“isn’t to make Druids”, a fellow Druid remarked to me over the Solstice weekend at our Vermont Gathering.
Huh. I thought. Right! As soon as you say it …
strayed iris along our driveway
Druidry’s a practice to re-connect with Spirit. What aspect of Spirit you reconnect with, how you reconnect, why, and what you call yourself — these matters circle round the rim of the practice, however helpful or significant they may be. They’re not the hub, like the practice of connection is. (A wheel, of course, is more than its hub.)
devil’s paintbrush (Hieracium aurantiacum; Pilosella aurantiaca) aka orange hawkweed — one of my favorite “unplanted flowers”. They set the lawn on fire!
The metaphors that bubble up when we try to talk about a practice matter, too. Circle, spiral, wheel. The patterns of the oldest games we play as children, the deepest truths of existence we perceive.
When you’re reconnecting, the tree-wisdom that is one probable etymology of the word Druid is at work in your life.
How does it manifest?
For me, it takes increasingly specific forms that become my practice by themselves. I know something larger than me and my hopes, fears and dreams. I find I want to honor it, and strive to live in harmony with it. The more I give it my love and attention, the more numerous my encounters. I slowly discover how interactions and exchanges with it are mutually beneficial. I work to bring more of my life into a dance with its rhythms.
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Part of my particular how of connecting and manifesting lies in where I find myself, as does yours, if you’re seeking to connect.
I bless the previous owner, as you know from previous posts, for the Rowan in our front yard, and also for the row of three old blueberry bushes in the back. We’re letting blackberries grow up near them. Both like the acidic soil we try to provide with pine needle mulch, and after the spate of bitter weather this past January, we’re seeing some die-back among them and the rhododendrons out front. As if to compensate, this has been a particularly wet year, and a warm one, once it got going.
Blessings on Europe, and a request to Spirit to temper the heat burning there. Balance, balance.
Everything wants to make a gift of itself to you, came the insight one morning some years ago.
Sh*t! I remember thinking. Really?!
But the message wasn’t done yet. Reject it and the gift often comes harder, more insistent and difficult, in less easy forms.
All right, I think. Well, no. A little right. This will take some getting used to.
Everything?!
Difficult gifts … I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.
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Yesterday was too rainy, so it wasn’t until this morning I finally thought to get a shot of the two pine trunks I rolled from where our friend and neighbor Chris helped to cut them into manageable lengths with his chainsaw in May.
For a month they lay there, too heavy to move.
So thank-yous to all of you who contributed Solstice energy to our recent Vermont Weekend and helped me raise these “Alban Gates”!!
After meditating and listening for a bit about where I should set them, I raised them as gateposts for my backyard grove over the weekend. They now sit on stone footers, with wedges to steady them. I’ll be adding some side supports and possibly a lintel post later.
Below is a pic of them, looking west towards our house. The slightly larger left trunk is about my height, to give a sense of scale. Thank Spirit they’re pine. They won’t last as long, but I wouldn’t have been able to lift and set them in place if they were as heavy as oak, or the cherry of our recent Solstice bonfire.
I’m still listening about when to dedicate them. Lunasa, or the next full moon, maybe.
Solstice energy to raise and open the “Alban Gates”! Facing west toward house.
Same pillars, facing east — with the mystery of light on leaves
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“Wood-month” is upon us. Or at least on many Vermonters. Everywhere, a store of winter fuel dropped off on roadsides, yards, driveways, ready for the work of stacking. Sweat equity for stacking makes up the significant difference between cost per cord and cost per gallon of fuel oil. As long as I can, I’ll sweat instead. I’m still more cheap than lazy at this point. Of course, I can virtuously claim to be a little “greener” as well.
We manifest here by applying effort. It’s one of our special abilities. Spirit (and other beings without physical bodies) need incarnate beings to achieve such things, and humans are especially good at this, at building and shaping and moving stuff around. Part of why we’re here is to learn to do it more wisely, at need and not merely at whim.
Solwom wesutai syet. For the good of the whole …
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A Druid Way 