This is my first assignment for the New Order of Druid's course. I was asked to describe the circumstances that led to my interest in Druidic spirituality, and also what I hoped to gain from the course.
As a child, I spent a great deal of my time outdoors. I wasn't very good at making friends, and I
generally preferred to spend most of my time alone anyway. My parents weren't the sort to tolerate a
young child holed up alone in her room, and so from a young age I was often
sent outside to play. Luckily for me, I
also spent a great deal of time with my grandmother; a wonderful and
nature-loving woman who taught me a great deal about the world. In her youth, she had backpacked national
parks for weeks at a time, and used to take my mother and her sister on
summer-long camping and hiking trips in their family camper. She had an incredibly deep appreciation of
nature that she spent my early childhood imparting on to me as well.
It was
because of this that when I was banished from the house and sent outside to
play, it was to a world I was both infinitely comfortable in, intimately
familiar with, and yet incredibly challenged by. In our small rural town, there were creeks to
hike and explore, fields to roam, endless trees to climb, and numerous hiding
places for a little girl to lose herself in childhood games. What I didn't realize was that in all my
games, I was developing an intense attachment to the land around me.
My
earliest nature memories are of connections to trees; the first was a small
weeping willow in the backyard of my family's first house. It was very young and small, but I was as
well! I loved hiding beneath its branches,
and would often pretend that it was my forest house, one tree in a sea of
woodland. We moved a few years later,
and that tree was one of the most difficult things for me to part with. In our next house, there was a lovely crab
apple tree perfect for little feet to climb; and its many horizontal branches
made fantastic resting places. Despite
my father's warnings, I would often snack on apples as I sat up in the branches
reading a book - I only found bugs in them a few times! There were also two huge and ancient-seeming
maples that bounded the southern end of our property, and two imposing pines in
the north.
By this
time I had read J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord
of the Rings and had permanently integrated the idea of the Ents into my
young imagination. The Ents were
basically a race of sentient and intelligent trees; they lived incredibly long
lives, could walk about at will (though preferred to remain still), and were
stationed to protect the slightly less sentient and intelligent trees. The idea of trees having a spirit and an
intelligence absolutely absorbed me - my grandmother had long ago taught me
that all living things were to be loved and respected, but the idea that I could
communicate with them in some rudimentary way was electrifying. I developed personal relationships with many
trees: in my backyard, the local park, and the wild creek on seemingly unowned
and uninhabited land. I would often stay
out from dawn until dusk in the summer, never packing a lunch but instead surviving
happily on wild strawberries, crab apples, and mulberries.
At the
same time, I was attending a Catholic elementary school, and later a Lutheran
high school; my mother is a rather fundamentalist Christian and insisted that I
attend private institutions.
Christianity was something I had always had doubts about; I felt closest
to God when my grandmother would take me camping and tell me that the majesty
of God could be seen most clearly in the beautiful world He had created. As I grew older and was introduced to points
of contention in the Christian church such as abortion, gay marriage, and
evolution, I grew more and more disillusioned.
I had never felt the presence of God as I had felt the trees and the
land around me; and these controversies quickly sapped my desire to go along
with Christianity just for the sake of conformity. It was at this same time that I began to
discover books of a more 'occult' nature hidden away in our small-town
library. The author Philip Pullman introduced
me both to the concept of a dead God and the I Ching (a Chinese divination
system) in his series His Dark Materials. Tolkien's The
Silmarillion showed me a pantheon of Gods and Goddesses based heavily on
Greek and Norse legends. I was soon
reading up on Tarot cards, mythology, and philosophy.
Eventually
this search lead me to Scott Cunningham's book Wicca for the Solitary Practitioner. I was absolutely convinced that this was it
for me. Not knowing much about Paganism
or its various offshoot movements, or even Romanticism and its influence on
magical secret societies and druidry, I immediately clung to this belief system
that seemed so much more like home to me than the Christianity I had been
shown. I practiced Wicca for a few
years, and as I began to learn more and more about its traditional history and
also grew in my own spirituality, I began to refer to myself as Pagan rather
than specifically Wiccan. This whole
time, my quest had been a very solitary one, and I didn't mind it that way; my
spirituality is intensely personal and not something I'm open to sharing with
just anyone. But as I had my own
children, I began to see a need in my life for some sort of organization to
belong to, people that I could share my journey with. I began attending a local Wiccan coven's
services, but I still felt Wicca's ceremonialism to be somewhat lacking in
fulfilling my own spiritual needs.
It was
then that I became aware of various Druid groups throughout the world. I'm not yet sure if Druidry will be the
perfect fit for me, but I very much want to explore this path and learn more
about it. So far, the New Order of
Druid's version of Druidry seems very much in line with my own ideals and
desires in a spiritual supplement; and I am very glad to be part of a community
that is also nature-loving and sees the world around them as not only
beautiful, but also holy.
From
this course, I'm primarily hoping to learn more about Druidic
spirituality. I am very new to this
branch of spirituality, especially the New Order of Druids who are not
specifically Pagan in nature. I'm also
looking forward to the chance for some inter-faith dialogue on nature and its
place in our lives and the world; I have a great deal of respect for those of
other faiths and am very appreciative when I can talk with those who are
Pagan-friendly. Last, I am hoping that
the New Order of Druids will help me add more of a nature-oriented practice to
my spiritual aspirations; though I still have the same firm belief in the
spirits of nature that I did when I was younger, it has become very difficult
in my busy life to remind myself to take the time to make real connections to
the land around me.
My local shop recently had a big sale, and I just had to pick up this lovely statue that I feel represents the Earth Mother of my pantheon so incredibly. It's there in the top left, a resin and bronze mix that was relatively inexpensive but looks so amazing.
I miss my spirituality! Before my medical issues began, I was up (mostly) every morning doing my devotionals, spent the children's naptime working on meditation, and was generally quite in-tune with my Druid path. With the coming of stress and concern, however, I quickly retreated back to my fairly vague Wiccish practices, seeking comfort in something familiar. And while I believe the magick I worked in that time was a great help - it's not really fulfilling my heart or helping me to grow as a person. And so, after many months, I'm attempting to ease myself back on to the Druid path I love so much.
Not to say that I haven't been busy with quite a bit of informal spirituality. My garden, that I firmly resolved to complete this year, is nowhere near completion - but I am actually making progress, which is much better than previous years! My container herbs are thriving, and there's fruit bushes on my porch waiting to be introduced to the huge garden in back, once the weeds are finally under control. They've been mowed down and covered with a tarp - I'm hoping it will be enough to tame them! I'm eager to get to planting.
All this time spent out of doors and with the spirits of the land around me has been incredibly eye-opening. No, I haven't been working with my God/desses, but my connection to the nature spirits and to my ancestors has never been stronger! While I honestly mourn the loss of so much plant life in my back yard (one reason I'd been procrastinating, I believe) the thought of being able to have plants that I've planted and cared for fill up that space is just amazing to me; not to mention that hopefully one day it will supply all our produce needs for the whole summer. As for the ancestors, my closeness to them this summer is due to several factors. I recently attended a family reunion that traced our common lineage back to an immigrant from Germany - not too long ago, he was my Great-Great-Grandfather. Though much of my extended family has moved on, I and my family still live within a few miles of where he first settled so many years ago. Though it is a very short span of time in the life of the nature spirits here, I feel it is very important - my family has been a stable presence here, and because of a love of nature that runs like brown hair in our genes, I believe that we have always been very close with these land spirits, and I am so glad to continue honoring that tradition.
We don't own any power tools, so this was done with an old hand saw and some wood glue. I also used my wood burner to put some designs on the top and the two pillars. I glued everything together, and set it up to dry overnight. Tons of books are piled on top to keep everything stuck together while it's drying!
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