Life experience, It is all for You, Yet, it is not all about You.

Everything seems to respond to a simple Caring or Neglecting attitude or intent.
  Interactions with things outside of the Self.
A recognition,  or awareness of the effort and Magic of Communication as an understanding of sorts,.
A Mindfulness of the back and forth nature - Emitter and receiver-cause and effect- active and resting way of things.

Our ability to Praise, or Curse unwittingly is an aspect of  expression that is collectively compounded.
Respect / Disrespect - is the basic hinge of control and judgment in this basic binary code of this Spiritually inhabited Biosphere We are part of.
  Making others feel Comfortable or Uncomfortable, Welcome / Unwelcome.

The Earth Mother is not a Personal Vision, or Group Vision.
Like wise Gods and Goddesses are not to be confused with the Stories and Descriptions of Them.
I began My ADF  practice of Open Group Worship  with repeated offerings to the People who were the Druids of Ancient Times , to Please Help! We Pray! show us People of Modern Times the way!
There are no feelings of collective respect for misrepresentation,entrapment and falsehood.
Spiritual Groups, Religious Organizations  ,Festival Gatherings need to be concerned with  More than Mission Statements, Volunteer Management and Membership contributions , expectations, .and soliciting service feed back suggestions. There is a Spiritual Dimension in binding the effort/ energy in name and purpose, trying to see that Sacrifice is not wasted.

The commercial Electronic Medias as they have been developed and applied Today,  in hand held , touch screen, portable, personal,Wireless internet connected, consumer driven psycho-spiritual talismans of Self Identity.           Our Vital Social Essence,   Our sharing and comparing built up around a common platform of Self interest. Self promotion,Self help,Self improvement, Self directed selective  Surfing in a self centered world view, with statistics, followers , friends, likes and comments,updated continuously.....
 This is a different community communication competition for control,
 than that of Our Ancestors,
 the conversations of Forager's ,
 tales of Hunter's , voyages of Sailors,or stories of Shepard's.
It is not based upon Ancient Market Haggling, or the debates of Sages .
It is not  building on a tradition of Spiritual writing, Religious text,  Poetry or Drama,  or the speeches in Taverns and Public Squares,
 It is not Social communication as it has evolved from People and Spirits,
!The Arts!
 but a Product designed for Sale to People.
It is Advertising.

Our common creation

The ability to control Our Own Caring attention, to focus and lovingly direct it, in the hope that Another will get it, and benefit from it.
We must not allow ourselves to become misdirected by glamor and illusion of a world as presented to us, remaining sensitive to the responses of the many things we do touch in our lives, and the difference we do make in the spiritual atmosphere of the moment.
 Blessing as a Practice.
Prayer as an Art.

emergent resonance , frequencies, returning dimension

The Month before this May,  became one of the departure of My closest Neighbor,  and the Barn Cat,
 that was here on this territory,  that I have called My Own , for about sixteen Years.
I know they are alive,  and well elsewhere , yet I keep thinking that I see them,  in their usual place, on the other side of the road from My Home.

This May marked a Year of a regular practice  of  matching My breathing with the recording of the breathing of a Woman who will have Died three years just before this coming Samhain, ( Summers End ).
I had picked up Her Chakra Meditation CD  at the annual "Revival Festival" that has become a Family habit,
that's not happening this Year.
I had seen and heard her  live at a local Bee Group speaking and Drumming, Now I've been following Her patterned inhales and exhales , long after Her Spirit left Her Body, it is guiding mine.


The places and spaces we inhabit - The strange interface that is Spiritual presence or Being .
What is surface?                                             What is depth?              

The Annual Members Meeting of Druids  has moved this Year,

unfolding continuance, expanding oscillating envelopment

I tried to stay awake  for the arrival  of My Special Druid Visitors!

I had turned on the weird outside studio light

Casting a broken pale blue glow, in the dark drizzle , of the new Day, before the Sun rises.

From the beginning of My association with A Druid Fellowship ,over twenty five years ago, Two things went hand in hand

The reaching out to a multiplicity of Spiritual Beings with good will and an open Heart to experience reverence, respect, appreciation sharing, reciprocal relationship.

and

The reaching out to a multiplicity of Human Beings  to come together in Seasonal Holiday Worship of the repeating

   

Hosting or facilitating the interactions of diverse elements, knowingly outside of group control, or definition.
" Is that Them?" Says My wife ,of almost seventeen Years,  from Her side of the Bed.
We were "Hand fasted" as part of the Mid-Summer Ritual Holiday of Green Man Grove, that I was the Senior Druid of- in  about My tenth year of,                                                   Our Own Magic.
" it doesn't look like it."  I say after putting on My Glasses and trying to distinguish a silhouette of an alien vehicle, or foreign craft, parked in the broken pale blue glow, next to our Cars, next to our Studio, next to our House, below  and beyond the Window behind our Bed.
At some point later, I heard  snoring in the room below, it sounded like a small ensemble, but it was only the                          New Arch Druid and the  New Vice arch Druid, sleeping down stairs.

" It's a good thing you sign your paintings so large" says the first of My Guests to meet Me in the morning.
                                             Neither had been to My Home before.
There was updated -on the road texting to My Wife, global satellite navigation  utilized ,
and  a Painted Canvas confirming that this was the Destination, the  place  for  travelers to rest,  and                                                                                           Awaken!
Hugs before Coffee seem easier if there has been a previous face to face meeting , ours had been at the only Clergy retreat I have attended, around six years ago.  close to the Time the original Arch Druid was passing, and a founding ,Our Whole Grove member was moving. I received a Clergy Stole with My name on it.
A blur of new faces, I remembered meeting Her and Her Husband because of their cool and clever magical Names. More familiar to me now in electronic communication form in the Role of Preceptor- Our Study

I first met My second Guest, in person, three years ago, this coming Fall
We had been in touch electronically, more importantly, spoken on the phone privately about the Study Work
I had unwittingly committed to, in accepting  a Clergy Stole with My name on it.
He had invited me to come out and meet him at the Festival of a Druid Grove of a Neighboring State where the same fellow who gave me a ride back and forth to the Clergy Retreat three Years before that -from My closest Neighboring Grove was being " elevated " ritually and given a " Priestly Golden Sickle"after a presentation on the Web Site improvements.
I was surprised to meet some one who had been a member of ADF longer than My Self.
Surprised that His Partner, who He had brought to the Festival ,was from the same strange side of My Old Home City!                He would later send My Wife ,pictures of My Father's Paintings, at My Fathers second Wife's Home at the other end of Town. This Day He brought Me a one hundred and fifty year anniversary pack of My traditional regional heal all beverage with a Gnome ,
                                                       claiming it is aged in oak barrels.
                                                         * Authentic * Bold*Taste*

                                           On this Morning of May  the rains  thankfully stopped

My Wife came down to join us, and with much Coffee and Conversation We set up the May Pole and prepared for the arrival of  Our Whole Grove ( Proto-Grove ADF) North East Region , USA! Holiday
                                                                        Guests!

There are connections that are so precise, so deliberate, that they command your attention..
Some things more Real than others.
I repeat a habit on Holidays,
What a special treat!  this Year,  to witness,  face to face, the Spirit of what is Good and Real in ADF!.

                                                                     Again!
                                                                         and
                                                                      Again!
                                                                      LOVE!

Blossoming associations,extended resonant field properties

Me in Tree

My Birthday falls within the broad Mythic Span of a Seasonal Holiday of some Significance to Druids ,
                                                                       Old and New.
 I also have a red birthmark on my right hand, which has a short thumb, that was smashed by my Grandfathers Rustic slab Table, that inspired my , "showing off",early intuitive, interpretive Leprechaun dance, causing the wobble that generated the fall of the Dancer, who is injured from his unstable platform , or Stage at about the age of five, or six years.
Identifiable features- fixed characteristics-
things that are associations that are not of my making, choice or wish.
things that are outside of personal control.
chance, fate, destiny,coincidence
irreversible events that leave their marks on our physical body and spiritual form.
 Our senses and our ability to observe and interact with our surroundings

in this Month , that is the beginning  of My Fifty Fifth  Year Alive on this living  growing Earth.

May Fly Larvae

I was happy to receive a Birthday card from My Son's Godfather.
A great photographer who produced regular Holiday Cards.
He moved, the old phone number not working, I was afraid that We had lost touch.
I was relieved to find ,We had not .


I was Happy to receive Seasonal Blessing in the form of a phone call from the Father of My eleven Year Old Goddaughter.
Druid Soul Brother,Maker of the big Green Man Body Puppet twenty six years ago.speaking to Me of the things He was not supposed to know about -the development and change that took place with the coming of this May.    Mysteries of dark and light,Red and Green, Man and Woman, Life and Death
                                             Macro- Mystic -Meta- Morphology

May Tree bloom , last Summer late

The past Month had been oddly dry, a Forest Fire in a nearby Park only quenched with passing showers with the opening of this new Month.
My Wife takes a picture of Me to post on Face Book , in the Morning, on my Birthday .in a T- shirt that is not representative of of the organizations I contribute to regularly, Yet I Love the Graphics, I Love the Group, Love the Cause.This shirt was purchased to replace the old one, that has fallen apart in it"s close to thirty Years in My Possession.
It was the base, of what would turn out to be, not enough layers of clothing, for a rainy cold day, on the Rivers edge ,with second grade Classes, Teachers , Parents, Chaperons .
I was to be working for the Organization that was not having it's annual Fund Raising Festival-Membership renewal, that I had purchased ,                           My New T- shirt at last Year.

May Pole connections

"Is this slack tide?" asks a Teacher , I recognize from years of programs at this particular location, and in attendance at the Organizations  annual festival,  that will not take place this year.

" It's Weird," I say.  As High as I've ever seen it,The River was slopping up on the banks of the hiking trail,  encroaching on the path from the bridge across the lower Esopus Kline Kill ,
I pointed out an old and large end of a sawed off  Log,

floating between the currents , of the two moving , fluid ,  bodies  and the surge and pressure swelling with the Tide ,and the consistent mist and drizzle  coming down, with the occasional intermittent shower , of a rather calm and gentle sort.

Not a bad wind, but colder than I had prepared for.

 The Second Grade Class watched as the Log passed back and forth under the bridge as if propelled and piloted by some intelligent controller.

A Log with a Mission.

The Seine Net and Chest Waders were piled up on the high ground where the Organization that owns and operates the Location has been doing erosion control planting. It looked like a Willow got snapped after a net was dragged across it trying to access the river.

There were Two observers from the location organization there  to see how to use the Seine Net, as they were going to demonstrate, or do it, with their Board of Directors.

Before the Program began that day there was a Surprise Visit from the New Executive Director of the Programs Organization,
 at the new open sided  rusty steel Pavilion of last year,
that is slightly off the foot print of the reportedly flooded and demolished Education Center that My Son helped Me Paint a Mural in ,
while the Now,  New Executive Director was a , Then Education Director who was staying at the place now gone..

One or two spot-tail shiners in a couple awkward pulls, no herring, no shad, it was cold ,the tide never seemed to back off on My Birthday.

I had agreed to work Friday , a rescheduled rain day  that The normal Program Director was going to be away, in his stead  a respected Husband and Wife  team ,Artist- educators that I have worked with from the beginning of My association with  the organization that developed and runs the programs

It was raining Friday , The Tide Line seemed to be unchanged, the bank seemed to be heavy and sinking.
I took on some water  with the final pull of the day, some how spilling over the chest waders and soaking my pants,wallet and flip phone.             Noteworthy, as this is the first Year I've carried a phone,
The first cold river bottom I've drove Home with. I pulled all of the cards and photos out of My wallet, pictures of my Son over the last six or seven years, a couple Druid Clergy cards.spread out on my Bed to dry.

My Wife and I were to do  Volunteer work, after school ,at our Son's schools annual themed Book Fair.
 It is a special directed offering relating to the cult of the Librarian, the Library, and Books as a Portal.

Last year was the" Wizard of Oz", We tempera stenciled a yellow brick road.

This year is, now was, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory",  We were to hang the Contract . I featured here, on "My Druid Priestly Blog", on a stand in the schools decorated Gymnasium.We were also installing Foam and duct-tape factory gates on the front entrance.

After that We were to prepare for Our Special Druid Guests arriving late- late that night to celebrate the Holiday with us the next Day

poly-dimensional group bonding - shared experience- spiritual adhesion

Part of the in crowd
In a crowd of parts