Ten Years of Knowing I am a Pagan
This week is very significant for me, as ten years ago, about now, I had what I call my 'Saul on the Road to Damascus' moment; when I discovered I was a pagan, which, considering I had been an agnostic, was a major thing for me to admit to myself.Some of you that knew me at the time may well remember I wrote a MySpace blog about it at the time (Yes! 10 years ago we were mainly new to social media and MySpace was the place to be). Some of you have also heard me tell the tale over the years at my stall or round the campfire. It is a bit of a long story and in someways better told with a few drinks while sitting round the fire, but I will try not to bore you with it now.
I need to give a little background before I go on. When I started up as the Green Man Potter in 2005, I hadn't set out to exploit the pagan market (as some have suggested), the whole Green Man, and Pottery thing was a result of a dream and a series of coincidences (another story for another time). It just so happened that over the first couple of years of trading that I discovered that most of my customers were pagan. Even though nature and history have been very significant to me throughout my life (particularly landscape history and woodlands) I considered myself an agnostic, with a keen interest in historic buildings like churches and ancient temple sites, etc., but no interest in god-mumbling. So it makes my 'conversion', as such, even more significant, although I still remain very much an unbeliever in gods, etc. wondering around doing things.
Right! So it was early to mid August 2008 and I had my pottery stall at a craft fair in Hawes, Wensleydale, North Yorkshire; a venue I did quite regularly back in those days during the summers. Over the previous few months I had started to look into Neo-Paganism, its origins and branches, as I started to make friends with my customers, and I had already had had a stall at a few pagan conferences, had started attending a local pagan moot, and started attending pagan camps; but I was approaching it all with a sceptical eye but an open mind. I liked the whole concept of paganism, as a broad philosophy of being respectful to Nature and each other, but one thing I already knew was that I wasn't into anything fluffy, especially a lot of the New Age, Hippy stuff that had been made up in the 60s and 70s. I wanted something with more antiquity and a real earthy, natural basis. This meant that I was looking at Shamanism, but I didn't really fancy lying in a cold dark cave for hours (a not so cold dark cave would be OK), or sticking cactus spines in myself (I am not into self harming of any kind. I don't enjoy pain, even if it releases my inner demons), and I was especially not keen on drug taking (particularly drink shaman's piss after he had been drinking reindeer piss, after it had been eating fly-agric toadstools). So thinking about these issues was heavy in my thoughts at the time, when on the Friday night I went for a half-drunk walk in the countryside next to Hawes.
The next day, in the morning, a customer started bending my ear who was a Christian Fundamentalist (with the emphasis on 'mental'). He told me that when archaeology proved the Bible right it proved the Bible right, but when it proved it wrong, it was 'just opinion'. But then he went on to talk about Neanderthals and the Ice Ages, which if the Bible is 'right' they never existed! So he was an unthinking talking arse! But he did buy a Green Man item, as the Green Man is a benign concept. All the other traders were giggling among themselves while this was going on, and were all suddenly very busy when the twat finally left my stall. Then in the afternoon I had an Evangelist come up to my stall saying that she would pray for my soul, despite me saying that she didn't need to, as my soul was perfectly OK; but she also went on to buy a Green Man item. This is still the only time this sort of thing has happened to my in my life (well not two in the same day! LOL!).
By the evening I was quietly fuming, and needed to get out for a walk, despite the showery weather, and I knew exactly where I wanted to go.
This was my third summer of attending craft fairs in Hawes, and as I would be camping, I had often gone for a walk in the early evening, but I had never done any on one particular hillside that I used to see while driving in and out, and I had kept telling myself that I should go for a walk there one day. I could see that there was a line of old lead mines on it, and from looking at the map, I could see that there was a path along that line for about half a mile or more. However, the start point for the path was about a mile or two from the centre of the village, and I had never been keen on the extra millage to my walk after a long day's work on the stall. But this time I was determined to go there, so I drove there to save my legs and time. I just needed to get out on THAT hillside!
As you can see there are also some interesting modern cairns too.
And old mine entrances and drains.
Yes! I know there appears to be an orb, but it was just a bit of drizzle on the lens.
You can see how misty it was between the showers from these views across the valley.
So! One thing I have never been able to do is meditate, well not in the 'Ommmmm!!' sense, but while I was walking along I was quietly mumbling to myself, f-ing and blinding about the two twats that had upset me with their twattery, but of course with the background thoughts about Shamanism as a sort of 'mind-worm' too. Of course, even though I didn't know it at the time, I was doing a form of meditation.
Now I knew the path I was on only went so far, and didn't really know what was at the end, but when I got there, I could see from the map I had three choices. Go back the way I had come, but I always hate to do that, I will always prefer to do a circuit or loop of some kind. I could of climbed over a gate (and maybe some fences) and take a longer, safer, route back to my van. Or I could take a much shorter, but very steep route directly up the hill slope, which would be riskier but get me back to the van much sooner (and then back to the village for a pint or three!). Just at the moment when I was trying to make up my mind, as to which way to go, a rainbow appeared directly in front of me on the longer, easier route. I found myself thinking something like "Bloody 'ell! My pagan friends would tell me that this was a sign! A sign telling me that I should take this route. A sign telling me if I go the other way I might fall and break something, or the like!" But no! I was still in a bloody minded mood, full of obstinacy and not willing to conform. So I said to myself "NO! I am not going that way! I don't care about the warning! I am going THAT WAY!", which was the shorter much steeper way.
So I set to clambering up the steep grassy slope. So steep I was on all fours. And. And, just at the moment I started to climb that slope I looked up and it happened! My Damascus moment!
As I looked up I saw a kestrel hovering above me, not the first I had seen that day, but she was there, directly above me, and I instantly knew "That is my totem animal." A flood of images and memories and, and, oh so many emotions and thoughts all came in a seconds rush that will take me so much longer to relate.
(This was actually another bird I photoed earlier.)
So in that rush of thoughts I found myself saying "By this sign conquer!", which is what Constantine the Great is supposed to have said on seeing the Christian Chi-Rho symbol in the sky before going on to win the 'Battle of the Milvian Bridge'. I also saw it as an upside-down Thor's Hammer. I also suddenly remembered other times I had seen the kestrel in significant situations, now with hindsight; she had always been there but I had been too blind to see it (although I now know I have other totem animals and plants, but she was the first to slap me in the face and say "Oi! Wake up!"). But I also knew SHE was a female kestrel, and at the time I didn't know that the falcon was associated with the Heathen Goddess Freya, but as things turned out this would soon be of even greater significance.
As I continued my climb, all these thoughts were mixing around in my head, and I was in the deepest of thoughts, so I hardly noticed the physicality of the ascent, but of course, this also was a form of meditation.
Then I reached a break in the slope, a long wide glacial or river terrace with the remains of a wee bothy on it.
The way back to the van was now easier and away to the left, the way I had been so determined to follow before my 'moment' with the kestrel a few minutes earlier. But now, over to the right, at the top of the next steep slope I thought I could see a door in the side of the low cliff. I think it is visible in this picture I took at the time. You can see a square line in the exposed rock feature in the upper centre of the picture.
Now I have a bit of a thing about doors, I can't stand leaving them open, and this was a closed door I 'felt' I could see. I just found myself drawn towards it, despite the steep climb, and it being away from the way I wanted to go, and despite my earlier stroppy, ignore the signs mood, I just HAD to investigate, so set off up the grass covered scree.
As I climbed and scrabbled along, I looked up and suddenly I thought I could see three doors, and the nature of the doors had changed, they now seemed to be open. Looking at the photo, I am not quite sure what I was 'seeing' or where I was at this time, but in theory somewhere in the photo. But which of the three doors was the one I had been drawn to? The door that had looked a bit like the entrance to the 'Mines of Moria' in 'The Lord of the Rings'. I found myself chuckling as I said to myself "Which one smells the sweetest?", in reference to a choice Gandalf had to make inside the mines. So I continued towards one of them, and ended up somewhere very different from where I had expected.
You must remember I was very deep in thought, probably high on adrenaline, and 'seeing' what my mind was seeing, as much as what this next photo shows; and I can't even spot where this is in the previous photo.
Now back in the 90s when I was doing my landscape archaeology PhD, 'Phenomenology of Landscape' was very trendy; that is, if a feature in the landscape, either natural or an ancient structure, etc. looks like 'something' special now, it probably did to those in the past. So, for example, if it looks like a face now, it probably looked like a face to people in the past. Or in the the case of the door I thought I had seen, it may have looked like a door to someone in the past too. And Now. Now! I found myself in what looked like, and 'felt' like a natural 'Earth Mother Temple'; an enlarged gryke(?), like a mini gorge in the low cliff face, and a small brook flowing from it.
With my heightened senses it reminded me of the entrance to a Neolithic Long Barrow. You can't see it in this photo (and maybe if I go back some of the features I thought I was seeing aren't actually there???), but in front of this natural 'vagina' there seemed to be a small flattish forecourt, with a couple of scree 'thighs', which with a Long Barrow, archaeologists think is where bodies were left for ex-carnation, before the bones were symbolically returned to the 'womb of the Mother'. Of course, in this case, the flowing water from the 'gash' (LOL!) in the hillside added to the symbolism.
Remember, my mind was full of deep thoughts and a multitude of ideas and the recognisance of symbol, all in a cascade, all at once. I just 'knew' I was somewhere 'sacred', I was in the very presence of the Mother, at the entrance between the 'Worlds', or at least I knew that is how the 'ancients' would of 'felt'. And now I was getting some confusion in my head. What should I do now? What should I be doing? What should I not do? As I found myself naturally approaching the entrance to the main feature. Should I 'enter' here? Should I not? Will entering her be defiling her? Does she want me to enter her, what with her flowing dampness? She seemed welcoming to me, as long as I respected her. With all the sexual energy (or was it just innuendo in my mind?), should I masturbate? I know some that would in this situation, but you will be glad to know I didn't. At the time, and ever since whenever I am in a sacred place, I don't actually feel very sexual, even with the physical fertility of the place being so blatantly obvious. It just doesn't feel right to me. But obviously these thoughts were in my head at the time, as I considered what to do.
I decided to carefully nudge my way in (yes, I know, more innuendo). I then found that there were some cobwebs across the entrance, and this made me giggle, as it was a reflection of most of my sexual partners; and I was careful to try and not disturb the cobwebs. Perhaps it had been a long time since anyone had been in here? Perhaps no one had seen the significance for a very long time? But one thing I knew from that point was that MY woman has to be an earthy woman, a natural woman, a woman at home in the natural landscape.
I didn't go very far inside her, and I don't know how long I was in there, as by this time the place was being shrouded in lowering clouds, and I no longer had any real sense of time in this magic place. So I was probably soon out and was soon up on top of the hillside, and back in the man-made landscape, following a path back to my van. I have no memory of what I did after this? Maybe I headed to the 'Green Dragon' in nearby Hadraw? Or went back to the campsite and then to bed, or a pint in Hawes? I just can't remember. It doesn't matter. I was just spending the rest of the evening coming down from my spiritual high.
For the last ten years I have kept meaning to return to this special place, and this time take my Medieval Bagpipes, to hold the nearest thing to personal ritual I do. I would like to know how the drone sounds within the Mother? I have played them in West Kennet Long Barrow (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhBRvTLMd_I), but I have never quite got back to this temple. Maybe I am worried that I will be disappointed, and I wont see what I saw and felt before? Or maybe I am being too lazy? LOL!
Well I am intending to return there next week on my way back from an event in Wales. If I don't do it soon, I might be too old to do it in another 10 years time.
