, yet...Perhaps, when using the word religion, we need to look at its roots. According to wiktionary:
it comes from: re + ligō (“I tie, bind, or bandage”), which is also rather similar to one of the meanings of the sanskrit 'yoga' - from the verb root 'yuj' (to yoke) - though many yoga practitioners may look at yoga as a path or process of development rather than a religion. Some may interpret 'religion' to mean 'tied to beliefs or something', yet I imply here the meaning 'tied to the sacred'. The word religion needn't point to a particular institution and its dogma, we can direct the meaning towards its original essense...
To me, religion means in essence simply a way to bind or connect with something, something 'sacred' or meaningful to a person perhaps - examined this way, what is this but a range of possibilities. Using the word, Christians may seek to connect to God, Buddhists to their Buddha Nature, Hindus to the Self, for many indigenous peoples they work to connect to their ancestral lands, to some their religion is life, to others it is fast cars and slow mornings...
So I ask myself, must I be un-bardic in my word wizardry and fall into limited concepts defined by others, when I could instead pierce through the veil towards a more profound view of 'religion'? I personally prefer this to avoiding that segment of the human collective altogether which I have noticed those who avoid mixing Druidry and religion prefer - I prefer profound inclusion
Perchance, one can see the essence of truth in all things, the sacred mystery pulsing throughout all, forest and city alike, science and religion and everything else, eyes anew, ears tuned and breath eternal, all that sort of thing... thereby transmuting dogma into something alive beyond its dead-weight meaning that many cling to at all costs - because I see dogma is likely just dead-spirituality, or dead-perception, mistaking a fixed 'given' or living truth - but is not that which is 'dead', 'alive' in the other world? The very molecules in the air vibrating under the speech of head-religion person X, certainly, they are part of nature, the are part of the greater cosmic rhythm, no less affected by the truth of Nature, the Sun, Moon, seasons, life and death than anything else.
If the personal preference for someone could be to express their druidry by saying, 'it is my religion' - we need not assume they are saying it in the same sense as a Christian, Buddhist, Jew, Sufi etc. Perhaps they are, or perhaps it is just a word they use to say they are connecting to something they consider sacred, like 'the forest is my religion' or something...
Granted there is plenty of dogma around the various 'religions' and I understand the need to move away from this. To me this movement requires opening towards a more inclusive cosmic vision, deeper and more essential, well-rounded and mirroring nature, rather than a partial terrain, more universal. To say 'druidry is non-religious' may be like saying in etymological essence, 'druidry is non-connecting to the sacred' - surely we need not say what druidry is not, in an order where the personal freedom is so valued, we can only say what is it, and perhaps is not, for ourselves. Well at least, this is what I say about it, which is simply what it is for me in relation to the world we are all part of...?
Can we not free up the word 'religion' from its dogma? Is it not the duty of the bard to liberate the word?
I'm getting a little zany now....
What do people think?
p.s. I hope I don't come across as a preacher here... just trying to share what inspires me.
I meant to say sharing our similarities and discussing our differences in a positive, non judgemental environment. I don't think that you are preaching at all, just saying what (I'm sure) a lot of us are already thinking 