Month 1, Week 4, Reflections of Awen

Here, we are asked to reflect upon what we have learned or know of Awen.  In that my journey began before this course, I will share what I have come to know.

I know, that a life of continuous and deepening release is gifted with profound awareness.  In my case, I have become a deep well, and before where I had a healing hand, now I have a gentling one. 

Those who have taken this journey know that there is no exact route, that each of us finds our own way.  It is akin to walking up a mountain - we each seek the vantage point that we feel is best approachable.  Sometimes the direction changes or we have to backtrack, but at the top, we all share the language of our journey so are able to speak to each other as knowers.  Now, with that in mind, there are some encounters that we all share, such as seeking and finding safety, seeking and finding identity, seeking and finding our might and integrity.  From here our next hand- and footholds are possibility and probability, generosity and abundance, togetherness and oneness, a strong hand and an open heart, grace and caring, faith and frith. 

And there is no time frame - for along the way one realizes that there cannot be.  There is no failure, no back-sliding, no wrong; there is only the endeavor.  At every step, as we wind our way towards mountains peak, awareness is bolstered through welcoming, or when we make welcome the Self, or when we return to that which we already are.

Awen is a spiritual journey, the way of the pilgrim.  When I look upon the symbol of Awen, I do not see three rays coming down and three rays going up, but two equal operational modes of divine nature.  Within each of us there is a divine energy that, through self-mastery, through physical and mental purification – by walking through twin fires – the way becomes clear and sure enough to maintain increasingly longer periods of contact, allowing the higher frequencies of Self to imbue us with its divine grace.

We are then asked to "focus on these questions":

-Have you learned any new ways to seek divine inspiration?

**I no longer seek divine inspiration, I allow it.  There is a profound difference.  Often what we seek is not what truly exists; or, that our perception of what we should be seeking is not wholly informed.  When we allow our self to spend time with Self, we begin to see the barriers that exist between the two.  When this insight becomes available we then seek to clear the path, or to find the most direct way.  From experience, less is more; truly, the art of not-doing is very applicable.  Bear in mind though, that not-doing is not doing nothing, but not getting in your own way, or not letting self hinder the journey to Self.   

-What does 'divine inspiration' mean to you?

‘Divine’ is both god-like and prophetic, and ‘inspiration’ is in-spirit. 

‘Divine’ is shining and illuminating for it brings light to all that is dark, it casts wisdom upon obscurity.   That which is divine is the maintainer of the trinity – the three made one, the triple spiral, the three pillars, the Triple Goddess, the Norns and the Muses.

‘Inspiration’ is poetic fury, or that which is made through passion.  Inspiration – in spirit – that which inspires us transports us in breathtaking speed to Self.  Regardless of whether we are ready, or the course has been cleared.  It is the burst of wisdom-knowing that falls upon us and just as quickly is gone, often leaving us feeling lost and suddenly darkened.   

Divine Inspiration then is self inside Self.  In the Havamal, the ‘Sayings of High One’, Woden relates:

Knowing I hung, upon a windy tree, nights all nine,

Spear wounded and given to Wod, self to my Self,

Upon this tree, which no man knows,

From where its roots originate.

(Desmond translation)

Woden’s name means “in wod”, or “in óðr”; explaining that he was divinely inspired, that his mind was aflame with spiritual truth; a condition well know among the tribes of Old Europe.

Likewise, The Book of Leinster (3895-3905) relates the Fourteen Streams of Scholarship:

Fele and innruccus (science and integrity),

Comgne and genelach (history and genealogy),

Immas and dichetal (great knowledge and chanting),

Anamain and brethugud (poetic meter and legal judgment),

Teinm laeda and ler forcetail (breaking open of poems and diligent teaching),

Idna láme and lanamnais (purity of the hand [deeds] and partnership / relationship),

Idna beoil and foglomma (purity of the mouth [speech] and learning).

Here, great knowledge  is that which streams, which flows, which pours not down from above but is a wellspring within.

-What does the Awen add to your life/spiritual practice?

**There is nothing else but Awen / Imbas / Óðr.  It is our animating spark, that which allows us to walk about and experience the world.  Once this thread is cut, the body dies.  There are those who are thread-bare, and those who are intricately woven, but for all of us, the weave exists.  Awen then is the rope to which we hold, the divine umbilicus, the sacred lotus, it is nothing less than remembrance.

Heart in Hand ..