Science*Animism*Entheogens

(re-uniting Science and animism,

entheogens eager to help)

 

the Oceans, the waters of life are calling -

Let’s Heed the call!

by aligning with the Green Fire of emergent Spring,

that we may spiral forth sane reverent common sense into the atmospheric Community of All Beings

 

Animism - not a belief - just good manners!

 

with

 

Caroline Casey

proffering the guiding 

astro* mythology of this unfurling Season

 

&

Deep deep Ocean Scientist David Gallo

speaking from the realm of Science with Soul,

on the state of the Oceans, the desirable re-designing of our educational systems, the micro-biome, the animating of the collective guiding story, and whatever he feels to contribute in a 3 way conversing, science, Orisha water songs, Guiding Mythos...

 

& long-time accomplice

the jubilant Amikaeyla

proffering the songs of all the Orishas of water...

 

 

"Ah, Pádraig, what an enigma you are -- so many meanings have been made of your life!

 

With the coming of Saint Pádraig, Ireland saw an end to the practice of slavery. And the Church that he established was one with a married clergy that emphasized scholarship and, under the influence of Irish Brehon Law, treated women with far more respect than the Church in the rest of Europe. The practice and beliefs were syncretic, weaving in elements of Irish animism and honor for the living land and its holy places. This remained true through the seventeenth century -- and in some places well into the nineteenth. Elements of that older form of Christianity remain. Rome knew Ireland was too independent to bend to its will -- the institutional church we know today was first imposed by the British and then outlawed by them.

 

At the same time, my Pagan heart cannot fully celebrate the coming of Christianity to Ireland. I choose to honor this day for the meaning it gained in the Irish struggle for freedom and in the challenges faced by the Irish diaspora, as a day of cultural pride.

 

As for the matter of the snakes -- it is true that Pádraig and his Church did no violence to keepers of the Old Ways, and that the Druidic Bardic colleges flourished for centuries more after his coming, albeit with Christian elements woven into their teachings.

The references to snakes in Pádraig's own writings refer to the beings who will torment those who steal from the poor.

 

And, at the same time, I am tired of the derision being directed against those who hold to the interpretation The idea that Pádraig driving the snakes out of Ireland is a metaphor for driving out the Druids is not an invention of "neo-Pagans." It is an interpretation that my father learned growing up in an Irish enclave in Lynn, MA, decades before the Pagan revival of the 1970's.

 

As for those "neo-Pagans" -- a word I usually hear spoken with a snear these days - I also think they are deserving of our respect. Yes, their scholarship was imperfect. But it took courage and vision to bring forward an Earth-loving feminist spirituality in a Christian dominant culture, and they paved the way for many of the people who now mock them. Taking the side of the snakes against Pádraig was an act of inverting a story they had grown up with -- an act of liberation Pádraig himself might have grudgingly respected, just as I grudgingly respect that old Bishop.

 

Agus fágaimid siúd mar atá sé.”

 

and on grief:

 

"The Irish idiom so eloquently describes the reality of these times in a way that the English idiom does not: tá brón orainn. In Irish you do not say "We are sad," you say "grief is upon us."

Grief is heavy upon us all, whether we name it or not. The suffering caused by the wars of humans and the war on the Earth impact every heart. I am not speaking metaphorically. Our emotions change the electromagnetic fields of our hearts, and the electromagnetic fields of our hearts change and are changed by every living thing.

Collective grief cannot be borne alone. And it can be eased and healed by our wild kin, the plants.

The aromatic compounds of all plants, the light molecules that they exhale, tells us that our wild green relations are present, which resets the connection between the brain and the heart, and allows our heart rate to come back to the variability that allows it to change its rhythm with the rhythms of life.

In times of grief, I am drawn most to the evergreens. I spend time among Spruce and Pine, eat Spruce tips, brew teas with Pine needles, gather and burn Spruce resin and Pine resin. They help me move the grief I hold in my lungs.

The goal is not to suppress the grief or separate from it, but to allow it to move through. And to find the support in connection to be able to respond to loss and destruction with presence and creativity.

We are part of the Earth become individually conscious. We can heal ourselves by weaving back into the living web of consciousness from which we evolved and emerged. And we can begin to do that just by breathing with trees."