A Druid’s Web Log – September, 2021 Summer Comes to a Gloomy End

Gustave Courbet, The Wave, 1869 – ©Public domain

I have been writing a “Plague Diary” since the worldwide Covid pandemic began. In it I include personal, community and political news. I hope to donate the diary to a historical association once the epidemic is over, as a record of these tumultuous days. It seems like world events are spinning faster and faster. The most recent trauma is the passage of an odious anti-abortion Witch Hunt (for real), a bill in Texas that empowers any religious zealot to sue a woman, or anyone who helps her including family members, Uber drivers, etc., if she is suspected of wanting an abortion. The same right wing governor (Abbott) who banned life-saving mask and vaccine mandates because they might interfere with “personal freedom”, is just fine with forcing women to carry a pregnancy to term, even in cases of rape, incest, or if the fetus is horribly deformed.

The right wing Supreme Court, now packed with Trump appointees, has so far said nothing. If this precedent stands, the rich, as always, will find ways to provide abortions for their wives, mistresses and girlfriends. And the poor will die in unhygienic back rooms and alleys.

The war in Afghanistan has lurched to its painful end. I am old enough to remember Vietnam and this is not much different. We never should have gone in there (or into Iraq) to begin with, the 9-11 attackers were Saudi’s after all, except possibly to take out Bin Ladin and Al-Qaida bases. Nation building has never succeeded in the “graveyard of empires”. And after twenty years of collaboration with western powers many Afghanis are now under threat of execution by the Taliban. The future prospects for women in Afghanistan are tragic, after twenty years of being able to go to school, work and hold public office, they are likely to be housebound under the control of male relatives again.

Then there’s the pandemic. The Delta variant keeps rising, and in a number of red states the rate of hospitalizations is worse now than in the spring. That’s happening mainly in the south, of course, due to people refusing to get the vaccine. Here in the north cases are rising too, but not as steeply. And while vaccinated individuals can still become infected, they either have no symptoms or very mild ones. In other words, the vaccines are performing just as advertised, saving lives. Also, blue states don’t have issues with masks in public areas. We understand that mask wearing is to protect others from virus carrying water droplets we might spread when speaking.

Hospitals in red states are filled with the unvaccinated; some have no beds left for other medical needs such as heart attacks and broken bones. People are being sent home to die rather than let them expire in an ICU bed. While the situation is not that dire here in the Northeast, new variants keep cropping up and extreme caution is still called for. I can only imagine the exhaustion of doctors and nurses who have to watch patients die needlessly, because they refused an FDA approved vaccine. And many of those same patients are cheerfully taking horse worming pills (Ivermectin) instead of the vaccine – because their right wing news outlets told them to. The same news outlets that promoted hydroxychloroquine in the past.

My fear is that winter is going to be very solitary and isolating again and I need to work hard to consciously bring people together. I have managed to wrangle a few friends to have an outdoor lunch on someone’s deck. I hope we can do that regularly this fall.

The western states continue to burn with record breaking numbers of wildfires as here in Massachusetts the rain continues. We had more than a foot of rain in July, the third wettest July since record-keeping began. And it still rains several days every week. June was the hottest June on record – Boston got to 100 degrees, and it rained half the days of August, the tenth wettest August on record. All this and the planet has only warmed about one degree, so far.

A week ago, hurricane Henri made it to our area and dumped a lot of rain but was slightly less destructive than expected. Louisiana and Mississippi have been utterly ravaged by hurricane Ida, another Katrina-like catastrophe. Last night Massachusetts experienced remnants of Ida, which meant minor flooding. Other places like New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York were not so lucky and record-breaking street flooding was the result.

This summer, because literally half of the days have been cloudy or rainy in the Northeast, plants in my garden that would usually get to several feet in height barely made it to a foot, or less. The constant rain knocked all the green berries off my hawthorn tree and elder bushes, making them useless for medicine this year.

I see reports of people feeling depressed and exhausted on Facebook. Who can blame them? I tell them that we are living through a very difficult period of history, and they need to be compassionate with themselves. We all need to sleep more, eat good food, and meditate at least once a day. Many will find peace and comfort just sitting under a tree. We will survive this. We have no other choice.

All blessings on you who read this. May you find peace and solace in troubled times.

BOOK NEWS

My new children’s book: “Once Around the Sun: Stories, Crafts, and Recipes to Celebrate the Sacred Earth Year” will be on sale April 5, 2022 in the U.S. The UK on-sale date is about 6 weeks later. It is available for pre-order at Inner Traditions and other retailers worldwide at Simon and Schuster.

THE DRUID TRILOGY – I am pleased to announce that all three books are available again as paper and eBooks – in new editions!

CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS

Parliament of the World’s Religions (virtual this year)
October 16-18
I will be speaking on a panel “Contemporary Pagan Elder Leadership in the Return of the Goddess”
October 26, 2021
Wild Ginger Herbal Center
6-8 PM Eastern
A talk on the Sacred Herbs of Samhain – plants to communicate with the Spirits of the dead
A Zoom webinar

NEWS YOU CAN USE

Below you will find the usual collection of archaeology, herb, climate, nature, health, Celtic, arts, religion and ethics news. Enjoy the read! And you can find all my books here.