Happy Birthday

Culturally I have been conditioned to accept that turning Forty is some kind of milestone but I cannot imagine why.  The transition into middle age cannot really be marked in years but rather in maturity and if maturity is the measuring post against which my age should be observed , I am at once Sixty, Thirty and Twenty even on the days I feel like I may be Eighty.

Perhaps the age of Forty is so significant because we more or less think of ourselves as either halfway or perhaps Two Thirds of the way to the grave under ideal circumstances.  Perhaps it is simply a way to make us remember we are getting older, that we have responsibilities and that we must "act" a certain way that is in keeping with our age because that is what is expected of us.  Forty is considered by many to be the age in which we reach full emotional maturity.  That makes some sense to me but like I said, sometimes I feel Twenty and act like it so if this is the peak of my emotional maturity…uh oh.

We set these days down every year, our birthdays.  They seem to sit outside time and space, perhaps like the days of our ancestors when one day is set aside for the gods, this day is set aside for us, to mark our passing through the space of time.  If anything, perhaps we should all be honoring our ancestors, especially our mothers, rather than ourselves.  It it was their pain and blood that brought us into the world while our fathers wrung their hands in worry.  I remember my own worry as my wife gave birth to our son.  It was a feeling of being powerless...this important moment and having no control over the outcome.  As someone with a family, I often awake thankful to spend another day with them, sometimes as I prepare myself for work, other times as I sleep in just a little bit so I can feel them next to me (my son typically comes and climbs into bed with us when he awakens).  It has helped me to have a child because when you watch a child embrace every day with wide eyed wonder, it helps you remember the wonder we have lost in our long slow ascent through the years as we deal with the simple common activities of living that seem to take up more and more of our time.  There is nothing wrong with taking the time to honor ourselves on our birthdays, I am certainly looking forward to my annual birthday dinner with family but I also want to honor everything in my life on such a day, something I can do every day when every day becomes a birthday.

It is perhaps this, that pulls me closest to the Earth.  To look out of my window and see the rain washing the Land is not the same as to feel it on my own face, to let the microscopic pieces of me mingle with the land and the water there that runs into the sea.  This is where I remember my childhood, running through the woods playing games with my cousins.  A carpet of orange pine needles at my feet, sometimes a white carpet of snow, the crunch of fall leaves;  The fire of summer in my hair and the fire of the mosquitoes on my skin.  I realize as I think upon these things that my spirituality has reawakened my sense of wonder about the world around me and that each day, each awakening, is a new birth.  In this context, each previous day, each previous cycle of my life is a period of gestation, leading to this day, this awakening.  So, when I awaken on Tuesday morning to head off to work and go about the routine business of my day, it will be the day that I have completed Forty revolutions around the sun.  My life up until now has been a gestational period and tomorrow morning I will be born again from into a new day, a new moment, a new chance to grow and learn and live just as I was today.  This does not happen simply at the beginning of a new day though, it happens in each moment.  Each moment is a chance to walk with honor, purpose and wonder no matter which direction we have come from.

In Ten years, I will be Fifty, a half century old, and yet, in that time, I will still be of the Earth, still walking in wonder, the child of Fifty years instead of Forty.  In two decades, I will be the child of Sixty years. In this way, I appreciate the miracle of gestation and birth, every day and in every moment and my birthday wish is, that you too can embrace the same sense of wonder in every moment.  Let the wild in, let the mist between worlds and moments enfold you.  This is the place where we gestate and awakening to each moment is the  crossing of a threshold into greater awareness and understanding than we had in the womb of the day before.  Happy Birthday to everyone.

Blood Rite

A walk in the woods prompted this effort, I am still itching, still sane and unbelievably at peace with myself...despite the itching...

Blood Rite

Stepping out into the wild next door
I walk with ungraceful strides over the ferns and through the witch hazel
in the place of four bears
sometimes my footsteps cross their tracks
and nothing is familiar
except maybe the mosquitoes
my bare arms are not bear arms
the sentinel pines offer no protection
while I wander in large circles over mossy rocks
the wild watches me in spreading awareness
a fly caught in a gossamer strand
and twisted trunks smile in wry amusement
the mosquitoes draw her price from me a thousand times
and my arms are itchy scars

Nature is a blood rite.

Digging Deeper

I am rooted in the earth as I walk, everywhere I walk, every when I walk.  The concrete beneath me presents no barrier, it too is of the earth and my roots are strong.  I feel myself as a great column connecting the Earth to the sky.  I am the sea in which millions upon millions of beings swim in wild freedom.

There was a time when these constructs seemed like obstacles.  Concrete and stairs, pavement and walls.  I have put away such perceptions.  When I touch these things they seem solid but they are not.  They are constructs that pretend at definition.  They are tangible because in my physicality they define a limitation.  In my mind and spirit, they present nothing, I soar through the space between nuclei, electrons and protons pass by me like dwindling stars in a midnight sky.

I have no greater right to exist than the smallest microbe or the largest complex organism.  Without this right, what am I?  I am disembodied consciousness.  I am a will to survive.  I am the bear running through water to protect her cubs, I am the wren watching over her hatchlings.

I am the first arrival at the banquet table of wild nature and I am the next serving of dinner.  How many tomatoes lay in this flesh?  How many trees will feast from my bones?  We act as parent to everything that benefits from our putrescence.  I am not the product of the love of millions, I am the product of the love of infinite beings, rising, falling, living, dying and living again.

I can sense the deep brown darkness of the Earth, the rocks and bones and living things.  I feel them in my muscles, tightening as I lift my hand, my arm, my head, my eyes.  I taste it on the air, bittersweet, "don't leave me.", "Come home"

I am rooted in the Earth as I walk, I am rooted in the air as I talk, I am rooted in the fire as I transform, I am rooted in the water as I remember.  I drag these things up with me, like a sheet off the circular tableau of reality, from the center where my spirit dances in strange winds and uncommon breezes.  I present myself to the universe and I see myself smiling back at me.

Months ago I remember explaining to one of my mentors that I didn't feel I could effectively "ground" at work.  It is after all a prison and has an oppressive feel to it.  While he did not come out and say anything to discredit my statement, I had a very real impression that he did not understand what I meant, he had previously stated he could root (ground) nearly anywhere.  The last several months since that discussion have found me experimenting more with grounding and rooting to the point that I can now do this almost anywhere, in large part because I realized that I was the only real barrier to grounding.  I allowed myself to believe that the physical constructs around me separated me from nature, from the wilderness and realized that these things are inside me and a part of me as much as they are a part of everything else.  The above italicized text is the actualization of thought that I had while undertaking routine duties at work.  I sat down and typed it as I finished my work.

We are nature and nature is in us.  We are wild.  The constructs that prevent us from being wild are those we make for ourselves.  They are a barrier to involvement because it is far easier to rely on the relative security of not being wild.  Everything in nature is an ordered part of a complex system that often exceeds the grasp of our human perception.  So what?  Why give up on learning what we can while we can.  If we have no greater right to exist than any other being, then giving up on creating relationship with something because it scares us that we may not have control (and we do not have control) tells us all we need to know about who we are.

We must surrender to Nature and in doing so, she will teach us all we need to know.

Sacred Relationships, Sacred Communities

The last time I published anything on this blog was days after the loss of a friend, a fellow Druid apprentice and what might have been a potential mentor had I made the time for it.

In the intervening weeks I've spent some time wondering what I am doing here with this blog.  I had an idea when I began about how I would glorify the Warrior in everyone.  I would show that we could all, no matter our strength or impairment, rise to that level and take on the world.  I still believe that but I also believe that I have moved beyond being a Warrior and more towards becoming a Druid and the time has come that I acknowledge that.

So, the context of these posts will become different.  I want to teach and I want to be taken seriously.  I want my voice to be heard and I know in my heart that I have become something much greater than the sum of my parts.  There is still room for the warrior in my life, a good amount of room actually.  The Warrior though is not the focus of who I am and what I am capable of.  The Warrior is one step on a greater path and I am ready now to move on.

So let's talk about spirituality.

I understand that not everyone has a spiritual path they follow as I might follow my own.  Yet, in all the wide world, most people have a belief.  Most often that belief has something to do with what happens after we die because in essence, the idea is that our spirit is the only thing left to us.

I won't lie and tell you I have the faintest clue as to what will happen to the person I am now, my spirit, after the life functions of my body cease.  I do believe that there is something else waiting on the other side of the veil between life and death, I also think I have a few good guesses as to what that may be but I won't pretend to know anything.  What I do know, something I can testify to, is the rich and powerful feeling I have in connection to the Earth, right here and right now.  I can feel it beneath my feet, I can sense it when I close my eyes and I can hear it when no other sounds are present.  I am a part of the Earth, I am subject to it's laws as much as it's love and I return that love to it in kind.

I am not a perfect child.  I know that I can do better when it comes to waste, I know that I could spend more time outside soaking it all in.  These are things that I look to do better and that is a process that may be slow but is ultimately more rewarding.

What is important to me is my community.  I am, for lack of a better term, obsessed with the idea of building a strong Pagan community here in Maine.  It won't take much since the Pagan community here is already strong but it will be important that we have strong community leaders in the years and decades ahead.  These need to be people who are willing to do the careful and important work of helping others in their community come together in positive ways.  This is why I am going to Druid College, so that I can learn methods about how I can craft sacred relationship between myself and the land.  After I feel I have learned this well enough, I will turn around and teach it to others in the belief that it will strengthen us as a community.

It may seem a bit impractical to try and teach others about sacred relationship when they already identify themselves as spiritually connected to the Earth.  What I wish to do is help craft sacred relationship to the land.  It is commonplace within the Pagan community that we worship the gods of our ancestors, most often those who are pre-Christian or even Pre-Abrahamic.  I know those who patronize Egyptian gods, Celtic gods, Norse gods, the list goes on.  I personally do not patronize any god but nature and even then, I do not come as a supplicant or a devotee.  I come as the bear comes in a time of hunger.  I come as the tree comes in a time of rain.  I come as the leaf comes when blown in the wind and as the crow comes when the first, fat grub of spring sticks it's head out of the ground.  I come to nature as a being, with reverence and appreciation but also as a being that surrenders to Nature.  There is an important distinction there that cannot be overlooked.  I am not a person who seeks to control or bend nature through the use of magic or might.  I am a being that surrenders to the natural forces of our universe.

I remember a conversation I had with my lady many years ago before we became an "item".  What I said then (to a group of friends) was that I cannot reasonably endorse so-called "Pedestrian laws" because it violates a simple principle of the natural laws of our universe.  In this case, a Four ton moving object most definitely has the right of way when encountering a Two Hundred pound bag of meat.  This is not a Marvel Comic, the meat bag always loses.  I am not speaking here of course, about the context of morality or ethical conduct, but that is also just the point.  Nature has no morality, there is no good nor evil in the actions of a hurricane or a tornado.  A riptide does not carry people out to sea on purpose, nor does a shark eat a seal for any other reason than that it is hungry.  As one of my mentors recently put it "If the wave rushes in to take me, who am I to oppose that?"

For me, the path to Druidry is a recognition of the fact that I have no greater right to exist than any other being.  That does not mean that I won't swat a mosquito, nor does it mean that I won't fight to survive.  It simply means that I do not suffer from the notion that the mere fact of my existence proves I am worthy of life.  That simple understanding allows me to take the life I have and put it to some meaningful purpose because it demonstrates to me that I get to choose the level of involvement in my life and make my purpose of value to my community.

I recognize the power and beauty and divinity of nature and I need no face to recognize it's power and spirit.  For those who do put faces to their gods, I hold no negative opinion at all.  I believe it likely that the beings they identify with are real and legitimate.  Perhaps, some day, I will identify their call in my life as well but at the moment, what I find when I seek divinity is Nature itself.

When I look at the myths of my ancestors, what I see is wisdom that was passed from generation to generation in a manner that would be easily remembered.  I Love all of the stories of the invasions of Ireland, the tales of Cuchulain, the Song of Amergin and especially the tale told by Tuen mac Corell, from whom came all the tales of the three invasions of Ireland.  I love all these tales and yet these tales are not connected to the land I live in, the land I walk or take my sustenance from.  These are the tales of a people far removed from myself, without any of the cultural influences that make these tales much more than a curiosity or a portal to the lives of my forebears.  I can understand and appreciate these stories from a cultural context and use them as a basis for the crafting of new myths that have a bearing upon the land I find myself in yet to claim that they legitimize my connection to this land would be much like watching "Braveheart" and ignoring the glaring disconnection between that film and the actual history of Scotland.  I can appreciate that film, but it is not the truth.  I can appreciate the myths of my ancestors, but those myths are connected to a land I do not live in and therefore taking them as my own shows no respect for the place where my feet touch the Earth.

So this is a big part of the reason that while I have become fairly knowledgeable about the myths and stories of my ancestors, I do not worship these beings as gods, nor do I worship the Norse, Egyptian or Germanic deities either.  I know those who do and for whom those relationships are deeply personal and meaningful and I am glad for them to have found those relationships.  I hope (and know) that they find my relationships to be as significant to me as theirs are to them and this is exactly what makes the Maine Pagan community so wonderfully strong.

I feel strongly that this makes me a good candidate for being a Druid when my mentors feel my apprenticeship is over, because it allows me to adapt quickly to changing variables.  Different people walk their paths in different ways.  By endeavoring to craft sacred relationship between them and myself, I may also be able to assist in bridging the gap between people of different path so that we all have a better chance of learning from one another.   Because I have no preconceived notions, I am in a position to learn and in learning, adapt.  

When I was younger I was not in the popular crowd and I was not in the unpopular crowd yet I had friends in both groups.  In my life, I have consistently found myself taking on the role of a bridge spanning different shores and in many cases, those friendships have lasted longer than the friendships I myself have made.  So in essence, it has been an important part of my life to help people make connections.  I wonder where my life might be now had I started down this path 15 or 20 years ago but then again, there is little use in dwelling on that.  I am here now and that is what matters.  This is a large part of why I don't really feel the need to be "right" about an "afterlife".  I feel the need to be present in this moment and to build sacred relationship with the beings around me.

Going back for a moment to the disparate practitioners, what if my purpose is to help those who view things differently find common ground in sacred relationship?  I don't feel I have to be coy about it, I believe that is exactly my purpose. It is one of the things that drives me so steadily to foster community, for what is community if it is not a growing number of people building relationships with one another?  This is the sacred work of my life, guardianship and from here on out, that is what I will be focusing on in this blog.

passed beyond the veil...

I received the unfortunate news yesterday morning that the father of a close friend has passed.  He was not only the father of a close friend, but also someone for whom I have a great deal of respect.  He had begun his own walk down the path of Druidry about 2 years ago.  He and his wife ran a small, organic farm and he held a job with the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA).  Every trip to the annual Common Ground Country Fair (a MOFGA event) would always be accompanied by a visit to the farm he and his wife lived from and my son would excitedly proclaim about the animals there.

This is a man for whom I have a deep and lasting respect that will extend long past his human existence. I feel guilty that this was a person whom I knew and had a relationship with and yet never took the time to fully develop that relationship.  I was very excited to tell him about my experiences at Druid College and compare notes with his coursework through the AODA (Ancient Order of Druids in America).  I always put it off, thinking that there would be time and now that time is run out.

I am left feeling a little empty and sad.  Not for myself does such sadness linger but for those who were close to this amazing man: his wife and children, the farm he loved and the community he supported.  Given the chance perhaps I will visit the grove where he practiced his spirituality and breath in the air there, where some part of his spirit still lingers and the connections he reflected through ritual of the relationship he forged with the Earth might be felt.  It is there that I think I will most palpably feel his presence and the lack thereof simultaneously.

I wish you peace on your journey my friend and may whatever lay beyond the veil embrace you with loving arms, even if it is simply the earth itself, welcoming back your bones.

Intrinsic Value

A couple of social media posts today reminded me of the Value of things.  In animism, all things have an intrinsic value that is, in essence, immune to the arbitrary assignment of value. My Lady for instance, is someone in my life that I have a great admiration and respect for, I Love my Son as well.  My appreciation of these people is an arbitrary assignment of value on my part, albeit based on the intrinsic value of those involved.  I am placing value on them because I have personal feelings about their nature that are based on their own assessments of their personal value.  Intrinsic value is a measure of self worth.  For instance, my Lady is a very self empowered woman so she has a good measure of her own self worth.  As my son grows into adulthood, I hope that he too will maintain the measure of his own self worth as well.  Anyone who doesn't think a two year believes that they are the the most valuable commodity in the known universe has never had to take a toy away from them.  The question I feel that is an important measure of value is which is more important?  Intrinsic value or Arbitrary value?

Most people I can think of would agree that Intrinsic value is by far the more important of the two but it also seems to me that while most people agree, not many of them appear to actually act as though their intrinsic value is their true measure.  I have mentioned before that we are social animals and one thing that is true of social animals is that we tend to seek the approval of others in our social group.  In High School it was called "Peer Pressure" but what it actually amounts to is a measure of the balance between arbitrary value and intrinsic value.  It is sad to say that peer pressure can test the limits of almost anyone because the drive to be accepted by others in our peer group can be overwhelming and often, intrinsic value fails to triumph over the desire to win that acceptance.  As a general rule, conformity is what causes us to lose sight of our intrinsic value. I would posit that loss of vision is by far, one of the most pressing issues in our culture.  In essence, there are people who simply cannot, for one reason or another, conform to the expectations of our culture.  This is most readily apparent in the context of body image.  When you are able to divorce yourself from the context that how you look has something to do with your intrinsic value, you are much less likely to suffer from things like depression and anxiety.  Inversely, those that impose cultural expectations on themselves in terms of body image but are unable to conform, often have greatly increased depression and anxiety.  For them, the cultural expectation of physical appearance allows them to believe that their intrinsic value is less than that of someone else who does or is able to conform.

I had a girlfriend many years ago that I cared for very much and I imagined myself making a life with her.  We lived together for about a year when she decided to have Gastric bypass surgery.  Now, I can say without any reservation that yes, she was full figured and I believe she was incredibly attractive as is.  I fell in Love with her long before the surgery and Loved her long after it was over.  She on the other hand, had lost sight of her intrinsic value to the point that, the day she had the surgery, she told me that once she was thin she would want to find a "cuter" boy.  At the time, I was hovering around 300lbs myself and this was a massive blow to me.  The idea that all she needed to find someone "cuter" than me was to slim down, says a lot about what she believed her intrinsic value to be.  Even though, at that time, I hadn't ever put much thought into intrinsic vs arbitrary value, I had a lingering idea of it and I knew that my intrinsic value was greater than the arbitrary value she assigned me.

The point of this example is that I place more emphasis upon intrinsic value than arbitrary value because I myself have felt how awful it is to have someone I care about deeply fail to recognize it in me.  We can always tell people who cannot recognize their own intrinsic value because they often feel they must prop it up by hating and despising other people for ridiculous or made up reasons.  Those reasons usually have more to do with the level of desperation that they feel in not being able to locate their own intrinsic value and so they compensate for that by assigning arbitrary and often negative, values to others. 

What I try to do is relate my arbitrary assessment of value based upon a person's intrinsic value.  This can be an incredibly difficult task because a person's intrinsic value is often muddied by the arbitrary value placed on them by others.  The only way to cut through this in most cases is to build a relationship with them.  The thing that is hard to face is that the assignment of arbitrary value is a judgement.  If I consider someone to be an asshole, then I am making an arbitrary assignment of their value as it relates to me.  The same can be true if I decide that they are a great person.  Another thing that I find is problematic for our culture is that we often assign these arbitrary values, based not upon the relationship we form with people but upon details that may have no real effect on intrinsic value at all.  Things like race, faith, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender and gender identity have intrinsic value only to the individuals that identify themselves in this way.  The arbitrary assignment of values, the judgments of those who do not share these traits and therefore have no personal stake in them, is likely reacting out of a need to judge others because they are unable to make an estimate of their own intrinsic value.  In essence, things like same sex marriage and race don't bother me because, in essence, they have no immediate negative effect upon my life.  Adversely, getting to know people and their understanding of their own intrinsic value buy building relationship may have profound, positive effects on my life.  Therefore  arbitrary value placed on groups of people generalizes their appraisal to the point that the individual co-opts their opportunity to create relationship.  One of the things that makes prejudice of all kinds such a pervasive problem is that it does just that.  It arbitrarily assigns value to an entire group of people based upon a set of standards that  make no allowance for their intrinsic value.  In a culture that makes every attempt to co-opt self empowerment in lieu of conformity, people tend to confuse intrinsic value with arbitrary values placed upon them by those who have no right or basis for criticism.  Prejudice does not only undermine the ability to seek intrinsic value but also oppresses it.

It is my humble opinion that we need to stop assigning blame upon others for our failure to accept ourselves  and instead make it a staple for our culture to make allowance for self expression and intrinsic value.  The best method of reaching that goal in my opinion, is to interact with others, build relationships and stop making assumptions about individuals and entire groups of people based on arbitrary judgements. 

The Wheel of the Year in Maine

I sat on the edge of a couch in a living room in Hollis, Maine during my third day of Druid College in late November with my 39th birthday hovering over me and staring at the red brick of a fireplace adorned with all sorts of ornamental Druid stuff.  There were bowls and candles and other things that indicated that I was in a place of great reverence for the natural world and I had just been asked a question about what gifts I could offer my community.  So I stared at the red brick and thought about what my gift to our community could possibly be.

Of course, it jumped out at me right away but so too, did the excuses as to why that was not possible.  As always, I am the greatest hurdle to my own success and the greatest progenitor of  my own failure.  So I thought of other things.  I am a decent writer, some folks even say good.  I am charming and charismatic.  I can be funny and wise and sometimes both at the same time.  I have a great sense of humor and I am fair (most of the time) and honest (sometimes too honest).  I can take a decent photograph.

As I sorted through all of these things I thought to myself that other people in the room seemed so much more gifted than I am.  Everyone seemed charismatic and charming.  Everyone seemed to have a great sense of humor and everyone writes.  There were people playing guitar and fiddle and drums that were much more advanced than I am (If you have ever held a guitar for more than a few minutes you are more advanced than I) and I thought to myself "I have too much to learn before I have something to offer."

I do this to myself quite frequently though.  It comes from a lifetime of being told that I need to do more, do better.  I need to outshine everyone else in the things that I do so that I can be at the top looking down on everyone else and even though this is what I was taught, it is not what is in my heart.  I don't want to be the best, I just want to be able to add value and insight.  I want to be involved in the community that understands that it is greater than the sum of its parts.

As with most things, your first instinct is usually the best...so I am going to make a film, a documentary.  Actually, I am going to make Four.

The idea came to me a month later when I was thinking about how wonderful the Pagan community in Maine really is.  In the two years I have been formally active, I have observed calls to action that often go unheeded in other communities but are immediately joined by many of the members of our own.  It is not uncommon to see such commitment in Church communities, but in a community where nearly everyone worships a different set of deities, the sense of community here is astonishing, wonderful and refreshing.

I am certain that like many other communities, personal politics walks on to the floor at times, after all, Pagans are human beings like everyone else. Even though there are personal differences among people, most often when the chips are down folks come together to make common cause.  I have never heard a racist joke from any of my fellow Pagans, nor a joke about same sex couples or transgender folk either.  People occasionally tease each other about nearly anything but I have never seen it done out of cruelty or malice.

There are of course, here and there, folks who tear others down.  As a community you are always going to encounter people who wish to see the negative in others more than the positive.  However, the vast majority of the community seems invested in coming together and celebrating their diversity and creativity and that is what I want to capture.  I want to tell a story about Maine Pagans and the connective tissue that makes us a community and a tribe.

So, that was my initial idea and I am quite excited about the project.  I plan to begin filming on Samhain of this year and complete principle photography Nov. 1st of 2014, the day after Samhain of that year.  This means that the principle piece of the project will run a year and a day.  Right now the working title is "The Wheel of the Year in Maine" but that title will likely change before the film is "released".

I have never done documentary filming before so in an effort to prepare myself I will be doing Three shorter documentary films to prepare myself.  Each of these smaller films will range from 15-20 minutes long.  I will be doing one on The Temple of the Feminine Divine in Bangor, Maine; One on Druid College in Hollis, Maine; and one will be about the longstanding tradition of Beltane on the Beach held yearly at Popham Beach State Park, Phippsburg,  Maine.  I have already received permission and endorsement from each of them to film.  At this point, the important piece will be finding folks who are comfortable being in the documentary and provisions will be made to ensure that the personal space of those who are uncomfortable is respected .  Each of these smaller documentaries will be created and provided to the folks in these organizations to be used as informational or publicity footage with no cost to them.  I feel strongly that doing these documentaries will allow me to share a gift with my community in a way that can remind us of the reason we call ourselves a tribe.

I intend to crowd source for funding because the equipment I have will not do what I need it to if I wish to make a documentary of this type.  Since the three smaller projects will likely be used on the interwebs, the Sony Handycam I currently own, plus a piece of audio equipment for recording that will be on loan to me, should be more than enough to get me by.  Therefore I intend to use a funding site like gofundme or kickstarter.  At present, the only thing I need is the right equipment.  I am happy to absorb the travel expenses but any money not spent on equipment will be used to offset that cost.  In the end, if I have to, I will do this with my little Sony handycam because I feel this project is important and valuable.  It is my wish to do it in a manner that looks professional and I cannot do that with the equipment I have presently.  If I am meant to make this film with better equipment, awesome.  If not, I still mean to make this film, even on a shoestring budget.

It is very likely that I will open another blog with the purpose of keeping people updated on the film's progress.  If all goes well then I expect to be able to release the film by Imbolc of 2015 or sooner.

I was first drawn to Druidry by the Bardic path and though I am no longer happy to be "just" a bard, storytelling is what I am good at and I want to tell the story of our community.  In the event that this film makes money, all proceeds will be held for other projects along similar lines or donated to charity, most likely the latter.  However, it's important to note that this project is not about making money and I don't expect it to.  My expectation for this film is to give Maine Pagan's something to be proud of...themselves.

If you are interested in participating, assisting or donating to this project, please feel free to contact me @ silverbearbard@gmail.com

The blog site for the project is: /http://mainepagandoc.blogspot.com/

May you all find shade and sweet water.

Entitlement and miscalculation

I see that word bandied about a lot, especially in the political climate of the day.  Entitlement.  It has been turned into a dirty word by many of our political leaders to describe the programs and services that provide basic needs for the underprivileged and poor.  At other times, it is used in it's other context which is to describe people who believe they have a right to something but even in this context, it is directed at people, especially the young, who have grown up believing that they don't need to fend for themselves and that help is always out there...that the safety net is always available.

The current political goings on of our country and many others insists that we are certainly coming up against the hard limits of resource scarcity as the rich run about waving their hands in the sky and villainizing so called "entitlement programs" as being the chief enemy of the state.  It's war on poverty in which the enemy becomes the impoverished, not poverty itself.  In essence, it is much like dropping bombs on civilian neighborhoods instead of trying to defeat the army supporting the dictator.

I did a number crunch years ago when the big American "Bailout" happened.  I'm not good at Math, but what I came up with is that if the Government had taken all that money and distributed it freely, it would have amounted to several thousand dollars per person of voting age in this country.  To include children under 18, it still would have amounted to several thousand dollars.  What people might do with such a windfall is beside the point.  It is likely I wouldn't have a dime of it left so I am not a good example.  However, it was handed out to banks and corporations that, in a free enterprise system, should have been allowed to fail.  When we have the economic resources that this country does, it is hard to understand why Native Americans are forced to remain on impoverished reservations, why children go hungry and why our elders are forced to live in toxic mobile homes or in nursing homes because they have no retirement after paying for their child's college education.

I don't like the term "redistribution of wealth" because it has become a battle cry for the Conservative elite to beat their chests to.  Many of them still try to cry "Socialist" when that term has been bandied about, even though the socialists (with the possible exception of China) have been firmly blunted against the anvil of failure.  However, it is important to note also that China is capable of remaining as a sovereign nation because it has provided so much cheap rubbish to the U.S. economy.  Redistribution is a miscalculation of English because it suggests that the goal is to take money away from people who earned it give it to others in an attempt to level the playing field.  One only has to look at the Socialist countries of the world to understand that a redistribution of wealth guarantees only that the underclass have the same amount of money rather than the same amount of resources.

In my opinion, a country as rich as ours has an unbelievable opportunity to ensure the welfare of our younger generations by funding education, providing food for the hungry, keeping clothes on their backs and a roof over their heads.  The trauma and anxiety of living hand to mouth for people in low income areas is alone enough to warrant such funding.  So, instead, we go to war again.  Considering that by all accounts the great enemy of America, Osama Bin Laden, was killed years ago, why are we still sending troops to Afghanistan?  Why are we still occupying Iraq?  Why do we even consider bombing Syria?  Our government wishes us to believe that it is to protect us from terrorism but we undoubtedly create more enemies with every Drone strike and black ops mission.  Instead of bombing people, we should be doing food and clothing drops to the homeless and ensuring that our own nations children are cared for before making orphans in another.

Of course, this is all political but it is also the political machinery that brought us here to begin with.  I can't say enough that as long as the road to Wal-Mart is paved, most people don't give a shit.  It is easier by far to villainize the poor by making them out to be lecherous bums than to address the real issue of social reform and an equitable distribution of actual, physical resources.

I keep coming back to the idea that in a country as wealthy in Natural resources as we are, the prevailing paradigm is to pretend that those who are denied the opportunities that the ruling class are afforded are expected to "rise above" their circumstances as proof that anyone can live the American dream.  Forget the fact that the "American dream" is no longer a dream of freedom, it is a dream of wealth.

As a species it makes sense that wealth attracts us.  Before the advent of oil and all its related opportunities, we only settled in places that could support our diets and other immediate needs.  Those that settled in places that for most others seemed inhospitable, only did so when they were capable of creating a niche they could live in.  The discovery of the myriad uses of fossil fuels has essentially driven our expansion in both population and ability to live in the far flung and otherwise inhospitable regions of our own planet.

Like any other species, when we see an opportunity to exploit an increase in energy consumption, our instincts tells us to do so.  This was simpler when we lived in smaller communities because an exploitable energy surplus in the environment usually meant that the whole tribe shared in the lottery money. Today, what it tends to mean is that someone gets most all of the spoils and it is not shared with the tribe.  In short, there is no greater sense of entitlement in this country than the entitlement of the rich and powerful.

I have long considered a gentlemen I knew years ago who I first met when he was going yard to yard in a snowstorm offering to help people shovel out their yards and cars.  He was asking $10 to help which, when you need to get to work in a hurry, isn't much.  We struck up a conversation while we worked together getting my car unstuck and I offered him a ride to the next potential customer and paid him $20 because all I had was a Twenty and he worked really hard to help me out.  He used to come down to the place where I worked and we built a pleasant friendship out of the experience.  At the time, I didn't have much money and spending $20 for the service he did for me was a bit more than I could afford but I made due somehow.  He was saving up as much money as he could to move back to Georgia and 6 months later he finally did.  The point is that even when I didn't have a lot of money, I chose to share my resources with someone else who needed them.  I never felt as though he was taking advantage of me or my kindness.  I had to insist several times before he would accept the extra. I even bought him lunch a few times just for the hell of it.  In reality, we have no real need for lavish homes and fancy cars, our basic necessities can be secured for far less than we might pay for fancy things.  That is not to say that having something nice is bad or wrong.  I have many nice things and I appreciate the fact I can afford to spend my resources on them.  On the flipside, if I were to have saved every penny instead of buying some of these nice things, I might have a nicer car or a bigger house.  If those things interested me...Therefore, it seems reasonable to me that we can do away with the argument that spreading our resources around in such a manner befits our species in any practical way.  In the end, that is what I am talking about here:  Practicality.  With the resources available to us right now, we can, in all practicality, ensure that every person on Earth is taken care of until at least the age of 18.  The problem is that in general, it is our selfish disregard and apathy that get in the way.  It is not enough to understand what prejudice is, we have to stop doing it and supporting the institutions that do.

When you weigh all of this against the hard limits of a finite planet, the best that you can really do is to establish small communities that have common goals and philosophies and build on them.  So many people out there think that social justice organizations will be able to turn the tide in their favor if they can just appeal to people enough.  While I believe that such organizations are certainly valuable, to turn the tide of prejudice we need to appeal to our children and educate them.  What we need to do is appeal to the parents to begin the process.  What we tend to do instead is appeal to people to change themselves and most people will go with the flow of public opinion which is typically to vilify a certain group of people and blame them for all of our problems.

Such is the obvious case with the impoverished citizens of "developed" countries.  While Wall Street CEO's are complaining about the bottom line cost of welfare they are taking multi-million dollar bonuses from the banks they run because the government provided billions in corporate welfare.  With the money that our government spent on bailing out these organizations, we could have fed every child in America to age 18 and provided free, high quality healthcare.  When I think about it like that, it makes me angry.  So much of what we expect in this country is social, it is what we are raised to understand.  We should be helping to create a social framework that encourages future generations to think and act for themselves.  By doing so, they will either create their own communities or become valuable members of the community they are in.  We don't need the government to do that, we only need ourselves.  I'd really love to know how any thoughtful human being can look at a starving child and assume that their bonus is more important to the future of this country than a living breathing person who may not make it.  Anything else, in my mind, is the true miscalculation of our species.

The Problem with Arrogance

Not everyone who practices spirituality does so out of ignorance or superstition.  Most of the folks I have met who want to be in touch with their ancestral spiritual beliefs or even the spiritual practices of cultures that are not of their ancestors are seeking truth beyond the superficial existence of what we can absorb with the physical senses.  While there are some people who wish to believe that religion is equal to superstition and ignorance, it is more ignorant to make assumptions about ANYONE you don't know and their experience.  If you are going to preach that everyone is entitled to justice, then that means you need to practice it yourself by recognizing your own prejudice and overcoming it.

This is my biggest gripe with what I call "Militant Atheism", the context being that these are the folks who, by some means or another, attempt to marginalize others by making them feel bad about believing in or acknowledging the presence of divine beings.  Most of the people who know me recognize that I am a relatively grounded person with ample intelligence.  When the spiritual path I follow found me and I recognized it, it took me a long time to "come out" to them about it, largely because I knew what their reactions would be.  In the end, I only really lost one friend to Paganism and quite frankly, that person is so busy figuring out their own shit that it's probably better for them if they are not busy trying to sort through mine.  It is sad to say that there is a prevalence among bitter people to assume that theirs is the only correct worldview while they steep themselves in negativity.

I know a few Atheists through both my personal and professional life and there is nothing that really separates them from anyone else.  Many of those I know tend to find that life is just as full and meaningful without the presence of divinity as those who do.  Atheism of course is a belief that the material universe is all that exists. This is often stated in terms of "Atheists don't believe in god or spirit" or some other context in which the belief is directly related to spirituality but that trends toward misconception.  The "reality" is that Atheism exists, not to counter spirituality but outside of it altogether.

This is all well and good when we're talking about your average everyday Joe that cares more about his cup of coffee than they do about the resurrection or the benevolent wisdom of the trees.  It is quite another thing though when the aim of someone is to pretend that they are superior to those who follow a path of spiritual growth.  Having experienced this type of arrogance firsthand from a surprising source, I can tell you that it is more about their anger than it is about belief.  When what they believe is less important than making you feel like an ignorant, superstitious fool, the only thing that is really talking to you at all is a whirling little dervish of anger that does not really care to enlighten you.  The aim of such people is to crush you, to make you feel small and vulnerable, to inflict pain.

It is the same thing you will find in nearly any person who has too much negativity and refuses to embrace methods to which they can discharge that energy in a productive way.  It is far easier to sit behind a computer screen and hurl insults than it is to actually engage with someone as an equal.  That shit may work online but in real life you have to think on your own and that can often be terrifying to people who have no real courage.  I won't lie and say that I do not find it amusing to think that a person who posits that nothing outside the material world exists and uses that concept to insult me and my family, cannot even say it in my physical presence.  Instead, they seek the shadows of an online community to make their insults and fail to understand why that is an absolute lack of courage or adherence to a set of determined beliefs.  However, I digress...

There is a difference between confidence and arrogance.  Confidence has everything to do with understanding something and gaining that knowledge through experience.  Arrogance on the other hand has everything to do with believing you are right about something without the benefit of actual experience.  You can most frequently see this in online forums and blogs about how evil everyone else is and how you can undermine their lives to make yours better.

In the "Militant Atheist Hell" there is a special place of nothingness for Christians and an entirely more bleak one for folks like myself that have rejected the "truth" of Christianity and found a different pattern hidden in the chaos of the Universe.  In the mind of every Militant Atheist is the concept that their lives have been defined by Christian dogma and the release of that dogma leads to Atheism rather than alternative spirituality.  It thus becomes a simple equation, if you don't believe in Jesus and you don't believe in Atheism then you must be a lunatic and the only attention paid to us on the part of the Atheist is a generally dismissive shooing and an oft repeated insult implying a lack of general intelligence.

The reality is though that, with a few exceptions, I have found my community to be incredibly open minded about the beliefs, lifestyles and inner workings of others, including Atheists.  Having the opportunity to share my time and energy with people like that has allowed me to grow and become stronger as a person.  I have come to the point now where most of my friends from way back accept my spirituality even if they do not believe in it themselves and I can talk to them about it intelligently.  Just a few weeks ago I had occasion to discuss some of the finer points of a metaphor I use to define the energies of the Earth, Sun and Moon.  I'm not saying it doesn't have it's flaws, but I consider it a generally decent metaphor and talking about it intelligently with someone who does not view it the same way and is non-judgmental was a great joy for me.

The thing that militant Atheists need to remember is that when you define your own existence by what others believe, when you resort to bullying people because you have an Ax to grind, then you are the ignorant person, not they.  It really doesn't matter what your excuse for doing it is.  Most spirituality makes allowance for the existence of an afterlife and I will readily admit that I don't believe that our consciousness disappears when the physical body ceases to function.  However, I don't know and I won't know until death occurs.  If I am wrong, and I have lived my life in a just manner, seeking to treat others with justice, then making the most out of my life does not cease to have value even if I cease to exist.  In the end, it becomes a zero sum equation with the benefits of a life spent well, spent in the time it is most important.  Rather than focus on the hocus pocus, perhaps instead you might focus on the good things that means and how it relates to you.  I haven't met a single Pagan that would call you an asshole for not believing what they believe...pass it on.

New Common Era Year Resolutions!

As a Pagan, I try to think of the Wheel of the Year when I think about the year itself.  In part, this is about honoring my ancestors but I also was raised on the Gregorian calendar and followed it most of my life so I must also recognize that this is a legitimate, cultural norm that I am unable to truly escape.

Thusly, last year, when we moved from 2012 to 2013 (even though there were plenty of folks who wondered if the Mayan long count calendar spelled our doom) I never made any "New Year Resolutions", this year I have had a change of heart due to a friend posting his own on a facebook group.  I didn't have to think long about them, and I thought perhaps I would list them here, with a few extras and some descriptions, because that just seems like a great idea to me.

1.)  I will stop eating unhealthy so often
It is very easy, especially when you don't have a lot of money, to eat unhealthy.  Dollar menus and instant gratification are hard to surmount when you are hungry and don't have a lot of cash to spend on healthy food.  However, I am not destitute and I eat a lot less these days than I used to.  I have a son who watches me eat, I should model good eating habits for him and for myself as well.

2.)  I will spend more time with my son
I like spending time with my son but sometimes it gets difficult to do so because of other concerns.  I need to put down the computer more (I have been doing this a lot more recently, I just need to make sure I keep it going).  He needs his father even though sometimes it seems like mommy is the only person in the room for him.  Then I catch him doing something that I do and I realize that even if he is not acting like I am important, he sees what I do and mimics me because that's how kids learn.  I need to remember that more.

3.)  I will spend my money on things that have value
This is a big one.  It's not like I spend money on junk all the time but there are things that I do spend my money on that don't have the value I think they do.  I need to be more aware of the value of things to me before I spend money on them.  There is a lady I know who makes clothing and she needs some business.  I might be able to find something I like online but it won't be personal, it won't be one of a kind and she could use the business so why doesn't it make sense to spend the money with her?  I'm doing something that helps both of us out.  That is value to me.  On the other hand, buying ritual garb online has none of those values and remains some cookie-cutter robe.

4.)  I will train for at least 15 minutes every day
I need to spend more time training.  Lately it's been about 15-20 minutes of cumulative training per week which is not much at all.  I need to work out every other day and train with Sword, Spear and Shield every other day.  As I get into that rhythm, I can increase the time.

5.)  I will write something every day
I need to journal more for a variety of reasons.  I need to spend some time acknowledging the advances and setbacks, establishing patterns and recognizing the things that work for me and do not work.  It is easy to forget them when I don't pay attention.  I also need to begin writing for pleasure more.

6.)  I will spend at least 15 minutes every day making time for my spiritual pursuits
This includes meditation, ritual and research.

7.)  I will spend less time on the computer while at home or at work, especially facebook
I am horrible at time management.  This is in large part due to the fact that I spend a lot of time goofing off on the computer and less time getting things done.  Facebook is a way of keeping up with friends and getting behind on everything else.

8.)  I will tell my wife how beautiful she is every day
She is beautiful and I don't tell her that enough.  Life gets busy and you let important things fall by the wayside.  She should be reminded of how wonderful she is every chance I get.  I am bad at this, maybe it's a guy thing, maybe it's absent-mindedness.  Maybe I should stop making excuses.

9.)  I will honor my Ancestors
It's not that I don't already, but I should also try to learn more about them.  Even if I have to spend a little hard earned cash to do so, it would have value to me.  Something worthy of remembering.

10.)  I will remain honest
I am as honest as I can be.  There are times I will avoid a topic because I know that honesty is not always what people want.  They want hand holding and a shoulder to cry on.  I am good for both of those things as my wife and many of my friends can attest.  There are others though that see my honesty as too burdensome and I have lost friends over it in the last couple of months.  I have thought long and hard about this, wondering if I am mistaken about being honest and I have come to the conclusion that people who can't take my honesty owe me nothing and I owe them nothing.  Relationship is about respecting boundaries and I will be the first person to admit that my honesty can cross boundaries people are not prepared to deal with because honesty, true honesty, is often too cutting for people to hear.  When I see something wrong, I want to do something about it and often the only tool I have is my honesty.  What I struggle with in others is a lack of honesty and when my honesty and their dishonesty lock up...well, it's rarely a pleasant scene.  It is not that my honesty trumps anything.  In fact, there are times that my opinion is based solely upon the opinions of others without any actual experience myself.  When this happens, I am honest with myself so I can learn from that lesson.  I would like to believe that other people do the same thing but I see little evidence to support that in the two friends I have lost this year.  In essence, I will remain honest with myself and with others because that is my value to my community.  Honesty is not about being right or being wrong, it is about presenting your perspective to people.  Sometimes honesty doesn't matter to others, it should at least matter to me.

12.)  I will continue demonstrating to my son that women have value that transcends their physical presence and so do men
This is a big one for me because I believe men and women are absolutely equal.  It is sad to me that women in my culture have, by and large, been raised and socialized to feel inferior to men.  It's an imbalance that makes my stomach churn.  Sure, we can make general statements about men or women, you can make generalizations about any group of people based on common characteristics.  Generalizations though, have become definitions to too many people.  We can use a generalization to point us in a certain direction but upon closer inspection will often find the details to be much more varied.  One might say for example, that "Men like to hunt" but there are many men who hunt for many different reasons and many who don't hunt.  The same thing can be true of nearly any generalization but we can't take generalizations too far and most people do.  That's when generalizations take on the tone of institutional prejudice.  There is a LOT of institutional prejudice out there that we need to be aware of.  Personally, I want my son to recognize first that women are equal, I feel that the other things will follow.  However, the best way to teach him that, is to (as previously stated) simply demonstrate it for him and the best way to demonstrate it for him, is to treat his mother (the lovely lady in my life) with the respect she deserves as a human being and extend that to everyone I interact with.  I'm not going to teach him about how bad institutional prejudice has become, I am going to demonstrate how to deconstruct it on a personal level and allow him the chance to expand on his own.

13.)  I will make sure to share something of value with people via social media at least once per week
This was originally slated for within the facebook group that I first wrote these for but in reality, there is a lot of "posting" stuff on facebook without a lot of "This is what I think about this"  It is easy to share a picture or a video or a quote but if we don't qualify what the non-humor related stuff means to us, then all our "friends" have to go on is the article itself.  I've allowed myself to be drawn into silly arguments over that very thing.  I need to be better about explaining my thoughts to others along with that stuff.  If I'm going to do it at all, I should at least do it right.

14.)  I will journal more and I will work on making sure that I post at least one Blog entry for every calendar week.
The problem with me is that I write best when I am fired up about something or have something I think is meaningful to share.  When I was writing the "Path of the Warrior" series I managed to pump that out in a couple of weeks and I was very proud of that...since then...well, this is the first post in nearly a month.  I get going on something like blogging and if the Awen isn't speaking I'll watch T.V. instead...I need to learn to focus more and making a deadline for myself, even if it's shit, will be of value to me because in the end, that is what this effort is about.  What motivates and drives me may be worth it for others to read, perhaps not.  In the end, I choose the level of my own involvement...I guess it's time to choose.

So, that is the end of my New Year resolutions and I invite you to observe me bungle them for the next Three Hundred and Sixty-Some-Odd days.  May this coming calendar year bless you with abundance enough to share with those it did not.