THE DRY SPELL

Well, it looks like the dry spell is over, All it took was a little time and a few good books.

WHEN A LAKE IS MORE THAN A LAKE

In legend, the rivers of Ireland have a common source, the Pool of Wisdom in the Other World under the rule of Mananan Mac Lir. Around the pool are hazel trees, the nuts fall into the pool where the salmon who live in the pool eat the nuts. When the nuts are broken the juice turns the water purple and it flows into the rivers.

Mananan told a visitor that everyone drinks of the water from the rivers. But, only poets, those of vision and mystics can pierce the veil into the other world to drink from the pool itself. The information that feeds our senses comes not only from the world we can touch, but from the world we can only sense when the veils are thinnest.

Could it be that everything around us is more than we can see with our eyes and hear with our ears? And could it happen that what one sees isn’t quite the same as what another “sees.” There was an Irish hermit who lived by a lake. One morning he decided that fish for breakfast; well what could be better? So, he launched his boat a rowed out into the lake. He could see his neighbor’s hermitage on the other side of the lake just beginning to be lit by the early morning light. When he looked again, he saw is neighbor walking across the water. “Good morning, you’re out early.” “I need some flowers for my alter, and if you don’t mind my asking, what are you doing in the middle of the meadow sitting in a boat.” “Meadow, I’m going fishing, what are you doing walking across a lake.” Or words to that effect.

The second hermit pointed to some flowering bushes near the shore. “I think the fish are biting over there.”  In the end, one man got his fish and the other got his flowers. From the same place. One hermit’s lake, was another hermit’s flower filled meadow. I guess sometimes a lake is more than just a lake and a meadow is more than just a meadow.

Hermit story from Tom Cowan’s Yearning for the Wind. 

IT'S ALL ON LOAN

This message is true no matter who we call Creator. The president said pretty much the same thing last year and look what happened to him.

Pray for the whole world, pray this very earth become a heaven. Pray especially to be freed from the evil of greediness. Pray to recognize others who are in need-for there is no such thing as “my” bread. All bread is ours and is given to me, to others through me and through me to others. For not only bread but all others things necessary for sustenance in this life a given on loan to us with others and because of others, and for others and to others through us.

Whoever does not give to another what belongs to that other does not eat his own bread but steals that bread from that other. For nothing that we have acquired unjustly is ours.

All gifts of nature and of grace have been given us on loan. Their ownership is not ours but God’s. God never gave private property to anyone-not even to his own Mother or to any other person or to any creature in any way. Treat all things as if they were loaned to you without any ownership-whether body or soul, sense or strength, external goods or honors, friends or relations, house or hall, everything. For if I want to possess the property I have instead of receive it on loan, then I want to be a master.

I have told you this time and again, if a person were in a rapture as great as St. Paul once experienced and learned that her neighbor were in need of a cup of soup, it would be best to withdraw from the rapture and give the person the soup she needs. Meister Eckhart Thirteenth century preacher and mystic.

So, if we knew these things in the twelve hundreds…..no wonder the church labeled him a heretic.

SOUL WALKING

One day Tom Cowan (Yearning for the Wind) realized that he wasn’t carrying his soul around like a backpack. His soul was carrying him and he quoted the Welsh bard Taliesin. “I adore my God…who has infused a soul to direct me with its seven faculties; fire, earth, water, air, mist, flowers and southerly wind.” Well, that just about covers everything doesn’t it? Because those “faculties” don’t just infuse my soul. They infuse the soul of all Creation. And that soul reaches down and joins my soul and can carry me past the ends of the earth to the edge of Creation if I’ll just let it.

Remember someplace you’ve been that really reached out and touched you. A mountainside in spring when the flowers are just beginning to bloom and there’s still a nip in the air when the sun goes behind a cloud. Summer at the beach as the waves break over and over. And if you’re in Oregon, and it isn’t that special two weeks in August? Well, there’s still a nip in the air. While the sun is out. Maybe it’s fall and the leaves are at their best. Red, orange, burnt orange. Fire in the branches. Then there’s winter and the bare branches are hidden in the mist or covered with snow. Remember how you felt. Let it fill you with fire, earth, water, air, mist, flowers (I like that one) and southerly wind.

Irish or Celtic Druids and saints often asked the blessing or protection of the natural world. Patrick supposedly wrote this one.

I bind unto myself today

The virtues of the starlit heavens,

The glorious sun’s life giving ray,

The whiteness of the moon at even,

The flashing of the lightning free,

The whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,

The stable earth, the deep salt sea

Around the old eternal rocks.

Now go beyond mere blessing. Get past asking for elemental protections. Stretch out your soul until you are the heavens, the sun, the moonlight, the lighting bolt, the wind, the rich life giving earth and the sea we all can call our mother. Walk out into the world knowing that you and all of Creation are one. 

CARRIED BY THE WIND

I think Lisa has posted this too. I suspect that we got it from the same place. Thanks Tom. The image is from the web.

IRISH KNOTWORK

Invoke: Call on (a deity or spirit) in prayer, as a witness, or for inspiration. This is secondary definition.

A variation of a poem attributed to Amergin, Druid and poet of the Irish mythological cycle. One of the Milesians who conquered the Tuatha De Danaan….as reworked by Tom Cowan. As beautiful and complex as a piece of Celtic knotwork.

I invoke the land of Ireland:

Forceful, the fertile sea;

Fertile, the lush highlands;

Lush, the showery woods;

Showery, river of waterfalls;

Of waterfalls, the lake of deep pools;

Deep pooled, the hilltop well;

Welling, the gathering of peoples;

Gathering, the tribes of Tara;

I invoke the land of Ireland.

This is almost like a helicopter flyover of the island. As you repeat it, you follow that knotwork around and around with those beautiful images. 

A POET INVOKES IRELAND

Invoke: Call on (a deity or spirit) in prayer, as a witness, or for inspiration. This is secondary definition.

A variation of a poem attributed to Amergin, Druid and poet of the Irish mythological cycle. One of the Milesians who conquered the Tuatha De Danaan….as reworked by Tom Cowan. As beautiful and complex as a piece of Celtic knotwork.

I invoke the land of Ireland:

Forceful, the fertile sea;

Fertile, the lush highlands;

Lush, the showery woods;

Showery, river of waterfalls;

Of waterfalls, the lake of deep pools;

Deep pooled, the hilltop well;

Welling, the gathering of peoples;

Gathering, the tribes of Tara;

I invoke the land of Ireland.

This is almost like a helicopter flyover of the island. As you repeat it, you follow that knotwork around and around with those beautiful images. 

FINDING HOMES FOR OUR SQUARE PEGS

What I wrote about the fall may have been influence by the introduction a colleague of Tom Cowan’s, Sandra Ingraham, wrote for Yearning for the Wind.

“Once upon a time a spell was cast upon people across the land. The spell made people believe we are all separate beings with no connection to each other and no connection with nature or the rest of life. … Happiness only came from financial gain, collecting material objects, and having power over people, the animal world and all nature.”

How else can you explain the attitude that would turn this country into an armed camp? That our neighbors and the people around us are so dangerous we have to be armed to the teeth.

We don’t know what made the Connecticut shooter tick. But, who knows? A thousand years ago he might have been happy in an enclosed monastic order copying manuscripts. At the beginning of the age of exploration he might have been a well known map maker.Two hundred years ago he might have been a mountain man. Who knows? I do know that there are fewer and fewer places in our society for the square pegs. And more and more people who would have been productive members of society in the past are labeled “defective” and shoved to the margins.

There must be a better way. There has to be.  

ADVENT STORY

I'm not a literalist when it comes to the Bible. And more than a few Quakers cross over and follow what are considered Pagan paths. But, every once in awhile something hits me.

When I was doing some reading during Advent using the Revised Common Lectionary for Year C. I realized that the original sin wasn't eating that pesky apple (or whatever it was). That was the result. The sin was a lack of trust.

Instead of taking a few minutes and going "hey, God there's this guy with a heck of a story." Eve believed the "I know something you don't know" and swallowed it hook, line and sinker. Side note. I've come across folks who contend that there was no death before. I never did run across the following conversation. "Uh, You said if we ate of the tree we'd die. What's death?" Something did die in that story. Trust died. The link that connected us to the natural and the spiritual worlds. And it's killing us.

And as far as I'm concerned something else "died" that day. Our stewardship or dominion over the rest of Creation. Many of us still claim it, but one look at the devastating mess we've made of doing it on our own proves how well that's working out. And I ran across a quote from Gandhi that runs something like this "the earth provides enough for man's needs, but not for his greed." And that is so true.

SPIRIT VISITOR?

I've started keeping a notebook on the bedside table. I get some of my best ideas at two in the morning and they're gone when I get up. Anyway, I made these notes last night. They'll be worked into something better later.

"Find a tree. Any tree, really, If you can sit down next to it, good. Best if you can lean your back into it. Fell the bark. Imagine your arms reaching for the sky. Your feet sinking down into the roots. Deeper into the soil, deeper into bedrock and the under ground springs.

Reach for the sky. Feel the sun. Bend with the wind. Endure the rain and snow. Welcome the spring, returning bird song, wind song. Watch the stars wheel through the seasons."

I got that far and put it away. Settled in for the night with the image of trees and undergrowth.  A sort of a clearing and into the clearing came a fox. Seemed to be following a track. Then the image ended. And I can guarantee that I was not thinking of foxes...or any other kind of furry critter at the time. I'll have to chew on this for awhile.

THE EARTH IS OUR MOTHER THE SKY OUR FATHER

This is from the Tewa Pueblo from a book on Native American remedies and healing rituals.

O our Mother the Earth,

O our Father the Sky,

Your children are we, and with tired backs

We bring you the gifts you love.

Then weave for us a garment of brightness;

May the warp be the white light of morning,

May the weft be the red light of evening,

May the fringes be the falling rain,

May the border be the standing rainbow.

Then weave for us a garment of brightness

That we may walk fittingly where grass is green,

O our Mother the Earth,

O our Father the Sky!

It hit me how beautiful this image is. Imagine a robe with all the shades of sunrise and sunset, fringed with all the shades of the rain from soft showers to drowning downpours with a border of all the colors of the rainbow. While I'm at it I'd add beads to the fringe. Beads that flash with all the colors of the stars and glow from within with silver of the moon and the gold of the sun. This is a beautiful image of the unity between the earth and all the life on it and around it.

And wouldn't any of us love to find this in our closets? And wouldn't we love to see everyone wearing this our in the world. 

A WORLD FOREST, OR LOOKING OUT FOR EACH OTHER

Koosah Falls on the McKenzie River east of Springfield, Oregon.

I didn't really realize how truly rooted I am in the Pacific Northwest until I was
working my way through Rae Beth's books on wildwood mysticism a few years ago. (and it's world view not too far from the Celtic way of seeing Creation) She describes a guided imagery exercise that I decided to try. I love the description of the World Tree and I even found a very nice pendant showing a great oak with roots that go as deep as thebranches are tall. Trouble is.......I didn't grow up in the shadows of oaks,
maples, or beeches. Outside of a few trees in the yards around Oakridge, and the two dwarf apple trees in our yard I grew up surrounded by evergreens. And a single evergreen just won't do as an image for a world tree.

But a most evergreens, except sequoias simply won't survive by themselves. Sequoias, they’ve recently discovered keep growing. Adding height and diameter even though the tree is more than  two thousand years old.  Where an oak or maple has a low lying single trunk that branches and branches and branches an evergreen spikes straight up. I've seen a few cedars with a double trunk, maybe a triple but that's it. The branches tend to slope downwards to survive heavy snowfalls and the root system is usually shallower. This makes most evergreens vulnerable in ice storms or severe windstorms. The best defense? Grow in huge groves so that each tree is protected by the others. So a world forest as a symbol of faith isn't too far off. Each tree protects the others and any damage to one tree threatens the rest. So instead of one great tree, I find myself picturing a world with a great forest in every part of the globe with the roots reaching for the center.

So, where did this come from? As I read her guided imagery exercise my
little avatar didn't go looking for an oak or a maple. It made tracks for
the tall timber. Some place with tall trees, ferns, deep moss, some deadfall
for the mushrooms and lichens to grow on, and some berry bushes. If a
waterfall makes an appearance that is a definite bonus

 If I can't have a waterfall then a drippy, misty, coastal forest will do very nicely.So if my
 little spirit self doesn't head for the Cascades it heads for the coast. Not to the beach, 
to the great basalt headlands graced with low-lying evergreens shaped

by the winds. To that Pacific Ocean that William Clark called the Great
Western Ocean. When he made the entry he said he wasn't about to call it the
Pacific. He hadn't had one pacific (peaceful) day since he laid eyes on it.

And silence. Not the scary, wake up in the middle of the night, where is
everybody silence. But the root deep silence of the world before the first
word was spoken. Not a silence where there is no sound. Bird song, wind song
and water song are part of that silence. A silence with no background hum. A
silence that sings.

AT THE END OF THE CENTURIES

LEAVE THEM A FLOWER

 I speak on behalf of the next generation
My sons and daughters, their children to come
What will you leave them for their recreation
An oil slick, a pylon, an industrial slum

     

   Leave them a flower, some grass and a hedgerow
        A hill and a valley, a view to the sea
        These things are not yours to destroy as you want to
        A gift given once for eternity

You plunder and pillage, you tear and you tunnel
Trees lying toppled, roots finger the sky
Building a land for machines and computers
In the name of progress the farms have to die

        

Leave them a flower, some grass and a hedgerow

        A hill and a valley, a view to the sea
        These things are not yours to destroy as you want to
        A gift given once for eternity

Fish in the ocean polluted and poisoned
The sand on the beaches stinking and black
And you with your tankers, your banks and investments
Say, Never worry, the birds will come back

        

Leave them a flower, some grass and a hedgerow
        A hill and a valley, a view to the sea
        These things are not yours to destroy as you want to
        A gift given once for eternity

When the last flower has dropped its last petal
When the last concrete is finally laid
The moon will shine cold on a nightmarish landscape
Your gift to your children, this world that you made

        

Leave them a flower, some grass and a hedgerow
        A hill and a valley, a view to the sea
        These things are not yours to destroy as you want to
        A gift given once for eternity

by Wally Whyton

 I remember when this song came out in the seventies. For all the fairies in my garden, your garden and everywhere else. And most of all for all of us. From Pelagius to William Penn to Howard Brinton to heart breaker. 

ACROSS THE CENTURIES

It looks like the ideas are starting to come together. Across the years from the early fifth century to the mid nineteenth century a way of looking at Creation echoes over and over. From the pen of the early fifth century   theologian and teacher Pelagius comes this fragment written to a friend. 

Look at the animals roaming the forest: God’s spirit dwells within them.

Look at the birds flying across the sky: God’s spirit dwells within them.

Look at the tiny insects crawling in the grass: God’s spirit dwells within them.

Look at the fish in the river and sea: God’s spirit dwells within them.

There is no creature on earth in whom God is absent….When God pronounced that His creation was good it was not only that his hand had fashioned every creature; it was that His breath had brought every creature to life. Look too at the great trees of the forest; look at the wildflowers and the grass in the fields; look even at your crops. God’s spirit is present within all plants as well. The presence of God’s spirit in all living things is what  makes them beautiful; and if we look with God’s eyes nothing on the earth is ugly.

 More than a thousand years later, and with a little less poetry is this fragment from William Penn, the Quaker. 

If we better studied and understood God’s creation, this would do a great deal to caution and direct us in our use of it. For how could we find the impudence to abuse the world if we were seeing the great Creator stare us in the face through each and every part of it? — William Penn (1644-1718

And from the mid nineteenth century from Howard Brinton. Again a Quaker and teacher. His battered collection of essays on the basics of Quaker belief are finally beginning to make sense. 

As I write this I am writing in a house which will soon be destroyed by a thru-way enabling automobiles and trucks to save a few minutes in going from one place to another. I hope they will make good use of the time they will save. Because in building this road a great deal of life will be destroyed. The living fields and woods will be shrouded in a dead shroud of concrete, destroying all life under it and much that is near it. This is only one example of how death is replacing life in the western world. When this cold, dead shroud of concrete is extended further, life will decrease and death will increase, and when it goes far enough life will cease. We are living in a world where death is gradually supplanting life. And the final end of this process is predictable. Howard H Brinton. 

Many of the early Irish monks chose what they called the White Martyrdom. At a time when family and place meant safety and protection they turned their backs on family ties and land where they had a place and set out. First through northern England and then into what became Germany and further. They finally fetched up on the heel of the Italian boot. It's no coincidence that Quaker writings echo earlier Celtic beliefs. The Quakers came out of Yorkshire in the northern English path the Irish took.