The natural rock formations of Australia provide a similar set of symbolic associations for the indigenous peoples of that continent. Male-initiation sites around Uluru in central Australia, for example, are located beside naturally formed phallic outcrops, while female initiation sites are found beside vulva-like cave openings or rock formations. The religion of Ancient Egypt was based upon an understanding of the sacredness of sexuality as was Hinduism, the Taoism of China, the Qabalah of the Middle East and the Alchemy of Europe.
The patriarchal religions of Judaism, Islam and Christianity vigorously opposed such an understanding and introduced cultures of guilt and shame over the pleasures and joys of the body. As a result, sexuality was repressed and distorted, resulting in intense suffering, the repression of women, and punishment for acts of physical enjoyment.
In Europe, as the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth, many intellectuals began to question the values of their cultures and looked to paganism to provide the inspiration for a spirituality based on a celebration and appreciation of the physical body and its instincts, rather than on a fear and loathing of them. Already, in 1889, the author Edward Carpenter, in Civilisation, its Cause and Cure, had expressed the sentiments of this search for a spirituality of freedom and sensuality when he wrote:
On the high tops once more man will celebrate, with naked dances, the glory of the human form and the great procession of the stars, and greet the bright horn of the young moon which now, after a hundred centuries, comes back laden with such wondrous association; all the yearnings and the dreams and the wonderment of the generations of mankind, the worship of Astarte and of Diana and Isis; once more in sacred groves will he reunite the passion and the delight of human love, with its deepest feelings of the sanctity and beauty of nature and in the open, standing uncovered to the sun, will adore the emblem of the everlasting splendour which shines within. This same sense of vital perfection and exaltation which can be traced in the early and pre-civilised peoples, only a thousand times intensified, defined, illustrated and purified, will return to irradiate the redeemed and delivered man.
Here he is suggesting, in florid and exaggerated language, that the early pre-Christian understanding of the sacredness of the human body and of sexuality would return to free and inspire us. This is exactly what has happened in the resurgence of paganism in the last few decades, thanks, to a great extent, to the initiative of Gerald Gardner.
Gardner was the founding father of the modern Witchcraft movement, as Ross Nichols was, in a different way, the founding father of modern Druidry. They probably first met at the Spielplatz Naturist Resort near St Alban's, England during the Second World War. Although nearly 20 years separated them, they shared a fascination with mythology, folk-lore, religion and the occult. And they both loved to talk – endlessly.
Naturism was an idea that evolved in the 1920s as part of the process of the freeing of individuals from outmoded social restrictions that had started to occur following the First World War. It was all part of the move 'back to Nature' in which people sought to escape from the horrors of war, the alienation of city life, and rampant industrialization. They did not want anything, not even clothes, between them and the elemental forces of Nature - water, air and sunlight.
Nichols, a teacher, was a vegetarian and pacifist, and was fascinated by the mythology of Britain. He loved the procession of the seasons through the year, and had published poetry before the war filled with seasonal imagery. Gardner, a retired civil servant, had spent most of his life abroad in Malaya. He was also intrigued by mythology he was a member of the Folklore Society and had studied indigenous spiritualities in Malaya - and he was a member of the Ancient Order of Druids. Years later, in 1954, his friend Ross also joined the Order.
When Nichols and Gardner met at the Naturist resort of Spielplatz in the 1930s they were already convinced of the dangers of sexual repression. Nichols wrote that Christianity's attitude towards sexuality effectively made it evil, thereby stunting human development. He studied the work of Freud who pioneered an understanding of the importance of sexuality and of the dangers of its repression, and he also read the works of Jung, who was fascinated by alchemy and its understanding of the deeper, sacred nature of sexuality as a vehicle for human spiritual growth and creativity.
Nichols was also interested in the Indian religion of Jainism - he liked its philosophy of non-violence, vegetarianism and non~attachment, and he once wrote that, 'Of the known cultural communities it is the Jains who seem most like a society from which Druidry could have originated.' He then went on to explain their two divisions: those who wear no clothes and are called Digambara, which means literally 'clothed in the quarters of the sky', usually translated as 'atmosphere-clad' or 'sky-clad', and those known as Shvetambara, translated as 'white-clothed' or 'white~robed'.
Both Nichols and Gardner were convinced of the benefits of Naturism, and had found that freeing oneself of clothes in a natural setting also frees one's mind and spirit. While Gardner took the bold step of introducing a spirituality which took this sense of freedom into its acts of worship, decreeing that Wicca should be practised 'skyclad', Nichols confined his Naturism to his own personal life and when meeting with Druid friends at his private woodland retreat. In his public Druidry he was 'white-robed'.
Gardner firmly believed that the union of God and Goddess lay at the heart of creation, and this theme lies at the heart of Wicca too. Within the Wiccan Great Rite, the union of God and Goddess is enacted either symbolically, through the plunging of the athame (ceremonial dagger) into the chalice, or in reality through the physical union of the High Priestess and High Priest. Some believe that Gardner himself introduced this theme and this rite into Wicca as a result of his knowledge of Tantra and the sexual magic of the Ordo Templi Orientis, since there is no evidence of this practice within folk witchcraft in Britain prior to Gardner.
Even if the Great Rite is a modern addition, pre-Christian culture and spirituality in Britain and Ireland were imbued with an understanding of the centrality and sacredness of sexual union. The 'Ancients wrote it in the Earth', as the Druid saying goes, and the megalithic sites are inherently sexual in their symbolism. In addition, many of the old stories, such as the Dream of Aengus, the Tale of Taliesin, and the story of Kulwch and Olwen, deal with the union between the Masculine and the Feminine.
Gardner intuitively grasped the idea that a spirituality for the New Age, if it was to free itself from the violence and repression of the patriarchal religions, needed to celebrate the body and sexuality, and the union of the Masculine and Feminine principles. The idea did not need importing from the East - it existed already amongst the stones and the mythology of the West.
It is also clear that the Ancients viewed sexuality, love and procreation in the widest sense. Their spiritual and magical life was seen as fostering fertility and abundance at every level, from acts of physical love, to creating fine children, beautiful works of art, abundant crops and healthy livestock. At a cultural level, one of the finest expressions of this was seen in the work of the Bards, who sought the inspiration of the Goddess Ceridwen in Wales, and Brighid in Eire, to incubate poems in the simulated wombs of dark enclosed rooms, from which they would emerge to proclaim their verse.
Nichols, a poet himself, chose to focus on the results of the Divine Union within the soul - creativity in all its forms. Gardner chose to focus on the union. It was as if they each turned their attentions to the side of the equation that best suited their interests and personalities, and now, 50 years later, we can view the situation objectively and see that both approaches, far from being contradictory, actually represent two parts of one whole. Separated, their approaches can be problematic.
Making the sacred marriage of God and Goddess a central focus of Wicca, and the introduction of the idea of skyclad worship, created a number of problems for Gardner and his followers. Wicca became an easy target for the attentions of journalists who would 'expose' naked celebrations and evoke the scandalous
image of sexual rites occurring behind the closed curtains of suburbia. This was not helped by self-publicists who capitalized on this interest.
Another, more creative problem arose when those pagans who were not heterosexual objected to the prominence given by Gardner's Wicca to gender polarity. Later writers stressed a symbolic interpretation of this polarity rather than a literal one, saying that the sacred union enacted in the Great Rite need not be of opposite physical genders, but of 'The Masculine' and ~The Feminine' as divine principles, or as inner aspects of the Self. This satisfied some gay and lesbian Wiccans, but once the original idea was discovered not to be an authentic and ancient tradition of Witchcraft, many Wiccans felt free to create versions of Wicca that simply let go of the Great Rite and of the concept of gender polarity altogether. Feminist Wicca, Goddess Wicca, male-only covens and a host of other variations of Wiccan theory and practice developed as a result. In the same way, once the insistence on being skyclad was seen to be not a divine edict but a matter of personal choice, many Wiccans chose to worship robed rather than naked.
Druidry evolved free of such problems. Skyclad Druidry had never been overtly suggested, and Nichols, and most other writers on Druidry, hardly mentioned the issue of sexuality or gender. In addition, gay and lesbian practitioners felt as welcome within Druidry as heterosexuals, as did those who might have felt threatened by the concept of participating in naked celebrations. Journalists could only photograph solemnly robed Druids at Stonehenge, and none bothered to infiltrate Druid groups because no rites involved that subject of perpetual fascination - sex. As a result, Druidry came to be perceived as a rather staid affair and pictures of Druids at Stonehenge, like those of Beefeaters at the Tower of London or students punting at Cambridge, became one of the defining images of British culture.
The downside to Druidry's avoidance of sexuality was that, for some, it came to be perceived as sexless, in contrast to Wicca's obvious sexiness, particularly by those who were free from sexual inhibitions or body-shame. The inherent nature of sexuality in all of life seemed ignored and, as a result, a certain juiciness or joie de vivre sometimes appeared lacking in Druidic thought and ceremonial.
In recent times, the picture has changed, and the problems encountered by Wicca in its early days occur less frequently. A wider familiarity with psychological concepts means that a simplistic association of God and Goddess with physical gender is no longer so prevalent, whereas nakedness and sexuality were explosive issues in the 1950s, they have now become accepted topics of popular culture. Although the majority of Druids, and many Wiccans, prefer to remain clothed, a number of them have discovered that working skyclad, far from encouraging salacious voyeurism, exhibitionism or sexual misconduct, actually engenders a sense of community, of closeness to Nature, and induces feelings of humility, innocence and freedom.
Whether or not the ancient Druids, like the Jains, ever worked naked is debatable and, essentially, immaterial. Druidry is constantly growing and evolving, and the ideals of Naturism espoused by Nichols are in complete agreement with the ideals of Druidry. In addition, a close study of the old Bardic tales suggests a spirituality that is fundamentally alchemical and that shares an understanding of the sacredness of sexuality with traditions such as Taoism and Tantra. The introduction of the theme of the union of God and Goddess into modern Wicca provides an interesting bridge between the two traditions, for if Druidry, in its Bardic tales, can provide the historical underpinning for this central theme of modern Wicca, then one of the key distinctions between the two traditions simply evaporates.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Grove of the Summer Stars,
The Ways of the Earth and Her Seasons
Three good things in one who loves good health:
enough sleep at Bealtinna (in Spring),
enough food at Meansamhradh (at Mid-Summer),
enough fire at Geamhradh (in the Winter)
Irish Triad
Working with the powers of Nature is one of the central activities of both Druidry and Wicca - and hence of Druidcraft. Knowing how to work with the tides of the Earth, moon and sun is vital if we are to work with Nature and not against Her. When we live in a world of concrete and glass, separated from the cycles and the energies of the natural world, we lose energy and become tired or depressed. But if we can get in touch again with Nature and her seasons, we feel more vital, more joyful. Both Wicca and Druidry celebrate eight times of the year to help us to do this. There are many ways in which we can mark these eight occasions, from complete rituals with others at a sacred site, such as Stonehenge or Glastonbury, to informal ways on our own or with our family and friends. Celebrating these seasonal festivals lies at the heart of Druid, Wiccan and Druidcraft practice, and in this lesson we learn about this eightfold cycle and how we can use the energies of the seasons in practical magic.
THE LIFE OF BRIGHID
The great father god of the Druids in Ireland was known as the Dagda. He was a mighty being who possessed a vast cauldron that was so big that whole worlds could be stirred within its depths. To stir the cauldron he carved a great spoon, and a sport amongst the gods was for them to lie together in their father's spoon, while he stirred it round and round the swirling mass of atoms that we call the cosmos.
One night, when lightning streaked the sky and all the heavens seemed to open, the Dagda's daughter was born into the world. No one knows the name of her mother. Perhaps she was the night sky itself or the moon that shines so brightly in our heavens. Perhaps she was the Goddess of the Forest and the deep Earth. Perhaps she came from the constellation of the Great Bear in the Northern skies. Though some whisper that she was Anu, Danu or Dana of the Tuatha de Danaan, in reality we shall never know her name. But out of her womb was born a child of timeless beauty, with flowing golden hair and dark hazel eyes, with strong arms and limbs, and a spirit that was both fiery and as deep as the deepest ocean.
The Dagda knew at once her name. 'We shall call you Brighid!' he declared to the little girl who was born on Earth as the first snowdrops began to appear across the land. With every day that passed her strength and her beauty grew tenfold, until at last she stood before her father as a young woman - a young goddess. 'Let me go out into the world now, Father,' she said to the Dagda. 'Look at my brothers, already they are at work: Ogma inspiring the writings of men and women, Aengus opening their hearts to love, Donn guiding them at death to the Blessed Isles. I too would inspire the hearts of those on Earth.'
Her father replied, 'Your brother Ogma has taught the art of writing and of literature, but you must teach them how to go deeper with their words - how to find the song of their souls. You must teach them how to sing from their hearts. You must introduce the art of poetry to the world.'
This pleased Brighid, for she liked nothing more than giving melody to the spoken word - rhyming and scanning words until they soared and danced in the air before her. But she wanted more. She knew she could give more. 'Give me more tasks to perform, father!' she begged.
'Very well,' he replied. 'Teach them how to give birth not only to poetry but also to themselves. Teach them the arts of the midwife. Show them how to give birth not only to the beauty of language, but also to the beauty of their own bodies. Become the Goddess of Birth, just as your brother Donn is the God of Death.'
'But I want more!' cried Brighid again. 'I can do more, for there is fire in my limbs and my heart and I would help the world and its creatures.'
'If you would help them,' said the Dagda, 'then tend to their ills, care for the Sickness of their bodies and souls and become the Goddess of Healing.'
And so it was that Brighid became the Goddess of Poets, Midwives and Healers.
One day, as she went about the Earth touching peoples' hearts with her inspiration, and their bodies with her healing, she came across the great Smith-god Goibniu.
She stood at the door of his forge, entranced by the flames that raged in his furnace. With each beat of his great hammer on the sword tha
t he was forging, Brighid felt a surge in her heart. She too longed to wield a hammer and forge beauty upon an anvil.
Goibniu turned to the door, and seeing her there smiled. He held out his hammer towards her saying, 'Goddess of the Healing Well, you are Goddess of the scourging fire too. No healing may come without the fire of life, no beauty without the well of suffering and rebirth. Come, take my hammer, forge the sword. Make new the world each day!' And with that the Goddess took the hammer and became the Goddess of all Smiths; she would forge iron as well as poems and new births, she would inspire craftsmen as well as poets and midwifes and healers.
And so it was, in the year 455AD at Faughart in County Down, Ireland, that the midwife delivering the baby girl of the Druid Dubhtach and his wife, called upon the blessings of the Goddess Brighid. She picked up the newborn child and, praising Brighid, passed the baby three times over the hearth fire while Dubhtach and his wife watched in joy. Then three times round the fire she carried the child, again calling upon Brighid in thanks and praise. Finally, she brought the little one to her parents, who, kissing the child, nodded in agreement as Dubhtach held up a bowl of water drawn from the Goddess Brighid's holy well close by. The midwife dipped her fingers in the bowl, nine times, and each time she called upon blessings for the child.
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