Druids Grove

[Rune]

Im wanting to start up a druids grove [a group of druids that worships the Gods and Goddesses within a circle of sacred trees] and a soul retrieval group with my fellow nomads.
Do you like drum circles? Youll love what I have planned for this.
The soul retrieval will be done from a *innovated* Celtic/druidic perspective.
We will use bodhrans to aid us on our journey to nonordinary reality.
We worship the Old Irish Gods, the Tuatha De Danann, or the elves and we work with the fae [elementals, nature spirits].

Innovated in this sense means that much of the knowledge of Celtic culture was lost and the Druids and Celts didnt write down much of their history or about their culture, in other words, most of the spiritual practices are lost to the sands of time, and considering Druids and Celts were an animistic/shamanic culture, they were likely to have known about the same things the other animists/shamans knew about and journeyed to the same places within nonordinary reality. Its a creative recreation.

We will have a peacemaking circle and a talking stick.

We believe in respecting and living in harmony with nature and observing its cycles.

Advanced technology is welcomed with open arms. Brigid believes in keeping up with the times, I hear.

The Druid order this grove centers around is the OBOD, with some alterations. [John Michael Greer created rituals for the Welsh pantheon. It is recommended you consider the Irish pantheon if youre going to be part of this grove.]

It will be an unofficial grove [not on the websites], until I get the money to sign up for the OBOD.

If youre curious about how to become a Druid, there is a book called the Druidry Handbook by John Michael Greer.

 

[Deleted member 125]

So this is like yer pitch to organize people from this website to sit around rainbow gathering style and play bongo drums while wearing cool headdresses and deer bones and what not? Maybe I just dont get it.

I get the history, I really do, but I'm just not seeing this having any practical application aside from being maybe a fun weekend "find yerself" kinda spiritual journey type thing that Joe and Barbara do to try to save their marriage.

 

[Coywolf]

I personally identify with Celtic religious beliefs more than any other religion, and I applaud your call to a Celtic gathering.

However, as much as I like this, you are forgetting most of this religion, mainly the fact of people needing to graduate from Bards, to Ovates, to Druids.

Becoming a Druid is essentially becoming a medicine man, or shaman of that religion, and requires students to learn the ways of art, music, knowledge, and wisdom in order ro graduate to that level.

Essentially, it's all fun, games, music, and poetry for years, until you study and master the wisdom the world has to offer, in order to get to be a 'Druid'

This religious practice is probably the most realtable practice that I have ever heard off, as their main points are to respect the natural world, and to practice the best parts of humanity, which are music, connection to our natural World, poetry, and kindness to our fellow man/Nature.

Look into if before you knock it, hippy haters.

 

[Rune]

I personally identify with Celtic religious beliefs more than any other religion, and I applaud your call to a Celtic gathering.

However, as much as I like this, you are forgetting most of this religion, mainly the fact of people needing to graduate from Bards, to Ovates, to Druids.

Becoming a Druid is essentially becoming a medicine man, or shaman of that religion, and requires students to learn the ways of art, music, knowledge, and wisdom in order ro graduate to that level.

Essentially, it's all fun, games, music, and poetry for years, until you study and master the wisdom the world has to offer, in order to get to be a 'Druid'

This religious practice is probably the most realtable practice that I have ever heard off, as their main points are to respect the natural world, and to practice the best parts of humanity, which are music, connection to our natural World, poetry, and kindness to our fellow man/Nature.

Look into if before you knock it, hippy haters.

I have heard that in certain organizations you can choose to specialize in being a Bard, Ovate, or Druid for your first *rank* and then you work your way into integrating the other aspects of what it is to be a druid.
I do think that in the organization I prefer you have to go from bard, to ovate, to druid.
It does take a long time to get from one *rank* to another, whatever organization you choose to become part of, but even a bard counts as a novice druid in the organizations where you start out as a bard.

Thank you for pointing out that this path is a serious commitment. I should not have overlooked that. v.v;

I will go ahead and explain what bards, ovates, and druids are.
Bards are the musicians, story-tellers, and historians.
Ovates are the magicians and seers that delve into mystical knowledge of all kinds.
Druids are the priests, and the judges of Celtic society. They hold the rituals.

Another thing of interest to anyone looking to see if this path is for them, is the Brehon Laws.
I usually consider myself an anarchist, but the Brehon Laws make much more sense to me as a government philosophy than anything else Ive ever heard of.

 

[Coywolf]

Ya. @Rune I would consider meeting up and talking about this if I was still traveling, but I kinda fucked myself with a job recently. I may hit you up later about this.

 

[Rune]

Ya. @Rune I would consider meeting up and talking about this if I was still traveling, but I kinda fucked myself with a job recently. I may hit you up later about this.

Okay, cool. That would be awesome.

 

[toastslayer17]

This sounds awesome. Any progress?

 

[Coywolf]

@toastslayer17 not on this front. I have some limitations with meeting up with people ATM. But I look forward with talking with more users about Pagan/Druid culture.

 

[Rune]

@toastslayer17 I have not made any progress towards this yet. Considering that Im really feeling happy with my boyfriend and he wants to be settled down, Im not sure how this will work out.
I might still do some rubbertramping, but nomadic travelling probably wont happen the way I had planned.

I do still want to start a druids grove, but it would probably be where I live right now, which probably wont get much interest because this is the bible belt I live in. Dunno. Im eventually going to start a meetup group for it once I have figured out how to do the rituals in a way that coincides with Irish deities rather than Welsh ones.

 

[Lucky1313131313]

Although I feel you have admirable intentions here, it bothers me that you said you were going to worship "The Tuatha De Danann or the elves." It also bothers me that you said you work with the Fae/elementals/nature spirits. These are five extremely different entities, and I think that this way of relating to them is disrespectful. Plus you are inviting untrained strangers from the internet, no matter how well-intentioned, to engage in a highly sacred ritual with what are for all intents and purposes beings most of us never interact with. I don't think such a grove would go very well.