| To Autumn by John Keats (1820)
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? |
A little autumnal photography…
Autumn is my favourite season. I love the colours, the smells, the feel, the light. I thought I’d share some of my inspiration with all you lovely folks as I dusted off the old camera… model is my beautiful friend and fellow Mori Girl, Sarah.
© Joanna van der Hoeven http://www.joannavanderhoeven.com
© Joanna van der Hoeven http://www.joannavanderhoeven.com
© Joanna van der Hoeven http://www.joannavanderhoeven.com
© Joanna van der Hoeven http://www.joannavanderhoeven.com
© Joanna van der Hoeven http://www.joannavanderhoeven.com
© Joanna van der Hoeven http://www.joannavanderhoeven.com
© Joanna van der Hoeven http://www.joannavanderhoeven.com
Reblog: The Coolest Kids on the Playground
This is a reblog of my post, The coolest kids on the playground, for my blog channel DruidHeart at Witches and Pagans.
There is a favourite saying of mine, “You do not have to blow out someone else’s candle for yours to burn more brightly”. Sadly, it seems that in our modern society, this is the way things “work”.
Watch a political debate. It’s just tossing around attempts to besmirch the other party, rather than actually getting things done. It’s infuriating. Sound bites on the news are all about how another party is crap, and theirs is better, without actually talking about the issue at hand.
See what happens on a school playground. Those who are different, who don’t fit in with the popular kids, are usually pushed around or gossiped/rumour mongered by those who are a part of the elite popular gang. I have no idea why it happens, but it happened over thirty years ago when I was in elementary and high school, it happens now and it will happen in the future, most likely. I don’t know if kids learn this from their parents, or television, or society – all I know is that kids can be cruel.
Even in Pagan circles, people put down or condemn others for various reasons: the “newbie”, the “fluffy bunny”, the rival coven, hearth or Order. All it comes down to, basically, is this playground mentality. Some people never got out of it. Even the most intelligent, articulate person can fall back into this frame of mind, to make themselves feel better.
This is not to say that we shouldn’t look critically at others’ behaviour, and especially our own. What I am trying to say is that we do not need to belittle anyone whose path may be different from our own.
I have known some popular Pagan leaders to put down other Pagans in front of their own group. This always leaves me with a bad feeling in my mouth – it is utterly distasteful. It does a disservice to everyone involved. Even the most militant, ethically-minded person I know has failed in this regard on at least one occasion, shuddering at the thought of once belonging to another group and verbally putting them down in front of a gathering of about a dozen individuals. This shocked me, but then I realised that we are all human, and we all have failings. We can all regress to the playground.
To read the full article, click HERE
Solitude and Serenity
I spent a wonderful couple of days by myself, “glamping” in a yurt for my 40th birthday. It was heaven.
I love spending time by myself. I always have. Don’t get me wrong, I love my friends and family, but I am entirely comfortable in my own company for long periods of time. Growing up as a teenager, I didn’t have any close friends nearby – my boyfriend was about 20 miles away, and so I only saw him about every other weekend when not at school. My other school friends were over 60 miles away. After school and weekends then were spent by myself, alone in the woods or wandering the village, immersed in the songs of the place.
Turning 40 gave me the perfect excuse to hole up away from everybody for a couple of days. It was time to be entirely selfish – time to spend solely on me, on thinking about my past, present and future. Looking over the last 40 years, and thinking about where I am now, I am very hopeful and content about the future, whatever it will bring. Looking at myself from a different viewpoint as well helped to confirm my sense of self; I thought about how my family see me, my friends, my colleagues, my peers, my cats, etc. Fully grounding in my sense of self, of knowing who I was, I was then able to let that go.
Sitting vigil at night in front of the campfire, with the stars shining brightly overhead and the fire burning merrily, I was able to let go of the past, be in the present and not worry about the future. I knew who I was, and I was able to let that go as well, to simply be in the moment with the darkness, the owls, the crickets and the night air. It was wholly freeing.
We do not spend enough time alone, in my opinion. Four days without phones, television, radio or internet was lush, with time spreading out before me in a lazy spiral. I ate when hungry and slept when tired, not matter what the time of day was. I was able to allow my thoughts to slowly dissipate in the wind, and I found myself becoming more and more a part of the landscape. I no longer thought about Facebook or the emails that awaited me. I was free.
Of course now I am back, and there are business emails to deal with, blogs to be written and thoughts to be shared with friends and family. But these moments of stillness, when utterly alone I was able to let go into the world has carried with me to an even greater extent than I thought possible.
The thought of going on social media gave me a slightly sinking feeling. I had emails and deadlines to meet. I did not want the television on. But I share my life with others, with my husband and my friends, and I cannot retreat entirely from the world. What I can do, however, is to re-prioritise how my time is spent, both with others and by myself.
The monastic life is all about retreating from the world in order to better engage with it. Time spent alone is finding solace for the soul, slowing down thoughts and finding out what really matters. Put away your phone. Get off the computer. Turn off the television and the radio and simply sit, wherever you are. Be in that space. Let that space get to know you. Go outside, alone, for hours at a time and feel yourself slowing down, thoughts receding until you are simply in the present moment, awake and aware to the world around you.
It was the greatest gift I could ever have received on my birthday.
The Big One!
Packing up and getting ready for my three day stay in a beautiful yurt while I turn the big 4-0. See you all on the other side! xoxo
10 more things you probably didn’t know about the Zen Druidry Lady
- I have blurry vision – I cannot see vertical lines very well. If I know you, and walk past you at an event or gathering, I’m not snubbing you – I can’t see you! (I forget my glasses all the time…)
- I went back to university in my early 30’s to get my degree.
- I have an innate good sense of direction.
- I have an overactive inner barometer – I am very susceptible to air pressure changes and often get headaches from a vast change in the weather.
- Since 1998, in the UK, I have lived in Cambridge, Norwich, Loddon, Northampton, Mumbles, Ipswich and now a rural village on the Suffolk Coast.
- I have sacrificed three rings to the North River in Quebec in my lifetime.
- Teaching runs in my family – my mother and aunt were teachers, and my brother and sister are also teachers.
- The taste of brussel sprouts makes me gag.
- I have been in love with David Bowie for 27 years and counting.
- Autumn is my favourite season.
“Friending”
Facebook is a strange beast.
I love the way that it keeps me up to date with my family in Canada, and the way that is has reunited me with old friends.
What I can’t stand are the silly mind games that occur on this social media site.
Take for example the “friending” and “unfriending” buttons. The word, friend, for me has quite serious connotations. I don’t make friends haphazardly. I’m not a social butterfly. The word, friend, is now a verb. People friend me. It’s no longer befriending, just friending.
For me, this trivialises friendship. If I am going to be someone’s friend, I am going to be there for that person. I don’t make offers of friendship, in “real life” or on social media sites lightly. It’s not on a whim. I can’t function like that. My biggest problem, however, is I think that everyone thinks the same.
I have no idea when people “unfriend” me. I don’t keep track of how many friends I have, and I don’t notice when people drop off. I am extremely naïve in that regard. I’ve had people unfriend, and then refriend me months later – I just assumed that they deleted their account and opened a new one. Then they unfriend me again, and I only find out when I try to tag them in a photo or something and can’t. There hasn’t been any exchange between us sometimes, or if there has been it’s been positive, but suddenly I have been unfriended for whatever reason.
Why the silly, schoolground games? And if it is a game, shouldn’t everyone know that they’re playing? If someone is trying to hurt me using Facebook, it fails utterly as I’m totally oblivious – or I only find out months after the event. I have no idea most of the time when I’m involved in any kind of game – I just assume that people are, on the whole, nice. Especially those whom I befriend. I’m going to continue thinking this way. Life’s too short to do otherwise.
I wonder if, when Facebook was created, the concept of friending and unfriending was thought through to its finality. The friend button could be used to bring people together. It could also be used as a weapon to hurt someone. Like a vicious, little child lashing out. People can get hurt, even from a child…
If someone I know and like posts things that annoy me, I simply stop receiving notifications from them. I won’t unfriend them, as they may not be like that in person. I have decided to be friends with them for a reason. Now, if someone did something utterly atrocious, that’s another matter. But I just don’t use the “unfriend” button as a weapon. There’s got to be dialogue involved before making that sort of decision.
Am I alone in this regard? I hope not – I hope that there are other souls out there, who feel the same way. Sensitive souls, who take the friend button seriously.
Facebook is a strange beast.
Thich Nhat Hanh on No Self
Meditating upon this for a couple of years now, I was absolutely delighted to come across this little question and answer session with Thay back in 2010. His thoughts on ancestors, on no self and awareness were exactly the same as my own, and resonate deeply within my soul.
Whoever I am.
Reblog: Nemetona and Sanctuary
This is a reblog from my post at Druid Heart, at SageWoman’s channel on Witches and Pagans.
Sometimes one has to retreat from the world, in order to better understand it. Finding sanctuary, a sacred space where we can open our souls without fear, where we can simply be, is a glorious experience. It happens a lot less than we need in our lives, in my opinion.
A goddess of sanctuary, Nemetona is an elusive deity. Not much is written or recorded about her in Classical texts or history. Just the barest hints and place names, some tribe names and a couple of inscriptions. Who is this goddess to whom we can bare our souls, in complete soul truth, knowing that we are held?
In our modern day world, so often we feel we have to close ourselves off in order not to be overwhelmed – by people, media, technology. For sensitive souls, it sometimes is pure hell. We need to allow our soul truths to emerge, otherwise as caged birds we function behind bars, never truly spreading our wings and knowing what it means to fly. We feel we have to be careful not to be too open, too emotive, too sensitive to what people are saying or what is happening in the world around us. We are not allowed to be offended, we are not allowed to speak out without fear of being shot down a lot of the time. We are told that we shouldn’t be so sensitive. Our souls grow smaller with each experience of shutting down, never letting anyone or anything in.
That physical space around us, where we feel uncomfortable if someone we do not trust enters, is a valuable space. It is our personal nemeton, a space where our energy exists outside of our bodies. Many liken it to your aura. Some nemetons are strong and radiant, some wounded with gaping holes, others barricaded with steel. What we have to learn, or relearn, is how to open this space in love and trust – that is what Nemetona provides, often in a world wherein we feel no other human is able to provide this for us…
To read the full post, click HERE.
What Druidry Is Not…
For me, Druidry is not a white-robed affair. Crawling under low scrub pines and getting inside secret places of gorse bushes where only the deer trod, or standing on the seashore in the howling rain, or in the heart of the forest with the badgers and mosquitos – it just doesn’t work.
Druidry is not clean. It’s not an exercise only for the mind. It requires experience to turn what you have learned into real wisdom. It’s not just book-learning. Until you get out there and commune with the landscape, it’s not felt in the soul. It cannot live in the head. It will get you dirty, wet, hot, sweating, cold, scratched, bitten. It is dirty fingernails and peering under bushes. It is a return to the curiosity and wonder of the child, yet it is not child-like. It is deep learning, deep experience.
Druidry is not a male-centred religion or spirituality, nor is it female-centric. It is about equality and egality, anarchic and subject first and foremost to the teachings of nature.
It not just about standing in stone circles waving swords and reading off of sheets of paper with a group of other people, the media and tourists alike taking photographs. It is doing work in the heart of where you live, often without thanks or regard of any kind. It is giving back to the land, honouring the cycles and working for the community – and by community, I mean each and every living thing in that area wherein you live and call home, not just human. It is not about power and ego, but about communion and deep relationship. It is about dropping ideas of the self to better fit in the landscape.
It is not about writing loads of books and offering courses, achieving kudos through output, students and media. It is about the sharing of inspiration, acknowledging the inspiration of others and allowing the awen the flow through you in whatever way you see fit. One may be a teacher, or an author, or someone with whom the media interact – but they are not a spokesperson for all Druidry, nor a guru of any sort, and have no monopoly on wisdom. There is little room in deep Druidry for ego.
There are no titles, save those bestowed either by a person on him or herself, or by a group of people following a shared path and learning. These titles are not relevant to all Druids – just to the person or the group. Claiming to be an arch-druid of so and so has no bearing on those who are outside of the group. There is no central authority in Druidry.
Druidry is not about having things – it is about doing things. It is being utterly mindful of personal and global consumerism. It is about looking at everything that you do, everything that you have, everything that you take and everything that you give back. It is not about doing the bare minimum. It is about sacrifice, of time and ignorance, of ego and of desire. It is about constant re-evaluation of ethics, values and honour. It is about constant learning.
Druidry is not about attaining levels of initiation or ordination within learning, however. Courses and instruction may guide us, may open our minds and shatter pre-conceived notions, expanding awareness – but they are not there to gratify the ego through the bestowing of grade or rank. Druidry is also not about a specific point in time, where to call oneself a Druid means to have studied for twenty-some years, learned the genealogies of kings, etc. The Druidry of the past is not the Druidry of today. The Druidry of a small frame in time within the past and from a small, specific region is most certainly not the Druidry of today. Its wisdom can guide us, but it is just one window in a mansion of many halls. The Classical Druids were the Classical Druids – we are not, nor can ever be, Classical Druids.
Druidry is not just an exploration of the self. It goes beyond the self, to a life lived in service to others.
These are just a few things of what Druidy is not.
So what is Druidry?
It is allowing the wisdom of the oak to guide you in all that you do.
Down the Forest Path 