Published under
Druidism on
January 12, 2008
The Second installment of assignments from the course I am taking with the New Order of Druids. For their website please see www.druidcircle.net. It’s a great site and a good community, and you’ll like it there.
Place-Bonding
Spend at least a week with this practice, “Place-Bonding”. Write a reflection (3-5 pages, double spaced) on your experience. (The exercise they are talking about involves an interaction with nature, including feeling and becoming.)
Place-Bonding
This place is cold, despite the warm sun shining now upon the land. I stand firmly in the ground, listening to the beat of the land. It’s like the pounding of the heart, beat after beat, and as I listen to this thump thump thump, I can feel as though my feet are growing roots into the ground. Fear seizes me as I feel unable to move; my body is like the strong trunk of a tree, and my arms the only reach into the sky above. I fear now the onslaught of winter, sans leaves and small branches I am but nothing to the wind that will rip through my limbs, and tatter at my bark. I am powerless against this father winter spirit, the only protection being the brothers that surround me, and with one but lying frozen to the stream and another that have but cracked at the seams, I am powerless to believe, that standing here within this place, that I am infallible to the extremes. Something comforting comes my way, a sort of knowing, a familiar sense of self comes now. I am taken back to the times on the playground, my hands frozen by the snow, and my mittens wet. I release each of my five fingers into the center of the glove and make a fist. The tree now shows me that its spirit relies on the roots, the warm underneath the ground, and that in winter, the tree does withdraw from the cold, after the alarming onslaught of the first snowfall and the first whipping winds from the first blizzard, the tree does withdraw itself into the hearth wood, and there finds warmth and peace and solitude away from the cold. The snow does melt but slowly into the ground, and the trickle of cool sweet water reaches the roots, and this sweetness is like hot chocolate on a cold winter day, after feeling the burning sting of the wind, and the stickiness of wet snow covered jeans on the skin. The tree now feels close to this end, feels the coming of the winter chill and so inside of itself does it go, until the time when spring will come and small buds will bloom upon the limbs, and new branches will form the houses for leaves, and the tree will reach out to the world around, and bask in the glory of the hot sun.
The rush of hot water streams out into the pool in front of me. While physically it’s a bathtub, my mind sees only a gushing stream into a pool of water below. Outside the water would be ice cold to the touch of skin, but here within the fantasy world, it’s warm, even hot and soothing. I slip in, and duck all but my face under the water. All I can hear is the high pitch scream of the plumbing system in the house. It’s distracting, and comforting, if this were the coast off Ireland I’d almost say it sounded like a siren. My mind wanders in and out of meditation here, careful not to fall asleep. The water soothes my aching muscles to relaxation, and allows the energy built up from channeling to disperse. I can feel myself becoming liquid, being part of the water. My body is like jello floating in the pool, my limbs become weak and I feel as though I am changing shape to fit that of the tub. My head still shows me pictures of lakes and rivers and ponds, some of which have algae sticking to it, and others of which have swift currents rushing through them. I switch from being the water to being held within the water, and feel myself rising up out of the tub. It feels as though I have shed my skin into the pool below, energy and dirt. I can feel my pulse within my body, the warm water having forced me to feel the blood pumping through my veins. I cover with a towel and return to the coolness of the home.
The wind is ruthless, the trees shake, angry fingers at the sky. And the people, hunch their shoulders, pull their collars over their ears and run by. The wind whips my face, solidly, spewing with it chunks of snow and ice. They hit my face and dance upon my cheek before they trickle down, down down, until they form a single drop of water, drip, into the ground below. I still feel it, the burning wind upon my face, and when I take a moment, I feel the rushing sensitivity of the wind, the uncommon gusting, and the beating of its force against the earth. Nothing is seen from here, wind feels by touch, by force, by air forming and pressing around sharp physical objects. Tough the tree, be sent into spirals of branches upwards, unsure of where to go next, shaking branches down, and finally escaping through tree tops. Wind has little direction but that far away direction from whence it comes. From north or south or east or west, from mountain top or ocean or lake or river or stream, from warm or cold, from wet or dry, carrying precipitation or simply brush. The wind sweeps across fields and lands, and underneath do forest fires or floods do occur. From this, I travel with the wind, hours upon hours of travel, and never any rest, never any stops, the wind continues on, where ever it will blow.
Slowly the first spark is lit, the fire comes alive. It is volatile, uncontrolled, and growing. A flame shoots out from the top, the fire wishes to spread, alight all around it that is not wet. Below the fire, the fuel does rage, twisting and burning, feeling the heat and pyre from the fire, it allows this crackling burning to occur. But within, the sensitivity of a child, the fire feels as though it has no choice, no other option, it was meant for this work, and once stopped it too will stop. The fire is hard to feel, keep away, the flame is but my own, and I will guide it on my own, cannot accept outside help for it will throw chaos into the mix, and then the fire will be little but bliss. Within, without, connected to, the fire does provide a sense of strong energy, pulling together the lost pieces of soul, and putting one into a state of knowingness unknown. The fire spawns visions, spawns dreams, spawns the very means for enlightenment, and this, does answer many questions help deep within my soul, along with digging up everything that I am. The fire is enlightenment, the fire is strong, peaceful grace, the fire speaks volumes about our race. But soon the energy in the fire becomes too much, the fire turns to smoke and dust, having left shards from where it burned, the fire will soon return.
The sacred and spiritual found within the wildness of the natural elements, earth, water, air and fire as my experiences are described here do actually speak volumes to me. When connected to the Earth, I felt a strong connection to the root chakra, I felt assimilation with my inner child, and came to know just how much I miss the freedom one is allowed when they duck between the trees. Personally, I would not call this a sacred experience; however, it is in duality with the land that one can find a form of enlightenment, feeling their soul freed from the constraints put upon it by society, and seeing the world as a child has its own form of enlightenment for children simply experience without analyzing the experience. During the parts where I was the tree, all I could feel was the need to shrink away from the outside world and withdraw into the inner world. I wanted to become invisible so that I would not feel the harshness of the world around. I think it is true that once father winter and the snow comes, the only sacredness is within the snow, it is as though an underworld awakens and we are submitted to that.
The experience within water, spiritually made me feel relaxed and almost intoxicated. I wanted to sleep more than anything at that time, wanted to dream, wanted to explore the other worlds. I felt that through the water my astral body could slip into another parallel or astral realm and I could begin to perceive those things not of this world. I found water to be a positive escape into the depths of the spirit and soul, allowing one to explore the shadow self, the worlds below, and the other worlds the soul has left on its journey. The parts where I was the water, I felt as though my soul could touch everything in the universe simultaneously, and that through the liquid forms my limbs were limp, I had no control of form and no ability to shape myself into form. I became a formless mirror of the bathtub the water was held within.
This similar feelings of formlessness came with the feeling I got when I was air, I could not choose where I would travel and as an air molecule I would simply follow the currents, kind of like following the tides, and where the air was guided to go it would go. I remember swirling around randomly, and felt the true chaos of the world around me. I felt as though nothing had rhythm, and yet it did. I felt as though nothing in the air had structure, but it did, it took longer to learn that there was in fact beauty in the cacophony, and it reminded me of the song we sung in choir in grade 12, it’s a Bach song called Come Sweet Death, and it begins with the choir singing in harmony, “Come, Sweet Death, Come Soothing Rest, Come and lead me homeward.” The rest of the verses are sung by the choir in harmony, “I am, weary of life and longing, come and save me from thee, come now and set me free. My eyes at last are slowly closing now. Come blessed rest.” Then a single soprano begins to sing the first verse. While she is singing, the others in the choir, begin to sing the same verse, they begin not in cannon, but whenever they feel it is right. Many, soprano, alto, tenor and bass start singing not in harmony but in a cacophonic mess that sounds simply like random noise. All continue to sing the first verse until they reach the last word, homeward. Then they node their heads to the ground, and continue humming the last note. The last to begin, finish their verses, and all are humming in harmony. This is the type of sacredness I feel with the wind, it is as though it moves from cacophonic to harmonic and back over and over again, until the wind is simply too quiet to feel, too subtle to hear or feel. These are on days when there is apparently no wind, it is like, a huge symphony, and that in itself relates back to the oran mor, the song of the universe and therefore the air and wind itself experiencing it fully is a sacred experience.
The fire was the last I chose to explore, and as I have many times in the past explored fire, this time while feeling the fire, I felt the need for explosion, and I felt the need to keep control of myself. I felt as though there was instability and potential within me that I could not properly express within the fire. I felt the heat and the felt the crackling, and felt as though expression even in the most minute forms was both sacred and spiritual, but controlled. It is harder to explain, but when the flame is first lit it is simply there, and it is enlightenment itself. Created by the elements of earth, sustained by the element of air and smited by the element of water, the fire is the physical embodiment of awen, inspiration, enlightenment and spiritual being. Even a small amount of fire can contain the largest amount of awen. This is why it is controlled because when fire becomes larger and uncontrolled, the awen dissipates and is consumed by it. I am talking however of forest fires. The awen wishes to cleanse the land and somehow becomes an enemy. In controlled atmospheres though the fire has the strongest of spiritual messages. When I connect to it and it to me, I tend to find my own flame and my own source of fire, and it begins to speak volumes to me, telling me of my past my future, my being, my soul, my purpose. I feel within the fire that I cannot help but see the truth of the universe around me, as though both the beginning and the end was created by the fire, and being here in physical form is like speaking to creation itself. Therefore, of all spiritual experiences the one I feel with the fire is the strongest and most prominent.
Blessings,
Rhiannon
Published under
Druidism on
December 13, 2007
Chapter 4
The Way of the Anam Cara:
Nature and Belonging
According to Humanist psychologist Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs”, once our physical needs of survival are met, humans naturally turn towards cultivating a sense of love and belonging in their lives. According to his model this is a necessary step towards what he calls “self actualization”. Write a reflection (3-5 pages, double spaced) on the “shelter of belonging” that an enlivened relationship with nature can provide.
In case you’re just catching up, I am also taking courses at a Druid College, and while I had been keeping the work to myself, it seems appropriate to write my assignments here.
The question posed to me reads very simple, when have I felt a sense of belonging within Nature itself?
Immediately one’s mind goes to spring, summer and fall when nature is alive and flourishing, times when we are playing and shouting and screaming, and laughing, running through fields of grass, and trekking with friends through forests thick to find a spot to camp. Automatically people think of gardening, planting trees or flowers, taking a trip to the beach, or viewing the sights at the Grand Canyon.
However, as magical as the Grand Canyon, as fun as the beach and as exhilarating as running through a field, for me it doesn’t bring the sense of belonging that it should. For me, these are short escapes of times that simple won’t last. It is so that the beach will always be there, as well as the fields, and so will the Grand Canyon, but as I do not live near it, I will not visit it, and as for the nearest field, and nearest beach, it is but until the strike of Winter that they shall be enjoyable past times. I cannot feel the sense of belonging within weather that ebbs and flows like the tide, and finally freezes and frosts over, entering into a long hibernation.
That hibernation period lasts half the year where I live within the frozen North of Canada. The temperatures slide comfortably into the -20’s and we reach the deep freeze in January of -40, or -50 with the windchill. I am reminded of lyrics to a song called “Done Wrong” by Ani DiFranco that go, “The Wind is ruthless, the trees shake, angry fingers at the sky. And the people, hunch their shoulders, pull their collars over their ears and run by.” It is sadly true for those who call themselves Winterpeggers for we live in the worst consistent weather conditions than many other places. Yet, if I were say I was from Alaska, the difficulty of this assignment would be easily understod, so let’s say that I am in a place that is frozen like the north pole for the majority of the year, and hopefully you get the point that I live in a place where vegetation barely grows in the summer months, and in the winter months it is in a deep hibernation.
So how does this relate to the sense of Nature and Belonging and how does this relate to the Anam Cara? Well the simple answer is, I hate bees. I hate mosquitoes, I much can’t stand swimmer’s itch, and when I find myself dripping with sweat at 30 degrees celcius with humidity and UV warnings, I don’t very much find myself connecting with nature. I find myself not sleeping at night and I find myself unable to appreciate the life around me. The question I have to pose to myself is when do I feel the Anam Cara? When do I feel that nature is most alive and flourishing where I live?
Originally, my answer was that it does not exist where I live. That our part of the world is dead most of the year, and there is no point in attempting to connect with Nature in -20 degree weather. But a wise Buddhist man once said that “First a mountains are mountains and streams are streams, and then mountains are not mountains and streams are not streams, and then mountains are mountains, and streams are streams again.” In this context, the Buddhist saying relates to that which is underneath the surface, that which does not seem to be so, but is so. It is very true where I live, that nature is alive in the depths of Winter.
My soul and spirit connect best when the temperature outside is -20 to -30. I might enjoy the leaves changing color in Autumn, but it is only because of the foreshadowing of the weather to come. I love to smell the cool crisp air in Autumn and I know another season is coming to an end, and that the underworld of Winter is waking up to play. I love the fact that the bees and mosquitoes and all the other nasty creepy crawlies die off, I am glad that most of the birds fly south, and I send little telepathic messages to the geese when it’s still warm at the end of October and they are still lingering. I look forward to the first snowfall, and if it’s not here by Samhain, I begin to feel sad, and I begin to welcome the first blizzard. I welcome the trees shedding their leaves and going into hibernation, and like every good Canadian, I spend that fateful day raking the leaves so that the grass can breathe underneath the snow.
Then it happens. The first snowfall comes and those little flakes start falling from the sky. Sometimes they sparkle as they fall, other times they are messy wet flakes, and other time they are like dust falling from the sky. Snow has three stages really, the first stage is the wet stage when it is not quite cold enough and as it falls it might stay but it is wet and sticky. This snow is good for packing and creating snowmen and other such snow sculptures out of it. Then there is fluffy snow, and this is when the snow is fluffy but it won’t pack very well into snow balls. The last kind of snow is that which you find underneath the many snow falls of the season, and this snow can only be found in January after the first 2 blizzards of the season have ravaged the lands. This is crystal snow. The snow literally transforms into little ice crystals, which are like sand. As the first snow falls though, I always wait for the snowmen to appear, and I await the first snowball to hit my well padded parka.
I enjoy wearing my hat, my scarf, my mittens, my sweater, my long johns, my boots and my jacket. I enjoy feeling as warm as possible when the temperature outside is as cold as ever. It always seems to be a test of faith, whether one can brave the cold winter weather and win out. Of course, there are days when the whipping wind is too strong and too cold, and the face and nose turn rosy red from the sting. I welcome the sting of the whipping winds, and the sting of the frigid temperatures to the sting of bees and wasps in summer. To me, the whipping wind against my face is the most natural feeling of all.
It wouldn’t be Solstice without the snow frozen on the trees and evergreens. It wouldn’t be winter without the piles of snow littering the ground. It wouldn’t be winter without the frozen pond, without the hills covered in snow. I find myself in love with the white scale coloring of winter, the white on the ground, the dismal gray clouds above, and the faded browns and greens of trees. Then the days become beautiful in January, the snow shines in the bright sun, as we see the clearest of blue skies and smell the freshest frigid air. I never truly feel that sense of belonging until I feel that familiar numbness in my legs, and until I feel the need to wear 2 scarves.
Solstice for us is a time to be indoors, enjoy hot chocolate, and watch as people dust and shake themselves off from the cold. It’s the time to lend our boots and old mittens and other used winter gear to those in need, because we all know how unfair it is for a child without a coat in winter. Take the time to watch the movie “The Day After Tomorrow” and realize that one of the worst deaths is to be frozen alive, so we give what we can to the community and revel in our hot chocolate in hopes that old man winter will have mercy on us and bring the spring early.
As it seems, I love the beginning of Winter, and as the season progresses I begin to hate it more and more. I hate the times I need to call roadside assistance to give my van a boost. I hate it when people think it’s fun to slide snowballs down my back. I hate it when I have to wait 20 minutes for anything in the cold, shivering and attempting to warm my hands in the cold. Imbolc soon comes and we watch the ground hog who does absolutely nothing for us but tell us that it’s either 6 weeks until spring, or 6 more weeks of winter, and while it acknowledges the spring equinox, for us, that doesn’t necessarily mean the end to the snow. By March 21st, the snow is only melting the temperatures are only shifting slowly. It still snows in April, and sometimes it will snow at Beltane. It seems, the one thing we cannot escape from in our natural world is the snow, and therefore, we welcome it with open arms come October, and kindly ask it to stop falling from the sky in March.
My connection with nature is with the personality of winter. Old man winter is my anam cara, and the oldest of nature spirits that I have the strongest of connection with. He has a personality of his own, and a responsibility to the land to bring a resting period to all the nature spirits of spring, summer and fall. I don’t connect with sprites, and I don’t connect with devas or fae, or even with squirrels and butterflies. I feel a sense of belonging within nature when I have the favor of Old Man Winter, and I know that if I am not careful, he is the kind of strong silent ruler that will get revenge on those who curse him. In the fall, I can feel his spirit growing strong, the winds becoming colder, and the days getting longer. I ask him kindly to hold off the ravaging of snow, the dip in the temperatures and the removal of the last rays of the suns light until Samhain. After that point, I welcome the snow, and I welcome the cold, and I faithfully put on my mittens and jacket to venture into the snow. Old man winter might be a hard spirit to deal with, stern, responsible, cold, and sometimes seen as heartless, but old man winter holds the key to the meaning of family, to the meaning of helping those in need, and to sticking together. What happens in the summer in Winnipeg? Everyone leaves Winnipeg for the lake, for the cabin, for summer camp, for vacations. In the winter, everyone, whether family or not has to band together and brave the cold together. Everyone has to trust and be trusted by others to do the right thing and help out their fellow man. Without old man winter, we would not know what it’s like to be stuck in -40 degree weather with a van that won’t start and thankfully, three people who are willing to stop and help us out. Old man winter teaches us what it means to stick together, and should we not be learning the lesson he comes back every year to remind us of our priorities, to remind us to stick to our path, and reminds us of who we are after all the fun of summer has been had. Old man winter makes us huddle together and rely on each other, old man winter makes us do our homework, study hard, and reach the top.
When I was in Las Vegas, our van broke down, the battery died completely, and we were stranded. I couldn’t even call onstar because my cell phone wasn’t working. I watched countless people pass us by, all on their way to the luxor, too busy to stop and help us due to their gambling addiction. Finally, a couple pulled up next to us, and I went up to the man and told him I have a funny story for him if he could help us. He stopped, laughed at the irony of not being able to use my onstar button in my van to call onstar because I have no power, and he lent me his cell phone. His wife looked at our Manitoba plates, and tells us it’s a wonder they caught us here, they’re Winnipeggers too! It just goes to show that the conditioning received in Winnipeg because of old man winter, truly brings us closer together as people, and teaches us what it means to be an ambassador of the land.
Old man winter has his jovial side as well, he creates for us a winter wonderland, the lake freezes over, along with the rivers and we can go skating, we can toboggan down the hills covered in snow, we can play hockey and ringette, and learn figure skating. We can make forts and tunnels and quinzees and snowmen and snow angels. We can eat the snow, but the rule is, never eat yellow snow. Old man winter creates for us his perfection of the season, to see the beauty in the hibernation of the land. It is true, that every child in Canada simply grows up with the knowledge of old man winter, some days we hear him whistling in the wind, and other days, when we know we have not appreciated his winter wonderland, he dumps on us the strongest of blizzards of the season and reminds us why we must not be at odds with one another, but why we must help each other in life. Old man winter is the strong father figure guiding the lands through hibernation, through the land’s cycle of death and rebirth, and in Canada, we have the pleasure of seeing the worst of winters, the muckiest of springs, the most vibrant of summers, and the most colorful autumns in the world. We get the true experience of the cycle of the land.
This is the true embodiment of the anam cara where I live, and my shelter of belonging is within the winter wonderland created by the oldest of nature spirits, old man winter.