Druid Mysteries

by Philip Carr-Gomm

  If a spirituality is presented as a fait accompli – an inflexible set of beliefs and practices, however ancient, then automatically we are forced into the position of a consumer. We simply have to accept and follow. The kind of Druidry discussed here, and as practised by groups such as the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, takes a very different approach. We see Druidry as a living and evolving spirituality that we can actively participate in, and that as a result is different today from what it was thousands of years ago. We are chefs in the kitchen, working with ingredients handed down to us by tradition and with the spirit of inspiration and our own creativity. We are not customers in a restaurant expecting a ready-made meal.

  When I met my old Druid teacher, he had spent years studying mythology – the old gods and the old stories – but he wanted to make his knowledge relevant to the world he found himself in. He had lived through two world wars and the Depression. He saw the alienation of young people from the natural world, and he saw the ravages that industrialisation was causing in the land and in the souls of the people around him. He studied the psychologies of Freud and Jung, and involved himself in social work, and the idealistic youth movements of Woodcraft, Chivalry and the Kibbo Kift. He saw Druidry as holding the potential to bring people back into touch with the land and the seasons, and with the purpose of being alive. He wanted Druidry to draw on its historical roots, but he wanted it to be relevant to people’s lives today, and not simply a subject for escapist fantasy or exclusively historical speculation.

  I have continued his work and the work of the Order in this same spirit, because I believe that the old ideas can be enhanced and made more relevant to our modern lives if we work in this way. As an example of this approach, which combines traditional and recent knowledge, let’s consider one of the most central questions that confront us as human beings: ‘Who am I?’ Spiritualities, if they are to be of value, need to address this question, and if we combine the insights of modern psychology with the informing ideas of historical Druidry, we discover a potent mixture that can offer much of insight and value.

  THE POWER OF THE CIRCLE AS A SYMBOL

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  In the last chapter we saw how the circle acts as a central symbol for Druidry, representing as it does the cycle of our lives and of the natural world. We have seen how this understanding translates into a spiritual practice, which honours the seasons as it honours our periods of growth and change. Soon we will learn how we can relate this symbol to the old stone circles and sacred groves, but first let us see how this same image, in conjunction with the concept of the ‘spirits of the circle’, can illuminate our understanding of who we are – the fundamental mystery of the human being.

  Jung discovered that the circle represents the Self in the unconscious, and that painting circular mandalas can help towards the healing process of finding a sense of wholeness or completeness in our lives. Within this sense of wholeness, this sacred circle of awareness, he postulated four functions – thinking, sensation, feeling and intuition – which can be equated with the four elements of air, fire, water and earth, and also with the four cardinal directions within the circle of east, south, west and north.

  These functions represent what we do in our lives: we think, feel, sense and intuit. But who is doing all this? What is the nature of this mysterious being known as ‘me’ or ‘you’? To explore this further, into the circle of the self we need to invoke what we can term the five Spirits of the Circle – five sources of power that together both influence and actually help to construct the self. Science currently only recognises two of these, saying that our identity is formed through a combination of genetic and environmental influences. But let us see whether keys provided by the ancient Druids in combination with a modern understanding can provide us with another perspective.

  OUR GENETIC IDENTITY – THE SPIRIT OF THE ANCESTORS

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  We know that ancestor-worship was a key component of Druidic practice. We can be sure of this because of the archaeological evidence of the megalithic culture – which lies at the foundations of Druidry. Anthropological studies also show us that reverence for the ancestors is a key component in nearly all religious and shamanic practices.

  Today we do not worship our ancestors – we may well be interested in our family tree and in the outer achievements of our ancestors – individual or national – but we have no way of, or apparent interest in, connecting with who they were at the level of ‘soul-essence’. Here we find the key to a way that modern Druidry can work with the practices of ancient Druidry in a way that is totally relevant to our times.

  By consciously connecting with the world of the ancestors, we can draw on a wealth of accumulated wisdom and experience that grows rather than diminishes with the passing of each generation. Druids today see the world of the ancestors not as some shady half-world of the dead, but as a radiant realm which represents a treasure-house of wisdom that can be accessed if you are able to travel there, or you are able to receive visitations from that realm.

  Almost certainly the Druids of old, and their predecessors, believed likewise, for that reason placing their burial mounds – the chambered cairns, the round and long barrows – near to the sacred circles of worship. We know from archaeological evidence, that many of the cairns were kept open so that either the shaman-priests or perhaps the relatives were able to visit the burial site and commune with their departed ones. Bones have been found arranged in symbolic ways – showing that they were used for ritual purposes – as indeed bones have been for thousands of years by cultures throughout the world.

  How can this understanding be of value to us today? Although lip-service is paid to history and tradition, there is in many people a conscious or semi-conscious belief that once you’re dead, you are truly ‘gone’ – ‘dead and buried’ – somehow no longer existent. This belief has a peculiar relevance to the environmental crisis we face. We used to believe that once we had buried something it disappeared and somehow ceased to exist. Now we discover that we can’t get rid of anything! Waste tips by housing estates leak hazardous methane gas, nuclear tips leak radiation, and the sea harbours vast floating islands of dumped plastic. The same holds true for the dead – though the body decays or is burned, we don’t get rid of them! They continue to exist at another level and are often keen to counsel and protect us.

  Druidry does not advocate spiritualism in the sense of communicating with the dead through trance-mediums, but it does teach us that we can look upon our ancestors, not as dead-and-gone, but as a rich resource that can provide us with a sense of connection to the world and to the life of humanity. When each generation stands on its own, and doesn’t feel connected to its lineage, then we have the problems of alienation and disconnection that are so prevalent today. When we know about our ancestors, when we sense them as living and as supporting us, then we feel connected to the genetic life-stream, and we can draw strength and nourishment from this.

  In the Druid circle, the place of the ancestors lies in the north-west – the place of the setting of the midsummer sun and the place of Samhuinn – when we celebrate our connection with this ancestral realm. Symbolically, or metaphorically, we can call this influence on our identity, on who we are today, the Spirit of the Ancestors – a spirit which connects us to who we are as genetic beings. We can sense ourselves and our generation as one link in a long chain stretching far into the past and far into the future.

  CULTURAL INFLUENCES – THE SPIRIT OF THE TRIBE

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  It is not only our genetic inheritance which influences us and which is a rich resource. We are also strongly influenced by the culture in which we have been brought up. Psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists and educationalists have debated long and hard over the differing influences that our genes and our environment have over us – the debate is known as that of ‘nature versus nurture’. Which is the most important? Which has the most powerful impact on our character, our behaviour, the illnesses
– physical and psychological – that we might develop? Although in the past some have argued for the idea that we come into life as a tabula rasa – a clean slate – to be programmed by society and education, and others have argued that we are almost totally guided by our genetic programming, the most sensible conclusions that have emerged from this debate revolve around different weightings being given to both influences – depending on the individual and the particular physical or psychological feature being considered.

  How does this relate to Druidry? Today Druids are aware of the importance of cultural influences, and seek to influence culture in a positive way themselves. It is also likely that in ancient times the influence of culture upon the individual was considered important, because we know – again from archaeological evidence – that the cultures within which Druidry flourished were highly developed. We have the evidence of the stunning achievements of the megalithic culture, with their stone constructions that display mastery of both engineering and mathematics, and we have the evidence of the Celtic cultures with their beautiful artwork in jewellery, stone carving, pottery and metalwork. A reading of the Brehon laws and the reports of the classical authors speak of the cultural sophistication of the Druid system. It was not only the Spirit of the Ancestors that influenced the Druids and those around them, it was also the Spirit of the Tribe which conveyed the cultural as opposed to the familial heritage.

  The Spirit of the Ancestors connects us to our individual genetic life-stream. The Spirit of the Tribe connects us to the life-stream of our culture, our tribe, our people. Today we have an interesting phenomenon taking place throughout the world. On the one hand there is a move towards a sense of one humanity, one tribe, one world. This has been brought about, not only by the advances in global communication, but also by the common threats of nuclear annihilation and the environmental crisis. At the same time, paradoxically, we see individual national and tribal groups trying to establish more clearly their unique identity – wanting recognition, autonomy and independence. These two trends need not be mutually exclusive. At one level we need to know that we are unique, separate beings while at another level we need to know that we are one with all beings. So it is with tribes – at one level we need to know that we belong to a particular nationality, race, cultural group or tribe and to enjoy its particularities, customs and traditions. But at another level it is essential that we also know that we are one humanity, one people.

  In this understanding, therefore, the Spirit of the Tribe is seen as the tribe of all humanity as well as the particular tribe we may identify with. It is easy for us to feel at odds with this spirit. Cultural conventions, unpleasant experiences of parenting or education, restrictive or repressive cultural codes often make us rebel and live in a different manner or different country from our place of upbringing. Just as we can experience anger with our ancestors for their influence upon us, so we can also feel anger at the way our society has conditioned us. It is important that we recognise this anger and that we are able to say ‘No!’ to aspects of our ancestral or tribal influences which we find unhelpful or indeed harmful. But having done this, there comes a time when we can separate the wheat from the chaff and turn to the Spirit of the Tribe, as we did to the Spirit of the Ancestors, and ask to be shown its treasures, its qualities. We don’t have to accept all that these worlds offer us – we are free to pick and choose. Every society has commendable aspects which we can use as nourishment and to provide us with a sense of connection to the world. If we don’t approve of its mores, for example, we may still be able to feast on its art.

  The allocation of the different spirits to points on the circle or to the lines of the dynamics that operate between points is not too important, and is not to be taken too literally. But in considering the Spirit of the Tribe, the obvious associations are to the times of Imbolc and Lughnasadh and along the dynamic that runs between them, for it is between the points of the young child and the family that environmental, tribal, influences start to work. Likewise in considering the Spirit of the Ancestors, we can associate this with the times of both Samhuinn and Beltane, and the dynamic that runs between them, since the whole process of incarnation cycles between fertilisation at Beltane and death prior to rebirth at Samhuinn.

  THE INFLUENCE OF PAST LIVES – THE SPIRIT OF THE JOURNEY

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  Those familiar with spiritual teachings will know that the two influences just discussed, and recognised fully by science – of heredity and social environment – do not represent the whole picture that determines who we are. There is another factor which is supremely important, and yet which is not recognised by science, although transpersonal psychologists and certain anthropologists are beginning to research this field. This factor is the influence that our past lives have upon us.

  We know that the Druids believed in reincarnation from the classical accounts. Recognising that a powerful influence over us is the accumulated experience of previous lives, we can call this stream of being or soul-essence the Spirit of the Journey. This spirit represents the part of each one of us that journeys from life to life – bringing forward each time the distilled wisdom and accumulated knowledge and experience of lifetimes. For many this spirit lies in the unconscious. For very good reasons they are unaware of it, until such time as it is awoken when they reach that point in the journey when it is safe for an awareness of its reality to emerge in everyday consciousness.

  The influence of the Spirit of the Journey could explain why some people are able to surmount seemingly unconquerable obstacles of genetic or environmental origin – how people born with tremendous physical handicaps or in horrendous physical conditions can emerge from them displaying abilities and talents apparently unrelated to their genetic and cultural programming.

  Part of the work of Druidry involves turning to the Spirit of the Journey and making connection with it, so that it can guide and counsel us. This is a subtle work which involves great care, for the Spirit of our Journey also carries our personal karma, just as the Spirit of the Ancestors carries our family karma, and the Spirit of the Tribe carries our racial karma.

  The genetic and environmental influences will change with each life, even in the unlikely event that we are reborn into the same family stream, and even if we are reborn into the same cultural environmental stream. But the past-life influence represents a continuous dynamic that carries us through each life, and for this reason it is best pictured as an arrow or spiral that rises up, moving from the past to the future, to meet the centre of the circle, which defines our being in this particular lifetime.

  THE INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT OF PLACE

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  It may be thought that we have covered all possible influences on our identity, our sense of self: our genetic and past-life inheritances together with our social, cultural, and educational conditioning. But we need to consider two more influences to complete the picture.

  Where we are born, the locality and country in which we live, are powerful influences on who we are and on how we think, feel and behave. If we live in the desert we will be different from the person who lives in the marshlands or the forest. Someone who lives in New York city will have different influences playing upon them from someone living in a village in Cornwall.

  The Spirit of Place is of enormous significance in Druidry. In ancient times, although the whole earth was undoubtedly considered sacred, particular points on its surface were clearly felt to be especially connected to certain aspects of divine power. For this reason these special spots were honoured with sacred circles of stone – with avenues or groves of trees, with monuments and with ritual. The landscape was seen as a living temple, and worship often occurred, not in enclosed buildings, but on the sacred earth and before the open sky.

  The acknowledgement of the sacredness of the landscape is a central feature of modern Druidry – we visit sacred sites, walk the ancient tracks, attune to the different earth-energies and landscape temples, and open ourselves to the
teaching and inspiration that comes when we commune with nature. Hill walking and camping, wilderness trekking and individual or group retreats in places of great power and beauty all provide us with a sense of deep peace and connect us to the nourishment that comes when we feel ourselves as belonging in the world – as children of the Goddess. In the Order today we hold camps three times a year in the Vale of the White Horse in Oxfordshire – an area of countryside that has been held sacred for thousands of years, and whose chalk horse and earthworks bear testimony to the artistic and engineering skills of our ancestors. We also hold retreats on the sacred island of Iona in Scotland – an island that was once called Isla na Druidneach – the Isle of the Druids.

  The Spirit of Place can influence us profoundly, and such is its tangible power that it has in itself become a term in common use. We know when we have found the right place to live or work. When we experience difficulty in finding our place, attuning to this spirit and asking for its guidance can be helpful. Deciding where to have a picnic, where to place one’s bed or personal shrine in a room, or where to buy a house are all examples of ways in which we can open ourselves to the Spirit of Place for guidance.