Autumnal Thoughts and Visions

The material world is literally the substance and being of God. Every nanosecond, divinity births the world from its own essence, incarnating a profoundly sacred place. Look deeply into anything and you find God.

– John Robinson
“Only One Being”
via I Am God
October 24, 2022

The Green Man [is] an ancient pagan archetype of masculine connection with Nature. Depicted in image and stone with his beard and hair growing (or formed of) leaves, vines and boughs, the Green Man is the steward of the forests and the land. He is “husband” to the plants and trees, animals, and the feminine Gaia. An enlightened being who exists in conscious relationship and harmony with the living energies of Earth and the cosmos, the Green Man embodies a silent, gentle wisdom through his respect of all living things. Bearded and inherently masculine, he offers a different model of manhood and strength: one based on relationship, caring, and true husbandry or stewardship.

Far older than Christianity, the Green Man reemerged powerfully in the twelfth century alongside the Goddess as embodied by the Holy Mother, Mary. His bearded image can be found carved into stone pillars in cathedrals throughout Europe. At the sacred site of Chartres, France, the Green Man can be found at least seventy-two times within the great cathedral, and reputedly over a hundred of his stone faces can be found in Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland.

As an embodiment of the Sacred Masculine, the Green Man understands the hidden laws of nature and interconnected relationship. In a modern incarnation, he stands for environmental awareness and action, symbolizing cooperation with Nature rather than domination over it for resources, wealth, and power.

. . . For men today, there is much of value in this ancient, archetypal energy as a representation of the Sacred Masculine – an image of malehood entwined with Nature and mystery. He offers a signpost for a different way forward, a path of balance and wholeness through conscious relationship and harmony. The way of the wild soul.

. . . You have a deper purpose and your body holds the key. We need to unplug and, even amid the noise, begin to listen. Not simply with ears but with our senses. Feeling. Intuition. We need to “tune in” rather than “tune out,” and allow ourselves to be guided deeper into a tactile, sensual connection with life and the way of the wild soul.

– L. R. Heartsong
Excerpted from The Bones and Breath:
A Man’s Guide to Eros, the Sacred Masculine,
and the Wild Soul
White Cloud Press, 2014
pp. 31 and 50

All of creation is held in a delicate and sometimes precarious balance. My walks in [nature] put me in closer touch with that balance, reminding me that I am made of the same dust of the earth from which all creation was born. If only I could tune my own lumbering movements a little more often to the cadence of creation. Maybe then I’d feel more intensely the holy balance intended by the Creator. Only rarely have I known the peace of it settling into my body and spirit. Have you felt it? I can’t explain it, but I know it when it comes. Through it, God speaks.

– Jennifer M. Ginn
Excerpted from “Walking in Wonder”
Gather
September/October 2022

I love the beauty of life’s last dance with the above ground realm at this time of year, as each being turns inward, towards the darkness and the sweet embrace of quietude. How I love these golden displays, this fire that burns bright in yellows, oranges and reds, before descending to feed the ground below, turning to compost, dark matter, feeding and holding the seeds, the future.

And as winter takes hold of the land, if you listen, if you watch, you will feel, hear, sense the seeds, as they dream into being, held by their elders, nourished by their homeland. Dreaming, stretching, reaching tenderly, powerfully; growing into medicine, food, beauty and life.

Take a moment to listen on those darkening days, to feel the beauty, the becoming, being whispered upon the land. Use this as a mirror for your own soul, your own inner landscape. If you feel into the darkness, when all around you feels lost; if you listen deeply enough, compassionately, you will notice the seeds inside yourself, learning, stretching, growing; wanting to rewild the concrete, birthing your medicine, for you.

– Brigit Anna McNeill

NEXT:
Brigit Anna McNeill on Hearing the
Wild and Natural Call to Go Inwards

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• November Musings
• Awakening the Wild Soul
• Mystical Participation
• Autumn: Season of Transformation and Surrender
• Autumn . . . Within and Beyond (2021)
• Autumn . . . Within and Beyond (2018)
• Autumn . . . Within and Beyond (2016)
• O Sacred Season of Autumn
• “Thou Hast Thy Music Too”
• Autumn Psalm
• “This Autumn Land Is Dreaming”
• Autumn’s “Wordless Message”
• Autumnal (and Rather Pagan) Thoughts on the Making of “All Things New”
• Thomas Moore on the Circling of Nature as the Best Way to Find Our Substance
• Autumn Beauty
• Autumn Leaves
• Autumn Hues
• Autumn Dance
• The End Is Not the End

Photography: Michael J. Bayly.
Green Man image: Peter Williams.