Pyrene, Awaken Once More

This week­end we attend­ed the sec­ond edi­tion of L’Homme Sauvage fes­ti­val, in the French region of Occ­i­ta­nia. We nev­er thought it would be pos­si­ble, but this edi­tion was even bet­ter than the first one. Every­thing seemed to col­lide per­fect­ly: the peo­ple, the per­for­mances, the loca­tion, and a feel­ing that gave cohe­sion to it all, orches­trat­ed and curat­ed by an amaz­ing­ly devot­ed organization.

This event nev­er fails to amaze us, and it reas­sures our con­vic­tions and spir­i­tu­al points of view towards the path we are work­ing on. It is eas­i­ly per­ceiv­able that more and more peo­ple are now work­ing towards a revival of Pyre­nean folk­lore and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, new indi­vid­ual and group ini­tia­tives are emerg­ing, and this just gives us even more strength to keep on working.

The moun­tains are aware of such efforts and endeav­ors, and even though they may seem harsh and demand­ing, they reward those who work hard and whole­heart­ed­ly. You may have noticed we are not pub­lish­ing as many arti­cles as we used to, but right now we are putting our efforts in writ­ing a new book for Atra­men­tous Press that will bear the title of Pyre­nean Witch­craft and will see the light in win­ter 2019. We can­not offer any more details on the mat­ter, but one thing is cer­tain; work­ing on this book has rat­i­fied and con­firmed what we believed in, and it has helped to put our expe­ri­ences and thoughts in order. Hope­ful­ly, it will help read­ers achieve the same.

The hard­est part of recov­er­ing and recon­struct­ing a tra­di­tion is not look­ing for sources, walk­ing the land again and again with­out a response, or deal­ing with the lack of infor­ma­tion or input: lone­li­ness is the hard­est part. Even though the Crooked Path of Witch­craft, Sor­cery, or the Path of Poi­sons are nat­u­ral­ly regard­ed as soli­tary ‑for they deal with the detach­ment and the ini­ti­a­tion in mys­ter­ies- it is very hard to do every­thing on your own. This is why the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion of re-awak­en­ing the Pyre­nean Land with ini­tia­tives like Peren­ni­al Pyre­nees , the Por Enci­ma de Todas las Zarzas blog, or L’Homme Sauvage mean the world to us; they deserve all the sup­port and attention.

And the con­clu­sions reached by those inde­pen­dent ini­tia­tives do not dif­fer from each oth­er, a pecu­liar­i­ty that can only be read as the Land’s acknowl­edg­ment for the qual­i­ty of their work and the spark of illu­mi­na­tion they get from the Dark­ness. The con­ver­gence of these paths in a unique des­ti­na­tion leads us to an even more ele­vat­ed and hid­den goal, but per­haps that one can only be attained with the com­bi­na­tion of our efforts.

Because sin­cere efforts keep the blood run­ning under the soil, they main­tain the secrets kept in the mist, they hold the rid­dles entan­gled in the sol­stice fires. No egos or per­son­al frus­tra­tion can be involved in devo­tion, so our hands are guid­ed by sin­cere love for this land which has accept­ed us as its indwellers and seek­ers. May the path grow as high as the peak of Anelthou, and may the flame of inspi­ra­tion shine bright between Aher­be­leste’s horns.