The Road To Nowhere

When we put off joy, when we defer desire, we stunt our growth.  If we consistently live out of duty without joy, it is time to re-examine our attitudes toward our lives.

-Thorn Coyle -

Once upon a time a man found himself on a journey.  He wasn’t quite sure how he found himself on the particular road he was travelling or where he acquired his automobile, but he had a vague memory of arriving where he was by taking a series of wrong turns. 

The road was a wide one with many lanes, but there wasn’t much to see.  There were high walls on each side that prevented him from viewing beyond, and the sky overhead was cloudy or dark most of the time.  There was just the road.

He had a companion on this journey.  He had picked her up at one of the places where he lost his way.  They often argued over which lane they should be in or whether or not they should stop at one of the many service plazas along the way. 

The service plazas were plentiful and glittery, mini theme parks.  There was a service plaza devoted to Catholicism, a park of engineering, and one of intellectual delights among others.  The people he met there seemed friendly enough at first, but he found that one or another wanted something from him, and he became tired.  So he tended to keep to himself.

There was an abundance of diversions at the service plazas to distract him from the weariness of the journey and dreariness of the people he met.  Food, strong drink, and entertainments were all offered to provide comfort or so it was advertised.  These sufficed for a time, but eventually and increasingly satisfaction no longer came and they were consumed out of habit and to avoid facing going onto the road again.

There were tolls to pay on this road.  “Pay High Emotional Toll Ahead” was a sign road that the man came to dread.  These tolls increased with time as did the number of toll stops.  At each passing of a toll, the man paid up a little more of his heart and soul until it seemed he had little left.

Yes, with time the road became more and more weary, even disliked, but the man hid this from himself.  There seemed no alternative.  He stuck to the road even though he seemed to pass the same points again and again travelling in a giant circuit. 

His companion was increasingly of no help.  She often retreated to the back seat and didn’t speak to him for days.  She would find friends along the way and invite them along, and she and her friend would converse and seemingly enjoy each other’ company in the back seat as if the man didn’t exist.

Eventually his companion began to ask to be let out of the car so that she could journey alone.  She was tired of his company, she said, and – while he was nice enough – she couldn’t stand to travel with him anymore.  She might reconsider continuing to accompany him if he rearranged things inside the car, or travelled in a different lane on the road, or stopped at a service plaza that he didn’t particularly like but that which she enjoyed.

One day he noticed a stop along the way that seemed different from all the rest.  Why hadn’t he seen if before?  There was no dazzle of the usual service plazas here.  It was a quiet restful place.  And there was a gap in the ever-present wall that everywhere else bordered the road.  He wanted to go in, but his companion wouldn’t go with him.  She drove off leaving him here alone.    

When he walked into this rest stop he found it to be different from what he had experienced in a long time.  The air was refreshing and less heavy.  The sound of the road behind him seemed far away.  Though he could see through the gap in the wall only a short way, he found it attractive.  There was an openness there that the road didn’t have.  He met bright cheerful people here, some visiting from the road like him, others having come through the notch in the wall to visit.

He liked what he saw.  But the road was all that he knew.  His companion kept driving by looking for him, and eventually he climbed back in the car and he drove off.

He stopped at the rest area more and more often.  His companion became increasingly upset and angry when he did this.  But do it he did nonetheless.  He found after a time that the pleasant men and women at the rest area genuinely liked him.  Some became friends.  The boredom and dreariness of the road passed from him at times like this, and he was happy.

But always the honking of the horn, his companion sitting impatiently at the wheel of the car, opening the passenger door for him to get in.  More and more he seemed to be the passenger and not the driver.

At one of his later visits to the rest area, the folks that he met there suggested that he could leave the road.  Many had found their way to the other side of the wall after all, and he could do it too.  But how?  “Look for the exit” they said.

The exit!  Of course!  He had noticed the sign for the exit again and again.  He ignored it, because the road was safe and the exit led to the unknown.  “Better to stick with what I know and who I know” he said to himself.

And he was aware, when he thought of it, that the exit looked more and more narrow each time he passed, like it was slowly closing.  The exit sign had faded with time, and one of the posts supporting it had been knocked askew.  Grass was growing up through the decaying pavement.  The walls along the side of the road were beginning to encroach on the exit.

He resolved that he would stop and look down the exit ramp next time he passed.  He slowed down to look once or twice, but each time his companion put her foot on the gas and off they went.  When she was driving, she refused to slow down at all.

Then he finally did stop.  His companion tried to talk him out of this and threatened to jump out of the car forever as she often did, but for once he didn’t listen. 

He opened the car door and stepped out.  The same refreshing air and attractive aura of the rest area was present here as well, streaming up the ramp.  He saw that the gap between the walls on the ramp were barely large enough now for him to pass through.

He turned and faced the car and his companion.  She now pleaded that he get back in and continue the journey.  She so looked forward to being on the road with him, she said, and she never really meant to leave the many times that she said she desired to.

He hesitated, took a few steps toward the exit, then turned and hesitated again.  Finally, he turned his back on the road for good.  His old companion drove off back onto the road as he walked then trotted to the gap in the wall.  As he passed through he noticed that what was on the other side wasn’t perfect.  But the landscape was completely open to him. 

And there was one waiting for him, one he had seen and spoken with through the mist at the rest stop.  She was there among many others and offered to walk with him.  A new journey had begun.

Calen Fair Llawen to all!

Today is February 2^nd, Midwinter Day or Imbolc.  In this country, we know it as Groundhog Day.  (He saw his shadow, by the way.) 

If this day be sunny and bright, Winter again will show its might.
If this day be cloudy and grey, Winter soon will pass away.

In Wales, land of my heritage, this day is celebrated as Calen Fair.  Calen Fair has ancient roots. In is traditionally the time when lambs are born and ewe’s come into their milk.  “Imbolc” comes from two words that refer to the lactation of the she-sheep.  This flow of milk foreshadows the turn of the seasons to spring when life-giving forces return.

Here in New England the harshness and bitterness of winter is at its height this time of year, a subject of concern for our ancestors.  The fodder for the farm stock ran low and the larder began to look a bit bare.  But although this season was cold and drear, small indications of new life began to appear.  Lambs and calves were born; the days slowly warmed as the snow receded under the light of the ever higher sun; crows and squirrels begin to build their nests; the territorial “phee-bee” of the chickadees sounded in the forests.   

Calen Fair has a Pagan pedigree as do many celebrations and holidays since co-opted by Christianity.  In practical terms seed was made ready as were the ploughs.  Sacred springs and wells were cleaned.  Shrines to the departed, the fae, and the goddesses and gods were rejuvenated and lit with candles.  This is in part why the church replaced this festival with Candlemas dedicated to the Virgin Mary.  “Calen Fair”, the Welsh name for the day, in fact means the commencement of the season of Mary ending on May 1^st.   

In Ireland this day commemorates St. Brigit.  By tradition she is the daughter of a druid and later became abbess of Kildare.  Having been born while her mother crossed a threshold, she was said to be “neither within nor without”, between the worlds. 

Whether is is true or not, there is considerable truth to St. Brigit being derived from the Irish goddess Brigid.  “When she raised her white wand on this day, it is said to have breathed life into the mouth of the dead Winter and to bring him to open his eyes to the tears and the smiles, the sighs and the laughter of Spring.”  The harshness of winter trembles on Brigid’s day, and flees on Ostara, the equinox of spring.

There are ways to celebrate this day, if you like.  This is traditionally a time to ritually clean your house, especially if the Moon is waxing as today it is. If you have any Christmas greenery lingering, burn it now.   Leave a silk ribbon on your doorstep for Brigid to bless, and later use it for healing.  Plant a seed such as starting tomatoes.  Finally, meditate upon what you would like to see grow in health and strength this year.

This is a winter unlike those of recent years past with little snow and less than the usual dose of cold.  There are bare spots in the yard, and it is easy to walk about since what little snow is left is packed hard.

Yesterday, we had a dusting of soft powdery snow, just enough to reveal the routes taken by our woodland neighbors.  Walking about last night under the Moon I saw the track of a rabbit.  An endangered New England Cottontail perhaps?  Shamans’ Rest lies within a critical habitat for these rare beasts. 

Paralleling and overlapping the rabbit track in places was that of a canid, probably a coyote.  Hot on the trail of the bunny no doubt.  No.  When I followed the track, I noticed that the coyote had veered off at the fae circle while the rabbit continued into the labyrinth meadow.

Saint Dwynwen's Day

Today, January 25^th, the Welsh celebrate Dydd Dwynwen San – Saint Dwynwen’s Day.  Dwynwen is the matron saint of lovers, comparable to Saint Valentine, and the protector of midwifes and mothers in childbirth.  The day is celebrated in Wales with flowers, poetry, and visits to sacred springs and wells.  Lovers who invoke her on this day will either find true love or be cured of their lovesickness.

Legend says that Dwynwen lived in the fifth century and was the daughter of King Brychan.  She was in love with Prince Maelon, but her father refused this match and promised her to another.  Dwynwen fled to the woods in grief and she begged God – or more likely the gods – to help her forget Maelon.  In a dream or vision a visitor gave her a potion which eased her heartache and cause he to forget him.  Christians would have you believe that the visitor was an angel, but most in Wales know that the caller was of the tylwydd teg, a fae.

Dwynwen lived alone for the rest of her life.  Some say she became a nun.    Her holy well on Ynys Mon – the holy island the English call Anglesey - is a site of pilgrimage and divination for hopeful or forlorn lovers.  Until well into the nineteenth century, a woman seer could be found at the well.

In her isolation she learned to speak with and heal the beasts of forest and moor. Thus Dwynwen is called upon to heal sick animals, a tradition which has survived in parts of Wales to the present time.  

The legend of Dwynwen may have evolved from Welsh tales and mythology since lost.  (Wales has many sacred springs, holy wells, and other sacred sites that are dedicated to female goddesses loosely disguised as saints.)  Like Diana, the Roman goddess, Dwynwen’s symbol is the crescent Moon.  She wore a golden belt similar to Venus. 

But I think more importantly, Dwynwen symbolizes an Earth-centered culture with the goddesses as central figures undergoing submission to a patriarchal faith.  She challenges patriarchy in the form of her father, standing in for the Christian’s patriarchal god.  Thus she maintains her integrity and remained a natural woman.

How do you stand up to the powers that be?  Do you maintain your integrity?

Thanks to Cymdeithas Gymraeg yn Ngholorado and Edie Stone for background on Saint Dwynwen

Knowing One's Terrain

  

“One must know one’s terrain” - George Garrad 

from The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain

by Colin Monger

It is important to me, as a natural man, to be in touch with the Earth where I live.  This has always been so, though there have been places where I dwelled where I was just not able to establish a connection.  I always was able to figure out the reason that a place wasn’t right for me – at home – but it took me a stubbornly long time in some cases to admit why.

At present I am reading Thoreau’s Country: Journey through A Transformed Landscape by David Foster.  Using Thoreau’s extensive journals Foster relates how the New England that Thoreau knew has evolved from an abode of small villages and farms populated with yeomanry to what we see in our era.  The extensive cleared fields, small managed woodlots, hay meadows, tidy hamlets, and clear flowing brooks of Thoreau’s nineteenth century have given way to forests, cities, and subdivisions.  Only the occasional stone wall running straight and true through the wooded landscape is evidence of the past time.

There is such a stone wall along the back edge of Shamans’ Rest.  It is the boundary between our wooded meadowland and Sherwood Forest, a whimsically named subdivision of houses in cape and garrison style.  That wall prompted me to do some research; what had the land of Shamans’ Rest been before?

It had been part of a ten-acre tract that was subdivided into two, then three, then four lots.   It was open field through at least the 40s; photos from the late nineteenth century show that this was tilled land or hay pasture and treeless.  There was a stone wall along the road, since removed.  The terrain has since begun the process of reverting to mixed oak white-pine forest except where humans have chosen to retard the process.

What about before that?  Sometime in the seventeenth century English settlers began to clear the land, periodically interrupted by war parties from what was then New France. 

Before that?  Well I can only speculate.  The glaciers were here many centuries ago and created the mound that is the sandy drumlin on which our home lies.  (Making possible a good site for a septic system; our neighbors had to blast a cavity in the granite to build theirs.)  Millions of years ago the land shook with earthquakes as it passed over a plume of rising flowing magma from deep in the Earth, a hotspot much like that residing at present under Yellowstone.  And an eon before that Shamans’ Rest was the slope of a continental shelf of the small continent of Avalon, since torn in two to form old England and New England.

We humans like to imagine – that is the right word – that things will never change.  We can control our environment and make the way it is permanent.  That’s arrogant and a fairy tale.  For once upon a time the land was very different, and it is continually evolving.  It responds to what we do, not always in ways that we would like.  This latter judgment applies to the larger Earth, not just the localities where we find ourselves.

So I will love the place I live, much as I did Fletcher Dole’s pastures when I was a child.  And I will let the land be itself and tell me what it needs from me.  We can live together and both be happy.

What is your sense of place where you live?

The night sky is glorious this time of year.  Cariad and I frequently walk out into the meadow, sit by the Faerie Fire, and stare up at the stars.

Venus hangs low in the west at sunset, but climbs higher in the sky each night.  In the evening Jupiter is visible over the woods in the south; he can’t seem to make up his mind whether he wants to reside with the Ram or the Fishes.

In the morning when I venture out to the deck with my coffee to await the arrival of the birds at the feeders, it is still dark enough to see Saturn cozying up to the Virgin while Mars is tweaking the tail of the Big Lion.

The land where we live is now Certified Wildlife Habitat.  This is a program of the National Wildlife Federation.  Even if you have only a small urban lot, you can still participate in this valuable program.  The smaller creatures such as voles and burying beetles who live with you, but whom you are not trained to see, will appreciate your doing so.

Comes Now The Turn Of The Year

For my Welsh ancestors the turn of the new year came at Calen Gaeaf, the eve of November 1st.  By then the harvest was in, the animals bedded down in winter quarters or slaughtered for the larder, and life settled into a routine for the coming cold and darkness.

They lived much closer to Nature, the seasons, and the land those people.  They saw themselves as part of Nature, and She was a source of the sacred, not something to be bulldozed and paved over.  Nature still supports us and keeps us in Her loving arms if we let Her.  I do my best as a natural man to be open to Her blessing.

Now we moderns use a calendar no longer really tied to the seasons of the year, more a convenience for marking the passing of time and planning the future.  But it in no way changes our place in Nature; we are still very much part of and loved by Her.

So may Nature’s blessings be upon you in the coming year.  May you be healthy and whole and your families and loved ones remain vigorous and happy.  Let there be peace in your lives and may you grow in the spirit.  And may the coming months bring you to the close of another year more fit, more prosperous, and more in harmony with Nature.

Stepping Into The Cauldron

Since rising this morning, I've had a painful tendon in my lower left leg.  It began as a cramp in the night, then didn't go away.

I thought that a hot bath - hot bath - with circulating water would ease the tension and tenderness in the tendon.

A natural man is, by my definition, uninhibitedly sensual.  So as well as taking the bath to heal the tendon, I also savored its wonderful warmth.  I imagined myself stepping into a cauldron of healing, slowly lowering myself into the circulating draught I had prepared.  Ah!  This to be relished.  My body adjusted to the hotness of the steamy water and took pleasure in its stimulation.  It calmed my being.

This was not the end.  Upon rising from the water, I put on my red terry-cloth robe and went outside.  I allowed the robe to fall to the deck, taking in the sensation of the old air of the night on my warm bare skin.  Wonderfulness!  What a feeling!  Arousing and enjoyable!

And my tendon is relaxed and no longer painful.

NATURE NOTES

Still no snow.  We had a flurry or two today, nothing more.

Last night we had a fire, quite a large blaze.  It was a clear night except for some haze on the edge of the northern sky, so we were able to share the blessing of the fire with the stars.  There is something about a fire that brings out wildness and the primal.  Sitting at the fire and taking in its light, warmth, and crackling flame is a return to our true nature and to the sacred.  It helps us forget for a time the submission we have made to dominant culture, a capitulation not all together holy.

I found a dead mouse yesterday morning, a nighttime victim of the two feline predators who live with us.  I took it out to Leo's altar.  By afternoon it was gone.  There are ravens about - saw two this morning - and crows.  I suspect that they are responsible for the mouse's disappearance.

Gwyllt

Gwyllt (Cymraig), adj.  – wild, to be wild

Gwyllto n.m.; gwylltei n.f. (plural gwylltiau) - an inspired possessed person able to travel between the worlds, who is one with nature and talks to animals, who is able to arouse primal wildness in others

It might be asked why, in the early twenty-first century, it should be considered desirable to adopt the methods and beliefs of the oldest spiritual discipline on the planet…  The messages [of the gwylltiau] which call out to us, in the modern Western metropolis, are as vital and urgent now as they have ever been.  It teaches us respect for the rest of creation – a theme which, in our destructive age, is of the utmost importance – and it shows us new approaches to living: ways beyond the linear time lines with which we bind ourselves: out of the realm in which we see without seeing, hear without hearing, touch without feeling, and breathe the air without tasting or scenting the news that it brings us of our world.  Shamanism can teach all of this.  But above all it restores a quality to our lives which many of us have missed for a long time.  This is the sense of wonder, and of the ability to pass beyond the three-dimensional world into the fourth dimension, the Otherworld of which the Celts knew so much and of which they have left so eloquent a testimony.

 ~ From the Celtic Shaman, p. 5

John Matthews ~

The work of natural women and men is to be gwylltiau, able to travel between the worlds, one with nature and talking to animals, able to arouse primal wildness in ourselves and others, bringing them to ways of living extending beyond the linear and showing them how to open the door to restoring quality to their lives.

“Quality”, interesting word that, harking back to what Pirsig said about it in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and how the Greeks beginning with Socrates taught that quality is something that we can only imagine, not part of everyday life.  He and his Western philosophical successors, including that old deluder Saint Paul, took the perfect from us, telling us that we are imperfect – fallen – and can never experience real quality as it is something that exists only in a non-Earthly realm. 

To be a natural man is to recover quality, to experience the Natural as perfect, sacred, to be savored.  The corollary is that quality is something to be experienced and not achieved. 

So for those of you inspired to be a gwylltei or gwyllto, I suggest that you use this changing of the season and lengthening of days to give up the pursuit of perfection and to begin experiencing quality and the wild in your lives.  The Natural is all about you, ready and waiting for you to do so.

Snow, finally last night, but not much, just enough to whiten the ground.  This is turning out so far to be a winter without winter.  Here at Shamans’ Rest we’ve had rain and not snow as well as warm above-freezing days.  This is not normal.  Still, I remember years like this from the past with winter finally arriving in full glory and with a vengeance to make up for lost time.

For those who wish to know what winters past and present here in North By East are like, I highly recommend Northern Farm: A Chronicle of Maine, written by Henry Beston in 1948 and the contemporary Small Misty Mountain: Nature’s Year in a Downeast Village by Rob McCall as well as Winter World  by Bernt Heinrich.