I've
been thinking lately of our tenets, "Nature is
good," "Nature is very good,"
and "Thou art God." It has
struck me that maybe these are more redundant than we first thought.
"Nature
is good," and "Nature is very
good," of course are purposely redundant. That's
part of the joke, and that humorous tradition has been handed
down to us from the days of the first Reformed Druids
- those days of yore we now refer to as "The
Sixties."
"Nature
is good" states the obvious. We know that Nature
and Mother Earth are considered synonymous. When we say "Mother
Earth," or "Gaia" we mean "nature," and
when we say "nature" we mean the planet. That's at least
subconsciously understood.
"Thou
art God," is simply stating that you and I
and the neighbors and the people of China, or India or anywhere
else on the planet are, collectively, "God". And we
never (or rarely anyway) say, "I am God," because
our "Godness" is dependant upon everyone else's "Godness."
I'm not God unless you are God as well. It is like the Kabbalistic
teaching that God is like the ocean, that even though we speak
of "7 seas" and we differentiate between the Pacific
and the Atlantic, etc., if we view the Earth from the South Pole,
we can see that there really is only one ocean. Further the Kabbalah
teaches that we, though individuals whilst in human form, are
really just drops taken from that ocean, containing the same ingredients
that any other drop taken from the ocean will have. When we pass
on from this world, we return to that ocean, and become one with
it.
Now
consider that 65% of the Earth is water. Consider also that about
65% of the human body is also water. The Bible is wrong! We're
not made of dust, we're mostly water! But this shows the
relationship between our planet and ourselves.
Another
idea similar to this one is found in the Science Fiction series,
Star Trek DS9. One of the dominant alien species
of that program are The Founders, a shapshifitng
species, of which Constable Odo (the space station's security
officer) is one. Odo's composition is a gelatinous one. When on
duty he assumes human form, but when resting he relaxes and retreats
to a bucket. When Odo gets terribly ill, it becomes necessary
to take him to his home planet. There he merges with the rest
of his people, in what they call "the Great Link.,"
which is an ocean composed of all of the Founders, merged together,
and which covers 99% of the planet (I don't know if the island
on the planet was permanent, or just put there temporarily to
accommodate the humans who accompanied Odo on this visit).
This illustrated the Kabbalistic idea of the "ocean of God"
very well.
We
recognize that our planet Earth is a living, breathing entity,
and that all the life that exists on this planet is a part of
this whole. All of nature is interdependant upon all of nature.
Human kind is a part of the interdependence, so that we're not
only one with each other, we are also one with the planet. This
is called "The Gaian Hypothesis."
We
consider Gaia to be a Goddess. If Gaia, or Nature, is a Goddess,
then we, as part of Gaia are also Goddess. "Thou art God."
"Nature is good," or, "Nature is God." If
therefore Nature is God, and Thou art God, then of course, Nature
is Good, and you and I are good and all of the planet is good,
and we are God.
So,
at this point do we really need all three tenets? Or, by adding
"thou art God," are we just extending the redundancy?
Isn't "Thou art God" enough?
Keep
on pondering my brothers and sisters, the rabbit hole is deeper
than you think.
May
the FOREST be with you always,
And may you never thirst for the waters of life.
Druid
Sybok Pendderwydd, Patriarch
Order of the Mithril Star
Read
more from Sybok on his blog: http://redwoodcoastviews.blogspot.com/
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