As you may notice, this week’s journey has come a bit late. I found I needed a bit more time for Gort to come to me. I found this appropriate and acceptable, if not somewhat frustrating. As Gort is the spirit most affiliated with development, growth, and vitality, perhaps it had to take it’s time to develop within me. Either way, Gort finally approached. This week (and a half) brings a close to week three. Gort grows within me, in it’s own time.

Attributes and Associations

Gort. GORT. Her name’s meaning is Ivy. The ancient meaning is “field”, which is related to Welsh garth ‘garden’ and Latin hortus. The Proto-Indo-European root is gher, ghort ‘to enclose, enclosure’. The phonetic value is G. Once again we have little further etymology for Gort. So, and even more so for Gort, call upon the spirit of Ivy and Gort themselves, for meaning and connection.

She approaches us slowly and undefined. She comes in shreds of color, dazzling displays of dreams, beautiful scenery, and people unfolding around us like blossoms. Her central attributes are Tenacity, Wildness, Development, Growth, Fidelity, Vitality, Protection, Luck, Healing, and Fertility. She gives of life and creation, a lady of the Fae. Associated with the god Cernunnos, wild and a force nature. In the nature of Iv, we have a being of certain omni-presence, able to grow and reach areas previously unreachable. A being of chaotic and wild growth, which utilizes small amounts of resources with little encouragement, and lasts years upon years, only restricted by intentional force.

Despite Ivy’s chaotic and free force of nature, it’s also a calling to that of binding. Ivy is strong, and Ivy holds fast. A piece of Ivy alone does nothing, but together, bound in ropes and overwhelming a surface it can dominate and command an area. Ivy, as it takes hold in your territority asks you to acknowledge your foundation, and to hold true to it.Ivy asks you to expand on what you already know of yourself and to hold loyalty to that. However, tolerance and strength is also needed before fully embracing ivy, before you give yourself to that wildness.

The Contract

Gort approached slowly but without resignation. Gort knew the way to arrive and did not abide by human time. Gort asked for time and loyalty. A trust of giving and willingness to bind true to the needs of creative and free spirit. In this Gort asks for me to accept my changes and my new being and to grow from that. Gort meets me at a specific stand alone moment. Gort approaches, creates a new moment and fills that with all truth and healing in that time, and then asks to be bound in this force. We create a force within ourselves when we realize what is within us after a significant change. In great moments of change we can heal ourselves, and this, this binds us to our new selves.

Gort is a two sided coin. A Janus head of discovery and boundary. Where on the one side we find loyalty, trust, and binding, the other side is wildness, growth, and creativity. I find the wildness within Gort hard to touch. It’s such an elemental force it’s hard to describe and it lingers behind the screen of pattern and logic presented by boundaries and ties. It’s the personification of the endless celtic braid patterns that continue on in ever defined loops and whirls. Gort makes me want to dance, draw, write, create with my hands and lost myself in all the beauty of creativity and vitality in the world. It’s in a way dangerous. At least to productivity and things like jobs. Ha. However, it can also be a beautiful start to all those same things. Gort is the egg, the fertility of the human forge. However, it exacts its price and requires fealty, for a time. It asks you if you are ready to give to it as much as it’s giving to you. You need to know where you stand, and you need to be ready. Considering where Fearn and Idho have left me right now, this is a very large and pondering question. It’s honestly one that can’t be answered right now, but I am thankful to Gort for the beauty of it.

The drawing for next week is Beith.