Sun: taurus (earth/fixed), 6:06am - 8:27pm
Moon: waxing gibbous, libra (air/cardinal)
Earth: warm, muggy and sunny much of the day (after thunderstorms last night), with now more storms blowing in
Note: I wanted to post this yesterday, but Blogger was down for more than twenty hours (and my previous post is, at the time of this writing, still missing... though staff say all lost posts should be restored soon.
There's a new Druidry SIG over on TC, and one of the introductory threads asks "What kind of Druidic path do you walk?" I thought I would post my reply here, for posterity, since it reflects my current perspective on my spiritual path. Since the nature of a path is that your perspective of it will keep changing as you move along it, it's nice to revisit that question every once in a while.
I have always been drawn primarily to Revival Druidry traditions, especially because when I first began exploring Druidry I still considered myself a Catholic and (maybe more importantly) an academic. Studying comparative world religions in college, I couldn't quite get behind the notion of Celtic Reconstructionism, as I was fairly well aware of just how little we have to go on in some respects from an academic perspective — and at the same time, I was drawn to some of the early 18th and 19th century spiritual movements that sought to bring East and West together (like Theosophy, for instance). The kind of wild-Celtic(ish)-pastoralism and ambivalence towards the industrial revolution that many of the Romantic poets embodied in their work also had a great deal of influence on me, so it's probably not much of a surprise that Revival Druidry (which has its roots in the British fraternities, social clubs and workers unions of the 18th and 19th centuries) struck a chord with me. There was also, like I mentioned, the issue of acceptance and my desire to explore Druidry while still a Christian - the two Revival Druidry Orders that I belong to (AODA and OBOD) both state outright that they accept Druids from all religious backgrounds and see Druidry more as a philosophy or way of life than a "religion" per se. (Since then, I've come to question that acceptance a bit, both because these organizations have not always lived up to their reputations of inclusion in my experience, and because to some extent I think it may be a bit of a feint to try to distinguish "religion" from "way of life" in the long run...)
Anyway! The first Order I joined was AODA (Ancient Order of Druids in America) - I chose them because they seemed to have the most flexibility and acceptance of the American-based groups I knew of, and a really well-developed study program. I considered joining ADF, but at the time I was still Catholic and resolutely monotheistic/panentheistic… and although that's changed, I still find I don't quite jive with the theological approach that ADF takes. Still, there are a lot of things I do admire about ADF — their emphasis on excellence and scholarship, their democratic organizational structure, and the friendliness and outreach that the local ADF grove here in Pittsburgh does so well. I'm really glad to see a lot of ADF folks here in this SIG — I'm hoping to learn more about that organization from people already involved in it.
I joined OBOD a bit later... but honestly, I found their Bardic course to be on the far side of simplistic (and WAY overpriced!). Later when I found out that OBOD is a for-profit company set up to help Philip Carr-Gomm and his friends market their books and CDs... that kind of soured me on them. (I was also put off a bit by their rather bitter, unsupportive reaction to The Druid Network's gaining charity status last year.) I think they probably offer some great workshops and festivals over in the UK, but over here in the U.S., I feel like they don't offer much. So while I'm still officially a member, I'm definitely nonactive. So it goes...
Most recently, I got involved just last year with an "offshoot" Order that began as a grove of AODA and then broke away over some differences of emphasis. They're called the "Druid Order of the Three Realms," and they incorporate a lot of what appeals to me about Revival Druidry along with an emphasis on nonhierarchical structure and particular attention played to the Three Realms of Land, Sea and Sky. It seems like a happy medium between the CR approach and the Revival approach, and so far I've really enjoyed my work with them. My partner and I were both invited to join the Order and we're working our way through their Aspirant Program. I'm enjoying the review that it's providing me! Every time I return to some of the simplest concepts in Druidry, I find that my understanding of them deepens.
So that's where I'm at. As a (soon-to-be) stepmom of four kids being raised in the Druid tradition, one aspect of Druidry that I'm really interested in is the kind of "interDruish" community made up of solitaries and folks from many different Orders and traditions. My oldest stepdaughter already knows more about Druidry than I learned my first year working with AODA... which leaves me wondering what the place of aspirant/candidate work will be for people raised in these traditions. That's another reason why ADF really fascinates me — because my impression is that they really have in place a Dedicant Program that's relevant not just for neophytes and converts, but for anyone seeking to explore Druidry in-depth. I'd like to see some of the Revival Druidry Orders learn from this and start thinking about the place of future generations....
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