The Heart of Annwn

It began with a drumbeat. 

During the period I was struggling with anxiety about the disruption to my sleep pattern caused by night work, which was making me lose even more sleep, I found a helpful practice in the Way of the Buzzard’s ‘Healing Drum’ Course.

It was a drumbeat which echoed the sound of a heartbeat and which I found of use in slowing my own heartbeat and calming my anxiety before I went to sleep.

As I made playing this slow beat on my drum* a regular practice I found it not only slowed the rhythm of my heart but brought it into alignment with the beating of a far greater heart, which I intuited was ‘the Heart of Annwn’.**

A chant came to me:

Slow Beat

Slowly beats
The Heart of Annwn

Slowly beats
The Sacred Heart

And then another, which I imagined being played at the Monastery of Annwn at the end of the day, to call the monks and nuns back home, to the Sacred Heart.

Hear the Heart

Hear the Heart, the Heart of Annwn,
Hear the Heart, oh Monk and Nun.

Hear the Heart, the Heart of Annwn,
Hear the beat of Sacred Drum.

Hear the Heart, the Heart of Annwn,
Hear the Heart, oh Monk and Nun. 

Heart the Heart, the Heart of Annwn,
“To the Monastery we come.”

Within the Monastery of Annwn we have been discussing the creation of our Rule. An idea that resonated with everybody as suitable for a non-hierarchical, non-dogmatic, deity-led monastic organisation was ‘the Rule of  the Heart’.

This feels fitting as, first and foremost, what unites us is love of the Annvuian Gods. It also fits with my feeling most happy and fulfilled when my heart’s desires are aligned with the desires of my Gods, my heartbeat with the Heart of Annwn.

I’m hoping to develop these ideas into the formulation of a Rule with other members over the coming weeks.

~ Lorna

*I made my horseskin drum from local materials at a Way of the Buzzard drum making workshop several years ago. The inside of the frame is decorated with images of Gwyn and my spirit guides and it is dedicated to Them.
**Annwn means ‘the Deep’ in Welsh and is the name of the Brythonic Otherworld.