The term 'Rape of Mother Earth' has been used many times in environmental campaigns, when used in the context of fracking, the similarities are blindingly obvious - a hard phallic drill forcefully penetrating the body of the Earth, through which fracking fluid is ejaculated into her depths...
As well as the physical violation and destruction of the land, a few photos that I have seen recently coming from the Crawberry Hill fracking site in Yorkshire have hinted at the destruction being wrought on the land at a spiritual level.
Let me explain...
Many of you reading this will understand the symbology of the hare. Originally a sacred animal, the hare has been used since the iron age for spiritual/magical purposes. Just before Bouddicca's final battle against the romans, she "employed a form of divination, releasing a hare from the folds of her dress and interpreting the direction in which it ran, and invoked Andraste, a British goddess of victory."
For centuries the hare has been seen to represent the land, the open fields, the moon, fertility, witchcraft - the pagan spirituality of the land. Think on about the 'Easter Bunny' and folklore in Christian times harks back to this belief, saying that witches would shape-shift into a hare to travel unnoticed across the land.
From http://www.welsh-mythsandlegends.walesdirectory.co.uk
"An old woman was evicted from a small farm which she and her family had held for many years. She was naturally greatly annoyed at such conduct on the part of the landlord and of the person who supplanted her. However, she procured a small cottage close by her late home and there she lived. But the interloper did not get on, for she was troubled by a hare that came nightly to her house. A labouring man, when going to his work early in the morning, time after time saw a hare going from the farm towards the cottage occupied by this old woman and he determined to shoot this hare. He procured an old gun and loaded it with pebbles instead of bullets, and awaited the approach of the hare. It came as usual, the man fired and the hare rolled over and over, screaming and making a terrible noise. The man however did not heed this much, for hares, when shot, do scream and so he went to secure the hare, but when he attempted to seize it, it changed into all shapes and made horrible sounds, and the man was so terrified that he ran away and he was very glad to get away from the scene of this shocking occurrence.| A few days afterwards the old woman who occupied the cottage was found dead, and it was noticed by the woman who laid her out that her arm and shoulder were riddled with pebbles. It was thought that she was a witch and that she had troubled the people who had deprived her of her farm and that she did so in the shape of a hare. No one doubted that the injury inflicted on the old woman was anything more than the shot of the man, who supposed that he had killed a hare, when in reality he shot and killed the old woman. The farmer was never troubled after the death of the woman whom he had supplanted."
Maddy Prior captures all this much better than I can, in her song Shadow of the Hare.. please have a listen to the song...
I shall goe until a hare
Wi sorrow and such mickle care
I sall goe in the devil's name
An while I go home again
I am ruled by the moon
I move under her mantle
I am the symbol of her moods
Of rebirths cycle
I am companion to the Gods
I can conceive while I am pregnant
I call the dawn and spring in
I am the advent
I bring life from water
In a cup that must be broken
I whisper to the bursting egg
I'm Aestre's token
Scent of dog, scent of man
Closer closer, smell them coming
Hot breath, hot death
Closer closer, hard the running
Tongues pant, hearts thump
Closer closer, through the fields
Teeth snap, bones crack
Closer closer, at my heels
Nearer, yet and nearer
I can hear the hunter's knife
He is running for my dinner
I am running for my life
Winter wakeneth al my care
Nou this leues waxeth bare;
Ofte y sike ant mourne sare
When hit cometh in my thoht
Of this worldes joie hou hit geth al to noht
Man sprays no weeds
The scythe cuts, the corn bleeds
Leverets trapped in a harvest blade
'Tis the time of man, the hare said
Here's the tractor, here's the plough
And where shall we go now
We'll lie in forms as still as the dead
In the open fields, the hare said
No cover but the camouflage
From the winter's wild and bitter rage
All our defence is in our legs
We run like the wind, the hare said
I've been cursed, I've been despised
As a witch with darkest powers
I shall goe until a hare
I've been hunted trapped and punished
In these my darkest hours
Wi' sorrow and such mickle care
I've been thrown into the fire
But I do not fear it
I shall goe until a hare
It purifies and resurrects
And I can bear it
Wi' sorrow and such mickle care
I've outrun dogs and foxes
And I've dodged the tractor wheels
I shall goe until a hare
I've survived your persecution
And your ever-changing fields
Wi' sorrow and such mickle care
I will run and run forever
Where the wild fields are mine
I shall goe until a hare
I'm a symbol of endurance
Running through the mists of time
Wi' sorrow and such mickle care
------------------------------------------------------
So now, with some background, you may better understand the symbolism of the photographs released from the Crawberry Hill site, where the earth is being physically damaged by the drilling and fracking going ahead on-site, and the dead, drowned hares collecting in the ditches that collect the spilled fracking fluid symbolising the damage being done not only to the physicality of the land, but the spirituality of our land.
Photos taken from the facebook group Battle for Crawberry Hill
Paganism understands that the physical and spiritual are not separate. There is no divide between ‘body’ and ‘spirit’. Therefore, it is vitally important that we work in the physical world practically, as well as magickally, if we are ever going to stop fracking.
For centuries the hare has been seen to represent the land, the open fields, the moon, fertility, witchcraft - the pagan spirituality of the land. Think on about the 'Easter Bunny' and folklore in Christian times harks back to this belief, saying that witches would shape-shift into a hare to travel unnoticed across the land.
From http://www.welsh-mythsandlegends.walesdirectory.co.uk
"An old woman was evicted from a small farm which she and her family had held for many years. She was naturally greatly annoyed at such conduct on the part of the landlord and of the person who supplanted her. However, she procured a small cottage close by her late home and there she lived. But the interloper did not get on, for she was troubled by a hare that came nightly to her house. A labouring man, when going to his work early in the morning, time after time saw a hare going from the farm towards the cottage occupied by this old woman and he determined to shoot this hare. He procured an old gun and loaded it with pebbles instead of bullets, and awaited the approach of the hare. It came as usual, the man fired and the hare rolled over and over, screaming and making a terrible noise. The man however did not heed this much, for hares, when shot, do scream and so he went to secure the hare, but when he attempted to seize it, it changed into all shapes and made horrible sounds, and the man was so terrified that he ran away and he was very glad to get away from the scene of this shocking occurrence.| A few days afterwards the old woman who occupied the cottage was found dead, and it was noticed by the woman who laid her out that her arm and shoulder were riddled with pebbles. It was thought that she was a witch and that she had troubled the people who had deprived her of her farm and that she did so in the shape of a hare. No one doubted that the injury inflicted on the old woman was anything more than the shot of the man, who supposed that he had killed a hare, when in reality he shot and killed the old woman. The farmer was never troubled after the death of the woman whom he had supplanted."
Maddy Prior captures all this much better than I can, in her song Shadow of the Hare.. please have a listen to the song...
I shall goe until a hare
Wi sorrow and such mickle care
I sall goe in the devil's name
An while I go home again
I am ruled by the moon
I move under her mantle
I am the symbol of her moods
Of rebirths cycle
I am companion to the Gods
I can conceive while I am pregnant
I call the dawn and spring in
I am the advent
I bring life from water
In a cup that must be broken
I whisper to the bursting egg
I'm Aestre's token
Scent of dog, scent of man
Closer closer, smell them coming
Hot breath, hot death
Closer closer, hard the running
Tongues pant, hearts thump
Closer closer, through the fields
Teeth snap, bones crack
Closer closer, at my heels
Nearer, yet and nearer
I can hear the hunter's knife
He is running for my dinner
I am running for my life
Winter wakeneth al my care
Nou this leues waxeth bare;
Ofte y sike ant mourne sare
When hit cometh in my thoht
Of this worldes joie hou hit geth al to noht
Man sprays no weeds
The scythe cuts, the corn bleeds
Leverets trapped in a harvest blade
'Tis the time of man, the hare said
Here's the tractor, here's the plough
And where shall we go now
We'll lie in forms as still as the dead
In the open fields, the hare said
No cover but the camouflage
From the winter's wild and bitter rage
All our defence is in our legs
We run like the wind, the hare said
I've been cursed, I've been despised
As a witch with darkest powers
I shall goe until a hare
I've been hunted trapped and punished
In these my darkest hours
Wi' sorrow and such mickle care
I've been thrown into the fire
But I do not fear it
I shall goe until a hare
It purifies and resurrects
And I can bear it
Wi' sorrow and such mickle care
I've outrun dogs and foxes
And I've dodged the tractor wheels
I shall goe until a hare
I've survived your persecution
And your ever-changing fields
Wi' sorrow and such mickle care
I will run and run forever
Where the wild fields are mine
I shall goe until a hare
I'm a symbol of endurance
Running through the mists of time
Wi' sorrow and such mickle care
------------------------------------------------------
So now, with some background, you may better understand the symbolism of the photographs released from the Crawberry Hill site, where the earth is being physically damaged by the drilling and fracking going ahead on-site, and the dead, drowned hares collecting in the ditches that collect the spilled fracking fluid symbolising the damage being done not only to the physicality of the land, but the spirituality of our land.
Photos taken from the facebook group Battle for Crawberry Hill
Paganism understands that the physical and spiritual are not separate. There is no divide between ‘body’ and ‘spirit’. Therefore, it is vitally important that we work in the physical world practically, as well as magickally, if we are ever going to stop fracking.
