Readings - Year Two: In the Beginning’s
I am a Reader.
I am a Writer.
To be a good Writer you need to be a good Reader.
To be a good Reader it helps if you are a good Writer.
They compliment and balance each other. The words that
you Read and the words that you Write - even if all you ever
regularly write is a weekly shopping list - share the same
basic source of inspiration. They are products of our
thoughts and inner personal mental realities. Reading is a
quiet solitary activity. So too - for this Paganus - is Writing.
But the inspiration for the Writing - and the Reading - is not
always quiet nor solitary. Inspiration can be a song you hear -
a comment overheard - or something you read on the ‘net or observe
in your daily mundanian life. Life happens. Inspiration happens.
You are both Writer and Reader.
I am now entering my Second Year of Readings. One of the books
I am Reading is “The Druid Renaissance” edited by Phillip Carr-Gomm.
Published in 1996 it is - as Mr. Carr-Gomm sates in his introduction -
“report-in-progress” on the re-birth of the Druidic ‘faith’. As has
been previously noted and reported there are no ‘authentic’ Druids today.
All of the re-born and re-constituted Druidic groups and organizations
are - in some fair degree of truth - ‘imitation’ Druids. The last
‘real’ and ‘authentic’ Druid - as so far as modern day research and
scholarship can account for and attest to - died well over a millennium ago.
What we have are their writings and their expectedly adulterated oral traditions.
Between the academic scholarship of the linguists and the textural researchers
and the in-field work of the archaeologists and anthropologists we have
what little information we have on the now long since vanished Druids.
Writings were left behind in the form of poetry and books of law.
There was even an alphabet - the Ogham alphabet - said to have been given
to the early British Isles inhabitants by Ogham. Save for scholars the alphabet
is unreadable and unrecognizable as an alphabet. It is in the form of lines that
form pictographic trees. It is - in its own way - reminiscent of the oriental alphabets
that are pictographic ideograms - each ideogram having several meanings depending upon its placement and use. The connection to the Primal Tree - as later Celtic and Norse ‘faiths’
considered and described it - is even more direct in that each Ogham ‘letter’ is a
pictographic representation of a tree. The ‘letters’ of the ‘alphabet’ do not just
resemble trees - they are the pictographic representations of trees.
Such was the depth and importance of the living, growing and long-lived tree for the
proto-historic indigenous ‘Britannic’ peoples. Trees were so vital and important to
them they became the basis of their form of writing. It was - in this way - that for
these people’s - Language was developed and preserved.
Languages - as with it’s relative Literatures - are the sources
and wellsprings of a culture’s cohesiveness and operative identity.
Language - as in the spoken oral tradition - is also a vitally critical part of a ‘religious’
‘order’s’ initiation, purification and dedication rituals, rites and ceremonies.
This can be seen across cultures from the ancient indigenous inhabitants
in what would be known as pre-historic ‘Ireland’ and ‘Britain’ as well as
here in the American West and SouthWest with the Native ‘American’ Tribes. For both
of these cultural groups - as well as others in the ancient pre-historic
pre-written world - it is the spoken oral tradition that carries forward the Lessons and
Sharings of the past. For both the Native ‘American’s’ and the Native ‘British’ - much
of this oral tradition was taught and learned in small, dark underground structures.
Here in the American West and SouthWest such structure are known as Sweat Lodges.
In some places they were also known as Kivas. Here the initiates were isolated from
the rest of the population and expected to learn - by rote memorization - the
chants, songs, and songlines of the culture. In the ancient ‘Irish’ culture - there
was no ‘Ireland’ even dreamed of yet - the Bard was expected to learn songs, physical
geography such as property markers and other ‘legal and social’ matters. It was said
to take up to twenty (20) years for this ‘learning and training’ to be complete for
what we consider the ancient Druids.
Along with the Druidic material I have been Reading I am also
Reading a very instructive and informative pamphlet/monograph published by the Peabody
Museum of Harvard University. This monograph is of the Navajo Creation Chants.
The texts and the chants they record speak from a vastly different understanding and
viewpoint of how the World was created. The ‘creation’ - as seen in these chant
texts - was not ‘created’ whole’ as it was taught Biblicly. It happened a far different
way though songs from ants, wolves, a coyote who stole the fire, the earth spirit,
the salt woman and many others. Here then - here in our own native country - by the
Navajo - is an excellent illustrative example of what pre-written oral traditions could
be and accomplish.
Being a Reader - as well as a Writer - means you need to be open to
Learning and Sharing from all possible sources. I like Libraries for in them I
can often find - If the collection has been properly maintained - very fascinating
books and monographs of ancient cultures and religions. Materials on Pagan’s and
Wiccan’s are not often as easy to find in some Libraries. But when you do find a Library
that stocks books and materials on Religions and Alternative Faiths you find the
books are well read and constantly in use. This means that you are not the only
Reader. You are but One among the Many. You are not Alone in your Readings. You may
never know any of the other Readers but you can - at least - know that there are
other Readers.
I am - your Paganus - one of the ‘other Readers’. I am also a Writer.
Writing as well as Reading need not be solitary. Cofeehouses - such as Starbucks - have
been mentioned to this Paganus as places where Writer’s Write. I have never done that
- though perhaps I might want to consider it….
This Paganus has been Doing his Readings for now a few days over a
Year. This marks - as well as anything can - the start of my “Studies". But
for me the Goddess came earlier. I just did not know who she was or why she
was speaking to me. I needed to go to Festival, shop at a favorite
“Historical Store” and Read and Write here on MysticWitch to start to find the answers to my
questions. Writing is how I Share what I have Learned. We are all Readers. We may
not be all Writers - save perhaps the shopping list - but we are all linked by our
societies and culture’s stories and histories. Read. Read of the Druids in
Europe. Read of the Native Americans. Read of Cultures and Society’s not your own. You
will be the better for it. You will also then have something to Share. Here on
www.MysticWitch.com is where you can do that…..
I’ll be here Writing and Sharing.
Will You be here Reading?…..
-) The Druid Renaissance: The Voice of Druidry Today
Edited by - Philip Carr-Gomm
© 1996 by Philip Carr-Gomm, Et Al….
Thorson’s - An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
ISBN: 1-85538-480-9
Printed in Great Britian
Library Cataloguing - 299.16 DRU
from the Riverside City Library - Riverside, CA
=) Texts of the Navajo Creation Chants
Peabody Museum of Harvard University
No copyright found on monograph nor date of publication other
than a textural mention on ‘new recordings’ made in the fall of 1950. The Chants were
originally recorded by Dr. Harry Hoijer in 1929. They were evidently re-recorded
in 1950 by Dr. David P. McAllester, Research Associate of the Museum of Navajo
Ceremonial Art.
The texts are those collected and translated by Dr. Hoijer.
The pamphlet/monograph has an introduction by Mary C. Wheelwright.
Library Cataloguing - 299.72 NAV
from the Riverside City Library - Riverside, CA