Does the nature part of Druidry matter?

[katie bridgewater]

[quote="Attila"

]a spirit may be born into this world on the lowest level and move rapidly through each life to human or whatever they are destined to be.

hmmm, the assumption here is that being a human is somehow 'higher' than the rest. Don't agree. What makes us so important...?

[Explorer]

Throughout the OBOD training we are exposed a whole host of ideas, concepts and specialities - the arts, healing, divination, psychology. We are also exposed to recognise that we don't have dominion over nature, but are indeed part of it.

So is it possible, as a druid, to focus on the storytelling, the psychology of man... and ignore (or have a lesser concern) with the other aspects? I recognise here that my involvement with nature isn't as all encompassing as someone who effectively lives in the woods.

For my own part, I would suggest that this is possible as it's just a shift within the scope, but would be interested in other views on this.

Believe it or not, I have been thinking about this for days. Because my jaw dropped when I read it.

I have no specific spiritual or religious background, but a string of peak experiences and personal empowerment in the wilderness kind of made me 'spiritual'. I almost died a few times. Twice by charging bears in the USA, once by an elephant in Tanzania, once by illness in the amazon jungle, a few times by rivers, mountains, desert and weather. I even almost drowned in a scottish bog on Skye, can you believe it? (the stone I stepped on wasn't a stone after all, but the skull of a sheep that made the mistake before me). And usually it was by my own stupidity or mistakes. But it is probably the lyme infected ticks that will do me in, I lost count after 50 bites last year.

I don't know how close I really came to death, but there were a few moments where I was convinced that I would die in the next minutes.
And something strange happened then. Instead of panic I felt icely calm, and even weirder, instead of fear I felt humor. I thought it was very funny that a stupid little human like myself ventured out into the wilderness, thinking that he had any control. And I was ready to die, it was okay to die that way, I felt honoured...

But I clearly surived it every time. And when the adrenaline ebbs away something else happens.
The fear returns, but more balanced. I understood that one of our errors is to try to avoid all risks at all costs. It is natural and healthy to have some fear and to be at some risk. In the end we all die anyway. But I also understood what it really means to venture out into the wilderness alone, and suddenly I longed for company.

When the sun came up, it came with the greatest sense of joy and gratitude that I ever felt. I cried. Nature let me live, which I didn't think I deserved at all as part of that destructive human race. Revenche would have been justice. But then I realised with every fiber of my being why there had been no revenche. The bears didn't treat me as part of the destructive human killing machine that we are. They treated me as a natural adversary who broke a hidden territorial rule and got a warning. Nature treated me as part of nature, as an equal. And that was a defining moment, a peak experience, since then I feel part of that "bigger thing", and I think that feeling is also described in religion..

I describe this as one experience, but it happened a number of times. And it also had the effect that I felt more and more confident and balanced. At first just in my skills to navigate, stay safe, recognize potential dangerous situations, knowing my physical and mental limits, to experience and live.
But at some point I also started to do the OBOD course, which seemed to flow more or less in line with my way of living and thinking. Not all of it, but druidic mysticism was clearly a language i which I could describe my nature spirituality.
And especially when I was going through the more advanced stages of the ovate grade I started to use a new set of skills. Other ways of being aware, using ritual and magic to fine tune my intuition, following hooting owls, barking roe deer and the whispers of the wind in the trees, the stars. Instead of my gps, compass and map. Even contacting the ancestors when I found myself near hill graves, and responding to what I seemed to picked up.

I am not exaggerating, this is all real, this is what I really do. No longer in exotic far away wilderness area's, I no longer have the resources to do that. But it doesn't matter, I no longer have to find myself there, I already did. I can now do it right here, right where I live. A realisation which I also owe to druidry (a weak form of nationalism isn't so bad after all ;-)). And my nature approach isn't global ecology, but personal experiences.

So... I've never considered that nature could even be left out of the equation of druidry, because it is the core of everything for me. Are we talking about the same spirituality?

I must admit that I sometimes wonder if I am in the right cult. I managed to combine my druidry with my experiences and it became a powerful nature spirituality for me. But you can't get that out of the course alone, you have to add real experiences, real life. Otherwise it remains a theory, a facade.
OBOD doesn't provide the natural experiences, you have to go into nature for that, but it does provide ways to express and enhance the empowerment that it can give. I now express it as rituals, songs, stories which I can share with others.
But to be honest, when I came out of that dark ovatic forest after a thrilling journey, and entered the druid grade, I expected to find others who really live druidry as a nature spirituality. But it is strangely empty here. I found a handful of 'wild druids', I married one, but most seem to have taken different paths. So perhaps I'm the one who didn't get it, instead of everybody else, statistically that would make more sense

Like two days ago I talked to a guy who organizes an OBOD meditation workshop, and he said that that workshop could not be given in the forest because druids need a warm and dry indoor place to meditate. So it costs 110 euro's instead of nothing. Yeah, something I definately think that I am in the wrong cult.

[Frog]

I apologize, I know I'm coming very late to this thread, and Frog, you seem to have brought it to a conclusion; but I just saw it, and thought I would add my two cents.

No need to apologise; it's always good to see someone adding to a thread; it proves that there is much more to it.

Nico - I'm sorry that I caused your jaw to drop; to me this was a considered philosophical extrapolation of the "what works for you" aspect of Druidry. As you note, if you work by the course alone you will only get theory and you need real experiences to add to it; it may be though that for some the nature aspect (through location, physical condition, mental condition, whatever) is only second hand because they are unable (or uncomfortable) with getting out there. Not everyone would have had the experiences of seeing the night sky from under a man-made bivouac, sleeping on a leaf-matted floor; or seeing the flourescent splashes of plankton as the boat crashes through the open waves - with no sign of land in any direction; I have been fortunate to experience this - and more - but recognise that not everyone has the opportunities to do this.

Personally, I would be sad if I posted a thread that said "I like tea. Do you?" and everyone on this board all wrote "Yes we like it exactly as you do". That wouldn't be a group I'd be personally interested in.

I would also like to comment on your last statement:

two days ago I talked to a guy who organizes an OBOD meditation workshop, and he said that that workshop could not be given in the forest because druids need a warm and dry indoor place to meditate. So it costs 110 euro's instead of nothing.

For someone experienced in meditation, able to clear the mind of all distractions, then yes, doing it in the woods would make sense - but then you wouldn't necessarily want a workshop to learn. For the less experienced though, I would suggest that providing somewhere that does not have the distraction of cold and damp would enable the practitioner to focus on learning meditation. The wooded area, as I'm sure you will appreciate, is not a quiet place; but an exciting, vibrant location full of life and distractions.

[Explorer]

Nico - I'm sorry that I caused your jaw to drop;

*grin*, don't apologize, I love the sensation. And it also tells me something about myself, like why does this surprise me so much?

I can well imagine how you could learn some techniques and theories of the course without ever setting foot in a forest.
But what I find hard to understand is how somebody would think to connect to nature without experiencing nature. Unless that wasn't the intention in the first place. But why pay so much money to be trained in a nature spirituality then? The mistake that I make is perhaps to think that everybody entered OBOD through that initial booklet 'Wild Wisdom', which described the process of learning druidry through nature based experiences.

For someone experienced in meditation, able to clear the mind of all distractions, then yes, doing it in the woods would make sense - but then you wouldn't necessarily want a workshop to learn. For the less experienced though, I would suggest that providing somewhere that does not have the distraction of cold and damp would enable the practitioner to focus on learning meditation. The wooded area, as I'm sure you will appreciate, is not a quiet place; but an exciting, vibrant location full of life and distractions.

True, the woods can be noisy, but very quiet also, that changes during the day and night and during the seaons.
But perhaps my idea of 'meditation' is different then. I focus on those 'distractions' on purpose. I follow sounds of the birds, and the wind in the trees, and use that to form a mental picture of the area around me based on those sounds. This focus clears the clutter in my head. And if it works then I start to feel a bit detached from my body and my awareness kind of goes into the whole area at once. It feels very calming, as if I'm not really there anymore.

And if I want to meditate on a certain subject, then I do a grove ritual (in the woods) and enter a trance to focus on the subject. By slowly spiraling to the center of my circle while closing my eyes and letting the sacred grove appear at the same time (which is actually much easier to do in a real forest, because it looks, sounds and smells the same) followed by a LBE and then whatever imagery is required.
It works basically the same as the passive mediation. The ritual provides a focus that clears the clutter in my mind (in fact, I usually don't even see the outside world anymore after I cast the circle). And in the trance state I focus on images, instead of the bird sounds, and wait for impressions.

My mind gets calm and focused, but not void. So perhaps I have the wrong idea of 'meditation'.

[Attila]

katie bridgewater

hmmm, the assumption here is that being a human is somehow 'higher' than the rest. Don't agree. What makes us so important...?

We are more dextrous, and without question generally more advanced [brain size, capabilities etc] in evolutionary terms, it is not a matter of importance...

However, in terms of transmigration, some kinds of druids may like to inhabitate animal or bird forms, so if we consider this to be a basis of spirit then all is levelled out. Perhaps this is the more druidic view, whereas the hierarchic view I was thinking of maybe more eastern. I do thing both have their merits and however contradictory they are both true.

[Merlyn]

Like two days ago I talked to a guy who organizes an OBOD meditation workshop, and he said that that workshop could not be given in the forest because druids need a warm and dry indoor place to meditate. So it costs 110 euro's instead of nothing. Yeah, something I definately think that I am in the wrong cult.

Perhaps the inner grove work leads to this for some.
But for me it was always the circle, simply made with flagstone, where all of my work was done. It still is.
I remember looking at the snow cover over the stones and feeling as if nature was telling me it was time to simply feel the clean air, the bright beauty and the time for my druid work would come again. But I found myself out in the snow, clearing off the stones, or going to another place in the wild that would work as well.

Doing any of the OBOD work or any ritual, meditation, etc. is always under the sky, never indoors. For me doing so indoors is much like I feel inside a church. Best way I can describe it, is doing ritual or meditation indoors is like trying to take a shower with my cloths on, trying to open to the family of life just will not happen inside a man made structure for me.

Whoever the "guy" was that organized the OBOD meditation workshop perhaps was being accommodating, but the sterile atmosphere in a building, and the comfort of heat or A/C would more likely put me to sleep.

There have been times when meditating that I am aware of a raccoon or deer, fox or crow in my circle, as they seem possibly curious of me as I just sit there, or perhaps they just don't feel my presence as normal, being off in the meditation, this is understandable.

Those who do so indoors may feel fine doing so, and I understand it may work for them. But it seriously feels confining to me to be inside a building while meditating or working with ritual, as we did in our seed group many times. I would hail to the west, facing a wall, or furniture.... and the whole thing just lost the feel.

Merlyn

[Corwen]

katie bridgewater

hmmm, the assumption here is that being a human is somehow 'higher' than the rest. Don't agree. What makes us so important...?

We are more dextrous, and without question generally more advanced [brain size, capabilities etc] in evolutionary terms, it is not a matter of importance...

However, in terms of transmigration, some kinds of druids may like to inhabitate animal or bird forms, so if we consider this to be a basis of spirit then all is levelled out. Perhaps this is the more druidic view, whereas the hierarchic view I was thinking of maybe more eastern. I do thing both have their merits and however contradictory they are both true.

We are less dextrous than some other primates, our brains are big for a mammal but comparable with dolphins and whales, we are quite good all rounders but deal very poorly with heat, cold, lack of water etc compared to many other animals. Put a human in a room with a hungry tiger and see who is best evolved! All current animals and plants have been around the same length of time as we have, all have been evolving the same length of time, so all are, evolutionarily speaking, on a level with each other. If you think humans are in some way at the top of an evolutionary tree and other forms of animal and plant life are in some way lower and less evolved, you have misunderstood evolution.

I don't believe the concept of soul to be useful so I won't comment on the theory of transmigration of souls.

[Attila]

We are less dextrous than some other primates,

Dextrous; adjective: skillful in physical movements; especially of the hands

No other species has the same level of dexterity as humans. That is esp when you consider the overall scope of movements we have, this is why we make machines etc and no other animal can.

our brains are big for a mammal but comparable with dolphins and whales,

We have a larger linguistic area of the brain, and a generally larger brain to body ratio.

we are quite good all rounders but deal very poorly with heat, cold, lack of water etc compared to many other animals.

This is because we are more advanced and have found ways [I.e. clothes] to manage our body temperature. My dog would tell you how uncomfortable it is to have a fur coat in the summer lols

Put a human in a room with a hungry tiger and see who is best evolved!

Put a human with a gun in the same room. Tigers are nearly extinct [sadly].

All current animals and plants have been around the same length of time as we have, all have been evolving the same length of time, so all are, evolutionarily speaking, on a level with each other.

that’s not how evolution works, things only change if they need to etc.

If you think humans are in some way at the top of an evolutionary tree and other forms of animal and plant life are in some way lower and less evolved, you have misunderstood evolution.

I have! how is a germ or a tree as evolved as we are? I can understand your points on one level but not in evolutionary terms.

I don't believe the concept of soul to be useful so I won't comment on the theory of transmigration of souls.

Soul, universal spirit call it what you will, if you don’t believe in some level of transcendence then your philosophy seams materialistic? No offence but is there even any point to materialism, does it go with druidry in any way? The thread is asking about nature in druidry, materialism cannot provide an answer to that as it wouldn’t accept a spiritual basis to druidry or nature.

[Merlyn]

Humans are burdened in ways animals are not IMO.
Humans always have to know why things are as they are, and feel motivated to change everything.
Animals do this to a small amount, but also do not seem to have any kind of questions they want to communicate like humans have evolved to do.

In the reverse, I see humans as having learned from animals, and need to. The lack of this in human life more recently, has been cause to many of our problems as I see it. I think druidry makes a great deal of effort to this reconnection humanity needs so badly. Rather than passing our fault as some kind of test to be answered to by some god, we should live more as our animal self, in the here and now, and not reoccupy our life as much with unanswered questions, to the point of delusion.



Merlyn

[Attila]

we should live more as our animal self, in the here and now,

Humans have created a gap between the linguistic and instinctive seat of consciousness, this gives us a greater level of transcendence [via subjectivity] and brings us nearer to universal spirit. So it depends on you definition of the here n now, I think the animal version is more incarceration in and of the world, and human version is more at one with eternity. that’s why we are more spiritually [as well as physically] advanced.

Through this as humans and druids we can see the general transcendence of spirit throughout nature and be connected by that.

I would hate to move my seat of consciousness to the instinctual animal level, do we have any evidence or suggestions that ancient druids wanted that?

[Merlyn]

We have a lot of theory, and just as much lacking of evidence, that we evolved on our own.
There seems to be a desire to find "the missing link" and the many ideas that we evolved rather from something divine. Study of archeology shows a period of sudden advancement yet the tools for this are not found, and we answer to this that massive manpower of thousands over decades was how such things as the great pyramids were built.

Scholars fear to point to any one of the many ideas, some suggest we were visited many thousands of years ago by much more advanced beings or possibly a far advanced human culture from time travel. How we separated from the long evolution into our advanced form fills many books, to include the bible, Sumerian writings and other cultures which unfortunately had much of their wisdom destroyed by the more spiritual ideas and cultures.

Though we don't see well explained reasons for much of the way the first druids looked at things, the connections become very real as we discover more and more.
How cultures evolved in ways similar suggest a universal truth to many things.

Merlyn

[Attila]

There seems to be a desire to find "the missing link" and the many ideas that we evolved rather from something divine.

Equally we don’t have any evidence that we advanced via divinity [if we did that would also make us more advanced], why would divinity create a universe and then create over the top of that, this would make the original creation imperfect and hence not divine. That we have not found [apparently?] tools could just mean that early tools were made of wood and rocks etc.
The Egyptians had tools, so I don’t get what you mean there I am afraid.

Unless we can show that aliens or god did it I think its irrelevant, ancient druids didn’t believe in either of those things and this is a thread about druidry and nature, Christians didn’t seam to have such a rapport with nature [if they did it doesn’t matter to druids].

[Merlyn]

It was and still is a mystery, and perhaps is best so.

Druids were of the Oak, so to speak, and within the ways seemed to be the reverence for keeping the culture, life and all as sacred.
How do we approach this now? How does the city dweller find the nature in all things.

Like a lot of things in druidry today, this will be unique to each druid on the path. Some do very well with nothing but in inner realms, others like myself love to feel the grass under my feet and see the stars above. Either way we can feel the nature and know the ways, but I think it does help to have some peace and quiet, either in the grove or in nature itself for long enough to make the connections we need.

How we evolved as a species, unique is one of those questions we may answer some day, but not something I am going to be overly concerned with. It is fascinating to ponder the many ideas though.

Did we evolve from apes? aliens? Adam and Eve?
I think we had some help, and as our galaxy finds itself full circle, we may be contacted once again..

Until then, under the Oaks,
Merlyn

[Attila]

I think we have always had help from the spirit world, deities and whatnot, this is something we can experience now and get our own evidence for. Aliens and an [imperfect] creator have no evidence. I wouldn’t want to take away mans accomplishments. …but each to their own I suppose.

[Merlyn]

There is growing evidence in the scientific world, that the earth has gone trough many extinctions, not just the most recent of the dinosaurs.
Seems the more we learn the older the earth is considered to be

In the spirit realm, there may well be many lurking about from the past we can only connect to by druid ways, meditation and such. These 'elders' may well hold the answers to how we evolved as we did. Perhaps we too may find such answers. With the monotheistic religions of the past 2000 or so years, this amazing knowledge of the true past may have been obscured, rejected and lost to us for some time.

There are many ways to look at the nature of druidry, being open minded is perhaps the best.

Merlyn

[Jake]

that’s not how evolution works, things only change if they need to etc.

Hi Attila.

I think you'll find this isn't the case. Genetic drift plays quite a large role (some say larger even than natural selection) in evolution as it is currently understood. Evolutionary change through genetic drift is not the result of the same kind of pressures that change through natural selection is.

If you think humans are in some way at the top of an evolutionary tree and other forms of animal and plant life are in some way lower and less evolved, you have misunderstood evolution.

I have! how is a germ or a tree as evolved as we are? I can understand your points on one level but not in evolutionary terms.

This statement (as well as the one about being "more advanced") really does represent a pretty thorough misconception of evolutionary theory. It's been several generations since evolutionary biologists have thought in such terms. Evolution is not a linear progression from "less advanced" to "more advanced" organisms, or even from less complex to more complex organisms as some organisms, especially parasites, often evolve to become simpler.

To say that a species is more evolved than another is to say that it has experienced a higher degree of genetic selection than another. For instance, chimpanzees are more evolved than humans in that since we split from our most recent common ancestor 5-7 million years ago, chimps have experienced more frequent and rapid genetic adaptations than humans have (see here ).

If you must think of evolution as having some sort of winner (which can only mean the most successfully adaptable), then it is indeed the "germ" - microorganisms in general and bacteria in particular, which clearly take the prize for reasons which should be self-evident.

I don't believe the concept of soul to be useful so I won't comment on the theory of transmigration of souls.

Soul, universal spirit call it what you will, if you don’t believe in some level of transcendence then your philosophy seams materialistic? No offence but is there even any point to materialism, does it go with druidry in any way? The thread is asking about nature in druidry, materialism cannot provide an answer to that as it wouldn’t accept a spiritual basis to druidry or nature.

And yet what exactly is the point of positing the existence of souls or spirits? Why should someone wish to "transcend" this amazing planet we live on? It would take several lifetimes to learn the most basic stuff about even half the species of life that exist in my own small corner of this small ecoregion, every one of which is far more fascinating to me than any ghost or spirit.

If my goal were to impose my own mythology or set of ideas onto the world around me, thus making me the center of my spirituality (for lack of a better term), then I would find the concepts of souls or spirits very useful. But since my goal is to learn about and experience to the best of my ability the world as it is rather than as I imagine or wish it to be, I find such ideas distracting and not at all useful.

To me this represents a much greater divide between individual pagans or practitioners of "alternative spirituality" than any that might necessarily exist between those who prefer to meditate up a tree versus in an air-conditioned building.

I would count myself among those who place nature at the center of their spirituality but every day it seems I meet people who make the same claim but mean something very different by it.

What I mean (or hope to!) is that my goal is to live in as enjoyable, respectful and harmonious a relationship as possible with the other inhabitants of the world; that my sense of kinship be conceptually and practically expanded beyond the confines of those closest to me and even beyond my species; that my sense of awe and wonder at the incredible beauty, complexity and diversity of life not be diminished; that I recognize that my own egotism and self-importance are destructive feelings born of alienation from the world and the other creatures on it.

What some other people seem to mean when they say they practice a nature-centered spirituality is that tree spirits tell them secrets nobody else knows (go ahead and dare these same people to tell the difference between a Post Oak and an American Elm), they have 27 different totem animals all of whom are impressively carnivorous, they're the reincarnation of an Atlantean High Priestess or a Native American shaman, they have a uniquely intimate relationship with Cernunnos, and small mammals and birds inevitably seek their company. It all seems to be about themselves and how gifted and magical and special and important they are.

I think I would have more in common with Druids whose "focus is on the storytelling, the psychology of man" and whose practice leads them to a more expansive engagement with the world than with Druids whose focus is allegedly on "nature" but actually appears to be just on themselves.

[Argenta]

I'm aware that I'm kind of intruding on at least two very interesting points of the argument, but I wanted to ask, though my post may very well be drowned between more experienced and learned arguments, what about us who have no skills or previous interest in the "raw" nature? I mean, obviously many people come to Druidry with no background of spending much time outdoors, or doing so in cities, where the only piece of nature is a tiny playground for the kids to play. I am in awe of people who can go out and survive in the wild... and have been even before learning about nature spirituality... but that's not me. I'm just a soft human who doesn't know how to find food or shelter outside the civilization, finding about Druidry through my not at all natural computer.

Surely, there is some way to translate the druid experience to our lives as well, seeing that it's already quite a bit stretched from what it used to be (whatever that was, exactly)? What I mean is, should there not be a place in Druidry for people whose community is not at all tied to the nature, or is so very loosely, but who nevertheless feel respect for it? Like Nico, I too occasionally wonder if I am in the right place. Can Druidry be translated into the "city jungle"? Or, better still, in which ways can it be done best? -- since it's obviously happening, and which is probably why Jake is irritated by the I-centered quasi-nature spirituality.

Edited for clarity.

[Jake]

Surely, there is some way to translate the druid experience to our lives as well, seeing that it's already quite a bit stretched from what it used to be (whatever that was, exactly)? What I mean is, should there not be a place in Druidry for people whose community is not at all tied to the nature, or is so very loosely, but who nevertheless feel respect for it? Like Nico, I too occasionally wonder if I am in the right place. Can Druidry be translated into the "city jungle"? Or, better still, in which ways can it be done best?

This question has been such a big one for me too (as discussed here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=36085&start=0) and I think druidry can work wonderfully in an urban environment. There is wildness all around us in the city!

How to do it best, which will of course vary for each of us, is something I would love to see us city-dwelling folks talk about more often.

And I'm not really as irritated as my long-windedness might make it seem. I guess I'm befuddled when people claim to be following a path based on nature and yet all they talk about is the supernatural.

[Explorer]

Surely, there is some way to translate the druid experience to our lives as well, seeing that it's already quite a bit stretched from what it used to be (whatever that was, exactly)? What I mean is, should there not be a place in Druidry for people whose community is not at all tied to the nature, or is so very loosely, but who nevertheless feel respect for it? Like Nico, I too occasionally wonder if I am in the right place. Can Druidry be translated into the "city jungle"? Or, better still, in which ways can it be done best? -- since it's obviously happening, and which is probably why Jake is irritated by the I-centered quasi-nature spirituality.

Well, let me speak from outside my own bubble for once, to prove to myself that I can do that .
The sum of druidry, as defined by its practisioners, is bigger than how we see it as individuals, because we all pick up our own elements. Which is a strength of druidry, not a weakness.

Apparently it contains nature experience, ecological activism, pagan religion, mysticism, poetry, mythology, science, psychology, the supernatural and you could probably think of a lot more subjects and subdivisions. Perhaps the '7 gifts of druidry" describes this better. And interestingly enough, some of the stuff contradicts, which challenges us to understand paradoxes.

If you would put me, a "naturalist" druid next to a "urban hippy druid" you could never guess that we are both in the same spiritual organisation. And that is the beauty of it, the diversity, cross fertilisation. I actually learned some things from people who I otherwise wouldn't even want to meet.

A few years ago I often did something very strange. I live on the edge of the woods and I went into the woods every day (I work in a national park). But one of the druid groups that I frequented was in Amsterdam, our capital. It was very bizarre to leave my area and go there for the seasonal celebrations, and doing an obod ritual surrounded by traffic, sirens, aircraft flying over (it was close to the airport) and all these loud and restless people. But it didn't feel bad. I felt that I was bringing something important to the city. And these city druids held the space for a while, right there in the city. So I do think that city druids have an important role that way. I probably looked a bit lost there, like they look a bit lost when they come to our neck of the woods (litterly) and worry about wild boar, darkness and ghosts. It is a good exchange I think, there is certainly room for all.

(like last weekend we dowsed for something-something-lines at our lughnasadh gathering. I don't believe in dowsing and that kind of 'energy'. So ofcourse it didn't work when I tried it (thank god, hahaha, mind of matt.. energy). But I must say that it was an interesting experience and a lot of fun. These exchanges are good, it broadens the horizon.

[Explorer]

All current animals and plants have been around the same length of time as we have, all have been evolving the same length of time, so all are, evolutionarily speaking, on a level with each other.

Brilliant! I am going to put this quote in my arsenal.