A Druid’s Web Log – April 2020 – life in the midst of a global pandemic

I am now entering my third week of self-isolation. It hasn’t been all that bad, maybe because I am a writer and used to days of solitude while working on a book. For me that’s most of the time! I consciously work to keep my mental and physical health on track, I take a walk in nature every day, no matter the weather. I don’t have a dish washer or a washing machine, so I have been busy washing sheets and towels and clothes in the tub and hanging them outside on sunny days. I have a stout clothes line that stretches from the house to a big oak tree out back. All this makes me feel practical and self-sufficient.

My one stroke of genius was to buy multiple bags of apples. They don’t rot like other fresh produce and provide fresh food every day. My biggest failure was Kleenex. I did not anticipate the shelves being bare every time I went to the grocery store. After four tries I gave up and ordered Kleenex from Amazon. They say I can expect the boxes sometime between mid-April and mid-May.

I have a Druid friend in Mexico who has been teaching me to Skype. He tells me that there have been more than 70 virus attributed deaths so far in Mexico but like here, almost no testing. The Mexican government hasn’t mandated any lock downs and the stores and offices are open. He tells me that Americans are streaming over the border to buy things. I explain that our shelves are bare and I show him a picture. “That’s so sad!” he says.

I don’t know if this is happening to us because Americans are hoarding or because Mexicans aren’t quite as greedy. “Tienes que preparar te imediatamente!” I tell him. After seeing pictures of empty shelves, he listens.

I have started keeping a “Plague Diary” with daily happenings and thoughts about the pandemic as it unfolds. I think about the future and how space travelers will be in essentially the same position we are all in now. They will be separated from friends and family, relying on Skype and internet chats and online lists to maintain their human connections. I am trying to think of this as a dress rehearsal of sorts. I am also thinking that the suffering will help unite us as a nation and a world.

Photo by and (c)2007 Derek Ramsey (Ram-Man) – Self-photographed, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2083415

My father used to tell me how the thing he missed most about World War II was the sense of unity, everyone pulling together towards one goal. We may, as humans, experience this again as the casualties mount. It would help if we had a competent and compassionate leader to guide us (but we can’t have everything).

The sun is shining, the crocuses are in full bloom, and the Sanguinaria (Bloodroot) is preparing to burst on the scene.

I focus on these things and my mind stays calm. I have also found this Green Tara chant very powerful and moving at this time. Try listening to it as you read the news. Puts our human dilemma into a different perspective.

POEMS FOR THE PLAGUE YEAR

Leonard Cohen live in Dublin (video)

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
Everybody knows the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died
Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you’ve been faithful
Ah give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you’ve been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
And everybody knows
Everybody knows, everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows, everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
And everybody knows that it’s now or never
Everybody knows that it’s me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah when you’ve done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe’s still pickin’ cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows
And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it’s moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there’s gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows
And everybody knows that you’re in trouble
Everybody knows what you’ve been through
From the bloody cross on top of Calvary
To the beach of Malibu
Everybody knows it’s coming apart
Take one last look at this Sacred Heart
Before it blows
And everybody knows
Everybody knows, everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
Oh everybody knows, everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows – Leonard Cohen

Pandemic poem

Lynn Ungar is a poet and a Unitarian Minister, she wrote this meditation on the opportunity of self-quarantines.

Pandemic
What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.
And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.
Promise this world your love–
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.

And we have been here before – the Great Plague of 1616-1619

BOOK NEWS

Review in “Witches and Pagans” magazine.

The Sacred Herbs of Spring: Magical, Healing, and Edible Plants to Celebrate Beltaine, by Ellen Evert Hopman, Destiny Books, 2020.

This handbook by master herbalist and Druidic initiate Ellen Evert Hopman is a welcome companion to her Sacred Herbs of Samhain (2019). The Celtic year was (and still is) divided into the dark half and the light half, and so this pair of books gives us information to help us work through the entire year. This book opens with an Irish poem, “Song of Summer” translated by Kuno Meyer—

Summertime, season supreme!
Splendid in colour then.
Blackbirds sing a full lay
If there be a slender shaft of day.

—followed by a foreword by theologian, mythologist, and priest Chris Aldridge, who writes “Ellen leads the reader and/or practitioner through a fantastic world…, bringing her plant and herbal knowledge and mankind’s essential elements together for the benefit of all people” (p. x).

Hopman first introduces us to the origins of Beltaine, or May Day, which has hardly ever been celebrated here in the U.S., first, because the Puritans disapproved of any pagan rite or festival and, second, because the Russians held an annual military parade upon which the McCarthy era looked with grave disapproval. In the mid-20th century, children were still taught to make May baskets to fill with flowers and hang on neighbors’ doors, but this sweet custom has long since disappeared, and though we Pagans still celebrate May as the opening of the light half of the year, we’re pretty much alone.

Following the Introduction, Part One, “Useful Primers for This Book,” introduces readers to Celtic cosmology, Fairies and Helpful Spirits, and Herbal Preparation. If you don’t already know about the two seasons, the three worlds, and four treasures, and the five directions, it’s a fascinating read. Regarding herbal preparation, Hopman tells us how to make tea, a salve, a poultice, a fomentation, and a tincture. She suggests dosages and cautions, and writes (in boldface), “Above all, if I say something is poisonous, I mean it” (p. 27).

Part Two is about 200 pages listing and describing sacred woods for the Beltaine fires; herbs of Fairies, Elves, and Spirits; herbs of magic and mysteries; herbs of protection, purification, courage, clarity, love, fertility, abundance, and “herbs for connecting to other realms, higher beings, and visions,” and finally edible herbs and flowers for magic and ritual: “By Beltaine, many vegetables, herbs, and flowers are ready to be eaten and Kitchen Witches can use their magical properties in cooking to strengthen blessings and incantations” (p. 226).

Part Three gives us traditions, rites, and foods for the Beltaine feast. The book concludes with endnotes, a list of Hopman’s other books, indexes of plants by their common names and scientific names, and the general index.

5 broomsticks

Barbara Ardinger, Ph.D. is the author of eight published books, including two novels. Her blogs appear every month on Feminism and Religion, where she is a regular Pagan contributor. She has been writing for the Llewellyn annuals since 2004, and her work has also been published in devotionals to Isis, Athena, and Brigid. Barbara’s day job is freelance editing for people who have good ideas but don’t want to embarrass themselves in print. To date, she has edited more than 300 books, both fiction and nonfiction, on a wide range of topics. She lives in Long Beach, California, with her two rescued cats, Schroedinger and Heisenberg. Her doctorate is in English Renaissance literature.

You can find this book and all my books in the usual places or order a signed copy with a personal note from me here .

Below you will find the past Moonth’s gleanings from the Archaeology, Herb, Climate, Nature, Religion and Celtic worlds. Enjoy!