Igam Ogam up the Great Serpent

Llandudno.  Again.  Twenty years I’ve been coming here, to the place where the mountains meet the sea. 

This time I joined Adrian and James half the way there…at Telford.  Where a tiger smiled and showed me the way. No, really. He did.  You gotta love it when you're looking for the loo and a big guy dressed as a tiger points the way.  

Different morning walking here.  No hilltop fort, no wide open field, no strong wild river.  Instead, down to the seashore, to walk by waves.  But no. The tide was in. No beach. No halfway place – neither sea nor shore. No borderland; no liminality.

So, when a path is closed, you go another way, don’t you?  And that way led up, up, up. Up the Great Orme. The Great Worm. The Giant Serpent.  Too much symbolism there – let’s leave it be for the moment eh?

Igam Ogam, said the sign.  Literally.  Igam Ogam/Ogam Igam. Zig-zag/zag-zig up the ziggurat.  For every hill, every mountain, is a pyramid of sorts.  The wind so hard, so harsh, taking my breath away. Wishing I had tied my hair back as I could barely see.  And really, sometimes it is so hard to see clearly.  Even when the view is really wide, stretching way across the silver sea to the mountains beyond. Snowdonia.  Which makes me think. I must manifest a hair cut J ..and maybe a change…of colour. What do you think? 

I’ve been thinking about shamanism a lot lately as I edit my YA novel, Walker – a book about shamans, about signs, about earth medicine. Medicine? Signs?  Are they here too? Oh for sure (foreshore).  A narrow rocky path, steep, so steep, with perilous drops either side.  Gorse, so much gorse, snatching legs, pricking hands.   Gorse, the flower totem signalling despair, despond, hopelessness. For feeling useless.  Shit, shit, shit… No, seriously, literally - there is just so much shit all over the fading grass.  Why? Goats. Wild goats. There, there, there. Sea-goats. Capricorn. My sun-sign. My shit?  Probably.  Fish-goat-worm – ah, now there’s an interesting trinity of creatures. Christ/Satan/Serpent.  Ah hell, I promised I wouldn’t do this…

And there, hanging, totally still, a hawk. A kestrel.  How? How, when I am being blown every which way by the relentless wind, does that small bird just stay motionless, unaffected?  What minute shifts of musculature are holding its body, which weighs barely anything, so still?  Still. Hmm. Hate that word.  But anyhow.  How does it?  Is that the message?  Control? Balance?  And then, of a sudden…it drops. Clear, focused, controlled.

And here I am, right here and now.  In the pub.  Because it’s the only place I can get wifi.  My iphone has decided  not to play ball either. So I am out of touch.  But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel.  And see. With a hawk’s eyes?  Ah…wishful thinking.  J