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In the morning, after (almost) sleeping through a night of 28 degree weather, I headed to the edge of the water to make my offerings. Pumpkin seeds were what I had to give, for they were what I had to eat. I proceeded through the same ritual I outlined in my post last week, only this time I did it while standing in the morning sun.

When I’m in the city, I sometimes lift my hands up toward the ceiling of my bedroom, my office, or whatever sacred space I’ve constructed, and imagine that I’m feeling the warmth of the sun. I also imagine that my feet become roots and extend deep into the earth, deep into the coolness of the underground waters. This practice is a part of the Two Powers meditation, a grounding and centering meditation used by ADF.

Standing beside the reservoir, I thought perhaps I should do the Two Powers meditation now. So I lifted my hands up to the sky, and when I felt the warmth of the sun — the actual warmth, and not the imagined warmth — I was taken aback.

I opened my eyes and I saw the water. The actual water.

The Two Powers meditation felt a little silly to do at that point, ’cause I was in the sun and I could almost feel the water on my skin. I didn’t need to imagine anything.

Instead, my mediation would be to open my eyes, open my heart, and feel with all of my being what was around me; to recognize that all of this was the Earth Mother.

This weekend in the mountains gave me some perspective on my religious practice.

Druidism will be a living religion so long as it continues to focus on the living earth. As bookish as we Druids may be, the soil is our truest scripture. The work we do at home, the practice we develop in solitude, should — perhaps even must — inform our experience of the living earth, not simply the metaphoric earth.

One can make the sun into a symbol, or the water into a symbol, or just about any tree, bird, and plant into a representation of some human experience, but concordances which seek to place all of nature within a human framework (this tree represents this emotion, or that god is good for this human activity) are little different than a Catholic concordance of saints. Plus, they can trick the city-dwelling Pagan into thinking that the natural world is only metaphor for the inner human world.

It’s more than that.

The tree doesn’t always need to represent something. It can simply be alive, and beautiful.

I came back to the city with a real desire to return to the mountains; to be outside. I spend a lot of time in my head each day, but not near enough time in the dirt.

I need to find a way to bring an awareness of the living earth into my daily life.

The question is, how? (My husband says, “Weeding, sweetie. There is weeding.”)

So, I turn to you, friends. You showed up in droves to share your intense nature experiences, and I’m going to ask that you join in the dialogue again.

How do you do it? How do you bring an awareness of the living earth into your daily life? Do you do it by getting out into your neighborhood? By gardening? Do you volunteer with the park service? What do you do?

Or, if you’ve found yourself in a state where you don’t do this, what could you imagine doing to bring this awareness into your life?

I fell into a frozen lake once.

It was winter, and we were on holiday from school. I was running ahead of my two cousins and my older brother, and I hit a thin patch. In no time, my tiny body was submerged.

The water was violently cold, and I was certain I was going to die.

I didn’t.

Photo by Roland zh, Wikimedia Commons

When I was about 10, I went to a summer camp for kids who like horses.

While riding one afternoon, a fellow camper got thrown from her horse. She was dragged for at least 100 yards. Her body looked like a rag doll flopping about, with one leg stuck in the stirrup, and her other leg and two free arms flailing uncontrollably.

Her head was one horse hoof away from being crushed to tiny, adolescent pieces, and I was certain she was going to die.

She didn’t die either.

Photo by Dan Shouse, on Flickr

A few years back, not long after joining ADF, I was on the road, sleeping in a no-name hotel, and I had a dream.

In that dream I heard a voice, one that was deeper and more expansive than any human voice I’d ever heard. The voice spoke in a language I couldn’t understand, and while it spoke I saw in the blackness of my imagination a white doorway, beside which were standing two white hounds. The voice was like an earthquake.

I jumped out of bed, body trembling, most certain that I was going to die.

That time, I think I might have died just a little.

Photo by Sean McGee Hicks, on Flickr

All things have their place, and there is certainly a place for the warm and fuzzy in Paganism. But I think it’s also necessary to remember that there are parts of nature, and aspects of the Kindred we worship, that can be violently cold, fiercely wild, and terribly awe inspiring.

I hear many people frame the human condition as being either a decision to live in Fear or to live in Love, capitals emphasizing the notion that these states of being are not simply human emotions, but rather that they are cosmic in some way. I like to think that things are more complicated and nuanced than that.

Even death, in its inevitability, is more complicated and nuanced than that.

I keep these things in mind today as I head up for a weekend camping trip in the National Forest. I won’t be riding horses, and the reservoir is far from frozen.

I will sleep, though…

…and dream.

Photo by Andrew.Beebe, on Flickr

While I’m away, I invite my diverse, thoughtful readership to sit for a moment and remember a time when you came into contact with an aspect of nature or your gods — either in a formal ritual setting or in an unexpected place — that was awe inspiring, or terrifying, or visceral.

When did it stop being an idea and start being something real?

I’ll return to the blog after the weekend, perhaps with stories of new adventures in the woods. When I do, I hope that the comment feed looks like a late-night round of campfire storytelling.