For many who are beginning to discover that they have a yearning to connect to something beyond what they’ve been taught in church or in school, the way can seem daunting. Where to start? What to look for? What is it that I am drawn to so strongly?
The path to finding that connection is unique to each seeker. Some find it through study, others through adversity and still others by chance. Whichever path is taken, finding that connection can be truly liberating with that feeling of “coming home”.
My search began in 1990. I was 15 years old and was unknowingly about to embark on the most exciting and life changing journey of my life. During my years in the Catholic school system, I always felt a connection with something, just not the something I was learning about in religion class. Coming from a non-religious family and not believing in anything I was being taught at school about divinity, I was not sure where the connection was coming from, but I knew it was out there and I would soon find out what it was.
Where would I start? How would I start? Where was I going?
The gateway to my path was shown to me by the most unlikely of people: a devout Baptist girl who had a penchant for Andrew Lloyd Webber, vampires, Victorian England and a reputation for proselytizing. She also had something else: a deep-rooted realization of her Scottish heritage. My new friend celebrated Robbie Burns day with her family every year, she knew which clan she belonged to, she knew her tartan, clan standards and history. In her collection of interesting things was a Dirk and she knew the lore that surrounded it.
I longed to have that strong of a history to feel proud of. A clan, a coat of arms…anything! My father had invented our last name and despite being raised in a traditional British family, it did not seem that we had much of a heritage to celebrate compared to the Scots. No tartans, clan pins or fancy knives for us! Nope, my parents had immigrated to Canada a few months before I was conceived and it seemed like they had left their heritage back at Heathrow Airport.
Little did I know that we did have some pretty strong traditions in my family…they just did not seem to be all that exciting because they were ingrained so deeply. My mother’s recipe for Christmas pudding that had been written down and passed from mother to daughter for generations since the middle ages, the thimble, coin and such that went into that homemade Christmas Pudding, Twelfth Night, Easter Dinners, marzipan icing, Shrove (Pancake) Tuesday, etc. were all traditions my British parents had brought with them to Canada.
Over the span of a few months, I began to feel what it was I was connected to: a land that was hundreds of miles away, people that were long since dead and a history that felt so ingrained, yet so removed from my being. I discovered that it was my ancestral heritage that was calling to me. What that ancestral heritage was exactly was a mystery to me since, like many of Western European descent, my bloodline was a mix of Irish, Scottish, Welsh and even Russian on my father’s side. I was a “mutt” as it were.
It is difficult to describe the feeling, but it was like a hum and a pulling at the heart…a yearning that became more intense as I read books on history of the Celtic nations with my Scottish friend.
I had found my connection…now what?
During my first year of official study (1991), I would go to the library with one of my friends and pick up books on Celts, and especially Druids. For some reason, that yearning became more intense when I read up on the Druids. Young and naïve I may have been, but my spirit knew what it wanted and I was listening…
The problem was the serious lack of other Druids to connect with. Little Catholic school girls didn’t just run into Druids every day! Besides…they were long since dead with no history written by their own hand to consult, weren’t they?
Could the concept of a Druid be even feasible today?
Why did I feel such a strong longing to be something that did not exist?
I was introduced to Wicca by some new friends and attended a teaching circle by invitation. I felt that I would find my connection there and I did. A woman approached me and said that I seemed to have a lot of knowledge and was I looking for a teacher. I politely declined, but I knew this was the time to ask the question I had been yearning to ask someone: “Are there such thing as Druids today?” The answer was yes and I began my search on my own.
If my Scottish friend in Catholic school had opened the gate for me, this person kicked me through it and onto the path I was looking for. The yearning to find the connection was quelled, replaced now by the desire to learn more.
Anyone who has started on their journey into the Pagan world at fifteen knows that a lot of doors are closed to minors because of the unstable nature of Paganism’s relationship with the mainstream…particularly with overprotective parents!
It is a little easier now with the accessibility of the internet, but to sound like an old coot for a moment, “we didn’t have easy access to the internet when I was that age”. I had to rely on books and what I heard from friends who were getting into Paganism. With Druidry not being as popular as Wicca where I come from, there were no druids in my city that I knew of, so actual human resources were unavailable.
The next fifteen years would shape my beliefs, practice and experience and I find that these things are still being shaped even now in my thirties.
Over the years, I have performed many rituals, written several articles which have been featured on a number of Druid websites, participated on numerous message boards and mailing lists as well as given lectures on subjects such as Celtic culture and solitary spiritual practice at places like junior high schools, Pagan Pride Days and Pagan festival workshops. Having such little connection in my early days, I am honoured to have been able to meet so many wonderful people in the global Druid Community. I am honoured to present this course of study to you, via the wonders of the internet and the kindness of The Druid Network.