Winter Magic

Another month has come and gone and the Wheel of the Year is turning ever on. Alban Arthan was a magical time. I was fortunate to be able to lead a program about the Winter Solstice at the nature center, which more than 100 people attended. We made evergreen wreaths, beeswax candles and tiny Yule logs, people tried fire-by-friction and I told stories as the Green Man. The following days were filled with special memories, shared by family and friends.

Now, I am ready for snow. Except for a storm on Mackinac Island and some other parts of Northern Michigan (which we had to drive through), much of our State has been without snow all winter. I love snowshoeing and the soft, white blanket that covers Mother Earth this time of year. It muffles city sounds and reflects the light of the moon to guide my way. I need its cleansing power, to cover the dust and grime of a tired landscape and to illumine my soul. Every flake a miracle of nature, every snowdrift, sculpted by sharp winter winds, a beautiful piece of artwork. 

I also need to take the time to curl up in front of the woodstove with a cup of tea and a snowstorm raging outside. To delve into the Gwersi of my Bardic studies, to focus and reflect on the miracles and mysteries of the Earth Mother and all her creatures. 

Even without snow, I was fortunate to have several amazing encounters with some animals over the past couple of weeks. My brother and I spent three days searching for Snowy Owls. There have been a plethora of reports from across North America of this far northern species making their way south this winter. Finally, on our third day in misty rain and fog we spotted an owl, along a lonely country road, perched on the roof of a house! Further down the same road, we came across another sitting on a short power pole. 

At the Nature Center, a family of River Otters have also been spotted numerous times this past fall and early winter. We headed out to the pond one day and hiked around it. After finding many scat piles of fish scales, we finally spotted two otters who quickly swam away. Quietly making our way along the shore, we were lucky to see them both swimming and exploring holes of an old beaver lodge. One was especially curious about us and it chirruped and snuffed at us several times before disappearing into its hole. 

Finally, my family was lucky to see a Pileated Woodpecker along a road on Mackinac Island. Though I wasn't able to get close enough for a picture, I later discovered another along a trail, patiently working on a tree. These crow-sized woodpeckers are the largest in North America (if the Ivory-billed is extinct), and seeing one is always a special experience.

May your days ahead, wherever you are, be filled with the cleansing power of Nature. Whether it's a blanket of snow, the warm sun overhead, wind in the treetops or the burble of a stream, let the magic and mystery of the land soak into your soul and bring you peace. Now, I leave you with part of a delightful poem, by Claude McKay.

The Snow Fairy

Throughout the afternoon I watched them there, 

Snow-fairies falling, falling from the sky, 

Whirling fantastic in the misty air, 

Contending fierce for space supremacy. 

And they flew down a mightier force at night, 

As though in heaven there was revolt and riot, 

And they, frail things had taken panic flight 

Down to the calm earth seeking peace and quiet. 

I went to bed and rose at early dawn 

To see them huddled together in a heap, 

Each merged into the other upon the lawn, 

Worn out by the sharp struggle, fast asleep. 

The sun shone brightly on them half the day, 

By night they stealthily had stol'n away. 

Yours under the Snowy Oaks,

Skybranch /|\

The Reenchantment of the World

Perhaps my favorite quote from The Druid Magic Handbook by John Michael Greer is actually a quote he used from another source. In 1981, Morris Berman wrote the following on page 10 of his book,  The Reenchantment of the World. 

"For more than 99 percent of human history, the world was enchanted and man was himself as an integral part of it. The complete reversal of this perception in a mere four hundred years or so has destroyed the continuity of the human experience and the integrity of the human psyche. It has very nearly wrecked the planet as well. The only hope, or so it seems to me, lies in a reenchantment of the world." 

Now I don't know about you, but this certainly gives me a great deal of food for thought. Ninety-nine percent of human history is a really long time! Have we really changed our world-view so very much from countless generations of our ancestors? If so, what does that mean for us, the planet and all other living things that share it with us? 

To me, the answer is easy. If we continue blindly down the road we're travelling now, we're doomed. Humanity as we know it can kiss itself goodbye and a great deal of the plant and animal species on Earth along with it. History is replete with individual civilizations that altered their environment so much they wiped themselves out. From the Anasazi of the Southwestern United States to native peoples of Easter Island, the story has replayed itself again and again. And those were in the days when the world was seen as "enchanted";  the plants, rocks and animals, ocean sky and stars were filled with spirits everywhere.

The modern, scientific-industrial age is an aberration in the long history of human experience. Certainly we can't simply turn the clock backwards and all instantly live in an pre-industrial age of hunter-gatherers and limited agriculture. But we CAN make choices about how we perceive the world we live in and what value we place on the web of all life, of which we are a part. 

If you think about it, this isn't that big of a stretch. Kids are born with an innate sense of wonder and the entire world is enchanted in every sense of the word. A preschooler was telling me all about her pet green bug the other day and just beamed with delight that she got to connect with this little, "ordinary" creature. Groves are filled with fairies, magic is real, and everything is possible when we are a child. But today, part of being "a grownup" is learning to reject this "simplistic" world view and to fine-tune our rational mind to the exclusion of all else. We live in an age of computers, information, and machines and these are the gods we worship now. 

Except when they're not. For some reason, much of Western culture, in particular, has decided that a belief in a monotheistic religion which teaches people to subdue the earth while looking forward to "real life" in the afterlife is perfectly okay. Don't worry about the Earth too much now, as it's not the important part. Our reward will be in heaven and if we destroy the planet in the process, then "God will handle it." 

The combination of these two belief systems, the scientific/industrial and monotheistic "heaven-based" religious has proved to be utterly disastrous for nearly all life on our planet. What we need, I believe, is to give ourselves and each other permission to bring magic back and enchantment back into the world. 

A reviewer of Berman's book on Amazon.com notes the following: 

In this sense, 'enchantment' relates to the inner perception of self, community and cosmos as 'animated', 'alive', replete with 'soul' and 'meaning'. In a less positive sense, 'disenchantment', according to Berman, is the condition of percieving those same things from a narrow 'materialistic' perspective alone. The disenchanted mind reduces/explains away people, animals, plants, community, nature etc. as mere chance events, chemical reactions, in short, as 'matter without soul or mind'.

My friends, we need to remember the lessons of our ancestors. They knew that a connection to the Web of Life was important for our very survival. We delude ourselves in thinking that our systems of food production, heating and cooling, medicine, travel, etc. have made us better survivors. In the short term, perhaps, but at what expense? What price will our children and grandchildren have to pay as the planet continues to warm, species worldwide go extinct on a massive scale and sources of fresh water dry up for an ever-increasing human population. 

It's time to bring magic back into the world. The magic of Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Spirit all flow through us all each day already. We just have to wake up, pay attention, and do something about it. 

-Skybranch /|\