Wednesday - a dip into Druidism

Even the stones at Castle Rigg are experiencing flooding

Celtic Devotional by Caitlin Matthews

You have been called from the place of your dwelling,

May blessed soul-friends guide you,

May helping spirits lead you,

May the Gatherer of Souls call you,

May the homeward path rise up under your feet

And lead you gladly home.

Pat (Weaver of Grass) asked if I was a Druid, no said I but I am fascinated by them and have written quite a lot.  My mentor would be Professor Ronald Hutton in this, his extraordinary book Blood and Mistletoe (The History of the Druids in Britain) covers the progress of the Druidical faith through our history.  

Now I am a convent educated person, brought up in the Catholic faith, though sadly never believing in any god/gods, so the Druids were hardly likely to make me 'believe'.  Belief, and here I will give a Wiki understanding is...

Belief is the state of mind in which a person thinks something to be the case, with or without there being empirical evidence to prove that something is the case with factual certainty. In other words, belief is when someone thinks something is reality, true, when they have no absolute verified foundation for their certainty of the truth or realness of something. Another way of defining belief is, it is a mental representation of an attitude positively orientated towards the likelihood of something being true.

But I also believe that we should at least respect others when they choose to think one way or the other.  If I have any belief than it is in the natural world around us, the living force and vitality of every species on this earth, their absolute right of existence, and that one species should not dominate, though of course we humans do. 

So I have written and thought, and from that top Druidical prayer at the beginning, I have meandered without actually coming to any positive outcome.  A church will silence my thoughts, its gravity held within its stones and altar will make me stop and contemplate, but a flower will also have the same affect in its structure and logical beauty, they are both part of a world that is infinitely educating, opening the mind to explore.

So why return to 'old stones' for Solstice, it is not for their proposed ability to focus on the sun coming up, but it is for their great age, stillness and a sanctity I find hard to explain, the earth uniting with the air and sky, clasped forever, circling forever in the vastness of the Universe.

And a tale from yesterday.  I bought my daughter's Xmas present, which turned out to be Nigella Lawson's Christmas cook book, and there in the opening chapter she confessed to liking the Druidical aspect of Xmas, and had read up through the Pagan Federation on its history.  Now I am not really a fan of Nigella but that did surprise me ;)

Stonehenge on Solstice 2015 crowded as ever

A collection of blogs on the subject...

http://northstoke.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/druids.html

http://northstoke.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/druids.html

http://northstoke.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/earlier-blogs-written-elsewhere.html

http://northstoke.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/two-bits-of-poetry-for-solstice.html