{"id":13189,"date":"2023-03-06T16:21:41","date_gmt":"2023-03-06T16:21:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/druidry.org\/?p=13189"},"modified":"2024-01-02T16:41:44","modified_gmt":"2024-01-02T16:41:44","slug":"ecstacy-is-our-birthright","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/druidry.org\/resources\/ecstacy-is-our-birthright","title":{"rendered":"Ecstacy Is Our Birthright"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
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by\u00a0Kevin Emmons<\/a>\u00a0reposted from Kevin\u2019s Blog\u00a0The Animist Druid<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\r\n

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Ecstasy is essential to living a healthy life. Our bodies require experiencing ecstatic states of consciousness. From getting lost in music to dreaming without limits, from beautiful sexuality to having visionary experiences, we need moments of ecstasy to remain in balance. Ecstasy is part of what makes us human. Did you know the same chemicals that allow plants to communicate and create a thriving ecosystem, are the same chemicals our brains create when we are in the ecstatic states? These states are the vehicle for our reintegration back to Nature.<\/p>\r\n

Currently we have a deficit of ecstasy in our culture. People find endless substitution for it such as, the use of drugs and alcohol, adrenaline filled videos, cell phone addiction, and in violence based on religion. What are we seeking in these behaviors is a state of feeling connection to something greater than ourselves. Our soul is longing to know it has a place in life. And in the case the suicide bomber, through death they seek to feel the presence of God. All of these things speak to profound feelings of isolation and our disconnection with Nature.<\/p>\r\n

Our most useful tools for finding the ecstatic states are listening and trance. These can lead us back into connection with Nature, where we live in a magical animated world.<\/p>\r\n

When we listen with our whole being, all our senses, we are trying to feel the nature of the other (for me this is the practice of meditation). Inherent in this practice is the softening of cohesion of the self. Trance is simply a deeper state of the same dynamic where the self and the other dissipates altogether, leaving only that which is. Trance can seem like an abstraction, or a practice for the fringe people, or something beyond the potential of the average person. This is nonsense. It is profoundly simple. Trance is simply soul deep intimacy. The feeling you get in your body when you hear your favorite song, that is trance. The wonder you feel when you hold a newborn, that is trance. The awe you feel when you look up in the night sky and see the same stars dancing that prompted your ancestors name them, that is trance.<\/p>\r\n

Ecstasy is our birthright and the denial of it is killing us. We need to reclaim ecstatic practices and shared visionary experience. We need daily ecstatic practices as part of our spiritual pursuits. We can experience divinity when we get out of our personal story and become part of the bigger story of life on Earth. Let\u2019s sing and dance and make love. Let\u2019s find vision again. This is what we were made to do. Ecstasy and vision are what Nature created us for. This is our part to play in the scheme of life.<\/p>\r\n

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by\u00a0Kevin Emmons\u00a0reposted from Kevin\u2019s Blog\u00a0The Animist Druid   Ecstasy is essential to living a healthy life. Our bodies require experiencing ecstatic states of consciousness. From getting lost in music to dreaming without limits, from beautiful sexuality to having visionary experiences, we need moments of ecstasy to remain in balance. Ecstasy is part of what makes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":13191,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[],"acf":[],"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/druidry.org","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/druidry.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13189"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/druidry.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/druidry.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/druidry.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/druidry.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13189"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/druidry.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16065,"href":"https:\/\/druidry.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13189\/revisions\/16065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/druidry.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/druidry.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/druidry.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/druidry.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}