2018 Mount Haemus Award Article – Channeling the Awen Within: An Exploration of Learning the Bardic Arts in the Modern Druid Tradition

By The Druid’s Garden

I am excited to annouce that my 2018 Mount Haemus Award article, titled “Channeling the Awen Within: An Exploration of Learning the Bardic Arts in the Druid Tradition” has been released on OBOD’s website (a better formatted PDF is at the bottom of the page; I suggest downloading and reading that). In 2020, I will travel to the UK to deliver a talk tied to the paper itself, as every four years, OBOD offers a Mount Haemus lecture for the four most recent scholars. Every eight years, OBOD publishes a volume, and the next volume will also include this paper. Given this incredible honor–and the fact that the project is now finally finished (whew!)–I wanted to take a bit of time today to talk about the project, what I learned, and how I hope it can help others.

What I Learned

Regeneration, card 79 from the 3rd edition of…

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Walking the Path of the Ovate: Building Localized Ecological Knowledge

by The Druid’s Garden

The Druid's Garden

Rocky Maine Shore at Sunrise

Everything changes in this wild place. The ebb and flow of the tides drives the ecology on this rocky shore. The landscape abruptly changes its appearance based on proximity to the sea and elevation. Firs and spruces dominate along with a groundcover of laurel and blueberry. Even old friends, like birch, maple, and beech, take on new skin. The mountain peaks offer a desert-like climate where air and fire dominate. I am in this wild place, letting it seep into my bones, into my breath, into my spirit. Desipte the books on ecology I’ve purchased, I really have no idea what I’m seeing, no real knowledge of the deeper mystery of this land and shore. Books cannot teach that kind of wisdom, only time and experience can. My eyes physically see, but I am seeing without any real understanding of what it is that is…

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An American Ley Line Network: A Ritual of Creation

by The Druid’s Garden

The Druid's Garden

This past weekend, we had a delightful time at the 2nd OBOD Mid Atlantic Gathering of US(or MAGUS). It was a wonderful weekend full of positive energy, community, and celebration of the land. I was involved heavily in the ritual planning and work this year and was the gathering’s keynote speaker, and we once again did a Galdr ritual (a chanting ritual) using Ogham (sacred trees). This year’s theme was “Sacred Time, Sacred Space” and as part of this work, we decided to re-enchant the land by establishing a new ley line network. We are co-creating a new ley line network across the land.

Motherstone at Four Quarters Interfaith Sanctuary

The overall goal of this ritual was to re-enchanting our landscape, connecting sacred spaces and creating sacred spaces across the landscape, and connecting our broader druid community. The work involves empowering, connecting, and eventually, dispersing a set of stones…

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Authenticity, Ancestors and the Druid Revival Tradition: Reclaiming our Ancestors and Living Druidry Today

by The Druid’s Garden

The Druid's Garden

A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, anthropomorphisms, in short, a sum of human relations which were poetically and rhetorically heightened, transferred, and adorned, and after long use seem solid, canonical, and binding to a nation. Truths….are coins which have lost their image and now can be used only as metal, and no longer coins.”

“On Truth and Lying in a Moral Sense” Nietzsche, P. 250

Standing stones in Bangor, PA (recently set)

There seems to be a preoccupation with “authenticity” and “truth” within the druid community (and outside of it). Time and time again, people have asked me a lot about the history of the tradition, the “truth” of the druid revival material, the lack of knowledge about the Ancient druids, and how we can be a “legitimate” religious or spiritual tradition. This has come not only from the outside, but also from members of the two druid orders to which I…

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Diary of a Land Healer: March/April

by The Druid’s Garden

The Druid's Garden

Mid-March – Crocus in the Snow

The landscape waits, with bated breath, for the warmth to finally arrive. The last two months have been unseasonably cold, and the longer that time passes, more anticipation is present in the air. The plants and buds swell, but are unwilling to come out while the temperatures still go into the teens at night. At Imbolc, Punxsutawney Phil, our local divination oracle, predicted six weeks of winter, but in truth, winter has turned from 6 weeks more, to 12 weeks more, and now almost to 18. Just two days ago, the weather broke, and it seems that spring is finally in the air. Here at the homestead, we are all growing weary. Each morning, my cat Acorn runs to the door, ready to go outside and explore. When I open the door for her, a breath of cold air hits her face and…

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Druid Tree Workings: Nywfre, Telluric Energy, and Sap Flows

The Druid's Garden

Last week, I wrote about the many flows of the month of February: the flowing of the springs from the hillside, the flowing of the river, the flowing of deep emotions, and the flowing of the sap from the trees. Today, I wanted to delve more deeply into the nature of the flow of the trees, as part of my “Druid tree workings” series, a series that focuses on deep magical and spiritual work you can do directly with trees in your ecosystem. Earlier posts in this series include: finding the face of the tree, druid tree workings on the outer planes, druid tree workings on the inner planes, helping tree spirits pass,winter tree blessings,a seasonal approach and the breath of the earth,establishing deep tree workings and working with trees in urban settings. The whole goal of this series is to develop…

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Taking up the Path of the Bard III: Practice makes Perfect

The Druid's Garden

“You have so much talent” or “I’m talented enough” are powerful statements, statements I hear on a regular basis from those who long for a creative practice. The idea of talent can cause an incredible amount of inaction, of people not feeling they are “good enough” to even try. I see this, in particular, with the visual arts. But the first time you put pen to paper, if you aren’t Picasso or Monet, you might as well forget about it. This larger cultural ideal, of course, seems at odds with the druid tradition where Eisteddfod and the channeling of Awen are central to our spiritual life. In the druid tradition, creativity isn’t about producing something of commercial value or high quality, its about the channeling of creativity for spiritual purposes. But for those coming out of mainstream Western culture with all of the cultural baggage, this can be difficult to…

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Diary of a Land Healer: January

The Druid's Garden

It is late January. We had a very bout of cold weather these last few weeks, as I’m writing this, the weather broke and I’m out in the land for a longer stay since since the sub-zero temperatures hit. When I came to my new home and new land in the fall, there was so much to do, just moving in and getting ready for winter, stacking wood, unpacking, painting, fixing things, building a greenhouse, and settling in that I didn’t have the time I wanted to spend with the land. But winter is good for such quiet communion, and so, I’ve been seeing what there is to discover.

A snow spiral, one of many I walk while the snows fall! A snow spiral/labyrinth, one of many I walk during the winter months.

As I’ve mentioned previously on this blog, in purchasing this land, I knew that part of my work here would be in documenting the regrowth of this land…

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Holly Wood

Ecoregional Druidry: Adapting and Localizing Symbolism

The Druid's Garden

To follow up from two posts a month or so ago on ecoregional druidry and the wheel of the year and celebrating rituals, observances, and activities, I want to continue thinking about how druids can adapt basic practices of druidry to their local ecosystems. This is particularly important for those of us in diverse ecosystems around the world: part of nature spirituality is being with nature as she is in your region. Thus far in this series, we’ve explored a druid’s wheel of the year that is seasonally-focused on a local ecosystem as well as the different ways we might celebrate this wheel of the year with rituals, observances, and activities. Also tied to these spiritual practices are symbolism associated with the elements and directions; framing symbolism that weaves its way into our practices in a variety of different contexts. And so, in this post, we’ll delve into thinking…

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