Cerh Deer Priestess and Keeper of the Drum - Day Workshop

Last year you may recall I went on the Elen of the Ways retreat. (you can read about it here)

During my time at the retreat, I sat next to a altar dedicated to a rather sinister looking image of a deer skull masked pregnant woman holding a shamanic drum. This was not Elen, the Goddess I had come to call my patron, but a much older figure and something about her resonated with me.

I asked Suzi, who had painted the picture, who she was and she told me that her name is Cerh. A deer priestess who demanded to be painted. At that point in time that is all I knew about Cerh but I wanted to know more!

Altar to Cerh at the 2013 Elen retreat.

Via Facebook I learnt about a day workshop focusing on Cerh, run by Samantha and Suzi and I booked my space eagerly.

I travelled to Esther's early last Sunday (27th July) and from there we would get a lift with Siân 

to the workshop venue.

We arrived on time to Suzi's house and was warmly welcomed by many familiar and new faces. All drawn to to learn about Cerh.

The Temple of Elen was set up in the back garden and a thrill ran through me as I recalled my dedication to Elen in the same space last year.

The altar was set up with two paintings of Cerh and I felt it was quite profound for me as I am pregnant, which is how Suzi depicts her.

Cerh painted by Suzi Edwards Goosec https://www.facebook.com/ArtworkOfSuziGoose

I won't go into too much detail here about the workshop. Sam and Suzi shared with us their thoughts about Cerh and slowly the deer skull mask was lifted to see that she is not a scary as she first appears. Yes, she is primal, reminding us of humanities true roots. Of blood, bone, feather and fur.

She is not a deity like Elen. She is Us. Our ancestor, our past. When the land is all we knew and we lived closely with the Earth, not against it.

During the workshop, we drummed and sang to Cerh. We were taken on a me dative path working to connect with her and we were blessed with a gift. mine was a fossil stone, like an ammonite. The spiral of life.

We broke for lunch and then journeyed on to Epping Forest to continue our own exploration of Cerh.

We stood in a large circle and we each painted ochre on our foreheads using our fingers before going off into the forest.

I went and sat by a tree which was surrounded by ferns. I felt like I was quite hidden from view, like a fawn hiding waiting for it's mother to return.

I sat and sung softly to myself, feeling my baby move inside my womb. I was content. This was much better then work.

After a while we were summoned back to circle by drum beat and as we gathered we all joined in on the drumming and chanting. We were even joined by some yapping dogs!

As we walked back to the car, Esther showed me the stone she had found during her quiet time and I was shocked to see it contained a fossil. Coincidence indeed!

The fossil Esther found in Epping forest. Photo used with permission.

I really enjoyed the workshop day. The other ladies (and gentleman) were all lovely and they all wished me well in my pregnancy. It was suggested that a pray tree was set up so that when I do go into labour, the participants of the workshop could send me love and healing.

photo of the Cerh workshop attendees by Lisa Hill

Cerh is still lingering in corner of my thoughts, next year a whole weekend retreat is planned to discover more but I have a feeling I will be too busy to attended.

To find out more then please join the Elen of the Ways page on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/278863855190/

Wylde Embers

Hi everyone!

Sorry for the lack of blog posts of late. Had a lot of personal issues to sort out over the last couple of weeks.

I have also been keeping busy doing my pyrography. I have now created a Facebook page for my wood burning which I have called Wylde Embers.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wylde-Embers-Pyrography/502518209783842

I have created several boxes including a Elen of the ways box and a Avalon tarot box for Zee.

Elen of the ways box featuring a doe. 

Zee asked for a box to keep her Avalon oracle cards safe and asked that it included images associated with Avalon.

I got busy sketching out some ideas on paper which I then drew on to the box. As I worked more ideas for images came to mind and the box turned out to be one of the easiest designs I had made. I look forward to next weekends moot when I can give it to her.

This was based on a image her husband took of her greeting the sunrise.

Have also been creating totem key rings and I made a key ring for one of my work colleagues of his pet dog Diesel.

I have been a digital artist for over ten years, I love creating art in this medium but I had a hard time explaining to others how the images are created. With pyrography nothing needs to be explained. You can easily tell that all the markings have been created using a hot tool.

Everyone seems to really like my new art medium and I am loving my new craft. You can find me busy burning designs almost every day and I am getting commissions.

One such commission was for a key ring featuring a antlered goddess form and a copy of a box I had already made but had sold before.

Also I have been busy studying for my Celtic Moon pagan project. The purpose of the project is to dedicate time to explore our spirituality and perhaps look at other paths that perhaps have always intrigued us but never been more than a passing interest.

For me I have chosen to look at shamanism in it's many disguises but mostly the use of drums in shamanism. I will explain this further in a future blog post.

Until next time!

Drum birthing and the Goddess

The last couple of days have been truly exceptional in term of unforgettable experiences.
On Friday 28th September I went to Caer Corhrain Shaminic Center to birth my very own shamanic drum.
It was a wonderful day and I met some lovely people. It was all carried out in ritual and we were all there to do the same thing regardless of the reason why.
Lynn, Jonathan and Bruce were excellent tutors, everything was at a perfect pace and my early nervousness soon evaporated.
         My drum is made from deer hide which I chose to represent and honour my lady Elen of the ways. My hide even carries the bullet hole from where the animal of course was shot. Some people might not like to be reminded that the hide was killed in such a manner but as I was making the drum and working with the hide I asked for the deers love and forgiveness and promised that her death was not in vain.
In the afternoon we were then blessed by a visit from a beautiful golden Eagle. When he flapped his wings in this picture....

A tiny part of feather got caught in my hair which I then placed in the beater head I was making. So deer and Eagle, two animals I have strong connection with coming together.

I can't recommend birthing your own drum enough. To have a tool that I have created with my own hands, that I have now got such a deep connection with does not beat (excuse the pun) buying a drum off the Internet.
    More about the shamanic development centre and Touch the Earth band and events http://www.touchtheearthuk.com/

The drum birthing group and our drums. Look how happy we are. Any one spot the orb?

Photos courtesy of Lisa Hill.

On Saturday 29th at the Mabon Celtic Moon moot I held a introduction talk about my patron Goddess Elen. You can read more about the Goddess in this blog post http://therockabillypagan.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/elen-of-ways.html
My talk was a deeply personal account of how I became aware of Elen and how she has helped transform me as a Pagan.
I then took the members of the circle on a drum journey, deep into the forest to meet with Elen and in turn blessing my own newly birthed drum. I couldn't play my drum as It was still drying at home and I have to wait a week before I can play it and get to learn it's tone and voice.
This talk turned out to be extremely emotional for me which took me completely by surprise. Before I discovered My Lady I was very lost on my path. In fact I was very close to not calling myself Pagan!
At the end of the talk I had the other members of Celtic Moon say how much they enjoyed my talk and that made it all worth it.

Photo by fellow Celtic Moon member Esther show my little altar I set up, including her lovely portrait of Elen.