Recently I have been encouraging my friends on facebook to suggest topics for the blog. This one came from my friend and fellow blogger Sean MacDhai.

Wow! What a thing to be asked to blog about. My first pause when thinking about this was at the word "values". Oddly, it's not a word I use a lot, and my first thought was How are values different than just saying "stuff I really like".  Are values the things we can't live without, are they our ethical map, are they a list of things that are important to us? A cursory search of definitions suggests that it can be all of these things.

I've always tended to see my interests, beliefs and ethical considerations as deeply connected. I am now objective enough to understand that perhaps, after all, the only thing which connects them is me, although there seem to be clusters of interests or beliefs to which a lot of the same people are attracted. One of my interests is natural horsemanship (a way of being around horses which takes their inherent nature and ethology into consideration). I've also always been quite left leaning in my politics. I remember, only a few years ago, coming to the realisation that many people who practice natural horsemanship were strongly right leaning in their politics. I was shocked for a moment because, to me, both beliefs are extensions of some deeper value in me which says "It's important to treat individuals well, honour other groups for what they are rather than bend them to my expectations, to be generous, to be non-violent, etc."  I see natural horsemanship as supporting these aims, but I don't see a lot of right leaning politics as doing so.

About now, some of my readers will be saying "Wait. What was that about Druids???" If pressed, I would certainly self-identify as a Druid, but so far it's more an alignment of interests than an identity for me. For those of my readers who are not informed about modern Druidry (or Druidism) there are many different Druid groups, most of which get along very well but nevertheless have such differing practices, beliefs and interests that I'm not going to try to boil it down to a common denominator. As for Celtic Paginism, yes, that fits me. I'm a polytheist, I feel very strongly tied to the land of the British Isles and its gods and some of the other gods of the Celts. I'm a country person through and through (another, older, meaning of pagan). If I don't go on at length on this blog about my personal beliefs, and tend to use that vague "Celtic spirituality" label instead, it's only because I feel that a lot of what I offer in my work, and on this blog, could be of use to many who have other beliefs, and I don't want to scare them away.

In preparing to write this blog post I went through the exercise of trying to list my personal values, or what I value. There were several things on the list which I relate directly to my interest in Druidry. Those things are aesthetics, nature, sharing and teaching, culture, and spirituality. I have many other interests that overlap with my understanding of Druidry, and some values which do not, but the above list is specific both to Druidry and that which is fundamentally important to me. Below are two posters. On the left is a sort of beautifully constructed thought cloud describing Druidry from the viewpoint of The Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, a well established Druid order based in England, to which I feel closely aligned. On the right is a poster I have used to help people decide whether one of my oracle readings might be right for them. Although I didn't have the green poster in mind when I created mine, I'm sure you can see the similarity.

In a 2009 lecture on Pagan ethics, Dr. Brendan Myers identified six aspects of Pagan belief which seem to set it apart from the Abrahamic religions, particularly Christianity. He gleaned these primarily by looking at what early Christian writers were talking about as the Pagan practices they wished to see ended and the Pagan beliefs which they considered to be in error. These six things (paraphrased) are:

1. The use of idols or graven images in plant, animal or human form.

2. Spellcraft, magic and divination of the future.

3. Portrayals of kinship with plants or animals, particularly dressing up as such.

4. A belief that it's possible to achieve salvation or enlightenment by one's own effort without the intercession of deity. (Sometimes known within Christianity as the Palagian heresy.)

5. The enjoyment of activities like music,  dancing, feasting and sex as spiritual pursuits.

6. Belief that deity can be contacted without the help of a priesthood or scripture, and that deity can be found within.

Today, of course, some Christians, Muslims or Jews would not be at odds with some of these six. However, the point here isn't to look for differences and similarities, but simply to ask, "What are some of the important identifying aspects of Paganism, and do these align with my values?" I would have to say "yes".

In spite of all this, one thing I have learned is that what makes me a Druid, a horse whisper, or a nature lover, may not be the same thing that makes you one. Individuals within cohesive societies and cultures tend to share many important values, but societies which expect all their members to share all values are simply oppressive. Happily I see a trend away from that kind of stifling atmosphere within many groups who fall under the umbrella of Celtic spirituality, whether Druid, Christian or Pagan. In fact, I think it is one of the hallmarks of the Celtic approach to spiritual things. I love the question that Sean asked here. It has made me think about things more clearly, and I hope that this is true for you if you're reading this. Whether you are nodding in agreement with my values or getting clarity about how yours are different, it's all good! Ultimately I see that identifying myself with a group or a cause may contribute to my identity and sense of belonging, but it is a mistake believe that this part of my identity also defines my values.

I received the following question on the Go Deeper facebook page today:

Before I get into the nuts and bolts of the meditation question, I'd like to make one general comment about this. As a former teacher, I've often noticed that when someone has been diagnosed (maybe quite correctly) as "autistic" or "dyslexic" or as having "ADD" they tend to think that every learning obstacle they encounter is a result of that difference. Anyone with a learning difficulty should take heart that most of the things they find challenging are also challenging for many of the people who carry the label "normal". That is very much the case with visualisation! Many people find this tricky, and that's okay.

I wish that I could have talked to this person directly, because I can't be sure what kind of meditation they are struggling with, what they hope to get from meditating, and so on. However, that means I'll be a little more general, so maybe this will help more people.

Traditionally, most forms of meditation have not included visualisation. There are exceptions, but most of the eastern forms focus on emptying one's mind, or focusing on one thing (a mantra, a candle flame, your breathing or your senses) to the exclusion of all else -- which ends up being pretty much the same thing. So the world of traditional eastern meditation is wide open to those who find visualisation difficult.

The meanings of the words meditation and visualisation have become somewhat muddled in recent times, and it's no wonder. One way to learn many of the traditional empty-mind styles of meditation is through the verbal guidance of a teacher, who takes you through the process step by step, leaving moments of silence for you to try to do what they have suggested. This is "guided meditation" in its purest from. Usually, after a number of sessions the student is able to meditate without this guidance.

Then along came the hypnotherapy movement, the self-improvement movement and the new age movement, and suddenly there was an explosion of techniques and recordings and systems designed to help us relax, to realise our dreams, to meet our angel guides and everything else! Many of these approaches combine elements of traditional meditation techniques such as relaxing the body and quieting the mind, with visualising something. This may be a scene or an object described by the person leading, or may be created from the imagination of the participant. In some cases the "visualisation" is intended to be literally visual, but often ideas or feelings may work just as well. Let me see if I can explain that last part a bit better.

There are lots of reasons to do visualisations. Relaxation (mentally putting yourself in relaxing environments), to create change (either in yourself or in the physical world, perhaps using what some people call the law of attraction) or perhaps to open yourself to some kind of deeper intuitive or spiritual experience. Here the technique is often to create a space in which you are more open and able to listen to your intuition or a higher power - sort of like meeting it halfway. For example, if you wanted to meet your power animal (supposing you believe in power animals -- it's just an example), you might be more open if you deeply imagine that you are in a forest, than you would be if you sit in your dorm room thinking "My power animal would never feel comfortable visiting me here."

We tend to use the word "visualise" in these contexts, when we could as easily use the word "imagine". Those of us who have a strong visual orientation often consider that a picture has more impact than words, or that a sensory experience does.

How do you visualise? Can you picture your living room at home? Can you clearly see the various objects in their places? The color of the furniture? Can you picture how it would look if it was cleaner than usual, or perhaps more untidy than usual? Can you picture it with the walls painted yellow, or blue? (Stop reading and try this.) If that's easy then your mind has a strong visual bent. If this is hard or feels impossible, don't worry. Maybe you are more of a word person, or a "feeling" person. If you are a word person, you might be able to give quite a good verbal or written description of the room, even though the picture in your mind's eye is unclear, you know what is there. If you are a feeling person, then you might find it easier to think about how you feel when you enter your living room, what you enjoy doing there, who you think of as being there with you and how you feel about that. This emotional stuff may be even more important than seeing pictures in your head.

Another thing to check is whether your other senses are also "blocked". Take note of your answers to the questions here. Try this: think back to your childhood. You are hungry and it is almost time for the evening meal. You are either in the kitchen or dining room anticipating the food. Can you remember what some of your favourite foods smelled like? How they tasted? Were there certain sounds from the kitchen that told you dinner was about to be served -- like a pot being scraped, a microwave timer going off or someone calling? Can you hear familiar people saying familiar things? Can you see their faces? If you ate at a table, what did the surface of the table feel like? If you sat somewhere else, was it comfortable or awkward? What about your emotions? Was this one of the best times of the day for you, or was it a tense situation? Was it boring? Were you in a hurry to get away? The answers to these questions will give you an idea of whether some of your senses are more vivid than others when it comes to remembering things or remembering things via your senses and emotions.

Now, just for fun, recreate another childhood evening meal. Only this time, make one up. Imagine a situation quite unlike the one you grew up in. Maybe you are the child of parents who are gourmet chefs, or a Japanese child who hates the smell of fish, or a child growing up in an orphanage run by very strict nuns, or you are being raised by a doting grandma who stuffs you with treats. Pick a scenario and see what it's like to try to answer the questions in the previous paragraph now. Was it easier or harder for you to use your imagination, compared to using your memory? Did you find it fun to create this little story, or was it torture to try? Some people find visualising the past much easier than an imaginary situation. Other people don't have great memories, but may have vivid imaginations. Identify your strengths!

For those who have trouble visualising things which they haven't experienced, the problem is often detail. They are worried because they haven't visualised the leaves on the trees or the feathers on the birds. If you found recreating a memory easier than creating an imagined situation, it may be because you are confident about the detail. But I'll bet you didn't really see everything when you remembered. Not the individual hairs on people's heads, nor the precise weather outside the window. It's just too much work to put all the detail in -- so you trust that some of it is just there, quietly in the background. It's kind of like the perspective in a painting. The artist might paint the individual leaves on the tree in the foreground, but the ones on the far horizon might just be green blobs. We have to trust that those trees have leaves, too, just as we do when we look at real trees in the distance.

When I listen to a guided visualisation recording, or I create one in my own mind, details are among the "hooks" which keep me focused. I have certainly experienced times when I couldn't see what someone was trying to show me, or what I was seeking, and it is frustrating. At these times, if I can't discipline my mind to cooperate, or perhaps the person guiding me isn't clear enough, I give myself permission to quit trying. If I want to continue my meditation session, I just do some breathing or something. One thing about meditation is that it does take practice and discipline -- and if you use those things, it gets easier. Another thing is that you are not going to have a profound experience every time, whether you use visualisation or empty your mind. However, there are still many benefits!

If you are interested in some simple and varied guided meditation techniques (many of which do not require the ability to visualise!) you might be interested in the guided meditation cards I sell in my web shop.

This rhyme about the Magpie is familiar to many. Perhaps a remnant of a very ancient lore of using birds to predict the future.

The Magpie may indicate seeing the future or altering it in an entirely "normal" way, as well as to deeper powers. Sometimes what is going to happen is just obvious, and sometimes we can do something about it. Because they are often seen in groups, the number of Magpies you see may be significant. However, if you only see one, there is a remedy. You must say something like "Good morning, Mr Magpie. I hope you are well, and that your wife is also in good health." This is supposed to dispel the bad luck. (However, I can tell you that I've seen every number of magpie, many times, and still haven't had any children!) So, you see that the magpie is associated with prediction, and also with being able to change what is going to happen. Isn't it interesting, too, that the thing which is required or us here is a kind word! "Seeing the future," is the reason many people turn to divination. Obviously, I believe it is a useful tool, but I strongly believe in our ability to alter the course of the future, also! Sometimes, having a better attitude to those we meet is a good place to start.

The question of mistrust should not be taken as a value judgement. The Magpie is disliked because it eats the eggs and young of other birds. However, it would be a mistake to say that it is doing "wrong". This is the "right" behaviour for a magpie, who is doing exactly what it should be doing - behaving like a magpie! The other birds will not be happy about it, though! Sometimes, just being ourselves upsets people, and they have their right to avoid us, just as we have a right to express our nature. At the same time, being humans with a wide variety of options, we might like to consider whether we can be less hurtful in the process. Those who love songbirds are now concerned about the encroachment of Magpies into their garden. While their concern is legitimate, it has never seemed to me that it is the Magpies themselves who are out of balance.  They are still just following their nature. It is the situation in which they find themselves which has altered. Ultimately, the card isn't about what the Magpie does, but how it is perceived by others.

If you enjoyed this note you might also like Rooks (It's a tribal thing)

I decided to grow a few vegetables this year. It's not something I've done a lot of in my life. I had a large garden for a year or two in the 1980s in Scotland, and I've been around various friends' and family gardens, helping out a bit. My father's family were all keen gardener. Anyway, it was high time. I'm a bit unsure about growing veg in this climate, though. Extremely hot and arid. If you're gardening in somewhere like the UK, you might think that sounds like heaven. There are no slugs or snails, that's for sure, but the challenge is keeping the heat from killing things, and keeping them well enough watered here. So that's where I'm at.

I decided I didn't fancy being on my hands and knees, so I created some raised beds out of old tractor tyres. Yes, I've heard the concerns about whether they release bad stuff into your soil.  From what I can gather through research, the jury is still out on that one. I figure that this danger is more than offset by the fact that in other ways the garden will be more or less organic. Fresh organic produce is hard for us to get here, so it has to be a bonus.

I've known that I should be reading up on the climate, suitable varieties, planting times, buying seeds, etc. but somehow I never got around to any of that. I finally grabbed a bunch of organic seeds from a whole food shop on a visit to the big city, and bought a few industrially grown plants from the village shop. It's a start! Then I fenced off the area around my beds, because no green plant will survive the onslaught of thirty some chickens attracted by moist soil for more than about ten minutes around here. I liked the effect of the fence - it seemed to create a nicely defined space that felt very good.

On that trip to the big city, I also acquired a couple of books. One has been on my reading list for awhile, based on a recommendation, but I knew little about it. It's called "Behaving as if the God in All Life Mattered" by Machaelle Small Wright. I haven't finished it yet. The first part tells a tale of the author's truly awful childhood. I admit, this held a sort of morbid fascination for me (no, it's not about sexual abuse) partly because my childhood was pretty crappy in parts, too. Also, I liked the non-judgemental way in which she writes about the facts of this. Then, strangely, the book morphs into a sort of gardening book. (Yeah, I know.)

It's just the kind of gardening advice you'd think I'd be interested in - a spirit for everything: carrot spirit, cabbage spirit, mole spirit, etc. It turns out that I'm actually pretty resistant to these ideas for some reason. However, the book is very sincere. Something has told me to keep reading, even though I find some of the author's stories pretty fantastic, just keep reading. I think I'll get what I need to get from this. Sometimes I get a very delayed reaction from things, so we'll see. One thing I did like was her way of being open to these spirits advising her how to proceed with things like when and where to plant, and how to take care of the plants. I definitely haven't heard quite the kind of clear, personal communication from my garden that the author reports, but I have tried to be very open to inspiration and guidance, while taking the basics into account. Sometimes, I feel that it's coming through.

The other day, I went out with my seed packets, an offering of fruit juice, a candle, and so on. I created a small ad hoc ritual and opened myself to any requests my plants might have for me. I planted one bed with greens - lettuce, spinach, rocket - laying them out like the spokes of a wheel and putting them where it felt right to do so.The ritual and the time I spent planting these left me feeling really good. Since then I've prepared some extra containers for strawberries and eggplant/aubergines but am now waiting out a last little spell of cold weather to plant them out.

Those of you who have been following my journey the past few years may know that I've been struggling with the change in climate and landscape since my move from Scotland. In spite of having 160 acres or the stuff, I find it hard to feel close to the land much of the time. I've really been working at all this, and things have been slightly better lately, but I feel that creating my little garden space is taking me in the right direction. The fact that I've had to enclose it with a fence has created something that feels personal and manageable and slightly private. It feels like somewhere I might enjoy spending time outdoors.

I'll let you know if I actually get any vegetables...