Stirring the Cauldron

Have you heard the rising wind?

Have you seen the rays of golden light?

Can you smell the musky smell of wet leaves and earth?

Whenever Autumn rolls around to the Chesapeake Bay, I get pictures in my head of magical things, mysterious and not always dark. Sometimes the pictures are of the light.

There was an image of a cauldron in my head but a month ago that would not leave my head. Cauldrons are old-fashioned cooking vessels, but popular culture has vilified a humble, peasant's kitchen instrument into something that it is not.

Or, is it?

Cauldrons also appear in myths, in tales of magic and the supernatural from around the world.  Legends told and re-told across the ages of humankind.

Those Cauldrons are there in our ancestral memories for a reason.

The studio table beckoned that morning and my original intent was to practice drawing patterns on colored background. I never make *anything* simple. That blank page was just too blank, if you know what I mean.

I thought to myself, "Okay, I need a shape. Then the designs will come naturally and I'll color them in. Hmmmm. What shape to draw."

My cauldron -- the one that emerged from that moment at the precipice, was not what I had intended to draw at all.
I was ready to dive into this drawing, but that Cauldron would not stop bugging me until it was starring back at my from a page. I knew one thing about it, and one thing only. "It is not Black."  I knew that because, as my fingers drew the gentle swell of its belly,  the Dream Cauldron piped up, "Oh no, you don't! Put that black marker down! I am a magical Cauldron. I am not plain, nor am I black at all."

And so it was. And colorful bands decorated with patterns came to be.

I am very happy with it.

Even more surprising to me was how echoes of my Dream Cauldron rippled into my reality only a week after I made this drawing.

For several years in late September, I have gone on spiritual retreat with a gathering of friends from around the Eastern half of the US. It's at a picturesque, private camp nestled in the Pocono Mountains not far from the Delaware Water Gap. This year, one of our guests was an English artist, Cerri Lee, who is a ceramic sculptor and, generally, a wise woman. Cerri has made long study of Celtic legend and people, and her sensual clay figures reference symbols and beings drawn from mythic lore.

Cerri's entire workshop centered around the image of the cauldron in culture and history of the British Isles. In the space of an hour, she conveyed more about the symbolism of cauldrons than I had ever heard in the last four decades. I found my jaw dropping when she described the Welsh poet, Taliesin's tale of the Spoils of Annwn, which features strange encounters of King Arthur in the Otherworld. This story can be found in The Book of Taliesin, a poem written down during the first half of the fourteenth century (although its content is an oral traditions much older, from around  AD/CE 900). In the Spoils of Annwn, the Bard recounts a scene where he envisions Nine Maidens standing around their cauldron - the women's fingernails pearl-white, holding the rim.

Here from The Camelot Project are the Middle Welsh and Modern English translations from Preiddeu Annwn: The Spoils of Annwn:

13. yg kenneir     or peir      pan leferit.	13. My poetry,     from the cauldron     it was uttered.
14. Oanadyl naw morwyn     gochyneuit.	14. From the breath of nine maidens     it was kindled.
15. Neu peir pen annwfyn     pwy y vynut.	15. The cauldron of the chief of Annwfyn:     what is its fashion?
16. gwrym am yoror     amererit.	16. A dark ridge around its border     and pearls.

Detail, rim, Cauldron of Inspiration by ~runningwave~

Look closely at the cauldron which I drew from pure fancy only a week before this workshop, and you may recognize what it is that amazed me so.  When I drew it, my Cauldron of Inspiration decided that swirls of white lines and roses could be seen all the way around its dark rim.

Although I did know of Taliesin and his bardic tales before, and had even heard of the Spoils of Annwn, I could not in September have described to you anything so specific. Yet there is something in my painting of the Cauldron that well-illustrates the lines of poetry. Coincidence to be sure, but fascinating nonetheless.  

After years of studying Celtic lore, and of loving its poetry and mystery, after imbibing across disciplines of books, music, poetry, and movies, I have begun to create my own visual language. 

I am finding my way slowly towards making art that is truly my own. 

This is all just a bit scary, I mean, to go it on your own as an artist. I've relied very heavily on the talent and encouragement of others for years. And yet, and yet, there's a voice now in my head that wants to express itself and that voice is something new, bold. It's daring me to stare down at blank pages and to fill them with color and line. It's prodding me to finally tell my own tales. 

My Cauldron of Inspiration is boiling. 

                         High time to dive in and taste the hardy brew it's offering me. 

Glastonbury: A Pilgrim's Tale

The day was cloudy, but the wind was gentle, though it whispered that autumn was just around the corner as it blew. I can remember looking up ahead and feeling goosebumps at the sight of the great mound rising in the distance, topped by a slightly leaning tower from a distant age.

I had not seen this sight in more than twenty years, but the last time left a deep impression. Then, as a college student in the 1980s, my trip to this place consisted of a brief bus stop of a few hours on a trek around England's counties of Wiltshire and Salisbury Plain. You may know the tourist routine: Cotswold villages, Bath, Stonehenge, with a brief pause in Glastonbury.

Now, I fully appreciated that the muddy track through rolling hills and at the edge of cultivated fields is the best way to approach Glastonbury Tor. You leave behind the bustling town, tourist buzz, and New Age mecca by turning down a lane. Then you pass by cottages and make your way along the public footpath that sets out towards the pastures.

Setting out to walk the path in a long spiral up the Tor put me in the mind of pilgrims on a journey to a holy site. It's not the 15th century tower on top of the Tor that's "holy". No, what is so magical about this place is that the hill itself seems alive with the memory of human visitors from long before there was an England all the way to the present moment.

Livestock roamed the hillsides and the farm lands felt weighty, holding the promise of the harvest soon to come. Flowers bloomed and the ever-present mist of the English air. Occasionally we climbed over the barriers between the fences to keep the cattle and sheep on one side or the other. My husband and I chatted happily as we walked, but shared long moments of silence as we just admired the beauty of the gracefully climbing landscape before us. I breathed in the rich smell of mud.

At the base of the Tor, we were met by a raven, black as jet, who "Quorked" brusquely at us. This creature was not just any raven, but a very large and apparently sentient Raven. We snickered to ourselves about the sheer Celtic hilarity of encountering this noisy critter at a liminal place where pasture met the Tor. We decided he must be the Gatekeeper and so asked his permission if we could climb. The Raven must have determined we meant no harm, for he stopped "Quorking" and went back to foraging for seeds.

So we climbed and passed through the gate.




Stairs rose and meandered upward along the steep body of the Tor. It is not long before we felt the wind pick up with no trees to arrest its progress. The way became harder as our muscles and breath adjusted themselves to the effort. There are benches for the weary or pensive to sit upon.

Your payoff for the climb of Glastonbury Tor is a stunning vista of three counties reaching in all directions. There is no wonder that this hill is so significant because of its obvious strategic location. The other layer of significance lies in the Tor's folklore and mythology. The Celtic legends about the place mention the Lord of the Underworld and Fairy King, Gwyn ap Nudd, used the Tor as an entrance to his realm, Annwn. Other Britons may have associated Glastonbury Tor with the Isle of Avalon and the legend of their great chieftain, or King Arthur.




The Romans built fortifications on the Tor with their typical practicality; archaeologists have excavated the remains. In Christian centuries, locals built a church to honor the warrior Archangel St. Michael. Only the tower remains of the medieval church, but the austerity of the open stonework can still inspire, by the very fact that it lifts your eyes to the heavens.*

We remained aloft for some time, just absorbing the vista of red roofed cottages, roads, and farm land. But as we began to descend the other side of the Tor, again something unexpected happened.



We knew about the cows.

Glastonbury Tor is a place where cow herds roam freely, because it is grazing land as well as being a tourist attraction. What we did not expect was a Giant Bull, black as midnight, literally barring our path.

I have never been this close to a bull before. And I can say after this experience I would not want to be a bull fighter. It's not that this particular bull was aggressive, but he stared you down and made you feel like he meant business. He was the Guardian of the Descent, just as the Raven had been Gatekeeper of the Ascent.

The Giant Bull took his time moving, such that we and other visitors that morning had to gingerly walk off the path around him. His harem of cows wandered by us blithely grazing not paying us humans any mind at all. The Giant Bull stood his ground as if he owned the place.

We winded onward and downward, back to a more present reality. My heart and mind felt moved by my visit to the Tor that day.

It is a pilgrim's tale, I freely share with you.

---

*An excellent history of the Tor is written by a Professor of Archaeology, Philip Rahtz, Glastonbury (London: B. T. Batsford Ltd/English Heritage, 1993). Professor Rahtz covers the mythology and folklore of the historic sites of the town, including the Tor and provides a scientific perspective based upon the excavations as well as documentary evidence on the site.