Poppy Palin is a qualified and experienced artist and teacher who uses her
trained illustrative skills to enhance her own work and that of others. She
has written and illustrated four non-fiction books on her life as a natural
psychic, all of which are published by Capall Bann. She combines magical
fiction and enchanting artwork in the Wild Spirit Tarot (Llewellyn 2002) and
in her "Wild Spirit Trilogy" of novels which begins with The Greening.She
recently illustrated The Hedge Witchs Way written by English author Rae Beth
and will be working with her on The Hedge Witchs Oracle in 2002. Poppys
artwork regularly appears in magazines in the mind, body and spirit
category.Poppy is also an experienced tattoo artist who specializes in
one-off pieces to commemorate rites of passage. She currently lives in
Glastonbury, England.
Writing is, in my experience, a powerful tool for transformation and a way of
bringing many disparate folk together around the soul-fire of one's personal
vision. It is a way to share ideas in a stimulating way that the reader may
dip into at will - be that on the train to work, at the breakfast table, in a
plane, or in her own bathtub. And in this is a gentle and effective means of
communicating en masse. We are not yet at the stage when we can readily use
the Internet, watch television, or view lectures or seminars in such an
informal fashion, and so the written word remains as our foremost flexible
means of outreach.
By acknowledging writing and the creation of books in such a way, it is then
easy to ask oneself, as an author, how we may best use this potent tool. What
is it that we feel most strongly about, both in a personal and a more global
sense? What may we think of as the most vital thing we can communicate today?
Writing for others is an opportunity not to be squandered. With this in mind,
in my own recent work I am choosing to focus on what I consider to be a way
forward for our species and all others on the planet; a non-divisive,
non-religious soul-philosophy with active reverence for the Earth at it's
wild heart.
What the world needs now is certainly love, as the old song says, but also a
loving and wholly unifying force which acknowledges both matter and spirit
equally; a force to unite spirit-consciousness and practical environmentalism
across the world. This may seem so simple and obvious that we wonder whether
there is a need to consider this at all. But here is the crux of the matter -
there are few expounded ways of being which combine active Earth-honouring
with free spiritual growth. Having a personal spiritual responsibility to our
eternal soul-selves and combining it with collective responsibility for our
host planet and her inhabitants is, unbelievably, a rare ideal in today's
world. We are presently caught in either camp - being either solely spiritual
beings or solely material activists. Traditionally, many spiritual teachings
or religious doctrines tell us to transcend the body, to become
"unearthed," while those people without an esoteric belief system
disregard spirit altogether and remain wholly "earthed" in the
material world only. There is yet to be a widespread, welcoming ethos that
combines the two aspects of being so that we may remain "earthed"
enough to be environmentally and ethically caring whilst being
"unearthed" enough to acknowledge the spiritual nature of all
beings … and, of course, ourselves.
Here I can hear people cry in disbelief, "But what about modern pagan
practice? Isn't paganism such a way? Does this not allow us to be spiritual
and ecologically aware?" It is true to say that neo-paganism is
certainly moving towards the fully integrated way of living of which we
speak. To be pagan with a small "p," in the broadest sense, is to
be, as the Romans once decreed, "of the land" (not apart from it).
Therefore it is a way to be embraced. Surely we all need to acknowledge that
we are "of the land" in this day and age? However, to be Pagan with
a capital "P" infers that we are saying "I am a Witch,
Priest/Priestess/Druid etc. I follow a Pagan religion that is different to
yours and therefore I am not a Muslim/Jew/Christian/Buddhist etc." By
claiming we are "this," we decree that we are not like others who
are "that." We create a barrier and have to stay within its
framework. It is hard to see how the world needs yet another human creed
which places such boundaries, even if the creed itself is beneficial and
gently Earth-honouring, as modern Paganism surely can be. The unifying force
needs to come through people who emphasize our essential sameness without
drawing "us" or "them" lines in the sand which, with the
best will in the world, all beliefs do.
So, here is my point again - there are indeed few of us today who advocate
spiritually-based Earth-honouring practices without sole reference to a
limiting, divisive religious creed. Likewise there are so few of us
advocating a free-flowing spiritual activism alongside our environmental or
ethical action. We are out of balance with ourselves, failing to see the
connections and the holistic nature of being, the divine eternal polarity of
matter and spirit, seen and unseen - and therefore we are less effective
because of it. We fail to be as powerful as we could be because we are
divided within ourselves, not to mention from others and our environs!
The principle I am offering through my work equates the balance of our body
and spirit with the health and well-being of the Earth. And not only the
earth as in "the land" but the Earth as an individual being as well
all the children that dwell upon, above, and, indeed, in her. The children I
refer to here are our creature-kin of fur, feather, fin, and scale - and
also, just as importantly, our relatives of leaf, stem, and seed. These are
all our energetic relations. We share with them, as we do with our human kin,
the animating energetic spark of the creator-spirit. We are all fashioned
from the same material - the fabric of the stars themselves - sharing our
atomic structure with all other life as well as sharing that unseen
spirit-spark that animates all living creatures. We are all kin, all
connected - a simple truth that humanity as a whole has found it easy to
disregard. So the way I am discussing here is not human-centric. Far from it.
And here again is the fundamental difference in what we are discussing here
and in assumed religious doctrine: most religious beliefs are entirely
human-centric, usually favoring anthropomorphised god-figures, while we are
considering the very real possibility of seeing ourselves as aspects of a
creator energy, not as separate from it. The unity we speak of here is,
therefore, a unity of body and soul but also of the collective body and the
collective soul - of all life in its seen and unseen aspects brought together
as one whole being, the creator. We can give the creator a large
"C" if we so wish, but perhaps this only places the creator above
and beyond us again, when we are of the creator and the creator is in us …
and in everything else!
This brings me on to my next point - that it is hard to focus on an external
creator, as religions do, when we can see that we too are the creator. I am
the creator, you are the creator and they are the creator … what a gloriously
unifying concept this is! We are all but cells in this greater body, yet we
are also the body itself. The creator spark in each of us means that we are
both the created and the creator at the same time. To put it another way, the
creator sees through the myriad eyes of creation and feels through the vast
array of senses we all possess, from the tiniest ant to the soaring eagle,
from the poor man to the head of a global corporation. The creator
experiences all facets of being through our individual separateness while we
experience our unity and un-separateness through an experience of that energy
within us (and within everything else). Of course we may effectively call the
creator energy Jah or Yahweh, Isis or Kali. But perhaps by putting this one
human-centric aspect to an unseeable and unifying force, we are once again
limiting it to our own narrow vision whilst excluding all others. In a time
when unity and understanding - both for the land and for each being - is
paramount, any loving concept which can gently wipe away such distinctions is
to be welcomed. All the gods are indeed one god, and that one god is the
creator energy that resides in me, you, and the blooming rose simultaneously.
To witness this miracle is to become god-conscious. This god (or creator)
energy is in all of us, yet limitless. And the only way we have as humans to
perceive this flowing tide of loving creation is through each other and each
created thing. With this understanding, how can we continue to live
disrespectfully - without full responsibility for ourselves, the land, and
our kin? We are no longer talking of acting environmentally, or magically,
for the sake of our personal human offspring and their children and
children's children etc. but rather for the sake of all our relations, human
and non-human, here and now, and especially the Earth Mother, our beautiful
sentient host.
Just a point at this juncture. I certainly do not wish to infer that Mother
Earth is helpless and we are her saviors. On the contrary, the Earth Mother
is alive and en-souled … she has her own divine spirit-spark, a powerful
will, and her own sacred viewpoint. With an awareness of "the god within
and without," we can work with her more effectively, dancing her dream
as well as our own. We are apt to forget that she is our host and we are her
guests, so we need to honor that relationship and hold our awareness of it
moment by moment. It is precious.
Such a vision of the creator gives us responsibility beyond the
"godhead" and "devotee" scenario of all religions. The
simple possibility that we are both the creator and the created
simultaneously brings both great liberation and huge responsibility; it
allows us to live a life that is bound yet free, bound by nature yet free in
spirit and in love with both aspects. When we are in love with another
person, we are both carefree and yet willingly tied to the beloved. And so it
is with life. If we can accept that we are both the lover of the beloved and
the beloved simultaneously, then we may quickly come to understand that we
are responsible now, in this very moment, for ourselves and for creation. If
we can hold these two visions - the inner and the outer- at once, then we
really have a hope of being truly strong and effective both spiritually and
manifestly. These two visions are threads in an infinite tapestry, and we are
constantly weaving our own unique inner threads as well as the external
cosmic threads of the all, thus combining the physical and the ephemeral. By
this we are all the weft and warp of existence, the pattern which emerges on
the cloth, as well as the weavers. Our collective and individual conscious
joy in the process of weaving, combined with our witnessing the stunning
result of the weaving process, means that we are living magically and
effectively! This analogy of weaver and weaving is the "as within, so
without" maxim made real in our lives - a maxim which is the key to
living a life of enchantment. Holding the threads of this dual awareness
without the limitations of religious doctrine means that we are fully
empowered in any given moment to effect change. If this were a collective
awareness, think how our vision of a healed world could become reality! We
all have the power within us right now to meld with the power around us, in
the natural world and beyond, for the purpose of creating a world which is
brightly woven from compassion and wisdom.
What is this power, this force of which I speak? It is the potent energy we
free up at our awakening to the interconnectedness of all life. This force is
green-spirited, it is verdant and golden. It is a wild green spirituality
which expresses perfectly the "earthed" yet "unearthed"
paradox. The green speaks of the land, and the burgeoning power that all of
nature holds; the spirituality refers to the vital soul-spark we encounter in
all beings, that unseen animating force with its latent, lambent potency. By
this we may live well in a way that is completely harmonious with the host
planet we call home whilst having a complete awareness of our part in the
dance of creation … and everything else's part too. To be green-spirited as a
human incarnate today is to be awakened to this burgeoning power, and to work
with it in unseen and seen ways to enhance its wonderful, lyrical flow. We
may do this by a magical blend of manifest acts and spiritual connection,
each reinforcing the other within a sacred continuum. It is a way that brings
together environmental action and magical spirit-work in one rounded package,
and allows us to directly experience, by daily recognition, the very real
transformation we may affect in our own lives for the good of all.
My book Craft of the Wild Witch: Green Spirituality and Natural Enchantment
acts as a gentle wake-up call to our own spiritual god-nature and to that of
all other beings. In this, it is a call like bird song that sings of this
green-spirited way which is open to everyone; a spiritual way that walks in
the world gladly. In the book, there are many suggestions of how to work
compassionately and wisely, with joy, weaving the strands of "the
manifest" and "the spiritual" in meaningful, down-to-earth yet
starlit ways. It is a simple, wholesome, and poetic book - hopefully just as
moving and stirring as witnessing the flight of starlings at sundown as they
swoop and flow over the city rooftops as one being. The soul-poetry of our
spiritual awareness weaves in and out of the strong roots of our daily lives
on this enchanted small blue-green planet, and this book just highlights how
we may honor these essential connections as we go about our human business.
In this, it is a guidebook not a bible - a book full of suggestions and words
of encouragement, with many samples and starting points for those seeking a
path off the beaten track, into the green of authentic magical living. For
many, it will advocate unorthodox ideas and practices which challenge the
separateness we are used to in modern western society. For this I make no
apologies. My challenge to readers is for them to wake up to that unifying
green-spirited awareness and to begin to weave a new way. Our old, tired,
divisive vision is no longer serving us, others, or indeed the Mother Earth,
well.
To conclude, have I not just contradicted myself hugely by saying we need no
religions, no labels, no divisive titles such as "witch," and then
blatantly using this identifying label in my own book? Indeed I have used
this label. Yet it is my hope that this title acts as a catalyst, an
inspiration - and not a final destination. As I say in the book, perhaps one
day we can move beyond all such limitations as labels, but for now I offer
the word wildwitch with a small "w" as a place to begin. It is a
name that suggests that which is of the land, yet mystical and hidden; an
evocative title that conjures up all the glorious mystery and muddy-fingered
exploration of that which lies beyond and yet is inherently present in each
instant, and in each instance, of life.
Here is a way for the non-conformist - who refuses to be told "how it
is" by the status quo, and who knows there is more to life than the
rigidly material or dogmatically religious. The word wildwitch is, therefore,
but a signpost to the green-spirited way which leads us on a journey of
ongoing celebration. As ivy clings to stone, so does the wildwitch cleave to
truth and beauty, making magic with the tides of life and making each moment
sparkle like hoarfrost on hazel at midwinter. The word wildwitch can be
clasped and released as the wave does to the shore, held lightly or firmly as
a talisman, passed on or buried in the loam to grow new shoots. And, when the
time is right, we may use it as a title no more, knowing that what we have
become is enough, that how we are in the world shines from us as we open our
arms to the romance of being and can look ourselves, and each other, in the
eye and say, in all truth and love, "you are the creator."
RECOMMENDED TITLES BY THIS AUTHOR:
CRAFT OF THE WILD WITCH:
Learn seasonal prayers, meditations, trancework and other aspects of the Green path.
SEASON OF SORCERY:
A blend of information and entertainment, this book offers a personal account of psychic encounters and the author's understanding of them.
WAKING THE WILD SPIRIT TAROT (DECK AND BOOK):
Lets you reconnect with your sense of wonder at the divine magic of nature.
These title and others can be found at Isis Books & Gifts! With over
500 Wicca and Witchcraft book titles in stock, your sure to find one right
for you!
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