I have previously posted on the likelihood that the wych elm is the tree associated with emancoll (the last ogam letter),  "Witch hazel" being a concept that means a tree with pliable branches.  I was reading a paper that Robert Graves grandfather, Charles Graves , wrote on ogam which led me to this  quote.

The practice of striking with an Ogam-marked rod is mentioned in a medical MS of the date 1509, in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy. As a cure for a man rendered impotent by charms, it is there recommended to write the man’s name in Ogam on an elm wand, and to strike the man with it.

This shows ogam being actively used for what might be called spell work long after the last monumental uses of ogam.   Always a possibility that this is complete hocum, but, there had to be some reason why the alphabet was preserved for centuries after it ceased to reflect the underlying language.  Second, along with interpretations of beith, it opens up the possibility that the healing uses for plants were not limited to ingesting and inhaling.  Third, this use was particularly against "charms" which then opens up the question of why, particularly, elm was used against a "charm."

So some ideas to pursue, likely to lead to blind alleys, but then again you never know.
 

I have written on the UU source revision on my home church's listserv.  An interesting thing is that the majority of support I've received is from the atheist/humanist contingent.  They felt equally, if not more injured by the proposed changes.  What I'm coming to, is that its not really enough to love your own touchstone source.  Being UU means loving all of the sources and accepting the opinions and people behind them.  Not acceptance as in accepting a belief in Christianity or humanism, but accepting the other truths as real and vibrant.  Source 6 may be the weft of eternal beauty, but UUs need the warp of the other 5 to complete a tapestry.

I learned a lot from listening to some of the streaming media that discussed the now failed replacement Sources section of the UU by laws. I was really aware of my own concerns, but while I can fully see forests, I also run into individual trees, so this is what I learned from other folks against the change.

The most obvious thing I missed was that the sources were now impossible to use as religious education material.  6 dot points were pretty clear and manageable, but the mishmash that was produced was not useful from a teaching perspective.

The first paragraph reads -

My take on this was that this was an attempt to recast UUism as judeochristianlite.  Other wiser heads pointed out an interesting problem.  The lead-in this spoke about Jewish and Christian teachings, but neither Universalists or Unitarians incorporated Jewish teaching, per se, into their teaching. 

Astute readers (of which I was not) noticed that  new source prophetic words and deeds were now past tense and apparently there is no longer any need ot confront powers and structures of evil any longer.

This theme continues in the second paragraph that starts out decently enough with

Which seems to me to be fine.  But then then the paragraph continues -
I had not noticed that humanist, earth-centered (that's UU code for us)., Eastern relligions had a place in the past tense.  And, UUism (past tense) was influenced by the remaining smorgasbord of stuff.  But not anymore, apparently.  Here are the original sources that correspond.  Note how active and direct they are -

• Wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;
• Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;
• Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit.
• Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.

More than past influences, these sources are meant to be vibrant and part of our daily lives. The now #Fail sources continue -
Which sounds fine, but when you look at the original first source -it seems vapid.  The once and current sources were vibrant, alive and challenging.  Heck someone even wrote a cantata for them.  No one was writing any cantatas for the attempt that just failed.  Frankly, I expect the forces that wanted this change to look back and believe that the denomination dodged a bullet.  At least I hope so.

Unless the Empire Strikes Back this afternoon (Sunday)  in Salt Lake City, it appears that the attempt to eliminate the 6 sources of Unitarian-Universalism in favor of some muddy thinking and laundry lists has been turned back.  If so, the 6th Source -

is safe for another two years.

Is there any rule that I have to be all positive for PVM?  Are there no chinks in our collective armor that we ignore at our own peril?  Well there is one and its both a value and an impediment.  Since everything is personal, there is almost no way to communicate our individual spiritual paths.  There is, for example,</a></a>copperstewart, who's love for Meher Baba and Father Divine are deep and are yet unfathomable to me. And there is</a></a>liorah_chanah who has forgotten more about kabbalistic astrology than I'll ever know.  And then there's me who soldiers on with ogam that maybe ten people in the world actually care about (and you know who you are) and my other passions like Robert Holdstock and Christopher Alexander.  And, you know, there is this great freedom to pursue passions and mostly there is no one to really share any of it with.  And even worse, there is no one to grow with/together either.  Because hey Dude, its just too ineffable - our strength and our weakness.

I had forgotten about this set of posts on the OBOD forum.  Anchored by the brilliant Irish scholar, Beith there is a wealth of information and links on Brighidiana.  Lots of material rarely brought together.

David

With this new information for nin, I think about nGetal, simultaneously the wound and its healing.  Bres, the father of Ruadan was only half Fomorian, his mother was of the Tuatha De Danann  Ruadan, then was only one-quarter Fomorian, though he chose that side in the conflict.  And so there was a weaving between the two peoples and then a rending all with the weaver's beam.  So nin may be both the weaving and the rending, but unlike nGetal, there is no healing function to the rending, only a restart from nothing.

I think then about Fiona Macleod's Orchil prose poem with Orchil at the loom.  The warp in one direction is the green grass and in the other direction is the dissoltuion into mould.  And so nin and ceirt are ,perhaps, the two looms one with 5 warp threads up and the other with  5 warp threads down.  Or as Fiona puts it

 

Brighid, to me, weaves the Green beauty through the world (although She is not alone in this work.)  I imagine this and have no proof, but I see Her at the Gate to the third road - the road to Elfland from the Ballad of Thomas the Rhymer.  Neither the road to heaven nor hell since both of them are death, but the road to Green life that makes the weave but does not end at the weaver's beam

A famous teacher described her first encounter with Odin concerning the runes wherein Odin asks her what she will give to learn the runes.  And then she turned to us and said (paraphrased) "Those of you who have been around awhile know exactly what that meant."  And while I haven't been around that long in this pagan universe, I did know exactly what she meant, for while there is undeserved grace, there is also no free lunch.

On one hand, the gifts of the Spirit do come freely.  There is no requirement for reciprocating offerings.  No "How many fifths of Aberlour will it take to be able to read minds (or find gold, turn the boss into a toad etc.).  And there is not even a specific expectation that learning this skill or that would be used for particular purposes.  There is only our desire on one side and a willing Spirit on the other, like a husband asking his wife for a favor.  Like a husband and wife because this is about relationship and reciprocation occurs, like flowers delivered to a workplace for no other reason than love.

So the correct answer to "What will you give to learn X or heal Y or protect Z?' is "There is no limit because it comes from my own deep desire and my loving relationship to You."  Blessed Brighid, if there is need, may I hold nothing back.

I went into last night's solo solstice ritual emotionally flat.  And so, I dawdled, playing the mandolin a bit, singing the green path song

Green path green path
Where you going?
Where you taking me?
Let me be the gate, green gate
Let me be the gate, green gate
Let me be the gate, green gate
Green gate be in me.

And drew water and selected an arrowhead, a chunk of amber and a sedimentary rock from an energetic rock face.  Candle lit, water poured, I felt well enough to start but was still distracted and not completely there.

One ogam letter drawn, iphin, lovely pin, cut from the fallen butternut tree.  I held on to pin, sweetness of life and then there was a sea gull in the air and the iodine smell of the Atlantic.  I had been there once before, and knew it to be a place apart, a place for restoration.  I held the stick to my heart and for the next, I have no idea how long, the sweetness of life and spring sunshine radiated out, touching every cell of my body.  And the flatness passed and I felt whole and re-connected.  Iphin, pin, sweetness of life. Blessed Brighid and Her gift of restoration.

I was reading some odds and ends from the lovely Ord Brighidaech site when I came upon an interesting (at least to me) reference concerning Ruadan, son of Brighid.  This is the point in the Second Battle of Mag Tuired, when Ruadan acquires the fatal (to him) spear.

One of the kennings for Nin, the fifth ogam letter of the first aicme, is "fight of women (the weaver's beam), boast of women, contest of women.  Another kenning is "checking of peace" or as the holy wikipedia states "destruction of peace".

The immediate death of Ruadan after receiving the spear and then attacking Goibhniu set the stage for the invention of keening.I had always thought of nin in terms of the World Tree and the gossipy squirrel, but this connection also makes a strong link to Brighid that I wasn't aware of.  There's probably some sort of relevant loopback to Fiona Macleod's Orchil prose poem too.

I had in mind a thought that the critical pagan value is respect for how things are in the natural world.  Respect for the way an oak has found light around other trees.  Respect for the tiny brook trout whose kin have been in the same icy mountain stream since the Ice Age.  Respect for the beauty of each other in our light seeking and our wounds.

I did dearly want to find a single word that meant "respect for things as they are" and failed.  There is undoubtedly a word in Japanese for this concept, but not one that I could find in English.  In the process of searching, I came upon William Robinson, a 19th century gardener.  And then it hit me that what I really was getting at was spiritual gardening, not of plants but of souls.

A tree is history
Of leaves reaching up to the light
Of root tips auguring the nourishing darkness
And bark like scar tissue closing deep wounds.

A tree is history
Light, dark, heart's seeking and heart's wounds
By our shapes we know each other.
A tree is history

My research seems to indicate that the Old Irish spelling of Brighid was Brigit (ca. 500 CE).  Pronunciation was probably something like Breed although there are no Old Irish that I'm personally in contact with to ask.  While Old Irish is after the Primitive Irish which ogam corresponded to, it seems like Her written name would go Beth Ruis Idad Gort Idad Tinne.  Phonetically, it would go something like Beth Ruis Idad (or Edad) Dur.  Both are fairly evocative using the letters as a prayer.  At the moment, I'm inclined to go with Beth Ruis Idad Gort Idad Tinne.

A number of different bloggers including Anne at The Gods are Bored, Erik at Executive Pagan, Yvonne at too many blogs to count, but you can start here responded to Pax at Chrysalis for June to be bloggers Pagan Values Month.  I like this idea a lot.  In addition to some of my favorite bloggers participating, its great to see and respond to everyone's ideas on a single topic.  I can't promise how many entries I'll produce, but you can be sure that there will be at least one on Green values.

In one of the odder surveys, it appears that regular attendance at white evangelical church services is hand in glove with support of the torture of prisoners.  And that not showing up at all for any religious services leads to the lowest support for torture.  The survey goes on to say that party affiliation is probably a more reliable cause, but it is ironic that a religion founded by Jesus could have statistics like this.

Year's ago, knowing nothing about shamanism, I invited a practitioner to come visit our church to give a workshop.  I personally got nowhere with the journey practicum, but my friend sa_hall ended up finding her spiritual path.  So last week it was my turn and I accepted an invitation to Stephanie's long running group.

( Wherein David encounters his power animal )

For the start of today's walk I went off path to a small corner of the park I've cleaned up before.  Brought a plastic bag to fill and also to check on the fallen butternut tree and a fairly energetic rock face.  Quickly filled the plastic bag, but I've now made a serious dent in the trash and it will be harder to fill the next bag.

Most of the life force from the butternut is gone.  I could only find one live twig.  It was near the earth, so there's some chance it could root.  This tree provided the ogam forfeda letters and I always feel their helpfulness.

the rock face was sufficiently energetic and grounding.  The moss is dying back with the arrival of high temperatures and I think that was where some of the overall energy was coming from.  But the sense of depth is more present without the tiny green distractions.

A good half dozen blackbirds and not much else in the way of birds.  With the crows wing last time, I'm getting the sense that this is the Morrigan's space.   People hauling out trash seem to be welcome at the moment.

And so I walked and high dogwood spring was around me.  And I thought about limits and the guidance I received was to back off on the remote energy work.  It is really all fire and no water and I, at least, cannot live that way.  And also that doing is not the same as loving - and that's almost too big a mystery to unpack.

Apparently Amazon has decided that it would not show sales ranks for "adult" books.  This seems to include LBGT books including history and self help but does not include items like Playboys greatest hits.  This in from morgan_dhu  's post.  I did check this out and

Ten Smart Things Gay Men Can Do to Improve Their Lives

did not show a sales rank and

Playboy's Blondes, Brunettes & Redheads June 2003 (Paperback)

did have a sales rank.

So what's next, pagan literature?  Perhaps they'll extend it to the Illiad and the Odyssey?  Oh, but not so sublte, Amazon appears to be removing rankings from romance novels too. Or at least if they are a little too steamy.  All this so that Betty BibleBelt Christian will not get a "recommended for you" that might be offensive.  Perhaps what they really need is Amazon for adults and Amazon for adults who want to be treated as children, you know, like their current country specific sites.  So we could have US, UK, Canada, Germany, BibleBelt et voila, problem solved.

Update:  Amazon is now claiming this was a glitch.  Given that this same action happened to a gay writer back in February (which may have been a trial run) and the Amazon PR machine already had a form letter explaining their new adult policy, one might doubt whether this is the entire truth - unless the glitch was a Fundy Christian sleeper cell.

I am running down on my supply of beeswax candles.  The last batch I got were not well made and tend to turn into puddles as they burn down.  It would also be great to support a pagan chandler.  Any ideas appreciated.

Still needing lots of sleep.  It feels like mono or like the two weeks after tamiflu cuts in on an influenza infection.  9 hours of sleep and I'm not entirely rested.  My posts seem to be turning into twitters.