Rosher.Net

This is a stream of consciousness waffle that fell out of my fingers as I read Nimue’s post on her web site here.

When I set out on this path which turned into a form of Druidry, some twenty years or so ago, it was all about seeking some gnostic understanding of whether any authoritative declarations of spiritual truth were worth a jot. I needed something on which to pin my own confused and cloudy personal reality.

I don’t work well with structured learning, nor tests of adequacy. Although I have begun three druid training courses, I’ve completed none of them. I have however sought knowledge, through reading a reasonable breadth of texts and through interacting with contemporary druid role models, to the point I may have a handle on how to articulate my own truths. I have some truths, now. Truths for me. Not necessarily truths for all.

One aspect of my own Druid path has been the act of public service, and that has provoked me to become both a community leader and a part of the functioning of a small but significant druid organisation. At no stage have I sought centre stage, and I think that has protected me from any thoughts of runaway ego; something that can happen quite readily, I feel, when too many people harken to your words. I have never been, nor ever shall be, ‘an important Druid’.

Indeed, although it was a series of ‘very important Druids’ who cleared the initial path into the woods for me, I think I have learned as much, at least as much, from listening to the wind in the branches, the trickle of water over pebbles, the flight of birds. That is to say, opening up to the whisper of the ‘verse and waiting until grokking is possible.

I’ve always said I’m “druid for a given value of druid”, and I have no urge to be more. It was the idea of Druidry that caused my spiritual awakening; the process of becoming through that lens. Nothing else had captured me – indeed some of the established stuff had had me running for the hills.

Find me on a gentle green hill, with a view to water and the rising Sun blazing colours into the clouds. No other ritual required.