A Druid’s Web Log – The Gathering Darkness – September 2020

The weather is cooling slightly and I put on long pants and a sweater for the first time this week. Instead of swimming I have started walking in a nature preserve again. On the way there I passed wheat fields that were cut, the brown earth showing again through the stubble. The tree leaves have not started turning yet, but the change is palpable.

The Rose of Sharon bushes that I planted last fall are still blooming, a late summer’s gift.

The rest of the world is going about its business for the most part, opening schools and markets, because they have managed to control outbreaks of the virus. Here in the USA the death and infection rates are climbing. There is still no national policy on masks, social distancing, ventilation, sanitation, or any other method of mitigating the disease.

As I type, the remnants of hurricane Laura pass overhead, a dark and dreary rain, but no wind yet. This has been the week of the Republican Convention in Washington, DC. Trump, our wannabe autocrat, chose the actual White House to hold his convention, despite it being a tax-payer funded venue that, according to the Hatch Act, is not supposed to be used for partisan politics because it belongs to all of us.

Trump still hasn’t learned that he governs all the people, not just his cultish, White Nationalist base.

There are still demonstrations and riots going on over the police murders of unarmed Black men and women by the police. Trump’s approach is to threaten protestors with the National Guard and to blame the Democrats. He never mentions the underlying reasons for the unrest.

A White Nationalist youth has just shot and killed two unarmed protestors. One of them, a white man armed with a skateboard, was trying to get the long gun away from the 17-year-old. On Facebook and in right wing circles people are saying the gunman was just “acting in self-defense”. But why were white men with guns there at all?

More and more White Nationalist groups, emboldened by Trump who praises them as “fine people” (after a protestor was killed by a White Nationalist in Charlottesville, Virginia and after Nazi youth marched in the streets chanting: “Jews will not replace us”, Trump opined that there were “good people on both sides”) appear at the protests and foment violence.

Last night I dreamt that I was in California where hundreds of wild fires are currently raging, and I was invited to witness a Hindu death ceremony that involved the burning of bones. At the same time, I was worried because I had forgotten to hire a cat sitter, and I was very worried about my cats.

I interpret the cats as our most basic human nature, the parts that need food and sleep and affection. These are being neglected in the fires, pandemic, hurricanes and riots. We never hear a word of comfort from Trump, our so-called “leader”, just the cultish praise of his followers and his family who say there will be “total chaos” if he isn’t re-elected. Meanwhile we are already living in chaos and he has been president for almost four years. Who is really to blame?

Another worry is the post office. One of Trump’s supporters was hired to oversee the dismantling of mail sorting machines, removal of post boxes, and the cutting of overtime hours, right before what is expected to be the largest mail-in voting election in history.

Trump keeps telling us that “the election is rigged” in the hopes that we the people will doubt the outcome when he loses, and he can continue to stay in office. But we the people are standing up to this in every city and town.

Below are just a few images from my rural area where we gathered on the town common last Saturday, properly socially distanced and wearing our masks, to stand up for the national mail which is meant to be a SERVICE and not a for-profit business as the Republicans and Trump would like it to be;

Book News

My first Druid novel, Priestess of the Forest – a Druid Journey, is back in print and available as an eBook and as a paperback. You can order copies from me via this website or find in in the usual places on line. Shamanic practitioner Nicholas Brink has just penned a review;

Book Review: Priestess of the Forest: A Druid Journey by Ellen Evert Hopman, 2020.

I was asked to review Priestess of the Forest by the author, Ellen Evert Hopman, after having reviewed several of her other books. With my long term love for the time-free stories of the ancients, especially stories of the Celts, I appreciated the opportunity to review this beautiful, exciting, and highly relevant novel. The book’s relevance for today is in our transition into the New Age, the Age that reconnects us to the ancients.

The controlling nature of the Roman Church as seen in the story of the Priestess of the Forest was an early force of greed that has led to the current demise of the Earth. This religious institution is now beginning to be held accountable for this as seen in the revelations of its controlling nature in the stories of child sex-abuse as described in the news and the clergy are being prosecuted in the courts for this abuse.

In this story the Druid Priestess, Ethne, with her great love for the Land and all that is of the Land, finds herself placed in a position of having to confront this invading and demanding Roman Clergy. Changes in her life take her away from her loved home deep in the forest where she has lived for a number of years. After leaving her forest home her new life broadens in the Celtic community of Druids, placing her in the middle of this struggle to protect the people from the church’s demanding suppression of the Druid beliefs, a struggle that becomes a losing battle with the clergy’s success in their conversion of the Celts to Roman Christianity.

Ethne eventually comes to realize that the hopelessness of this struggle has wasted her creative energy, and she searches for a new resolution beyond this confrontation with the Roman Church. This painful but beautiful theme is a turning point for Ethne who seeks hope for finding ways to protect and save the Druid beliefs with the realization that in the cyclic nature of life there will be a time when the people will again rediscover the importance of living lives that protect and value the Earth. This hope was brought to her in a vision of Brighid that she saw in the burning embers of the sacred fire.

The Roman belief that women are subservient to men and that men have the right to control women even to the point of beating them is another important theme in the story of this Druid Priestess. From the Celtic and Druid perspective Celtic women are highly respected by the men in their sexual relationships and otherwise. This respect is seen in a woman’s ability to become a queen, even a queen who is given the role of leading the country. This fact horrifies the Roman clergy who seek all ways they can to destroy this tradition of sexual equality.

To preserve the excitement of this story for future readers I will limit my description of the story, but one character is an Egyptian Coptic missionary whose philosophy is to not demand the end of the pagan beliefs of the people as demanded by the Roman clergy. By being a good listener to their stories of life he can tell the stories of Jesus that they enjoy when given the opportunity. This contrast between the Roman Clergy and this Coptic priest makes clear the evil controlling nature of the Roman Church.

Much of the beauty of this book is Hopman’s description of the Druid rituals and liturgies as the wheel of light turns from Samhain, through Brighid’s day of Imbolc, to Bealtaine and then to Lughnasadh before again celebrating the return of Samhain. Also the frequented Celtic sacred sites such as the hill of stone and the places of the sacred fires bring alive the ways of the Celts and their Druids of the time. Her use of the ancient Irish words and their correct pronunciation added to the life of the book, pronunciation that I practiced while reading them. Such description and the personal life and practices of Ellen Evert Hopman show that the Druid ways can survive after about 1700 years, the hope and prediction of the priestess Ethne. This rekindling of the ways of the ancient people of the Earth provides us with continued and deep hope for the future.

The hope of rekindling the ways of the ancient Celts, ways that were hidden for their salvation and have survived, are also seen in other cultures such as the Native Americans who are currently turned to by many with the recognition that they can show us the ways to survive. Though the pain caused by in invasion of the Roman Church that was effective in suppressing the world of the Celts is deeply felt in Hopman’s beautiful writing, the hope for the future is also there and is part of Hopman’s personal life in her teaching of the use of medicinal herbs, in her writing, and her teaching of her Pagan beliefs as a born-again Pagan. Priestess of the Forest is a story of excitement, intrigue, and beauty, along with its profound meaning in our present lives of turmoil as the world changes.

Nicholas E. Brink, PhD

Author of

Ecstatic Soul Retrieval (publisher – Inner Traditions / Bear & Co.)
Power of Ecstatic Trance
Baldr’s Magic
Beowulf’s Ecstatic Trance Magic
Trance Journeys of the Hunter-Gatherers
Grendel and His Mother (publisher – Routledge)
Applying the Constructivist Approach to Cognitive Therapy: Resolving the Unconscious Past (Routledge)

Available from Postmark Books in Rosendale, NY or your preferred bookseller

Facebook Site: Nick Brink’s Books

Workshop News

Changing Times Changing Worlds 2020
An on-line Metaphysical Conference
Coming November 9 – 15, 2020
WHERE: Anywhere you want! This year the conference is completely on line!
Changing Times-Changing Worlds will be taking place M-F November 9-13 in the evenings, as well as the usual full days on Saturday and Sunday November 14&15. The links to join workshops, panels and chat rooms will be posted on the website.
I just presented three virtual classes at HexFest which was supposed to be live in New Orleans but was done as a virtual conference instead. It went very well and since all the classes are archived, you can still watch the whole thing!
The Day of the Straws
A virtual music, art and folklore project based in Cork, Ireland, that was created during the three weeks of lock down
I participated in this and the next phase will be a film!

*Reminder- you can find my book on this website and they are also available at independent book stores, on Amazon, and other places*

Below you will find the past Moonth’s gleanings from the media; Archaeology news, herbs, health, climate, nature, religion, Celts, fairies, art, politics and ethics. Enjoy!

ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS

More Archaeology News…

HERB NEWS

Make a Pine needle basket (video)

Make Elderberry syrup (take every 2 hours in hot tea or hot water for flu) (I would make this with honey – use ½ the amount of honey vs. sugar)
Tansy – a natural pest repellent

More Herb News…