The Religion of the Very Old Times

So many people want to find a way back to older ways of looking at the world. This impulse drives a small group of modern people to make many attempts at reconstructing older pre-Christian religions, especially religions from tribal or Pagan Europe. There is a danger lurking between the desire and the task, however- the modern tendency to over-simplify things. We are used to religions being clear-cut; the revealed religions that dominate our world now come pre-packaged with smoothly edited books of scripture, priests and elders with generations of dogmatic understanding at their fingertips, and hordes of followers who all basically agree on the fundamentals and ideas of their religion as they have been taught them. Most modern Pagans have it in their head that Pagans had a similar religious life- clean and simple, easy answers, and a lot of people standing around in agreement. This picture, however, was not the case, long ago.

When we talk about the religions of Old Europe, the polytheistic religions of the many native and Indo-European tribes that inhabited Europe before Christianity, we can hardly consider them "religions" as we know the word today. It might be better to talk about "worldviews".

The peoples of the very old times lived close to nature, in small tribal groupings. As times advanced, urban societies did grow up, but Northern Europe remained very rural and decentralized for a long time, resisting even Rome's attempts to put them on the "grid" as it were. Britain stands out as an exception to this, though the further north the Romans went in Britain, the less they were able to handle the natives, until they just walled off Caledonia completely.

There is no way to describe the "religions" of the countless tribes and kin-groups that existed on the landscape of ancient Europe, like so many flecks of straw on a tapestry or quilt. All we can do is come within range of guessing how they looked at the world, based on what we know of the basic anthropological facts that everyone agrees ruled over their lives: polytheism, animism, and totemism, to name a few. But no matter what "spiritual worldview factors" you might agree ruled over the lives of ancient Pagans, there are things you never would have found in any Pagan tribe, or between two different tribes or villages or clans- you never would have found neat, clean cut "pantheons" of Gods and Spirits; you would not have found a lot of people believing the very same thing or things about the Gods and the world, nor would you have found neat collections of myths that were common to all the people in an extended area. Naturally, related peoples might have shared certain Gods in common, but their differences would be as many (or more) compared to their commonalities. Find that hard to believe? Look at the great variety between cities and towns and families today; Even within modern cultures, you see it. It's nothing new.

You wouldn't have found ancient priests who all agreed on the same ways to pray, sacrifice, or believe. Sure, there's not many ways to cut the throat of a sacrificial beast or to light a bonfire, but there are countless places with unique powers and histories that add their own unique force to religious rites performed in them. There would have been no religious "hierarchies" and books of dogma, with the exception of some of the more developed priesthoods in Rome, in later centuries, who incidentally became the pattern for the incipient Christian priesthood, after a point.

But I'm aiming to speak of an earlier time- even the original "Romans" didn't have priests in glittering robes with their heads covered, worshipping from big temples; the original pastoral people who became the Romans worshipped their Gods in groves, with fires and turf altars, and made no images for their Gods, choosing instead to "feel" the numinal power of the God's spirit as a formless, powerful thing, and part of nature itself. This is a fine example of a genuine native religion and animistic austerity that you could have expected to find anywhere in Europe at the same time.

The bottom line is this: truly ancient religions were extremely varied; they were very regional, and unique in most ways to whatever place in the landscape they were embedded. What they shared wasn't dogma, doctrine, or mythology, but similar tendencies in worldview. What were some of those tendencies, and how might we build an "experience" of them in our own minds today?


The world was (and is) full of spiritual powers. The entire tapestry of Nature, tightly woven together, appears in countless ways, each of these colorful, powerful, and vibrant "appearances" being the "companion" of a subtle spiritual power, a hidden essence, a "numina". You can't seperate them; everything has a spiritual presence "with" it. Some say everything is a manifestation of some spirit; this is believed by many, but few care to consider the philosophical issues that can be taken with such an idea. It's just as easy to consider things as having a "spiritual dimension" that need not be it's origin, but a simple natural parallel aspect of reality. What is Seen and what is Unseen can both exist in their own mysterious, perpetual way, in the Body of Nature itself, who forever acts as the true Parent of anything, including human beings.

Naturally, this goes straight into the next "worldview feature" which is Animism. But in the polytheistic/animistic worldview, the forces of Nature aren't unconscious, blank things. They are seen as living, conscious beings; their "spiritual aspect" leads a vibrant inner life in the Inner World or the Unseen, and these spirits can interact with human beings. It takes a human being whose mind is open enough to the subtle world to "interact" with them, normally, but spirits of enough power can interact with any human in a dream. The powers or spirits of certain natural phenomenon were "powerful" enough- filling many humans with enough awe- to reach the level of "deity", receiving the honor of "Great" Gods- such as the spirit of thunder, the spirits of the sun and moon, and of the mighty Oak tree, which always became the "forest cradle" of many important Gods of oak and sky- Thunor or Thor, Donar, Perun, Zeus, Janus, and Jupiter.

Are we to believe that the Gods were merely nature spirits who achieved some apotheosis at the hands of adoring humans? Absolutely. There's no shame in this at all; the Gods are spiritual powers born from Nature herself, just as human beings are. Only people who de-value the spiritual power and presence of Nature could look down on the spirits and Gods who are born of it. But by looking down on them, these same people would be looking down on mankind. Nature is the common mother of men and Gods.

Depending on where you lived in ancient Europe (or anywhere else in the world) what spiritual powers you interacted with daily was different. Sure, the Earth is always below your feet, and she is the Common Mother of us all, so regardless of what your Tribe called her, she is the same across the world. Anywhere there are Oak Trees, there is both the spirits of those trees, and the Oak-God himself. That too, doesn't change, despite the many human cultures that have named him and experienced him. The same sun and moon stares down on all humans; we all gather around the same great spiritual power of fire. Love between man and woman in Native America is the same attraction that binds together Greeks or Germans, so the spirit of Love is common to us all, as well.

But when you get off this level of "great universal powers", you discover a new "level" of spiritual experience- the local powers that are unique to place. They are on a different "tier" from the "Great" Gods, but no less important, as they are often the most important powers in the lives of many people- who is the spirit in the local hillside, or in the local river? Who is the spirit that protects the growth of grains in the nearby fields, or who haunts a certain mountain? These spirits sometimes work their way into the mythical inner life of nearby peoples, and become very celebrated, often entering into myths and reaching the status of Gods or Goddesses.

The secret to "recreating" the polytheistic experience in yourself is to understand the "Great" powers, but also to dive into the experience of local power. Without this, you are missing an opportunity to connect yourself directly to whatever Land you live on, and without that connection, you are like a stranger, wherever you live. Had you visited ancient Europe, you'd have heard many different stories of spiritual powers in every tribe you visited. You'd have seen customs, offerings, sacrifices, and traditions centered around places- caves, mountains, wells, rivers, forests, and the like. Nowhere else in the world would you have seen the same customs or beliefs. When you went to the next tribe, you'd have seen or heard a few things in common with the people you just left, but you'd have heard a lot of different things, too.

This may bother some people who have been misled into thinking that there is only one "Truth" that humans are meant to discover- but the reality, hidden from us for so long, is that the "Truth" you are meant to discover deals with you, and wherever you happen to be. The "Truth" you need to know is tied up with the place you stand, and the person you are, not some objective "Great Truth" that binds all people apart from these things. There is nothing that binds all people with the exception of that fact that we are all sprung from Nature, and inseperable parts of Nature.

The "Truth" is something that only you can know, and it speaks with the voice of the place where you live, and the powers and forces that are unique to your time and place. Naturally, since we are all parts of a common Nature, and all human beings, there is a shared life we have, and we share this life with beasts and plants and growing things; it is universal to us to protect that life and only see it destroyed within reason and under the rule of necessity. No one can claim that their "personal truth" allows for the wanton or needless destruction of life; this is against the nature of things, and a person who could make such a statement isn't listening well to their own inner self, nor the world around them. This one lack of insight, this one mistake, may be, in some ways, one of the most subtle, pervasive, and deadly errors (alongside greed) that our sometimes lack of connection with the world around us has brought us.

Either way, you wouldn't have found a simple, standard "way of believing" in ancient times, nor can the heart of sensitive people today find that "way" when they look at the great panopoly of powers around them. This is okay. Despite the tendency we have to want to see "standardized" religion in the modern day, Nature herself is large enough, fertile enough, powerful enough, and varied enough to give us countless local spirits, customs, and traditions, each of which is a perfect "doorway" to bonding with the inner reality of wherever you happen to be. Our task as modern animists and polytheists is to explore the inner reality of our homelands and our living places, and bond with them via ritual expression afterwards. This is how legitimate traditions are born.

You can feel free to give up any need you may feel to know "Who the Gods are" or "How many there are" or "Who's in charge up in the sky"- such questions are not important in the face of the ongoing spiritual experience here and now. All the path of modern Pagan polytheism takes is an ability to feel and a strong sensitivity for wherever you happen to be. The numina or the "feeling of power" that spiritual forces radiate is not a difficult thing to sense or feel, if your heart is open. What could be more obvious than the constant and awesome power of the sky above and the land below? As the two powers that have found a home in every human pantheon, your experience of them can be everyday and all day. To go further, to open yourself to the luminous bodies of sun and moon, of trees and animals, and rivers, hills, mountains, it is simply a matter of staying open and sensitive, and concentrating on the form of the thing- concentrating on the shape and "feel" of the hill, the vision of the animal, or the glow of the sun.

This takes us directly into "animism" and "totemism". There's no way to get around it; the Gods of ancient Europe appeared in animal forms, and with animals sacred to them. Some of them, perhaps, were simply the spirits of those animals long ago, and they became worshipped in human form or shape, many eons later. Or perhaps (and this is my personal theory) the "Great Gods" themselves are simply powerful enough to take whatever form they like, and they have favorite forms, for reasons of natural harmony- is there some connection between the great Thunderer or the Sky God and the Goat or the Bull or the Eagle? What about the Earth Mother and the Horse or the Turtle or the Serpent?

The answer is not simple. You have to explore it on an inner level, before you begin to see how the "Great" powers interact with the web of life, and how and why they assume the forms of the animals they have become traditionally associated with. Some Gods even share sacred animals in common. Again, the answer is not simple, but I will say this- those animals are doors for us to experience the power and reality of the God. We can connect with the animal easily; we can see their images, pictures, see them in the flesh if we go into the wilderness; we can create representations of them and experience them in the inner world easily enough. Around those beasts hovers the power of the Greater Gods, and the beasts become bridges in this way, messengers. They mediate some of the power of the God into the human range of awareness.

Every human being has a spiritual "co-walker" as well, and it arises in the form of a beast. What can we say of a human who has a "follower" or a "totem" spiritual force that is a beast which was known to be sacred to a God or Goddess of ancient times? Is that human closer to that God for some reason? Can they be closer? Certainly. These are all doors into the genuine religious experience that Animism, Totemism, and Polytheism represent.

Animism, Totemism, and Polytheism are tools for experiencing the world in a spiritually deep way- tools for understanding the multiplicity of power and the great variety inherent in our experience of the world. If you open yourself to the world, and consider things as I have said, you will be moving into the closest anyone today can come to what people might have believed, ages ago. Forget overly elaborate pantheons; trust yourself and the powers that are all around you. Trust that the spiritual powers of human beings do not die at what we call "Death", but gather in the unseen places within Nature, and continue to interact with us through the body of Nature- this is the ancestral cultus, which I have spoken of at length here, and will again.

All That is Green and Good

Some of the most profound teachings and aspects of the Old Ways are the simplest. The modern occult world, so used to complexity in "ritual" and rigid forms of rote ceremony and worship, has colored modern forms of religious Paganism with a strange expectations. In much the same manner that people who come from "high" Christian backgrounds (like Catholicism) often cannot adjust to the more minimalist forms of prayer and worship common in low Protestant churches, modern Pagans seem to have a subconscious need for their theologies and rituals to have more structure than perhaps is necessary. The result of this is a feeling of dis-satisfaction with very simple rituals or devotions, and a suspicion of modern Pagan theologies and worldviews that are not "complex" enough.

The influence of the old Hermetic and Cabalistic societies on modern mainstream Paganism is profound- the "LBRP" or the "Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram" and the "Opening by Watchtower" which was the cornerstone of nearly every ritual expression in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn has found it's way, heavily altered, into modern Wicca, and from Wicca to many strands of Paganism.

Today, your chances of finding a "Pagan" group that doesn't start its rites without praying or chanting or tracing odd symbols to the "four quarters" or the four directions, are not good. "Calling the Quarters" is almost cliche now, and practically omnipresent in modern Pagan liturgies. And it's always something that I found a difficulty with.

The founding mothers and fathers of the modern "reconstructionist" Celtic movements were some of the first people to dispense with the "quarter calling" logic of mainstream Paganism. Their reasons were good; they found much evidence to support a Triune system of seeing the "realms" of the world; as opposed to a "four element" system, visualized through a Greek-Hermetic lens, they looked to the traditional Celtic "Oath of the Elements" whereby men and women swore by the Sky, the Seas, and the Earth.

The "Three Realms" appear in other places as well- a trinity of realms: Land, Sea, and Sky. It not only captures the great "triskele" of Nature, but it aligns the thinking of people to the inexhaustible power of Three. Three is a most powerful number and spiritual concept; without Three, no manifestation is possible. Without at least three legs, no stool or table will stand; without at least three legs, no cauldron will stand; three are the child, mother, and father; and where Land, Sea, and Sky meet, there life is formed.

Look at the world to see this simple fact shown: The fertile Lands of Europe, green and forested, are perfect mixtures of the earth, the waters, and the sky above. Lands where one of the realms is lacking are barren- such as the scarcity of water in the desert. In deserts, where Land and Sky are dominant, and the watery realm, or the "Sea" realm is far weaker, life has a harder time, though it is not absent.

If you were to go above our atmosphere, where air is lacking, you may find watery and earthy materials floating in the void, but without the Sky, the life-giving airs, what shreds of life can survive out there?

The Three Realms idea is very organic and easy to align yourself to, wherever you go. As I said, some things that are most profound are also the most simple. A simple walk on the Green Land itself can re-invigorate a person, in a way that simple rest cannot. I feel it all the time, when I go for a walk in the forest, or when I get to gaze out over a green expanse of Land: there's a goodness in it, something regenerative about it.

And it never gets old. The visions that flash forth from all Three Realms, they never get old. You will, one day, become a little tired of even your favorite movie, if you watch it enough times. Even the most enjoyable books finally get put down for the final time, flashy clothes fade and get worn out. But when you stare at the sunrise or the sunset, or see a brilliant full moon in the sky, you might as well be seeing it for the first time. It is easy to stare at it, to get lost in it. The forest scenery is the same way; the deep green of the treeful canopy just draws your eyes away. And it never gets old.

Emerson was the first to point this out, and he gave a good reason for why you could watch the moonrise a million times and never get tired of it: because Nature was an expression of an Eternal Spirit, and it was timeless, ageless, forever old and forever new, simultaneously. The evidence for this is in the simple fact that you *never* get tired of gazing upon the manifestations of Nature's beauty.

Few teachings from the Old Ways could be more profound than that. The constant modern need for "evidence" for "God" or "Eternity" or "Spirit" is discovered in something as simple as taking a walk on the green and good Land, and just being unafraid to open oneself to the immensity and power of it all. The vital power of life in the Three Realms pulses and rushes forth like a waterfall. The only reason most people don't feel it is because they have gotten so used to feeling it, that they become numb to it. They categorize the constant feeling of life, within and without, as just the "mundane" or "normal" feelings of their day to day existence; many are surprised to "re-cognize" the fact that what they call "mundane feelings" are in fact subtle and mystical powers of life and regeneration forever presenting themselves to us.

Most people do things like take walks or go camping or spend time outdoors because, whether or not they realize it, they are gaining a form of physical, mental, and spiritual regeneration from these activities. It is a religious communion of a very ancient, primal, and simple kind. And it is no less profound for this.

Modern Pagan rituals need not stray from the simplicity of the direct experience of the flow of life around us, in the Land, and surrounded by the Sea, and under the Sky. And the constant invigoration we get on all levels from opening ourselves to those Three Realms must not be forgotten as one of the central "goals" of both ritual and our everyday lives.

The Sacred Ring of Tents

Sun Daughter, Brilliant power of the Mother
warming the entire world,
Sending the white light of life,
Sending the red light of life,
The spirits of darkness flee under your eyes,
Under your white eyes, your red eyes.
You see all things and circle the land with gold;
You make the power of life rise from earth.
You are honored first among the three fires of life.


My British Celt/Pictish re-enactment troupe went to the Texas Rennaisance Festival last weekend, and we had a grand time. I will be making some of the many photographs we took available at this blog soon. April (Turanona) will be making a website for our troupe soon, which I will announce here and link to here. I'm excited about it.

It's always good to get out to the woods, out to the country, and camp for a weekend. Camping, building a central fire for a camp-site, sleeping outside, and celebrating closeness to the natural world is an instinctual activity for nearly every human being alive- even the most "city" of the city-folk occassionally enjoy getting out to the country, for all who are not spiritually dead can sense the natural regenerative power of Nature herself.

When we camp, we like to bring in elements of our own Land-centered and natural world centered spirituality. Almost any activity you do with your friends or family, whether in your own backyard or in some distant place, can be approached from a view of animistic understanding. A good example is the layout of a camp-site. Aligning our tent-entrances to face east is a sound practice, for many sacred sites in Neolithic Britain have their entrances aligned on an east-west axis. This is to allow for the new light of the sun to shine directly into the site every morning, regenerating and empowering it daily with a visible symbol of new life and vitality, and the divine wisdom, all represented by the Sun.

The Song for the Sun, given above, is an example of an easy yet evocative chant that can be used each morning, if you rise and go to stand in the new light. Arising in the morning, and drumming a bit for the sun while singing or chanting the sun, with your own tongue or your inner voice, is a very empowering practice. Lighting the camp's fire in the new light, or uncovering the coals that have slept under the layer of ash all night is also a powerful practice. If you make libations for the Sun, pouring them around this fire and sprinkling a few drops onto the coals is powerful.

Sleeping inside your tents with your heads to the west, and feet to the east, is appropriate, as the west is the great road of the Ancestors, taken by the dead before they veer north to the Underworld. To the west we situate the Blessed Isles, the Apple-Islands, the Island of Women wherein we find the Spirits of our Clans or Ancestors, appearing in their forms as Faery-women and Spiritual Lovers, Guardians, and Teachers.

When we lie down in the dark of night, our heads to the west, we should consider for a moment how we will one day lie down to die, or be lain in a grave or on a pyre. We should lie there, fixing our minds on the "Furthest West" or the distant west, and its spiritual locations, wherein dwell the spiritual powers representing all the experience and wisdom of our ancestors. It is as time to consider our own deaths and reconsider what is important in our human lives, and to speak to the ancestors intimately, asking for their protections and guidance, and for their visitation and teachings in our dreams. Every evening is a trance-time, an opportunity to have dreams, which are a profound form of trance and a state of spiritual awareness.

The fire of a camp should of course be in the center, and the east/west axis of the camp should be as free as possible of obstructions, or, if a tent or lodge is in the west, the east should be open.

I never pitch tents or build fires without breaking out my horn or cup and filling it full of ale or mead, and, from the depths of a good awareness-trance state, I communicate with the powers of that particular place, the site upon which I intend to live, sleep, and eat for the next few days. I ask them to accept my presence there and bless me and those staying with me, with protection and good joy for my stay, and I pour out the libation for them.

If you can, a few wooden stakes driven around the camp, sometimes linked by rope or cord, can add the element of a boundary, a sacred boundary, which should always be open at least to the east. In this way, a camp can be very much like a Nemeton or a sacred place, which is very much like I describe this camp, minus the tents. The camp is a sacred place; friends and family center their lives there for a short time; they enjoy one another there and fill that place with their power. If you look at even camping in this manner, you can make a real connection with the past, and have a deeper experience of the outdoors.

Our way of Life, Our way of Love

Those who live according to our way of life are always at home, wherever they go. When you live a life of conscious awareness of the sacredness of the Land, you are in the presence of divinity at all times. The powers that spiral and grow out of the land as plants and trees are fresh expressions of life and spirit; they are brothers and sisters in a great community of life. We are very much like them, joined to them in an unbreakable bond of kinship.

Those powers that move invisibly on the earth, like the wind, are also kin to us; those powers that exist in the interior spaces of the Land, under hills and mounds and under the verdure of the forest and pasture are our relatives. The Gods themselves are kin, but they are of massive power and awareness. We look to them with respect and we desire their guidance and teachings.

Among their number are many great powers- the teacher of all mystics and sorcerers moves about the world, hunting for spirits and sending his rays of unseen light into the minds of seers, illuminating them to the Truth. His raven-shaped messengers watch us from treetops and circle about, seeing everything that he sees. The hissing of his serpent pervades the dreams of those who come near to awakening. He heals us by healing our perceptions and giving us wisdom. I give worth and honor to the great Lord of mysterious interactions, who lays the fetters of Fate on all beings.

The master of beasts and the natural world protects all of his savage and green, growing subjects; he speaks to us of our deepest, most primal natures. It is by his leave that we are allowed to know ourselves in one of the most authentic ways- as deep, ancient powers that are coeval with every other power in the natural world. I give worth to him, as my father and the father of all life.

The great Goddess Sovereignty is always here, yet beyond all; what can be said of Her? I can say that I feel Her with me now, and in all the forms that my eyes come to rest upon. I see Her and feel Her in the Land and in the love I feel for my wife and child. I know that she is the source of the Truth and the source of the only true authority in the world- the authority that only She who is the wellspring of life can bestow. I give worth to Her and submit to Her, calling no man great or holy unless he does the same, with an open heart.

When we submit to Her and accord Her the honor She is due, She protects us and gives us prosperity and peace. When we do as Cu Chulain did, and refuse to give Her the worth that is Her due, we set ourselves up for certain and fatal doom. Cu Chulain was a great hero, but like all heroes, he had his flaws- and his flaw was the lack of wisdom that led him to turn his face away from the Truth of Her great power, selfishly trying to deny what cannot be denied. This flaw saw him dead, with the sacred Raven of the Mother sitting on his shoulder, that the whole world might know who was the authoress of his demise.

Was She cruel? She was, but the situation demanded it- the sacred story of the Hound of Ulster and his disastrous relationship to Sovereignty would survive to us intact, thousands of years later, to remind us of She to whom we owe our lives and to whom we owe respect. Respecting Her is the same as respecting life, and the mystery behind life. In that sense, She and her victim's relationship teaches us the most important lesson of all.

To rise up and be human, from the womb of a mother to the steady stance of an adult is a sacred statement of intention. It is a statement of the spirit that it is ready to be tested, and that it is ready to take the quest for Truth seriously. Each person must rely not only on their own gifts and talents, but on the wisdom that has come to us from the past, through our parents and elders.

It is the duty of parents and family to teach the young what life is really about- it is about discovering the Truth of our place in the "fitness of things", our place in the community of life. It is about fully being human, experiencing all that being human entails, without fear. As humans, we live and we love, and we enjoy the bonds of kinship, bonds that further define us and give us the power to be many things. The bond of Love is greater than all, for it gives a great strength to us, to overcome any foe that would threaten our loved ones and our mother the Land, and it bestows every minute of our lives with a great strength for living. We face many terrors and challenges, and only love can give us the allegiance with other spirits that we need to face those things and emerge victorious.

Love's activity is the ultimate validation of what we are, for no person is a failure who knows love, who gives it with innocence and honesty, and recieves it the same way. It is the key to lasting peace. The measure of a person's life, at last reckoning, is who (or what) he or she loves, and who loves them back. What they did in the name of that love are the deeds that will make them great in the inner world, as well as the outer.

Love, as a concept, makes many uncomfortable. Many people defame Love and speak ill of it, but all they are doing is defaming their own misunderstandings of this sublime power. They are also digging their own early graves, for without love, without persons or beings to whom we feel the ties of affection and the supreme desire to see live well and thrive, we will find that we begin to diminish inside.

We discover so much ability to give and to help when we find those to whom we can donate our power and efforts, through love. We find an inexhaustible cauldron of plenty inside us that never runs dry, and which keeps us forever young, in the most spiritual sense. Without that, without that devotion, we are cut off from the regenerating waters of the Lady of the Cauldron, and we are simply preparing to meet death empty, having lived and experienced only a tiny measure of what we were capable of.

Many false measures of love have been used to define "love", but we must cut through the sentimental fantasies and see that love simultaneously makes the most demands of us and also gives us the greatest freedom. It removes fear and makes us live our lives not only for ourselves, but for others. Every suffering in the world is caused by people who live only for themselves; every joy and peace experienced by people in our world is a result of people who live as much or more for others as they do for themselves. This is a sacred duty, and it derives from a much deeper allegiance. The more that we are bound to others in love, the more free we find that we are, so long as we are conscious of Love's mystery.

Love, the power that drives us to conscious connection with all other beings and mixture into the elemental realities of life, is also the power that liberates, in its own powerful way. It will not always liberate us with peace and joy; love has a dark side, as well. If we can keep our wits and be brave and trusting of the world and of Fate even in the darkest moments, Truth will be the light that shines on us when we need it the most.

The Dark Season

I give worth and honor to the Grandmothers and Grandfathers who have lived before us, and who still live in a state of mysterious perpetuity inside the Land we all walk upon. They passed their life-force and wisdom on to us, their children, through the ritual of love and birth and blood.

This is the time of Samhain, the fulfillment of the moon of Samonios. While most modern Pagans only celebrate Samhain on a certain day, i.e. October 31, November 1, or the like, the historical reality was a bit different. According to the Coligny Calendar, a native Celtic method of time-keeping that was discovered decades back in France, the month of Samonios, which marked the beginning of the new year, was the time in which the festival of Samhain was celebrated- and the beginning of Samonios could fall on different days on different years, due to the fact that it is a lunar calendar.

Samhain originally probably wasn't a "day", but a fortnight-long festival. The Full Moon that began Samonios occured on the 8th or 9th of October, meaning that the fourteen days that followed it was the time of Samhain's festivities. Tonight, there is no moon; the moon has gone dark, making this the "Returning night" of Samonios.

Modern Pagans can celebrate this season at any point, realistically during October or November, so unless you are a historical calendar reconstructionist (like me) it matters not. Samonios will always fall in October/November, and on the average, it manages to land near the end of October.

When to celebrate Samhain is not such a big problem; if you are in touch with the world around you, you already know: you celebrate when the cold really comes back, and when you "feel" the world turn towards darkness. The cauldron of the year finally boils down to nothingness in the Dark Season of Samhain, bringing about a profound spiritual event- the destruction of the world and all the worlds. As all the worlds were born from their living source ages ago, so one day, the ancients believed, they would all fall apart and become overwhelmed by "Fire and Water"- the elements in their destructive form. After this came a period of rest- the Holy Night of the Gods, before the worlds were regenerated from the womb of Sovereignty.

Samhain is a chance to consciously participate in the reversal and overturning/destruction of the worlds. It is the time we celebrate the end of things, and the dark night that follows, waiting for regeneration. The end of things isn't a mere "stop"; it is a radical reversal, as the horn of Misrule sounds. It is, perceptually, a wild and phantasmagoric event. It is a radical reversion to the hidden and mysterious roots of all things.

A human being experiences their own Dark Season when they die- and death is a sudden inversion of life, as the mindstream of the dead person is thrust into the Great Otherness, and visions of many kinds, ranging from the peaceful to the frightening are experienced. Much wisdom waits to be found in the moment of Truth that death brings to us, but we must learn to deal with fear and the "other side" of life, before we will be prepared to "recieve" the death experience properly.

There is no "good and evil" in any of this. Death is not "evil" while life is "good". Life is the name we give to the perpetual nature of our existence, whether as human beings, or as the Sidhe-spirits on the "other side" of this world; "Death" is the name we give to the point where we move from one of those conditions to the other. Death is the "point between" one kind of existence and another; "death is the center of a long life", as they say.

We have to keep our minds on our own deaths, every day of our lives. It may sound macabre or morbid, but I assure you, it is a great key to wisdom. If we consider our own bodies dead, lying silent in the ground, being consumed by the earth and by animals, or if we see ourselves glowing bright orange and black as we are consumed by flames on our own pyres, we will be forced to consider what is important in our lives. We will also reconsider what we think is important now. I have searched long and hard for what outlasts death, and my search was successful- the love we have for our wives, husbands, lovers, and children, and the affection we have for our friends, those meaningful and powerful bonds are what we "take with us".

The secret was so simple, and it was hiding in plain sight- you can really FEEL what is important in life, and it happens freely, with love and joy at human company. It bathes us with its power, and so many of us don't recognize it. There is no money or possession that can make us happy or accompany us at the level of our spirit, but love, love is the heart of every joy that will last. I can tell you now- the "Great Mystery" eluded me until I saw it in the one place I was meant to see it- and far from hiding in some cavern in the Underworld, I saw it in the face of my newborn daughter.


The Dark Season allows those whom death has taken to the Otherworld to visit us, in a very real and immediate way. When we turn our thoughts to our own mortality, and when our eyes see the coming of the winter, the end of the year and the mystical moment "between" where the new year waits for its regeneration and birth, and when we see that same pattern reflected in our own mortals lives and deaths, we are putting ourselves into a very receptive state of mind, a state of mind where all our assumptions about the world break down.

Who really knows the meaning behind it all? To be born, to live, to die, to be reborn- why the great Round, the Great Cycle? Why the endless fear, wonder, the questioning? Death shatters our illusions, and life gives us time to consider the nature of illusion. We are becoming stronger and wiser through seasons of life and events of death. When you hit that "space between" in your own mind, when you doubt the things you always wanted, always accepted, that's when the ancestors can speak to you from the "other side" of life.

The ancestors have become wise, gone among the Sidhe, the Dead, and seen their mortal illusions fall away. In that timeless condition, they dance their planxtys, and reach out for communion with us, as it is their nature to do. We are all connected, the living to the "dead", and the "dead" to the living. Perhaps they wonder at us and our world like we wonder at theirs; or perhaps, they are far more aware of us than we could be of them, a timeless mode of perception that they share with the Gods.

Not all of the dead become so wise; but those who do become our timeless and tireless protectors and guides. When death rises up to overwhelm the world, or even our mortal bodies, we are thrust into an inverted, frightening, and surreal "space between"- and in that indeterminate space, a gap opens up, mentally, that lets the wisdom of those who dwell in that space come to us.

I pray that we will all recognize it, and give up on trying to fix ourselves down with too many "solid" notions and assumptions about ourselves and the world- we are all greater and more fluid powers than we realize.

The Dark Season teaches us this lesson: life is water, not stone. Death reduces bodies to dust, just as water reduces rocks to sand. The worlds have fallen into the darkness of the unmanifest, now in the Season of Samhain, and in the strangeness of that place, the wisdom of our ancestors drones on, sacred chants of the people Below the Hills. The worlds have been washed away, and their noise has fallen silent. We couldn't hear our own inner voices, or the voices of our ancestors before, but now we can.

Now is the time to hear it- go outside at night, light your candles and fires, put the apples that are the food of the dead at the roots of trees, and really listen to the darkness. Soon, a vision of great fire and light will flood over the world and all things will begin again, and wisdom will be there with it, waiting to be heard and discovered, forever.

The Windhorse

I got a letter from Richard Gere today, asking me to give a donation to the cause of Tibetan Freedom. Included in the letter were some very attractive Tibetan Prayer Flags.

Naturally, I'm sure hundreds of thousands of people got the exact same letter in the mail, but as I was looking at the Prayer Flags, I noticed that they were each decorated with a Windhorse. For the Tibetans this image evokes the notion of a power which is like a swift horse, as swift as the wind, as it flies around the world defeating evil. Prayer Flags are hung by the Tibetans so that the wind will blow through them and carry the prayer into the world, multiplying its power thousands of times.

The Tibetan people are best known now for their Buddhism, but they, like everyone else, began as a people who had a very profound and powerful animistically-based culture, in the central Asian range of shamanic traditions and practices. I have heard their native tradition of shamanism called "Bon" or "Bon-pa", and fortunately for us, it still persists within certain distant corners of the world. The gem-like opulent beauty of Tibetan Buddhism bears all the hallmarks of its powerfully shamanic roots, with many of the ancient spirits and Gods and Goddesses of Tibetan now converted into peaceful and wrathful "Dharma protectors" or deities that protect the Tibetans and serve the causes of Buddhist teachings.

The sight of the "windhorse" is what caught my attention. In the shamanic traditions of many Asian tribes, the notion of a "windhorse" is common enough- and it is always tied in with shamanic practice. Sarangerel, the authoress of two very fascinating books on Siberian Shamanism mentions the term "windhorse" when referring to shamanic power or mystical strength in an active shaman's body. It is no accident that horses are tied to the peoples of Asia and Siberia; the Indo European peoples were probably descendants of Asian peoples, or at least related, and the horse was a central figure in both the societies and mythologies of the Indo Europeans.

It is also no accident that shamans across the world have interacted with the spirit of the Horse when traveling into the Unseen world- the horse in our consensual reality world, and the horse in the inner world are both connected to journeying and travel, and to sturdy companionship in travel. The Indo European peoples who invaded India conquered their way along on horseback, and the same can be said for many of the "mounted peoples" who invaded Europe. That Shamans would seek "spirit horses" to carry them into the Unseen only makes sense. I have heard that some Asian Shamans created poles decorated like horses to assist them in "spirit flight" into the Otherworld.

The "windhorse" would seem to refer to a horse of spirit, or to a power that a shaman or shamaness can interact with to achieve contact with extra-sensory reality. The connection of the wind to the sky, to flight, and the horse to the wind, makes a profound statement- the horse and the Shaman together fly, like the wind. They fly, liberated, into the spirit world.

It only makes sense that the Tibetans would maintain their distant connection with the Windhorse, and with this profound shamanic icon, and have it influence their Buddhist understandings. What makes Tibetan Buddhism, and the other shamanic arts of Tibet so interesting is their primordial connections to the animism that they once believed in and expressed, and which they still do in so many ways.

This brings me to the second point of my letter today; the plight of Tibet. Richard Gere's letter made a short case against the Chinese government, accusing it of many vile wrongs against the religious culture of the Tibetan people, and of genocide, mayhems, and injustices. I didn't need Richard Gere to tell me these things; like most westerners who have studied Tibetan Buddhism, I was well aware of them. The Chinese government- itself a thing of pure concentrated wickedness- is responsible for the crimes that Gere's letter accused them of, and more.

The fact that Tibetan monks go all over the world and teach their Dharma, and that they have slowly infiltrated our popular culture in the west has nothing to do with why so many people feel the need to help them. While their culture is fascinating, and their system of Buddhism is by far one of the most venerable, majestic, and complete technologies of enlightenment available to mankind, the fact remains that they could be the most boring, spiritually disenfranchised people on earth, and the truly sensitive among us would want to help them.

If a person sees the world in the right way, and can experience our subtle and intimate connections with all things, then the "Truth of Involvement" is instantly apparent. When other humans suffer organized injustice and genocide (physical or cultural or both), we all suffer. Many of us sleep so deeply that we hardly recognize the true source of the deep, passive angst that boils in an unknown place in our deep minds, but it is there, and it disquiets us. We look to the distractions that we surround ourselves with to try to settle ourselves, but we never quite manage to do it. And most people who live lives of serial distraction never begin to fathom what causes them to be so unsettled on so deep a level.

Those people who sleep less deeply can sense the world burning, the pains and wrongs that beg to be addressed by those wise enough and sensitive enough... and courageous enough. What can address the pains of the world? Only the Truth about our condition, and people willing to live by it and die for it. The truth is that we are connected, intimately and forever, to one another and to every power in existence, and we have a sacred duty to that connection, a sacred duty to this reality of inter-woven life. We have a duty first and foremost to the Truth, to our awareness of the Truth of our condition and our connection, and second we have a duty to protect life, making it better able to thrive in freedom and peace, as life is born to do.

We are not just in this world; we are this world. When people on the other side of the world are wronged, it is not merely "their problem". It is our problem, in a very real way. When even one strand in the sacred and totally inter-connected web of life trembles, the whole web feels it. We are all affected.

It is certain that many John Q. Average Americans or Europeans may never see a Tibetan, or hear their language, or even give a fig about what happened to Tibet. Those people may live long lives, and die in anonymity somewhere. People may observe them and say "their lives weren't negatively affected by the plight of Tibetans." But I believe that everyone's life is affected by the plight of any people.

Did the world stand by when millions of Jews, Gypsies, Greeks, Russians, homosexuals, and mentally handicapped people were sent to death camps by the Nazis? No, it reacted. Perhaps World War II wasn't primarily about death camps and tyrannical persecution of minorities, but when the war was over, decades were spent hunting down the wicked men behind these horrors and trying to bring them to justice.

To this day we shudder (and rightly so) to think of the holocaust. When those people were sent to death, when those families were torn apart and so much innocence consumed by hatred and madness, the common life of the whole world was violated. And people who don't normally feel the very subtle effect of these things felt it, and they felt it more as the years passed.

As time gives us more perspective on the plight of Tibetans, many of whom were subjected to death, genocide, and atrocity by the greed of the Chinese government, we will begin to feel the loss more. And when we each finally face the clarity of death, and its great moments of truth, and all its naked visions of our true connection to all places and beings, we may feel some regret at the realization that we could have done more. People often do not feel powerful or capable of helping others in this world, but as I said, when even a single strand in the web of life shakes, the whole thing shakes. Each human being, no matter who they are, is a powerful potential center and catalyst of change in the entire web. Sometimes even just caring and desiring the well-being of others can make all the difference; even our intentions tremble the web of life.

The letter I am typing to you right now shakes the web of life, and it affects all who read it in different ways. Maybe my words will help someone that I will never meet; maybe it won't help anyone at all. But it will change the world by making the people who read it have different reactions, some good, some bad, some indifferent.

The Tibetans hang colorful flags with prayers and sacred images inscribed on them, and let the wind race through them and carry them into the world. This letter, which will race through the virtual winds of the internet, is my own Prayer Flag, my own virtual Windhorse, inscribed with my wishes for a more peaceful world, a world of understanding where the Truth of our connection with one another is consciously experienced and honored. I want the Tibetan culture to survive strong and healthy, but then, I want all peoples who suffer injustice to be spared, and I want all indigenous cultures to be kept safe and preserved, so that their wisdom can continue to live and help the world.

Injustice and atrocity can only occur when people become very unconscious of their intimate connection to all other people and all other life. Be aware of this real connection, this very instant, and you will never commit such atrocities. Help others to become aware of it, and they will not. I've ridden my own windhorse into what appeared to me to be an unseen world, spaces deep inside me, and very "far" from me. No vision or understanding I ever had was stronger than my insight into the connection of things, and my desire to place life and the web of life as the primary value for human thinking and action, and to preserve life when I could. This is not just the beginning of wisdom, but, I believe, the end of it, too.

Where we are, and Who we are

In the middle of a busy, tumultuous day, or a weary night, I often stop to think of where I am, and who I am. No matter where we go, we are always on the body of the Land, which is the body of a living being, a Goddess. We are walking in the lap of Sovereignty herself, She without whom no creature would eat or drink, and without whose blessing, no ruler or system of government can be successful.

How wondrous to feel it, to know it- we are all in the lap of a sentient, living, and immortal being, who is far more aware of us than we can usually ever be aware of Her. We are in the lap of She who was life's source, and to whom we return, in one form or another, when we are unbound and set loose at death.

Where am I? Wherever I go, I am in the lap of the Goddess to whom I owe my life. Every mood of Hers is expressed in countless ways, from quiet winds and drizzles to belligerent thunderstorms, from the simple wonder in the eyes of a baby to the dull look in the eyes of men shattered by war. How dynamic and malleable life is, a singular force of awareness and animation in countless forms, enjoying and suffering countless experiences. Everywhere I look, I see life in trees, in green, rolling hills, in rushing water, in people, in animals, in storms, in winds. I am like that, too, and I can never be apart from all this. Sometimes I love, and sometimes I hate, and always I am what the Great One birthed me to be.

Who am I? I'm not really different from anyone else, living flesh filled with water, a wind in my chest and fire woven in all parts of me, radiating heat. Somewhere in this mixture, in this being who is bound together by the power of the Great One, is the spirit of mankind, with all its strengths and weaknesses. All these things I share with you and everyone you or I know- and yet, somehow, I'll never meet another person like you, nor you me. Every human being, like every beast or plant, wherever they are, however they are at this moment in time, enjoys a uniqueness that has never before existed and never will exist again. Perpetual change and uniqueness. This is perpetual dynamism, sacredness, freshness and renewal. Like the seasons we change constantly, yet never do we stray from what we are, because what "we are" is a transformative power, radiant and boundless, enjoying itself in every form it knows or takes.

No matter who are what we are, we all come from the womb of a Goddess. There is no creature in the world, human or otherwise, that can boast differently. In these late days, many are ignorant of their source, but I see Her even now, as I stare out at the stars and dark treetops. When I lay my face against the wet, dark ground, I can feel her. This lineage we all share, this ancestress, endows all our bloodlines with a nobility that cannot be taken from us.

There is a dignity there, in us, in all things, that deserves our protection and our consideration. If we have to fight, let us fight for the protection and well-being of our children and wives and husbands. If we do not have to fight, let us talk and try to understand one another; we are all kin, no matter how different our cultures may be. We can honor our cultures and respect the cultures of others if we can all admit that we are children of a common source, Great Nature, the Mother of the Land. Let us never be cruel, regardless of what we must do. Let us preserve life when we can. Let us focus on family, friends, and enjoyment, more than money and possessions. Let us work to see that our children inherit a world that offers health and resources to them, not a barren world.

I am in the lap of a Goddess, son of a Goddess. Wherever you are, you are there too, and every bit as much her child. There are Gods, and among them we have a Father, and a teacher, and many protectors. We are from the same family they spring from, and so were all of our grandmothers and grandfathers. There is a community of life seen and a community unseen, and the two are one community. In this great family, I take my place consciously and give honor to them, every day of my life. To give worth to these kindreds, and to know the worth of who and what we are, and where we are- that is joy. It has been my joy to know this for many years now, and it will be my joy the day I die.

Column and Weblog Coming Soon!

Good Evening, everyone!

I really like this new blogging site. It's simple, attractive, and easily accessible to everyone. I'll have this blog- and it's weekly column- up and running soon. When I say "weekly column", of course, I mean that I'll be posting here two or three times a week, to talk about things I consider important enough to be postworthy. So get excited. I'm excited. Let's share the excitement.

In the meantime, ponder this quote from Rosa Luxemburg:

"Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently."

I'll be seeing you in our gore-splattered sacred grove, very shortly. Be well.

RA