life

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The blessing of Imbolc

Fantasy artwork by Mictones

Fantasy artwork by Mictones

Imbolc is fast approaching. Here in my garden in the UK, the crocuses are starting to come out, and a lone daffodil stands courageously amidst the dried, chopped stalks of last year’s growth. Traditionally, it was the time when the ewes began to lactate, providing much needed milk for the farmers whose food stores were becoming low. Nowadays, the sheep are birthing at different times of the year – at one farm here where I live in Suffolk, the farmer timed it so that they would birth during the Christmas holidays, as that was when he had the most time to dedicate to them, to see to their health and welfare during this time. Luckily for all, it has been a mild winter, all things considered – I would hope that if weather conditions were harsh, the farmer would be prepared to bring them all indoors. Some pagans celebrate Imbolc when the first snowdrops are out, but again that could be anywhere from beginning of January to March, weather depending. I’ve even seen snowdrops out on a sunny bank in December. Most Pagans today follow the festivals by the calendar year, and the 2nd of February (or the evening before, as the Celts began their day at sunset) is when this special time is celebrated.

It is also a festival connected to Brighid, whether it be the Celtic goddess or the Irish saint. If you do a little research into Her, you will find many connotations, associations and roles that she plays both in mythology and in the cycles of life and death. For me, Brighde as I know her is a little less known; she is the White Serpent of Albion.

You won’t find much lore relating to this aspect of Her. This is based on small snippets of information and a huge amount of experiential ritual, practice and connection. She first came to me several years ago at Imbolc, as I was performing a solitary ritual in my backyard on the mossy ground beneath the beech tree. I placed my hands upon the soft earth, grounding and feeling the earth’s energies stirring as the growing heat of the sun shone on my head and shoulders. An image of a large, coiled white serpent or a dragon beneath the dark earth sprang into my mind. The serpent was slowly stirring, rising up through the ground, slowly uncoiling towards the warmth and light from its dark and comfortable winter slumber. A flash, and suddenly I was connected to sacred sites across this whole island – Avebury and Glastonbury, stone circles in the Scottish Highlands, dolmen in Ireland and Wales, the tumuli several fields over. As quickly as it flashed through my mind it was gone, but I felt the energy, the connection thrumming through my veins for days afterwards. Even simply thinking about that experience brings the connection back, though every now and then I go to my little sacred spot in the garden and perform this ritual again, to re-establish or reaffirm that connection when the need arises.

This is Brighde as I know Her. The serpent energy that connects and flows through these lands. Her gift is awen, inspiration, the fire in the head and the fire in the belly. There is fire within her serpentine body, fire in the sky that she rises towards in her journey throughout the year. After the summer solstice she begins her descent again into the earth, into the darkness. Nwyfre, the life force, flows through her; she is the life force itself. Where she touches flows awen, inspiration and connection to that force. It is beautiful and powerful, a kind of power that sparks the soul and body into action, into seeing beyond the self and into a whole other world that might otherwise go unnoticed. Through that connection, everything is sacred.

I’ve worked with Brighde’s serpent energy for a couple of years now, and it sings to me in times of joy and in times of despair. When I need that connection I can simply remember that moment, if I am not able to go outside and touch the earth. Touching the earth is such a great experience – every Pagan should try it. It takes the gods, the ancestors, the elements out of an abstract and into being. It is life and death, the cycle, the spiral, the great dance.

And so I look forward to this special time of year, and re-establishing that connection, feeling my energies rising even as the serpent below me uncoils towards the surface. I can feel it in my spine, chakras opening as the serpent rises through my body. I can feel it humming in the spirals of my DNA. I can feel it resonating throughout the spiral galaxy and beyond.

I wish you all a blessed Imbolc and Brighde’s blessing to you all.

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Interview with Emma Restall Orr, March 2014

Photo courtesy of emmarestallorr.org

Photo courtesy of emmarestallorr.org

Below is a fairly recent interview (March 2014) with Emma Restall Orr, author, founder and director of Honouring the Ancient Dead, and former Head of The Druid Network. Here, she is talks about Druidry, labels, the priesthood, anarchy, understanding the self and the importance of earth-based religions. Enjoy!

Listen HERE.

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Happy New Year!

The end of another calendar year, and a time to reflect. What a fabulous year it has been. The ups as well as the downs, all of it has been a great experience. Life certainly is the best teacher.

So, what are the plans for next year? Well, I shall be continuing to write, a much longer book than those of the Pagan Portals series for Moon Books. This new project is called “Hedge Druidry”, and is basically an extension of The Awen Alone: Walking the Path of the Solitary Druid.

I also plan to start a much bigger vegetable garden next year, and go on a mushrooming course so that I am able to identify more mushrooms than just the parasol ones we munch on here that grow in the beautiful sandy soil.

I also have a wonderful new project that will hopefully start up in the autumn of 2015, but I can’t tell you about that just yet – I will hopefully have news for you very shortly! Hint – it’s about learning Druidry…

Lastly, I aim to simplify even more. This year I already reduced the time spent on social media, cleared the clutter in my house and spent even more time in meditation. I hope to continue on this path, making more time for the people that I love, the places that I love and the things that I really love doing.

In this time of reflection, don’t feel bad about the things you didn’t accomplish. Instead, reaffirm your resolve to try again, and persevere with a good heart and a pure mind. Make resolutions for the New Year, but for yourself and not for anyone else. If you want to lose weight, that’s great – but do it for your own health, with a doctor’s or nutritionist’s advice. Don’t do it to make yourself more beautiful – you already are beautiful. Likewise, quitting bad habits such as smoking or drinking are equally good resolutions to make, as long as you are truly willing to go the distance, for your own health and well-being. If we can do such things for ourselves, then we see that we can serve others as well. We have to take care of ourselves as well as each other.

And so I wish you a very Happy New Year. May you love one another, may peace fill your hearts. Love and peace are there, seeds waiting to be nourished by you and only you, not anyone else. Give them the attention that they need, and watch them bloom. Only you can do this.

With peace and love, and many thanks for following me down the forest path,

Jo. x

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Kindness

lotus-flowerKindness – in our modern Western world, this beautiful concept has become twisted, where in a “dog eat dog” world it equates to weakness.  We have to push, we have to grasp at life, beat out the other guy in order to get the biggest piece of the pie.

The truth is, there is no pie.

Forget what the media tells you, forget what other people may tell you, that you need to be better than others, that to show your humanity you will soon slide down that corporate ladder. There is no ladder either.

There is no me. There is no you. All is illusion.

We are all made up of each other, there can be no separation. The tree and the coyote, the fox and the mountain, the sunlight and your brother are all made up of matter and energy. Matter and energy cannot be destroyed. They cannot come out of nothing. They only wait for the right conditions to manifest, for the right circumstances in which to come into a form that we recognise. They are always there. We have always been here. We have always been a part of this world, and a part of each other.

As humans, we have become very judgemental beings. We allow our emotions and thoughts to overide the reality of many situations. It’s far easier to judge the behaviour of others than to look deeply at our own selves. Each time we judge something, we tighten up in our hearts and in our bodies.  An open heart is one that does is not judgemental. If there is no separation, there is nothing to judge.

We need to notice when we are forming judgements of people and of situations.  We need to see when we are contricting our souls, when we are not open to what life really is in this present moment. We need to really begin to know what the word kindness means.  If we truly see that we are all related, why would we be unkind to anyone or anything?

Do not believe in the illusion. Immerse yourself deeply in the awen, the poetic inspiration that opens the door to seeing the interconnectedness of all things.  Open your heart to the wonder that is life all around you. Look into the eyes of your supposed enemy, and see their condition of being. Look into the circumstances that created their life, and see yourself reflected in that. You are them and they are you.

Being aware of each judgement we make, being aware of our thoughts about other people, being aware of what is coming out of our mouth makes such a  difference to our lives.  When we speak ill of someone, we are doing ill to ourselves. When we treat others unkindly, we are being unkind to our selves. Our hearts do not like to be constricted.  The flow of awen, the flow of circulation in our bodies, the flow of a river or the flow of life itself moves better when we are open.

Our practice in life is simply kindness.  It’s not hard, but we make it hard for ourselves.  We have to lose our self-centred ego, our sense of self-importance, our sense that the world should be as we desire it to be, and not as it already is.  When we have stepped away from that way of being and move into a way of being that is centred on others, be they bird or bee, refugee child or murderer, basking shark or polar bear, we see that the world is much greater than the small worlds we create around ourselves.  We are released from anger and depression, hate and worry. We see how our little selves can take over, and we realise what is much more important that our little selves.

Kindness.

Have no fear – we will not become doormats for people to abuse if we are kind. We will not lose our place in life if we are kind. We will be happier, more free and really living as opposed to simply doing things.  Kindness is not weakness – it is the truest form of being. It takes courage to be kind to someone who has hurt us. We do not have to allow them to continue hurting us, but we do not need to seek revenge, or punish them for their actions. We can let them see that they have hurt us, and we can try to understand them with an open heart free of judgement. We can look critically at a situation without judging it, without letting emotion or non-factual elements into the equation. We can release our self-centred perception to get a look at the bigger picture, and try to help others instead of focusing on our selves.

It’s not easy, changing the way you think and behave. We have to really pay attention. We have to be really aware of how we are, how we react, what we say and do in any given situation. We need to look deeply into our being, through practice and meditation, through every single act of our waking lives. We have to be willing to change out of our old habits and our old ways of self-centred thinking. We have to try, again and again, to step outside of our little selves.

When we do, the world opens up in wonder.

May your life be filled with wonder.

 

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Solstice Practice

This post was originally  displayed on SageWoman’s channel, on my blog DruidHeart at Witches & Pagans.

Around the winter solstice is the time of year when many people get together, families and friends, to celebrate the holidays. If we are fortunate, we have some time off to be together, all together in one place – we may not have such an opportunity until the next solstice season rolls around. It can be a wonderful time of loving hugs, good conversation and deep, belly filled laughs. It can also be a trying time, when the bonds of friendship or family can become tested as we are all thrown together, our usual routines and habits left behind and we are faced with situations that are perhaps out of the norm.

My home is usually very quiet, filled with deep silence and stillness. In that silence I find my personal sanctuary, where peace is around every corner. I’m not a big fan of crowds or noise. However, at this time of year, I leave behind my little sanctuary and venture out into the world of lights and noise, family and friends when I’d really rather be sitting on my meditation cushion in the dark, with a candle and some incense.

It’s quite a shift to deal with. There is constant noise around me, different noise to that of my own home. It’s the noise of other people, which I am not accustomed to. Loud televisions, conversations, arguments, laughter – it’s a bit of an assault on my senses. Dealing with other people’s behaviour when there is no opportunity to “escape”. I have to confront everything that upsets me head on, or lose my temper, say something in anger as my “sanctuary” is thrown out the window.

Or is it? Yes, it’s difficult. Even as I type this blog, there are interruptions by people walking in and out of the room, asking me what I’m doing and other various questions. Nemetona, my goddess of sanctuary, has taught me that she is ever within me even as she is without – I take her with me wherever I go, and where I go she is always there.

In my Zen practice, this time of year provides me with innumerable ways to really practice. Life becomes difficult when things don’t go our way. When we realise this, and when we see that life is simply going ahead whether we like it or not, things can become easier. I have to deal with behaviour that I don’t like – this gives me a chance to practice and to try to understand that person’s behaviour. Often I can see myself reflected in it, or see that they are lost in their own suffering. I can try to ease that, when I remember to try to understand it. When it just pisses me off, I’m not trying to understand, and anger can erupt. When this occurs, I realise that I am not practicing very well, that I am not aware of my own reactions and behaviour. It’s a constant reminder to look deeply at myself, to see my patterns and to alter them in order to have peace and harmony both within and without. My goddess and my Zen practice help me with this understanding.

I have two choices when I find myself in difficult circumstances – get upset or not get upset. When people are shouting in the kitchen, or using words unkindly, or their behaviour is totally out of sync with creating harmony, I feel a tightness, a contraction within my body. Getting upset with this only tightens that contraction even further, making me miserable, or lashing out in anger in a misguided attempt to alleviate the tightness within. Seeing people mistreat each other, taking each other for granted – all of these things can cause contractions within. Passive/aggressive behaviour, words that are intented to provoke, noise levels louder than they need to be – all these things cause a contraction within my body. I want to loosen that contraction, but how?

Sitting and walking meditation practice, daily, really help me through this challenging time. By sitting, I am aware of my body, and aware of my thoughts. I see patterns in my behaviour. I see the self that is screaming for attention, for comfort, for sanctuary. I also then see the illusion of the separate self, and the inter-connectedness of all things. We are all dependent on everything else – the sunlight, the rain, our parents, the air, food. Without any of these things we could not exist. We are in them and they are in us.

When people’s behaviour challenges us, it helps to remind ourselves of this inter-connectedness. They are in me, and I am in them. It’s easy to do when out in the forest, becoming one with nature. But in challenging situations, with people we are often more directly faced with egos and personalities, with habits and the ego’s constant self-regard. When someone says something that upsets us, instead of thinking “I’m so upset that he said that” we can just realise that he said something. That’s the truth of the matter. Someone simply said something. We can act on what they said, of course, if they are saying inappropriate things. But we don’t have to act on it in anger, simply in awareness. Things happen. People behave the way they do. We can either get upset and lose our practice, or we can see the opportunities to become even more aware of our selves. In this awareness lies peace.

Slowly losing our separate sense of self, our egos begin to dissolve. We listen more. We apologise more. We find a deep well of peace to draw from, where we nourish that which brings peace and harmony. We don’t ignore our feelings, but we don’t feed those that create discord. We’ve no wish to stay in that contraction, no desire to create it in others.

Use this time of year as an opportunity to practice, to see how in nature we are all connected. See how the awen flows, how we are inspired by each other in each and every moment. Use difficult situations as the chance to become aware of your self and the world around you. It’s not easy, I’m being challenged constantly. It’s also a wonderful opportunity to fully immerse in the flow of awen, and not to be bashed against the rocks and caught in the swirls and eddies in the river of life. When life isn’t going the way that you would like it to, simply remember that. When we are angry or depressed, remember that it is because life isn’t going the way we want it to. Work with those feelings, work with others, and the practice will begin to show its rewards in less contraction, less anger and less upset. Peace begins to seep in, trickling through out insight, aware of the delicious drops of awen upon our tongue.

Isn’t that what this time of year is all about? Peace and love, awareness of the darkness and the returning light, the times and tides of life. May this time of year bring you many chances to practice, and may you find true joy in that practice.

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Peace

I feel the anger within me. Sometimes he is purposefully trying to upset me and others around him, other times he doesn’t know that he is doing it – it is simply habitual energy. I feel the anger as a tightness in my chest with his sarcasm, his passive aggressive behaviour. Little flames shoot out, provoking a fire within. It takes much mindfulness not to feed the fire, not to fan the flames of anger within. Acting out in anger will not solve anything. I will find another way to relate to him when he is sunk deep in his suffering, acting it out on everyone around him.

* * * * *

A friend was involved in a car accident which totalled his car. In his recounting of the tale, there was no anger at the young woman who hit him from behind, only remorse at the four pairs of shoes that had been ruined. I smiled and know that I will hold his lesson close to my heart.

* * * * *

Today there is news of the massacre in Pakistan, where around 150 children were murdered by the Taliban in a school shooting. My first response was not anger, but such a deep and silent sadness at the conditions that brought about people who bring about such suffering on the world. I could be one of the children, I could be one of the attackers, had the conditions been right to bring about a manifestation of the person I am in that situation. My heart goes out to everyone in Pakistan, the families who suffer the loss of their children, and to the attackers whose suffering lashes out at innocent children.

* * * * *

Sitting silently in the darkness before dawn, a lone candle and some incense burning, I pay attention to my breath, and the darkness around me slowly lifts as the sun rises unseen behind a canopy of grey sleety skies. May there be peace in the North. May there be peace in the East. May there be peace in the South. May there be peace in the West. May there be peace in our hearts and minds and towards all fellow beings.

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Holistic manifestation – the nature of awen

In my previous blog post on my other blog, DruidHeart for SageWoman, I wrote about how we are never born, and how we can never die: we are simply manifest for a while in one form, and then we manifest again in another when the conditions are right. For me, this represents reincarnation, the nitty gritty basics of it and the science behind reincarnation.

Another aspect of manifestation is that we are not separate beings on this planet, or indeed in this universe. We cannot be, for we are all made up of different elements of existence. A human being is made up of non-human elements, such as calcium and magnesium, sunlight and wave, clouds and stars. All manifestation has a shared existence, for we cannot exist without everything else. This is explained beautifully by Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh in what he called Inter-Being. We cannot exist alone, we can only inter-be with everything else on this planet. It is a wonderfully evocative and holistic way of thinking that sits very well within my vision of Druidry. When we realise that we are not separate from the whole, we immediately act with a different intention, and live our lives filled with compassion and love instead of alienation and fear.

Our ancestors are with us all the time. Though their bodies may have long since physically disappeared to our eyes in the soil, their manifestation has not – it has simply changed its form. Energy cannot be destroyed, it cannot go anywhere. Neither can it be brought forth out of nothing. We are all manifestations of energy, energy that has existed on this planet for 4.54 billion years. This is a shared energy, one that we cannot claim as our own. If we cannot claim this energy as our own, how can we claim anything to be our own?

Ownership requires the belief that we are separate creatures. In our brief manifestation as human beings, we may think we own our house, our pets, our cars, however this is all illusion. We are only borrowing them, using them for however long or short a period of time before we are changed in form upon our so-called “death”. This death is not a singular, separate event, but merely a way to describe the cessation of a certain manifestation. Equally, there is no birth, simply the beginning of a new manifestation. The energy behind the manifestation is always there.

This shared energy is in the heart of the sun, in the rocky surface of the moon, in the wind and in the rain. It is in the bee and in the bear, in the holly bush and in the snow. The icicle is made up of non-icicle elements. The cat is made up of non-cat elements. This is what it means to have a shared existence. Not shared existences, but a singular shared existence.

If we are all a part of each other, we will see that if we fight with another person, we fight with ourselves. If we grieve for another person, we grieve for ourselves. If we act with love and compassion for the world, we also act with love and compassion for our selves.

The plant that has died is still there, in another form. It is still a part of our self as well, for we have breathed in its oxygen; we are in its soil as its soil is within us. There exists a beautiful garden in our compost heap. The sea is held within the sky. I am within a woman grieving in Palestine, and she is within me.

Keeping this thought close to my heart, I can reach out and touch the awen that connects the threads of all existence. That energy where soul touches soul, where boundaries fall way, where we are beautifully inspired by the acknowledgment of another being and seeing that being reflected and existing in our souls – this is at the heart of Druid teaching. Walking awake and aware in the world, seeing the connecting threads, seeing the shared manifestation and shared existence fills our souls with beauty and awe in the wonder that is the world.

May we be the awen.

universe human

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Recommended Reading: Thich Nhat Hanh, Love Letter to the Earth

TNH LLtoE

The wisdom of compassion allows us to see that we are part of a great cycle, that there is no separation. The earth is us, and we are the earth.

In this book, Love Letter to the Earth, Vietnemese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, talks about the stress we humans are putting upon the planet, and what we can do to live more harmoniously with the rest of the natural world.

I read this with the eyes of a human, the mind of a Zen Buddhist and the heart of a Druid.  In my opinion, this book needs to be on every Pagan’s bookshelf, let alone read by everyone regardless of faith, spiritual path, economic circumstance, political party, etc.

It is animism, and how to live it.

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Reblog: Reclaiming the word discipline and living with intention

This is a reblog from my blog, DruidHeart, at Sagewoman Magazine’s channel on Witches and Pagans.

 

discipline

ˈdɪsɪplɪn/

noun

noun: discipline

1.    the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behaviour, using punishment to correct disobedience.

“a lack of proper parental and school discipline”

2.    a branch of knowledge, typically one studied in higher education.

“sociology is a fairly new discipline”

 

Wow. No wonder people hate the word discipline. It’s often equated with punishment, correcting a perceived disobedience. We are free people, we should be able to do what we want, when we want, so long as it harms none. Life is for living, right?

Of course, I would agree with the above, that we are free, that life is for living. However, I’m also here to reclaim the word discipline into something that is positive.

We live in a world filled with instant gratification. We have IPhones and tablets that can “connect” us with people anywhere, anytime, so that we never have to be alone (even in a crowd of people). We have hundreds upon hundreds of television channels that tempt us into thinking that something better than the current moment we are living in is on the tube. We have internet to answer all questions at the push of a button. We have access to food 24/7 (most of us) – we’re usually never too far away from our larders or a shop. We love to “treat” ourselves. Marketing has told us that “we’re worth it”, or making us feel that we’re not good enough, and with their product we will be. Problems solved, instantly.

Now, this isn’t a blog post about self-denial, asceticism or anything similar. It is about truly seeing and understanding our needs versus our desires. Our modern world has twisted our desires into needs, and it is up to us to rebalance, to rejig our way of thinking in order to live a life filled with more intention.

I work three jobs, alongside my work as a Druid priest. Time can be in pretty hard demand sometimes, but planning makes it all work. It takes effort, but that is what discipline is: effort made in order to improve a situation, to live a life of intention, to learn more about integration and compassion.

This is only an excerpt – to read the full article, click HERE.