After a year away, I’m back with material I hope you’ll continue to find of value. Thank-yous to you who’ve supported this blog, returning to read from over a decade of posts, commenting, encouraging, and recommending articles at A Druid Way to others.
Here we are at another time of festival and holiday, which it pays to remember is ‘holy day’, one set apart from mundane time. The English words holy, Old Englishhalig, and hallow, Old English halga, ‘holy one, saint’ also form a verb halgian, to hallow or make sacred. Hallow evening or Hallowe’en, or All Hallows’ Eve, OE Ealra Halgena Æfen, is in many traditions the first of three days, continuing with All Saints’ Day on Nov. 1 and concluding on All Souls’ Day on Nov. 2. Together the days of the period make up Allhallowtide, a holy time.
It’s a great word we could easily bring back to wider use in contemporary life. What are your hallowtides? If you’re observing Samhain or Halloween alone or with a small group, it’s a great theme for meditation, or a ritual question to ask and answer aloud or silently.
On Friday I drove with a friend to one of Mystic River Grove’s celebrations of Samhain. The crisp air, the almost windless evening, let us feast outdoors before ritual, and the sacred fire warmed us as temps dropped to freezing. “All you who have gone before, please listen now, we are listening too” we sang as we processed into the circle. Third of the ancient Celtic harvest festivals, Samhain is truly ‘summer’s end’, as we turn inward to winter. And as with all things, balance persists, whether we discern it or not: the Southern Hemisphere is cherishing Beltane and its celebration of growing heat and light. This is one of the great challenges of our time, especially as Druids: to find the balance, the hinge point or still center around which events and passions swirl.
* * * * *
With this cycle of the voyage comes a site upgrade, so you can now read without ads.
Many years ago now, I participated in an online discussion group that included members of multiple faiths. It wasn’t always a comfortable space, nor did it need to be. We were there for engagement, but not necessarily ease. I recall a sharp criticism of Pagan perspectives on cycles and circles: that a circle is ultimately a cage, a trap, with no escape, and that only a faith that provided an out could offer anything like freedom.
It’s a distinctive view of salvation, or liberation, particularly as a faith rather than a practice. The discussion at the time was also particularly focused on one version of the Goddess as a kind of stand-in for all Pagan belief — a limited perspective the critic brought with him. That is, the (or a) Goddess as immanent, a part of the world, suffering along with mortals, influenced by human actions and wounded by human deeds stemming from ignorance. How, asked the critic, could such a figure ever meet our human hunger for transcendence?
It’s an interesting idea to unpack and explore, rather than simply reacting to. Most traditions have a round of observances, festivals, holidays, and don’t seem to feel bound or constrained by them. I haven’t found Druid practices any different. It’s the combination of the familiar and the new that keeps ritual observances fresh. For that reason, though the circle is a powerful symbol, and a kind of default shape for in-person Druid and other Pagan ritual, the underlying sense I perceive, and another widespread Pagan image, is the spiral. The circle is its two-dimensional version. Energetic movement or potential for movement curls in the spiral, a coil or spring or serpent power. It’s the source of rebirth, regeneration, that ritual glimpses and evokes and embodies. “True voyage is return” indeed, as long as we realize that “everything She touches changes”.
As a meditation object, a “Samhain mandala”, the spiral is potent. Drawing it, tracing or painting it on the body, can work as well for Beltane, for the energies spiraling into summer that are manifesting in whorls and curls of plant tendrils, of the burgeoning natural world, of seashells and spiral galaxies, of the long spiral of death and rebirth. Enter the underworld at Samhain and re-emerge at Beltane every year, practicing the pattern we live, of dying and being reborn. The festivals mirror and echo off each other across the calendar, across the hemispheres. What have I been born from? asks my Beltane self. What am I building right now as I near Samhain that will emerge in the early summer?
Samhain for me is a well. Maybe a well that opens onto the Otherworld, if I choose to dive in. Or sometimes a sea, endless, restless, caressing or lashing our mortal shores. I attempt to sound it, to measure its depth or outlines, to communicate by way of the thin line of attention or ritual or meditation, a line disappearing into the depths toward that which needs to speak with me. I don’t need to worry about missing it: what I do not heed consciously will work its way to the surface regardless.
/|\ /|\ /|\
If there’s one thing I know about the ancestors, it’s that they will be heard. Death has not so enfeebled them that they can only speak one time each year, or only with my attention and respect. Rather, my attention and respect are gifts I can offer, so that ancestral patterns, goals, wisdom can emerge within my circle of intention: I can meet in a circle with my ancestors, as with a spiritual council, and know what is afoot, and whether it aligns with what I am doing now. Not all their long-term projects deserve my assent or participation.
And I also bring assets to the council: present understandings, a body and set of experiences derived from being alive now, with links to the future and my own capacities as ancestor-in-training. For this reason, a mirror is one of my Samhain sacred tools: the face of my ancestors is also mine. I reflect a part of what they accomplished, what survives in this world, what may rest in the earth as a potential for them to manifest, should they return to bodies within this particular ancestral line.
I find myself in a rhyming mode today, and over time I’ve learned to work with it when it comes, because it can often give me light touches and entries and approaches to things that can otherwise be heavy or obscure, or present no handles, no entrance or doorway at all.
On this first Day of Samhain, I’ve lit a small fire in our woodstove. This Saturday’s sunny, but that autumnal nip in the air is real, and the dampness of early morning fog crept into the house. My wife and I were outdoors early and suddenly we were noticing cardinals. Maybe because many of the leaves are already off the trees, we speculated. Maybe it’s easier to spot them. The bright birds match some of the leaves as they darted in and around the trees. Depending on the weather, sometimes they’ll winter over here.
Beltane moon, Samhain moon …
As with dream work, so with blogging: first I have to get words down, a tentative, preliminary, approximate account. If I’ve left off dream study for a while, the direct links between dream and waking consciousness can take some work to revive. (Indirect links never leave us — they filter into reverie, whim, daydream, flashes of intuition and inspiration.) For me, the music of a line or two of verse can help. Other times, reading past dream entries can spark a new dream. I take these into sleep and recall improves, coming sometimes over several days, and slowly, or all at once.
I titled this post “cardinals,” but that’s really a placeholder. The birds aren’t thinking in human words, and “cardinal” evokes the color, which is often more useful than the word itself for many of my purposes. Let me bathe in cardinal red. Words as stepping stones out of our hyper-verbal culture — words simply as light touches, into something other.
/|\ /|\ /|\
Tonight at dusk I’ll set a match to a tea-light and daydream with it. Scrying with flame? Sure. Drawing a tarot card? Possibly. Maybe literally trying my hand at drawing a tarot-like image. Just being alive is itself a kind of divination. Samhain flame links me to a thousand generations. I take air into my lungs, I let it go. O mortal thing, whispers everything else around me, mortal thing, are you listening?
You can feel it, can’t you? The approach of the next of the Great Eight festivals, the holy tide of Samhain. Or across the hemispheres, the advent of Brighid’s day of Imbolc. Fire festivals, both of them. Opportunities for a “deep dive” inward, if you so choose.
Or maybe your inner senses just aren’t tuned to such things. Not a problem. Imagine what it feels like, the energies swirling and eddying around this time. Or if you have a photo of a beloved ancestor, or an object which that ancestor once held, you’ve got a different kind of connection.
Suggestions for where I can purchase an altar? posted a new Druid on a Druid forum. The responses tended toward the repurposed and well-loved piece of furniture. Discarded, scratched and refurbished, that tabletop, desk, nightstand, shelf. One commenter noted, “Half my house is now an altar” with niches and corners lovingly adorned with figures, stones, feathers, driftwood, sacred objects. The cast-off, hand-me-down, yard sale. And out of doors, the sawn-flat stump in the woods, or the stone the septic company excavated while locating your tank, or the natural crook or niche where a tree-trunk meets the ground.
Those blessed with outdoor space in a yard may have room for a permanent circle, or simply an open patch of grass, or a small corner walled on two sides by fencing, where a small figure peeps through the foliage.
The full moon last night and tonight can be a potent altar, as can the human heart, open and listening. Each ritual we do erects an altar in spirit, leaving an imprint in consciousness we can strengthen and reaffirm each time we bring it to mind, or repeat the ritual, each time we gather again in a beloved circle of Others, whether they have their skins on or not.
Se téoða mónð, October, Winterfylleð, swá hine cíg[a]ð íġbuende, Engle and Seaxe — Menologium. “The tenth month, October, Winterfylleð, as the island-dwellers call it, Angles and Saxons”, notes the medieval Old English Menologium.
No, not “filth” as in dirt or foulness, but “fullness” — the moon of October that signals the start of winter.
Tolkien, master scholar of Old English, uses many of the OE month-names in his Shire Calendar.
TWO — Samhain
What is there to say about Samhain that hasn’t been said already? Well, it’s always new, each time it rolls around. Part of the newness lies in the perceptions we bring to it. This year, the OBOD celebration of Samhain puts members of New England’s Mystic River Grove front and center as celebrants for the online event on Saturday, 6 November at 3:00 pm EST. You can find more info on the OBOD Facebook page and website.
THREE — Free While Living
Jivan mukti, as it’s called in Hinduism, “liberation while still alive”, is a curious mix of qualities and characteristics that many Druids might well aspire to, as well as perceptions or goals many might shun. Such a person, as the Wiki article describes it, is “humble, high spirited, of clear and steady mind, straightforward, compassionate, patient, indifferent, courageous, speaks firmly and with sweet words”. The jivan mukta, or liberated one, does no harm to living beings, is indifferent to praise or blame, and is as comfortable alone as in the company of others. Insofar as we think of the “ideal Druid”, many of these qualities fit.
How well does my practice illuminate some or any of these qualities, or others? How can I assess whether I even find these qualities desirable?
FOUR — “Into the Woods”
No, it’s not Sondheim, and it’s not so recent (2013), but it deserves wider viewing. Three-quarters of an hour worth spending with the words and images here — a Druid group active in the Chiltern Hills in England, with a Samhain celebration in the final third or so.
FIVE — Stretching the Seams
Pick up Thoreau’s Walden, and scarcely do you begin when in the second paragraph he lobs a request, a “burn”, a dedication and a metaphor at us:
I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men’s lives; such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me. Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students. As for the rest of my readers, they will accept such portions as apply to them. I trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may do good service to him whom it fits.
It’s both bracing and disorienting to read writers like this, who disdain ingratiating themselves with readers, and instead set off on their course expecting readers to have sense enough to follow.
The request and “burn” I mentioned go together — a sincere account of our lives, and the rarity of such a thing. Then a dedication: to poor students — and we can number many thousands in that category, though they may never read Walden or ponder its wisdom, or its author.
Whom does the “coat” of the book “fit”? If we work not to stretch the seams, Thoreau appears to be saying, then it will fit. The readers need to engage; the author will not hand everything over. Perhaps the more valuable the contents, the less they can be made to order. In a certain sense, the world is indeed a kind of “one size fits all” dwelling. We all find ourselves here, somewhere on the planet, whether the place where we find ourselves feels very hospitable or not.
“Those who would learn must want to learn in the manner they will be taught”. No customer model of learning, where we cater to student whim and prejudice and ignorance. What is the ‘poverty’ of the ‘poor students’ which Thoreau wishes to address, especially in Walden’s first and substantial chapter, titled “Economy”? Economy, oeconomia, oikos + nomos + –ia — “laws of the household”. Does a well-run, smoothly operating world-house or cosmos follow principles, laws, patterns? Many Druids think so, and to varying degrees we attempt to match and harmonize with those rhythms, patterns, and principles.
Ah, Emnight — that word I’ve lifted wholesale from Old English emniht, from *efenniht “even-night, equal night (and day); equinox”. (Hail, Kin Down Under at the official start of Spring)!
A good word to revive in modern English, as the waxing full moon (se fulla mōna) strives to match it in our September skies. On emnihtes dæg, ðæt is ðonne se dæg and sēo niht gelīce lange bēoþ, writes Bede in the 700s in his De Natura Rerum. “On the day of equinox, that is when the day and the night be equally long”.
It’s fruitful to consider as well that the moon is a planet-wide marker, independent of season (though it signals different seasons in different lands). Here’s a celestial object that (barring fog or cloud or smoke) everyone on the planet can see within a single 24-hour period.
So here at this 2021 equinox we have the sun and moon together. If you already celebrate a moon ritual, why not combine it with the equinox in a couple days?
[Cool, dude. So where’s your equinox ritual?]
Many magical groups traditionally took special note of the energies around the equinox. J. M. Greer notes in Golden Dawn-focused book Circles of Power:
The spring and fall equinoxes are points of special importance in the Golden Dawn tradition, and are celebrated with special ceremonies in Golden Dawn temples. During the forty-eight hours to each side of the actual moment of the equinox—the moment when the Sun crosses the celestial equator—Sun and Earth stand in a relationship which allows a much more intense flow of energy between them, and the etheric body of the earth is charged and renewed. (Circles of Power: An Introduction to Hermetic Magic, 3rd edition, London: Aeon Books, 2017, pg. 39).
You may feel a number of reactions to this, including indifference, complete mystification, ridicule, curiosity, or even palpable envy that someone, somewhere, is celebrating special empowering ceremonies you know nothing about.
Let me step back a moment. One of the challenges of living in time is an intermittent and creeping sense of “same-old same-old”. This can burn fiercely enough that some people will feel driven to throw off a “perfectly good set of personal circumstances”, changing houses, spouses, sexual orientations, jobs, friends, beliefs, countries of residence and much more. (Before anyone chides me about the unwokeness of “changing sexual orientations at whim”, remember that their reality and impact, versus our awareness of them, can diverge widely. It’s the latter I’m talking about. Isn’t the same thing true about so much in our lives?)
[My patience is wearing thin, dude. Where’s the ritual, and this ‘opportunity’ of the post title?]
The point of mentioning this is to remind myself first, and secondly anyone else who reads this far, that what has been called in the Judeo-Christian tradition the “sanctification of time” is a major strategy of most if not all spiritual paths. That is, how can we vividly mark what matters in life? How do we acknowledge and celebrate — and consecrate — those moments of transcendence we all experience, even if only a handful of times in a typical life? How — for those hungry for more such moments, more connection, more “wow” — do we accommodate such hunger? How can I start to be a little less “typical”, because I’m simply weary of it? What, to sum up, can we do about “all this”?
“Do something about all this” addresses in potentially profound ways the sense of “same-old same-old” that I mentioned above. It’s even more applicable in such WTF* times as these. If we look at societies undergoing profound transformation, as so many are these days (and as the U.S. where I live certainly is), the stress and distress that such changes cause can be eased and understood more clearly, even anticipated to a considerable degree, through spiritual practices that correspond with our lived experience. We can suffer less, and help those we love survive and thrive, if we attend to our deepest wellsprings and connections to the cosmos. We can find renewal, energy, hope, inspiration.
The secret here, if there is one, is that “there’s no OSFA” — no “one size fits all”. The ritual or ceremony or spiritual practice that lights one person up like a flame leaves another scowling or giving up on all spirituality as a stinking puddle of hooey. But with deep misery and anger and, most of all, the widespread fear in these times, we might even begin with the “Litany Against Fear” from Frank Herbert’s Dune series (and past and current films):
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
The initial value of the “Litany Against Fear” is that it gives us something to do besides fear. We can apply the same principle to other rituals and practices. (Often the shift of attention off the problem or issue or concern is an immediate gift of ritual. Another gift is the shift of attention onto something positive, desirable, appealing, wise, lovable, etc. If ritual did nothing else, these two gifts would be considerable. “But wait! There’s more!”)
What am I already doing that I can and want to do more of? (Try to write down five things. Or three. Or seven.)
What can I celebrate that I already do, that has value or importance in my life? (How might I celebrate it? Food, music, a walk, time with family, friends, neighbors, a pet?)
When are there intervals, minutes or transitions in my daily, weekly, monthly life that I can give myself the gift of downtime, however brief, to do these first two things?
The shapes that these acts and rituals take, then, will depend on you, your choices, circumstances, resources. That’s a good thing, because they will fit you better than somebody else’s choices, circumstances, resources. You can start so small it feels almost too easy. In fact, if you find yourself asking Is that all? that can be a good sign to add one more thing. But the first practice should indeed feel almost too easy. Too easy not to do it. And then to do it again.
You may want to consider doing more than this. the regular practice of meditation is the most basic practice in most systems of magical initiation, and for good reason. It develops skills that make every other kind of magical work easier and more powerful, and also brings the kind of self-knowledge and self-awareness that keep the initiatory process on track. Ten or fifteen minutes a day of meditation will take you further, faster, than any other practice that exists (J. M. Greer. The Mysteries of Merlin, Llewellyn, 2020, pgs. 80-81).
Here Greer is writing about meditation as an aid to benefiting from ritual practices focused around the figure of Merlin, but the counsel is sound, as anyone who follows through and sees the benefits he describes can attest.
Another step to deepen the ritual I’ve sketched above — your answers to the three prompts — is to include that detail from Greer’s observations about the Golden Dawn: “Sun and Earth stand in a relationship which allows a much more intense flow of energy between them, and the etheric body of the earth is charged and renewed”.
Using your creativity and imagination, what do these feel like? Look like? Sound like? Make your answers part of your ritual. As with your moon ritual, what tools, props, objects, music, costumes, locales, actions can assist in making this experience more concrete?
As you continue to practice your ritual, ask how the ritual itself can deepen, or change, or spin off and lead to other rituals. Note down any answers before they flee, which they will often do, like dreams when you first wake up. Greer notes:
One core advantage … is that the newcomer to the work can start with a simple form …, work at that level for a period, then use the skills developed at that stage of the work to add higher and deeper dimensions to the practice if he or she wishes to do so (Mysteries of Merlin, pg. 63).
/|\ /|\ /|\
*WTF is a flexible acronym with a good range of applicable meanings. Beyond its four-letter word version are versions like these: Who to follow? What to fix? Where to flee? Why this fits? Ways to flourish, wisdom to find … keep going with your own versions!
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.
/|\ /|\ /|\
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?
Search “Beltane” and “Bealtaine”, and one of the top results to come back is “How is Beltane celebrated?” People want to know the how, the available elements for crafting a meaningful life from any source that won’t run away.
One source that modern Druidry has adopted is working with the four seasonal festivals of the ancient Celts — Imbolc, Beltane, Lunasa and Samhain. Each carries fire symbolism. But more than the symbol is the thing itself. Fire is an intermediary — a palpable physical thing, it’s both animate and insubstantial — a beautiful representation of the cosmos at its most alive and mysterious. Gather with friends around a fire and you participate in a human action tens of thousands of years old. In these challenging times, mirroring our ancestors’ experiences through the centuries, a fire says “we’re still here”.
Much of our human experience consists of defining our spaces and places, and the awareness we bring to them. At its heart, Druidry is a kind of continual prayer: O let me wake into the holy in every moment.
This is sacred time, go the words of standard OBOD ritual. This is sacred space. We name it to remind ourselves, yes — to evoke it through intention and attention — but also to recognize what’s already there. We can create sacred space because sacred space has shaped us from birth. It’s our heritage, our birthright, unless we give it away.
So we call it back.
“One of the most common responses I see to the idea of developing a daily practice”, Teo Bishop writes, “is that there is no time. This assumes that a practice must be a long, complicated ritual, full of gestures and ritual phrases. It paints a practice as yet another way that the struggle of our day to day life is a weight on our shoulders.
But the daily practice can be framed another way.
Let it begin with something small. Light a candle, take one, deep breath, then extinguish the flame.
That’s all.
It won’t take but a second”.
Bishop wrote the blogpost I quote above for the autumn equinox. But fire is good for any time. As mage and author Josephine McCarthy describes it,
My deepest personal experience of that is with the lighting and tuning of the candle flame. The intent to light a candle to prepare the space for a ritual act developed from that simple stance, to an act of bringing into physical manifestation an elemental expression that lights through all worlds and all times: it becomes the light of divinity within everything (J. McCarthy. Magical Knowledge, pg. 70).
As a focus for meditation, for out-of-body work, for reverence, for kindling the spirit in times of heaviness and despair, fire has no equal.
It’s very old, this focus on fire. (“Focus” itself is an old word for “hearth” or “altar”. We make an altar of what we focus on). We read in the Rig-Veda 1.26.8, “For when the gods have a good fire, they bring us what we wish for. Let us pray with a good fire”.
One way to understand this passage, of course, says simply that “if we build it, they will come”. On occasion that’s exactly right. Dedication is its own reward. Often, though, the arrival of gods lies in our building — the impulse to light the fire, the desire for kindling light and flame, is itself divine presence. We manifest the divine, or banish it, by choice, by our actions in each moment. Magicians, every one of us.
We tend, under the influence of credal religions and orthodox examples where belief is central, to feel that if we don’t “believe” in something, then it doesn’t exist. We create our reality, the zeitgeist tells us. And that’s beautifully and abundantly true in ways that deserve our respect and exploration — as long as we remember others are creating their realities, too. In these times of covid, we’re reminded forcefully of the consensus reality we all play a part in creating, one where other things and people have existence and significance — and impact our lives — whether or not we “believe” in them.
Fire is even more important then, as a witness. No matter the dark, life and light also exist and have their say. One thing becomes another, in the Mother, in the Mother. Fire can assist us with that transition — can help bring it about.
What would a local Druidry look like if I built it from the ground up, from what I can perceive today, right now? What do I bring to this moment? What does this moment bring to me?
daffodils waiting, saying more than any blogpost can …
After all, Druidry begins like most spiritual paths with “Here I am — here we all are. Now what?”
One of the most obvious things we can acknowledge and celebrate is day and night. A walk at sunrise and sunset. Standing in the doorway or at a window, facing east at dawn or early morning, west at sundown or in the early evening. A photo or picture on the wall, a small shrine to the direction. A prayer, song, chant, charm or rhyme, for these times, or for just after waking, just before sleep. Write/collect a set of them, to vary them according to season or month or intention.
We learn to “curate our consciousness”. Because if I don’t, plenty of others will jump at the chance, telling me how to feel, what to think, what to buy, where and how to live. (Half of Druidry is exploring ways of using my life for the best purposes I can choose.)
What does this attention bring me? What do I see and hear, feel and smell and touch? What touches me?
crocuses crocusing
Perhaps some other part of the cycles of your life interests you, or draws your attention. Maybe your lunch-hour or midday is most significant in your schedule. Or perhaps returning home each day after work. The specific rhythms of our lives offer an excellent place to offer honor and gratitude for their gifts, to acknowledge exchanges of energy, to honor the life in them. They’re ours, after all — we’re unique beings in unique circumstances, so why not build our practice from these experiences?
We may justifiably rebel from the ordinary, the mundane and humdrum and commonplace — until we find a key to transform them.
Waiting for that key … If you’re like me and practically everyone else on this planet, we can be quite passive toward our own lives, waiting for “something to happen”, till we begin to see how much we shape our experience by assumption and attitude and attention. A small step toward “making things happen” will have effects all out of proportion to its beginnings. Doubt it? Try it out and document your experiences. Yes, you’re on your way, a key in hand.
What keys are the apparent, mundane, ordinary facts of my life trying to hand me? Where am I turning them away? Again, rather than judgment, treat it as the story-line out of a fairy-tale. “I am the seventh child of the seventh child, and this time I will take the key … when all my sisters and brothers and cousins turned away …” Because right now the key awaits in the most unlikely likely place.
“The highest good is like water” — Tao Te Ching
What am I looking at right now, and does it deserve my attention, my time? What can I shape and beautify and charge with my desire and intention and joy? Because if I don’t, I’m simply yielding the floor to the desires and attentions of others, and they’re almost never more fitting for my life than my own. Not wrong, or bad or “evil”, necessarily — just not as appropriate. Bless them and let them go. Apply a triad to actions, a “sieve for consciousness” like one attributed to Rumi: “Is it true, is it kind, is it necessary?”
Sifting priorities. The time I spend online can be a sample illustration of this powerful tool. Because it affords a magnificent and piercing sieve of my actions and intentions and will. Let me log on consciously, with a blessing on my interactions. Let me stay as long as I need to, in order to check in with those I care about, to make worthwhile posts and comments. Let me pass by any distractions that don’t serve me. No judgment, just choice in action. Let me log off with another blessing.
The weather both today and seasonally invites me to other celebrations. Beltane in the wings …
Full moon, waxing, waning, new — we can also make attention to our sister planet part of our Druid practice, if we choose. What phase of the lunar cycle calls to you? Or if none do, pass by, without judgment, to where you are called.
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.
/|\ /|\ /|\
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.
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?
/|\ /|\ /|\
“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?’
Many of you may know author and artist Julia Cameron, whose The Artist’s Way and associated books have justifiably won her devoted readers. Here’s her entry for January 26 in The Artist’s Way Every Day*:
“Art is a form of the verb “to be.” It is not mere cleverness to point this out. At its core, life is artful and creative, each moment contains choice as much as each brush stroke in a painting, each syllable in poem, each note in a melodic line. It is because of this, its insistence on choice, that art demolishes the victim position. When bullying life demands of us some injustice: “You want to make something of it?” the artful answer is yes.
What will I make of it? The challenge for anyone alive is to re-win this artful approach every day. When I managed to center myself in it yesterday, felt its truth in my marrow, and marveled at the doors opening because of it, I sleep and wake and there it is to be re-won the next day. Now if I make a practice of it, a momentum builds over time that I can draw on — water from a well. Some days it does indeed come easier. Almost without effort there are days when I can slip back into the pose, the stance of it, like a martial arts kata. Ah, there it is again, my blood sings.
And Druidry is simply one way to do this, among many. One of the signal advantages of Druidry is that it hauls around substantially less baggage than many older spiritual paths. What was once an artful answer in many traditions has too often solidified into dogma. You must believe it, rather than practice it to find out if in fact it actually works for you. And if it doesn’t work for you, you’re bad, evil, lost, sinful, worthless, a loser, trash, garbage, rubbish, broken, useless — take your pick of abuse. Many of us have.
An artful way can be a long one. In truth it should be a long way — a lifetime’s way. Because in the end it’s the only way survivors end up traveling, each in her own way. Not my way or the highway — nothing like that. No, you find what works for you. Something is always coming to birth within us. No one else can do that work for me. Others can cheer me on, and I love them for that. They can walk with me part of the way, and I’ll cherish them for their company. They can write blogs and books, offer workshops, help us rekindle the fire when it’s fallen to ashes. They can sing to us, feed us, hold us when we cry, and remind us You got this.
Druidry from its early modern re-conceptions has (mostly) tried to be artful. Rather than a doctrine, it offers a toolkit, a spice-rack, a palette of colours. Rather than a creed, it offers songs, images, magic. Rather than priests, it offers bards. If it has weaknesses (and of course it does), one that comes to mind is a lack of spiritual guidance for those truly floundering and struggling. We have only to look at the prevalence of mental illness today and realize how many of us are suffering. Yes, individual Wise Ones can be found here and there — their own small local groups and groves know who they are. And while they can indeed offer wise counsel and compassion, most have no professional training in working with deep-seated and chronic problems. That time may come, but it is not yet now. The current stigma doesn’t cloak immorality, like it used to do. The current stigma instead clouds and paints mental illness with a most destructive brush. In a world already increasingly isolated by covid, the people who most need the rebalancing that often comes with human connection are deprived of just that necessity. Zoom and Skype and Facetime only take us so far.
/|\ /|\ /|\
A strength of Druidry, one that’s often held out to people, is that it makes no requirements about beginning. You start where you are, with the circumstances you find yourself in. Yes, it’s true that as with internet forums, the requests for help that are often most successful are those that show the petitioner has put forth some effort already. That’s all the Druidry asks — that you actually try out some of its practices. Not believe what some of its spokespeople try to conceptualize on the basis of their experiences, but begin with my own practices that will lead to my own experiences. Then, when I come across the beliefs and concepts of others, I can begin to perceive something about the experiences that underlie them — because I’ve experienced some version of the same thing.
The tolerance that comes with that kind of recognition also gives us a place to start to work with others that springs from an inner authority others recognize. We can honor and respect another’s understandings because we’re still working on our own — in the same way. We refer it back to experience. The Land teaches me something new each season, though I’ve “been through” all four seasons many times already. My dreams show me wisdom in part because I’ve listened to them in the past. I look forward to celebrating Imbolc because I know that once again I’ll discover something valuable about Brighid, about the day, about my fellow Druids if I’m on Zoom, about early February in my particular place, whether I’m in a group or solitary.
The tree is silent because that’s the only way I can hear what it’s saying.
/|\ /|\ /|\
*Cameron, Julia. The Artist’s Way Every Day: A Year of Creative Living. Tarcher/Penguin, 2009.
I don’t know about you, but I often have a gut feeling about the seasons. Two weeks out, as you keep reading me write here. Around two weeks before one of the “Great Eight” festivals looms on the earth’s calendar, the coming celebration begins to kindle little fires in my peripheral vision. Imbolc, Imbolc. We notice things, it seems to us, simply because they’re notice-able, but our noticing makes them also makes them more pronounced, more prominent, more accessible to our awareness.
It’s a common enough experience: get a new car, a new dog, a new god, and suddenly you notice them all around you. This should (re)alert us to our realities. We’re seekers of saliency — biologists and psychologists try to keep this fact (a whole level of irony in that) in our awareness. “I’m going to pay attention to whatever stands out for me in my world, because that’s obviously what matters”. Yes — but hard and fast on the tails of that comes a potent corollary: what do I want to discover? What do I choose to empower with my attention? And what am I pushing away and refusing and denying, because it doesn’t fit — because it may well bring (the horror of it!) change. Answering such questions is enough to keep a Druid up nights.
I’ve learned to tell when things are stirring because I start to get snarky.
“But I don’t believe in _____ “. Doesn’t matter. Or at least it doesn’t matter that much right now. Invite some direct personal experience into your life, and what you believe may take a holiday, or hibernate, or explode. Or stay exactly the same. You said you were looking for some excitement, right? Time to spin the Belief Roulette wheel. Why not? We do it with absolutely every other part of our lives. Why should our beliefs be exempt? After all, they’re often the least reliable part of us. When I’m kissing an attractive Other, their lips matter a lot more than their beliefs. Kiss a god three times and watch your beliefs do a backflip.
Google the word Imbolc for its origins and you’ll get a range of learned and folk opinion. The possible meanings can each lead to fruitful meditation and ritual. Old Irish i mbolc, modern Irish i mbolg, “in the belly” — the soon-to-be-born lambs of the season. Oimelc, an alternative name dating from the 10th century, meaning “ewe’s milk”. Old Irish imb-fholc, “to wash or cleanse oneself”, consistent with this festival of purification. English Candlemas, St. Brighid’s Day. A holiday dating “from the Neolithic period”, Wikipedia tells us, with overlays and cultural additions over time, making for a splendid richness and depth.
Go outdoors, after or before you’ve Googled, or instead, and if you’re in the Northeastern U.S. you probably see new snowfall.
Back yard, 10:16 am this morning.
I can learn at least as much Druidry exploring the transformed landscape as I can pondering the possible origins of the word Imbolc. If you live in a different climate, the same holds true. Maybe not today, but yesterday, or tomorrow.
A lovely example of our Druidry at work and play, from an online post: Want to celebrate this snowy landscape, invite something of what’s happening to earth, trees, and sky into our homes? Bring in some snow, melt it, and water the houseplants and pot-herbs with it, a winter’s blessing. Make tea or coffee with it. Save some to asperge the house with on Imbolc, or ceremonially deploy it during your Zoom ritual.
Your song and my song of Imbolc may be different, winter-song, desert song, sea-shore song, tropical song. What matters is that we listen and hear them and sing them, aloud or silently.
/|\ /|\ /|\
Greetings to Peru, newest visitor according to both the Flag Counter and WordPress analytics. Imbolc and Lunasa, Lugh and Brighid, linking the holidays as our planet is linked …
A recent post in a Druid forum asked about connecting with the natural world in winter, especially in regions where cold and snow make the outdoors less inviting unless you plan to stay active and warm hiking or skiing and so on.
Especially in cooler climates, winter draws us inward. That nudge to hibernate, to drowse and sleep and inhabit an in-between is a valid one, one we can honor and welcome, rather than resist, or apologize for, or feel somehow shamed by.
That inward focus can lead to celebrations and insights into nature through drawing, writing, music, crafting, etc. — arts that spring from our own inwardness, a whole world we often step past in the more outward-facing months of summer.
Even water drowses, moves slower, curves back on itself, dreaming of a thaw …
Planning a garden, celebrating each midday point in these short winter days, watching the dawns or sunsets, etc. can all be conscious acts of dedication and participation during winter. And incubating dreams, keeping a dream journal, working on projects or issues or questions through dreaming, including daydreaming and drowsing, can all be richly productive. Objects I’ve collected in better weather now matter more. They’re important to touch and handle frequently: stones, feathers, shells, bones, pieces of wood, etc. Contours and textures of our worlds.
And this physical touch and connection, especially now when we hunger for it during covid, can include pets, who mediate wonderfully for us with the natural world. So we talk with them, cuddle them, spend even a little time outdoors with them and watch them play in the snow, and perhaps rekindle the wonder of winter, even if we don’t choose to ski or snowshoe or hike or sled, toboggan or romp.
The natural turn towards inwardness accords with the dark and bright halves of the year. The “yang-ness” of much of Western culture prods us to give some account for ourselves, to justify our hours and days with productivity, with gains and forward movement and progress. If we’re to e-volve, we have to “turn outward”, the word itself tells us. But that’s just half of it.
Part of the natural rhythm that Druidry can help us re-establish is a more sane balance between outer and inner activity. Anyone who thinks trees and animals aren’t “active differently” in winter can apprentice themselves to the natural world to find out just what’s going on. This can be another winter activity — reading, study, inquiry, research, pondering, finding out for ourselves, as well as walking outside to smell the chill air, marvel at winter sunlight, catch all the hues of gray and white, light and dark, shade and sun.
These queries and thoughts are fitting for the new moon that’s upon us. We’re just emerging from the Dark of the Moon after all, into a New Moon. Lunar questions, lunar contemplations. The tree for the month, following the 2021 Lunar Calendar (www.thelunapress.com) is Luis, the Rowan or Mountain Ash. As I look on the Rowan in our front yard, I try to honor its lesson, follow its lead.
Rowan, as an image of winter’s inwardness, you do well. Hard even to make out completely, set as you are against a background of other trees. Barren, and with the camera’s foreshortening, looking like you sit directly under electrical lines.
Often it seems trees wait because they “can’t do anything else”. So it can be revealing to do a tree meditation, to listen to what is going on with a particular tree. Rowan isn’t worrying about winter, or considering the starkness of its branches against other trees, or the sky. Its sugars and life-sap have retreated from where its leaves were, but it’s no less alive for all that. I hold the Rowan twig I picked up a few years ago from a dead branch on the ground. I’ve used a woodburner to mark the Rowan ogham ᚂ on the stave, another step. On such seemingly small actions we can build steps and paths to further insight and connection.
Whether or not I “finish” a set of ogham staves, I have these gifts from several neighboring trees to hold and connect with and listen through. Rowan’s magic, magic of hemlock, oak magic …
One great gift of the Others like trees and animals (as well as people) who share our worlds is that they help draw us out of ourselves, when necessary. Caitlin Matthews’ wise book, Celtic Devotional, offers this short meditation for the Thursdays of winter: “I give thanks for the wise qualities of the evergreen trees that have stood by me this day: may you show me how my own heart can be evergreen and growing through winter’s doubt and darkness”.
This is a post that will become a page on this site, because the topics it addresses raise perennial questions. Its direct inspiration comes from discussions on Druid social media sites, and from your search terms here at A Druid Way.
/|\ /|\ /|\
If you bear in mind the popular saying “Ask three Druids and you’ll get ten answers”, you should be in good shape. This short FAQ arises out of one person’s experience, study and reflection. As with most things, a second – and third – opinion will be very useful and give you a broader and more informed perspective.
What is Druidry?
Druid author J. M. Greer gives an answer that’s held up well over time: Druidry “means following a spiritual path rooted in the green Earth … It means embracing an experiential approach to religious questions, one that abandons rigid belief systems in favor of inner development and individual contact with the realms of nature and spirit”. While beliefs matter, more important is what Druids do each day. An openness to experiences and encounters in nature forms part of the Druid perspective.
Do Druids believe ____ ?
Some probably do. Many may not. No single creed or statement of faith unites all Druids, because Druidry is an individual spiritual practice or way of life rather than a set of beliefs. In this way, it’s like asking “What do carpenters believe?” This sets it apart from many Western monotheistic faiths, and also makes it possible to be a Christian and a Druid, an agnostic and a Druid, etc.
However, it’s possible to talk about what Druids believe using general statements with “most” and “many”. Here’s a Triad that probably characterizes a large number of Druids:
Most Druids are united by a love and respect for nature, and show an attentive attitude towards its rhythms and cycles that they may express in seasonal observances like the solstices and equinoxes. Secondly, many Druids also perceive a spiritual dimension to life, though that may or may not mean belief in a god or gods. Third, many Druids also express their perspectives and experiences creatively, through craft or art, carrying on in modern forms the traditions of the ancient Bards.
Do you have to have Celtic ancestry to be a Druid?
No. The ancient Celts were a culture, or set of related cultures and languages, rather than a single genetic bloodline. Given that the Celtic peoples apparently ranged across much of Europe, from Ireland and Portugal to Germany and Italy, and possibly further east, settling and intermarrying with other peoples, this shouldn’t be too surprising. It’s true there are a few and mostly small Druid groups who require their members to demonstrate a specific ancestry — often Irish or Scottish. But our ability to love and respect and live lightly on the earth certainly doesn’t need or benefit from genetic gate-keeping. Anyone anywhere on the planet can practice Druidry starting right now.
Where do the teachings of modern Druidry come from?
A range of sources. Many traditional stories in surviving Celtic literature like the Welsh Mabinogion point to Druid practices and understandings. In several cases, they also provide teaching stories and initiatory insights which several Druid groups use in their training. While a few individuals and groups claim to preserve ancient or hereditary Druid practices and beliefs, in most cases these are the common folk wisdom of most pre-modern cultures around the world: a knowledge of herbs and natural cycles, animal and plant and star-lore. More important than how old they may be is the question: “Do they work today?”
The Renaissance recovery of Classical sources, the influences of Neo-Platonism, Arabic learning in astronomy and medicine, mathematics and alchemy and astrological lore, and the British Druid Revival beginning in the 1600s, all play their part in helping to deepen Druidry. Practices of meditation and visualization also derive from a variety of sources. Most Druid teachings emphasize learning from our own locale. The trees, plants, animals and landscape, previous inhabitants and climate all have many things to teach.
How do I become a Druid?
For anyone alive today, the path to Druidry has been made smoother and broader by books and the internet. Many Druids are great readers. Books can give you a sense of the range and depth of Druid practice, and inspire you to adapt relevant portions of it to your own life and circumstances. (See Books and Links.) The internet can connect you to active and established Druid groups, who offer events and resources for members and non-members alike. But while these sources can be helpful and inspirational, a walk around one’s home area is an excellent prime starting point. What can I learn about — and from — the trees and animals and plants in my region? Who lived here before me, and what did they know? What local geographical features like mountains or lakes or the ocean influence the weather? How do I “fit” where I live?
Can I be a Druid without joining a Druid organization?
Absolutely. Even those Druids affiliated with an organization are often “solitary” Druids for 350 days out of each year. Curiosity, a willingness to learn and study what interests you, and reverence for the earth are the marks of a Druid, not membership in any group. (See my post Druiding without An Order.)
What do we know about ancient Druids?
Direct evidence is comparatively modest. We have archaeological discoveries and the accounts of Classical authors contemporary with ancient Druids. We can make intelligent guesses from some of these sources, but much remains unknown. The single best book on the subject is Prof. Ronald Hutton’s Blood and Mistletoe: The History of the Druids in Britain.
How can anyone claim to be a Druid today, if we know so little about the ancient Druids or their practices?
Philip Carr-Gomm, former Chief of OBOD, the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, addresses this directly:
“Contemporary Druidry draws on a heritage of thousands of years, and yet many of its ideas and practices have only been formed over the last few hundred years. Unlike most of the established religions, which are based on doctrine formulated in the distant past, Druidry is developing its philosophy and practices in response to the spirit of the times. It is being shaped now rather than being preserved or simply passed on, and paradoxically, although it is inspired and informed by an ancient heritage, it is surprisingly free of the weight of the past. This leaves modern Druidry open to the criticism that it has been invented; but it also makes it a thoroughly contemporary spirituality that speaks directly to the needs of today” (What Do Druids Believe?, pgs. 2-3).
I love Druidry but I don’t like ____ . Can I still be a Druid?
If you already know you love Druidry, nothing more needs to be said. You’re in excellent company — the wider “Druid world” require very few things from a Druid except that love and respect for nature.
(For some people, magic or ritual are words they might put in the blank above. Stick with Druidry and you may well find out more of what they’re all about. But again, absolutely neither is any kind of requirement.)
We can apply/adapt the words of Jesus here (as in many cases): “People aren’t made for Druidry; Druidry is made for people”. Go with what truly works for you, and you’re walking a path with heart.
Are there initiations in Druidry?
Because you can be a Druid by yourself, no initiations are necessary. With that said, some Druid groups offer study materials that include self-initiations — opportunities to deepen and hallow your experiences and understanding. And some groups make initiations a prerequisite for advancing within the group.
Life presents us with a few initiations of its own that all of us experience. Practice Druidry over time, and you’ll pass through the initiations of death, sickness, loss, change, love and birth. Your Druidry can help you navigate those experiences with greater understanding, resilience, growth, and compassion for others.
I like what I’ve read about Druidry, but I don’t believe in _____ .
If you love and respect the natural world, you’re ready to practice Druidry. If you’ve read the other parts of this FAQ, you know you don’t need to believe to be a Druid — you need to practice. Many of your beliefs will come from those experiences. More encounters and reflection may help you get a clearer picture of Druidry and what it means for you. Books, experiences with groups, study, and time spent in nature can all help you clarify your next steps.
Which Druid order has the best ____ ?
The inside word on that is ___ .
What about people who say Druidry is ____ ?
You may have noticed that we live in an era where almost everything now has both ardent fans and unrelenting critics. The best way to respond (or ignore) is to practice Druidry yourself over at least a few years — then you’ll know what it is for you. The second best way is to attend some Druid events with practicing Druids, observe thoughtfully, and ask questions. The third best way is reading widely. As Druid leader, Her Majesty’s coroner (anatomical pathologist), actor, author, drag queen and popular speaker Kristoffer Hughes likes to say, “What other people think of you is none of your business” (unless you’re planning on running for office).
If you’d like an objective tool to assess any group, you’ll find Isaac Bonewits’ Cult Danger Evaluation Frame most helpful.
Can I be your student? / Will you teach me?
This blog offers more than enough enough material for you to pick up the practice of Druidry, and to locate diverse sources to answer your questions better than I can, and to guide a beginning practice. Ultimately, your best teacher is the Land you live on.
A Druid Way 