Writing a Nature Dictionary

Way back in ancient times (when I was still young & in my 20's. LOL) I took my first steps on the path of the Druids. My mentor Sparrowhawk introduced me to the language of nature. Strange thing was it sounded different to me than it did to her yet the message was still the same. Language you say? Well what I speak of is symbolic language. Those who keep a Dream Journal will understand what I'm talking about. My mentor didn't believe in books on dreams or Tarot interpretation. Said that it was someone elses interpretation. A tree may have a different meaning to you than it does to me. Symbolism is the language we use to speak to our sub-conscious and we all have our own symbolic language.

Much of my learning from Sparrowhawk came when we went on our nature hikes around her cottage just outside of Boulder, CO. Whenever I ask her a question she would point to a tree, plant, stone or some wildlife & ask me, "what do they say?" Afterwords she tell me what they say to her, always careful to let me get my own meaning first before giving me her own so as not to influence mine. Afterwards her meaning only allow me to expand my own. Shortly after moving in with her, she gave me a blank journal and sent me out on walks by myself & told me to meditate on different things in nature & write them down. I would come back & discuss them with her, then under my meanings I add Teacher's meanings. When I left her a little over a year later that journal was pretty full and kept adding to it long afterwards. Several years later I took that journal and expanded on it. I would list each thing, with my meaning, then her's (Later entries didn't have her meanings as she wasn't there), then I research each thing in a scientific context (text book stuff, this helps to expand ones own understanding of the object thereby redefining & expanding your own meaning of them), under that where available I would add spiritual meanings from Pagan books (like the Druidic meaning of the trees etc...). In time I not only evolved my own Nature language, but I new part of hers & learned Nature's language as understood by many Pagan traditions (the stuff written in Pagan books,). My focus was my own language as she taught me that was the most important & most realiable one. Her's & the Pagan communities different interpretation were for reference only so as to create a common language (the language of the Pagan community's collective-consciousness) we can all share when together (kinda like how the different Celtic tribes had their own dialects but also had a Traders dialect they used to communicate with the other tribes).

The biggest problem with Religion is people try to force their mentor/holy teacher's personal language onto others as the common language & vice versa. Religions tries to force you to accept their personal language as your personal language. The Pagan community like to think they escape this but they don't. This is one of the very things that causes witch wars.

Over the years I moved alot (I lived a very nomadic life for most of my years) and somewhere along the way I lost it. But the majority of its lore is still locked away within my mind and when I visit the Nature areas (Each eco-system has its own dialect; forests, deserts, oceans/coasts, plains, wetlands, etc...) I've been to before I dust the cobwebs from my mind & remember how to read them. Each forest for example have their own dialect. I've been living in Oregon for several years now and with my new found love of herbology and wild food foraging have been going out and learning the local Flora & Fauna's dialect. We herbalist call this building relationships with our plant allies. So I've dusted off a extra dusty blank journal I have and am headed out into the wooded areas around Troutdale to get to know the local Fauna & Flora.

Why have the Elders been forgotten?

One of the things that disturbs me much in the modern Pagan community is how much they have surrendered to urban life. In the early days, paganism was very much part of the counter-culture. The back to landers, the activist, the community builders, the environmentalist, etc....

Now Paganism has gone trendy mainstream. I remember some years ago when a small group of us tried to get a Pagan runned social service going in Portland. We met resistance. Folks didn't like what we was doing because our example was reminding them that they were not practicing the Green community ideaology that is at the root of Pagan spirituality.

In the early days when I first entered the Pagan community, when someone asked us what was a Pagan, we defined ourselves by what we were first, not by what we are not. We are the Green People, we are earthy, we are tribal, we are community orientated, we are a Earth Centered Spirituality. In them days people were looking at homesteading, communal living, community farming, environmental activism as well as honoring the gods and the Earth, our Mother.

Today when you ask someone what a pagan is, the mass majority defines us by what we aren't first. We are not monotheist, we are not Satanist etc.... People are more interested in organizing a fetish ball than helping the less fortunate in their community or saving a National Forest or visiting and honoring our elders in the old folks homes.

The problem is most of todays Pagans grew up spoilt in the cheap energy of the 80's. The things that screamed for help from Pagans did not reach them so the Green part of their heart died. The Green Mother & Father became just archetypes to them. Nothing more than symbols and metaphors. Cheap little statues on their altars that they payed nothing more than lip service to on their way out the door dressed in their gaudy earth destroying fetish outfits seeking only to gratify their own hedonist pleasures & pretend that they are the gods that sit alone upon their altars. They come home, go to bed and get up and put their Paganism away in the closet and go to their earth unfriendly boring 9 to 5 jobs. They don't go to support their spirituality. They go to support their selfish pleasure.

There are elders in our community who gave their selves to us unselfishly for years. Elders you all know well cause they were the who's who in the Pagan community of the 60's 70s & early 80. These same elders are struggling today. Forgotten by those who they nurtured in the early days of our community. One Patriarch & Matriarch, a couple who are still hard at work in the community even though they both have major medical problems are struggling to make ends meet. But they carry on with a caring smile on their face. Yet one of their close friends has to go out and guilt the community into helping them with food and things. They are on the verge of homelessness. Yet they continue to give of themselves unselfishly. Where are all the priestesses that this powerful and loving Matriarch initiated over the years. Why are they not at her side taking care of her & honoring her in her Crone years. Why has this Queen of witches been forgotten? These young spoilt witches are to busy having some guy kiss their leather boots at some fetish ball to care less about the woman who taught them to be strong powerful women.

Where are all the young mages, wizards & druids that this charismatic & powerful Patriarch trained over the years. These young spoilt mages are busy at the witches balls or Burning Man events seeing how many young women their Pagan wiles can get into the sack to care less about the man who taught them to reclaim their pre-christian sensitive masculinity.

It is sad to see these Elders forgotten even though these young Pagans will bragged that they know them & have studied their work. But then I don't see these deviant christian in Pagan clothing as true Pagans. I don't see hedonism as a heathen way. Hedonism to me equals selfish pleasure.

2007 I only saw 1 Pagan sister at the Earth Day Festival held in NE Portland. Where were they all? I know the young Pagans here are shaking their fist at me right now for judging them. Saying I am violating the "Wiccan Rede". I have news for you. That's a Wiccan Rede not a Druid Rede. Druids were judges & counselors & the health of their community was their duty. The older Pagans here are trying not to be confrontational. But they are still nodding their heads silently agreeing with me as they go back to tending their gardens forgotten by the young. You young ones have violated the Wiccan Rede already with your pursuit of selfish pleasure. Your selfish hedonism is harming the Pagan community as a whole. There is nothing community based about fetish balls and pleasure gatherings. It doesn't better the community. Gathering together to seek pleasure from one another is not what community building is. And your recycling & driving a little car is not enough to stamp out the carbon footprint that your hedonist ways create. Your lifestyle is hurting the Mother. So you can't use the Wiccan Rede as a excuse to me. Most of you have twisted the Wiccan Rede to justify your selfish ways.

Most of you are out of shape and have lazy urban bodies. Most of you could not last a week in the woods or even a rural community for that matter without your city pleasures. Some of you are like "but the goddess is fat!" No! The Venus (properly should be called Danu) of Willendorf is not fat! She is pregnant with creation. Stop using these goddess images as excuses to justify your gluttony and laziness. The Lady & Lord are powerful and if you ever really came face to face with them you shit your pants. And for the record, one can be a big person and can still be healthy. But Urban people are too lazy to develop the muscles to properly & healthly carry their extra weight. Some folks can't help their genes. But you can help how you carry it and not just surrender to it and let it become obesed & unhealthy.

Urban Pagans can hear the gods but barely. The Old Gods voices are being muffled by the steel & concrete that you surround yourself with. The Old Gods struggle to reach their green fingers through the cracks in the sidewalks and you all just lay more concrete over it. The Old Gods reach out to touch your skin with loving hands and you withdraw and cover it with leather & latex. You are ill and rather than heal yourselves you revel in your sickness. You are part of the environment but your bodies & minds are environmental disasters.

Ok I'm done ranting.

Paganism is a spirituality not a lifestyle. But young urban Pagan treat it as a lifestyle.

IT'S NOT A LIFESTYLE LIKE PUNK, GOTHIC OR EMO!

The Illusion of Peace.

Yesterday I took a break from working on my RV and rode my bike down to the Columbia River. I sat by the river and thought how peaceful. But then my mind began to wander to the state of the world around us. I looked back at the river and saw the violence hiding behind it's peaceful flow. There are 14 hydroelectric dams along it, that is causing the extinction of the Salmon population. Factories, lumber mills etc. along it are polluting it's waters, First Nation people are getting sick and dying from the diseases and poisons in it. But these visible signs of violence is not what I speak of. I speak of the violence produced by the illusion of ownership of it by those in power.

I have for the last few years been trying to live off the grid in a Rewilder way amidst the very civilization I like to see torn down. Many of my fellow Rewilders write great blogs etc... But they are still very domesticated and controlled by their own free will. They pay rent. That's all I got to say.

I been living in a RV working towards eventually, hopefully to possess that piece of paper that will give me the illusion of owning a piece of land. And really that is what it is, an illusion.

Let's take this river for example. I would love to fish from it and further remove myself from dependence upon the city behind me. But I need a license in order to fish. What that means is if I fish without one, someone with a gun will show up and make me stop and give me a ticket. This man is paid to enforce the illusion that the government owns and controls the river. No one can live without enforce violence or the threat of it in the world today.

The land gives to us freely so we may nourish, cloth and shelter ourselves. But some have decided they want to claim more than they can use and make you pay for what the land gives freely. World hunger is an illusion. There is plenty of food. But the system is set up for the powerful to use violence to claim it all and make you pay for it. Capitalism is actually extortion.

Here is the definition of "extortion".

"Extortion is a criminal offence which occurs when a person obtains either money, property or services from a person(s), entity, or institution, through coercion. Refraining from doing harm is sometimes euphemistically called protection. Extortion is commonly practiced by organized crime groups. The actual obtainment of money or property is not required to commit the offense. Making a threat of violence which refers to a requirement of a payment of money or property to halt future violence is sufficient to commit the offense. Exaction refers not only to extortion or the demanding and obtaining of something through force, but additionally, in its formal definition, means the infliction of something such as pain and suffering or making somebody endure something unpleasant."

Hmmm. So you are paying for a license to get free fish from a free river, so a man doesn't show up with a gun on his side writing you a ticket which if you don't pay the ticket's extortion price are threaten with the violence of incarceration. All this because some government body has convince society that they own and control a river that was there long before man ever climbed down from the trees and walked upright. A river that had fed for free, First Nation people for 1,000s of years without ever demanding a price from them.

Look throughout civilization and you will see this same violence and threat of violence. Violence is a part of life. You can't escape it. But violence to enforce a illusion of ownership of the bounties of our Great Mother is wrong. Extorting people for the right to exist is wrong.

So the only freedom you have is what they in power will allow you. And even that freedom will be an illusion and will cost you to enjoy.