The quality of trees

 Trees are one of the living beings that we have created lots of lore about, but as foreign as they are to us, we still try to assign them human-like qualities.  There is so much about trees that is so very different, to try to stuff them into a 'people-box' is a shame.

Trees are fascinating, and there is more that we are learning about them all the time.  While we have lore and associations with trees that we have learned from our ancestors, I think it would be a shame to ignore the new information we are discovering, and how it can effect our interactions with trees and what they mean to us.

From a very young age, we are taught that trees make air, specifically that we breath in oxygen and release carbon dioxide and that trees do the opposite:  breathing in carbon dioxide and breathing out oxygen.  I always thought it was amazing how interconnected we all are.

There are a lot of Pagan interactions with trees, from the basic grounding meditation, to meditating with trees, to the different qualities we assign to different types of tress.  And when you start to examine the science behind many of these practices, they become even more powerful and amazing!

Let's look at the tree grounding meditation.  It's one I struggled with for a long time, I just don't have that strong of a personal connection with trees (and I couldn't quite get the tree imagery to line up in my head).  The idea is to pull any excess (or unwanted/dirty) energy and sink it into the earth, where it can be cleansed and renewed.

The thing is, that this is something that trees do, kind of in reverse.  The root system of trees (and plants) will pull contaminates from the soil.  I also find it really cool that different plants will take and release different things into the soil (often used when planting crops, the crops are rotated to not deplete the soil year after year).  And we know that trees also help filter the air itself, even taking tiny particles of harmful substances out of the air!

To me, this is a much more useful visualization, to see myself as the tree, transforming stuff inside me and releasing it in a better state (it always kind of bugged me that the basic grounding was just like dumping stuff into the earth).  It also helps to get your brain thinking about not just holding and passing along toxic things, but actually turning them into better stuff.

One of the stranger tree interactions I've seen is one that has you try to sense the gender of the tree.  The idea being that trees would have either masculine or feminine energy, and you could learn to feel which was which.  (And that is a whole can of words about gendering things that don't need to be gendered...)  But again, trees aren't people, and trees don't come in strict male and female.  Without getting overly technical, tree reproduction does rely on what are considered 'male' and 'female' parts (often in flowers)...but the same tree can have both (even the same flower can have both!), or it could start off making one and then later make the other.  Some trees (and more plants) don't technically reproduce, instead they clone to make more of themselves!

What's even more unusual, is that trees can naturally graft to each other in the wild, causing two (or more) trees to become joined into one!  There is also the Pando tree, which is a forest that is considered all one tree (because they are all clones and are assumed to share one massive root system). Along those lines, there are new studies looking into how trees communicate, and the possibility that they not only pass on knowledge to each other, but can actually shift nutrients to other trees.  So, while we often look at any given tree and think it's a single being, it could be several or part of a greater whole!

When it comes to thinking of what energies a given type of tree might hold, we often return to nature.  Medicinal properties are a huge link, and depending on what a tree might help you with, it will become associated with that part of the body.  But, because humans like to link everything, we also build associations through stories and simply how things look.  If a tree reminds us of another thing, there's a link.  If an event happened near a specific species of tree, that tree is now linked to that event (and any energies it might have).  Figuring out what trees are associated with what things is often an organic process of just finding nifty stories that involve the tree, or facts about it.

Ultimately, trees are somewhat foreign to us, and while we can surely come to know them better, trying to attribute human qualities to them is an exercise in frustration.  Appreciate trees for what they give us, and perhaps spend some time thinking about how we can help care for them (because if the trees were to go, we would be in a very bad place indeed).

Mother Earth and natural disasters

 Human beings have this way of looking at the world as if everything else did things like we do/would.  We personify things.  When bad things happen in the natural world, we often say things like "Mother Nature is angry," or "this is the Divine punishing us."  And many of these emotional responses come from our ancestors, when we didn't understand how things worked and tried to come up with explanations for why these horrible things were happening.  Having an angry god responsible gave people a feeling of agency.  They simply had to make offerings and appease the god, and then these bad things wouldn't happen anymore.

It's a testament to the fear of the unknown that the idea that a powerful deity could just call up fire or wind or water and wipe out whole communities and that was less scary than the idea that these things 'just happened.'  

Of course now we know the reason behind many of the disasters we face.  It is a complicated dance of a ton of factors, but we can trace them back to naturally occurring variances and fluctuations.  And yet we still like to attribute emotion to them, as if nature is 'getting back' at mankind for all of the things we have done.

And yet, most of the time nature is a true neutral.  It doesn't act out of kindness or cruelty, simply out of survival.  It does things that will make it more likely to survive..as a species, or a planet.  While, of course, most individuals will act on their own instincts to try to live as long and well as possible, many natural phenomenon weed out the weak, or force different species to live together, to make the whole ecosystem work.

I think, for anyone who works with either nature or any deity that gets 'blamed' for natural disasters, it's sort of problematic, from our modern perspective, to attribute these disasters to spite or anger.  I mean, I am all for people being responsible for their actions, and if you are constantly just tossing trash wherever or dumping toxic things, then yeah you might need to get smacked down...but I don't think a tornado is the right answer.  

Firstly, disasters effect...everything.  It's not just the mean, nasty people that are getting pushed back against, but also the people who recycle and do their best to live responsibly.  It's also the children and babies, the pets and wildlife, the trees and plants.  It's sort of egotistical to think that some people are SO bad that the deities just have to wipe out a whole town (and the surrounding area) just to teach them a lesson.  And news flash, the people who needed that lesson won't be learning anything from a 'random' act of nature.

But secondly, portraying our deities as basically spoiled toddlers who just smite whole areas because they are having a fit is a really dangerous precedent.  It is sending us back to days when we felt helpless in the hands of the divine, where we were just ants and they controlled everything...and that's not the relationship that most Pagans have with their deities.  It's not a healthy one.  Especially because in this model, you can do everything right, live a wonderful, kind, responsible life...and still get it all taken away in an instant....for no real reason.

Where I think we need to approach natural disasters is that they are agents of chaos and balance.  Yes, sometimes stuff just happens, but when it does it creates change, and change creates growth.  Natural disasters do wipe out whole areas, but they don't stay empty.  New things move in and grow and flourish.  And often the new stuff couldn't have grown there while the old stuff was there.  

I think one of the reasons why we find disasters so challenging, as people, is that we have built so much up around our stuff.  We have SO much stuff today that we define our lives by:  our house, our car, our gadgets and trinkets.  And when a disaster comes along and wipes it all away, we feel lost, we feel as if our very life has been swept away in the storm.  

 

And the process of getting it all back feels impossible.  There are precious things that can never be remade, that first art project, the ticket stub from a fabulous concert.  And I'm definitely a stuff person, I love hoarding things that remind me of memories...but the important part are the memories!  When we are faced with a disaster and a total loss type of situation, we need to ground ourselves in what we have.  

We need to look for the opportunities for growth!  Perhaps we had been considering moving..well this would be a perfect time for it!  Maybe your house was full of furniture that worked, but wasn't quite what you wanted....now you can pick out stuff that fits you better!  Yes, you won't have the pictures or memorabilia, but maybe you can contact friends and family and have them send you copies of pictures they had...it can become a whole memory sharing thing!

Nature will find a way, and sometimes we forget we are part of nature.  When we get shoved, when we get backed into a corner...we will find a way to.  It may not be your first choice, but it is always good to remember that the future is yet to be written, and that when everything gets wiped clean, you have the chance to make radical change, and to create something completely new!

Technology and spirtuality

 Most of us live in a technological world.  The role that technology plays in our day to day lives may vary, but some universal truths are becoming more prevalent.  A smart phone is becoming as necessary as a house phone once was, internet access is everywhere, and being at least passing familiar with social media is expected.

And while some people take to technology like a fish to water, for other's it's not such an easy jump.  Not everyone is well suited to the constant input and expected output of today's technological mediums.  Whichever group you find yourself in, that's fine!  You can have a fabulous spiritual practice, and even use technology to your personal level of comfort, without needing to go all in on any given platform.

One of the things social media has done is change how we look at privacy and our interactions with society.  Twenty years ago, you might call up a friend and chat for hours about what was going on, but today many people feel compelled to post what they eat for breakfast every day.  And this also translates to how we conduct our spiritual life.

When I was first learning (again, like 25 years ago...) the internet was still pretty new.  Sure, it existed, and there were Pagan sites and message boards (the precursors to forums lol), but most of our social interaction was done by seeking out like minded individuals for local and face to face meetings.  Informational websites existed, but most of your learning would come from books, or by finding a teacher.  It was pretty rare to find online covens or study circles or even teachers.

I would consider my roots to be at the heart of the eclectic Pagan trend.  Covens and established Pagan groups were a bit on the out.  Not only were there some questions about how they were doing things, but there were more and more books being published, more ways for an individual to learn without having to dedicate themselves to a specific group or tradition.  

But the concept of magical secrecy was still pretty big.  It wasn't a big deal to share your knowledge with people you knew, but the idea of keeping your magical workings private was a given.  If you were doing a spell, you weren't talking about it (at least until after it was over).  Part of this was a safety thing, it was much less trendy to be a witch back then, but part of it was also just the way things were.  If you had close witchy friends you might invite them over to participate in spellwork or rituals, but you definitely weren't sharing your work publicly online for anyone to see.

A lot of my early learning was done through trial and error.  I knew the 'basics', and I just had to figure it out from there.  There weren't dozens of apps with guided meditations for me to listen to, or sites with tarot spreads and hints, or places where I could easily look up astrological information.  Yes, you could find stuff, but it took a lot more work, and the variety was a lot less.

Skip forward to today, and now I can type in tarot in my phone, and not only have a dozen free apps that will pull cards and tell me what they mean, but also sites that will walk me through learning how to read cards, step by step.  I will have countless pictures of numerous decks, and lots of people who have posted their cards and readings online.  

On the whole, I think this is a wonderful development.  I think having this kind of information, not only available, but also out in the open is fantastic.  We still have a ways to go, when it comes to true acceptance as a viable and serious religion, but more people are comfortable claiming their path now than they were 25 years ago, and that is just awesome.

But I also think it's lead to a very real sense of inferiority.  Like I'm not a good enough witch if I'm not posting my altar and ritual pictures for every Sabbat (and if I'm not doing a full ritual, with all the fixings).  Or I'm not a real reader if I'm not posting spreads and readings or offering to pull cards for strangers.  We see all these fantastic and fabulous pictures and videos online, and sometimes we may feel like we just can't keep up.

And it's not even about doing the thing.  On some level it's about not telling everyone that we are doing the thing.  It's about not having the pictures to post or the video documenting the things we did.  It's about not having feedback from the community, and therefore not feeling like we fully belong to the community.  It's about feeling like a lurker.

For all that I'm on the computer all day (and you know...blog and stuff), I'm not a tech person.  I'm really, really not a phone person.  My phone pretty much sits on my desk, plugged into the wall...and when I do leave the house (which isn't that often), it mostly lives in my purse.  It's there so that I can call for help if needed, but there is a good chance that if you call (or text/message me), I won't answer for like a day...because I probably missed it.  I'm more likely to notice notifications on my computer than on my phone.

So, I don't really do all the social media stuff that one (apparently) does on the phone (because for those of you who are phone people, a lot of social media stuff just doesn't function well on an actual computer....try sharing anything on Instagram, you'll see what I mean!).  Add in that my phone isn't the newest model, and has some funky idiosyncrasies of it's own (like saving pictures I took on my phone, onto my computer...that's a whole process, and it really, really shouldn't be).  Because I spend so much time typing on a keyboard, I'd much rather do that than try to type on my phone, so if I am going to do social media stuff, it will be on the computer...which leads to all kinds of frustrations.

There are lots of things that I see other people doing that I think are amazing, and some things I would love to do.  I'd love to do more posted readings, to expand my Patreon with levels of regular divination...but even the thought of taking pictures, getting them on the computer, onto the appropriate social media platform, and then writing up the reading...that just exhausts me.  Also, I hate taking pictures of myself, so all those witchy lovely pictures I see other people take...the thought of doing them myself makes me cringe!

And it's taken me a while, but I've sort of come to terms with it.  Whenever a new platform or trend comes out, I'm again swept up in the desire to BE more of a presence online.  Part of me would love to be able to share some of the things I'm doing.  I have slowly (and with much grudging resistance) expanded my posts to include stuff like altar pictures (of my indoor altar...because I don't really do the big outdoor rituals unless I'm doing group work)...and the occasional divination spread.  But I will never be one of those people who posts their daily draw or everyday witchiness.  And it's okay if you aren't one of those people too (or if you are)...it's all good, we need all types!

So, if you are a social media fanatic...keep posting!  If you love documenting your spiritual journey, by all means, do it.  The more of a presence we (as a whole) have online, the more beautiful, magical, ordinary and wholesome posts people see, the more they understand that we aren't scary or dangerous or delusional.  And if you aren't someone who likes to post, that's also fine!  You are still completely valid as a witch (or Pagan, or Heathen, or spiritual person), and you are still totally welcome in online spaces.  Whatever your level of technological involvement, be okay with it.  Don't let envy or worry make you feel like you are any less just because you don't post about what you are doing.

The falacies of myth

 So much of our society is shaped by the roots that grow in myth, and often people are completely unaware of how those myths are influencing seemingly mundane parts of their life.  Not only that, the people that cling to their ingrained myths are often the ones who are most outspoken in their derision of other people's myths...even if those other people are only using their myths as metaphors and not truth.

Myths are nothing but stories that we have created to explain things we didn't understand.  We looked at the world, and we saw wonder and miracles, but we were curious and we wanted to know why the sun rose and why the leaves fell in fall and so we pondered how these things could come to be, and we ended up with a large amount of myths.  We have myths about how the world was created, how the seasons turn, how the rain falls and a billion more.  In some ways, scientific theory is a form of mythology, as many of our 'laws' and theories are, in fact, just our stories about why things happen, and we look for evidence to support or disprove these scientific myths.

There is nothing wrong with myths, when you actually remember they are myths!  These stories have power, and their symbolic nature is where that power lies.  Most modern Pagans don't literally think that if we don't stay up to watch the sun rise on Yule that it won't rise, but that story, that myth, is one that speaks not only to the primal fears that we have (about the sun not rising, or the natural order going completely out of wack), but also about our own power, and the power of observation....the sun will rise simply because we are there to watch it...that's powerful stuff!

The problem comes when you start trying to defend your myths as truth....irregardless of what your actual experiences are.  Can you imagine the outcry if we were to try to sacrifice anything (alive), so the crops would grow?  And yet, there are people who put other people's lives at risk every day, and do it all based on what their mythology tells them is 'right and proper.'

What I think people forget about the myths is that their power isn't in the actual story, their power is in the reason FOR the story.  If I tell a myth about staying in at night and keeping the fire lit, because there are monsters outside in the dark that will eat me if I venture outside of the safety of the light, the important part isn't the monsters....it's staying safe at night.  There are plenty of real and actual dangers that are more dangerous at night, especially if I am wandering around semi-blind because it's so dark I can't see.  The myth protects me by making me want to stay inside, in the light, where I will be safe...not by making me believe in the monsters.

But sometimes we get things twisted around, and we start a crusade against the monsters.  We think that if we could only get rid of them all, then the world would be safe, and we wouldn't have to be stuck in our houses at night.  And so we gather up all our weapons, and we go outside...in the dark...and lash out at anything that moves (because obviously if it's out at night, it's a monster).  What we forget is that WE are now out at night, and we end up hurting other people because we saw them as monsters (they might have been out trying to fight the monsters too, go figure).  We created a problem because we took the myth literally and completely ignored the whole message of the myth (to stay safe at night).

I think most myths could do with some scientific method testing.  We should always try to vet our myths, so if you have stories you have been told, go out and test them!  Look at the actual information and experiences people have, and see how the myth holds up in the light of what is actually going on.  

Here's the great thing about myths too....if you remember they are stories, it doesn't matter if the facts support or deny them, they can still be powerful influences in your life!  Now, this may seem quite contradictory to everything I've said so far...but remember stories have power because of their meaning, not because of their details.

Take, for example, the myth about how the Goddess is mourning the death of the God, and so the light wanes and the earth goes into hibernation.  The story matches what happens in the world in fall and early winter, when the sun is in the sky for shorter periods of time and plants and animals bunker down for the fallow season.  And then, with the birth of the new Sun God, the light returns, days get longer, plants and animals start to emerge.  The myth echoes all of this.  I can look at this myth and feel the power of the turning of the wheel..without needing to literally believe that there is a physical being somewhere that gives birth every year at the solstice.

On the other hand, we have creation myths.  Every culture has one, and they are all somewhat different.  Obviously some (or all) of them aren't technically correct (unless you want to get into multiverse theory, but then everything is correct, so it's a moot point anyways LOL).  But all of them generate this sense of wonder at the world, a sense of ordering of the things we see around us, and a force that predates all of it...the thing that was before and created all that is now.  

The power of any given creation myth is in that sense of wonder at not only the world around us but the force that made it all come into being.  The fallacy is in trying to stick to the details of the creation.  When we start to take our myths at literal face value, we start poking holes in them.  How can the whole world be made from the body of a giant, but the sky be made from his skull (the proportions just don't add up...)?  If the earth is resting on the back of a turtle...why don't we see it in our space photos?  

Obviously personal and religious myths are deeply held by many people, and trying to challenge someone else's myths is a dangerous proposition.  But I think we can all learn to be more mindful of our own myths, where they originated...and how they hold up when compared to what is actually going on.  By reminding ourselves that myths are stories, we can continue to hold them sacred, even when they don't quite line up with what we see...because we know they are symbolic, not literal.  And by looking for the meaning beneath the story, we can start to see how many different myths try to answer the same big questions, and how even though our myths might be different, they are speaking to the same mysteries.