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John Willmott RIP 2024's avatar

I think everyone probably grows into their own interpretation of those words. For me, ‘Awen’ is the most recent. First time I heard it was when I was beiefly working in Pembrokeshire around 1971, and did not hear of it again until meeting some OBOD people, probably from mid 80s. I have always thought of it as being a word for the path of inspiration and the flow of life, but described as a ‘trinity’ held together as a cycle of wholeness.

Imbas, I think I first heard mid 60s in Scotland in reference to clairvoyant and prophesy practice. The idea of using prompts to bring on vision and inspiration that is very handy in poetry. I think today our interpretation of Imbas and Awen is much the same along with the oriental Qi, maybe. Interesting thinking of the words ‘wisdom’ and ‘enlightenment’ as I tend to believe wisdom comes from enlightenment.

Sidhe is a word I was brought up with and I have just accepted that as being a handy word for us to describe life itself, and maybe that life is what generates the Imbas or Awen because without having those perceptions, enlightenment, we may not be aware of the presence of the ‘sidhe’ . A bit like how some people describe how they ‘found Christ’ or ‘found God’.

But before I ever heard the Imbas and Awen words what was said to me was “the sidhe is the spirit that guides us and helps us to see the unseen, understand it and interpret it” . Fairies I was often told of as a child was invented for ‘fun’ as a way to show some of the ways that the sidhe lives.

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John Willmott RIP 2024's avatar

Ha, ha, I never promoted myself as a women’s group guide, but it was mainly women’s groups that booked me. I would never have promoted myself as such, though.

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