Hi friend,
I hope this letter finds you snug and settled, as befits this liminal, in-between time. Every year on the run up to these days, I’m so caught up in Christmas plotting laced with giddy joy and borderline exhaustion, that I can barely imagine what happens after. And yet when the 26th December arrives, and the diary slows, I’m always grateful. There is nowhere to be; nowhere to go. Just this rare, open, not-always-entirely-comfortable space, where we can rest a little.
Which brings me to a story I’ve been dying to share with you, all about the particular magic that can be made in cauldron-like conditions like these. The story is about a Celtic enchantress — Cerridwen — whose tale has been told in the folklore of the British Isles for nearly 2000 years.
Wild and passion-filled, Cerridwen’s story charts how she birthed the transformational spirit of creative inspiration on these islands — the essential lifeforce which runs through every artist, every writer, every creative endeavor for evermore. It’s about this force which was so deeply understood by our ancestors, both here and around the world, a force known in ancient Welsh as ‘Awen’. And yet most of us will never have heard of it.
I could talk to you for hours about why this story is wholly fundamental to our sense of connection to these islands. We could talk about how powerful it is that in the original tales of Britain, it was a woman who possessed the power to bottle this force. We could discuss how wild and tragic it is that the vast majority of us were never told this story; not in schools, or books, or by our families. We could talk about why.
But before that, you need to hear it. And so in this in-between time, knowing this to be true, I’d love to tell you this story myself.
So you can see what it means to you. So maybe you can pass it on one day.
So, are you sitting comfortably? I’d like to invite you to make a cup of tea, curl up under a blanket, and press play. It’s an 11 minute story, taking you on a journey into the belly of creativity.
I wonder what you will find there. If you have a moment, perhaps hit reply and let me know sometime.
With dear thanks to my friend and subscriber Kev Self for filming this up at Lake Bala recently. Filming this was itself an act of creative inspiration, without notes or planning. We did it anyway.
With awen,
Kim
PS — You might have noticed that I’ve moved this newsletter over to Substack, after one too many formatting bugs on Mailchimp. I hope this will be a smoother reading experience for you, and it also means you can catch up with past issues here.
PPS — I hope you enjoy the story.