Many Pagans are on a quest for the authentic Self. This is often visualized as something we already possess; we just have to clear away the accretions caused by so-called civilization. In this model, the true Self can be found by getting in touch with Nature.
Nature
Noteworthy Posts
Inspired by Ryan Cronin’s Friday Foraging, I decided to create a roundup of posts that I found interesting, inspiring, or important over the last week.
Photography, embodiment, and memory
It’s a curious thing, but when you’re behind a camera, especially one where you have to put your eye close to the viewfinder to see the field of view, you sometimes forget to really look at things and take them in properly. It starts to feel like the camera will do the remembering for you.
Plants of Mexico
Today we went on a Hidden Mexico tour to El Tuito, taking in a botanical garden, a village, a wood turning workshop, a bakery with an adobe oven, an artists’ cooperative, a graveyard, some ancient petroglyphs, and lunch in a stream.
Books I’ve read in 2018
I’ve read a lot of books in 2018, so this will be a list of the ones I can remember, or that I listed as having read on Goodreads. I got the idea for this post from a post by James at A Tolkienist’s Perspective. The links in this post go to my reviews of the books listed.
What shape is your spirituality?
The other day, I had an interesting discussion with Brenton Dickieson about the shape of the spiritual life.
I said, if I was to attribute a shape to my spirituality, it would be a tree, connecting spirit and matter, the heavens and the Earth, the human and the divine. If you think about the shape of a tree, its roots mirror its branches.
Review: Guelph Art Gallery
There are currently three amazing exhibitions on at the Art Gallery of Guelph (until 16 December): epistemologies of the moon, 1745, and Critical Mass. It is hard to say which of these exhibitions I was the most excited about, as they all address things I care about.
What is a witch?
A video in which I read an excerpt from my book, The Night Journey: Witchcraft as Transformation. I was particularly pleased with this chapter, as I think it’s very poetic and has some powerful imagery in it.
Birds and flowers
Yesterday evening, Bob and I went for a walk. There were red-winged blackbirds, cranes, loads of flowers (a pink & white vetch that smells nice; a white mallow; a white campion; water lilies coming out on the millpond; a big pink convolvulus). We saw ducklings with a mother duck. And away from the river, we saw a pair of cardinals feeding on a bird feeder. And a beautiful sunset.
Connecting with place
One of the key elements of Pagan thought is connecting with the Earth, Nature, and/or the land. As a general thing, Wiccans seem to focus more on Nature, Druids seem to focus more on the Earth, and Heathens seem to focus more on the land. however, there are always individual exceptions to these generalities. I have always felt very attached to the land around me, especially hills and ranges of hills.
The Pagan revival began, in part, because people felt alienated from Nature by the Industrial Revolution and living in cities.
Looking at other indigenous spiritualities and religions around the world, we can see that connection to the land and Nature is extremely important to them. This connection includes awareness of ecosystems, bio-regions, animals, plants, seasonal changes, rivers, rocks, and trees.
