Treegod:

We have a poster in our home of a stag on one of the doors. One day Mika was standing in front of it in such a way that she looked like she had antlers, so I decided it was time for the camera. First I took pictures of her and then she of me, one of which I’ve included in this blog.

The thing is that one of my favourite celtic gods is depicted surrounded by animals, sitting cross-legged as though meditating, with two great antlers stretching from his head, whilst holding a torc in one hand and a serpent (horned) in another. There are a few ways to interpret this, as we have no reliable way of saying what the ancients thought of him, although we can make a few educated guesses.

One that I like is that Cernunnos represents a whole picture of human nature. For one thing, we can recognise that human nature is still very much an animal one, driven by instincts to live and survive and continue life beyond your own, like any organism. It is represented by the animals that surround him, the antlers on his head and the horned serpent in his hand, unmistakable signs of his animal nature. But also, we see other qualities that would not exist by instinct alone. In his other hand he holds a torc, a celtic neck ring, and also wears one around his neck and not only that, but also wears clothes, things that instinct alone could not produce in such a complex and intentioned way.
The other nature of Cernunnos, or any human, is that we don’t just have instincts to help us live; we don’t rely purely on reacting to circumstances. We have abilites like intellect and imagination that take us beyond our circumstances and recreate them in a more complex and intentioned way.

One of the problems of humans is that it disconnects from one or other of these natures, it does not handle them in an integrated way and so becomes imbalanced. This is like the split that comes between the body and mind. In Ken Wilbur’s book No Boundaries, he talks of this split as on that resembles a horse and its rider, where one aspect, the mind, is separate, riding and controlling the other aspect, the body. But he says that this view is unhealthy, that really these two parts are more a part of each other than we realise and so uses the centaur to illustrate it. The mind and body aren’t separate parts like a rider and its steed, but they are two “distinct” parts that aren’t so easily separated, like a centaur.

I am a centaur,
My skill and power I wield as one,
My culture and wildness reconciled,
All intellect and instinct integrated.
My guiding spirit
One of focus but not of control,
One of flow but not of randomness.
My body thinks,
My mind feels
For mind and body are one.

Another part of what Cernunnos means to me, and many others, is as man, maleness, masculinity. Perhaps we can see him as a man before male-dominated society arose, a man aligned with the Goddess and holding reverence and respect for her in her femininity, seeing her as the temple through which new life arises.

For many centuries female-denying Patriarchy has dominated human societies, allowing men to dominate women. Recently, and quite rightly, feminism has arisen to redress this imbalance. This is good news for women, who need to break free from the shackles of Patriarchy and find new strength in their own feminine identity. But men, yes men, also need something to be free from Patriarchy; men also suffer, because it destroys something in us men to subjugate womenkind, even if we do think we’re “on top.” But men can’t really rely on feminism to be free from Patriarchy because, let’s face it, we aren’t women, and also we need to reconnect to a healthy male identity and not be subjugated before a female-dominated inversion of Patriarchy.

I suggest masculism as a healthy counterpart to feminism and a healthy expression of masculinity that is not found in the female-denying Patriarchy (or, for that matter, male-denying Matriarchy). Although the term masculism isn’t clear because it is used by both men like myself, seeking a healthy gender balance, and men that oppose feminism. I hope I’m clear enough in my use of the word.

I think, like Cernunnos, men should find the strength, drawing on our masculine qualities, to be at the service and support of women who are themselves at the service of life, acting as gateways to human life, for Cernunnos tends the temple of the Goddess ensuring that she has the right support to carry the future into this world. Because without her, there’d be no more life.

...Don´t even *think* about jumping over the iron gate if you are not *presented* to the doggies!

They are looking awfully nice, but they don´t like strangers, hehehe...

See that green glint in the lady boxer´s eyes???...

...And who wants to meet Sister Wolf lurking around in the deep deep night ?...

;-)

Treegod

South Downs

The South Downs are chalk hills in the South East of England. They range along the coast, through Sussex, then they u-bend in Hampshire and end up as the North Downs in Kent. In between the two Downs there is the Weald, filled with much farmland and the traditional English patchwork landscape.

Some years ago my dad owned a flock of South Down sheep, a breed traditionally associated with the South Downs. With these sheep we grazed some of the South Downs as part of a Conservation policy planned by Conservation organisations that manage the South Downs. From this I learnt a lot about the ecological history of the Downs. I also spent time with conservation volunteer groups, scrub-bashing (clearing scrub) on steep slopes to help preserve the grassland habitat.

Centuries, even millennia, ago, the Downs, like much of Britain, was a sea of trees, interrupted only by “islands” of other habitats and human settlements. In time, human agricultural practice changed, and much of the Downs became dominated by sheep grazing, seeing the loss of much of the old forest. Over time, this new land management created a new ecosystem, one traditionally associated with chalk grassland. The fertility went down allowing specialist species to flourish on low fertility chalkland.

This special ecosystem flourished for quite some while, until the Second World War. At this time, the country needed to make its own food and not rely so much on imports from overseas. This meant that land use had to change. Places, like the South Downs, had to give up their traditional agricultural practices and employ intensive arable farming.

Within a few decades, this had quite an impact on the South Downs. Much grassland was ploughed over and given to arable use, whilst other parts, that weren’t grazed, soon transformed into gorse and hawthorn scrubland. Now only 5% of the traditional chalk grassland is left, and only that because it was grazed by rabbits. Had the rabbits not suffered from mixomatosis, there would have been more of this chalk grassland habitat left, with its distinctive flowers, grasses and, of course, the butterflies.

The conservation policy, employed by many conservation groups, on the South Downs, is the maintenance and restoration of the traditional chalk grassland by “bashing” the scrubland and traditional grazing (or mowing) of existent grassland. In fact, here is what it says on one website, dedicated to the conservation of the South Downs;

Brighton & Hove has many areas of what was traditional downland, also know as chalk grassland, a priority European Habitat. The chalk grassland is the product of centuries of sheep grazing. However with changes in agricultural practices most of these areas have disappeared while those that remain have become neglected. Without the grazing the remaining chalk grassland will slowly deteriorate as nutrient levels build up favouring coarser species like nettle and bramble at the expense of wildflowers such as cowslips and violets. While reintroducing grazing would be the best solution it is often not practical in the short term. In these cases the grass is mown instead with the cuttings removed. This helps keep nutrient levels down as well as preventing scrub (hawthorn, blackthorn etc) becoming established. http://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/index.cfm?request=b1000289

Think Globally, Act Locally

From the local view of conservation, this makes a lot of sense, to continue the traditional ecosystem as it has been from centuries and maintain its beautiful and unique biodiversity. However, this policy doesn’t seem to meet the needs of our current global environmental problems. Part of the problem is deforestation, and this in turn is damaging the Earth’s ability to recover from the amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases that are being pumped into the atmosphere by human combustion. So by stopping the natural processes of the Earth from turning the South Downs from grassland into forest, that it could become, the process of burying CO2 into the Earth and keeping the Earth at a liveable temperature, is impeded.

I do not propose that current policies are wrong. I may be wrong and the traditional way of maintaining chalk grassland has no real impact on, or is beneficial to, the global climate. This requires research. What I do think is that local conservation policy should be aligned with the wider global situation, of which it is a part, so as not to follow its own isolated agenda.

Human ecosystems have replaced non-human ecosystems extensively and this includes the chalk grassland of the South Downs. As an ecosystem, it is not as efficient as non-human ecosystems in keeping the Earth's living systems in a liveable state. With this in mind, instead of seeing the traditional chalk grasslands as deteriorating due to neglect, it could be said that its ecology is entering a new phase appropriate to the current environmental and agricultural situation. Once upon a time the South Downs was a sea of forest, like much of Europe. The humans started to transform the landscape, bringing a new phase in the South Down’s ecosystem, chalk grassland. Now that grazing is not needed on the Downs, a new ecological phase is being entered into, where the original forest processes, that dominated the British Isles before human agriculture, are starting to come back into their own.

In his book, Revenge of Gaia, James Lovelock talks about dividing England into three parts, one part for the production of resources, like food and energy, another for human habitation and another for the Earth to establish its own non-human ecosystem, non-human being my own emphasis. Places that aren't needed for human habitation or resource production could be left completely unused by humans and left to its own devices, and this would include nature reserves and national parks. Any management needed would not be to restore or maintain the habitat, but to allow for human access, as I believe it is important and healthy for humans to interact with nature, even if just for a walk. But I'd also suggest that there'd be places where no human can enter, leave it completely wild, akin to the demilitirized zone along the border between North Korea and South Korea, something very difficult in England as every square inch seems to be inhabited by human action, even some of the more "wild" places.

Really, this isn't about the South Downs, it's about how local conservation fits into a global scale conservation and how local groups and organisations can align their policies and actions within the wider global view of things. There is much globalisation going on, politically, culturally, technologically and even environmentally. There is a growing emphasis on global cooperation between nations, manifested in organisations like the UN, European Union and others. In this world, we cannot afford to ignore what's happening in other parts of the globe, because the world is becoming a smaller place. We especially cannot ignore the threat of climate change in favour of our sentiments of localised conservation "traditions," that may be outdated in our present situation. The global situation may not suit traditional local situations, but it’s a small price to pay to preserve the Earth in its current state of environmental regulation.

Dangers of Generalising Local Issues

But just to show that local conservation cannot be generalised, I'll make a contrast between the South Downs in England, where I used to live, and the Prades Mountains in Catalonia, Spain, where I live now. The South Downs global conservation policy could be one of letting the deciduous shrubs and trees naturally grow, that would then produce more O2 than the grass and bury more carbon than the grass.

However, the Prades Mountains may need more work. It has an abundance of evergreen trees, but in today's world, deciduous trees are needed as they are more effective at burying the carbon to help reduce CO2 in the atmosphere. In this situation, there may need to be a plan to replace the dominant evergreen trees with deciduous trees to better facilitate the burial of carbon. Perhaps recreate the oak and laurel forests that apparently were here before forestry industry cut them down and replaced them with more productive pine trees.

But my work is not to remove the evergreens, we need every tree we have. No, I have in mind to plant more deciduous trees and direct the competition in favour of the deciduous trees already growing. I will never see my area of the Prades covered in deciduous trees, but at least I can make steps in that direction and research the local environmental situation.

Where the Downs may need to be left to its own devices, the Prades may need some work. But don't take my word for it, I've barely scratched the surface. This has been mainly a hypothetical excercise, to investigate the possibility of aligning the conservation of local ecosystems with the Earth's global ecosystem. I probably don't know near enough things about how local ecosystems fit into global ecosystems, but this is where I can start to know.

Treegod:

I'm just finishing an interesting journey. You see, for a while I've been doing the bardic grade in OBOD (Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids) and I'm just writing a report on it, in the hopes I'll be getting onto the next grade, the Ovate.

It's funny, I feel like I've been a Bard for quite a while. I've written hundreds of poems, some stories and a few pieces of art. I certainly don't have a shortage of creativity. I started writing poems a lot when I first came across Paganism. I think so many people encouraged creativity and wrote poems and did other types of art, it seemed only logical for me to have a go myself.

The thing is, it wasn't just a nice pasttimes to enjoy myself with, it soon transpired that it had a deeper role to play in my life. I soon realised, that the "nice words" (and sometimes not so nice words) were ways for me to express and discover what lay within the depths of my soul, it gave me a written mirror to look at a part of myself, and learn about me and the world around me. I was also developing how I viewed the world and what I felt about it, many of my poems reveal a philosophy in the making.

One thing I came across in other people was some idea that "I can't write," something I vowed from the beginning never to do. I had the feeling that it didn't really matter because, first, they were personal and for my own enjoyment, first and foremost, and second, I was not aiming to make them look nice, I just wanted to express whatever was in me, so the form of it didn't really matter. But fortunately my rather informal style of poetry, what I call poetic prose, have been enjoyed by others. I think it's because of what the content said rather than what medium it came in.

I used to get inspired in the oddest places, like on a lawnmower, working, or late at night, when I just couldn't get to sleep as my brain would keep me awake at night, buzzing away with thoughts very loudly. So I'd have to rush to find a something to write on and with, or if I had no pen or paper, I'd often take my mobile phone out to write something there and store it. Very useful.

Nowadays, I don't write so much. I think perhaps it has to do with the fact I've reach some level within me, and I no longer need my poems to express something deep within me. I don't think I have any writers block or anything. I think my poetry was something I used whilst I was going through a very experiemental time in my spirituality, I used it to really experiement with many different thoughts and philosophies, anything from Christianity to Paganism, from Nihilism to Environmentalism. I suppose now I feel I've become more orientated in my spiritual life, I have a set of values and know which direction I want to take my life, so there's no use experimenting any more. I do more writing, like the ones in these blogs, I describe my ideas which are clearer and more focussed than before.

I came to OBOD´S Bardic grade with a tiny bit of a headstart, where I'd already developed my creative expression, self-discovery and love of nature a lot. But it¡s been good to really look at where I'm at now. Now, I'm looking forward to discovering what the Ovate grade holds and see how far I've come and how much further I can go!

In honour of the season, here's a poem about Easter/Ostara:
Easter
No, Ostara!
Goddess of the spring,
found in the yellow of daffodils,
found in the gambolling of lambs,
found in the youth of spring
but her name was taken for the resurrection of the Lord.
So Easter,
the resurrection of a Jewish godman,
or the new life of a german goddess?
Who cares!
As long as there's the hope for a brighter future.
(Adam Brough)

HAPPY OSTARA TO ALL !
Our Ostara (our doe rabbit) is also happy because she just had 4 little kits. Each time we check to see if they're all right, we can't help but say: awwwww...!!! So cuuuuuuuuuute!!!
(more pictures to come soon...)

Dog Whisperer and Ecopsychology
“Dogs have found themselves in an odd predicament by living with humans. In the wild, dogs don’t need humans to achieve balance. They have a pack leader, work for food, and travel with the pack. But when we bring them into our world, we need to help them achieve balance by fulfilling their needs as nature intended them to be.” From Cesar Millan’s website here; http://www.cesarmillaninc.com/tips/retrain_balance.php

For some while we’ve been watching the Dog Whisperer, which shows a different side to dogs than simply “training them” to obey commands. It shows much more subtle ways to interact with the dog by fulfilling its natural instincts and giving it a balanced place in human society. It’s been really good as it has shown me what I do right and what I do wrong, so I’ve learned a lot. Generally I’m proud of how I handle dogs, especially when I see just how different the dogs in my life are from the dogs on the show, much more “well behaved” or, more appropriately, balanced.

But watching the Dog Whisperer you realise that it’s not the dogs that are at fault, but the owners that don’t treat them in a balanced way. “Well behaved,” then, doesn’t mean how controlled the dogs are but how sensitive the owners are to their dog’s behaviour, and how they treat and train them without depriving them of a healthy expression of instinct. Dogs aren’t robots that you just “program” to your requirements; they have their own set of instincts that if played around with too much or denied healthy expression, can cause problems, as shown in the Dog Whisperer.

And in some ways this reminds me of Ecopsychology. Our own psychological health is largely affected by how we interact with nature, not just the organisms and their habitats that are found outside of human society, but also the parts of nature that have found a niche within or alongside human society and even the instinctual self found within humans. We also have instinctive needs that society usually ignores. I think the way we interact with our dogs and other domestic animals can reflect our own instinctive and psychological state of being and even our relationship with nature in general, which is why I think of Ecopsychology.

Of the writings on Ecopsychology I’ve seen, most of them are about human’s relationship with natural environments and also our own inner ecological health, but I’ve never really seen anything about how we interact with the parts of nature within human society, whether it’s our pets, livestock, “pests,” and even our plant pots and useful vegetables, and the health of our “inner-animal.” I am convinced that Ecopsychology has a role to play within the domestic situation and that things, like The Dog Whisperer, can have their own place within Ecopsychology helping to shape a healthy place for humans within nature and a healthy place for nature within humans.

I also want to share something I learnt at college called the Five Freedoms, for how to treat livestock, but also how we should treat any domestic animal, even our own “inner-animal”;
1. Freedom from Hunger and Thirst - by ready access to fresh water and a diet to maintain full health and vigour.
2. Freedom from Discomfort - by providing an appropriate environment including shelter and a comfortable resting area.
3. Freedom from Pain, Injury or Disease - by prevention or rapid diagnosis and treatment.
4. Freedom to Express Normal Behaviour - by providing sufficient space, proper facilities and company of the animal's own kind.
5. Freedom from Fear and Distress - by ensuring conditions and treatment which avoid mental suffering.

(Image : T´was an accident!...Photographed an angel!...;-) - Shakti)


Our religion is the open sky
and its sacred music is the sound of water over rocks.


Our religion, friends,
Is the one that embraces all life
And truly honours it.


Our religion is the one that has forests as cathedrals,
air as communion
and every human being as priest and priestess.


Our religion is the one that sees the Universe in a grain of sand,
and the smile of Divinity in every flower.


Our religion is the one that does fear neither death nor light,
because the body is fully fulfilled in every in-taking breath.


Our religion is one that does not exist yet, and still,
is recreated in every shining sunrise.

(Image : Shakti G., - My Guardian Angel sends me a feather!...)

Shakti:



This morning I was thinking about how my way to PEACE has changed over the years...
In the Sixties I was a flower child, with kohl around my eyes and multicoloured Afghan dresses (been one of the first ones to hit the streets of my provincial hometown, Geneva, Switzerland, with a blue-and-red Afghan dress and red leather boots, hahahaha!). I had this slogan wrapped around my head "Peace, Now" and would endlessly sit in meetings, and rallies - and even sit on the ground with my buddies, if it was needed. And we would talk, talk, talk. Talk our heads off sometimes it seemed. Did we ever achieve anything ? The question remains open. I don´t think we impacted much on international politics, lol!
I know I changed, though. Progressively through all the years I came down from Cloud Nine, first of all because what with the Afghan dresses and all, dangly Indian earrings, and above all, because of my pretty little self - nobody ever took me seriously enough to actually ask me HOW I would bring about my programme of "Peace, Now"... And thank you Goddess, nobody ever really asked, because at that time it was all a question of FEELING, I couldn´t have told anyone how I meant to bring about Peace, and even less...world peace.
Anyway, at that time, it was the bearded, long-haired cutie pie that I was accompanying (...being the decoration of, shall we say) that was having the lead role in everything. (Had to get to grips with that subject too, lol)
More than thirty five years have passed, 35 years which have mauled my life, have shaped it, sculptured it; I had ample time to swallow, regurgitate, vomit sometimes, and digest, digest, digest. Do my homework.
I´m a wild crone now.
I´m a "woman who runs with wolves" now.
I have "hugged the monster", and made my inner peace with my Animus. (Who wants a war with Aragorn anyway - *wink-wink*)
I´m OK. Now. So.
What about Peace? Mmmmm...?
Well, I´ll give it to you in a nutshell. I have learned that nothing, but NOTHING - changes things so rapidly and neatly as...taking action! Don´t talk about it : do it! Walk your talk.


That´s all. End of advice.


Says the wild crone, looking at the Earth Sanctuary through the window,; the hills roll right down to the Mediterranean. And 108 acres of this mountain are liberated! This is the year 8 of the Third Millennium, I am a Druid now.
(Hey! That´s Year 20 after the Harmonic Convergence of 1987! Darn my bodicious gollywag, we´re getting there! Heehee.)
;-)

(Photo: Golden Eagle)

We (The Lothlorien Nemeton) live amongst some beautiful mountains and are surrounded by some pretty cool wildlife. I recently did some looking on the internet to see what I could find about the Prades, anything. Historically, ecologically, geographically and found there’s quite a lot in English. One in particular led me to write this blog, as it mentioned birds of prey that can be found here.

Above our place in the valley are beautiful cliffs and often we hear and sometimes see eagles around there because they have a nest up there. We sometimes even have some suprising views of them by the side of the road, whether sitting on a branch or flying off.

Now being an Englishman from the South East, seeing a bird of prey is quite something. I’ve seen Buzzards flying high and obviously who hasn’t seen a Kestrel hovering at the side of a motorway. I’ve even seen Red Kites when I was doing work up near oxfordshire, but never a wild eagle! Apparently there’s only one pair of Golden Eagles in England, in the Lake District and all the rest live in Scotland or Wales.

Mika has been telling me that there are a few of eagle here in the Prades mountains. First is the Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) , which is quite well know in most of the Northern Hemisphere. Then there’s the Imperial Eagle (Aquila Heliaca Adalberti) , though which Imperial Eagle I’d guess must be the local Iberian type. And apparently, I found on a website, that there are, or were, some Bonelli’s Eagles. This is quite a wealth of eagles to have around, especially for me but even then, their may well be plenty more types around aswell.

Also, there’s plenty of other birds of prey. There’s kestrels, though those I don’t usually see them in the mountains, often we see hawks and/or peregrine falcons (not that I can tell the difference) sitting on powerlines beside roads and at nights there are owls about, looking after things when all other birds have gone to bed.

I think I’ve whet my appetite a bit, I’m definately going to be scouting around on the ‘net for more things that inhabit these beautiful mountain, and with a bit of extra insight, who knows, I might spot things that I may never have noticed before!

-Adam-

(Little mallow plant in Mika's hands)

(These are a couple of extracts from an article about Ecopsychology written by Adam)
Psyche meets Gaia

We can do all we want about the effects of our “collective neuroses,” by saving whales, ethical consumerism, ethical industry, sustainable living etc but if these aren't reinforced by a deeper psychological healing then our actions won't be quite so effective. As Karen Armstrong said, “Neuroses are much more difficult to get rid of than beliefs. We can all change our opinions more easily than we can eliminate destructive patterns in our lives, however hard we try. It is the same with religion and, surely, the same with a culture. Our religious beliefs may have changed but our emotional compulsions have remained.” If we only change the effects of things, then we can easily slip back into our old habits and compulsions. If we do not add a psychological depth to ecology, then no matter how many trees we try to save, humanity may find itself slipping back into old patterns.

This ecological unconscious has been denied because of beliefs that we are somehow distinct from nature, or that we are the pinnacle of its evolution. But our evolution does not proceed from nature in an independent way, it proceeds within nature, in an interdependent evolution. So to heal ourselves, we need not only look at our personal and interpersonal relations, but also by placing psychology within a broader arena, that of Gaia, can our health be greatly enhanced, as this is the very place that we grow within and depend upon for our existence. Our reconnection isn't just a physical one but also a psychological one. Our relationship with nature isn't just one outside of us but also within us. The journey of the soul is a part of nature, not apart from it.

(Picture: Blue Tit of The Earth Sanctuary, taken by Mika)

Becoming the Child

In a starry night

when the sky is filled with lights,

I am the brightest one,

I am thoughts of hope

and every good wish.

I am inspiration and expression,

reflexion and manifestation.

I am the inexhaustible creative spirit,

the joy you see in flowers,

the strength you feel from the trees.

I am opportunity.

I am the seed and the fruit,

the fire in the roots and the solar god,

I am imagination,

every dream that becomes reality.

I am passion,

the pleasure and the harmony,

the grass under your feet,

the perfection of a snowflake.

I am a god of rythm,

the performer of sound,

I am delight.

Because I am darkness too,

I am not afraid of the lightless,

I am silence and meditation,

I am the serenity in the newborn ,

the twilight and the midnight,

a relentless potential,

the promise of a sunrise,

I am the timeless and eternal,

a limitless dancer of creation,

I am becoming the Child.

I am realisation.

-Mika-

The Druid´s Room

...Out of the Druid´s room come all kinds of strange noises.

Frogs croaking, leaves rustling, boar grunting, stag calling, birds chirping, and in the background, the sound of dancing waters...

Yes I have moved again! Gods, it must the twentiest time in...well, five years.

The "castle" is so big, we move around as our personal processes progress, and Blondie-Lightstar - my youngest daughter - needed a more private space, so I left her Merlin´s Tower, which has an autonomous entrance, and have moved down to the central flat again. I´ll be quite far away from her late night arrivals, I won´t expect her earlier (New Year´s Resolution Number One!) - I won´t hear her and so I will just go on sleeping the sleep of the just...Now that is what I call a pleasant change!

Just so you won´t think I am an overbearing mother, I´ll remind you that during those nights during which Blondie was dancing her heart away in her furry red ball slippers, I always ended up sleeping with her dog, Kayla - a wonderful boxer bitch, but nevertheless I´m past the age of baby-sitting...Besides, Kayla always ended up plunked in the middle of the bed, deeply asleep and heavy as a stone, and I ended up like a doughnut around her! Seriously, I may need hip replacement surgery...(naaah just joking)

Ah independence (independent-dance), what a wonderful feeling (Both ways, for daughter AND for mother)...

My new room is like a matchbox.

But.

I have now a glorious art room (which was the original bedroom, but I switched).

And a room just for ironing!

*sigh*

It´s the first of January 2008, and things couldn´t be better!

...Or could they ?

Mmmm...My birthday is two weeks away, so I might be expecting interesting stuff.

Anyways, a Happy New Year to all of you who are reading this,

Prosperity, Health, and Happiness (not necessarily in that order!)

Shakti.

:-)

(Image : "Gaia´s Children", Collage, Shakti G., 2003)

H-O-P-E

means...

Help Our Planet Evolve.

(Anon)

*grin*

The Wizard of Lothlorien : Electricity

My boiler broke down. Technician? Not available. Money ? Nope, not at the moment.

So...No more lovely lengthy showers, no warm water (have to warm up the water with pots). AND ...it started to snow! Just my grubby luck.

So, no central heating system and no warm water. And it´s below zero outside.

How bloody NICE.

And it´s been like that for a MONTH!

But, hey!

What a lovely lovely experience. I mean it.

It got me thinking about the basic luxuries, electricity and gas to start with. At least I can warm up pans of water, and do the dishes with that! Mmmmmmm....warm water.....

Fluffy Nordic bedstuff, delicious.

Warm water for the dishes, delicious.

Light on my night table to read by, delicious.

A fire in the fireplace - and an unending supply of wood (what with 108 acres of woodland!...)

De-li-cious.

A live connection to the Net, delicious.

A good car, delicious (I can go to the supermarket for coffee with Mika, and have a warm moment! Delicious, scrumptious, splendid, DELECTABLE.)

I can make a PIZZA in the oven, and eat it all warm and cheesy and crunchy : incredible.

Synthetic blankets to watch a bit of telly : Thank You.

Thank you, Universe, thank you, THANK you!!!

And it got me thinking... but how on Earth could Humanity survive in the wilds for millenia without these luxuries??? Old people, sick people, children, women giving birth...

I tell you, my friends, I´m awe-fully GRATEFUL!...

And don´t worry about me, I´ll survive.

Treegod:

The Soul of This Land is My Soul

The soul of this land is my soul.

Created and taken from its core,

A great cauldron of love and hate forged my being,

Its strengths and weaknesses bred my complexities.

My fruits are the fruits of this land.

My body yearns tastes and textures for its life,

Taking what it can when it can.

But the great consumer must be consumed

and return to the land.

My face is one of the land’s many.

To look at it is to celebrate nature’s diversity.

To love or hate it is to be deceived.

For the face blocks out what is truly beautiful.

My life is the land’s life.

It gives all I need and will take it back,

We should nurture it as it nurtures us.

What I do is for the land.
My heart is driven by the land’s heart.

The blood flows round and round.

The twisting, turning and circling never ending.

My true heart will never fail.

My mind is the land’s mind.

Thoughts expressed by the land for the land.

A tapestry of consciousness expressed in me.

All knowledge coming from the no-knowledge within

“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.” Carl Gustav Jung

“Common people retreat from the world to country houses, the seashore or the mountains, but it is always in your power to retreat into yourself. Give yourself this retreat; renew and cleanse your soul completely.” Marcus Aurelius

“Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again.” Joseph Cambell

There I was, watching a beautiful scene unfolding before me. The large sky a clear blue and the sun shining upon lush green grass while birds dance and fly around trees and under bushes. Then I think of something... I remember something....something inside... something... something... “ADAM! Wake up daydreamer, get out of ‘your own little world’ and join us in the real world will you.”
The outside invades, pulling me out of my inner space, a subjective psychic space that noone can touch, even me apparently.

This is a problem, society’s unwritten dogma is that the objective material world has more worth than a individual’s subjective world but if it has any worth then it is for objective and materialist reasons. But the one thing I think makes humans human, is this ability for inner space, the abstract world as opposed to the concrete. It’s where our culture comes from, our arts, sciences, religions and ethics. Without it we’d be like any other animal, following the drive of instinct within the restrictions of environment. Inner space allows us a partial transcendence of environment and instinct to create new ways of living, problem solving, invention, an alchemy of mundane objects and situations transformed by the psychic powers of the mind, namely imagination, intellect, vision and intuition.

For years I haven’t properly been able to live in my inner space, I’ve been pulled out of it for some reason or another. For the last couple of years it’s been a bit of a battle to maintain it, what with 40hrs work a week, then domestic duties like dog walking, mowing the lawn, DIY, etc etc etc. Some of them necessary but also some not so. After this you might be able to find inner sanctum, that is if you’re not socialising or too tired to do anything but sleep. Was it worth me sacrificing that much of my time just to lose out on a vital part of myself? I don’t think so but all this comes from a society that unconsciously (or even consciously) makes its people a mere product of and resource for its materialism.

Through my life I’d occasionally go into natural places just to be away from these things. I’d sit under stars and just look up at them on cool nights, I’d find a secluded place somewhere in some woods and called it my “sacred grove.” Sometimes what I thought I was doing was connecting to nature in some deep mystical way. Perhaps I was, but mainly as I look back, it was really out of necessity to find my inner space again, to preserve that essential part of me. This is a practice I do now, I sit in a tree, by a stream or by my cairn to let my inner space play, or even work, just by itself with nothing outside imposing itself upon it.

What about now? Well now, I work on that inner space, I have the freedom to do that without it being denied me. Am I getting lost in “my own little world”? No, because my inner world is filled with energy, it is not some distant disconnected experience but something that is growing with vital energy which I learn to focus and flow with. In fact, my inner world hasn’t just been idly sitting within me, because it does find its manifestation. My dream was to live and work closer to Nature and also live in a spiritual context. Now, I live in the countryside, working on gardens, conservation and also on my own spiritual developement. So when people tell me I’m just daydreaming I can look around me and see what my dreams have become because I took an opportunity that so many others miss.

I know that I definitely do live in the objective world that I share with others and I do not want to run away from it. At the same time I have an inner world, just as real as the outer world for me, just as important to me as the outer world because it is from here that my life and destiny unfold, manifesting themselves around me and fulfilling the potential of my human spirit.

Just for fun! The Luna looking Italian!

;-)

Treegod:

“Gaia can regulate without the need for foresight or planning by the biota. The regulation is entirely automatic.” James Lovelock

“Pooh hasn’t much Brain, but he never comes to any harm. He does silly things and they turn out right.” Piglet in Winnie-the-Pooh

"Only the development of his inner powers can offset the dangers inherent in man's losing control of the tremendous natural forces at his disposal and becoming the victim of his own achievements." Roberto Assagioli

Once upon a time our animal ancestors had an automatic and unconscious balancing system between internal instinct and external environment, there was no need to think about it. This also meant that we had our place in the universe, a context and meaning, which was an innate part of us which didn’t need thinking about.

The meaning of life is automatic for most plants and animals, no thought required, they have an organic initiation into the mysteries of the universe. But humans are no longer so automatic, we have minds that need to find a meaningful place in the universe because it is not automatically given to us through our genes or environments. Instead we require a cultural initiation, one that involves the abstract creativity of the human mind, making definitions and values that weren’t there before.

This has been a creative leap forward for us, with so many great arts and sciences that have moved us into new ways of living that our instincts alone cannot create. Unfortunately this also means we can no longer have a care-free existence, we are no longer automatically regulated by nature’s processes, instead we have to regulate ourselves. This lack of self-regulation is shown in our abuse of our environment, polluting and destroying it, which in turn changes the environment’s balancing system to our disadvantage.

We have to create our own balance, we cannot use our societies or governments to do that because who guides them? Each individual should learn its own balance and creativity. And if we rely on Earth to balance us, well, at the moment she’s reacting very badly to our imbalance and trying to dislodge us. If we want to survive we have to take our own balance into each and every individuals hands.

Once upon a time I was into the Taoist philosophy which to me was about “going with the flow.” The idea I read about was a bit anti-intellectual. It saw the human condition as marred because instead of letting things be organic and “flowing” the intellect would set up false definitions and “deform” the Uncarved Block, a concept used to describe things in their original nature before they were tampered with.

In some ways we do need to learn to “go with the flow” at least as far as nature is concerned. It is something that needs no guidance. As James Lovelocks quote above says, Gaia is an entirely self-regulating sysem, it’s too big for us to take the responsibility of running it. In Nature, there is a natural flow and rhythm to things which industrial humanity has tried to struggle against and take short cuts through, much to the detriment of the earth’s life, which includes humans.

What I don’t want to “go with the flow” with is the aspect of humanity that disturbs humanities place on earth and sends it into ecological disaster. Flowing with any society with a mindless herd mentality means being flooded in the “inner space” in “service” of its external pressures. My self-meaning, self-motivation and inner context can be hijacked by the flow of society, which itself is unconscious and with a materialistic view that humans live to work, to earn money, to buy stuff and the earth is premanufactured consumer stuff. This time I’ve got to be focussed and use my intellect to discriminate what flow I should “flow with” before I’m in carried away unconsciously by forces that I want nothing to do with. This is something I talk about in another blog soon.

Earth does not need regulating, but its humans need regulating. By what? The earth’s changes would kill us off, and the “higher powers” of human society aren’t always the most ethical choice for guidance. So then, we have to regulate ourselves, which brings the quote from Robert Assagioli into focus, that we can only look inside ourselves, at our own powers and learn to develop them in harmony with Gaia before we destroy ourselves with them. The tragic thing is that the Earth may change so much that humans may no longer be able to participate in the Earth’s evolution, we may become extinct, though life here will still carry on in some form without us.

Now one challenge remains for us, which is, are we as a species so stupid that we ruin the chance for future generations to continue participating in the evolution of Gaia, expressing humanities unique place in it? For me I have hope that humanity can be intelligient enough to continue existing. I am optimistic enough that humanity can change its ways, because to be proved wrong doesn’t bear thinking about.

Here’s an article from http://www.global-mindshift.org that has provided me with much inspiration for this blog; http://www.global-mindshift.org/discover/viewFile.asp?resourceID=224&formatID=252

THE OGAM STICKS
(Shakti)

For some time in my druidic studies I rejected the Ogam.
Don´t know, wazzat, couldn´t understand it. Just looking at it was too much!
And suddenly a few days ago, I started to write it on a piece of paper, and it...flew!
It suddenly made sense! I got it!
Wow, seize the moment!...
And now I´m making sticks and sticks... One, two, three, four, five...
Next ones will be burned on real wood, these ones are "just" cardboard ones, but hey! they do look good, don´t they ???

;-)

Shakti :

COLOUR OF THE HEART

We have just received the best of all possible compliments!

A friend from OBOD has been visiting us for a week, and as he was travelling through the country in a day trip, he said...Look at the landscape! (Meaning end of August, dry, harsh, grey and ochre) And then he said...I know another Spain!

Meaning... a green Spain.

Visitors often comment that they don´t feel like being in Spain at the Sanctuary.

As a matter of fact in spring this place looks like a piece of Ireland!

It´s not something that comes naturally, you know.

There´s a spirit here, we actually promote the green phase of this land, we cherish it, we embrace it. Which is not the case of the people around here. You can see the difference when you come up from the village. Spain is truly the Wasteland.

And as you come up the road towards our valley here, you start to breathe a different air.

It´s something subtle that hasn´t entirely got to do with the fact that you go up a mountain and that there is more oxygen to breathe!

What you feel... is the colour of the heart.

Our green heart.

:-)