Will they return?

[Myrde]

In the Bible, there's so many statements of "The Second Coming Of Christ" or "The Return of the Kingdom of Heaven". My personal favorite is "The Rapture". Gotta wonder who can up with that name. But that's not the point of this.

The Horned God and the Lady? Will they return? I guess that's the question.

I see we, the human race, on a fast sinking ship to our extinction, and we're taking the Earth and it's inhabitants down with us. Unless we change our act quickly... Our Mother will become barren.

Do you think there will ever be a time when the Lord and Lady can walk freely; when the Earth is just simply the Earth again and is no longer being choked by our hands. When Nature is no longer interferred by man, and when it is no longer being destroyed for wealth, or power, or political BS. I guess you can call that my version of "the New" Heaven.

Am I foolish to hope for this? Is this just wishful thinking?

And honestly, what would need to happen for this to come about? I'm not looking for things like "We need to drive less" or "Recycle More". I mean... what would honestly need to happen to make the Earth healthy again? Or is it already to late, and are we best pushing our efforts to preserving the last of the Wild Places.

[Dendrias]

But they did just that yesterday night. Happy Bealtaine!

[DJ Droood]

And honestly, what would need to happen for this to come about? I'm not looking for things like "We need to drive less" or "Recycle More". I mean... what would honestly need to happen to make the Earth healthy again? Or is it already to late, and are we best pushing our efforts to preserving the last of the Wild Places.

There would need to be a near-extinction (or extinction) event for the human species...anything from comet to disease to climate change, or all those things...you name it.....and the human population would collapse to very small numbers, world-wide, for many thousands of years. It has happened in the past, such as the last Ice Age, or, more regionally, the European plagues.

A population bottleneck (or genetic bottleneck) is an evolutionary event in which a significant percentage of a population or species is killed or otherwise prevented from reproducing.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_bottleneck

[Huathe]

I agree with DJ. If God does not return or man does not shape up an Extinction Level Event ( E.L.E. ) would be required to cleanse the earth. And it is not a question of if it will happen, it is WHEN it will happen. A comet or asteroid impact would do it as well as an explosion of a supervolcano ( Like Yellowstone ). Even if 99 percent of the planet's life were driven to extinction, life would recover. It has before.

I also agree with a disease annilating us. Walking through dead hemlock forests killed by Hemlock Wooly Adelgid I have thought. " What if a disease hits us and wipes us out like that? ". If we are lucky a few may have resistence and survive. But in the case of Eastern Hemlock, none has had resistence. We could easily befall their fate.

We, of course can also annilate ourselves through nuking ourselves as well as exausting our environment. That is purely stupid because it is within our grasp as a species to control it. As Forest Gump says " Stupid is as Stupid does ".

God always has the choice to change his mind and wipe the slate clean. And He shall walk with the Lady, regardless.

[Myrde]

So... essentially, we'd need to be almost driven... or driven completely to extinction if the Earth is to survive. *sighs* I was thinking that myself... but I was thinking that maybe I was being to pessimistic or too extreme. >.< Apparently, I wasn't.

To think an entire species would need to be annihilated because they were to blind to see that they were damning themselves and their Mother. When you look at all the BS we're concerned with now (Obama's Birth Certificate, Wife Swap, China taking over the US)... it makes you wonder if we DO even deserve to dwell here anymore.

....course... I, personally, really, really, really don't want to find myself reincarnated into a Cockroach. Even though we all know that in the event of a nucleur holocaust, they will take over and repopulate the world.

Btw, Blessed Beltane everyone. I found myself unable to celebrate my first one this year. To many things going on, and no time to get away. *sighs* I made a prayer to them both. Maybe they can hear, who knows? Maybe they still listen...

[Huathe]

Myrde,

Humanity, as a whole is undeserving. We are like a bird that craps in it's nest. But for the most part we realize it and as a whole do little about it. The only thing that really matters to humanity as a species, is money and power.

I would like to think that us druids are an exception. People who care about our earthly mother. Do we really talk the talk and walk the walk? Think about it?

[Myrde]

*sighs* In a sense, Hawthorn, that's almost as bad as some Christian views. "People who actually believe in God and try to fulfill his acts. Do trully believe in him, and will stand by him as he rises again?"

Are we, Druids the exception? I highly doubt it. We might try, but sometimes trying isnt enough. Sometimes we CAN'T live the completely earth friendly life that we want too. What's more, all of us here are human. It's so unbelievably easy to point the finger at corruption and desire for money, but under similar circumstances, how many of us would react differently? I can't answer that.

Admittedly, everyone here is trying to seek a way to their own enlightenment, and trying to respect the Earth. But so do other people.

If the Horned God and Lady somehow manifested themselves and said "Look, we're gonna start over. But we're gonna keep the people who respect and love us" and somehow I made it on that list... I'd ask them to take me off and put another in my place. Plain and simple, I just know that I wouldn't be worthy to inherit that World they created.



Dear Lord, this is depressing. Only I can bum myself out like this. I just pretty much admitted to myself that we as a species are all around f******. Why don't politicians get the big picture...

[treegod]

And honestly, what would need to happen for this to come about? I'm not looking for things like "We need to drive less" or "Recycle More". I mean... what would honestly need to happen to make the Earth healthy again? Or is it already to late, and are we best pushing our efforts to preserving the last of the Wild Places.

Paradigm shift. Humanity needs a change of consciousness, a radical shift in the way we think. I won't talk about likelihood, which would too easily go down the route of pessimism. Necessary to know what we're up against, but I don't want to passively resign myself to that.

"Realistically" I should resign myself to extinction. It seems that there isn't much to be done without every single human somehow making changes. One person cannot do it alone. I take the "heroic resignation" route. Despite what I am up against I'm going to go ahead and do what I can. If it was certain that the world would end tomorrow I would still plant a tree today, so to speak.

The Lord and Lady (or deity of choice) has returned. Many times before, many times now and many times again in the future. In us. In you, in me. It's not an all encompassing "return", not universal at all. But it happens. From within us, not as some miracle that suddenly imposes itself on our world, that we passively resigning ourselves to. And at times enough "returns" manifest in a group of people together and this creates a synergy of "returning". A paradigm shift.

WE, collectively and individually, are the Lord and Lady. It is our responsibility to make any "return" happen. And if the whole world doesn't experience this Return, not to worry, I have, and perhaps you have too. That's what matters at the very least.

[Huathe]

Myrde,

I have often thought " If I am good enough " when I get in my car. Collectively, cars are one of the biggest polluters of the natural world but the system makes it hard to do without one. But is that really an excuse? Regardless, I am in a small way hurting Earth here. Naturally, I vote for alternatively powered vehicles that run on electricity or hydrogen.

Treegod,

That is what Beltaine is all about. The return of the Lord and Lady and the arrival of summer.

[Myrde]

I'm hearing everything your saying and I agree with it, Treegod. I believe that as well. Both the pessimistic and the philosophical parts.

I, since my research began, have always viewed the Lord and Lady as something akin to loving parents. And while I, in turn, try to respect and love them... collectively, the human race is like a bunch of spoiled, bratty children. Part of it is the system itself. There's so many worldy distraction that we can't ignore in our lives that keep people from embarking on the Truth. Instead, you get sermons and worships that have been processed and canned, because its easier to go that route. People need to pay the rent, work for that rent, drive to the super market, ect. I'd LOVE to grow my own food and be self-sufficient, but I know that will (probably) never happen merely because of where I live and how deep in this system I currently am.

Also... as a scary sidenote... lets assume bottleneck extinction DOES happen, and a good... 98% of the population up and hacks it. That leaves roughly about 140 million humans left. Lets say super bug wipes us out. Think the Old Ways will still remain? If there's any followers left, think they'll survive, or find themselves hunted down? Note: Hunted down includes the following: religious persecution, attacks from marauders and vagabonds in order to gain supplies, starving to death, failing to keep the Old Ways, and my personal favorite, failing to reproduce.

I promise this is the last of the depressing bit! Though, IF we do major achieve space travel and colonization, lets try to fix the Earth before going off to screw up another planet.

[DJ Droood]

Also... as a scary sidenote... lets assume bottleneck extinction DOES happen, and a good... 98% of the population up and hacks it. That leaves roughly about 140 million humans left. Lets say super bug wipes us out. Think the Old Ways will still remain? If there's any followers left, think they'll survive, or find themselves hunted down? Note: Hunted down includes the following: religious persecution, attacks from marauders and vagabonds in order to gain supplies, starving to death, failing to keep the Old Ways, and my personal favorite, failing to reproduce.

I think the survivors should eat anyone that utters the word "god" or goddess".

[Jake]

Our species isn't anymore greedy or worthless than any other. Like all life on earth, what we are is "lazy" - which is to say we are inclined to expend the least possible amount of personal energy necessary to secure our immediate survival, well-being and comfort and that of our offspring or support network. If we were otherwise we might do things like spend more energy acquiring food than the food itself could give us and ultimately starve.

Plants growing indoors under grow-lamps don't extend creepers out under the door to find the sun. Feed a lioness a dead goat everyday and see how often she goes off to hunt zebras.

We're very clever and adaptable primates and have managed to develop a whole bunch of dead-goat-a-day strategies to make our lives easier and more comfortable, at least in the short term. Because, like other primates, we're not the best at thinking in terms of long term consequences. Add to this the fact that many of us live in cultures which have developed the diseased religious or philosophical notion that everything on earth was put here for our exclusive benefit and is a "resource" to be used and used up, and the results have been disastrous for ourselves and the biosphere as a whole.

It's likely that long before any single cataclysmic event or rampant infection wipes out all or most of our species, the fossil fuels which simply can not be replaced by any current "alternative" source and that power virtually all of our dead-goat-a-day technologies (including the "green" ones) in the industrialized world will effectively run out. And before that their use will become so expensive that almost nobody will be able to afford them. Those among us who have learned to live without them, or with less, or who have never lived with them at all by virtue of not living in the industrialized world, may be in a better position when the time comes.

I think treegod's right about the necessary radical paradigm shift. But does this happen before or after the radical technological shift and the ensuing social and political meltdown? Because sooner or later we will use less energy and produce less pollution. We will eventually be forced into it. Of that there is no question. The question is how many more species will die, how many more toxins will be released, how much worse are we willing to let things get before we do?

But I don't see the point in all the moralizing language ("bad, bad, we're bad and sinful and wicked and bad"). It seems entirely unproductive.

And even less helpful is the belief that some big powerful godly parents, whether the ancient Abrahamic Sky Daddy or the "Lord and Lady" that a couple of English people made up out of nowhere in the early 20th century, are going to show up and either make it all better for us or smite us all in their wrath. It's this very kind of thinking, this supernatural cop-out, that has contributed to the problem in the first place.

Anyway....

That is what Beltaine is all about. The return of the Lord and Lady and the arrival of summer.

Says who and since when?

You may enjoy this article. I sure did. It's refreshing as heck to see anybody move beyond the Victorian, fluffy Wiccan, storybook versions of pagan holidays and delve a little deeper.

http://alisonleighlilly.com/blog/2011/e ... sgression/

I think the survivors should eat anyone that utters the word "god" or goddess".

I say we get a head start.

[Huathe]

Jake,

I did enjoy the article and it is an informative read. Still Beltaine can mean different things to different people. I guess it depends on one's belief system. What I believe Beltaine to be and stand for is based on my religious beliefs, personal feelings about God and nature and on what I have read about Beltane. One's religious beliefs and feelings on nature and deity are personal. The " facts " on Beltaine may not always be the " correct " facts as your article may have pointed out.

For me, Beltaine is a celebration of God's shaping hand on Dana ( Mother Earth ). God is the " Lord " and Dana is the " Lady ". It is all a celebration to the coming of the light-half of the year and summer. Your view may be different and that is OK. We all have different views. I am certainly interested in learning the history of Beltaine and how it was practiced in the past up to now. That would be true of all the " wheel " holidays.

[Twig]

Very interesting discussion. Thanks for the thread, Myrde, and welcome! It's very refreshing to read the thoughts of the generation which will be inheriting the mess we're leaving behind.

The whole Rapture (Rupture? ) thing is so wrong in so many ways. The real truth is that none of us knows what's going to actually happen, but we can deduce by the way things are currently progressing that it's not going to be a picnic. We humans came so late to the party and have really crashed it big-time. I think we all sense that "something's up," but cannot name it. I think Jake's "dead-goat-a-day" post pretty much nails it. And treegod is spot on about the paradigm shift. Likely, many of us are already beginning the shift within ourselves, but the numbers may be against us. It's sort of like even though I know the developers will win, I still agitate against any more clear-cutting in (our out of) my city, much the way treegod will plant another tree no matter the odds of its survival. Somehow our actions marry the positive with the negative.

I keep a small stash of emergency items, but then I wonder why I do it. Whatever goes down will likely be way more powerful than my freeze-dried scrambled eggs and canned beans.

[DJ Droood]

Likely, many of us are already beginning the shift within ourselves, but the numbers may be against us.

I increasingly see "green living" as a personal survival strategy to harden and prepare for the end of the oil age....like Jake says, it is more likely to be a grinding "Long Emergency" than something cool. Those who have weened themselves from the gadgets, produce some of their own power and food and have learned to get around without a car will have a Darwinian advantage. If those choices do something to "heal the planet" , so much the better.

I keep a small stash of emergency items, but then I wonder why I do it. Whatever goes down will likely be way more powerful than my freeze-dried scrambled eggs and canned beans.

That will get you through a power outage, but you might come up short during the apocalypse. I understand though...I have been a chronic emergency supply hoarder since Y2K...my wife says I am an obsessive-compulsive nut case who panics easily, but she will see....I will get the last laugh.

[DaRC]

Hmmm this resurrection malarky I can't see anything in Celtic literature to suggest it,
as to the Norse well there's a resurrection for Balder and Nanna but just a tiny, eensy, wee bit of a major apocalypse first.
However, yes my first book was a Planet SOS pop-up book from my Aunt, I don't think things have got much better since then....

Don't worry

Our Mother will become barren.

as nature on our planet started off with a few microbes (or complex chains of amino-acids or somesuch biology was never my strongest point) and I think she will have more than enough life to re-build her wonderful, diverse nature without those pesky humans infecting every eco-system.

[Myrde]

Hehe... you'll have to excuse me Jake and DaRC. As a writer and self-proclaimed philosopher, I tend to speak in metaphorical terms alot. Moreso, the "resurrection or return" merely a way of saying a Return of the earth to her healty state, since alot of Druids/Pagans are earth based religions and striving for the betterment of nature and the planet. As for the "Lord and lady" being parental figures... that's my view of them. My way of assosciating myself with them and identifying them, my way of trying to understand them. I never said they'll magically fix everything, or that they'll smite us.

But... no matter what, in nature, life can only be created (more or less) by a male and female, whether they be indivuals or bodily parts of the same creature. All life had to originate somewhere. For me, the source is the Lord and Lady.

I guess those of us who know how to fish and farm the land will survive. I've grown up on the ocean, and know of its bounty, its beauty, it's wrath, and it's power. You must respect what it can do. The same waves that feed you may one day sweep you out to sea.

Btw... seriously.... AM I the youngest dude here? O_O;

[Jake]

Still Beltaine can mean different things to different people.

Exactly. Which is why we might want to be cautious when declaring "what Beltane is all about."

I keep a small stash of emergency items, but then I wonder why I do it. Whatever goes down will likely be way more powerful than my freeze-dried scrambled eggs and canned beans.

This got me giggling for a crazy long time. A few cans of beans can go a long way!

But... no matter what, in nature, life can only be created (more or less) by a male and female, whether they be indivuals or bodily parts of the same creature. All life had to originate somewhere. For me, the source is the Lord and Lady.

I don't want to argue with your personal theology at all. Whatever works for you. But I do feel compelled to point out that the bulk of the living beings on this planet (there are, for instance, about 10 times as many of them living in and on you as there are human cells in your body) reproduce asexually (no male or female individuals or body parts). And they're the basis of all life.

But because we can't see most of them we don't think about them too often. Until, that is, a bunch of the ones we don't like so much end up somewhere we don't want them, like in bags of spinach, and we drop dead from explosive diarrhea. Then they're all over the news.

[Myrde]

Good argument. However, while bacteria may be a form of life, are they they source of life itself? I've studied biology and chemistry, and am fully aware as to how they functure and how many are out there. But what is the difference between Life and Being Alive?

The flower that opens it's petals to the sun's warm rays is alive. The horse that bends its neck to champ on the grass is alive. The child that draws a painting of it's parents is alive.

While single cell organisms are a form of life, I don't think they are "Alive" in the same sense as these other beings. If they were, the human body would be nothing more than a "town" of these cells merely working together. And yet, that's what we are... a bundle of cells that are working together for a common goal.

And yet... that isn't what we are. Not just what we are. There is something else that binds gives this mass of cells and tissues a thought, a voice, a identity. As well as these others beings. There's something about this life force that makes these "bundles of cells" trully alive. Those cells, bacteria, ect. might be what we're made of, but I don't believe that that's just simply what we are.That goes for any living creature.

Something, I don't know what it is, but something forms this "Life". This awareness and the different levels of it that all living things posses.

These are just my beliefs. But what do I know? I'm just a young, naieve idealistic philosopher. But sometimes I think we're to logical and too scientific about things. When I look at a cloud formation, do I really need to know that it's formed of water vapor, composed of H20, and it's shape is affected by yadda air temperature and yadda air pressure? Or do I simply need to know that's its beautiful, intriguing, and natural.

Sadly, I think the more our race have tried to understand nature and our world, the more we've grown away from it. At one point, we went from understanding how it works to merely knowing a bunch of facts and figures that don't come into our lives very often. Therefor, we dismiss and ignore those facts.

Here's something I've wanted to ask a few people. The Sun is a massive sphere of increadibly hot plasma. It has a diameter of about 1,392,000 km, about 109 times that of Earth, and its mass (about 2×1030 kilograms, 330,000 times that of Earth) accounts for about 99.86% of the total mass of the Solar System. Chemically, about three quarters of the Sun's mass consists of hydrogen, while the rest is mostly helium.

That is what the Sun is. But is that all that is is?

[Jake]

Good argument. However, while bacteria may be a form of life, are they they source of life itself?

Our planet is 4.5 billion years old.

For 3 billion of those 4.5 billion years, single-celled organisms were the only form of life on earth.

Let that sink in.

Plants have only existed on land for about 450 million years, birds for 150 million, homo sapiens for a mere 200 thousand.

It's probably impossible to truly think about numbers on this scale but try. Try to get some sense of the timeline, of what a relatively tiny insignificant blip we are in the grand story of life on earth.

Then ask yourself the question that leaves me scratching my head. Why would anyone choose a pair of beings in human form to represent or personify life on earth and give them titles from the European aristocracy? What a narrow, anthropocentric and self-referential view of life. What broad vistas, what wonders to behold, lie beyond it.

But sometimes I think we're to logical and too scientific about things. When I look at a cloud formation, do I really need to know that it's formed of water vapor, composed of H20, and it's shape is affected by yadda air temperature and yadda air pressure? Or do I simply need to know that's its beautiful, intriguing, and natural.

I can't imagine separating these two types of knowledge. Understanding what we can of clouds makes them more beautiful, more intriguing. Knowing nothing of them, am I engaging with the beauty of the clouds themselves or simply with my own imagination?

Sadly, I think the more our race have tried to understand nature and our world, the more we've grown away from it. At one point, we went from understanding how it works to merely knowing a bunch of facts and figures that don't come into our lives very often. Therefor, we dismiss and ignore those facts.

That is sad, to the extent that it's true. It sounds to me like the result of very poorly equipped science teachers with lousy curricula.

A sense of awe and wonder should be the animating force behind any scientific investigation. It's true that a bland, sterile, mechanical reductionism is what many people have been taught to view as science. This is bad science. And I believe its roots lie in old religious ideals that objectify the natural world and view it as base and valueless when compared to the "true" spiritual world to which our eyes should be constantly turned.

A lot of good stuff has been written recently that touches on this subject. I'd start with either of David Abram's books and then read any source he cites, focusing especially on those with whom he disagrees in whole or in part.

Here's something I've wanted to ask a few people. The Sun is a massive sphere of increadibly hot plasma. It has a diameter of about 1,392,000 km, about 109 times that of Earth, and its mass (about 2×1030 kilograms, 330,000 times that of Earth) accounts for about 99.86% of the total mass of the Solar System. Chemically, about three quarters of the Sun's mass consists of hydrogen, while the rest is mostly helium.

That is what the Sun is. But is that all that is is?

It's that and much, much more. What it is not is a guy in a chariot racing across the sky.