Earth Notes

They Are One--Beltane Reflection

2011-05-02T17:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, May 1, I co-led a Beltane service at our UU church, and that night, a Beltane ritual for our Druid Grove. The inner experience of the masculine and feminine in each of us is very real for me right now. Here are some of the reflections I shared and continue to ponder.

I wanted in the service to offer examples of how the inner feminine and inner masculine work together – and perhaps what happens when they don’t! I’ve spent a good portion of my thinking and reflecting time this week really struggling to come up with these kinds of examples. What was nagging at me, semi-consciously—was the fear that I really didn’t know what the union of the feminine and masculine in me looked like—much less that I was able to offer good examples!

And then, it dawned on me. I DO know what the union looks like, and so do you, and we also know what happens when these two inner aspects of ourselves look like when they are not working together. We already know.

Take a moment and think of a situation in your own life in which the thing—whatever it was—literally, anything—a conversation, a project at work, a trip you made, a talk you gave, an event in a relationship with someone, a major life change, a meal you cooked and on and on. Think of a situation in your life in which the thing worked out really well. You could use other adverbs: it worked out well, beautifully, perfectly, magnificently, peacefully, gently, harmoniously, stunningly, etc.

This is the point: when something in which we are engaging our lives works, it is the latest example of the inner masculine that we each are and the inner feminine that we each are working in union, as one, as a whole.

In that kind of moment, knowingly or (quite often) unknowingly, those aspects of us that are masculine are able to cooperate with those aspects of us that are feminine.

What does it look like when they don’t work together? Well, we know that, too. It’s a mess, less than perfect, not quite right, a disaster, forced, unfinished, awkward, deceiving, failed to fire, missed the mark, shallow, and disappointing. Always, in some way, disappointing. Most of us are comfortable with one side of this union or the other, and that side that we are more comfortable with may change from situation to situation. When we do act as unified, whole persons, very often, in the beginning, I think, it happens accidentally, unconsciously, but every one of those occasions serves us as the beginning of our waking up. Each time we act as unified, whole persons, it’s so stunning that it makes us want to get to that place again.

Somewhere along the way (and this place happens, I believe, for different people, at different times for many different reasons, and I can even imagine that it never happens for some people), we gain enough insight to realize that if we want to be more consistently unified, whole people, we have to engage the deep parts of ourselves. We have to know and engage and work with our inner feminine. We have to know and engage and work with our inner masculine. Until we are willing to do that, their union in us will continue to be accidental and unconscious.

What interferes with this kind of wholeness? Your stuff does. My stuff does. It’s that simple. That annoying. That painful.

What does it take to get past that kind of interference to wholeness? Start working with your stuff! It’s that simple. That annoying. That painful. And really, that promising.

Here’s a starting place. Notice the next time you find yourself resisting something. Notice what you resist. I’d put money on the likelihood that what you and I resist is some aspect of the masculine or feminine that we have not come to terms with yet. Let the next resistance be your invitation to start working with your stuff.

At our Druid ritual version of this Beltane service, we opened our ritual with these poetic lines written by Caitlin Matthews in her book, The Celtic Devotional. See if you can hear the feminine and the masculine voices in them:

I am the calm, I am the quickening,
I am the intoxication and the force,
I am the silence, I am the singer,
I am the stallion galloping to its source.
I am the bright pavilion and the feasting,
I am the wedding couple and the bed,
I am the morning chorus and the heartbeat,
I am the goal to which all paths are led.

We enter into this season of summer with the full heat of our Father Sun shining down onto and into the full fertility of our Mother Earth. And LIFE happens! We come to a place now in this season of the year that is for us an opportunity to intentionally bring together into our lives seed and the egg, the heat and the soil, the masculine and the feminine that belong to all of us, that make up the core of what we are most deeply about in our lives. We may find that we have been living in two worlds, or splitting ourselves in some way into various parts.

If we are ready, if we want, we can begin to “tie the knot” so to speak, in our lives of these two wonderful pieces that we are. We already have everything we need to do it, and Beltane is the season of active energy. It's time to go to work!

What Do You Love More?

2009-06-10T10:16:00.000-07:00

This blog by Antony Hebblethwaite was sent to me by a friend.

When Hate Clouds Love Scape

Mr. Hebblethwaite has me pondering the pain of this reality: when anyone loves his or her ideology more than other human beings, that person is engaging in emotional abuse.

To bring it closer to home: when I love my ideology more than my family, particularly my children, I am committing emotional abuse.

To make it more specific: when I love my religion or my politics or "the way we've always done things", or my "values" more than I love someone in my life with whom I have any sort of considered relationship, I am violating that relationship at its core. I am saying that the inherent worth and dignity of that person's life is of less value than a set of ideas I have.

Regardless of how important any of us think that a particular set of ideas is, that is finally all that they are. Ideas. Ideas: organized, prioritized, tested, honored, followed, obeyed, taught, learned, read, considered, pondered and reflected on, required, demanded, dogmatized, divinized. It does not matter. They remain simply what they are: human mental movements. And if you stop and think about it, humans produce "movements" at both ends of our bodies. And, while we may not notice the similarity, often allowing things to move (out of our heads, or out of our colons, it matters not) can be a very cleansing, freeing experience.

But, much more to the point: human beings. Especially the ones I have a considered relationship with. They walk. They breathe. They think. They feel. They get hungry and filled. They laugh and cry. They rejoice and they fear. They reach out and they recoil. Every single one of them wants as deeply as I do to be accepted and allowed.

Accepted and allowed. To be who they are, as they are. To be asked or required to be otherwise is abuse. Ask a tree to be a rock. Ask a river to be an asphalt highway. Ask a dog to be a hawk. How absurd. Ask a child to be an adult. Ask an artist never to paint again. Ask a dancer never to move again. Ask a child or friend, brother or sister, neighbor or colleague who is gay to be straight. In any of these, the asking is absurd and to insist is abuse. It abuses the real person, the reality of the life, the real breath drawn into the real body that really lives, and asks it to do otherwise. It is to require that person that we say we have a considered relationship with . . . to die.

Which do you love more: Jesus or your son? Which do you love more: your family values or your daughter? Which do you love more: how the members of the club will think of you or your brother? Which do you love more: how good people are supposed to behave or your life-long friend?

Not fair! These are false-dichotomies, we may protest. But, every single one of them are a choice between human ideologies of a sort and real human beings. Some who read this will simply think it absurd: that anyone chould choose ideology over people. But, it happens all the time.

Watch the man with a WWJD bracelet on scream at his daughter because she has a boyfriend of the wrong color. It's clear what Jesus would have done. He'd have invited the young man to dinner. But, dad's Christian ideology which prefers his skin color over other skin colors is more important than his daughter's young companion or more so, his daughter herself.

Watch the mother quote bible scriptures unending to her son, on any given topic in an attempt to change him. She has not listened to him, and he has stopped listening to her. Her ideology of "the truth" is more important than her true son.

Where to start? How about the mirror? Can I allow the truth of who that is reflected back to me? Or, must some set of ideas about who I am take presidence over who I really am? The choice is the difference in living my life, and abusing it. And, how I treat myself, standing in the mirror, is going to be how I treat others. Hmmm. Sounds like something Jesus (and Lao Tzu, and the Buddha and the Gita and the Torah) said.

Knowledge of the Divine . . . With Our Muscles

2008-12-23T07:11:00.000-08:00

Within just a few days' distance from each other, I have or will have participated in the following:

A Winter Solstice ritual which began with a single chant for the returning sun while the chant leader walked slowly around the circle and a drum kept the beat. The chant leader circled the gathered community 9 times in total. By the time she was finished, we were all in an altered state.

A Druid Grove ceremony where Druids circled silently the altar nine times, and a Tibetan bell sounded each time they made a full perambulation. This is how they set the space for their ritual and moved from ordinary to extraordinary time and space.

A communal Kwanzaa service which includes no less than 7 African-American spirituals, a drumming ceremony, and a libation cermony.

These all have something in common. They require bodies. They emerge from and tap into the physicality of the participants. They require muscle!

I am currently reading Matthew Fox's newest book: The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine. Fox quotes Aldous Huxley: “Ritual dances provide a religious experience. That seems more satisfying and convincing than any other . . . It is with their muscles that humans more easily obtain knowledge of the divine.”

When I read this a few days ago, it reminded me of why I so often resonate deeply with African-American gospel music, with drumming, with rhythmic music, and how sadly devoid most “very white” religious services are of this kind of experience. We need to feel the divine with our muscles!

When I say "very white" religious services, I am referring to my own experiences in mainline Protestant and Catholic liturgies, primarily. Western cultural forms based on northern European customs emerging from the Industrial age have brought us to a place where feeling the entire body, moving to a beat (even very traditional religious hymnody has a beat) and being moved by the beat have been banished and shamed out of existence as "inappropriate" at best, and "lude" at worst. That Industrial Revolution, as Robert Blye and others have described, succeeded in separating Europeans and later Americans from the rhythms of their own ethnic culturas: from the seasons of the earth, from the song and story that stretched back into time eternal. And, in my opinion, the blessings of modernity also succeeded in separating us from our bodies and their sensations as a regular part of who we are and how we relate to our whole universe of experience. Those of us following Earth-mystery paths are, I think, attempting to reclaim some of these things. In the process, though, we cannot help but notice how difficult ingrained patterns are to shake. We must, if we are to be healthy and whole, I think, find our bodies, find our muscles, find our rhythms again.

When we banish the feeling in our bodies, the inclination with in all of us to tap our feet, move our hips, sway, bob our heads, tap our fingers, clap our hands, bounce on our feet and in our knees, swing our arms when we hear a beat or feel a rhythm or allow the sound and the wonder of music to move through us, I agree with Huxley--we also banish the experience of the divine as well.

Bob

A Druid Order for the 21st Century

2008-08-06T17:12:00.000-07:00

Like many Druids, I can say that once I found a formal association of Druids (OBOD and then a few years later, AODA) I knew that in some sense that is difficult to explain, I had always been a Druid. Even as a child, when I look back on my many trips to the woods to sit at the foot of a large pine, on a rock, overlooking a spring, I was drawn instinctively to sky, earth and sea. The elements spoke. The pine connected above and below and I found myself there anew each time. They helped me navigate the chaos in my world.

And yet, having found "formal Druidry" to some extent I find myself disillusioned with the hierarchical nature of the typical Druid orders. I have joined revival Druidry organizations. They are the more liberal of the orders and yet, even with OBOD and AODA, one only need scratch the surface and they bleed fraternal lodges' blood, Masonry in particular. One need not scratch AODA much at all. It's fraternal lodge structure and hierarchy is very near the surface, and I find that to be an impediment to my path. OBOD has done a better job of making distance from that past, but that past is there. Both of these orders of Druids claim to be and are to a large extent attempts at living Druidry in the 21st century, but they do so with structures built in from an era gone by. Elements of secrecy, top-down flow of power, degrees or grades of initiation, cult of personality, elements of exclusivity--all of these to some degree or another exist in the fraternal lodge structures out of which OBOD and AODA have grown. And yet, they leave their mark and the present experience of Druidry through such orders.

The irony, for me, is that Revival Druidry while not claiming to hail back to ancient Druids, is driven more (AODA) or less (OBOD) by fraternal lodge models of the 17-19th centuries. It's a latent reconstruction, if you will. And this is not inherent in revival Druidry, or Druidry of any particular kind. I have witnessed this in several religious communities--that regardless of how much they claim to be doing a particular work now, as long as their past goes unexamined, that past inserts and asserts its influence. And when I say unexamined I am observing that the past of a religious community is always in the background asserting and inserting its influence. When a community stops noticing that, the past has all the more influence.

So, I find myself reflecting often these days about what a Druidry for the 21st century would look like if I were to create one (and why not?). I am sold on some aspects of revival druidry that I have gleaned from both OBOD and AODA.

1) We do not have a conscious, direct line from ancient Druids.
2) We do have modern sources that can help us craft a spiritual path that rings true to what
Druidry means to us, like environmentalism, social justice, Jungian spirituality,
sustainability practices, and wisdom traditions from many sources.
3) We have fragments of history, myth, magic and culture that allow us to weave together
a Druidry that works for us in this time on this planet.

So, what would a Druidry for the 21st Century look like if I were to put it together? Even as I attempt to construct my own idea of a Druidry for the 21st century, I am indebted to both of the orders I belong to, to some of the ideas and practices I benefit from in them, and, in rejecting some of their historical structures, am even by the rejection of what I consider to be a hindrance, connected to them. It's another example, of course, of what we call in UU-sim, the Interconnected Web of all Being. Here's my list, thus far of what a Druidry for the 21st century would look like:

--The beginning principle: Modern Druids work together with the various levels and aspects of earth's nature. (That's meant to be wide open--extending from very material biology to very metaphysical energy, as people are led).

--A community based on a circle and not a hierarchy. The grove as the central symbol would be the reality, in fact. Roles in ritual and in leadership would always be interchangeable and shared. In other words, with adequate practice, any member of the community could take any role in group ritual. There would be no "special" or reserved seats.

--The core principle, even underneath the beginning principle above, would be respecting and honoring integrity--the integrity of one's own individual self, the integrity of the other, the integrity of nature, of the earth, of the universe, and seeing that this is, finally, one interconnected web of being.

--Every member, from newest to eldest, would be considered a priest, and that all aspects of nature would be vehicles of divine communication. The question would not be "what degree are you", but " what shape is your priesthood taking?"

--There would be no degrees, but there would be a basic commitment to walking the path, growing in wisdom, and life-long learning and working together at times in community as well as solitarily. The notion of spirals to work on is a good one, but no one would control them, prescribe them, or limit them. At the same time, every Druid priest would be sharing with the community what she/he was working on at the time.

--Leadership would be about structure and helping maintain a structure for the community, but it would be based on transparency, facilitation, democracy and service to the community. It would have short terms, and renewed often. Leadership would not be the image of the ones at the top, but those who tend the foundations.

--This Druidry would provide choices for people and invite them to explore areas of interest in order to build a personal path of self-discovery.

--This Druidry would emphasize social justice--a concern that everyone have what he/she needed to survive and thrive--another aspect of respecting integrity, but now recognizing the social, political and cultural aspect of that integrity.

--This Druidry would hold regular sessions of discernment asking only three questions: what are we doing that is working? what are we doing that is not working? If we were to change one thing to make things work better for us, what would it be?

That's it. That's my list. That's my idea of a Druidry for the 21st century. So, if I found a group of poeple willing to launch an order of Druidry for the 21st century that looked like the above, would I resign from OBOD and AODA? Likely not. I have benefitted from them both, and continue to, though admittedly sometimes it is a benefit through the negative--becoming clear about what is an impediment, what is not working. Still, that is a benefit, and finally, no religious or spiritual organization in my experience is flawless. The challenge to be vigilant in constant reform and renewal is a relentless one, and necessary for any group that wishes to remain alive and of service to people. Otherwise, a religious group becomes the tyrant that demands servitude from its members. As I've said before: I didn't need to become a Druid to find that.

I welcome comments.

Bob

The Seventh Generation: Are We Loving Mother Earth?

2008-07-15T10:22:00.000-07:00

The following sermon was delivered by Dr. Debra Greenwood at the Unitarian-Universalist Congregation of Gwinnett in Lawrenceville, GA on July 13, 2008. It speaks for itself. It was so powerful to me that I ask Debra's permission to post it here. She has kindly agreed. You should also know that the service was planned by Lisa McLeod and she and her entire family enacted for us a version of the Native American story of the 7th Generation, attributed to both Iroquois and Cherokee peoples.

The Seventh Generation:

Are We Loving Mother Earth?

The Living Tradition we share draws from many sources: wisdom from the world’s religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life. In the Hindu legend of the Mahabarada, the divine Krishna declared “this is the sum of duty, do nothing unto others which would cause pain if done to you.” In the Talmud of the Jewish tradition, the sage Hillel said, “what is hateful to you, do not do to others. This is the whole of the law. All the rest is commentary.” In the gospel of Matthew in the Christian scriptures, the messiah Jesus says, “whatever you wish the others would do to you, do so to them.” In the Buddhist text of the Udanavarga, the student is urged “hurt not others in ways that you, yourself would find hurtful.” In the Muslim hadee of Al Nawawi, the prophet Mohammed teaches “no one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.” The Yoruba of West Africa say “whenever a person breaks a stick in the forest, let him consider what it would feel like if it were himself who was thus broken..” And the Oglala Lakota spiritual leader Black Elk wrote “All things are our relatives. What we do to everything, we do to ourselves.”

Our ancestors, the so-called primitive people knew. They knew of our inter-relatedness. They knew that for every action there is a reaction. There is a cause and there is an effect. They knew that we are all in this together. They knew that the actions they took upon the earth, affected the earth and would impact future generations. But somewhere along the way, we forgot this knowledge. We lost our way. We thought that we could treat our earth without regard to how we were abusing it. We had no regard for our impact on future generations.

“In every deliberation we must consider the impact on the seventh generation.” The concept of the seventh generation has been attributed to both the Iroquois and the Cherokee. The origin of the concept is less important than the core concept itself. This concept calls on us to imagine a world where clean air and clean water are protected for our children’s children’s children, seven generations from now... And if a generation can be defined as about 30 years, then we are asked to consider the impact of our lives - our carbon footprint - 210 years from now.

Van Jones, the 2008 Ware Lecturer at General Assembly this year, is an eco-activist. Many of the words and ideas that follow are his. The first stewards of these lands knew that these lands were precious and sacred. Tribal and indigenous people around the world, including Europe, knew that our land was precious. But a renegade minority came into power, based a brainstorm - these are not trees, this is lumber. That’s not a rabbit, that’s a pelt. I can sell it. I can sell everything. I can even sell those people over there. They went all over the world with this insanity and they met people who knew better. And they called those people savages, uncivilized, heathens. They did it in Africa. They called my great-great grandmother a savage because she said those rocks, that river, and those trees are sacred. Their response was, “You’re worshipping rocks and trees, we’re going to have to civilize you.” But they didn’t even start this madness in Africa. They started the madness in Europe. They met wise people who tried to fight back. These brave souls were called pagans and witches and they burned them at the stake, because these people knew about herbs, healing, were in sync with the seasons and were connected to Mother Earth.

This is not new knowledge. All of our great-great grandmothers knew about the ways of the earth. They’ve been waiting a long time for their wisdom to come back into existence. And those of you who have been walking in this path have been honoring our ancestors as we move forward. And now it’s time to bring this wisdom fully back.

As I look back on my life, I realize that I have been a budding environmentalist since childhood. As a child, I thought about things like, ‘where does the toilet water go?’ I wondered about what the garbage man did with all the trash he collected on our street and in our neighborhood. And although I appreciated Lady Bird Johnson’s ‘Beautify America’ campaign, I felt that beautification of America was less about planting flowers and more about making sure that we kept our streets clean and clear of litter. That was the way I saw that we could beautify America - pick up the trash! If everybody did his or her part, we could make a huge difference in our impact on the earth.

We are a part of the interdependent web of existence. In fact, we Americans are a significant part of this web - and not necessarily in a good way. We are 5% of the world’s population, but we use 30% of its resources. If everyone in the world used up resources the way we do, we would need 4 or 5 planets to handle the waste. But we only have one Mother Earth, and we are not loving her very much these days. And she is crying out for our love. We have created tens of thousands of leaky landfills throughout the country. Every time we dig a landfill, line it with a plastic liner that becomes brittle and leaky over the years, we slowly poison our mother with chemicals that leach out into the soil and sometimes get into the groundwater or nearby lakes and streams. Every time we fail to conserve water in our daily lives, water treatment facilities must use extra energy to treat our water that is then released into our mother’s tear ducts. I know that Mother Earth loves us, but sometimes I think she is very angry with us. Sometimes I wonder if the hurricanes are her fury at how we have mistreated her. The thunder her rage. The floods her tears of sadness at how we neglect each other as well as our Mother - our dear Mother - whom we all must learn to respect and love. Without our Mother, we have no life. Without our Mother, we have no life. Life cannot be sustained if we continue to abuse Mother Earth.

Since 1960, there has been a steep rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, largely due to the combustion of fossil fuels. In fact, CO₂ is responsible for more than 90% of greenhouse gas

emissions that contribute to global warming, threaten to elevate our sea levels and decrease our biodiversity. You do realize that fossil fuels are death. Fossil fuels are the decayed remains of dinosaurs and old forests that are pulled from the ground and unceremoniously dumped into the engines of our cars, trucks and airplanes. Fossil fuels are non-renewable energy sources. We are depleting them at a rapid rate, and they are not being replenished. It takes many thousands of years to replenish them. And these fossil fuels are wreaking havoc on our planet – we are destroying the ozone layer - and we are changing our climate.

We can’t drill our way out of this crisis. There aren’t enough fossil fuels to save us. But the climate crisis isn’t confined to just our use of fossil fuels. We have a government that is in bed with big business. We have a government that has forgotten its charge to look out for its people - to be of the people, by the people and for the people. Annie Leonard, on the web site storyofstuff.com, lays it out very clearly. Our government has allowed industries to produce and pollute toxic products at nauseating rates. Corporations have gone overseas in search of resources to supply our thirst for more oil, more products, more stuff. These corporations have abused the lands of third world countries, sending the people who lived on those lands looking for a better way of life in other countries. And with the flight of these companies overseas, our own workforce faces fewer and fewer options for gainful employment.

Our country is facing very tough economic times right now. Economists now admit that we are in a recession. We are facing record-breaking home foreclosures, bank and financial institution failures, rising unemployment, accompanied by the rising cost of fuel, that drives the rising cost of our food, transportation, postage stamps and consumer goods. We are dangerously moving not into a deeper recession, but to stagflation. Stagflation occurs when unemployment rises along with the cost of goods and services. Stagflation is hard on everybody, but it is particularly hardest on the poor. And people of color remain those most likely to be poor.

So we have these competing forces - depletion of fossil fuels, the moving of industry into new markets where they can reduce the cost of production of the goods and services we Americans crave. There is a resultant loss of jobs in America, and a poisoning of our environment, again driven by our insatiable need for more and more stuff. And these forces are all competing to see which one can most quickly drive our economy into the ground.

But there is a way out of this apparently hopeless situation. We have to reduce our greenhouse emissions, reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, as well as create new jobs for those who have been locked out of full participation in our economy. We have to reconnect with our Mother. We have to go back to the earth – the source of all that is sacred and the source of all that sustains us.

It’s time to let our Mother know that we were engaged in adolescent rebellion. We were talking back. We weren’t listening. We thought we knew what we were doing, but we didn’t. We’re sorry Mother. We’re back. And she’ll forgive us, too. We must apologize to the indigenous people of the world. It’s their wisdom we need now. We can heal the earth.

We have to create a green economy. There are millions of homes and buildings in the United States that would benefit from being made more energy efficient. Solar panels can be installed, roofs can be painted white, insulation installed, leaks sealed, water recycling systems installed and more. We can attack both sides of the problem – climate change and unemployment by creating a green economy that moves us back into harmony with Mother Earth. We can train Rashaad, Tyrone, Maria and Mike to become experts at greening our buildings and homes. And we can start the process of reclaiming our earth from the renegades we have almost allowed to destroy it. And let us start that greening process in our most blighted areas. We won’t have eco-apartheid, where the people who do the work can’t afford to have the work done on their own homes. Right now, we’d rather spend hundreds of thousands of dollars incarcerating people, caring for their children in foster care, rather than spend the amount it would take to train these same people to become gainfully employed. It’s insane. We look at the upfront costs, when we should be looking at what we will save over the long haul. Not only will we save our economy, save mother earth, and save energy, we’ll save Rashaad, Tyrone, Maria and Mike. And we’ll save their children. And we’ll save our children. We would have made a significant difference that positively impacts the earth and those seven generations yet to come. By putting them to work, by greening every single building in America, by building up green mass transportation, by retooling the automobile industry, by mandating higher fuel efficiency, we will not only save the planet, we will save the people who live on the planet. We’ll have true justice and equality for all as we embrace wind energy, solar energy, and reduce, recycle and reuse.

Creating a green economy is not just about construction. It’s also about looking at the food choices we make. We feed our school children pizza, potato chips, and provide junk food vending machines. Then we wonder why there is an epidemic of Type II diabetes among our children. We then spend tons of money medically managing these children. We need to provide our children with fresh, nutritious organic foods that promote health and well-being. Yes, the upfront costs are more, but once again, we have to have the long view – that 7^th generation view, that considers what we will save by investing in our children. We will save money on expensive health care and medications. But most importantly, we will save our children.

The challenges are many because the insanity is deep. We’re going to have some difficult days ahead. But there is a way out. We can get in alignment with our mother. We can get in alignment with our fellow human beings who share this planet with us. We can show Mother Earth that we not only love her, but by our actions, show that we love our fellow human beings as well. And at some point in the year 2218, our descendants will thank us for taking the actions we took to ensure their survival. May we love our Mother like we have never loved her before.

Trekking Toward the Truth (In the Light of Day)

2008-06-21T15:38:00.000-07:00

Sermon Delivered at the Unitarian-Universalist Congregation of Gwinnett

Summer Solstice

June 22, 2008

Honoring earth centered paths is one of our six sources that flow into the rich fountain that is Unitarian-Universalism. It may also be one of the least understood. Some of our other UU language may contribute to this misunderstanding. CUUPS stands for the Covenant of UU Pagans, and yet in our CUUPS group very few of us are terribly comfortable with the word “pagan” and most of us don’t use it to describe ourselves.

But “CUUPS” sounds nice. After all, a cup is just a little chalice, and UU’s are fond of chalices. But, if you called us the Covenant of UU of the Earth Centered Path, you’d get CUUECPS, and that sounds awfully too much like “cooks” and “hiccups”.

And from what I hear in some UU congregations, CUUPS is largely a gathering of cooks whose contribution to the congregation is not much more than a series of hiccups! I thinks thus far, our CUUPS has a little better record.

The Earth-centered path is many things, and for me one of those most central things is celebrating that if one walks outside and looks around, every single aspect of the the natural world offers us something to appreciate, enjoy, be in awe of, and reflect on. The history of humankind’s reflecting on and learning from the metaphors of nature are as old as writing itself, and then painting on cave walls before that. And for just a few minutes, I want to share with you how this day, the Summer Solstice, is that reflection for me, is that metaphor in the natural world for something that is a life long trek for me.

On the day of the summer solstice, the sun is at it’s highest and longest arc in our sky. We have more bright, warm sunlight for a longer period on the Summer Solstice than any other day of the year. Since December 21, the darkest and shortest day of the year, our earth has been gradually tilting back its northern pole toward the sun so that every day has become incrementally longer.

The journey to all of this light has taken a while. It has come in increments. The journey has on any given day not been noticeable, but when you stand back and compare this day with December 21, the journey is pretty significant, from lots of darkness to lots of light.

And, for me, that’s the metaphor—the long, incremental, often tedious, trek of my life in search for light. In search for something to call true and sure.

Not very long ago, a Latin teacher whom I have only met through the internet, emailed me privately about some comments I made on the teachers’ list about working with students. I had probably mentioned that I was something of a liberal in my outlook.

He very thoughtfully, and very genuinely, wrote me this:

Dear Bob,

If you have a moment some time, can you help me to understand how a person coming from your perspective determines right from wrong? I can see how you can have values and live by them, but I'm unclear as to what criteria you would use to establish that one thing is absolutely wrong and another right. But maybe I'm forcing terms on you that you'd consider misleading or invalid. If so, please do call me on it.

I teach at a Christian school, and I have students who are wrestling with issues such as these. It would be really helpful to understand your position better.

He and I continue to have a very interesting and respectful correspondence that this email of his started. We are coming from very different places. His question sent me back considering my long trek, my own search for how to answer this sort of question. What is the truth? What is the guide for right and wrong? What is real light, and where do I find it.

I can show you my own trek more easily than I can tell it to you.

(I then pulled out a set of 7 boxes that nest within each other, of different colors. At first it just looks like the one, black box).

God—black box

I was taught very early in my life about God by almost every other human being around me. I was the first child and the first grandchild on both sides of the family. I had a lot of adult company, and they all taught me that there was this God out there, bigger than all things, more powerful than all things, the creator of all things, better than all things, my heavenly Father who was able to send me to a place called hell when I died, or let me into his heaven if I did what I was told, and this included believing utterly in him. And, he was invisible.

Oh yes, and he loved me. I believed as I was told for a very long time, but in my own search for truth, what I came to see was that believing in that sort of God, who practiced that sort of “love” meant that the primary motive in my life was fear—fear that I would somehow displease this God who would send me to hell. The day it occurred to me that I was, in all my own limitations, a better father than that, I found that my search for truth was not in the box called God.

Doctrine—gold box

Within and clearly connected to the box called God was a much more, for a while, appealing box. I’ll call it Doctrine. A clearly defined set of rules about right and wrong, God and humanity and the earth, this life and the afterlife. It’s a much prettier box because, at least on the outside, a clearly defined set of rules just feels good. No thought required. Nothing to worry about. But, I began to notice that other people had boxes just like this, but their list of rules were sometimes different from mine. Sometimes REALLY different. This box stopped working for me the day a very close friend told me that according to her box of rules, I was going to hell because my rules were different from hers. There’s that word, again. Hell. So, if you ask me if I found truth in this box called doctrine, I’d have to say “hell no”.

Authorities—brown box

This next box is not so pretty as the rules box, but it’s a solid color, sort of the color of some rocks. This box is where I look for truth, still sometimes. It’s called “Authorities”. You know, very important, established, intelligent, leader type people who clearly know the way—to wherever it is I think I might be going. I have encountered a variety of people looking for truth in this “authorities” box. Quite a few of them want you to follow them or else, they say, you’ll go to hell. I met some who are the most wonderful people, and I learn a great deal from them. I find glimmers of truth in them. But, mostly what I find is that they do not know very much more about the truth than I do—certainly not all truth, and finally, turning myself over to them is not good for me, not good for them, and not the truth.

Books—purple box

Oh, I have to tell you, this is one of my favorite boxes to look for truth in. It’s the box of BOOKS! I love books. I love to read. I usually am reading several at the same time with little piles of books all over my house. You can tell where I pause to sit in the house because there are little piles of books: in the bedroom, in the kitchen, in the living room, in the sun room in the study, in the bathroom. I’ve learned a lot from books. Books also glimmer with sparkles of truth. And some are a complete waste of my time. Of course, I often don’t know that until I’ve wasted my time to find that out. What I find problematic about this box is that, finally, even after all the reading I’ve done, rather than go out and apply any truth I might have found, rather than finding a new and better and more fulfilling way to live, I simply want to read more books. It’s like eating carbs. Makes me hungry for more carbs. If there is truth in this box, it’s hard to get out of the container.

Communities—cool blue/aqua box

This one’s a nice color, too, isn’t? I’ve done my share of looking in this box for the truth. This is the box of “communities”. You know: the right neighborhood, the right church, the right job, the right contacts, the right professional organization, the right small groups, the right affiliations. And I belong to all of those kinds of communities right now! Most of them are pretty decent. I get a little or a lot out of all of them, and I give quite a bit, too. And it feels so good to belong to a group, you know, until you run into that bothersome person or 3, you know the type. Or, until the community begins to ask you for things—money, commitments, work, time. That can be a pain. So, it really gets to be a bad set up when I came looking for truth, and what I get is a guilt trip for why I ought to stay even though I may not be finding what I came searching for. This box is not what it would seem if you are looking for truth.

Relationships—red box

This is a hot little box. And I mean that in so many ways. It’s the box of relationships. It has some kinship with the communities box in that it feels really nice to be in relationships. Well, some relationships. Sometimes. It feels nice to have friends. It feels nice to have people to laugh and cry with. If feels nice when I’m afraid, to be comforted. Sometimes people call this search for truth in relationships “true love”. Sounds so hot. So sweet. So nice. So warm. But these same people can also make you mad (there’s another use for the shade of red), and embarrass you (still red), and worry you, and keep you awake at nights, and want your car, and your money. Sometimes people that you thought loved you can be mean and bad, and you’re left wondering what in the world you were thinking. And what you get from this hot little box can be almost exactly the opposite of what you thought was in there. And it’s not truth.

My Own Life—multi-colored box

This box is my own life, my mind, my body, my feelings, my perceptions, my experiences, and my intuition. And, look, there’s something inside. Oh, it’s what I wrote back to my Latin teacher friend in response to his question:

To your question: right and wrong choices depend entirely on how they affect the interdependent web of all being. That’s a fancy way of saying that as a human being, I can, if I reflect on it, determine whether a thing I am about to do will be of help to me and others. I’ve learned that I can trust myself, and the deepest wound any human being can know is that he/she does not trust him/herself. I do not accept that human beings are essentially evil. I came to reject the doctrine of original sin as a real evil in itself. We are essentially human. We are connected on multiple levels to all of life around us, and we know, if we allow ourselves to listen, how life around us will be affected when we take certain actions.

There is no power out there that is not also in here.

Without even knowing you, I know that honoring you and your experiences and your life history is the right thing to do. The more complicated thing, in any given moment, is figuring out how to do that.

So, I maintain that if any person listens to their deepest parts and uses good reasoning, they know what is right and wrong. They do that by making good connections, drawing lines that connect the dots in their life and in their world. I also maintain that knowing how to act on that is not so easy, and is often complicated, and often we make mistakes. Good news: we can learn from our mistakes. In fact, I find that we often learn more from our mistakes than from “the rules”. Rules stand outside of us. Mistakes are core to our experience.

There is an ancient Druid Triad that is the core of my teaching and living philosophy: Three foundations of success: bold design, frequent practice, and frequent mistakes.

Okay. That’s way more than you probably bargained on. Thoughts?

Bob

You know, I’m going to keep the boxes. There are things about each of these boxes that I value. I’m just not putting my entire stake on the truth in any one of them. My relationships are THE most important thing in my life, even with the headaches. The communities I belong to, finally, are the ones I CHOOSE to invest in. I still love books. They can be helpful, but they can also be deceiving. I respect certain authorities in my life for various reasons, mostly for their humanity and the leadership they provide. Their feet, though, are still made of clay, like mine, and they still put those pants on like I do, one foot at a time. Doctrines, teachings, philosophies—fascinating framework. I’m more interested in the pictures they are trying to frame, these days. And God? I’m pretty confident that if there is one, that infinite being would agree with me that trusting myself, living my own life with some attempt at integrity is why my own life is at the core of all of these others.

In the light of day, we get to see this. My life. Your life. The one you are living right now, is our best connection to what is true, what is vital, what is worthwhile. If we can see that, in the bright light of this day (or some other day), then cherish that. For all of us, darker days will come, and we will need to remember this. Go look in the mirror. That’s the box you will find the truth in.

Watching the Water

2008-06-13T06:42:00.000-07:00

Where water comes from is an important question. A couple of months ago, I went down into the lower part of my house, a finished basement, and smelled something not quite right. I went out into the unfinished part of the basement where all of our plumbing is, and there was water seeping in through the foundation of the house. A visit from the plumber determined that the water was, in fact, seeping in from a broken sewage line (hence the creepy smell), and a day later, that was all repaired.

A few weeks ago, I made the same trip downstairs. I smelled water. Not the creepy kind. Just the wet, watery kind. I went and looked at the pipes. Water seeping in again. A visit from the plumber, who dug up his work of a couple of months before found that it was NOT the sewage pipes (yea!) but was ground water seeping in from poorly designed yard flow (yuk!). A day later, that was remedied.

So what? So, today, I am seeing that observing where the water is flowing from goes a long way toward understanding our lives, our response to the world around us, and to taking actions that help and support life. Water has long been a metaphor for emotion, feelings, relationships and wisdom. Most of us walking around, unless we have worked very hard at walling ourselves off from all emotion, feeling, relationships and have decided there is no wisdom to be had, experience these things every day.

We have feelings and emotions. We are in relationships. We encounter wisdom, acknowledged or not, sought after or not, authentic or inauthentic. And frequently, speaking for myself (and suspecting that this may apply to others) there are times when I don't know what to do.

Hence the question: which way is the water flowing? What is its source? Is it coming from within me? Am I generating this? Does it belong to me? Or, am I being hit with this from outside of me? What is the pattern of the "water"? Is it a trickle? Is it a flood? Is it a river, or a pool? Is it helping me? Can I step out of it or into it at will? Does it sustain me or overwhelm me?

I am finding as I work with this question that what is best for me to do next becomes clearer simply by observing the flow of the "water". If the "water" is coming at me from another source, I can step aside and let it flow past, or head for cover if it's a deluge! If the flow of "water" is coming from within me, then I can observe further. What is it's source in me? How long has it been there? Even though it is flowing from within me, is it ultimately mine?

An example of this last type: When I sense someone's disapproval, the "water" begins to churn in my chest and stomach. When I observe that, it's churning from within me. When I observe that further, I begin to "see" old memories of childhood dynamics where my "task" was to please the adults in my world. At that point, I realize that these "waters" are not mine. They are the feelings and emotions of the adults in my childhood world that were flooded onto and into the way I learned to be in the world. When I see that, I can let the flood go. These waters don't belong to me.

Sometimes, such old floodwaters that don't belong to us don't flow away so quickly. I find that each time I experience them, and acknowledge that they do not belong to me, more of the dam cracks, that dam that has been holding those waters in, and more of the water seeps, then flows out. It's a process.

Like so many other things, dealing with the water in our lives is a process.

Chamomile Tea

2008-01-10T17:36:00.000-08:00

I've just heated some water and put it in my little ceramic teapot. I bought the teapot to match the handmade Japanese teacups that a friend from Japan brought me when he visited my home a few years ago. They are simple, eggshell colored with earthy specks in them. No handles, so they require two hands to savor the tea. They are simple elegance, and they are treasured gifts from one of the most humorous and genuine human beings I've met.

I've placed in the tea-bong dried chamomile flowers from two sources: from the small tin that my eldest daughter, just turned 21, gave me for Christmas, and from the collection of chamomile that I grew this past summer in planters in the front yard. My daughter knew to give me chamomile tea for Christmas because she grew up watching me tend my little gardens and all so often helping me with her little girl hands to pull the chamomile flowers off for our little stash. To her it was a game. To her father, it was a cherished little tea before bedtime. This gift was a beautiful token of her memory. And the flowers of my own to add? Well, they are my personal connection to this marvelous earth we live on. She truly keeps me sane, keeps me healthy. She makes me smile every day. She gifts me with chamomile flowers for tea.

And now, as I type this, I pause to pour a cup of the tea which has been steeping while I write these words. The tea sits in my cherished cup, slightly amber, or is it slightly green. That wonderful aroma of chamomile touches my nose--is it apples or is it dirt that I smell? And the taste? What is that taste?

Tender flowers? Gentle apples? Sweet childhood become young womanhood? Cherished friendship stretched half-way round the world? Yes. All these. And the wonderful gift of Gaia. Outside, winter storms brew, here in the South turning into threatening tornadoes. But, for this moment, with this cup of tea in my hands, warmth, tenderness, beauty, grounding, and this wonderful moment.

Bob

Global Warming: Some reasons not to care

2007-12-10T14:51:00.000-08:00

I had a conversation today with a young man. The topic of global warming came up, and it seemed to me from his facial reaction that he was not convinced that it was anything to be concerned about. So, I noted his apparent skepticism to him. He affirmed my suspicion: as far as he could see, there was no reason to be concerned.

I pointed out that the fact of global warming was reasonably established by various scientific communities. I also acknowledged that to what degree human effort could turn it around, more, to what degree human activity was causing it, was still being debated within the scientific community.

His first response to that was: what difference does it make? It won't affect me.

I am a bit older than this young man. I told him, rather passionately, that I planned to live a long time and that even though I'd be a very old man in the 50 years predicted to be our frame of reference for global warming unchecked to kick in, it would indeed affect him. It would affect my children who would be in the prime of their lives at the time (I like to think that middle ages are prime of life!).

On this score, he said something that left my jaw hanging open: None of it mattered. God would take care of global warming, because, god has a plan.

To my question of "just what if you are not right about this and spending some time doing the 15 or 20 things that any of us can do to have positive effect on the environment is the thing to do" his reply was simple and final. "I'm not wrong."

He's got the whole wide world, in his hands.

So, we don't need to care. It won't affect us. God has a plan and will take care of global warming.

Most disturbing to me? I don't think this young man is terribly alone in his attitudes.

Not convinced by his attitude? I hope not. Here's a place to find easy, practical steps that can make a huge difference in the human impact on the environment.

http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/whatyoucando/

Bob

My Working Philosophy

2007-12-02T14:26:00.000-08:00

It hit me in the gym today. A sudden kind of realization.

I am not sure why it should have been while I was at the gym today working out that I realized that over the course of the last 28 years my own way of navigating life has taken a particular shape. And, today, right now, I can tell you what it is. I don't know if 28 years (or maybe it's 48--my 48th birthday is just a few days away) means that I am a slow learner or that this is hitting me at about the right time ( which is what I suspect), or that I am hitting enlightenment really early (nah).

I say 28 years, because I recall that the first part of this working philosophy hit me "out of the blue" when I was 20. I was about to graduate from college, and I was being interviewed by the university in a kind of "exit interview". It was tape-recorded. I was asked: what is the most important thing you have learned while being at the university. (Perhaps this is the place to mention that I was graduating from Oral Roberts University with a major in biblical literature--that means Hebrew and Greek--and that my alma mater has supplied me with regular reasons to want to forget that I ever went there ever since then. However, I must say, I got a superb liberal arts eduction despite religious scandals, then and now, and went on to more liberal climes).

So, I was asked: what is the most important thing you have learned at the university? I think they were waiting for some religious answer, and, in retrospect, I would say that it was for me, deeply spiritual, but not what they were looking for. It came right out of my mouth, and I did not have to ponder it. It's the first leg of my working philosophy of life. So, here we go. I said: I have learned that questions are more important than answers. What follows is what I can articulate today, straight from the sweaty gym where it congealed for me today, about my working philosophy of life.

1) Questions are important.
This really requires little explanation. The questions that arise from with me as an individual are what set the course for my own persona life--this life--the one I am sure that I have. Other people's questions may fascinate me, may cause me to ponder, may bore me, may leave me untouched. Only those questions that rise up out of my own being, my own life are the ones that I can live with, work with, and build a life with. My own questions, especially the ones that challenge me and frighten me and which I want to pretend are not there are EXACTLY the juiciest ones, the ones that will produce the "best results" for my own single life. As a result, they are also the ones, once I have worked with them, that will touch others around me, in whatever ways that others are "touched" by me. Being touched by my life may feel like a blessing, a curse, a horror, a shock, a miracle, or a passing breeze. Whatever. It will have arisen from my questions for me.

2) Structures can support our questioning.
Or, structures can shut down our questioning. "Structures" can be anything. It can be family. It can be a teacher or an educational system. It can be any community that one belongs to. It can be a patterned way of thinking, and shared patterns of thinking are the most powerful. So, "structures" can be religion and spiritual traditions. When structures encourage my questions, respect and honor my questions they support my journey, my life as I am working it out. When structures judge me for asking question in first place, they are deadly. When structures try to supply me with answers to questions I am not asking, they are patronizing me. When structures try to supply me with ready made answers to my questions, they disrespect me. In short, structures that don't support my questioning are trying to shut me down. My own response to such structures has been to shut them down--that is, to disengage from the structure and find others that are supportive. Hence, these days, I am a practitioner of Druidry through structures like OBOD and AODA, and I am an Unitarian-Universalist and a memberin our local CUUPS group. All of these groups are structures that support my questioning.

3) Answers are personal.
First, I should say that "answers" are not required. That is, the questions that arise out of my own life are what shape my life and how I live it. I may find some answers to some questions. I may find partial answers. I may never find answers to some, but that's okay. The very arising of questions and working with them, honoring them, observing them is what moves me in my life. However, when I do find an answer to a question that arose out of my own life, it can only be personal. It cannot be the answer for other people. It is not a means of discrimination or judgment when looking at others. It is a means of making decisions about my path. It's personal. I can share my answer to my question with others, but I owe it to others to tell them that it is a personal answer to a question that arose out of my own life. If they find analogous help there, that is fine. If they do not, that is fine, too.

4) Beliefs create judgments.
This is a real hot spot. We love to "believe" things. I decided a few years ago to give up beliefs. I don't find them healthy. Belief requires me to take hold of a position for which there can be no evidence. Why should I do that? Instead, why not just observe and report what I experience? I cannot find a situation in which believing is useful to me. I can find plenty where it is harmful. I find, in my own experience, that beliefs (see definition above) give us a means by which we judge--others and ourselves. Judgment means saying, in so many words: you are not acceptable to me because you don't measure up to this belief. It's that simple, and that deadly. Beliefs create separation, division, hurt, harm, and alienation between people. And, what's worse, they aren't necessary.

5) Questions can be shared, and they can create dialogue.
If I refuse to hold beliefs and therefore having nothing to judge others with, what to do when I encounter another human being spouting an idea that I find troubling? (that is, besides asking myself what secret belief I am clinging to that makes this troubling?) This last piece of my working philosophy takes me full circle. I can always ask questions of this other person. Mind you, I am not talking about judgments disguised as questions. I am talking about taking a moment and allowing the other person's position to sink in, and allowing my own personal question to arise. By sharing my genuine question with the other, I invite a dialogue with him/her. I open the door to community. I take a step on my path. I shape my life in the present moment afresh. I risk learning something.

There is a real sense in which this whole "working philosophy" is simply one of my personal answers to a question that has been rising up from within me for a long time: how do I go about living this one life that I have? Here's how I do it. It's personal to me. It works for me. It may not work for anyone else. But, oh how liberating to be able to say--this works for me.

Bob

The Earth Spiral

2007-10-31T02:21:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine and his wife just welcomed their first child into their lives, and it has me musing over our own child raising. It strikes me over and over again that tending our children is very much an earth spiral activity, and that tending changes as they grow. My son, our youngest (13) said to me the other night as I was preparing to take him to his soccer practice—you know dad, you could stay and watch my practice tonight.

I had not planned on staying—just dropping him off, which I usually do. And, honestly, the thought of standing out in the cold for 2 hours was not high on my list. But, my son was saying in so many words that he wanted me there. No reason in particular. He wanted me there, close by, on the ground, while he participated in this physical, earthy activity. So I did. 13 years ago, tending to my son was changing diapers and getting up several times in the night. Sunday night it was cooking a big vegetable and cornbread dinner as our 20 year old was coming home for dinner (and to do laundry), and all three of our kids would be there together. Cooking. Soccer. Diapers. Earth stuff. On my Druid path.

My inclinations are towards the Sun Path and the Moon Path, creative, heady, intellectual, artistic, magickal stuff. But I learn over and over again that it's the Earth stuff that keeps me sane, keeps me healthy, and quite honestly that keeps me in touch with my life, my self. I imagine (which is the best that I can do right now) that if reincarnation is the way things work, that I have had some lifetimes in which I have cultivated my intellect and artistic interests, and that I have brought those things with me into this life. I enjoy them. They seem natural to me. I am inclined toward them. But, this life's lesson seems to be about grounding, about touching the earth as sacred work. The mundane, the telluric, sparkles with a hidden divinity that only appears when I touch it. Tending. Cooking. Weeding. Sweating. These are the elixirs and the spells and the incantations of the earth path.

Samhain and the Veil

2007-10-28T10:12:00.000-07:00

As we enter into the triad of days for Samhain, I am aware of the gifts that I have received while working on two different Samhain ceremonies that I will help lead this week. Most of what I have gained has been around the issue of "the veil". We say at Samhain that the veil thins so that we can more easily communicate with our ancestors. I approach this thinning of the veil with an attraction, a personal experience, and even a skepticism all of which lead me to reflect. Here are the things that have become apparent, to me.

First, for most of my life, I have had this experience on a particular day in the fall and in the spring when I can see the light change. It is very specific. In the fall, the heavy, hazy, hot, orangey warm light of summer shifts--almost like a cosmic "click--and it becomes light, clear, cooler, yellowish-white. Colors seem sharper, and the air feels, well, thinner. So, I think I have an experience that I would like to think my Celtic ancestors identified as the "thinning of the veil". When I see the light change, other things trigger in me. I shift psychologically and emotionally. I recall the last time the light shifted like this--a year before, and I begin to notice that a year has passed. My life has made the cycle. My ancestors called the year's end and years's beginning. The earth, and her light, signal that for me and my body understands the signals. The psycho-emotional shift moves me more inward as I begin to reflect on what has happend over the last year, what I have learned, mostly from my foibles and unexpected events.

Second, the "veil" are those experiences that set up boundaries around us. The veil defines the present moment. There are events that call me forward. There are events that call me back. But I live right here, right now. Buddhist and Taoist meditation over the years has made this so clear to me. In fact, I am learning that when I am feeling a huge drain on my energy, it is often because I have been working through the veil into the future or back into the past too much. A little of that is okay. A lot of that is exhausting. I am a creature of the present moment. Which leads me to the last point.

Third, we are healthier in the present moment. And we live in a culture that does not teach us to value living in the present moment. Think about all the things that pull you toward tomorrow or which drag you back into the past. I sit writing this on Sunday, but I have nagging in my background mental music the lesson plans that I need to have in place for tomorrow, the conversation I had last week that may have been misunderstood. And those are immediate examples. There are psychological patterns of existence that have been handed down for generations to me that in some sense bind me into ways of living that don't help me. The list of anxieties about the future are limited only by the time it takes me to name them. And so it goes. None of these make me healthy. I am healthiest when I pull back from the veil of past and future and choose to live right now, in the present moment.

Druidry helps me do this. Druidry reminds me to look at the moon, the sun, to stand in awe of the tree, to touch the earth. All of these exist only in the present moment. All of these transcend the veil when needed, but they are present, here and now. And in these days of Samhain, the veil drops and allows us to consider: where we have been this last year; what wisdom has arisen within us; what our ancestors might teach us. Then, the days move one. The veil returns, and we, if we are paying attention, return to the present moment. This is our time. Now. And we don't have time to waste seizing it.

Triad of the Little Oak

2007-06-06T08:02:00.001-07:00

Three conditions for the little oak to become grand: a conspiracy of imagination, the audacity of a beginning, and a tenacity through time.

Commentary: As it might be obvious, I wrote this triad after planting this tiny little oak in my yard recently. There is a story. My wife and I have been working for weeks on reclaiming a garden space left rather overrun by previous owners. The transformation has resulted in an area devoted to flowers, to vegetables, and to herbs. In the process of clearing, cleaning and preparing the space, we came across a few baby oaks planted, no doubt, by industrious squirrels. This created a bit of a dilemma for the tree-loving Druid.

It would have been easiest to pull them up and compost them with the rest of the weeds, and that's not a bad option. The trees, if left in place, would have grown far too close to our house, and ultimately would have caused damage to the house, and made the gardening space un-gardenable.

So, the second choice, of leaving them there, was out of the question. The third choice was to try and relocate them. The first such relocation was a failure. A combination of a baby oak that was really too old for good relocation, a poor job on my part of digging deeply enough to get all the roots, and our now serious Georgia drought resulted in a transplant that only lasted about two weeks.

The picture above, though, is one such transplant that I have considerable confidence may just make it. And so, after transplanting this tiny baby last week, I've spent some time reflecting on it. What would it take for this little baby to one day make for marvelous, grand oak shade in our front yard (away from the house and garden)? The same three things, it struck me, that are required for any life effort to have some significant effect.

A conspiracy of imagination: The Latin roots of "conspiracy" mean to breathe together. A significant life effort requires that we breathe together with some other creature in the field of imagination. Can we see where this just might lead? Can we see it together?

The audacity of a beginning: This is just deciding to use the nerve one can muster to start. I'd already lost one oak, and felt badly for it. Did I dare try it again? This little one was growing right where it was (and that it would not ultimately be a good place only complicated this). In one solitary moment, I got the shovel and made the move.

The tenacity through time: it means showing up. In this case, during this serious Georgia drought, it means show up with a watering can, regularly, tenaciously, persistently. Over longer time, it means keeping the base clean, mulched, composted, watching for invasive insects or unobservant traffic through the yard.

This little oak has the potential for teaching me a lot, and reminding me often. Just so that you can see how tiny it is, compare it to my hand.

Triads of Any Task

2007-06-01T06:02:00.000-07:00

The Triads of Any Task

Three motivations within any task: compulsion, blame, and delight. Wise is the one who knows what moves him.

Three perceptions in the midst of any task: the one completely cloaked, the one in the shadow, and the one completely in the light. Wise is she who constantly seeks them all.

Three experiences within any task: the experience of the slave, the experience of the condemned, and the experience of the creator. At any moment, both the slave and the condemned may become the creator, by a choice.

Three rivers of feeling run through any task and leave their mark on those involved: the feeling of fear, the feeling of shame, and the feeling of joy. Wisdom thrives swimming in only one.

Three choices within any task: To see it as an obligation, to see it as a punishment, to see it as an occasion to dance. Wise are they who can find the inner music in any task.

Commentary

I wrote this triad after having one of those (for me) significant dreams where I wake up, remember the details, experience strong emotional content with the dream, and know that it is speaking to me. I spent several days reflecting on this dream, listening to its message, and then wrote this triad over another several days.

Part 1: for me, I have come to realize that any task I engage in, whether daily and routine, or huge and life changing, if I consider it, I can find lurking there these three motivations. I say "lurk" because one of these is usually obvious. The other two, though, are always there, hidden, perhaps, to my ego. The significance of noticing that "compulsion" or "blame" or "delight" is a motivator is that I can notice which is moving me at the time, and then I can choose which one I really want to work with. In reality, I am finding that compulsion and blame, vestiges of the culture and family I grew up in, often are the initial and obvious motivators, delight is the one I choose to work with.

And the great joy of this is discovering, so far, that there is no task, however difficult or trivial or overwhelming or boring--in which I cannot find a delight.

Part 2: I have alluded to this already. Compulsion, blame and delight are all already present in any task I undertake. One might be obvious--in the light. Others may be lurking in the shadows, barely perceptible, or completely hidden to me. Regardless of which is where, I do better to find them all and see how they are moving me, and then, am free to make my choice for how to proceed.

Part 3: The slave is the extension of compulsion. When I do a task because "I have to", then I am slave to the compulsion. Likewise, when I do a task because not doing it will leave me "guilty" of some judgment, I must ask whose judgment this is I am walking around with. I stand, in the task, already condemned. The point of observing these experiences of slave and condemned is that I can then choose, rather, to work from the delight involved in the task. When I choose to work from delight, I become creative, fluid, dynamic. I become the creator--I who moments before was the slave or the condemned.

Part 4: The feelings, too, are extensions of the motivators: fear of the compulsion, shame of the blame,and joy of the delight. This is just another angle on any task: the emotions that are running through me will color my world and will leave a mark on those I am "tasking" with and for. Suppose I am cooking food for my family, am doing it under some compulsion (I have to do this), am feeling anger and fear around having to do this task--fear that I won't get to do other things that I'd prefer to be doing, for instance. Does the food not become filled with the emotion I am running? Will not my family then "feast" on my fear at some level?
Imagine the same meal prepared with the choice to cook in and through the delight of the task. Fact is, I love to cook, and if I can settle down and observe what is moving me, I can choose to cook with delight.

Part 5: The word "choice" should be obvious by now. No great coincidence that I am also re-reading William Glasser's Choice Theory: A New Psychology for Living right now.

About Triads

2007-06-01T04:33:00.000-07:00

Littered throughout this blog, you will find some of my triads.

What are triads, you ask? In short, they are one of the few written forms left from ancient Celtic and Druidic communities. Triads express what today we might call spirituality, psychology, sociology and just plain human wisdom in sometimes pithy, sometimes truncated, but most often dense sayings, expressed with three aspects. Reading a triad, and better, reflecting and ruminating on it, is like walking around a three legged stool. You view it from three different points of view, but you are viewing the same stool in each view.

There are collections of ancient Triads. I find some as fresh and powerful as anything I've ever read, and those I often commit to memory. They begin to salt my thoughts, my writing, my view on the world. In other words, they help me make sense of things. They become companions, wise companions, on the journey. The clearest example of this type I learned while working through Bardic grade with OBOD. It goes:

"Three foundations to success: bold design, frequent practice, and frequent mistakes."

That triad so clearly and succinctly and deeply expresses for me what the journey of life and learning is about that it is has become a personal and professional motto of sorts. I teach it to my students, and it effectively becomes my classroom motto each year.

Others of the ancient Triads clearly need a great deal of cultural and linguistic excavation to make sense, or they sound "good" on the surface, but are difficult to make much sense of. Consider this one:

"Three tendencies of a persons lifetime: hope, love, and joy."

Who wants to argue with hope, love and joy? And yet, how is it that these are three tendencies of a person's life time? We could all take a stab at that, and many might disagree. I simply don't find enough here to work with. And so it goes.

After this post, I will from time to time post some of my own triads. Unless indicated otherwise, the Triads that I write here are my own creation based on reflections of my personal experience. They may or may not be useful to someone else. So, the wisdom is--read, try it out, decided for yourself. I am not claiming to be adding to the ancient store of triads, but I am claiming that this way of reflecting on and distilling my own experience is very helpful to me. At least, this is a writing exercise. For me personally, it is also an exercise in the practice of my path, my life journey.

I will also at times give comment to the triads that I write. And, as always, comments to any of this are welcome from those who read them.

I have created links to some online sources for ancient triads.

Beltane 2007

2007-05-05T14:38:00.000-07:00

I delivered the following reflection at the Unitarian-Universalist Congregation of Gwinnett, where I am a member. We had the service outside, and followed with an arts and crafts fair--the first of what we hope may become an annual event.

The Song of Amergin

I am a stag: of seven tines,

I am a flood: across a plain,

I am a wind: on a deep lake,

I am a tear: the Sun lets fall,

I am a hawk: above the cliff,

I am a thorn: beneath the nail,

I am a wonder: among flowers,

I am a wizard: who but I

Sets the cool head aflame with smoke?

I am a spear: that roars for blood,

I am a salmon: in a pool,

I am a lure: from paradise,

I am a hill: where poets walk,

I am a boar: ruthless and red,

I am a breaker: threatening doom,

I am a tide: that drags to death,

I am an infant: who but I

Peeps from the unhewn dolmen, arch?

I am the womb: of every holt,

I am the blaze: on every hill,

I am the queen: of every hive,

I am the shield: for every head,

I am the tomb: of every hope.

Song of Amergin translated by Robert Graves, from The White Goddess, Faber and Faber Limited, 24 Russell Square London WC1. It appears here under the principle of Fair Use.

These words are considered to be the oldest recorded poem in Irish and from Ireland. They are said to be the words, the incantation, the wisdom spoken forth by the Druid, Amergin of the Milesians as he and his people landed on Ireland and prepared to drive the Tuatha de Danaan (The Fairy People who were considered gods or spirits) from the land. These words, the story goes, broke the power of the spirits over the land, and allowed the Milesians to take up residence in Ireland. This occurred some time about 1500 years before the Common Era, and so, more than 3500 years ago from our time, at this time of the year, the beginning of Beltane, the Irish marking of the beginning of summer, the beginning of the flowering of the earth.

So, are these magick words that have a power of their own? If I want to take my neighor’s car, should I walk over and proclaim these words over his car at night and watch it magically appear in my drive way? Likely not. Or should I stand in my neighbor’s driveway shouting: I am a stag; I am a flood; I am a wind; I am a tear; I am a thorn; I am a wonder; I am a wizard . . . likely my neighbor will simply think me a fool, or someone who has lost his mind, and call for someone to take me away.

There is, in fact, some real magick going on in these words, and I’d like to take just a minute to observe the line of magick that runs through them. And then, I’d like to stop talking about the magick and invite you to practice a little of the magick with me, because it’s actually real, practical magick.

Notice the venue of these “I am” statements. Amergin claims that he is a stag (an animal who lives out its life in the woods, under the trees, on the earth. Amergin claims that he is a flood (a phenomenon that requires a great deal of water, as he says here, washing over the earth). He claims that he is a wind (a vast amount of air moving and gusting, and he notes that it moves across the water). Before I go any further, do you see what he is weaving? He is identifying himself with what will become the three most basic building blocks of the ancient Irish world view: the earth, the sea (water), and the sky (air), and he demonstrates them working in and over and under each other, separate but joined, touching, weaving, inter-working, inter-being. In every other Druidic and ancient Irish piece of wisdom that we have left in writing (most of it was NOT written down) these elements of earth, sky and sea are the building blocks, the starting places, and the sources where people find energy to work with. And why not? They are all around, abundant, and at this time of year, bursting forth with life.

Amergin goes on: he is a tear that falls from the sun (water from the sky). He is a hawk soaring above the cliff (air over the earth). He is a thorn under the nail (earth under the earth). He is a wonder among flowers (imagine the gasp of human breath “ahhhhh” as it catches sight of a field of flowers—air over earth). And now the claim to transformation: not only is he earth and sky and water and all three working in and over and among each other, but he is wizard! He is the weaver of magick, working with these energies who can bring a fire and smoke out of a cool head (which, by the way, in many ancient literatures, is always an auspicious sign, and usually the sign identifying a wise person or a leader).

In each stanza of this poem, Amergin continues to weave the three elements of Earth and Air and Water together with symbols of the very land that is before him, and in each stanza he comes to a moment of transformation. In the second stanza, for instance, it is not a wizard that he is weaving all of this mighty stuff together. No, after claiming that he is a spear, a salmon, a lure, a hill, a boar, a breaker, and a tide, he then becomes the transformer—an infant. Who else can look from inside of the earth and peer out on all of these things—who else can look from the inside of the womb out and see that vision?

And so, of course, in the last stanza, Amergin makes the journey, and the claim to work with these mighty energies is complete. He is the womb of every creature giving birth. He is the blaze on every hill that lights the dark nights of celebration and of protection. He is the queen of every hive, directing the life of the community of bees, and producing sweet honey. He is a shield for every head. Earth and sky and air. And finally, he knows, he is the tomb which holds every hope.

What is this wisdom that leaves his hopes in the tomb? What is this wisdom that has a man claiming to be a womb, a queen bee, a stag, a flood, the wind, a wizard, an infant? It is the wisdom of knowing oneself in the-right-now-ness of things, in this world, the world composed of earth and sky and sea, which allows the energy of Summer time to burst forth inside of him. It is the wisdom that recognizes that I am not separate from you; that we are not separate from that sky above us; from this earth we sit and stand on; from the water that falls from the sky (hopefully not until our May Day Fair is finished today). We are that. That is who we are. I am that. That is who I am. And I am birth. I am able to open myself to earth and sky and air and become a wizard working with those energies for transformation. I am the infant who once looked out from inside a womb, and I can still be that, if I allow it. And I am death. I am letting go, dying, and laying down hopes. I lay down hopes in exchange for what is right now. And I realize that I am both birth and death in the same life, in the taking in of a breath and the letting go of a breath. In every moment I am both birth and death. On this day of Beltane, I can claim that; I can celebrate that; I can work and weave with that. It is no accident that on this celebration of the beginning of Beltane that we have moved our worship out of doors to be in direct contact with these elements. And it is no mistake that we have filled our usual place of worship with the creative arts of many, many artisans. Those arts and crafts are the produce of the hands of men and women who have found the words of Amergin for themselves: I am the sky, I am the earth, I am the sea. And as wizards, they have crafted air and earth and water together into beauty. As we look around this place, we are witness to the produce of men and women, some of whom sit right here with us today, some of whom are no longer among us—who heard the call of this land, these trees, this sky, and made a place here called UUCG, who as late as yesterday were out on this land, pulling weeds and encouraging flowers and pruning trees and picking up debris, and tending the land. They, like the infant, really can look from inside the earth out and see the vast beauty that is here. They can sing the song of Amergin.

And, so, we can stop talking about Amergin and his song and his magick as a thing of the past, about what he might have experienced, and invite us to weave a little of this magick for ourselves.

Let’s take a moment as we sit here under the sky and the trees, with the wind blowing around us. I am going to be quiet. Let’s look around. Really see what is above and below and around you. Identify with something that you see. And claim to be it, to be one with it, and name it out loud. Yes, I am going to ask us to see the things around us, and claim them, claim to be them, and so, claim the energy that they hold as something that we want to celebrate and enjoy today on this day of Beltane.

Here’s an example: I look down right now, and I see an insect crawling through the grass. So, out of the silence I say: I am a bug crawling on the grass!

See how easy that was? So, I am going to be quiet now, and you are the end of this reflection. As you feel so moved, claim I am ___________, and we will do this until we fall silent again, and the choir will lead us in The Chant for the Seasons.

Planning With the Grove

2007-02-18T11:25:00.000-08:00

A few months ago, I gave a talk at our UU congregation about Earth-centered spirituality and focused on my own experience with trees. I described as best I could how it feels to have a conversation with a tree. After the service, I was approached by about 6 or 7 different individuals who wanted to "confess" (really confirm and affirm) that they, too, had these experiences. Most were men. Most seemed terribly relieved, delighted even, to have someone mark out loud an experience they had known personally for some time.

Today, I went out into the grove behind my house, having been drawn there, as I understand it, by the space itself. A few days ago, while jogging, the grove suddenly came to mind, and in particular, the space at the back of the grove where I had been considering a Druid's garden, this image came to me. The space is an oblong circle (or an oval) set off by pine or oak trees at the cardinal positions (pine at east and south, oak at west and north). The pines are 25-30 feet tall and about a foot at the base. The oaks are youngish and I think "water oaks" which are not always very large anyway, more like 15-20 feet tall and 5-10 inches at the base. The image that came to me was a classical labyrinth set in that oval with Druidic herbs planted in and among and around the labyrinth--so a garden labyrinth. The space would become at once a garden and a place for walking meditation.

I went to the space just now to tell the space of my idea, and to listen for its permission and direction. This kind of "talking for me" is a combination of images and words which I use very quietly. I think the words are mostly for me, and the images are the energy form that trees and plants communicate with.

I sketched the space and made notes about trees, etc. And then, I began asking the plants and trees for permissions. The space within the oval is filled with blackberry bramble, honeysuckle vines, and small saplings and other scrub that has grown up in what had been once open space within the grove. (I mentioned in the earlier post that this seems to have been farmed at one time, and I suspect that opening may have resulted from that. The opening in the grove is also about 30-40 feet from the stream that runs at the back boundary of my property.

Specifically: I asked blackberry if I might cut and remove the bramble in the oval, but that I would want her to relocate through her roots to the outer edges. I love blackberry and would not want her to disappear. She gave permission as long as I do this before spring sprouting begins. Honeysuckle gave an immediate nod of approval for the same. I asked all of the trees for permission to remove small saplings and small trees that are in the oval. Honestly, if they all grew, they would crowd each other terribly. The message I got back was an affirmative, but where possible, I should dig saplings up and relocate them toward the stream. Finally, I asked the space about placing the garden-labyrinth there. The image I got back was that this space had inspired this from the beginning and had called me to this image. In other words, the idea of the labyrinth garden came from the space itself. In a sense, I already knew this.

I started to leave, and then realized that I need to ask one more permission: of poison oak, ivy and sumac. I knew they were there, but I could not see them. I asked them if they would locate outside of the oval and be our guardians, not our enemies. The reply: yes, if you will do the same for us.

This space, from the day I began working in it draws me as space for human beings, perhaps only this human being, but I sense others, to find new and deeper communion with the earth, with nature, and with the particular trees of this grove.

Bob

In the Grove

2007-02-11T05:38:00.000-08:00

I'd like to share an experience and an adventure that I began this past
week, one that has been taking shape interiorly for some time now.
When my wife and I bought this house, (metro Atlanta) we knew that based
on our jobs as teachers, we would have certain areas that we needed to
try and find housing in--largely for school zones for our children and transportation/fuel concerns in our commutes. Most of our affordable options were in
subdivisions-not very high on our list of priorities. So, we insisted
that the real estate agent show us only subdivisions where trees had

been left alone as much as possible. The short of it is that we found
this house in a very large subdivision built by one architect who wove
the subdivision in and around the small river and large tract of what I
am sure had been untouched woods 20 years ago. The home owners'
association contract, which all owners must sign, requires a
neighborhood approval on the removal of all trees. In other words, we
don't cut down trees!

Our property runs long behind our house into the woods and all the way
to the river (stream). This past week, I began a project that, as I
say, has been taking shape in my imagination. I want to create a living
relationship with those woods, with the grove behind our house, and in
that relationship find spaces where I can spend quiet, meditative time and
where I can have a garden. There is a space in the heart of the
grove between our house and the stream that is fairly encircled with
large trees (mostly oak), and closer to the stream, there is an open
area-open to the sun-bounded in the cardinal directions by trees whose
type I have not identified yet. They are hardwood, it seems, and one
may even be a pear tree.

So, last Wednesday, I began. Beginning meant standing at the edge of
the grove and talking for a while with the nature spirits of the grove,
and sharing with them the dream that I had inside me, and asking if they
would work with me, help me, guide me in 1) making a walking, safe path
through the grove to the stream and potential garden site. The path
would need to be cleared of accumulated twigs, fallen trees, leaves,
vines, etc so that humans could walk without fear of unseen snakes,
holes and poison oak/ivy. 2) establishing a circle at the center of the
grove within which I could sit, meditate, reflect; 3) cultivating the
open space within the trees as a garden with herbs and perhaps some fruit/vegetables for my family's use.

And then, I listened. What I received was this kind of message/wisdom
and direction. 1) They would work with me, but there was some
skepticism on the part of some of the nature spirits about whether I
would listen, so in a sense, I am being tested. They want to know if
they can trust me. 2) They insisted on removing no trees (except for an
occasional small one for which I would need to stop and receive
permission). Vines could be clipped and pruned as their underground root
network is vast, and they are free to put up shoots anywhere they like.
So, I was told, pruning vines (largely the vines I face are cat's paw-an
invasive thorny vine, wild muscadine, wild blackberry, and poison ivy)
for the purpose of making the path was acceptable. 3) They showed me
where they wanted me to lay the path-along what was already a a series
of natural openings along a very old fence that had once been there for
animals. More on that in a minute.

And so I began. I did ask them to protect me from poison ivy (I am
increasingly allergic, and with all the other vines that we have in the
grove, it's not always obvious, especially this time of year with most
leaves are gone). With my rake, I began sweeping out the path and with
my pruners, removing vines that fell in the path. I only worked a
couple of hours that first day, and the path took shape all the way to
the garden spot. It passes just by the western edge of what will be the
meditation circle and approaches the garden spot from the south-west. Along the
way, I found where stone and brick had been piled (how long ago I don't
know), but as I removed the pile, using the brick the line the path and
the stone I piled at the food of the oak that borders the western edge
of the circle, I asked the earth to tell me about what had gone on
there. I began to get mental images of a farm that had been there and
that this part of the wood had once held a pen for animals. I kept
seeing pigs.

When I left the grove at the end of that first day, I scattered cornmeal
as an offering to the nature spirits. I had done this at the opening of
the grove when I started my conversation earlier that day, and I ended
by scattering cornmeal all along the new path.

And that's where I am in this adventure. What I found, true to other
experiences, is that when I attempt to speak and listen to nature
spirits (I love JMG's phrase in several of his books-patterns of
energy), I find that what is communicated is not words, but impressions
and images. In other words (using words to try and describe non-verbal
experiences) patterns of energy use non-verbal patterns of energy to
communicate!

We shall see how this unfolds, and I will post here and
keep journaling about what is happening in the grove.. I am excited that this interior vision
is taking shape.

I think that the garden
spot is going to be a bit more challenging for me to listen and work
simply because, while it is largely open with respect to trees, it has
quite a lot of smaller undergrowth that has clearly grown up there over
the last 10 or 15 years. This includes invasive blackberry. Wild
blackberries are delicious, but the plants are a thorny nightmare. I am
at this point, thinking that they qualify under the "vine" rule I was
given, but I will talk to them, and ask them to relocate through their
root system. Also, I'll ask for their assistance in clearing the space
for a more formal herb garden.

Rough Words--Kind Words--Justice Words

2006-11-25T05:16:00.000-08:00

I recently read an admonition from a spiritual teacher who basically wanted people in our society to stop using what he called "rough speech". He advocated kind speech, only. It occurred to me that this polarization between "rough speech" and "kind speech" leaves out a very important balance: Speech that is non-violent but which stands for justice. I
think in particular of Dr. Martin Luther King's "Letter from the
Birmingham City Jail" (as many other of his speeches). In that letter
in particular, written to some of the city's more liberal clergy who
were really trying to calm a city on the bring of self-destruction, King
responds to their message of "wait, now is not the right time". His
basic response was firm and direct:

"We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily
given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I
have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was "well timed" in
the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of
segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the
ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost
always meant 'Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished
jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

In early paragraphs of this letter, King directly labels Birmingham's
recently defeated mayor and it's recently elected mayor both as
segregationists. He says that groups of people are frequently more
immoral than individuals. He highlights the history of how black people
have been told "to wait".

And there is this rather smoldering indictment of what he calls "the
moderate white" who likely include the clergy who have written the
letter:

"I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish
brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been
gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the
regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his
stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku
Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order"
than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of
tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who
constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot
agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically
believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives
by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to
wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people
of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from
people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than
outright rejection."

Throughout this lengthy letter, King does an incredible job of using
language that is non-violent and at the same time does not soften his
message of justice at any point. Many were incensed at this letter, and
in some respects, this letter made the fires burn brighter in the
horrible oppression of black people in this country. But these things
that King said were true, and had to be said. The moderate white had to
be confronted in the name of justice and compassion. One of the things
we learn from the civil rights movement is that the oppressor eventually
suffers as much as those who are oppressed. It is the Buddhist
principle of non-duality.

King's letter could easily be written today, with only minor changes, to
those religious folks who oppose full rights for gay people including
marriage, and it would put the finger of justice squarely in the eyes of
those in the large majority who simply want their status quo.

I agree that too often too many in our culture simply appeal to
strong language in violent ways. It only deepens and broadens the cycle
of violence. There is a place, though, in non-violent thought, for
words that are exact, to the point, and at times confronting.
Interestingly, in this letter of King's, one of the early paragraphs
outlines all of the principles of non-violence that he and his movement
observe.

If you've never read King's "Letter from the Birmingham City Jail", you can find it here. It is masterful.

http://almaz.com/nobel/peace/MLK-jail.html

Bob Patrick

Hands

2006-11-24T04:51:00.000-08:00

I read a reflection recently by Thich Nhat Hanh about our hands and how, if we look at our hands, we can see our parents, our grandparents, and all our ancestors there. He concludes: and your hands are always available for reflection.

It made me remember noticing the adult hands in my life growing up. Those images are, surprisingly, still very strong within me.

My dad's father's hands. Rough, calloused, oil stained, and parts of three fingers missing on his left hand. He was raised in a farming town. His father died when he was 8. He had two older sisters, and on his father's death bed, he became "the man" of the family. He began farming at age 8. I find that unbelievable, but the family stories are insistent. I only knew him as the owner of a "filling station" and as the man who taught me to garden. His hands told his life story, and it was one of very hard work, deep heart hurt, and a love of the outdoors.

My mom's father's hands were always well-groomed hands, clean, skilled, educated. He could do extremely complicated math with his slide rule and a pencil. He could create engineering maps and had impeccable handwriting. He could also do woodwork and thread a lure on his fishing line with perfect boyscout knots. His mother died when he was 7. His father was a coal miner. His hands didn't show all of his story, but they demonstrated where it propelled him to--college, study, and a different world than his parents.

My grandmothers' hands were as different as my grandfathers'. My dad's mom had unadorned hands that owned their own tool box. She was the "go to granny" when bicycles failed to work. She had a pocket knife that was always sharp enough to get any job done. She could shoot a gun and did when she had to. She cooked southern-country food as well as any. She wrote her own poetry with them. She hugged really well, and always had a handkerchief to dry tears. My mom's mom's hands were always in the kitchen, tiny, delicate, soft, sweet smelling. They made beautiful and tasty things. They touched gently. They required precision and perfection and politeness. They were hands that guarded tightly kept secrets and fears, and that often enough gestured to others who knew her when she was afraid. We always knew by how she held her hands.

I guess I do see them all in my hands. And my hands are always available for reflection. Hands are our inheritance. It makes me wonder how much my children know about the hands that are in theirs.

Bob Patrick

Beginnings--Thanksgiving Day--2006

2006-11-23T05:41:00.000-08:00

This Thanksgiving Day of 2006 seems to me to be a good beginning for a blog named "Earth Notes". A series of serendipitous events occurred to bring me to this moment. As always. Here are the things I love: my family (I am a husband of 24 years, and a father, of almost 20 years); gardening, Classics (I am a Latin teacher, now for 18 years, and working on a PhD in Latin through the University of Florida), mythologies, theologies, painting and art in general, teaching, trees, things Celtic, things Native American, languages in general and the cultures that go with them, the human body and pathways to healthy living, and breathing. I love breathing.

How's that for an introduction to Earth Notes? A word (or a few) about each.

Family: there is no religion, spirituality, or philosophy which could offer me more to reflect on, learn from, or grow in my daily life from quite like family--family in general, family of origin, and the family that my wife and I have constituted over these 24 years. It is every day a mirror to gaze into, see (or not!) and decide how I shall walk with what I see today. Family is, for these reason, sacred to me. Living consciously in a family is the most wonderful, awful, difficult and demanding thing I've ever done.

Gardinging: I grew up in a rural community in Alabama where family gardening was, as I look back, the deep center of my life, as were the woods, the mountain, the creeks, the wild animals. Hence, Earth Notes. Nothing is more stabilizing to my life and my mental health than digging in the earth, cultivating, planting, growing, and adoring the beauty of the earth.

Classics: I don't know why, but early on in my education, I fell in love with Latin. I've been studying Latin now for 33 years. I don't think it a particularly magical language, or more difficult or intelligent than any other. But, it is a language that has been in constant use for what is approaching 3000 years in Europe and in the world, and the culture of Latin, that of the Romans and then Europe, lies underneath western civilization. I am not a traditional Latin teacher, and I love to explore the interweave between the ancient and the modern.

Mythologies: For me, much of making sense of life boils down to our stories. This is what mythology is--the stories we tell that help us make sense of life. Stories convey truth as we have come to understand it, and truth has little to do with historical fact. The two can be connected, but they need not be the same thing. So, I understand mythology to be both those personal stories we tell to make sense of things, and the ancient stories that we re-tell. And they are all "sacred" story.

Theologies: I have an undergraduate degree in Biblical Literature (Hebrew and Greek), and a M.Div degree from Emory University's Candler School of Theology. I was, for 8 years, a United Methodsit clergyman. I left the UMC and became Roman Catholic. I taught theology for the Catholic Church at the high school and graduate level for 15 years. I was granted permission from Rome to be ordained a priest as a married man. Then, our diocese got a new bishop who didn't like the idea. Despite all of my preparations to become a priest, he squashed that. In retrospect, being ordained under him would have been a disaster for me. I continued to teach for another 7 years. I left the RC Church 5 years ago. I am now a member of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Theologies, as I see it, are the words we use to explain our stories. See "mythologies" above. They are all, in a sense, sacred, and they are all, in a sense, terribly misleading, when they attempt to offer anything absolute or final. Theologies are always human, and relative, even those that claim to be divine and absolute.

Art: One of the most important things that has ever happened to me was the night 25 years ago when I took my first painting lesson in the basement of a women who lived in the small community where I was the Methodist minister. Several things happened all at once: I fulfilled a life-long intuition that I was capable of making art; I experienced for the first time, consciously, what an altered state of mind could be as I completely lost myself in the artwork and became oblivious to time; I did something entirely for me and allowed that that was okay.

Teaching: Teaching is such a comlicated art, and I love it. Two years ago, I was granted National Board Certification in Latin for Adolescents and Young Adults--after a grueling process of portfolio work, reflection and writing (about 80 pages) and an intense exam. I am very proud of my NBCT status, but more, am grateful for the process of serious reflection on my work as a teacher that it afforded me. Every single day that I enter the classroom this dance happens involving: 1) what I know of my content area (Latin), 2) who these people are walking in the door of my room 5 times a day (and they are all different); 3) and how to connect what I know of Latin with who they are as human beings at their level of development and skill in the language. In my experience, I can never do anything twice the same way. Ever. Pedagogy (how we teach) is as important (maybe more) than what we teach. Teachers who don't understand this are very dangerous. That's not hyperbole.

Trees: Very simply, they speak to me. I am born a Druid, in that respect. There is an energy in trees, and if you stop and give a tree your attention, it will begin to speak to you not in words. Every kind of tree has its own energy, and every tree withhin its kind speaks a little differently. I don't find hugging trees all that special, but sitting with them is a special privilege.

Things Celtic: I bleed Celtic any way you scratch me. My maternal great-grandfather was born in Ireland and his wife, my great-grandmother, in Scotland. I know less of my other great-grandparents, but they all have Welsh, Irish and German names. All Celtic. So, over the years I have followed my Celitc inclinations to read and learn of Celtic mythologies, ancient rites and customs. They speak to me, to my genes.

Things Native American: I have it from my paternal grandmother that there is an "Indian" in the family line. Her saying that it was so only confirmed what I already resonated with in my body. The land, animals, the Native American flute (I own and play with two cedar flutes) all speak to me, to my genes.

Languages and Cultures: I guess at this point this is redundant, but I have working knowledge of Latin, Ancient Greek, Hebrew (very rusty), and Spanish. I recently passed a proficiency in German and French, but that's only reading. I have dabbled in Sanskrit and wish some day to do an intensive with the American Sanskrit Institute. I would love to go to Ireland for a summer and do an Irish intensive there. My Latin and Spanish make reading Italian fairly easy, and this past summer I was in Italy for a month, and found myself increasingly able to understan Italian as it was spoken.

Human Body: I spent 5 years in an active massage therapy practice. I am national board certified in Massage and Body work, and that whole experience woke me up to my body and the deep intelligence that it has. This along with Tai Chi and meditation practices of various kinds have helped me understand that "mind" exists throughout the body, and not just in my head.

Breathing: 4 years ago I spend a week in retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh. I took the Three Jewels or refuges with him: The Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, that is, the path of wisdom as embodied in the Buddha, the teaching tradition of wisdom, and the community of those who practice this wisdom. The breath, enjoying the breath, being present in the breath, right now, is the centerpiece of that for me.

These are all topics that I may write about from time to time. These are the threads of my life. There are others. Life is such an adventure and always, a path unfolding. I have learned so many times (I can be very slow) that while I may want to see where the path is leading before I take a step, what I usually get and what life usually demands of me is simply taking the next step. Now is all there is. The next step is right in front of me, and it is loaded with such beauty, such mystery. Who could ask for more?

On this Thanksgiving Day, I am so grateful for this next step.

Bob Patrick
November 23, 2006