A Pagan Taking Comfort within the Predatory Ecosystem

"The environment had a collective understanding, a conscious agreement that not only extended towards me, but also into every nuance of the cosmos."

Painting by Thomas Sheridan

It was at the end of what New Englanders refer to as “Fall’’, and already the first icy coating of frost—heralding the onset of winter—covered the now decaying vegetation on the forest floor. The once green—then multiple hues of amber foliage—had become a terminal brown. Organic matter, now resigned to its fate as that of supplying nutrients for the same roots which once fed the same leaves. Until the cycle of the seasons returned the woodland's dormant species to life once again come the Spring.

It was in the middle of this southern Maine woodland saunter, that I came across a secluded pond surrounded by overarching limbs of naked trees which circumnavigated the body of water. A dense natural fortification of white oak, pitched pine, and maple, with the occasional opening created by round, low-lying boulders that dotted about here and there at the edge of the dark and cold liquid abyss. A scene that has not changed since the time when the first European settlers crossed the abyss of the Atlantic Ocean as Puritanical immigrants to the new world hundreds of years previously.

The vista unfolding before me was—for all the world­—straight out of a horror movie opening sequence. Not so much terrifying, but rather, presenting a natural setting somewhat bordering upon the sinister. Or at least how the urban types with little exposure to wild nature might consider it. Yet, at the same time, also satisfyingly imbued with that esoterically-appealing ethereal sense of sylvan theatre. My desire for such an artistically-inspiring landscape had been the reason—watercolor paints and pad in my bag—why I decided to take a detour into the depths of this chilly sepia and grey land of moody enchantment.

My mind not only wandered into the writings of Lovecraft, King, and Poe but also towards the paintings of Charles Burchfield. Who had so perfectly captured such landscapes caught within—and upon—the cusp of winter’s oncoming icy grip. There is something about the treeless woodland—due to the ability for one to be able to see further without the interruption of dense leaf cover—that the mind itself also wanders further into its own contemplation.

Walking toward the irregular bank surrounding the pond, the absolute darkness of the water became more and more apparent as I moved closer to it. The colour was pitch black. Non-reflective due to the grey, dark skies above the forest as if it were a giant obsidian scrying mirror lying perfectly flat among the undulating landscape. This only added to its emotional and psychological presence within the overall landscape itself. While the surrounding dormant trees—not to mention hibernating animals—served mainly to highlight the unspoken charisma of the still waters which I had now successfully encroached upon. The first layer of ice was also clearly present. Adding the only element of visual contrast to the watery darkness upon which it floated. Moreover, the scene was ancient, timeless, and unapologetically perfect as a result of its exquisite foreboding quality.

As I walked up towards the bank, I stood upon one of the rocky outcroppings—which performed something of a portal between the densely wooded enclosure surrounding the pond—and I determined the body of water to be somewhat larger than I had initially assumed. Approximately the size of a soccer field. No sooner had I placed my two feet upon the boulder, that I suddenly slipped on the barely perceptible thin layer of frost which lay hidden among the twinkling flecks of quartz contained within the stone. I found myself sliding toward the frigid black waters. All took place within an instant—yet also, as if I was experiencing the event in a kind of purposefully pronounced slow motion. Capturing more details of the experience than could be normally retained within one’s mind during the course of a single second of mundane time.

Somehow, I’d managed to grab hold of a long, slender Sumac branch adjacent to the boulder. Which I didn’t even know was there until I’d impulsively reached out to it. This act prevented me from slipping into the dark waters. To be then taken by hypothermia, and in all probability, eventually being drowned.

As I pulled myself back up into the relative safety of the forest, I felt a powerful visceral sensation of—quite literally—being prey for the pond. However, it was a sensation of ‘nothing personal’. Another natural occurrence. The type—when we are subjected to such events—reminds us that we are also part of the natural order of things. The landscape didn’t hate me, and I didn’t hate it. It was what it was.

Walking back to the campground, a comprehension of woe and wonder cascaded through my cognition that I had very literally escaped certain death had it not been for the solitary Sumac branch that was within reach of my hand. Taking into account all of the variables, other determining factors, and possible outcomes—which meandered into and throughout the more philosophical, spiritual, and psychological rationalizations as to why I had survived—that I found myself falling back upon my own personal affiliations with Paganism. In particular, the role which Animism plays during such experiences.

How soon our modern sense of safety and comfort can so easily disappear—within a seemingly eternal microsecond—when we are taken from the protection of our modern civilization and on towards the most visceral engagements with the natural world. Not only does everything in the forest want to eat you, but everything in the forest also knows how to capture and devour you. This includes a pond sequestered within a surrounding landscape that had fine-tuned its clandestine brutal circumference, with all the planning that a New England fisherman might put into the well-proven design and construction of a lobster pot. The pond knew precisely what it was doing and how to do it.

At moments such as these, we realise how very small one human life is. We can either go mad from trying to impose a sense of mechanical or biblically-inspired justice upon such events, or we can just accept them. However, there is a third option; that the experience took place to transcend us beyond the materialistic and on towards the mystical.

The British polymath and Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell considered earthly existence as nothing more than “the petty planet on which our bodies impotently craw.” Russell believed that human life is exclusively short and helpless. As he once wrote. “...on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way…”

My own understanding of animism—derived from my Pagan spiritual beliefs—prevented me from running in terror out of the Maine woods that day vowing to never return. Very much the opposite happened. The experience made me feel vital and grateful.

All the natural stakeholders within the immediate environment of the pond were working in tandem in order to procure any available extra nutrients—from an Irishman hiking during a late Fall afternoon, to a deer foraging upon the icy slope—so as to feed them into the black waters below. It may have been nothing personal, but it was no less amazing. The environment had a collective understanding, a conscious agreement that not only extended to me but also into every nuance of the cosmos.

The water on the surface of the boulder is the same water contained within the pond after all... This included all the conspiratorial allies. From the trees surrounding the pond, along with, the deadly icy boulders hidden below decaying, slippery leaves. The salivating flora and fauna living within the water. All playing their part in the process from beginning to end. As well as the billions of lesser organisms, from microbes to bacteria working as part of the same trap, and all out to procure nourishment from me—or any other large animal—slipping and then falling into the icy aquatic abyss.

However, what of the solitary branch which became my very literal lifeline, and which had saved me from this deadly fate? Was that an accident too? To the traditionally religious Western mind, the experience would have been seen as an act of God, and considering the outcome—in this particular circumstance—his mercy being applied. ‘Not my time’. ‘God’s will’ and so on. In my own case regarding this experience, I am in no doubt that something else was in charge of the process. That Sumac branch was meant to be there.

Being from a Pagan Indo-European spiritual standpoint, I had no doubt that the consciousness of the lake had intended to replenish its own soup-of-life procuring and exchanging of nutrients using my body as the latest source of ample nourishment. However, at the same time, the instinctual impulse for me to branch out and grab hold of a branch I didn’t know there was proof that the process was personally adaptable. Standing back from the experience, I came to comprehend the full nature of the event as being a microcosmic and multi-organism version of the Venus Flytrap. I was the fly. Almost. However, something transported me out of space-time and allowed me to escape. I didn’t craw, I transcended.

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Pagan Anarchist Thomas Sheridan is an Author, Artist, Film Maker, and Satirist who has spent a life from Wall Street to the Jungles of South Asia attempting to discover the emerging—often elusive—mythology of modern humans within the present technology-saturated era. Heavily inspired by the work of Carl Jung, Bruno Bettelheim, and Joseph Campbell, Thomas Sheridan has developed ‘Monomythic’ tool kits—which draw upon all the mythologies of the world. So as to demonstrate that on a personal and collective level; these legends and stories contain within them a subconscious lexicon of wisdom and symbols that can help all of us overcome the personal and greater challenges we encounter in everyday life. By not giving birth and nurturing these timeless archetypes within us all, modern humans are at a loss when it comes to achieving personal and social Individuation. Or a rounding out of one’s purpose in life. Their dharma. Their Monomyth. Inside all of us resides a wizard, a warrior, a bard, and a knight and by tapping into the power of these archetypes one can have a more fulfilling and creative life. Every challenge a quest. Every situation a saga. Every moment is an adventure.

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