When the media or those of other religious traditions are considering the rapidly growing interest in Druidry, the key question is why? Why is the community of Druidry growing at such a rate? What is it about this ancient tradition that is relevant and nourishing in the twenty first century?
Of course, there are many answers, and in any I am likely to touch upon issues such as the importance of both autonomy and community, the focus on reason instead of faith in an age of scientific discovery, the focus on experience rather than belief, the celebration of diversity in terms of individuality, culture, vision and ecology, and of course the lack of prejudice about gender, sexuality and blood.
Yet, if I am asked for just one reason, the crucial factor, most often I point to the environment. The revival of interest in Druidry, together with other Paganisms, has been most significant over the past 15 years, concurrent with a growing ground-level recognition within our culture of the environmental disasters humanity may well be facing.
What particular aspect of Druidry that inspires environmentalism may seem intuitively obvious to some. In these few words, however, I hope to give an idea of what underlies that intuition.
There is a saying that, in our twenties, we want to save the world. In our thirties, we may concede that this is beyond our ability, and instead firmly believe we must work to change our own culture and communities. In our forties, we realize that perhaps we only have the power to change our families. When we reach our fifties, we accept that our focus must be to change ourselves. In our sixties, we realize how much time we wasted ...
To some this is a cynical perspective. I hear it as an observation of growth. Though the process of personal evolution may make sense intellectually, it is very slowly that an acceptance moves into our bellies and feet, into the fabric of our soul. Gradually, year passing year, we come to understand the full and exquisite value of that often awkward package we call responsibility.
Learning about the nature of responsibility, we develop our ability to respond effectively, efficiently, with empathy, compassion, reason, truth and respect. We come to understand that, however apparently insignificant, each and every individual life makes an impact on the whole: we all make a difference. Our human nature, crafted by a weave of free will, self-awareness, reason and passion, means that the choices as to whether our impacts are creative or destructive are primarily our own.
This perspective is a foundation stone of Druidry: our spirituality is based upon the conviction that everything in nature is connected. The web of interdependencies and symbioses that make up any ecosystem extends throughout nature, from what might be seen as the purely physical, through levels of energy and consciousness, into perceptions of what may be called soul or spirit.
Each cohesion of nature that we call an entity is acknowledged, of whatever size: the electron, the hydrogen atom, the plankton, the ant, the briar, the elephant, the forest, the island, the planet, the galaxy. Furthermore, each is acknowledged as having its own purpose. Aristotle used the word telos, modern panpsychists might call it consciousness, animists refer to the spirit, and in Druidry we use the poetic term song. They aren't entirely synonymous terms, but the notion is similar: every part of nature, from a beetle to a star system, has its own current of existence.
The practice of Druidry is in many ways about finding both the clarity of perception and the profound experience of the songs of nature, including our own.
Druidry is not then about striving to save the world. Yet nor is it about struggling to save ourselves. The spirituality focuses instead on developing our ability to see clearly the essential being of all that exists. For when we are able to perceive the song of another, we hear within it the story of all that has crafted that entity into what it is, here and now, in this moment in time and space.
Naturally, provoked within us is empathy, acceptance, compassion, without judgement. There may not be agreement or approval. We may not like what we perceive. However, when the song is truly heard, it is naturally acknowledged.
And indeed, within the beauty and brutality of nature, when the song is heard, other qualities naturally evoked are respect and awe. No longer can we crush a wasp for being a nuisance, for in its song we hear the exquisite patterns of its own being, the intricacies of its physical make up, the power of its heritage. Even picking up a pebble on the beach, with a receptivity to its song, we perceive the millions of years of its history and, as a result, it is less likely we will discard it, dropping it without thought. The act of eating is also filled with the songs of nature: eating processed food, food that feels 'dead' seems increasingly futile, while the songs of living food become more beautiful and nourishing. An apple hums with its own song, and that of its tree, the earth it rooted into, the sunshine and rain, the ecosystem within which it came into being and grew.
So does the Druid craft natural yet sacred relationships with all of nature. And in doing so, she or he doesn't need to assert and determine how to live. Simply by living within relationships that honour the song, behaviour is naturally honourable, respectful, responsible and true. The product is that the world, community, family and self, becoming more sustainable and peaceful places to be.
It is being in wakeful relationship that allows us to find our own place within the web. We locate ourselves and, if necessary, naturally shift into the most responsible and respectful position within the ecosystem in which we live, because awareness of others' song means that it becomes tortuously uncomfortable to live without that harmony.
So does finding our place within the web allow us to recognize our connection with the land. The Druid is wholly rooted into his landscape: the environment becomes integral to the Druid's own song.
It is easy enough to find examples in history and in any Pagan culture where, under attack, the Pagan can't run away, for there is nowhere else to go. Disconnection from the land is untenable. It is a mortal wound. In modern Western society, we may be more adaptable, but the Druid's spiritual practice still crafts a deep bond to the environment.
Environmentalism is, then, not an ethical stricture within the Druid tradition. While those beginning to find interest in nature and Druidry might struggle to make the effort to care for the natural world around and within them, the struggle is the journey of learning to walk within the tradition.
In many ways, we can define the history of Druidry as being simply the language that is spoken between the people and the land. When we learn a language, we can do it by studying books and murmuring phrases aloud; the most effective way to learn, however, is by immersing oneself in the environment of that language, making relationships that require sound communication.
As we learn the language that is our spiritual tradition, as we learn to hear the songs of the land, of the wind, the mud, the rain, the sun's light, the fox and the swift, the bat and the spider, so do we find value in each and every relationship. A fully engaged and seeking environmentalism is the result.
Druidry is the song that we sing in celebration.
Emma Restall Orr
March 2005
bobcat [at] druidnetwork [dot] org
