First I’ll tell you a secret. I write every book and article in long-hand first. Crazy, but that’s what works for me.

And I write because the subject matter is exciting; because the subject matter is always with us and around us. It’s like talking with a pen, and in many ways it’s very easy because everything that goes into the practical workings has been lived by many of us, and discussed and taught, orally, over and over for years.

I also write so-called fiction that really isn’t. And that’s the most exciting work because it’s a way of communicating understandings of the gods and the sacred that’s equally as important as the how-to material. It is a tradition that is absolutely ancient — the art of the seanachai (story-teller).

When I See the Wild God didn’t start out as a book at all. Eventually it was to be the result of many things that are neglected by many writers of this genre nowadays, including both men and the gods (in difference to the goddesses), but not at the outset. I know exactly what triggered it.

In June of 2002, I’d dreamt that
I was on the upper story of a house and there was the noise of a party going on downstairs.

I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor opposite this big ugly guy who was purple with rage. He’s yelling at me. He’s so angry he has spittle flying from his mouth as he screams abuse into my face. I can’t understand a word he’s saying. About 30 seconds into this, he picks up a stub of wood and starts casting a circle around himself on the floor.

“Whoa, looks like war!” I think to myself. I feel around for any object that I can use to do the same because I’m not game enough to take my eyes off this guy.

I don’t know what’s coming, but as I watch his face and attempt to figure out what his deal is … well, I just sort of fall into his head.

I’m in a limitless underground space — quite dark, but not in any ordinary sense of darkness. The air is as rarified as an early spring dawn high up in the mountains, and there is an object before me of solid rose-gold. It has a thick circular base encrusted with garnets and rubies, with an unadorned central pillar around which ascend four serpents. Their tails are on the base and their faces are joined just above the pillar, looking upwards in exaltation. This magnificent thing is turning slowly and silently, catching light that is amber and directionless and that makes no sense in the darkness.

I am awestruck. I’ve never seen anything this beautiful in my life. Then I fall back out of the ugly, spitting guy’s head and he’s still raving at me. I interrupt him.

“I just saw you,” I say.

He keeps yelling for a second or two, then he stutters and stops.

“What did you say?” he asks,
confused.

“I said I just saw you!”

The look he gave me almost broke my heart. Then I woke up.

I went downtown to one of the outdoor cafés here in the Bay, had my morning coffee and cruised home. I didn’t think any more about the dream. As I walked through the back gate, for no reason I was struck with what could only be described as a mood of utter desolation. It was so peculiar that I decided to sit in my contemplation chair in the backyard grove and go with the feeling.

I’d been there, not thinking, for just a few minutes when I felt a little worm of words begin to tickle away at my inner hearing/sight, the way it always does when the gods start talking. I got up quietly to get a pen and paper in case it was important. I sat in that chair from 9:30 that morning till 7pm and wrote down what I saw, heard, experienced — word for word. I’d never written anything like it before.

Two days later it happened again. Three days after that and two days after that, it happened yet again. I didn’t know what was going on until the third day, when I recognized the pattern. You’ll read what came through when you get to the section in When I See the Wild God that deals with the Solstices and Equinoxes.

Then the rest of the book happened. I’d studied and learned the legends and lore of the Celtic people (particularly those of the Irish) long ago. I’d known about the Tuatha Dé Danann since my teen years. But they’d never visited me before, at least not that I’ve recognized, and because of them I’ve learned a whole new way of writing that I love. Because, in my opinion, it denies pretension and lets both you and I know the gods in a whole new light.

They’ve since guided me through another book, and I’ve met more of them as a result. Truth be told, you might have passed them on the street today and not known. Gods and goddesses can be tricky that way. The dream speaks for itself.