Musings
TopazOwl

Sun Aug 16 21:19:30 1998
     I was cleaning the stalls today, lost as I usually am in contemplation, while my body does the work and my mind soars to endless places. I started thinking of losing yet another barn swallow baby. This year we lost one to the pond; he had fallen out of the nest, was hanging out in the barn and was healthy and still being fed, but he was probably trying to fly after his parent and fell in. The year before, we lost one to some bird disease and they pushed him out, the year before that the cat got a fledgling...*p*    While this is always a sad event, it occurred to me that this is a pattern, that we lose one, and only one, every year, and the significance of this began to churn in my mind, a hint of something deeper at work here.*p*     My train of thought led me swiftly to the concept of sacrifice, and the way that sacrifice is a natural pattern even without interference from the human sector. Nothing living can escape that basic Truth; that to maintain life, life must be given in return. The old and sick die, the young and healthy are born and live, in an endless pattern, one becoming the other. It is no wonder that, as they observed the natural world and its patterns, the Celts realized the great power in sacrifice, and realized that to tap that power, to alter the natural pattern, one must offer a sacrifice that Nature does not take herself. A primary concern of Druids was keeping the proper sacrificial balance for the good of the tribe. It stands to reason that, if nature is out of synch and this is resulting in a bad time for the tribe, the proper sacrifice, the normal progression, has not occurred for some reason or another. And so one must offer a sacrifice that would not perhaps be taken under normal circumstances, to hopefully restore the balance; in effect, jolting things back on track. *p*     In the circles of my thinking, I was led to think of all the sacrifices interwoven into the Irish lore, and indeed the repetition of the pattern demonstrated in most of the Celtic tales. Gods and Goddesses of death and rebirth, heroes sacrificed in battle for the good of the people, cauldrons that replenish and sustain, and Otherworldly quests where something is always lost and yet something is gained...Fomori and de Danann...and I thought of Howard, who understood at a deeper level than I once did that life must be given unexpectedly so that life can be won unexpectedly, so that the existing pattern would be changed.*p*     To be a willing sacrifice for the people, an instrument of that magic of change, is a great honor in the Celtic mind.*p*     Every time we do something to alter the pattern, we change our fate and the fate of our people. We change the very fabric of time and space by interfering with the natural order. Sometimes it is a beneficial thing to do, and it is what Druids do, what Druids have always done. And so Druids spend lifetimes learning the patterns and what affects them, because when working *against* the natural patterns, in effect, creating new patterns, one had better know what one is doing, how that one small change will affect the whole.*p*     My mind returned to the swallows. One bird dies so that twenty more can live. Not bad odds, really, in the grand scheme of things. I sometimes wonder what might happen to the balance should that one individual bird be saved...and, perhaps more importantly, if it would be in the swallow tribe's best interests to do so. *p*     As I hung up my pitchfork, I considered that, sometimes, the quiet moments I spend shovelling manure are the most enlightening.*p*The Topaz Owl