druid Zatumushgir Living and breathing the Tradition Taught to me since my birth. Hu Gadarn, we call the God, And Nicneven we call the Goddess. Through this path, I have found much, Touched much, seen much, lived much. But yet, I cannot relate to others well. We do not dance, nor chant, Nor sing in the ways of the New Ones. Our path is grey, A color which the unlearned fear For within is the touch of Black. But where are we truly Without the Light in all Darkness, And the Darkness in all Light? 020815 ... Sailor Jupiter I was disappointed when I was told there were no female druids....=( 020815 ... blue star that's bullshit. Whoever told you that didn't know what the fuck they were talking about. 021019 ... DruidOfTheGrove I think your lack of literation through means of using something without vulgarity symbolizes you have some struggling issues there blue star. Try expressing yourself with something worthwhile. 040626 ... minnesota_chris yay another teacher on this thing, to correct everybody's English. Everybody likes that. 040626 ... andru235 let us recover of this what we still can the druidic ways: a harmonic plan 050101 ... blue star asffgvusaygfouiasdhwilfcuhl dhs idfhisoau uiohafio aisdf 070530 ... blue star vcsxfuhlosuihfaluhdfilahdfl fh fkld h fkh skf vhskldfh ksh vksh adlh asdh saklch cdjkasdhckl asdksd cklh scdh kcd klhs sdakl 070530 ... blue star I wanted to ask the smart druids one thing, where is my anal lube 070530 ... Myrrdin Hail Thor 070530 ... mr song blue star you hatemonger!!! why do you hate? 070701 ... mr song females can be druids. what gave you that idea? the senior druid at Cedar Light Grove is a female. 070701 ... dornen you must be from baltimore, mr song! 070701 ... sdf blue star=white trash 070702 ... u24 there is an important distinction to be made between the druids of history, about which we know practically nothing, and modern druids, none of whom can trace the 'lineage' back to anything older than 100 years. there's no value-judgement being made here; it's perfectly fine by me to make up your religion as you go along. There is something unsettling about people who believe that this or that book (first published: 2001, copyright 2001) contains the ancient lore of an age-old religion. Read some real ancient sources (tacitus, plutonius, hesiod, ovid) and you'll see what the "pagans" of the greco-roman world were really like, and what we really know of them. 98% of the modern myths about "ancient religion" are just romanticised fiction. This is not opinion, it is fact. 070703 ... a shot of e3? that's not him! it's an imposter! 070703 ... mr song They combined the duties of priest, arbitrator, healer, scholar, and magistrate. They used the sun and the moon for signs of the season, they use the wisdom of nature. Historical knowledge is very limited though and I am doing as much research as possible to find out the actual history of the Druids. The history lineage learned by Druids is dated far before 100 years ago. The lineage of the Druid spiritual tradition can be traced across many thousands of years of time. We see the first evidence of spiritual practice in Europe 25,000 years ago - when candidates for initiation would crawl into caves, such as those at Lascaux in France or Altamira in Spain, which are dramatically painted with figures of wild animals. After being initiated in the belly of Mother Earth, they were reborn into the light of day. Twenty thousand years later, in around 3000 BCE, we can see the same practice of seeking rebirth within the Earth: great mounds were built, in which initiates would sit in darkness awaiting the time of their rebirth. The best example of this is found at New Grange in Ireland, where a shaft is oriented to the Winter Solstice sunrise, so that the dawn rays can bathe the initiate in sunlight after his or her vigil through the night. Four and a half thousand years later, in the sixteenth century, the key text of Druid spirituality, transcribed from the oral tradition by Christian clerics, talks of the spiritual and magical training of a Druid, in which he is eaten by a Goddess, enters her belly, and is reborn as the greatest poet in the land. So from over twenty thousand years ago to the sixteenth century, we see a common theme - which we find again in the training of Druids and poets in Scotland up until the seventeenth century. There, to awaken their creative genius, they were told to lie in darkness for days, and after this period of sensory deprivation, they were released into the brightness of the world. This theme of seeking spiritual rebirth and creative expression through undergoing a simulated death-rebirth experience, runs like a golden thread of spiritual practice through the four major periods of history that relate to Celtic and Druid spirituality: The first is the prehistoric period: in which as the Ice Age retreats from Europe, tribes from many directions, including Spain and the steppes of Russia, move westwards towards Britain and Ireland. A megalith building culture develops, which raises great mounds like New Grange, and great circles of stone, like Stonehenge. This culture possesses considerable knowledge of astronomy, has engineeering skills that we find hard to understand even today, and seems to use Pythagorean mathematics to build their monuments, two thousand years before Pythagoras is born. This period of pre- and then early Celticism gives way to the period of documented history, in which we can read about the Celts and Druids from the works of classical writers, such as Julius Caesar. We discover that the Celts had developed a highly sophisticated religious system, with three types of Druids: the Bards, who knew the songs and stories of the tribe, the Ovates, who were the healers and seers, and the Druidswho were the philosophers, judges and teachers. During this time there was much cross-fertilisation between Celtic culture and that of Greece and Rome. With the coming of Christianity, we enter the third period: in which the schools of the Bards became Christian schools, and continued to exist until the seventeenth century; and in which the Ovates probably became the village healers and midwives; while the Druids remained as the intellectual elite, and mostly converted to Christianity. This period lasted for a thousand years: from the triumph of Christianity over all of Europe by the sixth century, to the sixteenth century. During this millennium, Celtic and Druid spirituality was preserved by the Christian clerics who performed the valuable service of recording many of the stories and myths by which the oral teachings of the Druids were conveyed. People who think that Druidry was destroyed with the coming of Christianity fail to understand the resilience of spiritual teachings when they are encoded in myths and stories: and it is thanks to the clerics’ recording of these tales that we can be inspired by them today. St Patrick also recorded all of the old Druid laws in Ireland - providing us with invaluable information on the ethics and social structure of pre-Christian Celtic culture. The fourth period begins with the sixteenth century, when scholars in Europe ‘rediscovered’ the Druids, and then began to reclaim their Celtic heritage. The Church had taught that we were savages until the arrival of Christianity. But with the translation and printing of the classical texts on the Druids, Europeans discovered that their ancestors were far from being savages. At the same time, reports were coming back from America of Native American people who, like their ancestors, had been untouched by Christianity, and yet were worthy of admiration. This provoked a period known as the Druid Revival in which groups and societies were formed to study Druidry and Celticism. The founding father of the science of archaeology, William Stukeley, formed a Druid society in London and referred to the Princess of Wales as its Patroness. Cultural festivals, incorporating Druid ceremonies, and celebrating Celtic languages, grew up in Wales, Cornwall and Brittany. And this period of Revival has never finished. Instead, it has developed into a Renaissance, as more and more people find within Druidry a living spirituality that holds all of Nature sacred, and that offers a path of creativity and freedom, rooted deep in ancient tradition. So what are you trying to prove? History is nothing more than a lie? 070703 ... Lemon_Soda Depends on your source of history. All the big questions can never truly be answered with absolute certainty because language and consistency both needed to stand the test of time, something that we know, even in our own lives, errodes the minutia that made any act or tradtion so (presently) important to the practitioner. It is foolish to think that we can every REALLY know whats what, but the acting of questing after it is still a noble venture. Omnia Mutantur, Nihil Interit. Despite also the possiblity of concious conspiracy to rewrite what is known, we can safely hold to the basics of any spiritual traditon as history tends to reinvent and repeat. The druidic tradtions were never really lost, they simply became something else, and continue to do so to this day. This makes perfect sense to me(and likely the druids of old, aswell) as all things in nature grow and change through the passage of time. 070703 ... Cat lady Sometimes I wonder if I should celebrate St. Patrick's day or not. 070703 ... Akasari Great explanation mr song. I've been studying some Druidry myself and still had some trouble understanding it's roots. You have explained well. thanx 070703 ... Akasari Great explanation mr song. I've been studying some Druidry myself and still had some trouble understanding it's roots. You have explained well. thanx 070703 ... Akashari sorry 070703 ... swears the misfortune this is a potential word_of_the_day 070703 ... a shot of e3? I didn't get an answer yet. 070703 ... a shot of e3? Are you really him??? 070703 ... swears the misfortune who? 070703 ... a shot of e3? I don't mean to be RUDE "swears the misfortune" but, mind you're business and stay out of it! 070703 ... swears the misfortune sorry, 070703 what's it to you? who go blather from