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Tuesday, August 26, 2003

A Magical Day Out

On Saturday night, Kate and I decided to go for an adventure, like you do, so by dawn on Sunday, we were at the very tip of the Lleyn Peninsula, in Wales.

I've only been at night before, so to see the dawn was awe-inspiring in its utter beauty - the clouds pink in between pink mountain tops, and us looking down on them; the purple and yellow of the gorse stretching on forever; the ocean; Ynys Enlli (Bardsey Island in English) all pink and gorgeous.

However, nothing prepared me for what was going to happen next. I took Kate to the ridge where I'd been twice before, though usually I was there watching the moon over Bardsey and the Irish Sea on three sides of me. Therefore I didn't know that the tip carried on downwards, steep, but so you could walk down not climb. Kate stayed on the ridge and created a 'YES' out of stones, while I carried on down and discovered a chasm, which was obviously a Pagan cathedral.

There was a narrow entrance, guarded by spiders the colour of the rockface, with massive webs. I climbed over them, without breaking them, and discovered this... place... It was a chasm with tall rockfaces on three sides, but part of the third and the fourth were made of earth covered in grass. At the far side, from the entrance, there was a natural seat, a tiny bum-sized pocket of grass with two rock armrests and rock at the foot and back. Along the floor of this place, some people (I used psychometry, expecting druids, given the history of the place, and found two young men, dressed in 'civvies' - one had shorts on and the other mid-calf length shorts, one bare-chested, the other in a navy t-shirt)) had created a snake by piling stones, one on top of the other. It faced the seat. I sat on in, in the long shadows of the immediate post-dawn and the shadows picked out various things in the rockfaces - the Triple Goddess, a tree, with it's branches made up of gorse and heather. I wrote a poem:

24.8.03

I stumbled upon the special place
And my heart filled,
Over-the-top, brimmed, indescribable,
It showed its beauty to me.
I knew that I'd touched down,
Found home,
And something in my soul relaxed.

This sacred place, natural place
It's gods and goddesses formed by
Wind and rock, bush and grass;
Hidden until the sunlight,
In spotlight, picks them out,
Or the shadows call them into relief.

I'm not the first to find you holy:
There's magic lingering in the air,
And someone's taken your scattered stones
And with them built a snake in recognition,
Facing the seat where I sit.

This Pagan temple, roofless cathedral,
Pillars of stone, gargoyles of vine,
Created by deity, overwhelming my spirit,
On the tip of the Lleyn, overlooking Enlli.

I really wished I had a camera, then it came to me that I'd got my digital camera in my bag 'for emergencies'. I took 50 odd photos - realizing along the way that some of the deities in the rock had been 'helped' along by human intervention, like adding a mouth here, or an eye there, but 90% of each massive deity was natural.

I left to find Kate, seeing as there was no phone signal there and she was so engrossed in her art, that my telepathic messages to 'come here and bring a bottle of water with you' were being ignored. ;-) Have I mentioned Kate's art? She'd created a massive 'YES' on the ridge. She looked like a work of art in herself, being dressed in the same colours as her surroundings, but the YES really worked. As I stood with her, I saw 'smoke' and figured that the mainland Lleyn was on fire, but, as we watched, it came towards us, as a fog, travelling down the edge of the cliffs, until it reached us. Suddenly we were surrounded by dense mist, and just as suddenly, it was gone!

By now, there were over 70 pictures taken on my digital camera, but shortly after I'd shown Kate the Pagan temple, the wrong button must have been pressed or something, because the pictures all disappeared. Therefore the pics, which I've returned home with, were all taken in the high sun of morning, rather than during that intensely magical dawn. The deities in the rock were much more difficult to see then, and they haven't come out at all in the pics. Kate went to climb up the south wall, to take a picture of me, and found a hole to put her hand in. She was confronted by huge claws inside the hole. A little more investigation revealed a badger's set, with a huge badger fast asleep just inside it!

Kate and I then walked further, right to the very tip of the Lleyn, and a landscape of the utmost beauty stunned us. Caves and ocean, cliffs, and Ynys Enlli, now in vivid greens and black. Stunning doesn't begin to cover it. Other adjectives might include 'bloody hot' and 'exposed to the sun', therefore it didn't take us long to realize that we were burning to death and it was time to walk back up to the top. It didn't feel half as steep going down as it did going up!

Then it was the long, immensely enjoyable journey home, with stops just outside Dolgellau for a brew; then on the Dolgellau Road - which was amazing! That's my favourite scenery in the world and Kate had engineered it so 'Shine on you Crazy Diamond' was playing in her car as we drove along it!; then to Welshpool to stop in on my brother and family, before home.

Kate, thank you, thank you, my precious friend for all of this!

Posted by Matilda Mother