Druidry & Meditation
Meditation can bring peace to the heart, calm and inspiration to the restless mind, and healing to the body. While some meditation methods seek to transcend the body, Druids use meditation to honour the physical realm, to deepen their awareness of its sacredness and needs, and to deepen their sense of connection to all life, whether embodied or Otherworldly.
In using meditation to enter the Otherworld, Druids use techniques of inner journeying, including methods now known as shamanic. In using meditation to deepen their sense of presence and awareness, Druids use a variety of methods often including relaxation techniques combined with focussed awareness on the body or breath.
A central symbol for the Druid is a tree, which is often used in meditation. Powerful and peaceful, still and yet fully alive, the tree breathes in and out, acting in service to all of life. The Tree Meditation in the film above shows just one of the many ways Druids meditate with trees. Click on the button at the end of this article for more information on this meditation.
Meditation is taught In the Order’s training course, and is practised on Order retreats, gatherings and workshops. For information on Discursive Meditation see A Druid Meditation Primer.
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In addition, two audio collections of meditations are available for download from itunes, Amazon and CDBaby: Wild Wisdom Meditations and Sacred Nature.
Two meditations from these collections are offered here. Make sure you will be undisturbed for at least 30 minutes each if you decide to listen to them. For this reason it is not a good idea to try to listen to them in a public place. Please wait until you get home!
The first, ‘Clothed With Flowers’, comes from the collection Sacred Nature, and is designed as a relaxing and healing meditation that works with the powers of plants sacred to the Druid tradition. The music works with the Golden Mean, a ratio found in all of Nature, and the invocation to the Goddess comes from a 12th century Herbal. The plants invoked are all explored in more detail in The Druid Plant Oracle.
The second, ‘A Meditation With the Element of Earth’, comes from the collection Wild Wisdom Meditations, and is designed to both relax and energize you, and to open you to the gifts that the Earth and the oak tree, in particular, can give you.
Druidry and Meditation: Exploring how meditation can enhance your Druidic practice, also available from the Order’s bookshop, offers a comprehensive guide to many ways in which meditation can be used within Druidry, and it includes advice for running meditation groups and for using meditation in ritual.
Philip Carr-Gomm offers a Home Meditation Retreat with a weekly ‘Druid Nidra’ – yoga nidra meditations with a Druidic feel – in The Garden of Flowing in Perpetual Happiness