Emma K. Thomas

“As I have read more and learnt of ancient ways, I have recognised how human beings across many continents, and for the vast majority of our existence, have been living in a world far more closely connected to oak trees than we do today.

From the earliest Stone Ages through to the start of the Industrial Age merely a few hundred years ago, we have been dependent upon oaks and infused with worship of those trees, and religious practices centred on the most esteemed of the oaks that lay within our communities. Our wisest people, our most thoughtful leaders, have been those who served to oversee the links between us as living humans and the deities of the oaks.

These were ways and practices that are now called pagan. Yet I learnt some time ago that the word pagan merely came from the Latin term pagus, meaning ‘of the countryside’. Whereas ‘civilised’ peoples were those of the towns and cities, ‘pagans’ were simply those from the rural worlds beyond the city walls. The gradual shift that has taken place across the world as humans have moved to towns and cities in the last few centuries, has been one inevitably accompanied by a movement away from innate associations with the natural world.”

From The Oak Papers by James Canton.

Published by Canongate.