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.