Life, the universe, and spaceships

It's the Easter holidays at the moment, so there's entertaining of small children to be had (and so not much room for deep thoughts). A change of pace and posting is in order, then - domestic life reigns. Aside from roping them in to help me with catching up on the housework and gardening, we've been having a few days out here and there. We were going to try an overnight camping trip over in Argyll sometime this week, but it looks like the weather's turned against us. There's a chance we might go away for Bealltainn with some friends, though, so I'm looking forward to that.

Anyway, in lieu of any camping trips, our latest mini-adventure was to go into Glasgow so I could sort out things with the library - I went on Saturday to try and sort the book I lost out, but they said they couldn't make a decision then and I'd have to come back on Monday. I'd bought another copy of the book (the original of which I think I accidentally put into the recycling bin when I was sorting a pile of paper out) in the hopes that it would get back on the shelves a little quicker, so it needed a manager to decide whether that was "the best way to move forward." So I dragged the kids into the city on Monday, with strict instructions to Behave when in the library. They did, and the manager accepted the book with the addition of a small admin fee (which I was expecting), so it's all good. My conscience is salved.

My library trip on Saturday yielded another haul of books - probably too many to read all the way through, but I'll try. I've nearly finished the first one, and at the least I want to work my way through Peter Narváez's The Good People, and Diane Purkiss' Troublesome Things (can you sense a theme?). I'm not sure I'm going to like the latter. I also picked up Katharine Brigg's' The Fairies in Tradition and Literature, mainly because it was on the same shelf as the others.

While we were in the area, I took the kids over to the Botanic Gardens - I'd promised the kids a treat, and there was supposed to be a Children's Garden there, but when we got there nobody was about and it looked a bit underwhelming anyway. Instead, we headed to Kibble Palace:

It's a Victorian glasshouse (or spaceship, if you're Tom and Rosie). I used to walk passed here everyday on my way to university when I was a student (and it gets a mention or two in one of my favourite series of books, by Ken MacLeod, too), so it's a nostalgic piece of the past, for me. Fun fact: the building you can just see behind the glasshouse used to be the BBC headquarters in Scotland, and they used to film news pieces outside on the pavement a lot. I walked passed a reporter doing an interview once, and tripped over my shoelaces right on camera.

Inside the glasshouse there are lots of tasteful sculptures dotted about the place (tastefully naked, of course):

(This picture's from a few years ago, the statue is of Eve). And there are lots of different plants from around the world - various parts of Africa, America and Australia. The kids' favourite, aside from running around in amongst the paths that form an almost maze to the centre of all the plants in the main section, is the fish pond:

The best part about the place is it's peaceful (moreso when it's not the school holidays, to be fair). And always warm. I used to come here as a student for a little bit of peace and quiet, taking some time to destress from whatever essay or exams I was in the middle of. I could do with a bit of that just now, so a visit was much in order, even if I did have to concentrate on herding small children. Places like this are kind of Otherworldly, to me; completely different from the outside world, a bubble of peace and calm in a sea of chaotic life. It's good to get away sometimes, and when I lived in the city on the top floor of a tenement it was places like this that gave me a taste of earthiness and escapism that I craved.

I promised Rosie a banana tree, so we went over to the hothouse as well, where it happened that they were watering the rainforest section - which meant turning on the sprinkler system to simulate rain. Best fun ever, apparently:

Today, though, with the rain and cold back once again, we'll be off to the garden centre to pick up a few things. I've finally managed to get started with this year's vegetable patch, although so far nothing has come up yet. I put in some onions and leeks during the wane of the moon (so they won't run to seed), and some carrots and sprouts once the moon started waxing (to ensure a good crop). This year I'm trying some purple carrots as well as normal ones, but otherwise I'm not planning on much else. The broccoli and cauliflower I tried last year were a dismal failure (any broccoli or cauliflower I got were tiny buds), and my neighbour said he'd read that they need very compact soil to yield decent-sized veg - so containers probably aren't the best for them. I'll maybe try a few salad items, once I've bought more seeds, but that's about it.

Deep thoughts on mysticism...an' stuff...

Reconstructionism has a bit of an image problem.

On the one hand, some might say that it's the path of choice for Those With A Big Stick Up Their Butt™; and so as such, inevitably much of our time is spent in bickering about just who has the biggest stick. On the other hand, some might say that reconstructionism is too backward-looking (and I actually saw this said on a druid forum, no less. I found that kind of ironic) - and perhaps what's really meant is that the study of the past is over-empasised at the expense of actually experiencing any sort of meaningful practice in the present. I suppose this moves us on to the gripping hand - that reconstructionists are far more interested in reading books, and the resulting intellectual wankery, for their own ego rather than anything else. Thinking about it, I suppose that ends up taking us back round to the first hand of bickering about whose stick is biggest.

Have I just made a gigantic circle-jerk analogy? Oh dear...

But let's not forget the snobbery. As a reconstructionist, not only is my stick bigger, and shinier than yours, my books are better and more obscure, and I have more qualifications/years of experience/better teachers than you do, and by the way, you can't be a reconstructionist because UR DOIN' IT RONG.

It's unfortunate, but sometimes - maybe more often than anyone's willing to admit - these problems can dominate what anyone of us are actually trying to do. In some places, reconstructionism is a dirty word, simply because of our reputation, and there is a sort of Us and Them view of reconstructionism, from those outside of the community insofar as they view reconstructionists, but also within the community insofar as they view non-reconstructionists, and even whether one is seen as having a big enough stick to qualify as actually reconstructionist or just a poseur.

With Celtic Reconstructionism, truth - Truth - is something that is held to be a core value. It is something that is strived for, but something that is ultimately subjective. Therein lies the problem, to a certain extent, especially in terms of the recent discussions I've seen going on about Mystic Reconstructionism, which have been both illuminating (in terms of what's been said on the matter) and unfortunate (in terms of the almost inevitable side-helping of bickering). I'm coming to the debate a little late, I guess, so maybe I'm not one to judge on that front, because I didn't see how it all unfolded at the time.

I've written before about my struggle with mysticism. Mysticism, to me, is something that's essential to any path, but as someone who likes the books, the research, the extrapolating from sources that I can cite, I've had a hard time getting comfortable with something that is less concrete, even as someone who's previously been inititated into a mystery tradition, and experienced such mystical revelations as the initiations I was subject to.

In the end, though, as much as it's been something I've wrestled with at times, it's something I've found to be freeing as well. My experiences are my own, and sometimes they don't make sense; mysticism itself isn't a logical process, first and foremost, because it comes from somewhere unseen. Because I'm a reconstructionist, while I see that mysticism is a key element of how I experience my spirituality, how I approach my spirituality is one that is primarily informed by what can be known (or perhaps, more accurately, extrapolated) from the sources. But that's not the be all and end all of it, because as a Celtic Reconstructionist the sources that help to inform us aren't all that explicit, or transparently pre-Christian in origin.

The first stop, then, is what can be known. What we can't know, we have to rely on UPG to help guide us, and for Celtic Reconstructionists we have to rely on a healthy dose sometimes. In this respect, not everyone is going to agree with how one approaches and extrapolates from the sources, and forms into actual practice. I'm well aware that I'm not the strongest ritualist, for example, and in part this is perhaps because I'm weaker on the (perhaps being as comfortable with the) mysticism element of practice than others within the CR community are.

A lot of the disagreements, though, seems to be centred upon the degree of which UPG is emphasised, and the way in which it is applied personally, or shared with others. In the debates, 'mysticism' seems to be seen as synonymous with UPG, and that's something I can get on board with in some ways, because in my own practices, any mystical revelations I may experience are just that - extremely personal. That's why it's difficult for me to see the problem in terms of these things being shared - or not being shared as I've often seen it lamented. I may share them with a few people who I know and trust; I may share them with a wider audience if I feel the need. But ultimately, they're not something that generally has any meaning or value except to myself, and this in itself is perhaps why it's been so difficult for the CR community as a whole, or (perhaps more relevantly) CRs within specific cultural contexts, to agree on commonalities of practice.

This all comes back to certain problems emerging - accusations of snobbery, intellectual wankery, and so on. Sometimes - maybe more often than anyone's really willing to admit - these accusations are justified (and to be fair, pretty much all of these problems aren't unique to reconstructionist groups, it's just the kind of sticks, books and qualifications are slightly different if you go elsewhere. You like Scott Cunningham?! You're self-initiated? What's your lineage? Who's your High Priestess? You can't possibly be Wiccan...In this respect, I've had the exact same sort of arguments as a Wiccan as I've seen in the reconstructionist community).

The unfortunate side-effect of all this is that when bickering flairs up within the various reconstructionist communities, points can get lost in discussions because people start taking it personally, and/or start arguing from ego, and the discussion turns from actual debate to defensive back and forths or (worse) simply point-scoring. That's the difficulty of online discussions - it's difficult to interpret tone, and that can make things seem more blunt and snarky than they might have been intended.

So where does that leave anyone? Community can be - and should be - a wonderful thing. There is something deeply wrong with a community when civil discussions can't be had without accusations flying, due to ego, paranoia, past experiences and hurts, or whatever. We as a community are never going to grow up, mature, evolve in healthy way if that's all these discussions end up as.

A History of Celtic Britain

I'm something a bear of very little brain at the moment, so apologies for not being the most scintillating company right now. My continuing back problem and the cocktail of medication I'm on for it is making my brain rebel against the thought of doing any serious thinking, writing or research these days, even though I want to, so any deep sort of thoughts are probably not going to surface any time soon...I've been picking at stuff, but there's not much doing at the moment. It's a little frustrating.

One thing I thought might be of interest, given my lack of anything else to say, is a new series by the BBC called A History of Celtic Britain. The first episode aired last night and focused on the transition from Bronze to Iron Age; it was a little dry, I thought, but well-presented and factual, although there wasn't really much about the Celts...Next week there's mention of druids, from the looks of things, so it'll be interesting to see what they have to say.

The iPlayer episode is here (for folks on this side of the Pond), and there's an accompanying article to go with it. Obviously there are geographic restrictions on iPlayer, so if you're not in the UK it's kinda tough unless you can obtain it by other means, but I've found a few excerpts from youtube:

Hopefully these will be viewable outside of the UK (I couldn't see mention of any restrictions).

Another one about the Hillfort Glow Experiment...

I'm just posting this article as a kind of addendum, because this one has pictures that actually show some of the hillforts and the signals. There aren't many pictures, but it does show just how successful the experiment was:

Iron Age hillforts glow with journey back in time

Pretty damn cool.

Supermoon!

In Scottish tradition it's the new moon that's celebrated the most - that first sliver in the sky (known as gob soillse - ’the bill or beak of the light’) that heralds the waxing of the moon, and the period when lots of things can be done under more propitious circumstances; sowing seeds, getting married, setting out on journeys, cutting your hair. This is a time of increase and growth, and Alexander Carmichael recorded quite a few traditions and prayers dedicated to that first glimpse of the new moon. In Gaol Naofa, we celebrate the new moon with a ritual.

If the waxing moon is all about growth and increase, the full moon is the culmination of all this, and is known as bolg reothairt - ’the swollen womb of the spring tide.’ I have to admit I find the moon fascinating, and whenever I see it, I greet it, quietly to myself (because people would probably think I'm a bit mental otherwise). So all in all, the supermoon this weekend was something I was looking forward to.

Mr Seren and I were invited to a party this weekend, a kind of informal gathering in honour of the supermoon and the equinox, so we dumped the kids at the in-laws for the night and off we went. There was food and drink, and good lots of laughter, and since the host of the party is Wiccan I took the opportunity to bring over a load of old books I've had sitting on the wardrobe shelf since we moved here three years ago - I was hoping she'd give them a good home, or knew some folks who would if she didn't want them.

We didn't get to see the moon rise because there was too much cloud cover, but around 10pm or so the clouds cleared a little so we got to see the moon shining bright:

 
At around midnight we went outside with some Chinese lanterns that our hosts had bought - everyone was invited to choose one and write a wish on it, to send it off into the night sky, and I think most of us did. It was too windy to light the lanterns in view of the moon (Mr Seren's lantern went first and ended up in a bush for a while) so we had to take shelter round the back of the tenement building. Because of the wind it took a while to get them lit, and seeing as we had only two lighters between us all, they had to go off one by one. I waited patiently...:

 
...while mine was lit as I held onto it gently - we had to hold them pretty close to the ground for the fire to take. It had a bit of a bumpy start, but Mr Seren's friend Tam rescued it and managed to get it off the ground for me. I chose an orange lantern, but this red one here is the last one we all did together (except Mr Seren, who was in charge of the camera):

And off it went into the night with the others.

This is the start of my celebrations for Latha na Cailliche, really. I don't usually make much of a fuss - some offerings and devotions to the Cailleach and the Cailleachan - but I don't usually get to celebrate with other people either, so it was good to find a little bit of community, even if we were all from different paths.

When we got home that night I went straight off to bed, and didn't get much sleep thanks to my back and left leg not appreciating the journey in the car to much. I gave up trying to sleep and got up early, and as I pottered about in the kitchen, saw that one of the busy lizzies I've sown for the hanging basket had sprouted. Because of my recent back problems I haven't been able to do much in the garden yet, so this is the only sowing I've done so far. It was good timing to see that tiny sprout, although I'm hoping I'll be able to get around to doing more sowing for the vegetable garden soon.

Spring is definitely here, even if we did have snow, hail and sleet only last week.

Speaking of the Cailleach, I received a letter from Perth and Kinross Council acknowledging receipt of my objection about the proposed hydro-electric scheme that will affect Tigh nam Bodach etc. Very formal and stern it is, too, but I'll be informed of the council's decision in due course, although it didn't say when that might be.