Return To The Essential Self: A Tale Of Cerridwen

Welcome to the Sacred Forest story time. A time to weave the fabric of history and folklore to the mysteries of the present world to learn, grow and embody the magic of those who came before. This ancient story represents lessons on returning to the essential self and will help us to cultivate a deep sense of self love, worth and inner harmony. In this podcast, listen to a tale of Cerridwen that explores the myths and mysteries of Welsh and Celtic lore. Cerridwen, an enchantress, a herbalist, and Goddess, was known as the Dark Mother, a witch or shapeshifter and represented rebirth, wisdom, divination and inspiration.

Transcript

La ilaha illallah La ilaha illallah La ilaha illallah La ilaha illallah Welcome to the Sacred Forest Storytime.

A time to weave the fabric of history and folklore to the mysteries of the present world to learn,

Grow,

And embody the magic of those who came before.

Today,

I'd like to share with you a tale of Caridwen.

From the myths and mysteries of Welsh and Celtic lore,

Caridwen was an enchantress,

An herbalist,

A goddess.

She was known as the Dark Mother,

A witch,

A shapeshifter,

And represents rebirth,

Wisdom,

Divination,

And inspiration.

She is the keeper of the cauldron of the underworld,

Where divine inspiration flows like rivers under the surface of the earth.

This is a tale of her fierce commitment to her child,

Her despair,

Her wrath,

And her birth of transformation,

Wisdom,

And a return to the essential self.

Her tale begins at her home on a peaceful lake with her husband,

A most beautiful daughter whose loveliness enchanted all whose eyes laid upon her.

She bore yet another child,

A son of an unfortunate fate.

Her son was plagued with an ugliness and grotesqueness so profound.

His first given name was Morfran,

Meaning sea cow.

Caridwen was truly concerned her son would not be taken into society in any useful form,

And her anguish grew of the child's fate so great that she eventually renamed him a Fogdu,

Meaning utter darkness.

This sweet soul deserved as much as a chance as her beloved daughter among the nobles of the land,

And she was determined to give him that chance.

Caridwen tapped into her prophecy and magic to construct a plan to give her son the gift of prophetic spirit and a way to embody all the knowledge and secrets of all the worlds and the universe.

With this brilliance beyond all measure,

He would earn his place among the highest in the land,

And his appearance would be no match for all he could offer the world.

For this,

She would collect sacred herbs and plants from the lake around her home under specific alignments of the planets and the stars.

With these herbs,

She would place them into a cauldron filled with water over a blazing fire,

And for one year and one day she would construct this magical brew that would contain awen,

The universal flowing source and magical essence from which we all came.

Awen is the essence of life in which everything swims.

It is in the trees,

The sun,

The stars.

It is the music and inspiration in all that we do and said to be the soul of the universe itself.

After this enchanted brew comes into being,

It shall spit only three sacred drops containing the awen,

And for whom the drops fall upon will then embody all the magic awen has to offer.

The rest of the liquid is destined to become nothing more than a powerful poison.

So,

Caridwen required help with this task of constructing this magical brew.

So she recruited a blind man to keep the fire burning and a young boy named Gwian Bak to stir the bubbling liquid for one year and one day.

As they tended to her cauldron she would continually forge the herbs to add to the concoction day and night.

So day after day they sat,

Stirred,

Mixed,

And tended to this precious creation.

And upon the mark of a year of the brew simmering into being,

She set her son near the cauldron to await for the magic to arrive.

And in her exhausted state she lay down among the trees and fell soundly asleep to the wooing of the birds,

Who too knew the magic was coming.

As the young boy Gwian stirred and stirred eagerly,

Three drops sprung from the cauldron landing upon his bare thumb.

The scolding liquid seared his flesh and he instinctively placed his thumb in his mouth,

Immediately absorbing the magic of Awen.

In an instant he knew all the secrets and mysteries of all the worlds,

Of past,

Present,

And future.

His eyes turned black with the vastness of the universe as wisdom,

Clarity,

And prophecy fused his entire being.

The remaining bubbling liquid,

Which now was poison,

Cracked the cauldron into two,

Spilling upon and poisoning the earth.

It was with his new insight he could see his fate when Cairdwyn awoke to see what he had done,

And he chose to flee.

Cairdwyn rose in a fury when she discovered what had happened,

And after the boy she went.

With his acquired abilities he ran from Cairdwyn in any way he could,

And a game of shapeshifting began.

He first fled as a hare,

Cairdwyn then becoming a greyhound to hunt and sniff him out.

He then became a fish,

Then she an otter.

He then took to the skies and became a bird,

Cairdwyn a mighty hawk.

Finally he sought refuge among bales of grain,

And Gwiyan turned into a single grain of corn.

Cairdwyn searched among the bales,

Shifting into a black-breasted hen,

And plucked him right into her belly.

Consuming the boy,

She finds herself with child,

And grows a new manifestation of young Gwiyan within her womb.

Furious,

She vows to destroy the boy when he is born.

She is now the cauldron,

The vehicle of transformation for the being of all knowing.

When the boy is born,

She stares into his eyes and cannot with a mother's love destroy him.

She instead wraps him in a leather pouch,

Sending him along a river to float what becomes forty years at sea.

He is found by a nobleman who sees the magic in his eyes,

Naming him Taliesin,

Or he with the radiant brow.

He is the mighty prophet of all knowing,

Whom some come today to know as Merlin,

And he bestows many gifts upon the world.

There are many lessons to learn from this tale.

But if you want to know the true essence of Awen,

It is a matter of seeking and finding that essential truth.

The cauldron is of great significance in many ways.

It is a symbol that brings nourishment and transformation.

But it is also significant in a way as it represents the divine feminine,

The great mother and creative womb space from which we all came.

Young Gwiyan flees through many stages as his newly enchanted self.

In these transformations,

He becomes creatures of the earth,

The sea,

And the sky.

He is a full cycle of life to be consumed and then reborn,

Settling into the channel of Awen yet again for regeneration,

Growth,

And rebirth.

Do the sun and Gwiyan represent the light and dark aspects of ourselves?

Perhaps a tale of balance,

Transformation,

And rebirth?

As a shapeshifter,

One is multifaceted,

Able to choose the facet that best suits their circumstance.

You too are a shapeshifter,

A vehicle for inspiration and transformation,

Able to adapt to any given situation.

So sit with Khairdwin and feel her divine inspiration.

What magic lies within you?

What are your many facets?

A lesson to never give up,

To find growth and inspiration through transformation.

The cycle of life may not be literal life,

Death,

And rebirth,

But instead the death of different chapters of our lives.

To learn the lessons,

To shapeshift,

To grow,

Adapt,

And transform.

Awen is the ebb and flow of all existence.

We swim within it,

In the womb.

And when we are born,

We move through life feeling we've lost that connection,

That we are separate from it.

It feels as though it is something to be obtained,

To search for.

But what we find is that it is indeed inside each and every one of us.

And we can take the tales of history and our ancestors to guide us back to it.

What a gift it is to realize that you already contain all of the love and answers in life you will ever need.

You simply need to be guided back to them.

The pilgrimage you seek is the journey to yourself.

You are Awen.

You can work with Cairdwen in many ways.

Perhaps just a simple petition for guidance.

You can work with stones of emerald,

Obsidian,

And onyx.

Use her sacred herbs of sandalwood,

Patchouli,

Vervain,

And sage.

As well as the elements of earth and water during her time of late autumn and winter.

Place acorns and apple seeds on her altar.

And give thanks to this great mother for the power of transformation and the return to the essential self.

Thank you so much for joining me in our story time today.

Live your magic today and every day.

My beautiful shapeshifter.

Namaste.

Reviews

I absolutely loved this!! I look forward to listening to more stories of other Goddesses.

Blessed Be.

I am so much more enriched by your talk. I was an not a full vessel before your talk but I am now on my way to becoming this so I can share this with others. Indeed namaste...

Thank you for sharing this absolutely beautiful invitation to Cerridwen. Blessed be!

I absolutely loved your story telling of this myth and found it inspiring and emotional. Thank you and blessed be x

Thank you this was very soothing and beautiful /|\

Lovely! Thank you❤️

What a beautiful, meaningful and transformative story (if we allow it to be). I hope there will be others soon.

Absolutely amazing. More please.

This was beautiful, thank you! 🙏

Amazing. Thankyou so much! I really needed to hear this. Blessed be!

Oh the synchronicities. Thank you 🙏

Simply hearing this story enabled me to feel fortified and guided by the Divine Feminine. The words seemed to envelope me in an embrace like no other. Thank you for the assistance on this inner journey.

Wonderful storytelling. Loved it💕
Thank you 🙏🏻

This was really moving and insightful and I got a lot from it. Thank you so much! 🙏🏻❤️

Cool story & wonderful music. I appreciated the explanations & background to the story as well. Thank you!

Thank you AND the beauty of a story is to allow everybody to find his or her own truth at whatever stage he or she is, rather than taking in the interpretation of the storyteller...🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Wonderfully spoken!

I am enchanted. You are a powerful teacher Thank you for carrying this powerful message into present time. I love that they and we are all Arwin (? spelling?).
Your story plants a seed though; who and what becomes of her beautiful daughter?