Here are “eight things on the eighth” in my attention. Is one or more of them as valuable as the historic piece of eight? “You be the judge!”
The FIRST is the celebration of a New England Druid gathering called BAM, happening this weekend. Many of my favorite people will be there. It’s been kept intentionally small as a balanced response to Covid, and the autumn season here in the northern hemisphere means most of it can take place outdoors. (I won’t be attending, unfortunately. It’s a choice; both my wife and I have pre-existing conditions, and we’re trying to stay healthy for each other, and “minimize the avoidables”. We’re aware not everyone has that luxury, and everyone adapts to these global circumstances in their own ways.)
Previous BAM, photo courtesy Cat McDonald
The other SEVEN are from a previous post that served as notes for this post. Often I write that way, talking about something in my attention, but needing a second run at it to firm it up and make it accessible and possibly useful for my readers.
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ONE — As with so much ritual, Pagan or otherwise, it’s useful to reflect from time to time on what still carries meaning, and what we may have retained simply “because it’s always been done this way”.
What’s one thing “I’ve always done this way” that I could do differently, in order to try out a consciously-chosen change that might be advantageous?
TWO — The potency that ritual often celebrates may merge with elements of the ritual itself, and we can end up revering the elements over the original potency, with or without good cause.
Where have I spent energy in transference that I could reclaim or redirect for the benefit of the whole?
THREE — At times we may find ourselves noticing that the ritual begins to feel flat, dim, empty. (It’s the same principle that underlies sympathetic magic, which we’re witnessing in weakened forms in vast swathes of current events, as influences bleed almost uncontrollably from one person and thing to another and another, like a pandemic or flash flood or wild fire. These are both metaphors and realities that have much to teach, if we could begin to listen.)
What (else) are the metaphor and reality trying to teach?
FOUR — Regeneration so often occurs from the roots, so it’s good to examine what these are, and whether we’re caretaking the dead leaves of one season, or nourishing a vital root-stock that sends out green shoots and runners each spring.
What are the roots in my life? Do I know? Can I name them and make them a more conscious part of each day and its tasks and joys?
FIVE — For care-taking is a large part of what we’re called to do, less in the way the word gets used today, where we’re “merely” standing in for the “real owners”, and more in the literal sense: a taking-care, a cherishing and nurturing.
What needs cherishing and nurturing? How am I particularly situated to tend to the cherishing I can do?
SIX — Give the fear and stress and suffering of much of the planet, we might begin with taking care of ourselves, and as it grows, let that care flow outward. Like any valid spiritual practice, Druidry offers tools to do just that.
What tools have I found effective? What other tools could I explore, or am being led to explore?
SEVEN — The commitment of the two people hand-fasting in the presence of the community assembled as witnesses, and with their love and support for the commitment the couple undertakes, and the acknowledgement of the mirth and reverence, the beauty and mystery that characterize the event, offer useful models for action. Which of those elements can I practice today in my life?
Where and how do I (already) support others’ commitments? Where can I further acknowledge mirth and reverence?
“One of the most striking characteristics of Druidism”, writes Philip Carr-Gomm, “is the degree to which it is free of dogma and any fixed set of beliefs or practices” (What Do Druids Believe? Granta Publications, 2006, pg. 25). “It honours the uniqueness of each individual’s spiritual needs. In this way it manages to offer a spiritual path and a way of being in the world that avoids many of the problems of intolerance and sectarianism that the established religions have encountered”.
So how does such a remarkable characteristic avoid fragmentation and a kind of “everyone for themselves” approach that would seem to end in splintering and a piecemeal practice and a hopeless muddle of “it’s my truth — find your own” subjectivity where no one can agree or discover common ground about anything?
Community and shared practice. That’s one experience that binds us together. This last weekend was the first New England BAM Druid Gather at Camp Middlesex in Ashby, Massachusetts.
Photo courtesy Catriona McDonald
With a rainy Thursday a.m. to clear the skies, a full moon on Friday the 13th, and sun all the rest of the weekend, the Gather(ing) of some 70 Druids showed Druidry at its best.
A Camp or Gathering by its nature needs contributions from many to happen at all. It simply can’t be the work of one person. Planning, reservations, cabin cleaning, fires, food purchasing and kitchen crew, scheduling and programs, kids’ activities, accessibility, publicity, registration, transport, fundraising, scholarships, website, site and event insurance, initiations, workshops, materials for activities, emergencies, special guests, first aid — you begin to get the idea from this still-incomplete list.
Rather than partial either-or labels of “create” or “experience”, a Gathering at its best is both at the same time. We experience what we create together as we create it, as it unfolds while we experience it, because of how we experience it, because of who we are. A Camp or Gathering is a demonstration of what Druidry does, rather than a sometimes-stillborn philosophical statement in words that can be (mis)read, argued with, etc. Participate in a Gathering — preferably, more than just one — help to make it happen in any way that fits your current life and means, and you begin to comprehend the tribal nature of this spiritual practice. As both a unity and a diversity, a Tribe united in experience embodies Druidry. To use a word from another tradition, the Tribe incarnates the Druid experience.
Where does that leave Solitaries? Which, after all, is all of us, when we’re apart from our Tribe, whether by preference or necessity, calendars or the nature of the gods or the exigencies of finances, time and space.
The same thing happens when we’re “alone” in our practice. Because if I practice for any length of time, I begin to sense my connections with the Others, both human and non-human, in all the Worlds around me. Again, this isn’t really a matter of belief but of demonstration — though it’s true belief can often catalyze, as well as limit, such experience.
I suppose it’s even possible, given how flexible and elastic this cosmos often turns out to be, for a resolute materialist to practice Druidry seriously over time, and stillexperience nothing of these things. But it would take immense resistance to the “Ten Thousand Things”, as Taoism calls them, all asking to be heard, to commune, to express themselves all around us and within our cells and sinews and fibers, to link with us and work at making a world. Ours is a thoroughly-inhabited Cosmos, and it’s ready to let us know it, if we give it even half a chance.
As Robert Frost, one of my Core Bardic Sages For Every Occasion™ puts it, “We dance round in a ring and suppose,/But the Secret sits in the middle and knows”. Ritual, Tribe, spiritual practice — all these contribute to our sitting in the center right along with the Secret, till it is secret no longer, but shared abundantly among us all.
May you know and savor and cherish such communions, wherever you are.
A Druid Way 