I suppose part of the various inspirations when I was writing my novel, Druid, was that I personally was in a reactive state more about another problem modern Druidry has in moving forward and being a genuinely enlightening spiritual route for us. The question is: does the modern Druid Path make it too easy for people too full of ego to lead druid groups?
As you say, Anne, there’s also the closeness to Catholic dogmatism and hierarchy (it’s similar with Wicca), I think it’s to do with ancient Indo-European bedrock forms at one level and secondly to do with the high level of reception from cabalistic magic that was around at the time Wicca and then neo-druidry were formalised.
And especially, I was reacting against rote celebration of the Festival rituals etc, where some of them are more like scripted plays and no-more consciousness-transforming than that.
In Glastonbury I witnessed more than one ‘Arch Druid’. But does hierarchy encourage each of us to achieve our own special spark of power and beauty?
I have even seen sociopaths and their attendant apaths acting as power-stealers in druid groups.
So maybe here are just some of the crucial questions:
What do we have to strip out in order to be able to draw on the Druid inspiration?
What can we draw on as a valuable and visionary earthspirituality source of inspiration and practice?
How can the Druid heritage can act as a gateway to our achieving connection to the energies of the Divine, to our own enlightenment?
What principles do we need to apply in our attempt to draw inspiration and power through the resurrection of druid heritage?
What are we to make of the mass of litter left by Druids and others following pagan paths at this year’s sacred celebration of the Summer Solstice at Stonehenge.
Is there the risk that people can be drawn to Druidry when they are very wounded, because the earthspirituality path and the wonderful Gods and Goddess of ancient Ireland and Britain can offer so much in beauty, empowerment and healing, but until we are more healed, we may be too unconscious of how much we are pushing our woundedness out onto others?
These are the first of a series of Blog postings on the issues we all do well to consider on following the Druid Path as part of our journey to Enlightenment. We would appreciate and welcome a kind and caring, intelligent and mutually respectful exploration of these issues, as we develop The Druid Forest School: www.druidforestschool.com .
These very worthwhile points are all made from Anne Lee in Washington State, USA.
