Archive for the ‘Alban Elfed’ Tag
photo courtesy Krista Carter
The 7th OBOD East Coast Gathering (ECG) took place this last weekend with over 100 Druids, friends and family gathering at Camp Netimus in NE Pennsylvania. [Go here for accounts of previous Gatherings.]
Netimus, a girls’ summer camp, has welcomed us each autumn for Alban Elfed, the Autumn Equinox. The non-human staff of coyotes, hawks, dragonflies, chipmunks and owls lets us know they know we’re present, too, adding their own wild signatures to the rituals, the evening fire circles and the day and night-time hours.
Hex in his drumming workshop
This year we celebrated the turning of the year among ourselves, without the headline special guests that can make registration for the Gathering a matter of internet frenzy and growing wait-lists.
We initiated ten new Bards, two Ovates and two Druids into the Order, as well as holding workshops on fairies, crystal jewelry, drumming, moon wisdom and beekeeping, and gathering in the camp dining hall for meals our devoted kitchen crew volunteers prepare with love, laughter and long hours of hard work.
Each evening brings the fire circle, always a draw. And this year we organized a more competitive eisteddfod, showcasing our singers, storytellers, musicians, dancers, fire-spinners and mead-makers, culminating in a final round on Saturday.
photo courtesy Gabby Roberts
The Ovates gathered mugwort Saturday morning as we prepared our gift to the Tribe during the main Alban Elfed ritual Saturday afternoon. An invasive that can take over, mugwort nevertheless has healing properties, healthful in teas and soothing as a smoked herb, too (when it smells remarkably like pot!).
photo courtesy Krista Carter
Preparing for Ritual
photo courtesy Nadia Chauvet
A nearly full moon rose overhead each night, bathing the Gathering in light, and making the Camp paths and steps a little easier to navigate if, like me, you forgot all three nights to fetch your flashlight from your cabin before dark — needing a light to find your light!
photo courtesy Alec Mayer
The rain — thank you, Spirits of Place! — held off till shortly after the closing ritual Sunday morning.
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The reason Camps like this happen at all is that enough people are willing to give of themselves. Rather than complain about what doesn’t happen to their own narrow liking, enough people contribute to what does.
And among the thanks, reminiscences and anecdotes that always leave us both smiling and teary during the final ritual, several comments stood out, like Frank’s. He thanked us for the opportunity to serve. Those people in our lives that we come to value the most are those who give without drama or ego display.
Our closing ritual talked of all four elements, including the humility of water, that takes whatever shape we ask. Alban Elfed, Light on the Water, is a festival of the West, of Water, of balance and change, the dynamic that Druids revere, and strive to navigate with all the grace and wisdom we can muster.
photo courtesy Alec Mayer
Thank you, everyone, two and four-footed, winged, scaled, legless, and unbodied, who made this ECG another splendid opportunity for the Tribe to gather and celebrate and grow.
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late afternoon on our 3-mi loop-walk
The seasonal festivals may start to come upon you like the visits of old friends. You don’t need to be anything other than who you are for them, of course. Fat chance, anyway, of sustaining even a polite deception with someone who knows you this well. I can shove the unsorted laundry into a closet, ready the guest room with fresh sheets, maybe offer a vase of goldenrod and queen anne’s lace this time of year. Clear the top of a dresser or nightstand and set out a few found objects to share: quartz or shale or mica from a recent hike, driftwood from a stream or beach walk. Such gestures never go to waste. They welcome the guest and lift the mood of the host, if lifting is needed.
Sometimes it is. We felt a seasonal shift here in southern Vermont about a week ago, a subtle movement of energies and weather and light as they whisper together and ease us toward the equinox, the evocatively named Alban Elfed, “Light on the Water.” The birds knew it, too — maybe something in their song clued us in to pay attention in the first place.
Of course the linguist in me tries to quibble that neither word “actually means” light or water, but instead simply the quotidian equinox (of) autumn, but then rummaging around the OBOD website I’m caught up in wonder by Coifi’s observations in a lovely post:
This is the Feast of the Autumn Equinox. The Light of the Sun in the Wheel of the Year stands in the West, in the Place of balance between the Light and the Darkness. This is a time of the Great Tides. This is the Gateway of the Year.
This Feast is known by many names to many people, for the Truth is reflected from many mirrors. It has been celebrated as Alban Elfed and Harvest. Our ancestors called it by names long forgotten, and our children will call it by names as yet unconceived.
So it is that literal gets overtaken by the figurative, just as speech does by song. Or not overtaken, not exactly. Whether I let them or not, they start dancing, each bowing to the other. Here is one of the Earth’s truths that says listen. The ancestors gave it names, as do we with our Alban Elfed and Mabon and Harvest Home, and as will our descendants. Each will know it, both the waning light, and the promise of Return.
A further quibble that the festivals are “just modern inventions” dissolves when you can point to old stones and other markers: the earth, again, is a witness here. From the plains of Wiltshire with its over-famous Henge to a hilltop in southern Ohio with its Serpent Mound, the inhabitants of many lands have been drawn to find ways to mark off days and seasons with structures whose physical remains simultaneously hush and awaken the mind.
For “light on the water,” as it turns out to my now-placated left brain, is indeed apt, a festival that celebrates a brief balance of light and dark in the quarter of the ritual year that belongs to the west and to water. “Light on the water” brings with it a twilit mood, a sunset reminder of the reality of life on earth, both dark and bright.
For the whole planet, northern and southern hemispheres both, experiences a balance of light and dark before the days continue to shorten or lengthen, depending on where you stand. The time, friends, is a whole-planet festival. Come! Join in!
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Images: western light in southern Vermont; Ritual Wheel of the Year.
This last weekend marks the 5th East Coast Gathering I’ve attended, the 6th since its launch in 2010, and another gift of Spirit and mortal effort.
You can read my accounts of three of the previous years: 2012 | 2013 | 2014. A special thank-you to John Beckett, several of whose professional photographs illustrate this post. You can visit John’s own articulate and insightful blog “Under the Ancient Oaks: Musings of a Pagan Druid and Unitarian Universalist” over at Patheos here.
Camp Netimus — site of the ECG. Photo courtesy Krista Carter
Registration for the weekend filled within 20 hours of opening this last spring. Gatherings like this answer an obvious need in the Druid and Pagan community, and more are in the works in other locations. It’s on us to help make them happen. A dedicated team can bring the same joy, support, inspiration and community to other regions.
Yes, we’re all solitaries some or much of the time, but every solitary benefits from celebrating and learning in the company of others. That chance conversation, ritual insight, day- or night-dream, word or phrase that lights up just for you, the hugs you give and receive, the opportunities to serve the community through offering a workshop, cooking, cleaning, organizing, driving — these make Gatherings like this such richly rewarding experiences. The dark and light halves of each year are real, and we need all the help and laughter we can find to thread our way through the labyrinth of time.
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I arrived Thursday afternoon early enough to check in and unpack before the opening ritual. My cabin mates had already hoisted a banner, which also made the building easier to distinguish from the others in the dark, when the “9” on the door was no longer readily visible.
Cabin banner. Photo by A Druid Way
Equinox marks the shifting energies of days and nights, rebalancing the world. A lovely moon bore witness, waxing each evening through wonderfully clear skies, lighting the path to evening events like the Ovate initiation ritual and illuminating the short uphill walk from the cafeteria to the nightly fire circle.
Crescent moon in a twilit sky. Photo courtesy John Beckett
The theme this year was ritual, and the whole weekend focused our attention on its magical possibilities through a dozen workshops, demonstrations and ceremonies. You can get a sense of the range of approaches from the list of workshops here. We also welcomed returning U. K. guests Damh the Bard, Cerri Lee, and Kristoffer Hughes.
Cerri Lee, Damh the Bard and Kris Hughes. Photo courtesy John Beckett
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Damh’s workshop on “The Bardic Voice” underscored the centrality of the Bard in Druidry. Like many Druid groups, OBOD orders its teaching in the sequence of Bard, Ovate and Druid. But they do not form a linear progress or erect a hierarchy of achievement. They spiral. In an Ovate breakout group a day later, several people mentioned how they often return to the Bardic coursework, its insights deepening through their Ovate practice. And likewise with the work of the Druid grade.
Damh is a fine teacher, an animated storyteller and ritualist of deep experience. With his wife Cerri he leads Anderida Grove. [For an audio inspiration, listen to his hour-long recording for inner journeying here.]
Damh in teaching mode. Photo courtesy John Beckett
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Reminders of ritual possibility filled the weekend. Below is a picture of a labyrinth, another gift of the weekend, lovingly constructed by Cat Hughes and friends.
Labyrinth by day — entrance. Photo by A Druid Way.
Volunteers switched on each light every evening, then turned them off again when everyone else had gone to bed.
Labyrinth by night. Photo courtesy Damh the Bard.
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Kris’s workshop, “Laudanum, Literature and Liturgy — the Ritual Legacy of Iolo Morganwg,” featured the ritual — in Welsh — that Morganwg first performed on the Summer Solstice on Primrose Hill (London) in 1792, launching the Druid Revival and establishing the Welsh Gorsedd of Bards. Morganwg is also the author of the Druid’s Prayer, still used in many modern Druid groups including OBOD, and a major influence on generations of Druids from his time to the present. Kris’s Celtic eloquence in praise of Morganwg and his passion for Druidry took him off script and left many of us with tears in our eyes.
Kris during his workshop on Iolo Morganwg. Photo courtesy of Dana Wiyninger.
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Bill Streeter from the Delaware Valley Raptor Center, the charity designated for this year’s Gathering donation, brought six birds and made a fine presentation on raptors, their abilities, the dangers (mostly human) facing them, and the challenges of rehabilitating injured birds.
Bill Streeter of the DVRC with a golden eagle. Photo courtesy John Beckett.
These magnificent birds have often suffered neurological injuries that worsen over time. Though both the eagle above and the owl below look normal, both are blind in one or both eyes, or suffer other injuries like crippled wings, and thus could not survive in the wild. But the birds help save the lives of their kin through their appearances in info sessions like this one.
Great Horned Owl. Photo courtesy John Beckett.
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The Alban Elfed ritual celebrating the Equinox includes gifts from children, guests and each of the three grades of Bards, Ovates and Druids. Here are Chris and I holding bowls of acorns, part of the Ovates’ ritual gift, just before the ritual procession into the Circle.
Chris (r) and I (l) just before Alban Elfed ritual. Photo courtesy John Beckett.
The evening eisteddfod (music and poetry circle) one night featured a splendid duet from Kris and Damh — see the image below.
Kris and Damh singing at the fire circle. Photo courtesy Hex Nottingham.
Below is another pic of the fire circle one night. Our enthusiastic and skilful fire-makers Derek and Brom love large, carefully-constructed bonfires.
Evening bonfire. Photo courtesy John Beckett.
Once again Dana set up her meditation tent on the campground for all to visit and enjoy.
Approaching the tent. Photo courtesy Dana Wiyninger
Altar in Dana’s meditation tent on the camping field. Photo courtesy Hex Nottingham.
A small group made a side excursion to nearby Raymondskill Falls. Here’s a view of one of the waterfalls.
Raymondskill Falls. Photo courtesy Gabby Batz Roberts.
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And for those of us who can’t wait an entire year, the Gulf Coast Gathering will celebrate its second year in March 2016. Blessings of the Equinox to all!
Our bodies already know the Goddess – this is our oldest magic.
I relied on this insight in planning for the workshop at this year’s East Coast Gathering, whose theme was “Connecting with the Goddess.”
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Goals and plans I had for the workshop:
The heart of the workshop is a hands-on look at various ways to make a physical book/scroll/altar object that explores/invites/incorporates ritual, ogham/runes, art, prayer, poems, questions, magic and daydreaming into a concrete “link” to the Goddess as we experience Her — or desire to experience Her. Think “book” as “portable paginated/folding/roll-up ongoing altar-in-process.” I’ll talk about inspiration, nudges, hints and ways to listen, inviting and hoping for participant sharing and input! The seed for the workshop comes out of the fact that I’m a prime example of somebody who doesn’t have a consistent Goddess practice (though She’s seeing to it that’s shifting, too), but when She wants my attention, She gets it, like with this book, and workshop.
It’s probably a good thing we don’t always hear how ambitious we sound. Young or old, you eventually learn to deal with the inevitable gap between vision and manifestation. If you’ve managed to hold on to any of that original and wonderful idealism of youth, you also realize that the gap isn’t a reason to despair, or to dispense with vision, but rather a sign of just how important vision is.
The physical world, so important for manifestation, by its nature tends to lag behind the swiftness with which vision can appear. But that lag is precisely part of this world’s immense value: its inertia and density allow for greater permanency and resistance to change, so that we can experience the results of vision over time — and fine-tune it if we choose. Unlike in dream, where the subtle stuff of vision or imagination can wisp away so quickly, physical manifestation tries to linger.
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The Goddess is generous. Or alternatively, if you prefer the cynical version, I belong to the OCD Order of Druids. Creativity, as the saying goes, is messy. I over-planned for the workshop, ending up with far more material than any mortal could begin to do justice to in a mere hour, and this post is my penance, or confession. Or further indulgence. And maybe — in the way it often arrives when we’re not paying attention, even in spite of ourselves — a spark of awen.
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“Creating A Goddess Book,” with focus on “book” in order to free it from the psychological shrine many Druids, and Pagans generally, tend to put books in. Instead of paper, a book of leather, or metal, or cloth — individual sheets, or a single longer scroll. A nudge to try out the qualities of other substances than paper, than the admittedly inviting blank books on sale in chain bookstores, or even Ye Friendlie Lokal Paygan Shoppe.
Each workshop participant received a packet to practice with, consisting of a rectangle (approx. 3″ x 4″) of vegetable-cured leather and a similar-sized rectangle of .019″ aluminum, wrapped in a larger swath of canvas cut from a shop drop-cloth from Home Depot. A wood- and leather-burning tool, a few screwdrivers, some markers of various kinds, a few words about inspiration and the importance of working to manifest things on the physical plane as one powerful way to connect with the Goddess. Suggestions for inscribing/writing/ incising a short prayer, vow, magical name, etc. Reference tables of Ogham and runes for those who wanted to inscribe words with some privacy, as a personal meditation. I pointed out that you could cut all three materials with kitchen scissors. Besides the wood-burner, no fancy tools required. Then I shut up and let participants have at the materials. Done!
Hex Nottingham’s leather and metal “pages” — photo courtesy Hex Nottingham
Except for the next flash of inspiration in the planning process, which would not let go: a “Nine-Fold Star of the Goddess” you can try out here at one of several websites that illustrate the steps.
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A sampling, with some commentary and additions, from the workshop handout:
“Spirit must express itself in the world of matter or it accomplishes nothing. Insights of meditation and ceremony gain their full power and meaning when reflected in the details of everyday life.” — J. M. Greer, The Druidry Handbook, p. 138.
This world, here, is the realm of mystery. Spirit is simple — it’s this world that’s so surprising and complex in its changes and ripples, its folds and spirals and timings. Make something, I tell myself, labor with the body, and then I can often approach the Goddess more easily, dirt under my fingernails, sweat on my face. She likes bodies. I’m the one who keeps forgetting this, not her.
“Work with a Goddess long enough and you learn to hear Her call. You learn to pick her voice out above the noise of contemporary society, above the words of teachers and friends, and even above your own thoughts and feelings. Sometimes what you hear is not what you expect.” — John Beckett, “A Rite of Sacrifice,” Mar. 4, 2014.
“Shaper, you have made and shaped me. Honor and serenity are yours. I am your garment, you the indwelling spirit. Work with me in everything I do, that all may know you. Energizer, quicken me. Measurer, clear my path. Protector, guard me safely. Initiator, take my hand. Challenger, transform me. Savior, be my help. Weaver, make my pattern bright. Preserver, heal me. Empowerer, make me wise.” — adapted from Caitlin Matthews, Elements of the Goddess, p. 118.
Rilke’s fragment, a whole meditation in itself, or a daily morning prayer.
Oh, I who long to grow,
I look outside myself, and the tree
inside me grows.
— Rainer Maria Rilke
And Larkin’s poem “Water”:
Water
If I were called in
To construct a religion
I should make use of water.
Going to church
Would entail a fording
To dry, different clothes;
My liturgy would employ
Images of sousing,
A furious devout drench,
And I should raise in the east
A glass of water
Where any-angled light
Would congregate endlessly.
— Philip Larkin
After delighting in this poem, make an exercise of it. Choose one of the elements. It can be water, as in the poem, or one of the others. Finish the sentence: “If I were called in to construct a _____, I should make use of [element].” Keep going: a series of statements, a meditation on the one you just wrote, a free association. Whatever gets you putting words down. You can try this over several days with all the elements, or at a different pace, if you’re working with the elements on your own.
The ECG schedule this year put the Goddess Book workshop immediately after Thursday’s Opening Ritual, so people arrived still bubbling from the ceremonial jump-start for the weekend.
“In every world, in every form, in every way, I am near you, I uphold you, I comfort you, I guide you, I deliver you from each limitation until my freedom is yours. Your body is my chalice, your heart my echo, your form my shadow, your pulse my footstep, your breath my passing.” — from my own Goddess book.
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1. Once you hold the Star of the Goddess in your hand, write the names of the four elements and Spirit, one near each of the points. Complete this step before reading further.
2. Which elements sit on either side of Spirit? Contemplate on their positions there. Are they elements that help support your spiritual life? Are they especially active? Are these the elements that need extra attention and balance?
3. Consider a section in your Goddess book for vows: experiment with them, not as harsh, unyielding obligations, but as tools for studying resolve, testing experience, practicing manifestation of your intent, and so on. They need not be “public” – write them in ogham, runes, etc. Start small and easily achievable.
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Dedicating a Goddess Book: Blood, sweat, tears, spit, etc. can mark our books with our earthiness: a commitment to be honest with the Goddess about our path, its ups and downs, to remember her presence with us, and to acknowledge what we need, what we doubt, what we’re willing to work for – whatever feels right to include. Make a ritual of it. Do it quietly, simply, without fanfare, with silence making its own ritual. Or call out all the stops, bells and whistles. Then dance, feast and celebrate.
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Allow a Goddess book — it could be a single sheet or “page” specifically intended for this purpose — to return slowly to the elements on an outdoor altar. Or bury it in the Mother’s good earth. Thus is the vow fulfilled that the Mother takes into Herself, as She will take all things back in time, and return them again.
“All things are holy to you. This book like all things lies among the faces you show to me; may I learn from you daily, drink deep from your well, and body you forth as your child.” — from my Goddess book.
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A small ritual. Take a few deep breaths. Sing the awen, or other name or word that grounds and focuses you. Holding your cupped hands in front of you, say: “I make this altar for the Goddess, a space where she may act in my life.”
Holding the Star, or your journal, or other ritual object meaningful to you, or nothing else at all, ask yourself: What specific space or doorway exists in my life for the Goddess to manifest or to act in? Pay attention to hints, images and answers as they come.
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And again: Our bodies already know the Goddess – this is our oldest magic.
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Images: ogham; star.
I’ll return to A Druid Way (and the fourth post in the “American Shinto” series) when I get back from the annual East Coast Gathering (ECG) this coming weekend. This year’s 5th ECG shares in some of the energy of the OBOD 50th anniversary earlier this summer in Glastonbury, UK. For many U.S. Druids, the Gathering is the principal festival event of the year, a chance to renew old friendships, enter sacred time and space, and reaffirm ties to the special landscape of Camp Netimus in NE Pennsylvania. This year’s Gathering theme is “Connecting with the Goddess.”
In the interim, here are three images from last year’s Gathering — a visual invocation of the Alban Elfed/Autumnal Equinox energies of the Camp.
Camp Netimus sign — photo courtesy Krista Carter
Steps up to fire circle from Main Lodge — photo courtesy of Wanda GhostPeeker
The evening bonfire
Camp Netimus sign — photo courtesy Krista Carter
Several other attendees have written fine accounts of this year’s OBOD East Coast Gathering — see Dana’s and John’s posts for two good examples, which are also introductions to their excellent blogs. Here’s mine (with a link to last year’s post, too).
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Once I pull off the pavement onto the dirt road to Camp Netimus, I stop the car and get out. Apart from the soft metallic tinkling of the hot engine, there is only wind.
The first year I felt self-conscious about greeting the trees, but this year it comes effortlessly. How to convey the sense of subtle presence, of quiet welcome? Nothing I can “prove” or point to, nothing objective for any journalist who might opt to “cover” the weekend for a human-interest piece in a local paper, except a middle-aged man briefly motionless beside a tree. And yet. I stand with one palm flat against the gray trunk of this Netimus oak, and the sense of familiarity and welcome is palpable. How to explain this sense of return? Others at the Camp mention similar experiences over the course of the weekend. If this is delusion, and “only imagination” (two words that never should go together), it’s healthier than almost any other I can think of. The summer campers are gone, Alban Elfed — the fall equinox — is here, and Druids have returned to honor the spirits of place and the season. I know that a few hundred yards up the hill, I will see again the members of my Druid tribe, who have gathered from Texas and Michigan, Louisiana and Florida, New Hampshire and Georgia to celebrate, reunite, sing, dance, talk, learn, eat, drink, and revere the living green world.
Steps up to fire circle from Main Lodge — photo courtesy of Wanda GhostPeeker
Our three OBOD guests this year from the U.K. are musician and OBOD Pendragon Damh (Dave) the Bard, his wife, artist and workshop facilitator Cerri Lee, and OBOD Tutor Supervisor Susan Jones.
Damh the Bard and Cerri Lee — photo courtesy of John Beckett
In spite of a pesky virus Damh picked up on his way across the pond, he regaled us with two sets around the evening bonfire the first day.
The perfect encounter, fitting for a bard: we know him first by his voice alone, which precedes him, rolling out from his albums, videos and podcasts. Check out his live performances on Youtube, and you get a sense, too, of his warm personality and delightful laugh. Now he is with us in person, a commanding presence, towering over us at 6’4” or 5”.
Susan Jones, OBOD Tutor Coordinator. Photo courtesy John Beckett
Susan Jones, the Tutor Coordinator for OBOD, also returned to the States this year to celebrate with us and lead a fine meditative workshop on the Hermit and Journeyman in Druidry. We need the Elders of our Tribe to help us steer on a “path with heart,” to give us a sense of who and what has gone before. We’re all in training to be Ancestors, after all. What will we contribute when our descendants invoke and welcome us around their bonfires and hearths?
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The Cernunnos ritual Friday night proved powerful for many, the presence of the god palpable in the circle of the ceremony. John Beckett, priest of the god, led us in invoking him. The Lord of the Forests has remained on the periphery of my life thus far, a being I respect but have few dealings with. Yet in his grove I reconnected with an animal guide who made his presence known several other times during the weekend — that’s for another post. Two owls called intermittently throughout the rite.
This year was my third time attending the ECG, and the first for my wife. Over the last decade we’ve managed to pursue more deeply our individual paths and interests, while keeping each other apprised of what we’re learning and experiencing. I’d apparently talked up the Gathering enough that she opted this time to see “what I was up to” when I disappeared for several days in late September, to return smelling of woodsmoke and bursting with stories.
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After weather forecasts early in the week that would have left most days of the Gathering in rain, the weather shifted. Both Thursday and Friday turned bright and sunny, with cool evenings perfect for what has become a tradition of bonfire, mead, talk, drumming, story and song late into the night.
Four Quarters, we honor you. Hawk of the East, Stag of the South, Salmon of the West, and Bear of the North, you came to be with us once again.
Directional Banner Carriers — photo courtesy John Beckett
The Equinox is upon us. Still the Druid Prayer of the Revival echoes from last weekend at the East Coast Gathering:
Grant, O God/dess, thy protection,
And in protection, strength,
And in strength, understanding,
And in understanding, knowledge,
And in knowledge, the knowledge of justice,
And in the knowledge of justice, the love of it,
And in that love, the love of all existences,
And in the love of all existences, the love of God/dess and all goodness.
The lake in the picture (photo credit Sara Corry) is at the base of Camp Netimus, where the East Coast Gathering assembled for its third year this last weekend. In the presence of such moments, it’s easier to perceive that the physical world is one face of the holy, or as Jung expressed it, “Spirit is the living body seen from within, and the body the outer manifestation of the living spirit—the two being really one” (253). Humans respond to beauty and to such transparent intervals as this, often in spite of what they may consciously believe or claim about reality. We cannot help but be moved because we are part of what we witness. We may witness a score of hierophanies, visions of the divine, each day. Whatever our beliefs, these openings to the sacred nourish and help sustain us.
The rebalancing we hope to accomplish depends on our state of consciousness, on our ability to accept a gift given. And so in a workshop last weekend, “The Once and Future Druid: Working with the Cauldron of Rebirth,” we repeatedly turned to another seed-passage, this time from Neville’s The Power of Awareness: “The ideal you hope to achieve is always ready for an incarnation, but unless you yourself offer it human parentage, it is incapable of birth.” I carried that with me for several days, marveling at its ability to focus the attention. Whenever I found myself falling into old patterns of thought, I return to its simple truth. The power of such meditations and seed-exercises reaches beyond their apparent simplicity or even simplisticness.
In one sense we are consciously meme-planting, even if it’s on a personal level. Why not plant our own, rather than be subject to others’ constructs, which may not suit us? Yes, these seed-thoughts and heart-songs may remain lifeless if we do not ignite them with our attention and desire. But properly sustained, like a campfire (sorry … the camp images stick with me!), fed and banked and tended, it can pour out a healing and transformative warmth all out of scale to its visible size.
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Jung, Carl. Modern Man in Search of a Soul. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul/Ark Paperbacks, 1984.
Updated 9/28/12
The OBOD East Coast Gathering offers a chance for Druids to walk among friends, attend workshops, and (re)connect with a beloved landscape in northeastern Pennsylvania. Here’s the OBOD banner, the color easy to see, the three-rayed Awen symbol of the Order a little harder to make out. (Photo by John Beckett)
The camp which hosts the Gathering offers both tent areas and basic cabins.
With more people attending this year than last, the ample space helped.
The area is splendid for large group rituals as well.
The rainstorm over the weekend brought with it cooler weather, which just made us all the more grateful for hot drinks and the varied meals our staff of Druid volunteers cooked for us.
(Dining room photo by John Beckett)
I didn’t arrive in time for the opening ritual. But the Closing was held on the same grounds, with the same altars. Here are shots of the two entry cairns seen looking south, along with the four directional altars and their banners: Stag of the South, Salmon of the West, Bear of the North and Hawk of the East.
One of the added pleasures this year was the attendance of more Druids from different orders, including ADF. Here are members of Cedar Light Grove assembled around their grove banner (photo by John Beckett).
OBOD groves brought banners too.
And this year, the third Gathering and my second, yet another draw was the chance to meet and learn from both OBOD’s Chosen Chief Philip Carr-Gomm, and AODA’s Archdruid John Michael Greer.
The first photo is of Philip giving a talk in Storyteller’s Grove a little north of camp.
The second shows John Michael during one of his morning talks in the Pavilion.
In the third, both join for a conversation and Q&A. (3 photos by John Beckett)
And of course no Druid gathering would feel complete without the ceremonial garb that makes the rituals visually distinctive and memorable.
Here are JM Greer and John Beckett:
Topping off each day were the evening fire-circles and drumming, music and song and ample home-brewed mead, cyser and sack from our resident firekeeper and brewer, Derek. Then came the Hour of Recall, truly. The Closing ritual, goodbye hugs, departures, promises to keep in touch, to plan events, to meet again. Another remarkable East Coast Gathering comes to an end, with opened hearts and subtle changes to take away and live through for the coming year. Till 2013!
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A Druid Way 
