By Elen Sentier
This June I did a very experiential workshop based around my latest book, Merlin.
I’ve worked with Merlin all my life, and my parents before me, so I know him well. And I know that thresholds can be tough, confusing and difficult places I’ve crossed enough during this lifetime to have great respect for them. Merlin has always been my guide and ally, helping me to cross. I was taught the old ways of thresholds, as a child in the 1950s and 60s, by my parents and the old ones of the villages where I grew up, I’d like to introduce them to you.
Living here in the Welsh Marches, means I’m surrounded by the faer and my home is by one of Merlin’s own birth-places. It’s a beautiful, twilight land full of ancient crossing-places where the faer folk (the tylwyth teg), and Merlin, stand guard and are very willing to help those who ask to cross, ask to see deeper and further.
When I teach it’s always intimate and informal. This is how I was brought up so I find it the best way for me to work, and I like making friends with the people who come. The workshop was like that, we all enjoyed laughter and tears, fun and games – including doing a version of strip-the-willow as a threshold crossing exercise 
.
We began with work in the garden here. It’s actually got 2 ley lines running through it, one of which is the huge one from Kent to Cardigan which is part of the 6-armed cross made by the Michael-Mary line and the Belinus line. And I have a Moon Gate in the garden. It leads from the sunlit grove to the dark grove. It’s guarded by Pan whose skull hangs over the top of it surrounded by a rose. In the dark grove are a collection of wild beasties, tylwyth teg, and a standing stone who have come to me over the years. They all enjoy working and playing and teasing me and the students.
It’s so good watching how people approach this, and then how they change as they walk through – dance through actually – and find themselves within the dark grove.
Everyone always seems to ‘get it’, their attitude is often a bit ‘OMG what’s she going to ask us to do?’ then, as they begin to root into the land, it spins its thread through them and they really go for it. I asked them to go through and walk the circular path around the two groves in each direction – widdershins for the Mother/Vivien, deosil for the Father/Merlin. As they walked I asked them to notice everything they passed and saw, from the tiniest ladybird or spider to the leaves and flowers, and the sky and clouds above them. And they all did. They all expressed surprise at how much they found they’d noticed, and how important each thing felt to them, as well as how the noticing changed their whole attitude. They said they’d arrived feeling the ‘need to get it right’. As they completed the walks round the path they began to realise that ‘getting it right’ was utterly unimportant! Whoopee! Success. They were on the path.
That first threshold-crossing, getting over the need to please, to get it right, to look good in front of your peers, and all that stuff, is a huge one. It’s also quite tiring, you’ve worked yourself up for coming to the workshop, meeting the strange teacher, doing what she asks you – Phew! So, we went back indoors where they drew their experience, and then we shared and chatted over a cuppa. Then they all went off to their B&Bs to relax and absorb. I asked them to ask for a dream that night, asking to be shown what they needed just ta this time.
Next day, Saturday, we shared dreams, firstly by drawing them – drawing works so much better than writing and helps the person to tell their experience as a story. This had brought up a lot of stuff that needed letting out into the air. Everyone was so impressed by what they each had dreamed. It was fascinating to watch how the dreamer still had bits of ‘not good enough’ to shed. The listeners were all getting the point while the dreamer, in each case, was afraid to see it until they got the reassurance from all the rest of us.
Then we went to visit Vivien and Merlin at a local church. They’re quite stunning, ancient wooden carvings of the Lady and the Lord in an old church. If you want more about them see here. As ever, at first, the students didn’t see them although they’re there, bang in front of you. I never tell people before they go in, it’s part of the process to find them for yourself. Doing that makes such a difference, it’s threshold of ‘expectations’ you have to cross all by yourself although, of course, I’m right there to help if you need me. We’re so inculcated with the idea that things will be a particular way that we all have to spend most of our lives climbing out of the expectation-box . Vivien and Merlin, here in the church, are very good at helping people over this threshold.
She is Sheelagh-na-gig, holding open the birthing cave of her womb. He is the Man of the Forest, holding his tree-staff phalos which inspires conception, in every sense.
Everyone got it in their own time. That’s important too, to give time to each student, allow them time, not hurry them into finding things before they can truly absorb them. And when they got it they were all stunned, sat in pews just looking at Merlin and Vivien, allow the lady and Lord to show them each what they needed at that time. So did I. it’s always like that whenever I visit, they have something new for me to grasp, learn, do.
Outside the church are two other threshold points. One is an ancient marker-stone in Alfred Watkins ley lines book. To really experience it you have to stand on its base and let it ‘take you’. And it does. Again, I never tell new people what to expect, just to go stand on it and feel it. And every time, it does its spiral work. The spiral is like DNA, a double helix of both widdershins and deosil, the Lady and the Lord, which shows you through your own body just what they do. The spiral goes down to the heart of the Earth and, at the same time, up to the heart of the Sun. It spirals, both ways at once, up and down through your body … you are a connecting-rod between Earth and Sun. Phew again!
And the third thing at that place is the river. It runs along one side of the churchyard and there are steps going down by the bridge to a little weir, and you can actually walk in the water, under the bridge, as well. Everyone did. Shoes came off (not need for me to say a thing!) and trousers were rolled up and in they went, and under the bridge too. It’s a funny old thing walking under a bridge rather than over it. It’s into the dark, a bit scary, unusual, strange … a good out-of-the-box thing to do. The river itself is called the Dore. Nowadays many people think it comes from the French d’or meaning gold, the modern name for the valley is Golden Valley after all. But this isn’t what the old name means. The name Dore derives from the Welsh word dŵr, meaning water. The word was later interpreted by the Norman French as “d’or”, meaning “golden”, and the river valley, through this misunderstanding, then became known in English as “Golden Valley”. It’s a thing about old place-names in indigenous languages, they mean what they really are, in the case the river is called ‘the water’. Without me saying this the students all got it in their own ways so, when we talked about it later, they got the significance of walking in the water – the blood of the Lady and one of the silver threads that link everything across the land.
And then there are the roots …
They’re quite stunning and add to the whole feel of being rooted into the land, and through the water. Another form of Vivien and Merlin – she as the land and he as the water flowing through it, enlivening it, fertilising it.
We came home and they drew their experience again, then we talked about it. It’s always wonderful to me how each experience is unique but they’re all linked in the same theme. Otherworld are just so good at this if we allow them to show us.
On the Sunday, we again shared the night’s dreams through drawing and then each one telling the story of their dream. So different. They were all getting that they really had crossed thresholds, changed, grown, and their dreams were showing them this.
After the dream-sharing, we did fun-things like drumming and dancing, playing stip-the-willow and even hide-n-seek . Fun and laughter are so much part of our old ways here in Britain … and having fun, laughing, really helps you get to know things in your bones, rather than just in your head! And I told the story of Merlin – who we call Dyfrig here – his birth here as a fatherless child, and about the schools he founded, and his dream with Ceridwen who brought him to the place of his final school just up the river from me.
We finished this day with Pan’s Moon gate again. After the strip-the-willow and country-dance figures (all part of our old ways) My friend Kevin (who was helping me with the workshop) and I stood in the moon gate with a foot on each side – in each world – holding our arms up in an arch. We asked Merlin and Vivien to be in us for this, Merlin came into me and Vivien into Kevin, so doing the pairs-of-opposites and the double-spiral. Then we asked the students to go through and round the path again in each direction. Wow! The differenc now. They all danced and laughed and played, skipping and leaping, not worrying if they looked crazy – in fact they all looked so happy, so much lighter than when they arrived on the Friday.
We sat with a final cuppa and chatted by the pond. They all agreed they felt much lighter, more open, more connected, and also that they’d been surprised at how much the workshop, the threshold-crossings, had been about themselves. So it is. This work is always about yourself, your relationship with your self, and your relationship with otherworld. That’s what this work is all about – connecting, living, being, with otherworld and in thisworld, both at the same time. Like that double spiral they all experienced on the stone at Vowchurch, like Merlin and Vivien holding both sides of one coin. Like the threshold itself, where you are neither here nor there but, as you stand in it you are in both at once.
Elen Sentier
I’m a wilderness-woman, from a family of British cunning-folk. I write magical realism novels, teach the British old ways, and live with my cats, husband and a host of wildlife in the magical, twilight world of the Welsh Borders. You can find out more about me at www.elensentier.co.uk