readoldthings

In another world, I would like the following thing to happen. 

For a year and a day, the initiate prepares himself, studying the teachings, gathering in fellowship with others, spending time in nature. At the end of this time they prepare to make his Retreat and Obligation, if they choose. And that is done in the following manner.

In public, he sets one piece of technology on a large stone. Any old stone? No, the Stone of Rebirth. The spirit who dwells in the stone has conducted many on this journey.

A cell phone, an apple watch, a set of virtual reality goggles, a bluetooth headset. Now, it can't just be any old thing-- it must be something to which the initiate himself or herself has been attached. That phone you can't keep more than two feet away from. Not the one you need for work-- no, the one that you keep checking because someone might have posted a Tweet, or liked your video. 

Imagine the scene. It should be early Spring, I think-- a time for rebirth. The place is a large tract of forest land, managed and maintained by an assembly of Druid-monks who live in hermitages. Paths wind among the trees, guiding visitors through a network of shrines and small circles of standing stones. Here and there are small buildings, heated by wood stoves and lit by candlelight, that serve the various purposes of the monks. Everything here is sacred. Even the bathrooms are sacred. There are no septic tanks to be drained every year or two, but wooden humanure assemblies dedicated to the God of Decomposition. 

Beyond the well-ordered paths and woods tended by the Druids is an open wilderness, with only narrow to guide human visitors through the trees. Before this woodland is a wide open space, surrounded by evergreen trees. A sacred grove; one passes an image of Nemetona as one enters through an archway of woven branches. At the back of this space is another archway. Overtopping the arch is an image of the goddess Elen; underneath, a path leads through the archway, down into the deep wilderness beyond. 

And in the center of the clearing stands the stone of rebirth, over which a white cloth is spread. Here stands the Aspirant, dressed in ceremonial regalia. What color? Does he wear the green of the beginner, perhaps? Or the black of the last hour before dawn? Certainly, the sign of the Three Rays of Light /|\ is drawn on his forehead in charcoal, and the charcoal must have come from a fire which he tended overnight. And in either case, he is flanked by two archdruids in white robes.



The aspirant sets his iPhone-- the latest model, the 25, the one that can interface directly with the chip in your brain that was developed by early 21st century conservative folk hero Elon Musk-- on the Stone of Rebirth, and, standing nearby, a white-robed Archdruid passes him the Hammer of Sucellos, the Good Striker, who is also Silvanus, the Woodland God. The initiate raises it overhead and cries out, "I renounce thee, Ahriman!" 

And he brings down the hammer onto the cell phone and shatters it into a thousand pieces. 

The assembly of Druids raises a cheer. A light seems to shine from the aspirant's face; tears well in his eyes. He is free, really free! 

Songs follow, and prayers. The cloth is taken from the stone, holding the fragments of the iPhone, and disposed of; other Druids whose task this is are careful to gather any stray fragment that may have fallen onto the ground.

The Archdruid whose duty it is to conduct the Great Initiation leads him under the archway of branches, into the Wildwood. How long will he spend there? I want to believe that it will be forty days at least. Forty days, for the first initiation; seven, for a yearly renewal of vows; perhaps three, for an occasional retreat. Of course it will be at least a year and a day for priests, longer than that, for some hermits like the Taoist immortals or the medieval anchorites, who have now become legendary. 

Our initiate is an ordinary believer, dedicated to the New Way, but still a part of society. He will return in forty days. He will have written his own scripture, out there in the wild, and the Sacred Mountain will have given him a new Name, which he will keep secret.

He can, perhaps, expect persecution from society, which regards any sort of technological renunciation as treason, and declares the deliberate withholding of technology by parents to be child abuse. He may be imprisoned for his beliefs, or even killed-- yes, this has happened, and when it does the Druids gather the bodies of their martyred friends and bury them under the trees, and the spirits of those happy Dead are added to the rank of protectors in Gwynfydd. 

Or perhaps this is many centuries later, and the persecutions have long since come to an end, having served only to create an invisible army of Druid guardians. Time will tell. 

In either case, this is where I want to be, and where I want to live. I need a phone, these days. I have to check my schedule at work. And if I didn't have a phone, I couldn't listen to audiobooks during my two hours daily commute, and I'd know so much less. And, and, and... And there it sits, two feet away from me, as I type this.

Many years ago I made my own retreat into the Wildwood, and I climbed the Sacred Mountain and received my own secret scripture. And one day, I'm going to smash this phone with the hammer of Sucellos, and walk the paths of Elen into the deep woods, the realm of Silvanus, singing the Druid's prayer--

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