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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.”

Pill Popping Deities

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She skipped around the circle, waving sparkers in the air and laughing like a toddler. It was a non-conventional way to cast a Fire Circle, I suppose. But then again what’s convention to a mis-match gathering of MeetUp Pagans holding ritual behind a Unitarian Universalist church?

Could you imagine a more anti-convention convention?

The Fire Circle was a sub-circle, if you will, of an even larger elemental circle. It was intended to provide the participants with some Wicca 101 on the relevance of the element of Fire, and I found the whole thing to be a little boring. I could have been at home reading Cunningham if I’d have wanted some simple fire metaphors. I’d hoped for a Full Moon ritual that dug a little deeper. Instead, I got sparklers.

But then the Fire Priestess began talking about Gods. My ears perked up. Maybe this will rekindle the embers.

Apollo’s good to use… or you could use Isis… or for creative things you could use Brighid… There are good Gods to use from just about any pantheon…

Huh. What an interesting use of the word “use”, I thought. Using Gods to cure what ails you. Using Gods to get what you want out of life. Huh. How consumerist. Pill popping deities; making use of them in order to – what – be pain-free, blissful, satisfied?

It got me wondering – Is that what the Gods are? New Age Prescription Drugs?

Pick Your Poly-Pleasure

Polytheism, by nature, seems to create less pressure for the believer than monotheism, because polytheists have options. If something sours in the God/human relationship, the polytheist can go elsewhere. There’s a pretty big Deity Dating Pool for the modern polytheist, especially if you’re not particular about your pantheon.

Like yoga? Think Vedic. Love Loreena McKennitt? Call on the Celts. Perhaps you’re feeling a bit in the mood for something spicy. Google Santeria. Its all there of you. Grab a shopping cart. Go God gaga.

The monotheist, on the other hand, has a single choice, and if it doesn’t work with the big One, to Hell with ya’.

Admittedly, I’m being a bit flip with my characterizations. There are probably plenty of polytheists whose practice is eclectic and sincere, and plenty of monotheists who don’t feel trapped in their “personal relationship with God.”

It just seems like there are an awful lot of Deity options for the polytheist, and its a popular approach to make use of those options as we see fit. I don’t agree with that approach. I don’t think the Gods should be in service to me. It should be the other way around.

I Like My Gods To Be Big And Powerful

Call me an old fashioned Pagan, but I like to think that Gods & Goddesses are bigger than me, more powerful than me, worthy of respect. They’re here with me and inside of me — yes — but they are also outside of me and expansive in ways that stretch the imagination. This is why they are worshipped. This is why offerings are made to them.

I either believe that, or I believe that the Gods aren’t real. They’re just devices of psychology. They’re fiction. Narrative. They’re all in my head. And, if that’s the case, I should pick and choose which god I want to use. I should let my god or goddess serve me.

But I’m in the “Gods Are Real” camp, and in light of that I feel that I should be very deliberate about how I approach them in speech, action, and even in my very intention. Am I trying to get something from them? If so, am I offering anything in return? How do I speak to them? At a recent ritual I attended, the Priest commanded –literally commanded the spirits to be present.

Um… rude.

I don’t have years of context for how most Pagans approach Deity. As I’ve written before, I grew up in the Christian church. To a great degree the Christian God was supposed to remain a mystery. Any attempt to fully understand him was futile, because unknowability was part of his deal. The best thing you could do was learn how to relate to the portrait of him that was presented in scripture, as well as whatever part of him was experienced and expressed through group worship and tradition.

But there’s no common pagan scripture, and in the case of the Fire Priestess I’m not sure I really care to join her in commodifying the Gods.

So what then?

Photo from allthingslabyrinth.com

Bring Back The Mystery

I’m not sure what Gods are for certain, and I appreciate that mystery. I think participating in something that is impossible to fully undertand (like science, for example) leads to amazing things. You discover a lot about the world you live in, and the world that lives in you.

In suggesting that Gods are more than just salve for the soul, I’m also not suggesting that they be treated like just any another person. I don’t really desire a BFF relationship with the Gods, nor do I want for them to be my therapists. I do seek out guidance, and I look for signs of their presence in my life. But I think it is a misstep to treat Gods as though they are human, just as it is a misstep to treat them like designer drugs. They are not human. They’re beyond human.

How do you wrap your mind around that? You don’t — I don’t, at least. I just have reverence for the very idea of there being something which exists in that way. Worship, then, is an attempt to further understand where my humanity intersects with that mystery. How do I, a human being, come into contact with a God; with a raw, powerful, mysterious, creative force? How will I know when its happened? What will it feel like?

These are the questions that inspire me to attend these rituals, even after a disappointing encounter with a sparkler. This is why I approach my altar in the morning to make my offerings. Seeking the answer to these questions fuels my religious life.

I Do Really Like Sparklers, Though

We do the best we can, us religious folk. Sometimes we hit on something deep. Other times, we just look a little silly. But, we try.

Perhaps I should cut the Fire Priestess some slack. Maybe she’s got a deeper connection to Deity than I’m giving her credit for. Maybe her sparkly wand and fiery voice did exactly what she’d intended them to do — start a fire inside of me. Inspire me to forge something new — like this blog post.

If what you’ve read here started a fire in you, share your thoughts in the comments. Start a wildfire by tweeting this post, or Facebook sharing it with your friends!

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.

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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!


My Altar: A First View

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My altar is my Cathedral.

It is the place where I go each morning to worship, to pray, to meditate.

I make my altar new with each ritual I perform, infuse it with more of my essence, my intention, my magic.

There is fire on my altar.

There is water on my altar.

There is wood on my altar.

There is a place to make offerings to the Three Kindred, and there is special recognition of Brigid, my patroness.

Atop my altar is The Awen, and Brigid’s Cross.

I placed The Awen above all else because, to me, The Awen represents the Source of All Things. It is, in my understanding, the First Inspiration, the Eternal Fire, The Essence of us all.

The Brigid’s cross is a sacred symbol that I acquired during a pilgrimage I made to Ireland almost 10 years ago. I journeyed as a Christian, along with a group of other pilgrims. On this trip, I first encountered Brigid, visited her sacred well, and established my first, conscious connection to the Irish land.

I have placed a statue of Brigid on my altar. She stands, serene and prayerful, at the edge of a well. At her feet are two young sheep. Her head is framed by the rays of the sun.

I grew up in a tradition that accepted statues as useful tools for focus, but not physical embodiments, necessarily, of the Divine.

I chose to have a statue on my altar because I value the reminder of the Personhood of Brigid. She is a real, active force, and seeing a physical representation of a person helps to keep that understanding forefront in my mind during worship.

In front of Brigid, I have placed the candle, the wand, and the chalice.

I stand before this altar in the morning and make my offerings. I give thanks. I pray. I meditate. I am filled with wonder at just how close the Kindred are.

They are no more than a deep breath away.