In this issue
- Westacre latest
- Ritual to honour the Ancestors
- The Wakeful World by Emma Restall Orr: a review
- What you can do to help Westacre
Westacre Latest
Welcome to the improved new look of the Westacre Newsletter. I hope you’ll find it easier to read.
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Meanwhile, great things are happening at Westacre. At long last, the first proper phase of our renovation project is under way. We are having our new windows installed.
It took us a very long time to get here. We wanted to get both the best possible windows from an energy saving point of view, have them look nice, and not eat too far into our renovation budget. This will be our single largest expense of the entire project.
I got a touch worried on Thursday when the installers took off the whole front of our window bay in order to replace the stud work. The bedroom upstairs was open to the elements from the top of the window to the floor.
But soon it began to look dramatically better, and you can now begin to see the effect we are trying to achieve. We’re pretty pleased so far. We are wrapping our house up nice and warm for Winter, and for many Winters to come. At this time of year, the weather is getting noticeably colder, and we’re drawing into our comfort zone: the warmth of the hearth.
The dark time between Samhain and the rebirth of the light at the Winter Solstice, is a time outside time, a still moment of dreaming and withdrawing. The Ancestors are still close at this time. As we prepare to gather with our families, often near our place of birth, for the occasion of a long celebrated religious festival, it is a good time to prepare for that by giving thanks to the Ancestors of blood, of place and of spirit.
The Ancestors have given us so much. If a thanksgiving seems appropriate to you, try the ritual below.
The second item is a review of Emma Restall Orr’s The Wakeful World. Not an easy read, but such a valuable contribution to the change of culture we desperately need.
Enjoy the long evenings by the fire side. May love and friendship be always near.
Blessings of wren and crow,
Hilde
A ritual of thanksgiving for the Ancestors.
When I visit the Lake of the Ancestors in the Lowerworld, the place of power and strength, I meet three Ancestor Spirits: the spirit of my bloodline, the spirit of my spiritual tradition, and the spirit of the land. Each of them give and teach me so much that it seems appropriate to give them thanks, now and again.
The Ancestors don’t just leave and slam the door shut after the feast of Samhain. They are always with us. We carry them in our DNA, meet them in our culture, and see their work in the landscape around us. This dark time before the Solstice, is a good time to draw our forebears closer to us.
You will need to make some preparations before you do this ritual. You will need to spend some time thinking about the gifts you have received from the Ancestors, and preparing offerings for them. Giving gifts to the spirits who have given to us closes the circle of energy, holding us in honourable relationship.
To begin, consider each of the three Ancestral Tribes: the Ancestors of your blood, the Ancestors of your culture and spirituality, and the Ancestors of the land where you live. You may want to meditate and go and meet a representative of each of these tribes. Your you may like to journal about them. Your aim is to remember a specific gift you have received from each.
Next, consider what you may want to give in return. It would be wonderful if you could give things directly inspired with their gifts you have just found. Or you could give something appropriate to each tribe: a dish from a family recipe, a poem inspired by your spirituality or culture, a gift made from trees that grow in your neighbourhood. Or, if you are short of time, your gift can be symbolic. What counts is the gratitude in your heart.
When you have found the gifts of the Ancestors, and prepared offerings in return, you are ready to begin. Put your offerings at the centre of your ritual space. If you wish, decorate this area with objects that remind you of your Ancestry.
Open your rite in your usual way. This can be an elaborately cast circle, or as simple as sitting in meditation and feeling the circle of your ritual space around you.
When you are ready, pick up the first offering from your central altar. It doesn’t matter which comes first, just work with the Ancestral Tribe that feels right. Then take this offering for a walk around the outside of your ritual space. Keep walking until you feel a resonance at one point of the circle. It doesn’t matter if you have to go around the circle a few times to feel this. Take your time.
When you have found the spot, turn outwards and visualise a gateway. Through this gateway, you see an Ancestor come towards you. Greet them and converse with them. Give them sincere thanks for what they have given to you. Give them your offering in return by placing it on the ground at the edge of your circle.
Repeat the procedure for the other two Ancestral Tribes.
When you are ready, sit at the centre of your circle for a while, and let the energy of the gifts flow to you from the Ancestors, and from you towards them. Breathe and just let this happen without trying to concentrate too much.
To end, reverse your circle making. Then take some time to note down your experiences in your journal. You may want to take special note of the areas of the circle where your Ancestors appeared. Do these have a significance for you?
The gifts of the Ancestors keep flowing our way. May our gratitude flow richly in return.
The Wakeful World by Emma Restall Orr – a review
Emma Restall Orr, who is better known as Bobcat within the Druid community, has been a strong source of inspiration for me for many years. Even before I took her year-long Living Druidry course back in 2006-7, I loved her writing. It was one of the things that brought me to this spiritual path.
Emma’s books are full of the visceral experience of deep connection with nature. Her words evoke the poetry of the natural world and its spirits so vividly that you can’t help but be drawn in. Some passages have been known to make me cry in public. It’s a risk you take when reading on your daily commute.
The Wakeful World: Animism, Mind, and the Self in Nature, is different, though. Unlike Emma’s other books, it doesn’t describe the lived experience of an animist Druid, but lays out the philosophical underpinning of animism itself.
The book takes a journey through the history of philosophy, following the footsteps of animist thought from Antiquity to the present day. It picks up the thread of animism even in the period of dualistic scholastic Christianity and charts its return to the mainstream of philosophy in the last century.
Along the way, every term is carefully explained, so you never feel lost. The examples given are very reminiscent of Bobcat’s other books and give the text a lift into everyday experience. Still, it isn’t a beach novel. It requires some attention and work to follow the narrative. With the colours of the traditional terms of Western philosophy, Bobcat manages to paint a compelling picture of her view of nature. She describes how everything is made of tiny moments of interaction, instances of perception creating all of our reality. And within this reality, everything is awake and aware.
The consequences of such a world view are profound. If everything that surrounds us is awake, then we have a moral duty to treat everything with equal consideration and respect. In our time of greedy destruction of the natural world, this way of thinking is nothing short of revolutionary.
This consideration for nature, for all of us, human people and people of all kinds, is what inspires the work of Westacre.
Emma Restall Orr, The Wakeful World: Animism, Mind and the Self in Nature, Moon Books 2012.
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