For None but Itself

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May 24, 2013 by • Categorized: Restorying the Sacred.

I approach the water carefully. The path is steep and covered with loose rock cover. Never one of Nature’s most graceful creatures, I am especially cautious here. I stick to the trail today. Though it’s hardly the thickest wilderness beyond, suddenly the trees overwhelm me with their thick, unruly exuberance.

Many of us raised in Judeo-Christian traditions inherited a lesson of “Nature for us”. God gave humans dominion over the plants, animals, waterbodies, mineral resources, and airspace of Earth, and as long as our actions furthered God’s glory, we were free to do with those other beings as we saw fit. Even those of us who embrace an ethic of Nature reverence as part of our Paganism sometimes struggle to break the habit of seeing Nature as our own neverending supply store. Every Pagan book I’ve read that deals with plant magic exhorts me to ask a plant’s permission before harvesting any part of it for spellwork, but few entertain the possibility that the plant might say no. And how many of us have found ourselves hurt or surprised when a flesh-and-blood individual of an animal we consider a spirit guide disdains or runs from us–or even hurts us? We sometimes act like the coolest kids in school, never considering that anyone wouldn’t want to join our cool kids’ club.

photo of a steep path to a river

Chopwell – Path to the River by immarkcz under Creative Commons, 2008. Some rights reserved.

And so I choose the steep, rocky path to the river, though I know of flatter, easier ways nearby. Being forced to approach this ancient and powerful Mystery slowly and uncertainly helps me stay respectful and reverent. When I come to the Mississippi River by a tricky route, the need to concentrate on not falling on my face pushes all other thoughts from my mind, and I arrive focused solely on the river, on how long it has been here before my feet needed a path to it, and how long it will be here after.

The sacred places in our lives are not here for us, but they are part of us, and we are part of them. If we approach with reverence, humility, attention, and care, if we see ourselves as co-creators of the Story, not just its tellers, we can develop and deepen a relationship which sees each life as both whole unto itself and interdependent on all other lives for survival. We can take what we need without entitlement and give back what is needed from us without resentment. When we can be partners with those other lives around us, we can approach every interaction with reverence and respect, no matter how steep the path.

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I Spy: Ehoah is a _____ Path

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May 23, 2013 by • Categorized: Natural Reflections, Science & Spirit.

If you are unfamiliar with what Ehoah is, I suggest going to the official website prior to reading.

I have a lot of fun reading various interpretations of what Ehoah is. I’ve seen everything from animistic, pagan, and pantheistic to humanistic and atheist applied to its description. But amidst the pleasure of reading the variety, I realized that there may be confusion that may need some clearing. Ehoah can be all of these things, yet it is none of them at the same time.

If someone who is animistic finds that being a saegoah suits them and applies it to their way of life, it is very much animistic, for that practitioner. The same goes for someone of a pantheistic world view, and any other world view. Which is fantastic in that people from such diverse backgrounds can find common ground as saegoahs. That is the point in its design. Yet, to say that Ehoah is, as an example, a pantheistic path it isn’t accurate. Because it’s foundation isn’t animistic or pantheistic, or any other worldview or philosophy other than its own. It is merely open ended for personal or group use to what ever outlook. The only real way it can be described is as an environmental and secular path, but not much else. Environmental in that it revolves around the environment, and secular in that it is impartial. Developing around only what is confirmed through the scientific method – removing any potential for bias, and establishing an undeniable common connection.

I’ve come across writings from individuals who have found great appeal to Ehoah, but turn away the moment they find that the founder (me) is essentially an atheist in lifestyle, believing that it is an atheist path – its not. I try very hard not to project what I believe onto the development of Ehoah, while at the same time don’t want it to close doors to awesome potential of various world views – hence it being secular. Secular sometimes gets a bad reputation, when all it really is is not favouring one worldview over another – its impartial. A virtue that is upheld in the original writings of Ehoah, but still isn’t a mandatory aspect of it, being optional.

Everything in the Ehoah Path, outside of the Three Basic Tenets, is explicitly optional. Again, to open great potential that would otherwise be suppressed with rigid rules, and to encourage diversity – ideally interactive diversity or else it would become isolated pockets that could fall into dysfunction, like elsewhere in Nature. With interactive diversity there is resilience, adaptability, and harmony among it participants, as expressed throughout Nature.

I am very open about my perspective, being philosophically an empirical agnostic, which makes my lifestyle very atheistic in expression. But this is only an expression of myself, so I ask that my personal stance not be taken as the stance of the Ehoah Path. I’ve met Muslims, Buddhists, Druids, Pantheists and others who consider themselves of the Ehoah Path. And that is great. I have no intention to influence those individuals or resulting groups in the direction they deem best to go toward in achieving Ehoah. I only hope that there remains a collaboration of ideas that result that could benefit everyone who is involved.

Please feel free to ask what ever question comes to mind regarding Ehoah. I’d be more than happy to accommodate.

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Wordless Wednesday: Candle

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May 22, 2013 by • Categorized: Natural Reflections.

Candle, by rsidhe

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A Call to My Fellow Bloggers

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May 21, 2013 by • Categorized: Natural Reflections, The Sacred in Suburbia.

Today, over on my personal blog Therioshamanism, I posted a call to bloggers to write about their small, sacred places, the little patches of open fields and scrubby woods that many of us explored when we were younger, and which often were our introduction to the wonders of the natural world. I thought I would crosspost it here as it may be of interest to the readers of No Unsacred Place. Please feel free to pass it on to other interested folks as well!

Drowning above water

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May 18, 2013 by • Categorized: Natural Reflections.

Waterfall at Inversnaid

We all have different relationships to the elements.

On Tuesday of this week, I found myself taking a cruise around the north of Loch Lomond between the villages of Tarbet and Inversnaid. I am blessed to have the Loch on my doorstep, having grown up in Balloch which lies to the south. Nothing can prepare you for the beauty, and its power still touches my heart even after thirty years.

Having said that, I have a primal fear of water; Loch Lomond is no exception. I find my soul being called into her inescapable depths; the dark water pulling my light inwards. I would be lost, forever. Sitting above her energy in a tiny boat made the Loch even more intimidating. She could have claimed me as her own easily enough, her song calling me to climb to the upper deck, calling me to jump into her icy embrace.

Water is unnerving.

My relationship with water did not get off on the right foot. I remember, when I was about nine or ten years old, going for my first swimming lessons with my school. The water was warm, playful, and with the aid of my friends and some floats I had a fun time splashing around. Then I had my floats taken away by the swimming instructor, and was told to swim. “Just do it.”

If only it were that easy.

I recall panicking as my body turned to lead, and dragged me to the bottom of the pool. And I remember being kicked back into the pool by the instructor as I clamoured to get out. I can feel myself breaking into a sweat as I think about it. Over twenty years later, and the fear still lingers.

I have been told that my fear of water is normal – I am a fire person, and water is my natural opposite. But there is more to it than that. And after listening to the song of Loch Lomond yesterday, there is more to it than some horrific childhood experiences. Water is so alien to me, as an element and as a place to be. Plans to understand water better are being made: I have booked myself into adult swimming lessons at the end of the month, and I can feel my panic rising.

What relationships do you have with water spirits? I would love to hear from you.

Guest Post: Home: Hair Nest Ritual

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May 17, 2013 by • Categorized: Earthly Rites.

By Heather Awen

hair rite and clothing 002

 

In permaculture, everything has to meet more than one need. It’s called “stacking functions.”  I try to live my life by permaculture principles, as it appears to the most sensible movement today, along with Transition Towns.

 

In that spirit, the spring hair cut ceremony serves many purposes.  I have been told I have three times as much hair on my head than the average person, so when it gets warm I want a lot less hair on my head trapping heat.  Also it looks nicer as I cut off the dead ends.  And it provides materials for birds building nests.

 

I leave bits of organic thread and string I saved throughout the winter, ones I cannot use, for the birds, too. When the waves of song birds return to Vermont, I put on my activated carbon filter mask and step outside, trying not to inhale any neighbors’ idling cars exhaust or wood stove smoke. The hair and twines are stuck into metal holes which at one point may have anchored a blind on the back porch.  The birds should have an easy time pulling free the materials.

 

All ceremonies I do, like all living I do, has to benefit the whole, in practical ways. For me and the birds we have a win-win situation. They get nontoxic nest building supplies, my hair and string ends stay out of a landfill, and there is no waste.  This is the goal of my ceremonies. I didn’t have to say anything, and could rush out with mask on for protection and quickly push my hair into the holes. My intention was pretty clear. “Welcome back, birds, have some building materials. I hope they make a good home.”

 

This year the ritual meant more to me than usual. I had been living in a field for 6 weeks with no water, sleeping in a car, in 22 degree weather, with a black bear shaking the automobile at night, covered in yeast growing on my skin. All my family knew and all social services knew but no one did anything, even though I was unable to walk from cerebral palsy and the state declared I had to be provided nursing home level of care.  However, because of having Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, there was no safe housing for me. Apartments of propane heat, formaldehyde carpets and press board cabinets, VOC paints and grout, smoking tenants, cross ventilation with those using Febreeze and Glade Plug Ins, plus the mold so common in Vermont, even though Housing and Urban Development says that the state much make MCS accommodations like for any disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act, no one did.  HUD in Vermont didn’t care what their official stance is and no one else cared about the law or my life.

 

I was homeless a lot as a teenager but I was a punk traveler by choice, not a middle aged disabled woman.  There were no options like crashing on a couch, using public restrooms, washing clothing at a laundromat, bathing at a church, and finding food and clothing in dumpsters. All toxic.

 

In that experience one thing I learned was firsthand how it feels when your natural habitat is gone. The human natural habitat is gone.  I cried a lot about knowing what polar bears know firsthand. The ice floats drift farther away and the bears drown due to Climate Chaos.  I try to eat something with food dye in it, followed by vomiting.  We have lost our safety, we have lost our homes.

 

To be able to provide some nontoxic home building materials for the birds was an honor. The fact that I had a home meant I had survived a time no one expected me to live through, including myself, and could help others with making their own.

 

hair rite and clothing 003

Wordless Wednesday: Gray Jay Overlooking the Cascades

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May 15, 2013 by • Categorized: Natural Reflections.

Gray Jay Overlooking the Cascades, by Alison Leigh Lilly

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Naturalism and the Gods

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May 14, 2013 by • Categorized: Natural Reflections.

The following is the essay “Naturalism and the Gods” featured on HumanisticPaganism.com on 6th of May, 2012.

Having a naturalist sensibility, I find supernatural concepts of deities within paganism difficult to accept. Having been unsure whether concepts of deities are applicable or valuable, I drifted towards an agnostic humanism. Exposure to the blending of process theism and religious naturalism in Karl E. Peters’ book Dancing with the Sacred reawakened my interest in polytheism.

By applying naturalistic process theism to polytheism, I find deities are processes which superimpose and overlap each other in complex patterns of creativity, and ceremony is a powerful method of actively participating in any given process. Process theology emphasizes God as the act of becoming, and moves away from God as an omnipotent being. In this regard, god is found in the events which shape our experiences and initiates change in our lives. Religious naturalism finds value in religious expression and experience and holds the natural living-world sacred without supernatural intervention.

Peters combines the two perspectives by seeing god as continuous evolutionary creativity. Thus, god is found both by the scientist seeking to understand the building blocks of life and in the religious experience longing to understand humanity’s place within the cosmos. Upon reading Peters, my thoughts wandered to the groupings of atoms that create matter, the weather cycle, evolution of lifeforms, and human expressions like art, literature, and music, as being processes in their own right.

Into Action

As a member of a group of pagan and naturalist Unitarian Universalists, I began implementing these concepts into group ceremonies. One ceremony revolved around the planting of native seeds at our UU church. We spent a week preparing the ground with meditative intent. In song and dance, we sowed the seeds under the night sky of the autumnal equinox.

These experiences helped me understand myself as an active co-creator within the processes of the natural living-world. Having combined my efforts and will with creative evolutionary processes, deities were no longer individual personal beings but processes toward which I contributed in active participation.

Beyond Anthropomorphism

These realizations had me question the usefulness of anthropomorphism as a means of deification. Giving deities human-like forms made sense at one point of human understanding. The primary experience represented in a deity is easiest to access through human action. Perhaps to understand how deities worked, they gave them human form.

The downside is these images became the focus of worship. In a post-modern context, with our expanded understanding of the world around us, a focus on anthropomorphism feels outdated. It can help us understand processes related to the human experience, but limits us to a human-centric understanding.

Seeking the Transpersonal

The idea of transpersonal psychology is to explore the impact of experiences which transcend the phenomenon of ego and otherness. A transpersonal relationship with a deity expands our experience through action. The deity is no longer a vague idea of the sacred, but a continuous experience of co-creation that is malleable and present within each passing moment.

This contrasts with the need of many neopagans to seek interpersonal relationships with deities. In my experience, images may become useful in identifying and understanding the process of deities, but is not static representation, nor should they be the focus of worship. I prefer seeking a transpersonal relationship that allows me participation in the sacred process that is the deity.

Naturalistic Polytheism

Seeing deities as active creative evolutionary processes broadens my views on ceremony and the religious experience. Because of this, worship is not passive, but an active expression of co-creation with the universe and natural living world.I refer to this approach as naturalistic polytheism. It has allowed me to acknowledge that the scientific and the sacred are not contradictory, but part of each other. Perhaps, in taking a naturalistic perspective of deities and mythology, the traditions of the past can come to life, and help us develop new ones specific to who we are as humans today.

Addendum [14-MAY-2013]

It has been a year since this article was first published. Thinking back upon my words, there have been some shifts in how I think about polytheism within a naturalistic framework. First, polytheism allows for many interpretations of deities. Likewise, there is much flexibility in religious naturalism. I believe polytheism has a place within religious naturalism.

In discussion with a friend on the topic, he pointed out that my perspective fits well within structural analysis of critical theory. Structuralism is a mode of thinking that seeks to place human culture within the context of relationships to other parts of a larger system.

I began thinking there could be many interpretations of naturalistic polytheism then the one proposed above. A more specific title for my brand of polytheism is process polytheism. However, my friend has a point; Structural Polytheism may be the best descriptive label for this school of thought on the subject.

I would be interested to hear other perception on polytheist naturalism.

Also, check out Alison Leigh Lilly‘s Article Natural Theology: Polytheism Beyond The Pale from 14-Sept-2012.

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Guest Post: Introduction from Heather Awen: Eaarth-Based Religion

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May 12, 2013 by • Categorized: Earth Matters.

By Heather Awen

Lupa’s anthology “Talking about the Elephant” and her eco-pagan awareness came to me after 27 years in Neopaganism. At age 40 I decided I was done with nature-worshippers who drove SUVs, wore poisonous fragrances, used plastic forks and paper plates, spent their time on the astral plane and knew about Coyote but not coyotes. I want to thank Lupa for inviting me to write for No Unsacred Place, as I have long admired her work.

If you read my blog Adventures in Animism, you know that I recently was poisoned and got multiple chemical sensitivity and cannot, without a risk of death and certainly without risk of anaphylaxis and/or seizures, be around any petrochemicals. Which turns out to be anywhere on Eaarth, Bill McKibben’s name for this new planet, changed by some very stupid human mistakes, or near any humans with their pot smoky or shampooed hair, pesticide-grown clothing, and books with toxic ink. A hospital, as a chemical cesspool, is where I would be mostly likely to die.

MCS forced me to speed up my thinking about modern nature-based religion. Nature and I are one, something I “knew” and now know. I’ve had to relearn natural, without any greenwashing. If I mess up, I faint, vomit or get a migraine. I have to dye my own fabrics and make my own soaps, all within a bubble of air purifiers, water filters, and safety zones where receipts, mail and other inky nightmares are stored and electronic are left constantly on until the chemicals burn off their circuits. The eco-purist lifestyle I wanted I now have, or I will die. I used to make the excuse that on SSI’s $700 a month, $200 food stamps, no subsidized housing, and being differently abled with cerebral palsy, ADHD and PTSD there was no way I could live my values. MCS demanded “Live them or don’t live at all.”

Always an intellectual, I used to be a big fan of theory, of cosmology, of ideas. Now all I care about, with my limited energy, high levels of pain, low income, total isolation, is “Does this work?” The sciences became my Book of Shadows and common sense my 6th sense. There is no time for self indulgent woo woo, attracting Porches and finding power animals to solve my father issues. Like my ancestors, my daily struggle is to survive. This is also nature’s struggle. Nature and I need the same things. My “special needs” are fresh air, safe food and pure water. Those needs bar my access to any store, any meeting, any party, any healers, any park. Nature drafted me and I cannot turn away when the going gets rough for nature as I am constantly reminded that I am nature.

In my No Unsacred Place writing I intend to share how-to ways to be in harmony with what the land needs in ways my ancestors, original Pagans, did. I have no cattle to move from winter enclosure to summer fields so I have no need for a smoky Bealtaine fire to remove their parasites. I do however have fears about nuclear radiation and worry about how we have no ceremonies for managing a manmade being that will outlive all of us many times over. Still good at magic, now that everything at an Earth-based spirituality store is too toxic for me, I have to find new ways that do not harm me or Eaarth. Instead fearing the ice giants, I welcome them with joy because northern Vermont is supposed to be cold and snowy and ice filled for 6 months a year and with Global Weirding it hasn’t been.

I also hope to share ways I find to keep us encouraged as we feel the despair of the reality of Eaarth. 200 species go extinct each day. What are the rituals for losing that much kin in a global daily holocaust? Every scientist and indigenous person I have talked with told me it is too late. Humans have doomed a planet, with wyrd, the laying down of patterns, now grooves of paths of least resistance, and it will take monumental efforts to create a new wyrd, an undertaking that no individual can change and one I do not believe with happen collectively. These are rough times and they will get rougher. As Monsanto (Monsatan) controls the world’s food supply with GMOs, killing bees, and crazy amounts of pesticides and cell phone companies pay schools and nursing homes to house cell phone towers, we can only expect cancer rates, autism rates, mystery neuro-endocrine illnesses like fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue and MCS rates, diabetes rates, heart disease rates, and “mental illness” (caused by heavy metal toxicity, poisons, and severe nutritional deficiencies) rates to climb higher. Wars for nature resources, manmade natural disasters, pandemics created by those disasters, and famine from the new two seasons – flood or fire – will continue to destroy human lives hand in hand with making Eaarth. How do we handle this truth without numbing out in addictions or homicide/suicide? Maybe you are protected from the collapse somewhat right now, where I have already fallen thru into the new world, like half the world’s humans, walking miles for fresh water, or wearing a mask to breathe, and all the world’s flora, fauna, fungi and elements.

Earth-based spirituality seems to be now rooted in nature as a glamping vacation spot to renew the soul with shrooms and a drum circle, filled with sexy Goth Fairies and Disney made ley lines, celebrating the beginning of spring in a February blizzard or the first frost of Samhain while the mountains rage in forest fires, with some heterosexual porn stars as magic ATM machines.

Eaarth-based materialism is rooted in the knowledge of nature as nature is, not as we read it to be, with ceremonies related to here and now, based on survival as the world changes drastically over a short period of time none of us can expect to survive without threats of illness, homelessness and trying to decipher fact from fiction, and finding ways to emotionally process the great personal and communal changes so we do not become passive victims/abusers.

In my eco-pagan world, a shaman is someone who risks hir own life fighting evil spirits trying to destroying the tribe. Landless peasants in revolution, young people chained to trees, elders who refuse to leave their homelands, these are my “shamans” seeking to restore harmony and health by defeating greed, lies and consumerism. My elders about right lifeways and ceremonies are scientists, not the ones paid to promote greed, lies and consumerism, but those who have ethics (and probably already paid off their student loans working for a military-industrial complex). My magic is the magic of hoodoo protection against slavers, Aradia cursing the land-owning Priests, food as medicine, liberation theology, and complex relationships with Deities, the helpful dead, natural forces, other-than-human persons and other humans who know we are nature to help me do our mutually beneficial work.

I hope you enjoy joining me in the trenches of Eaarth-based religion. Pockets of humans will survive and even thrive based on what we do now to regenerate the land, protect the endangered species, and clean out the waters. As Alice Walker wrote, “We are the ones we have been waiting for.”

Wordless Wednesday: Fern and Moss Macro by Lupa

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May 8, 2013 by • Categorized: Natural Reflections.

Fern and Moss Macro, by Lupa

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