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Clothed with Flowers

At our Beltane camp by the White Horse and at the Dryade camp in Holland I used a prayer from the meditation ‘Clothed with Flowers’, inspired by material from the Druid Plant Oracle. Since the prayer itself is nowhere in print, I thought I would share it here:

Enchanter’s Plant – Vervain – Herb of Grace, Holy Wort, Chief Herb, sacred to Venus and the Awen. May it bring inspiration, love, reconciliation and blessings into my life.

Guardian trees of elder, birch and hawthorn, I hold your berries elder and hawthorn, tears of your sap birch, and I ask for your blessings to drive away impurities, and to strengthen my heart.

Simple plantain – here with your leaves – Waybread of the Nine Herbs Charm – bring me the calm, the assertiveness, the resilience that I need.

Yarrow – Staunchgrass of the Diviner’s charm – bring me the stability of faith, the salve of faithfulness, the strength of virility, the healing of my wounds.

‘The Restorers’ – Painting by Will Worthington from The Druid Plant Oracle.

Valerian – All-heal and encourager of sleep, with your sweet scent, bring me calm, bring me deep peace.

Fairy flowers of primrose – prima rosa, first flower of hillside and garden, bring me love, bring me peace, bring me the blessings of Ceridwen’s cauldron.

Artemisia – Mugwort, Motherwort sacred to Venus – help me to see beyond the world of effects, to the world of causes and meaning, of beauty and power. May fatigue be banished, protection be always about me.

Mistletoe – drawn from oak and apple, seed of rebirth and of new life, All-heal of the Ancients – may my own life be refreshed at its roots, reborn with every dawn. May all be healed, may all be blessed…

Source: Philip Carr-Gomm’s Weblog

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Druid Camp 2012 Recap

I want to thank everyone for a wonderful camp this year. We had a big turn out, about 13 – with a few day campers too. Next year we may have to find a bigger group campsite to get us all in. We had a great program, everyone learned something new to fit into their spiritual practice, and the topic was geared this year to Druidry and Shamanism.

We enjoyed the blessing of Water in the form of a deluge Saturday night.. Wow.. 2 days before, 10% chance of rain, to 100% chance of rain and over an inch fell on us. We stayed dry though – sort of. The camp drained well and we all have a fun story to tell. The rain waited till the end of our day program, which has been the typical synchronicity of our druid grove.

Beltane ceremony and Bardic initiation was observed Sunday morning in a large clearing near our camp area. The rain had subsided, and the location was a beautiful place for ritual. We had wonderful ceremony with 7 OBOD Bards accepting the first EVER initiation by Awen’s Light Grove.

After totaling up the expenses, we’re still short about $200 though. I’d like to make up about half of that, and our Secret Druid Patrons will cover the other half. So, if your heart and wallet are in alignment, please go to the website, hit the ‘donate’ link and pitch in for these expenses. Some of you have already provided extra, both on Paypal and in person, and I give you a BIG druid blessing and an organizer THANK YOU!

We had great quality speakers for both last year’s camp and this year. We also have Pagan Pride Days coming up, and we’ll have expenses with that coming too. Your contribution keeps us ‘out there’ in the world, growing our cause and spirituality and makes for a group that is active, contacted and whole. 🙂

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Spring without me

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pool singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone…

/Sara Teasdale/

thanks to Alex Koloskov

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When I Am Among the Trees

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness,
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”
~ Mary Oliver ~
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UNC opens to the spirit of Druidry

I had the wonderful opportunity to be Guest Lecturer last week at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. I had an audience of 22 students in the art history seminar class ‘The Druids’ who have been learning about classical druidry (what we know of it) and their professor wanted to give the students an opportunity to get a modern perspective of how the druid inspiration lives on today in the 21st century.

Though I’ve spoken at a few Pagan Pride Day seminars and visited with countless interested people on druidry, I found this particular engagement to be quite challenging. This was the first group of people who a) were all between the ages of 18 and 20 years old; and b) not necessarily interested in modern druidry or spirituality at all.

I didn’t want to just talk history (yawn) and plus their professor had covered that thoroughly. I wanted to bring the ‘nature’ to the nature spirituality and I wanted to impress the magic available to them in a wonderful universe of mystery and discovery. I knew I’d first have to dispel the misconceptions – prep the canvas of sorts, before I could paint a new picture.

If the audience had any preconceived notions, they were being too polite to voice them. I started with my ice breaker, sharing a triad and asking when they believed it was written. A front row student guessed ‘during the early days of Christianity’ and I got a mercy chuckle from a girl at the back of the room when I said that I had wrote it myself last year.

We went through the druid path and I’m sure I painted a masterpiece that challenged the senses, rational mind and spirit deep with in them. We danced through augury, magic and herbal medicine; we even talked about ritual, ceremony and wheel of the year. It was wonderful, albeit silent.

After my lecture, the professor and 3 students came along for lunch and more discussion. I found this delightful that after an hour and 15 minutes, they hadn’t had enough. We talked more on their backgrounds and thoughts, celtic history and more nuances of the druid path that I had saved for the truly curious. It was a great experience and I was taken back by the politeness and attentiveness the entire group afforded to the subject and me personally.

The mark of a worthwhile discussion like that is if anyone gets something from it. In the end, opening minds, making things ‘main stream’ or less foreign is the goal. And with such young minds, only a couple degrees of refraction can create a rainbow of colors.