The Return of Gwenhwyfar

The Great Returning pre(a)ys upon my mind, at several levels.

I feel, as I did with my Queen Gwenhwyfar/Guenevere ‘work in progress’, haunted by its significance, what it could be, what it is…

With Gwenhwfyar, She sits, awaiting me, dignified, Her Voice speaking from The Beyond, saying something like:

I had a Tale to Tell. You promised, you made an oath before The Ancients on the Inner Plane…one way or another, My Tale Will Be Told.

I have a Terrible Suspicion, with Gwenhwyfar’s Tale (Passages About Gwenhwyfar) left untold/incomplete but partially available, and indeed, this Divine Guilt will prompt me to put up what is extant—that Gwenhwyfar and The Great Returning are indeed One Tale—about Our Ancestors, About the Great Trek out of The MotherLands into The Land of Now, what we lost, what we gained, about the nature of Woman/Mother/Goddess-Hood and what is to be retrieved, what is to be done to retrieve our Best Humanity—and back to my newfound friend Genevieve Vaughan (you really must read Her Work). Underneath it all, the Mystery of Language, language/words mis-guided, the Language of Gender, the words ‘male’ and ‘female’.

Not that Gwenhwyfar’s Tale itself is overtly about male/female hierarchical differences, Arthur’s betrayal etcetera. Underneath is what Caitlin Matthews (for one) calls the issue of ‘Sovereignty’: The Goddess of the Land/Sovereign ‘She’…who must be obeyed (as we come from The Land/literally made from cosmic dust), a Symbolic Queen, such as we happen to have still in Britain and the Commonwealth (see here, my Canadian roots). One’s/our/humankind’s relationship with ‘the land’—deeper than nation but necessarily inclusive of it.

In my promotion of The Great Returning, I see us returning to embrace The Myth of Sovereignty, to refind ourselves in relationship to ‘The Land’ which includes the oceans; ‘The Land’ is a Larger Reality than merely the ‘landmass’ we ‘inhabit’…it is ultimately Planet Earth. That necessary sense of Belonging, sense of Clan, sense of Home—sense of COMMUNITY—with what/whom we identify and without which we perish.

Meantime, a lot of us are hard at work regenerating it. Witness the burgeoning Transition Town Movement, let alone the intrepid/long-standing WI (Women’s Institute)—if there were a secret  society for The Goddess, there it is alive and well in Britain. Community is On The March (again). Memories of WW2 and Victory Gardens.

Well and good. What works, works. AND onward. Beyond consumerism, capitalism, Right & Left Wing Politics, BEYOND, to a new-old Vision of A Future where our kids and grandkids have a chance at SURVIVAL. Meantime, belay the Deniers, they will come alongside (as my Navy Dad would say and I still do, being a Navy Gal) in due course, when things get bad or their kids or relatives GET IT. I understand the need to deny—it has a serious purpose in The Scheme of Things. I’m trying NOT to be STUPID, eh?

The Great Returning is our OPPORTUNITY (a small window in time) to RETHINK where we came from, where we are going and how to get there—Let’s TO/DO IT!