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The Barefoot Thumping Heartbeat of the Summer

The Barefoot Thumping Heartbeat of the Summer

Miscellaneous

Happy Solstice to one and all! It’s taken me all day to sit and write today, but that’s okay, some things take a while Solstice! The barefoot thumping heartbeat of the summer, and all of her adventures. Peak energy of the sun, peak light, enormous growth everywhere. It’s here! We made it!

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Tea Ritual

Tea Ritual

Miscellaneous

I have grown herbs for many years, and use them in cooking, cleaning, for making incense etc. While beginning my studies on the OBOD Ovate course, and after a visit to Chambawallah Teas shop in Birmingham, I felt guided to research, journey and create a tea ritual. I have created my tea mix for a…

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The Voice of the Divine

The Voice of the Divine

Miscellaneous

The Christian mystic, St. John of the Cross once noted that God’s first language is silence – but if the Divine Beloved, who is beyond all language, has an earthly tongue, then it is almost certainly that of Nature itself…

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Ritual for Quieting Self-Doubt

Ritual for Quieting Self-Doubt

Miscellaneous

I’m extremely blessed to have a therapist who supports my druidry and magic. We’re both outdoorsy types and have our sessions walking in the woods when the weather permits. Yesterday, I talked to her about my sense of having something special and precious in my connections to nature, spirit, and magic – not that other…

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Ritual for Trauma as a Rite of Passage

Ritual for Trauma as a Rite of Passage

Miscellaneous

I created this ritual to deal with integrating the experience of my own trauma as the experience itself was coming to a close. It gave me a way to handle all the intense feelings: It’s an inescapable fact that this happened to me; I did not in any way consent to this happening to me;…

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Heathen Magic ~ An Introduction

Heathen Magic ~ An Introduction

Miscellaneous

Heathen Magic is an account of the exploration of and reconnection with my own heritage and ancestry in the context of a healing vocation, which itself is not simply defined by my learned trade as a medical practitioner…

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Ethics and Pantheism

Ethics and Pantheism

Miscellaneous

In a recent article published in Paganism 101 – An Introduction to Paganism by 101 Pagans, Emma Restall Orr wrote about Pagan ethics, and how they can be achieved and viable through a religion that has no single central authority or god figure.

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Funerals and Ancestry – Traces of Pagan Traditions in a German Village

Funerals and Ancestry – Traces of Pagan Traditions in a German Village

Miscellaneous

The story I want to share happened in the 1980. We had just moved to a wonderful tiny village in northern Germany not too far from the University we were studying…

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Druidism and the Way of the Dan

Druidism and the Way of the Dan

Miscellaneous

Druidism, whatever else we would like to think of it as, is a social structure of the past. It existed within ancient Celtic society, serving a very specific role. As the original Celtic social structures that supported it began to disappear and transform, druidism also began to either disappear or transform…

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Constructing the New Society ~ ‘Eight Steps’

Constructing the New Society ~ ‘Eight Steps’

Miscellaneous

We who engage in postulating solutions to the dominant issues of this time, use much energy speculating on unknown outcomes. But how much energy do we use in laying the ground for a future of our own making? How much time do we give to devising the template for the new society we must create?

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Autumn Equinox ~ The Waning and the Blessing

Autumn Equinox ~ The Waning and the Blessing

Miscellaneous

The paradoxical mystery and beauty of the Autumn Equinox is that when the year is waning and moving towards the dark and colder days of winter, the earth blesses us with abundance…

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Reaching For The Balance

Reaching For The Balance

Miscellaneous

The Autumn Equinox is here again. As the sun’s path lowers in the sky and the season changes, the light changes also; it becomes a paradoxical mixture of clarity and softness; there is a kind of sweet melancholy in it, but also a joy…

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In The Balance

In The Balance

Miscellaneous

In the run up to the Equinox I have experienced that strange unsettling feeling that I so often encounter at these times of the year when the light and dark meet each other as equals…

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Jesus Among the Druids

Jesus Among the Druids

Miscellaneous

I recently discovered that Chico Xavier – in intimate conversations with his friends – claimed to have been a Druid in a past incarnation. Not only that, it is documented that he once confided to a close friend that “Jesus was supposed to be born among the Druids in Gaul”…

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The Harmony of Wicca and Druidry

The Harmony of Wicca and Druidry

Miscellaneous

I’m both a Druid and a Wiccan. These are my very personal feelings about the two pagan paths I’m on and don’t reflect what anyone else may feel or believe. I’m a Druid in OBOD. I’m also a Traditional Wiccan, of Gardnerian and Alexandrian lineages…

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Our Ancestors

Our Ancestors

Miscellaneous

Memories of our loved ones also keep their Spirit alive, as our thoughts ensure that they remain close to us, as we knew them. This aspect of remembering also helps the bereaved overcome their loss…

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Movement As Prayer

Movement As Prayer

Miscellaneous

To sweat is to pray, to make an offering of your innermost self. Sweat is holy water, prayer beads, pearls of liquid that release your past. Sweat is an ancient and universal form of self-healing, whether done in the gym, the sauna or the sweat lodge. I do it on the dance floor. The more…

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Love Makes Sense

Love Makes Sense

Miscellaneous

For those of us who feel drawn to spiritual exploration, it can be difficult to find a comfortable place for this level of suffering, whilst continuing to believe in the benevolence of deity/life. I have wrestled with this issue over the last year or so, my spiritual beliefs rather shaken by it…

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Finding My Sacred Grove

Finding My Sacred Grove

Miscellaneous

When I joined OBOD in 2013, I was without a secret place that I could call my Sacred Grove, and spent six weeks during that late summer diligently seeking and sensing out somewhere special and fairly quiet that I could call my Sacred Grove, and be able to go there in relative secret and use…

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Gem Healing and the Corresponding Chakras

Gem Healing and the Corresponding Chakras

Miscellaneous

I would like to start by addressing seven energy centres known as CHAKRAS, and their corresponding colours. I believe these colours and their vibratory rates relate to a selection of healing gems…

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Ancestors of Tradition

Ancestors of Tradition

Miscellaneous

In Druidry, often the  ancestors are honoured from three different spheres that can overlap each other. These spheres are the ancestors of blood, who share our bloodlines; the ancestors of place, with whom we now share our physical space; and ancestors of tradition, those who have practiced in the same vein as we do…

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A Flash of Light ~ Awaking and Muddling Through

A Flash of Light ~ Awaking and Muddling Through

Miscellaneous

It was in 1971, I was 14 years old and it slowly became part of me. What? The light I saw shining around and through the bodies of people I met…

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Flags, Flax, Fodder and Frig ~ The Art of Gratitude

Flags, Flax, Fodder and Frig ~ The Art of Gratitude

Miscellaneous

Watching the sunlight break through the branches of the trees in my garden, I felt an enormous sense of peace and gratitude, and it occurred to me that there is an intimate link between this sense of thankfulness and our sense of wellbeing…

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Druidry and the Yamas

Druidry and the Yamas

Miscellaneous

My path has many influences. I came to Druidry via Wicca but I have also practiced Yoga for many years and of late have been deepening my practice through Yoga teacher training. This has required me to explore more deeply the philosophy of Yoga and it has been interesting to discover how much of this…

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Spiral triskelion (formed from mathematical Archimedean spirals), occasionally used as a Christian Trinitarian symbol