Wild Ethics

Here is a wonderful and beautifully constructed website to share, The Alliance for Wild Ethics. The home page contains only these words,

"We are human only in contact, and conviviality, with what is not human."

The section Why Wild? begins:

"Wildness is the earthy, untamed, undomesticated state of things - open ended, improvisational, moving according to its own boisterous logic. That which is wild is not really out of control; its is simply out of our control... beyond our ability to fully map with our theories or fully fathom with our thoughts"

The section Why Ethics? begins:

"Although 'ethics' is commonly equated with a set of rules or principles for right conduct, for us ethics has more to do with a simple humility towards others - an attentive openness not just toward other persons but towards the inexhaustible otherness of the manifold beings that compose this living world."

See why I am excited? Lots of essays and resources to explore in quiet moments - bliss!

Roots

This is the close of my last day in New England. At 8.10 p.m. tomorrow my flight leaves Boston MA for Manchester UK. In 15 days I have driven over 1,000 miles around six states. It has been quite an experience, day time temperatures have been as low as 42F and as high as 94F. Miles and miles of forests and lakes have filled the soul with beauty and the coast of Cape Cod has its own special charm.

In days gone by when people travelled they often took with them a little of the good soil from home. We are truly rooted in the place we live and we loose something of our soul if we are away for too long. The followers of big monotheistic faiths are sure their omnipotent God is everywhere and seem to have little regard for place. Christmas is still celebrated in December and Easter in March or April south of the Equator. But what about those of us who are polytheists, who touch "smaller" more intimate Goddesses and Gods?

At home in Brighid's Isles my roots go deep into the soil. I know all the places that Brighid has been honoured. The places She was celebrated by my ancestors, and is still celebrated today, are etched into the map of my heart. I know deep within my soul that Verbeia can be found in the Wharfe Valley, Rhiannon and Cerridwen in the valleys of Wales, the Morgans in Avalon.

When I travel the Goddesses I love come along in my heart and soul. I know they are with me. I know they watch over me as I travel. But I know too that they, like me, are divorced from their roots in place.

Here in New England Spirits of Place I cannot name have touched me. Like the American people themselves they have given me a warm and friendly welcome. I have honoured them in my heart. I have left offerings in thanks for their welcome and their guardianship of this beautiful part of the world. But I know they will never be part of me in the way Brighid, Cerridwen, Rhiannon and Verbeia are - for we are rooted in the same land.

Maybe this is why many Americans still long for a connection with Ireland or their ancestral home in Europe. These ancestral connections run much deeper than many people today are even willing to contemplate. One of the great advantages of being a polytheist, apart from the fact that it is the natural human religious state, is that it deepens one's roots and sense of place.

So it is good to travel, to see new places, to expand the mind and the heart, but it will be good to return home and to push my toes into the soil of the Goddesses I love, the soil of the ancestors I call upon each Samhain.