Druid Journal

If you’re a regular reader, you know that Apollo is one of my primary guides, and was the original inspiration for this blog. Over the past year, I’ve worked at improving my connection with him, to become a clearer conduit for solar energy. It’s been an amazing ride…

Midsummer is the point of Apollo’s maximum power, and it’s also the first anniversary of this blog. There seemed to be no better time to share some of Apollo’s thoughts and reflections. This interview was gathered together from a number of separate meditation sessions as well as automatic writing.

The setting is a grassy, windy hilltop in the sun. We are sitting on a stone bench just outside Apollo’s temple — a small Greek affair, little more than a dome supported by columns, covering a small pool with water rippled by the breeze and dappled by sunlight through nearby trees. The temple is at the edge of a dark green wood, but we are facing away from that, watching the wind play in the tall grass, and the sunlight glittering on the sea beyond the hills.

Like many famous people, Apollo is not as tall as you might have expected. He is muscular, but certainly not overbuilt, and he rarely wears anything. His skin at this time is bronzed, glowing as though with a recent tan; earlier in the spring, when he was as new-born, his skin was actually flowing molten gold. His hair is brown and curly, short-cropped; and his eyes are black as night, studded with swirls of stars.

DJ: Good morning! Thanks for coming by today.

Apollo: Thank you! My pleasure.

DJ: First off, let me ask you this: was this interview your idea, or mine?

Apollo: The very fact that you’re asking that question means that you’re making a lot of progress in aligning your energy with mine. Congratulations! The answer is: it was my idea. And it was also your idea. As you open yourself up more and more, you will find it harder to distinguish your thoughts from mine.

DJ: That seems a little… uh… creepy.

Apollo: Not at all. Imagine an old married couple, or two very good friends. Over long association, they’ve grown more and more alike. They start finishing each other’s sentences. It’s intimacy, yes, it’s shared thoughts, yes, but it’s not like one is controlling the thoughts of the other. I am not controlling your thoughts. We are simply having more of the same thoughts.

DJ: I like that analogy a lot more.

Apollo: Some people are afraid to open up themselves to energy from dieties like myself. They’re afraid their lives will be derailed, that gods will demand terrible things from them, sacrifices and so forth. And it is true that you are changed by associating closely with us. A god is a great concentration of energy, and if you allow that energy into your life, things will be changed. It’s not something you do casually, like a weekend hobby. Christians who try to keep their God in a building they only visit once a week — they have exactly that fear — that if they really allow God into their lives, He’ll turn everything upside down. They’re right! But you always have the option of turning back. A god can never take away your free will.

DJ: Really? Gods cannot force us to do anything against our will?

Apollo: That’s a slightly different question, but the answer is the same. I cannot make you want something. I cannot force you to change your mind. I also cannot force you to do something you don’t want to do. If you decide to align yourself with me, then you will find our thought processes become more similar, and we’ll want more and more of the same things. Same thing if you align yourself with Cernunnos, Athena, Jesus, whoever. But your free will — that can’t be taken away. It’s a logical impossibility.

DJ: Logical impossibility? You mean a contradiction in terms? How so?

Apollo: You are ultimately a spiritual being, a being of thought and feeling, and free will is part of that package. In a way, free will is the very core of what you are. If your free will were gone, you’d be gone, too. And since you are an eternal being — outside of time, really — that can’t happen. Does that make sense?

DJ: Maybe… Let me think about it. For a year or two.

Apollo: Take your time, you have plenty of it. 🙂 This issue with free will — it is an amazing thing. Cernunnos has talked to you about how free will — or more accurately the free expression of will — doing what you want — is the fastest route to maturation, to growth. You act, you get a response, you maybe change your mind, you act again — you grow. So it is a wonderful thing. But of course it can also lead to terrible pain. At Virginia Tech this spring, we all saw what pain can be caused by the exercise of free will.

DJ: Oh yes. It seems so unjust — that one person can cause so much pain for other people, people who clearly didn’t deserve it. Can you speak to that?

Apollo: Absolutely. Things are not as terrible and unjust as they may seem. I’m not saying that victims of disasters, wars, plagues, and the like deserved those horrible fates. Understand me clearly. But you have to remember that they have more than one lifetime. And you must remember, too, that each of these victims are like yourself — they have guides, they have spiritual helpers. The innocent victims already planned on leaving the physical plane around that time, and they took a convenient path out of their bodies. If they weren’t “meant” to die, and didn’t want to die, their guides would have made sure they were nowhere near the shooting, or the war, or other disaster. Guides do this sort of thing all the time — breaking down cars, delaying trains, giving people mild colds so they don’t go to work — they have many ways of helping people avoid trouble they’re not signed up for. That may be some comfort.

DJ: Yes… it certainly is. I mean, if it’s true.

Apollo: You don’t believe me? — See, you still have your free will.

DJ: I didn’t say I didn’t believe you. I just… haven’t decided.

Apollo: Good man.

DJ: So let me ask you some questions about the nature of the gods. Are you real?

Apollo: What kind of question is that? (Laughing) But I know what you mean. Yes, we’re real. I’m real. For most of the meanings of “real”, anyway…

DJ: So here’s a reason some people might not believe that gods are real. It seems like the nature of gods changes over time. As society changes, as cultures change, the names of gods change, the ideas about what the gods control changes, their history, their relationships, it changes. So the simplest explanation is that it seems like gods are more creations of society than anything else. I mean, take you as an example. I mean no disrespect… but you started out as a plague, right? You were the god of a particular disease, if I remember right. And people prayed to you, and sacrificed to you, so that they wouldn’t be afflicted by you.

Apollo: (Smiling, almost laughing) Yes…

DJ: When that worked, people began to turn to you for other kinds of healing; and eventually you became a god of health and vitality…

Apollo: …and as my cult grew, I took on other attributes. Healing is still one of my primary roles, the sun is another one. Am I the same Apollo? Yes. And no.

DJ: Yes and no?

Apollo: Come. Are you the same person you were at the age of 5? In a sense, yes… and in a sense, no. Such definitions of “same being” are much harder to define when you’re not attached to a physical form.

DJ: Fair enough. But you changed. Did people change you? Or did you change yourself?

Apollo: It was a dialogue. You can ask the same question about yourself. You’ve changed in your lifetime. You changed yourself, certainly, and other people changed you.

DJ: Ok, sure. But all of this “real-world” history contradicts the stories of your birth, your heritage, etc., etc…. I mean, how can you be a god that used to be a god of disease, AND the son of Zeus and twin of Artemis?

Apollo: Well, my personal history changed as my character changed, naturally. They are different kinds of history, not in conflict. They are both true.

DJ: They’re both true?

Apollo: Absolutely. And I agree it appears to be a paradox. But remember that the personal history of a god is one way of thinking about that god’s character; the social history of a god is another way of thinking about that god’s character. They are ways of thinking. They are belief systems. They are both true — or both false — your choice. Or use the religion = language metaphor. “Apollo used to be a disease” is an expression in one language/religion. “Apollo is the son of Zeus” is an expression in another language/religion. They’re not translatable.

DJ: My brain hurts.

Apollo: Sorry. I can’t explain any better than that, using the vocabulary you have at your disposal. No offense meant.

DJ: No problem… but maybe we should change the subject again. Recently, as you know, I’ve been struggling with scheduling, arranging the things in my life, rhythms of activity. I’ve been working with my sleep schedule, as well as trying to balance work with other things in my life — including you! This day — Midsummer — is an important part of your personal rhythm. Could you speak to that?

Apollo: Sure. The motion of the Earth, and its changing relationship with the sun, is the basic source of rhythm on this planet. Night and day, the seasons… Even the phases of the moon, and the tides, are ultimately tied to the sun. All measurement of time — years, days, hours — and all measurement of space, too (less obviously — we can talk about that another time) ultimately go back to the sun’s rhythms. Now, the sun shines pretty much constantly, of course, but too much sun all the time is not life, it’s death. If the sun did not rise and set, or if there were no seasons, this Earth would be little more than a desert. This is because Earth is a middle ground, poised between dark and light. It’s a place where dark and light can come to play, to interact, to fertilize each other. The balance, the rhythm, energizes and creates. It creates contrast. And of course, contrast is essential to beauty.

DJ: Contrast is essential to beauty, yes. The Taoists say that to know good, one must first know evil; to know beauty, one must first know ugliness.

Apollo: With all due respect to the Taoists, that’s balderdash. You don’t have to feel bad before you can feel good. And you don’t have to have a pile of garbage in your living room to know that the Monet print you’ve got hanging on the wall there is beautiful. Beauty comes from contrast — arranged contrast. Rhythmic contrast, for example. It so happens that for now, Earth is poised in this balancing spot between beauty and ugliness, between good and evil, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

DJ: Really?

Apollo: Certainly not. Everyone on this planet has free will. They can choose to move us all away from ugliness and evil, towards beauty and light. And it won’t mean that the sun shines all the time. Contrast will continue.

DJ: So let me ask you this: is this blog — Druid Journal — is it in any way connected with this potential change — this movement towards beauty and light? You never have told me what this blog is really for…

Apollo: You sensed my thought. Yes, absolutely. Druid Journal’s purpose is to bring that time nearer. Everyone has free will, and this can cause pain, as I said. But that doesn’t mean that pain is inevitable. We can alleviate it by encouraging people to grow, to raise their consciousnesses, to raise their vibrations, to set aside fear.

DJ: What if people don’t make that choice? Couldn’t the planet spiral downward from here?

Apollo: No. Perhaps for a time it could go the wrong way — but eventually it will turn right again. The universe is set up to make sure it gets to the right place in the end. Let me give you an analogy. Imagine that down is Good and up is Bad. Backwards from the usual metaphor, I know, but bear with me. Down is Good. And imagine that each soul on Earth is a droplet of water in a river. Each droplet bounces against other droplets, gets shoved around, hits rocks maybe, etc. But overall, because of gravity, the river flows downwards — toward Good. You could even imagine that the ocean is Good; and sometimes the whole river seems to be flowing away from the ocean — because there are hills in its path, for example. And its path may seem to wind every which way, and take forever, and it may seem like it will never reach the ocean. But it will — in time. It will. And every droplet will get there, too. In the same way, every soul will reach the light.

DJ: Wow.

Apollo: Nice, wasn’t it? Thanks.

DJ: (Laughs.)

Apollo: Modesty is not one of my faults.

DJ: That’s exactly what I used to say when I was a cocky teenager!

Apollo: Yes, you and I were close then, too.

DJ: So how is Druid Journal supposed to help raise consciousness, raise vibration? What do you have planned for this blog, specifically?

Apollo: I don’t know.

DJ: You don’t?!

Apollo: No. And I’ll tell you why. I may be the god of prophecy, but I can’t see all paths. How could I, when people have free will? When Croesus asked whether he should attack the empire of Cyrus, I had no idea who would win the contest. That’s why I had to answer, “A great empire will fall.” I knew that much. As it turned out, Croesus thought I was referring to Cyrus; and he tried for it, and he lost. But that was no affair of mine. Same thing here: there are a LOT of people with free will on this planet, and it’s getting harder and harder to predict the future with accuracy. You can see the broad swaths of color, but not the individual paths so much. I don’t know what part Druid Journal will play. But I know that having it here, with its audience and its message, is a lot better than its not being here. You have to be prepared for opportunity to come knocking. You, Jeff, and your blog, are here and ready when the opportunities come along. Maybe you’ll play a big role, maybe a tiny role, who knows? You have a long way to go, but it will be a joyful path. I am very pleased with the progress you have made, and the work you have done. It is good work, and beautiful, and it has helped many people already, and will help more. Thank you for that!

DJ: Um, sure… Thank you.

Apollo: Remember that you are my own dear son, and I love you.

DJ: … (speechless)