Quaker Pagan Reflections

“Nature is not mute. It is man who is deaf.” - Terence Mckenna If we accept that land is alive, and has spirit and the ability to communicate to us how (and whether) it wants to relate to us, how do we find out what that is? I've said that I respect Andras's family's patience in learning to hear from their land before diving in to constructing sacred sites on it, and it's something that I think Peter and I share.  But what is it that we're "hearing," and how are we best to listen for it? This is where Andras's ideas and mine diverge--in theory, if not in practice. I'm tempted to go into detail here, explaining some examples of what happens when Pagans don't listen to the land, but instead arbitrarily impose their preconceived notions about what kinds of shrines they "get" to construct on land once they own it.  Unfortunately, if I give specific examples, those who have been to those sites or were the ones to build them will

At the beginning of February, I got to go to Earthspirit's  Feast of Lights .  When I was there, I got to attend  Andras Corban Arthen's "Sacred Land: an Anamanta Workshop." I've enjoyed Andras's teaching ever since I was a little Witchling and I took his Witchcraft 101 classes.  It was nice having beginner-oriented stuff that wasn't condescending or lightweight, and even though it was obvious in his survey of all the different sorts of Witches he'd encountered that he liked his own tradition best, he did real justice to the subject, and offered enough practical ideas that I took home something to think about. Twenty-five years later, and he's still at it--making me think.  Not enough of us really think about how our Paganism connects us to the local landscape.  I know that I've thought about it more and more since moving to our house at the edge of the woods , and I was ready to look at my relationship with the earth in new ways.  I got