This of course is the same goal that Druids have.

I’ll leave this short for now, but suffice to say this connection needs to be further explored in detail.

As an example, there was a few days ago a fatal car accident less than 100 yards from my home, less than 50 yards from the edge of my property. A teenage boy was killed, and several other people were seriously injured. Obviously, this type of event can seriously disrupt the energy flow of this space.

Adding to this, there has been a steady stream of mourners to the crash site, leaving offerings. I went there tonight, there are 4 or 5 large crosses, lots of photographs, several dozen burning candles, and various other mementos. Clearly, this kid was well-loved and will be missed by his community.

However, as a Druid, or more broadly as one who is sensitive to the energy flow of my environment, I felt a need to rebalance the energies of the space. The suddenness with which this young life was snuffed out is palpable, and I was having some difficulty with that energetic disruption.

Tonight, I went and smudged the intersection where the accident took place, and left an offering of burning sage at the site, with all the other offerings there. I also hearkened back to my days as a Wiccan, and cast a protective circle around the intersection. It felt like the right thing to do.

In the same way, we must be good stewards of our Selves. I must be aware of the energy flows within myself, of what energy patterns I am taking in, and what energy patterns I am spreading out into my environment.

This is related to the self-initiation in the previous post. I am feeling called to take on a year-and-a-day self-initiation. The specifics of this are still brewing, and will be for another week or so until the summer solistice. But the focus of my work this year will be on increasing my level of power.

Power is a scary term, but when viewed through a Starhawkian (is this a word? It is now…) lens, I am speaking purely of power-from-within. I have little interest in power-over, particularly over other sentient beings (being a parent notwithstanding).

The purpose of this self-initiation is to cultivate my own personal power-from-within. This will certainly manifest in mind, body, and spirit. Each day I want to do something to increase my own personal power. This much I know. The specifics of what this looks like will likely be fluid from day to day.

Awen is the reward of this sort of work. On that note, the crash the other day inspired an idea for a novel that I am very excited about. I’ve been keeping careful notes about this. I’ve been wanting to write more for a long time, and the prospect of writing a novel like this actually sounds fun, whereas writing the other nonfiction/philosophical book I have in my head sounds suspiciously like work just now. Time will tell….

But I don’t. Why not?

I’ve been thinking lately about imposing a training program on myself, for the traditional year-and-a-day, with a self-initiation at the end of it. The focus of this training would be doing what I need to do to more fully self-actualize, but of course it would be theoretically grounded in Druidry. Practice, not theory.

The summer solstice approaches, and it is a resonant time for such a practice. Begin the training with the full exuberance of the summer sun, while the “old” me slowly wanes, and a “new” me begins to wax in 6 months. Finally, when the sun returns to its place of maximum strength, I’d do my self-initiation then.

I do have a year-long Druidry training program by Emma Restall Orr, but I think I’d need something a bit deeper. Certainly my training would include a daily practice of centering/rooting, observing how my environment changes throughout the year, and daily practices that cultivate me living to my highest potential.

What would you do if you were going to undergo such a training or self-initiation? I’ve turned comments on for the site, so feel free to post your thoughts.

EDIT: Apologies, comments were still closed. Hopefully they are now open.

The detox was rough for a few days, but now I feel fantastic. My energy levels are more consistent. I can’t say I have more energy, but my energy levels don’t wildly fluctuate like they once did. No crashes.

Similarly, my breathing is operating the same way. Most of the time I am breathing clearly. I haven’t yet had anything close to a severe asthma attack. If I do start wheezing, I can usually control it with some simple breathing or yoga (in particular, Breath Of Joy is quite useful, the video on that page shows the move starting about 2:00 in).

In both cases (energy levels and breathing), I have a much more consistent and stable baseline with fewer fluctuations. The task from here is to build endurance, energy capacity, lung capacity by continuing the mostly-raw vegan diet and reintroduce daily exercise. My favorite lung-building exercise, which also releases amazing amounts of pent-up negative energy, is to smack a tire with a sledgehammer. It’s pretty amazing the amount of sheer kinetic energy that is released in this process. Walking and yoga are also very good.

This notion of baseline is also useful when thinking about relationship. If I myself am more grounded in a stable baseline, then I am more able to authentically be in relationship with everything around me. I am able to act from a solid place of being, and therefore my actions are more likely to be in line with my soul’s wishes.

Moon and Venus, by Ted Judah, 22 Apr 2009

That’s Venus behind the moon, itself a tiny crescent.

As a longtime pagan, the new moon (and the moon cycles in general) has good resonance with my soul. It for me is a time of new beginnings. A good time to launch a new project, or indulge in novelty of any kind. It’s also a good time to re-evaluate my energy flow, where my energies are going, particularly in relationship to everything around me.

My years as a pagan have taught me to try to govern myself with honor and health. But recently, Druidry has taught me that this is only the beginning; I must also govern my relationship with everything around me with honor and health. This is my challenge as of late.

For a variety of reasons, I have been focusing un releasing attachment to particular outcomes. This is a hard lesson for a magical soul: if you visualize your desired outcome (ie, focus your will, using a more magickal lingo), then that outcome is largely yours. It exists in your mind.

This is not in good relationship with other energies around me. When I think in this way, it does not take into account what these other energies want or need for their honor and health.

Better than seeking to impose my will upon my environment is to have my will be one voice in the choir of tribe consciousness.

Consensus and persuasion always trump force and power-over. Look at how these experiences feel…. when consensus is reached in a group, there is a palpable energy flow: Awen is the reward of consensus. The same is true of persuasion or understanding of any kind, those “a-ha” light bulb moments are accompanied by a rush of Awen.

On the other hand, scenes of violence, domination, and power-over feel quite differently in the moment of their occurrence, at best they are uncomfortable, and at worst they are excruciatingly painful or deadly.

What can we learn from the moon cycles? There are many lessons. Things look differently from different points of view. What goes around, comes around. It’s easier to see with light than without.

As Druids, we try to focus on our natural environment. Most people see this most of the time as attuning-with the Earth. But our environment is much larger than the Earth.

I wonder what the ancient Druids knew of astronomy?

Obama rode this wave to the white house. The forest around me is an obvious manifestation of this change, the snow is (more or less) gone, the mud is drying, buds are appearing, seeds are being planted, life is re-emerging.

This change is frightening on some levels. There is an unprecedented focus on tragedy, apocalypse, and collapse in the mass media, and therefore in popular consciousness. In our own minds, worry and doubt can build up.

I was walking in the woods behind my house and thinking about it. If I listen just right, the trees (and other critters) will speak to me.

“How old are you, what around 40, right?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” I answered.

“40 Years ago I was already many times taller than you are now. I’ve been here a long time, you haven’t been here long, this is but your third spring here. Out here in the woods, things stay pretty much the same. It’s noisier now, but the sun still shines. The rains still fall. It gets cold and we sleep. After a nice nap, we awake and it’s warm again.”

It occurs to me that, as druids, our task is to remain in sacred relationship with everything in our reality, no matter what this reality is.

Sometimes my head spends all-too-much time thinking about the day-to-day problems of my life. Making sure my work gets done, worrying about the economy, about violence in the world, suspicions about the government and its obsession with power-over and force, about impending environmental destruction, and countless other negative distractions.

These distractions, in themselves, are not the issue. But rather, how can we be in authentic relationship with these things? In many cases, authentic relationship with them means to ignore them entirely! For instance, we are supposed to be afraid of terrorism, but the truth is that more people die from lightning strikes each year than terrorism. Other problems (such as climate change) are very real, and we are already related to them by our participation in the capitalist, industrial culture that has created climate change.

The solution, apart from regularly talking to the trees to clear one’s head, is to stay rooted in the spiritual immediacy around us. Many of our problems exist largely in our minds. I say this not to dismiss these problems; on the contrary, our minds are so incredibly powerful. I say this so that we can reprogram our thinking so that we don’t live in fear of future uncertainties, but so that we can instead focus on being in relationship with what confronts us on a more immediate level.

(*yesterday as of when I started writing this post. Getting back to the blogging thing is a challenge, it took me 48 hours to finish this post a bit at a time. I will keep at it though!)

Lots of changes since this site was originally stillborn. I am in a new grove now, and I have been focusing on the “style” of druidry that Emma Restall Orr writes about: mud and blood Druidry. In particular, I appreciate the deep emphasis on relationship; this emphasis resonates with my own philosophical convictions.

I’ve not been as academic about my Druidry as of late. There are several books on my shelf that remain (mostly) unread. My explorations of druidry have been more in trying to bring the practice of druidry into my daily, moment-by-moment existence. For me, this involves taking some time each day to do the basics: root myself, feel the earth energies beneath me, listen and feel my environment.

It’s no coincidence, of course, that this Resurrection is coinciding with the first few weeks of Spring in Maine (nearly all the snow is gone now!)

I’ll be back more often now.

Also, from day one I’ve envisioned this site being a community, not just my own thoughts. Hope, feel free to continue posting here. And Joanne, Kevin, or indeed anyone else interested in Druidry, let me know and I’ll add you to the site so you can post here as well.

With the blessings of warm, moist soil between the toes…..
JWL