This site is a repository of information about the terms 'AWEN' and 'AWENYDD' which were used historically in Wales and in the Brythonic lands preceding the formation of modern Wales.
Here we offer our present-day definition of the path.
Here we offer our present-day definition of the path.
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An awenydd is a spirit worker and inspired poet in the Brythonic tradition. Walking the Deep Ways: An awenydd walks the deep ways of the world, seeing the land through layers of history, its shape created by ancestors of various origins and ethnicities in successive waves of movement, bequeathing to us the legacy of their experience. To walk the deep ways is to acknowledge and respond to the spirits of the land directly as they are perceived now, giving them their due and keeping a sense of the land as a living web of being which contains us. Walking deeper still through the liminal space between Thisworld and Otherworld further intensifies an awenydd’s way of spirit working, which is devotionally-based because it is the gods who inspire us and give us the knowledge and experience we seek. To walk the land in this way is to seek awen: to discover a living presence, from the land spirits, from the gods, from the ancestors. It is to see them as they see us. To bridge the gulf that has grown between us. To listen to an awakened land and to shape a response that opens a conversation. What is emphasised will depend on the path walked by each individual awenydd. But we possess a common sense of the awen as that which inspires us and calls us to shape that inspiration in our creations and to share them with each other, and as offerings to the otherness which contains our communities of spirit. Historically the term ‘awenydd’ stems from the practice of early Welsh bards inspired by awen as documented in the description of awenyddion given by Giraldus Cambrensis (Gerald of Wales). He speaks of spirit workers who went into a trance state to give prophecies. This corresponds to those among the druids of the Ancient World who had an oracular function and were known as ‘uates’. Awen is evoked as the source of inspiration in several of the poems found in The Book of Taliesin and other medieval manuscripts containing the works of the early bards, many of whom assert that it comes from the Cauldron of Ceridwen. These bards embody a well-established practice in medieval Wales that is rooted in the Brythonic past and expresses an awareness of the source of awen in Annwn - the Brythonic Otherworld - from where the awenydd is called and where the path followed by an awenydd leads. Though the basis of the awenydd path is Brythonic, we recognise all who are inspired by awen, the breath of the gods, whispered on the wind, sought in the sacred grove or Nemeton, or indeed inspired by a deity encountered in any way or place or mode of perception. Our definition, then, is wider than that in the source language where, in modern Welsh, 'awen' simply means ‘inspiration’ or ‘the Muse’, and an awenydd is an inspired poet. We stand in agreement with other uses in the Pagan community where the term ‘awenydd’ indicates a native shamanistic tradition. Like shamanistic traditions around the world it is a vocation to which we are called rather than one which is chosen, though it is by choice that we answer the call. We offer no scheme of grades to work through as the path we define is experiential and learnt from the gods and spirits rather than by a programme of pre-defined study. We do not claim that our usage is the only possible definition. But we do seek clarity in defining our path and the word used to describe it. More detailed examples of how practitioners describe their adoption of the term awenydd can be found elsewhere on this website. |