Episode #1 – 9.6 Mb – 10 minutes

Show Notes for Episode #1 – A Walk in the Park

In this first ever Earth & Magick podcast I introduce this series, spend an afternoon talking geology with an old man in the Dominican Republic, discuss how to incorporate earth science into your life, and introduce BlackBerry Circle, a teaching circle located in Southeast Texas.

I also pad this episode out with promos from several of the many pagan podcasts I listen to. If you’re not already familiar with them, give them a try! I’m sure you’ll enjoy the podcasts and learn from the ‘casters, as I have.

Finally, I’d like to thank Oona McOuat for permission to use her wonderful take on “Drowsy Maggie” as the theme music for this podcast.

Blessed Be!

Meical abAwen

A Walk in the Park
Meical abAwen 2008

I took a walk today, here at the industrial park. I walked down to the beach with my escort, an older man named Manolo, the maintenance man for this facility. They won’t let me go anywhere alone; the company here is responsible for me, and they are a proud people. I am their guest; I am escorted wherever I go.

Three days so far, investigating this manufacturing plant, establishing their state of compliance with regulation after rule after weary, drawn out requirement. We’re all a bit tired of it, and the plant people, they’re worried about what will come of my audit, about what I will say about them.

Their worry and the audit wears on me, and I take some time to walk downhill from the plant, to the water’s edge. The waves breaking here have worked their way north all the many many miles to this southern shore; all the way from Venezuela, with nothing to watch them but the occasional tramp steamer and solitary bird.

Manolo knows why I came down here. He doesn’t buy my excuse that there might be an outfall down to the beach that no one knows about, but Manolo doesn’t care. He does his job with quiet competence and is overlooked by us all when concrete lies underneath our feet. In that domain, in the plant, he is the least of the least; just another worn old black man cleaning up after the lighter skinned folk.

Things change on the beach. I relax a bit and the sediments and waves take me back to my early lessons in geology and I explain, kindly using small words, that the jagged beach rock at our feet will some day give way to a nice soft sand.

Manolo looks at me as though I am crazy. “Well, of course!”, he says. “It has always been that way. Come with me and I’ll show you. Look at this rock here. Did you know that you can read a rock like a book?”

And so we spend the afternoon together down at the water’s edge, away from fluorescents and solvents and the accountants and their soft hands, talking about the way the world works, the way the real world works, the world that means so much to Manolo and I. We are, briefly, twin sons of the earth mother parted by time and space until now. And then it is time to go back to cement steps and paper walls and artificial barriers built from the need to better ourselves, to feed our loved ones and to starve our souls.

My walk has ended and Manolo and I part and walk our solitary paths into the futures we have built, better off now for having shared the rocks and the sand and the depths of speculation for one simple, splendid afternoon.

Thoughts

How often is it, that we get to leave the artificial environments we have created for ourselves, and spend time with the Earth Mother? And how rare is it to find someone to share a moment like that with. It’s these rare times that I treasure, as I travel and as I work in the industries we have, collectively, spawned.

Earth Science does not have to be a solitary pursuit, nor one that you cannot share with family and friends. At its best it becomes a means to spend time outdoors, refreshing your spirit and building memories. In our brief time together Manolo and I understood each other perfectly, in a rare moment of perfect trust.

At its worst, Earth Science, ANY science, is sterile and lacks meaning beyond the pursuit of a living wage, a career to look back upon, or our names in academic journals. There is an apparent gap between our pursuit of science and our spiritual paths.

I CONTEND that the gap is artificial, created by uninformed persons in both the scientific and religious camps. It’s a shame, really, that this is so. And it is perhaps its greatest offense that the prevailing religion in this country has added to the gap, to this discontinuity, this great jagged fault scape that warps our view of the worlds around us.

I hope, as this series unfolds, that I can bring to light the great concord that I see, Earth Science and Earth Spirituality holding hands and sharing a singular view of this world, and all the worlds yet to come.

I hope that you’ll travel this path with me.

Earth & Magick #1 – A Walk in the Park – Narrative

Topic

Name: Welcome
Index: 00:34

Name: Introduction to the Show
Index: 00:49

Name: A Walk in the Park – Creative Nonfiction Essay
Index: 01:46

Name: Druidcast Promo
Index: 04:54

Name: Return to Show – Thoughts on A Walk in the Park
Index: 05:33

Name: Spiral Dance with Hawthorne Promo
Index: 07:20

Name: Introduction to Blackberry Circle and Mentor’s Pledge
Index: 07:48

Name: Sign Off
Index: 09:27

Musical Theme

Artist: Oona McOuat
Song: Drowsy Maggie (with permission)

Earth & Magick by Meical abAwen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.