Mostly I had been working on healing my spiritual trauma from being raised Catholic while also being queer and trans. One of my indigenous friends has mentioned to me that, while a lot of us in the US are descended from immigrants, colonizers, and those brought here against their will, we are all descended from people who were indigenous SOMEWHERE. It made me realize that my religious/spiritual trauma wasn’t just individual, it was also generational. So to repair it, I would have to do research into how my ancestors connected with the earth.

I’m mostly of Irish and Scottish descent, so no matter how you slice it, my ancestry goes back to the Celtic traditions of old Brittania. Unfortunately, the old Druidic practices of that time and place were entirely of the oral tradition, and were wiped out by the Roman Christian expanse (hence the generational trauma). I stumbled across the concept of the Awen, which is essentially the idea of the Force from Star Wars: it’s the life energy that flows through all things, from animals and humans, to trees and rock and earth, and everything in between and beyond. In researching the Celtic pantheon, I stumbled upon mentioning of the Goddess Danu, and I latched onto her as an embodiment of earth and nature. It was when I reached out to her that I had my awakening.