dark side of druidry

[deepwater]

Lily, Im sorry,I was referring to myself as the hermit,,I find most people test my nerves and would rather stay alone in the forest and sit near the Grove and just listen to her sing and grumble,,I wish the span of around 25 years or more never happened but in my travels I saw many great lands and saw many unusual things in villages,,There were things I saw that reminded me of what my grandfather had said many years before and I felt a closeness of rock and streams jungle and island and it was home,,many places I left dirtied and ashamed and it will never be the same for that place or me,,I have seen the dark of people and its ways so I choose to stay apart from it,,My lite in the forest now calms my soul or at least whats left of it and im happy here,,I have much to share and much to learn,,The grove is helping one day at a time,,I planted birthday acorns and there were well over 500 and many are well and many more have taken ,,There are names of friends in here I still speak when I enter the grove,,So walk gently the edge of the dark I choose the lite so I can sleep,,I apologize if I have taken this post off topic,,Skydove huggs are always welcome at my fire

[Darkwolf Of Avalon]

sorry i did not have the schooling like some of you i learned from doing not reading started that when i had kids so sorry for my spelling .. darkwolf

[Darkwolf Of Avalon]

Would you share that secret knowledge with the academic world? They are looking for hereditary druids, you know.

yes if you like

[Lily]

Well in that case you should contact Prof. Ronald Hutton at Bristol University in the UK, he has studied and published about Druids extensively.

[reilz81]

i dont know just, how interested he'd be. But i've done some research, and located his email.

Code: Select all

R.Hutton@bristol.ac.uk

[Lily]

Well, I can feel a publication in the Pomegranate coming:

Validating the Personal Narrative: Heredity in Druid Self-Perception or something

http://www.equinoxpub.com/POM

[skh]

i dont know just, how interested he'd be.

He's a good friend of OBOD, but quite a fierce scholar. You can read a paper in which he talks about (among other stuff) the founding myths of OBOD here:

http://druidry.org/modules.php?op=modlo ... page_id=98

The paper was read at one of the Mount Haemus Award events and is available for listening in Druidcast episodes 16 and 17, that's Juli and August 2008, which can be downloaded here: http://druidcast.libsyn.com/2008/07 and here: http://druidcast.libsyn.com/2008/08

peace /|\
Sonja

[athelia143]

im wondering why there is no mention anywhere of the dark side of druidry the druids from how i understand it were all about balancing light and dark they cursed as much as they healed oh and if im posting this in the wrong place please move it

For me, the balance between light and dark means balancing and not denying the existence of any aspect of your life: even the stuff you might not want to deal with. I'm not talking about evil spirits or black magic, but the things in life that people often see as "dark" and therefore don't want to deal with: death, misfortune, the side of ourselves that we're not always proud of (but is also the side of ourselves that deals with the challenging stuff that happens in life) and the things in life that don't make us comfortable such as illness or loss.

I've met lots of people who are so-called "lightworkers" who only want to deal with love and light. Anything else is bad and should therefore be banished, it seems. I actually tried to maintain that philosophy at one point many years ago and found that it is not healthy for me. By constantly focusing on love and light, I was left unable to handle the not-so-love-and-light things in my life: the daily news, gossip at work, the death of a loved one... even certain movies and books were hard to deal with.

Life is full of situations that are not always pleasant and I found that it was my "dark side" (or "the Shadow" in Jungian psychology) that was able to handle all of the stuff and keep me going. It helped me be strong and the dark side of things also helped me learn and become a stronger person. When I denied it, I was a mess! When I acknowledged, respected and welcomed its presence in my life, I became stronger, more resilient and... dare I say it? Happier.

By striving for balance in my life and philosophy, I continue to grow as a person, am able to help others in times of crisis and can grow as a spiritual being as well. The universe maintains a balance, which I try to do as well.

It has nothing to do with casting curses or maliciously causing harm to others. It means having the resilience to balance your life, no matterwhat gets thrown at you.

This is what I believe is the meaning behind "the balance between light and dark". I hope that makes sense.

Athelia /|\

[deepwater]

Yes it does and some look for the dark to learn more and some have already learned too much

[Lily]

I've met lots of people who are so-called "lightworkers" who only want to deal with love and light.
...
It has nothing to do with casting curses or maliciously causing harm to others. It means having the resilience to balance your life, no matterwhat gets thrown at you.
....
This is what I believe is the meaning behind "the balance between light and dark". I hope that makes sense.
/|\

It makes all the sense in the world, IMHO.

[athelia143]

Yes it does and some look for the dark to learn more and some have already learned too much

Imbalance works both ways. Some can get too entrenched in the dark as well as the light.

Athelia /|\

[Crimson Stormfire]

my take on it......

darkness

there resides a darkness here
cold and remembering
calculating and devious
in acts that need not be seen

that darkness hides the chtulu
the madness within
the deep maw of insanity brims
with arcane knowledge.

these are the paths of shade and shadow
where light cannot go.
as thieves some of us dare
to steal some of that knowledge
locked deep within ourselves

and upon it shine the light of
scholarly wisdom
and thus learn from
our true self, from the darkness within.

to try and banish or negate the darkness
we deny our true selves and
create another construct
also incomplete and somehow wrong.

a balance to be struck and bargain to be made
with the dark madness, creates the whole
and completes the being.

I walk the paths of shade and shadow,
with Wolf, Bear, Eagle and DEER,
my guides in dark country.
to know thyself within and without
these are the things
for which my darkness schemes.

i believe there is a place for the "dark" art as it were termed but i also believe that it is not entirely "bad" just dangerous to ones self and should be approached as any other dangerous "thing" with wisdom, clarity, knowledge, and much caution.

[Hennie]

"You can't get to know the dark by throwing light on it." Can't remember who said this. There is no need to actively seek the 'dark', you will undergo your portion of it just by living - and probably fight it.

[Crimson Stormfire]

understood, i have fought my personal "darkness" and know that in time there will be more fights, however darkness is a part of the balance in us all..to deny it as the poem suggests is to create an altogether new construct unbalanced and somehow wrong....

[deepwater]

Hennie Its so good to see you posting,You and several others are always on my mind when Im in the Grove,Her dark visions are always on the edge of my mind,I have 2 bee hives now and she humms when I look out at them,I think she wants more honey

[Hennie]

Thank you, Deepwater; keep going with those hives, love it. But we are way off topic now

[deepwater]

Just turning my eyes to the light for a sec, I think if someone wants to think about the darkside of our ancient past it might help them to walk the path of this happier time, Knowledge is helpful in any craft

[Huathe]

When I first told my mother I was following a path of druidry I had to explain to her what a druid was. She thought it something evil. I think with her, the media and video games had printed a negative image of the druid.

My father was more negative. He thought I was going pagan and did not like the name druid at all. I had to explain to him that I was a " Christian Druid " and I had to explain to him what a druid was and is. I think he thinks the whole thing is a bit " flakey ".

Dad is not really comfortable with my sister persuing wicca topics either or using the tarot cards but he'll probably accept it.

I am not trying to paint a bad image of my father. Dispite his often hard-line stance on things, he is one of the most trustworthy people I know and one of the closest to me in my life.

And dispite his beliefs in the Christian God, he has a lot of issues with the Bible. But that is another topic....

[Zylah]

Reilz, great topic! Thanks for opening the discussion.

When you speak of the need for protection, I think that's where many modern Druids (at least myself) would diverge in outlook from what you're saying. Granted, the Druid Prayer begins with 'Grant, O Gods, thy protection'; but a lot of people seem to use 'protection' in the Wiccan sense rather than the Druid sense - at least to the best of my understanding.

When I ask for protection in the Druid prayer, I don't mean protection *FROM* things so much as protection *OF* things: i.e., I don't ask for protection from Dark Forces, I ask protection of my own and my family's health, protection of my mind's clarity, etc. In a way, the request for protection is itself a remedy, because it focuses my mind on what is important to me. It has a positive effect, whereas to my mind asking for protection FROM things may encourage a negative mindset.

When, for instance, people speak of evil spirits or dark forces that may attack, a lot of it in my experience is based in fear and/or in the romanticism of horror in our culture. Persecution complexes are very much on the rise in the general population, because a lot of people live in perpetual fear combined with other common problems that are needlessly inflated until they are the entire focus of the mind.

On top of the rational fears people may struggle with regarding safety or health, our culture has a thrill-seeking element that magnifies risks like crime [for example, I love the show 'Criminal Minds', but the reality is that statistically it is very unlikely for any of those scenarios to occur with any regularity whatsoever, thank the gods]; on a whole other level is the supernatural element, focusing people on the possibility of blood-drinkers, ghouls, harpies, daemons, etc. It gives rise to pleasant little shivers to read Edgar Allan Poe, for instance, or Anne Rice, or Stephen King; this kind of fear is pleasurable because it stimulates the endocrine system to produce endorphins. There's nothing wrong with that per se; but I believe it ought to be kept in its place.

One thing I feel I have learned very clearly is that fear does not produce good results when it is The Motivational Force. Caution, or acknowledgement of being afraid, is healthy - but to live in a way that is driven by fear is unhealthy.

I think the approach Druidry takes (from my viewpoint, anyway) is a good one, because it does not deny the darkness; it embraces the fact that there is both life and death, morning and night, summer and winter, growth and decay in our world. That is the way things are here, and it is a tragic spectacle to behold people who have forgotten how to live with death. Yet in acknowledging both sides of existence, light and dark, we do not assign qualitative analyses needlessly.

In other words, we do not spill hot tea and scald ourselves, then blame a curse or evil spirits. Rather, we look for ways we can transport our tea more safely. If I really believe evil spirits caused me to scald myself, all right; but how is that helpful? I should still look for a safer way of doing things, because that is the practical thing to do.

Druidry as I see it does not assign labels of 'Good' and 'Evil', so much as it approaches the world with the intent of learning the Nature of things. You can *always* trust a thing to behave in accordance with its nature; you cannot ever trust a thing to behave contrary to its nature. I'll use fire as an example, since it first springs to mind:

Fire can be trusted to warm a home throughout the harshest winter, and preserve life; but fire can also be trusted to burn down entire forests or cities, ending life. In both cases it acts in harmony with its nature, and we strive to understand that and model our interaction with Fire accordingly. Druidry is practical; we don't demand Nature to go against itself - instead, we learn to respect and appropriately interact with it. At least that's my two cents.

[Zylah]

im wondering why there is no mention anywhere of the dark side of druidry the druids from how i understand it were all about balancing light and dark they cursed as much as they healed oh and if im posting this in the wrong place please move it

For me, the balance between light and dark means balancing and not denying the existence of any aspect of your life: even the stuff you might not want to deal with. I'm not talking about evil spirits or black magic, but the things in life that people often see as "dark" and therefore don't want to deal with: death, misfortune, the side of ourselves that we're not always proud of (but is also the side of ourselves that deals with the challenging stuff that happens in life) and the things in life that don't make us comfortable such as illness or loss.

I've met lots of people who are so-called "lightworkers" who only want to deal with love and light. Anything else is bad and should therefore be banished, it seems. I actually tried to maintain that philosophy at one point many years ago and found that it is not healthy for me. By constantly focusing on love and light, I was left unable to handle the not-so-love-and-light things in my life: the daily news, gossip at work, the death of a loved one... even certain movies and books were hard to deal with.

Life is full of situations that are not always pleasant and I found that it was my "dark side" (or "the Shadow" in Jungian psychology) that was able to handle all of the stuff and keep me going. It helped me be strong and the dark side of things also helped me learn and become a stronger person. When I denied it, I was a mess! When I acknowledged, respected and welcomed its presence in my life, I became stronger, more resilient and... dare I say it? Happier.

By striving for balance in my life and philosophy, I continue to grow as a person, am able to help others in times of crisis and can grow as a spiritual being as well. The universe maintains a balance, which I try to do as well.

It has nothing to do with casting curses or maliciously causing harm to others. It means having the resilience to balance your life, no matterwhat gets thrown at you.

This is what I believe is the meaning behind "the balance between light and dark". I hope that makes sense.

Athelia /|\

Great post, Athelia.