ALG celebrated this year’s Summer Solstice at Gaia’s Gardens in Raleigh NC. (not to be confused with the BBC photo of Stone Henge celebration pictured left)

This nicely centralized location was perfect place for the Keltrian based ceremony that was performed by Ailim with Sundruid supporting the ritual. The “Gardens” is nestled close to NC State campus and boasts beautiful oak, maple and various vines and shrubs. This was also the first morning ritual that Awen’s Light Grove has performed since our founding in January 2007.

It’s easy to get in the rhythm of doing evening ritual. It was really nice to soak in the sun’s energy with a great morning event.

ALG will be performing the Raleigh Pagan Pride Day opening ceremony in September. Be sure to attend the next ALG moot in July.

This was a response to an inquiry I received on Druidry. The querent asked really good questions. I’m not sharing his writings to protect his privacy, but I do want to share my responses as he moved me to put this down in writing in a way that I don’t often take the time to do.

Summary of conversation – “I’m not convinced that there is life after death. I also want to know more about druidry as an experience and also how your values and morals guide you. Seems that this kind of religion could be used for selfish purposes”

Sure. If you believe life ends at the end of this incarnation and time is linear – you’re existence will be bound by these rules and you will make decisions based on that. My experience is that the universe has much more poetry, vastness and strangeness to it than that. Science is now starting to find quarks that jump time and space, particles that fly through the Earth without touching a single atom and studies concerning near death experience and ghostly phenomena seem to point out that we don’t know the half of it..

Druidism is an experiential path, not one of dogma as you may be use to studying. So you’re only going to be able to pierce the veil so much before your intellectual mind begins to hurt 🙂

Only giving your intellectual side to life will yield a texture of dry, uninspiring cynicism to your life. This is the curse of the spirit that relies too much on Air. The new druid synchronizes their exploration to that of the forest and the seasons. Many folks approach earth centered spirituality with a strong Air affinity (intellectual bent) and it is the age of Aquarius which is an Air sign, but if you begin the OBOD druid path, you’ll work on balancing the other 3 elements of your personality in the Bardic grade. Really neat opportunity to explore yourself on a ‘guided path’ using meditation, ritual and other projects that bring better balance. You’ll gain new perspectives on poetry than you have contemplated in the past. You’ll connect to inspiration within yourself and it will be totally unique to you (no one can teach you) and you’ll only get out what you put into it.

Abuse of followers? You mean like suicide cults, religious based racism, bombers and priests taking advantage of children? We don’t have clergy and I’m hardly the leader of any ‘movement’. We have Awen’s Light Grove as a place for druids to meet together and I’m the organizer, provide some direction to make it worthwhile for folks. I like to answer questions and be a beacon for people seeking.