Pilgrimage
Please find out more about Proto-Celtic and those that have been working to recover this language here.
She awoke in the dark, separated from the night sky only by a thin and permeable cloth. She could feel the stars singing out in the dark and laid wrapped up and warm in her flimsy shelter until dawn light shaded the sky. The grass was jewelled with morning dew and mist lay on the ground like an ethereal cloak. She danced over the dew and the mist, her steps in time with the trill of the robin, which sang from the hedge. Her voice whispered out to weave with his, a gentle start to her journey, her lagyano pilgrimage of WERITO (sacred earth) and MADYO (wild waters)
She danced off down the lane and the magic started to weave in closely, pheasant, pigeon and rabbit threading in their blessings in the grey early-morning light. She followed the path that unfurled spontaneously beneath her feet and found herself on high slate cliffs, singing to the crashing white-capped waves, briny air in her lungs, feet dancing in time with the low thunderous beat of the ocean drum.
Primrose sprinkled their prayers of spring along the path-edges and she caught them in her song and sent them up to the sky. She scattered her gratitude in her steps and spun with the jackdaws and the gulls in the salty breeze, whooping and leaping from the ground, to their strong wings, to the scudding clouds and back down to the path again. Her steps caused wildflowers to grow and butterflies to whirl up from the earth, shimmering and shading in the dance. Her song called to the prayer in the land, and the land heard and called back to her its deep prayer;
Soft awakening ATI-BIW MÎNO
Tender power GALÂ TENI
Returning sun ADSORO SULI
Wild strength NERTO WEIDO
Untamed beauty WALA WILT
Deep knowing WITSU
The prayer of the land became her wings and she flew up into the endless, cloudy sky. The ocean wind blew the clouds clear and the sun shone down from a sky as pure as the wild waters that ran over the sacred earth. She danced and gambolled with the currents, twisting and turning in pure joy. She swooped back down, landing by a stream, singing the prayer given to her by the land. She wove it with her own prayer, and sent it into the twisting course of the stream before taking out her shuttle and weaving the waters on the loom of the wide and welcoming land.
She took off and landed many times, weaving the waters with her shuttle, the warp of the air and the weft of the earth, until her dance took her back to her steps upon the land. Horse and bee, duck and worm, goldfinch and stonechat all added their song and dance to the grand chorus, each note and step dropping into place as she spun and leapt and wove her way through the shining path that continued to unfurl in front of her.
Lizard appeared on a rocky winding path downwards and revealed the first resting place. A hidden cove beckoned from below the high cliffs and she shook out her wings of prayers and flew down to meet the sandy shore. The waves rushed up to meet her, frothing in excitement to dance with her, flinging her back and forth, she wove the untamed strength and cyclical power of the waves and tides. Her voice roared with waves as they soothed her feet, hot and sore from the sacred and energetic dance. Her laughter lifted to the crying birds and she was gathered up by a waterfall that poured down onto this secret beach, carrying prayers of sun-kissed gorse, fern and lichen, deep valley rainforest.
Like a salmon she leapt, bright and fast up those mossy falls, following the path up and along to the sacred river that called to her. It sang clear and true, through a little rocky valley that enfolded her and held her in a pure moment of dissolving into oneness. The boom of waves against stone, the bright murmuring of river on rock, the dandelion light of awakening spring, her drum carried her into the spirit of the moment, in itself a shrine of the prayer of the land.
She came back together and swam upstream, dancing in the flow until the waters lifted her out and gently sat her in front of a misty, ancient enigma, a labyrinth which rooted her into the fecund earth. She sat in tending and from her roots she could drift around the labyrinth, lost in its endless paths and turnings, a spiral in and out, reminiscent of the moon and sacred blood. She stayed until she felt its ways and returned out solemnly ecstatic, the deep time laying in an intensity to the lagyano dance.
She laid gently in the river again and was floated gently upstream, passed from hand to hand, through a verdant and soft valley, moss and ferns adorning the glowing trees, bright emerald joy that was a balm to her soul. She could feel the change in the song of the river, and rose to dance the last steps into the cauldron of the twice born waters. Her voice rose, her drum throbbed, her feet shone as she span into the torrent of sacred, prayer-laden, feral water. She wove herself and the prayer of the land into the waters, the air, the trees, the stones, the wishes and prayers hung in this sacred space, and she let herself dissolve in the thundering falling water, becoming one with the prayer of sacred earth and wild water.
© Elena Tornberg-Lennox 2023