Power Changing in Tower Time

*Picture credit to Safrianna @LivingLUNAs

A vast old religion … lingers in our senses. – D.H. Lawrence as quoted by H. Byron Ballard in her book Earth Works: Ceremonies in Tower Time

An excerpt from Chapter Nine: A Man in the Moon: Distribution and Uses of Power

To understand why we need ceremony – as well as permaculture and water catchment – it is helpful to look at the way s power is shifting in these transitional times.

When we talk about the history of these systems we call patriarchy, we see a hierarchical system for power distribution. Generally speaking, men have been on the top of that hill, and this has given them sets of skills appropriate for wielding power over other groups of people, the land, and resources. It has also given women (and other beings not on the top of the hill fort) skill appropriate for their station in the hierarchy. If we are indeed watching the dissolution of these systems, it is time for us to discover new ways of working with authority and with power.

We are longing for the culture to settle down, to not hear one more report of a policeman shooting a black man or a lone white gunman shooting up a movie theater or school. How much more awe we likely to endure in the horrific weather patterns that the visible by-product of global climate change, a problem about which our leaders meet periodically to promise things they simply can’t or won’t do? Do the mountains and the people of Appalachia now have to endure fracking – after a century of extraction industries have stripped out the trees (twice), the coal seams, blasted the mountains away into the creeks and hollers below in strip-mining – which doesn’t even offer the cold comfort of decent wages?

It may in fact be time for all of us to return to a sense of personal autonomy, of personal agency. When we stand in the face of those enormous things we can’t seem to alter with either voting or goodwill, it is time for us to return to ourselves and turn to each other.

Take a deep breath, friends. Ground yourself into the bosom of the Earth. Now, from this place of strength and relative safety, open your heart to those in need of your goodness, your strength. Your blessing. Speak gentle words to those who need them … and kick the rear ends of those that need that too.

H. Byron Ballard: I am a western NC native, a teacher, an amateur folklorist, and writer. I have spoken at and taught workshops at the Appalachian Studies Association annual conference, the Conference on Current Pagan Studies, Rites of Spring, Florida Pagan Gathering, Gaia’s Womb, Glastonbury Goddess Conference, Hexfest, Pagan Spirit Gathering, Pagan Unity Festival, Sacred Feminine Rising, Sacred Space, Scottish Pagan Federation, Sisters Rising, Starwood, Trees of Avalon, and others. I am a senior priestess and co-founder of Mother Grove Goddess Temple and the Coalition of Earth Religions/CERES, both in Asheville, NC.

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