If you attend or watch a public Druidic ceremony, you will hear those assembled and maybe be asked to join in calling nine Awens. Rather like the Buddhist mantra AUM, this is the Druidic name for the life and inspirational force of generation behind the universe that is linked with the Sun. Some Druid/esses identify this as the sound that called forth creation. Books will tell you that this is pronounced AAH-oo-en, or AAH-oo Wen, as three equally weighted syllables as a monotone. But, in practice, when you have a lot of people calling Awen in the dusk or early dawn light, the sounds merge so that it becomes more like the sound of the sea, of wind rippling through plains of corn or the call of the birds going home at night, especially if it is called on a rising note.
So practise calling Awens, three, six or nine in monotones. Then as though you were ascending or descending scales, sing in a cave, a tunnel, in dense woodland in a valley of rocks or an old quarry and let the echoes swell your voice. Sing it as you walk, dance it in your grove, swim it through water and so the sound will become a part of you, like Aum, a creative sound that fills you with power and certainty and you no longer worry you are saying it correctly.
Awen is also a symbol drawn by Druidesses and Druids as a way of invoking and sending blessings (it is popular at the end of Druidic e-mails and can easily and legally be downloaded by right-clicking on the image and select "save as" for non commercial purposes).
It consists of the three rays of the Sun. I have seen two completely different explanations for its form. One says that at the time of the midsummer sunrise, the sun casts three spreading rays of light, the Awen, which open the gates of Annwyn, the doorway to the Otherworld.
The other view is that they represent the points at which the Sun rises on the equinoxes and solstices, that is due east at the time of the equinoxes, as represented by the central bar of the Awen.
A the time of the Summer and Winter Solstices the sun rises in the east-north-east and the east-south-east respectively, these would form the bars on either side.
An Awen turned to face the East shows the direction of the winter and summer solstice sunrises.
Though the Awen sign is itself not ancient, the formation of the three sunrises was marked by three stones outside a number of stone circles.
The origins of Awen
While the concept of Awen and its solar connections are popularly regarded as Revivalist, rather than an ancient Celtic symbol, some Druidessess and Druids do believe that Awen, translated as flowing spirit, may be an ancient concept that was Christianised. They point to such examples as tales of the sixth century bard Taliesin (although these tales were recorded centuries later) who claimed to have received three drops of Awen that splashed from the Cauldron of Cerridwen and these three drops are depicted in some symbols of Awen, falling from the sky.
Of course, if Awen does come from the Cauldron of Cerridwen then this solar power is female-inspired and directed and the solar connection is that it is brewed from herbs and flowers that grow in the sun. It represents a rebirth into light, such as the boy Gwion experienced when he was swallowed in the form of a grain by Cerridwen in the shape of a hen and was reborn from her womb as the bard/magician Taliesin nine months later. Gwion, foster son of Cerridwen, was stirring the cauldron at the time and claimed that three drops of inspiration splashed on his fingers accidentally, an explanation not accepted by the irate Cerridwen who pursued him in animal different forms in what has become a classic example of shapeshifting.
This Awen or inspiration was, as I mentioned earlier, endowed by women priestesss/Druidesses at early Druid initiations, for example at Pentre Ifan in Pembrokeshire. Initiates would remain in total darkness for several days awaiting rebirth.
Here, nine virgin piriestesses/Druidesses would stir and breathe the pure life force on a cauldron in which a sun brew of barley, flowers, herbs and sea foam was created. The would-be Bards each drank three drops to represent Gwion’s three drops of inspiration that he stole from the cauldron and the rest was poured away to symbolise cast the former life of the initiate
This may originally have been a solar goddess ceremony and may predate the Druid tradition and the three bars may have represented the triple or three aspected Goddess Brighid, Goddess of the Sun and of Fire.
The rays are sometimes positioned within the centre of a Triple Circle to represent the Three Celtic realms, Earth, Sea and Sky or the circles of existence and the passage of the soul or simply enclosed in a circle. (Passage taken from cassandraeason.co.uk) 