Cernunnos’ Memory

The accidental discovery nearly sent me flying! CERNUNNOS?!! The Celtic God’s earliest depiction is in caves in Northern Italy?! And I had been pushing him away this entire time! He truly was an ancestor! Suddenly, and without warning or control, my mind was catapulted back ten years – to the first teacher. I realised I’d been had. I hadn’t been taught a thing! Merely platitudes and manipulation. Flashbacks to all the non-answers and diversions, micro facial expressions suddenly making sense.

She may have been the first, but she definitely wasn’t the last. False faced teachers were a dime a dozen in the pagan community. I set out to right my wrongs. I was no longer meek, no longer patient and certainly no longer looking up to anyone. I started to channel and draw, summoning the energy through the intensity of my intention. I began to write, I wanted to bitch, and who better to bitch to? Pagan Gods LOVE the truth when we finally see it. I would acknowledge the wrongs I had been waylaid with and set things back on their proper path. The rage burned as the years flashed before my eyes and the extent of the betrayal made itself further known.

“Dear Cernunnos, upon recent discovery that the earliest depiction of you is located within my family’s region in Italy, I realise that you have been a patient and persistent presence in my life, waiting for me to discover your ancient ways. I suspect now, that this connection has been made use of by others for their own purposes, via false promises, deception, sleight of hand and disguises. Despite purporting to teach, I’ve realised that in fact they were withholding the knowledge and guidance required, towards the strengthening of our connection. I leave the fate of those who broke their oaths to you in your hands, may your wild nature be truly shown in its fullest glory!

I HEREBY NOW RECLAIM YOU,

YOUR POWERS, GUIDANCE AND GUARDIANSHIP,

AS MY ANCESTRAL, CULTURAL AND DNA BIRTHRIGHT,

THROUGH THE BLOOD OF BOTH MY MATERNAL AND FRATERNAL, LIVING AND DECEASED ANCESTORS.

I HEREBY CAST OUT AND BANISH ALL IMPOSTERS OF EVERY NAME AND FACE, ESPECIALLY INCLUDING NOLSIA IN ALL HER FORMS AND FACES – BE GONE!!! FROM MY ANCESTRAL CONNECTION! I RECLAIM ALL THAT WAS DISHONORABLY AND DECEPTIVELY WITHHELD FROM ME WITHOUT MY INFORMED CONSENT OR KNOWLEDGE. I GIVE CONSENT TO RE-BALANCING THE ABUSE OF POWER FOR PERSONAL PROFIT.”

The rage still burning, I blew it into a candle, scribed the name and image of the God into its wax and covered it. I knew I needed to settle down. It had been months and with each memory, the layers of truth and realization were still unravelling. Weak witches need to feed. Unfortunately, in my naiveté I began my journey as the food.

All these memories and realisations were keeping me stuck in a place I had no use for, so I decided that a salt bath would ground me and pull out any infection left in my energetic field from the degenerates. I set about my usual ritual. At the last minute as the ritual was forming, I brought the candle with me and decided to light it so that Cernunnos could stand as my witness.

As I eased into the water and my body started to relax, a darkness immediately descended in the room like a thick fog of pitch blackness. I could feel myself drifting into it and yet it was filling up the room. I began to float, somewhere in my conscious brain I wondered if I should get out, I wasn’t sure if I was falling asleep – this was a fleeting thought that soon I couldn’t grasp. The image of the stag began to form in my mind. I felt like I was dreaming yet completely grounded and aware. There was a pulse emanating from me, and, around me. I opened my eyes a little further and the only light in the room stemmed from the candle casting eerie images through the steam and strange shadows and reflections within the water. I let go, and allowed the connection to occur. The stag head started to swirl and images begun an old story, that I’d never crossed paths with in all my years of study, and yet it was a story I felt in my bones, that somehow it was familiar and I already knew it. I was cast back in time to the very beginning. An apprentice must always start with the creation story and proper introduction.

THE INTRODUCTION:

Old God. Star Being - his energy came in with the rubble from the big bang, as the rubble came together to form the earth, his energy was within it. The earth eventually formed as we know it now. He came to be with the emergence of the first beasts. The living breath and force that drives them. When I look to my ancestors, from the people’s point of view, he was a Being of Cosmic Conscious Energy – a force, here on earth. They would connect to the stars to connect to him. According to them, He is the star descended to earth in the form of the Wild God of forests and beasts. Part man, part beast and bearing the stag horns.

He can be seen as a spirit man; however, he is more beast than man, and, will only present as man to deliver instruction, prophecy or message. He is the hairy one of the forests that taught the people the arts of taming wild cattle and butter & cheese making. He is the earth carrying the cosmic stars’ power. He is the woods and wild animals and the rivers and streams. He is the channel through which people could connect, he is also guide and guardian and the balance – the existence of life itself manifest. He is the God of the wild, the God of death, the God of life through hunting and fertility. He is the balance of the forest and ecosystem (a mission much larger than our present-day sentiments allow), the wild beasts as they sing, roar, growl, mate and play. He is the moss under feet, the dew and mist, protector, Green Man, Shaman of stars, growth of wood, leaf, root, stem, fruit and flower.

His first challenge to me was to take what had been shown and try to describe his essence: I looked further, I looked into every aspect shown, and this is what I saw.

Cernunnos is man, when man was beast. A part of this ecosystem, one of those who shifted and moved and ran with time as the seasons changed.

He was a consciousness that came with the earth as she was forming after the big bang, from atoms, and rock, and pieces of space debris. Through spinning, force and pressure, as her body came together to create a whole, his consciousness was the star dust within it, stemming from which world, we may never know.

As her completed body solidified and changed along with her atmosphere and gravity, into her form, his consciousness grew into being when the first creatures crawled up on land and began to roam the earth.

He was both, the beasts and the consciousness that connected them. Some died, others evolved. In cycles upon cycles and yet more cycles that continue to this day.

He was the moss and the air, as they also changed forms along with the earth and her ever developing environment. With each change, a new life form, a new balance would evolve and adapt and grow – until their very existence caused her to change again.

He is not the sanitized and disconnected man that we know now. He was our original prototype, the original man, one of the beasts. He still maintains that connection, even though we shun it, for he is within us all.

We too, are one of the beasts that still roam this earth, alas we have forgotten that part of our existence.

He is the chaos and the arousal, the wild screaming sex that brings about life. The blood and pain and panic of mortality, and – the star being from beyond that came to this earth that sparked it within Her. He is death and decay and rebirth.

He is the father consciousness of the trees – their elder. He is the balance and the abundance. He is all those things that remind us to experience the life of now, for we are mortal and every experience if lived fully will be a reminder of that mortality.

He shows us how to live, in balance. Letting things live, letting things die, in harmony whilst also being aware any moment, any breath, could be our last.

He is the joy of creation in the sprouting seed and blooming bud. He is the exhilaration of the hunt and the adrenaline of the hunted. He is the euphoria of death, just before the passing from this world into the next, the final act of mercy and compassion. He is every animal you’ve ever known and the seed of their true nature.

He is the medicine man, the wise man and the madman, the wild man in the woods, the one with the piercing stare, that answers your next question before you’ve even realised you were about to ask it.

He is the one that travels on certain nights of the year, when there’s a marking of the seasons, knocking on doors, upholding traditions, and bringing gifts from the Gods as stories and blessings to the house hold.

You’ve known him as children, in his sanitized form, that later the adults will deny whilst wishing within their hearts he were true, if only they had allowed themselves to answer the strange knock at the door.

He is every animal you have ever known, freedom in his veins, beholden to no rules except those of nature and balance. He is practical and skilful, knowing how to use everything around him. He is the passer of knowledge and the bringer of messages from beyond. He can show you the way, by leading you deep into the forest, where you will lose your direction and find your true nature.

He’s had many names and many stories, reappearing through so many cycles, and always, we beasts, find our way back to him again to be reborn and try again.

Before you are reborn, you hear a deep, deep voice that has a note which sounds like tinkling water and it tells you, you’ve been here before: it says:

“I am not found in temples of stone unless you call me there. I am found in the beating of wings, the rustle of thick canopies, the groaning of ancient wood. I am in the babbling brook, the roaring river and the instinctive determination of salmon swimming against the current to spawn. I am in the moss and mushrooms and decay of the forest floor, the song of grass and whispers in the shadows of dappled sunlight. I am the storm, the rain, the thrashing hail, the howl of wolves and thundering hooves in flight. I am the serpent strike, and dancing tribes, the camp fire and wild forest fire. I am the hunger pains and full bellies, the scream of orgasm and the scream of birth. I am the challenge of youth and knowing of age. I am the strengthening and the weakening. I am the connection and communication between all beasts, including you, and I connect and navigate through the stars. I am your ancestor. I will be your descendant. You learn through calling me.”

I was brought back suddenly, sitting up in the bath, partly shocked, partly enthralled and I knew that I had stumbled across something big – far bigger than me! And one thing I knew for certain; I would be allowing absolutely nobody to stand in my way again!

THE END