~ The Wooded Way ~

GENESIS - THE ORIGINS OF THE WOODED WAY

The following passage is an extract from my unfinished AUTOBIOGRAPHY titled 'There are dreams.' It was a documentation of an experience I had whilst in hospital undergoing treatment for Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and was my first introduction to the WAY OF THE WOOD.

THE SACRED FOREST (Legacy - The Grand Dream)

How do you explain the impossible ?  Lying in a hospital bed waiting for death and allowing yourself to drift off into a dream ... not an ordinary dream, but a dream that would last for countless years, and yet pass in but a day and a night. A dream perhaps born out of the land of Faerie, timeless, with no beginning and no end. Perhaps it was simply a visit to a place that has always been, a place not born of one persons dreaming, but of the countless dreams of many people forever continuing it's story ... and indeed, it's very existence. Perhaps ...

MAY, 1997 was the time of my dreaming. In March the previous year, I had been diagnosed with high-grade Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma (a type of cancer). Physically, I responded well to chemotherapy and, within a relatively short space of time, was well on my way to being in remission, possibly even cured. Emotionally, however, I was confused and lost. I had not felt in any state of sorrow over my condition. Indeed, ever since I was first diagnosed I had been in a strange state of elation, almost euphoric, somehow knowing that, deep inside, this was the dawn of some special metamorphosis for me. My transition time. A time that I had known was to come since early childhood. Some might even call it my time of 'destiny'.

The next few months left me more and more emotional and increasingly dysfunctional. The closer I came to my 'cure' the more frustrated I was becoming. I had become anything but the newly metamorphosed 'butterfly' I had expected to be transforming into. I could not think straight. My friends began to abandon me, or was it I who abandoned them ? Dishes rotted and stank in a kitchen of filth and squalor in my newly provided Department of Housing flat. I had never been a tidy person even in the best of times, but not like this, this was something else entirely.

Finally, my treatment was to culminate in a bone-marrow transplant that, together with a couple of weeks of radiotherapy, would complete it all. All went well, I was now in remission. But I had failed to be reborn as a 'butterfly' instead, becoming a social leper, flawed, a squalid parasitic insect dwelling in its own filth and waste. I had survived this most insidious of diseases only to find myself plagued by thoughts of despair and suicide. It was then that, in some strange twist of irony, that my true 'awakening' occurred.

Following the transplant, it was necessary for me to report weekly to the Haematology clinic both to check on my progress and have my 'lines flushed'. A set of tubes called a Hickman Catheter (for 'mainlining' chemo and other medications) had been surgically implanted into my chest. It was decided that they should remain there until after the Radiotherapy was completed and, as such, they required a weekly 'flush' with a saline solution to keep them open. It was the first flush following the transplant when, about fifteen minutes after the flushing I began to feel cold and shaky. I had experienced this before and didn't worry about it until the Doctor saw me. He immediately called for an emergency trolley to take me away and, whilst waiting, explained that there must have been some sort of infection at the tip of the lines that had now been flushed directly into my system. The situation was potentially critical. Within a short time I was lying in intensive care with tubes inserted everywhere...

(The following is an excerpt from a record of the event written immediately afterward whilst still in the ward)

'...I was in another space now. The air is thick with echoes, mumbling voices and a great diversity of devices that go 'beep'. I was on my back, both arms stretched sideways forming a crucifix. The narrow elevated bed my sacrificial altar stone...my slab. Yet more people surrounded me methodically covering my body with self-adhesive round blue stick on patches to which wires were clicked into place. Two others were cutting slits into my wrists and the back of my hands to accommodate more tubes and needles. A voice said "bastard...can't get this one, I'll 'ave to try your side." Then, suddenly, I was alone. I was still now, for a while. Still and calm, lying waiting, high upon my altar, arms outstretched, naked and prone, a throbbing wound in my chest from where the offending lines had been hurriedly slashed free. My penis burning from the garden hose size tube that had been savagely thrust into it. Tubes and wires wound all over me like writhing serpents...blue, broad-headed leeches sucking at my life's energies whilst others sucked at my blood. A great and sinister python burrowed deep into my manhood, supping at my bodily juices and draining every ounce of dignity from my soul. I wept.

Time passed. Exactly how much I am not aware of. Then, once again, a shivering began. "No..." I cried silently. My teeth and jaws clenched up almost immediately sending shots of pain to my temple. The mumbling shadow beings soon loomed about and over my altar clutching at my soul. My body quaked violently, pain everywhere, perspiration refreshing the stains of dried blood and iodine that covered my chest and arms. After a while, the terrible quaking mellowed to a constant, uniform trembling. I was alone again and, caring not for the well-being of serpents and leeches, I rolled onto my side and curled into a foetal ball upon my ever-hardening altar. Still trembling, I closed my eyes, the moisture of my tears instantly sealing them shut. The trembling vibrations gradually seemed to change time and slow down to a harmonic rhythm in time with the great throbbing base drum of my heart. I drifted within the rhythm of the moment. Beeps slowed and merged to become a single constant tone which, in turn, separated to become the harmonised voices of some great eternal choir. All of my senses were hyper-sensitised to the moment of this great, eternal concert...and I drifted with it. A slow, rhythmic, air-borne dance of all time. I felt my body floating. Drifting and dancing to the sounds of the simple rhythms of distant percussion behind this great, harmonic chorus.

My eyes were without my body now and I saw before me a great web of white lines stretching for eternity in all directions, intersecting eachother in groups of up to a dozen or so at a myriad of foci that seemed to shine like eyes. There was a great, eternal matrix here, a pattern of all time and all space...yet no space. There was no blackness between the lines of the grid. Only nothingness that could not be perceived. An incomprehensible void.'

NOTE: This 'void' is better demonstrated than any attempt I might offer by means of a written explanation. Hold your hand up a few inches in front of your face. Now, slowly, keep your eyes facing directly ahead of you, move your hand around to the side of your face. Concentrate on seeing only your hand. As you continue to move your hand around to the side of your head, it begins to fade from your field of view. As it disappears from sight, consciously observe and ask yourself "Into what does my hand disappear from view?" It is not darkness or blackness. It simply disappears into an optical nothingness. A nothingness that not only is devoid of all visual substance, but one whereby we cannot even perceive its boundaries. There is no dividing line between that which we can see and that which we cannot. The vision simply, gradually fades from our consciousness and awareness into the void of nothingness. The space between the lines.

'Rhythmically, I drifted into what I perceived to be my line, or perhaps it moved to engulf me, and, within it, I discovered a single, perfect, harmonic tone that is my own life and essence. It is a 'tunnel' of light, as some describe it, within which you travel to some ultimate destination. But it is not a tunnel at all. It is a solid tube of whiteness that one joins with and, bodiless, becomes a part of. And it has a hum. Not an annoying hum, but a continuous drone that is in perfect harmony with the being that is yourself. You drift within the light, drawn forward by the hum towards a greater light which is an eye of focus. An eye of 'God' and, within it, you sense other transient beings, some that you have known and some that have known you. The greeting place is one of great wonder. Upon reaching this point, I became aware of destinies unfulfilled that could only be my own. One especially that is of great importance to others, I feel. I did not ask to return from this place, not in any conscious or verbal sense, It was a sense of unfulfilled purpose that caused my return. Still, even now, I am not aware of this purpose, yet I am well aware that I will, and must, fulfil it. Meniality is no longer a part of my world...'

I do not truly know whether or not I had actually 'died' on that day. Something had certainly happened to me and I had no idea how to respond to it. I felt that I had either stumbled on to, or been entrusted with, something of great importance without knowing whether I had been shown something to be held in strict confidence or whether this had been given to me to pass on to others somehow.  I was more 'dazed and confused' than ever spending endless days and nights staring mindlessly at the TV going over and over in my mind what I had experienced. I was no longer depressed and suicidal, I was awestruck and desperate to know what to do next if anything, or indeed, at least for somebody to have the simple courtesy of letting me know if I had finally fallen over the edge and deep into the realms of madness.

As I laid in my hospital bed, contemplating life, the universe and certain aspects of my navel, I thought back on every part of my life, my dreams and imaginings, and a picture began to form in my head. Initially, my instinct was to fight it off, press the buzzer for the nurse on some stupid pretence of needing something ... but no, not this time. Maybe it's time to go now I thought. I laid back comfortably and allowed my eyes to close. There was no sense of fear this time as images swirled into other images.

I could feel the strange physical sensation of my eyes rolling upwards under my eyelids, and then felt my body drifting freely, like lying on an airbed at sea, drifting peacefully, I began to lift and yet some other part of me seemed to fall away like the giant boosters of a great rocket ship in silent space, falling back towards Earth. There was no tunnel forming ... no white light ... this was no death, not this time.

As time passed, I was flooded with memories. Memories of my arrival, in dreamstate, at the before-mentioned greeting place. Memories that led to other memories that would eventually link up to form what I have since called this 'Grand Dream'. The greeting place was like entering into a great white cloud throughout which there was the purest light and the sensation of music everywhere, although I can't actually remember 'hearing' the music, I could 'feel' it, deeply, penetrating inside me. I can't really describe it. As I walked through this wondrous cloud, I felt the sound of birdsong and other beings. I walked (or was drawn) towards these sounds and soon began to make out shadows in the cloud. Slowly, the cloud thinned to what seemed more like a 'mist' of light and through this mist I could see trees forming. I walked on.

The mist began to lift and, indeed, I found myself in a great forest that appeared to go on forever. Yet, it was a forest that was no forest. It was an ordered, yet somehow random Woodland of trees, frequent clearings and wetlands. There was an abundance of fresh foodstuffs. Fruits, veges, grasses and grain areas ... Eden itself. There were winding pathways and, as I drifted down one, I came across a circle of small cottages surrounding a large hall. The cottages and hall were of whitewashed mud and all had shingle roofs. It was late afternoon, the sunlight was little more than a dim yellow glow between long, dark shadows and, as I looked into the Woodland, I could see many small clusters of lights, each cluster being yet another of these little 'Havens'.

I smiled in the realisation that this was indeed my elusive world of 'Home' ... my Sanctuary. It wasn't 'Heaven' by any means, it was a far more inviting and appealing environment than any description of a Heaven I have yet heard. This one had real rocks and mosses and trees and vines. "A real place" I thought ... and something equally real hit me like a lightening bolt. "Can this really be a real place ?" A new sense of life and, indeed, being alive rushed upwards from my feet and through my entire body, like some magical light from the imperceptible touch of some being of Faerie. I commanded my mind to tell me the riddle of this vision ... this dreaming. "what is this place ? describe for me its workings and reveal to me its peoples, their culture and their ways".

An old man's voice answered, a familiar voice that has always been there for me, sometimes as the proverbial classic white-bearded and robed image of a God, or Father Time; sometimes as some ancient Tibetan Monk and then sometimes also a Christian One; and times again as an Aboriginal Elder or Tribal Chieftain, A Druid, A Bard ... so many times and beings I had not noticed, yet all sharing the same familiar, comforting voice ... and finally, only now, revealing himself in what I now know to be his true form. A quiet unnassuming man laying dying in some hospital bed yet, somehow also escorting me on this tour whilst telling me of his final vision for a renewed world ... his endless dream of a time that must be, and still is yet to come. An essential time. I cried with both joy and sorrow and a single tear rolled down his cheek.

"This is the Sacred Forest of the Way of the Wood", he said, "As its name suggests, it is a way of living as a vital aspect of nature and the natural order. And with that, The Wooded Way was born.

I felt that, in just that one night laying, waiting for death, I had indeed spent many months, perhaps even years in this place as a member of the Order of the Wood, and had developed a thorough understanding and love of it. Perhaps I had indeed passed away and entered my own personal designer 'Heaven' after all.

Soon after leaving hospital, Beau's hair began growing back. A month later he celebrated his
blessings at having passed through this experience by asking a close hair-artist friend
to sew in a total of 92 waist length hair extensions inlaid with pearls, coloured silk ribbons,
silver chains and numerous charms.

THE CALLING

I am Beau ap Gwyddon. 
I am Prif-fardd of a time before Tydain Tad Awen.
I am O’Wydd and founder of the first Order of the Wood,
‘though not Penbardd of the Gorsedd of the Wooded Way.
I am keeper of the Gwyddoniad that is 
the word of the Way of the Wood.

I am the Green Man
who peers from within 
the leaves of the trees 
whispering dreams to passers by.

Mine is the Hwyll that is the Muse 
that billows out the leaves of the trees
that are the breath and sails
of the Earth also.

I am he who is without home,
he who weeps upon the face of our Mother 
for times long gone,
and yet, are still to come.

I am the dweller in your dreams. 
I am the conceiver of great imaginings.
I am the father who plants within
the seeds of hope.

“Hai Atton” is my call.
HEIGH TO US for the re-awakening 
of the Wood of the Earth 
for the Green Man calls us home.

 I call into being the first Penbardd 
who is to make the Gorsedd of
the first Order of the Wood 
that is The Wooded Way.

I call also to being the one who bears, 
in the womb of her tears, 
the heart and soul
of our beloved Ynis Mon.

And I call into being all who would be Bards, 
and all who would be Priestesses,
and all who would be peoples of 
the first Order of the Wood.

“HAI ATTON… HAI ATTON… HAI ATTON”

I am the voice of reason from times long past. 
I am the voice of hope for times yet to come.
I surrendered my life for you. 
I give my life to you.

I am Beau ap Gwyddon 
who is O’Wydd called Myrddin 
of the Southern Stars of Heaven 
and of our Mother, the Earth.

I am Gwyddon of the Wood.
Blessed be.

- Beau