LEABHAR LIATH NA HAIMIDE PART TWO – THE RUINS – The Hollow Behind The Hearthstone

[read Part I – The Forge here : https://thehollowbehindthehearthstone.com/leabhar-liath-na-haimide-part-one-the-forge/ ]

THE ROOM IN THE RUINS – Witching Hour, 29 March 2020

I went there just now. The hairs on my back are still raised, I feel a feverish tingle through my chest, my heart races. Since I came back from my round earlier, I feel a strange stillness and power, walking slow and level so’s not to spill. I even gentled the Bright Boy’s rage, let him know I would be there no matter what. And now, in the Witching Hour I went.

I took bread and a little jar of milk, my Corpse Candle and my Blackthorn. Felt tingling as I laced my boots, put on my coat, scarf, and hat. Outside I could see, just, traced a pentagram before me called Aisling thrice and Fia thrice to be with me.

I walked ever so slowly through the Old Courtyard, to the Tower Room I had been eyeing. At the entrance, I lit my candle and stepped down. I had been there with the Bright Boy earlier. Beyond the little Tower Room is a whole great Chamber, open to the sky, masses of ivy overhanging the walls. A well or staircase going down. A little sapling. Ruined windows. One, bricked up, that looks almost like a fireplace. I walked among the weeds, twigs snapping, the wavering light showing my way, showing the whole room. I set my candle in the niche, the fireplace, the altar, the Hearthstone. My shadow fell huge on the walls opposite, the empty windows. A bird whirred past my head, disturbed. An owl? It was achingly eerie and weird.

I stood in centre of the room and swept my wand in greeting, and then I spoke to them, the Ancient Honoured Dead and the Good Green Folk of this Demesne. I greeted them, and offered my service and my honour and my stewardship and humbly asked they consider my petition. I asked if I might Work Ritual in that room. I asked them to send me a sign in Dream or Symbol or Sentiment. I cast no workings but only offered them the food. I will wait for their permission.

Oh but it felt so deliciously spine-tinglingly awfully Dark! The sliver of Crescent Moon was just visible through the trees over towards the Decay. A night bird called. I felt so furtive and so Outside, outlaw, trucking with the Dead, the Fae. I carried my candle back out walking so carefully, nearly losing my balance on the uneven ground and rubble. I felt the chills up my spine. I feel them still. This is going to another level. And if they say I can Work there, then I think that will do great sorcery in that place. This is no longer only the Land and its gods and spirits. Now it is the Dead as well. That is a place of Dark and Ruin and Decay. It is a Dark Dark Place. But I know now as I have not known for many years, since I was a child, that I came to the World with a taste of Death upon me, that I made a Deal with the Dark, and I am of it.

THE PINK MOON – 8 April 2020

The last few days have been a little difficult. Perhaps to do with stopping the medication; it was causing me to sleep so deeply that I couldn’t wake up for anything, as if paralysed. A terrible feeling. And so I stopped it and have been able to wake better. But perhaps there has been mild withdrawal. I’ve felt anxious and irritable, and a skin-crawling, upset-stomach sense of physical wrongness. But is there also a link to the Work? I’ve performed a few more workings, and have embarked upon writing an account of the Time of Tribulation, the Trial by Fire, from 2000-2003. I think I can only give it to one particular person to read, but it’s part of the Work. If I can come to terms with what happened then, and integrate it into my mind-set, I think I will have achieved that True Belief. One day last week, I went back to the Room in the Ruins, this time under the light of the Waxing Crescent. It was beautiful and peaceful, the silver light gentle and magical – but there was none of that feeling of trespass and terror from the previous time. I brought an apple as an offering, as Creirwy’s voice told me to do in the Druid Meditation, and placed it on the altar in the alcove, and gently scattered the leaves and feathers in the Hollow. Next, I will place something of myself, but not quite yet.

I spoke to the denizens, and cast a simple circle in the moonlight. All was so silent and still, but for little stirrings and rustlings round me, like little footsteps of the Gentle Folk … I sat and smoked, and gave them all honour and blessings, to the Good Green Folk and the Ancient Dead. And then I stepped quietly away. The courtyard was enchanted in the moonlight, and the light of thousands of stars.

Another night I made an Ogham Working for that Dancer Witch, to help her heal from sickness, but apart from that I mostly just read in the evenings, too tired and drained for more. But last night I was prepared, dressed in my finest. Walked the Land with the children in the morning. Every day I do that, I feel good. After dinner I took the Bright Boy for a secret walk in the twilight, and we went to the Verge, to the orchard, to greet the just-risen Moon. She was veiled at first, but emerged most gloriously.

I put him down to sleep and I read for a while, and then lit my candles, cast my circle, crossed Straif and Saille. I read all my notes from here. And at the Witching Hour I went. There is a shiver and a tingle I’m getting used to recognising, which seems to indicate Their presence. Often as I sit out the front of the Forge, I feel Them around me. Last night, the Moon rode in a scud of cloud; I could not see Her from the Ruins. But I felt welcome and in my place. I ceremonially ate the Apple of Concord. I cast my Circle and asked the Four Fathers for contact with their people. So may it be.

To be continued in Part III of the