Fabrications, the direct result of Robert Graves' invention of a tree calendar

I'm just putting this link here so I can find it moving forward... I did not write this, this is from Peter Berresford Ellis who was Educated at Brighton College of Art and the University of London, Ellis graduated from North East London Polytechnic (now part of the University of East London) in Celtic Studies in 1989. He also earned a master's degree in Celtic Studies from the University of East London (1993).

The Celtic 'tree zodiac' fabrications, the direct result of Robert Graves' invention of a tree calendar', have become an almost insurmountable barrier to any serious study of the forms of astrology that were practiced by pre-Christian Celtic society. For fifty years, from the time Graves' published his book The White Goddess (1946), a veritable industry has been built up among his acolytes, which preach artificial astrological ideas based on Graves' spurious arguments. Some have even published books on what they fondly term 'Celtic Astrology', manufacturing a completely artificial 'astrological system'.

The Fabrication of 'Celtic' Astrology

ADF Resignation

I volunteer for a lot of things, pretty much this is ADF’s fault (if there was only one good thing that came from my membership). You learn a lot of things while volunteering.

I had volunteered for the local Irish Festival break down, and there were these red canopies that belonged to the city of Phoenix. We had to move this canopies from the middle of the park into the fenced off portion a.k.a. courtyard of the Irish Cultural Center. One would think this is not an issue until you have the added news of, “you can’t break them down and they are really heavy.” I didn’t think that would be a problem, I mean how heavy could they be, right?

One by one I saw my fellow volunteers, the old timers who had been volunteering for years, “find” something else to do, some even laughed at me. I didn’t think too much of it, until three other people and me had to heft one of these monsters. It was taxing and just generally sucked.

The important lesson I learned that day, if the other volunteers are laughing and disappearing on you, find some other task to do.

ADF is the same as those damnable red canopies. Former members tried to tell me, they tried to warn me about the truth of ADF and I didn’t listen. I looked at the Vision statement and believed: https://www.adf.org/about/basics/vision.html

I use to wonder how people could drop out of the pagan community; it’s always been the furthest thing from my mind once I entered the community. Now I know, my heart is heavy and I feel spent.

It is with a heavy heart that I write this, especially since the Grove took on four new members recently. All the ADF nay sayers were right. It’s not a place to be, run by a bunch of stuffy old bearded Druidy types that want to be the first Druid Catholic Church.

Somehow ADF has forgotten about the pagan community at large, and have decided to embark on a journey that makes ADF everything pagans abhor, an organized religion. Though anyone who raises a concern about this issue are malcontents that have problem with authority. Just who the fuck do they think makes up the pagan community that they are pulling members from?

From the Mother Grove meeting notes from April 30, 2015:

Motion to change the bylaws:

   Article 5, Section 3, Subsection 1 Archdruid (AD), add number 8. "The Arch Druid must be an Active ADF Priest".

   Article 5, Section 3, Subsection 2 Vice Archdruid (VAD), add number 6. "The Vice Arch Druid must be an Active ADF Priest".

  * Motion by Jean, Seconded by Kelly

  * It was pointed out that this is not the best place to change the bylaws, it should be in Section 4, Subsection 5, Item 7.

  * Motion amended to be:

  * Change Section 4, Subsection 4, Item 7, qualifications of the AD and VAD

    From:

      Candidates for Archdruid or Vice Archdruid must have their Dedicant's Path completed.

    To:

      Candidates for Archdruid or Vice Archdruid must be ordained members of ADF Clergy in good standing, i.e. Active ADF Priests.

  * Amended motion by Jean, accepted by Kelly.

  * Point raised of what would happen if we lost all clergy due to some disaster.

  * It was pointed out that if a clergy member cannot be found to lead the church, is it really a church?

  * Point raised we are limiting who can run, and limiting choice by our members.

  * Point raised that we may be better served at times by a secular leader

  * It was stated that the Administrator is supposed to take care of the administrative.

  * It was pointed out that a significant portion of the AD's job is administrative, not just spiritual.

  * It was pointed out that this is being done with no input from the members.  It is likely most don't care, but a change this large really should have the input of the members.

  * 7 yes (Kirk, Jean, Flip, Kelly, Jeffery, Barbara, Sean), 2 no (Robb, Sharon), 0 abstain, 0 no vote

  * Motion Passed

(If you are a member, go check it out here: https://www.adf.org/members/blogs/mg/20150430)

A change like this should have at least been brought to the membership for thoughtful consideration and input. OH but that last little bit I highlighted? We the unwashed masses won’t care.

Well I care, because I know some of ADF’s priests, and I wouldn’t follow them across the road! There are ADF members who have merely completed their Dedicants Path, that I would gladly pipe into Hell. (Yeah, with the extra L.)

A friend of mine made a comment regarding ADF on her FB page and this was the response from Rev. Jeffrey Wyndham (Ian Corrigan) (former Arch Druid and current member of Stone Creed Grove in OH):

ADF is always managed by a committee elected from the membership - really by a series of committees, with varying powers. The central Board of Directors is tasked with preserving and directing the vision of the org, and elected by the membership to do just that. As in most elected leaderships, the officers are not elected to "do the will of the membership" (that is simply not part of the mission) but rather to protect and develop the org, its goals and the procedures that sustain it. There is not the slightest reason to think that a vote of the membership at large would be better able to guide the org than the decisions of a committed and informed Board.

I was still sitting on the MG when the AD/VAD vote was cast, though I am no longer a voting member. The MG seats turn over regularly - this election saw major offices change hands. There is no 'MG party' that is influencing the org, and the MG are not separate in any way from "the membership".

If a member doesn't like the current regime, but supports the work of the org, I advise hanging around - the AD chair itself will be an open-seat election next year.

You ever smash your thumb/elbow/knee and that pain reverberates though your entire body? Yep that is exactly what happened when I read that sentence. I cannot believe that he believes that. WTF do I vote for? ADF has gone completely mad!

The sense many of us members feel is that ADF is moving to only allow priests to lead Groves, and that the rest of us are just followers. NO ADF PRIEST can talk to my gods on MY behalf better than I can, and fuck you for thinking that ADF. As pagans we are all our own priests, wasn’t that kind of the point when most of us departed from the main stream religions?

I’ve been a Sr. Druid, I lead my Grove for three years. I was your FACE ADF, I was your FACE! I towed the party line, I missed family events to do ADF high days. I have literally bled, sweated and cried for ADF for the last seven years. I feel as if ADF is completely disregarding me because I’m NOT a priest. Somehow seven years of hard work being the FACE of ADF was for nothing. I am completely heartbroken that something I loved and supported had dumped me in the trash.

I only see two options, I can become a priest of ADF (even though I am already legally ordained) or I can quit. Frankly the thought of becoming a priest now wearies me, there was a time when I was going to work in that direction. Then once I became a priest, I’m sure that the rest of the "old boy's club" priests would brow beat me into complying with what they wanted anyway.

I know that ADF doesn’t care, because I’m just a piss ant out here in the bumb fuck Southwest, but some people remember me, I’m the one with the Mohawk and a hearse. 

Woe to the Woad

For me, woe to the woad all began when I was watching Highlander (the TV series), and one of the immortal characters was using eyeliner to draw blue markings on herself. I thought to myself, "I wonder why they didn't have her using the original paint, instead of something modern." Later, I met someone who was also interested in the Celts that told me woad was made of seven different ingredients, and a recipe could be found in an ancient Welsh manuscript. I began researching from there, but could find no such manuscript. I began to doubt the existence of woad, until recently. A theory that I feel has credibility has been brought to light.

Anyone who has an interest in Celts or Picts has probably heard of woad and the warriors it was applied to. Visions of nude blue warriors running through the mist adhere themselves to the psyche, especially when woad has been featured in such movies as Brave Heart and Arthur. What was this mysterious blue concoction?

Most re-enactors, pagan, Pictophiles and Celtophiles, will tell you it is a plant; woad Isatis tinctoria, mixed with various substances from fat to distilled cow urine. Woad itself produces a dark blue to black color like indigo. In fact, woad was the predecessor to indigo. We do know woad was used to dye cloth, however it did not turn blue until it contacted air. This causes a problem if one is mixing it with fat; air contact would be minimal and would take some time to occur. Another problem I see is that indigo is nearly black and a contemporary writer, Julius Caesar, states the color is virtrum I believe that is a blue like lapis or perhaps a Ginseng Arizona iced tea bottle. Pliny observed, women were said to paint their bodies blue like Ethiopians before festivals. Curiously, woad plant seeds didn't show up in Britain until the late Iron Age (the Iron age ranged about 400 B.C.- 400 A.D.), so the Picts and/or Celts probably would not have been painting themselves blue with the woad plant for centuries as some believe. They had to be using something different to paint themselves.

I have spoken with some people who have tried to re-created the woad mixture; all of them said that it didn’t work. Other substances had to be mixed with the fat or some such binding agent. This could smear, or it would just dry and flake off. I have also been told some of the woad re-creations smelled pretty bad (I could imagine if anything near urine was used. I have also read that the indigo plant doesn't smell very good itself whether or not that pertains to woad, I couldn't say).

Unknowingly the idea of using eyeliner put forth from the Highlander TV episode offers some clues. Some of the ingredients of eyeliner include: Ferric ferrocyanide and iron oxides. Ferrocyanide pigments are known to create colors such as Iron blue, Prussian blue and Chinese blue among others. Iron oxide would most likely produce a red to orange color. We know the Celts mined and worked metals. They could then, of course, have easily gather the metal oxides and used them to create body paint.

Of course we don't have a living breathing immortal to tell us what woad was, but we do have a witness of sorts, Lindow Man. In 1984 in Lindow Marsh, Cheshire, UK two peat cutters discovered a well formed human foot, which led to the discovery of a mummified body of Lindow Man a few days later. Lindow Man has been dated to about 2 B.C.-119 A.D. some time in the middle of the Celtic Iron age. What is very interesting is that the skin testing of Lindow Man (along with other bog bodies) found iron, copper, ferrocyanide oxide and clay based paints but no plant based paints. "All test for indigotin (the colorant in woad) were negative; the test itself is very sensitive." Lindow Man: Body in the Bog pg 41.

There are a few scattered writings from contemporary peoples that really only give faint clues as to the composition of the body paint used by the Celts or Picts. The bog bodies can give mute testimony to the use of metal oxides. Only future research may give us certainty as to what components were in the body paint. If the woad plant or indigo created such a superior blue color, why is it not used in cosmetics today? Clearly in centuries we have found nothing better than metal oxides.

Contributing texts and web links:
The Conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar
The Picts and the Scots by Lloyd and Jenny Laing
Lindow Man: The Body in the Bog by I.M. Stead, J.B. Bourke, Don Brothwell
The Ancient Celts by Barry Cunliffe

Links
http://www.cyberpict.net/sgathan/essays/woad.htm
http://www.hippy.com/albion/woad.htm
http://home.columbus.rr.com/herneswood/Fashions%20of%20the%20Peat%20Bogs.htm