Gwyllm’s Newsletter

The Golden Centre

Gwyllm Llwydd — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 22:04:33 GMT

Oh my gosh, more than one Substack a month! Who would ever guess? I am trying to play a bit of catch up as of late. This entry was actually started 2 months ago. The past couple of days has been a blessing in that I am able to do work on my art and writing. Even the weather is sweet, clouds in the morning, cool enough for me to have cognizant thoughts instead of the scattered ADHD mindscape that I dip into way too frequently.

On The Menu: The Links/ New Art - The Golden Centre/ On Dying/ Counterpoint/ Poesy – Rabia al Basri/ Japan - Ghost (2003 Mix)

The Links: How The Troubadours Shaped Medieval Romance / How Art Invented Humanity / Is this the world’s oldest image of a mind‑altering plant?/ Can Plants Feel Pain?/ Rewilded land remains green amid drought-stricken English countryside

___

New Art - The Golden Centre/Vimana Series

A piece that will soon be available as a print, and perhaps in the 13th Edition of the “Invisible College” review. I really enjoyed working with this one! It has been a while since I put together an assemblage/collage, having devoted my art time to my pointillist/mandala work over the last couple of years.

This piece is constructed in part with pen and ink work I did nearly 30 years ago, to finally see the light of day in this piece as fading sunlight. I am very excited to share this piece! I hope you like it!

___

Growing up, I had a realization that many of my dreams were precognitive in nature. So, being my own version of Kassandra/Cassandra… along the way I stopped sharing dreams about others. Too unsettling for folks, as I see it. Still, the dreams come. Sometimes I don't share them even with family.

Recently I had a dream in which I saw the timeline of my remaining life here in this place. It struck me that I had a bunch of stuff to do before I clocked out.

The Dream. This dream came with a remembrance of an old Sufi saying. “Die before you die”. (some credit Rumi, but I am sure he picked it up along the way) I was given a timeline in which to complete what I came here to do this lifetime. I have been remiss on a few items, I swear. Death came to me and invited me to let it go when the time was right. As I understood the message, that we “Die before you die” was that preparation was everything.

I have had a few close encounters in my life, accidents, illness, the police… This was not an encounter on this side but on the other. Oddly comforting and assuring.

I guess it is in the task at hand. The doing. Being present for those that need you, and for yourself as well.

This life has gone so fast.

Much Love,

Counterpoint

For your consideration a counterpoint to the current societal madness:

“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. But then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.” - Ursula le Guinn

We live in a shared reality. The present state of things is only very recent in the human timeline... From what I recall from the Neolithic on Is less than 1% of our time on Mother Earth. We now live in an aberration; A state that runs counter to all that went before and if we are so lucky to all that comes after.

The experiment is coming to an end. I believe we are here to help rectify the imbalance of this age.

We are watching systems of government & economies collapsing and mutating. This is not a time to wax nostalgic over what is now fading away. The Event Horizon is beckoning.

As it has been pointed out by David Graeber & David Wengrow, we did not just jump from hunter gatherers to farming in one cataclysmic leap but moved back and forth for several thousand years.

I started dictating this sitting in a fabulous Garden alongside the Willamette where I was painting exterior walls for a friend. For all the insanity in the world it is but a blip compared to what is really going on. As I worked there, a hummingbird would come almost daily to flit about me as I worked. Sweetness.

We have solutions available, but we must seize on them, and soon.

For the Future, and those that come after.

Poesy – Rabia al Basri:
I have loved Thee with two loves –
a selfish love and a love that is worthy of Thee.
As for the love which is selfish,
Therein I occupy myself with Thee,
to the exclusion of all others.
But in the love which is worthy of Thee,
Thou dost raise the veil that I may see Thee.
Yet is the praise not mine in this or that,
But the praise is to Thee in both that and this.
—
If I adore You out of fear of Hell, burn me in Hell!
If I adore you out of desire for Paradise,
Lock me out of Paradise.
But if I adore you for Yourself alone,
Do not deny to me Your eternal beauty.
—
Your hope in my heart is the rarest treasure
Your Name on my tongue is the sweetest word
My choicest hours
Are the hours I spend with You —
O Allah, I can’t live in this world
Without remembering You–
How can I endure the next world
Without seeing Your face?
I am a stranger in Your country
And lonely among Your worshippers:
This is the substance of my complaint.
—
With my Beloved I alone have been,
When secrets tenderer than evening airs
Passed, and the Vision blest
Was granted to my prayers,
That crowned me, else obscure, with endless fame;
The while amazed between
His Beauty and His Majesty
I stood in silent ecstasy
Revealing that which o’er my spirit went and came.
Lo, in His face commingled
Is every charm and grace;
The whole of Beauty singled
Into a perfect face
Beholding Him would cry,
‘There is no God but He, and He is the most High.’

___
Japan - Ghost (2003 Mix)

And a note as I depart this posting. A blessing on you and yours, I hope the days and nights are sweet.

Until Later!

Deities...

Gwyllm Llwydd — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 19:47:51 GMT

The Muse - Gwyllm

I have been away for a while, taking care the best I can of a family member who has been in pain. This has been a juggling act, as with the economy and all I have pretty much returned to work on a full/part-time basis, which leaves not a lot of time. This is not a complaint, but just a nod to the given situation.

I want to thank all of you who have continued to support my writing and my art. Hopefully there will be a turn around, and I can publish more frequently.

As Far as Art Goes…I have a new piece coming out shortly, I have been working on it since early May this year. As soon as I get it scanned, I will share

On The Menu:

Sky Daddy/s and other Mythologies / Sappho - Glittering-Minded deathless Aphrodite/ Orphic Hymn to the Muses

___________

Sky Daddy’s

I grew up in a military family. Both of my parents were from Methodist backgrounds. In the military there is only one option for Methodist, or other Sects of the Protestant mindset: “Military Protestant”. Whether they be Methodist, Lutherans, Southern Baptist, Snake Handlers… All went into the one pot/chapel.

Our Sundays went like this: Kids off to Sunday School. Parents join us later for Chapel. By the time all of this was done, 2.5 hours or more, I would be starved. Then a big meal and on with the day after I explained at my father’s behest what I had learned that day in chapel. Usually, it ended with me in detention for not grasping the intricacies of Christian/Protestant thought. Not surprising, as my mind was usually elsewhere. (The grand poobaa Sky Daddy along with his son was a fascination to me. Why would you tell a people they were special and then punish them all of the time? If your son was a part of you, why did you have to impregnate a woman with yourself and then sacrifice yourself to yourself? So many contradictions and conflictions…) more of this perhaps later…

What I see in these recalling’s is the inculturation that goes on across cultures. Perhaps a little more aggressive here as I read recently in a comment about folks running around trying to convert others to their version of the Sky God: “Australian here. Grateful that we got the convicts and you got the puritans.”

As a child I was alright with this, didn’t know any better until one Sunday, the minister said something along these lines: “You were born in sin, and you are condemned because of the actions of Eve in the Garden of Paradise.” Well… that didn’t seem right to me. What had I done? I was 7 years old. That one instance set me on a path… that was followed up the next year by a gift from my mother when we were about to drive across the US:

Within this book I discovered that there was more than one version of “God” It was an eye opener. The Iliad introduced me to Athena, the first version of the Goddess that I knew of. The story of her interactions with humans, and her whisperings to their consciousness and conscience was enthralling to a young lad. Of course there were Sky Daddy’s as well, Zeus of course, but Apollo as well. Hey! They had more than one! Bonus! I spent that summer enraptured by the book. Then I went on to find other myths, discovering the Roman take on it with the Aeneas gloss on the tale… I found a version of the Aeneid in Latin when I was 12 and tried to teach myself Latin so that I could read it in the original. (I gave up after a couple of months) Then of course there is the British version of Brutus of Troy coming up the River Dart and landing in what is now Totnes… (This is in Devon) according to medieval legend, marking his arrival in Britain where he famously proclaimed, “Here I stand and here I rest, and this town shall be called Totnes.” (Which is a lovely town, and they even have the stone he first stepped on btw)

The short of it all is that I was ruined for Christianity, although I thought/and think that Jesus was an okay guy and really tried his best. It seems a pattern in Middle Eastern Myth Structure that the messenger gets sacrificed. Bad deal that. Still, I struggled along and tried to fit in for a while, becoming fascinated with the Apocalyptic Books. Then things took a turn…

I took LSD, and what I discovered further upset the Apple Cart of Mythology I had been raised with. On my second excursion I had what is classically called “The White Light” experience. Within that timeless moment of the eternal that which some would call God (too small! too focused culturally!) presented itself as the Divine Feminine, The Great Mother Goddess. Within the experience my life that I had known was shattered. The overarching Oneness I discovered had shown me something no book, no word, experience had ever shown me.

It will soon be 60 years since I first ventured into the maelstrom of consciousness that psychedelics hints at. My initial encounter with altered consciousness on one hand was a marvelous moment but also a horrible one in that i couldn’t articulate what had occurred with adequate nuance. Words failed me repeatedly when I tried to describe the loss of individual self, the ecstasy of merging with the Atman of the Universe…

Well, back to Sky Daddy’s:

There are some remarkable similarities in sky deities, most seem to have evolved from humble beginnings and become conflated later on in their careers. For the longest time I thought Jehovah had begun as a mouse demon who raided granaries. Last week I found out that actually was Apollo. YHWH was a conglomerate deity made up from the Canaanite deity, and El and desert peoples war and thunder god. Among the Hittites, El was known as Elkunirša (Hittite: 𒂖𒆪𒉌𒅕𒊭 Elkunīrša). Although El gained different appearances and meanings in different languages over time, it continues to exist as El-, -il or -el in compound proper noun phrases such as Elizabeth, Israel, Michael, and Bethel, most of which are theophoric given names. (thanks Wikipedia!)

On the whole they’re not very pleasant deities more than likely they are like Archons of the Gnostic belief system.

This is great: Apollo Mouse Cult More

Then there is this guy. Demanding folks to sacrifice their children to him to prove their worthiness or cutting off their foreskins if male. It only got worse over time it seems.

Walking away from the absolutism of Sky Daddy was a process. The society drowns in it to this day. - I may flesh this out a bit more later on.

___

Sappho - Glittering-Minded deathless Aphrodite

The Greek Poet Sappho and the Girl from Mytilene

‘Glittering-Minded deathless Aphrodite’

Glittering-Minded deathless Aphrodite,
I beg you, Zeus’s daughter, weaver of snares,
Don’t shatter my heart with fierce
Pain, goddess,

But come now, if ever before
You heard my voice, far off, and listened,
And left your father’s golden house,
And came,

Yoking your chariot. Lovely the swift
Sparrows that brought you over black earth
A whirring of wings through mid-air
Down the sky.

They came. And you, sacred one,
Smiling with deathless face, asking
What now, while I suffer: why now
I cry out to you, again:

What now I desire above all in my
Mad heart. ’Whom now, shall I persuade
To admit you again to her love,
Sappho, who wrongs you now?

If she runs now she’ll follow later,
If she refuses gifts she’ll give them.
If she loves not, now, she’ll soon
Love against her will.’

Come to me now, then, free me
From aching care, and win me
All my heart longs to win. You,
Be my friend.--

Orphic Hymn to the Muses

Daughters of Mnemosyne, daughters of thundering Zeus,
Pierian Muses, renowned and illustrious,
Beloved of the mortals you visit, many-shaped,
you give birth to unblemished virtue in every discipline,
You nourish the soul, you set thought aright,
as you become mistresses of the mind’s power.
Sacred and mystic rites you taught to mortals,
Cleio, Euterpe, Thaleia, Melpomene, Terpsichore, Erato, Polhymnia, Ourania,
mother Calliope, mighty sublime goddess.
Do come to the initiates, O goddesses, in your manifold holiness,
do bring glory and emulation that is lovely and sung by many.

Over The Temple - Gwyllm Llwydd

Thank you for visiting! More Soon.

Universal Convergence/Creation

It Is Shining

Gwyllm Llwydd — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 18:51:20 GMT

All things are full of gods. — Thales (c. 624–546 BCE)

Dharma

Gwyllm Llwydd — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 02:57:08 GMT

Dear Friends,

I just stumbled on about 12 Substack’s sitting and waiting to be completed. Not today it seems, time for some fresh(er) thoughts. I have found myself less on the computer (by design) working more with physical art (see below) It is very liberating to step back into that zone. Moving one’s hands, positioning the paper, the drafting template around to capture the exact forms… Everything as I work is in correspondence, and interrelated. I tend to fret and reassess on the constant. I am not spontaneous in the way Jackson Pollock was, even though my partner has told me I should try it more often. I have a couple of pieces that I have started, which need a bit more work.

The next few months will see a couple of publications coming forth as well. Please stay tuned! Much more Art, Cultural Artifacts and Musings on the way.

Gwyllm

—

On The Menu:

Links / New Art! “Dharma” / Sale! Universal Convergence - Creation Sitting With Master Hsu Yun (Poetry) / Our Day Will Come / The Dreamings / Excerpt: The Gods of Pegana, by Lord Dunsany / Summoning The Muse

—

Links: Evidence of Ancient Humans Living Where No One Thought They Could / Year Without a Summer / Secrets of the Afterlife / Hilma af Klint / DMT Entities, Real?

—

New Art! "Dharma"

The newest piece in the collection. Acrylics & Pencil 18x24 inches. 5 weeks of work.
Found that using a new pallete is border-line liberating!
I have been captivated with the Mandala since I was introduced to it by John Chick of Bardo Matrix many years ago in Boulder Colorado.
Working with pen, paper & pencil is entirely different than do work on the computer. It is slower, but it is much more meditative in nature.
I hope you would consider “Dharma” for your art collection!

“Dharma” may be purchased on Gwyllm-Arts.Com

It comes in 3 sizes: 18x24 inches (Printed by Gango in Portland)

17x22 inches & 13x19 inches.

—

Sale! Universal Convergence - Creation

While I am posting art, I would like to put this piece forward as it is on Sale as well!

Limited Print! Less than 20 left!

—

Sitting With Master Hsu Yun

In Response to Layman Ma Guanyuan for a Special Verse

I don’t carry a gentleman’s lute
Or own a longevity crane.
I’m as undistinguished as smoke
And casual as sunset clouds.
Scattered and low.
Scattered and low.
Sometimes I roam along Bilu Peak
Or lounge around Maitreya’s Court.
Who needs seven hundred lifetimes?
Who needs to be the houseguest of an Immortal?
You can measure what’s empty or catch hold of the wind;
But the hardships of an ascetic monk are beyond reckoning.
You can move an entire mountain or shrink a great distance;
But nobody can plumb the depths of spiritual emptiness.
In the space of just a single thought
A thousand years can be speeded up or stopped.
But the distance light travels in those thousand years
Wouldn’t reach the limits of a monk’s travails.
I could have been a deckhand
And traveled all the seas;
Or else a simple laborer,
A porter with a pole.
What if I had been born noble and wealthy?
Shakya was; but he rejected that
And so would I. Ah. Ah.
So I don’t carry a gentleman’s lute
Or walk around with longevity cranes.
I just go, scattered and low, scattered and low.
As obscure as smoke and casual as those sunset clouds

—

Years Months Days Hours

One year and then another.
Appearances gradually change.
Bone marrow shrivels.
Eyebrows thin away.
This time-limited body is like a mound of slurry.
In the Triple World, earth, air, fire and water mingle and change.
This is all our emotions allow us to notice
And their sight obstructs our view of Heaven.
One month and then another.
The light and dark pass like melting snow.
No part can be kept for long.
Only the Dharma does not come or go.
The lacquer bowl suddenly breaks.
You are like the Dragon of Heaven – born to be lively and free.
A roc can’t live in a crane’s nest.
A little jiao liao bird needs to stay near mosquito ponds.
One day and then another.
They never wear themselves out.
Give up your judgments about everything.
It’s all insubstantial in the end.
All things under the sun come to an end and dissolve.
Spend what time you have in honest simplicity.
Just one breath of the Eternal
Admits you to the Great Chamber.
One hour and then another.
Inexorably march, step by step.
Whenever I meet you, we each smile.
But who is it who drags your corpse around?
Steadfast and unchangeable
Always mindful of this or that.
You’re young and strong. Exert yourself!
Don’t wait… oh please don’t wait
Until you’re much too old and weak.

—

Dead Can Dance: Our Day Will Come

The Dreamings…

‘Understood in its metaphysical sense,
Beauty is one of the manifestations of the Absolute Being.
Emanating from the harmonious rays of the Divine plan,
it crosses the intellectual plane to shine once again across
the natural plane, where it darkens into matter. ‘
-Jean Delville 1899

(Jean Delville – The School of Silence)

Excerpt: The Gods of Pegana, by Lord Dunsany

illustration by Sidney Sime

OF THE MAKING OF THE WORLDS

When MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI had made the gods there were only the gods, and They sat in the middle of Time, for there was as much Time before them as behind them, which having no end had neither a beginning.

And Pegana was without heat or light or sound, save for the drumming of Skarl; moreover Pegana was The Middle of All, for there was below Pegana what there was above it, and there lay before it that which lay beyond.

Then said the gods, making the signs of the gods and speaking with Their hands lest the silence of Pegana should blush; then said the gods to one another, speaking with Their hands; “Let Us make worlds to amuse Ourselves while MANA rests. Let Us make worlds and Life and Death, and colours in the sky; only let Us not break the silence upon Pegana.”

Then raising Their hands, each god according to his sign, They made the worlds and the suns, and put a light in the houses of the sky.

Then said the gods: “Let Us make one to seek, to seek and never to find out concerning the wherefore of the making of the gods.”

And They made by the lifting of Their hands, each god according to his sign, the Bright One with the flaring tail to seek from the end of the Worlds to the end of them again, to return again after a hundred years.

Man, when thou seest the comet, know that another seeketh besides thee nor ever findeth out.

Then said the gods, still speaking with Their hands: “Let there be now a Watcher to regard.”

And They made the Moon, with his face wrinkled with many mountains and worn with a thousand valleys, to regard with pale eyes the games of the small gods, and to watch throughout the resting time of MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI; to watch, to regard all things, and be silent.

Then said the gods: “Let Us make one to rest. One not to move among the moving. One not to seek like the comet, nor to go round like the worlds; to rest while MANA rests.”

And They made the Star of the Abiding and set it in the North.

Man, when thou seest the Star of the Abiding to the North, know that one resteth as doth MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI, and know that somewhere among the Worlds is rest.

Lastly the gods said: “We have made worlds and suns, and one to seek and another to regard, let Us now make one to wonder.”

And They made Earth to wonder, each god by the uplifting of his hand according to his sign.

And Earth was.

—

Summoning The Muse

Thank You For Visiting!

Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

Grey Pavilion Part 1

Gwyllm Llwydd — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 02:05:29 GMT

At Club 88 in Los Angeles, 1980-81? Mary on the Vocals and I on the Korg and drum machine

Start a band? Well, we were in one for 12 years. It was a great time. I don’t know if I could pull it off now, probably would need a chair. I do miss playing music though. In a perfect world, I would have a piano, and one of my old synthesizers that I let go nearly 30 years ago. A part of me went silent when I no longer played. It is a bit complicated in that my playing was tied to song writing. After years of writing music, one day I sat down at the keyboards and I was absolutely dry. I tried repeatedly over the next year, but it was gone. (I held on to all of the equipment for years until one day I needed money to support the family.)

My Instrument of Choice back when: The Korg 3100 (The very first fully polyphonic synthesizer in the world… It was really more for the studio than playing live. with that said I just saw that they now sell for around 32K.

Still, I transitioned back and in ways forward to visual art and writing. The two disciplines have served me well over the years, and I have had leaps of creativity since. Yet there is that siren song of the keyboard, the string, the pipe. From busking as a young lad to get money to eat, later on to recording studios, playing clubs etc. does have a beguiling effect on the heart.

I was very lucky to have the people I worked with musically over the years. Phil Lithman (AKA SnakeFingers) who I collaborated with for live shows back in the late 1970s. He is largely responsible for getting me up on stage and performing back when. Phil, being from the UK on finding out that I was going there, suggested that I contact Jake Riviera, then the head guy at Stiff Records (It it ain’t Stiff it ain’t worth a fuck/their logo statement). I didn’t connect with Jake, but I stayed with Fizzle who worked at Stiff and who I had met through Phil in LA. A wonderful person. She lived in a Commune in Brixton, I stayed a week or so on her floor, and then off to the Isle of Dogs to a Punk Squat, then… Amsterdam, Freiburg, and back to London where I met my lovely Mary. When I met her, she had been a sound engineer off and on, working in theatres, tours, recording studios. (Down the road she taught me everything about recording. A sad aside: When arriving in Los Angeles, she took her CV/Resume around to several studios. Not one wanted to hire or even try her out. The reason? She was a woman. It boggles the mind…

Mary & I moved to the US, we were both enamored with the various bands using synthesizers, the usual suspects: Kraftwerk of course, Ultravox, Roxy, Brian Eno’s solo work and so much more.

Our new friend Nels Cline at that time was working at Rhino Records. Across the street was Westwood Music, run by Fred Walecki. One day after visiting Nels at Rhino, we went across the street on a whim. I walked in, saw the Korg (picture above), and fell in love. Fred treated us to the tale of who the Korg was originally intended for: Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues. Fred had purchased it, Mike had come in, looked at it and said “Nah, not for me” or something to that effect. It was a moment of instantly falling in love. The Korg was also, massively expensive (at least in my mind) $3200.00 in 1979.

So, Fred let us pay that puppy off over a few months. We ended up spending lots of time at the store, even volunteering on the weekends. When we finally came in to pay off the Korg, Fred met us with a bottle of Champagne. He was and is that kind of guy.

We took to hanging out at Westwood music on Saturdays for a few hours to help out. This went on for several years until we moved back to the UK. I met some incredible people at Westwood Music, T-Bone Burnett, Jaco Pastorius, and many others at that time. One of the most memorable moments was sitting with Brian Wilson and talking music. He was sweetness personified. I bought all of my instruments at Westwood Music over the years, except of course for the time we were back living in the UK (and those instruments were all string instruments, Hammer Dulcimer, Psaltery… I am eternally grateful for the time we spent at Freds’ Westwood Music. There will be a bit more details on the interactions there in the next missive.

After that we went through various evolutions as a band. Our friend Ley came over from London with his niece Linda in tow. We settled on a name at Ley’s suggestion “U-Bahn” derived from his time in Berlin I posit. We hung around L.A. for a couple of days and then headed north. First to San Francisco to see SnakeFingers, and then up to deep Northern California to my Stepfather’s and Mother’s place in the mountains.

Whilst in San Francisco we had all kinds of adventures. City Lights, The Castro, hanging out with SnakeFingers and The Residents. Checking out a gig of SnakeFingers, where Linda pulled him later on to much hilarity. Good Times. Eventually we made it to the deep North of California.

The two of us outside of The Residents Studio. Not our Car, sad to say. We were driving a 1969 Ford Woodie Station Wagon. It was a Beast.

Further hilarity ensued when we got North. We set up the instruments at the folk’s house. On the main rehearsals were a farce, my mother, who had started a career early on as a Jazz Pianist would come rushing in, wanting to join in. I got it, but it wasn’t conducive to where we wanted to go with the music.

We lasted a couple of weeks up there, hustled back to L.A. and Ley & Linda headed back to the UK.

After that we tried out new names, “The Voice” then “Sinfonia”. That lasted a few months as we fooled around with a Tascam 4 track cassette recorder, a Roland CR-78 Drum machine and a microphone that I can’t remember. We started putting songs together, using the bathroom as a vocal booth due to the ambience/slight reverb of it. Mary taught me how to run the board, and then with another regular cassette deck we started layering tracks.

The Tascam Cassette 4 Track

The CR-78 Roland Drum Machine. Made adjustments on it to make it… more pliable.

Mary worked her magic with our recordings, and as she was at that point working at a Music Agency (for the life of me I cannot remember the name of it) took some of the tracks into their AR department. “This is fantastic, great sound and where was this studio, the recording is dynamite!” was the first statement I remember… “But can you do some Country and Western?” This being 1980… and Urban Cowboy being a… thing.

We realized we had the chops and that the studio was perhaps our native grounds. Still, I had my background in live performance and thought we needed to form a band. We slowly assembled one. First on was a young neighbor, Deirdre Dooley who lived in the building across the lawn from our apartment. She was and is a sweet person. Classically trained pianist. My approach to music (my lack of discipline more like it) drove her crazy. I couldn’t notate for her so had to show her the parts she needed to play by example. That worked. We needed a bass player. We took on Tim Ferris who I had worked with in a Pizza Parlor in Santa Monica. He was full of energy and was a wild man. After our engagement music wise, he moved on to the band, “Celebrity Skin” along with Pat Smears who was in “The Germs” previously. (Pat later on joined Dave Grohl in the “Foo Fighters” (we had a history with The Germs which was less than pleasant. Someday I will relay the tale…) We brought on Mike Conner, a dear friend of mine who I have known since I was 17 years old to play keyboard. Last but not least we asked our neighbor Craig Kitson to be our sound guy. Craig later went on to work with William Friedkin the director on several of his films. Truly we had a very creative crew!

The Line Up was thus:

Mary - Vocals

Gwyllm - Keyboards/Vocals

Deirdre - Keyboard

Tim - Bass

Mike - Keyboard

Craig - Soundboard

and the trusty CR-78 as our drummer.

We took on the name “Grey Pavilion” Why, I have no idea. I was and am obsessed with architecture, especially classical.

Universal Convergence/Creation

Gwyllm Llwydd — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 02:18:44 GMT

Hey there, hope all is well with you and yours. Excited about this post and my new print “Universal Convergence/Creation”. Through the generosity of a friend, Terry We were able to print these up on incredible paper at an art house printer. Hopefully printing more along this line. A lot of work went into this piece! Check out the details below!

Been on a bit of a bouncy path… Health is a bit wonky, but we are getting there thankfully. Working on new art finding joy in simple pencil work. It concentrates one’s thoughts.

In the process of getting ready to move to smaller digs due to health and other issues. If you can help, that would be great! GoFundMe Looking to move this next month when our health picks up.

On The Menu: Links - Universal Convergence/Creation - My Friend, Richard - Time - Lenore Kandel Poetry

Links: World Wide Political / Design Problem / The Man Who Taught MLK / Words Are Magic

To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer. - Mahatma Gandhi

___

Universal Convergence/Creation

I present you with 10 months of Pointillism work. All hand drawn/dotted by yours truly. It looks like madness, and it is.

I worked on this for so many evenings. I drove my family crazy with pulling it out when we were sitting around talking, and there I was off in another world concentrated with my pens, pencils, and art paper.

My thoughts around art comes in shapes/patterns/forms/ with concepts often coming to me in dreams. At times I see the finished piece in my head, but I don’t know how to reach it. Sometimes it evolves past what I was working on or doesn’t come up to the conceptualization... At times it is a blind leap into the project, and it unfolds as I work.

I have a passion for this form of art and have had so for 56 some years. I have been stepping away from my collage work to pursue one of my earlier passions. I can trace my work back to early 1968 (I found a piece from then in my files!)

Thank you for visiting!

I want to thank my dear friend Terry for making this possible!

Print(s) can be signed 2 ways. Please indicate which you prefer. The Default is the Vertical.

3 ways to support my art:

Universal Convergence/Creation Print 1st Option 100.00usd & 20.00 Shipping/Handling

Universal Convergence/Creation Print 2nd Option with Blotter Print 125.00 & 20.00Shipping/Handling

Universal Convergence/Creation Print 3rd Option, Blotter Print & Personalized Card from Gwyllm 145.00usd & 20.00 Shipping/Handling

Printed on Cold Press Fine Art Textured Paper, extremely limited edition. Basis Weight: 300 gsm
Thickness: 19.5 mil Paper Size: 18.5x24inches Print 17x22 inches
20 prints, 6 artist proof prints.
Price Includes Shipping/Handling USA. All others, please inquire.

My Friend, Richard:

So many folks departing lately to the Western Lands…

I have been meaning to finish up a posting about the Flying Anglia, when I received news that the main character in that tale, Richard Knowles had passed. His daughter Tara contacted me, along with my dear friend Lizbeth who facilitated us meeting Richard back in 1984/5.

Richard was old school bohemian in so many ways. Loved Jazz, particularly New Orleans old style. He had a lovely story about his first time in New Orleans back in either 1961 or 1962… He met a young man who was headed to the cemetery to sweep and clean a blues singer’s grave (sorry, I can’t remember the name of the singer now). They went and did the deed, and a few years later, Richard realized it had been Bob Dylan. He loved telling that story.

His roommate in Art College was a young man named Eric Clap. Eric left art college to play with a band called The Yardbirds. You may have heard of them. I asked about Eric, “What was he like?” Richard answered “Oh, he was a great roommate. Left in a hurry though, leaving his art notebooks behind”. “Do you still have them???” I asked. “Oh no I tossed them. I had no idea he would go on to do what he has done!” Richard replied.

Richard’s best friend at art college was a young guitarist, Keith Richards. When I found this out my mind was blown. “Oh, he was a great chap, but after the Richmond gigs dropped all of his friends at the college. I attended those first shows. Electrifying!”

I met Richard through his nephew John Fuller. In turn, I met John through Lizbeth (she is such a nexus point!) a dear friend that I have known for over 50 years who by the way introduced Mary and I in Clapham Common back in 1977.

Lizbeth and John were an item. John has been in the band “The Pack”, One of the seminal punk bands in the UK. John washed up on our shores and became a bouncer at Blackie's in West L.A. in his up and down relationship with Lizabeth John dossed out in our living room in West LA off and on.

This all leads up to us meeting Richard. Mary and I moved back to the UK in 1984. On August 24th, 1985, along with John Fuller we met Richard at the Crystal Palace Park performance of Spear of Destiny. Kirk Brandon, ex bandmate of John’s put on the hell of a show. This is where we met Richard who was there with John. Richard was a huge fan of Kirk. We ended up going back to our flat in Upper Norwood and hanging out. It was glorious evening.

Richard invited us to come visit his family farm out on Dartmoor. It was located close to North Bovey. Beautiful part of the world. We got to know his then wife Susan (raised pygmy goats!) their wonderful daughter Tara, and flocks of sheep & a small herd of cattle. Visiting Bowden farm was always a joy.

(Bowden Farm as it is today. Gentrified, no longer a working farm, but a B&B. The farm was listed in the Doomsday Book, of William the Conquer & William Rufus his son. The barn was built with standing stones from the surrounding hills. It was much more hurley burley back then!)

We visited frequently. I spent time with Richard tending the sheep and cattle. It was a relief for me, in that I was submerged in Corporate Computing at that point, being an IT tech. The days and nights up on the moor were magical. Our times at the pub and around the table at the house, were very special.

Later on, when we moved back to the States, Richard came and stayed with us a few times before we left L.A. He loved it there. His enthusiasm for the arts and for L.A. was boundless.

We lost touch after we moved, only reconnecting sporadically over the years. He did publish a book in 1996 about his great love musically:

He and Susan split during the time of his visits, and he and his lovely Brigit, became a couple, even visiting us in L.A. together. They were married for some 40 years. I will fill out the tale more on a later date. Good stories, good times. Richard, you are missed.

Richard & Hattie, his granddaughter Many years ago…

______

Lenore Kandel:

Phoenix Song

then I shall never grow up
not if child means a sense of wonder
and my head in the wind rain rain
I will not wither in the blaze of time
but prove myself a phoenix
(ashes like powdered stars)
born again and again and again

Open Channel -

the dream is as true as the dreamer
all fragments of the self are true
and dreams are one more form of sight
are real and not-real
as they move the flesh
and shape the currents of the mind
fears unexorcised and fantasies unsearched
become lame ghosts
visions unreached for
distill a toxin
aging the spirit
dimming the flesh
the dream is as true as the dreamer
that which exists within the mind is you
that which contains the mind is you
open your dreams
release your visions and your fantasies and fears
that which is real and not-real
is up to you

Invocation for Maitreya –

to invoke the divinity in man with the mutual gift of love
with love as animate and bright as death
the alchemical transfiguration of two separate entities
into one efflorescent deity made manifest in radiant human flesh
our bodies whirling through cosmos, the kiss of heartbeats
the subtle cognizance of hand for hand, and tongue for tongue
the warm moist fabric of the body opening into start-shot rose
flowers
the dewy cock effulgent as it burst the star
sweet cunt-mouth of world serpent Ouroboros girding the
universe
as it takes its own eternal cock, and cock and cunt united
join the circle
moving through realms of flesh made fantasy and fantasy made
flesh
love as a force that melts the skin so that our bodies join
one cell at a time
until there is nothing left but the radiant universe
the meteors of light flaming through wordless skies
until there is nothing left but the smell of love
but the taste of love, but the fact of love
until love lies dreaming in the crotch of god. . .

Thank you for visiting, more coming!

Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

Travelogue, Finale

Gwyllm Llwydd — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 01:28:34 GMT

Dear Friends & Companions,

It has been a hectic couple of weeks. I have some 3 other SubStacks almost ready to go. Several Art Projects have come to fruition which I will share along the way.

With the downturn in the call for my service as a house painter, along with health hiccups that had me largely bedridden for 6 months this last year, I have had to put up a GoFundMe, with kind assistance of folks. We are about 2/3’s from the goal to get us into new digs, and for emergency dental work for yours truly. Gwyllm & Family GoFundMe .

I know money is tight, distribution of this link or Substack helps as well, thank you.

Travelogue, The Finale:

We stayed by the river, enraptured by it all… The women of the river invited us to stay, to join in their ceremonies. They were beguiling, they were beauty personified, they were the Goddess in human form. We surrendered to the moment, what else could we do?

Minutes stretched into hours, hours into days. We had become the lotus eaters, indulging all of our senses. The days fled before the nights. Wild revelry was the path.

We finally came to council; the decision was made. We had to continue the quest, to carry on and find our path to completion of the journey. The Women of the River were reluctant to let us part, as were we. We took our leave, most reluctantly.

We traveled down the river and found the last oracle who pointed us to a city, of possible wonders, of possible perils.

Outside of the gates, we found a lonely Sentinel, looking upon the distant city walls. Sitting with rapt attention, at once was glory, at once was beauty, at once was despair.

We entered the gates. Within, a gathering of the tribes. We stared in amazement as one of the gathering bursts into light, shimmering and vanishing before all who were present. What had we seen? What mysteries were revealed?

Older beings were caught observing the spectacle… were they guides, or just curious?

Celebrations were at hand. We were in for the long journey… to discover

That the Journey That Never Ends… From ones first breath to last gasp, and perhaps beyond. The Sacred City is to be found everywhere. It is in the heart of children; it is in the eyes of dreamers. It is within, and without. It is Eternal.

Fini… This ongoing piece from my last 3 SubStacks (including this one) are dedicated to the memory of Jim Harter & Dan Hillier, companions on the path for many years in all things collage/art.

With this work I was reaching far back to two masters, Wilfried Sätty (who was an inspiration to Jim Harter as well) and Max Ernst who developed Collage in the Surrealist School. I would hope that you visit his works but especially his books including the wonderfully beguiling, “A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil” first published in 1930. He blazed the path, even today after over 55 years of working with collage I am still his student. I have been told over the years that my work fits into the visionary school of art, but I have always felt it more akin to the Surrealist. Their explorations paved the way for so much that followed.

This exercise is part of a larger work that I am now engaged in. I will update those of you who are interested in the (hopefully) near future where this is going.

Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

In dresses white, all set for sail
A little girl dreams of taking the veil
In dresses white, all set for sail
A little girl dreams of taking the veil
On beaches clean of sand and shell
A little girl dreams of taking the veil
All lightning bright and thunder loud
A little girl dreams safe and sound

I have had to start a GoFundMe...

The Gift

Gwyllm Llwydd — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 23:15:17 GMT

Well here we are again in the New Year. In-betweenie time as I have called it over the years.

Currently working on another of the iterations of the ongoing story for “Travelogue”. I am pretty excited about the process, and the reimagining of my previous works in a new format. It has opened up a world of possibilities, and I am heartened to present my work in a new (for me) unique way. Another installment is coming soon!

Thanks for visiting!

Gwyllm

On The Menu: A GoFundMe Request/ The Links / Dead Can Dance / A New World Mix / Welsh Poems & A Bit More /Hania Rani Live

I am curious, I see folks hardly ever open up the musical selections. Should I stop posting them?

Having hit a rough patch due to ill health, etc. Trying to get funds together to move to a less expensive place and get some stability after having been pretty much bedridden for 6 months this past year. We have not made rent yet this month.

Please feel free to take a look at it. I know times are lean, if you can’t help fiscally, I well understand, but please distribute if possible.

Thanks for everything, and all of the support over the years for my writing and my art!

—

The Links: On Bilitis / It’s Code, Not Consciousness / To Be Real & Clear (Thanks Dan!) / Neolithic Burning Houses / Da Vinci’s DNA?

“A New World”Mix on Radio EarthRites! 19 hours of music!

So… years ago I became engaged with Robert Graves Poetry, and then his prose. It became absolute obsession. His works led me to the Sanctuary of the Goddess.

Welsh Poems & A Bit More/Robert Graves

The Travelers’ Curse after Misdirection

(from the Welsh)
May they stumble, stage by stage
On an endless Pilgrimage
Dawn and dusk, mile after mile
At each and every step a stile
At each and every step withal
May they catch their feet and fall
At each and every fall they take
May a bone within them break
And may the bone that breaks within
Not be, for variations sake
Now rib, now thigh, now arm, now shin
but always, without fail, the NECK

—

Welsh Incident

‘But that was nothing to what things came out
From the sea-caves of Criccieth yonder.’
‘What were they? Mermaids? dragons? ghosts?’
‘Nothing at all of any things like that.’
‘What were they, then?’
‘All sorts of queer things,
Things never seen or heard or written about,
Very strange, un-Welsh, utterly peculiar
Things. Oh, solid enough they seemed to touch,
Had anyone dared it. Marvellous creation,
All various shapes and sizes, and no sizes,
All new, each perfectly unlike his neighbour,
Though all came moving slowly out together.’
‘Describe just one of them.’
‘I am unable.’
‘What were their colours?’
‘Mostly nameless colours,
Colours you’d like to see; but one was puce
Or perhaps more like crimson, but not purplish.
Some had no colour.’
‘Tell me, had they legs?’
‘Not a leg or foot among them that I saw.’
‘But did these things come out in any order?’
What o’clock was it? What was the day of the week?
Who else was present? How was the weather?’
‘I was coming to that. It was half-past three
On Easter Tuesday last. The sun was shining.
The Harlech Silver Band played Marchog Jesu
On thirty-seven shimmering instruments
Collecting for Caernarvon’s (Fever) Hospital Fund.
The populations of Pwllheli, Criccieth,
Portmadoc, Borth, Tremadoc, Penrhyndeudraeth,
Were all assembled. Criccieth’s mayor addressed them
First in good Welsh and then in fluent English,
Twisting his fingers in his chain of office,

Welcoming the things. They came out on the sand,
Not keeping time to the band, moving seaward
Silently at a snail’s pace. But at last
The most odd, indescribable thing of all
Which hardly one man there could see for wonder
Did something recognizably a something.’
‘Well, what?’
‘It made a noise.’
‘A frightening noise?’
‘No, no.’

‘A musical noise? A noise of scuffling?’
‘No, but a very loud, respectable noise —
Like groaning to oneself on Sunday morning
In Chapel, close before the second psalm.’
‘What did the mayor do?’
‘I was coming to that.’

—

Warning to Children

Children, if you dare to think
Of the greatness, rareness, muchness
Fewness of this precious only
Endless world in which you say
You live, you think of things like this:

Blocks of slate enclosing dappled
Red and green, enclosing tawny
Yellow nets, enclosing white
And black acres of dominoes,

Where a neat brown paper parcel
Tempts you to untie the string.

In the parcel a small island,
On the island a large tree,
On the tree a husky fruit.

Strip the husk and pare the rind off:
In the kernel you will see
Blocks of slate enclosed by dappled
Red and green, enclosed by tawny
Yellow nets, enclosed by white
And black acres of dominoes,
Where the same brown paper parcel –
Children, leave the string alone!

For who dares undo the parcel
Finds himself at once inside it,
On the island, in the fruit,
Blocks of slate about his head,
Finds himself enclosed by dappled
Green and red, enclosed by yellow
Tawny nets, enclosed by black
And white acres of dominoes,

With the same brown paper parcel
Still untied upon his knee.
And, if he then should dare to think
Of the fewness, muchness, rareness,
Greatness of this endless only
Precious world in which he says
he lives – he then unties the string.

Please Leave a comment, or a thumbs up! So appreciated!

Travelogue Continued

Gwyllm Llwydd — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 02:01:51 GMT

Dear Friends,

Greetings in this New Year! I hope this finds you well and looking forward to a wonderful year.

I will cut to the chase, no links, just a continuation of the trajectory of the last Substack!

Here is to the liberation of the spirit.

Gwyllm

You Can Enlarge the Pictures by Clicking on Them

We came upon a great miasma, after passing through the desert. It was filled with smoke and odor, demons everywhere. Our path, now perilous, through passages, through the streets, descending into sewers to escape the impending sense of doom. Luckily, we came out of the sewers to find a river…

The river was a respite; we followed it downstream, finding wonders along the way. Further from the city the river changed. Wildlife abounded, and then we came upon heavenly beings, who looked through us as if we did not exist. The cry of birds, the wind in the trees…

We took our leave from the river, following the petroglyphs carved into the canyon walls pointing towards our initial destination; the ancient sanctuary, which we found was now filled with specters and dust. We sought the ancient Oracle in her temple, but all that was there were the gibbering of ghost, the slithering of serpents. We carried on deeper into the wastelands.

Coming up to the mountains we met an ancient sage. We stayed with him for a while, feasting him as we could. He told us of what laid ahead and blessed our journey. Taking leave of him was difficult, astounded at the light that shone out of him.

The journey continued. Up into the mountains, in the rarified air. We soon met with companions along the way. They had come by different paths, some incarnate, some disincarnate. We gathered finally at the Plateau of Temples. Celebrations seemed to be at hand. We lingered and contemplated... Was our quest at an end? Had we really arrived to where we meant to reside?

In the night came a vision upon us all. It was a rendering of heaven, a falling from grace. All of us woke up astounded, dismayed and saddened. We soon took our leave from the Plateau of Temples, grieving as we went.

As if to comfort us, our nights were peppered with dreams of divine beings, pointing the way, encouraging the weary among us. We took heart in these nighttime apparitions knowing that a path was being laid out before us…

For several days we made our way down through the mountains passes. Coming out into a great valley, we happened upon an ancient woman, who seemed to be the guardian at the gate into these lands. We sat at her feet as she told us of the wonders before us. “You must follow this trail! It leads to wonders…” She said in parting. We took her at her word descending towards the river she had talked of.

Under tree, and over bracken we continued. The sun was beginning to set. Off in the distance we could here soft singing and chants. We hurried on, enraptured by the sounds of voices welling up along the river. Coming around the bend, we stood in amazement before a vision of beauty: Women in Ceremony, welcoming us to the river side.

The Finale arriving soon!

See you soon!

On This Solstice

Gwyllm Llwydd — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 20:33:25 GMT

Here is to the return of the light!

A Solstice Blessing for You All. Welcome the Coming of the Light! From our Clan to Yours!

Love,

Gwyllm

________________________________

Robert Graves' poem "To Juan at the Winter Solstice"

There is one story and one story only
That will prove worth your telling,
Whether as learned bard or gifted child;
To it all lines or lesser gauds belong
That startle with their shining
Such common stories as they stray into.

Is it of trees you tell, their months and virtues,
Or strange beasts that beset you,
Of birds that croak at you the Triple will?
Or of the Zodiac and how slow it turns
Below the Boreal Crown,
Prison to all true kings that ever reigned?

Water to water, ark again to ark,
From woman back to woman:
So each new victim treads unfalteringly
The never altered circuit of his fate,
Bringing twelve peers as witness
Both to his starry rise and starry fall.

Or is it of the Virgin's silver beauty,
All fish below the thighs?
She in her left hand bears a leafy quince;
When, with her right hand she crooks a finger, smiling,
How many the King hold back?
Royally then he barters life for love.

Or of the undying snake from chaos hatched,
Whose coils contain the ocean,
Into whose chops with naked sword he springs,
Then in black water, tangled by the reeds,
Battles three days and nights,
To be spewed up beside her scalloped shore?

Much snow is falling, winds roar hollowly,
The owl hoots from the elder,
Fear in your heart cries to the loving-cup:
Sorrow to sorrow as the sparks fly upward.
The log groans and confesses:
There is one story and one story only.

Dwell on her graciousness, dwell on her smiling,
Do not forget what flowers
The great boar trampled down in ivy time.
Her brow was creamy as the crested wave,
Her sea-blue eyes were wild
But nothing promised that is not performed.

So… This is a great day for contemplation of the year behind and the year ahead. Take your woes and write them down. Throw the paper onto a fire to release you from their bindings.

Take up another piece of paper, and write out your hopes and dreams for the coming year. Consign it as well to the fire, but as an offering of hope, and offering of love.

I will toast you all tonight, and raise the cup of eternity to us all.

Make the world a better place for your being here in our brief moment.

Much Love, All Hail the Coming of the Light!

Gwyllm 2026 Art Calendar! $26.00 Shipping Included USA

Travelogue

Gwyllm Llwydd — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 23:00:29 GMT

Well, now for something a bit different. I hope you enjoy this…

Commercial Break… With the season coming up and all. A couple of offerings…

Just added to my Website Paintings/Original Art For Sale – Gwyllm Art Absolute years of my original paintings & collage work. As I move to doing full on physical art again it is time to let these works go. So much art!

For over 10 years I have been putting out calendars. This one is full of new projects with a couple of nods to the past. All have never been featured in my previous calendars.

Also, if you get a chance, please check out the Gwyllm-Art Sales Page! Many pieces on there with very affordable prices. Some of the pieces go back many years, some are much more recent.

And… a Blotter & Print Sale!

______________

Check out The Winter Solstice Mix on Radio EarthRites!

Included on the mix and much, much more. More music added daily!

Travelogue:

At the point of departure, I conferred with friends, good brothers & sisters before setting off… We had discussed this venture again and again. Some for, some against. Finally, we came to consensus that it was worth the time…

I had long dreamed of this journey. Portents and Signs arose in my dreams of the journey to come… Friends presented us with a grand feast and party before our departure. Ah, the beauty of it all!

We gathered at dawn. The signs were auspicious. Storms on the horizon but casting the bones, we knew that the time was right.

We ventured through strange lands. Encountered wild and wonderful people. We saw such sights, such wonders.

What wonders were we to find? What strange new experiences were we to have?

Where once great cities had stood, desolation and waste…

Yet, we stayed true to the quest and our companions. We carried on.

To Be Continued…

Thank you for visiting!

Gwyllm 2026 Art Calendar! $26.00 Shipping Included USA

I am for..

Gwyllm Llwydd — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 22:10:24 GMT

Our Lady of the Tryptamines - Gwyllm Llwydd (this is a photo of this design in Blotter Print Format)

Well, we are finally reach the end of the year and the holiday season beginning. This time last year my sister had just passed away, and our grandson Sorrel was born 4 days after my sister died.

It has been a turbulent year with the weird politics and for myself, ongoing health challenges.

Still, we carry on and I am so happy to be here and doing what I love best, doing my art, being with my family and supporting my community as best as I can. I don't always get there but I do try. I know that people on the main try to do the best as possible. That is what makes community and mutual aid.

We are currently considering making a move to smaller digs, easier to maintain, and less costly.

Sleep has been a bit of an issue, last night I began reading Hugh MacDermid’s “A Drunk Man looks at the Thistle” for perhaps the 3rd time in some 40 years. It really is an amazing piece of poetry. Not easy to read, but worth it in my opinion. A poem of some 100+ pages (113 if I recall properly), all written in the Scottish vernacular. Once you get into the rhythm of it, it is transcendental. Located here at the Gutenberg web site: "Thistle"

Currently working on 2 other Substack’s that have eaten up a lot of time. I have been saving this one for a while. Updating it for the current and all of that.

This entry contains some great poetry from the wonderful Ella Young, a folk tale, a bit of nostalgic music, and more.

Bright Blessings,

So, without much further rambling, here is the latest entry:

Menu: The Links / Commercial Break / Ella Young Poetry / New Order: Blue Monday / The Coyote & The Hen

The Links: Art in Art / Nothing Alive is Alien to Me / The Teddy that Talked too much / Cosmic Moss?

Commercial Break:

Gwyllm Llwydd Art Calendar – 2026

For over 10 years I have been putting out calendars. This one is full of new projects with a couple of nods to the past. All have never been featured in my previous calendars.

Also, if you get a chance, please check out the Gwyllm-Art Sales Page! Many pieces on there with very affordable prices. Some of the pieces go back many years, some are much more recent.

And… of course books. I have a couple to offer:

Order Now!

Alcove of Dreams $42.50 Shipping 6.50 (USA Only)

Please Contact Us for International Shipping Cost:

Autographed Copies Available!

Alcove of Dreams Signed Edition $52.50 Shipping $6.50 (USA Only)

Alcove of Dreams 5-25 Online (Abbreviated PDF)

Purchase Hasheesh Eater Here! 49.00 (USA only)

(Please Contact Us for Overseas Price/Shipping)

The Hasheesh Eater Signed Edition $59.00 (USA only)

(Please Contact Us for Overseas Price/Shipping)

_______

The Loves of the Winds and the Seasons, 1893 Albert Joseph Moore/PRB Member

Poetess, Golden Dawn & Hermetic Society Member. An inspiration to many!

Ella Young Poetry:

The Red Sunrise
(Moraig’s Song*)

O, it’s dark the land is, and it’s dark my heart is,
But the red sun rises when the hour is come.
O, the red sun rises, and the dead rise; I can see them,
And my own boy and Conn, who won the battles,
And the lads who lost.
They have bright swords with them that clash the battle welcome.
A welcome to the red sun that rises with our luck.

*In Irish mythology Moraig (variously Morrigu / Morrigan) was a goddess of war.

—–

Greeting
Over the wave-patterned sea-floor,
Over the long sunburnt ridge of the world,
I bid the winds seek you.
I bid them cry to you
Night and morning
A name you loved once;
I bid them bring to you
Dreams, and strange imaginings, and sleep.

—-

MY LADY OF DREAMS.
ONE night the beauty of the stars

Made magic for me white and still,

I climbed the road above the hill
The road no waking footstep mars.
I met my Lady in the wood
The black pine wood above the hill,

Dream-fair her beauty, white and still ;
I knelt as one before the Rood.
White Dream that makes my life a war

Of wild desires and baffled will

Once more my soul with beauty fill
Rise through the darkness, O my Star.

—-
THE HOUSE OF LOVE.
I BUILT for you a house of joy,
A dun close-walled and warm within ;
Strong-fossed without, lest foe destroy

Or creeping sorrow entrance win.
The wind that wails about the world
Came with you through the open door
My joy-dun into ruin hurled

Lay desolate for evermore.
I built for you a house of dream

Fair as the pearly light of morn ;
Its pillars caught an opal gleam
From skies where night was never born.
The wind that blows the stars to flame

Blew through my house and left it bare :
The beauty vanished when it came,

The columns melted into air.
The next house that I build for you
I’ll build with stars and moon-fire white :
Vaster than those the wind swept through,

Its halls, star-paved, shall front the night.
Mayhap you’ll come and wander there

When all the winds are laid to rest,

i o
And find its sun-bright beauty fair

Beyond the glow in East or West,
Mayhap its radiant fire must fade
Before the wind that wakes the dawn,
The light from Heaven’s heart out-rayed

When suns and moons are all withdrawn.
The wind that beats the stars to dust

May sweep my star-built courts away :
Let my dun fall if fall it must

Its glory lasted for a day.
I care not how I lose anew,
Or round the wreck what winds may wail-

Since God’s own dun was built for you,
You are not houseless, though I fail.

—-
NIAMH.
WHEN the dawn-radiance flushes pearly skies
With faintest rose, and the dawn-beauty fills
The earth with life, you come across the hills
Of gold and ivory where the dawn-wind dies.
O pale you are, and sweet, and in your eyes
The shadow of a dream that daylight kills,
Woven while you lingered by the crystal rills
Between the apple-trees of Paradise.
You gather as you pass with quiet hands
The dawn-white blossoms, ere their beauty
cease :
The frail, pale blossoms that we see unclose
One moment, when our hearts have drawn
the peace
Of twilight round them and the enchanted
lands
Glimmer before us, amethyst and rose.

More on this remarkable woman!

The Coyote and the Hen

Once upon a time a hen was up in the branches of a tree, and a coyote came up to her:

“I’ve brought some good news for you. Do you want to hear it?” asked the coyote.

“Do you really have some good news?” the hen asked.

The coyote answered: “It’s about the two of us.” Hear this, the coyote and the hen have made peace. Now we’re going to be friends and you can come down from the tree. We’ll hug each other as a sign of good will.”

The hen kept asking if it was true what the coyote was saying: “Where was the peace treaty approved, brother coyote?” The coyote answered:

“Over there by the hunting grounds on the other side of the mountain. Hurry up and come down so that we can celebrate this moment of peace.”

The hen asked: “Over there on the other side of the mountain?”

“May God witness that I am telling the truth. Come on down from the tree,” insisted the coyote.

“Maybe you are telling the truth, brother. I see that the dog is coming to celebrate the fiesta with us, because you and he are also going to make peace. I see him coming near, I hear him coming. He’s coming fast and he’s going to grab me, now that you and he have made peace. Do you hear, brother coyote, do you hear?” asked the hen. She was very happy and came down from the branches of the tree.

The coyote accepted this explanation and ran away. As the hen said, the dog was coming, that’s why he left. The hen didn’t want to come down from the tree. She didn’t fall in front of the coyote; if she had, he would have eaten her. She realized he was just telling her lies.

Thus ends the story of the coyote and the hen.

Midsummer - Albert Joseph Moore /PRB Member 1887

The Eye Mandala Series

Gwyllm Llwydd — Sun, 26 Oct 2025 17:41:13 GMT

I have been a busy bee the last few weeks. (See Below). I am beyond excited to share this post with you. I hope you enjoy this Substack!

On The Menu: The Links / Forest Fish / Eye Mandalas / Invocation for Mitreya / Shaman /

The Links: What Sleep Is / The Rise & Mysterious Fall of Cahokia / Trees, Stars, Clouds / Monsters

Eye Mandala 15x15 65.00 inclusive of shipping

A new project. I spent 3 weeks on this and enjoyed the creative process immensely. I gave myself a challenge of 7 illustrations and came up with 8. Eight has never been in my sights as a numerological signpost, but I will take it for this series.

My Beloved asked me, “Why the eye in all of these?” Eyes, at least in my lexicon of image, symbolize, denotes consciousness. The eye has long been a symbol of consciousness of course, and has repeatedly shown up in my art. Habit? Who is to say, but here is to the eyes!

I have striven to create as a diverse group of art pieces within chosen parameters. I have found that when I set a challenge up it makes me work harder to bring something different to the genre, to make each piece “sing”. The challenge though this time was within a short period of time, unlike the Vimana & Saliva series which evolved over years.

Water Marks Are All Removed From Prints!

Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

Eye Mandala 7.5x7.5 30.00 Inclusive of shipping

Seraphim Eye Mandala 15x15 65.00 inclusive of shipping

Seraphim - Eye Mandala 7.5x7.5 30.00 inclusive of shipping

Solar Eye Mandala 15x15 65.00 inclusive of shipping

Solar Eye Mandala 7.5x7.5 30.00 inclusive of shipping

Spatial Eye Mandala 15x15 65.00 inclusive of shipping

Spatial Eye Mandala 7.5x7.5 30.00 inclusive of shipping

Organic Eye Mandala 15x15 65.00 inclusive of shipping

Organic Eye Mandala 7.5x7.5 30.00 inclusive of shipping

Iridescent Eye Mandala 15x15 65.00 Inclusive of Shipping

Iridescent Eye Mandala 7.5x7.5 30.00 Inclusive of Shipping

Bronze Eye Mandala 15x15 65.00 Inclusive of Shipping

Bronze Eye Mandala 7.5x7.5 30.00 Inclusive of Shipping

Space Eye Mandala 15x15 65.00 Inclusive of Shipping

Space Eye Mandala 7.5x7.5 30.00 Inclusive of Shipping

_____________________________

Collect All 8 15x15 Eye Mandala Prints!

Collect All 8 7.5x7.5 Eye Mandala Prints!

Invocation for Mitreya - Lenore Kandel

to invoke the divinity in man with the mutual gift of love
with love as animate and bright as death
the alchemical transfiguration of two separate entities
into one efflorescent deity made manifest in radiant human flesh
our bodies whirling through cosmos, the kiss of heartbeats
the subtle cognizance of hand for hand, and tongue for tongue
the warm moist fabric of the body opening into start-shot rose
flowers
the dewy cock effulgent as it burst the star
sweet cunt-mouth of world serpent Ouroboros girding the
universe
as it takes its own eternal cock, and cock and cunt united
join the circle
moving through realms of flesh made fantasy and fantasy made
flesh
love as a force that melts the skin so that our bodies join
one cell at a time
until there is nothing left but the radiant universe
the meteors of light flaming through wordless skies
until there is nothing left but the smell of love
but the taste of love, but the fact of love
until love lies dreaming in the crotch of god. . . .

Psychedelic OG’s Journey From Owsley Acid to a Vision of Vishnu

Gwyllm Llwydd — Sun, 19 Oct 2025 00:38:26 GMT

Interviewed recently by Gregory Daurer. This was first released in the DoubleBlind Magazine

Gregory visited me today, coming out from Denver to see his Beloved here in Portland. It was a wonderful couple of hours. We looked at bunches of my art (believe me you have not seen the totality of my madness!!! Great conversation, and I pray that we get together again.

Bright Blessings,

Living a Life of Color with Psychedelic OG Gwyllm Llwydd

From ferrying mescaline in the ’60s to layering mandalas today, Gwyllm Llwydd has spent a lifetime channeling altered states into art, music, and myth.
By Gregory Daurer
Images Courtesy of Gwyllm Llwydd
Call Gwyllm Llwydd — as he’s known in the art world — a longstanding member of what he playfully considers the “entheogensia.” He’s a painter, a psychedelic collage maker, and the publisher of the Invisible College, a publication brimming with visionary art and poetry that launched in 2006. (The journal’s 13th edition will be arriving soon.) His work spans to blotter art, as well — one of his pieces appears in Erik Davis’ book Blotter: The Untold Story of an Acid Medium. Llwydd also writes and curates a streaming radio broadcast called Radio EarthRites. Some music buffs might know his early-’80s band Grey Pavilion, which he formed with his wife Mary and which featured future Wilco guitarist Nels Cline. For a deeper dive into his sprawling creative universe, see his book Alcove of Dreams: Art & Writings.

Llwydd’s journey arcs from precocious ‘60s teenager exploring altered states of consciousness — as a youthful courier, he recalls ferrying Southwestern mescaline to California and introducing friends in Colorado to Owsley acid — to more recent experiments with Salvia divinorum, which he recounted in his presentation to the Portland Psychedelic Society in his home state of Oregon, which we get into, along with so much more, in the interview below.
*This interview has been edited for length and clarity
DoubleBlind: What was your first psychedelic experience?
Gwyllm Llwydd: It was either on August 30 or August 31 in 1966 in Berkeley, California. I hitchhiked from Denver, Colorado, up to Wyoming, and caught freight [trains] out to Marysville in California, and then hitchhiked into Berkeley to meet up with friends. I was 14. I was offered LSD at the commune that I was staying at. And we went out to a cafe called the Jabberwock. And, as it was coming on, Country Joe and the Fish were the band playing that night. I went up and sat underneath the organ for a while!
It was an absolute revelation. I realized that most of my life I had lived as a lie, and that I’d been telling myself a story that wasn’t true, which was pretty heady stuff for a 14-year-old. LSD has the ability to reveal what’s going on internally / psychologically / spiritually. And yeah, there’s always the bangs and whistles and all the colors and sensations and stuff, but it really is about the inner work. It will reveal things to you, and if you’re smart, you’ll work on what was presented to you. So that’s pretty much been the experience I’ve had with psychedelics: It’s a tool. It’s a really great tool.
Were you a visual artist from a young age?
My first piece of art was a finger painting when I was five years old, and it was a storm cloud with lightning. And I think it was probably my mental state at that point. But my father was a frustrated artist, and he introduced me to different artists, different music. He introduced me to the Beat writer Jack Kerouac on TV when I was eight years old. He saw that I had talent, and he made sure that, when we were living in Colorado Springs when I was 12, I was admitted to the Colorado College for art classes. Of course, you’re not allowed at that age to do nude life drawing. [Laughs.] So I never got to that part of art. I did music for many years, but the visual arts have always been my first and foremost love.
Mandalas have been an important part of your artwork. Can you explain how they first came into your awareness?
There was a bookstore in Boulder, Colorado, in the ‘60s, and there was a young man working there: John Chick, from the Bardo Matrix art and lightshow collective. And John had several of his illustrations there. You could buy his mandalas for 50 cents apiece. And I was absolutely fascinated with them. And I started experimenting with mandalas at [a young] age. And by the time I’d reached 16, 17 years old, I was working with pointillism and mandalas. Mandalas have always been my main focus, art-wise.

It seems in terms of your computer collage work, you often layer mandalas underneath what’s taking place on the surface.
It’s part of it. I mean, some of my pieces that I’ve worked on with the computer have up to 180, 190 layers. I have a piece that I’ve been working on now for, like, 15 years, that still isn’t complete. But the idea of the mandala is to try to bring things into focus.
Do you consider yourself a Visionary Artist?
Not like, say, Martina Hoffman or Mati Klarwein or Ernst Fuchs. I do consider myself more of a Surrealist in the school of Max Ernst, Wilfried Sätty, and my good friend Jim Harter, who has now passed. And I try to make this bridge between Eastern and Western art and ideas, all the time. A lot of my artwork is Islamic-influenced, because of my background with Sufism. My art is, on the whole, Surrealism, because I’m trying to evoke a dream state.
But you’ve also worked to capture the altered states you’ve experienced in some of your pieces.
Oh, absolutely. And I did a lot of paintings and collages of the different states with tryptamines and Salvia divinorum. And the Salvia paintings are some of my favorites because the inspiration is incredibly strong when you come out of that state. I can’t do art whilst I am under the influence of something, but I can evoke it afterwards.
There’s a Salvia painting that I did. It’s a mandala: The leafing out of different Salvia plants. And each of those plants that are illustrated in that artwork resulted from a separate Salvia experience. When I came back each time, a different plant was what I was supposed to depict. Salvia probably wouldn’t be considered a psychedelic in the classical sense, but it is a visionary plant, and it talks just like mushrooms will talk. I was doing lots of work with the plant at that point, and I have a very healthy garden of Salvia now. I haven’t gone into that Salvia-induced space for several years, but that doesn’t mean that it’s still not an ally: She talks, she shows, and she tells stories.
I’d like to touch on a couple of your DMT pieces. During one experience, you said you encountered a divinity, shall we say, with tentacle-like arms flowing. And you saw that as a representation of the Hindu deity Vishnu. Is that correct?
First, before encountering Vishnu, I noticed some very interesting things with the machine elves whose presence in the DMT space are often talked about. Those entities are meant to keep you on “this side” of “that space.” They are a diversion. But with that Vishnu experience, I broke through: I went down what was like a giant tunnel, and I broke into this vaulted space, and there was the entity sitting there. And it recognized me. I recognized it as Vishnu: that was the way it was presented. We sat there in meditation and stared at each other until I started drifting back and came out through the tunnel. And it was a very special experience.
But one of the amazing things about it was that on the way out, the machine elves were dancing around again. And I took a look at them, and I understood that they were stuck in this state. And I felt my heart open up, and I felt this burst of light go out from my heart to them. And they were dancing in ecstasy that they were recognized for their role. And that stayed with me for a very, very long time. You can’t replicate those guys with art.
DMT is an amazing substance. You know, I don’t understand how you could do anything like DMT casually, but I know people do. I’ve actually been in rooms where people are passing a pipe back and forth and just laughing. And that was kind of interesting to witness. But I take this stuff kind of seriously. Maybe I’m too serious about it, but I’ve never been a trip-for-trip’s-sake [kind of person], if you know what I mean.

How did you first get involved in the medium of blotter art?
There was a gentleman called Adam Stanhope, who passed away a few years back, whom I met when I was managing the floor for the Mind States conference down in Berkeley in 2001. Adam saw my art and he really liked it. And I had done a mantis head piece, because I was very interested in mantises at that point. And he loved it, and he had the blotters printed up for me. He distributed, like, four pieces of mine before he passed away. I got into doing blotter art in 2001-2002, and I still continue. I just released another piece that’s coming out next week, which is called Peyote Visions. And my favorite piece that I ever did was the one for Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin called The Chemist.
Sasha was a sweet person. I got to meet him and his wife, Ann, several times.
We used to sit and talk. And after he went into decline, I was working on this piece. And I was trying to get it to him before he passed, but he died beforehand. It shows Sasha working in his laboratory — or my impression of Sasha. And so, emotionally, it evokes fond memories for me of him. That’s one of my favorite pieces. It’s very simple: it’s basically black-and-white. I’ve redone it and put some color into it, but it’s not needed.

Did you ever get to sample any of his research chemicals and write up a report for him?
I did. 5-MeO-DiPT, which was a very interesting experience. I’ve written that one up. That was an experience. I mean, it wasn’t my favorite. It was the last time I did any research chemicals.
I did “STP,” which Shulgin had originally formulated, back in the ‘60s. It’s technically called DOM.
Please explain the setting where you tried that.
I was staying with friends up in Boulder, Colorado, because I was going back and forth to California quite a bit. And these were [Students for a Democratic Society] friends. And we had some of this stuff. And we decided to go down to the concert venue, the Family Dog in Denver, Colorado. And the Buffalo Springfield was playing. And by the time that I got to the door, I didn’t know if I was still alive or not, because I couldn’t tell if I was breathing. So I laid on the floor, and I kind of had my head propped up, and I was watching the bands play. And you could see the music coming out of the amplifier like molten color. The synesthesia experience was extremely powerful with DOM. And everything was kind of delightful. It was overpowering.
I used to fly out to California to pick up acid and to bring it back — acid being legal, at that point, except in California. And I would take mescaline out from a group of people in Austin, Texas, exchange it for Owsley acid, and bring it back to Denver. And I didn’t get paid money for it, I just got paid lots and lots of mescaline that I passed around and gave away all over the place. I was 15 years old. And then I turned 16, and I stopped making those round trips around October of ‘67.
How do you look back on those days now? Do you ever look at your younger self and say, “You crazy fucking kid!”? Or: “You were a brave son of a bitch!”
It’s probably a combination of the two. I had a couple of occasions where very crazy people, including police, did stupid things to me. I was in and out of jail quite a bit. I had policemen shoot at me. Nearly died on freight trains because you don’t go across the Utah and Nevada desert without water. [Laughs.] The fact that I survived is amazing. I never expected to be the age that I am now. And I’m happy I am. I have a great family and wonderful friends around the world. But yeah, my teens and my early 20s were incredibly wild periods of my life. I prefer now. It’s a little safer!
I basically walked out the door when I was 14 years old and didn’t come back until I was in my late teens to my family. You know, I lived everywhere; I did all kinds of things. I survived everything that I got myself into. And I have a story that I like telling people…to a degree, you know. I always thought what I was doing was normal. I’ve had people tell me since then that [what I was up to] was not normal. I’ve come to realize that while watching my own kid grow up and being protective of him.

How long did your New Wave-era electronic band Grey Pavilion last?
That band lasted for 11 years. I had been doing music from the late ‘60s on, and I worked with Phil Lithman , the musician known as Snakefinger. So he and I used to play in L.A. together, and we’d do these casual shows at different locations. Anyway, I was interested in synthesizers, and my wife Mary and I brought a keyboardist friend Ley Thompson over from the U.K. The band was originally my wife Mary (who’s from Scotland), Ley, and myself. And then Ley had to go back to the U.K. So, then we got involved with guitarist Nels Cline , who’s now in [the band] Wilco.
I met Nels at Rhino Records through DD Faye. They got married later on. And I started hanging out at Westwood Music, and we got our synthesizers there. And Rhino Records was across the street. And the band just went from there. I picked up an 8-track recording device. Mary had been a sound engineer in the U.K., so she taught me how to use it. I was tired of singing, so she got that responsibility. And we have an album that’s still sitting in a box that never was released. But we worked with Nels and his drummer brother Alex, and we did shows off and on for years.

For this next question, let’s set the stage for folks: You’re about 23 years old, you’re in Venice, California, and you enter a bookstore wearing roller skates. And it’s here that this young man in 1975 sees a book that was originally released in 1857. It’s a work from a whole different world and time frame — although the book has an otherworldly yet contemporary Surrealist image on the cover. Can you describe what that book was and the impact it’s had on you?
Well, the book was The Hasheesh Eater. And it was written by Fritz Hugh Ludlow. And he was the son of a minister in upper New York. And he was introduced to hashish through the local chemist, because you could buy a tincture of hashish or cannabis at that point over the counter. And this book describes his — what I would call — trips. And if you use hashish correctly, you have these experiences that can feel very psychedelic. And the world that he describes is very florid. I mean, he’s a writer in the 1850s. He’s only 21-years-old when he wrote this. And he explores heaven and hell through his hashish use.
The book that I picked up had been put out by Level Press. And Michael Horowitz was the editor of it. Michael Horowitz was Tim Leary’s archivist. And the illustrations were done by Wilfried Sätty. I was so impressed by this book — by the combination of the art and the writing. And, at that point, hash was my main go-to.
Sätty passed in 1982, so I never got to meet him. But I did get to meet Michael Horowitz, and we have had a wonderful conversation on and off for over 20-plus years. I decided that I was going to put out a copy of the book myself, and I was going to put my spin on it as a homage to both Sätty and Michael. And I have expanded the book out. It’s had two editions, and there are now, I think, 40 or 50 illustrations in it.

What did you hope to bring to the illustrations for the book? And what do you hope your psychedelic artwork does overall for people?
A lot of the illustrations that are in the book are from my own hash experiences. There are also pieces in there to evoke the different sections. Sätty hardly ever used color, and I like to use color as an emotional texture.
I’m an advocate for psychedelics, yes, but what I’m really an advocate for is what psychedelics can evoke and what they can bring forward. And that’s part of the magic for me. What can we bring forth from all of this that will help change the world? If I can evoke the transcendental in my artwork, then what I’m doing is correct for this lifetime. Even though I may never have great recognition, the art’s out there. Thousands of people see it. I like that. You know, they don’t have to buy it, but if it sets something off in them that might change something in their life or that may evoke a recognition of the inner self, then it’s all worth it.
Bluesky: @gwyllm.bsky.social
https://gwyllm.com/
#
Gregory Daurer’s work has been published by High Times, Westword, CrimeReads, and Please Kill Me. He also records songs as Gregory Ego. Bluesky: @gregoryego.bsky.social

47 Years

Gwyllm Llwydd — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 02:39:40 GMT

From my new art project:

The “Eye Mandala” series. Working up to 7 illustrations on this tangent. Your Feedback is appreciated.

___

Well, I have meant to publish something I have been working on for a while, but it needs polishing and putting into a final form. It will be a foray into philosophy, or at least my form of it.

___

On The Menu: The Links / Moby: We Could Be Hero’s / 47 Years! / The White Goddess/ Mr. Rogers Sez / Peter Gabriel: Love Can Heal

___

The Links: The Whole Ball of MDMA Wax / On the Durruti Column/ Beyond Folk Marxism / The World Needs Some Interesting links. I hope you explore

___

Moby: We Could Be Hero’s

___

We met, December 6th 1977. Two weeks later, as I was leaving for the US to be there for the birth of my niece, I phoned Mary from Heathrow in West London. I proposed marriage, she said yes. Yes. Yes.

47 Years! - We are celebrating 47 years of marriage this week (Well, the 16th of October.) We were married at the Chelsea-Kensington Registry Office, now gone thanks to Thatcher. We had been talking about getting married for quite a while. I asked Mary on the previous Wednesday, “When would you like to get married”? She answered, “How about Monday”? It was a beautiful gathering. She had just celebrated her 24th birthday.

Phil Davies was our best man. Fizzle, who worked for Stiff Records our maid of honor. We had a host for friends: Trish from Glasgow, Ley & Tony, Roger, Crystal, and so many more. Most are gone now, swept away, swept away…

We have weathered the years mostly with joy. We have published books together, wrote, performed and made records of our music. We have traveled together, and for the last 23 years spent 24/7 together. I think we are in this for the long run.

When I brought her to the US in late 1978, folks who I knew predicted it would be over in a year due to my past history. No, our love has run deeper than that.

We have a son, and now a lovely daughter in law and grandson. The circle widens.

Love is the Path.

It is the only Path.

I can never leave you,
Not for a moment,
Not for an hour.
You are in everything I do.
You are my everything

My drink is your sweetness.
I move to your command.
I am a surrendered prey in your hands,
And you are my consuming lion.

Your soul and my soul
Are truly One Soul.
I long for no one but you.

In the garden of your grace,
I am only a terminating sprout.
The crown of my blooming
Is the desire to be in your arms.

Rumi

___

Mr. Rogers Sez:

He was a wise one. Gentle soul. We need more in the world with his nature.

___

The White Goddess

Mary & I were exploring a metaphysical bookstore in Santa Monica, around 1980-1981 when a book fell off of a shelf into my hands. I was startled, no one else was in that part of the store…

I had been aware of Graves’s writings in a peripheral way previously. I have always been one for portents and signs unsought. Well, this one certainly fell within that realm. I took it as a sign and bought the book, and we proceeded to read it together over the following days and week.

I have always believed that books, tales, stories can change ones’ life. Graves’s White Goddess is within this realm.

To Put This into Context: I had been more or less a casual pagan since I was introduced to Athena & her Olympian family via the Iliad & Odessey as a child. (A pantheon of Gods without the notion of original sin made so much more sense to me as a questing 7-8 year old).

My early experiences with entheogens enforced this view; that which is perhaps divine whilst one, can have multiple faces. I encountered the Goddess in that first White Light Experience. Life altering, I have to say.

Back to The White Goddess. Exploring the book and the context of it all sent us on a journey back to the Neolithic, and perhaps further. It turned my world view upside down. It has stayed with me since. I started to rethink how I was taught history, how to view evidence, and what were the spiritual components of the Sacred Female, and how they were negated from ancient Greece onwards. Graves certainly was adherent to the idea of the Sacred Female. It springs up again and again in his writings. There is certainly a fair share of conjecture in his take, but the originality and the intuitive leaps he made in the book were amazing to me.

Finding The White Goddess steered me deeper into Paganism (a poor term, but one that is familiar to many “Pagani” is the plural form of the Latin word paganus , which means “country dweller,” “villager,” or “civilian”. This Latin term was used by early Christians to describe people in rural areas who were the last to be converted to Christianity and held onto their ancient beliefs.) In truth, Christianity sprung forth within the cities, sundered from the natural world of old. We see the results of that all around us… Graves gave me hope during a time of early despair in my life. With the inauguration of Reagan, I felt the coming storm of fascism. Fear not, I am not going to go political with this... I realized then that there had to be a reconciliation of the Male and Female to bring the world back to balance.

Books can and do change lives. The White Goddess turned a good part of my world view upside down. It helped clean out the residual Abrahamic detris from my early life.

Re Further On Graves: After The White Goddess, I explored his war time poetry, and the astounding output of his brilliancy over decades. I could suggest so many of his books. His influence is so widespread, perhaps even giving Gordon & Valentina Wasson clues to the Psilocybe Mushroom via Richard Evans Schultes reports from the 30’s… helping to set off the wave of psychedelic interactions in the modern world from the 1950’s until the present day.

From his War Poetry to his Count Belisarius, Graves works were exploratory, and full of revelation. With that, I leave this part with a poem…

The White Goddess - Robert Graves

All saints revile her, and all sober men
Ruled by the God Apollo’s golden mean -
In scorn of which we sailed to find her
In distant regions likeliest to hold her
Whom we desired above all things to know,
Sister of the mirage and echo.

It was a virtue not to stay,
To go our headstrong and heroic way
Seeking her out at the volcano’s head,
Among pack ice, or where the track had faded
Beyond the cavern of the seven sleepers:
Whose broad high brow was white as any leper’s,
Whose eyes were blue, with rowan-berry lips,
With hair curled honey-coloured to white hips.

The sap of Spring in the young wood a-stir
Will celebrate with green the Mother,
And every song-bird shout awhile for her;
But we are gifted, even in November
Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense
Of her nakedly worn magnificence
We forget cruelty and past betrayal,
Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall.

___

Peter Gabriel: Love Can Heal

Sorrel, our Grandson. He’s a keeper.

Thank you for visiting! Leave a comment if you like!

Subscribe!

Double Blind Gwyllm Interview

Share it out!

Interview

Gwyllm Llwydd — Mon, 22 Sep 2025 01:45:43 GMT

Hey there.

Here is an interview with yours truly on Double Blind Magazine.

Thanks to Gregory Daurer, and the crew at DBM!

Art in September

Gwyllm Llwydd — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 20:24:14 GMT

Here’s Looking At You:

Peyote Visions (Overseas)

On The Menu:

The Links

New Blotter Art

Poesy – Rabia al Basri

Gwyllm - Once Upon A Time In The West

Lusine - Just A Cloud (feat. Vilja Larjosto)

Whit Griffin Poesy

Gwyllm - Dreams

Terence McKenna - The Alchemical Dream

Gwyllm - Work in Progress: Seraphim/Eye Mandala

Martin Nonstatic - Granite Remixes

___

The Links: A Kichwa Activist on Aya / Hubris In Action / Not in Egypt... / Not to be Fooled Again / Octopuses prefer...

___

Nothing says happiness like: New Blotter Art!

So, I have been busy of late. New art, publishing of older pieces, and now a new blotter piece. I am extremely fond of this image. 2013 was a good year for my art, and the world surviving the end of time (2012, remember?). I think this piece shows some of my newfound enthusiasm for entering another age, unscathed.

This piece is reflective of my involvement (at one time with Peyote/Mescaline) I credit my interaction with this wondrous plant with my first realizations as a young person of the interconnectedness of life and spirit here on Gaia. I perceived roads, paths of energy and life emanating across the world. It was an awakening that helped me grow in my life.

Much thanks to Marty for printing this for me, and for our partnership on all things Blotter. So, appreciated.

Peyote Visions

45.00USD Inclusive of US mailing Cost.

65.00USD Inclusive of Overseas mailing cost.

___

____

A piece of writing from about 8 years ago. Just found it, thought it might work in this entry…

Once Upon A Time In The West:

Hey, it was Semi Legal!

So, in 1967, I went from someone exploring psychedelics to someone who sought to help others find what they wanted. I met some characters up from Austin Texas in Denver who arrived in a beater 1950 Chevrolet, with a boot/trunk full of gelatine capsules containing Peyote extract/Mescaline. 2 of these double 00 capsules and one would enter into the realm. I traveled around with them in Colorado, whilst they distributed their wares.

As our relationship deepened I started to fly from Colorado with suitcases of mescaline to San Francisco, to exchange for Owsley Acid to bring back so they could distribute in Texas. If we had only known, Stanley was living no more than a mile and a half away, producing LSD in Denver, whilst financing The Family Dog locally…

I never got paid money, as I wasn’t looking for cash, but I handed out hundreds of free mescaline doses across the west. I was on a roll…

At that time, when I was in Colorado, I would host people travelling from the east coast going west, and vice versa. Along the way in midsummer, I hosted a group coming from Millbrook New York, where Tim Leary, Ralph Metzner & Richard Alpert (later Baba Ram Dass) had set up the Castalia Foundation a few years earlier… Now it was Tim & Rosemary there, with people coming through. Anyway, 6 travelers showed up at my door one night, and I put them up for a couple of days. Sweet people, all of them. We spend a couple of days tripping together, and on the way out back to their car, one of them stops, and presses 4 capsules of a red crystalline substance into my hands. “This is something special” he said, “it is Yage. Take it out in the countryside”. I of course didn’t know what Yage was at that point. I thanked them, and off they went to San Francisco.

A couple of days later, I flew out to the west coast again to deliver mescaline. After I was done I flew down to L.A. on my way home. I stopped off at friends commune. Of course I had my bottle of mescaline caps, and at the top of the bottle wrapped in tin foil, the crystallized yage. I tossed the bottle over to my friend Richard when I came in, saying, “Hey! Mescaline, share it around the group!” Then thinking, I said, “Except for those capsules in the tin foil! I am saving those for something special!”…. We talked for a bit, and I headed over to Fairfax to Canter’s to meet other friends.

I was up all night of course. After Canters it was on to Sunset Strip and hanging out until daytime. It was normal for that time it seems.

When I came back to the commune the next day, Richard grabbed me and took me aside…. “I have to apologize, I took the capsules in the tin foil before you told us not to…. what was in it?” I asked, “Why?” He just stood there for a minute, composing himself and then speaking quietly, quickly, it just spilled out… “I took the red ones, and topped it off with 2 of the mescaline caps. in about a half hour it kicked in, and then I was in a place I had never been before with Acid, or anything!” “I was tripping, and then all of a sudden, I was in a jungle. I realized I was a jaguar following a caiman or a crocodile…. and then I transformed into an anaconda following the jaguar… and then I looked up into the sky, and I became a great eagle flying over the jungle and the mountains!” “I passed into a great light after that, and woke up this morning!”

“Damn” I thought… “Sorry to have missed that”… I assured him it was okay. It was not until reading Michael Harner’s (Bless his soul) works later on did I know what happened to my friend.

Modern Note: As I see it, someone in Millbrook or elsewhere had gotten ahold of some Caapi Vine, and reduced it down to crystalline levels, and capped it. When Richard mixed the mescaline with it, there was a great synergy produced, not unlike the traditional mix of Caapi & P. Viridis…. If I recall, some tribes on the western slopes of the Andes combine Caapi with San Pedro (there might be the precedent!) I don’t know how safe it is though…

Back To The Past: Well, we hung out the rest of the day before I caught the next flight out to Denver. (Richard and I had further adventures, but those are for another time.)

Flying back into Denver, I decided it was time to head up into the mountains to a cabin the Mescaline Crew had, but that is an adventure for another time.

Pax,
G

____

Lusine - Just A Cloud (feat. Vilja Larjosto)

___

Whit Griffin Poesy:

A Far-Shining Crystal
(Extract: )“The River of Milk, the Snake Canoe”

The stone age didn’t end because we ran
out of stone. The force that formed the
stone can also dissolve it. Bacchus turned
the amethyst red. No god, but the translator,
turned Andromeda into a dromedary.
Tamberlane’s tent turned from white to red.
Red stones do not appeal to idealists. Roman
widows wore white. Rosicrucians believe iron
is the product of dark powers. The sly fox in
sympathy with the wily god. The lame god
is the provider of all good things.
___
A Welter of Cormorants

If you’re not too busy, my
house is on fire. No close-ups
please, I’m too old. Everything
can be mitigated with the proper
use of scented candles. The
Supreme Court turned the tomato
into a vegetable. Let’s not tussle
on this sandy shore; share the shell.
Around here we say carapace.
You’ve a penchant for the superfluous.
Outfitting a bass boat with an
astrolabe. A moped with no petrol
is just a bike. Help yourself to as
many samosas as you think you
deserve, then go back for seconds.
If animals could talk there’d be
more vegetarians. The moon
shines enough light for the muskrats
to find their ramble. We found
a didgeridoo in Saskatchewan.
The most heavily-scored eleven
minutes of my life.

___

Extract: “We Who Saw Everything”

All these worlds are transformed
by thy hand bearing fire. Worshippers of the solar fire.
Savitri revealed herself in the sacrificial fire. A tiger
was created in the sacrificial fire. The business of
the torch. Nine days she wandered over the earth,
with flaming torches in her hands. The glittering glassy
plains. The waste-places flowed with honey. Tapio,
Lord of the Forest. In the forest of Taragam dwelt
multitudes of heretical rishis. Those who blow on knots.
The master, the provost and the scholar. The
assembly of the wonderful head. And his severed
head they strung on the skull-rack. Ye shall leave
with him all your heads. As it is said Thor had a
piece of whetstone in his forehead.

[Balder Waits
For The Old
Order To Be
Destroyed]

From the left eye of Izanagi is born the sun goddess, and
from his right eye the moon god. Yellow like the amber body of
the goddess with the sapphire eyes. When the child
had ceased speaking, the king’s right eye was no
longer blind. The child is protected against the malice
of his brother. The bush is hidden. He lived the life
of a saint until his evil brother led him into sin.
Then he fled his city, Tula. He followed the word
of the scorpion-man. A scorpion will not go near
a filbert. I shall be so valuable that there will be
whole towns without one of me. Coral tree, tree of
the red puma. As Adonis to the myrrh tree. Born
from a hollow mulberry tree. The rim of the
shaman’s drum is cut from a living larch. On
March 22 a pine tree was brought into the
sanctuary of Cybele. Graybeard with the pineleaf hat.
He bled the calf of his right leg to
stain thorns with blood. He who has come to
us, his body is the flesh of gods! Born rather
than flourished. Let me take birth in the
Dhanakosha Lake. The code of Handsome Lake.
Hymns on the divine origin of water. Osiris
of the mysteries, who sprang from the returning
waters. Waiting beyond the breakers. Why
are the stone images of the ship destroyed?
Reuben is said to be as unstable as water. A
tea of ephedra and fennel. An ephedra beverage
in the home of Zoroaster. Olaf the Quiet
introduced cups to replace animal horns. Grim
the Good, a drinking horn that could foretell
the future. Grim, one of Odin’s many names.
No mention of drinking horns in Beowulf. As
it was once thought Solomon wrote the Iliad.
Philites composed a glossary of obscure archaic
words. Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote on the Trojan
origin of Britain. Paper was introduced to the west
by Chinese POWs from the Battle of Talas.
Pancrates convinced Hadrian to name a lotus
after Antinous. Pan hid his pipe from the Satyrs,
but they stole it nevertheless. The pipe is the
universe. We are microscopic instances of a
macrocosmic event. Ghost constellations. Leo
was the domicile of Osiris. Long after Taurus
had ceased to be the first of the signs. A
calendar is a pile of stones. Zeus’ semen fell
upon the Agdos rock. A new way down the
mountain. The Mountain Mother protects the
hunt. The protection of Horus is the great dwarf
who goes about the Netherworld at twilight.

___

Gwyllm/ Dreams:

A couple of weeks ago I had another one of those really odd dreams. In the dream I was watching and experiencing the collapse of society and civilization in the US as we know it. It was like watching an illuminated map with lights winkling out here there, everywhere, until the map was almost completely dark.

At first, I can feel an overwhelming panic with what was occurring. Society was in turmoil. As I was watching I realized that there was an underlying net of lights hardly visible that was still illuminated. There was hope and there was new awakenings…

___

Thanks to P.D. Newman

___

Work in Progress: Seraphim/Eye Mandala

A new direction I am working on. I hope you enjoy.

___

Martin Nonstatic - Granite Remixes

Thank you for visiting!

Gwyllm

Up In the Hills

Gwyllm Llwydd — Sun, 07 Sep 2025 17:35:46 GMT

Another week, another birthday. Time flies when you are having fun. Got to spend time with our son and his son for a quiet gathering. It was sweetness. Finished up an art piece “Rubedo” (It is Shining, It is Shining) as well on my birthday. (See below). Thanks for visiting, please leave feedback if you so choose!

On The Menu:

Links:

New Piece of Art

Poetry: Three By Gary

Worakls - Elea

Up In the Hills/Close Encounters of the Weird Kind...

Parra for Cuva - Swept Away (feat. Anna Naklab & Mr. Gramo)

Links: Hearing Voices? / The Ol' Three Card Monte / Life Thrums with Music / She Can't Forget / AI Slop: - John Oliver

New Piece of Art: Rubedo (It is Shining, It is Shining. Acrylic Pens, 3 weeks of work. I am hoping to be working again with my airbrushes soon, to take on some new challenges.

For Reference: Rubedo

Poetry: Three by Gary

Riprap

Lay down these words

Before your mind like rocks.

placed solid, by hands

In choice of place, set

Before the body of the mind

in space and time:

Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall

riprap of things:

Cobble of milky way,

straying planets,

These poems, people,

lost ponies with

Dragging saddles—

and rocky sure-foot trails.

The worlds like an endless

four-dimensional

Game of Go.

ants and pebbles

In the thin loam, each rock a word

a creek-washed stone

Granite: ingrained

with torment of fire and weight

Crystal and sediment linked hot

all change, in thoughts,

As well as things.

—

Above Pate Valley

We finished clearing the last

Section of trail by noon,

High on the ridge-side

Two thousand feet above the creek

Reached the pass, went on

Beyond the white pine groves,

Granite shoulders, to a small

Green meadow watered by the snow,

Edged with Aspen—sun

Straight high and blazing

But the air was cool.

Ate a cold fried trout in the

Trembling shadows. I spied

A glitter, and found a flake

Black volcanic glass—obsidian—

By a flower. Hands and knees

Pushing the Bear grass, thousands

Of arrowhead leavings over a

Hundred yards. Not one good

Head, just razor flakes

On a hill snowed all but summer,

A land of fat summer deer,

They came to camp. On their

Own trails. I followed my own

Trail here. Picked up the cold-drill,

Pick, singlejack, and sack

Of dynamite.

Ten thousand years.

—

John Muir on Mt. Ritter

After scanning its face again and again,
I began to scale it, picking my holds
With intense caution. About half-way
To the top, I was suddenly brought to
A dead stop, with arms outspread
Clinging close to the face of the rock
Unable to move hand or foot
Either up or down. My doom
Appeared fixed. I MUST fall.
There would be a moment of
Bewilderment, and then,
A lifeless rumble down the cliff
To the glacier below.
My mind seemed to fill with a
Stifling smoke. This terrible eclipse
Lasted only a moment, when life blazed
Forth again with preternatural clearness.
I seemed suddenly to become possessed
Of a new sense. My trembling muscles
Became firm again, every rift and flaw in
The rock was seen as through a microscope,
My limbs moved with a positiveness and precision
With which I seemed to have
Nothing at all to do.

Gary & Yers Truly at Dale Pendell’s Wake/Birthday 2018.

Dale Pendell, the renowned poet, writer lived with Gary back when, late 60’s and into the 70’s. They remained friends for years up to Dales passing. It was a deep honor talking with Gary and being friends with Dale Pendell.

Worakls - Elea

___

Up In the Hills/Close Encounters of the Weird Kind...

In the summer of 1969, I took to traveling and visiting various communes and communities in Northern California and Southern Oregon. One of these that I went to was on a headwater of a river up in the Siskiyou Mountains. The first thing that I noticed was that the camp/commune was incredibly orderly and respective of the land. (Many weren’t sad to say)

The man who started the camp, was an ex-marine, who went on the Boho, Beat path after leaving the military. He, to my young eyes was ancient; 36-37 years old. I liked him, he was straight forward and kind. We remained friends for years.

On my second visit to the camp, there were a new couple who were there. They struck me as odd, and I had a vague memory (possibly) of the woman. Their vibe was not as chilled out as the rest of the camp. The man was especially jittery. Folks seemed uneasy around them as well. They honestly gave me the creeps. After a day or so there, I packed up and moved on off to see other friends, folks, groups relieved to be moving on.

I didn’t make it back to the camp for a few weeks. When I showed back up, several folks had transitioned on. Among those gone, were the strange couple.

I asked my friend what happened. “They got incredibly weird, always suggesting group sex, or odd ceremonies. I finally asked them to move on, and they did.”

I forgot about this incident for years until September 5th, 1975 (as I recall) I was just getting myself together for the day, watching TV with my friend Mike in his Westwood Blvd flat in L.A. All of a sudden, this incident came on the screen in a news flash:

I yelled out “Squeaky”! as I saw the events unfold on the TV. It was 1/2 of the two up in the camp from 6 years earlier. (I held back the name for this reveal). There she was, trying to shoot Gerald Ford in Sacramento.

It was indeed Squeaky. I believe she was one of the women that I met in this episode of my earlier life: Darkness

Her companion, as I remember “Rabbit” (aptly named, jittery fellow that he was) had supposedly/mysteriously disappeared after angering Charlie up at Spahn Ranch above Claremont California. It was said that he was killed and buried on Manson’s orders. I have no way to verify this. It was the name that he was called by the folks up at the camp in the Siskiyous.

Funny how paths cross in life. Twice with Squeaky in the flesh, and then to see her on national TV.

Over the years I have had strange occurrences up in the hills. Some four legged, mostly two legged. I took to moving off trail when I heard folks coming my way. Although there are good people everywhere, there are some strange folks up in the hills. My ex-brother-in-law had a mining claim up on the Klamath, he told me that he always packed a pistol due to the encounters he had over the years.

I confess, this chance meeting was one of the strangest. I became much more wary as the years wore on. I still exercise caution in the woods.

Thanks for reading!

Parra for Cuva - Swept Away (feat. Anna Naklab & Mr. Gramo)

Listen To Radio EarthRites Here / Want to Link Radio EarthRites?

21 Years

Gwyllm Llwydd — Sat, 23 Aug 2025 01:52:00 GMT

A short entry. Not a bunch of verbiage, but straight to the point.

Enjoy.

___

On The Menu: The Links/ Radio EarthRites 21st year/ A Bit of Art Bohdisattva #109/ A Beautiful Tragedy / W.B. Yeats - The Second Coming

The Links: Clear Spot/A Span of Autonomy / DMT Entities possibly Real? / Why Love Matters Most / Pure Awareness: 5meO-DMT / The Importance of Counter-Clockwise Dance Rituals

___

Radio EarthRites 21st year:

Time flies when you're having fun. 21 years ago, an online friend suggested that I put together a radio station. At that time my website was called Earth Rites, it was a mixture of neo pagan and psychedelic writings… it included a forum which still exist to this day.

Although the station is hobbled with my lack of promotional savvy it still continues and is on 24/7 365 days a year.

It is mainly music nowadays, but it has featured poet’s philosophers and lectures on the various subjects as well over the years. We recently had a week of poetry and if I can organize it will be having more of those in the future.

We have bounced around with various providers over the years. The biggest problem has been financial in supporting the cost. Our current provider is pretty good cost wise, but we do see the station going up and down on and offline a bit too frequently. I would love to be able to run a dedicated computer with enough bandwidth out of my studio. Hopefully we can work towards that in the near future.

I do want to shout out to our supporters who have helped keep us going over the years. You know who you are, and I so appreciate your support and care and deep interest in the music that is provided along with the occasional poetry and lectures.

At this point people usually ask for donations which is all good and well… I also understand that money is tight, and the cost of living is prohibitive. I would appreciate folks sharing out the links or even posting on the site what is the good, the bad, the ugly, the moving bits about the station. Feedback is greatly appreciated so if you want to comment, please do.

In celebration of our 21st year of broadcasting we also have a new mix that you might appreciate. Please give it a listen share it out as I've said and remember station is here for all of you.

Deep Thanks To All!

Gwyllm

Catch the new show here, now streaming:

Listen To Radio EarthRites

___

A Bit of Art:

Bodhisattva #109

This is one of those pieces that I put together several years ago in the mid to late '90s. India Ink, Pen & Airbrush. I used multiple friskets on this for all the different layers. The piece took several months as I had to cut friskets for each round of spraying.

Working with multiple mediums on a piece has its challenges. One of those challenges is fixing and or ignoring mistakes. They do happen. The key perhaps is to incorporate the accident into the body of the work. Bob Ross “Happy Accidents” and all of that.

This piece follows along the line of work that I have pursued since I first discovered Mandalas back in the 1960’s. I found the mid-late 90’s particularly fruitful for art. The momentum drifted away from physical art to computer in the early 2000’s but is now cycling back. (Thankfully).

Bohdisattva #109 is available as Blotter Art currently; it will soon be released in other formats.

If you have any questions about it, techniques etc., please ask.

___

A Beautiful Tragedy:

W.B. Yeats - The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

___

Thank you for visiting!

Gwyllm