Movies in my head

My imagination has been invaded by cinema. I don’t know when or how this happened, but Malory played like a movie in my head. I was quietly making casting decisions, working out camera angles, deciding on costuming, and making a little movie in my mind through the whole thing. I haven’t done this before and wonder if it means I’m watching too many movies.

When the knights were pounding on Guinevere’s door, intent on catching her and Launcelot together, and he said three times, “If only I had my armor,” and then finally opened the door just enough to let one knight in, kill him, and take his armor, then get armed and open the door and slaughter all of them but Modred, well – it all played out in my head as a great action sequence. When Gawain goes psycho after Launcelot kills all his brothers, that imaginary actor playing Gawain nailed the role perfectly. When Launcelot goes to see Guenevere in the nunnery at the end, and asks for one last kiss, and she says no, and they part for the last time – well, I swear I heard violins.

I suspect that part of the reason is that I watch too many movies, but another part is that this form of entertainment seems pretty much in the same genre as a good summer historical action movie, like Braveheart or Gladiator - lots of confusing stuff that doesn’t make sense, is historically inaccurate, or could have been better written, interspersed with stirring action scenes, attractive leads, and really sublime moments. Yet I’ve never seen a decent movie version of this stuff. Lots of attempts – I think the best was one called “Excalibur” from back in the 80’s that wasn’t bad – I might have to netflix it and see if I’m remembering correctly. There was an awful one with Richard Gere, and another one a few years ago that wasn’t too bad as a movie (though nothing special) but not in any way about this King Arthur.

Me and a tree

I don't usually like pictures of myself - they never look like "me" to me. I was just browsing through a picture folder and found this one and thought that it looked kind of like me, and kind of Druidish. I don't remember it but my husband always carries a camera around and it's obviously in Woodland Cemetary, where we go walking all the time. So there I am.

November accomplishments

It's time for me to reflect on what I did this month. I'm learning things on this path that I hadn't expected and can't really be set down in a list form. This should be called "Outward accomplishments," because there are some inward accomplishments that are still cooking, not quite ready to be expressed yet but working on deep levels. Here's the things that can be listed. I cut-and-pasted the "Goals" post into here, so I can match up expectations with accomplishments.

Earth path
-Daily SoP
-Daily meditation

I haven't been as consistent as I'd like this month with the meditations. I've been doing them every day, but too often it's been "Eek, it's 11 pm and I need to go to bed but I haven't meditated yet, let me do it quick!" I need to get better at scheduling time for myself. The SoP is developing in its own direction and becoming more and more personal.

Water path

-Read Philip Carr-Gomm, The Druid Way (Shaftesbury: Element, 1993).

Loved this book - really loved it. Really really loved it. I want to keep this one on my shelf forever and reread it on regular occasions and give it away to people I like. Part of the goal of the Water Path is coming to an understanding of spiritual development, and this book expressed it so well and is helping me to better understand myself, past and future. Just reading one book doesn't sound like much, but this is definitely one of those inner things I was talking about where the real work is happening.

Fire path

-Memorize closing of ritual, work with full ritual form at least once a week

I still haven't quite gotten to the end of the ritual - I still have to peek on the Excalibur bit. It's getting there, though, and I'll have the whole thing by the end of December. I want a real sword, with a sheath. Once I have my Excalibur maybe the poem will come together better for me.

Air path
-Finish Malory, read Gareth Knight, start Geoffrey of Monmouth

I read Malory and Knight, but haven't gotten to any other Arthur materials. This stuff is so strange, and beautiful, and I want to do much much more work with it.

Spirit path

-Read Jim Nollman, Spiritual Ecology (New York: Bantam, 1990
-Finish “Where the Wasteland Ends”

Totally fell down on this. I only got in another chapter on "Wasteland" and haven't started Nollman yet. However, elsewhere on the Spirit path, I find that I want to learn more about Christianity, of all things. I've gotten this far in life without even once attending a Christian church service. For the first time, this seems like a gap in my education that perhaps I should rectify. I've read the New Testament in Greek, and having read quite a bit in philosophy I've been exposed to lots of Christian theology, and naturally I've read the Bible from cover to cover - but what happens in church is pretty much a mystery to me, as is the way modern Christians see their own faith. My image of all that comes mostly from the Simpsons.Modern American Christianity seems to me, frankly, to be completely insane and I don't understand it at all. Since the Druid Revival came from an Anglican perspective, I'm going to make the Episcopalians my comparative-religion focus. My grandmother was an Episcopalian, and they seem overall to be less scary than some of the others.

Music spiral
-Practice whistle at least 10 minutes a day. Memorize 3 more tunes.

Tinwhistle practice is going great. I love it. Not much more to say about that.

Divination spiral
-Memorize first 10 oghams – names, trees, elemental correspondances, divinatory meanings.

Memorization is not going as well as I'd like. I'm going to continue to work on it, but I don't think I'll have them all down by the New Year. I'm still planning on doing a reading a day all next year.

Healing spiral
- Work with Dandelion daily

I've been doing roasted dandelion root brewed as a breakfast drink and I love it. Tasty and stimulating. It's hard for me to talk about my work with herbs because it's become so integrated into my life. I want to take a first aid course in the next few months to augment this spiral.

Elective spiral (Organic gardening)
-Read “Square Foot Gardening”
-start planning next year’s garden, find out about community resources.

This changed completely when I realized it couldn't happen right now. I found out about community resources, and found that I would have to wait a few years for a community garden plot. I'm still going to garden next year, as I do every year, but learning to do it on a bigger scale will have to wait until I have the room. Oh well. So, I changed my elective. I'm going to learn to spin and knit and crochet and weave and all that good fiber stuff. I don't have a drop spindle yet, so spinning isn't happening, but I'm working on my crochet skills. I enjoy this sort of thing, and want to be good at it, but I always got discouraged in the past because I have friends who are so brilliant at it, and I crochet like a five-year-old. My hope is that by making it part of my Druid practice, it will matter less that I'm not producing useful items right away. Right now it's just another meditation.