical system brimming with wisdom, applicable and relevant to the spiritual seeker’s life. Entering the Cauldron of Transformation is an initiatory process, rarifying the essence of the seeker and distilling her down into her most fundamental components. The cyclic dance through the elements is revealed as a means to acquire wisdom. The pathway to wisdom is the pathway to the Godhead—the pathway to wholeness. The spiritual path is nothing more than moving one’ s self from a place of disconnection to connection … from woundedness to wholeness … from darkness into light.

  Ceridwen is a Divine Healer as well as the Mistress of Awen. True healing is a function of the soul, and it is significant that one of Avalon’s greatest heritages is the healing gifts of its priestesses. Like Ceridwen, the Nine Morgens or High Priestesses of Avalon were known to be powerful shape-shifters, taking the form of ravens to fly wherever they willed. There is a profound connection between self-change and healing, and both figure strongly as fundamental elements of the Avalonian Tradition.

  Women of Avalon embrace the female energetic power—the inward turning spiral that leads to the sacred, sovereign, fully actualized center within us all. It is a path that reclaims inner darkness and births the inner priestess into being—transforming fear into love, and pain into power. At the center of the labyrinth of our soul’s journey is the Divine weaver, spinning the matrix of our lives and the very fabric of the universe. Consciously turning the eye within allows us to see the greater tapestry and our place within it—past illusion, expectation, and all unconsciously embraced limitation. The more we come to recognize our inherent Divinity, the more we activate the Goddess in Her role as Lady of Sovereignty—She Who Empowers—in our lives. The veil becomes lifted, and the Island of Avalon—whole and holy—is revealed within us.

  The archetypal image of a priestess of Avalon is a powerful one; she is a complete and centered woman, fully aware, and at one with herself and the Goddess. How she came to be that way, however, is through the path that lies within—the inner journey that begins with the descent into the shadow, and ends with the ultimate manifestation of the true self in the light. As women, this descent is a critical element of our passage into fullness. We are at home in the night, in the darkness of the cosmos, in the blackness of the womb. It is here where we must go to seek out our healing. Immersing ourselves into the hidden energies by delving into our shadow or lower self is the first step in the healing process.

  The descent is never easy; it demands great courage of us. Hidden in the shadow are those aspects of ourselves we would rather not acknowledge, seeking to rule us by remaining in the unconscious realm. Many of our patterns of behavior are dictated by the hidden hurts, unmet needs, and unfulfilled dreams dwelling in the darkness. If we never root out the insidious energies that cast their pallor over how we view ourselves and the circumstances of our lives, never clearing the false filter through which we view the world, we will forever be victims of our wounded perspective.

  A dog that has been regularly beaten by its owner will come to react with fear or aggression toward any person it meets; even when greeted with kindness, the dog expects to be beaten. We too tend to become fixed in our past, and learn to react to our environments based on what was rather than what is. Until the dog comes to realize that not every human is cruel, until we come to acknowledge that we exhibit coping mechanisms and defenses based upon past experiences to which we need no longer cling, the present will always be interpreted through the pain of our wounds rather than with the clarity of our wholeness.

  We must fight to bring these aspects of self into the light—transforming them through illumination. Reclaiming energies engaged in order to maintain self-destructive patterns provides us with renewed resources with which to manifest the potential of our higher selves. Descent into the shadow brings with it a commitment: it signals a willingness to examine damaging patterns of our lives with honest, self-appraising eyes.

  Self-examination is a crucial part of growth. It demands that we become clear enough to hear and see ourselves with brutal honesty. Great courage is needed in this quest for inner understanding. Once we have seen the mechanisms that bring pain and unhappiness to our lives, preventing us from being who we truly are and keeping us from attaining our full potential, the universe will demand that we make the choice to change. With knowledge comes responsibility. This is the path to wisdom: the choice to enter the Cauldron and be remade.

  The Cycle of Initiation

  Unlike most cultures, no clear creation myth from any Celtic culture is known to have endured the passage of time. Yet here, in the story of Ceridwen and Taliesin, we have a myth of self-creation, rich in symbolism and powerful in application. It is from this Divine template, in resonance with the mysteries of the apple, that the Avalonian Cycle of Healing was birthed.

  The pattern of archetypes present in Ceridwen’s myth has its counterpart in the microcosm of our souls. We can take the myth’s universal lesson and the many layers encoded in its symbolism, and apply them to the individual. When analyzing myths in this way, each character represents an aspect of the self, and each action is a metaphor for the steps the soul needs to take on its journey to inner understanding.

  In Ceridwen’s story, the Goddess Herself represents the higher self of the seeker, our innate Divinity. She knows the soul’s potential and seeks to bring it into fullness. Guiding us through our lessons and trials, the higher self helps us recognize the illusion of the shadow, so that we may choose to walk the path of wholeness into the wisdom of our inner truth.

  Afagddu (“utter darkness”) represents the unconscious, where the shadow dwells. The shadow possesses the dark or “ugly” parts of our selves that are repressed from the conscious mind; it is the abyss that holds our wounds, feeds our fears, and triggers our pain. Ceridwen seeks to help Afagddu become accepted into the ranks of nobility by brewing the draught of wisdom for him. In the same way, our higher selves encourage us to seek the hidden wisdom in the darkness of the shadow. Through this, we may enter into the “noble company” of the Divine. Great are the gifts that dwell deep in our shadow. Jungian psychology teaches that it is through the personal unconscious that we can access the collective unconscious and the powerful energies of the archetypal realms. The path to transformation, therefore, lies within.

  Ceridwen’s daughter Creirwy is hailed in a Welsh Triad as one of the three fairest women of Britain. Creirwy symbolizes the conscious self, those aspects of the self that already dwell in the light; the tools, gifts, and potentials already realized and activated in our lives. They are beautiful because they are outwardly manifested facets of our authenticity, reflecting the Divine light that dwells within us. Even so, we must be vigilant for signs of ego, the conscious counterpoint to the unconscious shadow. Ego expands while shadow represses, here metaphorically expressed as a female representation of active consciousness and a male representation of passive unconsciousness. Like the yin-yang symbol, each polarity contains the seed of the other.

  Morda, the blind old man who kindles the fires that fuel the transformational power of the cauldron, represents the inner impulse to seek illumination, even from a place of darkness—even when immersed in shadow. Morda is the essence of hope that supports our quest for wisdom, granting us the tenacity and will to follow the process to its completion, even if we cannot see where the journey will take us—trusting that change will come is enough.

  The small child, Gwion Bach, represents our inner potential seeking self-knowledge. He is the impulse that sets us down the path of personal growth, knowing what we want—or at least, thinking we do—but unsure of how to obtain it. He is the energy of evolution in our lives, bringing us closer to our genuine selves. The quest for transformation is activated through the receiving of the three drops of the draught of wisdom, or the Graal. Like the Kabalistic lightning bolt down the Tree of Life, the Three Rays of A
wen illuminate the pathway to reconnection with the Divine through the act of re-creation.

  The breaking of the Cauldron echoes the death of the old self that is the consequence of the illumination of wisdom. Limitations that once restrained potential and constrained the ability to see clearly are dissolved, their poisons leeched from our souls and laid bare once and for all. We have outgrown the vessel that once contained us, and have liberated the gifts of wisdom that dwell within the shadow. This burst of energy catalyzes great change in our lives, and we are never the same once we have undergone this alchemy of the soul.

  The Five Cauldron Transformations

  The shape-shifting dance of Ceridwen and Gwion, known in the Avalonian Tradition as the Five Cauldron Transformations, symbolize the transmutation of each part of the self from unconsciousness into consciousness. As we ride the cycle of inner exploration, we are challenged to effect change in all five realms of our beings—each change determining and stimulating the next. Representing the tension between the higher self and the shadow—one part seeking consciousness, the other wishing to remain hidden in the unconscious—the chase teaches us that we cannot escape responsibility for our growth and our lives—true wisdom must be earned.

  When we break down this cycle into its five key elements, we find yet another repetition of the fivefold pattern found in the Apple of Wisdom, and we can better understand the energetic correspondences, transformational symbolism, and spiritual challenges each represent. If we follow the flow of energy in the order presented in the story of Ceridwen, we find ourselves guided through a process that moves us through the five elements of Western Tradition—Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Spirit—in ascending vibration. Mirroring the Druidic initiatory rite through the Three Realms of Land, Sea, and Sky, we are called to gather threads of being in all aspects of our lives to achieve true and positive change.