Category: Magic and Witchcraft Themed

Chaotic Mess – Rare Slow Soul Magic – Dream 12-12-2025

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Sleep last night came in two segments 12 – 2:30 and after an hour of TV, 4 to 7. In “A Discovery of Witches” season two last night Diana masters the ninth knot, the spell of endings and beginnings, the knot of completion(s). Implicit is inherent in this is also the tenth knot. Diana a weaver and time walker prepares to travel back to modern day.

The first part is in the early sleep and shallow. I am with the ex-wife. She wants to show me what is going on in the village. She insists that I go to see what has become of the village pubs. She is curious and very nosey. She wants all the gossip. Reluctantly I go with her and one of the pubs is under new management. He is trying to make a go of it. The pub is in a state of mess and undergoing renovation. A part of it is open for business. We go in and he asks what I want. I ask for a pint of Guiness and it takes long while to pour and settle. The ex-wife has a half of bitter and proceeds to go around chatting at/with everyone else in the pub. I ask the landlord about his plans.

We move off to the next pub. This is more lively and all the village folk some from out of town and some born are ostentatiously getting pissed  up. The air is of forced jollity, almost an anxious jollity. This pub is better lit. The locals all stare at me. Once again the ex-wife works the room talking to everyone and gossiping about life in the village and in general. I do not see the point of it in the dream. The pub is a mess and someone needs to do a glasses round and wipe down tables. There is a hint of Christmas party and the TV in the pub is blaring away in the background. It is harsh to the senses.

I awake for some poor TV, a pill and two lion bars.

Back now in the dream I am upstairs in a retreat centre type house. It is redbrick and old. On the other side of a single track road is a chest height red-brick and flint wall behind which is a substantial weir and mill race. The river is powerful and the water deep and of a green hue due to the weeds. I know the building I am in is aligned to the old water mill. It is a part of the complex. The feel is very similar  to Llangollen. The smell is similar too; we are near mountains. I am lying on the bed with the window open. The net curtains are blowing lightly in the breeze and I can hear the deep bass rumble of the water on the weir.

I hear a key in the door downstairs and in walks Paul and Emma. (Walker). They walk through into the kitchen and I can hear the keys being thrown into a small ceramic pot / ashtray. The pot is glazed agate green. I can hear Paul complaining to Emma about me. He complains how things can be messy after I have been and that although the mess is not mine it is in response to me that the chaos and mess ensues.  He is not happy about me being there and wants me to go. His unwelcome is widely held among many people. I do not do what they deem I ought to.

I come down stairs and Paul intuits that I have heard what he has been saying. He asks if I have heard.  I affirm. He says that there is no point pretending then. I say that I am not in the least bit upset. I have something to show him. In the kitchen are plates and cutlery unwashed. He looks at them with scorn. We all go out into a walled garden and to a stand-up wooden table in a “beer-garden” private to the property and which overlooks the weir.

I say to Paul that I possess a special rare type of magic. This he doubts as otherwise I would have used the magic to clean up. I say that this magic is not of a material kind, the kind for tricks and show. I say that my magic is a special kind of magic known by some as Soul magic. This magic is of a very slow effect. It is a slow Soul magic. He is sceptical.

I hold up my left hand and a brown hen’s egg appears in it. This catches his attention. It cracks and the top comes off. It is now like a soft boiled egg ready for eating in “dippy eggs”. I say to him that my magic, the deeper magic, pertains only to the Soul. It is not mundane. In the dream he understands that the egg is a metaphor for the Souls. I say that yes I can and do work directly with the Soul(s).

The dreaming view looks down at the soft yolky egg from above and then zooms out to a side view. A small amount of yolk has run down from the egg along my fingers and onto my white inner wrist. I say that even Soul magic is of two kinds, the magic of the Souls evolving through lifetimes and that of the spark within. True magic is about the creation and enveloping of the spark within a Soular casing, the egg of lives. The ultimate magic is about liberation in which the ovoid shell, the eggy casing of the Soul is rent and evaporates only to leave the spark within and thence throughout. Soul magic is about encapsulation and liberation. It is beyond the sight of most and not to the everyday taste.

As they watch the egg starts to dissolve shimmering into space with a shimmering of tiny golden insubstantial flecks. Leaving a tiny bright yellow-orange radiant spark or flame. Which is suspended above my fingers. Paul and Emma are temporarily transfixed. They come to with a jolt and all they can see is my upstretched left hand with fingers touching from where the egg once was. They can see a small trickle of bright yellow yolk against the white inner skin of my wrist.

The dream zooms out and looks directly into the depths of the water going over the mill race weir. I know that those prone to the chaos of the West struggle to see the beautiful order and patterns of time.

I come to and feel the stiffness in my hips and lower back…

Ashmole 972 and Tarot 20

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The Bodleian Library has a number of the so-called Ashmole documents partially digitized and published online.

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Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, vol. 2.

Shelfmark: Bodleian Library MS. Ashmole 972

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This one looks like Tarot 20 and has a very similar feel.

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Some of the other images on line look very proto-tarot.

In one other llustration it suggests that there are concealed answers for a freed Soul which can be revealed from understanding the symbols displayed..

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Ashmole

Medieval and early modern manuscripts and papers donated to the Bodleian by antiquary Elias Ashmole (1617-1692).

Elias Ashmole (1617-1692) was born and educated in Lichfield. He began his career as a solicitor, but in 1644 entered the service of the Crown as a commissioner of excise. He entered the Office of Arms as Windsor herald after the Restoration, and retired in 1672.

His collection comprises important medical, astrological, and alchemical manuscripts, and is also strong in heraldry, local history, and, to a lesser extent, in Middle English and 17th-century poetry. The foundation of his Museum at Oxford was made possible by his acquisition by bequest from his friend John Tradescant of a large collection of ‘curiosities’. They arrived when the building was ready in 1683, and it was here that his bequest of manuscripts was housed until their transference to the Bodleian in 1860.

A Discovery of Witches – Thread

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Whilst I was in hospital I came upon this UK TV series on Netflix. It seemed that I had already started watching it according to Netflix. I did not recall this.  So I started to watch again. So far it is enjoyable.

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A Discovery of Witches is a British fantasy television series based on the All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness, named after the first book in the trilogy.

Diana Bishop, a historian and reluctant witch, unexpectedly discovers a bewitched manuscript in Oxford’s Bodleian Library. This discovery forces her back into the world of magic in order to unravel the secrets it holds about magical beings. She is offered help by a mysterious biochemist and vampire Matthew Clairmont. Despite a long-held mistrust between witches and vampires, they form an alliance and set out to protect the book and solve the mysteries hidden within while dodging threats from the creature world.

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Discovery of Witches is a 2011 historical-fantasy novel and the debut novel by American scholar Deborah Harkness. It follows Diana Bishop, a history of science professor at Yale University, as she embraces her magical blood after finding a long-thought-lost manuscript and engages in a forbidden romance with a charming vampire, Matthew Clairmont.

When Diana Bishop returns to Oxford University, her life is flipped upside down. While researching in the library, Diana requests a book called Ashmole 782. This manuscript, also known as the Book of Life, has been missing for over 150 years. As soon as Diana touches the ancient manuscript, her powers are activated. Frightened by her clear cosmic connection to Ashmole 782, Diana returns the book. It appears, however, that her discovery had already caught the attention of other creatures, which results in a series of events that slowly brings her witch heritage and family back into her life.

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Diana is  cast as a young academic investigating Alchemy partly autobiographically inspired on behalf of the author. The first few episodes are very good for Oxford university tourism. The photography is top notch.

Ashmole was a founder member of The Royal Society and this is his coat of arms.

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Note Hermes bearing the golden Caduceus top right. Note also the Breton symbol around the lower central panel.

Aside from founding the Ashmolean museum he is famous for collecting things like this:

Theatrvm chemicvm britannicum : containing severall poeticall pieces of our famous English philosophers, who have written the hermetique mysteries in their owne ancient language

by Ashmole, Elias, 1617-1692; Cross, Thomas, fl. 1632-1682; Vaughan, Robert, 17th cent; Goddard, John, fl. 1645-1671

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Given where I did my Ph.D. and my interest in things witchy and Alchemy related I have found something to look into a bit while I recuperate.

A new thread to explore?

Unusual – Golden Calligraphy – Protector – Dream 05-11-2025

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Here is this morning’s dream. It is deemed unusual not for content by for the realism and quality of the indoor decors. They are very life like and top-end.

The dream opens in an upper floor kitchen of a multi-story building. It is white luminous and a mixture of natural and electrical lighting. I am sat at a white sided kitchen island with a wooden top. The finish on the wood has a light reddish mostly brown hue. It has the quality of fine cabinet Walnut but isn’t that. It is a “redwood” of sorts. I am on a tall stool sat to the island. In front of me on the wood is a paper napkin whose quality is like finest linen. It has the feel of magician’s white gloves. As I watch an iridescent golden script, a calligraphy, appears. It is in no language I recognise. Yet I can understand the script phonetically to be “estaf” or “eraph”. I joke that it is Gloria Estefan and the Miamai Sound Machine. I hear in the dream an Estefan song followed by “Despacito” on solo Spanish guitar. I realise that the script is in fact Angelic script and that the “s” is silent phonetically therein. Thus the word is seraph of seraphim. I place the now silky-linen cloth in to my left hand shirt pocket after having inhaled it while lovingly holding it in both hands. It is close to my heart.

I am joined by the wife and one of her friends. The women is not one of her known friends. We are sitting in the kitchen which leads out onto an elevated decking balcony. The garden furniture is lovely as is the rest of the kitchen. They are drinking white wine from ultra-thin expensive wine glasses. I go out to smoke on the balcony and then join them back in the kitchen. I show the friend my cloth with the Angelic writing on.

The scene changes and the woman is joined on the balcony by her sister who lives nearby. They are discussing television programmes. I am now in a deep white bath on a raised pedestal in a state of the art bathroom. The bath has a sealing door for disabled access. The wife and her friend are sat in a window seat in the bathroom which has polished wooden flooring, sanded ultra smooth. I get out of the bath with a semi caused by the warm water and go to reach a nearby white towel. I am dripping wet. The friend is at first embarrassed. I say not to worry I am very happy being totally naked I have nothing to hide. This is natural. I take a towel and dry myself off.

The owners of the building are arriving at the  external staircase to the white “mansion” side. They are coming through the door. They are a couple and two young males, late adolescent. I have been tutoring the boys. We should not be here. I go down to meet them and say that I know we should not be here. We are leaving. I understand that they may no longer want me to teach the lads and that my contract is ended. If however on reflection they change their mind they have my number. They do not seem able to speak out of surprise. We file past them out of the building and into the street. My effusiveness has diffused the situation.

The scene changes and I am in the attic / penthouse of a multistorey city building, maybe half a dozen floors high. The feel is European and the roof is made of grey metal sheeting, maybe lead. It is an original feature hundreds of years old. I am with a number of people and thinking about jumping from the building to the one on the opposite side of the street. There are a number of people there. I say that it is safe for me because I have my protector(s). I gesture out of the window to a man-like being hunched up like a bird sitting perched on the guttering. He has black slicked back hair and olive skin. He is juggling with many balls slightly smaller than a cricket ball. They are multi-coloured. There are blue, yellow, red and golden balls. Each ball is a little like a snooker one in weight. They have an iridescence. He throws balls across the gap between the building and they bounce back. He catches them. We look down and see people and cars in the street below. It is a European capital.

The scene changes and I am in right hand drive VW minibus / camper ban. It is being driven by a large English woman with long hair. She is a bit jolly hockey sticks librarian. We are winding around near single files streets in a village perched high. I joke it is Highgate. I say to take it easy the locals are accustomed to the streets she not. We are looking for a parking place outside the white mansion from before. There are none. I suggest we drive past. We do and then have to make a U turn. She pulls up in  a cliff top viewing point. There is no safety rail. The “car park” goes off the cliff. She parks and I pull the hand brake up an extra notch for safety.  She is very nervous. Below us we can see the city panorama amidst green covered peaks and with little white fluffy clouds. We are thousands of metres up and the city is below us. It looks a bit like Rio de Janeiro from the air. I suggest we get out the van and walk back to the building.

The dream ends and I note it as a change in dreaming, it is unusual.

Hashish – Angel – Roses – Little People Dream 23-09-2025

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Here is this morning’s dream. A series of snippets. This is the first Angel in a dream for me.

The scene opens in a living room. There are several young men sat on sofas and chairs around a large messy coffee table. There are a few empty beer cans and an empty pizza box. They are trying to be ‘hood and cool. There a rolling papers and an ashtray. One of them with a grey tracksuit on is unwrapping a small foil parcel which contains some dark black soft oily hashish. He says that it is 3/8 of an ounce and that he knows how to get more. They think they are a bit gangster like and are in a turf war skirmish with another group of adolescents. I am watching the scene from above. They are egging each other on with bravado.

A youth brings in a woman who looks like Brenda Blethyn in her role as the mother of Christie Brown in “My Left Foot”. She looks frumpy and decidedly normal. The youth says he found her lurking outside. They are thinking about bullying or intimidating her.

I arrive / appear and stand next to “Brenda”. I say to them that she is an Angel. A particular sort of Angel who despises conflict and is highly trained in diffusing situations and helping people from erring into darkness. They look unconvinced. I say that the strength of this kind of Angel is their apparent  innocuousness. I say that under no circumstances, no conceivable circumstances, should they cross an Angel like her. She can switch from mild suddenly and that they would not like the results one little bit. Angels are powerful beings. Brenda smiles silently at me and we look at the youth quietly waiting to see what they will do. We are comfortable with each other, familiar even.

The scene changes and we are outside in the formal gardens of a large grand French chateau. The wife and I are tending a plot in the rose garden. The previous gardener has done a poor scrappy job. We have weeded and pruned, fertilized and tidied. I finish edging the bed into the immaculate lawn. We head off down a gravel path and meet a man working of a rambling rose bed elevated from the path. He says that these “arbustiers” need a highly specialised care. He has been caring for this bed among others for decades. He has a checked shirt on and is tanned. He is wearing a cream Panama hat and is very English. He says that the owner only employs British people to look after roses as they are better at it than the French.

The scene changes and we are outside our current house. The nurse arrives and comes in to check our medication. I say to her that we are very organised, there is no need. She checks anyway. She is in a hurry and highly stressed. We follow her out. Her husband is waiting in the car with her children. The windows are steamed up with condensation. I suggest that she lets the children out to stretch their legs. This she does. The man also gets out. The wife is with me. We all stand around and chat. A small girl around five with brown hair in a bob wanders off. The nurse is worried. I say not to worry. She heads towards a flower bed at the end of the garden and I follow her. I shout back that she can see the little people, the fées and pixies, the Korrigans who live there. I say that she will be safe with me because I too can see them. They know me well. We are friends.

The dream ends.

Luxuriously Lost – Dreaming Colour – Vajra Bell – Huge Serpent – Dream 03-09-2025

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Here is last night’s dreaming sequence, which on waking seemed very significant.

The dream starts with me arriving at a brand spanking new London Underground station which I exit onto the street in front. The tube station on a standard tube sign is called “DOCTO BEN”. In the plaza outside are a number of food outlets, a news agents and a Timpson’s key place. The buildings are modern and white, a reproduction of period buildings suitable to the area which I know to be due West of the South Kensington campus. The reproduction has been done very well. Although I know roughly where I am, I am lost. I do not recognise any of the streets nor the street names which are on plaques in keeping with the area. In the dream I rationalise that it must be an Elizabeth line, new tube station.

I decide that I need to get a green district line tube home and venture northwards towards the park to look for one. I estimate I may find one there. I am unhurried and thoroughly enjoying my time being luxuriously lost with no fear therefrom. I head north. I cross a main road onto the outskirts of the park and cross the road which I know heads over the Serpentine. I wait for the little green man on the traffic lights. I start to cross. As I am crossing my mind, its visual eye, is filled with the phrase “OXO BEST”. I know this and the previous word are numerology.

The dream changes and I am upstairs in bed. Somehow the cat has gotten onto the upstairs landing and is playing with marbles. I get up to investigate she is chasing a green cat’s eye marble back and forth along the hall. I imagine the door to the upstairs to be open so that she can go back for food and toilet. I close the bedroom door so that she cannot get in.

I wake up and recall the words. I go to the loo and make a note of the words on a cardboard box in the kitchen. It is a little after six AM.

I get back to bed thinking that my dreaming is perhaps over for the night and will generally calm down now after my birthday. I don’t think that I will go back to sleep.

Slowly my visual field fills with my dreaming colour, forming, swirling and forming in its indigo-blue Rorschach blot like way. The colours form among “clouds”. The dreaming colour fills the dream landscape. I note that this is highly unusual, spontaneous dreaming colour. I allow myself to relax fully into it and let the landscape fill and the colour absorb me.

I am in my old university office and the telephone rings. It is a young woman asking if she can get a train to Memphis Tennessee from where she is. I say that I will come down to see her. I ‘phone through to the trainline and a ticket costs £1540. I meet her outside. She is with a friend. I tell her the price and suggest that she would be better off getting a hire car. She has a small day-sack on her back. She is not best pleased. I say that it is an easy drive. She says “ok, then. I will drive” and flounces off. She is a Ph.D. student due to present at conference.

The scene changes and I am sat on a faded red armchair isolated with no room reference point. I can feel the wind whoosh by my hair and the world is whizzing past as if I am travelling through space. I am reminded of the Maxwell tape adds.

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I feel absolutely rooted to the chair and the world, the universe even, whizzes past. I cannot see myself but can feel the chair and its arms under my hands. The motion is fierce.

The wind dies down and I can now see myself from the front of the chair. I am sat on the chair wearing a full bright yellow Gelug ceremonial crescent hat. I am in Tibetan style monk’s robes and have a mala on my left wrist. I look like I do now only my hair is freshly buzz-cut. I seem energized. In front of me on a very ceremonial table in its pouch is my Vajra-bell. I know that the chair is in fact a ceremonial throne, my throne. With my mind the pouch around the Vajra-bell disappears. The bell swells in size and takes on a golden radiant hue. The quality of it is vastly enhanced and intricate. The bell starts to radiate light in all directions until it becomes almost blindingly bright. But I know that this light is not normal photons. It is Vajra-tantra. I sit bathed for what seems like a very long time, the light feeling much like the gale-wind from before only vibrant.

The scene changes and I am sat at my old desk from when I lived in Brixton. On the table is an open propped up Microsoft Surface tablet. It is large and expensive. It is not mine. I can’t remember what I did the night before so I press play on the tablet. A video starts to play.

In it I can see a few men, eastern European, query Russian. They are standing in a near circle. One of them has his flies undone and what looks to be a semi-erect penis protruding. On close inspection it is the head of a snake. One of his comrades pulls gently on the snake head and guides it to the floor. Slowly a huge snake reminiscent of a fat Burmese python eases its way out of the trousers. The snake is several metres long and more than  ~30 cm thick. It is massive and powerful. It has a racing-green lush colouration and glistens with a self-moistening sheen. I am now fully in the scene and the snake comes towards me, it welcomes me and I temporarily incorporate it. I become one with it.

The scene changes to the far artic north. I am outside a base with wire mesh fence. I dig a deep square shaped hole deeper that my height. The sides of the hole are perfectly cut squared because I am digging into permafrost. Into the hole I place my Vajra-bell along with several near-spherical objects which have an egg like purpose. They are ancient and sort of sacred. I am the keeper. I then exude the snake into the hole for protection. It nestles down. I go off and cut several chunks of ice slab. These are ~one metre by one metre by thirty centimetres, they are heavy hundreds of kilos. But I manipulate them by hand and mind into the hole as a stopper. I am about to cover with dirt when Max walks by. I ask him if he would like to take a look before I close it. He is unsure but agrees.

The dream ends.

Volcano Islands – DNA – Nirmāṇakāya- Warrior Girl Dream 23-08-2025

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Here are last night’s dreaming sequence. It is a little “bitty” and is in three parts.

The dream starts on a mediterranean-like island. I am walking along a trail with the wife. We are carrying rucksacks; it is sunny but not hot. We are on a cliff side path far below is an azure-blue sea. Ahead of us is a port town from which we aim to take a ferry to our next destination. In the middle distance we can see a rocky island with fertile splashes of green farming land. It is less cliffy but dominated by a peak which I know is a supposed extinct volcano. We start to have a drone’s eye view over the island. Small volcanic vents open up around the island venting first smoke and then the occasional pyrotechnic of red hot lava. The central volcano starts to smoke and vent too. We can hear the rumble of pre-eruption. It is pretty clear that the island is unsafe and that we will have to alter our plans. If the volcano blows the island will cease. We cannot go to that island yet.

I say that we need to find a hotel for the night. We walk into town as night falls and the nightlife starts up. There are bars and clubs. It is Greek. We find a large hotel on a central plaza. The wife thinks it too expensive but I know they like to fill all the rooms. I go to reception where the hotel manager / owner is. He is an oily man with yet black hair. I ask him for a room it is £50 per night. This he says is because the pool is out of order. I accept and ask what time breakfast is. The hotel is in need of TLC.

The dream fades.

I am now in a medical centre come hospital on another island which feels like Jersey but may not be it. I am in a waiting room with many others. My name is called and I am taken into a consulting room by a woman of similar age to me in a dark navy-blue nurse practitioner uniform. She does blood pressure measurements and listens to my chest. I gesture to her where I have had my chest hair shaved for a recent ECG. For some reason we both find this funny. She takes down some historical details. Then she gets an envelop out of her desk drawer. She proceeds to take a lock of my hair which is much longer than it is this morning. She places this in the envelope. She then proceeds to trim all my finger nails with scissors. Collecting the nails and placing them too in the envelope. I say that I hope she is not going to use these for voodoo or witchcraft on me because everyone knows that these are key ingredients. She says no, the samples are for DNA tests, the government wants to test my DNA to check if I am normal or not. I say to her that I have had a normal birth and not a different Nirmāṇakāya manifestation vehicle. It was not thought created. I came out of a womb. The DNA results should come back as entirely human.

Outside the hospital I go down a hill to where the ambulance entrance is. I see the nurse posting the envelope into a bright red old-school UK mail box. I wave at her, she waves back.

The dream fades.

I am now in a large metropolitan building which has been subdivided into a number of flats. The building has a common room area with a watercooler and seating. I am standing there when a tall man comes in. He is holding is mouth. He says that he has broken a tooth. I know he is Hungarian because we have been out for a few beers. I say that I can drive him to a dentist and explain how things work in England. I ask him to show me his EU health card. He does. I say show this at the dental clinic and they will reduce the amount you have to pay. We are joined by a young woman who has recently moved into the block. She is around mid-twenties and has jet black pig-tailed hair and is heavily made up. I know that she considers herself trendy.

I take the Hungarian to the dentist in my car and drop him off in reception I give him the number of my mobile ‘phone in case there is difficulty. Neither of us foresees any. He will have to wait for hours. I go back to the block of flats where I am some kind of custodian.

The young woman is still there in the communal rooms. She wants to go into town and asks me to accompany her. There is a mild sexual frisson from her part towards me which is completely unexpected by me. She takes my arm in hers and we walk out into the night. I am quasi-paternal.

It is very urban and under the yellow street lights she starts to tell me how she is trying to change. She has a lot of piercings and several large tattoos. She is of mixed race a real melting pot of nationalities but speaks pukka English, posh. She says that she is a warrior girl, that she is striving to be a warrior girl. In a London accent I ask if she means warrior gall or warrior gell, innit. This makes her laugh. My accent is unexpected.

I say to her that being a warrior is harder than she might imagine and that whatever her preconceptions are, they are wrong. I say to her that is a  good thing to aspire to be a “warrior gall”. This makes her happy and she tries to skip. I cannot. I look at her and we both laugh.

The dream fades.

Granny Was a Gwrach…

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Gwrach y Rhibyn

The legend of the cyhyraeth is sometimes conflated with tales of the Gwrach-y-Rhibyn or Hag of the Mist, a monstrous Welsh spirit in the shape of a hideously ugly woman – a Welsh saying, to describe a woman without good looks, goes, “Y mae mor salw â Gwrach y Rhibyn” (she is as ugly as the Gwrach y Rhibyn) – with a harpy-like appearance: unkempt hair and wizened, withered arms with leathery wings, long black teeth and pale corpse-like features. She approaches the window of the person about to die by night and calls their name, or travels invisibly beside them and utters her cry when they approach a stream or crossroads, and is sometimes depicted as washing her hands there. Most often the Gwrach y Rhibyn will wail and shriek “Fy ngŵr, fy ngŵr!” (My husband! My husband!) or “Fy mhlentyn, fy mhlentyn bach!” (My child! My little child!), though sometimes she will assume a male’s voice and cry “Fy ngwraig! Fy ngwraig!” (My wife! My wife!).

If it is death that is coming, the name of the one doomed to die is supposed to be heard in her “shrill tenor”. Often invisible, she can sometimes be seen at a crossroad or a stream when the mist rises.

Some speculation has been asserted that this apparition may have once been a water deity, or an aspect of the Welsh goddess Dôn. She is the wife of Afagddu, the despised son of Ceridwen and Tegid Foel, in some retellings of the Taliesin myth.

From Wikipedia

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If I were to show you the autocorrelation traces of two femtosecond laser pulses on an expensive oscilloscope in a dark laser lab it us unlikely that you would be thinking of the witch, the hag of the mist, Gwrach-y-Rhibyn. The two things do not correlate for most.

A part of my maternal family hails from Snowdonia, the foot of Snowdon,  in North Wales and the family legend has it that at least one of my maternal relatives, a granny of sorts, was a Gwrach, a witch, perhaps a seeress. In that context then there is a chance that I inherited the bloodline and hence the “gift” so to speak. As such it was entirely natural {and perhaps inevitable} that I would be interested in shamanism and shamanic ritual.

Of course in terms of someone able to write Fortan programs to calculate Franck Condon factors for anharmonic oscillator molecular vibronic photon excitations that seems far-fetched.

Contextually the vice versa might apply. Why would a shaman piss about with fancy lasers and science?

In Brittany there remains an interest in {and perhaps practice of} witchcraft. This is no way freaks me out. It is possible the practises here were sourced in the Welsh diaspora arriving. They are of similar roots.

I’ll speculate that a blog post like this would not enhance my promotion prospects were I still institutionalised in science academia.

I have always loved the mist and the fog. I nearly died on The Old Man of Coniston once. I was alone and following crows up a trail in the snow deep into the fog, alone on the mountain. It was exciting. Luckily before I got completely lost in the otherworld, I turned back. I have had much similar fun on Kinder Scout in dense fog. There is something womb-like and enveloping.

Of a still and misty night, when the full moon is partially veiled and you heard a voice at your window calling your name, what would you do.

Could you take secure refuge in the omniscience of your infallible reason?

Or would your blood run cold?