The ranting grandmother

(Image : Last Ray of Hope, collage on cardboard, SG 08)

…The image that people have of Druids is usually of white-bearded old men, doddering through the forest, with laurel in their long hair and a golden sickle to gather mistletoe or, more likely, to open the heart of a beautiful and willing virgin (I mean, litterally). Ridiculous. Truly, it´s time to do away with the cobwebs!

When I say that I am a Druid, I get this weird look, and then the question… Aaaah…Do you…err…cut mistletoe with a golden sickle, at midnight on full moons? *discreet chuckle,chukle* …Well, I can´t really see you doing that! Although …with you, one never knows…*more cackle*

Well, no. I don´t waltz through the trees in a white robe on dark nights, with wolves howling at my heels. Though…mmm…I like the image.

 You might see my involvement with Druidry as an ecopsychological stance. In my opinion it is urgent that we try to get to understand – to “grok” – the planet that we infest, lol. To understand, we have to observe. To observe we have to dedicate time and energy. To dedicate time and energy, we have to set priorities. And yes, for me, being with Nature, understanding Nature, including and first of all my very own inner one, wholeheartedly, is a priority.

What prompted my rant today? I just read an article saying that if we go on with our habits of consumption we will need another planet by 2030. That´s in 22 years. My grand´son will not even be 25, and the planet will be in such a disastrous state that we will probably have gone back to the caves(if we get to 2030, that is). Not a very nice perspective, to say the least.

 I am a woman, I am a grand´mother, and I am a Druid. I will speak for the trees (and for my unborn grandchildren, unto the seventh generation…). And no, I will not put on white robes – I will just be myself, jeans, a sweatshirt and my good old walking shoes. Have you hugged a tree, lately?

Damn it, is everyone sleeping???

PS.- Yeah, I have looked up the word consumption, and it means exactly what I want to say : the act of consuming, as by use, decay, or destruction, Pathology : progressive wasting of the body.

Yeah, yeah.

Double

My beloved Nwyfre

(Image : The Dragon Nwyfre and Star of Erendil tattoo, September 09)

…Spain has a very clear idea of how a woman “of my age” should go about. Clipped (tinted) hair, no-nonsense shoes, dark clothes, – or high heels  and lots and lots of make-up for po-mo grannies, depending on the social class you belong to. (The lower, the less make up is tolerated, and in any case you also have to wear some gold, otherwise they will make you feel that you have been a failure as a woman!) The right mix is between “not-sexy” and “gone to seed”, meaning “not dangerous, not a woman anymore”. Oh yes, such are things around here!…Very primitive, sometimes. Won´t tell you how they treat post-menopausal beings…Doctors, nurses, dentists, the “healing” profession, they treat you as if you were underage and slightly gaga. (That is if you are not wearing gold, in which case, they do start to treat you as a potential human being, even addressing you by your first name.) Whoah. Mmm… I walk around with yesteryear´s Nikes, natural hair (love the few white ones!), and a big tattoo on my forearm.

Told Mika : Did you see how the salesgirl looked at the tattoo?

Mika : Yeah, yeah, – that, and your dragon eyes!!

Other salesgirl : “Hey, nice sticker you got there!” (Me, thinking: It´s not a sticker, you… Bambi, they etched it into my skin with a needle!) Nice middle-aged smile, showing off my wrinkles…hahaha, very funny!

(Well, yes, I still put on my war paint every morning, can´t be too cautious, I don´t feel dressed without Kajal eyes!) 

 ;-)

Wild wo/man

 (Image : Wild man, soul card 134, collage on paper, SG, ‘09)

No, I do not believe that there once was a stage of pure innocence for our species. I don´t believe in the innocent Wild Man. I think we have never, ever, been that civilized, even with wars, and the nuclear threat and crazy laboratory viruses frolicking about. (Try the Great Plague, and see if you like it!)

I believe in unfettering our heart, and that would be a real wildness! Just imagine, an entirely new world based on the heart, on compassion (=passion with), on helping each other, and sustaining each other, across borders, right across the continents, and if this sounds very lame to you, try being a homeless person on the streets of any poor barrio in any big city of the world!…And the old Druids were not an exception, they killed people in the most horrible ritual ways (OK, OK, we don´t have any proof ´bout that, don´t spit at me!) And if you think that the word “heart” is a very ”feminine” thing to say, you´re very wrong, my friend, I think that a wild heart is the absolute prerequisite nowadays for a man to be attractive and sexy to any contemporary female witch (of any age, and that includes me!). A wild heart smells good, hahaha!

…There is a wild light hidden somewhere in us human beings, and I think when we discover that, I mean when we discover that collectively, as a species, we´ll have made the greatest discovery of all times. There will be nothing to stop us ever again. And then, maybe our cousins from the Stars will finally reveal themselves to us, and we´ll make it, out of breath but proudly, to the Galactic Council…

Naaah…just kiddin´! (About the Galactic Council stuff, not about the untamed wilderness of my own heart…)

Happy Halloween

(Image : Spirit of Halloween, SG, 31.10.09, collage on cardboard.)

A happy Halloween, everybody! My blessings for this  night of the “thinning of the veil”…

Have fun!

Real Druids in a real world

(Image : Panoramix, the archetypal image of a Druid, lol)

…I am fascinated by the Search Engine Terms that appear on my blog´s stats page. And quite fascinated too by how this blog comes up in various searches. Some of the search terms come so close to what this blog is, and what my life  and this Project I´m participating in are, like …Wizard of the Green Fire, How to become a Druid in the real world…and today…Rebellious Sanctuary, that I feel like jumping up and down (with a Druid flag!…) “We´re here! We´re here!” Hahaha. The mad mad and astonishing magic of the Internet!…

I´m interested because behind each of these searches there might be a person looking for something, a person in a quest, the Net being like a Highway of the Wyrd…;-) How do you become a real Druid in the real world? That´s a good one! So many circumstances shape a destiny that there is really no one answer, a real Druid´s training is very, very long. And you start with statements like this (that I read in one of Jean Markale´s books about the Celts) : “There are no real Druids anymore, their sacred language is dead and lost, the Celts have disappeared under tons of pseudo-Christian ruins and wreckage”, and I myself would add : there is not one chance in Hel (Hel= the Celtic Underworld) that you will become a *real* Druid…”, and even less in the “real” world of po-mo. Wow. Thank you very much.

But the advice is priceless. This is the real deal, the down-to-its-brass-tacks deal, about Druidry: there are no “real” Druids anymore. Those that gambol about in long white robes are living a fantasy (at best) and good luck to them, I have no problem with that. To each her own. Lol.

So. Why – again – do I call myself a Druid? And not, say, an environmentalist, or a psychotherapist, or an artist. Well, you see, I am a healer and a politician (in esoteric terms) and an artist. At the same time. Twenty-two years of hard training in these three spheres entitle me to say that I know a bit about what I am doing. So I actually choose to call myself a Druid (apart from the hard fact that I actually am a Druid grad of OBOD now, a Druid Associate, or a Druid Companion).  That means, to me, that I can work with Bards (art, writing, poetry, music), and with Ovates (ecopsychology), and even with Druids – *gasp* - (psychosynthesis and Dharma quest). The Druids of old worked on these three levels at the same time, it was part of who they were in their society, a function which has completely disappeared, and which, by chance and destiny, I am called to restore.

 Actually, to tell you the truth, I am the Panoramix of the Earth Sanctuary ( …see what I mean?) Get the mead horn on the table, and start the music!…And for Cernunnos´s sake, SHUT THAT BARD UP! Hahaha

Eat your heart out, folks!

(Image : The Earth Sanctuary, Samhain 2009)

…I finally graduated from my OBOD Correspondence Course, after four years of intense Journeying!…Got the prettiest paper to vouch for it, all Celtic whirls and knotwork, and real red wax seals! *sigh*

Now my Journey as a Druid really begins. Got the rest of my life to walk my talk.

 

Where´s the dishwasher?

(Image : Jill, that´s the dragon tattoo I got, only more beautiful! I´ll try to get a pic of my arm ) 

…A friend who visited us from the Netherlands offered to wash the dishes after lunch, and when she came to our kitchen, she said “Where´s your dishwasher?”

I said : “Here I am, I am the dishwasher here!”

Her mouth fell slightly. Errr…you…always do it like that ?

Yeeess, “like that”, with my pretty wrinkled hands in cold water in summer and (blessedly) warm water in winter, and I do actually rather enjoy it!

Whoa. The lady was speechless.

Ah well, *sigh*. Seems we don´t go with progress, we still insist on our simple ways (hahaha). Nah, we don´t need a dishwasher of the mechanical type. Now if you would present us with a George Clooney type of dish washer, maybe…maybe…;-)

Angel Mandalas – 2

(Images : SG, 09, pencils and watercolors)

More Angel Mandalas…

Angel Mandalas

(Image : Angel Mandala, SG, 09)

…Finished my Module 3 of Diana Cooper´s Angel Correspondence Course. And no, I haven´t gone gaga, for me angels are bits of our potential energy that we cannot recognize yet as our own, so it´s nice to know more about the flying armada, lol. Been involved with the angelical Hierarchy, and it´s been really nice, from Baby Alex as Little Angel, to the Archangel Michael and His companions, lots and lots of material for me as an artist. I was really inspired to draw some magnificent Mandalas.

Also, I have finished my OBOD Course, and am “officially” a Druid grad now. It´s been a lot – a LOT - of work, and very intense, for four years (not to mention the twenty years before joining OBOD, which were my real Training as a Druid). So now I have to think about the next step. I feel a bit disoriented without the Gwersu (OBOD monographies).

Anyway-s, this is Samhain, and I´m sorting stuff, as I told you.

…Have to think ´bout this blog too. Happy Birthday, blog, you´re one year old now! (And you have travelled a lot!…)

Love and Blessings Most Bright to all readers,

The Lady Dragon.

(PS.- Yup, next blog I hope will be a picture of my new dragon tattoo. Have to stop Mika in her tracks, she´s the one with the super camera and is up and down the stairs preparing for a visit from England.)

Hurly-burly

(Image : Hidden Treasure, collage work, SG, 05)

…I´m whirling about with Samhain energies, and taking Findhorn Flower Essences (Transformation, lol). Don´t know that they do what they say in the leaflet, but a little bit of brandy sure settles my heart, lol.

Some things in my life are now withering, are quite limp and lifeless, so they are going directly into the Cauldron of the Goddess, for Her to dissolve and compost.

Some other things are in the middle of a dance of transformation, and I cannot recognize what is happening. So I just breathe deep, feeling woozy…

Some things are long dead, and so Tzass! chuck out, no second thoughts.

And then, there are the sore spots that still smart a bit. It´s been an intense year, so I´m kind of nursing the sore spots, not yet ready to let them go.

It´s Samhain again, this blog is just a year old, and the Cailleach is rattling the ole bones at me!

Pah. Not afraid. I am so close to being a Cailleach myself…

PS.- Am a Druid grad at OBOD now, too. And got me a dragon tattoo, a big one, right on my forearm.

What??? Not elegant ? Hahaha! I told them: I´m the right age, no regrets.

Luna di Napoli

Again, just for fun.

That´s Luna wearing my sunglasses.

La Cooosa Noooostra…

(Translation = Ecco, Don´t-e Mess-e wizzz ma Faamili… Capicchi?)

(The Godmother, I)

Walking my talk

(Image : The Crazy Book, Altered Journal, SG, 07)

This morning, as I was forking dead bramble branches onto a cart – I was thinking how my way of sustaining peace has changed through the years…
In the Sixties I was a flower child, complete with kohl around my eyes and multicoloured Afghan dresses (been one of the first ones to hit the streets of my provincial hometown, Geneva, Switzerland, with a blue-and-red Afghan dress and red leather boots!).
I had this slogan wrapped around my head (in a bandanna) ”Peace, Now”, and would endlessly sit in meetings, and rallies – even sit on the ground with my buddies, if it was needed. And we would talk, talk, talk. Talk our heads off sometimes it seemed. Did we ever achieve anything ? The question remains open. I don´t think we impacted much on international politics, lol!
I know I changed. Bit by bit I came down from Cloud Nine, first of all because what with the Afghan dresses and all, dangly Indian earrings and my pretty little self – nobody ever took me seriously enough to actually ask me how I would bring about my programme of “Peace, Now”… And thank you Goddess, nobody ever really asked, because at that time it was all a question of feeling, I couldn´t have told anyone how I meant to bring about Peace (capital P) and even less…World Peace. And anyway, at that time, it was the bearded, long-haired cutie pie that I was accompanying (…being the decoration of, shall we say) that was having the lead role in everything. (Had to get to grips with that one too, lol)
More than thirty five years have passed, 35 five years which have mauled my life, have shaped it, sculptured it; I had ample time to swallow, regurgitate, vomit sometimes, and digest, digest, digest. Do my homework. I´m a wild crone now. I´m a “woman who runs with wolves” now. I have “hugged the monster”, and made my inner peace with my Animus. I´m OK. Now. So. What about Peace? Mmmmm…? Well, I´ll give it to you in a nutshell, a quintaessential nutshell mind you. I have learned that nothing, but NOTHING – changes things so rapidly and neatly as…taking action! Don´t talk about it : do it! Walk your talk. That´s all. End of sermon. Says the wild crone, sweating like hell, shovelling another prickly forkful of brown brambles into the cart, one sunny Spanish midday, in the year 8 of the Third Millennium. (Hey! That´s Year 21 after the Harmonic Convergence of 1987! Damn my bodicious gollywag, we´re getting there: our intention for planetary healing has come of age! )

*Old woman of the mountain cackling through her teeth*

The Power of Myth

(Image : A view of the Earth Sanctuary, pic SG, 2002)

 

…This phrase has been going through my mind a lot during this week :

“Through myths we are connected to the history of the world.”

The creation of Myths precedes the formation of Archetypes, which are, as it were, the teaching tools of a Universal Mind that is a rather unused level of our  psyche. The knowledge and inner experience of Archetypes, what they are and how they work, give us a conscious choice of aligning to the history of the world, – I am not referring here to the history of books, the history of men-kind (patriarchy), but rather to the hidden history of human emotions as it has remained engraved in the human psyche, and is somehow transmitted from generation to generation. Someone said that a myth is a story that we know about, even if we have never heard of it. On the individual level, as we grow older, layer upon layer of our own history is stored in the brain, and there comes a time when it becomes necessary to create our own story, the story of our own life, the story of our very own Hero´s Journey, our own Myth. We can then align this personal myth to the evolutionary Pull that the archetypal world indicates in more universal Myths, instead of remaining a prisoner of the restraining conditionings and identifications in the Collective Unconscious. That is, we can, if we want to, if we know how to, put our own Myth, our tiny little canoe, into the great mythical World River, where it will enhance the already existing stories of the world. This can give us incredible strength, because we know that through this link in our mind we will go on, in the Myth. That way, the archetypal world transcends our personal earthly existence and can prolong the most important experiences of who we have been. We will survive, but we will be transformed.

Myths are the very inner fabric which can restore our deepest relationship to the world, if we can align with them, and understand them.

To all our friends out there!

For some mysterious reason (which we are clarifying) our website is down.

If you want to have a look where we live, here is a picture folder in my PictureTrail gallery about the Sanctuary:

                                 http://www.picturetrail.com/gea2

All the pics are taken either by me, or by someone of our team.

Website OK now

Phewww…the website is online again! Just a snaggyglitch with the annual payment, that I totally forgot! What a weird impression to suddenly sort of go blind in the WWW!

This blog represents only one member of the Earth Sanctuary Project, and as such, is of course autonomous, but I prefer readers to know what the context of the blog (and its author) is. To just share  intimacies through “just another blog” wouldn´t be worth it, I think. But this is a pioneer project, a druid grove and an ecopsychological experiment in answer to “An Inconvenient Truth”, so the intimacies are meant to be flashes of what happens when some people decide to take the leap, and actually get deeply involved with planetary healing. And so…down the rabbit hole!  

… Happy Reading!

I love chaos Journal

I have just finished a journal called “I love chaos”, and really got going! Sometimes when I do collage work I get this “what the heck” feeling, a sort of exuberant naughtiness, the strong feeling that I work “outside the box”. When I get there, I don´t even know if I like what I do or not, it´s just not the point!

Some interesting ideas emerged from this journal…like,

Words structure space.

No colour is better than another.

Chaos is the mother of possibility.

…Had me a real good time not-thinking!

The Wizard, *somewhat disheveled*

Thinking inside the box

Just to show you what “thinking inside the box” really means for me, here is my Little Peace Shrine, matchbox-size. (Yes, it´s an ordinary matchbox.)

Dreamers and Doers

(Image : Child of Gaia, collage on paper, SG, ‘02)

On a certain Druid Message Board, my daughter (who is an Ovate at OBOD) tickled people saying that it wasn´t the same thing at all, as a Druid, to fight for a concrete bit of land, than to imagine fantastic relationships with trees, for example in some meditations. “I can´t breathe your imaginary trees” she aptly concluded.

That, which was a conscious provocation on her part from the word go, really upset the apple cart! People fell on her with axes and bludgeoned her until she retired from the said Message Board. I know that people sensed her provocation, and might have answered to that, but one comment was worthy of note, a man said “if your theory was true, 90% of this Message Board would not be valid in the context of Druidry”. Ha. Interesting. And if it was true ? I mean, what if it was true that 90% of the people who say they are interested in Druidry don´t get off their butts to do something about it ?? …

Anyway, some people on the Druid Path are obviously not very peaceful. She later “recanted”, did the proverbial and diplomatic knee jerk thingie in the name of peace and harmony, and things came back to “normal”.

However, her last comment really got me thinking, and I think that she is right. It is all too easy to become a “Flat Foot Druid” as she calls them, someone who fantasizes about strange encounters with nature divinities in the dark woods of their mind, but does not even think of changing their real life to live more in accordance with their spiritual beliefs.

For example. You want to “save the planet”? Try to buy a piece of land! And see the difference between Dreaming and Doing. People told her that it was easy for her to say that she was active ecologically speaking since she owned (well, her family owns)  a hundred and eight acres of mountain! Some other people said that they were protecting the trees in their town´s park, and isn´´t that a druid thing to do ? Oh. Aren´t the local councils supposed to do that ? Oh ! You mean…spiritually ? Oooooh. Now that makes a huge difference for the trees!

Easy ???? EASY ?*”&%&&$$$??¡¡¡!!!??? (My computer doesn´t show the Euro sign, hahaha). No, it wasn´t easy to create the Earth Sanctuary. It was a bloody miracle, and not at all of the divine kind! It was a human miracle, of the people who committed because of their ecopsychological understanding, and stayed focused for over two decades. It is a long story – and truly we saw exactly why people prefer to adopt a cactus and have it living on their balcony!

Now, of course, twenty-two years later, some of the horridness has dimmed, and we are, well…comfortable. We are not exactly living in luxury, though luxury is a flexible concept. Is luxury about having running water? Some African women have to walk ten miles, back and forth, daily, to get to more or less clean water. Is luxury about having an electric heater? Television?  A computer? A good car ? Seen that way, we live in incredible luxury and also appreciate it deeply every single day. And no, I don´t care if I don´t have the latest electronic gadget, I only ever use my cell phone to contact with my other daughter who lives down at the village. Two calls a week, period. Luxury is extremely relative.

Being a Druid is about loving the Earth, and I understand that this love is not always manifested in being able to buy a huge property. Gosh,  I understand that, and I bless your cactus on your balcony, – but it is not the same.

And let it be known that I am a Dreamer, not a doer – and that it cost me a tooth or two to accept that thousands of trees and animals are under my direct responsibility now.

Think about it.

You cannot breathe imaginary trees.

PS.-And please watch “An Inconvenient Truth” again.

The Wizard and the Magic Shelves

 There is a piece of furniture in our dining-room that is quite-quite magical.

At first glance it´s a bizarre mix of stuff, but you just take down one – ONE! – book, and you may not come back to reality for a hundred years…! You will be trans-materialized to Faerieland, where nothing is as it seems, and you will have lots of wondrous encounters…treacherous trolls, gnomes, ladies of the forest, the Green Man, and perhaps even the Queen of Faerie…mmm…masked, and smiling dangerously…

These are the shelves where I put my latest art, my Magickal Recipes books, my journal, diaries and altered books. *grin*

So. You are warned. This is a Star Gate!

PS.-  Christmas time is my time for glitzy shopping. The rest of the year I do not find my kind of stuff so much, shiny, blitzy, glittery Faerie lights, your friendly neighbourhood wizard roams around the supermarkets, aaahing and oooohing…

Faces of the Goddess

 

(Images : Faces of the Goddess, Heart of the Cailleach, The Morrigan, and The Lady Niwalen (Spring), collage on paper, SG, 2008)

The Goddess is like a mountain, and She goes on and on…

Cooking as a Druidic art

 Hehehe, bet you never thought about that one!

Well, you see, I´m not Gaelic, or Celtic anything (that is, if you discard the fact that the Celts had big settlements in Switzerland!) – I don´t even know how you pronounce Iolo Morganwg (…do you?) What I do know, is that I am deeply invested in my Gaian life.  So deeply that I do not see a boundary between body, mind and spirit – they´re just functions of the same Life, that, incidentally, is me.

Who is me? As in “woman, mother, ex-wife, daughter, therapist, artist”? Nope. As in : L-I-F-E. I´m a life. I´m an alive entity, living on this planet. (I do know that it´s a planet, that´s more than some prehistoric Druids knew, I bet!). Accidentally, I´m a woman, so I also do know about dirt, nappies, rashes, caca, illnesses, bad karma, and some snaggyglitch stuff which would never – ever – come into the mind of some of the elevated white-clad bearded smoothies I know who call themselves…errr…druids.

So, my kind of Druidry…whatchamacallit?

Ah yes…the Female Side of Druidry. *giggle*

Anyway, don´t get me going. I was talking about cooking.

Have you ever thought about the pure magic that an apple pie is? Or a gratin dauphinois? From the elemental (somewhat dirty) ingredients (from your garden, or from the supermarket, oh! that´s another interesting discussion!…) to the fragrant appearance on the community´s table…and then, oh then, into your lovely druid body…this Magician, this Wizard, sustains and celebrates the LIFE that is you.

…She says, *waving her big serving spoon*, now, d’ you want some of that…errr…lovely grub, or what?

PS.- Aaaah…and the wine, the wine!

What is it about names…

(Image : The entry to “Hobbiton”, SG, 2002)

What is it about names, that touches our heart so ?

Each name has its energy, and evokes an image, or a sound, and touches a different level of being.
They have been knowing this for millenia in India.
These sacred sounds are called “mantrams”.

For me, an artist, the names that Tolkien invented are “mantrams”. I don´t know why. They just evoke a host of images that feel deeply satisfying to my soul.

That is why we baptized the different projects at the Earth Sanctuary with names taken out of Tolkien´s work.
It enables us to touch our daily work emotionally, to wrap our heart around feelings that otherwise would possibly be unrelated to the physical world.

“I´m clearing the wood” sounds very different from “Today I´m working in Lothlorien”, or…”Hobbiton needs a bit of a trimming, let´s go see”!

As I said elsewhere, myths are what connect us to the history of the world, and that is precisely Tolkien´s genius. This is ART, art´s function being to show what ordinary people don´t see anymore.

As Dominic Monaghan (Merry, in the LOTR movies) says in the Extended DVD Bonus material of the Two Towers, “The most important thread in the movies is the environmental issue.”
That is quite true, and though it may not be really voluntary on Peter Jackson´s part (we do not know), it is easy to “read” this part of the LOTR Saga in this way.
Saruman is the great big baddie who rips out all the trees, to make big fires to forge Orc weapons.
Treebeard and the Ents go to war and conquer Orthanc exploding the dam and freeing the waters behind it.
Very metaphorical, lol.

The Earth Sanctuary being a deep ecology project, we profoundly resonate with Tolkien saying through Treebeard  (do you remember the booming voice?) : “Nobody cares for the woods anymore”…

And also with Merry saying to Treebeard :”You are part of this world, aren´t you?” trying to convince Treebeard and the Ents to participate in the “war of the ring”.

It all sounds very familiar, and it is infinitely satisfying to be able to know that we too are active participants in this battle to free “Middle-Earth”. Our way of doing that, is to have claimed this mountain and to protect it as far as we can, and as deeply as we can, from the craziness of the Orcs unleashed by “Saruman”.

It is almost a political statement, this “I´m working in Hobbiton today”! The Shire is Alive. Frodo Lives. Here, in this tiny kingdom, the Elves won´t have to leave Middle-Earth. We need them, the Elves are a part of who we are as Earthlings, a part that we have mostly forgotten and so we are making a space for them, in ourselves first. Yes, we have forgotten who we are. High Elves, and Ents, and dragons, and citizens of a very different Earth. 
Symbolically speaking, you understand ? (We don´t “see” fairies, though we have the profoundest artistic soul-link with them.)

So, all in all, lol, that is why there is a Hobbiton, a Bag End, a Lothlorien, and even, hahahaha, a Fangorn forest at the Earth Sanctuary… A Fangorn forest which we haven´t touched yet, oh my Goddess, it is so dark, so tangled, so deliciously MOSSY!…

Putting all this in this blog is a way for me to bid for a world that is disappearing fast. And also a mission statement, who are humans without the world that gave birth to them, eh? We are Earthlings. We still have to reclaim our deepest spiritual heritage. We are Gaians, 70% of our bodies are WATER. We are uniquely made for the beauty of this world.

Now, the icing on the cake and the fun part of this, is that the Earth Sanctuary being the size of a small mountain, it is “real-er” than a movie shot in a parking lot, lol. Bag End actually LOOKS like Bag End (with a square door, until we find a good carpenter!…), and you could (if you wood, hehehehe) build “flets” in the trees of “Lothlorien”! This place is huge and it´s real. So it´s possible to “breathe Middle-Earth”… Though we don´t dress as Elves (yet!)…

Been thinking about Medieval banquets in the “dungeons” - mmm…. we have a whole host of “halls” which were storing spaces for the former owners. See ? Banquets with Elven banners and all? And REAL bards singing?…
…That´ll be the day!

The Lady Dragon,
From her Lair.

 

Walker Between the Worlds

(Image : “Gift of the Eagle”, soul card 87, SG, 2005)

…”Each year that passes, like the Phoenix, she is reborn.

Because she rides the wind and shape-shifts in between seasons, she can throw off her mantle, her feathered mantle, she can just let it fall to the ground.

She disappears, you cannot see her anymore. She is a walker between the worlds, she can change her life as one changes a dress.

Her freedom had a price.

Her body is scarred from head to foot, pretty scars that swirl around her neck, take a leisurely path between her breasts, and then turn around her hips and cascade down towards her knees. She´s not afraid.
What can she lose, except a new layer of dead leaves ?

Beneath the bones of her chest, a great sun is glowing.”

(The Secret Diaries, SG, 2009)

 

 

 

 

The Peace of Wild Things

(Image: The Mediterranean, seen from our mountain, Mika, ‘07)

From the mountain which contains the secret valley like a cup, the hills gently fall down to the Mediterranean.
On a clear day you can see forever – right to the old Roman fortress that was built near the sea.
You can see the tankers sliding on the silver waters, and at night, the lights shimmer in the dark, a human presence that we need to balance the valley and its mysteries.

On misty days, however, one looses the sense of perspective, and the big stone terrace feels like the helm of an enormous ship that is navigating the clouds..

And here is a poem by Wendell Berry, which I would share with you, this day.

 

“THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS”
by Wendell Berry

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water. 
For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. “

…As I look over the hills of my home, over the green hills falling gently towards the sea, I can truly feel what the poet means.

“Resting in the grace of the world”, indeed.

 

 

 

The Golden River

(Image : The Little Book of the Goddess, altered calendar, SG, 06)

 

 

 

 

 

 I finally turned my back
on the Path Which Doesn´t Lead Anywhere.

And though I felt lonely,
I felt free.
And the little brook sang and sang,
And the bees frollicked around me,
And my blood turned to a golden river.

Biosphere 2030

(Image : The Angel, accidental pic, SG, 08)

This is also a piece of writing by Wendell Berry (American Poet, Novelist and Farmer), that I want to share with you, from the book “Clearing”, (Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch, 1974).
It is prophetic,  deep and moving and we sometimes use it as a Mission Statement for the Earth Sanctuary.

 

 

A Vision

If we will have the wisdom to survive,
to stand like slow growing trees
on a ruined place, renewing, enriching it,
if we will make our seasons welcome here,
asking not too much of earth or heaven,
then a long time after we are dead
the lives our lives prepare will live
here, their houses strongly placed
along the valley sides, fields and gardens
rich in the windrows.

 

The river will run clear,
as we will never know it,
and over it, birdsong like a canopy.
On the level of the hills will be
green meadows, stock bells in noon shade.
On the steeps where greed and ignorance cut down
the old forest, an old forest will stand,
its rich leaf-fall drifting on its roots.

The veins of forgotten springs will have opened.
Families will be singing in the fields.
In their voices they will hear a music
risen out of the ground. They will take
nothing from the ground they will not return,
whatever the grief at parting. Memory,
native to this valley, will spread over it
like a grove, and memory will grow
into legend, legend into song, song
into sacrament. The abundance of this place,
the songs of its people and its birds,
will be health and wisdom and indwelling
light. This is no dream of paradise.
Its hardship is its possibility.

And here is a link to an Interview with Wendell Berry : http://arts.envirolink.org/interviews_and_conversations/WendellBerry.html

PS.- Biosphere 2030 is a project at the Sanctuary, by Mika and Adam.

 

Moony me

(Image : Soul card 23, SG, 05)

Things that grow, soil, dirt, darkness, damp, lush, magic, forest, water, mist…The moon draws life out of the soil.

Pregnant, full, ripe, tide, cycles, fertile, change, transformation, trance-formation. Moon, not cold. Warm, nice, moist, nest, egg, ovules. Embrace, inside, space. Dark spaces. Mature.

*Cheshire cat grin*

Rosie Brambleberry

(Image : Roots of Time, Brocéliande 05, SG, collage on paper)

I share a hobbit´s delight in things that are growing, and the Goddess has given me a whole kingdom in the mountains to witness how Her reign and Her grace sustain the living world. 
One of the plants that I most appreciate is the ubiquitous bramble bush. Gardeners have a horror of the ever-invading brambles, but I just love them. And I´m the laughing stock of a certain group, mmmm, better not tell names methinks. You know who you are.

Since the day a biologist told me that the function of brambles is to grow in protection of the earth, particularly after the disturbing passage of the human ape, I appreciate them even more, and let them prosper wherever they shoot up, within reasonable sharing of the territory.
They are so beautiful too, so strong, so alive, vibrant. And they give us berries too, to make delicious jams. Ever tried my Autumn Crumble?

Don´t touch my brambles, I say! Which earned me the name of “Rosie Brambleberry”…

Of the Shire, of course.

 

The barking frog

(Image: The lady Luna, sitting unashamedly in a corner of the veg patch, which she knows is forbidden territory. Do I detect a hint of provocation in her eyes???…)

Hey, we have a barking frog down by the swimming pool.

Down the garden path there is a lovely square well of water that juts out from the giant swimming pool (a water reservoir really, in case of fires). Since nobody ever disturbed the well, it is covered with green moss, flowers are even growing there, it´s like a tiny self-contained ecosystem, lol.

And in it, lives a frog.

Now, this is one special frog, because it barks, and only whenever one of our doggies is barking.
We don´t hear the frog usually, except very discreetly on very warm summer nights. Or maybe on a Full Moon.
But whenever one of the doggies barks at something  (Chispa or Luna – our …mmmm… “guardian dogs”, err… dragons, one tiny black-and-white miniature Pinscher, and one black-and-white English Cocker Spaniel), the frog begins a concert too.

“Crew-ee-ee tock-tock-tock!”
Now, does that sound like a frog, eh ?

OK, so we have a miniature goblin elemental down by the swimming pool.

Sort of scary, eh?

PS .- One of these days, if I see that frog, I will try to kiss him, see what happens!

Shrine to Time

(Image : “Traces”, a visual journal, SG, 08)

Artistically speaking, I have always been fascinated by traces, marks, blobs, stains, all the ways that the white paper loses its pristine whiteness, all the bits of paper that are on my table after I have finished a project. I never have the heart to throw them away, they are so beautiful! So I started a nice collection, which has now become another visual journal called “Traces”.

I have been wondering what all the fascination is about, and I think now that it has to do with the passing of Time on objects and on people. We live in a world that praises youth and beauty, yet this such a fragmentary view of reality. I love reading weathered faces in the same way that I love my bits of unlikely stains. Time erodes, time takes away the virginity of the white paper and of the beautiful face, and it is so much more poignant this way. Faces become interesting as Time passes, because you finally see the person, not the ideal or the possibility of the person. And the white paper becomes art.

We live in a society that for base commercial reasons detests old age (can´t fix it!) and fading beauties; it hates death with a vengeance, and that is why this society is in such a deep state of unbalance, in a pretty horrible state of denial, actually.

So I feel damn good about putting the dirty, the spoiled, the disintegrating, the broken, in their rightful places : beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the passing of Time is inevitable.

On Becoming a Druid

(Image : The Sacred Mountain, painting, SG, 1996)

So, they ask me, how do you become a Druid? And is it for real ?

Images of Walt Disney´s Merlin, and of Gandalf, swim before my eyes. For real ?

You bet!

Oh, little problem : I don’t have a beard or a willie.

Never mind. This is 2008. Right?

It is said that a Druid´s training takes 20 years. At least. So, how come I did it in three?

That is not counting the fact that I started in the middle of the Harmonic Convergence in 1987.

Yes, do you remember ? We pledged, in the night from the 16^th to the 17^th of August, that year, that fateful year, that we would do something for Mother Gaia. I did. What about you ? Were you even born?   

I came to OBOD (Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids, UK) in 2005, but I will always be grateful that the biggest part of my training as a Druid was already done. I “only” had to pass through the three grades of OBOD, which I did in three years, pass through the initiations and indications of the Gwersu, and here I am, 22 years later. Presenting, your friendly neighbourhood Druid, at long last.

The first grade of OBOD is really a lovely one. You explore the Artist in yourself, you learn about Celtic mythology, the rituals, the Wheel of the Year. The second one, that of Ovate, is a bit more mysterious. You are led into your own deep inner Forest, and you yourself have to find a path out of the tangle! The third, that of Druid, is about owning your spiritual authority, your personal Voice in the World. That is a very brief resumé, in fact you can get totally lost a dozen times, in your own complexities, and some people take a very long and winding Path towards their accomplishment.

At the end, you are supposed to come out of your Journey with an autonomous Druid project, or at least that is what I understand. OBOD never hands you your journey on a platter, and that helps you to become really independent, if you weren´t to begin with.

How do we know that we are Druids ? My friends and colleagues at OBOD would probably say…Mmmm…you know it in your heart. *Chuckle-chuckle*. Besides, your contacts in the Otherworld tell you. Period.*More chuckle*

I would say : When you actually start to behave like a useful (to Gaia) human being. We are all Druids, yes, even Al Gore! However, you may need a little training, which depends on how stubborn you are in your very old beliefs about modern reality. The Matrix is damn hard to undo, all those little ciphers wrapped around your head get to be quite annoying, you have to de-hypnotize, really. (Which will be harder, methinks, than receiving four Gwersu a month for a few years…)

It´s been a long long Journey for me. Now I am really an Earthling. Only an Earthling. I wonder at the stars, at the growth of trees, at babies, at the lines in my face, at everything. The more I forsake hard knowledge (2 + 2 = 4), the more I wonder. What is this planet ? Paradise? For Earthlings, it could be. So, how about starting to work together towards it ? Bit by bit, tree by tree, stone by stone, acre by acre?…

The Druid grade, for me personally, is a synthesis, not only of the three grades, but of the rest of my spiritual Journey since it began, 42 years back. The image of the Celtic Triple Knot comes to mind. Three, working as one:

I will always be a Bard, art being my link to the world. I will always be an Ovate, for the great Mysteries of the Deep Forest, for the the Emerald Fire, for my encounter with the Goddess… And I will always be a Druid, and a leader.

And I still don´t have a beard. Or a …Never mind.

(Beware, women out there, you actually do get to meet some prejudices along the way, and I understand that. Women meddling with men´s affairs? Fatal business. *Chortling*. So now, not only do we bear children, not only do we have big, black cauldrons, but we also have staffs and wands? Hehehe. Just remember that in the Celtic world, women were also warriors, and that there are some wonderful examples of women taking a leading role. Besides, Herne, dearest, where is your cauldron?))

My favorite example of what a Druid´s role really is, what it could be even in the modern world (Just Imagine!), is that of a Druid being able to stand in-between two armies, and send everybody home. Such was their authority in their own times, and that is the kind of authority that would be necessary nowadays. Just send the screaming apes home, to do something useful for a change! And then get involved into a meeting with the chiefs, and help them see a better way to settle differences. (No, I´m not a bloody “fiminist”, I´m a very astute Crone!)

In fact, I would counsel the “wymyn” too. Stop whining, girl, and git to work THINKING, or why do you think that you have a brain in the first place!

Don´t like it ?

Ha. But that is exactly what Druids (or Crones for that matter!) should be about:

Get a grip on reality, (wo)man!

 

The Lady Dragon,

From her lair,

Under the mountain.

About Leadership

(Image : Evolution, soul card 79, SG, 1998)

Just so that there should be no mistake about my ideas on Leadership among the thousands that are reading this blog out there, *smiley*, I will define them through two excerpts of a wonderful book that I just read, Synchronicity, The Inner Path of Leadership, by Joseph Jaworsky, Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc., 1996.

“Leadership is all about the release of human possibilities. One of the central requirements for good leadership is the capacity to inspire the people in the group : to move them and encourage them and pull them into the activity, and to help them get centered and focused and operating at peak capacity. A key element of this capacity to inspire is communicating to people that you believe they matter, that you know they have something important to give. The confidence you have in others will to some degree determine the confidence they have in themselves. John Gardner put it succinctly :

If one is leading, teaching, dealing with young people or engaged in any other activity that involves influencing, directing, guiding ,helping or nurturing, the whole tone of the relationship is conditioned by one´s faith in human possibilities. That is the generative element, the source of the current that gives life to the relationship.

Just being able to be there for others and to listen to them is one of the most important capacities a leader can have. It calls forth the best of people by allowing them to express what is within them. If someone listens to me say what I am feeling, then my feelings are given substance and direction, and I can act.” (page 66)

And the second :

“The conventional view of leadership emphasizes positional power and conspicuous accomplishment. But true leadership is about creating a domain in which we continually learn and become more capable of participating in our unfolding future. A true leader sets the stage on which predictable miracles, synchronistic in nature, can – and do – occur. The capacity to participate in our unfolding future has more to do with our being – our total orientation of character and consciousness – than with what we do. Leadership is about creating, day by day, a domain in which we and those around us continually deepen our understanding of reality and are able to participate in shaping the future. This, then, is the deeper territory of leadership – collectively “listening” to what is wanting to emerge in the world, and then having the courage to do what is required.” (page 182)

That´s exactly it. The leader should be the servant of the common good of a particular team, looking out that the whole group, one by one, is pulling through in whatever project is collectively undertaken. Ken Wilber would say that the leader is aligned to the “transpersonal”; the good leader is one who understands the deeper connections in reality, and thus promotes coherence and evolution for every one in the team, including, of course, him/herself.

“Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

 

 

The Ficticious Journal

(Back cover, the proof!…, SG 08)

I love journals.They are like emotional treasure chests.

I mean, I love other people´s journals. I´m in awe of other people´s journals.

I tend to start my own by the front cover and at a crashing pace, but then not see the job through to the back cover! Also I don´t like recounting my experiences (which is a bit of a paradox for a journal writer, isn´t it?) – basta with living things once, re-telling it all, in details, bores me to tears…! Blogging is different, but, as you know by now, I prefer my entries short and nicely rounded, preferably with a nice image of my own creating ( they say that an image is worth a thousand words, haha).

OK – so I wanted to have at least one finished journal, and I did it, hooray!

Except. Mmm…It´s called The Ficticious Journal. I scribbled the text. It was wonderful! Like going…blah-blah-blah…The squiggles don´t mean a thing, but the journal is extremely satisfactory. Maybe I should restrict myself to visual art journals? Forget about diaries?…

It´s damn cold at the Sanctuary, but we have a nice pile of wood inside the house. Enough for a few nice evenings around the fire. When it´s that cold (we´re still without a central heating system, English castle- like!)I go into hibernation, especially when it rains, I hide in my bed with a woolen poncho, woolen socks , woolen-everything except…errr…well, you know.

The Gift of Life

Oh the wonders of new technologies!… This is Alexander, my first grandson, still snug and warm in his mother’s (my daughter´s) belly.

The rebellious spirit

I am a rebellious spirit. (You might have guessed.)
Like Neo I chose the red pill to see how deep the rabbit hole went, and as I come up for breath, now and again I see a topsy-turvy world in which the sins of the fathers are visited upon the vacant eyes of the young.

Wuthering Heights & Ratatouille, again

Sometimes people tell me that they somewhat envy the way I live. Believe me, there´s nothing “nice” about it! (Except in summer, which, now, given the climate change, is about one month long!July is “nice”…)

At the moment, the water heater chose to break down, just when the temperature sank below zero, so not only is it Siberia in the kitchen, but we don´t even have warm water!…I was thinking about washing the dishes with woolen gloves, but…:-D

Also, we are dealing with rats, annoying little creatures. This house is so badly built that there are enough spaces in-between the various architectural “interventions” for rats to have a ball. I can hear them flit through the walls, and as I said before, I take my Swedish bedcovers and migrate to another room (at least I can do that!). Another lesson in EcoNoetics ? After the wild boars, the lizards, the brambles, and the cold???? Well. Yes. Woman, get on with it! (An encouraging thought).

My primitive brain just makes me shudder, heeeeeew!

(Image : Mika and Adam working in one of the gardens)

EcoNoetics – Part I

(Our patio, Summer 2008)

The Meaning of EcoNoetics–Conversations with the Wizard about Ecopsychology

Note ***Quite simply, “noetic” means intuitive knowing. EcoNoetics means intuition about our rootedness in the Earth.If you have ever had an experience where you “just knew” something to be true – through deep contemplation or even as an instantaneous “hit” – without any evidence from your senses or without any rational justification… and then it turned out to be so; well that was a “noetic” moment. It’s a way of knowing grounded in something larger than your own personal mind. Usually, it comes with a sense of “rightness” and self-validation. …What it really is, is an indication that there is more, so much more to human beings than what meets the eye…

Shakti : When I started my active pro-Gaia career twenty-two years back, people thought that I was slightly bonkers, and sometimes did not even refrain from telling me so! Now of course the environmental issue – as it is called – is quite mainstream.

Mika : I heard you say several times that the Earth Sanctuary is not about solar panels. What do you mean by that ?

Shakti : I mean that it is not only about solar panels. If we had the means we would go into some really interesting alternative technologies, I´m sure. As it is, the battle for the land has been so intense that we didn´t have much psychological space left to think about solar panels. I think that ecopsychology is more about our psychological functioning in the domain of ecology than about pure ecology anyway. We are not a so-called ecovillage, for example. We are a small group that is trying to re-define our relationship to Nature inwardly, as well as outwardly.

Mika : What do you mean by inwardly ?

Shakti : We have to get an intimate measure of Nature, otherwise we will fall into the common trap of having a romantic view of “Mother Nature”. It is always very very dangerous to anthropomorphize the natural forces that affect our lives. There is no intention when the lightning strikes. Human beings may give it a human form, and say that the lightning is a Thunderbeing, but in itself there is no intention behind Nature. It just is.

So, working with and in nature gives us a good appreciation of what these forces really are. And then, we, the oh so very clever apes, will perhaps be able to make a story with this “it”, whatever “it” is, create a new myth, a meme, whatever – and through this story people will be able to create a real relationship with the Earth, not an imaginary one. We may then, through the myth,  have an emotional relationship with Nature, one that makes sense for us, not as children, but as co-creators. When I say that I love the Grand-Mother fig-tree down in the garden, and that I feel that she loves me back, this is real for me, I can approach the tree with respect and even love. But I do not trick myself into believing that there is an entity there that is speaking with me. That would be the domain of art and imagination (Tolkien´s Treebeard comes to mind). So physically working/being with “Nature” is what the Earth Sanctuary is all about. Feeling how our muscles react, how our lungs react, after a hard day of cutting through the jungle, for example. That is “integrating” Mother Nature directly at the level in which I think that Nature exists – the level of the Ground of All Being.

Mika : Then we will perhaps have to consider what our relationship is, emotionally speaking, with the fact that in us too, the conditioned monkeys, there is this Ground of Being, that we are a part of something that to us, to the conditioned emotional person, is as far-away as if it was another planet ?

Shakti : That is what the Earth Sanctuary is about. To learn how to come to terms with the alien-ness of that which has been repressed by such a severely conditioned society. And also to learn why this happened in the first place, this sorry state of disconnection from our very roots. Actually, there is no other way to find real “solutions” to the climate crisis – there must be a fundamental change of consciousness (as Krishnamurti so aptly said) not only a change in consciousness. In this sense the current climate crisis is an open stargate for Evolution´s next step on this our Earth.

It will not be enough to think of the world as our stage, as Shakespeare said. It is so much more than that.

(References: J. Krishnamurti, The Ground of Being and the Mind of Man; Andy Fisher, Radical Ecopsychology;  Theodore Roszak, The Voice of the Earth; James Lovelock, The Revenge of Gaia; Jo Campbell, The Power of Myth; etc. )

 

 

EcoNoetics – Part II

(Image : The Sanctuary, soul card 63, collage on paper, SG, 05)

This is a rather longer post for a change, but a very interesting one for the people among you who are interested in Ecopsychology, and as it is a good synthesis about what Ecopsychology currently is, it is also interesting for anybody who needs to know about it, it being of such relevance for the times.

Adam and I (and Mika, too) are members of a Net page called Druidic Dawn, a place for all kinds of druidic contacts, and we started to chat. Rereading what we wrote I thought that it would be fascinating material for the people who read our blogs. So this is the first part of our dialogue, Adam´s synthesis.

Adam: Part of my work is the development of Ecopsychology. I just want to know if anyone is familiar with it and works with it?

If not, then I’d like to introduce a few new (but no doubt familiar to Druids) ideas.

From this website: http://ecopsychology.athabascau.ca/

1. The emerging synthesis of ecology and psychology

2. The skillful application of ecological insight to the practice of psychotherapy

3. The study of our emotional bond with the Earth

4. The search for an environmentally-based standard of mental health

5. Re-defining “sanity” as if the whole world mattered

 

Shakti: Adam, hello!

Maybe you could put your original writings somewhere in here (re/ecospychology)? I mean the ones that we translated for the Spanish website. I think it is interesting for people to get a glimpse of how we, as a group, use Druidry as a tool for the future.

It could lead to an interesting discussion about the role of Druidry in the years/decades to come.

 

Adam : Certainly, here’s the text in all its glory

It’s quite long, but I did have to summarize a couple of books on the subject and my own thoughts into it…

The Basics of  Ecopsychology (Adam Brough, the Earth Sanctuary, 2008)

Humans and Gaia

Gaia, as seen by James Lovelock, is a self-regulating system. It is a web of life, where all the organisms play a part in keeping the Earth in a healthy livable balance. The lands, skies and seas, and the organisms that inhabit them are part of an interdependent system that evolves and diversifies in harmony and unity. The idea is that the Earth is a huge superorganism and all individual organisms and inanimate materials are the components of this superorganism, including us humans. As a part of Gaia, humanity isn’t just living on Gaia but living in her. We aren’t just “of” Gaia, our identity runs much deeper than that, because we “are” Gaia, albeit a small part of her. We are emerging and developing within Gaia in a similar way that our organs emerged and developed within us as embryos. We are utterly dependant on Gaia for our existence but unlike our organs, we humans do not yet fulfill a vital function within Gaia. We have potential to become an important part of her, but if we disappear Gaia would not miss us. In fact it is even worse, Gaia would flourish more, as now we are more of a burden on the Gaian system than a blessing. We no longer help to maintain Gaia “in a healthy livable balance.” In our past we evolved a great talent for abstract thinking and problem solving, involving intellect and imagination. With this we have been able to create tools that help us enhance our otherwise unremarkable bodies and also created complex social bonds. From these we have developed landscape-transforming civilizations, instant global communication and travelled to the moon. Humans do not lack any inventiveness, except perhaps in one respect. Despite our abilities we have a problem,  we are consuming more resources than we need. It was fine before the industrial revolution, Gaia was usually able to replenish herself with more life and keep things in balance. Then came the industrial revolution, which kept growing and growing until one day we found it is not as sustainable as we once thought. The resources being used were running out, the trees were being cut down faster than they could grow and the amount of chemicals being pumped into the atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide, is more than can be recycled back into the earth’s cycles.  So what’s going to happen now? One day – soon – the industrial movement will realize that it has no more materials to work with because it has used them all up, but not before the atmosphere becomes uninhabitable by human beings because of the pollutants that have been pumped there. Is there a way to stop this before it happens? This is where the environmental movement comes in, a movement currently growing as people become more aware of our environmental plight. There are many environmental groups that are working to change things. From those who work practically with nature, with things like organic farming, permaculture and remineralization, to more political and social activism, such as political groups working to change environmental policies and others trying to reeducate the rest of society, especially future generations. But so far all answers within the environment have been about the effects, such as global warming, nonrenewable resources, save the whales and save the trees. But here is always a cause to any effect and if we follow the thread, we find that at some point, to some degree, humans are responsible. Perhaps it is just a question of politics or educating society, but maybe it’s deeper than that, maybe it’s psychological.

Ecology needs Psychology  and Psychology needs Ecology

Psychology was originally applied to how an individual interacts with human society. The common populace was seen as the measure of sanity. If you didn’t measure up, if you were out of step, then you may have a psychological problem. But what if society’s psychology isn’t as sane as we’d like to think? What have we to measure society’s sanity against? Well how about the very place the human psyche evolves within and depends upon; Gaia. This, as seen above, is itself a society, made up of a community of various organisms, including ours.  But how to connect the two fields of ecology and psychology? Well since the nineties there have been many writings about something called ecopsychology, starting with Theodore Roszak who first coined the term. The idea for Theodore Roszak is that ecology needs psychology and psychology needs ecology. What ecology lacks is a place for the human mind; it talks of carbon and water cycles and an interconnected web of life but leaves us humans feeling a bit estranged as it doesn’t really mention our minds’ place in it. Also psychology needs grounding in a larger sphere of understanding,  it needs to understand that the psyche evolved out of its natural habitat so that we are not further estranged from our roots.

Ecological neurosis

In our current state of ecological plight, the word “madness” seems very appropriate. One ecopsychologist, Ralph Metzner, used ideas from psychology to show what sort of diagnosis we could give to humanity today, especially Western society. One is amnesia, here we have forgotten what we are, we have somehow lost an ancient memory of our belonging, and instead we feel like “strangers” that have found ourselves in a place that is impersonal and alien. Another diagnosis could be autism. We have forgotten where we have come from and because of that we no longer feel an empathy with our source. It’s not surprising that myths have arisen that the origin of humans is above and beyond the world and maybe even the universe, such as aliens from another world, spirits from another dimension or some eternal resting place where we as souls no longer have to worry about “earthly” matters. To top it off, humanity may have an addiction, one called consumerism that convinces us that we need more stuff, newer stuff, all the time.  We can do all we want about the effects of our “collective neuroses,” by saving whales, ethical consumerism, ethical industry, sustainable living etc ., but if these aren’t reinforced by a deeper psychological healing then our actions won’t be quite so effective. As Karen Armstrong said, “Neuroses are much more difficult to get rid of than beliefs.” We can all change our opinions more easily than we can eliminate destructive patterns in our lives, however hard we try. It is the same with religion and, surely, the same with a culture. Our religious beliefs may have changed but our emotional compulsions have remained.” If we only change the effects of things, then we can easily slip back into our old habits and compulsions. If we do not add a psychological depth to ecology, then no matter how many trees we try to save, humanity may find itself slipping back into old patterns.”

Ecological Unconscious

In ecopsychological writings, there is an idea called the ecological unconscious. Where Freud talked of a personal unconscious that contains an individual’s psychology and Jung talked about the collective unconscious, the common psychology of humanity, Roszak talks about the ecological unconscious. We cannot say that the psyche appeared out of nowhere, in fact it has evolved from and continues to evolve within Gaia. Its beginning goes far back through our evolution and gradually appeared. In evolution, nothing is ever lost it is usually built upon, such as the layering of our brain, from a “fish” brain at the core layered over until we have a “human” brain layered over the top.  This ecological unconscious has been denied because of beliefs that we are somehow distinct from nature, or that we are the pinnacle of its evolution. But our evolution does not proceed from nature in an independent way, it proceeds within nature, in an interdependent evolution. So to heal ourselves, we need not only look at our personal and interpersonal relations, but we  also have to place psychology within a broader arena, that of Gaia, so that our health can be greatly enhanced, as this is the very place that we grow within and depend upon for our existence. Our reconnection isn’t just a physical one but also a psychological and a spiritual one. Our relationship with nature isn’t just one outside of us but also within us. The journey of the soul is a part of nature, not apart from it.

The Human Mind and Gaia

With this view of a human evolution that depends upon Gaia, we also redefine our identity. Humans have a lot of identities within which our egos may define themselves; I am this individual with this body and personality, I am in this family, I do this work, I live this life, I am this religion, I am this nationality, I am this race etc., all very human definitions. But we can go further back, I am a primate, I am a mammal, I am a vertebrate, I am an animal, I am a living being, I am Gaia and even back to the stars and the Big Bang, seeing our evolution as a part of the evolution of the universe. For the first time that we know of, through us, Gaia has developed an “ego,” a sense of identity and place. Through the consciousness of humanity, Gaia can know herself and her place in the universe. Everything we do, everything we are is an extension of Gaia and her evolution. Our cultures, like sciences, religions and arts can be directed, not only for the advantage of humanity, but also for Gaia, the interdependent system to which we belong. As Gaia evolves, we evolve and as we evolve, Gaia evolves, and even the rest of the universe is in turn enriched by the synergy that is life.

 

 

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EcoNoetics – Part III

 (Image : Druid´s Egg, soul card, collage on paper, SG, 04)

A Dialogue with the Wizard

Shakti: Wow! Right up our alley! Thank you, Adam.

Adam : Well, very interesting thread

As to what I do with ecopsychology. Well I’m “in training” with it, developing my ideas on it through my writings and discussions (like this). I’m also on two courses, one being OBOD’s and another being Psychosynthesis with Will Parfitt (which both Shakti and Mika have gone through.) In the future I’d like to work more professionally with it, with other people. I’m starting of course here, at the Earth Sanctuary, and it’ll expand from there.

One of the important ideas that I need to elaborate upon is, that I think that Ecopsychology could be in danger of sacrificing what we humans (collectively) have gone through, like agriculture and industrial revolution. Like you I view these as stages in our development that can be viewed as essential “gateways” for further development and not a bane to life on Earth, despite the difficult challenges that we have created with them.

In James Lovelock’s Healing Gaia he talks about the “Four Outcomes of Diseases,” the development of a relationship between microorganism and organism which he uses as possible outcomes of a superorganism’s (Gaia’s) relationship with organisms (like humanity). (1- parasite is destroyed. 2- “War of attrition” or chronic infection. 3- Host is destroyed, parasite dies also. 4- Symbiosis)

The last one is where we want to be and Ecopsychology can facilitate that. But we have to be careful what sort of symbiosis we promote.

Currently our development is diverging from the Earth’s. But in this way we’ll just come “crashing back down” as the evolution of the living Earth is sort of a “centre of gravity” for our own evolution. We cannot evolve without regard to our evolutionary context.

So we need some sort of symbiosis to prevent this…

But if we try to “unite” or merge with the Earth in a symbiosis without considering a possible further potential of human beings, then all that we have gone through as a species has been lost and any potential for future noetic evolution will have to be restarted, if we are capable of it at all. I do not advocate going back to some idealised way of living before “harmful” industrial or even agricultural practices came into being. Though I like a simpler way of living, I’m no hermit!. There are some things about the modern world that I won’t do without (starting with this computer!)

Our own evolution(biological, cultural AND spiritual) is best seen in a state of running “parallel” to the Earth’s evolution, and that we have to reach a synthesis, not a symbiosis. That is, we neither lose our own evolution through merging nor through isolation, but we move together interdependently. Through this, our own evolutionary path is enhanced and the Earth’s evolution takes on newer, noetic, dimensions by virtue of our presence within it.

 Shakti: We are the Earth, a few thoughts today.

(Comment on your post, Adam.)

Adam : “Our own evolution(biological, cultural AND spiritual) is best seen in a state of running “parallel” to the Earth’s evolution.”

We emerged from our environment, which means that we are “it”, our evolution is the Earth´s evolution. We are part of it, not separated. We have the innate capacity to manifest, reveal, Earth´s potential. We are Earthlings, in this sense.  

“That is, we neither lose our own evolution through merging nor through isolation, but we move together interdependently.”

Again, I feel that it is more than inter-action, or inter-dependence. There is not “Nature” and “us”.We are the evolutionary process. We are Nature. And that is also the hope : This…”it” (Life on Earth) in us, through us, is going somewhere, and we can participate, promote, help, ease this process along, because something in our very core knows what it´s all about.

“Through this, our own evolutionary path is enhanced and the Earth’s evolution takes on newer, noetic, dimensions by virtue of our presence within it.”

 If there is a noetic dimension in human beings (and there is, of course), can we not suppose that this has been there as a potential from the beginning ? That consciousness is a given in the Universe?  Or maybe that through very specific circumstances (if you prefer the idea of randomness)we evolved a consciousness that is part of our environment/habitat? Evolution may not end with Sapiens Sapiens. Maybe humanity is still a baby, and who knows what we may become ? Those of us who have had transpersonal experiences know for a fact that we are Earth, to the very marrow of our bones. Not, however, in a symbiotic way. We are the consciousness that emerged from the habitat, in a way we are Earth´s nervous system.

That feeling is what connects me to Druidry. In 2005 I have been participating in an OBOD retreat in Brocéliande, – and we visited the Standing Stones at Carnac. The feeling that I got from the stones was that the Ancients knew emotionally that we are in fact a part of the Earth, – though they couldn´t have known scientifically. This feeling of “I´m part of this, as intimately as the marrow of my bones” is one of the deepest experiences that an Earthling can have. It is connected to the feeling of reverence for the Ancestors, which is a part of Celtic Druidry. And also to the Celtic knotwork, the Great Chain of Life transcending the little ants that we are as separate and concrete entities.

The important fact is how we are going to use this inner experience, regressively, or progressively. It all depends, as I said above, on if we have actually been able to integrate the shadows of a society that has been dis-connected from Nature for a long long time. This society – ours – has a very bad karma indeed. And we need to correct that, but first of all we must make amends and realize that we are not separate from our planetary habitat. Which is a whole psychological process in itself, lol.

 For me, that´s how the two things – EcoNoetics & Druidry – sort of hang together, and largely, this is why I have become a Druid.

Adam : Yes Shakti, that is also my understanding. In my text, at the end I wrote; “With this view of a human evolution that depends upon Gaia, we also redefine our identity. Humans have a lot of identities within which our egos may define themselves; I am this individual with this body and personality, I am in this family, I do this work, I live this life, I am this religion, I am this nationality, I am this race etc., all very human definitions. But we can go further back, I am a primate, I am a mammal, I am a vertebrate, I am an animal, I am a living being, I am Gaia and even back to the stars and the Big Bang, seeing our evolution as a part of the evolution of the universe.”

I was thinking that the Ecosphere (Gaia/Earth) encompasses several “spheres”; atmosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere, which can (and, in my view, does) include the emerging noosphere, they are so tightly interwoven with one another, they are like waves upon a sea, they cannot be regarded as separate yet still they are distinct.

Or another way of putting it; within our planetary ecosystem there are several properties that evolve each one as a part of the whole system. There are photosynthetic, sensual properties, digestive, respiritory, sexual properties etc, all interacting with one another as a whole. Amongst these properties, Gaia is also developing noetic properties, which, rather than being a mere product of our biological brains, could in fact be inherent within the universe, and finds its best expression through our brains.

You’re right, Shakti, in that we cannot evolve “in parallel” with the Earth as we are an aspect of the Earth’s life. Where we go, the Earth goes and where the Earth goes we go. What I should have made clear is what we are evolving in parallel to; the different “spheres” must evolve in parallel to each other to maintain the evolutionary coherence of Gaia, or else it all unravels and goes extinct. To survive, humans are to evolve “in parallel” or complementary to other organisms that make up the Gaian community or else risk getting “booted out.”

 Shakti : Interesting thread, innit?

“To survive, humans are to evolve “in parallel” or complementary to other organisms that make up the Gaian community or else risk getting “booted out.”

Fact is, we are starting to get booted out, don´t you think? Sadly, it´s a question of a decade or two. Society, as we know it, will soon disappear if we don´t find a way so that “the different spheres” will  “evolve in parallel to each other to maintain the evolutionary coherence of Gaia”. At one point, we may become no more than an unwelcome parasite!

But you know, the whole point of eco-psychology is that it´s the human race that has to be “saved”, not the Earth. The planetary ecosystem will exist long after us, I think. And maybe we won´t be there to see how Gaia deals with yet another branch,/time,/phase, of her own evolution. 

I would like to point out and share the idea that the problem, however sad and crazy the appearances, is not “us”, us human beings. We may look and act like rats, but we are not. There is a noetic possibility within us that “our society” (The Matrix, to use a well-worn meme)is mostly not paying any attention to. The potential expansion of consciousness of our species is something that is rarely if ever taken into account. And if it is at all, it is almost always theoretical. I´m not really talking about “the transpersonal” here, or unknown dimensions of the Spirit – but more about psychological attitudes, sensitivities and more adjusted perceptions of reality.

That is why I think that Druidry – in all its aspects – has something very valuable to offer to Evolution. The druidic philosophy acts as a meme, we absorb it without even noticing, most of the time. The rituals of the Wheel of the Year, the meditations on ecoNoetic subjects, our sensibility, our ways of feeling, gradually change through the training (for example at OBOD) – and at the end, we absorb this fact of our belonging to the planetary ecosystem with the air we breathe:

It´s easier to get a bunch of people celebrating Imbolc in the woods, than trying to change the structures of the Matrix in them, lol. And the effect will be the same, a subtle change in the noetic sphere, which is exactly what we need now, if we want to survive.

Ecopsychology has to become EcoNoetics, a change of consciousness. Or as Krishnamurti himself so aptly said “We need a change of consciousness, not a change in consciousness”. It´s not what you do, it´s what you ARE that is so important.

Adam : I just got a “laugh” reading something. There was some news talking about “far reaching consequences of the climate change.” Still, it was public media and I doubt they’d want to use a phrase like “complete devastation of humanity and its civilisation”, otherwise no one would read it!

I was reading a blog… (http://lessonsforanewworld.blogspot.com/2008/11/end-of-everything.html) that mentioned that plenty of human societies and ciivlisations have collapsed because of ecological disaster of some kind, but it was localised enough that the local ecology could recover, the effected humans could find refuge elsewhere and there was still enough humanity around to replace the lost civilisation. This time, we’re not talking about the collapse of a local ecology and civilisation, but the global ecology and global civilisation. This time it would be the collapse of humanity on a global scale with nowhere to escape to, nor any other human civilisation to replace us.

I think, yes, the Earth might “think”… “Humanity if you haven’t learnt by now, then you’ve missed your chance. I’m not going to waste time with you lot playing silly buggers, I’ve more important stuff to get on with… like living! “

Another thought I’ve been having is that if we regress with our current abilities then that would be extremely dangerous. I mean, now that our marvelously inventive minds have created interesting “gadgets” like nuclear technology, we cannot afford to regress whilst we are still in “control” of various volatile technologies! Some might say there are plenty of Chimpanzees running humanity!(It´s “nuclear”, Mr Bush, not noo-killer!)

Al Gore mentioned it in his documentary (An Inconvenient Truth). He was showing how the rules of war have changed, that “spears and stones are one thing and guns another” then he showed a mushroom cloud, and that about says it all really.  A completely different consciousness needs to be developed to handle our technologies, our populations, our resources, and just about everything that we have become and are becoming.

It´s a whole different ball game or “new age” as some call it. Could it be that we need a whole different ball gamer?

Shakti: Noo-killers!

“Noo-killers”, oh, that could be a new meme, killers of the noosphere! (it´s not only the biosphere that stands under attack!)

“I mean, now that our marvelously inventive minds have created interesting “gadgets” like nuclear technology, we cannot afford to regress whilst we are still in “control” of various volatile technologies! ”

And not only technologies! Just have a closer look at how the global economy stands, and how it most certainly would collapse if…several teeny weeny thingies would happen tomorrow! Actually, it is happening already. I do hope people are starting to see how “individual” and “collective” hang together, embraced over a deep deep abyss!…

So you´re right, the kind of mindset that can handle the whole circus is definitely not a regressive one, or even a sentimental one!…We will need professionals in everything just to survive .

This thread,  has brought to my attention the concept of EcoNoetics, the “mechanics” of consciousness itself, or perception of reality – ecology cannot be to “just” put solar panels and hug trees; as psychology cannot be to become “well-adjusted”citizens and then we´d be rather OK. We will not be OK with “just” solar panels. Or “just” hugging trees. Or “just becoming “well-adjusted”. As for the latter, becoming “adjusted” to madness is…madness. Actually, trees are disappearing fast, particularly where they do matter, like in the Amazonas. And nobody, but nobody will do a damn thing about it, because we have not yet got to the point where we understand, as a species, that “we cannot breathe imaginary trees” (as Mika so aptly said somewhere on a certain Message Board). We need more than all that.We need to become true Earthlings, all of us, of every colour and creed imaginable.

But see? People, the general public, hasn´t got this information about what the potential of the human being really is. (And I´m still not talking about unverified abstractions.) Just humanistically speaking, the potential of the human mind is awesome. And how much do we use ? Not even ten per cent!

Adam : Haha! I honestly didn’t think of noo-killers when I wrote that. A bit of accidental genius, or something…

“So you´re right, the kind of mindset that can handle the whole circus is definitely not a regressive one, or even a sentimental one!…We will need professionals in everything just to survive.”

Perhaps now everyone needs to become a professional at living one´s life in a useful way ? I’m seeing my life as a work, an effort towards something. Even my playtime (and rest!) isn’t an escape or a break from life’s efforts, it’s a vital bit of work to be done.

It’s a profession (or work!) just being alive these days. People take it for granted that life is just something that happens. You can see it in the way people are brought up, it almost seems, some of the time, that kids can grow up by themselves. They’re just left to their own devices with little support (and what support there is, is too often one in which the individual gives up their potential to conform to societal conventions). So a person is brought up in a “whatever” sort of way, then they get educated at school with “whatever” sort of information, they start “whatever” work, distract themselves with “whatever” entertainment, then comes “whatever” retirement, followed by “whatever” death. For me, it’s important that my life isn’t a ”whatever” life, that its efforts are for something, focused, dedicated, useful.

“Ecology cannot be to “just” put solar panels and hug trees; as psychology cannot be to become “well-adjusted”citizens and then we´d be rather OK. We will not be OK with “just” solar panels. Or “just” hugging trees. Or “just becoming “well-adjusted”.”

There certainly needs to be a deeper work. I mentioned it in my text, and in fact I’ll use Karen Armstrong’s quote again; “Neuroses are much more difficult to get rid of than beliefs. We can all change our opinions more easily than we can eliminate destructive patterns in our lives, however hard we try. It is the same with religion and, surely, the same with a culture. Our religious beliefs may have changed but our emotional compulsions have remained.”

But still, that’s just the “basement work” of psychology; looking for healing and being “well-adjusted” is just the start, not the be-all and end-all of psychological wellness.

Theodore Roszak  mentions in his work the “ecological unconscious.” He, and others, describe it as something that reaches into the past, as a psychological structure connected with our past evolution within the Earth and possibly even influenced by the very development of the universe from the Big Bang. But again, this is only the “basement work” of psychlogy.

Perhaps the idea of the ecological unconscious also needs to be brought into the future and other aspects of it recognised, rather than just its past. If our past evolution is synonymous with the universe’s then so is our future (upperworld/higher/potential) evolution, which in Psychosynthesis is represented by the upper unconscious. Any psychology should be both a constant work of balancing/synthesis, overcoming neurosis AND opening to potential. And, as you say Shakti, humans have a lot of potential!

“As for the latter, becoming “adjusted” to madness is…madness.”

So…Red pill or blue pill?

Shakti: Red or blue?

Red! (Ouch!!)

  

 

 

Cernunnos

(Image : Cernunnos, collage on paper, SG, ‘o5)

…Being one of those crazy post-menopausal Wild Women “who run with wolves”, my favourite god is quite naturally Cernunnos, in his various aspects, Herne the Hunter, the Green Man, the Lord of the Beasts. As a woman I feel extremely comfortable with these energies, which is a paradox. More than a paradox, I see it as a (hard-won!) synthesis of male and female in me. I am him. Maybe my love for him is the only way I will ever get closer to the other gender.  Sometimes I perceive him as the daimon in me, something that completes me as a person, as a woman. And I perceive him as a wonderful bridge (in my mind) over the chasm that has been artificially created between the genders, through the systematic and intentionally distorted (my interpretation) application of social stereotypes to all children, male and female. A sorry situation, as I have discovered in my own life, as a mother and as a woman.

The pictures in this entry are two aspects of Cernunnos that I have felt very intensely, up close and personal, both of them an inner vision, one of them applied to a natural object, the other one a vision in a meditation. I thought I´d share them here, because I feel it is extremely important to balance the part of ourselves that we apparently are not, male or female, inside us. At my age I do not project the Animus  on men anymore, as younger women usually do (when they “fall in love”), and I do not let men project their Anima on me, because I think that this Anima of theirs, this precious archetype of womanhood in a man, is their own treasure, their own inner link with the Great Goddess, to discover and enjoy, rather than project like all adolescents do on “ideal” women (movie stars, fashion models, etc. etc). I must confess that I had a crush on Viggo Mortensen´s Aragorn for a while, perhaps because I felt the energy of Aragorn (in Peter Jackson´s movies) so close to my inner experience of the god Cernunnos.

I feel generally good about men, and if they want to see me as a part of the Goddess, well, they may, because I am. I´m no tantric diva, but I certainly embody a whole bunch of nice womanly qualities…!

(Picture : SG, drawing: La Grotte des Trois Frères)

The Otherworld

 

 (Image : Road to Damascus, collage on paper, SG ‘04)

Who cares if the Otherworld and the gods are “real”, or not ?

To me they are real. As a walker-between-the-worlds, an artist, half of my brain (and half of my time!) is “over there”, through the magic Gates, walking the Land of the Imaginal, which is not just fantasy. The images are real, they are inside my brain, and I can, if I want and need to, have a creative dialogue between these parts of who-I-am.

Or did you think that your Matrix identity was the “real” one ?

Give yourself the chance to discover what your hidden mind is up to!

When all is said and done, at the moment of your passing, will it have mattered if the wonderful encounters with archetypes, gnomes, the Queen of Faerie or Merlin himself that you possibly had, were politically correct? Is the Matrix real ? Hahaha.  Adam, my young friend,has a saying written on a piece of cardboard which says “Do not believe everything that you think”. Lol.

Are you so restricted in your perceptions that you think that only the physical is “real”?

Even so, I think that there is a huge difference between “path-finding” in your own neurons, and some of them are quite quirky, particularly the quantic ones, ya-hoo!!,  - and “imagining” things.

When you just imagine (which is quite OK too), well, you have a certain control over the images, you build them up, you actually create them in mind-matter (in sanscrit, chit, yup), you create what you want or what you need, and basically the images obey their master, your alpha mind (for example).

But there is another way of working with images, a much more mysterious way, which I prefer. The images emerge in your mind which simply acts as a mirror, and they have their own development, their own quirky quarky path. Very different.

In that mysterious world, Merlin really exists and he can even talk to you…That is what I call the “Otherworld”, a mysterious place inside my own brain, which has its own rules, motivations, and purpose, aside from my Matrix ID.

The process is the same as in art, an idea “is born”, somewhere deep inside, and the good artist follows this idea, to see where it is leading. All the art is in the letting go of preconceptions. The good artist is a master at “letting go”!…

And that is how I sometimes follow the gods and the various interesting characters that come and visit me. Can´t mistake the joy, the exhilaration, the enthusiasm, the uplift, in one word…the buzz. The bliss. We do not invent the gods, they come …or they ignore us.

 

 

Awen & Nwyfre

(Image, Throne of the Goddess, soul card 80, SG, ‘04)

There are two Druidic concepts/experiences that I feel the Western world (=the Matrix) sorely needs at this time : Awen and Nwyfre.

The first, the Awen, is simply inspiration, intuition, particularly poetic, artistic, and also mystical. The Awen defines the Druid. It is the very breath of his/her Druidic presence and role. The Druid “listens” to the voice of the gods, and to the whisperings of the Otherworld, and transmits them as best he/she can to the “ordinary” (=conditioned by the Matrix) world. Besides his other tasks of management, administration, counselling, the Druid is always aware of the finer promptings of his intuition. The Druid is a living Oracle.

All of my art depends on the Awen. I am unable to draw or paint without this inner surge of bliss; I´m really not interest in theories of art or technicalities (I don´t sell my work anyway!) – when the Awen surges I have to leave what I am doing, and go get a piece of cardboard, a white paper, something that I can use, anything, to “take notes”. It is as if I was looking inside my brain! The roof of my brain becomes, at that moment, a rather moved and animated Sixtine Chapel – only with my own images! (I wish I could photograph what I see, since I am self-taught I don´t have the dexterity to reproduce my visions exactly, which is why I admire Alan Lee so much!)

I also know that my soul cards, for example, are inspiring to other people. The Awen gets through the image and sometimes grips a person with a “wow” feeling. I know. This is the feeling that I experienced when I first made the card!…

So I become a sort of willing and very aware channel, or better said, a bridge. That is why my second name is Walker-Between-The-Worlds. A Walker for the Awen.

Nwyfre and the Green Fire

(Image : Dream Quest, collage on cardboard, SG, 2002)

The second concept/experience is that of Nwyfre, the life-force, the ki energy. No living being can exist without Nwyfre. Nor plants, flowers, butterflies. Not even the rocks. The rocks are alive too, of course, only they vibrate at a very slow pace, like the mountains. All-that-lives, Gaia Herself,  is made of Nwyfre, basically. It is so obvious, yet so mysterious. You cannot define Nwyfre, photograph it, smell it, or weigh it. It is like the soul, a given, a transparent mystery. Le Mystère au fond  de la Vie.

You can feel it, though. And if you are trained for it, you can actually see it move. You can foresee how it will move, you can flow with it. The way I see it, it should be an important part of the Druidic training. (The training of a Druid takes a minimum of twenty years, one way or the other, so you can imagine! The real Druid is steeped, like a tea-bag, in Awen and Nwyfre!)

Nwyfre is the vibrant Green Fire that emanates from a very old Forest. In 2005 I was in Brocéliande, Brittany, for an OBOD retreat with our Chosen-Chief, and the Green Fire litterally made up the territory. You could see where it began and where it ended! Like a green bubble over the land, the Ever-Burning Tree …breathtaking! I remember getting to the town of Rennes in our car, Mika driving. We didn´t know where the OBOD retreat took place, but I looked out of the window and told Mika “It´s there! The Old Forest is there!” And it was. We found our way right through the Invisible Gate!…

Nwyfre is also the shakti, the Energy. (That which makes this blog vibrant, you know. Not my doing, I´m just a very faithful bridge. *smiley*)

PS.- Have you ever looked into the eyes of a newborn? If you are lucky, you will get zapped with something that is both Awen and Nwyfre, not divided yet, not separated – whole, pure magic. There, at this instant, the eyes of the baby are a twin Stargate!…

Happy Birthday, dear blog!

This is Entry Nr. 100!

Wow. I am getting there.

Thank you, WordPress!

The Memory of Stones 1

(Image : La Roche-aux-Fées, and Mika, Brocéliande 2005)

At OBOD we are taught that stones are alive, in their own way. I have been thinking about just that for a long time, because I have this strange ability to touch something and feel some of the vibrations that have been left in an object. It is not always clear, and the weird thing is that the older and the most natural a thing is, the clearer my impressions. I “get” all sorts of stories when I am at a historical site. For example, Chartres has been wonderful, Montségur terrible, and I still want to visit Glastonbury and the Scottish Highlands.

Four prehistoric sites have really left a deep mark in my brain : Carnac (in Brittany), la Roche-aux-Fées (Brittany),  the island of  Gavrinis (also in Brittany) and some places in the Forest of Brocéliande. (Not Merlin´s Tomb, which was really left in a disgusting state!)

It was during the same retreat with OBOD´s Chosen-Chief that I have already mentioned. The retreat was called “Le Mystère au fond de la Vie”( The Mystery at the deep end of Life), and though the workshop/retreat was more or less simple and straightforward, the experiences that I had were not.

Most of the frequented places at Brocéliande are vibrationally “exhausted”; tourists, thousands of them, are not exactly known for respecting subtle environments! I remember being at a particularly “sacred (Arthurian) site in the Forest, and suddenly there was a shout nearby “Eh! T’as pas une cigarette?” (Got a cig?), hahaha, not exactly inducive of meditation…!

The moments that I really touched this “Mystery at the deep end of Life” all happened for me in a natural (and Druidic) context. At Carnac, the alignment of stones called “L’Allée des Druides”, the site of Monteneuf, and the “Faerie Rock” , la Roche-aux-Fées. And the island of Gavrinis. When I came back to Spain I painted a serie of images that I will show you in further entries, because I want to share what I do with art, apart from altered books, ATCs (Artist Trading Cards), and X-mas cards!

At the “Roche-aux-Fées”, as it is called, something weird happened to my camera. I didn´t see this at the time, but when the film was developped, this light appeared. Mmm…something technical. Of course.  Anyway, it really represents what I felt, and it happened just as I snapped a pic of Mika, my daughter, who was with me at the retreat.

Stones have a memory, and your brain can decode it.

The Memory of Stones 2

These pics are of La Roche-aux-Fées, the squat pile of big stones, “L’ Allée des Druides”, at Carnac, on the left, and of the stones that most impressed me at the site of Monteneuf, the lonely vertical one. Can you feel the Reaching to the Sky of the big stone? The vertical axis?

At Carnac, luckily,  I could stand by the stones and touch them for quite a long time, away from the constant chatter of the group. As a matter of fact, I didn´t want to listen to the guide that we had, preferring to walk among the stones, alone, and “listen” to them. I am not really interested in historical facts and blah-blah-blah.

The inner experience that I had was of the deep deep link with the Ancestors , of a bridge over Time and Space – with the mysterious ones who put the stones up, feeling how they wanted to touch the night sky, wanted to touch the stars. The stones are bridges between Earth and Sky, and as I was standing there I could feel the vibration right through my hands (by the way, I wasn´t alone to feel that). As much as the underground tumulus of Gavrinis was an experience of the Goddess, of Gaia, of Mother Earth – so Carnac was really the experience of Father Sky. I had a downright “religious” feeling, a profound awe at the beauty of the Earth.

At both places,  Carnac and Gavrinis, I felt clearly:  ”This is an initiation”. I was moved to tears to feel so deeply part of the Great Chain of Life.

Three years along, down the corridor of Time, the experiences are still fresh in my mind. More than Druidic rituals, the touching of these subtle vibrations have left their mark, and in a way, have determined my destiny ever since.  I was a Bard, then.

It really feels good to recall, and more than that, to share the moments.

Thank you for reading.

The Memory of Stones 3

(Image : The Roots of Time, collage on paper, SG, 2005)

This is the collage that I did at the hotel, right after being at La Roche-aux-Fées.

There is more to come. Stay tuned…;-)

Memories of Gavrinis

Kept Gavrinis for last in this serie about stones.

Wow. Gavrinis is something else! I remember that our hosts at the hotel said it wasn´t possible to reach the island, maybe it was the wrong time of the year, I don´t remember – but the Chosen-Chief really insisted, and after the experience I understand why.

Gavrinis  is a small island, situated in the Gulf of Morbihan, at ten minutes by boat of the port of Larmor-Baden. It is reknown for its magnificent neolothic art, and sometimes compared to Newgrange. Well, won´t bore you with the blah-blah-blah facts, if you´re interested you can look it up in the Net. 

I remember that we entered the “tomb” in single file. The immediate impression really being of being “en-tombed”. At night, it must be quite spooky. But I remember standing there with the group, and the first feeling was of…warmth. Not just because we were inside a pile of stones, it was something psychological, a psychological warmth, you understand ? As if I was embraced by a mother, it evoked the earliest memories of being a tiny baby…

We formed a circle at the end of the tunnel, and in that warmth, in this deep silence of the stones, the Chosen-Chief called out the Awen.

…What happened to me then ? Looking back it seems like a journey back in Time. I remember the warm hand and the energy of the Chosen-Chief holding my hand on the right side, and Mika, my daughter, on the left. I remember Philip´s hand becoming huge, and vibrating.  It was all swift and short, but nevertheless the unmistakable happened in a flash : I went back in Time, and died again. Yes, I had a symbolic experience of death, of returning into the ground, of being embraced by Mother Earth and existing in Her, a separate entity no more. I remember thinking …Oh death where is Thy sting? I started to cry,

…and it was already time to get out again!

I haven´t been much afraid of death since I had the inner experience of “All-That-Is” as my real identity, but that experience in the tunnel at Gavrinis, really took all fear away from me concerning dying. It is just a Going Back to the Origin, to the warm embrace of a Mother. It is just going to sleep, it is just forgetting the whole turmoil of Life, the Mother is so incredibly peaceful and strong…

When I die, please put me directly into the earth, if you can, and plant a little apple tree so that I can be remembered. Nothing more. Cry with joy if you want. Dying is going back into bliss.

Thank you for insisting to go to Gavrinis, Philip. And thank you for being who you are.

The Memory of Stones 4

When I came back from the retreat, I painted a serie of 16 images – about what I felt in the tunnel, and generally at the retreat. The 16 paintings jumped onto paper one right after the other for 16 days!

Have you ever seen the prehistoric paintings of Lascaux or Altamira ? That is how I felt.

As I paint I am aware of doing a shamanic act, I feel so close to those unknown painters in the caves. I have been to the northern part of  Spain a month back (Asturias, Cantábria) and by chance Mika and I arrived to Altamira. At the neo-cave (a reproduction of the real cave), right at its entrance, there is the “place of the Artist”, where you can see some tools,  powders and charcoal. Again, I was moved to tears to feel the fellowship over Time, the great Chain of Life (The Fellowship of the Sacred Stones?), the sacredness of Art, of the artist being a bridge between worlds.

That was the exact feeling while I was painting my serie of 16. (Actually,  I did them for my Psychosynthesis Diploma Course, as a post-graduation exercise).

 

Mandalas

After all this subterranean stuff, I think this blog needs something more …airy. A little pause in-between two “serious” postings! So I will tell you that I not only paint stones, but also Mandalas.

There is a folder in my PictureTrail gallery, if you care to click there.

         http://www.picturetrail.com/gea2

The Future of Druidry

(Image : The Ancestors, SG, collage on paper, 2007)

As I see it, Druidry is “an idea whose time has come”, as Werner Erhard said, and he added “Nothing can stop an idea whose time has come”. I agree. That is what I think of OBOD (Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, UK) and modern Druidry : their time has come.

What do I mean ? Druidry, having supposedly existed 8000 years back, it is thus an idea whose time has come back? No?

The subject being rather complex, given the number of Druidic movements and their differences,  what in Hel do I mean ?? Well, I´ll tell you my mind in plain English.

I think that Druidry – and especially OBOD - is a tool for modern times, for ecopsychological times. Druidry is truly about an econoetic experience. That is its importance, in the context of The Inconvenient Truth. No, it is not that ” The Druids” (of which nobody knows anything really accurate!) are coming back. It´s that since humanity is in such dire straits with the Climate Crisis, the crisis-this, the crisis-that – we are looking into the past for inspiration, for survival. Unfortunately, there is no healthy going back. We have to face the music, here and now, and create new solutions for the future, for the future of our children and grandchildren. Find new soul-utions, new soul-filled solutions.

I do not think that we should try to recreate Druidry, and especially not a romantic form of Druidry, in which all the real facts might get distorted by a wishy-washy  – and unconscious – view of reality. The sacred language of the Druids has vanished from the surface of the Earth, we know only fragmented bits of their teachings and of their rituals – and maybe we don´t even want to know, lol, what with this idea of human sacrifices that the old Druids have been accused of!…(By the Romans, so it just might not be really true!)

Humanity has evolved a lot in 8000 years, though it sometimes doesn´t look like it, and we simply cannot go back. The Druids are lost in Time. No, I´m talking about an intuitive creation, based on modern psychology. I´m talking about a training that would be up to the current times, in which such enormous changes are about to happen. Oh that the tsunami of the coming Change should not find us still believing in Father Christmas!…

It is no longer feasible – or indeed politically correct! – to accept religions and beliefs that actually reject physical reality. Our very survival now depends on us being able to manage the said physical level. I agree that there is more to reality than “just” physical reality (a good example is quantum physics), but let us courageously and wisely confront this absolute truth: if I hit you hard on your head with a brick, your skull will shatter and you will go down. And that, my dears, would be it. However much you may regard the importance of philosophical levels, with your brain in a bloody mush you cannot think. Don´t let the “channelers” tell you otherwise. That is the importance of physical reality.

Some of our most crazy ways of perceiving reality, and of being in contact with our environment, will have to go. No more “virgin births”, or winged beings dancing through invented rosy skies. No more unicorns, and fairies, and gnomes. Not to mention the metempsychosis of the individual ego. All this will have to be catalogued into the folder “Creative Imagination”…real creative imagination, mind you, but the step to give these creatures *the same* earthly existence as stones, trees, animals and real humans – will have to go. We will have to re-orient ourselves, re-connect with our true gutsy soul (not the golden rosy cloud around the head), we will have to get a grip on reality again.

What we know about “The Druids” is that they found *The World*  beautiful, and that, my friends, is why Druidry is “an idea whose time has come”.

(Don´t shoot the pianist, I´m only saying what I really think.)

The Lady Dragon, *in a rather rebellious mood this morning*

Links

(Image : Shakti´s Bardic crane bag, 2005)

If you want to know more about who we are at the Earth Sanctuary, what we do, and how we see things, it would be a good idea to click over to Mika´s Creations from the Heart and Adam´s Grove of Quotes (which you probably have already done, but I wanted to mention this, since we are the core group of the Earth Sanctuary Project). Both links are mentioned on the right-hand side of this blog. Have fun!

Nine Ladies of Avalon

(Image : The Holy Grail, collage on paper, SG, 2002)

Nine ladies with long skirts, white and red and black, dancing through a dark forest, at velvety midnight.

Oh sisters what do we do, so strange the night, so dark the forest, and terrifying the call of the owl,

hoo hoo hoo

together and glancing furtively, owl-like, this way and that,

nine ladies in white-read-and black, dancing under the clear moon, nothing to fear at all, but how vast the mystery

(The Nine Ladies, SG, 2002)

The Isle of Avalon is an inner landscape, an archetype of Beauty, Wisdom and Truth. It is the earthly Paradise which the myths tell us was once our home, now mostly forgotten. It is the land which the poet and mystic see in vision, where the artist and musician find inspiration; where the soul goes for spiritual healing : a timeless land of power and mystery that offers initiation and enlightenment to all those who dare travel to its shores.

The island-valley of Avalon

Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,

Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies

Deep-meadow´d, happy, fair with orchards-lawns

And bowery hollows crown´d with summer sea.

                         (Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

Nine is the most magical Celtic number, 3 three times itself. Returning to Taliesin´s description of the Isle of Apples in “The Life of Merlin”, the Chief Bard tells us :

“That is the place where nine sisters exercise a kindly rule over those who come to them from our land. The one who is first among them has greater skill in healing, her name is Morgen, and she has learned the uses of all plants in curing the ills of the body. She knows too the art of changing her shape, of flying through the air, like Daedalus, on strange wings.”

Whatever the case, the powers of these women of the Otherworld are very real indeed. Their role is to initiate students into the inner planes through the cauldron of rebirth, an undertaking which demands great sacrifice – to die to one´s old self in order to become reborn transformed, with perceptions and powers beyond the unawakened human experience. The magical cauldron, or grail, is nothing less than the crucible of the goddess out of which emerges the transformed initiate of the Celtic Mysteries. Legend has it that Arthur´s sword, Excalibur, given to him by the Lady of the Lake, was forged there also. This of course symbolizes the masculine principle, the gift of will, authority and action. The Avalon initiation unlocks the energy of both the chalice and the sword, both masculine and feminine powers in perfect balance, for us to take back to our own side of the waters for the healing of our world.

Major Arcana : Strength

(Image :  The Memory of Pain, collage on paper, SG, 2002)

My favourite way of inviting the Awen is through Tarot. This morning, I got a Major Arcana : Strength.

showing strength, knowing you can endure, having a gallant spirit, feeling an unshakable resolve, taking heart despite setbacks, having stamina, being a rock, being patient, dealing calmly with frustration, accepting others, taking time

maintaining composure

refusing to get angry, showing forbearance, being compassionate, giving others lots of space, understanding what others are feeling, accepting, forgiving imperfection, being kind,

Achieving soft control, persuading, guiding indirectly, tempering force with benevolence, demonstrating the strength of love,

Usually we think of strength in physical terms, but there is also inner strength. Inner strength comes from exercising the heart muscle. It is perseverance, courage, resolve and composure – qualities that help us endure when times are tough.

Hekate of the Crossroads

(Image : Circle of Healing, collage on paper, SG, 2004)

Elderwoman speaks : I am Spirit. Making body is what I do. I am Body. Making Spirit is what I do. I am Primal. I am Sublime. I am strongest when the Two are One.

Elderwoman is the ancient holy one. She is grandmother, witch and hag. She has been ignored, blamed and feared, for she holds powers that others deny. Powers of time and transformation. Powers we may fear, but would do better to understand, especially in our times. The Crone is the Mother of all Mothers. She knows all your bedtime stories, and all your worst nightmares.

She is the One who knows Death. She will introduce you to your shadow. She can free you from your fears. Elderwoman is She Who Has Gone Beyond.

She has lived many years and many lives. Her feet know the paths of the Ancestors. Through her we can touch those who have gone before. She has lived for love, for power, for grace. Now she lives for herself and for her journey. She travels new roads and dares the unknown.

“Queen of the Night, triple-faced Hekate is one of the most ancient images from a pre-Greek stratum of mythology and an original enbodiment of the Great Triple Goddess. She is most often linked with the dark of the moon and presides over magic, ritual, prophetic vision, childbirth, death, the underworld, and the secrets of regeneration. Mistress of the crossroads, this goddess dwells in caves, walks the highways at night, and is the force that moves the moon.

Hekate is the archetypal shaman as she moves between worlds in a fluid way. She bridges the visible and the invisible realities, delving for insight into the magical realms for the ultimate purpose of effecting a healing and regeneration.

The Magic Love Wand

 

What do you mean, my magic Love wand is not *real* ?

Ah yes. I understand. You sell yours for 250 $ in the Net, and mine cost me 1,95 euros in a toyshop (because its two entwined plastic hearts called my attention).

Mmmm…

We all know about the old magic of dollars in the big big *real* world.  *sigh*

PS.- I worked a bit on the wand afterwards, though. Little girls´wands do not come with the symbol of the Great Goddess. Unfortunately.

And a Happy X-mas to you!

Of course, we Druids have celebrated the Winter Solstice three days ago. The air was different, and the light. Alleluiah, everything starts growing again…

But well, you have my X-mas Greetings too, and those of our local Rudolf the Reindeer (Kaila, who seems to think : Yeah,yeah, you insufferable humans!!…)

The Lady Dragon, *happy and snug in her Spanish castle*

The Earth Sanctuary in a festive mood!

That´s one part of the core group! Methinks 2009 will be a great year…

Creature comforts

(Image : Power of the Invisible, collage on paper, SG, ‘04)

The boiler has broken down again. Darn. We´ve been almost a month now without hot water in the plumbing. The house feels like a fridge sometimes.

I am blessed, though.

As I heat up the water in pans for the washing of dishes, my heart sends out silent thoughts to the millions of women out there who dont even have water.

A Druid Flag and the Flow of Awen

 (First draft, very rough design, December 26th, 2008)

I have been told that there has been much talk about a Universal Druid Flag on certain Forums in the Net, and complicated negociations between Druid movements. Apparently the Druid groups cannot agree on a shared symbol that would represent all Druids, and *naturally* every Druid organisation wants to edge in their own specific symbols.

On another Druid Forum online to which I belong (Druidid Dawn) I met some people and we quickly came to a fertile exchange of ideas, out of which emerged this design, which is a very rough draft of mine of what could become a Druid Flag.

Do you like it ?

Blue stands for the Bardic grade; green for the Ovate. The white tree represents the Druid grade, and its branches are in the form of a Celtic knot, which represents the unbroken Chain of Life. I added a planet on which this tree is growing. Et voilá. In less than a day, we got a Druid Flag. I loved the flow of the Awen as it created the project, and of course, didn´t think much (at least not with my intellect).

Someone commented that it might as well be a flag for the whole of humanity, since we all form part of Gaia, and of the Tree. I loved the idea.

I have no doubts that this design would/will be met with a 102 and a half comments from all sorts of people involved with Druidry, but at least we can now buy some fabric, and try to make a real flag, which, if it is rejected, will float handsomely over “The Last Homely House in the West”, in our Spanish Rivendell, at the heart of the Earth Sanctuary.

Cool, huh?

I will keep you informed of this project.

Shadow Work Fun

(Image : Soul card 118, SG, 2008)

 

You mean that there can be fun in Shadow Work? Yup.

I wrote this entry three days back, and when I was finished and tried to upload it, WordPress shut me down, and I lost the post! I had torn the paper into tiny bits, thinking, you know, OK, work done, so I had to assemble my bits, do some puzzling (pun intended) work, and then I left it. I respect the “reasons-why” that I encounter, even if they are not really logical.

In the meantime, I made a collage about my experience, and when I was finished and wanted to scan it, I realized that there were actually two images in the same space. See the pic at the right ? That is how I collaged it, the second one, below, is the very same, on the “reverse” side, with a totally different meaning.

The first one, was of a wave that crashes on the shore, mountains in the background (incidental, too, it´s the edge that was torn from the luminous bit above!) I rather liked the image, but thought, mmm…air, water and earth, where´s the fire ?…

When I turned the image around to scan it, there appeared the fire! See? The bubbles that come up from the depth of the sea, *haha*, it´s a submerged volcano!…That was fun.

And now comes what I had written, three days ago. I think it´s important, so here it goes.

“One of the most useful processes that you can do as a “person-in-the-world”, a person worried about all the stuff about the Inconvenient Truth, is…shadow work. It is certainly the most important part of our work in Ecopsychology. You cannot change a society from the same consciousness that has created the Climate Crisis in the first place. To change something, we will have to analyse why it happened in the first place. And I have absolutely no doubt about what we will encounter. Nobody wants it, let me tell you from experience. (Not very good for the climate crisis).

Often, too often, shadow work is presented as an uncovering of personal repressed shit, of all the dark thingies that supposedly “go bump” around in the dark night of your soul. Only partly true. The unconscious is dark (no “light” = no consciousness), but the soul is luminous. Not the same at all.

The shit is usually on the immediate (submerged!) surface, but therapists make you carry this baggage because after all, they are making a living out of it! Get my drift?

Underneath the shitty truth of who you are is the great regrettably universal truth of the Matrix conditioning, to which we all have been submitted right from infancy. It is a process of systematic mutilation that starts very early in every newborn. It even starts before that, in every little mother´s womb. Society has its own independent agenda concerning newborns, and the worst part of it, is that it later hides the stuff under the guise of “therapy”. You need “therapy” to make you a ”good” crazy person again. Well, mostly, you are not being really healed. You are being smothered with what the Matrix does not want to see of itself. The truth would be to tell you that there is a great light beneath the surface of the waters, as there is a great light under the stars.

Real shadow work is more about un-covering this Light, and reclaiming who you really are, than about the shitty business of seeing your shortcomings and your ploys (sometimes really intelligent!) to survive in a society that does not acknowledge the existence of the soul. (No, not the rosy light that supposedly glows above your brow, that´s the intellect).

You carry society´s ignorance as if it was your own, and mostly it isn´t.

In my long career as a therapist (yeah, been there done that) I have never seen a wholly personal shadow that wouldn´t extend into collective ones. I am not saying that personal shadows do not exist, that they are a fancy and malevolent creation. Not all is invented. But I do say that all problems have a soul-ution, we are made of Light, and it is this Light that has been repressed.

I have, however, seen a lot of abandoned babies and unloved children, – which takes us to the urgent necessity of a courageous analysis of our spookily unbalanced societies.

Just my two-cent of wisdom for today, in the middle of this oh so phony X-mas business.

Love,

The Lady Dragon *slightly nauseated by the festivities*

   (Soul Card 118, The Submerged Volcano, and Light Bubbles)

 

Flight of the Morrigan

(Image : Flight of the Morrigan, collage on paper, SG, 2008)

That´s another collage I did yesterday.

From Wikipedia :“The Morrigan, The Dark aspect of the Celtic Triple Goddess. The “Washer at the Ford” (seen washing bloody laundry prior to battle by those destined to die). The Battle Goddess, also Queen of the Witches and Goddess of Magick. Could appear as a Raven, a beautiful Maiden or an ugly Hag. Marries the Dagdha at Samhain. The Goddess of Death. Directional assignment: North or North-west, Samhain.”

The Mask

(Image, The Mask, collage on paper, SG, 3o 12.o8)

We all wear masks. It is said that we need them in order to function in society. Which is just the kind of “baggage” that I told you about in the post about shadow work. It is maybe necessary to protect your most tender feelings from your colleagues at the office, but it sure complicates intimate relationships, no end. Which begs some deeper work (IMHO) on why we create such un-human environments to begin with.  Above all, things usually become very  difficult when people don´t remember that they wear a mask, and honestly think that the mask is their real face.

Anyway, I did this collage yesterday, and it belongs to this serie about shadow work, so here it is.

On a straight path up to heaven!

(Image : The Source, collage on cardboard, SG, 2005)

Thanks to all my readers the stats of this blog are on a straight monthly path up to heaven!Thanks for reading, folks.

And I do hope some of it helps you to bear new ideas to lighten your world.

On my part, have a very creative, healthy and happy 2009! Cheers, in spite of all.

Be brave, be good, be outrageous. Be yourself.

May the Force be with you.

The Lady Dragon, *in a ya-hoo mood*

PS.- And watch “An Inconvenient Truth” again, show it to your children, to your colleagues at work, to your neighbours, to your friends. Houston, we´ve got a problem!…May 2009 change the course of things because we all understand what we do not want for our children.

Trash Art and New Year Resolutions

(Image : Recycled!, art journal made with used X-mas paper bags, SG, 01.01.08)

I, the Lady Dragon, hereby solemnly swear, *spits on her paws*, that I will not buy any new art material in 2009, but instead will recycle all the thingies that are contained in all my boxes, drawers and treasure chests. I will develop Trash Art to a fine point this year, recycling the contents of my trash bins and of my used paper baskets. I swear not to put a foot – or even half a foot! – in any art shops, in Spain or elsewhere. May the Great Gook forever damn me to mediocre art if I should do so.

Hahaha. Let´s see how long that lasts!

Tarot cards for 2009

(Image : Tarot Journal, 2009, SG, visual journal)

Every year, at the beginning of January, I throw my Tarot deck, to see a little bit how the next year looks like, could look like. Well, this year, the cards are a fantastic bunch, and if I get to be up to them through the year, this is going to be a great year!

The Sun, The Wheel of Fortune, The Star, and the High Priestess, a rather interesting mix.

Tech snaggyglitch!

Hello, my dears!

This is a post to communicate that I am re-shuffling the posts, and so some of them disappear into the dungeons. You can see “All Posts” through the tag cloud.

Since I´m not the brightest light when it comes to techno-stuff, I may need a day to figure out how I can get my blog into the correct chronological order.

Ah well, I´ll show you some art then…;-)

(Image : Spanish High Drama, collage on paper, SG, 07)

Conjunctio : The Lovers

(Image : Conjunctio, soul card, SG, 2005)

Each one of them: complete.

Each one of them, a perfect jewel.

Neither only man, neither only woman.

They are what each one is. Just that. They will cry and they will bleed, and they will share the gift of life.

As they touch they feel the same life force

 flowing in their veins, like living fire.

And so they shine, perfect jewels in a perfect necklace,

Glowing ruby-red on the throat of the Goddess.

Alchemy, practiced throughout the ancient world, is a science or art through which material is subjected to a serie of operations in order to produce gold or the so-called philosopher´s stone, the key to understanding everything. This latter was to be reached by the union of opposites in the final process called the conjunctio, normally imaged as the union of male and female in the form of the divine androgyne. Although alchemy was practiced as literal chemistry, it was also imaged metaphorically as a process of psychospiritual growth. In this sense, even the literal chemical process was imagined to hold the mental projections of the alchemist. It was Jung´s metaphor for the process of individuation whereby opposites are held in tension and brought into harmony through the constellation of a third possibility. The Lovers of Tarot come to mind, too, in which a couple is seen looking up at the blessing hands of an angel (Rider Waite).

Oh Hidden Life, vibrant in every atom,

Oh Hidden Light, shining in every creature,

Oh Hidden Love, embracing all in oneness,

May all who feel themselves as one with thee,

Know they are therefore one with each other.

(Annie Besant)

Initiation: The Tower

(Image : The Sannyasin and the Labyrinth, soul card 87, SG, 06)

Essentially initiation is a soul journey. It may be stepped into consciously, or it may overwhelm us when we least expect it. It often comes upon us unbidden, with the elemental force of a hurricane, or an earthquake. A loss, or death of a loved one, or any sudden drastic change of our life circumstances can push us into the unknown. It is the passage of awakening to the new and unfamiliar circumstances that tests our capacity for evolution. The willingness to surrender control of the old and familiar condition, requires a maturity of soul that arises through the challenge of living. There is a necessary shattering of innocence, of trust in the safety and comfort of the known. Facing our fears, and meeting these often painful points of transition in a human life, is to consciously connect with the Mystery of the Self, with the order of the cosmos, with existence itself, and to be opened by its infinite potential.

“Obey the Teacher on the Way. Prepare for the tests. Pass through each Gate and in the sphere which they reveal and guard, perform the labor which befits their sphere. Learn thus the lesson and begin with love to serve humanity.

Then, to the Teacher went the final word : “Prepare the candidate. Give him his labours to perform and place his name upon the tablets of the living Way.”

(The Tibetan Master)

” Within the light shall you see light; walk in that light and there see light. Your light must brighter shine.” (The Old Commentary).

Oh!

The silence of the vultures

Thickens the plot, no doubt.Follow the threads, follow the trails,

Follow the hints and the winks,

We are on to something.

Staunchly we walk

Back to the Shire,

The Ring has  ben destroyed,

My friends.

We fight for freedom.

This is no race for amateurs.

Too many strange-sounding names,

Too many nuts to Nibble-ungen on.

Hahaha.

The Lady Dragon *being esoteric*

Have you Had your Meme Today ?

 

“A meme is any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.”

Come to think of it, symbols that have been transmitted through the ages, are memes: for example, the crux ansata, the Ankh cross (eternal life for the Egyptians); the Yin-Yang symbol (duality and movement thereof); the Christian cross (symbol of the Saviour, for some); etc.

Anything can become a meme (pronounced meem) , and the science of  the transmission of memes is memetics.

Well, Assagioli´s Egg is a meme. It contains all the information about Assagioli´s view of reality.

I come to today´s subject. Today I have painted a meme, the meme that is the Earth Sanctuary. Those of you who are interested in Psychosynthesis will recognize the Egg, and its Seven Points.

Defining what we do and who we are is too complicated, and maybe not very useful, so I will share this visual meme with you today, and let it float in the Web, see what happens.

 

More Memes

(Images : Mandalas, Shakti G., 1998)

See if you can decipher the contents of these visual memes.

(And yes, Tibetan Mandalas are also memes.)

Use Your Imagination Journal

(Image: My Dreams Are Still Fluffy After All These Years spread,  UYI Journal, 2009, SG, Recycled Paper Bags, recycled magazines, recycled wools)

…is fattening up, lol. Just a peek…

The Sink Sadhana

(Image : The Magician, Shakti´s Funky Tarot, SG, 2004)

Sadhana = Spiritual path, in sanscrit. 

The kids who live with me have things to do, friends to meet, articles to write, clever thinking to share, and guess who washes the dishes ?

Yes.

Me.

I have things to do, articles to write, smashing thinking to get out there, lots of art to birth into the world. This morning, I stifled the scream that was bubbling up my throat (me being a drama queen), and considered the sink. Wait a minute.

When people ask “Gosh, Shakti, where do you find the patience(—>the strength/the morale/the boost/the incentive/the sheer hooplala) to go on writing, creating, thinking…?

*smile*

In my kitchen.

Been at the Sink Sadhana for more than forty years now, and that is where I learned everything there is to learn about patience and hooplala.

…Have you ever paused a minute to think about the spiritual influence of an exercise like washing dishes, drying them, piling them up in neat clean piles into a cupboard, whoa, every day thrice, again and again, for years? To be dirtied again the next day, yipee-ya-yey, again and again, year in year out ?

Yea, brother. Every single day of my long life since I´m on my own, I have been in one kitchen or another, at least during part of the day, courageously facing the mounds of dirty dishes.

Today, my friends, I made an extraordinary discovery : the Sink Sadhana has made me…unsinkable!

OK, now.

Have you finished your breakfast?

Can I get at the dishes ?

*blinking*

Naaah, I´m OK doing it.

You just go play!

Hehehe.

Soul cards

(Image : The Winter Queen, soul card 121, SG, 2009)

So, what are soul cards?

I have started my collage work years and years ago, long before it was “invented” in California by a lady called Seena Frost. An artist friend of mine showed me how to cut stuff in old magazines to create stunning collage work (her own being abstract). As my drawing was not up to the kind of images that I got in my mind, the technique really worked for me. I can decide on perspective, and create architecture, layers and depths. Through the years I evolved my own style and my own themes.

When I started my Psychosynthesis Diploma Course in the year 2000, I realized that I could actually document my inner processes, so the collage work soon became an expression of all the phases of my PS process. Now they are an extension of my inner Journey. 

Anything can start a collage card, an inner impulse, a colour, something somebody says, an image in a magazine, sometimes just an emotion, or a state of mind. Through time I have elaborated my own “vocabulary”, so I  immediately know what the card means when I look at it. It is a sort of stenography of the soul. 

When I show the cards I let the viewers elaborate on their own meanings, and am glad to see that my cards evoke lots of interesting ideas. It rather works like an unconventional Tarot deck (of 121 cards!). Nowadays I mostly use them to illustrate this blog, which allows me to show things that words cannot communicate.

All the images you see in this blog are simple scissors-and-glue work. I don´t do Photoshop. And of course, I don´t sell them, though I did, at one time, create book covers with them for a friend of mine who is a publisher.

Hey!

(Image : The Hermit, Shakti´s Funky Tarot)

Today is my birthday! *beaming*

Sixty-two going on to 45! *Cheshire Cat Grin*

I´m…awed. Life is beautiful.

Shadow Warrior

 

(Image : Shadow Warrior, collage on cardboard, SG, 2009)

Got two or three rants in the offing, but didn´t have the time to appear here today, so that´s for the next week.

Meanwhile, here´s my latest collage, Shadow Warrior.

Enlightening moments

(Image : Gift of Life, collage on paper, SG, 2004)

“The real meaning of enlightenment is gazing with undimmed eyes upon all darknesses.”

(Nicolas Kazantzakis)

My daughter, the one who is two weeks away from giving birth to her first baby, is having some really enlightening moments.

“Mum, do you realize that every soldier that has ever been killed in a war has been brought to the world through a woman going through all the stages of pregnancy ?”

Yes. my darling. Not to mention giving birth, which is one hell of a moment for the female body.

“Mum ? How come no woman ever protests?”

Well. Errr…

“And do you realize that nobody -EVER- talks about it ?”

Yup.

Sweetheart, that is why your witchy old mum is a shadow warrior.

Listen…

(Image : The Lady, collage on cardboard, SG, 2004)

kia tere te karohihori…

which means approx.:

May the calm be widespread

May the sea glisten like greenstone

and may the warmth of summer fall upon us all.

(Maori)

*sigh*

I love saying these words aloud (in Maori, and pardon my accent!)…

They are like pearls sliding out of the mouth.

And then, on another note, not less important :

“Stamp out conformity. Stay in bed all day. Dream of gypsy wagons. Marry yourself. Eat mangoes naked.” (Sark)

Certainly, the essence of Druidry, to this Druid.

“She”

(Image : Blue, collage on paper, SG, 2004)

How different, how vastly different our destinies would have been, my friends,

If a cult generated in the desert had not slain even Her memory.

She was stepped on, She was humiliated, She was quartered and then thrown to the winds.

Her name does not echo anymore in the wild forests of the West. Her rivers, Her heartland, Her springs, Her waterfalls, have all been dried up. The Earth has become a wasteland.

Behind the veils, behind the clouds, Avalon goes on. And on and on.

Shekinah, Kali, Inanna, Ereshkigal, Sekhmet, Hecate,  Mary the Dark, Our Lady of All Creatures,

Ora pro Nobis, Pray for us, for the sons and daughters of man

Are lost.

We´re OK!

This is just to let you know that we are OK here at the Sanctuary, but that there was a hurricane-like gale during the last two nights, which uprooted a lot of trees, and we are without electricity, so …no Internet. I´m typing this at my daughter´s computer in the village.

Apart from material problems we are doing OK,  none of us has been hurt, except that we are having a taste of what the climate change has in store for us. So we´re working on some psychological adjustment, as a tool to align intelligently for the future.

The house is like a castle, it´s a stone fortress, so we´re not worrying, but the pine trees are flying around, and that´s a real danger; if one of them falls on a cable (lots of them in the property), that could start a fire, and with the gale, it couldn´t be stopped. So we´re thinking about safety measures, not to mention the urgency of renewing the house´s insurances. I have at least three blogs in store, but will have to wait until the light comes back, the official services are completely overwhelmed.

Do you believe in fairies?

(Image : The Lady and the Unicorn, coloured drawing, SG, 2009)

 

I hope not. They do not exist in real nature (obviously).

(Yo, yo, yoooo – don´t spit at me!)

Let me finish.

…Are you – however - *owning* your inner Fairy ? Mmmmm?

I just wonder what the world would look like if a majority of people, instead of repressing their natural sensitivity – would express it as a legitimate side of their personal nature ? Yes, women and men.

…What if people became familiar with their inner magic?

Would “fairies” even be necessary then ????

The image is from the delightful Unicorns – Coloring Book, by Christy Shaffer, Dover Publications Inc, Mineola, N.Y, USA.

The colours are mine, though.

PS.- Note the lackered fingernails – as in so many new-agey images, there is a lack of a practical sense of clothing where women – and fairies! – are concerned. How can they flit about in their gauzy little dresses ???…So unpractical! Hahaha.

Love the colours, nonetheless. *sigh*

Oh, and the light is back, so I can rant some more now…

Pay me, pal!

 

(Image : Master El Morya, source unknown)

I have a rather bubbly, lightly sarcastic, view of the new-agey crowd (been there, done that). And what I found a few days back must be the weirdest among the pearls that I am collecting. There are some really funky zany views on the spiritual Hierarchy in the Net, but the extract below must well be the golden cherry on the glitzy purple cake :

(…)How To Win a PERSONAL Q&A SESSION With Master Kuthumi

Each month when you register for the Galactic Activation Conference via our Paypal link, you have a chance to win a personal Questions and Answers session with Master Kuthumi by choosing a number between 1 and 700 and typing it in the place on the Paypal invoice at checkout where it says : “MY RAFFLE CHOICE”.

If the number you choose is closest to the number that has been pre chosen that month by Master Kuthumi, you will win a chance to ask Master Kuthumi a question and receive his answer and any guidance he has for you at that time, at the end of that nights activation before the call ends.(…)

Let me smile. Ain´t that quaint or what! What is the chance that an elevated Being like that will know if Rita Sunshine, of Sacramento Landing, has to have a gluten-free diet – or if Bulagungule Okongole, of Kenya, really needs to sell that chicken to his mother-in-law?… *kewkewkew, the Lady Dragon, chuckling*

Hey! If you want to know anything at all about the spiritual Hierarchy, you put your money in my Paypal, and I´ll give you the real dirt about the subject!

No offense meant, to anybody, and especially not to Master Kuthumi.

Having said that, if the Masters really look anything like the drawing I also found on another site…I could..well… become a fan in two seconds flat!

*The Lady Dragon, preening herself before her mirror*

 

 

One Light

(Image : Origins, collage on cardboard, SG, 1996)

Am reading The wisdom of the Sufi Sages (Timothy Freke), a wonderful little book, and this quote really hit us (reading it aloud in the family, and we all ended up crying, lol) :

“There is only One Light, and “you” and “me” are holes in the lamp shade”.

The whole point being that we are all the same Light, NOT “parts of the same old lamp shade!”

See what I mean ?

In the Light,

The Lady Dragon.

Happy Imbolc, everyone!

(Image : Hail, Brighid!,collage on paper, SG, 2006)

Spring is Coming!:

Imbolc is a holiday with a variety of names, depending on which culture and location you’re looking at. In the Irish Gaelic, it’s called Oimelc, which translates to “ewe’s milk.” It’s a precursor to the end of winter when the ewes are nursing their newly born lambs. Spring and the planting season are right around the corner.

Most Holy Brighid, Excellent Woman, Bright Arrow, Sudden Flame;
May your bright fiery Sun take us swiftly to your lasting kingdom.

Brighid is the goddess of creativity and regeneration.

So, Happy Imbolc, to all of you out there!

Love,

The Lady Dragon.

If only

(Image : Imbolc, soul card 77, SG, 2005)

If only my name had been Vanessa,

If only I had been a real blonde,

If only I had dared eat more chocolate,

If only I had created more mischief,

If only I had married Alan Lee…

Ah well.

As the Spanish say :  “Yo creía” y “yo pensaba” son hijos de Doña Ignorancia y de Don Tiempo perdido”. ( ”I believed” and “I thought” are the children of Lady Ignorance and Mister Time (lost).

*sigh*

Chain of Life

(Image : Jai Kali Ma, soul card 124, SG 2009)

My mother, bless her soul, has arrived to the very ripe age of a hundred years last November, and claims that she is so tired that she would just like to fall asleep and never wake up again.

My daughter, on the other hand, is exhausted by the last stages of her pregnancy, and carries her “beloved balloon” around like a precious burden.

Me, sandwiched in-between a coming death and a coming life, still full of my own life, my heart throbbing with my life, creating ferociously so as not to lose a single day, fearing an uncertain future for us all, hoping for the best and wishing away the past.

How unimportant seem the busy affairs of men…

Ten Little Eggs

(Image : The Little Mothers, soul card 56, SG 2005)

Mum (me) is preparing spinach pie for supper when suddenly, …peep! nee-noo-nee-noo nee-noo (the emergency siren)! No eggs. And the supermarket is definitely too far away at this late hour. “Wait! I´ll go down to the chicken coop!” Mika (my daughter, no, not the pregnant one) exclaims. Ten minutes later, the radiant gal comes back, with ten little eggs in a platter.

Now, do you remember this movie in which Charlton Heston finds out to his horror that since there is no real food anymore, people are actually eating dead bodies? Soylent Green, I think it was called.

Well, let me tell you folks, in a pre-Soylent Green world, ten little eggs – real little eggs! – make all the difference!…

Happy Imbolc! Gaaaaah…

The Enlightened Artichoke

(Image: Secret Garden, collaborative journal, SG, 2005)

(Shawn, you´re going to love this one!) *wink*

…One of my good friends (ohum…) told me : ”I´m reading your blog, but m´dear, aren´t you talking about yourself a bit too much?”

Well. Since I´m fascinated with LIFE, and I´m the nearest subject available for observation…

Besides, I´m not trying to uphold an egotistic singularity, of which I am by the way well aware, I´m just playing with the fact that in so many ways I am – as the Spanish say, “more normal than an artichoke”,  -that is, I share in all the glory and all the shit that it means to be fully human. And that is why, the stats say, my words have such a resonance out there in the big wide world… Aren´t we all, for good or for worse, in the same boat?

Mmm…I´m an artichoke, yes, but albeit an enlightened one! Hahaha.

The Martian Toaster

(Image: Madame Mim, Walt Disney) (Yup, that´s Madame Mim, I´ve been told that someone is searching for her!))

Who…but who (look into my fiery dragon eyes!) has thrown away my old (burnt but comfy) toaster, and replaced it with this Martian…thing ?

That …thing… says : “Bread can catch fire therefore the appliance should not be used near curtains, furniture… ” Points of suspension, I swear this is real. Where on Earth will I find, in my kitchen, a nook without furniture? And what are the points of suspension for?

“It” also says “Do not touch the appliance with wet hands”. See what I mean ? Only a thingie coming from outer space would give such an advice to an Earthling!

And this: ” Personal safety: The temperature of the accessible surfaces may be high when the appliance is in use”. Duh. (Note *** May be high, (the temperature), it is not certain?)

Not to mention the Instructions for Use :

-Connect the appliance to the mains. Put the slice or slices of bread into the appliance.  Use the select knob to reach the desired toasting level. Start the appliance by sliding the loading lever down until a “click” is heard. After -the/-selected-toasting/-time-… the-appliance/-will-switch/-off -/auto-ma/-tically.

Kew kew kew

Whoa, for braindeads.

Now, wait a minute, while I go toast “a slice-/ or / slices of -/bread” (what else??). If I´m not back in two minutes, call the emergency phone, I may have been abducted!

Oh, and the thing is called “Planet” (yes, but… which one?)

The Staff and The Wand

(Image : The Lady of the Lake, The OM Journal, SG, 2007)

I´m finishing my Druid Grade at OBOD, (which actually means that I´m just starting in Druidry!…)

As the OBOD Gwersu (booklets) suggest, staff and wand represent the magic (respectively) of the authority of the Druid, and the magic of Thought, so yes, I have my Harry Potter wand (yeah, have a quick laugh, you sad sad people, kew kew kew) and my Druid staff which is, as it should be, impressive.

My wand is made of very straight hazelnut wood (impossibly straight say my friends who know about my kind of magic!), and it helps me greatly to be “thinking straight”, and then to project my very straight and direct thoughts into the world.

My staff carries significant charms, geegaws and doodads of various civilizations (a mother-of-pearl tiki from New Zealand, leather bands from Morocco, silver hearts from the supermarket, and last but not least very nice feathers from our very own chicken coop),  and you wouldn´t want to come across it, it being pointed at your middle, it looks…wicked.

The OBOD training also says that staff and wand represent “the masculine”, as (“naturally”?…) cauldron, cup or chalice represent “the feminine”. I think that OBOD skated a bit too close to a sexist assumption on that one, but what the heck, it´s nice having neat categories in our busy little brain (s).

Now what do my staff and my wand carry ? Masculine energy, or my own ? Since everything a female thinks and does is also female, these are two very powerful female…err…ornaments.

OK, in a nutshell, the wand is Elrond´s and the staff is Gandalf´s. But the energy is… pure Aragorn. Et voilá. Said it.

*sigh*

*The Lady Dragon,  sort of dreamy-eyed*

Soulmates

…Encountered my soulmate at long last! Tee Hee. See the pic?

Naaah, just joking.

This is one hell of a stereotype of a Druid. Oldish, white hair, sharp blue eyes under stormy eyebrows, bear claw at the neck, and, of course, wooden staff. He´s too Druidy to be true, must be an American…or maybe a film star. Or an “extra” in a BBC documentary on Stonehenge…

Speaking of Druid stereotypes, I know of female Druids of uncertain age, round and funny, and no less authoritative. Well, I must say that I don´t really believe in young Druids, that´s true. To become a counsellor to kings one must have a certain life experience, don´t you agree?

Anyways, the pic was funny. Love the hair, gosh, I would love to have the hair!…

And what about soulmates then?

Soulmates are not necessarily romantic partners. They can be. They can be your daughters, too (in my case, yes, they are!), a very dear friend, or friends, plural,  since soulmates may appear in numbers.

I think their characteristic is that you feel, and they do too, that we have known each other forever. We are “built” the same way, and often have had similar experiences in life. We “resonate”. We “grok” each other.

Soulmates get us closer to the fact that humanity is one Family, that we all come from Olduvai Valley when the real story is finally told. And certainly, we are part of the same Soul, a level of consciousness that the Matrix does its best and its worst to make us forget…

PS.- Note the coordinated colours of gloves and cape ? I´d give half of my hoarded treasures to get my greedy little hands on clothing like that !…

Save the Soul of Stonehenge!

Mika and Adam (her soulmate) are on various Druid forums, one of them a Save Stonehenge Message Board. Mika comes to breakfast this morning, all heated up, almost screaming : “What the hell are they trying to save, a pile of stones or their own soul?“

Good point, Mika.

And she then sputters on : “Why don´t “they” build a mini Stonehenge in their backyard, and try to save their backyard – which is in just as much danger of disappearing than Stonehenge itself?”

Another good (ecopsychological) point.

Then Mum (me) pipes up : “Oh – maybe you should ask “them” if they actually have a backyard ? Or a garden, or a small stretch of lawn ? Even that would save their soul, since where the soul is all stones are also…

Mika says : Good point, Mum.

And puts another toast in the Martian toaster…

PS.- Miiiiika!!! Look what I found in E-Bay, a complete “Build-Your-Own-Stonehenge” kit!!!!

I want it! I want it! I want it!

Kew kew kew

Stonehenge Soul Card

Long before this breakfast conversation ever happened (please see post below), this is soul card Nr. 113, The Priest. (SG – 2007)… (An Egyptian priest at Stonehenge ?…Mmmm-ysterious.)

And then Adam´s last post on his blog “Grove of Quotes“.

Twenty-three little eggs!

Ain´t that sweet victory ? Twenty-three little eggs!

And the Oscar goes to…, Thelma and Louise,  Ginger, Wallace (hen, lol), Moby Dick, Twig, Hazel, Ivy,  and Elf !

And thanks to Little Tetley (aka the Masai Warrior), Raven (aka Shaman) and Bamboo.

*huge grin*

You are honoured members of our community.

Mammon´s Prayer

(Image : It´s not what it seems, collage on paper, SG, 2002)

…The other day, Mika, Adam and me were in a supermarket to do some shopping. It was one of those hyper-hyper affairs, with very high ceilings and lots of lights, that look like a modern cathedral. I said “So…Let´s go worshipping, in this temple!”.

Adam looked at me and laughed. Five minutes later he came up with a piece of paper and a pen, and started scribbling furiously. Then he read us what he had written. We laughed out, it was so funny. I said… “Gimme that paper, this is a blog!” …

So here it goes…

Our Money,

Who art in the Economy,

Hallowed be thy Value.

Thy Profit come,

Thy Wealth be done

In our bank account as it is for the bank.

Give us this day our regular income,

And forgive us our misspending

As we forgive those who misspend against us.

And lead us not into poverty,

But deliver us to cheap shops

For thine is the Profit, the Value and the Wealth

Forever and ever,

Or at least as long as the Economy holds up,

Amen.

 

Mammon.

 

Mammon, as you know, dear people, is a Phoenician false god of riches and avarice.

 

Adam (Brough) is a really good writer, have you enjoyed his blog yet? It´s The Grove of Quotes. Adam is a member of the Earth Sanctuary coregroup.

The 11th Hour

I just saw Leo DiCaprio´s “The 11th Hour”, and I´m very glad to say that this work is also the discourse behind the creation of the Earth Sanctuary; I mean this is what we thought thirty years back, and it is such a comfort to see the subject go mainstream.

So if you haven´t seen it yet, please do!

This blog is in that context, as a cultural priority.

I find it even better than the Inconvenient Truth (too much Al Gore on screen in the other one).

I don´t care if Leo is looking out for an Oscar (as Al Gore did), these things need to be said – and people need to LISTEN AND ACT. And I´ll remind you that “people” is each one of us. Don´t wait, don´t start to criticize, it´s all true, and you need to be able to face a multifaceted and huge cultural Transition, you, you, and you, and you, and your loved ones.

So…get the message out! We don´t have that much time to turn the Tide.

Please Google :

The 11th Hour

Together.com /easy ways to fight climate change

THE ECOLOGIST

/Interview with Leo about the movie – http://www.theecologist.org/pages/archive_detail.asp?content_id=1849

THANK YOU.

 

Elderwoman

My new grandson – Alexander Leonidas – has been born today at 10.00 a.m. Mother and child are doing fine. We could meet him just two hours after his birth, he looks like a regular little Buddha.

Never more than today am I thinking of this :

“We must abandon the notion that we become grandparents when our children give birth. In the same way that all adults are ultimately responsible for all the earth´s children, grandparents come into being when we realize we are responsible for all the grandchildren on the earth.”

From Alice Walker´s We Are The Ones We´ve Been Waiting For, New Press 2006.

 

The now-Mum, 6 years old, how time flies)

Alexander Leonidas, 24 hours old

 

 

Presenting…This is Leo. Don´t know if he will go on much longer looking so peaceful, so here he is, as we saw him today.

Mum and baby are fine and happy together. Dad has gone very quiet, suddenly…

Nana(me) is smiling from ear to ear.

Uncle Adam´s a Poet!

(Image : Adam and Mika planting an ash tree at the Sanctuary,  in honour of Leo, who is a little charmer, lol)

Here´s the poem that Adam handed me after having been with Leo in a corner of the room, at the clinic where my daughter gave birth:

Little life,

Pure humanity,

Unbroken and uncultured,

Open with no defenses.

The world crashes around and disturbs

Your delicate, sensitive being,

Disturbing you from your centre.

But that´s fine,

You are with me,

Sheltered in my arms;

Your peace;

Your sanctuary.

I protect and defend you

And guide you back to your centre.

The light softens its invasive glare,

So your dark twinkling eyes open up

To look curiously around

In that shining, intelligent way.

They say : “Hello world,”

“I´m here.”

 

…Now, who wouldn´t want an uncle like that, eh???

I´ll go back writing about Druidry, lol, but just now, we´re all in awe of this new life!…

(Which feeling, actually, is a good part of what Duidry really is about…)

 

 

Maternal thinking

(Image : Our Lady of All Creatures, soul card 5, SG, 2004)

Oh I was so glad that this baby wasn´t mine! That I could at long last see another mother go through her own challenges! Nothing of that, nope, no thing. Zilch.

Eight o´clock in the morning, Nana making Swiss Birchermuesli and vegetable soup to bring to the new Mum – ah! and where are the damn iron pills, and the fruit juice? Why can´t I get my hand on any clean Tupperware when I need it, move aside, here I go! Again. *chuckle-chuckle*

Thinking…My baby (the new Mum!) needs vitamins – and mentally checking my list of nutrients for depleted female systems! Hahaha.

If politicians had ten per cent of maternal thinking in reference to the planet, no, a millionth of a dose of maternal thinking, we would finally have some hope concerning the climate crisis. It wouldn´t have happened to begin with, maybe.

Yo-yo The Rapper

(Image: Yo-yo The Rapper, Pic MG, 2009)

It is funny to see how quickly nicknames come up, with this business of the new baby; we have already gone through Leo, Alex, Kartoffeln (potatoes in German, and that from his Mum), Peanut (Auntie Mika) – and now by general consensus..Yo-yo The Rapper! (Well, you can see why in the pic.)

That reminds me of the work with the subpersonalities in Psychosynthesis. So many facets of our soul have been severed from our central consciousness,  it´s sometimes hard work to get them back, (as examples:  the Inner Child, the Shadow, Animus and Anima, etc.)

Anyway, Kartoffeln is screaming, gotta go! I´ll bla-bla-bla later! (The two of them are in my home, the Mum needs rest and vegetable soup!)

Faithfully Yours,

Nana.

Nana´s Vegetable Soup

(Image : Her Cosmos,  collage on paper, SG, 2002)

If you think that I´ve gone gaga over my grandson, and am drifting away from my main subject (Druidry), let me tell you, you are so wrong!

Druidry is about reverence for all Life, and about the celebration of being human, and what is more sacred than a newly forged bond between a mother and a child? (Yo-yo has widely opened eyes after a week, and looks around, and even starts to say “aaaah…” – like in : aaaah, here I am…)

Nana has her witching ways with newborn babies, hahaha.

Anyway, about the soup.

In case of doubt, hurricane, financial crisis or end-of -the-world-as-we-know-it, Nana´s vegetable soup is a secure and healthy answer; Nana´s soup is the best of remedies! Potatoes, leeks,carrots and a secret ingredient (begins with an l and ends with an e, you guess it…) 

*chuckling*

Ecopsychology and Maternal Thinking

(Image : Homo Noeticus, SG,  collage on paper, 2002)

Three mistakes, dearest Reader, that you shouldn´t make :

Do not make the mistake of thinking that this post is a feminist one. It is not. It is  humanistic.

Do not, either, make the mistake that this post is for women only. No way. 

And, third, do not make the mistake of thinking that ecopsychology should be created entirely by male minds in cold universities. Maternal thinking is the first and foremost source of  the knowledge about a new sense of caring for the planet.

If the male part of the human population was as involved with their baby ´s shit, and their baby´s beautiful eyes, and their baby´s tiny hands, and their baby´s perfect feet, and with this constant “is the baby well?” thought that lurks in each mother´s head (and grandmother´s, well, in most of the healthy ones, anyway)- Nana thinks that the world would be a very different place.

Not that I think that men cannot do that, oh no. Men are as nurturing as women, it is a psychological given that exists in the males too, so far only as a wonderful potential. The damn thing is the cultural conditioning that first separates genders and then assign them different roles,(so that antiquated unconscious structures can be perpetuated), when (apart from breast feeding) men can do exactly the same as women in caring for the kiddies.

The Matrix has its own crazy agenda. Parents, beware! The Matrix has it all wrong, and who is going to do something about it ?

Maybe small communities will be able to live “on a road less travelled”, and bit by bit, baby by baby, couple by couple, Grandma by Grandad, change things around.

Nana prays that this should be so.

Homo Noeticus

(Image : The Eye of Shiva, watercolours, SG, 2002)

As surely as the Cromagnon followed the Neandherthal, Homo Noeticus will follow Sapiens Sapiens. For the time being, Sapiens Sapiens hasn´t even got to the top of his potential, and might even disappear from the surface of the planet, as the dinosaurs (and the dodo, lol!) did before him.

Being a Sapiens Sapiens - that is : I know that I know - I´m quite a bit ashamed at how the “intelligent ape” (?????) is behaving. If I did not know why, and what to do about it, I guess I would drown in my own despair.

For the moment, here is an interesting and excellent interview about Homo Noeticus – and we´re not talking UFOS, Angels, Indigo Children and Ascended Masters…

Towards Homo Noeticus (John White)

I suppose that the next step of Evolution would be first to fulfill Sapiens Sapiens. There is no way the “intelligent ape” (mmm…we could question that description, now, couldn´t we?…) will jump over his relationship with his environment (and thus, back to maternal thinking, if you get my drift…)

Owning my Merlin-hood

(Image : The Earth Sanctuary, December 2000)

Yes, my Merlin-hood. As in : parent-hood, mother-hood, person-hood.

Ancient scriptures say that Merlin is not only a figure of legend, or the archetype of the Wise Old Man, or of the Hermit, but that the word also describes a function. Thus, you say a Merlin, as in :  a carpenter, a doctor.

And yes, of course, women make fine Merlins, too. (Oops, bring on the Epsom salts! The gentleman in the first row, with the white beard and the neatly pressed white robes, just fainted!…)

Merlins, then, are teachers, judges, counselors to kings, administrators, artists, poets, writers, visionaries, healers, and above all, Peacemakers.

Having finished the formal part of my OBOD* Training, let it be widely known that this is what I am.

OBOD : Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, UK.

Team spirit

(Image: yes, that´s Nana, the essential Merlin!…)

I love living in an intentional community, emphasis on intentional. Though for the moment it´s rather an extended family situation,  we do share the premises in a communal way. One car, one washing machine, one purpose (lol) and one Dharma (that´s good).

Team spirit is our one and all.

Experimenting with being a fully-fledged individual in a collective setting. No – none! - giving in to group -think, at all. Never. Ever. But finding ways of synchronising efforts, blogs linked, I wash the dishes tonight, you cook supper. I´ll get the clothes up on the line, and Taxi! you drive me to the supermarket, to do some (intelligent) shopping. (Whoa, Grandma doesn´t have a driving license, I must be a singularity in the cosmos!…) We are aware of each other´s dance in a way that couples or neighbours are not. Not yet. (But it will have to come to pass.)

…I´m making tea, d’ you want some?

Experimenting. Putting the Matrix in its rightful place : still a priority, so we look …errr…quite normal. Team spirit is the Future, or there will not be any Future.

Oh I´ve lived in other communities when I was younger. I am a child of the Sixties after all. Flash me the V sign, and Peace & Love. I´m the Woodstock generation gone south, hehehe.  Some of those group settings have been shitty business. Bleh. But at least we were experimenting. We were not resigned to the dreary. Now that I am a mature Crone, I still think intentional communities out in the country are a buZZ, capital ZZ. It beats living alone in a flat in a crowded urban desert, any day.

Besides, what with the climate crisis, I think that it will become more and more necessary to learn to live together, so I specialized in conflict resolution. Yup. Nana the Merlin, is really a Peacemaker. At your service, dear people.

*smile*

That´s one thing I know how to do, and apple pies, too.

Home is where my curtains are!

(Image : Merlin´s Tower, SG, 2000)

We´re moving!

The Zoozoos (Mika and Adam) will occupy the fort downstairs, and I get to go back to Merlin´s Tower, says the Lady Dragon *licking her paws*. A space I love because it overlooks the valley, reminding me every single hour of every day (and night!) what I am fighting for!…:-)

Now you have to understand, this house is the size of a small castle, so changes are…life-changing! We do not move just from one room to another, lol, we move ALL our belongings down to the main “flat”, or up…into the Tower! I´ll put a picture of the Tower, just so you´ll see that I am being truthful.

We´ve decided, as a team, to OK-uppy the place.

The three doggies are getting more confused by the hour. The Lulu (Luna, my cocker-spaniel) is sitting on her bed, looking doubtful, everything is moving around her, and her look challenges us to move her mattress, I think.

Kayla is up and down behind anybody who carries cargo, and Chispa, Mika´s  dog, well, as usual, doesn´t loose sight of Mika.

I promise myself (not the first time round!) that I will not accumulate more stuff. Things. Thingies. Gizmos. Thingamajigs. Thingumbobs. Doohickeys. See? As I get them in and out of bags, I feel that they are sacred, all of them…

Can´t give them away! *wailing* Or, forbid the thought, throw them away! They will have to be put in my funeral pyre when the time comes (the latest possible, thank you, I still want to see how that climate crisis works out!!)

Mika has just put my curtains up in my new abode, the chintzy ones with roses and lilies, and I suddenly have that homey feeling…oh! I could live almost anywhere, but please… with my curtains!

I’m putting up my altered books, and art materials, and another thought arises : Home, for me, is truly where my (he)art is!…

So. I will probably stay in the Tower until 2011, that´s when we will have a big Druid encounter here – and after that…who knows ? I may emigrate to Glastonbury!…;-)

Dust

(Image : Dragoney Thing, SG, watercolours, 2002)

They say we go “from dust to dust”…lol.

Gosh, good people, I must have had the entire population of Ghost Town under my bed, when I moved it!

Hahaha.

Higitus Figitus Zumbabazing

(Image : Sword in the Stone, Walt Disney)

My friend Jill commented recently : ”Hope the move goes smoothly”, which reminded me of…

Higitus Figitus… Yes, the move has gone very magickally, each box dancing up the stairs by its own, hehehe…Do you remember the song?

From:  The Sword in the Stone
Written by: Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman

Higitus Figitus zumbabazing
I want your attention ev’rything!
We’re packing to leave come on let’s go
books are always the first you know

Hockety pockety wockety wack
abracabra dabra nack
Shrink in size very small
we’ve got to save enough room for all
Higitus Figitus migitus mum
pres-ti-dig-i-ton-i-um!

Cicero you belong to the “C’s”
alphabethical order please
Ali-i-ca-fez bal-a-ca-zez
malacamez meripides
diminish diminish dictionary
those words in your vocabulary
Hockety pockety wockety wack
that’s the way we have to pack.
Higitus Figitus migitus mum
pres-ti-dig-i-ton-i-um!

Higitus Figitus zoomacazam
don’t get in a trafic jam
Sugar bowl you’re getting rough
the poor old tea set’s cracked enough
Hockety pockety wockety wack
odds and ends and bric a brac

Higitus Figitus migitus mum,
pres-ti-dig-i-ton-i-um.
Higitus Figitus migitus mum,
pres-ti-dig-i-ton-i-um!

PS.- …What a way to pack! Except for the whiskers, it´s me, up to a T!…

Molotov

(Image : Nana, small and friendly, but determined, lol)

Everytime I moved, (and I must have been moving twenty times at least in twenty-two years!…) I found treasures buried in old cardboard boxes, and this picture is no exception.

You see, I own a big wooden trunk, in which I keep the results of all my studies (Celtic, PS, etc.etc), as well as a certain number of diplomas, – and when I need to move it, -which I cannot do alone!-, I joke “…Anybody to carry my psychosynthesis?” – the understanding being, wow, heeeeeavy stuff…

This time around, I looked through the trunk (which I usually avoid, for every time I did it, I also embarked on some long, new/old journey…) – and lo and behold! found this pic of me, aged three (or so, maybe less).

Which reminded me that my father called me “Molotov” (the name of a then-known Russian politician renowned for his manic rebuttal in almost any situation), because I was for ever saying “NO!”, and my parents would try to cajole me,  hypnotizing me with their schemes, like my mother offering me chocolate to shut me up, since I was talking non-stop, with the sorry result (says my mother!) that I went right on talking, but with my mouth full of chocolate! (Which might or might not explain a little tendency to overweight all along my life,  ehem…)

Certainly, this little Mademoiselle seems to know what she wants; she looks friendly, but I remember feeling strangely determined…;-)

Souvenirs, souvenirs…Sixty years and a lot of events down my (black!) belt, and now this weirdness, looking at my own image …Do we ever really change?

*smile*

PS.- Don´t I look like little Leo ??? Hehehe

Madame Mim, again

(Image : The Sword in the Stone, Walt Disney, the Final Duel)

I think I told you before that I am a “psychosynthesist”, and that in my therapy sessions I work with Assagioli´s concepts, (well, my own), in what concerns spiritual development.

One of Assagioli´s concepts which really comes in handy because it reflects, very exactly so, a societal truth, is that of subpersonalities:

Until we come to work with our own soul, until we find our own journey (which is one of the aims of psychosynthesis) we usually play out learned roles. We are the mother of, the wife of, the daughter of, the husband, the secretary, the happy drinker, the plaything, – stereotypes, which society has at the ready for us to slip into, should we forget who we really are. Everything is so marvellously ”organised” that we actually do forget, and for a long time in certain cases. The Matrix is largely made of these empty stereotypes, not of real people, and that´s why everything gets so scary, crazy and schizo, but that´s another story.

The subpersonalities, in Assagioli´s theory, and in my work too – are the bits of ourselves that were chopped off because they were not accepted by our parents, or society at large; but they do not disappear, energy cannot disappear, it only trans-forms. These bits and pieces were simply repressed, sent into a dark cell somewhere in the brain,  or into a bunch of muscles in the body. These energies, (archetypes are also energies), come popping up when wheedled out in therapy. I usually use art to do that. These bits and pieces can then be scrutinized, analysed by the conscious mind, and finally discarded for being obsolete, or on the contrary, integrated into the conscious personality, which then has the effect of people feeling more “whole”. (Psychosynthesis is a holistic journey/therapy/adventure, one that makes you both whole and holy.)

So, that´s the context of this post, but not its real content. I needed to draw the context in somewhat broad lines, in which I now will explain how ”Madame Mim” came about in my own inner journey.

Unwittingly (I think), Disney has created a very funny feminist archetype! Disney is not known for being a Goddess-hugger, so it must have been fortuitous, lol. Madame Mim, if you consider her a bit more seriously is the perfect antithesis of the so-called Hollywood stereotype of women that the US of A are selling all around the world, and is the cause of so much psychological pain for “ordinary” women. In my practice, I have found this verified again and again: the Hollywood goddesses have become a new Olympus, and women in the street for ever strive to be like them, but of course, can´t reach the stage where they are considered as goddesses since the Hollywood tales are mostly totally artificial (not to mention the telly and the Internet!). Still, women suffer. Until they come to know, and act out, their own archetypes (the real ones, the real energies that they carry deep within their body-mind).

For me, Madame Mim is one of these “new” archetypes that women all over the world actually need, to save them from the repressed and corseted hell patriarchy reserves for the intelligent and the beautiful (women and men). Ugly, fat and old women just fall by the wayside, nobody is interested, ever, and so most of them end up in despair, others in therapy, and some of them (the lucky ones? hahaha) fall into my arms – figuratively speaking, into the scaly arms of the Lady Dragon. And then the real fun begins!…

…Madame Mim is the “opposing” figure to Merlin, who is the good guy par excellence. Madame Mim is a real nasty baddie, she reveals all that is hidden, she is brazen, funny and horrible, she is outrageous, and she is lovable. She is …us.

…In a nutshell, I think we urgently need Madame Mim to start a WWW Club (=Wounded Women Winners Club)…! (Or : a double-whammy : World Wide Web of Wounded Women Winners!) kew kew kew (The Lady Dragon, chuckling)

And that´s why :…” I’m the magnificent, marvelous, mad mad mad… Madam Mim  “!

See what I mean?

*Awful Dragoney Cheshire Cat Grin”

This too will pass