Feral Druidry – an article by Craig Cartmell
Bobcat has encouraged me to explore publicly what I have jokingly referred to as ‘feral druidry’. This has led me to a lot of reflection as the term feral seems to have taken on a life of its own in my dreams and meditations. So let’s have at it shall we?
What does it mean to be ‘feral’?
To me, being feral is a state of mind and a shift of perspective, not a label, an order or a path. Many people, who may be well-established in their orders, respected on their paths or who already bear known and trusted labels, may also find that they could be considered feral.
From my particular perspective, one who is feral is one who has reached out and tapped the savage and primitive heart of their being and nurtured their connection to the ancient and undiscovered strength of their land.
Their dreams are often full of raw emotion, nature red in tooth and claw, surprising and frequent perspective changes as the dreamer transforms them self through many forms, stag to fox to salmon to oak to pool to beetle to woman to man to wind etc.
To be feral is to have gone through a perspective shift on the world such that at a thought you can see the real world overlaid with its wilder self. From this transitional state you eventually learn to step fully through into this wilder (or other) world.
Trees move and sing, the land thrums with lines of energy, the sky coruscates with wild light and chaotic intensities. Indeed the difficulty once you experience this perspective shift is drawing your senses back to the mundane reality of now. Although not a kinaesthetic myself, from what my friends who are tell me, it could be like having unrestrained kinaesthesia.
Who is feral?
As I said before, just about anyone. As often as not though ferals seem to be found amongst the solitary practitioners of druidry and related paths. They are most often people who have worked on the land, in farming, smallholding, forestry and the like. People who, through chance or circumstance, have come a long way in their spiritual growth with little formal assistance, and have discovered or developed a deeply held connection to the land. I sometimes think that it is perhaps this very thing, this lack of structure and learning to restrict them, that allows them to grow so far.
Ferals often seem to feel bound by oath or love to a particular stream, beach, mountain, pool, stream or wood. The spirits of the land sing clearest to them there and they return often to recharge their emotional and spiritual ‘batteries’.
From experience of the few others I have met we are often quite emotional, laughing or crying unexpectedly as our altered perspective shows us vistas other than what our companions are aware of. Smiling at funerals has got me into trouble more than once.
Those few I have met or conversed with feel in no way superior to their fellow druids. Indeed they are often hesitant, uncertain and even shy of sharing their experience as it seems to them to be untutored and may fail in the bright light of scholarly druidic criticism or investigation.
As I found, when I came blinking out into the light some years ago, there was so much to catch up with. I was luckier than some having already been exposed to The Mabinogion and related texts through my welsh schooling. Thus at least some of the names and terms seemed familiar.
It seemed to me, and I expect it seems to other ferals, that there is an obsession out here with book-learning and grades, orders and rituals, that bear little resemblance to our very personal experiences of the land, the spirits and the gods. One feral friend asked me, before he retreated into the woods once more, when do ‘they’ find the time to be silent?
How does one become feral?
The honest answer is that I do not know. No feral I know has deliberately set out to achieve what they have been blessed with, and some would genuinely be happy to lose it, shocking as that may seem.
That said, I think it is possible for one to become feral and achieve that shift in perspective it brings. From conversations that I have had with the wiser and more experienced members of the various druid orders they achieve a perspective shift of a similar sort through careful ritual and deep meditation.
To touch your feral mind you need to spend a lot of time alone with the land. The more ancient and undiminished a place as you can. You will need to reach out, without the traditional ritual ‘protections’ of circles and familiar tools, into those places and seek the spirits of the land (Safety Note: Always let someone reliable know exactly where you will be and when to expect you back). A thought on protective circles and tools – would you walk into the home of someone with whom you wish to create trust, wearing body armour and a helmet, bearing a gun? You might well attract their attention, but quite possibly not the type of attention you wished for.
The key is to learn to be still and to be silent. Don’t close your eyes, don’t try to shut out the world. Focus on the land around you, examine it in its most minute detail, follow an ant across a clearing, listen to the movement and songs of birds in the canopy above, watch the leaf on the pool swirl slowly down the fall. Do this for hours, again, and again, and again, in all seasons, in all weathers, at all times of the day and night. With time you begin to see more, hear more, become more, as you become part of that place and the boundaries between this world and the other begin to shift.
I cannot over-emphasise the need for stillness and silence. You wish to reach places and beings who have no reason to trust humans. Beings whose concepts of time and space are quite different to our own. You need to slow down, show respect by listening in silence, show no threat by becoming still.
For me such practice was all I had for nigh on twenty-five years, I just did not know ‘better’. Although the shift came on early, it took me years to understand and come to terms with it. My reward was a deep connection to the land, and a personal relationship to the divine nature of being.
Why ‘feral’?
Labels, labels everywhere! I had not named this concept ‘feral’ until some jokey conversations on the old Awen-list inspired it, but it seems to fit very snugly. So much so that it has had me thinking long and hard about it (thanks Judith, Ani, Little Raven, Francis et al).
Now I have a label and some concepts behind it I have been able to look back at the events that have shaped my wisdom and experience, and also the people I have met along the way. This is possibly the purpose of labels, within human psychology, to allow analysis, reflection and further growth.
Where now?
I wonder how many of you recognise that feral state of mind, that perspective shift? And I’d be fascinated to hear from you so that we can share tales.
I do not propose that this label or the concepts that support it are utterly original (though they are to me). Many of you with broader experience and deeper wisdom (and that means most of you) may be able to direct me to similar discourses and I’d be grateful for that also.
What have I done and can I get it all back in the box before anyone notices?
Bright blessings from the edge,
Craig <O>>