Green Way

“Just like everybody else, we pagans live ordinary lives …. we know with a heart-thumping certainty
that the ordinary is as sacred as anything any sage ever set apart as holy or divine.”
- Barbara Ardinger, Pagan Every Day

“I am a bold and a Pagan soul,
A-ramblin’ through this land,
I judge the world by my own lights,
And I come by my own hand,
And if you ask me where I learned,
To live so recklessly
My skin, my bones, my
Heretic heart,
Are my authority.

My mother was a singer of tales,
My father a dreaming man,
And I have swung from the dragon’s tongue
And danced on Holy Land,
I’ve sung the seed up out of the ground,
And the bird down from the tree
My skin, my bones, my
Heretic heart
Are my authority.

I once was found but now I’m gone,
Away from the “Faithful Fold”,
Of those who preach that holiness,
Is to do as you are told,
Though law and scripture, priest and prayer,
Have all instructed me
My skin, my bones, my
Heretic heart
Are my authority.

Now they tell me Jesus loves me,
But I think that he loves in vain,
He must go unrequited,
On me he has no claim,
For the man who would command me must wear the horn and let me be.
My Goddess is the Lady Moon,
Whose tides run deep in me
My skin, my bones, my
Heretic heart
Are my authority.

And while I breathe this glorious air,
An outlaw I’ll remain,
My body will not be subdued,
And I will not be “saved,”
And if I cannot shout it loud, I’ll sing it secretly
My skin, my bones, my
Heretic heart
Are my authority.”
- Catherine Madsen, Heretic Heart

“Some keep the Sabbath going to Church,
I keep it staying at Home -
With a bobolink for a Chorister,
And an Orchard, for a Dome.”
- Emily Dickinson, No. 324, St. 1, 1862

Green Way Wisdom - Spirituality

“In the assemblies of the enlightened ones there have been many cases of mastering
the Way bringing forth the heart of plants and trees; this is what awakening the mind
for enlightenment is like. The fifth patriarch of Zen was once a pine-planting wayfarer;
Rinzai worked on planting cedars and pines on Mount Obaku. … Working with
plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment.”
- Dogen Zenji, Japanese Zen Buddhist Grand Master
Awakening the Unsurpassed Mind, #31

Green Way Wisdom - December

“I have come to terms with the future. From this day onward I will
walk easy on the earth. Plant trees. Kill no living things. Live in
harmony with all creatures. I will restore the earth where I am.
Use no more of its resources than I need. And listen, listen to
what it is telling me.”
- M. J. Slim Hooey

Harm Nobody, and Do What Thou Wilt.

Blessed Be

Winter Solstice, 2006