Sociologist Geert Hosfede* has a set of cultural dimensions (which you can look at here) that helps us understand broad differences in culture. These aren’t absolute by any means, but they do give us some baseline indications of how cultures …
Druid
OBOD East Coast Gathering 2013 – Review
This is the fourth year of the OBOD East Coast Gathering, (which I have reviewed before on this blog) and if anything can be said for certain, its that a tribe has now been firmly established. In the four years …
As Within, So Without: Blight and the Magical Garden
There is an old magical adage, first written by Hermes Trismegistus, that goes “As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul…” I’ve spent a long time in trying to understand this statement, see it …
Embracing the Sacred and Understanding the Druidic Garden: Growing and Preserving Your Own Food
When I was a child, I used to read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. In her books, Laura spends a lot of time talking about food preservation–slaughtering the pig, making maple sugar, making “head cheese”, sowing crops, cutting hay for …
Sacred Actions, Blending of Inner and Outer, Oak Knowledge, Living Druidry – Insights from my AODA 3rd Degree Process
I started the Druid’s Garden blog a little over three years ago. I started this blog specifically as a way to document my journey while completing my Ancient Order of Druids in America’s 3rd degree program, which was a self-designed …
Review, Video, and Discussion of John Michael Greer’s Detroit Community Lecture, “Not the Future We Ordered”
Recently, our druid grove brought John Michael Greer to Michigan, where he did a book signing and gave a talk on the fall of industrial civilization. If you are interested in either druidry or sustainability, John Michael’s works (on druidry, …
What Learning Research Teaches Us About Druidry and Integration
My friend and fellow Druid John Beckett blogged about the importance of integration a few months ago. I wanted to add to his discussion and elaborate on some of the comments I posted to him. In a nutshell, his post …
The Wheel of the Year in the Druid Tradition – Description of Druidic Holidays
When we think about the practices that various groups and cultures did on a yearly cycle, agricultural holidays are some of the most prominent. The modern Wheel of the Year in the Druid tradition seeks to re-establish a set of …
The Wheel of the Year – Druidic Holiday Guided Mediation
For our grove’s spring equnox / Alban Eiler celebration, we also had a Druidry workshop that focused on introducing some of our grove members to the wheel of the year. I thought the workshop went quite well, and the information …
A Philosophy of Druidry and Sustainability – Embracing Sustainability as Part of Earth-Centered Paths
This month, I’ll have been walking a forest/druidic path for seven years. This experience includes founding a druid grove, being active in two druid orders, attending multiple druid and larger neo-pagan gatherings, mentoring others, and so forth. And based on …
The Principle of Alignment and the Anam Cara (Soul Friend)
Alignment is a concept of spiritual significance that I’ve been working with for a long time and I thought that I’d share this concept here. Alignment is when you fit with someone else–spiritually, physically, socially, intellectually, temperamentally, emotionally, mentally–in all …
Shifting Worldviews: Three Books to Read on Sustainability & Druidry
I think that druids, and those of similar earth-centered paths, need to get really serious about sustainability. For what good is a spiritual tradition without the physical action that accompanies it? How can we revere the land while we take …
Three Representations of Druidry: Acorn, Awen, and Stone
I went to a natural gift making workshop (which I will blog about sometime soon) and got into a conversation about druidry with one of my fellow workshop participants. Turns out, she runs a local TV show called “Faith” and …
Incense Recipies for Druids and those doing Druidic Studies
Incenses for Druids The following recopies are most appropriate for druidic work, or those engaging in reading, study, grove leading, serious ritual work, or other work. I also have posted an introduction to incense making as well as recipes for …
Druidry and Citizen-Research: Arbor Day Hazelnuts and Project BudBurst
When I attended the East Coast Gathering, one of the talks that really stood out to me was John Michael Greer’s talk on “Reclaiming Science.” In the talk, he argued that science has become rather corrupt, and the funding for …
The Crane Bag: A Druid’s Working Tool
One of the practices that is fairly consistent across different kinds of druidry today is a druid’s crane bag. Traditionally, a crane bag was made from the skin of a crane, and served as a spiritual working tool for the …
Shaping the Land and Shaping Ourselves
When you are flying* across the country, as I happened to do this week, it gives you a chance to observe the landscape in ways that we cannot otherwise see. When we are on the ground, we are able to …
Druidry and the Art of Sustainable, Meaningful Offerings
In druidry and in other earth-centered religions, its customary to make offerings to spirits, the ancestors, guides, outsiders, etc. We usually do this as part of ritual or solitary practice. Recently, the issue of what to use as offerings came …
Oak Knowledge: Value of Bardic, Ovate, and Druid Knowledge
In the ancient Celtic world, the word “druid” meant “oak knowledge” or more broadly “deep knowledge” (Cunliffe, 1997). This likely referred to the wide variety of activities that druids participated in and the knowledge they held–the knowledge of the law, …