Rosher.Net

Back a number of years, long before Covid-19 was a thing, when Druids and pagans still had the option of an Eisteddfod or a Circle Gathering, there was a project called the Solitary Druid. It was a individual’s offshoot of the ADF, and it had a web site (now gone) at solitarydruid.org

As we cross the balancing time of spring (or autumnal) equinox, we face what some are calling a rebalancing of the planet. Perhaps it’s not helpful, if you are in crisis, anxious or actually infected with coronavirus, to look at this in an animist Gaia initiated event – and indeed that’s not the point of this blog post – but we are where we are.

No-one should be gathering around the stones or beneath the trees this weekend. And so, it really is the time for solitary Druids. I’ve always been pretty much a solitary in my ritual practices, spending time on hills or by streams or often as not on a roaring motorcycle (you’d be amazed) as I seek out the voice of the ‘verse.

Churches and mosques, synagogues and sanghas, temples and gurdwaras have all closed now; their adherents worshipping at home. Druids tend not to have “built” meeting places, preferring the natural world and the open sky, but as a group this too may be closed to us.

That web site, solitarydruid.org, is no more. The majority of the contents though were saved and are republished under a creative commons licence, at The Druid Network. Perhaps now is the time for it to get a dusting off.

I have a small part of the liturgy framed above my desk, by the window through which the Sun rises each morning, and I take the liberty of offering it for a moments meditation this equinox.

I am one and we are many
Fellowship in solitude
Here I stand to greet the Sun
A welcome in the morning light

In my mind and in my body
I hold space in solitude
For all of those who walk alone
May they find comfort on this day

And may the day unfold in peace
And may this peace be born within
And may my heart be set ablaze
That I might shine into the world