In the mornings, after I have prayed at my altar (which is in the East), I trace a Celtic Cross over my heart, then rise and take the candle from the altar, bow, then make my way sunwise round to the North and sing a prayer/blessing for the Directions: “May the Life and Hope of God, May the Light and Peace of Christ, May the Love and Healing of the Holy Spirit, be in the North…then South…West…East…bowing again to the altar in the East, then turning to face the Center…be throughout the Whole World”; then extinguish the candle for the spreading of the Light throughout the world. Carlo Carretto (1910-1988) wrote of the Trinity as Life, Light, and Love. I have found this way of understanding the Trinity to be very helpful and beautiful as I weave a Way of Being which honors all that is meaningful to me. I am very happy to have found your writings!
This is a wonderful illustration of finding ways to personalize what we do, and how we walk our paths. You can feel it as you read it.
“To honor all that is meaningful to us”: a piece of the Great Work each of us is called to do.
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To those who find Christian imagery and language a useful guide, one might see in Cheryl Anne’s practice a concrete demonstration of the “priesthood of all believers”, practices that reflect a capacity for devotion and service. The phrase “priesthood of all believers” itself is one that some have developed based on 1 Peter 2:9. While the Wikipedia entry for “universal priesthood” highlights this belief and practice as something that’s more characteristic of Protestantism than other traditions in Christianity, one need not see priesthood as an “either-or”. Dedication, service and devotion are definitely not the exclusive possessions of any one tradition or practice.
A Druid, for instance, might well perceive that when we are in right relationship with Others, all beings, human and non, have the potential to minister to each other, to serve as the hands and feet and eyes and mouth and heart of Spirit. And we’ve all had experience of such harmony, though often only briefly. At our best, we mediate light and love, life and law to each other, four forces traditionally associated with the Four Directions. And at our worst — well, we know all too well what we’re capable of at our worst. One tradition I know asks its clerics to be intentional about displaying outward symbols and signs of their position. When they’re not at their best, they’re asked to remove any outward signs that mark them as clerics, until they’re able to honor the call once more. Priesthood in this sense is a renewable aspiration, and an ongoing opportunity for discernment, for re-dedication, for service.
The topic of priest(ess)hood comes up from time to time in Druidry. We may already know our formal and informal leaders. Some are authors and speakers and workshop leaders. Some are priested, and some are not. It can be easy to confuse charisma, or a gift for teaching, or leadership skills, or learning, with a call to priesthood. It’s helpful to remember that many priests, perhaps most, work in the background. So if I imagine myself as a priest, let me apply the first test of our crap detectors, the test of ego: does the appeal, the romance, the glamour of “priesthood” drop away, if no one else ever knows about the call I’ve answered? Does the call still sound its voice inwardly?
As Druidry develops, it will find appropriate tools to assist those with various spiritual calls. Christian training for priesthood begins with a process of discernment. Is what I’m experiencing in fact a call? Who is calling? Is the call still alive a year from today? How have I responded to the call, if at all? What practices do I have in place that may focus or scatter my awareness of the call, my commitment to respond? What do I imagine will happen if I ignore the call? And so on.
Here, too, is an opportunity to practice the “as if” principle. If I am a priest/ess right now, how does my life demonstrate that spiritual fact? Can I serve as a priest starting this moment, without the need for the label, the bling, the recognition of others? If I can and if I do, what does that look like in concrete terms?
How might I incorporate insights from the recent “Cruce Celtica” post into my practice?
(As with other posts here, if you’re still working through negative associations and experiences with Christianity, you’re better off just passing by this post. No need to irritate or anger your emotional body. Your other bodies will thank you.)
ONE
Make the sign of the cross as a way to call the Four Directions. After all, that’s what much Druid ritual does already: the opening rite of the standard OBOD format moves us from North to South, from West to East. Depending on where you’re facing, crossing yourself, that’s forehead to heart, left shoulder to right shoulder. Much Hermetic magic also relies on such gestural associations, symbolism and visualizations with Medieval and Biblical symbolism.
TWO
Visualize the presence of spirit in nature, Hebrew immanu-‘el “with-us God”, Emmanuel, in each of the Four Quarters. If you’d like a more Druid focus, use a set of common associations: for instance, bear of the North, hawk of the east, stag of the south, salmon of the West.
For a more Christian focus, try the Four Evangelists (or Archangels), or their ancient symbols: an angel for Saint Matthew, a lion for Saint Mark, an ox for Saint Luke and an eagle for Saint John. These symbols come from the first chapter of Ezekiel, appearing again in the fourth chapter of Revelation. The early Church Fathers interpreted, explored and developed them further.
In the Tarot, the World card depicts these four, one in each corner disposed around the central human figure. This card might serve as a meditation focus.
A more explicitly Christian opening could use “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof” from Psalm 24.
Spirit fills the worlds, and everything in them.
THREE
These gestures, visualizations and forms could serve for a house blessing, one for each of the four corners (that’s assuming you’re not living in a geodesic dome, or a yurt, or some other non-four-sided dwelling!). Looking for a particular verse that’s more appropriate? Consider Psalm 127: “Except the Lord build the house …” Or Psalm 118: “The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone …”
FOUR
These forms also offer themes for portions of an hour (15 minutes each) or a day (6 hours each). Or for a month’s worth of workings, ritual, blessings, meditations, etc. Try them out as a preliminary shape or container for prayer, meditation, ritual,
FIVE
From a favorite verse in each of the four Gospels, make a directional sigil. Here’s Matthew 20:16 for an example.
First, cross out any repeated letters …
In the making of the sigil, you may sometimes “find” a second “hidden” verse — here, “so the law be a friend” suggests itself fairly transparently — which can spark further meditation. What law? How a “friend”?
Then make the sigil. Freehand is often best. Let the shapes of both lower and upper case blend. After all, you’re doing this for you, not for anyone else. The making of a sigil can be a meditative and ritual act. Here’s my freehand sigil of the 14 letters s-o-t-h-e-l-a-w-i-b-f-r-n-d.
SIX
Once you have the sigil, you can use it in a wide variety of ways. Again, the making of sigils is itself a magical and blessed act — or it can be. The resulting sigil may be a focus for meditation, a tattoo, a ritual object to place in an appropriate place, a mark to consecrate another object, etc. Write it with safe vegetable inks on skin and it can be licked off and swallowed. Or ground up and incorporated into an oil for anointing. Or kept in a pendant as a charm. And so on.
If your first reaction to any of these suggestions is surprise, suspicion, repugnance, disgust, etc., ask yourself why. Nothing in any of these acts is inherently different than decorating a birthday cake, signing a name, initialing a form, writing shorthand, etc. Most of us have swallowed pills, capsules, etc. with trademarks on them. Why not hallow, bless, consecrate, sanctify?
SEVEN
I invite you to try out and experiment with further uses yourself. In such exploration you may find inspiration from doing one or more of the foregoing as a starting point — a priming of the pump — as with the found verse, or the final appearance of the sigil, the original verse or other piece of language that you sigilized, and so on. Any of these are things you could do with children, too. They are ways to materialize, concretize, manifest, make palpable, things which can otherwise seem too abstruse, ethereal, incorporeal, transient.
Part of our magic as makers — Tolkien’s “we make still by the law in which we’re made” — is to bring spirit into forms we can experience and apprehend more immediately and readily than before.
A recent discussion about Atlantis on a Druid forum is the seed for this post. Many commenters reacted negatively to the Romantic image of Atlantean teachers and wise guides fleeing the destruction of the ancient continent and bringing to Europe the outlines of what would become Druidry. Any evidence for such a thing is less than paper-thin, the reasons ran. So why perpetuate a suspect origin-story that distracts from what Druidry is and can accomplish today?
After all, if you’re looking over antiques, or your tastes run to vintage, you may well seek a certificate of authenticity. Value lies in age and pedigree. What it was, who owned it, where it came from, what materials went into it — these things are part and parcel of what it is and means and is worth today. For wines, think terroir, think the year it was bottled. Or if the uniqueness and caché and associations and fame of the original object make replicas a viable trade — and not everything can be replicated — you accept a skillful replica or reproduction as the “next best thing”.
But for anything that can handle daily use right now, you go for practicality. Is it well-made? Will it hold up? Does it do what it says it can do? Is it flexible or sturdy enough to change as needs change?
My suspicion is that some sources and texts in Druidry generally and in the OBOD coursework specifically are often presented not so much to ground Druidry in undeniable fact or documented history, so much as to inspire us with potent images that can help begin to take us to other realms. We may come at first because we “want the facts”, because our modern era has convinced us that data is superior to images and the imagination. We may come to a life philosophy and spirituality like Druidry out of bitter experience with too many “true fragments” of the Grail, too much mythologizing, too much outright deception and abuse by those claiming authority over us and our lives. Our suspicions are trigger-ready, on high alert. To quote The Who song, “We won’t get fooled again”.
But often it seems that Druidry would rather point us toward images to awaken the awen, because inspiration and imagination have often proven to be better problem-solvers than fact alone. After all, we’ve “had the facts” for decades, and look where we are right now in early 2021.
A re-connection to nature is the first key and gift Druidry offers. We re-align our priorities and focus of effort. We listen to where we find ourselves, and find our ways under sun- and moon-light, with birdsong around us, and leaves, land, water and sky among our teachers. Without that, no amount of correct, factual, documentable historical background will help us live in better harmony with the earth, just as no government policy on the right, left or center will do so. Or at least it hasn’t done so thus far, and I’m not holding my breath for it happening any time soon. Only actually living in better harmony with the earth can do that. And that starts with each person who makes a choice today, a choice tomorrow, and so on through our days.
Rather than primarily feeding the intellect about itself, Druidry (mostly) attempts to ignite the emotions and imagination and sing us into better accord with our own worlds.
And how can I recognize it when I encounter it? [Looking for a different take? Here’s another post of mine on the subject from August 2020.]
Part of the “recognition challenge” we may face is that “Beyond 101” can vary so widely from person to person. (That’s a good thing.)
Stick with Druidry long enough — as with any path with heart — and you’ve already entered “Beyond 101” territory. Maybe slipped in without even noticing. Almost certainly no welcome committee, no flags or fireworks. Of course, if that’s true of you, then you’re probably not asking what Beyond 101 looks like, because you’re busy doing it. From time to time, though, you may well ask the question as you stand on this side of the border, just like the rest of us mortals.
If I start by looking at some of the practices I list in “Druiding without (an) Order“, I can get a first approximation of what at least some of the “Beyond” landscape may look like, because that’s where those practices lead to. Druidry helps us grow into ourselves, to bloom and blossom in season.
And if I look at my own singular and not-particularly-representative journey, much of what I discover, to use another suitably Druidic image, is a spreading root system. One thing leads to another — “knowing how way leads on to way”, Robert Frost puts it.
So these are two directions this post will take, or two themes: where beginning practices may point us, and what I can conclude from my own “decade in Druidry” and forty years on another path.
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Druidry starts where we do.
Druidry eases us open to encounter.
In some ways, Druidry takes us through the musical of our own lives: “I love you, you’re perfect, now change“. So do most spiritual paths worth the walking which connect us to an Other or Others. One difference is that Druidry acknowledges changes will happen regardless, because they’re characteristic of our existence here and now. Life initiates us without our say-so. And so we can learn to sail the winds of change, or be buffeted more than needs to happen. (Sometimes it looks like both at once.)
Druidry points us toward the natural world as a guide and image for what living is like, what it can be, where it can take us, and how to experience all these things more richly and deeply.
Following the first path of the 13 starting points from my “Druiding without (an) Order” post above, if I “learn the trees and plants, birds and animals of my region”, I may well become an herbalist, a healer, an environmental activist, a workshop leader, a teacher, and so on. Druidry can help me activate potentials.
If I opt for “Path Number 2”, and set about learning all I can about a subject, self-taught perhaps because no one else exists who can teach me, or because my life has taken a turn away from the class-and-credential route others may follow, such knowledge will again take me where I may not have foreseen, into encounters with people or places or ideas I wouldn’t have imagined before I began. Druidry can help me navigate new directions and opportunities with its tools and practices. In the process, I may learn to appreciate and value the difference between head-knowledge and heart-wisdom.
Some who turn to follow Path 3 will become Bards: singers, musicians, performers others recognize for their art. Some may remain inward Bards, alive to word and song, but unknown except perhaps to partners, family, close friends — and sometimes not even to these. (Perhaps only a garden, or god or goddess, knows what the awen says to you.) Or this path may lead variously to a life of travel and performance, to teaching the instrument of your Barding, to supporting the rituals of your group or grove with word and melody and chant, and so on. What will you do with the song in your heart?
With just these three paths, you begin to see some of the varied forms that Beyond 101 can take.
Almost always, Druidry will help enliven in us the impulse to explore more than one path, though a particular path may call more strongly, and become a dominant theme during a lifetime. “Beyond 101” is, often enough, a series of “taking up a new direction”, but with the wisdom of the practice of one path there to guide and guard you, and to deepen as it does so.
And what of following more than one “larger” path, Druidry and Christianity, or Druidry and Medicine, or Buddhism and Druidry, and so on? As with all our close relationships, they will enrich us, train us (and strain us!), taking us to new places.
I’ve discovered over time how if my practice of one path goes dormant, or even feels lifeless, exhausted, or at some frozen stopping-point or impasse, the other path can help, may paradoxically intensify, compensate, engage me in new ways, or open up insights into the other path. Walking two paths has reduced the blind spots I might otherwise experience on either path. That’s rarely a comfortable experience, however desirable it seems from the outside — and proves to be.
Druidry, like any other path, can’t “save” me — but my practice of it can.
Often when we seek something “beyond 101”, we’re looking for inspiration, kindling, a pathway through an apparently lifeless winter landscape. Or some indication of what’s going on, what’s shaking loose, where to put attention and energy — or where to conserve them. Divination remains popular because we want to “know the future” — not so completely that no surprises remain in life, but so that the pace of change doesn’t swamp and overwhelm and drown us.
Those in our groups and groves and circles of friends who frequent the terrain beyond 101 may not immediately stand out to us. They may fall silent around the talkers and gossips. They may sit off by themselves with one or two others, or they may seem “perfectly normal” or utterly quirky and eccentric.
C. S Lewis wrote in his Space Trilogy: “I happen to believe that you can’t study men; you can only get to know them, which is quite a different thing”. In our quest for Beyond 101, frustrated at our capacity to sense the terrain ourselves, we turn to those who look like they walk it, or claim to do so. Then we may strive to imitate them, reading their books, attending their workshops, in some cases lingering with them to swim in their charisma, catch their vibe.
The paradox arrives in our discovery that the tools they provide, the models and examples they put before us, if they are worthy teachers and mentors, ultimately show us not who they are, but more of ourselves, and how to fulfill who we are — slowly, slowly — becoming.
At the Cross, God entered and transformed time and space.
When we balance the Four Directions and their cardinal qualities and energies, spirit can more easily manifest through us and in our lives.
In such statements we can see both the overlaps and distances between Druidry and Christianity. Some of the distances rest in human language. (How many? And how important are they?) We move from talking about an experience using certain words, to expecting those words, and then to requiring only those words and no others when we talk. Then anyone who “doesn’t use our words” by definition “isn’t one of us”. The same with forms of ritual. And so tribalism slams shut another doorway to spiritual encounter and discovery.
For those seeking to reconcile the spiritual truths they perceive in both traditions, and wondering just how far they might proceed in such reconciliation, the Celtic Cross can be a profound object of meditation.
All the more if it moves us beyond words. (Never fear, I reassure the fearful part of myself — words will be there, before and after.)
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What are we to make of artefacts like the Killamery Cross below in a Kilkenny graveyard? Megalithic Ireland provides this image of its western face, with the spiral at the intersection of the vertical and horizontal arms:
As an image for meditation for both Christians and Druids, this cross is a potent one. Rather than creed alone, are we ready for encounter? Can both parties acknowledge that each has more to grow into, that the infinite is boundless, inexhaustible? Can the Christian perceive the profound invitation and expanse of the spiral, welcoming all? Can the Druid enter the meeting-place of sacrifice and recovery?
Can we first talk about and then enter spaces the others may know, without quite so many of our filters and lenses? (Never fear, says spirit, your tools will remain for you, before and after.) Will we choose to enter these spaces, knowing both we and the others may be transformed, with neither seeing the others or ourselves quite the same if and when we do?
Normally I tend to breeze past self-help titles. It’s true they’re sometimes spontaneously (or cynically) fashionable, hitting whatever the current zeitgeist is at its geisty-est. For that reason they can be deeply culture-specific. What resonates in the U.S. may not catch on at all in France or Fiji. It’s also true that the slickest of the titles tend towards the simplistic. Anyone who’s read more than one knows they typically repackage highly useful and applicable age-old wisdom under new headings. Not a bad thing at all — sometimes that’s what we need, especially if the old sources fail us, and we’re looking for guidance. Some titles can serve a deep need very well.
We’ve all had the experience of clicking with a mentor or teacher who gets how we think, how we process the world. With a good match-up between student and mentor, we learn far more effectively and enjoyably. Likewise with a bad match, it’s often just hell for all concerned. Witness the Youtube popularity of good explainers and effective speakers. There’s a reason the best TED talks continue to draw big viewership stats.
And we do love our lists and numbers! Consider film and TV titles: 8 Simple Rules (for Dating My Teenage Daughter); Ten Things I Hate about You; Four Weddings and Funeral; Three’s Company; Twelve Angry Men; A Few Good Men; Five Hundred Days of Summer; Sixteen Candles; Thirteen; Seven Brides for Seven Brothers; Seven Samurai; Eight Crazy Nights; the Ocean’s series (11, 12, 13, 8). Some (or many) of these series and films may not have reached your shores, but you get the idea.
So when online I ran across Jed Diamond’s recent book 12 Rules for Good Men, no surprise, the title caught my eye. A disclaimer here — I haven’t read the book. Ultimately the book isn’t directly relevant to this post. Because after reading the summary of Diamond’s rules in reviews of the twelve things men can do to better their lives (you can see a version of the original list here), I wanted to open it up just a little and make it applicable to everyone — because it is. “Rules for Humans”. Actually, I prefer Practices. Rather than “following” or “breaking” a rule, why not pick up a practice? Try it out, see if it helps. If it does, great. If not, move on. (Who ever says that about “rules”?) Let such practices be things to get better at, one of the reasons we practice. We don’t normally “practice” rules.
Consider these Thirteen Practices of a Wise Druid:
Practice #1: Find a group (or more than one!) that supports and challenges you.
Practice #2: Investigate the various boxes you find yourself in. (Some boxes help give us needed structure! Some are too comfortable, or constricting.)
Practice #3: Accept the gifts of gender and sexuality. (We’re still just beginning to discover what these are.)
Practice #4: Embrace your billion-year human history. (Time, often, is on our side.)
Practice #5: Work with your angers and fears to release their insights and wisdom. (We’ve all got these priceless materials ready to hand. Both store tremendous energy.)
Practice #6: Learn the secrets of love. (Dogs and cats are often our best mentors.)
Practice #7: Undergo meaningful rites of passage. (We all have some in place already.)
Practice #8: Celebrate your true nature as a spiritual being. (Again, you already do. Why not enlarge!)
Practice #9: Understand and grow from your childhood. (Two endless sources of discovery: childhood and dream.)
Practice #10: Grow your nurturer to become more of the nurturer you can be. (Earth, our first nurturer …)
Practice #11: Move through and beyond repeating patterns and the blockage, depression and frustration they produce. (Harnessing the cycle.)
Practice #12: Identify your mission and play your part skillfully and joyfully. (We’re all on a mission. Beta-testing!)
What about Practice #13 — the Thirteenth of the post title? That’s doing these things in our own ways, with the stamp of our unique awen on them — the spiritual creativity that’s the birthright we all possess. (Not feeling especially creative? There’s a practice for that!) That spiritual creativity is what makes my path both recognizably human and also distinct from yours. It’s what makes any worthwhile practices part of a life-long path. It’s what makes them practices rather than rules. (Don’t look now, but it’s also what powers the other practices.)
Now the parentheticals after each practice above are my own provisional notes for where I might go next with them. Already I can feel an itch to rephrase them, personalize them, see which practices might be most beneficial — and most enjoyable. (When was the last time I experienced joy?) To see which practices I’m already doing, and how I can fine-tune them and do them more consciously and creatively and intensely. And to surprise myself with ones I can see in new ways.
It’s interesting to me that with the 13th Practice in place, the very center, counting from either direction, is occupied by Practice 7: Undergo Meaningful Rites of Passage.
This is one of the things Druidry puts before us, urging us to find our own ways to bring such practices into our lives. Some of my previous posts, and some of your comments and site searches, touch on the value and the challenge of ritual and rite and ceremony. “Meaningful” is key. Getting together is friends and family is understandably high on so many of our lists. Often the simplest of these things bring the most joy. My wife and I miss sitting around fires with a neighbor couple, something we’ve done year-round for the past several years. Nothing “huge”, but everything deeply human: the elemental presence of fire, the warmth of company and touch, conversation and good food. This is certainly part of our human heritage for tens of thousands of years (if not our “billion-year history”). This rite of passage is to honor the transient, the fleeting beauty and depth of moments that nevertheless make up most of our lives.
Druidry offers a number of forms, and also training in their use as containers for transformation. Why does transformation need to be “contained”? Often because that helps to build up the temperature, pressure, awareness, power, etc. that catalyze the transformation. Think tea kettle, forge, pump, oven, etc. Scatter or disperse these forces, and the transformation fizzles, stalls, loses momentum, dies down, darkens — pick your metaphor.
Another of the things that Druidry puts before us is a sensitivity to rhythms. So among a range of possible containers, I find myself looking at how I could connect each of these 13 practices to the moon. I think of a 13-day practice centered on a new or full moon, where I place attention on these practices, one per day. Or one per month, for a 13-moon lunar year cycle. How might I honor and explore and deepen them, using moon energy?
Same for a solar practice: either daily, with sunrise, midday, sunset and midnight, or maybe twice each year, at the solstices. Or setting aside one day each month, and meditating on these practices for (parts of) 13 hours, one per hour. A spiritual retreat. Keeping a journal of these things would be a priceless key. So would art and music and other craft that might arise from them. If you have friends, or a grove, that might like to join you, that opens up still further possibilities.
It’s Brighid’s Moon, this month of transition, north and south, east and west.
In our perhaps too-precise modern world, we note that the full moon came a few days “before” Imbolc (Lunasa, and Lugh’s Moon, to friends Down Under). But it feels likely that in pre-modern times the full moon and the festival would take place at the same time. After all, why not?!
Yes, timing matters a lot, and also not a bit, for such things.
For anyone inclined to notice the moon at all, a full moon is a wonderful link to others around us. Look up and you know that almost everyone on the planet who also bothers to look can see the moon in her shining splendor within the same 24-hour period, unless the skies are cloudy. (Then we can feel the moon.)
In her Celtic Devotional Caitlin Matthews notes this is a splendid season to remember and celebrate the “midwives of the soul”. Wise counsel indeed! I’m a member of a genealogy site that you can set to email you reminders of ancestors’ birthdays, weddings, etc. — I find it’s a good way to pause several times a month (depending on how detailed your family tree is) and consider the lives of those who’ve gone before me, walking this human path through their own times of challenge and blessing. (One of my grandmothers 6 generations back died at 19 while giving birth to her third child — a brief life, but also one that led to many descendants, including me. As someone who suspects reincarnation in some form accounts for a great deal of the rebalancing in our lives over the long term, I also imagine that soul returning generations later, possibly through a “descendant doorway” which that previous and painfully short lifetime made possible. Our lives belong to, and shape, a far wider circle than we often know.)
Brighid of the Snows, Brighid of the Full Moon, Patron of poets, smiths, healers …
I’m spending half this afternoon apologizing to ghosts, writes John Murillo in one of his poems in Up Jump the Boogie. It’s what we may find ourselves doing, if we’re mindful about the past, the present, our own struggles. In another poem Murillo says, like all bards, This poem is a finger pointing at the moon … You big dummy, don’t look at my finger, I’m trying to show you the moon. I fill up yet another blogpost with words, still trying, fumblingly, awkwardly. We celebrate Imbolc with an OBOD ritual, or alone, silently, offering droplets of wine to the full moon. We bring in snowmelt and offer it at Brighid’s altar.
On Sunday evening, five of us in Vermont gathered via Zoom to celebrate using the OBOD solo rite for Imbolc. The solo rites parallel the group ones, but they’re less formal, more inward-looking, more flexible for whoever shows up. We assign roles on the spot, do some spontaneous rearranging or improvising where necessary, honoring the spirit of the rite. We’ve been doing this since for more than six months now, after a hiatus when it looked like our seed-group might not endure. Mystic River Grove, active now for over 30 years, holds its rituals online with a few dozen attending each time.
As I often do, I find ritual both intermittently frustrating and unexpectedly moving. One of our members with an inerrant ear for poetry usually has something to read for us which captures the thread and flame at the heart of the ritual, the core experience of gathering to honor the season. This time she read from Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris’s The Lost Spells, the second book of poems to emerge from the decision a few years back by Oxford University Press to remove words naming the natural world from a popular children’s dictionary. One reviewer of MacFarlane’s book (and apparently not a regular reader of poetry) complains, “Since when is a poem a spell?” When, we might all reply, oh when has it ever been anything else?
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“There was never”, says Walt Whitman, “any more inception than there is now, Nor any more youth or age than there is now, And will never be any more perfection than there is now, Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now”.
If that’s true, it’s both bad and good news. Bad, because wow! I really need to apologize to my ghosts, my ancestral heritage. Good, because I don’t need to: I have what I need right now, just as they did and do.
On its website, OBOD offers a guide called “Treasures of the Tribe: Guidelines for OBOD Seed Groups and Groves” that anyone can download as a PDF. In addition to being a fund of hard-earned wisdom about the dynamics of groups, and an insight into the feel of the OBOD “style” and its flavor of Druidry, it offers an excellent seed for meditation and reflection and conscious action:
A useful question to ask, when difficulties arise, is: ‘Is there a gift here, trying to manifest itself?’ or: ‘What is it that is seeking transformation?’
A Druid Way 