Whole Being: Life Alchemy
Being, Belonging, Becoming
Mythopoetics
Where Story Becomes Alchemy
Welcome to Mythopoetics—a space where stories breathe, unravel, and reweave themselves. Here, narrative is not decoration; it is alchemy. It is a cauldron where myth, memory, and meaning mix, ferment, and transfigure. Stories are not static—they are organisms, shapeshifting with each telling, growing roots into our psyches and branches into the world.
In this space, myth is not locked in ancient texts. It is alive, tangled in the seasons, humming in the marrow of our bones, whispering in the language of symbols. These are stories that refuse to be confined, stories that spiral through time, connecting us to our ancestors, the natural world, and the mystery of existence. They bridge the gap between the seen and the unseen, the personal and the cosmic.
Step into this fertile ground where myth and poetics intertwine. Let these stories touch the edges of your becoming, nourish your imagination, and remind you that you, too, are part of the great unfolding tale. Here, words are seeds, symbols are compost, and every story holds the potential to transform.
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Reimagining the Christmas Story: The Metaphor of Possibility
The Christmas story often unfolds as a tale of divinity wrapped in swaddling cloths—a moment where the eternal and the ephemeral converge. But what if we looked closer, peeling back the gilded traditions, and saw it not as a singular event, but as an invitation into the boundless possibilities inherent in all life?
A baby, any baby, is a universe unfolding. Their tiny hands, curled like nascent leaves, hold the possibility of forests. Their first breath, a whisper, carries the resonance of creation itself. The story of the Christ Child is not just about one extraordinary birth, but a reminder that every birth is extraordinary. Each child arrives carrying the potential to rewrite the world, to unearth what has been buried, to weave new threads into the fabric of existence.
The nativity, then, is not just about God becoming human. It’s about God continually birthing herself into the world. In this story, God is not the distant patriarch but the nurturing mother, the womb that holds and brings forth life. The Divine becomes the artisan of flesh and breath, stitching herself into the very fabric of our humanity. And if God births the world into being, then every mother becomes an echo of this cosmic creativity, and every child is an altar where heaven meets earth.
The manger becomes a metaphor for the unexpected places where holiness resides: the unpolished, the overlooked, the ordinary. Straw becomes the bedding for the infinite. The animals, quiet witnesses, embody the natural world's silent yet steadfast participation in miracles. Here, in this simple setting, the sacred and the mundane intertwine, reminding us that the divine is not "out there," but always right here.
And what of the child? A baby is a mystery, a seed of infinite potential. Each is a microcosm of creation, carrying within them the whispers of stars, the rhythm of oceans, the poetry of galaxies spinning in their DNA. When we cradle a newborn, we cradle the cosmos. To see a child is to glimpse the face of God, not because they are perfect, but because they embody the perfect possibility.
The Christmas story is not one story but many stories, threaded through time and culture. It is a hymn to hope, a dance of beginnings, a reminder that life itself is a gift. The Divine Mother births not just one child but all children, not just once but always. And every time we welcome a child into the world, we participate in that great act of creation, affirming that love is the only force capable of making something out of nothing.
This Christmas, may we find the story in every cradle, in every act of creation, and in every moment where possibility takes its first breath. And may we remember that the divine spark is not confined to a single manger but glows within us all.
The Becoming of a Bard: The Myth of Taliesin
Taliesin was an early Brittonic poet of Sub-Roman Britain whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the Book of Taliesin. Taliesin was a renowned bard who is believed to have sung at the courts of at least three kings.
Awen is a Welsh, Cornish, and Breton word for "inspiration" (and typically poetic inspiration). In Welsh mythology, awen is the inspiration of the poets, or bards; or, in its personification, Awen is the inspirational muse of creative artists in general.
What Taliesin teaches us is that, as Walt Whitman wrote centuries later, I am large, I contain multitudes. We are like Taliesin, constantly changing.
The story of Taliesin begins with the Goddess Ceridwen and her husband, Tegid Foel. They had twin children: Creirwy, whose name means "the most beautiful maiden," and Morfran, sometimes called Avagddu, which means "utter darkness," or "the most ill-favored man."
Morfran was doomed and fated with such ugliness that his mother couldn’t bear to look at him. She wanted to help her hideous son with his lot in life, so, to compensate Morfran for his ugliness, she looked for a spell to bestow upon him the gift of Awen. She loved her son and was willing to do anything to make a better life for him. One day she mounted her white horse and traveled across the countryside and up treacherous mountain trails to the secret monastery of alchemist monks at Dinas Afferaon. They allowed her to search the books of recipes and spells.
After much study, she found a spell to brew a magical cauldron of Inspiration. The spell called for herbs, roots, and flowers, some precious, some seasonal, some rare, and some from far reaching fields. Certain herbs had to be gathered at a particular time of day, or when the moon was full. It took a long time to gather these ingredients. Sometimes she was away for months to locate the rare ingredients. Once gathered, they must boil in a portion of water from the first melting of the season’s freshly thawed snow. She went to a great metalsmith to forge a giant cauldron in which to create the magical brew. This potion must be stirred as it boils for a year and a day, and none can be spilled, not one drop or she must begin again as the magic will be released within the spillage. She found an old shack hidden in the woods near a stream in which to place her cauldron. She carefully added the ingredients and lit the flame.
Artist: John William Waterhouse. 1849-1917, Italy.
Ceridwen was a Witch Goddess who had the great gifts of creating: the skill of magic, and the wisdom of making. Now she knew she could not attend to the potion constantly and it had to be guarded lest some spill out, so she set out to find some servants to stir and guard for the year and a day. In the woods not far from her hidden shack, she found a blind man called Morda and a child named Gwion Bach. They agreed to stay in the shack never leaving the cauldron unattended for the specified time, a year, and a day. The cauldron boiled day after day, steeping in wisdom and beginning the process to bring forth the Awen.
The cauldron in the little shack had boiled for one year. The routine had fallen into place over this year. Morda went out to collect more wood for the fire; even though he was blind, he could find his way, with memory and his cane. Gwion Bach stayed at the shack. One had to stay and watch the cauldron because the potion was never without a guardian. This became the duty of Gwion Bach because he always got too distracted when he went to collect firewood. He would climb trees or watch the fish swimming in the stream. His curiosity distracted him from his task. Out of frustration, the elder Morda decided not to send Gwion Bach into the forest anymore. So Gwion Bach stayed and watched over the cauldron.
Although accustomed to the simple shack, Gwion Bach was always curious and distracted. He found it difficult to watch the cauldron because there were so many things to look at. He had made friends with the spider in the corner. He marveled at her as she created intricate patterns when she first spun the web and he never tired of watching her. Then there was a squirrel that lived in the tree just outside the shack. He was always busy gathering acorns. What Gwion Bach loved to see the most was when the squirrel would leap from tree to tree. Cussing and cursing as was his custom, the old man returned late and stoked the fire. He was a very wise man and often gave guidance to young Gwion Bach, but he was also a cynical old man. He has experienced much in life, some good, some bad. This made him skeptical and guarded.
Artist: Jack B. Yeats, 1871 - 1957
He stirred the pot for the third and final time, feeling the anticipation of the next day when the potion would be finished, and this responsibility would be over. Soon tiredness overtook him. At midnight, when the first minutes of the final day arrived what looked like a bolt of lightning struck the cauldron. The fire flared up and the extra heat caused the brew to boil fiercely. Gwion Bach was curious to see the bubbling potion, so he climbed up on his stool and looked over the rim of the cauldron. He saw the bubbles rise to the surface and pop over and over. To him it was hypnotic.
Suddenly one of the bubbles popped and splattered, shooting potion into the air with 3 drops landing on his thumb. Out of both pain and reflex he retracted his hand and brought his thumb to his mouth to soothe the burn. In an instant the boy’s body was permeated with a glow as if he was lit from inside. The brew collapsed within itself, the cauldron cracked and broke in half. Not even a single drop remained. Gwion Bach felt suddenly different. He felt aware. He felt a peaceful feeling come over him and his heart that was already a loving heart filled to overflowing.
Poetic words spilled into his head for every sight that entered his gaze. He looked out of the doorway to the shack and saw the surrounding trees that had always been there. But now, he was aware of them in a different way. He felt them. He felt the earth under his feet and when he took a step, he felt as if he was walking on a net, but he was part of the web, he was attached by his own being which reached out with his light body, as if to hold hands with other light bodies of other species. He had a knowing, an awareness. He walked toward the door but did not feel dead dusty earth under his feet. Rather, he felt movement with each step. He felt life moving with him.
He stepped on waves that kept him anchored and he felt the air around him, holding him up the way a parent holds a child as they take their first steps. He felt this support and love in every molecule. He was experiencing each second one at a time yet all together he had Awen. He held his hands up and got lost in the patterns and lines that were books telling him stories.
Morda stirred from his sleep and upon noticing the empty cauldron let out a cry of shock. Gwion Bach woke from his hypnotic euphoria and looked up to see a red headed woman on a white horse approaching. It was time; the year and a day was up, and she came for the potion that should be ready. She, with the strength of a mother, came for what she needed for her child...
Cerridwen knew exactly what had transpired as she rode up to the shack. She felt the Awen as it entered Gwion, who put his thumb to his lips and tasted the “knowing.” Cerridwen’s anger turned into rage, and it poisoned the stream, sunk into the earth and killed the trees in the woods surrounding the shack. Her rage built as her horse galloped toward the boy.
She was furious now that Gwion Bach had taken the three drops meant for Avagddu. Gwion Bach was so awake and aware that he felt her anger like a fire coming from her heart. He knew instantly that he must escape.
Change
Said the sun to the moon,
You cannot stay
Change
Whispered the sun to the moon
You cannot linger
Change
Murmured the moon to the tides
All things move
Change
Spoke the fields to the grass
There is seed
then there is silence
then the blade
You must change
said the worm to the blossom—
not into a rose
but into flight
Petals must fall
for wings to catch wind
You are changing,
said death to the maiden—
your pale face
becomes memory
becomes myth
Are you willing to change?
asks the thought of the heart—
to endure the fire
to walk through the unraveling
to shape your sorrow
for the sake of the unnamed,
the still forming,
the not-yet-known
in the great turning
of the world’s dream
You will change,
say the stars to the sun,
say the night to the stars
As Ceridwen descended on him, Gwion with his newfound powers, had only to think in his mind of running fast and instantly he became a hare and ducked under the brush. Not to be thwarted however, Ceridwen shapeshifted into a greyhound and continued pursuit, mouth foaming and open with sharp teeth ready to clamp down. As she closed in on the boy, her teeth almost touching his tail, he jumped into a stream and became a fish, flowing with the water, swimming fast with every bend and turn of the channel. Ceridwen followed and became an otter, sharp claws ready to grasp, reaching with the fire of her rage. As her paws brushed his scales, Gwion jumped out of the water and became a wren, only to be followed by Ceridwen who became the swifter bird as hawk. Darting up and falling again like a violent ballet they twisted and turned in the chase. Finally, Gwion spied a pile of winnowed grain and dove into it while changing into a grain himself. He thought that he was well hidden, but Ceridwen became a hen and pecked her way through the grain, eventually managing to swallow Gwion.
Cerridwen’s rage was destructive. As a hen, she would intend to kill Gwion, the grain of wheat now in her belly. But the boy was in the process of transformation within Cerridwen’s womb. In the spiral of time and after the fullness of the light of nine full moons, she would give birth. She knew this child to be Gwion and waited for her time to finally kill him. But, once he was reborn, he was a babe, so fair beyond any, and she fell in love with this child of light. She had not the heart to kill him outright. Anger can be tempered and calmed with love, and the heart can soften. So, when Ceridwen saw her child, her anger subsided. Gwion has been transformed and reborn. To gain knowledge or understanding, it is necessary to "die" or at least give up your previous form, as Gwion did. He changed into various animals and finally into a new person all together, the same ingredients just rearranged in the cauldron of the womb. New mother Ceridwen tied the child in a magical leather bag containing a bag of herbs she had collected over nine months and threw him into the river. He was swept up by the waters and into the sea. He sailed away in his little bag, away from the land, and the current rocked and danced him in the light of the moon and the dark. The moon knows our hearts and reflects love back to us. The babe was in this love light as he sailed the sea, a small package with such a large potential.
The tightly wrapped bag went wherever the river went and was adrift for a long time, but he was calm and never cried. He never fought his way out of the bag. He aged not a single day during his journey under the changing moon. He had the Awen with him.
In a nearby fishing village lived a king. This king had a temper as we find so often in powerful rulers. King Gwyddno had a son, Prince Elphin, with whom he had placed high hopes that often ended in disappointment. The king was overly critical to the point that Elphin quite gave up on trying to be a wise prince Elphin had always been an overly cheerful young man, yet it covered a hidden pain. He was like the prodigal son from the parable except he hadn't left home. He managed to overspend at the taverns, making merry with the fisherman. Elphin felt his father's disappointment and it pained him in his heart. He was so afraid to displease him that he gave up all hope to win his father’s approval. Pain and fear ruled his heart, though he hid it well. He preferred the company of the fishermen. These fishermen worked hard but they got paid by the day from the royal treasury no matter the haul. No one became rich from fishing in the kingdom of Gwyddno. Elphin was quite jolly but rarely successful at fishing or anything else for that matter. The village being so near the waters of rivers, sea, and pond that it counted on the salmon haul from the nets. They had many festivals surrounding fishing. Beltane, or May Day as is also known, was the most celebrated festival for it was the height of spring and warm at the shore. The haul from the nets of May could make a man quite wealthy. King Gwyddno was in the habit every May eve of giving a prize the value of twenty trained horses or twenty of Britain's finest hunting dogs. This year he chose Elphin in hopes that his son would for once do well. Elphin wasted no time. He waded into the shallow sea where he hauled the wide nets ashore, pulling them out too early. His impatient temperament made him a bad fisherman. Each time he pulled the nets he found no salmon at all. He felt worthless and pained.
Elphin was feeling very low. On the last day, he noticed something on the pole at the weir, not a fish but a leathern bag. Each day Elphin felt unlucky but now he felt that he was a fisher of trash. He pulled at the leathern bag and opened it to have his eyes flooded with bright light. Elphin exclaimed, “Behold a radiant brow!" Taliesin emerged from the bag singing a great epic poem, the Awen shinning bright from his brow.
Together Elphin and the babe Bard Taliesin returned to Gwyddno's castle hall. The prince asked to see his father, excited to show him the bright child he had caught. He was feeling such love from Awen that he forgot the pain over his fathers’ constant disappointment that he had been hiding.
Upon entering the hall, Gwyddno asked Elphin if he had caught plenty of fish. The babe Taliesin was wrapped in fishing rags. He was not a salmon although he looked deceivingly so.
Elphin seemed so happy that Gwyddno had gained false hope. Elphin told him that he had gotten a much better catch and held up the child and exclaimed, "I caught a Poet!" as the rags fell away.
Gwyddno erupted in anger thinking that not only did his son catch no fish but now thinking he lost his mind. He shouted to leave his sight. It was then that the babe Taliesin spoke, as the Bards relate:
I am Taliesin
I sing perfect meter which will last till the world's end
I know why an echo answers again
I know why a cow has horns and why a woman loves a man
how many drops a shower of rain
I know why there are scales on fish and black feet on swans
I have been a blue salmon
a dog, a stag, a roebuck on the mountain
a stock, a spade, an axe in the hand
a buck, a bull, a stallion
upon a hill I was grown as grain
reaped and in the oven thrown
out of that roasting I fell to the ground
pecked up and swallowed by the black hen
I have been dead,
I have been alive,
I am Taliesin
The child had completed his transformation. Elphin had not caught what he set out to catch, as many of us discover when casting our own nets. We think we are looking for one thing but finding another. Elphin had not thought about a child just yet, but once he had Taliesin, he loved him. Elphin had his own pain but once he was in the presence of Awen, he saw his own gifts. If he had not had a life of careless and clumsy mistakes, he might have become arrogant. It was his pained life that made him a better man when he was in the light of Awen. He was able to see the good in contrast to the bad with the light of the bright Taliesin. The King came to love Taliesin and poetry filled the castle and beyond.
Do you see yourself in the Taliesian story? Can you count the changes of your life?
Meeting The Mari: Mari Lwyd Knocks
The sky, vast and cold, stretches like the skin of an ancient drum, taut and waiting for the rhythm of winter to begin. The sky thickens, a blanket of silence draped over the land, and somewhere in the cold, there is a knock at the door. Out of the deep silence, she arrives, her form a fleeting echo of something older than words. In the depths of winter, the veil between worlds thins. Draped in ribbons, shadows clinging to her like long-lost kin, her skeletal grin glints pale as starlight. The horse skull she wears is not death, but a reminder—there is always more life beneath the surface.
The Mari Lwyd—the Grey Mare—waits at the threshold. Her presence is not a ghost of the past, not a relic, but as a force that pulls the present into remembrance…. a reminder of the earth’s deep rhythms, those forgotten cycles of life, death, and renewal that continue to pulse beneath the frost.
Her steps, slow and deliberate, hum with the pulse of a world we’ve forgotten, a world where the veil between the living and the dead was thin as breath. She is not just a relic, but the embodiment of winter itself—a force that strips everything back to its bones. Yet, in her cold grip, she carries the seed of something more—something waiting to be reborn.
Before there were churches, before roads carved the land into pieces, there were horses. Sacred. Sovereign. Wild. The Mari Lwyd comes from that ancient lineage, when horses were more than beasts—they were conduits between worlds, the living link between the human and the divine. Her origins are buried deep in the Celtic soil, intertwined with stories of gods and goddesses, of Rhiannon, the horse goddess who carried the weight of sovereignty and the mysteries of the underworld.
The Mari Lwyd, too, carries these stories in her bones, stories of a time when horses were honored as more than tools—they were the keepers of wisdom, the ones who could walk the line between life and death. In her hollow eyes, we see not emptiness, but the reflection of everything we’ve forgotten—the pulse of the earth beneath the frost, the way the land itself holds memory. Her skeletal grin is a reflection of what we try to forget: that life and death are not separate. They dance together, intertwined, one always leading the other. She is winter’s breath, cold and sharp, but carrying the seeds of what is yet to come.
The Mari Lwyd doesn’t just knock at doors; she knocks at the walls we’ve built around ourselves, the stories we’ve forgotten to tell. She demands more than fear or reverence. She asks for our wit, our poetry, our humor—our willingness to play with the darkness instead of shrinking from it. In her presence, we remember that to survive the long night, we must gather, not in dread, but in shared stories and laughter. Winter’s bite is sharp, but it’s in the resilience of the heart that we find warmth.
She challenges us, not with the cold, but with the truth that we are all part of this endless turning of the seasons. Life never truly stops, even in the stillness of the longest night.
She is a gatekeeper, a trickster, a reminder that the cycle of death and life is one we cannot escape, only embrace. The earth beneath her hooves may seem frozen, but it is not still—it’s dreaming of spring, of what will come after-- dormancy and bloom.
In her wake, we remember how to stand in the cold and see the beauty in its starkness. Her challenge is not just to endure the winter, but to meet it with open hands and open hearts, knowing that what feels like an ending is only a pause, a turning of the wheel. She is not death’s herald; she is the whisper that life is always waiting underneath.
But as the world changed, so did she. The old gods folded themselves into the new stories. The Mari Lwyd walked into the world of Christian myth, merging her ancient meaning with new symbols of light and renewal. No longer the wild mare of the Otherworld, she became the creature of midwinter ritual, arriving between Christmas and New Year, a liminal presence asking to be welcomed. In her approach, there is a challenge: Can we meet the darkness of the season, the cold grip of death, with wit, with song? Can we remember the resilience that lives within us?
The Mari Lwyd carries the weight of the land’s memory, its gods and goddesses etched into the bones she wears. She belongs to the deep time of the earth, to the eternal dance of soil and seed, death and birth. Yet she walks among us still, not as a myth, but as a reminder of how resilient we are—how we can meet the long night not with fear, but with song. Her rituals survive, though they have changed form. In some places, she still comes, still knocks, still waits for someone brave enough to open the door. The Mari Lwyd is carried through villages, her horse skull adorned with ribbons, her hollow eyes echoing with the weight of old stories.
When the world began to modernize, when cities grew and the land was divided, the Mari Lwyd was almost forgotten. Her knock faded into memory; her bones left behind in the stable of folklore. But even now, there are places where she is revived, where the old stories are sung again, where the cold knock of winter is met with warmth and laughter. The Mari Lwyd, with her grinning skull, her ribbons trailing like threads of forgotten memory, walks among us still.
As she knocks, she asks us to remember. Not just her, but ourselves. She asks us to gather, to sing, to exchange stories and words, to use our voices to resist the stillness of the grave. She knocks, and we are called to answer—not with fear, but with the knowledge that winter is just one part of the cycle. Spring will come. Life will return. But first, we must meet the cold, the darkness, the skeletal mare, and remember the beauty that lies within. We are part of the winter’s transformation, part of the story that continues to be told, in the frost on the window, in the breath of the cold air.
She is not gone. She cannot be. Her steps are too old, too woven into the soil itself. The Grey Mare reminds us that we are part of a larger story—one that doesn’t begin and end with us, but stretches back through the ages and forward into the unknown. Her knock is winter’s call, but also the whisper of spring waiting in the wings. She carries the tension of life and death, reminding us that one always makes room for the other. The Mare stands at the threshold, inviting us to step into the deeper mystery: that even in the stillness, life is always unfolding. She is our reminder that we are always living in the balance between what was and what is becoming.
