Real Druids in Modern Life
TopazOwl

Thu May 25 12:33:12 2000
     This is an essay (well, it's a rant, really <g>) that I wrote for my website and uploaded there. On the off chance that some of you haven't seen it, I'm posting it here for discussion purposes.*p*********************************************************************p*     All too often lately I have been unfortunate enough to hear this rallying cry from the ranks of the newsgroups and mailing lists, and out of the typing-impaired fingers of chat room denizens: the Druids are dead and gone! They use it as an excuse to incorporate practices that are distinctly un-Celtic into their repetoire and still call it Druidism. They use it as a reason to avoid having spiritual leaders in their NeoPagan communities. They use it to try to direct chaos and disrespect at the knowledgable Elders on certain newsgroups. Some use it because they really believe it, and some are simply afraid of the idea that there really might be Druids in this modern world, and if so, well -- it would mean that they aren't it.*p*     I run into so many modern self-proclaimed druids. Therein lies a great deal of the problem. No two modern self-proclaimed "druids" seem to be able to agree on exactly what a modern Druid is. Some will challenge you or anyone to find a single person who can legitimately claim the title "old-world Druid," as if that somehow exhonerates them from any responsibility to base their Druidism firmly in the ways of our ancestors. It's a bizarre kind of circular logic -- if there are no Druids left, and they didn't write anything down, then, heck, anybody can claim to be a Druid, and who would be able to dispute it? So they make the claim and challenge anyone to defy their self-granted titles. And yet, what they practice is so far from Druidism as to be another spirituality entirely.*p*     There are those who argue that, in order to be a Druid, one would have to go back to how things were in Iron Age Britain, Wales, or Ireland, and do this in a way that is 100% authentic. In my mind, that is like saying the Celts (and by extension, Druids) never evolved beyond the Iron Age. (Which we did, and are still doing.) In fact, we evolved in so many directions, you'd be hard-pressed not to find one of us just about anywhere and doing just about anything. We are of Celtic descent -- our ancestors of Celtic descent moved here to America. We are the American diaspora, and as such, we are a continuation of blood and a continuation of our people's history. Just because we happen to have been transplanted to this country doesn't mean the traditions didn't come with us in some form, that our bloodlines changed drastically, or that we forgot where we came from. On the other hand, it also doesn't mean that we lived in a vaccuum and so never changed, borrowed, evolved, or learned new things to add to our traditional ways.*p*     It is my hope with this short essay to begin to determine how modern Druids are like ancient Druids, and to show that some of us do indeed have the right to claim the title.*p*     But first I want to address the mistaken notion that the ancient Druids were some sort of superhuman or god-like beings. The ancients were just as human as you or I, and prone to similar failings. I'm sure there were times when they, too, questioned their own ability to follow in the footsteps of a Master.*p*     Now, how can a modern Druid be as close to the original as possible, and still be effectively a Druid? There are those who say this world has changed so much that Druidism is obsolete and ineffective for a modern world. There are others who would make their own sort of something and call it Druidism when it really doesn't resemble anything Druidic. Well, in order to get somewhere close to the truth (which, in all things, is a very Druidic pursuit, this search for Truth), we need to, once again, examine what we know of ancient Druidic practices and reflect upon where they could apply to a modern Druid in a modern world.*p*     Strabo, in his Geographica (written at the end of the first century BC) said in part: " ...while the Druids, in addition to natural philosophy, study also moral philosophy." The Druid is a natural and moral philosopher. The Druid is a Steward of the Land and a Seeker of Truth.*p*     Druids were the counselors, philosophers, shamans, diviners, magicians, priests, teachers and advisors of the Celtic world. A Druid's honor-price was often the same as that of a king. A modern Druid should be of that same honorable character and of equal value to his/her people.*p*     The Druid was proficient in the interrelation of the worlds of seen and unseen, especially for ordering the political and social patterns of life; he or she may have had the additional abilities of seer, judge, poet, prophet or philosopher. From this and other things we can determine the role of the modern Druid. (See also my article entitled Druidism: a Glance at the Past Reveals a Vision for the Future .) The following thoughts on Druidism are based on years of extensive study of the Irish lore concerning Druids:*p*     In this modern day, no one can be a Druid without a college degree or its equivalent. The Druids were the educated elite of their society; the modern Druid can be no less.*p*     A Druid is not self-identified; rather, a Druid is identified by the community. When more than one person in the community (who understands what a Druid is) begins to call you such (including more than one person also identified in their *own* community as a Druid, ie., a peer), then I suppose you can begin to use the title, and not before. After all, can you be considered a Druid if you are not a druid to anyone? But this designation alone is still not enough to "druid" someone. One has to work to be a Druid, and one has to train. Twenty years of training the ancients had to endure, we are told. *p*     However, "Druid" is a dubious title if the community one serves is only made up of other self-proclaimed Druids. It's a bit silly for Druids to only "minister," as it were, to each other.*p*     A Druid, both ancient and modern, serves the community in a religious or spiritual capacity (ie; acts as a priest/ess). A Druid officiates at their community's sacrifices/ceremonies and is liason between the Gods and the people. That is not to say that some Druids don't serve the community from behind the scenes, helping other Druids officiate or seeking Imbas to be used for the benefit of the community.*p*     A Druid works as much as possible from the knowledge base of all Druids gone before. (The Celtic lore, culture, history, language.) A Druid recites for the people the lore, law, and history of the people at the feast days and tells the old stories. A Druid *teaches* the lore and the law and the tales and the history to the people. A Druid must have a working knowledge of the language of our ancestors (ancestors in blood or spirit), because that is the language(s) that the lore and the law are set down in. Translations are always suspect.*p*     One might object to this requirement, and debate the meaning and relevance of traditional knowledge to the modern situations at hand. But I have found in my own studies that the majority of the old knowledge is still relevant to the human condition in one way or another...either metaphorically or literally or both. Humans have not changed all that much over the years, and Irish tales at least are filled with marvelous metaphor that is as applicable to our lives today as it was to the lives of the ancients. There are old stories in all cultures, and though their relevance may have changed over the years, they are still part of the heritage of the people, and they are still told and re-told. The old stories give a good foundation to build new stories upon. You cannot have a Celtic heritage without them, and let's face it -- Druids were/are a Celtic institution. What a sense of themselves, their true culture, and their heritage all Irish-Americans (for example) might have if they all had heard the old tales once or twice in their lives! If we are Celts, the old stories are part of our history. The stories we will build on the old are also a part of our history as descendents of the people in those old stories. The traditions continue, the history flows on. It is one history, always evolving. And as we build on the strong foundation of our ancestors, we will grow our own style, but it must be built upon the solid foundation of our complete history, or it will crumble or become something that is not Druidism at all.*p*     But the Druids didn't write anything down, claim our detractors, so how can we know the traditions? I usually respond to this with another question: were the Druids not Celts? We can know the traditional lore. It is in the ancient manuscripts in the original languages, and we can know it if we can read it. If we can't read it, we have to rely on someone else to translate it, and it will lose something in the retelling. The traditional lore is told in the stories that were recorded before the traditional storytellers were silenced, some of whom never were, for it also remains in the folkways of the modern Celtic communities (heck, much of it even remains in the folkways of the "ex-Celtic" communities as well).*p*     A Druid is one who works Draíocht (the art of the Druid; Druid magic). One cannot be a Druid if one cannot connect to the Truth of the Otherworld, "see" into the past and the future, and act as liason between the Gods and the People. If one cannot read the signs of Nature or cannot divine with the Ogham (or another means that works well in specifically Celtic context), one is no Druid. How do we know what is specifically Celtic-style divination? Yep, you guessed it: read the tales.*p*     Can we call ourselves Druids if we diverge from tradition? Well, yes and no. We can still follow the old ways of the Druids if we abide by the traditions that we know. We can sink our roots deep into the soil of Celtic past and present, have a good solid grounding in that foundation -- then and only then can we borrow from somewhere else or create anew. Then and only then can we begin to understand the images, the Imbas, that prompt us to build new upon old and re-weave the holes in the tapestry. Only when we are secure in our foundation can we build a new layer that has any relevence to true Druidism.*p*TopazOwl*p*