Communing with Nature

"Druidry is a spirituality of simple things - of place and time, existence and imagination. It teaches the appreciation of sunrises and the sound of water. We are free to express divinity as we experience it. To those who are willing to learn, it teaches love and compassion, to listen to the song of our hearts and the music of the earth. And sometimes, hugging trees is in order!" OBOD member Lily, Switzerland

A common stereotype of the Druid is someone who is a nature-worshipper or tree-hugger. Druids do indeed like hugging trees (and people too!) as Lily explains, but whether they ‘worship’ Nature is another question. Certainly they find inspiration and spiritual nourishment in Nature.

Druidry is a path that reveres the Earth, the body, the physical world. It does not see these as separate from the Divine, but as intrinsic to it. How Druids conceive of Nature and its relationship to the Divine is up to them: some might be Pantheists, others Panentheists or Animists – others may have no particular conception, but know that their souls are nurtured by the sunrise and the rain, by the trees and by the stars.

Druids like to celebrate and meditate out of doors – they want to commune with Nature. And most Druids find inspiration in Nature writing and poetry, and in the words of the New England Transcendentalists, Emerson and Thoreau. Thoreau’s Walden could be a Druid’s Bible.

In wildness is the preservation of the world.
Henry David Thoreau

In lovely harmony the wood has put on its green mantle, and summer is on its throne, playing its string-music; the willow, whose harp hung silent when it was withered in winter, now gives forth its melody — Hush! Listen! The world is alive.
Thomas Evans

The audio track below is the song The Worship of Trees by the band Telling the Bees written by Order member Andy Letcher.

The Worship of Trees