The Endless Land and the Fallen Age

The far north is calling, but I can't be there yet. Any journey worth the taking is long and burdensome. I have dropped sail, however, and with my family and Gods aside me, we have begun the long trek.

Our journey takes us through here, a landscape of endless forests and farmsteads fallen into half-abandonment and half-decay. This is the lay of our times: there was a dream once, that was America; all over the land, people gathered together in communities and believed that the dream would last forever, but it didn't. Their dreams were invested in their children, and those dreams, for the most part, grew up and left the tiny woods and broad fields on the side of the endless roads for cities and other destinations.

With the young gone, only the old were left to watch the world change, and change it did. entire hidden and downtrodden populations of people, once marginalized, gained their rights to a new freedom. The local networks of favoritism and nepotism died and broke apart and retired. Money changed in value, and then changed again. Services once needed were replaced by new technologies. Industries once prominent faded away. Now, boarded up homes and shadows alone remain, and I'm right in the middle of it all, lodging in a forest surrounded by neglect and sparsely populated dirt roads peopled by strangers.

The woods are wild; once, they were tamed by people on all sides. Once, goats ate the grass and low branches here; now, a tangle is everywhere. Once, cats climbed the rafters of the hand-made and raised wooden sheds and garages, but now, loose hunting dogs have killed them all. The goats vanished away, along with the chickens that were either killed by wild animals or their human masters, who could no longer afford to feed them. The chicken coops and roosts are rotted away and vine-covered. The fish pond has sunk into a murk, and goodness knows what lives in it now. The fence lines have vanished in huge gaps, and tangles of barbed wire are rolled up and rusted under ten year leaf piles.

But owls are here- and always have been. This lost region of forest was once named after the hooting owls that were prominent, and they have remained constant. They comfort me when they court and hunt at night. Something of my power hunts and courts with them. Their freedom and persistence is something of my own freedom.

It is a deplorable fate that made my road pass through here, but when the current waxing moon is full, and fades away, and waxes again to half, I will be gone, gone nearly to roof of the world. I have seen the mountains and forests that await there, in vision as well as with my own eyes. I have seen the snow and rivers, and felt the powers beckoning. I go with some risk behind me, but such as me and mine live in the hands of Wyrd and we fear no risk.

There are wights here, and they always have been here. They have grown wild themselves, alien to human beings, for the centuries of neglect that they have endured. They strike out and slay animals themselves at times. It is they that helped to bring waste to this community; all who ignore the spiritual powers that dwell in a place cannot expect to see their own families and legacies thrive in that place. On the hum of the hex-bridge, the mystery of the Helgrind, the mother of mysteries, I have dropped down and seen the landscape itself become only the crust covering a deeper power, and seen the wights moving across it.

Vaguely human shaped, I've seen them walking through the thick growth. I've seen how the falling buildings here have become haunted by them, as well as how the activities once carried out by people here have summoned powers- they are all creeping along unseen: they are grist and saw-meal; goat-hide and turned earth; blackened mound and holly edge, stone and sturdy beam, oak bark and pine-sap, resin fire and clay wight.

I have cut a small Ve-ditch in the earth, on cleared earth amid a grove of trees, to set apart a hallowed place for sacrifices. I have left a small way in opening to the east, and will fill the ditch with sacred spring water. When I sacrifice, it will be to these wild wights first, not so much for their friendship, but so that they will be satisfied to leave me and mine in peace, while we live and worship in their virid tangle, their pine-straw littered patch of thick wood. Then, my greatest grandfather Ing and his family will be given sacrifices, along with the high Thunderer, and of course The Master of Spirits and Sorcery- and always alongside the Disir and the mothers, and Earth, that greatest of mothers.

I have much to sacrifice for. Most people think of sacrifice in dim terms in these Godsless days, only framing it in Judeo-Christian terms, but our ancestral notion- ever more ancient- is far more sublime. It was the slaying- the sacrifice- of a great being- the mother/father of giants- at the dawn of the universe that made all things around me possible- from wights to the trees to the earth and sky: sacrifice is more than just the making holy of an offering, before it is slain and shared; sacrifice is about the creation of a new order. When I drag the bronze sacrificing knife crowned by a rough-hewn human head over the horn, symbolizing the slain ox of old, and fill a hlaut-bowl full of the dark ale that symbolizes blood, I am doing more than making a symbolic act of death and sharing; I am making a real act of creation, and it has power.

What the sacrifice blood touches is made new, in accordance with the will of the sacrificer. What place is sprinkled, what people and beings are sprinkled, they are made new. I want and need many things to be made new in my life, and the ancients have given me and mine a way to achieve that regeneration. Here, in the wight-haunted ruin of a tiny hamlet, as far from "civilization" as most people want to ever be, I will enact rites of timeless power.

Curse the "axial age" sages who decided that the ways of the ancestors were no longer "good enough" for the people- the axial age was the downfall of humanity, not the birth of a new humanity. From that cursed time came the scourge of Zoroastrianism, and from it, Judaism, with her two thrice-more accursed offspring Christianity and Islam. From it came Aristotle and Plato, who destroyed the true mystical and polytheistic heritage of Southern Europe, with their condescending "re-reading" and "reinterpretations" of the sacred myths of their people, and their scorn for the "superstitions", which were in fact luminous truths that their minds could not grasp. Our Greek cousins gave us the roots of the devastating "rationalism" that led to unqualified skepticism, atheism and corruption, and left many vulnerable to the rot of Christian missionaries.

In the east, world-hating religions arose, religions teaching how the world was suffering, fallen, and "transcendence" was needed, or the death of "ego", and the overcoming of desires, passions, and bodily hungers. From east to west the stink spread; in all these places, women were marginalized, packed into harems, under veils, and forced into submission and silence. Women were blamed for sin and death, and for being the seductresses that held men back from virtue.

The great civilizations of the pre-axial age accorded women their proper, sacred, and equal place; my own ancestors, I am proud to say, were such people. But the axial age was the turning of humans against the world and against women, out of fear and disgust and sorrow. They say humans in this era had become more aware of their mortality and frailty than ever before; from this fear was born what we call "religion" today.

The five regions that gave us the axial age- Iran, Greece, Palestine, India, and China, really did a fine job wrecking the world for the rest of us to be born later- but that is how curses work. They echo down through the generations of man like screams echo through canyons. By the time these screams fade, I fear, the ruin of the world will be upon us.

Why humanity waited until this particular "axial" period (800-200 BCE) to "break" and start turning like madmen against the primordial sanity of their ancestors, I don't know. But it did happen. It was a sign of the coming of the Wolf Age, the waning of the world. I have never succumbed to the madness; something strong in me- the love of the Hamingja-maiden who follows me through this life- sheltered me.

My senses were never lost; never did the wildness of nature or the spectacle of violence and death turn my stomach in fear and weaken my spirit. I am not afraid of death; as a living man, I am a part of this world, as a dead man, I will be part of it in another, more mysterious way, and I look forward to it. What sacredness now surrounds me is what always was and always will be, in countless forms. This is my life and my afterlife, and that is as Fate has woven. My Gods expected humans not to fear death, and anyone who knows the sacredness of nature and this world cannot fear death.

I lament the ruin wrought by the axial age madness, and it is more in focus for me now as I sit in a forest of waned hopes, dreams, and ruins. But a Wyrd-worker like me doesn't lament it long. Like the afternoon that falls high sun-tide, it had to happen. We can't change the world back, but each individual one of us can still live in the peace and sanity of the pre-axial age, in fellowship with the Gods and spirits. There is no greater peace, despite what the world-haters may say.

They claim that the axial-age religions and philosophies taught a revolutionary notion that people needed to "find truth" within themselves and break free of calcified traditions; they claim that the axial age was the birth-time of real virtue, as people finally reached a point where they had to look "within" to find compassion and virtue- but this is nonsense.

Virtue has always existed, and the terms "within" and "without" are shallow distinctions. There is no true "within" and "without"- all of the weave of Wyrd is one. Whatever you believe you are finding "within" yourself, is really a part of the whole, a part of this world, just as much "outside" you as it is perceptually "inside", and the same goes for whatever you believe is "outside" you. Humans started playing with their minds in new ways during the axial age, but virtue was not born. It is where it always was, in the wholeness. It lives as we live, as much a part of us and this world as anything else, for all time. The axial age was not an upward evolution; it was a disaster.

The world didn't have a spiritual revolution; humans had a narcissistic attack of "inwardness", mingled with potent fear and confusion, and we have all burned for it. The way people "found" truth and virtue before the axial age has an advantage over the new narcissism: it didn't destroy the world and hate women, and it didn't birth monstrous, judgmental, institutionalized religions that have corrupted society all the way to the level of government and spawned wars and destructive technologies beyond number.

They have crushed the remnants of the primal world, and taken a big shite on traditional wisdom, calling it (just like the Greek atheists) "superstition" and "marginal knowledge". They turned the word "myth" into a thing of stupidity and shame, but this is all only their perception. It is their curse. And it drinks the blood from us all.

I reject fully all of the "religions" and "spiritual paths" that teach that this world is bad or unsatisfactory; that men or women are corrupt, naturally and innately, on any level; that men or women must deny the body and senses to "rise above" earthly things, or any of that hogwash.

I reject fully any notion that people must shelter in some concept called "reason" or "rationality" in the face of obscurity and uncertainty and I further reject the notion that traditional pre-axial religions were superstitious, brutal savage attempts to grasp reality with made-up stories and bloody rites. This world and this existence is far beyond anything we can understand or believe, and the day the world-hating idiots recognize that, is the day that we may have a chance to breathe clean air until we all die. This story isn't over, and now, people are beginning to realize it. We can't lead the world back to sanity, but individual sanity is still a possibility.

Our cousins in Russia have heard the call as well, it seems:

Russian Pagans joyfully worship while the Orthodox Christians get pissed off

May Kupalo and Yarilo bless them powerfully. May old Volos be there as well, to shelter and protect them, with Perun alongside him. Welcome back, cousins. We are few but we are strong.

The Giants in the Water

Of all the great natural bodies of power that our Ancestors dealt with on a daily basis, the seas and oceans inspired more awe than most. When we stare at the great waters, we see not just an endless reservoir of power, but the origins of our very lives- the primordial genetic material that was the foundation of all life on land was once in the ocean. There is a great awe and fear of the oceans and seas, because they are containers of immense and mysterious powers, not all of them friendly to mankind.

The elements in their primordial form (which includes the ground under your feet, the water in rivers and oceans, lightning flashing through the sky, forest fires, and winds, among others) are by nature "giantish"- untamed and occasionally dangerous to man. It's impossible to avoid the feeling of awe when you see these hurricanes on satellite imaging, swirling with their massive spiraling arms, moving relentlessly towards land.

There is no evil in them; they are simply expressions of the might of nature itself, so massive and powerful that they move along on their Fated courses, heedless of the tiny specks of life that they blast by. I always compared them to the most massive whales in the deep ocean: massive creatures plowing along through the water, steadily, consuming thousands of pounds of tiny life-forms in the ocean as they go- they don't viciously seek to destroy life; they are simply doing as they do, never thinking twice about it.

We humans are tiny compared to these rightly-called "Giantish" forces. The sheer difference in scale is one of the reasons why we fear them- we know that they are blind and heedless of our lives, in the same way you or I may be blind or heedless of the tiny insects we crush in the grass as we walk by, hiking in the forest or just spending a day in a park.

The Ancestors firmly believed that the Gods- aided spectacularly by the Thunder-God, the greatest enemy of Giants- kept this world, this Middle-Earth, safe from Giantish powers. In light of what is going on right now, the implications of this belief are profound. The Ancestors dealt with disastrous weather-patterns and natural disasters just like we do, and one could say that they suffered worse from them (in a way) because they didn't have the networks of preparedness and response that we have.

So why were they so happy to point out how "safe" the Gods made the world? Because without the Gods, the elements and the other Giantish forces- deeper and more destructive than we could imagine- would overwhelm this world. Old Redbeard is a skilled killer of Giants, but even he can't destroy them all- there has to be a 1% that make it through, and have time to wreak havoc before their Fated course ends.

I think the Ancestors were aware of the fact that it could always be worse. And one of the reasons why it wasn't as bad as it could be is because powerful sentient forces, who care for mankind as their kin, were faithfully performing a Fated task of preservation.

There is one more element to this equation: the fact that we are literally in what the Ancestors described as "A wind age, a wolf age"- the final age of the world in which the decline of things was higher than it ever had been, and even the elements were possibly more destructive. "The wind age" refers to the destructive force of the winds, and in a way, the elements, but the "wolf age" refers to the destructive force of greed in human beings.

As I have said countless times, and as I believe the prophecy in Voluspa makes clear, the world is not destined to get better, in these last millenia. This makes our current age a time when the greatest heroes can (ironically) be produced. We need not just the support of the Hammer-God and his family; we need human heroes who are ready to perform what seems to be a lost cause: the cause of preserving as much as they can in the face of blind, naked natural fury.

The Gods and the Heroes go to the final battle of this world in full knowledge that they will be meeting their doom. Who does that? Beings that know that the ends are not the important part. The important part is that they will make a stand, come what may.

Help the soon-to-be victims of this storm in whatever way you can; even tiny help, help that seems pointless in the face of so much misery, is heroic. You can join me in sacrificing to the Gods for final aid and rescue for as many people as can be helped, but in this case, in this age, what we need are strong people, not just strong Gods.

I work in the Therapy field, and I face a lot of misery in my clients every day. I see cases that anyone would describe as hopeless and unthinkably depressing. When I first started, I (like most people) had the odd "savior" complex that led me to get overly concerned for my clients- but in the end, you have to realize that we don't write the story of other people's lives.

I talked to a friend and colleague of mine about my concerns regarding getting too attached to clients, and he told me one of the most amazing things anyone has ever told me. What he told me was a quote (horridly enough) drawn from a recent movie starring Kevin Costner, called "The Guardian" or something like that. But the quote was very relevant. What do you do when you see so much trauma, and you know you can't help everyone?

My friend said that in one scene of this movie, a young Coast Guard member asked Kevin Costner's character (who apparently plays a more experienced Coast Guard life saver) what he does when he faces a situation where many people are drowning, and in need of help. How do you know who to help or save?

Kevin Costner's character said this:

"I swim as hard as I can, I swim as fast as I can, I save as many people as I can, and the sea takes the rest."

At first I hadn't realized the full impact of what my young colleague had told me. Then it hit me: Fate had spoken here. Fate was the final answer. In the disguise of a pop-culture movie reference, I believe that an ancient and important wisdom was transmitted, then and there.

In our lives, however we help people, we do the best we can, and Fate takes the rest. The nobility in us- that nobility that does not die, and will survive to be reborn in the regenerated universe- does the best it can, regardless of the darkness of the situation.

Fighting for the Land and Water

Yahoo! News just reported a very interesting story about the struggle of conservationists to save Chesapeake Bay. I thought I might give a link to the story here and discuss some of the importance of the efforts of these good men and women. But first, I have to say a few words about the relationship between conservation-based efforts and the mindset of environmentalism/conservationism, and modern day Heathenry or Pagan religions.

There are a few people out there, ostensibly Pagans or Heathens, who fight very hard against the public opinion and perception that most neo-Pagans or modern Heathens will all have to be raging environmental warriors. With a sick sort of amusement, I've seen banners on Pagan and Heathen websites that strongly announce "PAGAN DOES NOT EQUAL EARTH-BASED: Stop religious homogenization".

Like with most things, I can see both sides of the issue. But for people who really don't believe that Paganism has to be "earth-based", I'm forced to wonder: what other planet could we be based on? What other Land besides the Land of this earth could we rely on for the earthy flesh of these bodies, the water in our blood and organs, and the food that we eat every day?

By admitting that we owe our bodies and lives to this Land we all share, are we "homogenizing" religion? No, I don't think so- if anything, we're simply admitting to being human like the rest of the men and women we share this world with, and taking this understanding of our reliance on the Land up to a religious level, as the ancients did.

There's many ways to approach religious understandings and practices based on the belief in nature's sacredness. Nothing stops us from admitting that we all rely on a sacred body of nature for our lives, one we all hold in common, and from celebrating that in countless different ways, each to our own.

People who would fight even the admission that the Land is sacred, in some attempt to avoid some unrealistic threat of "homogenization", and furthermore go out of their way to refuse to include the Land in their own religious life, alienate other Pagans who do believe in the sacredness of the Land, and even try to revise history to make ancient peoples seem unconcerned with the power of the Land, are being very selfish, unnecessarily divisive, and ultimately unwise.

It seems that they are wailing and wanting to differentiate themselves from Pagans who recognize the sacredness of the Land for no other reason but "to be different"- the ultimate juvenile tactic of thoughtless, empty rebellion that most of us have thankfully outgrown.

At any rate, the difference between most modern Heathens and Pagans and mainstream modern religions is that we view the natural world in terms of a degree of sacredness that they cannot and do not match- we have extreme ontological differences regarding who and what the Land is, and what places of moral and spiritual value the powers of nature occupy.

Even those liberal Christians who harp on about our "responsibility" to the Land, citing some verse in the bible wherein their great singular creator "gave man dominion" over the land and its creatures (and therefore, they say, lies an implied responsibility) cannot match the Heathen view of the sacred natural world. We see the natural world as an eternal sacred reality, full of holy powers, packed to the limits with sentient beings (the Landwights) and even some of the souls of our dead, who become "mound folk" after their deaths and dwell in the spiritual dimension of their grave sites.

Beyond all that, the Earth itself is a Giantess- a Goddess from a generation of beings that even pre-dates most of the Gods of our people, and who certainly pre-dates mankind. When you see the earth itself as the body of a huge and living being, and you honor her with sacrifices and blots, and pray to her, you are in a very different relationship and mindset than people who see the world as basically inanimate energy, soul-less "stuff" that a God just made for human beings to have "dominion" over.

The ancient stories of our folk are clear. We know with great certainty how they revered the features of the landscape, used them as ceremonial centers, respected the Land-spirits and wights, and made offerings and sacrifices to them. We know how sacred they believed the natural world was; we know what sort of animistic worldview this entire complex of beliefs descends from. We know the truth about the human relationship with the land- we are not the "dominion holders" over this land or its creatures; we are part of this land, and we are another population of creatures on it. We are not in a vertical relationship of dominion; we are in a horizontal relationship of reciprocity and reliance.

If you can see this clearly, then how can you deny that any form of true and traditional Paganism- particularly these reconstructionist paths that have sprung up in the modern day- are not "Land-based"? "Land based" doesn't mean "ignore everything except the land". It means "realize our dependence on the sacred powers under our feet, and act accordingly." Surely we Asatruar honor the Gods in the Godly Enclosures that are beyond this earth, in other worlds and conditions of being. But we live here, in Midgard or Middle-Earth, and we rely so much on the natural powers who occupy this web of power that we are all intimately woven into.

Defending this natural world is one of our Godly duties. The Gods shaped this Land into much of the form we see it in now, though the elements of it are eternal and uncreated: they are sacred powers that have no beginning or end. To protect the land is not just honoring the Giant Goddess upon whose back we live; it's also protecting our lives, the well-being of our children and all people's children, and it is making an important statement that we recognize sacredness and respect it. It is the same as saying "we recognize the boundless creativity of the Gods and respect it enough to uphold it with our effort."

The Yahoo! news story I saw today about the battle to preserve Chesapeake Bay is very good. Here it is:

Chesapeake Bay Blues

I was quite moved by the resolve of the good and wise men and women to help this sacred place- and I realized how their struggle reflects the greater struggle that we are all a part of. The story above contains the following poignant passages:

"The Chesapeake teemed with oysters and blue crabs when European settlers arrived but is now plagued by algae blooms and fish kills. Oysters are nearly wiped out. Miles-long swaths of the bay are called "dead zones" because summertime oxygen levels are too low to support most life."

It's a simple truth that we have to put aside our pride to accept: our culture is unwise when it comes to how we treat the natural world. This is due largely to how we've been taught to think of ourselves as "dominion holders" over the Land, but it also has to do with the fact that most of us don't think even once a day about the fact that this Land we live on is full of real, living, sentient beings, both seen and unseen, who have as much sacred right to be here and live their lives as we do. We must consider our responsibility to balance our lives with the well-being of our land and its many inhabitants.

The story goes on to say:

"The rate of population growth, the number of people moving into the watershed, it's gotten to the point we can't ignore it anymore," said Jeff Corbin, assistant secretary for Virginia's Office of the Secretary of Natural Resources. "The streets people used to drive down were lined with trees. Now, they're lined with CVS and Starbucks."

The images are terrifying to a radical traditionalist like myself. Even if we must create these technological things to make our lives safer or easier, why can we not remember the need for beauty and aesthetic? What perversity drives us to wipe out the sheer beauty of trees, to create parking lots? One day (probably too late) we will all realize that the features of the natural world actually do more than maintain environmental balance- they soothe our minds and souls and help keep us sane. The more we hack them away to replace them with rows of strip-malls and cars, the further we get from basic sanity. It is enough to make the heart break, if one is aware enough to see the decline of this world, and understand mankind's role in it.

One more important line from this story stands out to me. It says:

"Working to restore the Chesapeake is somewhat like fighting hunger or poverty, Baker said. The aim is noble, and progress can be made, but the job will never be done."

Here we find the heart of Heathen nobility- do not shy away from the endless or hopeless fight, for endeavor and struggle for good ends are by themselves enough. Struggle, and not final victory, is what we are called to- we know how things must end up; the Volva has told the Gods and Mankind how things must end up. Even as the doom of the world draws near, and conditions become worse for all of us, nobility and bravery cannot quit. They fight until the end. Some victories still remain to be had- but effort towards good ends, even if that effort comes to defeat, is still a real sort of victory. Our duty to be noble and struggle against destructive forces in ourselves and in the world will never be done, and that's part of what it means to be a noble human being.

I will tell you who does appreciate the efforts of these conservationists- the spirits of the land and water that dwell in and around Chesapeake Bay. But there's more than that- I appreciate them, and the spirit of every one of my readers appreciates them, because they see in their struggle the Godly urge to preserve and uphold life. These people are warriors fighting for the good of Midgard, and they will be honored for their efforts in the Afterlife. It may be that the Lady of the Vanir takes them to Folkvang, for peace until the end of the age, or that they stand with the Einherjar with Allfather at the end of time. Either way, I'll have a toast for them this Yuletide.

To Know A Goddess

All we need is the great power of the Land. If you have that, you have everything. If you understand the sacredness of the very ground upon which you walk, you are immediately initiated into the great wisdoms of every age of the world that led up to this one.

The Land isn't just hills and trees and grass. It's people and animals, too. It's weather and the circulation of water through rivers, mist, clouds, and rain. It's wells, fires, and moonlight. It's food, homes, families, and it is life. I try to make this point, but often fail, as words fail to express the reality of a Goddess who is as close as the ground below us.

Just a few days ago, I stood on a hill in a forest, making offerings to the Gods. One of the great beings I shared Ale with was the Goddess Eorth, Earth; The Supreme and Great Sovereign that all owe their life-force and the flesh, blood, and bone of their bodies to. For a moment, in my repeated entreaties, as I held the horn against the ground, I could "see" her face there, deep below in my Hugauga, which I suppose was my mind's way of communicating to me her attentions. What a sacred moment; to consciously know the attentions of She from whom all arise, the true Mother of mothers.

Without the Goddess of the Land- and a sacred connection with the Land itself- no modern Pagan religion (and no modern Pagan) can be considered "complete". Paganism in Indo-European times was itself a child of earlier times wherein the Earth Mother was probably far more in evidence than she seems to have been later. All our ancestors had rites and prayers for the Earth Mother, and many myths and stories still capture the essence of her ancient interactions with mankind.

But we don't have to fondly look back to history or mythology to seek stories of her past interactions; what greater religious blessing is there than the power to experience a God or a Goddess here and now? We have that power. Because unlike Monotheists who pack their God away in heaven, or the same who compensate for the misery of that belief by claiming that their God is "everywhere" or "in the heart", we have a Goddess who is not hidden in the least way. You need no "eyes of faith" to see her, feel her, touch her, taste her, or know her. You just need the eyes of your head, your brain, and your hands.

We Heathens are bearers of an important tradition into the modern day- the tradition of the Sacred Land. From full-blown Goddess to abstract ideas about "the sacredness of nature", The Earth Mother's awesome presence informs everything we do and think, whether or not we know it. To be conscious of this is a real blessing, and it changes how you experience your life. You cannot actualize the true and full blessings of the Heathen way unless you can shift your consciousness to understand how easy it is to commune daily with a real and holy Goddess. Native Americans called this "living in a sacred manner".

The Goddess Nerthus, Eorth, Hertha, the Living Earth, the Giantess from whose womb the matter of our very bodies was born and drawn, is impossible to avoid or escape. You are living in her very sacred realm, everyday, whether you will to or not.

If you have walked by rows of corn ripening, or seen cows eating grass, eyeing you from fields on the side of the road, you have seen her. We are so used to thinking of plants and animals as separate, distant "things" apart from either ourselves or some Goddess, but they aren't. In Wyrd, everything is connected, but in the world of Wyrd that we inhabit, the world itself, the land and the living things drawn from it, along with fires and waters, ice and dust, rivers and wells, they are also parts of the body of a Giantess, a Goddess called Earth.

She is the hill, the sow, the birds flying, the streams gurgling. She is the hollow-backed forest woman, the old and terrifying crone in the cottage under the well, the spinner, the Mother of Lightning and Thunder. Words like "ancient" don't even begin to describe her, because what we consider "ancient beyond ancient" is like yesterday to her.

She is the cave, the grave, the lake, the mountain, and the grassy meadow. No matter how many thousands of years the fields have been plowed, if they are still giving fruit, her life force is still pulsing out of them. The rivers and lakes are swirling with her life, sometimes barely seen below the surface of the dark water. The shock and then the soothing of the coolness when you put your feet into the water is her touch. When you drink cold, clean water, or rich, thick ale, her power is pulsing through you powerfully- once you know this, you cannot miss it, ever again. When you taste bread or sit to rest on a hilltop, you are practically nearer to her than you are to yourself.

Sun above you, moon above you, heat and cold, ice under your feet or green grass, you are in the presence of a Goddess. The still trees, their hard and smooth bark, their rough bark, the smell of grasses and leaves, every sensory experience is an experience of her. This is an ancient truth, a venerable and universal experience of mankind, ancient and changeless.

This is the connection that can never be broken, no matter how many trees get ripped down or how many churches get built on top of the ruins of ancient Heathen holy sites. This is the heart of organic religion: the common mother of all Men, Women, Beasts, and Gods, conscious awareness of whom is the greatest blessing of the Old Ways.

Don't mistake me; I am not trying to "wash out" the Goddess by distributing her presence to the forces of nature; I'm not bowing to skepticism or to the fools who think that ancient people were just falling victim to their own misplaced metaphors and imagining that the powers of Nature were Gods and Goddesses. For me, there is no difference between the personhood of this ancient Goddess and the forces of nature.

If it suits you, you can say "ancient humans felt these things, and thought it was sacred, and named it a Goddess". You'd be missing half the point if you did, but at least you'd be in the same stretch of woods. Ancient humans felt a Goddess, they felt natural forces which ARE sacred- of this they had no doubt- and they gave due worship and allegiance to the Goddess of the Land, and the other spiritual powers that clustered in the Land, because that is the proper response when you experience the sacred in this manner.

The last thing to do is live like you understand what I've said. Pagan religions are not lost as long as you bear all these things in mind- the essence of the wisdom of the Pagan world is found right here, in the ability to go outside and experience the sacredness of things. If you can do that, understanding the nature of the Goddess that you are directly touching, you are building a bridge between yourself and the past, which allows for many blessings to flood through. Foremost of those blessings is lasting peace.

Your Land is quite literally a Goddess, a conscious, living being whose body is threaded with dirt, rivers, lakes, plants, air, fire, and animals. Go meet her. Worship her. Smell her, feel her, touch her, drink her, eat her, and be in that sacred place of communion. She has many gifts to give.

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.