to the Altar of the Heart I come to make my offering again.
This time You accept it and say:
“May its fire light the way to the worship of my family.”
I wrote the words above a few years ago when I offered my heart to Gwyn on an altar in meditation (I’d tried once before and that time He rejected it!).
Since then my heart has been with Gwyn in the Otherworld. I first saw it again around six months ago in a shamanic journey in an icy pool thawing out.
In a meditation for Gwyn’s Feast with the Monastery of Annwn last September Gwyn returned my heart and said that the Heart of Annwn now beats in my chest as it beats in the chests of all living creatures.
When I returned to those words in my prayer book and looked at the image it was no longer my heart on the altar but Gwyn’s and I received the gnosis that if I succeed in founding a physical monastery He wants an altar to His heart.
This happened after I finished my ‘Mystics of the Sacred Heart’ series. It seems that an exchange of hearts of sorts has happened between us after all.
Through my recent visit to London and to the Tyburn Convent I found out about the Roman Catholic devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. I have since been reading further on the subject and have been astonised by the parallels between my gnosis of Gwyn’s heart as the Heart of Annwn and the experiences of the Christian mystics of the sacred heart.
In this series I will be sharing the story of the origins of the devotion to the Sacred Heart and discussing how the visions of these mystics relate to my experiences.
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The devotion to the Sacred Heart originated from the devotion to the Sacred Wounds of Jesus. There were five in total. The first four were the wounds to His hands and feet from the nails when He was crucified. The fifth was the wound in His side from the Spear of Longinus by which He was pierced to ensure He was dead. From this wound poured blood and sweat.
Associations between the Sacred Wounds and the Sacred Heart began in the Benedictine and Cistercian monasteries in the 11th – 12th centuries. In Sermon 61 St Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 – 1153) speaks of ‘the soul of the martyr’ being ‘safe’ ‘in the heart of Jesus whose wounds were opened to let it in’. (1)
In the 13th century, in ‘With You is the Source of Life’, St Bonaventure (1221 – 1274) wrote: ‘“They shall look on him whom they pierced”. The blood and water, which poured out at that moment, were the price of our salvation. Flowing from the secret abyss of our Lord’s heart as from a fountain, this stream gave the sacraments of the Church the power to confer the life of grace, while for those already living in Christ it became a spring of living water welling up to life everlasting.’ (2)
The last of Christ’s lifeblood was seen as pouring as an offfering from His heart. This resonates with my vision Gwyn showed me of His death, pierced by a spear, in raven form, hanging upside down on a yew over the Abyss in a sacrifice in which He gave every last drop of His blood to ‘set the world to rights’ following the devastation wrecked by his battling with His rival, Lleu / Gwythyr.
In a follow-up story I wrote Mabon won a cup containing Gwyn’s blood from the Abyss and used it to heal Nudd, Gwyn’s father, ‘the Fisher King’. It is interesting to note that abyss imagery occurs in the writings of Bonaventure.
It seems no coincidence that in a later legend the blood and sweat of Jesus was taken in the Holy Grail by Joseph of Arimathea to Britain and buried near Glastonbury Tor – a site sacred to Gwyn. When Joseph rested wearily on his staff the Glastonbury Thorn sprung up giving name to Wearyall Hill.
In my visions when Gwyn is killed by His rival on Calan Mai the hawthorns blossom from His blood. Could the Christian legend be based on an earlier myth wherein a cup containing the blood from Gwyn’s Sacred Heart was buried?
Over the past few years the Heart of Annwn has become increasingly important in the mythos Gwyn has gifted me and in my devotional practices.
For me, the Heart of Annwn is Gwyn’s heart, inherited from His mother, Anrhuna, Mother of Annwn, and also the ever-beating heart of Annwn itself.
I believe that, like Hades and Hades, Hel and Hel, are both Deities and Otherworlds, Gwyn, who is associated with Gwynfyd is one with His land as well.
The Heart of Annwn literally became the heart of my practice two years ago when I began playing its beat and chanting to align myself with Gwyn’s heartbeat. This led to the formulation of the Rule of the Heart within the Monastery of Annwn – following our hearts in alignment with the Heart of Annwn.
In this post I will be sharing two of the core stories of the Heart of Annwn.
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The Heart of the Dragon Mother
Gwyn has shown me that the Heart of Annwn once beat in the chest of His mother, Anrhuna, the Mother of Annwn, when She was a nine-headed dragon. When She was slain Vindos / Gwyn ate Her heart. The Heart of Annwn became His and this gave Him sovereignty over Annwn as King.
“Now,” the ghost of Anrhuna turned to her corpse, “there is a rite amongst the dragons of Annwn – as you are the only one of my children left here you must eat my heart.”
The boy swallowed nervously as with a single bite of her ghost jaws she tore it from her chest and offered it to him, big and bloody, large and slippery, uncannily still beating. “My heart is the Heart of Annwn. If you succeed in eating it all, its power will be yours and you will be king.”
“But it is so much bigger than I and I have little appetite.”
“Little bite by little bite and you will be king.”
The boy very much wanted to be king. He needed his kingship within him. He bared his teeth and bit in, took one bite, then another. As he ate, he grew. He became a mighty wolf, a raging bull, a bull-horned man, a horned serpent, finally, a black dragon. As he tore and devoured the last pieces of the heart he spread his wings to fill the darkest reaches of the Deep. He roared, “I am King of Annwn! I will rule the dead! I will build my kingdom from the bones of dead dragons and the light of dead stars! I will bring joy to every serpent who has known sorrow and I will take vengeance on my enemies!”
Weary and full he slept and when he awoke he was just a boy with a large heart that felt too big for his body.
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The Hidden Heart
In another story, in which Arthur raids Annwn, killing the King of Annwn and stealing His cauldron, Gwyn instructs His beloved, Creiddylad, to cut His heart from His chest and help hide it so that Arthur cannot take the Heart of Annwn.
Gwyn gave Creiddylad a Knife. “Cut my heart from my chest. Give it to my winged messengers and tell them to hide it in a place that even I could never find It.”
“Do what?”
“I will not die.”
“Worse – you will be heartless.”
One of my practices around this story was receiving the honour of finding Gwyn’s heart and returning it to Him and helping Him to return to life.
‘I knew it was a death unlike any other but still I heard the beating of your heart…
Your hounds dug wildly beneath trees, bloodying their frantic paws to find only the hearts of dead badgers,
sniffed suspiciously at the edge of pools where I searched through reeds as if looking for a baby in the bulrushes, plunged in and emerged draped in duck-weed.
We snatched a still-beating heart from a bear’s claws (not yours).
We searched every cave for a heart-shaped box. When we found one and the keys to the lock inside was only a locket and a love letter in an illegible hand.
When we had searched everywhere in Annwn we rode across Thisworld following your fading heart beat.
We found your heart in the unlikeliest of places.
Clutching it tightly, fearing every time it skipped a beat, we galloped back to Annwn with our hearts beating just as wildly.
Through the fortresses within fortresses…
Into your empty chest we placed your still-beating heart.’
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Gwyn has revealed a lot about the Heart of Annwn and I believe there is more to come. Recently I had a vision of Gwyn as a black dragon with His heart visible in His chest bearing an important message. He appears in this form when He brings tidings for the future. What will be the future of the Heart of Annwn? What stories from the past remain to be disclosed? I share what I know with gratitude and await further revealings.
I didn’t go to Tyburn to ‘go to Tyburn’. (1) I went to London to attend an introductory weekend as a prerequisite to a three year shamanic healing course. But I ended up staying in a hotel in Tyburn as it was relatively cheap. When I visit a place I like to do a bit of historical research before I go and have a map of the land past and present to help me connect with the spirits and this what I found out.
The Tyburn Tree
The dark but now absent centre of this place is the infamous Tyburn tree. It was the King’s Gallows from 1196 to 1783. It has also been known as the Elms, the Deadly Never Green Tyburn Tree and the Triple Tree (because it was a wooden triangle on three legs – a ‘three legged mare’ or ‘three legged stool’). The triangular traffic island where it once stood mirrors its structure.
All manner of criminals were executed there by being hanged, drawn, then quartered. Many of the victims were religious people of the Catholic faith – friars, priors, abbots, monks and hermits, who resisted King Henry VIII’s separation of the Church of England from legal ties to the Catholic Church and papal authority of Rome and the dissolution of the monasteries.
The Carthusian Martyrs, 18 monastics of the Carthusian Order from the London Charterhouse, were executed between 1535 and 1537. As a result of the Lincolnshire Rising, the Pilgrimage of Grace and Bigod’s Rebellion over 250 rebels met their deaths again including large numbers of monastics. Many were northerners, such as the bowbearer of the Forest of Bowland, and people from my home county, Lancashire, joined the rebellions.
This had meaning for me as a polytheistic monastic because these Catholics were standing for the freedom to practice their religion and to continue to lead monastic lives. The anglicisation of the church and dissolution of the monasteries removed much of the mysticism and sanctity from Christianity in England.
Tyburn Convent
In 1901 the Tyburn Convent was established near the site of the Tyburn Tree with a shrine to the Tyburn Martyrs. This order of Benedictine nuns was founded by Mother Marie Adèle Garnier as the Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Montmartre in Paris in 1898. When the nuns were forced to leave due to restrictions on monasteries in France they made their home in London.
What is unique and beautiful about their tradition is their perpetual adoration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. What this entails is that, at all times, day and night, at least one nun is kneeling before the eucharist worshipping Jesus’s heart.
Mother Marie is ‘honoured and remembered’ for her ‘ardent love of Christ’, ‘her heroic love of God and neighbour, her spirit of prayer, divine contemplation, rich mystical and spiritual doctrine, humility, obedience, patience, simplicity and purity of heart, and above all for her spirit of total self-abandon to the Holy Will of God, which she declared to be her unique good.’ (2)
This is one of her prayers –
‘O blessed portion! Lot worthy of envy! My heart is ready, O Lord, my heart is ready! Here I am, speak, act, inflame me, unite me to Yourself!
O Mary, O my tender Mother entrust me to Jesus, love hidden in the adorable Eucharist. Henceforth make my life become a repeating with you: I look for nothing other than Him… I know only Him alone…
Jesus, my soul is thirsting for You so unite it to Your Heart that no longer may I be able to live without You.’ (3)
When the nuns make their act of consecration they speak a prayer that has been spoken in their communities since Pope Leo XIII consecrated the world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the 11th of June 1899.
‘Lord Jesus, Redeemer of the human race, look down upon us humbly prostrate before Your altar. Yours we are, and Yours we wish to be; but to be more surely united with You, behold we freely consecrate ourselves today to Your Most Sacred Heart. Many, indeed, have never known You; many, too, despising your precepts, have rejected You. Have mercy on them all, most merciful Jesus, and draw them to Your Sacred Heart…’ (4)
The Sacred Heart and Healing
I had never come across the perpetual adoration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus before. It resonated deeply with me because over the past few years my patron God, Gwyn ap Nudd, has revealed His heart to be the Heart of Annwn, which He inherited from His mother, Anrhuna, the Mother of Annwn.
My personal practice has increasingly involved devotion to the Heart of Annwn. Keeping the heart beat by drumming and chanting. Meditating, journeying on and recording the stories gifted to me about Gwyn’s Sacred Heart.
Before I set off to London I was instructed by my guides to make a pilgrimage walk to the Tyburn Tree and the Tyburn Convent. I was told I must take ‘purity, grace and the pain of the dead’ in a small obsidian spearhead I was gifted by a fellow nun of Annwn and leave it as an offering.
I did this on the first day in the early evening after I left the course. I was disappointed to find the stone and three young oak trees put there in 2014 to mark the site of the Tyburn tree had been removed. I can only guess this was done because people were hanging about the site or leaving offerings. In spite of the rush of traffic and people I paused and spoke some prayers then made my offering at the foot of the London Plane tree on the island.
I went to the Tyburn Convent and paused to pay my respects to the Tyburn Martyrs and shared my gratitude for the work of the nuns and gained a sense of release and peace and of our unity in the adoration of the Sacred Heart.
When I got back to my hotel room, although I didn’t have my drum, I played the beat of the Heart of Annwn on my knee, sung one of my chants, again imagining my offering of song as uniting with the devotion of the Tyburn Nuns.
My weekend course, The Shaman’s Pathway, with Simon Buxton of the Sacred Trust, was profoundly moving and deeply healing. Whilst the first day was more introductory on the second day we practiced ecstatic union with our spirits, healing each other, and the culimination was a powerful group healing ceremony in which I was honoured to take the role of drummer.
In the following of my heart, in alignment with Gwyn’s heart, the Heart of Annwn, I feel healing has taken place and I have received confirmation I’m on the right path in pursuing the three year training to become a shamanic healer.
the mountains would stop talking to each other, the hills would lose their nerve and flee, the rivers would stop rushing down, turn their tides to the source, vanish back to Annwn,
and the sea, oh the vast sea! The mournful waves would lose their songs, the sea-horses their nostrils of foam and proud crests. Water would be water no longer and salt would not be salt. There would be nothing to quench our thirst or cleanse our wounds.
With the marching trees we would be rootless vagabonds for the snakes beneath our houses and the serpents beneath our towerblocks would shake the foundations tear them down.
The animals would run away through the caves and cracks in the earth and all the fish would disappear into the Lune Deep and the birds would fly away on the winds before the sky did his thing of crashing down like a fallen bird or a fallen wrestler.
If Your heart ceased to beat oh Gatherer of Souls, would our hearts too not cease to beat? Then who would gather us?
Oh lonely lonely souls!
Grateful are we that on the moment of Your death Your heart skips but one beat then continues to beat in Your sleep and in Your dreams.
*A poem for Gwyn ap Nudd on Calan Mai when He loses His battle for Creiddylad to Gwythyr and ‘dies’ and retreats to Annwn to sleep for the summer.
Link to two videos on the Monastery of Annwn website recording beats and chants of the Heart of Annwn – ‘Slow Beat’ and ‘Hear the Heart’. These originated from my learning a healing heartbeat from Jason Smalley’s Healing Drum course at the Way of the Buzzard in 2022.
The Cell of Sister Patience 