Seachd: The Inaccessible Pinnacle

Seachd (also known as The Crimson Snowdrop outside of the United Kingdom) is the first ever Scots Gaelic feature film and what a film it is. The tag line, "The truth is in the story" sums up the movie well. Its hard to explain what the movie is about as there are so many themes running through it. The main relationship is between Aonghas and his grandfather, with whom he goes to stay, along with his sister, Mairi and brother, Donnchadh. The grandfather regails the children with his tales of times past whenever he gets a chance. Aonghas is not enamoured with these fictitious offerings and seeks the truth ... about his parent's death and his grandfather's stories.

The movie is wholly in gaelic and its wonderful to hear the language spoken, but no different from watching a foreign film. Filmed entirely on Skye, the landscape features heavily in the movie, as does history spanning centuries of tales. For those that know the myths, legends and folklore of Scotland, some of the tales will be recognisable; only one having been written especially for the movie - the tale of the crimson snowdrop. Each tale is clearly distinguishable in terms of the flow of the language, the colour scheme and the storytelling, a result of involving several writers, directors and actors. I have to say that I almost wanted the whole movie to be full of the grandfather's stories.

The music is wonderful and the stories are engrossing. One of the main themes is about the importance of keeping culture alive through language - stories, music, etc. and this is clearly spelled out without detracting from the main storyline itself. Its a wonderfully woven piece of film making and with every viewing something new is revealed - it has that kind of depth.

It's a wonderful movie for all ages, though it does carry a PG rating. I had a few quibbles watching this film, but they are insignificant in comparison to the level of enjoyment this film provides.

If you don't speak Gaelic, subtitles are provided in English, Irish and Scots Gaelic on the DVD. Also provided are interviews in both English and Gaelic. As a bonus, the DVD also contains the original short of the story of the Crimson snowdrop - well worth watching.

Rabbits

I almost forgot to post about this, though I don't know why. Driving to work on Monday evening, I turned a corner on a country lane that has a bit of a lawn behind the gutter (actually, I think its the only section that has proper guttering, the hedgerows being the barriers for the most part) and for some reason my eye was drawn to look at it. Sitting there, rather nonchalantly was a rabbit watching my car approach. I slowed down as we locked eyes, and I considered taking a photograph (risking life and limb because I stopped on a blind bend in a road where two cars cannot easily pass). However, as the car creeped slowly to a stop, the rabbit crouched down as though it didn't want to be disturbed. I continued on my way to work.

What's got me thinking is that this is the third rabbit in odd circumstances. The other week, after staying late to do some personal work, I was travelling home along a busy A road about 45 minutes after sunrise, only to see two rabbits grazing happily on the footpath outside the local B&Q (DIY centre). I had to wonder what had brought them there as there were plenty of out of the way fields where they could remain undisturbed. Again, I think I was pretty much on my own apart from a truck that had passed a few minutes before.

We have plenty of rabbits on the fields around us, but these three appeared in some very odd places and both sightings occurred while I was in the car travelling to work. I'm not one for seeing the obvious signs, but perhaps I should look into this a little more - or am I just taking things out of all proportion?

Skull

So, someone posted about finding a wonderful brass skull in a shop in Cornwall recently and a linke was posted to a picture. I wandered over to the link and then fiddled with the url until I managed to view the site and found the skull pictured here.

I liked it a lot and put in on my wish list for consideration at a much later date, say 2010. On Saturday, I went to visit my friends at Wicca Moon and, to my surprise the exact same skull has been delivered during the week. It was almost the first thing that caught my eye in the shop. Of course, I can't really spare the money this month, but I just had to have it once I held it in my hands. I immediately put it aside and purchased it just before I left. Sychronisity or what?

Arse Doctrine of Polytheism - Sucks

I was thinking about the current state of my life this morning, after suffering some injuries inflicted by an inaminate object, and Toby Lamb's "Arse Doctrine of Polytheism" came to mind, more particularly this sentence:

"The (gods) that cause the most pain in your particular arse won't let you not talk to them, so just get on with it and quit moaning."

Why? Because I would like to know which of the gods I'm not talking to enough to deserve the gargantuan pains in my arse.

How far would you go?

This evening I found myself pondering just how far I would travel in order to find my spiritual home. I have travelled over 14,000 miles to feel more comfortable about my beliefs and practices. I know others who have emigrated, too. Its not an unknown thing.

I was unable to feel spiritually connected to my land of birth, so I felt I had no other choice but to leave. I wonder, though, how others on a similar path to me cope being in a foreign land? I know of several druid and other celtic style groups in Australia, but if they ever experience a feeling of being disconnected?

I know the Vikings tooks their gods with them, whilst the Roman would mix and match, sometimes bringing their own, but often appeasing the local gods. I am not sure how connected they felt to their own gods being such long distances from their home. I know they continued to honour and worship, but was that just out of habit, or did their gods really travel with them?

From my point of view, however, my gods had not been in my home country long enough to establish themselves, and the indigenous spirits had been in occupation for over 18,000 years, uninterrupted or corrupted. The local spirits were quite overpowering and knowledge about them was seldom shared with those outside the indigenous community. In order to know the genius loci of my birthplace, you needed almost complete comprehension of the ways of the local people - you couldn't apply western principles to the honouring of local gods. I had understood this even as a child in my interractions with local people.

I know some immigrants to my land of birth brought other gods and spirits and these did have an impact, but mostly in the cities and suburbs. Even so, those that you might encounter seemed out of place in the landscape.

I did feel it important to travel to the land of my forebears and to try and establish connections to them and to the genius loci of their birth place. Its important to me and something I put ahead of my work and even my family. I do wonder - is that going too far?

How far would the readers of this blog travel, I wonder.

Residential History

Someone posted a question at one of the fora I frequent about the impact where we grew up has had on our present life as a pagan. I have written about the effect of my past on this blog before in "On Revelations", but I have not thought about the areas in which I resided as being significant.

I was raised in the tropics of the southern hemisphere. I did not know what a cardigan, sweater or jumper was until I was eight years old, when we moved to the sub-tropical capital of my state and temperatures dropped below 20 degrees celsius. We had two seasons in the tropics: wet and dry. Even in the dry season, you could count on rain in the afternoon at least once a week - it was daily in the wet season - the type of heavy, hot rain that soaked you through to your underwear in under two minutes.

As a child, my family lived in a tin shed on a remote island in the Gulf of Carpenteria amongst the indigenous people, though I remember little of this, on a tropical island getting about on Mini Mokes (based on the Jeeps of WWII), on dusty, vast remote cattle stations, at my grandmother's house in a railway oasis on the tracks to a distant mining community in the desert and on the edge of suburbia in a large, armed forces town. Mostly, we were never far from bushland and the dangers that lurked within (fears my mother instilled in me), and we had the odd poisonous snake cause concern, plenty of jellyfish to keep us from swimming in the oceans and a few spiders who liked biting people in awkward places.

What I remember most the places we lived was the stifling heat - sticky and draining. I remember we did not have air conditioning and the temperature was frequently over 32 degrees celsius and you could wake up in a pool of your own sweat in the mornings. I don't remember the cyclones, even though I've seen the pictures of me on horseback with the flood waters lapping at my sandals, though I do remember our neighbours losing their roofs. I remember playing in the gutters in the pouring rain, making boats and watching them go down the drain, which was big enough to fit five grown men. How we never went down it ourselves, I don't remember.

When we settled down in the southern, sub-tropical capital, the heat was less intense (we had three seasons); it rained with less frequency and sometimes it drizzled; but the storms increased. They changed to aquamarine-coloured, hail infested, thunderclapping bursts. Instead of the rain lasting for hours, you'd get a flash storm - one caused just as much damage as the cyclone we had experienced in the north and, though our house remained untouched, we had the possessions of neighbours (near and far) strewn about our front and back yards - rather than continous, pelting rain that lasted for hours.

Strangely enough, I come alive during a storm. I used to love watching them roll in over the ocean towards us, counting the time between lightening flash and thunderclap. Eventually, I would clamber home and listen to the tapping of rain on the galvanised tin roof. The smell was awesome, too. Heavy, thick and delicious. I never had a fear of them like others did.

The other place I felt alive was by the ocean. I have a fear of going in the water - the result of someone attemping to drown me once - but being on it or by it revives me. Most of my childhood was spent within 10 minutes drives of the ocean. Down south, there was only a wetland area between us and the beach and, if a storm was forecast, it was a two minute drive to the oceanfront. I still enjoy just wading in the sea, feeling the will of the waves as they hit my legs, listening to the sound of the ocean as it sings is soothing song. True, sometimes its loud when storms rip it up, but mostly its quiet and there is strength in its whispers.

For all of this, I never felt at home in the bush or natural areas of my homeland. Even less so in the cities, even though they have their own energies. I just knew I did not belong to that land; I was an intruder. Having watched many programmes made in the land of my ancestors, I knew that I had to try and emigrate in order to feel "at home". I wanted the experience of four seasons and the different energies of each. I wanted to spend time in those lush, green places and those wet autumnal woods, bursting with colour. I could almost sense the clean, crisp energy of frosty winters and I yearned for them. By the time I was fourteen years of age, I felt the overwhelming draw of the countries where my ancestors once lived. It would be eleven years before I made the journey, and another eighteen months before I found my footing, but I was home. Finally, I could start to seek out my true spiritual connections on the land of my ancestors.

So, did my childhood have an impact? Yes. Whilst I could work with the energies of the land of my birth, I always felt like I was stealing or intruding in some way; I felt alienated. I could never find a place where I was happy. Though there was one spot I felt to which I felt some connection, by the time I returned five years later, it had changed and, once again, I felt abandoned by the genius locii.

Once I travelled to England, Ireland and, finally, Scotland, I found the energies more familiar, and was able to expand my practices. That feeling of not belonging to the bush, the city and, finally, the country in its entirety was gone and I felt free to follow my own path without stepping on the toes of local spirits. Not only did I break away from the beliefs of my family, but I was able to explore my own spiritual leanings without feeling inhibited by place. I found myself opening up simply because of my location.

True, I work in the city, but I feel most at home in the countryside and more remote areas of the United Kingdom. Wild areas near the seas are still a favoured spot for me. If I can hear the waves, I am at peace. So, that connection from childhood remains, but I still prefer moodier weather, such as rain, mist, fog, freezing snow than the sun. Here, though, I am happier outdoors exploring the woods and wildlife than I ever was in my land of birth. The spirits seem to accept me.

I still get excited by storms, like the one of yesterday - so much energy just waiting to be absorbed - and I still feel the pull of the ocean and I know, one day, I will have to move so that I am right on the sea. For the moment, though, I can work with my current location.

My childhood experience has taught me the importance of place. I think I have an understanding of the sacredness of land, and the importance of relationships with the genius loci simply because of the disconnection I felt as a child to the spirits of my homeland. I think, too, that this alienation spurred me on to seek out the spiritual traditions of my ancestors, as well as the traditions of the area in which I live.

Labels

Just a short note, in addition to the rather lengthy posts on "Defining My Use of the Term, 'Fluffy Bunny'" and "Begging, Borrowing and Stealing", on labels.

Do we need them? Yes, we do. We need them in everyday life and we need them to define ourselves, our beliefs and our practices. Its no good saying, "Well, one person's polytheist is another's animist".

I am not a skyscraper just because I am taller than most erections. I am not a freezer just because I have been known to give people the cold shoulder. I am a human being, I am a woman.

Each word in the English language has a basic definition that most can comprehend, allowing for differences in dialect and dictionaries. Hence, I feel its important to keep those definitions when talking with other people. This is my reasoning behind not borrowing terms from other cultures and traditions. It just muddles things for those trying to understand the differences.

So, when someone says they are a druid, you can assume that they adhere to a broad spectrum of practices amongst modern druids, can't you? Well, no. Not in today's pagan circles you can't. I have my own definitions, based on what I know of history, archaeology, relevant texts, the Oxford dictionary and my experience of those, of my acquaintance, who are tryng to follow the path of the ancient druids. Unfortunately, my definition does not seem to be the same as others; thus giving occasion for my posts of last week.

So, when you seen the word "pagan" before any other word, do not assume that the definition of the latter word is unaltered. It ain't always what it says on the tin.

Begging, Borrowing and Stealing

Following on from my Definition thread, I am curious as to why people feel the need to borrow terms or labels that don't quite fit. Is it the kudos of it? Is calling yourself Wica preferable to calling yourself a pagan witch? If so, why? I have always held respect for initiates of Wica and I would never presume to adopt a title I had not earned through hard work, discipline and dedication. I wouldn't have dared call myself a nun, just because I believed in Christ. Even when christened, baptised, and confirmed did I ever presume I was anything other than Catholic.

I have to wonder what Wica initiates have done to earn such disrespect from the pagan community at large?

Why, too, do people feel the need to borrow practices that have no real value, such as the use of words like "blessed be"? Is it really going to make all that difference to your life? I have to admit I am not fond of those people who use the term "Namaste", either. Having practiced yoga, I used the term in class with my teacher and fellow students, but never took it outside. It wasn't relevant to the everyday man on the street in a western civilisation.

I can understand borrowing magical techniques from other traditions, as I follow the maxim: "If it works, use it". But why the need for elaborate, high theatre ritual if its not necessary? Okay, if it gets you in the mood, so to speak, but still why not concoct your own based on your own experience of energy, instead of borrowing from others?

I've noticed, too, there are trends in pagan circles. When I first entered the scene in the United Kingdom, and on the internet, everyone wanted to be associated with Wica. So much so, that the term became interchangeable with witch. You just couldn't get away from the word or the practices. Traditional witchcraft seemed a dirty word - this might have been because of the release of Professor Ronald Hutton's book [who knows?] and everyone wanted to link themselves to Gardner or Sanders without being an initiate.

Recently, the trend turned more towards druidism, the most common reason for converting being because "it has less dogma". I find this a little laughable given the druids of old had to learn large tracts of law, history and poetry by rote and their training could be up to 20 years long. They were the keepers of lore and law for their clan, often judging what, when, where and how to approach matters. So, I presume there was a certain amount of dogma.

Over the last few months, I've heard reports from those that frequent pagan-lite boards, moots and events that there is an increasing propensity for pagans to claim to be atheist, and the numbers are rising. So, obviously this is the next big thing. I don't mind as I don't believe you have to believe in any deity, or even the possibility of deity existing to be a pagan.

What I do mind is the fact that these things seem to follow in trends. It was one of the reasons I completely ignored anything "celtic" (if you'll excuse the term being used outside of its strictly linguistic context). Everything appeared to be tinged with the celtic motif: reiki, Wica, shamanism ... and the list goes on. The majority of my own ancestors are Irish, but I took the Anglo-Saxon route and follow my English ancestors rather than delve into the apparently kitsch world of celtic pagan traditions; none of it seemed authentic to me anyways (and that's apart from the ancient potato goddess of Ireland), and the modern druids appeared to be too New Age for me, a scene I had long abandoned.

It was only an encounter with a particular entity that forced me to re-examine my beliefs and change tack. I was loathe to do it, but I dived in regardless. This time, however, I dove into a very different pool and came up breathing the air of my ancestors.

I don't call myself a druid, or even a druid-in-training, as I have no intention of going back to law school, or taking part in overt political actions. I do have every intention of learning the myths and lore of my ancestors as thoroughly as I can. I also don't call myself Irish, I'm not. I'm not Scottish either, though that is where my true interest lies. Nor do I align myself with the Brythonic traditions, though they also form part of my studies. [Note: If you want to truly get to grips with all the history, myth and folklore of any of the people defined as the Q-Celtic or P-Celtic cultures, you need to read the texts from the various countries in order to gain the right perspective, or so I am told.]

I refer to myself as a bog-standard pagan for the most part, adding (hard) polytheist for further definition. Depending on my audience, I might also use the label "(practicing) witch". That should be enough for most people to understand my point of origin.

On another note, why do so many authors think its okay to borrow the work of others, rework it and republish it as their own? Its quite obvious, in some cases, that they've not even practiced what they preach and the lack of experience shows. I recently read one post where someone claims a well-known authoress of wikkan books admitted to them that they had got all of the material for their first book from internet sources. I have never known so much plagiarism to be okay. One author of witchcraft books, Paul Huson, even has a link on his website to report those who are peddling his book around the internet illegally as "Mastering the Dark Arts: A Practical Grimoire for Witches, Warlocks and Covens" and, more brazenly, in its original format.

I've also noticed a propensity for members of pagan message boards to "cut and paste" huge swathes of texts from other sites in response to queries, rather than posting an original thought. The idea that message boards are full of armchair pagans was one I had dismissed until I saw all the links in posts being pasted.

Copyright issues seem to be side-stepped by administrators and moderators of these fora, too. The number of times I've brought this to the attention of those in charge only to have no action taken and, often, no response to my query. I've even resorted to contacting the authors and informing them of the breach.

So much for the honour that so many pagans purport to espouse.

So ends today's rant!

Sorry folks. Its been one of those months where some unsavoury practices have come to light, both personally and for friends. I prefer to write things down otherwise I can spend hours, days and weeks mulling over my thoughts. Thanks for being patient and keep the comments coming, please.