The Portal of the Veil of Mists

By: Angie Twydall

As the Wheel of the year spirals on, turning into a time of stillness and silence of the deepest winter. As I write this blog from my Sanctuary on Exmoor, we are snowed in. This is a time of the deepest pause of life, of nature, of our bees hibernating. The trees tall and still, pausing and Imbolc approaches, together with the promise of the return of the light.

As I walk out on the moor I feel Goddess in the bitterness of the winds, from the NE they bite down into my bones. I feel every year of my age, and older. The cold bites deep with sleet and hail piercing my skin like tiny daggers. I know I am alive even though I am numb with cold.

This year I am journeying with Goddess as Crone, Lady of the Otherworld through the portal of the Veil of Mists.

What are the Mists? Who is the Otherworld Lady who stands at the portal of the Veil of Mists?

This is such an elemental portal – an edge place of seeing and not seeing with my eyes. I have to use all my senses and unseen awareness to embrace this Portal of the Mists. It can be a fear place, a place of not knowing where danger lurks, and a place of unknown fears arising.

Mists, fog, drizzle and low cloud hang down in high places but also appear around the seas and lakes. If you can go above the low cloud and mists and look down it really does feel as though you are closer to Her, looking down on a magical realm.

I have sensed the fear place when out walking along the coastal paths…sheer cliffs with drops of hundreds of feet. Where the mists come in it is easy to get dis-orientated and easily take a wrong footing.

What does Goddess teach me as she guides me in these edge places? Well, it is to trust. To trust that I can listen even though the sounds are distorted and different in the mists and fog. To really open my inner vision, my awareness beyond my sight to sense and feel rather than physically see. She pushes me as Her Priestess to go beyond, to go to the edge and trust whatever is there.

Some of my most magical spiritual experiences of the portal of the mists have been when I lived and worked on the Isle of Avalon, Glastonbury, UK

To walk the Tor and climb through the mists to be above them and have a 360-degree vista of the waters and mists transported me back into another time, and lived experience of Avalon.

I also got lost on the Somerset levels late one night. The main road was closed and a diversion sign posted..but only one. I didn’t have a mobile phone and there were no road signs. For those of you who may not know the landscape around Glastonbury there are network of watercourses (called rhynes) which are the primary ways by which water is removed from the land and fields. As I drove down a single-track cambered road, I could see in the headlights of my car that there were rhynes full of water both sides of the road. The mists came down quickly. I was lost and I panicked. I sat holding the steering wheel unable to move forwards or backwards. I was completely in fear with the combination of mists, water and the unknown. This was the beginning of a journey to discover past life fears through different present-day portals.

What this Portal is inviting us to experience is a develop what we know but cannot clearly see. Also the changing of the landscape, the seasons, the weather. When we are in the mists of our minds, confused and unclear know that this too will pass and clarity will come back, once we have experienced the Portal of Mists and trusted too.

As Goddess continues to guide me, I await the Portal of Mists to descend once again to the next magical steps on my pathway to the Otherworld.

Shrouded In The Mist
Adapted from original by Robert Longley
Perhaps it’s hidden from us
The truth that’s hard to see
Maybe we aren’t ready
To learn what we can be
So many possibilities
And wonders to behold
Takes us beyond the limits
Of things that we’ve been told
Why can’t we just see it
And have the path be clear
Couldn’t the future tell us
If it’s far or maybe near
So much is out there waiting
Shrouded in the mist
It’s just Goddess’s sense of humour
With just a little twist

May She walk and guide you too, especially through the Mists!
Blessed Be

Your Priestess Ceremonialist
Angie Twydall