While out cross-country skiing with my husband on the trails through the mountains that I grew up in, in the middle of a blizzard, this little haiku came to mind…
Frozen eyelashes
The muffled sounds of snowfall
Blessings of winter
Uncategorized
Happy Solstice!
Tyranny and the Oak
Yesterday when I came home from work and walked through my door, I nearly burst into tears. Only days after agreeing on climate change policies in Paris, the UK government approved fracking under our national parks. Yes, protected areas of natural beauty and wilderness are now open to being fracked, so long as it is started just outside the park boundary. What’s worse, and which isn’t being talked about so much, is that the government has a veto power to override any area that has said “no” to fracking. Standing in the porch, despair just settled in, as it doesn’t seem to matter what we do, what we say, or how we live our lives. Those in power who are trying to line their own pockets and those of their constituents will do what they like, regardless. What’s the point?
Later that evening, as I lay in bed, unable to sleep, I tried to look beyond the despair, to see the situation from another perspective. As a Druid, I considered where I take my inspiration, where my soul finds sustenance, where that deep relationship happens that enables me to carry on, day after day. Where does the Druid get inspiration from? The Druid’s authority is nature. Not the government, not humanity, but nature. Looking deeply into the natural world, we can see how we can be in the world, continuing in our quest to live with honour and integrity, to the best of our abilities.
I thought of the oak tree. Druid; dru, meaning oak, and wid, meaning wisdom. The wisdom of the oak. What was the wisdom of the oak that could help lift me out of this despair, to continue to live in a tyrannical country where the people’s voices are not heard?
The oak tree grows, from a little acorn, into the best tree that it can dependent upon the conditions of its environment. Whether the soil is poor or good, the weather favourable or not, the tree will grow to the best of its ability, fulfilling its potential as an oak tree, singing its song clearly. Sometimes the conditions are perfect; sometimes they lead to the demise of the tree but still the tree carries on as best it can. One of two oak trees that I love split in half a couple of years ago in a wind storm, and yet it still carries on, the fallen half only half alive, the other half continuing as if nothing had changed. It knows its purpose as an oak tree, to grow, to live, to be in its environment. There are several old oaks trees around here that have suffered greatly from past storms, old age and more. But still they carry on. They inspire me.
Yes, someone could cut them down tomorrow. That does not mean that they will not be the best oak trees they can be right now. That does not mean that they will not produce acorns in the fall, or drop their leaves to sustain them through winter and spring. It does not mean that they will not provide food and shelter for those living near them. The wisdom of the oak.
I will continue to do what I can. I will continue to give, to care, to follow my Druid’s inspiration, the wisdom of the oak. Even if I break, even if I fall, still the dru wid will carry me. I will continue to live my live utterly dedicated to my gods, the ancestors, and the natural world. I will continue to seek deep integration with the land, and let the example of how I live my life to be my song sung into the winter’s night, filled with gratitude and reverence. I will continue to see the many blessings, and work against those seek to use nature only as a resource, fulfilling their greedy and empty lives with the hollow intake of cash. The oak tree will whisper its wisdom, to carry on, to grow, wherever you have taken root, wherever life takes you, whatever condition you find yourself in. And if you do this, you do not fail, you cannot fail, for you have found the meaning of life.
Zen Druidry Online Course now available!
It’s finally here: the Zen Druidry online course! An extension of my first Pagan Portals book, Zen Druidry: Living a Natural Life in Full Awareness, this 75 page online course delves deeper into the subject matter with practical exercises, links to videos and talks, provides questions to help the practitioner develop a broader level of understanding and more. A basic meditation audio file also comes with the course, to help beginners and the more adept alike in furthering their meditation practice. For more information on this course, please email autumnsong@hotmail.co.uk. £40
The Stillness Within Out Now!
My latest book, The Stillness Within: Finding Inner Peace in a Conflicted World is out now! It’s a little collection of writings from late 2014 to mid 2015 on how to deal with people, situations, and life in general when it all just gets messy, complicated, hurtful, stressed and more. Based on writings from this blog, they’re all collated into one little book, the proceeds of which are all going to charity: The Woodland Trust and Orangutan Appeal UK.
Available worldwide for Kindle only. Hope you enjoy it!
All About Ego
Ego is a funny thing. We can get so wrapped up in it without even noticing it. Differing from our functional self, which helps to get things done on a day to day basis, ego is a large part of the representational self, the story that we tell ourselves and the world around us. Is it true? Probably, for the most part. It is from a biased perspective? Absolutely – everything that we perceive is. Is it something that is worth having? I’m not so sure…
Our society fuels the ego like no other. Social media is a great place where one can either be puffed up or dragged down by people they have never met. (Yes, the irony/hypocrisy of writing this on an online blog is not lost on me.) People can use social media to help fuel the ego, and not in altogether productive ways. Sure, expressing your creativity is great: put up that piece of artwork that you’ve worked so hard on. Give us an excerpt from your latest book. Tell us of the charity work that you are doing in India. This is an expression of your self that is not separated from your functional self. It’s not all representational – unless you are totally attached to it.
I am a conduit. I am an interpreter. I am not the thing itself.
When it becomes all about the representational self, that’s where the problem comes in. We begin to live inside our heads, inside our stories and do not seek alternative points of view. We can become deluded by our story, confirmed by people we may have never even met. We can react viciously to things that upset us, through online comments, blog posts, etc. Why would we want to do this? Why would we want to hurt another? Why should this be? Is it because the ego is such a fragile thing?
The ego seeks to reaffirm itself in everything that it does. It’s based on its own self-preservation, fuelled by an erroneous concept that one would lose their identity with the loss of ego. This couldn’t be further from the truth. There are plenty of people out there with a very strong sense of identity and purpose, yet who are not fuelled by their ego. These people are inspiring, for they know that the work they do and how they live their life is more important that who they are.
No one is perfect. Everyone succumbs to their ego every now and then. But when we live entirely through the ego’s whimsy, then we are in big trouble. We may see other people’s success as our failure. We may take slight at something because we haven’t been included in it. We might want to make someone look bad and undermine everything that they do because they have hurt us in some shape or form. We cease to see with the eyes of compassion, instead only seeing through the eyes of “ME”.
Where does this all lead?
Is it worth it? What will be the outcome of living in your ego?
I don’t think it will be happiness. We will rage against those who argue against us. We will delude ourselves with notions of grandeur, or delusions of all shapes and forms. We will spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about things that don’t really matter. We spend all our time reinforcing the ego. What really matters in life? Your ego, or living well?
These are questions that I have asked myself, as I quest inspiration to live an integrated life. For me, integration cannot happen without the falling away of the ego’s hold on our reality. It’s about realising that I am not important, that no one is important; what is important is the work we do, not so much the words we say (though speaking honourably is a good thing). Our actions are important. Our walk, rather than our talk is important. It’s all about getting the work done, through the functional representation of the “I”, without the representational “Me” getting in the way.
Is this all semantics? Quite possibly.
The Song of Amergin is not an ego-boost. It’s about integration, realising that one is not separate from nature. It is about seeing the universe in yourself. It is about knowing that you would not exist were it not for everything else. It is about relationship.
At this time of year, when darkness fills my life, fills my soul, when the songs of winter flood through this land I see the little spark of ego, clinging desperately onto its belief systems and self-affirmations. And I smile to it as I watch it go out, letting the darkness and silence of integration fill my mind and my world. I am reminded of the Zen saying “hold lightly to your opinions”, because they will change. Impermanence is the nature of the world, the nature of nature.
This blog post was inspired by a Guardian article I read today about the backlash from the pagan community on Alex Mar’s latest book, as well as our government’s reaction and bombing in Syria. It’s not entirely about these things, but about these things and more.
“Modern Druidry” – Talk given at the Woodbridge Mind Body Spirit Festival
Here’s my talk from this Saturday’s Mind Body Spirit Festival here in Suffolk – hope you enjoy it!
Reblog: Darkness and the Winter Solstice
Here is a reblog from today’s post I put on on DruidHeart, my blog for SageWoman Magazine at Witches and Pagans…
The solstice season is upon us, and it’s only a couple of weeks before the longest night of the year here in the northern hemisphere. It’s a season of darkness and cold, where we are given the opportunity to find the gifts that darkness brings. It can be hard, when the rest of the world seems to be doing their best to stave off their fear with bright lights, noise and extended shopping hours, but if we are able to push beyond that we can see the sacredness of this holy time, and the exquisite power that it brings.
I am mostly a diurnal creature myself. I prefer to go to bed early and rise early, rather than staying up late. However, at this time of year the darkness catches up with me, and by 4pm it is pitch black out there. My usual sunshine nature turns inwards, and time for reflection and contemplation kick in. But that is not all there is to the darkness that pervades my life at this time of year. The sweet relief of darkness beckons me to release into its embrace, when edges are abandoned and we are allowed to float free in space and time.
Darkness breaks down edges and boundaries. Our visual nature cannot cope with darkness; our low-light vision is pretty terrible. We can’t see where the edges of things are, and they all become one in a tapestry of shades of black that we are unable to penetrate. This causes many to panic, terror rising in our bellies as our instinctive fear of the dark come to the fore. Through many millennia of existence, we have been creatures of the daylight, and know that our soft bodies are food for many things after the sun sets. This instinctual fear is still deep in our genes, as anyone who is out in the woods with bears and cougars at night can sympathise. Deep in our bones, we know that there is danger in darkness…
To read the full article, click HERE.
Last night’s performances…
Here are the videos of my performances last night at the Winter Shimmyland Hafla Charity Fundraiser, raising money for St. Elizabeth Hospice. It was a great night! Shimmy on…
Reblog: Relationship
This is a reblog from my channel for SageWoman Magazine at Witches and Pagans. To read the full article, click HERE.
Druidry is all about relationship, and you cannot have relationship without some form of communication. It may not always be in words, human to human, but opening those lines of communication helps us to perceive that the world is more than just our own sense of self. When we begin to see that there are other perspectives, other points of view we also come to an awareness that the world is being experienced by each being individually, in a collective state of unity dictated by space and time.
Events around the world this year have shone a spotlight on discordance, in human to human relationship, and in human to other-than-human relationships. Violent attacks, disregard for the environment, the increasing gap between the rich and the poor and more can be attributed to an “Us” and “Them” mentality. When we remove this dualist point of view, and encompass a more holistic approach, we see that what we do to others, we do to ourselves. In Buddhism, it is acknowledged that suffering exists in the world, and that this suffering is caused by the illusion of separation. If we look deeply enough scientifically, anthropologically, and even spiritually we can see that there is more that binds us together than tears us apart.
As a Druid, nature teaches me the impermanence of all things, through the cycles of birth and death, energy in constant motion. It has taught me of unity and ancestry, for in my body are electrons which have previously been in trees, in a child in Mexico, in the deer and the blackbird. The air that I breathe is the breath of the ancestors, and the shared breath of the world. We all have star-stuff within us. Not in a “hippy-dippy” sense, but in a real, visceral sense that this connection is all pervasive; we simply choose to ignore it for whatever reason…
Continued at Witches and Pagans HERE.
Down the Forest Path 