Hail and Welcome to another week in the Word Emporium!
Life seems to have rhythms, cycles, ebbs and flows. As you know I have been reading history, political philosophy recently and this week I read some more Gwersi (lessons) from my OBOD course.
Sometimes events clearly fit into these rhythms. You can sense the flows and perhaps the high tides and the low tides of your days and weeks. At other times the surface of our being seems to be ‘normal’ and almost uneventful.
We behave like the water-boatmen insects that fascinated me as a child. Seemingly walking on the surface of streams and across the pond. I watched them skim and skate across the surface seemingly oblivious to the currents underneath. I observed with a child sense of wonder. Yet that tension of the meniscus at the surface is what they exploit so beautifully.
So it has been that over the last year or so, since in particular the last UK General Election, I have become more than concerned with my home Nation. It’s politics are increasingly reflecting identity political ideology which seek to be dividing us more and policies that do not reflect the British people by available polling data. See Matt Goodwin’s posting for example on current trends in polling numbers across the UK.
I have been abroad for a few years so have been, very much, a water-boatman skimming my little pool of life. These issues have nevertheless disturbed the surface into eddies and whirl pools. It has been unsettling and disturbing me.
Of course I realise that this just might be the results of those algorithm’s on the internet that are designed to keep you reacting, responsive and clicking by using tools of anger, bewilderment and rage as gaurantors of engagement. The stuff you view or subscribe to or read online seems ever more geared to delivering ever more of your particular predilections.
Seeing things in the binary Left vs Right paradigm and then ‘nailing your colours to the mast’ and ‘dying on that hill’ which are used regularly and I think are a stupid use of militaristic terminology in a civil speech context. For me these kinds of discourse are themselves reflecting a dangerous immaturity and reflect the inability and willingness to share, debate and disagree in a civilised manner. So I try to factor that in to my consuming of content.
So in times like these you dear readers already know one of the resources I use to bring back order and continuity and self belief: I cook. Not much wisdom there you might be saying to yourself!
When you cook you gather ingredients. You prepare. You use skill in combining ingredients. You enjoy (hopefully) the fruits of your labour in a delicious meal. Repeat daily.
Doing the same for others and the meaning and value multiply. When you host others you have the opportunity to commune. Talk. Converse. Laugh. Perhaps weep together. We are social beings made for interaction.
Social media is a poor imitation and unfulfilling in that regard and so it is in fact not social at all. Should be rebranded ‘contact media’.
Another resource I use is faith based or religious rituals. So this past few weeks with more reports of the disgraceful and essentially anti-civilisational gang rape cases; seeming endless free speech infringements or even worse two tier judgements. With a Labour party led Government seemingly changing the fabric of British Society with euthanasia laws and universal abortion rights without a time limit. With these concerns I find I’m no longer skimming the surface of life with joy.
So I thought to myself why not think back over the past decade and share the places I have found that are important to me? It makes me realise that the sacred, the divine can be accessed everywhere. What kind of themes will emerge and become apparent? This will I hope show that a positive engagement is worth remembering and seeking out going forward. It is a hopeful activity.
A) Sandy Warren near Sandy.
Imagine in your minds eye a prehistoric sea teeming with life. Now long gone but left behind huge Sand Banks now looking like rolling hills. On such a base is the aptly named English town of Sandy. On one of the hills above Sandy is an old heathland from our human memory and woods all of oak, yew, beech and pine.
Growing around human made earthworks dating date 2-2500 years, Galley Hill as it is known today. The River Ivel at is base. Our Celtic ancestors. Imagine also seeing Legions of Romans also arriving and making a fort near by remembered today as ‘Caesars Camp’ (linking to last week's article by Mr Roberts. Rome really does seem to be not far from our thoughts at the moment!)
Some 12 years ago in that woods in that place above Sandy (owned today by the RSPB) and criss crossed with public footpaths: I met on a cold, frosted Boxing Day, deity. The ins and outs, emotions and thoughts are for another day. Yet that is the birth place of my Druidic journey in this life. It is in my imagination and my heart, even when I’m far away. It is the place I recall and metaphorically travel to on a spell and a thought. It is my Grove.
It is within walking distance of where my Parents and my Sister lived and still live. This summer will be my first time visiting after my Mother passed away. So I know that at least every summer, I will be on a pilgrimage to the Grove and the special trees that connect me to Mother Earth in that place. Sacred spaces are for all to discover and use.
b) Spice Ball Park, Banbury
I was actually living at that time in Oxfordshire when that Boxing Day event took place. I was actually living in the wonderful old market town of Banbury. The Corporate sign of Banbury? A full Sun. Down by the Canals and the people that live on narrow boats there is Spice Ball Park. For that year it became my walking place and my meditation place. It is a large park, not just a village green. It contains little woods and fields left like a meadow and bounded by trees and a Canal with a Lock and the urban sprawl.
A sanctuary all year round from the vicissitude of working life. Much of my early working through of this new religious path through life was formed there. It is also a delightful home of the Pipistrelle bats. I came to love bats.
c) Barwa City, Doha, Qatar.
Qatar, when I arrived some 12 years ago, was a building site it seemed! Whole areas were being built. My School had just been built and around it a whole mini town. Mostly in that first year or two, a deserted town. Not yet full of humanity from across the world. It was full however, by year 4!
Running through the centre of this town was an avenue with grassy stretches either side. In that avenue itself: two circles of Date Palm Trees. Eight to be precise, in a circle. Not all Druids and Witches would use the Wheel of the Year. Yet I do. This circle became my place to sit on a prayer mat and meditate.
Those Palm Trees became good fiends. I always felt held and protected by them when meditating. It became a sacred circle with each tree being named after one of the four Seasonal Solar events of the Wheel and also the four cross quarter days. Even though in Doha itself, far away from my Island home, there were in fact only two seasons. Hot and less Hot.
Jean also joined me in doing a Wassail there early one New Year’s day or early January. We sang a wassail and sipped hot spiced cider and left honey baclava for the insects and animals and birds and gave water to the trees. Leaving toasted bread did not seem apt for this time and place.
At either end of the avenue a Mosque. A sacred place and space for muslims with its five daily calls to prayer. Never once did that clash or make it difficult for me. You see Druidic meditation that I use actually takes the sounds of a place and uses them. So as the Muezzin chanted Allah Akbar I found my heart agreeing: Yes, She is……
d) The School Compound, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
This was the hardest place for me to live. There was no safe place for me to go, like a park. I lived on a compound adjacent to the School. In that compound you had mostly everything you needed. Luckily there were also mature trees literally outside my window. In those trees, fruit bats that would dwarf those Pipistrelle bats I loved so much in Banbury! So I did my spells and prayers beneath them.
For exercise I would walk once a week the excellent and newly built Corniche area. Like a Seaside Promenade. A walk is often a meditation as the waves on occasions splash up the Promenade and remind you of ebb and flow and how the Moon’s relationship with Sister Earth seems in harmony. Keeping our Seas teeming with life. Indeed the Crescent Moon symbol adorns most Mosques.
Still, it was a harder place to live. I loved the school and the teaching mostly. Yet living there was difficult for me. Druidry needs freedom.
e) South Park, Darlington
Like so many times in my life when you metaphorically go through a desert you often will arrive in a verdant place. So it was when Covid 19 interrupted all our lives. I was only too glad to leave that compound and head back to England for, well, I did not actually know at the time for how long.
I have relatives who live in Darlington in County Durham and that is where I settled. In Darlington there is the South Park. It is a gem of a Park.
It is beloved and used by the locals. A lot. Walking, cycling, exercise groups. It has a Bandstand and if you know where to look an old fountain that came from a former rich patricians house. It has a beautiful mini lake with an island for the use of ducks, coots and moorhens. Canadian Geese are resident most of the year.
Its hedgerows and trees are full of blackbirds, sparrows and crows. The Song Thrush will serenade you at Vespers if you're really lucky (which I was!). The Trees became so important to me. The Yews and the Chestnuts in particular. Many magical moments. A deep respect for the Yew grew in me in those two years. The Chestnuts revealed themselves in startling ways that are best left for the Mysteries of my religion.
At night in that park? You will find if you stand still long enough in certain places: you become a marker for Pipistrelle bats!
f) Karbabad Beach, Bahrain
Where I have just come from two days ago. Unusually, no trees. Just a derelict bit of hardcore rubble meeting the Arabian Gulf in Bahrain Bay.
Yet this became my sacred place. Earth, Sea and Sky became the focus of my spell and prayer and meditations. The weekends would be busy. But Sunday to Thursday evening, I would mostly be alone on that darker side of the beach.
The night sky clear as the electrical light pollution is minimal at the moment. A sky full of crystal clear Stars will do wonders for your soul and spirit.
Where will the next place be? I do not know. Yet I know there will be one. For She moves in the Rays of the Sun. In the Light of the Moon. In the Air I breathe. The Water I drink. The land I stand upon.
So with this quick survey of my journeys it is clear to me that I seek and experience deity wherever I go. Trees and Bats do seem to arise a lot on my pathway through life! So do the sigils of the Sun, Moon and Stars. Make of these Zig Zag Ramblings what you will.
I assume that Christians experience similar in Church. Muslims in a Mosque. Jews in a Synagogue. Hindus in Temples and Buddhists in Stupas. Sikhs in a Gurdwaras etc etc. Sacred places for most of human history and still for most of the beings alive today on this Blue Orb are attended and used regularly. I can recommend that you perhaps examine and look to your particular cultural and religious traditions and give it whirl. You might gain something and at worst only lose an hour or two.
Have a Blessed week everyone!
Feel free to comment and add what sacred places are meaningful for you.