Farming With The Weather, The Cunning Farmer Episode 6

In this sixth episode of The Cunning Farmer, Todd Elliott and I tromp-on through Chapter 6 (Agrarian Weather Magik) of his pivotal book, The Cunning Farmer: Agrarian Magical Practices, Mythology, and Folklore, discussing language and the rite of prayer to participate in the weather of Earth.

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The Cunning Farmer

A guide to restoring the ancient relationship between farming and magic

• Explores how to reconnect with nature and use practical, nature-based magic for gardening and farming, fertility, and abundance
• Examines Moon work, plant magic, forest deities, Earth energies, weather magic, the cosmology of ritual, and how to work with land spirits
• Discusses folk magic traditions of North America and Western Europe, including the grimoire tradition, Western esotericism, alchemy, Kabbalah, and shamanism as well as Taoist principles and Reiki

Magic and farming, in the minds of ancient people, were not separate realms of life, but both were woven inextricably into the way people lived. Through libations, prayers, hymns, dances, sacrifices, and rituals, ancient farmers connected to the sacred forces, the gods, nature spirits, and ancestors to make the crops grow, keep the herds healthy, the weather favorable, and release energies of fertility. These rural farmer priests and priestesses of the ancient past are the spiritual ancestors of today’s cunning farmers.

This book explores folk magic traditions of North America and Western Europe, including the grimoire tradition and the practices of witches and cunning folk for increased fertility. Todd draws on Western esotericism, Taoist principles, alchemy, Kabbalah, Reiki, and shamanism to show how to use practical, nature-based magic, just like our ancestors, for more abundant gardening and farming. He shows how to work with land spirits, including meeting the place spirit of your land—the genius loci. He also explores working with Earth and Moon energies, plant magic and forest deities, and ritual. Learn how to deepen your connection to elemental and celestial forces and explore the idea of rewilding the imagination to enhance your relationship with nature and the spirits that call it home.

Transcript

Welcome And Series Context

D. Ffrith Griffith 0:04

Corgia, hello and welcome to Unshod. Thanks for being here. This is the sixth episode in the Cunning Farmer series with my dear friend and brother Todd Elliott, where we are walking through his monumental book of the same name, The Cunning Farmer, chapter by chapter, and dialoguing, really sitting back and yarning with these thoughts, uh, both in view of the chapters, and I think if we were to really be introspective and honest with ourselves also around the chapters as well. The conversations get uh very wide, and so I think a lot of listeners are enjoying reading the book as these conversations come out, uh, because it gives us a fuller picture of not just what the book includes, but also why the book includes what it includes, or maybe some deeper dives into particular aspects of chapters that the uh publishing process doesn't foster, else we would have you know 5,000 word books, 5,000 page books, excuse me. If you are new to the podcast, thank you so much for being here. Uh maybe dip your toes into this episode, and if you are enjoying it, jump back to episode one here in the Cunning Farmer series, or jump even further back into the previous series, the Goddess Red series, with my dear friend, uh Taylor Keane, uh, all about the indigenity or the indigenous worldview uh in this Western Hemisphere. As we read through his book, or as we read through his book, Rediscovering Turtle Island. And then uh make it up and join us back, because there's more episodes coming. The episode I want to highlight, uh, due to some internet problems was cut quite short. And so at around the 45-minute mark, you'll just kind of hear the end of the episode. It's a little bit unnatural, but it's the best we can do given the technology. Hopefully, it uh leaves you salivating for more. That's at least our hope, because there's a lot more episodes coming. And so with that, and without further ado, the cunning farmer was tied alien.

Weather Magic As Participation

D. Ffrith Griffith 2:21

Well, Todd, thanks for being with us again. This is chapter six for those reading along, Weather Magic Using Magic to Influence, Thorms, Wind, and Rain. Um, a really awesome chapter. I think it's a cool point in the book. Um, having reread this in preparation for our time together today, it's a cool moment where it's so clearly participatory. The magic that we've been discussing in the text here. I think a lot of people see magic as something that occurs to them, or the wonderful majestic forces of nature or Earth Mother is pressed upon them and they feel maybe reactive in that way or receiving in that way, both positively and negatively. But something that you really get into in this chapter, and we've talked about this in the past too, is the active participation of magic, not just receiving, let's say, the uh orientation and energies of the cosmos, but giving back and participating in that. And so I think we'll explore that concept in much greater depth here. But anyways, thanks for being with us.

Todd Elloitt 3:27

Yeah, thanks for having me on again. Always a pleasure.

D. Ffrith Griffith 3:30

This this chapter is uh quite expansive.

Todd Elloitt 3:34

Well, I I think that one of the one of the most important things in in farming, aspects of farming, one of the most difficult aspects of farming is the weather, as as we've been discussing. And I think societies that have made their living through farming, which is practically every human society, or even even hunter-gatherers were concerned with uh with the weather as well. Uh so the the the office of the rainmaker was a very important office in practically every human society, and every society's come up with some some form of weather magic. And I I think there's a there's a psychological, almost a psychological need to feel like you can influence something which seems to be so far out of your control. And uh it it's my conceit to think that that you that one probably can influence the weather. I I think that I think uh my um my take on this is that if nature is with you know, looking at it looking at nature from an animist perspective, if if the forces of nature are intelligent and and personalities, then one can make deals with them. And so my jumping off point into weather magic is to find out who who we're dealing with in terms of who's making the weather, what what what spirits, what spiritual intelligences we're dealing with beyond behind the winds, behind the clouds, behind the weather as a phenomenon, and and try to go directly to them and talk to them. Um and pretty much every culture has come up with their own their own method of this that fits into their own personal their own cosmology. And I explore a couple here in this chapter.

Who Makes The Weather?

Todd Elloitt 5:24

Um so uh the chapter starts out with a quote from Empedocles, which I I really like, which Empedocles was a fifth century pre-Socrat Socratic philosopher uh who whose works are found only in fragmentary form, and and he talks about how uh he he can teach he can teach his students how to produce rain and influence the influence the weather. So right there in fifth century uh BC uh the Greek sh Greek philosophers and shamans were trying to influence the weather. Um but then I jump into a tornado season, which is which is always exciting here in Kentucky. Um we have some pretty bad storms and and one one particular um one particular spring, I guess it was about maybe three or four years ago, uh we had a really nasty low pressure system come in and just it was like a it was like a land hurricane and just produced, I don't know if you remember this, I forget what year it was, was it 2022 or 2023? We had 70 mile an hour winds just for a day or so, and um here in the farm was pretty scary. We I watched my kids' trampoline just pick up and roll away like a wheel. Wow. And I I I have one of my kids had a uh an event in town which wasn't canceled, and I I took the risk to drive there and I pulled up on Main Street in in our little town and watched the roof blow off of a building and fall into the street.

Psalm 29 As Storm Protection

Todd Elloitt 7:12

But during that storm, I um I had decided to try out, and uh, this is this is what I do when it when we have a nasty storm. Um, I try to use uh Psalm 29, recite Psalm 29, uh um a practice that I read about in um oh what's his name? Uh Jacobis Jacobus Swart's book, uh the book of sacred names, to sort of dispel the storm at sea. But I use it for storms at l on land. And uh you can read about it on chapter 85, uh, chapter on page 84 and 85, where you recite the psalm uh in Hebrew. Swart gives it in Hebrew in his book. Uh you can say it in English if you if you're more comfortable. Um, and I recite the psalm, I think it's 10 times. Uh it takes a little while in a little ceremony and um pronounce the sacred name of of God, the sacred name of the biblical sacred name of God Yahweh, uh multiple times in in the psalm. The psalm, I don't know if you're familiar with it. I gave it, do I give it in the in the book here? I don't think I do.

D. Ffrith Griffith 8:24

The beginning you give at the beginning of the chapter, um, the beginning of Psalm 29.

Todd Elloitt 8:27

I give like one line of it or something, yeah. The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedar trees, yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon. Yeah, it's it's about a storm. I remember the first time I ever heard that psalm, I was like, this is really amazing, where it equates the it equates to the voice of God with the wind, with the powerful wind that like strips the strips the leaves off all the trees and breaks the branches. And um, this was this day that I recited, this was certainly that kind of day. Um and I read it, and I I I think you end up chanting Yahweh's name 180 times. Um and I looked out my little window here of this of this room where I'm in, and this cedar tree, I just watched a branch break right off the cedar tree after I got done chanting this psalm, in which one of the one of the lines is the Lord breaketh the cedar trees. I was like, wow, I I was heard. And then and then oddly enough, um there's a there's a really excellent YouTube channel called Esoterica with uh um Justin Sledge uh puts this YouTube channel together where he dives into deep dives into various topics in esoterica. And there's one on he released one at the same time that I did this ritual on Yahweh's origins as a Canaanite storm god. And I thought that was, you know, I I had just got done this ritual and I went to take a break, and I got a notification in my notifications that he just released this episode about specifically mentioning Psalm 29. I was like, wow, that is a true and classic synchronicity that I got like the broken cedar tree and this other researcher putting out a uh an episode on the very thing that I was just talking about. I was just the very symbol I was just working with, the very entity that I was just working with. So um so yeah, well, we we did not we uh the storm kind of died down and we had really minimal damage here other than the other than the trapping, we had no damage at all and the cedar tree. So the how our home was unharmed, our barns were unharmed, our animals were unharmed, our crops were fine. So I I I count on that as a success. And so whenever we get a tornado warning, I will I will do that same practice. And I usually try to envision a large uh beam of light sort of standing above the farm with a shield, just like protecting the farm from whatever tornadoes or storms might pass by. And um, it seems like it seems like, well, not that what so far we've been pretty lucky that some of the big things have just gone around us or dissipated as they've gone close to us. Um so that's one aspect of of weather magic is to try to dissipate the strong storms.

D. Ffrith Griffith 11:21

It it especially in times as today when agriculture feels a little bit uh heavier ecologically than I feel like sometimes my my spirit is willing to bear. The droughts are longer, the storms are s more severe, the rains are heavier and they cause erosion, not you know, percolation into the wonderful stratas of soil and other living things. And and uh it it it it is interesting. It's it's it uh so many of these ancient traditions have the spirit of humanity supplicating the storm gods, the gods of storm or God Himself to either pacify or cause um nourishment to flow, whatever that might mean. And and I think so much of um so much of creation mythology almost seems to instill that like linguistic mythos, maybe into the created. Like so much of the Genesis creation story, so much of the Irish stories that are old that you can see as creation or otherwise, so many other stories that you and I have talked about from Roman to whatever. I mean, so much of it is this unification. I mean, even the Roman Romulus and Reban stuck in on the tit of the great G-Wolf, like even that is an aspect of a creation story that is the migration or really the mediation, the middle ground between like the terrestrial realm and then like the storms above, like the storm gods and things. So much of that. And it seems to write well into our language, the kept linguistics of the created. And that that that's interesting to me. It's interesting to me, especially from a magic perspective, in the sense that so much of what we talked about is the language of magic here. Like, you know, the words, the chants, the the being of that, the the the the the actual vocalization of this inner intent that walks in words into the outer space that then interacts with the outer things, the animant, the living, the being, and the breathing.

Sacred Names And Jewish Magic

Todd Elloitt 13:31

Yeah. Uh the text of Grammaton is the uh four-lettered uh name of God, uh which is mispronounced in English as Jehovah. Um, or more is more scholars, scholars usually say Yahweh. Um Jacob Schwartz says that it is pronounced um eyahwei. Those four consonants in Hebrew, yod, hey, vowel, and he are actually the consonants that double as vowels. So you've got so they make a putting together, they make a vowel noise vowel sound like eyah we and um in fact uh in a lot of like ancient magical traditions, strings of vowels are putting together strings of vowels are to make um nomina barbera or um nomina magica uh are is a method of contacting divine intelligences. So you'll you'll find like in in a lot of the Gnostic um scriptures and the Hermetic scriptures, you'll find long strings of vowels or in the Greek magical pyrie um that are pronounced and they don't really have any like necessarily any literal meaning, but they're but their uses to make contact with divine powers and that and the tetragrammaton is no exception. In fact, it might even be one of the one of the older ones. Um so it it means it is related to the um when Moses approaches the burning bush, that's when that's when uh the the God of the Bible reveals himself to Moses as a personal being, gives him his his name, and he says, I am that I am, which is in Hebrews Echia Ashir Echiah. And um he also he later on later on in the in the scripture he says that he says that um his name is Yahweh. And but those two those two, Echiah and Yahweh, um Ehy means I am that I am, and Yahweh is sort of is another version of that, like he who is or um the existent one or something like that. And um in Jewish magic, it is said to the uh as Swart Jacob Swart quoted Jacob Swart here in the book, tetragrammaton is an expression of vowels E-I-O-A, the frequencies of which were considered to act on the four levels of existence, but also on the fourfold expression of human existence. So it's supposed to set up a resonance across the four worlds of manifestation and sending forth the flow of energy between the microcosm and the macrocosm. And that's why it was forbidden by the third commandment of the in Moses' commandment not to take the Lord's name in vain. Um it's not like that commandment, I believe, is is relates more to this word than just saying, you know, goddamn or something like that. It it's like not taking a um, it's not using a sacred word outside of a sacred context. Um, so I I know we're we're using it academically here. We're we're we're pronouncing the word academically, and I don't think we're taking it out of a sacred context at this time. But um, it is important to not fool around with these things and pronounce them idly. You know, like in uh Monty Python's The Life of Brian. Yeah, who knows? That's a good habit.

Cross Cultural Links To Yahweh

D. Ffrith Griffith 17:15

Yeah. Yeah, it's it's it's it's always been interesting to me, and and I've never really been able to relationally dive into more depth than maintain my my occupancy at the surface level. But um the uh Pottawaname people, uh people of the north central western hemisphere, I guess, kind of the Great Lakes region of the modern day United States, they speak a language Bodiwadminwen. I think ah who was it? It might have been Patty Quarek. It might have been Robin Walkimer, to be honest with you. No, it could have been Patty Quarek. I'm lost in this. I need to fact-check myself. But she was writing, let's say it was Patty. Um, Patty was writing in her in her book, uh Becoming Kin, I think is what it's titled, that the uh minwen, their language, it's it's a very special language, but the but the idea of being, the the verb for being is Y-A-W-E, pronounced Yahweh. And I've always wanted to sit down somebody like Patty or somebody like Robin Walkhmer, and then sit down, you know, a Jewish, you know, rabbi friend of mine or mentor of mine or something, and then just like I want them to talk this through because that's crazy.

Todd Elloitt 18:31

Because that's really interesting. It's the same in Hebrew, basically.

D. Ffrith Griffith 18:35

It's it's the same in Hebrew. So we have these in in in the Pottawatomi, the people of the Great Lakes here in the Western Hemisphere, they have some of the oldest genetics in terms of separation from the Eurasian genome from a genomic perspective, oldest genetics in in in terms of human migration and lineage, um, much older than some of the other tribes and nations around them, as as I understand it. And and that has its own limitations and problems too. And so um it it it is interesting that their language remembers this sacredness of being. And in the interest, the Yodhe Vaveh, the four consonantslash vowels that you were talking about that make the modern mistranslation of Jehovah or Yahweh or whatever. Um, I heard uh one one fellow one time told me that um those four consonants put together is really the idea of life in the past, present, and future. Like we have a verb there that also is quixiotically or ironically looking backwards as much as it's looking forward.

Todd Elloitt 19:40

I think I think that's true.

D. Ffrith Griffith 19:41

Um the essence of being is is the point, you know?

Todd Elloitt 19:46

Yeah, I think that's true. I think that is that is what it means. It it he who was, who is, and will be. If I can find it anyway, I don't want to derail our conversation, but I think I think that is what it means. Um I think it's another thing that always struck me as interesting is that Jove and Yahweh sound very similar. There was a another like title of Dionysus, which was Ovoe, and so you would say, you would say Yo Evoe, which was a chant that, you know, that was a Bachic chant, Yo Evoe, which sounds so much like Yo He Vauhe. Um, so there's like other connections to those to those vowels were used by other cultures. Um and the connection between Yahweh and and Zeus was not lost on the um the ancient Greeks. And uh in fact, that's what caused the um so when the during the Hellenistic period when the the people who the successor kingdoms to Alexander the Great took over the Middle East, um I forget I Antiochus Epiphanes, one of uh I think he was one of the successors of Alexander, um, controlled Palestine at the time. And he being a Greek-speaking Hellene, I think he kind of thought that he could blend the Jewish religion with the Greek religion and tried to install um Statue of Zeus in the temple in Jerusalem and basically started the giant revolt, and which is celebrated in the in the holiday of known as Hanukkah, uh that because the the Jews managed to manage to re rebel against this and kick the statue of Zeus, get the statue of Zeus out of the temple and purify the temple. And anyway, it was it was a big deal to them that their god was not Zeus, but to the Greeks, it's like, well, all our all gods are one, or you know, all gods are about the sin of the interpretatio Greca, basically. They tried to put that on the on the Hebrew people, and it did not work. Right. But from somebody coming from like a comparative religion perspective, it is kind of similar. I mean, to the Greeks, Zeus wasn't just the god of storms, as Yahweh was not just the god of storms anymore. Zeus was, you know, the demiurge, the cosmicrator. He was like bigger than just a storm god. He might have started out as a storm god, but he became basically the uh if you needed a symbol for uh for God, Zeus was it. Like he wasn't one God among many, he was bigger than that.

D. Ffrith Griffith 22:45

You know, when you look at the Psalms, so many of the Psalms are supplications or prayers for protection or provisions from drought or things like this. And and I think a lot of people see a great difference. And I think the difference is cultural, and and I hope I'm not insulting these people, but I think the difference is cultural, it's not spiritual. I think a lot of people see the difference between a prayer of um climatic uh supplication and weather magic. I don't think they see these two terms as synonyms, and and I think I think there's debate, I think there's a place for conversation, and I obviously have not the final say on it. But the thing that has always interested me, and the thing that was very convincing to me as though I needed convinced or anyone needs convinced, when when you do read the Old Testament in the ancient biblical Hebrew and and you look at the titles of the chapters or the books, for instance, they have no chapters, I mean the books, like um you know, going back to Yothei Vavhe and the idea of I am who I am when when God appears in the burning bush before before Moses. That that book, Exodus, we call it Exodus, and I'm sure you know this, but it's not called Exodus in the Torah, in in the Biblical Hebrew original text, if you will, it's called Shemat, which literally means names. Like it's a book of names, and it begins as as I remember, these are the names of the sons of Israel. And then it goes on. And I read this really interesting book. Um, I'm trying to see if it's near me in the present. I don't think it is. It was by an Old Testament scholar, um, a Jewish man. Um I can't remember his name either. But he writes a lot that one of the problems that Pharaoh has at the beginning of the book of Shemaut or modern verbiage of Exodus, is um that his name is unknown to the Egyptian people, which is why he punishes the Israelis, the Israeli migrants, the sons of Israel that live in Egypt. And that he's trying to prove his name, that his name can be strong, because he's not from an actual pharaoh lineage. He's a new pharaoh, like he's he's maybe a coup or something. He's broken into the line of pharaohs and he's trying to establish his name. And to establish his name, he has to conquer a people, and that people just happens to be the sons of Israel. That's what this Jewish commentator of the book of Shema through the book of Exodus is writing. Again, kind of hunkering down on the idea that names have power. And and my point in saying that is in the Psalms, we have this prayer and plea, this this supplication for weather provisions. I mean, uh among many things, peace and happiness and love and all sorts of wonderful. I mean, the Psalms is uh an amazing place to live for a while. But it's magic if those names have power. Do you see what I'm what I'm what I'm getting at here? Yeah. That that yeah that seems to be the power of names, that is to say, the magical potency of those names, if they have power, your prayers in Psalms have power. Right? And and and yeah, it and I think that's a pretty fine meeting ground for a lot of people.

Todd Elloitt 26:00

Yeah. I think I think in Jewish magic, names are a huge thing in a lot of traditions of magic, but in in Jewish magic, names are huge. Like if you know the names of the angels, if you know the passwords to the heavens, if you know the the secret names of God, you can make things happen if you know the right names. There's like I forget what they're called. Uh there's there's specific names that are supposed to trigger trigger rain. There's specific angels that you can contact to trigger. There's like a million, not a million, but there's a lot of different names to to trigger things. And and since Jewish magic is so important to um Western magic, this comes down to us in these, in these books that we have of magic, these grimoires that are just basically lists of names that you call in the right succession to get the energies to flow across the levels. And that idea is so appealing to me that there's like there's these words you can say that make things happen. I mean, that's that's magic, isn't it? You know, that's that's saying the magic word, that's

Humility, Lost Names, Climate Grief

Todd Elloitt 27:14

yeah.

D. Ffrith Griffith 27:14

It it also is quite um humbling. I have a dear friend uh who lives down in North Carolina, as a death doula, and she talks quite often about um how so many you know settlers in the Western Hemisphere we would like to talk to the environment, we like to talk to trees, we like to say we talk to trees or throw courses about talking to trees or you know, whatever it is. And she says, but but those trees have a language and you don't speak that language. And many people today, because of colonialism or imperialism or genocide or what have you, also don't speak that language. And so there's a point of humility, right? There's a point of um humble awareness that us moderns while we have some, we don't have many names. And the names that once were sacred, the names that opened the heavens for rain need to be remembered. And that that remembering is gonna take a communal, a very collective consciousness, right?

Todd Elloitt 28:20

Um I think that's difficult. To to remember the names that have been lost or yeah, to realize that we have some and we don't have many names that have these these powers.

D. Ffrith Griffith 28:42

And that and that's an aspect of our loneliness.

Todd Elloitt 28:45

Yeah. I mean it's it's something it's something we have to reclaim anyway. Yeah. It's dead, they're definitely not known. And um, I mean, I have a stack of books right here that are full of names to make various things happen. I I don't, you know, I think it's there's more than the names. I I think it vain repetition is is a phrase that I've heard used with scripture or prayer. That you know, you you don't just say the names, you have to get yourself in the right frame of mind and the right situation for them to do anything. I don't think you can just go out there and say something. You have to practice and you have to um be humble. And um, I think there's a whole I think there's a whole ritual context that that makes it work more. And and also you can't you can't just start calling on a thing without a relationship either. If you if you want to um say slow down a s a storm by saying a prayer, well maybe the first time you maybe maybe you should practice that first, maybe you should get in contact with that entity first, maybe you should work with that, with those spirits that you're gonna call on before you absolutely need to call on them.

D. Ffrith Griffith 29:56

Patty Quarrick in her book, she's she I mean, uh uh I think she wrote it in 2018, 2019, but it's stuck with me since. She says, I wonder if climate change is just Earth Mother retreating in grief. And it was the first time for me thinking about it in that way. You know, because I think the idea of doing weather magic or praying to whoever that might be uh to quell a storm or to cause a storm, I think is so magn magnitudinally massive. I mean, I don't just throw more words like it that's what a massive thing, right? And yet at the same time, seeing storms and climate chaos and other aspects of our very horrendous modern world as these deities retreating away in grief for not being called on is yet also very tangible and real and and and really can be driven home to too many. I think I think Patty's book is is wonderful.

Todd Elloitt 31:00

If if I have it's an interesting way to look at it. I mean, and you know, you you're you and I both live in regions of the United States that have been going through droughts this spring, unusual dry spells, and um there's nothing that makes you feel more godforsaken than being a farmer and needing rain and watching it pass by or watching it not happen, watching your crops wither, watching your your pastures dry up, um, watching your animals get hungry and skinny. I mean, there's nothing that makes you feel more helpless and in the grip of powers larger than yourself that are possibly indifferent to you. Um it's a it's a profound psychological feeling. And I don't think there's, I don't think people who don't have this any skin in the in the weather game don't understand that. Um, because I'm passionate about the weather. I'm not, I'm not just a, you know, I don't just make small talk about the weather. This is my life. If it doesn't rain for a month, I'm screwed. And I start to be like, what am I gonna do when I'm screwed? You know, what am I gonna do when I don't have any crops to sell and and I can't support my family? It's there's a lot of there's a lot at stake. So so for me to go out and and I I can pray very passionately for rain. Um because I I care intensely whether it rains or not. And uh I I think all farmers, and and and as as I still I still have a little buffer between myself and the harvest failure because I live in the 21st century and can go to the grocery store and buy food. But ancient people were they were really screwed if it didn't rain. I mean, people are starving, and uh that's never really that really never left us psychologically.

D. Ffrith Griffith 32:44

Yeah, like you were saying, the the weather casters or whatever your word you use, they're very sacred offices in every society. I mean, if you think about it even today, even like the cloud-seating professionals of today are very rich and very powerful, um, regardless of how they get the job done. That's another subject. But being able to affect the weather seems to be an eternal human desire to the to the degree that it's replicable.

Todd Elloitt 33:15

Yeah, yeah. I don't think we can do it on our own. Uh I I have I don't know. Uh maybe maybe there's some Jedi somewhere that can do it, but I I think it's um I think it's absolutely there are larger powers than us, whether they're angels or gods or elementals or whatever, and and we have to work with them. We have to get them to do it for us. We have to ask them nicely, or or you know, I I talk about conjurations. I I think the ancient magicians would sometimes command them in the name of God that they do things for them. You know, that's one that's one take on it. But um I think you need to get the powers that control these things to work for you. Because I I I think we live in a in a in a as I've said before on in our conversations, we live in a world of minds and spirits and creative intelligences and that uh that arrange and and are behind the phenomena that we see in the in the world, uh manifesting in the world. So if we can get the the forces behind what manifests it to work for us to help us out, that that's the secret to making these kind of things happen. Um I don't know. I I uh just I just did this not that long ago. I I went down to my oak tree and um and prayed passionately for rain just a couple weeks ago, and we got rain, and I'm I'm not trying to take credit for it. I uh I think the gods, the gods uh we looked like we were headed for uh one of the worst routes I've ever lived through uh a couple weeks ago. I was I was seriously scared. I think the last time we talked, uh it was pretty bad here. We hadn't gotten any rain in a long time, and our crops were not coming up. I mean, we had planted potatoes and they sat there for three weeks. I we planted a lot of things and they sat there for three weeks in hard, dry ground and wouldn't come up. And I was starting to get scared, and I went down to my little my little sacred grove and one night on a new moon and prayed very passionately for some rain, and you know, we got some. And I I don't think we act alone, even I'm not the only person, but I don't think you can take credit for it. Like, oh, I'm you know, I am such a great druid or magician that I made it rain. I I think like other people were praying for rain too. You know, I think other I think the trees and the plants and the animals were praying for rain. I think we all are praying for rain together when we need it really badly. And I think sometimes the the powers hear us all. I don't know.

Words, Meaning, And The Weather

D. Ffrith Griffith 35:50

Yeah, yeah, I think it it it is interesting that in in in the Psalms, I'm thinking of Psalm 107. I can't quote the Psalm 2, but I remember in in something like one 107, there's a number of times where the um the actions of a people produce certain weather climates, and they stopped praying and there was a drought, or and they prayed and there wasn't a drought. It does it goes back and forth where good behavior is rewarded, bad behavior from the psalmist perspective um is is uh is punished, if you will. And that that interconnection between human occupancy on this earth and then the stratosphere, this this thing that is above us that spits, you know, or doesn't spit moisture down to let us grow and eat. There there's there's that wonderful tether there. There's a weave, and the weave is nurtured, supposedly, looking at it. I mean, we can talk Western European traditions, obviously Greek and Roman, we can talk Jewish. Um it it seems that the tether there is is woven between the heart of the people, the land, and this the sacred, let's say, uh the sacred lace of of that nomenclature. Not that God is nom, but it I think I think it can't be overlooked that the words and the meaning behind the words have power. Yeah, the meaning too.