Celtic Goddess: Don & Dundon Hill
Annabel Du Boulay:
During the first lockdown in Spring 2020, my daughters and I had to shield my disabled son for 18 weeks. Like many people, the only taste of freedom we had was our daily walk in Nature. I chose most days to walk up Dundon Hill, sacred to the Celtic Welsh Goddess Dôn, who I have the honour of embodying as Priestess for the Goddess Conference 2022.
Although I was blessed to be self-isolating with my children, I still experienced a deep sense of aloneness and, at times, despair. Walking on Dôn’s land and sitting on the top of her Hill, I was nurtured by the fertile waters of her earth rising up to support me, by her winds cleansing me of all my fears, and by her infinite starry heavens, which helped me to put my experiences of the pandemic in perspective. I hugged her trees, beat my drum in rhythm to the Dragon heart beat of her land, sang loudly with her crows and became one with Her.
Dôn’s expansive energies enable us to rise up out of the egoic drama of our everyday lives and soar on the wings of her birds, high above in the starry realms of the Soul. She embodies the Light that is born from the depths of the Dark, reminding us that there is always Hope and that, one day, we will be reborn once more out of the Shadows and into the Starry Light of Renewal.
Please feel free to share your own personal experiences of Dôn, or Irish Danu, Mother of Air, in the comments below, and how She has supported you.
Historical Information of Don:
Dôn is a Celtic Welsh Mother Goddess of the Starry Heavens, the Moon, the Ocean and the element of Air, and the counterpart of Irish Danu. She is mother of Arianrhod, Goddess of the Silver Wheel, whose realm is Caer Arianrhod, the constellation of Corona Borealis, and Grandmother of Lleu Llaw Gyffes, synonymous with Irish Lug, the Sun God of Light.
Her son Gwydion’s realm is Caer Gwydion, the Milky Way, and her domain of Llys Dôn (‘The Court of Dôn’) is the traditional Welsh name for the constellation Cassiopeia. The Children of Dôn are the powers of light, constantly in conflict with the Children of Llyr, the powers of darkness, and thus she sits in the North on the Wheel of the Year, at the point where the light of the Sun is reborn at the Winter Solstice from the darkness of Samhain.
My favourite Beacon Hill in the Avalonian tenemos is Dundon Hill, sacred to Dôn, where I have walked with my children and dogs for many years, so it is such a blessing to be embodying Her energies as Priestess for the Goddess Conference 2022. For me, Dôn combines the powers of fertility through her serpent-dragon waters that nourish the Earth, with the expansive energies of Her high hills and mountains, which are purified by her winds and reach up to the starry heavens.
Dôn was also a ruler of the Otherworld, guarding the gateway to the Isle of Avalon, the Isle of Death, Transformation and Rebirth, and her Beacon Hill at Dundon, just south of Glastonbury Tor, can geographically be experienced as a gateway to Glastonbury-Avalon.