Previous posts touching this theme [ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 ] have drawn a range of responses. Some readers took issue with the word “fake”, rather than reflecting on the often spurious claims to legitimacy and authority that prompted its use in the first place. Some took it as an insult, like Robert Frost’s bird “who takes/Everything said as personal to himself.”
Another noted, though don’t I recall mentioning gods, that
the deities … do not need belief in order for them to exist, nor do they need faith. They existed before we even came onto the earth, we are born and surrounded by them and gain consciousness of their presence …
Of course, such an observation is itself a statement of faith. A staunch materialist is equally convinced that the physical world and its processes are sufficient to explain everything — no “gods” needed.
Attend a Pagan gathering, a Muslim masjid at prayer, a Christian church service, a Jewish synagogue or temple on the Sabbath, a Hindu puja, and so on, and while statements of belief may be part of the event, the communal experience dominates. People gather for celebration, for spiritual reconnection, for a dip into sacred time and space.
Druid, this dip’s for you.
Argumentation and logic and pure intellect have their place, but if they were all, we wouldn’t have much in the way of human culture. Would even music or art exist? For so many of the purposes they serve are akin to religion and spirituality — something more than molecules moves our hearts. And without that, would some of the more unlikely religions such as Dudeism or the Jedi faith (link to lively interview on British TV!), to name just two, ever have gotten off the ground? What are we to make of this impulse that surfaces in every human culture and enriches it beyond measure, in an astonishing abundance and a variety of forms and colors? Does it have “evolutionary value”? Why might it persist?
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We can add fake to other dangerous four-letter words like true, evil, just, only: you know, “It was just a dream”; “It’s only your imagination”, and so forth. (We won’t even mention three-letter words like why, or two letter words like if.)
“My fake Druidry is faker (and therefore more interesting and exciting) than yours, so there!”
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From “Meditations of the ‘One Genuine Real Live Druidry’ Ogreldi Druid”:
There’s always more to learn.
Spirit refuses to sit obediently within any human container. That includes death.
The Land where you live is your teacher today.
A magic as big as your heart: begin now.
We all live in more than one world. Check your passports before entering.
When does a wall become a window, then a door?
The awen sings in your blood and heart, in your neighbors’, in the stars, in the spider’s in the corner. What songs have you heard today?
The Ancestors still talk.
Make an ally of darkness.
Everything starts dancing, when you look closely enough.
Evil is misplaced force.
Find the fire.
A moon for mundane tasks, a year and a day for magical ones.
Everything is true through which we become better.
Nothing is mundane. Absolutely everything is. A sage bought this at the market of truth, but it’s not the final word on the matter.
What shatters the veil of form?
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We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.
A Druid Way 