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A Pagan, a Druid, and an Episcopalian walk into a Church

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20130505-092328.jpgI went to church last night.

It was the first time I’d been to church since I left the Church.

Taking in an evening mass, done up to the 9’s with incense and vestments, was something I hadn’t planned to do while visiting Eugene, Oregon, nor was it an invitation I expected to receive from my friend, Jason Pitzl-Waters. His wife attends this congregation, and yesterday just happened to be the first time he was going to venture with her. He extended the welcome to me, and I gladly joined them both.

I’m not sure I was prepared for what I experienced.

Something pagan was present at this church service (other than the Druid in the back row). The priest spoke about the liturgical calendar, and how this Sunday — today — would be a day when the church recognized a pre-Christian, Roman agricultural holiday.

A pagan holiday.

How perfect, I thought.

(God… are you behind this?)

There was a god in that place last night. It wasn’t the only one – I think they’re wrong about that. But there was a god, nonetheless.

I stood and sat at the appropriate moments during the service, and I recognized in an intimate way the rhythm of the ritual. This was an Episcopal church, after all, and the Episcopal church was my home for so many years. I felt relevance, harmony, but a certain dissonance, too. It was neither all good nor all bad, and I’m not sure why I thought it would be either of those things. That was not the Church I knew. Being a Christian was always mixed and complicated.

I held back from full engagement with the liturgy, because full engagement felt disingenuous. I didn’t feel comfortable reciting the creed, nor did I say the Lord’s Prayer. I felt detached during the hymns, hype-aware that the messages were designed to tear down animism and build up hierarchical monotheism. The sermon was engaging and inspiring, but it was followed by kneeling and submitting to a dogma that I don’t believe in.

And yet, when I heard a small child sing along to one of the mantra-like songs after the Eucharist, I almost cried.

I was that child.

And what am I now?

That question lingered long after the service, and into this morning. I sit here in this little cafe, compelled to write again on the blog that I put on hiatus, because I was reminded last night that the inner world is complicated and worth unpacking. This blog is the venue in which I seek to answer that question again and again, and it’s time to return to that dialogue.

The short answer is this:

I am all of the things I have ever been. I continue to be them, in one way or another. Nothing is ever fully released from the heart. It’s all there, tattoo-like. Those old parts of you call out and say, We’re still here: your memories; your long, lost hopes; your visions of truth; your doubts — all of it. All here, still intact, inked into the inner flesh.

My Christianity gave me my first introduction to reverence, mystery, humility and community. It encouraged me to recognize that there was nothing in the world that was not touched by the divine. It inspired me to care deeper, to give generously, and to seek out new, creative ways to serve others.

I bring all of those attributes with me to my work with the Solitary Druid Fellowship. Were it not for the Church, and for those many people who were inspired by Jesus to serve others in love, I wouldn’t be writing liturgies for Pagans.

(Chew on that one for a minute.)

I walk the path of a modern Druid, but one whose ethics were first informed by bells-and-whistles Christianity. I can never not be this person.

And I’m ok with that.

I think I’m going to go back this morning, just to see if I might talk with the priest for a moment — one religious man to another. They’re going to have bagpipes today, and they plan to process around the church in a big circle (clockwise, no doubt), and bless the seeds and livestock.

It may just be the most pagan service I will ever attend.

Letters on BITG: Bringing Druidry and Druidism Into Balance

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Letters is a series on Bishop In The Grove that allows readers to initiate the dialogue. Submit your letter on the Letters page, and it may be chosen to be included in a future post. This first post in the series is centered around bringing Druidry and Druidism into balance.

Balance, by Kevin Makice (Flickr)

“You’ve talked before about wanting a balance between your revival Druidry and reform Druidism. Is this still something you’re trying to balance? How do you do it, practically – any examples?

– From someone trying to walk a similar path :)”

This question comes at an interesting time — both for me and for the community of bloggers I read. There’s a good bit of this v.s. that going on in conversations across the web, and I’m not quite sure how to make sense of it.

Just yesterday I witness an innocuous Facebook post unleash a somewhat heated debate about intellectual paganism v.s. non-intellectual paganism, an argument that seemed to suffer from a lack of agreement about terms and definitions. And there are blog post cropping up in every corner of the web about whether Paganism is reputable, or silly.

So when I read the question — how am I trying to balance these two streams of thought and tradition — I can’t help but notice how different that language sounds.

I’m an ADF Druid. I have been for a couple of years now. I’m also a member of OBOD, and (technically) a student in the Bardic grade. But I haven’t attended to my OBOD studies in a long time. The materials sit on my bookshelf, mostly untouched. So, mostly I’m ADF.

ADF Druidism is a religious path, and OBOD Druidry a philosophical one (to speak in very broad, general terms). In a way, I’ve been very much devoted to the development of a personal religion, one that is based in ADF principles. But then there are moments when I find myself asking, 

Yes, but what does it all of what I’m doing mean?

And in that moment, I feel that my Druidism has once again become Druidry.

To give you an example:

This morning I was at my home shrine, lighting a piece of charcoal. I lit the charcoal with a lighter that contains in it the flame of Kildare, passed on to me ceremonially during a CUUPS gathering. While the fire set the coal to sizzle, I spoke in my mind,

This is the flame of Kildare. May it burn brightly and may it…

I stopped myself.

I was going to say something invoking the Goddess, Brighid, but then I wondered if this particular style of invocation was something that the ancestors would have done. I literally stopped the movement of my own inspiration in order to evaluate if what I was doing was historically accurate in relationship to my hearth culture.

The intellectual, inquisitive, +1 for scholarship side of my Druidism got the best of me in that moment.

The next thing I thought was,

Who cares?! What am I doing right now, and what does it mean to me?

I find that Druidry, OBOD style, places a greater emphasis on personal experience and personal revelation than ADF does (broadly speaking). The “what does it mean to me” question is central to Druidry, but not so much to Druidism.

Druidism even has the term “unverified personal gnosis” to denote the things you “know” but that cannot be verified. The very idea that inner knowing needs to be “verified” smacks of intellectual elitism, even if the term is being used to keep people from making claims about their unbroken Druid lineage.

I’ve witnessed many conversations on the ADF lists where members display concern about whether they’re “getting it right,” and I worry sometimes that the standard we use to judge our work, the standard of scholarship and historical accuracy that ADF holds up so strongly, can lead us to overlook the simple, meaningful, unscholarly needs of the heart.

But with all of that said, I still am committed to the religious tradition. It’s a choice I’m making, and it serves me.

I balance my Druidism with my Druidry, first, by acknowledging that the two needn’t be mutually exclusive. Philosophy, after all, is an intellectual pursuit; one which can inform the way one engages in their religious practice.

So in your question — a very good question — I take note of the word “balance.”  It seems key here. I believe in bringing into balance the mind (critical thinking) with the heart (intuitive knowing); integrating and harmonizing the parts of ourself that seem to be discordant. The mind and the heart should be in dialogue, just as I think ADF Druidism should be in dialogue with OBOD Druidry.

Thank you for the letter, and for initiating this dialogue on Bishop In The Grove. 

Now I turn to you, my thoughtful readership.

If you are a Druid, one who has been exposed to ADF and OBOD, how do you bring them into balance? Or, do you?

If you aren’t a Druid but have had experience with holding the tension between multiple traditions, how does that approach affect your spiritual life?

Autumn Becomes Emotional

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The Rosemary is hanging all about my room, dried and waiting to be stripped from the stem. I look out the window, and the smattering of leaves around my house, an autumnal moat, is a reminder that there are still many things to do in preparation for the winter.

The silence I used to write in, the silence I enjoyed so much, has been replaced by the sound of air rushing through the ducts, heating the nooks and crannies of this place, causing the walls to creak and cough.

Everything is changing around me.

Taking my blog to this site was one way of claiming a bit of ownership over that change. My reasons feel much more personal and emotionally motivated, rather than being political or business-oriented. I created this blog initially as a way to help me transition into a practice of Neopagan Druidism, and now I’m reclaiming it as a place to provide a peaceful, clutter-free atmosphere for me to continue writing, to continue trying to figure all this stuff out.

It was the right choice for me. An unexpected, but necessary change.

You never know what changes you’ll feel compelled to make in response to autumn.

Photo by Seyed Mostafa Zamani

Since coming to Druidism several years back, I’ve become affected by the seasons in more pronounced ways. Meditating on the transformation of the world around me draws attention to my own, more subtle (and not-so-subtle) transformations; the ways I’m moving from darkness to potential, from potential to new life, from life to growth, from growth to gathering and harvest — the time when my successes and failures become most clear to me — and eventually to a return to darkness.

What’s happening out there seems to be happening in here, so much so that I start to get the two confused.

Autumn comes, and it feels like I’m embodying the whole world.

Perhaps in part this feeling of overwhelm comes in anticipation to my upcoming trip to San Francisco, during which my kiddo will have the surgery I mentioned in my last post. I can’t explain how scared I am about that, and how big a deal this feels like to me. It’s been keeping me and my husband up at night. And in the daytime, when I’m not busying myself with as many tasks as I can create to keep my mind occupied, it’s all I think about.

But then the sun shines on the maple tree in our back yard, it glows orange, and I can see the beauty in the world. In that moment, I consider that perhaps in the midst of all this agonizing transition there is some unnoticed beauty just waiting for the light to shine on it.

There has to be, doesn’t there?

As a writer, as a parent, and as an adult, I feel this responsibility to have insights, wisdom, and understanding which will allow me to travel through this world relatively unharmed, to offer guidance for my kid that will help make things easier, to say the words that will be meaningful and relevant to those who listen. Perhaps it’s an unrealistic expectation of myself, but it governs much of my actions.

Perhaps that’s why autumn feels so challenging right now.

There are times in the year when the world is going to let go, it’s going to change, it’s going to cease to be what it was before. You’re just going to have to wait for things to come around again, and have faith that you are a part of a cycle. This change is not eternal. It will pass. The colors fade and the leaves fall, and the tree turns into a grey silhouette, but — but — the leaves will grow back again next year.

Gods willing.

I wonder if I’m the only one for whom autumn can bring this kind of emotional reaction. Is this just a biproduct of my current circumstances, or are there others out there who respond to this season with mixed emotions?

How has autumn touched you?

You Can Take a Druid Out of the Woods…

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In the morning, after (almost) sleeping through a night of 28 degree weather, I headed to the edge of the water to make my offerings. Pumpkin seeds were what I had to give, for they were what I had to eat. I proceeded through the same ritual I outlined in my post last week, only this time I did it while standing in the morning sun.

When I’m in the city, I sometimes lift my hands up toward the ceiling of my bedroom, my office, or whatever sacred space I’ve constructed, and imagine that I’m feeling the warmth of the sun. I also imagine that my feet become roots and extend deep into the earth, deep into the coolness of the underground waters. This practice is a part of the Two Powers meditation, a grounding and centering meditation used by ADF.

Standing beside the reservoir, I thought perhaps I should do the Two Powers meditation now. So I lifted my hands up to the sky, and when I felt the warmth of the sun — the actual warmth, and not the imagined warmth — I was taken aback.

I opened my eyes and I saw the water. The actual water.

The Two Powers meditation felt a little silly to do at that point, ’cause I was in the sun and I could almost feel the water on my skin. I didn’t need to imagine anything.

Instead, my mediation would be to open my eyes, open my heart, and feel with all of my being what was around me; to recognize that all of this was the Earth Mother.

This weekend in the mountains gave me some perspective on my religious practice.

Druidism will be a living religion so long as it continues to focus on the living earth. As bookish as we Druids may be, the soil is our truest scripture. The work we do at home, the practice we develop in solitude, should — perhaps even must — inform our experience of the living earth, not simply the metaphoric earth.

One can make the sun into a symbol, or the water into a symbol, or just about any tree, bird, and plant into a representation of some human experience, but concordances which seek to place all of nature within a human framework (this tree represents this emotion, or that god is good for this human activity) are little different than a Catholic concordance of saints. Plus, they can trick the city-dwelling Pagan into thinking that the natural world is only metaphor for the inner human world.

It’s more than that.

The tree doesn’t always need to represent something. It can simply be alive, and beautiful.

I came back to the city with a real desire to return to the mountains; to be outside. I spend a lot of time in my head each day, but not near enough time in the dirt.

I need to find a way to bring an awareness of the living earth into my daily life.

The question is, how? (My husband says, “Weeding, sweetie. There is weeding.”)

So, I turn to you, friends. You showed up in droves to share your intense nature experiences, and I’m going to ask that you join in the dialogue again.

How do you do it? How do you bring an awareness of the living earth into your daily life? Do you do it by getting out into your neighborhood? By gardening? Do you volunteer with the park service? What do you do?

Or, if you’ve found yourself in a state where you don’t do this, what could you imagine doing to bring this awareness into your life?

The Offerings of Man, the Obligations of Gods

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I approach my home shrine in the morning and prepare my offerings.

Into three small, porcelain sake glasses, which were given to me by my stepfather, I pour a small bit of sugar, oats, and oil. These were the foods that made the most sense to me, although I’m not sure why.

Whether I’m clothed or naked, I drape a stole over my shoulders. The stole it green and white, and was made by hand; made by a woman I met at a metaphysical fair in the fall of last year. She gave it to me as a gift after I purchased a longer red one. She told me the stole was a traditional rose pattern, and she felt I should have it. There was just something about me, she said.

I remember that moment when I drape the stole over my bare shoulders.

I light the charcoal which sits at the middle of my altar, and wait for it to turn red before placing into the concave center a few pieces of something fragrant. This morning, frankincense and myrrh.

Some things I will never leave behind.

Using a prayer from Ceisiwr Serith’s book, A Pagan Ritual Prayer Book (Weiser, 61), I purify myself by saying,

“From all that I have done that I should not have done, may I be purified.”

I dip my finger into the water, and raise my hand to touch my forehead.

“From all that has come to me that should not have come, may I be purified.”

Again, the water.

Sometimes I slip into saying, “For all that I have done…,” and doing so makes the prayer feel more Christian, more connected to sin. That isn’t the point of this prayer. Purification, in the way that it is approached here, is not unlike washing one’s hands before supper. It is done because there are things which one brings to the shrine that are best cleaned away before doing the business of worship.

The prayer ends simply,

“May I be pure, may I be pure, may I be pure.”

One need not believe in a god who washes away sins to see and experience the power in that language.

Then begins the ritual; the Core Order of Ritual (COoR), to be exact. My druid tradition is united, in large part, by an agreement about practice, and the COoR is the center of the practice.

I perform the ritual in silence, pouring the offerings out into a cauldron as I recognize the gods, who remain somewhat a mystery to me, the ancestors of blood, spirit, religion, tradition and place, and all that exists in spirit on this land.

I do all of this in the morning in order to affirm my place in the cosmos, or at the very least to try to get a better sense of what the place might be. I do this ritual to affirm my relationship with the Kindred, these aspects of the great mystery to which I belong, of which I cannot fully explain. I do all of this not to win the favor of the gods, but more to practice sincerity in my relationship to them; to practice honor, to practice reverence, and to practice hospitality and generosity.

Regardless of whether the gods can hear me, or if these bits of food are of any use to them, I perform this daily practice so that I might come to better experience these qualities I cherish. My daily practice is simply me holding up my end of the relationship.

I show up. That is all I can do. The rest is up to — what — fate? Grace? The will of the gods?

Ian Corrigan said in his response to my last post,

“I make a good sacrifice, using my limited mortal means, and the gods grant a blessing that while it might seem disproportionately generous is simply the obligation of their station. This is grace of a sort, surely.”

Obligation… what an interesting word to use in this context.

I wonder —

Do you feel that by making a “good sacrifice” you enable the gods to perform the “obligation of their station?” Or, do you have different language for what the gods do? If you have a daily practice, do you perform your ritual in order to win the favor of the gods?

Why do you show up at your shrine?

I Went Camping in the Woods and I Came Back a Druid

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Organized sports never suited me. But wrestling with my faith? Someone should give out trophies. I would have a garage full.

When I left for the Eight Winds Festival, the first ADF gathering I’d ever attended, I was concerned that I may not be able to invest myself fully on account of a little religious indiscretion I had with the Cosmic Christ (if you didn’t hear about that, read this or this). I thought there was some need to resolve the conflict I experienced after reading Jesus Through Pagan Eyes in order to fully participate in the rituals, workshops and fire-side chats. To my delight, however, Jesus did not cockblock my weekend.

I spent four days firmly planted in polytheistic soil, surrounded by some of the brightest minds and the warmest hearts I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. I talked about the gods, talked to the gods, made offerings to the gods, and did so without any hesitation or reservation. And, I found that discussing my history in Christianity was welcomed by my fellow ADF Druids, in so much as it could provide a context for my perspective about liturgy, ritual and church structure. One need not dismiss what came before in order to value what is happening now, I learned.

If you’ve been a long-time reader of this blog, you’ll know that from time to time I’ve been undecided about whether ADF or OBOD is best suited to my temperament. I’ve had many conversations online with others who go back and forth about which expression of modern Druidry is right for them. For some, this in-between spot suits them well, and I respect that. For me, though, after a weekend of Druidry, ADF style, I’ve realized that ADF provides the kind of religiosity that makes sense to me.

One festival attendee, Elizabeth, summed it up quite perfectly when she said,

“ADF intellectualizes spirituality, and spiritualizes the intellect.”

Spot on.

The intellect is a tool which can enrich so much of religious practice. You don’t have to suspend your critical thinking skills in order to engage with your religiosity as a mystic. There is a time and place for everything, and I appreciate how much ADF Druids value the mind.

I used to be concerned that ADF might lean too much toward scholarship, and by doing so make it difficult to originate anything new or spontaneous within the religious practice. I’m not a Reconstructionist at heart. But I now think that ADF’s approach to religion creates an amazing tension between the scholarly, and the intuitive, creative approaches to Pagan religious practice. As Ceisiwr Serith told me during his presentation on ritual theory,

“If you want to be a jazz musician, you better learn your scales.”

And that’s the whole point of ADF’s emphasis on the study of Proto-Indo-European cultures. It’s the reason that ADF suggests that Pagans look with a critical eye at any claim of “unbroken lineage.” Something does not have to be ancient to be relevant, but if you’re going to claim that it’s ancient, you better be able to cite some sources.

One’s own experience, their personal gnosis, should play a prominent role in their religious practice. Your intuition, your imagination — these things are valuable components of your growth as a mystic, a magician, or even simply as a Pagan. Ours is a tradition that allows each of us to be our own priest to the gods, whether that be expressed in private at our home shrine, or in public at open rituals.

ADF, I’ve come to believe, is a Neopagan Religion that is broad enough to include the mystic, the intellectual, the musician, the artist, and the priest. ADF provides a framework that can unite Pagans who feel drawn to many different ancient cultures, and it allows for enough autonomy for it not to feel like a dogmatic religion. ADF — if you can’t already tell by my gushing — is really floating my boat right now.

There is more to unpack, literally and metaphorically, but I’m not going to rush it. Many seeds were planted during the Eight Winds Festival, and they need their time to take root.

As Uncle Isaac used to say, “Fast as a speeding oak.”

When Jesus Hitches a Ride to the Druid Camp

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I’ve been a stay-at-home Pagan, a bookish Pagan, a CUUPS ritual-attending Pagan, and a blogging Pagan. But as of yet, I have not been a festival-going Pagan.

That all changes this week.

On Wednesday I shall make my way to the Prosser Ranch group campground, located just outside the town of Truckee, California, and celebrate Druidism, ADF style, at the annual Eight Winds festival.

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The timing of this religious retreat is rather interesting. Over the last month, swamped as I’ve been with work-related travel and the upkeep and promotion of my Indiegogo Campaign (which, by the way, wraps up in a little over a week…nudge, nudge), I’ve neglected my daily practice. Some days I approach my shrine with an open heart and a still mind, but most mornings I dive straight into work without much attention at all to the gods or to my spirit. There’s been no consistency, only a cursory amount of reverence or piety, and a whole heaping load of worry and stress.

On top of all that, I just finished reading a book about Jesus, and it’s thrown my mind into a bit of a tailspin.

[STAY CALM — This is not a conversion post.]

The book, Jesus through Pagan Eyes: Bridging Neopagan Perspectives with a Progressive Vision of Christ, has done quite a number on me. I’ve written a review for HuffPost called, “Every Conceivable Jesus: A Review of ‘Jesus Through Pagan Eyes,'” and it should be published sometime this week (UPDATE: Post published on 6/26). The long and the short of it is this:

Reading Rev. Mark Townsend describe his complicated, rich, and heartfelt understanding of the many persons of Jesus reminded me of what I loved about being a Christian, and reading the book’s essays and interviews from Pagans about their perspectives on Jesus left me feeling a little underwhelmed. Perhaps reading a book about a central figure from a Pagan tradition — say, Pan or Lugh — in which two dozen Christians reflect on that particular god’s relevance (or irrelevance) in their religious lives would affect me similarly. In any case, it was the lone Christian in the bunch whose voice resonated with me most, and I’m not exactly sure what that means.

I remember writing about a similar quandary last Winter, and one of my readers responded with something like, “If you want to be a Christian, be a Christian. If you want to be a Pagan, be a Pagan. But pick one already!” I found the comment to be rather rude, and terribly reductive. We are never just one thing. We are always the sum of our parts, a work in progress, a collage. Many of our parts remain hidden from us until we are ready to understand them, but they’re all there. We are mysteries, even unto ourselves, and part of the wonder of living is unpacking the mystery.

Know thyself is a process, not a single action.

To be reminded in such a visceral way of my former expression of religiosity on the eve of a celebration of my newer expression of religiosity is confusing, to say the least. It makes me wonder whether or not I will be able to surrender completely to the experience of fellowship and ritual at Eight Winds, or if I will be consumed by my own questioning. My hope is that there will be opportunities for dialogue with other ADF members, and through that dialogue we might come to know one another (and ourselves) a little better. Perhaps Jesus will hitch a ride to the Druid camp, and I’ll be forced again to examine who he is in relationship to this new, thoroughly Pagan environment. Or, maybe when we’re all naked and dancing around a fire (which, in my imagination, is key to any successful Pagan gathering), Jesus will calmly retreat into the background, and await rediscovery at some future point.

I wonder – do you find that religious retreats or Pagan festivals provided you with opportunities to explore and express the more complicated sides of your religious path? Do they serve the purpose of simply affirming what we know about ourselves and our traditions, or do they challenge our assumptions? Have you ever gone to a festival expecting one thing, but you ended up experiencing something altogether different?

Feel free to share your festival experiences, or reflections on anything in this post. Then, click here for a clip of some wicked, unreleased Pagan music.

The Awen Moves: An Offering in the Morning

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There is an intrinsic connection between creativity and spirituality, I think. The impuse to create feels very much to me like the impulse to worship, to do ritual, or to pray.

Perhaps this is why my heart sang out so loundly when I first found the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids. OBOD asserts that the spirit of creativity and inspiration, the Awen, flows through me and through all things, and by learning to nurture my relationship to the Awen I can develop the foundation for a living, thriving, vibrant spiritual tradition.

I write a lot about religion here on Patheos (understandibly), and I think that in doing so I sometimes forget that it was creativity which first led me to Druidry. To be a Bard, I learned through OBOD, is to be connected to a great, cosmic, creative force, and to be expressive with one’s voice is to be in service to your tribe, your people, your planet. Cultivating creativity allows the Bard to become her own Creator, a maker of enchanting beauty, a living source of inspiration. While I’ve found that the religiosity of ADF Druidism speaks to me, and the voice of the Reconstructionist fascinates me, it continues to be this connection between creativity and spirit that nourishes me.

To sing is to expose the dark richness of the soil (the soul), to turn it over, and expose it to the light. Strip away all of the adorments of our spiritual traditions, remove any of our religious or cultural markers, and we are left with our breath, our song, our creative fire. Stand naked in the forest, breathe in the air of life which permeates this planet, and your voice can become something truly magical.

With that, I make an offering today — a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, and a testiment to the power and movement of the Awen — by lifting up my voice in the presence of the living earth, our Great Mother.

Peace be with you on this glorious day.

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You Say Tomato, I Say Druid.

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First image that came up when I googled, "Druid."

Ever since I took the name, Teo Bishop, and made it my own — both in a religious sense and through the proper legal channels — I’ve had cause to explain what it is that I do on this blog. My writing, as well as my deepening engagement with my own spiritual work, are both major influences on my decision to undergo this transition.

Identity is interesting, and something that often goes undiscussed. What we are, how we identify, is often more experienced than it is questioned. That is, this seems to be true for many people I know.

Then there are people like me, my queer compatriots, and my Pagan brethren who appear to always be in a rich, complicated, and often conflict-laden dialogue about what it means to be us; always debating which words are right to use, and which are out-of-bounds. In fact, it was my little inquiry into identity with publicly not-Pagan, totally world-adventurer, Drew Jacob, back in May of last year which led to his firestorm-post, Why I’m Not Pagan, and my followup piece, Pagan is the New Gay. The whole back-and-forth put my lil’Druid blog on the map.

When I started writing Bishop In The Grove, my intention was to have this blog be a place for me to document my studies through a training program offered through the American Druid fellowship, Ár nDraiocht Féin (ADF). This was going to be my Dedicant Journal, a series of writings that charted my progress on the Dedicant Path. But, it wasn’t long before my focus shifted, and questions of identity began to surface.

How was I to reconcile the Christianity of my youth with this burgeoning practice of polytheistic Druidry? What, exactly, did it mean to be a “Druid?” How could I avoid falling into the trap of allowing this new religious expression to become a kind of role-play? How was I to remain authentic, both to myself and to my community? (Dig through the Post Archive and you’ll find evidence of all of this….and more.)

The conclusion I’ve reached, which is still very much an idea to be examined, is that my spiritual and religious life is intended to be more of a dialogue than a single state of being. Any religious moniker I take, be it Christian (as it was for two decades), Druid, Neopagan, or Pagan, it is most important to me that this title is representative of an ecosystem of practice as well as serving as an introduction to a discussion on belief. The latter may not be paramount, but it is important to me. Practice also means more than how I approach my home shrine; it also extends to the way I navigate my internal world, the world of ideas and emotions, and which methods and approaches I use to engage with my thoughts and inquiries.

Druid, then, is not simply a title which connects me to ancient Celts, or to other Indo-European peoples; it is a word that is representative of a very modern, very immediate, and very personal religious expression which is influenced by a variety of modern, and possibly ancient religious technologies, some Irish, others American, and some completely unique to me; and at the same time, the word points to a practice of deliberate and persistent inquiry, introspection, and contemplation.

This resonates with me personally, and so this is how I intend to use the term.

But would you say that I have, what a friend recently called, “a Druid’s perspective?”

In an interfaith setting, where individuals are often called to speak as ambassadors for their religious or spiritual traditions, how does my definition hold up? Patheos is an interfaith blogging website, and my blog is the lone Druid’s Grove on their servers, but what I’m talking about is real, person-to-person, interfaith work.

How does the description I’ve offered of Druid resonate with you? Does it make sense? If you use the word to describe yourself, does it feel accurate to your experience? If you reject the word altogether, could you explain why?

Second, could you imagine a situation in which a modern Druid is acting as a representative for the wider community of Druids within an interfaith setting? How would you feel about there being an “Ambassador of Druidry” to other faith traditions?

Liturgy is Sexy to *this* Druid

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Here’s why ADF is awesome: The Core Order of Ritual.

There are other reasons, too, but the Core Order of Ritual (or COoR) tops my list at the moment.

The COoR is the key liturgical framework for ritual that unites the Druids of Ár nDraíocht Féin, regardless of what Hearth Tradition they’ve adopted for themselves or for their groves. Each group can make subtle variations to the language of the ritual, paying homage to the Gods with whom they are in relationship (Celtic, Vedic, Norse, etc.), but the basic form is always the same.

The COoR is to ADF Druids what the rites of the Book of Common Prayer are to Episcopalians. Both are blueprints, which, if followed, can create for the practitioner a deep, enriched spiritual and religious experience.

As I’ve written before, liturgy is important to me. I find comfort in its structure, consistency, and rhythm. As I return to my altar this week, I need not have resolved all of my questions of belief in order to enact my ritual, for my ritual has a form which is independent of my state of belief or faith. The form allows the rite to function, and through fully engaging with the form I become open once again to something divine.

It’s amazing, really. It works.

Full disclosure: I was hesitant about ADF at first. I found Druidry through OBOD, the Order of Bards Ovates and Druids, which is based out of England. The British Druids, led by the eloquent and satiny-voiced, Phillip Carr-Gomm, were attractive to me for their emphasis on inner work and psychology. Theirs is not a strictly liturgical, religious Druidism, but rather a philosophical model which can be applied (in their experience and perspective) to a wide variety of religious traditions. Plus, OBOD emphasizes the re-enchantment of the world, and I believe that’s a concept with which all Pagans should concern themselves.

ADF, on the other hand, felt very much like the religion that I was leaving. ADF is public about being non-dogmatic, but at the same time they affirm a very particular viewpoint on the nature of the Gods (hard-polytheist, by and large), the paramount importance of historicity, and a religious identity that sets itself very much apart from the Abrahamic traditions. If you read any of my November and December writing (which can be found in the Post Archive page), you’ll know that I go back and forth on Christianity, and on setting up your identity in opposition to another religious tradition.

I didn’t think I needed another religion after Episcopalianism. That wasn’t what Paganism was going to be for me. Religion, with all of its rules and guidelines, felt counter-intuitive; counter-Pagan, if you will.

I’ve bounced back and forth between OBOD and ADF for a couple of years now, undecided as to which kind of Druid I should be. I listen religiously to Dahm the Bard’s excellent podcast, Druidcast (which I highly recommend for its production value, creative contributions, and the glimpse it offers into what British Druidry looks like today). I also continued to revisit the audio lessons from OBOD’s Bardic Grade correspondence course. The information contained in them may conflict with the perspective of the more reconstructionist-minded Druids of ADF, but I liked it just the same.

But, as I wrote about in my last post, there is a special place in my heart (and on my altar) for the founder of ADF, Isaac Bonewits. He may have spoken against some of the very practices and beliefs held by OBOD that resonate in my heart, but he’s still an important figure in my spiritual formation.

And now I am rediscovering the value of the COoR, and in the process reconciling myself to the fact that I am, indeed, a religious person. I need the form. I flourish in the form. Religion, as I’m experiencing it as a Solitary Druid, can be a fresh fire, rekindled every morning I return to my altar. Religion need not be the enemy. Religion is just a tool; a system. In truth, I needn’t even spend too much time thinking about this practice asreligion. It’s my ritual. My personal practice to honor the Cosmos and all of its divine creatures.

There’s reason, I think, to be at peace with the back-and-forth-ness. I’m rarely just one thing. I float, I drift, and then I plant my feet on something firm. I engage in ritual, and remember something about myself. The process is a sacred one, even in the more difficult moments.

What a pleasant discovery.

So what of it, my friends and loyal readers — how do you experience ritual? Do you share with me this love of liturgy, or are you more freeform? Does your personal practice resemble something religious, structured and blueprinted, or is it mystical and abstract?

Liturgy works for me. What works for you?

A Druid in Los Angeles on the Autumn Equinox

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The weather in this town is a betrayal of my religious sensibilities. It’s all bright and warm and sunny without ceasing.

This is the Land of Perpetual Summer.

This town resists death at all costs; be that the death of youth, the death of popularity, the death of green. Death is frowned upon in Los Angeles.

This town is in denial of Autumn.

Autumn is my favorite season. It’s just cold enough for two shirts, but not so cold that you can’t enjoy an evening walk through the neighborhood, through the urban grove, sharing in the soft, gold-filtered light.

I find comfort in the dying. It relieves the pressure to be beautiful, to be productive. I need not grow these leaves anymore, says the tree. I can rest. I can go out in a blaze of red-purple-yellow glory, and then be still for a time.

There are orange and amber leaf decals on the windows of the local Starbucks on Santa Monica Boulevard. They approximate Autumn. They are the simulacrum of a season, but they come nowhere close to touching on it’s meaning, or its majesty.

Autumn colors on city buildings.

I’m in a town that does not rest. It persists with a fierceness that runs contrary to the sentiments of Autumn. Fall is a time to make tea or soup, and to remember the comforts of flannel and fire. At least, that’s what the season is in my imagination. It is a time where the world, herself, slows down the pace of our movement, and we are given more time to be in the dark, to be in meditation, in contemplation, in prayer as we understand prayer.

Autumn is misunderstood, as is the darkness. It is a gift to be given reason to stop moving in a frantic world. Autumn provides us with that gift.

Los Angeles is always at work, always in preparation for the next season of television shows, of fashion lines, of press releases and album releases. The sense of season is so different here; so fixed in movement and the creation of things, and consumerism. Everyone’s always jumping ahead, planning for two seasons forward, getting a good start on next year’s holidays, on a new collection of Spring beachwear, on anything but what is happening right now — stillness, release, beautiful dying.

It’s curious to be a wandering Druid in this concrete city, trying to keep mind of what is natural in the midst of what is not. One has to start accepting nature as omni-present; available and existing in even the starkest, most man-made environments. There is no part of the Earth that is not a part of the Earth, after all.

Even here, in Los Angeles.

These tress will grow. These buildings will not.

The equinox provides us an opportunity to re-examine ourselves and take a closer look at our place in the world. I had cause to ask myself recently, “What is it to be a Druid, anyway? What is it to feel aligned with aspects of a distant culture and yet be completely rooted in modernity (or post, or ex-post-modernity)? When I walk through the city in my wingtip shoes and black bluejeans, how am I like the Druids dancing at the foot of The Long Man of Wilmington? How are we the same? How are we different?”

My mind drifts to the British Isles on the Equinox.

Alban Elfed, a phrase loosely translated to mean, “The Light Of Water,” is used in many Druid traditions to name the celebration of the Autumn Equinox. Druid teachings and titles can be cryptic poetry, for sure. It is a mystery tradition, after all. But today, in this foreign place, where the flowers continue to bloom and the mountain side shows no sign of letting go of the light, I read something different into the Welsh words.

I read “Light of Water,” and I look outside at the swimming pool, quintessentially Los Angeles, drenched in morning sun and shimmering beneath a thin steam, and I see in that interaction of heat and cold, of pale yellow light and deep blue darkness, a message that Autumn is here, regardless of what Los Angeles thinks. The shift of the world happens even when we pay it no mind; a power so great as to lead one to reverent worship.

Harvest Home, Indeed.

I board a plane today and return home, and this seems perfectly timed to occur on the Autumn Equinox. The sense of returning back to our dens, to our hearth, is symbolic of the season. Autumn is a time to savor the dying sun, to relish the mid-day warmth, to walk through the world in layers, and then to return home and prepare.

The season of deep reflection is upon us. Take a moment to think about the meaning of Autumn. If the colors are already changing around you, gaze at them. If you’re in a place where there is little outward change, imagine what subtle signs you can sense in the atmosphere, in your body, that point to the shift.

Take these thoughts and emotions and, if you are willing, put them together as a poem or short verse and post them in the Bishop In The Grove comment section. If you have your own blog, post them there, and then share a link with us here. The words need not rhyme, and you don’t have to explain why they are relevant to you, unless you feel moved to do so.

It would be an honor to share in your experience of the Autumn Equinox.

May the Awen flow through you on this blessed day.

 

How I Arrived At Pagan

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Over the past few days I’ve taken great pleasure in reading and re-reading the posts of the Rogue Priest, Mr. Drew Jacob, who describes himself as,

Priest of many gods. Freelance author, nonprofit professional, and full-time adventurer.

I like Drew. He’s intellectually rigorous, but not snobby. He’s thoughtful and respectful of his readership, and he challenges us to think broader and deeper.

I think I’d end up a regular at his Temple if it weren’t 900 miles away.

Drew doesn’t identify as a Pagan, although I took him for one. I asked him how exactly he wasn’t Pagan, and he did a mighty fine job explaining that in this post, “Why I’m Not Pagan“. Give it a read.

In response, I’m writing to explain my relationship with the identifier, Pagan, and how it sometimes fits and often does not fit my sense of religious identity.

An Acolyte’s Primer

There’s no better preparation for becoming a liturgist, Pagan or otherwise, than to train directly with a priest in the Episcopal Church. They do liturgy well. I discovered a love of ritual at a very young age. Eight, maybe? The smells of incense, the white robes and rope belts, the ringing of bells and the chanting… it was heavenly.

I loved church. I loved being a part of a community. My priest taught me, directly and by example, that my actions, be they ceremonial or mundane, helped to created something vibrant and meaningful for myself and for others. Liturgy can be truly transformative magic, and the magic took root in my soul. But more importantly, the magic had context within the community. It served a greater purpose than my own personal fulfillment.

Did I love Jesus? Was a Bible thumper? No, not exactly. I didn’t not love Jesus. It just wasn’t really about him, blasphemous as that may have seemed. It was more about all the stuff that surrounded Jesus; the myth made manifest through our actions. That’s what made me feel good about being Christian. That, and the community of people who cared about me.

The Beauty of Ruin

I had my hard times with the church, don’t get me wrong. But I always returned because I believed in the magic that happened during the services, and between the people who showed up. I believed in an incarnate Spirit, and that She wasn’t just some idea for theologians to parse out. The Spirit was real, and moved through a place. God was a mystery, but the Spirit was the the source of the most amazing, moving, meaningful magic.

For a brief while, I was a youth leader for the Juniors and Seniors at my Cathedral. I was tattooed, queer, and unwilling to allow them to rest on dogmatic laurels. I challenged my kids’ assumptions about God, about faith and about the strange and often uncomfortable intersection of the two. I opened them up to the idea that there was more than one way to connect with the Divine. I told them that I didn’t really care what they believed. I just cared that they sought out something deeper. I wanted them to experience the magic I’d felt in my heart.

In time, I came to realize that the Church was not concerned so much with magic. The Church is a business, a bureaucracy. Ultimately, it all boils down to belief, and due process. Jesus is God, and God is Love, and saying that Love is the Law is legalism, eventually.

So, in spite of all the joy it brought me, I left.

by Hee K. Chun

From That To This

Being Pagan is much more than simply not being Christian. You don’t walk away from the Church and just – poof! – you’re a Pagan. At least, this has not been my experience.

Two years ago I found OBOD, The Order of Bards Ovates and Druids, and I thought that their expression of Druidry might be a good fit for me. They hold up creativity as sacred, and their understanding of Awen (a Welsh word meaning, literally, inspiration) felt very much like my understanding of the Spirit. I sent off for their correspondence course.

OBOD isn’t a religion, per se. They are a Druid Order, and they approach Druidry more as a philosophy. You don’t have to be Pagan to be a Druid, they posit, and their stance was important to me at the onset of my new quest, because I didn’t know if I was Pagan. I just knew I was seeking something mystical, magical and communal. I was seeking an immediate connection to the Source — the Awen.

OBOD’s study course was interesting for a while, but I slowly lost interest. I had no community support, and the absence of religious structure left me feeling aimless in my studies.

I found religion and structure in ADF, or Ár nDraíocht Féin (Our Druidry in Irish). ADF also offers a study course, but it leans more towards the anthropological and less to the philosophical. ADF is much more like a Reconstructionist tradition, placing high emphasis on building a religious practice the approaches the traditions of the Indo-European people. Accuracy is paramount. ADF is also explicitly Pagan.

Pagan as Pre-requisite

I joined ADF and decided that I might be able to find the magic by participating in the religion. Rather than chase the Spirit, I would build the Temple. creating a home in which the Spirit could dwell.

And I’ve done that, at least on a small scale. I have an altar, and I worship daily. I’ve taken to reading books on polytheism, Indo-European tradition and Celtic deities. I have a personal religion now, albeit one I still don’t completely understand, and it satisfies my need for fragrant, candle-lit, ceremonial liturgy. What it doesn’t do, however, is provide any real sense of community.

A Context of Communion

It comes to down to is this: I believe that a solitary, Pagan/Druid practice is not a viable substitute for communal worship. Not for me, at least. The work I do alone should prepare me for work I do in community. Magic requires context in order for it to be valuable to anyone other than just myself, and community creates the context.

I think Pagans – and for now, I include myself in that category – would do good to sit with the idea of Communion, as it relates to community. Set aside the Christian connotation for a moment. I’m not talking about the consumption of body & blood. I’m talking about the something more universal.

See, communion is more than just a Christian sacrament. Communion is a human birthright. We commune with one another so that we might catch a glimpse, experience a moment of kinship with the spiritual forces that create our world, and with whom we work to create the magic in our lives.

Communion, as an extension of community, creates the context through which our personal magic is imbued with purpose.

So, for now, I’m a Pagan in search of Communion. This is my new starting point.

If this was post was interesting to you, please be a good friend and tweet or Facebook share it.

Show and Tell: My Bookshelf

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My friend and fellow Dedicant in the ADF Druidry Training Course, Kristin of Grey Wren’s Flight, had a mighty fine idea on Monday. She decided that in response to the disconnect we often feel between our experiences of real-life, physically manifest, grit’n’grime spiritual practice and the text-based, idea-centered, socially networked way we communicate online, she would share a photo of her spiritual work space. It is, in effect, a reminder that she does exist somewhere in the world…not just on my computer screen.

So, I join her today in the sharing.

Here is a photo of a my bookshelf, messy and well-used. My jars of herbs and roots sit beside candles, oils and a small statue of Hekate (while not a Goddess of my primary Hearth, she still makes herself known now and then). I’ve placed my ADF membership card in front of a cherished copy of The Solitary Druid and some other scary academic books I’ve still yet to read. The silhouetted photo of me on a pilgrimage to Ireland is a reminder of my time in the Episcopal Church; a time where I first commented to the sacred land of my spiritual ancestors.

There’s plenty more tucked into drawers and hiding inside leather pouches. But, I’ll keep that bit of mystery for another post.

Thanks to Kristin for encouraging this first Show & Tell Post!

Show and Tell #1

 

Turning Over The Earth

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The Spring comes, and my life transforms. It seems to be almost as reliable as the coming of the Cottonwood snow. It happens every year, this pull towards the world; this letting go of Winter’s introspection.

In the past week, I’ve experienced a great upheaval and shifting in my professional and personal life. Relationships are changing, and I’m doing my best to remain calm and steady, respectful of the balance between what I can do to move things forward and what the currents are naturally doing on their own. It’s been hard, and I’m a little exhausted.

I think this pulling back from intense spiritual work, including a break from blogging and a relaxing of pressure around my DP work, has allowed me to prepare for this shift. My daily practice is still strong — stronger than ever, in fact. My devotionals have become so deeply a part of my life that I almost cannot remember what it was like without them. This sacred time feels less like a requisite of the DP course, and more a natural extension of my being.

In light of the hefty transitions and the attention they require, I’ve decided not to attend Wellspring. This saddens me a bit, as I was really looking forward to meeting my fellow sojourners in the flesh. But, I just turned over a huge plot of land, and I’m planting a season’s worth of new seed. You don’t just up and leave during the first few days and weeks after planting. You stick around. You water the earth. I have to make sense of what is coming, and I need to be here in order to do that.

I pray that all of my friends and readers have been well since last I wrote here, and I hope that you’ll reach out to say hello. To all of those attending Wellspring, I hope you have a brilliant weekend. I’ll send my spirit to be with you around the sacred fire.

Bright blessings,

Teo

April Tumult & the Birth of New Myth

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April was a month of great change and upheaval. Perhaps I’ve been holding on to Winter, and all that it represents, and the Gods would have no more of it. Or, it could be the result of cosmic forces; a planet gone retrograde, or some other unseen spirit. I cannot say. All I know is that in the past few days I’ve felt a shift back into a familiar rhythm, and the world I walk through has not come apart completely. Not just yet.

My daily meditation and devotion throughout April was consistent, and at times quite affected by the circumstances of my life. Then, there were moments when I realized just how grounding and important my daily practice has become.

I wrote on April 11th:

For some time now I have felt a weight upon me. The uncertainties of my life, specifically in my work, leave me confused about what choice to make. Often, the result is a static state; a refusal to choose anything at all. The creative flow becomes blocked, and depression sets in. I ask not with a sincere heart how I might move past this sense of bewilderment, but rather I counter every offer of help with a negative, pessimistic response. It wears me out.

My time in devotion is different. While there are some days that start smoother than others, and my devotionals may be more or less affected by the other circumstances of my life, this is a sacred time. It is made sacred, and the weight is lifted. If only I could continue this feeling and carry this space out into the rest of my life.

Several inspired works came during devotional this month. In time, I’ll post them here on the blog. I’m also considering, with great sincerity, how I might take my writing and shape it into a publishable book. I feel that there is a great need for new myths in our community – new stories we tell to explain our experience of this modern, crumbling, beautiful world – and I feel that there may be a calling for me to write such myths, as well as songs of praise (a book, perhaps, to accompany the great works of Ceisiwr Serith).

I wonder what my readers might think of new myths being written… Would you find use in reading and telling stories of a totally modern, but utterly re-enchanted world? Could the creation of such works become a vibrant, relevant component of our modern Pagan and Druid path?

I Think I Saw A Goddess

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From Ian Corrigan’s blog, Into the Mound:

1: The Cosmos is holographic – the whole is repeated within the parts. Especially, the human microcosm reflects the macrocosm.

2: The Gods exist in the macrocosm.

3: Therefor, their reflections exist in each individual human microcosm. These reflections are what Jung perceived as the ‘archetypes’.

4: Thus, when we invoke the Gods, and they draw near to us, their reflection draws near to our conscious awareness. Often it is only these internal daemons of the Gods that we actually perceive in our invocations, and that can be sufficient. The Gods act as and in those reflections just as they do as and through an idol of gold. Sometimes we are able to expand our awareness outside of our microcosmic bubble, and perceive the God more directly… Those are the big events…

 

Eyes closed, offerings made and a candle was lit for Brighid. My breath grew long and slow. The blackness of my mind became illuminated with color, and image. Before me was a green pasture stretching out towards the other edge of darkness. In front of me stood a large tree, next to which was a stone well (not unlike the one I’d seen at the holy site in County Kildare). Between these two sat a third.

She was radiant, and soft. She sat on the ground, and there was food in front of her. Her hair was golden, and he face pale. She emanated light.

I approached her and sat down. I could not see the details of her face, but I sensed that if I could I would see a gentle smile. She seemed at once very young and unfathomably old. She was beautiful.

I stayed only for a moment, and then I stood and backed away in the direction that I’d come. She maintained her focus on me until it all dissolved into the blackness again.

 

I gazed on this scene for only a moment, but what I saw, however brief, was unique to my experiences in meditation. There seemed to be an interaction between my imagination (a key component in meditative work) and something else; something other. It did not make me tremble, as did my first interaction with Arawn. Instead, it brought a feeling of peace and tranquility.

I take it as a blessing.

 

Praise be to the Bright One, who is, Herself, the Fire! She rests beside the Tree and the Well, and her radiance is a blessing to behold!


Ghosti!

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I sat in my room, staring blankly at my altar. I hadn’t even lit the candle or prepared the incense, and I was already stressed, bewildered, and overwhelmed with the drama of the morning.

The episode leading to this emotional state of emergency involved two missing shipping receipts, a lost package in Alaska, and $400 dollars. I was a frantic mess, running around the house, trying desperately to find the pink and gray Post Office notes, certain that I would end up with a very expensive consequence for my dis-organizational tendencies. My husband tried to reassure me, but I couldn’t be consoled. I collapsed into my chair, folded my arms across my chest, and proceeded to pout my very best pout.

He quietly left the room.

After a few minutes alone I thought about making a petition to the Kindreds, and I thumbed through A Book of Pagan Prayer. There was nothing for my specific situation. I started to wonder if there was something ethically problematic about asking for aid in the retrieval of a lost item. Is that too trivial? Should I wait to petition the Kindreds for something more dire? Recovery from a life-threatening illness, perhaps? I didn’t know what to do.

So, I decided to do my devotional anyway. I would approach my altar with sincerity, and, if it felt right in the moment, I would ask for otherworldly assistance in as respectful a way as possible. I would do it in a spirit of ghosti.

I centered. I purified. We opened the Gates. I blessed my offerings and lifted them up to the Kindreds. I lit a fire for Brighid. I sought out guidance through the tarot, and the images were both intuitively correct and intellectually foggy. Then, I approached the altar, closed my eyes and spoke from my heart.

I said that if the Kindreds deemed this cause worthy of their assistance, and if they would kindly help resolve this situation in my favor, I would, in return, donate a portion of the $400 to a group that seeks to restore balance and harmony with the Earth, and that honors the Gods.

There. I’d spoken my peace. I’d also made an oath to the Kindreds; not something a devoted Pagan should take lightly. I felt better. I’d done all I could do. I closed out the space and left my room.

Sitting in his office across the hallway was my husband, typing away at his computer. When he saw me he paused, and reached for something on the desk in front of him. He held up the two missing Post Office receipts. He’d just found them.

I grinned, and chuckled under my breath. How brilliant. How perfect.

Before thinking to long about it, I went back into my room and opened my computer. I went to ADF.org and found the link to “Donate” through their web-store. I made a donation, fulfilling my promise to the Kindreds.

All was right in the world again… just like that.

Ghosti!

Tree Roots and Druid Groups

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My relationship with Druidry is growing deeper, more committed and a little bit complicated. Tree roots come to mind.

I began searching out information on modern expressions of Druidism a few years ago, finding The Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids (OBOD) first. I immediately connected with the spirit of the organization, and was delighted that they put such a great emphasis on creativity. I’m a writer and musician, and I’ve always sought out ways to express my spirituality through my creative gifts. That this tradition was encouraging it seemed like a sign that I was in the right place.

After a period of a few months working through their Bardic course, I drifted away from OBOD. Looking back, I attribute that to a lack of community around my spiritual work, as well as a lack of a religious structure. I got a great deal out of it, but there was something missing. Leaving the studies wasn’t a failure in my eyes; it was just the choice that felt best for me.

Then I found Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship (ADF), the group I’m working with now. ADF is a religious organization, and through them I found the structure and religiosity I was missing with OBOD. The community I was searching for has, more or less, been available to me, and I’m working my way though the year-long course of the Dedicant Path.

Here’s where the roots begin jutting out in yet another direction.

I just read The Druidry Handbook, written by John Michael Greer, Archdruid of yet another Druid group, The Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA). I flew through the book, and found myself enchanted by their philosophy and approach. I loved the book so much that I purchased The Druid Magic Handbook, a follow up title built on the principles in the first book.

If you are unaware of the subtle differences between these organizations, and their respective takes on Druidry, let me try and explain one key point. OBOD and AODA accept the work created during the “Druid Revival” of the 18th and 19th century as valid material, created by inspired individuals and worthy to include in a modern spiritual practice of Druidry. They both acknowledge that some of the work created during this period was forged and misrepresented, and that there were great historical inaccuracies in the Revivalists’ perspective about Druids and Celtic culture. But, in accepting that they also believe in the idea that if the writing and traditions which originated from that period are inspiring and useful, then they should be celebrated and made use of. In the end, for them, its all about doing what works.

ADF takes a different perspective altogether. The emphasis, for them, is on building a new tradition around what is historically accurate, as best we know, about the ancient religious practices of not just the Celts, but the Indo-European cultures as a whole. ADF dismisses the writing created during the Revival, and places the emphasis on striving for a kind of historical authenticity that feels, to me, to be bordering on re-constructionism. It isn’t quite that rigid, but it still is searching to graft the new ways on top of the old, as best we can assess what those were. Being as true as can be to the “old ways” is very important in ADF.

Now, back to me.

I feel a pull towards the writing and approach of the Revivalist Movement, and I don’t really care that they made up or borrowed a great deal of what they were doing. What they created speaks to my heart, and that counts for a great deal, I think. I’m seeking to live a life that is rooted in this world, and that allows me to expand in my creative expression and my spiritual awareness. I’m looking to grow in my connectedness to the world while simultaneously become more fully myself. Shouldn’t the heart lead the way in that quest?

The question is, must I be a strict adherent to any one of these traditions in order to accomplish that? Can I be an ADF member, following through on my commitment to the Dedicant Path, while still harboring this love for the Druid Revivalists and their modern spiritual offspring?

I’m open to thoughts and comments from members of any of these groups. What has your experience been like? What resonates about ADF, OBOD or AODA for you, and why do you lean towards one or the other? Or, do you pull from all three traditions? Tell me about your tree roots and Druid groups.

A Beautiful Noise

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I experienced a kind of breakthrough this morning during my devotional. For the first time since I began this path of Our Druidry, I sang my liturgy.

It was a magnificent feeling.

I think the experience was so fresh, so powerful, because the sung liturgy the part of the Episcopal church service I cherished the most. As I mentioned before, I was an acolyte, and I loved the liturgy. Wholeheartedly. I knew the rises and falls of the melody, and was moved by them. I relished in them. I sang along beneath my breath. It never occurred to me before today that I could facilitate that sort of worship on my own.

I had just finished intoning the AWEN, and I was centered and still. I was listening, deeply. From the silence, I heard in my mind, “Sing to Arawn.”

(I’ve learned to follow these voices during worship, and not spend time inspecting them too closely. When you receive this sort of quiet direction, you take it.)

So I did, and the experience was, in so many ways, more natural for me than speaking the invocation has ever been.

The melodies were simple, and reminiscent of those sung back at church. To Arawn, my melody was deeper, fuller; something felt right in singing with a manly tone when calling him. To the Kindreds, I lifted the melody a few steps, and, being that I speak close to the same words for each of my three offerings, I did my best to use the same melody for each of the Three. To Brighid I sang with the most passionate tone, which was still simple in its form (the Priest is never to interject too much, as it is the simplicity and beauty of the voice paired with the meaning behind the words that creates the proper worship experience).

After making my offerings, I thrice intoned the AWEN, recalling “Amen” from church. However, while singing the word I remained conscious that the AWEN is a force, living and moving through me and the world – not simply a statement of closing (as one might use, “So Mote It Be”).

This integration of yet another tradition from the Christian experience of worship feels right to me. There are so many effective aspects to the Episcopal liturgy, and I see no reason why I shouldn’t integrate them into my Pagan experience. This mashup of religious expression is coming from a sincere place, and I believe sincerity to be the most important ingredient in one’s religious life.

So, as I am moved, I shall sing to the Kindreds. I shall lift up my voice in praise to the Gods and Goddesses, the Ancestors who have paved the way for me, and the Spirits that surround me in this great land. I shall make a beautiful noise in their honor, and they shall hear me.

On Meditation and Devotion: Weeks 10, 11, & 12

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March has been quite productive. Spring is definitely upon us!

Week 10

I’ve been working away from home for over half of the month, relying heavily on my portable altar for morning worship. I did not bring my tarot cards with me on my travels, which opened up space in my morning devotional that would normally be spent shuffling and reading. This allowed me to re-connect with the stillness, and place more of an emphasis on reaching out to the Kindreds.

On March 9th I wrote in my journal:

I spent more time in silence and stillness after making my offerings to the Kindreds. It felt good. For a moment, as I was trying to sense their presence, I thought I heard a bit of Irish music playing. I listened for a moment before my mind drifted….

Week 11

The first half of Week 11 was spent away from home, but I had acclimated to my hotel room. I rose each morning in complete darkness and went straight to the small coffee table I used to set up my altar. I started each devotional by atoning the AWEN and reading a series of prayers from the Pagan Ritual Prayer Book. These new additions to my practice felt very natural; a kind or re-connection to the religious tradition of my youth.

On March 12th, I was blessed with a deep experience of worship. I wrote:

This is the first morning in the last 3 that my meditation and worship was fully centered – fully heart-felt, and I attribute that to being done with my work for this trip. The last two days were fine; I made offerings and I held the space, but my mind drifted often, and I didn’t spend time in stillness or reflection. The offerings I made were sincere, though, as there has been an abundance of evidence of blessings in my life. The Kindreds are owed their due.

Today was special. My breath was deeper in, and my mind clear. I took my time speaking my words, paying close attention to direct them to each of the Kindred & to Brighid. I paused after each offering and thought, “Hail ___!”

Once my offerings had been made, I acknowledged how tremendous a week this has been. I spoke of the myriad of experiences and gave thanks that in all of them there was the presence of the Kindreds.

Filled with praise, I lifted up my hands and said, “HAIL” to each, recognizing them and their qualities and attributes. I also praised Arawn. Really praised Him.

Closing, I felt peace. Still do.

My religious tradition brings me so many good things. I am blessed. I am a warrior, and a seeker; a hope-filled bard who sees the world in vibrant color. My pen is my want and my voice is my Sacred Fire!

Week 12

This was a challenging week for me on account of a last minute trip, and a serious shortage of time spent with my husband. In addition, I had a rather poor experience at the Ostara ritual (which I wrote about here).

All this time I’ve been hoping that group ritual would satisfy a longing I had for religion and worship, but it was my solitary practice that brought me back into balance.

The following is a journal excerpt that elaborates on my my post-Ostara ritual experience :

Yesterday’s group ritual was a bust.

But today, alone in my sacred space, surrounded by the warmth and presence of the Great Kindreds, I experienced true worship. Heart open, mind centered, intention clear, I spoke words with sincerity, and in doing so I was welcomed into a great place – a place that felt both intensely close and eternally expansive. My mind’s eye saw the glow, and with my hands uplifted my entire self was whole in Their presence. I spoke a liturgy from the heart; the truest prayer. I spoke in my true voice.

 

I’m experiencing a true deepening of my personal, solitary practice. If it is ever meant to be matched with a rich, deep, group dynamic then so be it. If not, I feel enriched and strengthened by the power of worship and prayer… just me and the Three.

The Doing of the Details: Ostara 2011

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I’m a stickler for details.

As a kid, I was an acolyte. I had a wide range of responsibilities each Sunday. I lit the candles on either side of the altar, establishing the sacred space before service began. I stood beside the priest, assisting him in making preparations for the breaking of the bread. I chimed the bell at the appropriate moment in the liturgy, indicating a call to recognize an event of special importance within the narrative. And, I closed out the service by extinguishing the candles I had lit at the start. My action or stillness was all part of a great liturgical symphony; one that sounded out to me in a deep and resonant way.

The ritual was an act of service intended to facilitate, for all those present, a real, palpable, sensory experience of communion with the god we’d all come to worship. The details mattered because our spiritual lives mattered. Honor the details, and you honor our individual experiences of communion. Honor the details and, ultimately, you honor our god.

This childhood memory of a beloved weekly ritual stands in stark contrast to my experience of yesterday’s Ostara rite. Instead of feeling like I was taking part in something sacred, I felt as though I was simply standing on the periphery of a haphazard community theater performance; one in which the actors fall in and out of character, delivering their lines without conviction and with unconvincing accents, and seeming mostly disconnected and unaware of their audience.

So many things were missing; so many things didn’t come together. There was no attempt to create a group mind. There was no initial purification. The leader spent a great part of the ritual with a crying baby on his hip. There was no Omen on account of the divination tools having been left in the car. It all felt rather hodge-podge and thrown together; poorly planned and poorly executed.

I left feeling disheartened and disillusioned.

Worship must be more than role-play. I believe that effective group worship must be an engaging act that seeks to unite the people present in a common mind for a common purpose. The leaders must be teachers. They must be magicians. They must be priests. They must be open to the hearts and minds of all those present. And most importantly, they must be sincere.

This morning I woke up early, and I approached my altar. I stilled myself, and I lit my candles. I recited the words I’d chosen from the Pagan Ritual Prayer Book, and I cleared myself of all emotional, mental and spiritual impurities. I called on my Gatekeeper, Arawn, and with a contrite heart made offerings to the Kindreds and my Patron, Brighid. Then, from my most sincere place, I acknowledged the coming of the Spring, the frantic and explosive rebirth of life from death, and the multitude of blessings that are present all around me. In the process, I felt transported to another place. I felt surrounded by those Beings whom I came to honor. I felt, quite simply, the experience of Communion.

Once it was finished and the ritual done, I slowly and deliberately put out each flame. I whispered words beneath my breath. I payed attention to every detail.