On Being an American Druid

Dana's avatarThe Druid's Garden

The quintessential image of a druid is a group of people, all in white robes, performing ritual inside an ancient circle of stones.  This image is probably the most known and pervasive of all visuzaliations of druidry, and for many, it shapes the our perceptions of what druidry should be. But taken in a North American context, this image presents two problems.  First, we have no such ancient stone circles and two, another group has already claimed the quitessential white robe, and its not a group with which we want to associate our tradition.  This kind of tension, along with many other unique features of our landscape, make being an American druid inherently different than a druid located somewhere else in the world.  In the case of any spiritual practice, context matters, and context shapes so much of the daily pracice and work.    And so today, I’m going to answer…

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The Subconscious Mind

Law of Gender

Karma and Dharma

A Bardic Storytelling Ritual for Empowerment

Dana's avatarThe Druid's Garden

Everyone has a story to tell, and some stories are worth their weight in gold. How we retell past events, through the bardic art of storytelling, can help shape our present understanding.  Thinking about stories as acts of empowerment in this way is particularly important in an age where so many of us feel disempowered. One of the things I’ve noticed a lot lately is that people, of all ages, are really down, feeling defeated, and feeling burned out. They feel like they don’t have a lot of agency or power. And so, using ritual and spiritual practices to help us find our power, and better understand it, is an extremely useful practice.  Storytelling is a form of magic, in this case, through a bardic storytelling ritual, to help empower us and bring us hope.  So today’s post, in line with my larger series on the bardic arts, will…

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Third New Moon of Autumn

Vibration

Depolarization

A Druid’s Anchor Spot

Dana's avatarThe Druid's Garden

Current statistics from the United States EPA suggest that Americans spend almost not amount of time outside: the average American now spends 93% of their total time enclosed (including 87% of their lives indoors and 6% enclosed in automobiles). A UK-based survey indicated that children now spend less than 30 minutes or less outside and 20% of children don’t spend any time outdoors on an average day (which is less time than prisoners spend outside per day). I think that the reason that a lot of people find druidry is because of statistics like these: increasing work and life demands make it harder to get outside, increased urban sprawl makes it harder to find “wild spaces”, and our relationship with nature is at a deficit that has implications for our health, happiness, and well being.

If (re)connection with nature is a clear goal for those on the druid path…

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The Power of Magic