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radical druid Posts

White Hat Testing

Too many people only seem to do good deeds, or even want to be caught doing them, if there’s a reward in it: remuneration, recognition, or at least reputation. Even saints want to get in good with their patron (or patrons, male or female, mortal or divine, immanent or imminent, true north or morally ambivalent). And that’s good, in some respects, because it means of all the good deeds that need doing, at least some of them may get done. Because there’s always somebody promising something to those who believe in something enough to do something stupid about it. And usually, the feed doer doesn’t find out too soon that the eternal reward promised isn’t as advertised. But by then, for better or worse, the good happens.

But it doesn’t last. Because good, when not done just for its own sake, with no attachment to the results, and absolutely no personal gain in the achievement, takes a lot of energy to sustain. Chasing after an elusive jackpot celestial lottery gets tiring, and what was once a glowing, white hot burning flame of righteousness becomes a dying ember, fading in the last few moments of encroaching twilight. The good you must do becomes the good you may do. The good you may do leads to the good you can do. The good you can do melts away into the good you should do, which is worn to the good you don’t to, which slinks off in the dark as the good you won’t do.

Like compliance with a standard, a good that stays on the floor when it could be the ceiling is like the good people who do nothing, letting evil thrive and deepen. How good is that?

It’s not really about morality or ethics, is it? After all, most of the most obvious guides to self-preservation, like “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” or “every cause has an effect which is itself a cause,” don’t need sophisticated theology or sociology to explain them. They are in fact, self-evident. You just have to know where to look, and how far back toward the beginning to start. Give it a little time. You’ll get it. Anyone can. Anyone who tried getting out of their own way does.

Who are the “good guys”? Look for the ones not taking credit.

18 APR 2025

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Stop Feeding the Wrong Wolf

You want to start a revolution?
It’s like when you start to covet:
begin with the things you can see,
the wrongs you find within your reach.
Stop feeding the wrong wolf.

You want your neighbor to reform?
If you can, make a change yourself:
solutions don’t start somewhere else,
and magically come back to roost.
Stop feeding the wrong wolf.

You don’t like what your leaders do?
Stop following them, blind and mute.
If you’re awake, get out of bed,
and take your share of blame.
Stop feeding the wrong wolf.

You want a new and better world?
Decide how who you are fits there,
and if it doesn’t, work on that
before you look outside your door.
Stop feeding the wrong wolf.

17 APR 2025

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Slow and Steady: ballade

If you would change the world, you must
believe it can be done, of course,
and with your entire being, trust
that it needs changing. Do not force
your will upon a stubborn horse;
instead, with gentle words and grace
seek out resistance at its source:
for each small thing, a time and place.

The stoutest iron succumbs to rust;
you need not hurry, lest remorse
turn all your courage into dust
as you expound until you’re hoarse.
If all your words are harsh and coarse
you will not find a friendly face,
and will have wasted vital force:
for each small thing, a time and place.

Press on, of course, but only just
enough to prove what you endorse
when mixed with reason, will combust
into a fire of such resource
that naught can stand against its force;
With such a flame, you can erase
some wrong, and good things reinforce:
for each small thing, a time and place.

And in the end, your small light’s source
will serve as a more solid base
if slowly, as you plot your course,
for each small thing, a time and place.

16 APR 2025

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The World’s a Mess: balada

The world’s a mess, some folks will say –
at least, it often seems that way,
the lines are blurred and hard to see
sometimes, and we may disagree
on what we should and ought to do,
what’s plainly false, and mostly true.
Oh, let us chart the proper course;
First put the cart behind the horse.

The world’s a wonder, others state,
it’s our own fault, we can’t blame fate
for what effect comes from our cause;
we choose the fools who make our laws,
and have no right to kvetch and whine,
you on your side, and me on mine.
Oh, let us divvy up the blame,
and likewise share some of the shame.

The world’s is magic, true enough,
beneath the petty surface stuff
that helps us want to disengage
from wonder, and rely on rage
to fight each other without end
and win – at least we can pretend.
Oh, dance the dance until we die;
that’s all there is unless we try.

The world’s a mess! That may be so,
but life goes on, and even though
we seem to love to fume and fuss
there is still hope for all of us.
Pick up your broom, right here and now,
and clean what you can reach, somehow.
Oh, to begin you need to start;
and each must try to do their part.

16 APR 2025

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Expecting Different Results

Krishnamurti once said that it was no great achievement to appear sane and well-adjusted in an insane world. In these interesting times, that’s an idea that resonates with me on several levels.

First of all, it calls into question what we individually, and as a society, consider socially acceptable and non-destructive behavior. Let’s abandon the idea of national standards at this point – because face it, there are not only differing ideas on this subject among the salad bowl of cultures, ethnicities, races, religions, and political persuasions that are tossed together in the Great American Salad, but there are numberless regional varieties across and within each sovereign state. Add to that the idea that how each generation defines what does and doesn’t quality as weird, strange, or aberrant behavior, and you’ll see there’s no real way to come up with a consistent and mutually acceptable definition of terms. And that’s just a very small section of the Americas.

Bureaucratically speaking, normal and sane are the standards by which solid hierarchies are built. Individuals who can sit still, be silent, and be generally agreeable are valued building blocks of successful societies. We praise the artistic, creative, inventive, eccentric, and otherwise abnormal among us, but we don’t really want them among us, living next door, teaching our children, pastoring our flocks, or challenging our status quo. It’s one thing to insist that your child take a few years of piano lessons. That can be useful at cocktail parties. It’s quite another to encourage them to use that skill as a basis for eking out a meager living accompanying television soap operas. Western civilizations, in particular, with the exception of maybe the Celtic, have always looked at the arts as an occupation for the lower classes. Even the Celts, to be honest, seemed to value warriors who could march into battle with visible erections a little higher than they celebrated the average lute player.

It’s been said, however, that Western civilization has been very good at passing from generation to generation the means and technology by which things are done but has not done so well at communicating from parent to child the reasons why it is important to do them in the first place. Society reconstruction projects, like modern Druidry and Witchcraft, as well as a lot of intentional communities of other kinds, seem to if not recognize, at least suffer from, these problems. It’s great to learn and emulate modern anthropologists’ interpretations of rituals with no surviving actual original participants, complete with ancient languages no living person still speaks, and imagine that makes you a Druid. It’s an illusion, of course. Unless you really understand the purpose for an original ritual, and the reasons still exist in that same form in modern day, AND the symbols and language have some current meaning and application, taking a sickle of gold to trim the mistletoe from an oak tree in City Park isn’t really much use. Of course, human beings will always need rituals. But we need our own celebrations, justifications, and recognitions, not someone else’s. If we don’t find our own ways, and find them meaningful in our own time, we’re no different from an SCA group that imagines themselves all reincarnated from royalty, or a vodoun group speaking in French Creole even though they’re all third generation Russian Jews.

But who’s to say what is “sane” and what isn’t? Whatever floats your boat, right? If it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad. In an ideal world, maybe some of that works. But in a reality where your right to swing your fist ends at my nose, the restrictive nature of cooperative behavior can stifle even the most unbalanced responses.

Besides, given the nature of generational shifts, the constant pendulum swing between Apollonian and Dionysian ideals, chances are, as Batman learned, if you survive as a hero long enough you will be painted a villain. The world is impermanent, as is everything in it. You, me, ethical standards, philosophies, even gods and demons have expiration dates. Most ideas are a mere generation from extinction. If we don’t find a way to communicate with our children, then our way of looking at the world is gone when our brief candle flames are extinguished. And we spend so much time, like our parents and their parents before them, worrying that our children have no sense, no morality, and no direction. But we never look in the mirror to figure out why that is. It’s much easier to blame the devil than take responsibility for our own lack of evolution.

If Johnny can’t read, it’s because we didn’t show him how wonderful it can be to lose yourself in a book. If our child is distant, angry, resentful, and bitter, remember it doesn’t matter what you say to an apple, it cannot fall too far from the tree.

And who are we to judge the sanity of anyone else? Do we really have our act together? Would a jury of our peers – if we could actually find one – agree with that verdict?

Besides, as Seal put it, “We’re never gonna survive unless we go a little crazy. “

Buckle up, buttercup. At least you’re not along on this ride.

15 APR 2025

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Don’t Drink the Water: anagram

Beyond those twisted, sneering smiles
there must be miles of higher ground;
why can’t we rise above the slime,
insist upon a change of venue?

Why, with this crop of sour limes
must we add sugar to the drink?
Refuse the Kool-Aid; it is poison.
Once you drink it, it’s all over.

15 APR 2025

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