Among the Michigan Pines (1885)

Working as an environmental historian for the past 16 years, I have come to develop a great love and respect for the magnificent, ancient forests of Michigan's past. If Druids of ancient times could have walked among the forest groves of North America, I'm certain they would have discovered great power, beauty, meaning and majesty here, nestled among the Great Lakes. After decades of lumbering in the late 19th century, only scattered remnants of uncut forests now remain, such as those at Hartwick Pines State Park and in the Porcupine Mountains wilderness area. But our woodlands have undergone tremendous regrowth over the past century. Today, you still experience amazing sights and sounds among the trees over millions of wooded acres. 

Recently, I discovered a series of nine articles which were originally published in 1885, in the Chicago weekly magazine The Current. Written by columnist Charles Ellis, of Boston, the publication has been scanned and may now be found on Google Books. In short, much of what Charles wrote simply blew me away. 

In the winter of 1883 or 1884, Charles Ellis decided to head to Michigan in order to view our vast forests before they were gone and to spend time in a lumber camp. Of his decision, he wrote, "...packing my trunk in the early winter, I turned my back upon dear old Boston and was whirled away to the famous land of the wolverines."  After spending a few days in Saginaw, he traveled by train “about 70 miles distant”, ending somewhere in the Saginaw Valley watershed, which flows right through the Nature Center where I work. Below is the fifth installment of his articles. I've cut a few pieces out and added some additional paragraph breaks so you can read it more easily. I know its long, but I hope you enjoy it as much as I have! The full series of articles can be found here. 

AMONG THE MICHIGAN PINES

V.

A PINE FOREST.

There is a peculiar solitude in a pine forest. Alone upon the shore, the restless break of the waves makes ceaseless voices that wake companion voices in the mind. Alone upon the sea, the incessant change of its surface, the splashing waves as your boat dashes across the wind, or the idle flap of her sails as she rises and falls to their lazy roll under the summer sun, load the flying hours with delightful dreams. But the pine forest is alone. Time was when here the scarce hunters found abundance of game where now I see and hear nothing, save when the wind blows by, and high overhead I hear its breath as it is torn by the needles through which it is driven. This, indeed, is a varied sound, for at times it seems like a gentle prolonged sigh, and again, like Niagara's roar; or breaking waves pounding upon rocky shores are not louder nor more wild. But when the air is still and you stand alone beneath the pines no other solitude can compare with it.

Above, below, all peace!

Silence and solitude, the soul's best friends.
Are with me here, and the tumultuous world
Makes no more noise than the remotest planet.

The tall, dark columns all around you, the darker ceiling of the darker branches intermingling and blinding the sky above you, the utter absence of living things within range of your strained vision, all conspire to excite a sensation so new that you do not understand it for a time. I can almost understand, as it seems to me, how the ancients came to people forests with imaginary life; for as I look around me among the silent trunks, I feel the ancient impulse burning in my veins, and half expect to see elf or dryad beckoning me away. The silence excites imagination in her recesses and the Old becomes New; Ancient is Modern; I am a Pagan, like my ancestors, and at home. I become familiar with the trees. They know me and seem to shake hands. I am welcome among them. They tell me of the past. The inroad that civilization is making upon these grand old trees seems almost like sacrilege and murder; yet saved they cannot be... 

I recall a memorable ride among the pines. One day a foreman invited me to ride with him to a camp some fifteen miles away, and I gladly accepted the opportunity. Nine miles of the ride led through what might strictly be termed "unbroken wilderness," if such a thing can be found. Here and there was a small opening, where the pine had been cut and the brush burned, and there were two or three of these spots where courageous men had set to work to make farms. It seemed to me as if they might as well have gone to work to make a new earth! But what made hard farming made a most sublime picture to one unto whom the pine forest was a new revelation.

For miles we drove in and out along a narrow road with the trees so close that it required the strictest attention of our sylvan Jehu to carry us through without collision. As far as I could see across the snow, that lay smooth and unwrinkled like a spotless counterpane, rose the fair round columns of pine. Throwing back the head, one saw the branches reaching out to one another far overhead, interlacing and crowding to form a dark green canopy through which there fell occasional glimpses of a sky that seemed to rest upon the trees. The prevailing color is like a soft twilight that seems to express itself psychologically as Silence, but the monotony is agreeably lit up here and there by the reddish bark of the beautiful Norway pine.

The hard-wood growth is chiefly beech which, with its smooth, steel-colored bark, mottled with patches of green moss, gives a quiet variety and tone to the picture. The undergrowth (there is no "under-brush," as in a New England forest,) is also chiefly of young beeches that, as seen from the road, appear to be from six to twenty or thirty feet high. The beech is the most beautiful of our forest trees when stripped of foliage, as they are now, and when only their skeleton graces woo our admiration. As this tree grows here, among these tall, closely-standing pines, with but little sunlight ever falling upon it, and without hope of any, or of a glimpse of the world, unless it can push its head up through the dark roof that imprisons it, the beech seems to have set itself earnestly to the work of growing tall.

Sheltered from all winds it does not need strength, and so appears to be giving its whole attention to the development of delicacy, grace, and beauty of trunk and limb. Its lithe arms taper out from the shoulder long and beautiful, gradually dwindling to a pretty brown bud so finely pointed as to suggest the thought that the beeches might be running opposition to the pines in the production of needles. Every lesser branch, too, of every larger branch has its subordinate branches and twigs, and they all taper down in the same exquisitely graceful way to a beautiful brown bud. This undergrowth, standing everywhere through the forest, reaches out its long, slender branches in every direction until they mingle, touch, cross and interweave in all possible angles, curves and inclinations.

On every branch, twig and spray hang thousands of the dead, rust-colored needles that have fallen from the pine, and there form a seemingly intangible fringe of color. Looked at from a distance of a few rods, or as the picture deepens away from you into the background, it seems like nothing so much as an immense but strangely beautiful veil, the effect of which is to soften and tone down the heavy, dark figures of the pine that seem to stand behind it, while in fact they are in the midst of it everywhere. This vision begins and ends with the dense forest. Shut your eyes and open them upon the same spot again and again, you cannot be certain that you have ever seen the picture before, that while you even winked the scene was not changed. No whirling kaleidoscope ever presented a more varied picture of material always the same than does this silent panorama of the wilderness. As I saw it first it seemed to me that nothing could be added to it, that nothing could be more beautiful, and yet it was wholly void of speck or point of gaudy coloring, and no sign of living thing could be seen save in our own company.

Not even a ray of sunlight glinted through it, for the sky was overcast with clouds that portended a storm. Indeed, while we were in camp it came on. As we returned in the afternoon over the same road I saw that there had been a transformation. The snow had sifted down through the pine boughs, and in the still air had settled upon and covered every branch and twig of my fancied veil and converted it into the loveliest white gossamer that ever hung in midair. I knew that the scene had not been really changed, I knew that I had driven through and looked over all that same ground only a few hours before, but another factor had been added, that was all, and the effect was marvelous indeed!

Nothing could have been finer. I have seen a quite similar effect produced by a heavy frost under which, in the early morning, the forest everywhere looked as if a great gauze veil had fallen upon it; but in that picture the frost crystals, standing so much more loosely, show a darker color and less clearly defined lines than are given by the snow, which falls more compactly. So, of the picture, I repeat that nothing could be finer or more beautiful; and nothing like it will ever be seen save in just such a forest under similar conditions. No canvas can ever be made to show it, for no artist can ever carry its magnitude away with him. The trees are too tall, the vistas too deep, the perspective too far, to be manipulated on canvas. Nature defied Art when she built this magnificent forest of pine. Looked at from the outside and seen from a distance, such a forest seems like a belt of night bound around the waist of day. Looked at from within, it seems almost to be a community of individual, though mute, lives. The Pines are "daughters of the gods,"

Divinely fair,
And most divinely tall!

So sings my soul, and I, nothing loth, have found at their pagan shrine, if not the peace, at least a piece of Heaven.

-Charles Ellis

Another Step Down the Path

While I've explored the path of Druidry for the past two years now, I have primarily utilized resources provided by the Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA) and joined the organization as a Druid Candidate. As time went on, I continued to read and absorb ideas and inspiration from other sources, notably several excellent books by Philip Carr-Gomm and music by Damh the Bard. Over the past couple of years, I had resisted becoming a member of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids (OBOD) for a couple of reasons. The primary reason was that OBOD was based in Britain and I felt a desire to grow my spirituality down the Druid Path on a very local level. The tree and animal lore of another continent, for example, doesn't tug at my spirit in the same way that the plants and wild creatures of my native Michigan do. The second was a more practical matter - cost. While the full training course offered by OBOD provides a much more structured system of instruction on a regular basis throughout the year than that provided by the AODA, it obviously cannot be provided for free. 

Canada Goose swimming on the Chippewa River

But I continued to find myself dabbling...drifting in and out of the Druid mysteries and struggling to maintain a more disciplined routine of study. I simply wasn't exploring the history, lore and resources of Druidry to the full depth which I really desired. I get busy and tend to let things slip. I needed more guidance on the path. 

Then, things began to fall into place that seemed just too good to be mere coincidence. First, I received an email out of the blue from Philip asking if he could use the video I produced on the Seven Gifts of Druidry for the OBOD home page. (I was thrilled and said YES!) And then just a few weeks ago, I had the amazing chance to meet Damh the Bard at the Michigan Pagan Festival. Not only did I not realize that Dave would be performing until the morning of his performance (thank you Facebook!) I hadn't even known about the festival in advance. Best of all, Dave knew about my video and was simply an amazing performer and all-around wonderful person. 

I finally woke up, realizing the Universe was telling me something. Instead of just waiting to "accidentally" run into all the other leaders of the Order, it seems it was time to dig a little deeper.

While sitting in my hotel room the other week, smack in the middle of the beautiful, rolling hills of West Virginia, I finally decided it was time for me to take another step forward down the path. And just the other day, I received my welcome packet from OBOD with an invitation to join the Order and undertake their course of study in the Bardic Grade. Much to my surprise and delight, when I opened the first page of the first booklet, I found this poem by Mary Oliver, which I had already typed into a new blog post in my attempt to express my values as a Druid UU. 

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. 

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

Canada Geese fly along the Dead Stream in the middle of Michigan's mitten.

love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

So here I am. Continuing my winding journey toward understanding and connection with the natural world, my sense of place, people around me, and the long heritage of those gone before. As Mary Oliver states above, "Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination..." 

It's time to accept the invitation.

A meeting with the Bard

Since discovering the path of Druidry two years ago, I have felt blessed by the wisdom, guidance and inspiration of many teachers. In this particular case, mind you, I'm not referring to those with four legs, wings, compound eyes, leaves, branches or petals. This time I'm talking about those of my own species, particularly some who have taken time to write books, essays, poems and music to ponder, absorb and ultimately live by. Three individuals, in particular, stand out as my main sources of information and inspiration so far. They are, Philip Carr-Gomm, John Michael Greer, and Damh the Bard. 

If you follow the path of Druidry yourself, I'm sure these names will be of little surprise to you. Philip Carr-Gomm is currently the Chief of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids (OBOD). He is the author of many articles, essays, podcasts and books, including The Druid Mysteries and The Druid Way, and is co-author of the Druid Animal Oracle and editor of The Rebirth of Druidry and The Book of Druidry. 

John Michael Greer hails from this side of the pond and is currently the Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA). He has also authored many books, articles, essays and more. Most particularly relating to Druidry are his excellent resources entitled The Druidry Handbook and The Druid Magic Handbook. He also keeps an active blog entitled The Archdruid Report. 

When it comes to pure inspiration, beauty and foot-tapping rhythms, however, neither Philip nor John Michael can hold a candle to Damh the Bard. On his website, www.paganmusic.co.uk, Damh (pronounced Dave), describes himself as follows: 

Damh is a modern-day Bard whose spirituality, and love of folk tradition, is expressed through his music, storytelling and poetry. Drawing on the Bardic traditions his performances are both entertaining and educational, weaving a tapestry of myth, peace, and anthems that speak directly to the heart, but never without a good splash of humour. Damh is a musical storyteller who works within the world of myth that cannot be proved; where the Faerie really do dance on Midsummer's Eve, where the trees talk, and the Hollow Hills take you into the realms of Annwn. Where the Goddess rides her horse, guiding you to magic, and the Horned God of old calls us from the shadows of the Greenwood. So relax, and let the music take you there.

Simply put, Damh's music has touched my soul as few other musicians or poets ever have. A true storyteller, he weaves a spell upon the listener, transporting us back to ancient times or simply to a new perspective in the modern day. He also currently serves as Pendragon of OBOD and keeps busy with a variety of performances and projects, such as The Spirit of Albion - the movie, which is currently being produced based on his music. 

But alas, this folk musician lives on the "wrong side" of the pond and I accepted the fact it would be highly unlikely (if not impossible) for me to ever catch his act live in person. But yesterday, when browsing Facebook, I was amazed to discover he would be performing at the Michigan Pagan Festival that evening! A quick look and I discovered that the Fest was just two hours from my home and I swiftly made plans to drive down and see the show. 

I'm happy to report that Damh the Bard delivered an amazing performance, even surpassing my already high hopes for the evening. In a pole barn at a county fairgrounds, with driving rain pounding on the sheet metal roof, the spirit and energy of the Gods and Goddesses, Mother Earth and the Blessed Community of Humanity filled that room to the point of overflowing. We cheered and sang along, clapped our hands, stomped our feet, got up to dance and even howled like animals in the night. And when the last song was sung, we all stood together, arms around each other, singing and swaying to the music. It was a blessed experience I'll remember and cherish always. 

Thank you so much, Damh, for making a stop in the Great Lakes State and sharing so much with us. Your gifts of story and music truly make a positive difference for many of us throughout this crazy world of ours. I'll cherish your CDs and signatures, smiles, kind words and (sweaty) hugs and look forward until the time when we shall meet again. Blessed Be. 

Kyle (Skybranch)  /|\

Signs of Spring

Canada Geese returning to their nesting grounds.

In spite of what the groundhog saw (or didn't see) in February, signs of spring are slow coming to the Great Lakes State this year. Snow is finally giving way to patches of grass in the yard and sap is starting to flow in the maple trees!

Syrup season is always a glorious time of year in Michigan. The first spring birds appear, cardinals and chickadees start to sing and goldfinches begin molting into their golden yellow feathers of summer. Snowshoeing and skiing are done until next winter and soon mud season will be upon us. What a wonderful time of the year, when life returns to the land!

I think what I begin to miss most as old man winter drags his feet are the sounds and smells of nature in all her life-filled splendor. In many ways, we're lulled into a restless sleep as winter weeks tick slowly by. The air is cold and dry and skies are quiet, unless the winter wind is whipping bare branches to and fro or sighing through the pines.

Water begins to flow as ice melts on the Dead Stream

Now it's time to delight as the sun returns to fill our days with warmth! Smell the soil beneath your feet as the ground thaws and the first spring flowers begin to poke their heads through the earth. Listen to the birds! Canada Geese and Sandhill Cranes are honking and squawking as they fly northward overhead. In your backyard or in the park down the street, chickadees, blue jays, cardinals and robins chirp and tweet as they find their mates and choose their nesting sites for the breeding season soon to come.

Hug a tree! So much is going on in the forest. Sap rushes upward from root to branch, sending life-giving energy to the tip of every twig where buds patiently wait to send forth new leaves. The entire woodland ecosystem is connected with energy beneath our feet as roots, fungi and wee beasties move back and forth, chatting in complex relationships we hardly understand.

Yes, it's bound to be sloppy out on the trail and we're sure to have gray days of rain and cold spells here and there. But the miracle of spring life returning to the world only comes once a year and lasts but a few short weeks. Before too long, our northern forests will be filled with green leaves on every tree and we'll hardly recall these glorious days of transition when everything is literally changing before our eyes. So get outside before you miss it! Mud washes off and a warm cup of tea awaits the weary traveler at the end of the road.

Spring is nearly upon us. Where is your place in the interconnected web of all existence? Can you see the strands of living energy all around? Can you hear the pipes of Pan?

See you in the woods,

Skybranch /|\

Great Lakes Druidry

While Druidry existed in ancient Britain and its revival took place there in the 17th century, modern Druidry has grown to be a worldwide phenomenon. If people are able to use this spiritual path to help repair our connection to nature and heal our damaged world, then it must be extremely adaptable to each place where people feel the call of nature all over the planet.

An excellent introduction to this idea is articulated by John Michael Greer in his article "A Pacific Northwest Ogham", which can be found on the website of the Ancient Order of Druids in America. In his article, Greer writes:

The tree-Ogham as it has come down to us in modern Druid tradition is a creation of the British Isles, and draws on the trees of that region. The Puget Sound area of the Pacific Northwest, where I live and practice Druidry, is nearly a different planet in botanical terms...The process of creating a tree-Ogham appropriate to the Puget Sound country - or any other environment sufficiently different from northwestern Europe -- is not unlike that of translating poetry from one language to another. Inevitably, some meanings are lost, and others are gained which were not present in the original.... If Druidry is relevant to the whole world, though - and I believe that it is - it must be able to put down roots in forests very different from the ones where it originally grew. There must someday be a cactus-Ogham for the Arizona deserts and a jungle-Ogham for the rain forests of northern Australia. 

The concept of Druidry being adaptable to anyone is extremely important to me. While I respect and admire the ancient Celtic cultures of the British Isles (and even have ancestors who immigrated from Ireland, Scotland and England), I have little desire to simply reenact the spiritual traditions of a long-ago culture from a different place and time. It's also one of the (many) reasons I drifted away from the Christianity of my youth. 

Pines and Fir Trees along Clark Lake in
Michigan's Upper Peninsula

As I've begun to study the Celtic tree Ogham, I've had some trouble with the specificity of its connection with the trees and shrubs of the British Isles. I've spent my entire life immersing myself in the woodlands of Michigan and the surrounding Great Lakes region and simply have no personal connection with species like the Rowan, Gorse and Hawthorn. Others, like the Honeysuckle and Scots Pine are actually invasive exotic species in Michigan and the nature center where I work makes a considerable effort to eradicate them from our property.

Don't get me wrong. I'm happy to study Arthurian legends, learn the story of Einigen the Giant and contemplate the personality of Esus as he sits in the Sacred Oak. What I think we ALL need, however, is  personal experience with the plants, animals, soil and water around us. We need to hear the sound of the wind in the leaves of the Sacred Oaks in our own backyard and smell their leaves on the forest floor.

In that respect, I plan on working on adapting the tree Ogham for the woodlands of Michigan. I look forward to investigating the hidden hidden traits and characteristics of our trees and shrubs, celebrating their wonders and deepening my connection to their life-force spirits.

Skybranch /|\