Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Meeting Emma's Standards -- Sort Of

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," cheating bankruptcy one day at a time! If you, too, are insecure about your future, welcome! We're pretty sure the fat-cat industrialists graze somewhere else.

Please be advised that "The Gods Are Bored" will be offline until Monday, April 9 and will resume at that time.

On Wednesday, April 4 my daughters (The Heir and The Spare) and I will be taking a little road trip. Our destination is the same every time. Let the fat cat kids jet off to Vienna! As for me and my house, we will go to Berkeley Springs. Terrapin Run. And points nearby. Meet and greet us at the Road Kill Cafe, Artemas, PA on Thursday night for country ribs and two sides.

Two people I admire, one of them being Hecate, have touted Druid books by Emma Restall Orr. These tomes by a respected British Druid aren't easy to find. I had to use Alibris.

Two dear little volumes arrived about four weeks ago. Just now I inspected them more closely and found they're the same words in two different packages! I therefore recommend the hardcover, titled simply Druidry.

I didn't see the similarities sooner because Ms. Orr begins her book(s) with a strict admonition. One must case one's house and find something of value that reflects one's life. Then one must pack a light lunch and a nourishing beverage, bung on the comfy walking shoes, and stride purposefully into the deep wilderness. There, after a sufficient period of meditation, one must either leave the valued object behind or prepare to part with it by giving it to a stranger or a thrift store.

Ms. Orr says not to read anymore of her book(s) until this job is done.

I have spent a great deal of time thinking about this. Yeah, I know I should get a life.

See, I really really want to read the rest of Druidry. There's just one problem. It's the valuable item thingy.

I have one -- a valuable item -- namely, a Selenite crystal about the size of a small magick wand. I bought the crystal in Berkeley Springs because when I picked it up I got a chill. (I like the word frisson better.) I soon learned from holding the crystal that it wanted to be re-committed to the earth from which it had come. So it's a no-brainer to take the crystal and give it the old heave-ho into a deserted rocky place.

Wait a minute. Emma, can we talk? Let me count the ways this becomes a task of monumental proportions.

1. I'm taking a trip into the mountains. I will have my soon-to-be 13-year-old with me. You try walking into the wilderness for hours of meditation with a kid who lost her ear to a cell phone and won't leave home without two pounds of makeup. I guess I could leave her with relatives, but ...

2. The relatives will want me to sit and chat all day, because I get home so seldom. Which leads me to ...

3. Close relatives living cheek-to-jowl with the swimming hole that I wanted to throw the crystal into. You can't just lob a crystal this size into a rushing stream. Someone's gonna see it and take it, and ooooooo, will that crystal be steaming mad. But if I pull up to the swimming hole with my big sedan carrying Jersey plates, I'm gonna be seen. By people who love me so much they want me to return to the Christian fold forthwith.

4. This throws me back on Plans B and C. Neither one appealing or perfect.

5. Plan B: The bridge under which Terrapin Run flows. A suitably thorny descent and scary dark bridge underside. But human re-discovery of crystal highly likely when it gets tumbled in a flash flood.

6. Plan C: Remote Wilderness Area full of big, tumbled boulders. An Appalachian gap so deep that no cell phone will penetrate its rugged and stunningly beautiful interior. And that brings us back to ...

7. The Spare and her cell phone. It takes more than an hour to walk into the wilderness area. No bars, trust me, from the moment you embark. And although the destination is a rugged wilderness area, it's not people-free. I will have to bury that crystal under a heaping big cairn that looks like part of the landscape. With Spare strutting and fretting all the while.

So Emma, I'm on the case, dear. But please note the difficulties. Don't hate me for them.

If I'm unable to bury the crystal with sufficient stealth, I think I'll drop The Spare at the nearest thrift store. The book just says something of value ...

FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
See you Monday!

8 comments:

Hecate said...

Anne,

Son, D-i-L, G/Son, and I will be there this Saturday and Sunday. Can we get together for a drink? Please email me.

BBC said...

You know, that travel is polluting, that is why I don't travel anymore. Because of a higher love for the planet.

Insecure about my future?

Nope, never have been.

Concerned about the future of the planet though.

MountainLaurel said...

I'm not seeing the problem. Emma just says to leave it in the wilderness. Does she mean that it needs to be there forever? Perhaps leaving it in the pool is perfect. Then the person who needs it next will get it. And you never know how long it will stay hidden. Shoot, the car keys my brother lost stayed hidden in the woods for ten years before we found them again. And they weren't even purposely hidden!

Anti-thesisofreason said...

Then again maybe the task is supposed to be challenging.

Jonah Dove said...

Selenite dissolves in water. Please don't throw it in the pool or the stream. :-)

Rosie said...

I'm in favor of plan C. I've actually done this ritual before...several times. But I was living in Atlanta and the wilderness I went to was a deserted stretch of P'tree Creek...and the Hooch.

I've Tagged You...or the bored god of your choice for a meme.

Cat C-B (and/or Peter B) said...

I have no opinion on the ritual. I agree with Emma Restall Orr fans that her writing is good, though I prefer _Spirits of the Sacred Grove_--if it had that demand embedded in it somewhere, I skipped that part.

But mainly I just stopped by to let you know that I adore your writing, and I've begun a nicely addictive habit of reading your latest entries aloud to my husband.

Thanks for the wit!

Nettle said...

Hi Anne,
I have a spare copy of "Spirits of the Sacred Grove" that I picked up in a used bookstore. Let me know if you want it, and I'll bring it to Beltaine for you.

Love your blog, btw; it has a place on my "blogs to check on a regular basis" list.

Nettle