Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Come celebrate: Spring Equinox Party (3/19)

Dhr. Seven, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly; KinshipYoga.com

Kinship Yoga in Highland Park (about 5 miles from DTLA on the 110 Fwy) is much more than a yoga studio. Yoga instructor Meg is out to make it a venue where all her musician friends can play. This event seeks to capture the magic of the first day of spring, which is what the spring equinox (equal day and night) is today. Happy spring! Or should we say, Happy New Year? That's right, for most of the world today was always New Year's Day, when the world shakes of the dandruff of snowflakes, turns green, comes back to life again. Gaia is reborn, young again, fresh and full of anticipation with all its sprouts, greens, and flowers. And look at all those pretty pollinators! All we need now to overcome the buzzing, tweeting, swooning, zipping, eating, mating, or growling of hungry cubs are some human sounds to drown them all out. Come mingle and listen to music. It's not a yoga class. It's a party. Meg is putting on a dress. It's casual but a little more dress up than tight leggings and support tops. Or whatevers. Be comfortable. The music will be extra heartful as Amyrion, who leads the twice weekly healing collective, will have a band to accompany him. $25.
The rest of the time, there is plenty of yoga -- hot yoga (ashtanga, flow), cool yoga (hatha), outdoor yoga (weather permitting), group meditation, sleeping yoga (nidra), yoga to live music, soundbaths, cold plunges, concerts, energy healings (with a dedicated practitioner's office on site), special events, special one-time classes, and some of the greatest people in all of Los Angeles. Try it: NEW STUDENT SPECIAL

Monday, March 18, 2024

Happiness Poison — and the Antidote (video)

Dr. Waldinger, Big Think, March 15, 2024; Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Happiness Poison — and the Antidote | Dr. Robert Waldinger
(Big Think) Harvard University has conducted an 85-year-long study on what makes humans happy.

Zen, is it Zen? It's Zen Buddhism, isn't it? - No.
[Was it money, tripping on acid, alcohol, fighting, heroin addiction, lots of sex, smoking weed, drinking lots of water, money, oh I bet it's money, shiploads of money, a job that pays a lot, cars, houses, oh I bet it's lots of real estate, tenants that pay a lot, political office, hot yoga, cold plunges, talk therapy, it's not talk therapy is it, ayahuasca retreats,  getting into the Olympics, Math Olympics, winning chess tournaments, achievements of all kinds, overcoming adversity, martial arts, is it breathing, just being alive, having a disease then not having it, eating vegan, watching videos on YouTube, no TikTok, being addicted to a cellphone, meditating alone in a jungle under a fruit tree until the dawn of wisdom?]

Harvard professor's six-step guide to Zen

Psychiatrist [Zen Master Roshi] Robert Waldinger, MD, explains what Harvard found by asking, ► What is the one thing that, according to science, will make our lives richer and vastly more fulfilling? [Meditation, is it meditation?]

This 85-year continuing longitudinal study from Harvard says the answer is relationships. Dr. Waldinger is the current director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest-running research on adult life.

Tracking over 2,000 lives since 1938, Waldinger and his team have dissected the fabric of well-being, finding that wealth and achievements fall short compared to the power of our connections with other people.

Over the eight decades since the study began, scientists have determined that loneliness and isolation can have negative effects on our mental, emotional, and even physical well-being.

Key findings of this study suggest that nurturing relationships may serve as our best source of fulfillment, emphasizing the need for "social fitness" alongside mental and physical health.

According to Doc Waldinger, it’s time to invest in the bonds that matter which, ultimately, is an investment in ourselves.

ABOUT: Dr. Robert Waldinger, MD, is a clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, a practicing psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and a Zen Buddhist teacher and practitioner. For the last two decades, Waldinger has been the director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development. This study, conducted over more than 85 years, has analyzed the entire lives of 724 families to determine the activities, behaviors, and dynamics that enhance a person’s life-long well-being. Dr. Waldinger has dedicated his career to examining these elements and discovering what brings true fulfillment to human existence. He is the author of several books, including his most recent, The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness.
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LA Mushroom Club Gen Mtg: What happened?

LAMS Resident Mycologist Rudy Diaz (lamushrooms.org); Jen Bradshaw, Dhr. Seven, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation) (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Read this, Rudy. You'll like it.
WHAT HAPPENED
: Very academic in a peculiar way, this presenter is a dandy, a British professorial type, a don with a stutter and the off-putting habit of constantly amusing himself under his breath -- with an insider's "You wouldn't get it" laugh -- holding his finger under his chin. He's an old-timey (past life) identity trapped in a youngish body pursuing his old academic habits; it's an odd combo, which made it hard to absorb his point if he had one. He knows many mycological terms, a dense jargon for any newcomer. The minutiae of distinctions is astounding and growing.

Suffice it to say, biological organisms are different, and they're different partly because of their genome (nature) and partly because of their environment (nurture), but as there is no organism without an environment, we'll just have to see what we find. And what we find are mushrooms that are so (phenotypically) different that one would never guess they're related (genotypically). But they are.

Take one common gilled mushroom as an example. It has the typical phallic shape with gills under the umbrella head. Now raise that genetically exact mushroom in a cold temperature and it becomes a coral type mushroom without gills, almost a polypore (many tiny holes that release spores rather than papery flaps). This can be done in the lab, and it can happen in nature when it's cold. This is due to its epigenetics ("above genetics"), that part of the genome that tells the rest of the genome what to express of its many genetic potentials. You know, whether you get sick with some genetic illness that runs in your family has more to do with epigenetics then genetics, for it does not matter what's in their; it matters what gets expressed. How does the epi decide what to tell the genetics?

The environment (circumstances it meets in life) decides. The environment informs, and the epi decides, and the genes are just the coded instructions of which proteins to build once they are pulled and selected by the epi to express.

The much more interesting Buddhist philosophical question was never answered. Nor was the equally Buddhist question about, How does emptiness become form? That is, how does what has no form suddenly take a form? Biological organisms begin as soup with Brownian motion then they self-segregate into parts, and no one knows how or why. I wanted to ask if a kind of "spirit," because we no better name for it yet, isn't the cause, and what I would have meant to say was: When Kirlian photography is done, which is a kind of objective measure, one can take a living leaf, subject it to the photographical process and see all these energy patterns around the leaf like it's electrified. That's nice, because it's alive and were seeing its sort of "aura" or surrounding energy field. Now, cut that leaf. If the electrified field were just following the perimeter, we should see half the leaf now. But we do not. We still see the whole leaf. It's like there's a magnet behind a sheet of white paper upon which are strewn iron filings. What shape will those filings take? Just random? Not on your life. They will take the shape of the magnet's magnetic field. Cut those filings in two, separating half from the other half in a line. Will they stay that way? Not on your life. All of the remaining filings will keep the shape of the magnet exerting its invisible influence, its spirit, its ghost, its unseen cause of the visible manifestation. It's not magic though it can appear magical until we nail down the mechanism, at which point it becomes "common sense."

Here's the interesting Buddhist philosophical question at the root of the talk: Imagine a photograph of an axe. It is composed of two main parts, a wood handle and a metal cutting part. Now further imagine that this is my grandfather's old, trusty, beloved heirloom axe handed down to me. I whack a long and the handle breaks. IF I get a new handle for it, is it the same axe? Of course. I mean, it's the spirit of what my grandfather handed down to me with changeable wooden handles.

Okay, then I become a grandfather and hand that same axe to my grandson. He whacks it and the metal part breaks. He replaces it. Is it the same axe? Ugh, yes? Sure, it's the same, except with one problem: nothing of it, not one molecule of what my grandfather handed down remains, so how could it be the same axe? We still call it by the same name, "Grandpa's axe," but there isn't an atom of the original remaining. And say time is not a factor. Say, I break it the day I get it and replace the broken piece and then whack again and break the other piece and replace it. Is it the same axe? Of course not. It's two new/foreign pieces coming together in place of the original; it is in no way the original. Funny how time gave the illusion that it transitioned slowly into the same axe as the foreign part got assimilated, isn't it?

(This was pointed out by the Buddha with much more grave and alarming consequences when he realized that the "soul," the "self," the "personality," the "individual," the "ego," the "spirit," the "essence" of a person was a composite of five parts, all of them changing at every moment, unsatisfactory, and impersonal. These five categories (with piles of elements) are this body (my form, which is composed of the four great elements called materiality or the characteristics of physical particles called kalapas); and this "mind," composed of four elements or categories: feelings, perceptions, formations, and consciousness (a stream of mind-moments or cittas and therefore more a process than a noun, so that when science asks, "What is consciousness?" it has already erred in assuming it's a thing when it's actually an empty process of ever-moving, ever-altering, dying parts coming to cessation at every moment). So where's the self? So if I'm this self at this moment, what am "I" the next moment? The Buddha goes into much more intricate detail in the Abhidharma, and The Heart Sutra does a much more succinct job of condensing 100,000 lines of explanation in the Perfection of Wisdom literature or Prajna Paramita. Mind you, this is not a belief, not an article of faith as some might be inclined to treat it because the Buddha said it. It is an ultimate truth to be tested and verified. It does one very little good to know it as a concept, and has the potential for much harm if grasped incorrectly, because it is meant to be penetrated, known-and-seen, realized by insight).

The speaker, Rudy Diaz, brought up the paradox of the axe, but he just amused himself in doing so, nervously laughing and moving on. It is not the same axe but, more surprising than that, it was never the axe to begin with, given that it was in every iteration composed of miniscule impermanent parts arising, turning, and passing away, exchanging ions, spinning, decaying. In Buddhism this general awareness is called namarupa, "name-and-form," mind and body, or idea and substance. A substance is seen and given a name, an ideation.

A mushroom is spotted, it's described and categorized, written up, and later reclassified with a new name, and this is going on all the time. It will never end because it is really begging questions that the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein tackled in Philosophical Investigations. Diaz didn't mention any of this, but my cognitive and Buddhist psychology professor at UC Berkeley sure did. She would never shut up about Wittgenstein (Vit-ken-sshstein) this, Wittgenstein that, for he understood that the real question was: Are there natural categories or arbitrary one, real ones or just the ones we make up? Our intuition is that there are natural ones, and we're just discovering them. But humans categorize things differently and, in any society, reasonable people will disagree as to what is in or belongs in a category and what does not.

We are not seeing objective reality, and we never have been seeing it. When we become fully enlightened, will we? We can hope, but that's not at all clear. One may just use the categories people already believe in to try to teach them something, knowing that it's all arbitrary, or perhaps natural categories do exist but change over time. Maybe something was like that then and is like this now? It's not impossible. So all of biology is just a p*ssing contest among mostly men pursuing their pet theories and advocating for them with their power of persuasion until they die or some upstart comes along and pushes a new view. What's all this got to do with mushrooms? There are no universally agreed upon objective measures by which to categorize.

Goodness knows, perhaps an edible mushroom in a different environment becomes inedible or poisonous or foul tasting, and maybe a poisonous one becomes innocuous. Surely, over time, things change. They change, we change, the science (methods or standards of investigation) change, and all of this causes an interaction effect. None of it is stable. So do mycology, that is, study mushrooms, but don't expect hard and fast rules. And come to the next general meeting, which looks more interesting.

Visit a Los Angeles Mycological Society (LAMS) general meeting after February's very successful annual Wild Mushroom Fair at the LA Arboretum.

Meeting details

PROGRAM: "Mushroom Abnormalities and Metaphysics of Identity" with guest speaker LAMS Resident Mycologist Rudy Diaz. FREE. RSVP:

What do we know about mushrooms?
Living organisms are unique in that they show goal-oriented chemical actions that achieve self-maintenance and replication.

Although they give the appearance of direction, these functions are fulfilled through the random motions of molecules.

The central questions in biology, "the study of life," derive from a strange phenomenon, the emergence of “form” from “non-form.” It's like Buddhism's Heart Sutra says, "Form is emptiness just as emptiness is form..."

Fungi, displaying remarkable tolerance for aberrations in form, serve as a window into basic properties of complex traits and their evolution.

In order to make sense of these “traits” in a genetic context, it is necessary to reevaluate assumptions made about how life operates in general.

Specifically, in asking the question “Why does this mushroom look abnormal?” we are confronted with a more intimidating question: “How can separate individuals look the same?”

The common answer claims that genes encode a “program” for the construction of forms. By sharing the “same” genes, two individuals follow the same program.

Inky cap about to go black
However, the genetic control of biological traits is not predetermined (Diaz et al., 2023). Rather, it is more appropriate to view similarities between individuals of a species as owing to genetic (i.e., informational) “constraints.”

In mushroom (fruiting body)-forming fungi, loose-enough constraints on development seem to have allowed many instances of repeated evolution in reproductive forms.

More info about LAMS events, including a biography of this month's speaker, is available on the LAMS Calendar page. Directions to location at the community center: LAMS Locations

Berkeley Zen Center lay ordination (video)

Berkeley Zen Center; Dhr. Seven, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly

BerkeleyZenCenter.org
Three members of the Berkeley Zen Center sangha (spiritual community) received "lay ordination" (Zaike Tokudo) from Sojun Weitsman Roshi and Hozan Senauke Sensei in the summer of 2017.

Such commitment to practice is possible in Mahayana Buddhism, particularly in the Japanese tradition practiced in the United States.

This ceremony takes place once a year at BZC and is a significant rite of passage for each participant and for the whole sangha.
You're never too old to RNR if you're TYTD.
Those present have the feeling that we are all together witnessing and participating as those ordaining receive the Buddha’s precepts.

Those ordaining are welcomed into the lineage of Shakyamuni Buddha and Suzuki Roshi’s family.
How to sit zazen: instructions

This is a talk given at Berkeley Zen Center on Friday, May 14, 2021, by Hozan Alan Senauke. AUDIO: Listen to an audio-only version of this talk: Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed. Subscribe to The Berkeley Zen Center Podcast: RSS.

Hozan Alan SenaukeABOUT: Hozan Alan Senauke: Sensei began practicing at BZC on Dwight Way and later established his practice as a student of Sojun Roshi in the early 1980s. He was ordained as a Zen priest at BZC in 1989, receiving Dharma Transmission from Sojun at Tassajara Zen Center in 1998. After serving as tanto (head of practice) and then as vice-abbot at BZC, Hozan was installed as abbot in January of 2021. More

Kava Bar & Botanical Lounge (the Valley)

KBBL (kavabotanicallounge.com), Reseda, Los Angeles; Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Dhr. Seven, Jen Bradshaw (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The root of this plant has special properties.
What if someone in Los Angeles opened a kava bar? You know, a lounge that serves kava drink from the South Pacific. The kava plant is from the island of Vanuatu, where such bars are called Nakamal, traditional meeting areas to build community.

Drinking kava is ceremonial. Gradually traditional Nakamals became less prominent, and they started functioning as prep and serve sites for groups.

As the popularity of kava grew, kava bars began to spread from the South Pacific to the USA. In recent years, they have been sprouting up in different cities across the country, such as Sedona, Arizona, but tropical Florida still leads the pack.

Current trends make kava a great social drink because people loosen up, relax, and plunge into a happy and relaxed mood. The best part is it gives one a good night’s sleep without the dreading have to nurse a nasty hangover the following morning.

Its popularity is on the rise, gaining momentum as a healthier alternative to alcohol. Some claim it offers the potential for weight loss. Is it the next innovation for coffee shops from coast to coast?

Learning about Kava
Maybe it’s a misspelling of Spain’s famous sparkling wine “Cava”? Kava is from the South Pacific with a long history and robust flavor that is experiencing a rise in interest in major US cities.

Made from the ground root of the kava plant, fans of the intoxicating beverage say it produces a state of calm relaxation and can reduce anxiety. Research suggests that frequent use does not impair cognitive function.

Its popularity has led to the opening of several kava bars that serve as pleasant social lounges, a new sort of cafe with comfortable seats, relaxed lighting, and lots of conversation.

Kava bartenders, kavatenders, are encouraged to socialize, talking up the plant’s history.

Positive Effects of Kava
Patrons of the kava community often hear a cheer from Fiji. It’s the catchall phrase “Bula!” when sharing drinks.

What is it? Most of KBBL’s kava is sourced from Fiji and Vanuatu, but there are also showcase strains from other islands. It is the root of the pepper plant Piper methysticum, hand squeeze into a semi-intoxicating drink customers find helps reduce stress, relieve muscle aches, and lubricates socializing for wallflowers.

Traditionally, kava was ceremonial on the islands bringing together friends and neighbors. Kava has a reverse tolerance. So those new to it should let KBBL know to help ensure an excellent first experience.

The more often it is consumed, the less of it that is needed to feel the effects. A bula is a shared experienced.

Customers at Kava Bar & Botanical Lounge, a non-alcoholic bar in the Valley in Los Angeles, enjoy traditional kava and premium organic mock-tails inspired by ancient island tradition.

The atmosphere in Reseda is unlike any other: Conversing, studying, gaming in the arcade are just some of the things visitors enjoy. There is a private outdoor patio, Live Music Fridays, and a plethora of events planned for this calendar year.

The community is extremely welcoming and provides a much-needed alternative for those who crave a social experience better than the average bar scene. Alcohol is so 2023. KBBL is embarking on a journey to grow the biggest sober scene in LA.

Looking for a kava bar? Look no further then Reseda’s Kava Bar & Botanical Lounge.

Sunday, March 17, 2024

Irishman was first Westerner to be a monk

Irishman U Dhammaloka (Laurence Carroll), The Dharma Bum; Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom QuarterlyTheDharmaBum.eu, Dana.IO/thedharmabum
First Western Buddhist monk: Irish U Dhammaloka (Wisdom Quarterly)



I think I'll be a Buddhist monk
The Dharma Bum is a feature-length, partially animated documentary film that tells the tantalizing true story of Dubliner Laurence Carroll, who became Venerable Dhammaloka.
  • Any relation to Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland? Of course not, because "Lewis Carroll" is the nom de plume (pen name) for Irish-connected Oxford don Dodgson, the author of classic literature for little Alice Liddell.
Laurence Carroll was born in Dublin in 1856 and spent his early life as an alcoholic hobo drifter bumming his way across the United States of America.
 
This freethinking, un-Catholic, un-Christian, atheist activist worked the shipping route from San Francisco, California, to Japan.

I'm glad I became a Buddhist and did so much to spread freethinking against the British Empire.
.
Pure Heart, Enlightened Mind
He found himself on the beach, hungover and homeless, after being kicked off the vessel for drunk and disorderly conduct.

He eventually made his way to Theravada Buddhist Burma, where he was helped by compassionate local Buddhist monks.

After five years as a monastic apprentice, he became the first Western man to ever don the saffron robes of a Theravada Buddhist monk.
Irish-American female Zen Buddhist saint (bodhisattva) in Japan: Soshin O'Halloran

Ven. U Dhammaloka: First Westerner to ordain as a Buddhist monk

(Belfast Buddhist, 4/1/16) Venerable Dhammaloka was ordained in Theravada Buddhist Burma (Myanmar) prior to 1900, making him one of the very earliest attested Western Buddhist monks. He was a celebrity preacher, vigorous polemicist, free thinker, and prolific editor in Burma and Singapore between 1900 and his conviction for sedition and appeal in 1910–1911. Drawing on Western atheist writings, he publicly challenged the role of imperial Christian missionaries and by implication the British Empire. His Irish name was Laurence Carroll or Larry O'Rourke or Willam Colvin from Cork and Munster.

UK-occupied Northern Ireland
They gave him the new Buddhist name U Dhammaloka,* and that is just the beginning of the story!
  • [*In Burmese U (pronounced "oo") is an honorific that signifies "sir," Dhamma is the Pali spelling of "Dharma," loka means "world." Interestingly, aloka means "light" or "bright whiteness" -- so his name, if pronounced with a long a, signifies suggests "Dharma Light or even White Dharma."]
U Dhammaloka was erased from history. His existence lay dormant for over 100 years. Why? The reasons are explored in the film.

Teach those Brits not to mess with the Celts
This Irishman caused quite a stir in his life, as he singlehandedly took on the might of the Christian British Empire in colonial Burma.
In the film we discover why he was under constant police surveillance and ultimately had to fake his own death as he transformed himself from an alcoholic bum to the original Dharma Bum. More
The Legend of the 6th Century Irish monk who may have sailed so America (grunge.com)
.
Happy St. Paddy's Day?
Wisdom Quarterly Wikipedia edit
The Patrician Roman Patriarch Pat
As we celebrate Saint Paddy's Day today, one has to wonder why British Protestant Patrick gets so much credit from the Imperial Catholic Church.

Saint Patrick (Gaelic Pádraig, Latin Patricius, "father of the people") was a 5th-century Romano-British anti-pagan, Christian missionary, and patriarch named bishop of Ireland by an outside entity.

Known as the "Apostle of Ireland," he is the primary patron saint of Ireland, the other patron saints being Brigid of Kildare and Columba. Patrick was never formally canonized [2], having lived before the current laws of the Catholic Church on these matters.
We may have been better off as pagans.
Nevertheless, he is venerated as a "saint" in the Catholic Church, which also venerates the Buddha as a Catholic saint (St. Josaphat), the Lutheran Church, the Church of Ireland (part of the Anglican Communion), and in the Eastern Orthodox Church, where he is regarded as equal-to-the-apostles and Enlightener of Ireland [3, 4].

He was a slave in Ireland for years, escaped back to England then seems to have returned to extract his revenge as a patriarch to impose Roman church law on the Emerald Isle.

Patrick is credited with forcing Christianity on Ireland, converting a pagan society in the process, despite evidence of an earlier Christian presence [7].

We defend Catholicism b/c the British don't like it
In Patrick's autobiography, Confessio, when he was 16, he was captured at home in Britain by Irish pirates and taken as a slave to Ireland. He writes that he lived here for six years herding animals before escaping and returning to his England.

After becoming a cleric, he returned to spread Christianity in northern and western Ireland. In later life, he served as a bishop, but little is known about where he worked.

By the 7th century, he had already become the "patron saint of Ireland." His feast day is observed on March 17th, the date of his death not his birth. It is celebrated in Ireland and among the worldwide Irish diaspora as a cultural holiday celebrating all things Irish.

It is hardly as a religious observance nowadays, but in the dioceses of Ireland, it is both a solemnity and a holy day of obligation, even if pagans mourn the genocide he wrought upon the island.

Good John Riley's flag of the Mexican regiment
The Irish are so much like the Mexicans in this regard, taken over and thoroughly saturated by the Holy Roman Empire, as if the Church liberated the people when it enslaved them and still tries to rule every aspect of their lives and exact tribute for Rome.

So much is this connection felt that there are Los Patricios ("The Patricks" not Patricians), who were US mercenaries ordered to fight Mexico, but when they understood the fight, led by John Riley, they took the side of Mexico and fought against the US, as anyone who champions the underdog might well have done. More

Is it Druid Genocide Day or St. Patrick's Day?

Matt Anderson (valknutmeadery.com.au); Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

This Day in History: Druid Remembrance Day
Celtic Druid, shaman, seer
On March 17th, we will not be celebrating someone greatly responsible for the cultural genocide of the Celtic pagans and Druids.

Instead, it's more appropriate to celebrate the life and culture of the Druids who were wiped out during Saint Patrick's missionary days.

Make sure to note that this was a "cultural genocide." So it doesn't mean Padraig went around killing all the Druids. Instead, he convinced the kings and leaders of the time to convert to a foreign religion, which meant no one needed Druids anymore.

WHO WERE THE DRUIDS?
Knowledge keeper
Ever since the Indo-European days, Druids were the keepers of the traditional laws, storytellers, wandering poets, priests, the philosophers of the time, astronomers, and king makers.

The name Druid means something like the Sanskrit rishi, "to see" (a "seer," "visionary"). They were the intermediaries connecting the people and the gods.

The word shaman (Buddhist Sanskrit shramana) is related to seer, meaning "one who sees in the dark."

They were the most important people of their time, roughly between 4500 BCE (before common era) to 400 CE.

Secret architecture of the Druids
The Celts, along with their Druids or seers, emigrated from Central Europe west to the British Isles and Ireland, taking their rich culture, art, and traditions with them. The ancient tales of their ancestors and their gods helped the Celts remain a fearless people.

Fearless people are hard to control. Thankfully, the Romans did not occupy Ireland, but their new imperial faith [and their worship of Ceasar's Messiah] did. It was an imposed faith that was used to bring all nations and cultures under the rule of one God.

WHO WAS "SAINT" PATRICK?
Rome's Gay Mafia the Vatican, with its cardinals, bishops and pope, rule the Catholic world.


Newgrange green, Ireland (Getty/Irish Central)
Here are two fun facts about St. Paddy. He wasn't Irish but rather a Roman Brit. He is mostly known for driving the snakes out of Ireland, never mind that there have never been any snakes in Ireland.

"Snakes" seems to have been a metaphor for pagans, because he wanted everyone to view them as evil for their refusal to following the new faith.

The conversions made the old Celtic faith irrelevant. The Romans eventually got rid of the Druids along with the culture of the people. Over time Druids ceased to exist. Written records were uncommon back then. The Druids were not allowed to write down their knowledge.

So all of that cultural history was lost. It had been recorded in the minds of the Druids, so once they were eradicated, their history was too.

Becoming a Druid involved a lifetime of study and dedication. So celebrating the Druids and their rich history is a much better way to celebrate Celtic pride than worshiping St. Patrick. SkÃ¥l. Source