A Book Recommendation
I have been reading "The Earth Path" by Starhawk. I've been a practicing pagan for several years and have just now picked up this book. Not sure why though. Anyway I'm only about half way through it but so far? It's been an awesome read. I recommend to anyone of any level of paganism-beginner, intermediate, or advanced. It has made me look at the world in a lot of different ways. It's made me notice things I most likely wouldn't have noticed otherwise. For example, which direction most of the branches face at my favorite park. You might think, why should I care about that? Well that can tell you what direction that wind generally blows from. If you know the wind generally comes from the West (as it does in my area) then you can guestimate what your weather will be tomorrow by what the state to your west has today. For example: I live in Indiana and today, it's fairly warm, with a slight breeze that chills things and the sun is shining. I can guess that my boyfriend (who lives in NJ) will have this weather tomorrow because he gets his winds from the West as well. That and we've compared our weather notes from one day to the next-I've noticed a pattern that whatever I have one day he has the next day-in terms of weather that is.
"The Earth Path" will also make you consider your effect on the global warming. And how doing one simply little thing will impact the rest of that environment. For example-say a logger cuts down ONE tree in a not so dense forest. What if birds were living in that tree? Squirrels? What if that tree was providing shade from plants just beneath it? Then the plants would die (unless there's another shade source-this is also assuming they cannot have direct light), the birds would have to move to a different tree or a different area depending on what the 'housing' in the rest of the trees looked like, and the squirrels would have to do the same. Now imagine if that logger cut down ALL the trees in a forest...what effect would that have on the population of that area?
Before reading this book I had never considered how much cutting down ONE tree did, I would've thought nearly harmless (except to the actual tree obviously). Then you consider everything that that tree effects. I'm only half way through this book and it's made me think so much. This is something every pagan needs to read. And even if you don't practice paganism or Wicca but are interested in nature and our planet is something you can read. All it will do is open you up to the natural world around you-it doesn't necessarily teach pagan things (that I've noticed so far anyway). No spells or anything. There might a ritual or two but that isn't the whole book.
Main message of this post: GO READ THIS BOOK!! lol
x-posted to a few communities
"The Earth Path" will also make you consider your effect on the global warming. And how doing one simply little thing will impact the rest of that environment. For example-say a logger cuts down ONE tree in a not so dense forest. What if birds were living in that tree? Squirrels? What if that tree was providing shade from plants just beneath it? Then the plants would die (unless there's another shade source-this is also assuming they cannot have direct light), the birds would have to move to a different tree or a different area depending on what the 'housing' in the rest of the trees looked like, and the squirrels would have to do the same. Now imagine if that logger cut down ALL the trees in a forest...what effect would that have on the population of that area?
Before reading this book I had never considered how much cutting down ONE tree did, I would've thought nearly harmless (except to the actual tree obviously). Then you consider everything that that tree effects. I'm only half way through this book and it's made me think so much. This is something every pagan needs to read. And even if you don't practice paganism or Wicca but are interested in nature and our planet is something you can read. All it will do is open you up to the natural world around you-it doesn't necessarily teach pagan things (that I've noticed so far anyway). No spells or anything. There might a ritual or two but that isn't the whole book.
Main message of this post: GO READ THIS BOOK!! lol
x-posted to a few communities