Artsist unknown. This  illustration was created for a book called "A Fantasy Artist's Pocket Reference: Faeries" from David & Charles Publishing.

Mention the name ‘Ghillie Dhu’ and it takes me back to being child dancing round a giant toadstool singing the Ghillie Dhu song, while under the watchful eye of great owl. This might sounds like a wondrous pagan event but it was actually my Tuesday night Brownie meeting (yes Brownie as in Scouts, now called Rainbows). In later years I learned all about the Ghillie Dhu and always felt under his protection as I left great owl behind (The Brownie pack leader). 

I’ve always loved the description of the Ghillie Dhu, living in the woods, protector of the trees, especially birches.  Ever silent, dressed in a cloak of the seasons colors, from the rich green spring leaves eventually changing over to the rich earthy hues of autumn. If you were ever to get close you might notice his eyes also change according to the season. 

The name means dark hared lad and I imagine the ancient Caledonian Forest where the Ghillie Dhu’s must have felt most at home, weaving large nests from leaves and branches, lined with moss. Walking for hundreds of miles and not encroaching into anothers territory. Maybe they came together at the great festivals, gathering under the full moon. Singing ancient songs that only the most ancient of trees can remember.

For the lone woodsman out to cut down a tree or two would have to be careful, keeping away from the most enchanted woods of the Ghillie Dhu. You know full well when you enter an inhabited wood, and the hair standing up on the back of your neck is a good indicator translating that you are not welcome. To those maybe not so well versed in gut feelings the long green arms of the Ghillie might approach stealthily,  snaking and winding around tree trunks to finally dragging a body deep into the leaf litter where the trees would feed off the body. And yet for the child who had run away, or set out to explore the forest, the Ghillie was there somewhere near offering his protection.

I find it ironic that the US Army use ‘Ghilli suits” (pictured below) dressing in green foliage forest camouflage, although the only similarity here is in name as they are not protecting the forests.

I once heard a tale that as the great Scottish forest declined (although in reality this was way before the Romans even reaches these shores) some Ghillie’s followed Scottish fur trappers and voyageurs to French Canada in the late 1700’s. While some lived together in these new lands others headed off into the wilds (perhaps to visit their  sasquatch cousins?).  It is said that those left in Scotland died out or intermarried with different forms of faery and that they died out within a few generations. But I know there is still the odd Ghillie Dhu around, unknown to my Brownie sisters that dance around the giant toadstool singing their song, its melody travelled through the evening to the few Ghillie ears that were left, and this is one of the reasons they like children so much. 

Someone recently asked me if I made witches and could I send her some photos of the dolls. Hmm I pondered … ‘Do you mean the feminine devine in her guise of the wise woman who has always been with us from the moment of creation when she gave birth to the universe?’ I asked. ‘That ancient mother who each and every living person once cherished through her mystery to provide us with life and who ultimately lived within us. That most ancient mother who gave us life and to whom we ultimately return to? That most ancient goddess who we can derive empowerment from who inspired us to speak for every marginalized person, animal and sacred land in fighting the choking hands of Pariarchy who deems us sceond class citizens?’.  I asked.

I dunno she answered. More the witchy, spell making kind.

Yes. I replied. But they are far more than they seem!

The Littlest Witch

The Hedge Witch

A Trio of Witches

The Cauldron Flaming Witch

 Student work & the spring  flowers at the NC Arboretum 

It was my favorite kind of weather as I packed up the car and headed out to the NC Arboretum. Cold, with a bright blue sky – the time of spring where we could still get snow but eveidence all around that the world is slowly awakening with the new colors of crocus and crows and other birds collecting nesting materials.

Today was ‘Creating Sacred Landscapes’ a needle felt workshop. Needle felting really is an easy skill to pick up – most folks seem to start the class by saying ‘i’m not really creative’ but with a bit of inspiration and an entire afternoon to sink in an create they always surprised by the wonderful art they create. I’m so impressed by the work they produce, I get to pick up new ideas and it leaves me inspired to get back to the wool.

Everyone seems to reach a point where I can tell they start to get a little frustrated, so that rings bells for time for a break or move onto the next stage, and off they go hands whirring into the repedative action of the needle.

While the doll making class is now sold out there are a few some places left on the next Sacred Landscape class on 04/19 at the Arboretum. For those who might have taken the class before I will be bringing strips of silk which we can incorporate which gives an entire different effect to your landscape.

My own workshops incorporate Celtic Spirituality and an afternoon making a creative piece, in April there is Masks of the Morrighan – mask making, fire ceremony and learning about this most ancient goddess. May bring honoring the most ancient goddess where we will create tapestries. June offers Celtic Landscape making and July brings Cauldron Magic – exploring all aspects of the Cauldron in the Celtic world and making our own cauldron/altar tapestry!

Click here to view my list of upcoming workshops. 

by water, earth, fire & air

The first International Women’s day was 102 years ago and in light of all the recent controls on women’s reproduction rights I wonder if we’re actually sliding backwards? Even although the Violence Against Women Act has been passed it seems crazy that we even need one, which sadly we do. I read news reports on abortion rights, pro-life backlash and the everyday comments leave me feeling dizzy, unable to keep up with the onslaught!

I recently watched the ‘Song Catcher’ a few days ago – set around these mountains of the Appalachians. Beautiful ballads sung in that traditional Appalachian way although originating in Irish and Scottish lands carried by a people force-ably removed from their lands. I connect to those laments of missing the land you were born in, of mountains mist and sea but what really got to me was how hard these lives were – especially for women.

While today is about celebrating how far we’ve come and solidarity with those sisters in Southern countries who struggle with equality, health, economics etc but for what I’ve seen here I feel we’re on a slippery slope. There is many of us here that struggle to feed ourselves and get access to health care etc albeit it we are supposedly in a free country!

So what do we sisters do, we do what we always do, we stand strong, grounding, growing vast root systems within our communities  – the blood and the water, air and earth of our great mother coursing through us. You, we are stronger than you can ever realize. What damages women in this world damages men, damages every flying, galloping and wriggling more than human neighbors and the very planet we’re rooted on.

So lets sink those roots down deep acknowledge the journey all the while awakening our ancestral memory, the primal, the shadow as she serves us well. Keep her alive as you never know when you’ll need her!

Photo by charlie terrell photography. Click on photo for source

Rabbie Burns meets the Goddess Brighid, sounds like one of those bad sci films that just tries somehow to to squeeze it all in,  like Godzilla meets the Simpsons.

Growing up in Scotland Rabbie Burns was some long dead guy who wrote a poem aboot a wee moose (the reason never being completely clear as to why). The next bit of information to be added to my lack of facts was he had many, many children. So many in fact, this based on a documentary my sister and I watched, that if we were unable to keep up with the documentary to their numbers, well then what hope did he?

Ayr, where Burns was born and lived, and was a far away place. It was over the Clyde River, and a skirt round the coast, then on a bit more, a wee bitty more and then you were there. Definitely in the scopes of a day trip but somehow our childhood day trips were north, the family all packed up in ‘Nessie’ the green Ford estate and an obligatory stop at the rest and be Thankful outside of Arrochar for poor old Bengie, the dog, to be sick.

Well anyway back to burns. The next I ever remember being in Ayr was on a journey to find the amazing Ballochmyle Rocks carvings in east Ayrshire. Hundreds of cup and ring marks carved into the side of a sandstone rock face.  Those whirls and spirals came back to me in many a dream.

Ask anyone in Scotland who Burns is and the title of Bard goes hand in hand with the description. A Bard is both poet, storyteller and musician. Druidic bards were the keepers of tradition, they kept the memory of the people alive, their teachings alive within their stories. Here’s William Blake describing a bard in his poem ‘First song of Experience’:

Hear the voice of the Bard!
Who Present, Past, & Future sees
Whose ears have heard,
The Holy Word,
That walk’d among the ancient trees.

To me Druid bards spoke the language of the earth. They read patterns in the clouds, the understood the whispers between trees and could hear the first stirrings of the season from the chatterings of organisms in the soil. Burns is my Bard, he wrote passionately about the landscape in which he lived, his family and neighbors, his animal community as much as the human and those daily and political struggles. He had a passion for Scotland, the land, it’s stories, the sense of history and a sense of it’s future. He wrote of a driving sense of purpose that at times made him despair and sometimes question what he was doing. Yet his messages are still relevant today in the struggles we face, and the very wonder of being rooted into this amazing thing called life!

To me Burns was a prophetic bard and one of my favourite poems “The Vision’ in which he’s pretty melancholy mood…

All in this mottie, misty clime, I backward mus’d on wasted time, How I had spent my youthfu’ prime, An’ done nae thing, But stringing blethers up in rhyme, For fools to sing.

His muse Coila, with Pictish roots appears to him and he doubts that even she can teach him or can he learn from her. But it’s his description of her I love

‘Green, slender, leaf-clad holly-boughs Were twisted, gracefu’, round her brows; I took her for some Scottish Muse, By that same token; And come to stop those reckless vows, Would soon been broken. Her mantle large, of greenish hue, My gazing wonder chiefly drew: Deep lights and shades, bold-mingling, threw A lustre grand; And seem’d, to my astonish’d view, A well-known land.

To me this is a description of the great goddess Brighid, Breejah. She who has always been patron to the bards. It is she who they invoke, it is she who inspires. She appears wearing a headdress of greenery and her green mantle of the earth wrapped around her shoulders.

The Druid Bards were the ones who would sing their songs, weaving magic as they enthralled crowds gathered at Chieftains gatherings. As they traveled the land they would be warmly welcomed as it was quite the occasion to host a bard. The 1609 laws of the Statutes of Iona in the Highlands of Scotland effectively eroded their poetic power with repressive laws which eroded the Bard’s role in maintaining cultural and ecological awareness which eventually was replaced by the values of power of money which drastically changed the world.

The bard still has a role in society, Philip Carr-Gomm addresses what bardism really is as, ‘understood in its widest sense as the development of the artistic and creative Self, and its importance as a foundation for our lives and character and spiritual development is no less significant than it was thousands of years ago, and it could be argued that it is even more essential today than it was then. The clue to understanding why this should be so lies in the realisation that the historical Bards worked with Record and with Inspiration. One of the prime reasons for modern humanity’s sense of alienation lies in the fact that we have cut ourselves adrift from both the natural world and from the roots of our past’                                                                                                                                                                                                                     from Druid Mysteries by Philip Carr-Gomm from the website: http://www.druidry.org

Burns wrote about what mattered in life and the forces he faced in life have bred into the faceless monster of capitalism. We can learn great things from the man and the tradition of the bard in digging into our roots and drawing strength and information from where we stand. Breejah offers us the flame, a fire which can transforms us, yet never burns, a fire which ignites our heads to dream new dreams, burns in our heart as compassion and warms our hands in the work we carry out.

* Much inspiration in this article stems from the writings and conversations with Alastair McIntosh