Open yourself to the movement of creativity in your life, and there is no telling what will happen.
I have a tradition of rearranging plastic, magnetic letters on the back of my local coffee shop’s espresso machine to make ridiculous phrases. While waiting for my chai (much lower in caffeine than the triple espresso I used to drink), I make my silliness all over the silver, Italian shininess.
A few examples of my literary genius:
And, this heartfelt confession:
This tradition bring me great happiness. I cannot tell you how giddy I become as shuffle through the available letters. My imagination goes wild. It’s childlike, and rather amusing to my friends at Kaladi Coffee.
Yesterday, in a particularly inspired moment, I assembled a rather large phrase. Rarely have I brought elements of Paganism or Druidry onto the magnetic board, but I was inspired to make an exception.
I couldn’t stop giggling. I giggled all the way home, like a This Little Piggy. This one made me so happy.
Once home, I opened up my computer to discover that it had made a lot of other people happy, too. There was a tremendous response on Facebook to the phrase. In less than a few minutes, over 35 people had liked the picture, and a few had even shared it.
This may be something, I thought.
So, I thew it out there:
Again, the response was tremendous.
Yes, yes, yes, I heard. I would buy that. I love that. That’s awesome.
The giggling, it appears, was contagious.
I’m not sure what happened next. The subsequent four hours were a bit of a blur.
I know that Photoshop was involved, and a furious hunting through fonts. I pulled a public domain graphic of an acorn (appropriate for Druids), and arranged a few different designs of the phrase. I set up a Cafe Press store (which was much easier than I imagined), played with some HTML, registered a domain name (TheDruidsAreComing.com), and set up a Facebook page and Twitter account (because branding makes sense to me).
Seriously, I was a little manic.
Then, without giving it much more though, I let my new creation loose into the world.
THE DRUIDS ARE COMING!!
Yes. I went to town.
I share this story not simply to hawk my wares. I think the story illustrates an important lesson we often forget.
Magick exists, it is real, and it isn’t necessarily the bi-product of complicated ritual. It’s much more immediate than you might think. You can create change, even a small one, with the directed, focused use of your own will. You can do it with a humorous flavor (i.e. farting unicorns), or in ways that draw attention to important matters, like planting trees. But it’s right there at your fingertips, waiting for your giggle to unleash it.
This TDAC venture isn’t me trying to save the world. It’s just an example of how a person can bring something into being which was not there before, and how the process can be so much fun.
To do my part, though, I’m donating 10% of my humble TDAC profits to ADF and 10% PlantABillion.org. Seems like the right thing to do, considering that one grows Druids and the other grows trees. I might end up giving away more. This could end up leading to something much bigger. Who knows?
At the very least, I hope that my TDAC experiment will raise some awareness about Druids, about the need for more trees, and about the amazing, abundant, ever-present creativity that exists in each of us.
So tell me —
Have you ever had a burst of creativity that led to an unexpected project? Have you discovered ways to support your religious and spiritual communities that seemed to come out of thin air?
Share them!
Then, plant a tree.
Comments
12 responses to “THE DRUIDS ARE COMING! Plant a tree.”
“THE DRUIDS ARE COMING. Plant a tree.” I really love this! Some of my best friends have been trees, and I have been giving them offerings since I was a child. I would really love to get a t-shirt. Thanks for sharing, Teo!
Just my own wee bit of input…maybe something like “Plant a tree. Feel Releaf,” would be a good idea? 🙂
Awesome! My boyfriend recently did a similar thing. He wanted an online “Pagan Store” with alchemical symbols, silly T-shirts that say “Half Astral”, panties with “As Above, so Below” on them, pentagrams, Triple Goddess symbols, etc. Most of the profits (if there are any!) will go to opening a retreat center to hold festivals and retreats specifically for pagans. We already own the land, we just need to build the damn thing!
So was born (a tribute to Hermes, of course): http://www.thrice-great.com. I hope your site does well and that millions of trees are planted. And that our 60 acre retreat center (that has a million trees already!) will one day host the Druids! Hooray for creativity and silliness and farting unicorns.
Well, nothing on this scale; but last Yule I decided to make my own flavored hot chocolate mixes (I’ve experimented with many flavors – the current favs in my house are hazelnut, peppermint and cinnamon vanilla). Now, I have people asking for “refills.” I have been told that I may have found a new calling, especially when I pair it up with homemade cookies.
Two such creative bursts in my life over the last two years lead to books being available in less than a month: The Syncretisms of Antinous (well, in fairness, that was about two months, all-told), and A Garland for Polydeukion, which came in a thought in mid-June of this year, and was a book by mid-July! And, the latter really crystallized around the fact that I had no income at the time, but wanted to donate money to an effort on behalf of some beloved community members in Seattle, to whom I’m donating 50% of my profits from that book.
Pretty cool , Dude ……………havn’t had such luck or inspiration yet . And i do like the Idea of donating the proceeds to appropiate charities. Kilm [ showing me age just a wee bit]
Yup. I came up with a similarly engaging catchphrase and put it on t-shirts at CafePress, though the only one I ever sold was to myself (which was before I lost 125 pounds; I need to buy a new one in the smallest size, soon).
The phrase? “Hermes is my co-pilot” (rendered in Greek font, with an appropriately gorgeous picture of the god’s head, available in both black and white tees).
I’m starting to figure out that when the awen starts flowing, I need to let it take me where it’s going. Like you did here. Awesome!
Thanks, John. It’s true. Sometimes you just have to get out the of way and follow the movement of the awen!
Teo, this is so very full of win! Getting one of these t-shirts for my dad, he’ll get a kick out of it.
That’s awesome, Eran! You’ll have to share pics once he gets his shirt!
This? Is awesome. Silly, but that just makes it all the more awesome. (Yay, more trees!)
I did look at the PlantaBillion website, just because I hadn’t heard of them before. On the good side, it’s run by NRDC who actually does decent environmental work. I guess my main concern is “The one dollar per tree support offered by the campaign does not cover the full restoration costs, but the Conservancy is able to leverage your donated dollars through partnerships with municipal and state governments, local NGOs and the private sector to cover any additional costs.” I’d be curious as to the numbers of trees actually planted vs. “dollar trees” bought.
It’s a pretty good bet that they are helping get trees planted, though, so I’m all for donating to them 🙂
Glad you dig, Lupa. It is totally silly, and that’s the joy of it.
I’d be curious to know that as well. I was clued into the organization by Alison Leigh Lilly, who herself focusses a great deal on environmental work as a component of her Druidry.