New To The Craft

A Green Religion

One of the main aspects that drew me to learning about Wicca is that is an earth-based spiritual practice.  Honor and respect for our planet is now more important than ever as we hurtle ever faster towards a worldwide environmental crisis.  Though of course it is not impossible to both care for the environment and follow a traditional Western religion or other path, earth-based practices differ in that they shift the focus of what constitutes the sacred.  Wicca does not view the earth as a mere residence or a set of resources.  To many she is the very Goddess herself: Gaia.  Her green limbs extend upward to mingle with the light of the God as sun.  Together their forces combine to produce and support all forms of life as we know them.  Within the kingdoms of life are the plants and animals.  As Starhawk details beautifully in her book The Earth Path, “the green things give off oxygen, which the breathers use in burning food. Gaia [begins] to breathe, passing her breath back and forth from red to green….”  In the interdependent dance of our planet Wiccans see the revealing of the divine.

This alignment of the sacred with nature has a number of repercussions for our place in the world.  When you see the environment as sacred it becomes impossible to rationalize earth-destructive behaviors.  The question changes from “why should I recycle?” to “why wouldn’t I recycle?”  It also relieves the feeling of alienation that comes from seeing the world around us as a collection of inanimate objects.  We suddenly realize that the earth speaks to us constantly if we have the ears to listen.  We do not have to be separate; our very bodies cry to us that we are as much a part of nature as the trees and the birds.  The illusion that we are somehow separate or above our physical being is part of the teachings of mainstream Western religion and Platonic philosophy.  Wicca instead embraces the idea that mind, body and soul are united, and as such our spiritual self is no higher than our physical self.  Physicality is celebrated and sex held as sacred.  It ends the war between our rational minds and our sometimes irrational bodies that can refuse to conform to our wills.  Following the lessons of the elements health is achieved through balance, without stigma for allowing our natural needs their place.

Tied into this sacredness of the earth is a core idea that distinguishes Wicca from many other paths: immanence.  Many of us grew up with the idea that God is a being above common existence and separate from it.  This is the definition of a transcendent deity.  At first this makes sense since we usually distinguish between things we hold sacred versus the common everyday.  Yet immanence does not conflict with what is sacred, it implies that what is here and present in the physical world is the sacred.  This is radically different from more traditional conceptions of what God may be.  This re-thinking of the world around us allows us to care about and show reverence towards our planet and all forms of life.  We are never alone; rather we are a part of a world much larger than ourselves, where we play out our lives and affect all of those around us as cells in a greater organism.  Earth-centered paths allow us to embrace what makes us part of this world, and hold that world up as something worthy of our devotion.

Journal for the Month of October:

When I sat down to write an article on nature the first thing that struck me was the realization that I hardly ever get outside.  I mean yes I go outside to get into my car to drive to work in the morning.  I’m outside on the walk in to the building.  I reverse that at the end of the day, and you know what?  I am sad to say that is pretty much it!  I have a nice view of local trees from my office window, but stale recycled air is no competition for a fresh breeze.  I realized I hardly even open my car windows when I’m driving.  It’s like living in a strange, artificial world with glimpses of a beautiful, green natural landscape on the other side.

So in keeping with the theme of the environment, I took the opportunity to go on a guided nature walk at a local park.  It was a lot of fun and I highly recommend tours by Wild Man Steve Brill (for those in the North East U.S.).  He teaches basic foraging skills and knowledge of local plants and their uses.  Being outside for a lengthy period of time for the first time in years I was ecstatic.  I was also pooped by the end of it.  Yet I would do it again in a heartbeat, and I relish the time I spent re-learning to enjoy being in nature.  Eating raspberries fresh off the stem, and finding that wood sorrel tastes like lemonade…  Not to mention learning to distinguish one green plant from another, or enjoying lunch in a field under a clear blue sky…  Such simple pleasures really, but ones that if we only took the time we could enjoy freely.

Caring about the planet and the environment is an important first step, but it is also important to re-engage with the natural world many of us left behind in childhood.  To truly value and fight for something it helps to know it in more than an intellectual way.  This month taught me to remember to get myself back outside when I can, and connect with the God and Goddess in the natural world.

Until next month, blessed be! )O(