Toward Ecosophy

I recently heard of the passing of one of the teachers with whom I studied occultism in my teens.

Back in the late 1970s, when I lived with my dad and stepmother in a generic south Seattle suburb, the University of Washington had a program called the Experimental College, which offered classes on basically anything and everything for the general public. It was a wondrous thing, with a lot of practical classes but a good-sized helping of what wasn't yet called New Age material as well, and these latter reliably blended utter malarkey and genuine wisdom into a heady brew. I adored it, and took class after class after class. 

One fall I signed up for a class titled "Moon Letters of Lorien: Secret Lore of the Faerie Kingdom," and duly caught the bus to an apartment building in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood -- and that's how I met Guenn: the Rev. Guenn D. Eona, as she was then -- the "Nimue" came later. Her teachings were a free mix of Theosophy, Celtic traditions, material from the nascent New Age movement, and the products of her own trance mediumship. She was the one who introduced me to Findhorn and the writings and teachings that came out of it, and she's also the one who first got me thinking about the intersection between spirituality and ecology. 

I took some classes from her, and then moved to Bellingham to start my college education, and my life and my spiritual work went down different roads. Guenn and I corresponded briefly many years later, when I was head of the Ancient Order of Druids in America; I visited her website, Anglamarke, from time to time; and her youngest son contacted me a few days ago to let me know that she'd died. 

Though my path turned out to be very different from hers, as I look back on those days, I can see the roots of some of the most important themes in my work in that little Capitol Hill apartment, with a cup of herb tea in one hand and a pen in another, part of a circle of students listening to Guenn's vivid accounts of her inner experiences. 

Farewell, Guenn. May the Great Ones welcome you into the halls of Light.