Free Books! No Foolin’!

UPDATE MAY 28, 2023: I will begin charging for my work again in the next few days. Thank you to everyone who has downloaded and enjoyed the books. I hope they brought you some respite in escaping the stresses of the real world.

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Due to the disastrous pandemic of COVID-19, I am now offering all three of the current Druid Chronicles books for FREE. All I ask is that you stay home and read… and maybe share my books if you think someone will like them.

Get FREE Druid Chronicles ebooks here!

All three books are only free on Smashwords at the moment, but Smashwords is awesome and offers ebook files in most popular formats. Amazon will probably take a few days to catch up.

How to use Smashwords

Happy reading!

Changes

I was musing this morning on how so many people’s lives have been dramatically changed within the last few weeks, and how, except for the last two weeks of preparation, that of my family remains almost the same.

We all work in service jobs, so we’re all still going to work. After my cleaning frenzy last week, my schedule went back to normal: work on the weekends, horses in the morning, laundry/cooking/cleaning in the afternoons, and video games or reading in the evenings. I haven’t been writing for a few months now but have started to consider when I’m going to fit it back into my schedule due to the one big change.

The big change is that because Rory is out of school, my days are not my own anymore, if indeed they ever were. Luckily, her mom has been going to work in the afternoons so I still have my precious time at the barn. Edward refers to this has my “horse therapy” and with good reason.

Today I spent the morning working with Peregrine and Luna. After lunch, I took Rory outside to play while I cleaned up the flower bed and picked up trash left over from the pool and when Ed painted the house last year. Then I finished the Witcher book, couldn’t find any others (Surprise! We don’t have them!) and grabbed a Shannara book.

The Shannara novels by Terry Brooks are my lifelong favorite and in the past several years I’ve been buying signed copies… and putting them on my bookshelf with the previous ones. One of my resolutions this year was to read all 50+ books that I’ve bought and not read in the past decade, so it seemed a good place to start.

 

Tonight, my younger sister texted to ask if I had any masks, or a sewing machine, presumably to make masks. I texted back to say no, we didn’t, and that those homemade masks are next to worthless unless you add a HEPA filter to it. Her son was sick all last week and still wheezing this week. She’s sick now, too… and so is our mother, who was tested for COVID-19 today. She’s in her 70s. Forgot to mention, my sister and nephew are living with our parents while she’s attending college.

So much for us staying away, I thought. Then again, my nephew was in daycare and my mom is an administrative assistant (i.e., church secretary) who of course deals with the public. I told her two weeks ago that she needed to start working from home and that my sister should pull her kid out of daycare, but I received noncommittal responses.

No one dissembles better than my mother.

I don’t know any facts about their illnesses, but my guess is that they all have been infected with the novel coronavirus – because clearly it’s been around longer than a few weeks and we’re only just noticing now.

Time will see what tomorrow brings.

Apocalypse Now

I’ve never managed to keep a diary even once in my life – which clearly has carried over into blogging – but thought it might be nice to have a record of our experiences here in Geektopia. We have a little different perspective than most people, as my husband and I do not have to worry about continuing to work or receiving an income.

That’s because we’re nurses.

Currently, Edward is working on a cardiac floor of an acute care hospital (full time/overtime), and I’m doing private duty nursing for a single client/family (part-time).

We’re both assuming that we’ll get COVID-19 at some point. This is why we have postponed our master bathroom reno, bought a big freezer, and stocked it. We also stocked the pantry and have enough toilet paper for about a month (per usual). We expect to be quarantined at some point and I didn’t want to worry about food.

All three of my adult children live with us, plus my granddaughter. I also invited my oldest son’s girlfriend to shelter with us during the pandemic. I had a family meeting with the kids and outlined our pandemic game plan. I’m happy to say that, 10 days later, they’re all sticking to it quite willingly. It helps to live in a household of introvert nerd video gamers.

We are social distancing from both sets of elderly parents, as they are all in the high-risk category for death if they contract the coronavirus.

I spent all last week cleaning out the basement den (it was disgusting) and then attacked the living room. I listened to NPR pretty much non-stop. Ordinarily ingesting this much news-related content would cause me significant anxiety, but updates related to the pandemic have done the opposite. Maybe it’s because this is my field of expertise. Not pandemics, but health care. The more I know, the better I feel, and the more I can help both my family and other people.

I’m still not finished with the living room but after a winter of eternal rain, the weather turned nice. I’m sitting on the back patio with my laptop. I was going to read but found myself carrying on an inner blog-style monologue while making Rory’s lunch, so figured I might as well start writing.

Rory is my 7-year-old granddaughter who is surely a changeling. I’m convinced that the fae switched our real grandchild at birth and left Rory. All my children are pale-skinned, short, and introverted. Rory gets tan in the summer, is tall for her age, and loves to talk to everybody. Of course, she’s out of school now, and of course, I’m keeping her while her mom is at work. While she wasn’t crazy about school, Rory does miss going to the park and playing with other children, so I’m trying to strike a compromise between making her play alone all the time and retaining my sanity. Having a beautiful day to play outside is a gift.

Apocalypse picnic on the patio.

Our veggie garden was fairly successful last year, so we decided to play gardener again. We bought veggie plants at Lowe’s on Monday evening. Side note, we were first in line and my fellow Americans demonstrated their complete lack of interest in social distancing when they lined up behind us. I thought about telling them they were in the presence of someone who worked in the hospital but didn’t want to scare the cashier.

Yes, I am ballsy enough to do it, and no, my husband doesn’t give a shit about me being brash and mouthy.

My daughter weeded part of the garden over the weekend, and I finished it on Tuesday. Yesterday and today I spent a couple of hours planting. I didn’t have a hand in any of the gardening last year, so it was a nice surprise to find that the weeding and planting only took about four hours total. I expected it to take a lot longer.

I planted Georgia sweet yellow onions, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, Brussel sprouts, curly kale, and one purple kale. We have a bunch of tomato plants and some asparagus but they’ll have to wait until Edward finishes off the north and south ends of the raised beds. They need weeding and good soil.

Now I’m going to continue reading The Last Wish: Introducing the Witcher. I really enjoyed the Netflix series and found out that my bookworm husband has all the books. Because of course, he does. More later, as things progress.

Hurry Slowly

I have become a big fan of podcasts. I picked up “Happier” with authot Gretchen Rubin and “10% Happier” with Dan Harris this time last year because I was miserable, riddled with anxiety and depression. Rubin offers practical, everyday suggestions for how to be happier, while Harris attacks the problem from the meditation and spiritual side.

When I ran out of that, in the summer I turned to “Happier in Hollywood,” which is fun even if you’re not in Hollywood or a TV writer.

I recently discovered “Hurry Slowly” by Jocelyn K. Glei, which has become my favorite. It’s “about how to find more creativity & meaning in our daily lives” and has made me completely change the way I think about my own creative efforts and my ideas about productivity.

For the last couple of years, I’ve been trying to cram the square peg of creativity into the round hole of Google calendar in the name of the holy god Productivity. Occasionally I bemoaned the lack of creative flow during the times I planned to write, telling myself that “butt in chair time” was paramount to getting my books written along with everything else I had chosen to pile on my shoulders.

It’s true that sometimes you have to make yourself sit there and you cannot wait until inspiration strikes, but it is also true that you have to allow time and space for the moments when inspiration does flow. For me, this is usually when I have planned to do something else (typical Rebel).

Creativity cannot always be scheduled like home organizing sessions. It’s good to set aside the time to do it, and research has shown that doing the creative thing at the same time every day helps jump-start the brain for that activity, but don’t limit yourself to those times and don’t feel obligated to sit in a chair for an unproductive 4 hours.

Sit for 30 minutes and if nothing happens, do something that will get the creative juices flowing. This is not social media, surfing the net, or watching TV. Take a walk. Do yoga. Go for a hike in the woods. Fold laundry Mindless household chores work great for me, no lie. For one thing, they’re boring. For another, I often pretend I am a character doing this menial task and inevitably they start talking to another character. Voila! I have a conversation.

So far, it’s working, and I think it will continue to do so. I don’t know if it’s all the work I’ve been doing with my hands (on my son’s cosplay) or binging so much Netflix this week, but my creativity well has been flowing freely. Thursday I wrote an effortless 1100 words and on Friday 1200 more. Sunday and Monday were the same.

Clearly, something is working.

Glei also discusses the effect that email, interruptions, and social media have on our lives, which has made me take a long, hard look about the mindless minutes and hours I’ve spent on Facebook and Twitter. At the end of one episode, she discusses how we’ve become like sportscasters for our own lives, broadcasting events on social media.

Thus made me take a hard look at my Facebook use. Why is it that I have felt compelled to share my life, my horses, and the funny things the kids say with the world of Facebook? And why do I feel like posting but hardly ever call my mom or dad to talk to them about these things? It’s like I have chosen a superficial relationship over real ones. Why would I find that preferable?

Until I have an answer to those questions, social media will no longer be given the gift of my time and attention. And is that really how I want to spend my life? I say that writing novels, reading, and drawing are priorities in my life, but if that’s really true if I’m frittering my time away posting ephemera?

I have frequently felt like there wasn’t enough time for reading in my life, which is crazy because it’s one of my favorite things to do. Also, I can’t be a good writer if I’m not first a good reader. Once my Facebook usage dropped by 90%, I magically discovered the time to read.

My goal for 2020 is to continue along this path of learning to hurry slowly. Hopefully it will be a lifelong focus. It just might lead me to great things.

Self-Doubt

Somehow, even though I was dreading writing Chapter 20 because I thought it was going to be dull, I managed to write chapters 21 and 22. It actually ended up being fairly interesting stuff.

So there I was again, staring at the beginning of chapter 23 and doubting myself – which is stupid and irritating because all day I’ve been eager to sit and write it. I had a fabulous idea yesterday while driving out to the boarding stable and have been ruminating on it ever since. And yet, I’m staring at a blank page with no idea how to start it because, of course, the idea I had was the exciting part in the middle.

I do this a lot. I have this really great idea for an exciting scene but I have no idea how to get in or out of it. The solution is to just write the scene and then work my way forward and backward to complete it. It’s weird, but it works.

Luckily, I also have the material from the original draft of these novels (from back when it was one book), so now I have two half-finished chapters. Not bad for a couple hours’ work, but one of these days I hope I’ll be able to approach a chapter with confidence rather than trepidation. After all, that lack of confidence makes no sense and has absolutely no basis in reality.

I always have another good idea. I should remember that tomorrow when I sit down to write.

Procrastination and the Temple at Delphi

Where research is concerned, the prevailing advice to writers is to get the story down and then go back and fill in the details. I’ve never been good at that, simply because my brain hits a roadblock and refuses to go forward. Also, quite often I need to know how far apart places are (I use real maps on Google Earth) so that I know how far my characters are going and how long it will take them when riding their horses or walking.

This week’s research time suck was the Oracle at Delphi because for some reason I decided in a prior novel that somebody had recreated the temple to Apollo, and then for purposes of tying off storylines, decided that Davis and Angie needed to go there.

So instead of writing Chapter 20 like I was supposed to yesterday, I wasted hours researching the layout of the temple. I knew it was about 78 ft wide and 197 ft long (23.82 m x 60.32 m to be exact) and I was trying to figure out what the diameter of the columns is and how far apart they were spaced. All this was because I couldn’t find the info out directly, but the sources I found said the Greeks considered the perfect spacing of columns to be 2.25 times the width of the columns. I am terrible at math and abysmal at algebra, so I don’t know why I even attempted it.

I ended up ranting about how difficult this was, and my husband and older son trying to help with the math but also trying to convince me to just pick a height and be done with it. I do admit to being something of a perfectionist so that was hard to let go of. After educating them and my daughter on how the Greeks measured things, all I could say was, “Those Greek people!” To which my daughter replied, “There was nothing else to do, so they spent all their time doing math.”

It made me laugh and I realized how ridiculous I was being and that a close estimation was, in fact, good enough because only about 6 of the columns are still standing in the temple and it has no roof. And honestly, if anybody writes to tell me, “Hey, your info on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi is all wrong” then I will immediately rope them into giving me the correct information and update the book online. Having the ability to fix things on the fly is one big plus of being an indy author.

After 2 or 3 hours of research and 15-30 minutes ranting to my family (which they are well accustomed to at this point), I wrote three sentences describing the temple.

THREE.

It took me three hours to write three sentences, and I can usually write a chapter in that amount of time.

So was it really about wanting to get it right, being a perfectionist, or something else?

As it so happens, I was listening to the “Happier in Hollywood” podcast that day and they talked about procrastination being the product of fear rather than lack of discipline/focus. I knew kind of what needed to happen in this chapter but I guess I was afraid of not getting it right. Or more truly, sitting in front of my laptop with nothing to say.

I went for a walk the next day, which usually stimulates my creative juices, and wrote a conversation for the chapter on my phone. Before bed last night I had another brief convo idea, and also wrote that down. This morning I woke up thinking, “What if Davis decides/threatens to destroy the thing?”

The cure for anxiety is action, and today I took action by transcribing my notes from my phone into my Word doc. I also happily noted that I’d already written 5 pages of material and, considering that I like my chapters to be at least 7 pages, probably didn’t have to write that much more. I did get sidetracked trying to figure out how long it takes to hike up there but after 5 minutes reminded myself that it doesn’t matter because this temple is not in Greece.

So I got to work and wonder of wonders, it just flowed. In fact, the scene will continue in Chapter 21, which I’ll work on tomorrow.

 

 

Midweek Update

I think I mentioned that I started writing Chosen: Book Four of the Druid Chronicles (hereafter referred to as either DC4) in January and primarily quit because of anxiety/depression/exhaustion, but the other reason was that I really wanted to write it from both Davis and Angie’s perspectives. However, I was concerned that it would be confusing to read even though each entire chapter would be from one person’s viewpoint. Most of the time that’s fine, but when I read Allegiant by Virginia Roth, I got confused as to whether it was Tris or Four talking – my fault and not hers because when I read I tend to skip over titles and dive into the next chapter.

I couldn’t decide what to do so I did what comes naturally – procrastinating! I also discussed it with a good pal who is also a beta reader and DC superfan, and she thought it would be fine. But I still had to think over it some more. The back of my mind is kind of like a crockpot, always something cooking in there.

I decided to go for it. The worst thing that can happen is that I have to rewrite half the book back to Davis’ perspective or delete a bunch of chapters entirely. The best thing that can happen is that you get a better view of some of the events I have planned for my hapless hero. After all, unconscious and/or sleeping people aren’t very good storytellers.

I already had something like 8 or 10 chapters written, so I wrote three brand new chapters, 2 – 4, from Angie’s point of view (POV), kept chapters 5 and 6 pretty much the same, and reworked 7 and 8 from Davis’ POV to hers. Half of 8 was already written, so I changed that to Angie’s POV and added something I hadn’t planned but what seemed like a good idea. I was going to move on but the story seemed abrupt and some stuff had been unaddressed, so I’m adding another chapter between 8 and what was 9, so now 9 is 10. I try to write chronologically as much as possible, but when I get good ideas (or good suggestions or critiques from others) I like to try and use them.

I wanted to alternate their viewpoints but that’s already blown out of the water so I’m just going to let the story flow from whichever character tells it to me best. I’ve written other books and have other works in progress, but none of my other characters are as wild and unpredictable as these druids. Davis and Angie are willful and headstrong, so I just let them do whatever they want. It’s always more interesting than whatever I had in mind, anyway.

On to chapter 9!

So fed up

This week’s writing had been repeatedly interrupted and postponed. Some of it has been my family and I worked an extra day this week, but most of it has been my own rampant disorganization and inability to focus. Honestly, the only way I finished the other three novels was by almost totally abandoning cooking and cleaning. So you can imagine what my house looks like.

I started writing Chosen (Druid Chronicles book 4) this past January but was derailed by needing to find a job and frankly, several months of anxiety and depression. Might write a blog post on that later, but for now I’m mostly over it.

I set Labor Day as my goal date to start writing again and it went swimmingly that first week. As the saying goes, something that can be done at any time is often done at no time, so I scheduled my writing sessions from noon until 4 on weekdays.

I was JUICED with creativity and excitement. I would prefer to write daily because I think that staying in the habit of sitting with my laptop makes it easier to dive into those still, deep waters where the magic happens, but I work as a private duty nurse on weekends – 16 hours on Saturday and 8 hours on Sunday, so that’s not feasible right now. Fortunately, I have Monday through Friday to get some writing done. Unfortunately, I also have all those other things to get done: grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, and laundry. My house is also super cluttered, so decluttering is also a priority. BTW, I am a feminist and think household chores should be shared as equitably as possible. However, my husband is currently paying all the bills (and usually working 60 hours a week), allowing me the free time to write and play with horses, so I think it’s only fair that I take on the lion’s share of the housework.

Sept. 11th was my granddaughter’s birthday so the day was spent cleaning and decorating. After that. Another nurse works weekdays for this client and her family experienced a terrible tragedy during my second “writing week,” so I worked four extra days between weeks 2 and 3. I really like my client, and it was my choice to do so. Then it was my older son’s birthday, so more cleaning for company because of course, the kitchen was a wreck again. This past week was just a clusterf*ck and so far I’ve only been able to write for four hours on Wednesday. Granted, my husband wanted me to play video games with him on Tuesday, but for the most part, I’ve been chasing my tail with trying to get the daily duties done – and failing miserably, might I add.

Shit happens and shit is going to happen. While I’ve become quite a bit more organized, I’ve come to the realization that I need to be uber-organized or I’m going to feel like I’m constantly drowning. Granted I’ve put a lot on my own plate, but apparently, I like it that way.

I’ve heard that every minute spent planning saves 10 minutes in execution. Since cooking and grocery shopping is my biggest stumbling block right now, I’m going to focus on that first. Planning and precooking haven’t worked out well in the past because by the end of the week I don’t want to eat what I’ve already prepared. To combat that problem, I’ve compiled a list of family favorites (i.e., my favorites) so that no matter what the meal, I’ll be happy to eat it.

My other major stumbling block involves those times when I know I need to do something so the rest of the week goes more smoothly, but I just can’t make myself do it. I chalk that up to being a “Rubin Rebel” (as I like to call it). If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go to https://quiz.gretchenrubin.com/ and take the Four Tendencies quiz. The Rebel tendency is the rarest and is characterized by difficulty meeting both inner and outer expectations. So nobody can make me do anything, not even me.

Yeah. It sucks a little bit.

However, the Rebel’s strength is that we can do whatever we want to do, and we are motivated by identity. Thus, I think of myself as a novelist and I want to write, so I have successfully written and self-published novels. So the way to get around not wanting to go grocery shopping or do meal prepping is to remind myself that I want to write and can’t do that unless I’m organized and fed.

Here’s hoping the plan works. *fingers crossed*

Zombies, Run! 5K Trainer

I’ve been meaning to start running again for about a year now, and while the C25K app is a wonderful training app, I needed a little more encouragement.

I downloaded the Zombies, Run! app several weeks ago and used it for the first time today. Without giving away too many spoilers, here are my thoughts on my first run.

First off, it’s walking and running because, duh, it’s a trainer. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention, or maybe they didn’t give instructions, but I was initially confused on exactly when I was supposed to be doing what – except for the first run segment when they tell you to run for your life. I’m still not sure but settled on running during the silent parts and walking when the dramatization continues.

Note: My music drowned out the dramatization segments so I had to keep pausing it manually. I need to to set the music app to pause or quieten for other apps.On to the story. I found myself in a helicopter going to Abel Township. It sounded like an island of sanity (or at least safety) in the middle of the zombie apocalypse, and a nice British lady explains that they need “Runners” to do missions and bring back supplies.

Some asshole fires a rocket at our helicopter, upon which Nice British Lady sounds mildly alarmed. Must be that British stiff upper lip. As our wounded bird plummets to the ground, I can’t believe she isn’t screaming right now? I’d be screaming if I could fucking breathe. You want me to what??? Oh, hell, no, lady. Parachuting from a falling helicopter is like jumping into a food processor. I’ll take my chances in here.

7:01 PM
Nice British Lady didn’t make it. But I did! Yay me! As I got on my feet, a helpful British gent contacted me on the radio telling me to RUN!

7:07 PM
As I enjoyed a breather from the run, some egghead gets on the radio and vaguebooks about some file that may or may not be the salvation of the human race, but I’d better run to avoid the zombies on the way to the site. Oh, and no supplies = no entry? Are they freaking serious? Like I needed more motivation than not wanting to be fast food for a zombie. Or food that’s supposed to be fast but isn’t because you’re stuck in the drive-thru waiting for it still.

7:15 PM
Right. Get the important info to the township. Just call me Mazer Rackham.

7:20 PM
Oh shit oh shit Oh shit I can’t BREATHE please tell me I’m safe so I can stop.

7:22 PM
Oh, thank goodness. Am I getting a blister on the ball of my foot? I know it’s been a couple of years since I ran on the regular (okay longer than that), but these are Altras I’m wearing. They make me look like Ronald McDonald going through a fabulous phase.

7:25 PM
Oh, thank the gods that ever were, I made it. What’s that? Did I bring any food?!? Yeah, I did. It’s back there in the helicopter wreckage. Have fun getting it.

Super fun, ya? BTW, running isn’t required. Slow walking alternated with fast walking is perfectly acceptable. Just watch out for the Zoms!

In Appreciation of Earth Druids

Last week I developed a new appreciation for earth elementalists.

I was digging in a pile of dirt, loading it in a wheelbarrow, and dumping it in my horse’s stall. I get a little over-enthusiastic when cleaning his stall, and as a result, have dug out a lot of the dirt floor along with the poop and pine shavings.

Peregrine, maker of large poops

We’ve also had some heavy rains in the past couple of weeks, and while the barn is nice and dry during a rainstorm, the farm is on low-lying land. Groundwater has been coming up into the stalls, creating a good-sized puddle in the crater I’ve dug in the middle of Peregrine’s stall.

Wet conditions tend to weaken a horse’s hooves, and thoroughbreds typically have crappy hooves anyway, so he needs a dry stall. Thus, I had to do something about the puddle. The floor was also quite uneven so that needed to be addressed as well. Which brings me to my adventures in dirt.

I don’t know if you know this, but dirt is heavy. Like, really heavy. I imagine I did know it at one point in time, as I’ve done some gardening in the past, but over the past several years I’ve neglected the garden in favor of writing books. I’ve also never pushed a load of dirt around in a wheelbarrow that I can recall. I’ve transported horse poop many many times and it can get weighty, but it still has nothing on dirt.

Calling our garden neglected is something of an understatement. Before my husband cleaned up the front yard last summer, my daughter used to give her friends directions by saying “It’s the house that looks like it’s losing a game of Jumanji” and they found it every time, no problem. But I digress.

As you can imagine, it’s been quite a while since I’ve even looked at a shovel, much less used one. Each shovelful felt like about 5 lbs, but I didn’t count shovelfuls. According to DirtConnections.com, one cubic foot of dirt weighs about 40 lbs, depending on the type, density, dampness, etc., but I’m just going to go with 40 lbs because I’m already in over my head involving math in this post.

This dirt pile was a lot bigger before I attacked it.

The wheelbarrow I used can hold 10 cubic feet, but I only filled it up about a third because I wouldn’t have been able to lift it if there was more. So we’ll call it 3 cubic feet, weighing 120 lbs per load. Which, coincidentally, is how much I weigh. So basically it’s like I was pushing myself in the wheelbarrow. Which probably would have been more fun than pushing dirt.

Not much in the wheelbarrow.

On Monday I moved 3 loads of dirt, about 360 lbs. On Tues and Wed moved 4 loads of dirt, about 480 lbs each. Grand total: 1,320 lbs. Thank goodness for not-so-modern technology.

Boots the barn kitty, inspecting my work.

While I was digging I started thinking about earth druids and how much elemental magic they’d have had to exert to move all that dirt. Air, fire, and spirit (electricity) are essentially weightless, so those elementalists are exerting more willpower in controlling their elements than lifting or moving them. Imagine how much focus it takes to move air, an element you cannot see. Water druids are the only other elementalists to manipulate really heavy stuff, but most of them only work with relatively small amounts of water, like a couple of gallons. So even though water is heavier than dirt – 62 lbs per cubic foot vs. 40 lbs of dirt – earth druids are moving vastly greater amounts and so are doing more work.

Going with the theory that all druids have approximately the same size Well that contains their magic and that they all have about the same size “channel” through which they draw magic from the gods, how are earth elementalists able to do so much on such a large scale? How do they dig huge pits or raise thick walls? How do they tunnel through the ground? How do they create earthquakes?

It doesn’t make sense. Logically speaking, like a water druid who can only manipulate a few gallons, an earth druid shouldn’t be able to move more than a few cubic feet. Yes, I know we’re talking about a fantasy world with magic, but bear with me.

It made me wonder how an earth druids can move so much more of their element than the rest. Then I remembered when one experienced druid was teaching an inexperienced druid to earthmove, telling him:

“Feel the mother supporting you. Danu is the goddess of fertility, growth, and abundance. Permit her to help you grow and develop your elemental ability. She is the goddess of inspiration, intellect, and wisdom. Listen to her teaching and meditate on it. Allow your consciousness to flow into her, and let hers flow into you.”

But more importantly:

“[W]hen you engage with the Earth Mother, communicate your feelings of respect, of amity, of camaraderie. Let your needs be known. Instead of demanding assistance, simply… ask for help.”

The answer becomes obvious: earth druids are not doing all that earthmoving on their own. They have help from the earth mother herself. Whether she is worshipped as Gaia, Danu, Freya/Frigg, Terra/Tellus Mater, or an earth goddess from some other hearth culture, the earth is her spiritual embodiment.

Statue of Danu. Photo from John Beckett’s blog “Under the Ancient Oaks“

This is why earth elementalists spend more time in meditation than their counterparts who wield air, fire, spirit, or water. Communing with the earth mother on a regular basis provides the deep connection that is necessary for an earth druid to call upon her, ask for help, and receive aid. Through that bond, these druids are able to move vast amounts of earth and even to shake the ground underfoot.

Now that my horse is taken care of, I think I’ll go do some earthmoving in my own garden. I’ve neglected it long enough.