In the Welsh medieval legends
known as Mabinogion1, one of the main themes is leadership,
which in ancient
times meant the sacro-magical qualities and responsibilities
of both queenship and kingship. But this is a very different
type of king, queen, or leader to those that later sat
on gilded thrones and abused their power, or to the gray
minds of modern politics, rigidly locked into infantile
fantasies of domination. The epitome of the leader is
embodied in the figure of Bran, king of the Britons (the
Welsh). Bran, whose name means Raven, and his sister
Branwen, White Raven, are mythic figures: if we examine
them closely, it seems that originally they were gigantic
spirit beings, of the land and UnderWorld, who, as with
many mythic figures, gradually become thought of as primal
ancestors of the race. Such Titans (if we may borrow
the Greek word) are associated with the deep powers of
creation and destruction. In the Mabinogion, they have
become mythic ancestors of humanity, with some of the
original “Titan” motifs interwoven. They
embody themes such as rightful ruling, wise leadership,
good judgment, sacred marriage, and, most significantly,
the interaction of prophecy and Guardianship from the
spirit world, working with the outer or mundane powers
of kingship and social responsibility. You can read the
stories in translation in many editions2, so I am
not going to reproduce them here. But do read them! They
are remarkable tales, and if you do any spiritual work,
they will reveal a wealth of wisdom and insight3.
There is much that we can learn from this ancient “Celtic” (really
pre-Celtic) ancestral UnderWorld perspective on leadership
and community, with two provisos: (I) that we do not
use it as an excuse for romantic archaic escapism, and
(II) that we go the very core and heart of it, to discover
how we may draw upon its wisdom, but also remold and
revitalize it for the 21st century. I must say, pessimistically
but truthfully, that there is little chance or hope that
our current world leaders will do much that we might
count as wise or compassionate, but that does not prevent
us, the people, from addressing issues of leadership
and community at a grass roots level. In many parts of
the pagan and Wiccan communities, as in the Hermetic
and magical lodges of old, there are well defined and
documented sets of rules. These are helpful for new members,
and for dealing with petty problems: but a true sense
of community can only come when each and every one of
us is ready and willing to accept responsibility. Not
merely responsibility for our own actions, but for those
of the community itself, and for those of the greater
community of the nation, even of the world. This is a
tough insight: it implies that we are all responsible,
like it or not, for the arrogance and folly of our leaders,
not merely by default, but through the resonance of our
own weaknesses and follies. In ancestral cultures, the
people had a close spiritual relationship with the leaders,
and could remove them at will if they failed to live
up to the required standards of wisdom. But more than “wisdom”,
there was a special relationship in which the leaders
and the community exchanged spiritual forces…we
will return to this shortly in the legend of Bran. Today
we seem more limited: we get the leaders we deserve,
most of the time, even if we thought we had voted otherwise.
When I think of the Mabinogion, and of the story
of Bran and Branwen, which is the source
of inspiration for this
article, certain concepts and images stand out, and
these are what I will highlight and explore.
We will not be
going deeply into the ramifications of the stories
themselves, for they are subtle and complex,
and have many interlaced
themes and motifs. So whether or not you know the
tale of Branwen Daughter of Llyr, one
of the essential wisdom
tales of the Welsh ancestors, please be aware that
this is not a commentary on the tale itself,
and that many
major themes are not addressed here, simply because
we are focusing on the ideas of leadership
and community.
In ancestral cultures, such stories and story cycles
as the Mabinogion were regarded as sources of insight,
wisdom, inspiration, and precedent. This consciousness
of the sanctity of traditional legends is found in
all primal cultures. Not so long ago we
had wisdom tales,
songs, and sagas that helped us towards right living:
today we have Survivor and Oprah…did we miss
something that led us, inexorably, to our current
impoverished
state?
To write this article, I have not gone through
the original text page by page, but instead
I sit here,
meditatively,
before my keyboard, allowing the motifs of the
chosen theme, leadership and the community,
to rise up in
my consciousness, based on my deep association
with the
traditional tales. This, I believe, is what the
bards and druids also did, though undoubtedly
to a far greater
degree than the modern mind can encompass. When
you read the story of Bran and Branwen,
you will find
more than
I have discussed here: this is not an exhaustive
study. Please note that I am focusing
on Bran, the male figure
in the legends, because culturally and historically
the aspects of leadership are primarily woven around
and
within him in the original tale. Branwen has other
attributes, associated with the relationship between
the sacred land,
queenship and the Goddess, and she is no less significant
than her brother. Indeed, the entire action revolves
around her and her role as queen. So I am using
Bran as the model, but the qualities that
we will explore
are equally valid for women as for men, and there
is no intention here of assuming that leaders are
always
male.
So what stands out, for me, when I enter into the
mystery of leadership and community, as understood
by my Welsh
ancestors, and as demonstrated in one profound
mythic, magical, and moral story?
Firstly I remember that Bran is asked to judge
and judge fairly, even if it means giving
up something of his own.
Indeed, he gives a magical cauldron of regeneration
to the king of Ireland, as restitution for
a vicious mutilation
of the Irish horses. This barbaric aspect
of the story
hides, and reveals, wisdom concerning spite,
jealousy, and restitution. What is significant
for us, in
our contemporary context, is that the leader
has to be
willing to give
much, especially to keep peace and honor
between families, tribes, and nations.
Bran does not
stint of his gifts
to the King of Ireland, and a good leader
has to understand giving as much as controlling
and retaining.
If our
contemporary leaders, in the affluent societies
of the West, had given
more to the deprived peoples of our modern
world
and taken less, we might not be in the current
perilous
situation that arises today. If humanity
as a whole had remembered
to give not only to one another, but to give
back to the land and to the planet herself,
we might
stand a
better chance of survival. But as long as
we can see cute baby animals on wildlife
documentaries,
we feel
good anyway. If we fail to give, we fail
not only
others, but ourselves. The world is an entity,
of which we are
a part. Both leaders and communities have
to rediscover the power of giving, and
of generous
wise judgment.
Bran embodies this, and we can learn from
his generosity.
Secondly I remember that Bran is in service
to the tribe, the people. He does not
dominate or
impose
his will:
indeed, he dies in service of his people,
and becomes a spirit guardian. We will
return to
this theme
shortly. In Celtic cultures, the tribal
kings were elected,
and the role was not hereditary as it
later became. The last
elected king of Scotland was Macbeth4,
who was actually rather a good king, not
at all
like the
character in
Shakespeare. So a leader is someone who
serves the community, and may come into
power through
the common
will, rather
than by force of arms, or through legalistic
manipulation. If someone wants the position
of leadership, they
are not fit to undertake it. I am reminded,
(and I hope you
will forgive this) of Kris Kristofferson
in the Peckinpaw film Convoy. If you have
seen
this hokey
semi-mythic
film you will know what I mean, and if
you have not seen it…well…you
have not seen it. The leader is not in
it for glory: he or she seeks to serve
the
best interest of the people, to be generous
when appropriate, to be stern when necessary
(Bran does both), but on the
behalf of the tribe or community, and
with no hidden agendas.
The third thing that arises in my mind is
a small but significant part of the story,
which
I will
recount: the Irish king mistreats Branwen,
to whom he is married.
(This is part of another, related, set
of motifs about queendom, power in the
male
king deriving
only through
sacred marriage, and restitution of vitality
to the land.
Sorry, but we cannot deal with these today).
So Bran and the Britons (not a 1960’s
pop group from Liverpool, but the army
of the Welsh) invade Ireland. Generous
when
appropriate, stern when necessary.
At one point they cannot cross the River
Liffey, which runs through what is
now the city of Dublin,
because
the Irish druids have placed stones
of power therein. So Bran stretches himself
out, and
becomes a bridge.
He would be a chieftain must first
be
a bridge is the old saying associated
with this motif.
A king,
a queen,
a leader, must be a bridge. What does
this mean? Where does it come from?
A bridge connects
places
that are
separated by a gap or a river: the
high priest of ancient Rome was called
the
pontifex maximus
or “great
bridger”, a title subsequently borrowed by the
Catholic Church to refer to its Popes. So the bridging
of a leader is not merely secular or political, but spiritual.
He or she must bridge between different places, different
states of being, for the benefit of the community. A
bridge is not a symbol: people cross over it, it carries
weight, it is sturdy and trustworthy in our lives, we
expect it to withstand and uphold, and, of course to
lead somewhere. He or She who would be a chieftain, must
first be a bridge. Bran, interestingly, “takes
the musicians and poets upon his back” and lays
himself down to be a bridge. The voices of the community
are the musicians and poets…or
at least, used to be.
From the motif of the Bridge,
I am led to the major motif in the story,
that
of the
death
of Bran.
He is disabled
by a spear, and eventually dies.
This is part of the major theme of Sacred
Kingship, associated
with the
less publicized theme that I have
termed
Priestess Queenship:
in sacro-magical practice the two
are inseparable.
Bran asks his followers to cut off
his head, and
it is miraculously
preserved . The head speaks to them,
and recites wonders. Eventually
it is to be
buried in the
White Hill, in
London, where it will guard the
land from invasion. One of the
Three Unfortunate Disclosures of
Britain was when Arthur dug up the head
of
Bran, bringing
woe upon
the land and
upon himself5.
This idea of sacrifice clearly connects
to the theme
of bridging
between the
worlds, but it goes
further, for the leader continues
to serve the people from the spiritual
realms,
as a prophet,
as a guardian.
How may we work with this ancestral
theme today? Two levels come
to mind: the first
is that we
must continue
to respect and uphold the wisdom
and the vision of the founders
and leaders
of
the past. Modern
politics
would
be very different if we actually
did this, rather than use it
as a mere
gimmick.
Those founders,
leaders, and
thinkers, still speak to us,
and we ignore them at our peril. Secondly,
in terms
of contemporary
spiritual
work,
we can draw upon the inner wisdom
of
those who have gone before. They
may not be
the famous
names, but
their resonance
and compassion is available to
us.
In this sense both the leader,
whoever she
or he
might be,
and the community,
can tap into the consciousness
of the inner spiritual mentors and
leaders.
I emphatically
do not imply
anything as simplistic as mediumship
or channeling, but something
deeper: a holism of shared consciousness
available to all as inspiration,
support, and comfort.
This is why
Bran carries the poets and musicians
upon his back, for they are not
only the voice
of the
people,
but they are
the preservers of wisdom traditions
in music, poetry, and song. This
is, as you
know, the
idea that infused
the young Bob Dylan with inspiration
back in the 1960’s.
A leader can, in dark times,
draw upon the role-models, the
wisdom, and the examples of those
leaders of the
past, but at a deeper level,
those of us in the community
can all draw upon their timeless
influence and inspiration.
Where does our hope live? Not
only in our youthful aspirations,
before
they
are drowned
by the
demonic tides of modernist
culture, but in forming small
spiritual communities with
appropriate leadership.
Not escapist
communities, but
communities that live and
work in the mainstream, yet are founded
on a deeper
reality than
television, online
chat rooms, and shareholding
in
AOL. And the leadership has
to
come from
those
who tap into
the wisdom
of the past, in order to build
for the future. Like the
Celtic
ancestors, we should elect
leaders communally….
a far cry from the legalistic and pernicious state of
so called democracy today.In conclusion, if you want
to be a leader, you are probably not the right person.
Leaders are discovered by default, or are voted into
the task by consensus (something that we have lost now).
If you accept leadership, you have to give, to serve,
to bridge, and ultimately to let go of all self- interest,
in order that the community may thrive, even if it means
your own loss. It’s
a tough job, but we can all
take some part in it, for
one another. This is why the
table is Round, so that there
is no head of the table, no
matter who is leader for certain
tasks. Such tasks
might take a day, a month, a year, or many lifetimes.
R J Stewart
________________________________________
1The Mabinogion (a collective
name created
by Lady Charlotte Guest in
the 19th
century) consists
of 11
stories,
originally from bardic oral tradition.
Two texts
of these
stories remain,
the Llyfr
Gwyn Rhydderch
(White Book
of Rhydderch, dated between
1330-1325,
and the Llyfr Coch Hergest (Red Book
of Hergest)
dated between 1375-1425. The White Book
is in the
National Library
of Wales
at Aberystwyth
with earlier manuscripts, MSS Peniarth
6,7,14,16
which also
contain material
clearly
from the Mabinogion. The Red
Book
is in the
Library
of Jesus College,
Oxford.
The medieval dates of the White and Red
Books
relate
solely to
the time when the
stories
were written down, and do not
give
a date of
origin.
Internal references
and themes
show that, like much of the bardic material,
the stories
of
the Mabinogion
emerge
from an
ancient
oral poetic
tradition. 2 Translations and further
reading:
The Mabinogion translated Lady Charlotte
Guest,
with notes
by Alfred
Nutt. Nutt, London, 1904. The Mabinogion, translated
by J Gantz,
Penguin, Harmondsworth,
1976. Also
Mabon and the Mysteries
of Britain,
Caitlin
Matthews,
Arkana,
London,
1987. 3 Celtic Myths, Celtic
Legends R J Stewart, Blandford
Press,
London, 1994. (Later
editions and reprints
of these titles have been
also been published). 4 Macbeth R J Stewart,
Firebird Books, Poole,
1988. 5 The Welsh Triads translated
Rachel Bromwich, Cardiff
University Press,
1961.
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