{"id":326,"date":"2019-12-30T01:09:31","date_gmt":"2019-12-30T01:09:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dunsgathan.net\/sgathan\/?page_id=326"},"modified":"2022-04-12T18:09:28","modified_gmt":"2022-04-12T18:09:28","slug":"canines-on-my-path","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/dunsgathan.net\/sgathan\/essays\/canines-on-my-path\/","title":{"rendered":"Canines on My Path 2.5"},"content":{"rendered":"

Or I\u00a0was a toddler weredog<\/strong><\/em><\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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by Saigh Kym Lambert (copyright<\/a> 1999, 2004, 2012, 2021 \u00a9 Saigh Kym Lambert, all rights reserved do not republish anywhere)<\/h6>\n

\"Buy<\/a>If you find this article helpful, please considering helping us feed and vet The Beasts<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dogs have been a huge part of my life from my earliest memory in this lifetime being about a dog, or at least I gather it is my earliest despite my problems remembering the chronology of events. However, my memory is of sitting on the kitchen floor with my arms lifted up around Rusty, a big<\/i> golden dog that I figured had been a Golden Retriever but then discovered that Rusty was actually a Cocker Spaniel! \u00a0So I was pretty small at the time.<\/p>\n

My first memory of \u00a0preforming an act of “rescuing” a dog? I was 3 years old and with my sister to buy a dog for our mother., in the early ’60s when adoption apparently was an unknown option.\u00a0 I insisted on a silver beige Toy Poodle. Why? \u00a0Because it was the one proportionally the biggest in comparison to the crate it was in. \u00a0 Or perhaps I convinced myself this was what \u00a0happened \u00a0when I got questioned about \u00a0why I chose her time and time again. \u00a0The first word out of my father’s mouth when he saw her was “scram!” and that became her name. \u00a0Many people’s opinion of her was similar. But I adored her, as did my mother. \u00a0She was very tiny and very fierce. \u00a0We always kept her “puppy clipped” without a pom-pom to be seen so that she looked like an actual dog (this is how we saw it, I was an adult by the time that I learned that “that haircut” was actually designed for keeping organs and joints warm in cold water retrieval). \u00a0Or at times a lamb as we weren’t all that regular with her clippings. \u00a0 When my father got a Doberman and my sister, who for a time lived just down the road, a Great Dane, Scram was the definite alpha who kept all these dogs, though they towered over her, in line. \u00a0No dog was more ferocious than Scram.<\/p>\n

But many of my early canine memories is of being<\/em> a dog.\u00a0 Or thinking I was. Through the years I’ve thought perhaps it was just delusion, perhaps not fully processed reincarnation fragments. Or perhaps my mother let me watch Dark Shadows<\/em> at too young an age, but have since realized that I was 6 when the first werewolf appeared\u00a0 it, and I was younger than that when this started. But I did become\u00a0 both fascinated and annoyed by the werewolves on DS, annoyed because they all were men and they all wanted to be cured and none figured out to go into the woods and chase animals instead of staying around where they’d find people instead. Perhaps, however, there was a realization of something within me, something I connected to, which came to me very early. Either way it has incorporated into my spiritual identity, especially later, especially as I learned about the connection of warriors and dogs and\u00a0f\u00e1elad<\/i><\/a>\u00a0and my Goddess and wolves, and how these things may relate.<\/p>\n

That was when I first made contact, I believe, with the Otherworld. \u00a0 With beings that were often neither humanoid nor animal, but could appear to be both. The Wolf Bitch started to be around then. \u00a0Not close, but there. \u00a0 My first experiences with the spiritual where watched over by \u00a0her, me so young \u00a0I had not concept of religion or spirituality. \u00a0Only of my friends I later “learned” were imaginary and who I lost for many years when I “grew up” ….until I was ready to realize that what a child knows is sometimes more real than we are convinced of later.\"Scram<\/p>\n

In later childhood, my first experiences of \u00a0Goddess worshiping were defined by hounds. \u00a0At about 9 or 10 years old, I became fascinated with Greek mythology. \u00a0This is what was readily available, “fiction” from history and English classes in school. \u00a0I dedicated myself to Artemis in the woods near our home one summer day. \u00a0With Her Hounds in attendance….along with my father’s Doberman. \u00a0I spent much time in the woods with Cinnamon, sometime my sister’s Great Dane and my brother’s Golden Retriever (both my older siblings lived nearby at the time).<\/p>\n

In the house was still Scram. \u00a0Well, outside too, but never as deeply in the woods (although there was the one day that she and I met the coyote. \u00a0I had a 15 pound unspayed bitch with me, so we didn’t stick around to make introductions).\u00a0 As I reach puberty I was one of those kids that manifested “poltergeist” activity……mostly noises, some movement of objects.\u00a0 My Sight also became stronger at this time, which was sometimes frightening.\u00a0 With me through this was Scram, who stayed in my room at night. \u00a0She sometimes would wake screaming when something would come into the room. \u00a0Or attack the “air.” \u00a0 Cinnamon likewise would show he saw things that I was the only human to see, although he did not do the stairs to my room where most happened. \u00a0One night he went after a “person” that was lurking about, but never caught him (if there had been a person there he\u00a0would\u00a0have caught him…he was a trained guard dog and, well, they may not be as fast as a Greyhound but Dobies are not slow). \u00a0\u00a0It was during this time that an interest in the Occult developed, one that led me to discover Witchcraft as a name for someone who worshiped Goddesses…..later to find “Pagan” as a name still used as well. \u00a0And to learn I wasn’t alone. That I wouldn’t always have only the dogs to vindicate that there was something there as well. \u00a0Others believed.<\/p>\n

By the time\u00a0Gabrielle<\/a>\u00a0came into my life, when I was 16, I fully defined myself as Pagan and Witch…….worshiping and practicing in a Wiccan style (I was untrained and initiated, as I was later trained and initiated in a British Traditional group, I believe these are required to actually be Wiccan). \u00a0Artemis was still my Matron. \u00a0However, it was while Gabe was giving birth, at less than a year old (first heats sneak up on you and some bitches will go through anything to get to a dog, including a closed window! \u00a0I’m a big believer in spaying before first heat), that I feel I met another Bitch Goddess. \u00a0I spent hours fighting the fact that the first pup born, that Gabe had abandoned, was going to die. \u00a0Of course, Gabe knew better than me. \u00a0The first time I fought with death, the first time Hecate and Her hounds came into my life. \u00a0Of course, as one always does in such a battle, I lost.<\/p>\n

\"Gabrielle\"Gabe was one of those extraordinary ritual dogs<\/a>. \u00a0She’d watch the energy at the edge of the circle, never crossing it which ever side she ended up on. \u00a0If something was going wrong, something I was missing was happening, she’d let me know. \u00a0For years she was the only other one in my rituals. \u00a0She was often called, by others, my familiar (but she never ran errands for me nor let me possess her body to do so, so that doesn’t follow—yeah, I tend to be very literal about such things) or my “medicine dog” (a bit NDN wannabe for my PC comfort). We traveled over much of the East Coast together. \u00a0We spent a summer in the woods, not quite living off the land…okay, not at all really, but in the woods. \u00a0She went to many political actions of all sorts with me, appeared in a few newspaper shots. \u00a0Much of my time, when I lived up north was spent hiking,\u00a0 running or riding horseback (horses being almost as strong a focus for me), Gabe was with me in these activities at all times.<\/p>\n

Gabe was with me when I first started to feel the pull to walk the\u00a0warrior path<\/a>, when I first learned the name “Morr\u00edgan<\/a>” and the first night I called out to this Goddess. \u00a0Long before She decided I was ready (by which time I knew better than to try to get Her attention, such is the irony of life). A full moon night, on a hillside in a park, I felt this draw to that side. To something darker than I was allowing myself to experience. \u00a0Something that might have horrified those I worked with at the time. \u00a0But Gabe was not, and I trusted her. \u00a0Walking out of the park, a male jogger asked me if I wasn’t afraid to be in the park alone, I laughed at him and asked who would be foolish enough to bother me on a night like tonight. Gabe ran to him in a friendly manner and nosed him, then scooted back to stand between us. \u00a0She has protected me once from a potential rapist years when she was not much more than a pup, I had faith that she would again if I needed. \u00a0But I felt as powerful myself at that moment. \u00a0 I was a Bitch too. \u00a0\u00a0Perhaps foolish, but perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I was claimed by the War Goddess when I was initiated into Wicca, \u00a0a few years later. \u00a0Shortly after She appeared to me, I had a dream that I was attacked by a large black wolf. \u00a0I recognized this as the Otherworldly beast that watched me as a child. \u00a0All those I knew turned away from my fight would not help me, including Gabe. \u00a0I was alone. \u00a0 I killed the wolf…..heartsick at having had to. Holding the body in my arms, I felt the wolf enter my body.\u00a0 By “killing” her I had in fact become her. \u00a0It no longer watched me from outside, but was a part of me.\u00a0 A center for me as well, my strength, my power.<\/p>\n

It was later, about the time I was leaving the practice of Wicca and developing from a Reconstructionist view that the War Goddesses appeared to me as Morr\u00edgna, the Three Together instead of as One. Black Crow, White Mare, and a Red Bitch that looked like a cross of a Sighthound and a Wolf. \u00a0The wolf form can be found in the\u00a0T\u00e1in B\u00f3 C\u00faalnge\u00a0<\/em>(pg. 180\u00a0\u00a0Rec 1 English<\/a>, pg. 61\u00a0Irish<\/a>) where She appears as such to C\u00fa Chulainn, as well as eel and heifer.<\/p>\n

These two things may have led me for years to identify, although hardly live up to either in ability or conceit, C\u00fa Chulainn’s myth. \u00a0For he kills a hound as a child and takes on both the animal’s role and its name, “Hound of the Smith.” ((pg 140-142\u00a0TBC\u00a0<\/em> English<\/a>, pg. 17-19\u00a0Irish<\/a>\u00a0see also\u00a0The Celtic Hound<\/a>\u00a0). \u00a0The killing of a canine to become it.\u00a0 Being claimed by Her.<\/p>\n

As I learned more about the connection of the Fianna with the concept of\u00a0f\u00e1elad<\/i>\u00a0(wolfing), as well as their strong connection to hounds ((Nagy pg. 44, 244 n20\u00a0Wisdom<\/a>, McCone “Werewolves..”<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0West\u00a0“Aspects of\u00a0d\u00edberg<\/i>\u00a0…<\/a>\u00a0I write a bit more\u00a0The Celtic Hound<\/a>\u00a0as well as in an upcoming article on The War Goddesses).\u00a0 The concept of such transformation of will and spirit, if not body, similar as well to\u00a0Chulainn\u2019s\u00a0r\u00edastrad<\/i>\u00a0(warp spasm) which may not transform him into a hound, but then he had become always the Hound. What had seemed a pop culture fantasy I grew out of in my childhood has actually become a part of my spiritual path. (I would like to note that there is no similarity to this and the modern concept of “Otherkin.” Any feelings of identity confusion I might have had as a toddler is gone, I am well aware of being a human who can connect to the wolf or dog on a spiritual level rather than being a wolf stuck in human form or anything like that)<\/p>\n

Gabe was there when I was claimed. She watched me go from pacifist to taking the first real steps on the\u00a0warrior path<\/a>. In her last years she watched me as I began to study Celtic culture and Paganism in college and leave Wicca for CR Paganism. \u00a0She watched me struggle with having to destroy old ideas and beliefs and accept new ones that weren’t always that easy to deal with. \u00a0She patiently listened. \u00a0She gladly stayed by my side as I tried new ways to worship, new ritual forms. \u00a0Or quietly connected to Her with no ritual at all. \u00a0 We still roamed the woods and fields, with me sometimes on horseback, until her arthritis prevented her. \u00a0Then we’d walk, but closer to home, sitting by the pond, the pond her body lies next to always.<\/p>\n

And with the baying of Otherworld Hounds in my ears, I held her as she left this world. And I told her that she was free now to run with her namesakes, the Gabriel Ratchett Hounds (a Christian term\u00a0 but for the Hounds of the Wild Hunt just the same).<\/p>\n

The next year I moved back to the Seacoast and\u00a0my horses were killed <\/a>(or rather horses I had hoped to buy).\u00a0 I had neither hound nor horse. \u00a0It seemed at times I was not me.<\/p>\n

About a year after Midnight and Trouble’s deaths, I again connected with the beasts of the Wild Hunt. \u00a0Someone I recently met who was himself \u00a0hunted by prey that had once long ago escaped the Hunt. \u00a0 On that night I sought the help of Odin, and the Grey Man granted it…..not only taking the creature back into the Hunt, but running his Hounds\/Wolves, Horses, and Hunters around us rather than over. That was remarkable, it took years to understand why. And it took years before I was fully a peace with having been claimed not only a God, but one who was not Celtic…..it actually took the affliction of a physical hints to do it! \u00a0Again, the Wolf, the Raven, the Horse.<\/p>\n

When my husband and I adopted our Greyhound\u00a0Irony<\/a>, that connection was remade. Perhaps remade, for I knew she was supposed to be our dog when I first saw just her name on the list of available dogs and it was obvious she knew we were her people at first site. I strongly believe that she was Gabe returned, as I believe our family, furred or human, tends to return to us.\u00a0 She quickly took to our rituals, her awareness of the Otherworld is strong. Our first ritual with her at L\u00f9nasdal\"meh was amazing, right down to the simple fact that my momentary concern that she wouldn’t share our Blessing, that year it was blackberries, was quickly alleviated. \u00a0She loved them. \u00a0Just as Gabe did.\u00a0 Her ability to play “Trickster” was only overshadowed by her “brother”\u00a0Bran’s<\/a>\u00a0skill when he joined our family.<\/p>\n

Likewise\u00a0Scolaigh<\/a>e joined right in, although her health issues made her a bit less involved. However,\u00a0Gleann<\/a>, just a puppy at his first ritual, who is able to be off leash took to helping with the Outsider offerings and then guarding the West gate right from the start. He has continued to grow more into his role, both in ritual and as a guardian of our animals and land.\u00a0\u00a0C\u00f9<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0\u00d2rlaith<\/a>\u00a0 join us today, and Sachairi<\/a>\u00a0is right beside Gleann as we go out to do Outsiders and then close to our sides for the rest of the ritual, just as he is too a guardian of our other beasts, albeit a small but fierce one.
\nWith the addition of hounds to our household there was a great sense that we are touching the culture we are inspired by much more deeply.\u00a0 At lure coursing events we touch upon those ancestors who ran their hounds at hares as mentioned by Arrianus (see\u00a0The Celtic Hound<\/a>). Sitting at feast after ritual, we again touch upon the idea of hounds at the feet of their humans, sharing in the wealth of the hunt they made possible even if there was no hunting involved (although our fluff dogs go with us to gather and sometimes fishing if one of us wants to keep them away from the water). On early morning walks, I hear the cawing of Her Crows and realize that as I walk these beasts, She is nearby always.\u00a0 I feel a part of the pack, as I continue to explore the concept of f\u00e1elad<\/em>. This is my family.<\/p>\n

\"Gleann,<\/p>\n

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