Journal Entries
Married Bliss!
Posted Mar 28, 2003
Hi Folks,
First off thanks to all those who have sent me and my partner their blessings for our nuptials. Some have asked for more details so here goes:
The weather was absolutely superb. A crystal blue firmament by day and a jewelled cloth by night. The setting was an early sixteenth century manor house in deepest Mid-Wales.
All my dear friends and family turned up, on time, and in their best bib and tucker to do us the honour of their blessings.
The ceremony was short enough to prevent the sprogs getting bored, yet nice enough to soak a roomful of hankies.
The rest of the day and evening was spent chilling and partying in equal measure. Good food, good wine and great company.
All in all a resounding success.
Think I'll do it again next year.........
.
Blessings,
Mr.Matholwch /|\.
Discuss this Journal entry [4]
Latest reply: Mar 28, 2003
Getting Married.
Posted Mar 20, 2003
To all my friends 
.
I shall be getting married on Saturday. Thus I shall be absent from hootoo until Tuesday.
Be pure, be vigilant, behave!
Blessings,
Matholwch the blushing groom /|\.
Discuss this Journal entry [17]
Latest reply: Mar 20, 2003
Abermaw
Posted Mar 12, 2003
Upon the shore, I sit and feel,
The cool breeze upon my brow.
Where Land meets Sea,
And both greet the Sky,
I listen as the spirits dance,
To the songs of my ancestors.
Here the moon-driven sea,
Laps against her mothers feet,
And I sit nestled in her lap,
As pebbles that once were mountains,
Whisper to me of ancient heroes,
Of princes and the lost Cantrefs.
Where Bran watched the fleet,
Of proud Ireland’s King come,
To woo fair Branwen on the shores
Of Dyffren Ardudwy,
Where he gave her to Matholwch,
And sealed his own doom.
Where the last Prince of the free,
Gathered his men, a golden battle host,
To throw down the dark fortress,
Of the Saesneg lords.
Where for a bright moment,
We stood as men beneath this sky.
Here we began a song of hope,
To the heroes of Harlech,
That would carry proud cymric warriors,
Through dark nights under African skies,
And bring Evans 152 back to his farm,
On the slopes of Cader Idris.
Here, on this shore, the songs go on,
Of Gruffydd, and Evans,
Jones and Glyndwr.
The ancestors stretch back behind me,
Into the golden mists of memory,
And I listen, that I might sing for my children.
Blessings,
Matholwch /|\
Discuss this Journal entry [33]
Latest reply: Mar 12, 2003
Today I am sad, so very sad.
Posted Feb 13, 2003
Today I witnessed true fear, paranoiac fear even ... and a cold, unfeeling hatred.
Hatred by a person who professes to represent a faith of love and forgiveness, and this is what has made me sad.
I live in a small Welsh town where the dominant local centres of faith are the Pentecostal and Evangelical churches. Mostly they are good people. They are my neighbours and friends, my children's teachers, doctors and playgroup leaders.
Is what I saw on the web-site highlighted by a friend, this fear and loathing, is this what my neighbours believe? Is the outpouring of bitterness against Wicca, Paganism, D&D and even Pokemon, what they believe? Is it what they teach their children? Is it what they would teach mine?
Can I not practice my faith quietly and with dignity, without having to worry what my neighbours will think of me? How they would act towards me if they knew?
As it is I do not openly profess my faith? I keep it to myself. I have children and do not want them ostracised, bullied or made fun of because their dad’s a Druid.
According to this ‘Reverend’, this self-appointed representative of the merciful Christian god, my friends and I are evil, perverted servants of the ‘devil’, who perform human sacrifice. Please tell me this guy is not for real? That this is not a widely held belief amongst the evangelical community? I know there are many Christians amongst this page’s visitors. Please stand up and be counted.
In the rapid regeneration of the pagan paths over the past few years, and the protection afforded them by increasingly enlightened human rights legislation (in Europe at least), I had thought I had seen a new age dawning. A new age where the all-consuming fascism of the twentieth century c.e., was to be left behind. But here it is, big and bold and coming at ya!
We do not believe what they believe, so we have no value. We are beyond redemption and thus surplus to requirements. And we all know where that argument ends... through a gate marked 'Arbeit Macht Frei'.
Well I refuse to lie down. I will not go quietly into this good night. I will not believe that this man represents all Christians – as he claims. I totally refuse to fall into his trap of hate and counter-hate, as so many other pagans have.
Until my dying day I will hold out the hand of love and friendship to any person who seeks to know their own soul. I welcome their diversity. I respect their paths, for every person’s path is their own. Their relationship to their god(s) is as valid as mine.
Blessings,
Matholwch /|\.
Discuss this Journal entry [38]
Latest reply: Feb 13, 2003
The written word is dead...
Posted Jan 29, 2003
One of the biggest problems for modern Druids is all the written sources regarding our forebears are written by outsiders, often enemies. The Druids themselves, despite frequently being literate in the ancient scripts of latin and greek, refused to commit their knowledge to papyrus or stone. Many non-Druids have used this in the past to challenge me and my kindred. "An unwritten spirituality has no consistency" they claim, and point to the Bible, Qu'ran, Talmud and endless Vedas as role models for a 'decent' religion.
Well I think our forebears had it about right. The written word can be dangerous, particularly when recording our thoughts and beliefs. The problem being is that it can quickly become dogma. I'm not decrying books and other written media, but I have heard that our forebears considered the written word to be 'dead', no longer capable of growth or mutation by the flowing spirit.
Many of us have been lucky enough to listen to a good storyteller. It is here that a story truly comes alive as they draw upon their creativity, the hopes and experiences of their audience, and the Awen (the Druidic term for the flowing spirit of inspiration) to fuel the communal experience. If you have heard that storyteller retell the same story, to a new audience, the story changes. Details that were missed or rushed past in the first telling, come to the fore in the second, and others fade into the background. The central thread of the story remains, but all about it the storyteller surfs the wave of the Awen and the audience's dreams, creating a new landscape about it. If you ask members of the audience afterwards what they heard, for each the story will have been different. This is the beauty of the spoken word, the storyteller opens the mind to the Awen and allows the listener to roam a shared, yet personal landscape.
This relationship with the Awen, the opportunity for each person and each concept to grow and change with each passing on of the knowledge - through story, prayer, poem and song - is what I believe to be at the heart of what our forebears wanted to achieve by not writing down their beliefs.
A fixed, written relationship with our gods is a dead one. For it is not our relationship, but that of another, committed to dogma perhaps hundreds of years before our time. It is a crude, yet effective, method of social control.
I see a parallel with our written system of laws. In the western hemisphere we have a great deal of law, but seemingly precious little justice. The attempt to codify every aspect of human relationships and behaviour has ultimately created a bureaucratic monster, not a social saviour. As I understand it one of the roles of our forebears was to provide a moderately objective judiciary. The concepts of 'fairness' and 'rightness' were considered far more important than 'precedence' or 'law'. The integrity and wisdom of the Druid was considered to be more relevant in passing judgement than an encyclopaedic and technical knowledge of a codified law.
I still read books, and I do learn from them. However, I learn far more from watching my children play, from talking with friends, and discoursing here with all of you. A day spent in meditation amongst the trees, building upon my relationship with Brigidh is worth more than any two thousand year old tome to me, and I feel it brings me closer to my forebears.
Blessings,
Matholwch the Apostate /|\.
Discuss this Journal entry [29]
Latest reply: Jan 29, 2003
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