Shapeshifting for Writers

I can’t write a book until I can shapeshift into the characters. This often takes time and I seem to have to wait for it, full of expectancy but with as few expectations as I can manage *g*.

Writing a story is so like journeying. I’m in the characters skin. Several skins in fact as, even for the minor characters, I must be in them when I write them or they turn out flat and two dimensional. And I must be in them in order to react/respond as they would in each situation.

This gets exciting in conversation. The whole thing is flick-flick-flick, flicking from one to the other and so getting the right words and actions for each. The feel as the character hears the words of the person they’re with and sees the body language. I am amanuensis for each of them. At least translators usually only deal with one person. Writers always have multiple personalities going on! And writers must stay rational and conscious as they work between the characters or the reader just gets badly written mush instead of a good story.

All of this is what shamans do – journey to somewhere outside everyday reality, shift into other beings as necessary, and return to Earth with the goodies. Consequently I find my shaman training invaluable for writing.

As a shaman, I can and do journey on demand – a bit like POD, print on demand, for writers *g*. I have to for clients and to find what I need for myself as well. Journeying for a story is the hardest. All journeying requires incubation – putting the idea in the cauldron along with whatever other appropriate ingredients; stirring for the ritual year-and-a-day; being there at the right moment to catch the three drops of wisdom on one’s thumb; and remembering to put that thumb in one’s mouth to suck up the wisdom! That’s the standard preparation process on the Brythonic Celtic path … Taliesin’s journey.

In Taliesin’s journey he is then chased, by the goddess Ceridwen, through the four elements and finally eaten by her in order to be reborn. A standard initiation ritual. All this has to happen in writing a story too. I, the writer, am chased and harried through earth, water, air and fire to come to the climax of the story – rebirth.

Joseph Campbell has his own way of putting this in the “Hero’s Journey”. Taliesin is just the same, if far older than Campbell, only expressed differently. Campbell was right, all stories follow this pattern.
• Some crisis happens that brings the hero to a first awakening, as Gwion Bach is when he is called to stir Ceridwen’s cauldron.
• There follows a learning period with the “master”; Gwion stirs, learns a little, feels as if he’s Ceridwen’s chosen one.
• Then comes another crisis – the cauldron boils, the three drops of wisdom jump out onto Gwion’s thumb instead of the intended one. Gwion has to run or he will die.
• The goddess chases him and this forces Gwion to realise what he’s truly learned, so he shapeshifts into forms for each of the elements.
• He succeeds in escaping three times but, on the fourth time, just when he thinks he’s made it Ceridwen eats the grain of wheat that is Gwion.
• He spends nine months within her, going through the equivalent of Butterfly Soup – going back to the basic elements of his being, that make him, and reforming them into the new self.
• At nine months he is reborn, and so beautiful Ceridwen names him Shining Brow – that’s what Taliesin means – as a tribute to his wisdom.
• She then sets him free in the river of Life where he is fund by someone else in trouble and so is able to begin his new life by helping someone.

All good stories, the ones we want to read over and over and over, have this format. It’s how humans live their lives if they want to grow and be conscious – and most of us do want that. Campbell knew this. So do all shamans and they always have. This is what being a shaman is about – helping others to grow and become conscious.

Whether they know this consciously or not this is what all writers, storytellers, Cyfarwydd – as they’re called in Brython – want too.

I have to do all that journeying and shapeshifting for each story. It takes time and preparation that I, as an impatient human, rail at some of the time. Why can’t it be easy? Why can’t it just flow through me without all this work and travail. Oh, I know the answers but I need a good whinge as much as anyone else! When I was practising as a transpersonal psychotherapist on of my adages that I would offer to clients was, “A whinge a day keeps the therapist at bay!”. It works too. I use it myself … so I do walk my own talk *g*.

It’s an incredible moment – better than orgasm – when I click with the characters of a new story. Suddenly, they’re there. I’m there. We’re together, two consciousnesses in one being. I call it “thread twining” after a practice I learned while working in the Lucis Trust school, Alice Bailey’s lot – look it up on Google *g*. Once I’m there, with the characters, the writing does flow. It’s not easy though! It’s just like Gwion’s chase through the elements. Sometimes it’s so hairy I come out literally shaking and panting, eyes crossed. My husband, Paul, sees me and promptly makes a pot of tea, settles me down to get back to Earth, return to my everyday self. He’s a great support mechanism at these times *g*.

But, without the shift, the writing is dull and boring, it plods, is a very effective sleeping-draught! With the shift I can fly …

PS – the drawing is the logo for Rainbow Warriors, the shamanic school I lead, and comes from my own interpretation of the shaman on the Gundestrup

Good work with a friend

Yesterday was good. The weather was good and the company was good too, so was the food & wine *g*. we did the circuit of the sacred sites ... here are some pix.

Our first stop was to see the Lord & Lady. These two are each side of the chancel screen in Vowchurch church and both were "mutilated" in Cromwellian times because they were considered indecent. The goddess was a "sheilagh-na-gig", ie the goddess holding her open vulva, symbolising the cave of the womb and that means to us. The god would have had large, erect phallus. Their hands and expressions tell what they were, as well as known examples elsewhere. I find it wonderful that at least their top-halves are still there and well visible in the church. It is so good to know that -even if not well understood by most folk - the Lord & Lady are still with us.

Our next stop was to visit Peterchurch Yew. She is very ancient, like maybe 2000 years old, and she is hollow, like a womb or cauldron. For me, it is Ceridwen who come when I visit there. we journeyed within her, it had some deep emotional undertones, and then thanked the Lady and went to leave. But that was not to be, not yet! A little old lady was hobbling up the path towards us on her stick, smiling and nodding, determined to speak to us. As good adventurers in fairy stories we resisted slightly, hung back, but she was on us. We would not get past without speaking with her. I was hobbling too, on my pair of sticks and the first thing she said was to me, "Have you had the operation yet or are just about to?" Ha! well that told me, didn't it? this was Ceridwen-in-the-flesh come to us, whether the old lady knew it or not for herself. I am indeed about to have the operation on my right knee on 8 Sep, and the pre-op on this Thurs, so I answered her truly. she was encouraging and comforting, helpful and full of strength - thank you, Lady, I thought to myself inside. we joked and laughed with the old lady, then met her husband (Taliesin ???), finally said our goodbyes and went on to the next place.

Having met the Lady we were now to meet the Lord, at Arthur's Stone. for me, the Lord usually comes as Gwyn ap Nudd up there. Gwyn is a soul-leader and psychopomp, well versed in walking between worlds. The "Stone" is a 4000 yr old tumulus, once covered in earth and turf - Google it for more. The inner stones of its skeleton are now uncovered but the site is alive and vibrant. The way in was a curved tunnel, through which you had to crawl, emerging into a larger chamber ... just like the vulva and vagina entrance to the womb. Only this is more the womb of the god! Confused? Gods don't have wombs? Sorry, but the Celtic works by even more riddles than a Zen master *g*. This god-site, place of the Lord, is certainly a womb. Before crawling in we had to say aloud what we were leaving behind as we re-entered the womb. This is an ancient rite common all over the world - and very effective. As you exit after your sojourn within the womb you say aloud what it is you bring with you, for the good of the world. This sort of rite is never just for you, always for work you can do to help others.

While one of us was journeying the other drummed. to hear the drum while lying within the stone chamber is like being within a drum itself. You are sound, every part of you vibrates, you are sung and pulled apart and rewoven by the sound.

While we were working some other people came to see the site. They were most respectful and didn't come in until we had finished which was very kind of them. I did get my picture taken while I was drumming - hope the man didn't mind, his vibes seemed cool so I think not :-).

We went on to the next place, Moccas Park. this is an ancient Anglo-Saxon deer park, where the legend of our local Merlin-figure took place. His name is Dyfrig. The park is an SSSI and closed to the public so that the wildlife are not disturbed but you can look through the gate and the fence. We did, admiring the ancient oaks. At the end of the 19th century the local vicar, the Rev. Francis Kilvert, also a poet, in his diary of 1876, said this about its ancient trees:"I fear those grey old men of Moccas, those grey, gnarled, low-browed, knock-kneed, bowed, bent, huge, strange, long-armed, deformed, hunchbacked, misshapen old men that stand waiting and watching century after century, biding God's time with both feet in the grave and yet tiring down and seeing out generation after generation, with such tales to tell, as when they whisper them to each other in the midsummer nights, make the silver birches weep and the poplars and aspens shiver and the long ears of the hares and rabbits stand on end. No human hand set those oaks. They are 'the trees which the Lord hath planted'. They look as if they had been at the beginning and making of the world, and they will probably see its end." this is the inspiration for the novel I'm currently writing :-).

These pix on flickr are good. This video on YouTube is good too.

We went next to visit Moccas church. This is the place where Dyfrig built his final school, in the place of his vision. He was told - by the most beautiful woman all dressed in White with long golden hair - to go up the Wye until he came to the place where the white sow was suckling her piglings. The church was built on this spot some 600 years later. Now, the white sow is one of the forms Ceridwen takes, one of her totems. Again, we were working with the Lady in her Ceridwen form. I told my friend the story of Dyfrig - I'll do it again for the blog, maybe even a podcast :-), but not now. My friend noticed the twining ley lines curling up the nave of the church and fond the vortex behind the altar. Another friend, Hamish MIller, called these double, twining, ley lines the "Michael & Mary" lines. Of course, the Moccas church is dedicated to St Michael ... what else *g*.

And the twining ley lines are another representation of the god & goddess, the Lord & Lady.

Our whole journey had been to meet and work with the Lord & Lady, sovereignty and her guardian. It was wonderful, peaceful and enlightening. We came home well satisfied and replete as well as with lots of insights about things we might do to be useful to the Land, in our own small ways.

Blessed Be ...