Between Shapes - A Welsh Rite for Transformation & Becoming

What happens after you order

You will receive Your Rite Begins Here immediately after purchase, a short digital welcome guide explaining what happens next and how your personalised work is prepared. I will then contact you personally by email to gather whatever information is needed before I begin. Your completed rite, reading, photographs and written materials will follow digitally within the stated preparation period.

Between Shapes

A Welsh Rite for Transformation & Becoming

Some changes have a clear before and after.

Others do not.

We realise gradually that something which once fitted no longer does. Circumstances alter us before we have decided what those alterations mean. An old way of living begins to loosen while whatever comes next remains unfinished.

During those periods, it can be tempting to hurry towards a new definition simply because being between them is uncomfortable.

Between Shapes is a personalised Welsh rite for inhabiting transformation while it is still taking place.

Drawing upon the transformations within the story of Ceridwen and Gwion Bach, the rite does not ask you to decide immediately what you are becoming. Instead, it creates a deliberate threshold in which to acknowledge what has already changed, what remains recognisably yours, and what may need more time before it can be named.

Ceridwen, Gwion and changing form

In the story associated with Taliesin, Gwion Bach receives the three drops of extraordinary knowledge intended for Ceridwen's son Afagddu.

He understands immediately that Ceridwen will pursue him and flees.

What follows is one of the most striking sequences of transformation in Welsh tradition.

Gwion becomes a hare; Ceridwen becomes a greyhound. He enters the water as a fish; she follows as an otter. He takes to the air as a bird; she pursues him as a hawk. Finally, he becomes a grain of wheat. Ceridwen becomes a hen and consumes him.

Later she gives birth to him, and the child eventually becomes Taliesin.

It would be easy to flatten this into a story about choosing to reinvent ourselves.

That is not what the tale gives us.

These transformations occur through pursuit, necessity and consequence. Gwion changes repeatedly because circumstances demand it, while Ceridwen changes in answer to him. What eventually emerges is something neither could have described when the pursuit began.

The rite I prepare is contemporary rather than a reconstructed historical Welsh practice.

What I take from the story is its unsettling image of identity continuing through changing forms.

This rite may help you explore

Between Shapes may suit you when you are already living through substantial change and find yourself uncertain about who or what you will be on the other side of it.

Perhaps a role, relationship, career, home, belief or way of understanding yourself has changed. Perhaps you chose the transition yourself; perhaps circumstances chose part of it for you.

You may know clearly what has ended without knowing what should replace it.

This rite is not intended to accelerate transformation or promise that you will emerge as a better version of yourself.

Its concern is the period in between.

What has genuinely changed?

What remains?

What are you trying to decide too soon?

And what might be allowed to remain unfinished while you discover its next shape?

Your Rite Options

I prepare each Between Shapes rite individually around the transition you are experiencing.

Both options include a complete personalised working. Deluxe is intended for larger or more complicated transformations in which several parts of life, identity or circumstance are changing together.

Between Shapes — Standard Rite

Best suited when you can identify the transition you are moving through and want to mark it deliberately without requiring yourself to know its eventual outcome.

Includes:

• Preparation of the working space
• Personalised Between Shapes rite shaped around your circumstances
• Working centred upon what has changed, what remains and what is still becoming
• Symbolism drawn from the Ceridwen and Gwion transformation sequence where appropriate
• Photographic record of the completed working
• Written account of the rite and symbolism used
• Companion PDF exploring the Welsh story informing the work
• Personalised reflective practice for the period of transition afterwards

The Standard Rite is a complete working in its own right. It is best suited when you know what is changing, even if you cannot yet say what it will become.

Between Shapes — Deluxe Rite: The Changing Form

Best suited when transformation is occurring across several parts of your life or when the transition has begun changing how you understand yourself as well as your circumstances.

Deluxe includes everything in the Standard Rite, plus:

• Personal in-depth consultation after purchase
• Separate preliminary cleansing rite before the main working
• Expanded personalised Between Shapes rite shaped around what emerges through the consultation
• Photographic record and detailed written account of the completed working
• Expanded personalised Companion Guide exploring the transition and the themes most relevant to your circumstances
• Tailored reflective and integration practices for living through the period of change
• Divinatory reflection incorporated where appropriate

Choose Deluxe when the question is not simply “What is changing?”, but “Who am I becoming while it changes?”

Between one form and another

The transformations of Ceridwen and Gwion happen quickly in the telling.

Living through change rarely does.

There may be long stretches in which the old shape no longer fits and the next has not yet become clear. We can mistake that uncertainty for failure because we expect transformation to produce an immediate answer to the question of who we are now.

Perhaps it does not have to.

Something can be unfinished without being lost.

A transition can alter us without requiring us to celebrate every part of it.

And becoming does not require us to reject everything that belonged to the person who entered the change.

There are times when the most truthful answer to What are you becoming? is simply:

I don't know yet.

Between Shapes gives that answer somewhere to stand.

Before you order

Between Shapes is a personalized digital spiritual service for adults aged 18 and over. No physical item will be shipped.

The rite is offered for spiritual practice, reflection and personal development. It does not guarantee personal transformation or a particular outcome and should not replace medical, psychological, legal, financial or other appropriate professional support.

Because each rite is individually prepared, completed ritual work cannot be refunded once preparation and performance have taken place.

Please provide a working email address with your order. I will use it for any necessary communication and delivery of your completed materials.

Nid yw newid ffurf yn golygu colli'r hyn oedd.
Changing form does not mean losing what was.

May what has changed be acknowledged, what remains be recognised, and what is still becoming be given time before you ask it for a name.

Gyda newid ac amynedd,
With change and patience,

Elowen