Hiding Naughty Stuff?

[Myrde]

Hehe... was wondering how many people would read this because of that title. Greetings. Myrde here and wannabe OBOD member.

Now, Im in a bit of a predicament. I want to join the Order and funds are not a problem for taking the courses. What is the problem is.... my parents. I'm above age and legally allowed to pay for and take the courses, and they wouldn't be a problem. Save a twenty from each of my paychecks and viola.

Problem is having said material sent to me and having my parents find them. Parents are Catholic and unaware of my Spiritual Journey. I still live at home, still attend college, ect. I also hold the record for youngest druid here.

The problem I have is... how am i going to hide this stuff from my parents. :/ Numerous packages coming at a regular basis to our doorstep and adressed to me. Once the material is OUT of the packages, I can hide it like it's nobody's buisness. I have over 1300 books in my personal collection alone (Im a packrat when it comes to books. I reread them over and over, and I hate giving them up. The stories are still good!). Nobody is gonna notice one or two more pieces of lit.

No, the problem is actually getting the package into my possesion without them or one of my nosy siblings getting ahold of it. I mean, it's not like I'm recieving drugs, a sex toy, a weapon, or porn or anything like that! But its a wild card with how they'll react to this one. :/ If it was as simple as sayig "Hey Mom, Dad! I'm a Druid" I would've done so by now.

Advice and plans would be much appreciated. Help a young Druid out? By helping me, your helping your inner-druid child!

[Bracken]

Have them delivered elsewhere? A sympathetic friend? Work/college? A p.o. box?

[blackthorn]

Hi there -

Let's get the practical - avoid my religious intolerant parents stuff out of the way. I recommend the PO Box. It's cheap, easy, and discrete. Besides, there's nothing like getting the little brown OBOD envelopes in the mail! It still makes my month.

I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian background and never quite felt at home in it and consequently in my actual home. It was only until I was able to surround myself with my books and really start to interact with other pagan people that I began to really find myself and begin to find my own path.

I totally understand the need to keep stuff from your family until you are ready. I had years of closed door rituals! They never questioned the incense smell... I snuck out to be initiated into Wicca, learn ritual magic, and learn to read the Tarot. My mother once told me that she'd rather me be a heroin addict than a Wiccan... So you can imagine the drama...

If I have one piece of advice, I'd say remember that this is just the start of your lifelong, transformational journey. Very soon, you will have openness about your spirituality and all of this will be far behind you. Follow your heart. Even if things get rough, it's for the best. You know who you are and no one can take that from you, even in the worst storm.

I wish you the very best on your (clandestine) Bardic journey. You have a home and a family here.

May the Goddess guide and shield you always.

Blackthorn

[Ice]

Have you thought about just being honest with your parents/friends? Living in the truth is surely pure druidry in action.

Here's Philip with a reminder on you tube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFC8YayGhWk

[Bart]

I was raised Roman Catholic, But looking back I think my mother was a druid (without knowing). She collected a lot of celtic music and had all kinds of rituals for the succes of her family.

Never thought of it untill I started on this path.

[Dendrias]

If it was as simple as sayig "Hey Mom, Dad! I'm a Druid" I would've done so by now.

I've forgotten what You wrote in Your earlier posts. So I have to ask: Why is it not that simple?

If Your intended spiritual way wasn't so far away from what Your parents think You should do - there are christians in here! - then the shock by such an announcement might not be as huge. And if You move away from labels, explaining what You think Your spiritual way will/might look like, might take a bit alienation off them.

[Explorer]

Have you thought about just being honest with your parents/friends? Living in the truth is surely pure druidry in action.

There is also something called 'privacy'.
I would indeed use a PO-box, and you can use it for your sex-toys also (I would skip the drugs and weapons for now).
Especially in the beginning it is important to get comfortable with the material in your own way. To say it bluntly, there is a lot of B.S. in it also, and it takes a lot of thinking, judging, working to get that in a form that works for you, or to decide that it doesn't work for you. Fighting a defensive battle over it with people who judge it doesn't make it easier, I can say from experience.

[Lorraine S.]

Unless you think you are doing something wrong, there is no need to hide anything really, is there? You are entitled to privacy, however, and the US mail is considered private property and it is no one's business what is inside. And it is for privacy that the lesson materials come in a plain brown envelope with no markings that indicate they are from OBOD. If you are asked what is inside, the truth is that it is educational material. Period. Privacy dictates that it is nobody's business what the educational material is and if your family respects privacy, then that should suffice. There is no deception in that statement. You are protecting your privacy by not expounding on just what the educational materials are. If someone receives a letter or a card in your household, it is their business, right? You have that right also.

As others have said, one of the things about OBOD druidry is the love of truth.(Ok, no debates on this thread about what truth may be perceived to be please!) Hiding the truth is a bad first step, IMO.

[treegod]

I'd go for P.O. Box too. At least if I had no one else I could trust to recieve it for me. I live in a place where the postman doesn't come, so to get mail I have to use the P.O. Box instead. Easy to use, pick up whenever you want (as long as the pigeonhole doesn't overfill of course, lol) and discreet.

Hiding your spirituality, imo, doesn't mean you are being dishonest or not living your spirituality. It's not always ideal but at times necessary.

[skh]

If someone is in the situation where they can't follow their religious / spiritual interests without being harrassed, I wonder if it is really helpful for us to expect them to be truthful to those who do the harrassment. It's easy to give that advice from the safe distance of our own established druid-ness, when we have nothing to worry about but our own conscience and morals/ethics. And nobody in our households who is opposed to druidry, and possibly prone to opening our mail (original poster didn't say, but parents may feel they're entitled to).

I'd say: go for the P.O. box if necessary. The envelopes are unmarked, brown, roughly DIN A 5, with no sender, come from the UK, and arrive in regular intervals (once a month). If this might lead to family interrogation which you don't want, I don't see any reason _not_ to have them delivered elsewhere.

peace /|\
Sonja

[BlackRaven]

How about ordering (then its a done deal and you can say you paid in advance) and just say its a course to do with nature or something. Then see if they press for extra answers and see how it goes.

[Dendrias]

If someone is in the situation where they can't follow their religious / spiritual interests without being harrassed, I wonder if it is really helpful for us to expect them to be truthful to those who do the harrassment. [...] And nobody in our households who is opposed to druidry, and possibly prone to opening our mail (original poster didn't say, but parents may feel they're entitled to).

I wonder if harassment is the problem in here. That's why I asked.
I think, disclosing can be the first step to really living your spirituality. To be honest, my parents and friends don't know of my leanings. But that's not because I did hide it / myself, but because it's no topic; plus I don't care about the label, so if somebody wants to know my thoughts, the "druid"-answer's not necessary. I must admit that it was a big step to disclose my will to enroll in an online-course to my wife. And I had to think alot about why it was. And there! Myrde might have the same problem. Perhaps, he has got the fear of opening his most intimate thoughts, his desire for a spirituality; perhaps a fear to be ridiculed: "Do You want to run around in a white dress and wear a cotton-beard? Do You want to sacrifice sheep or criminals in our back-garden?" Perhaps a fear of being misunderstood, of being criticised or alienated.
Of course, we don't know, because he didn't tell us. otoh, the label might not be this important. To tell catholic parents, that the intended spirituality is something like "pope + virgin mary + love of the land + bardic arts + celtic" ... why not? When the label is not important, it just is educational stuff.

Myrde asked us to show him a way of hiding. It might be important for a person to know why and from what s/he is hiding. Ways of hiding can only be found by the person itself.

[Huathe]

Myrde,

You could have the OBOD courses mailed to a trusted friend's address or get a P.O. Box. Also, you could choose the courses offered by the New Order of Druids. They are downloadable to your computer as PDF files. They are also very good. This would work only if you have a computer that is privately your own.

If you tell them you could tell them that Christians can be druids too. Use me as an example. I am a practicing Christian Druid.

I also like Blackraven's suggestion. You could play it off as a " nature " group. I used that concept to some degree when presenting the concept of my druidry to my father. It did help me. After all, it's not really a lie. Druids and Nature are closely intertwined.

PS: I did have images of sex toys and panties when I saw the title!!

[Bart]

PS: I did have images of sex toys and panties when I saw the title!!

Jung/Freus is going to have a field day .....

[Art]

Hiding the truth is a bad first step, IMO.

I tend to agree with Lorraine. The notion that you feel you have to hide the materials tends to imply that you feel there's someting intrinsically wrong with or bad about the material. The fact is that the course material does not contain anything that would, or should, be upsetting to any reasonable, rational human being. Certainly you can couch it in other terms or by other names but it is what it is. What would be worse....for them to find out that you were taking a distance learning self-improvement program or to find out that you lied to them about taking a distance learning self-improvement program? What is it exactly that you're afraid your parents may do?

[Ice]

Jung/Freus is going to have a field day .....

Just like to say well done Bart for being one of the few people to get it right. Congratulations!!

Flying off

[Myrde]

If someone is in the situation where they can't follow their religious / spiritual interests without being harrassed, I wonder if it is really helpful for us to expect them to be truthful to those who do the harrassment. It's easy to give that advice from the safe distance of our own established druid-ness, when we have nothing to worry about but our own conscience and morals/ethics. And nobody in our households who is opposed to druidry, and possibly prone to opening our mail (original poster didn't say, but parents may feel they're entitled to).

I wonder if harassment is the problem in here. That's why I asked.
I think, disclosing can be the first step to really living your spirituality. To be honest, my parents and friends don't know of my leanings. But that's not because I did hide it / myself, but because it's no topic; plus I don't care about the label, so if somebody wants to know my thoughts, the "druid"-answer's not necessary. I must admit that it was a big step to disclose my will to enroll in an online-course to my wife. And I had to think alot about why it was. And there! Myrde might have the same problem. Perhaps, he has got the fear of opening his most intimate thoughts, his desire for a spirituality; perhaps a fear to be ridiculed: "Do You want to run around in a white dress and wear a cotton-beard? Do You want to sacrifice sheep or criminals in our back-garden?" Perhaps a fear of being misunderstood, of being criticised or alienated.

Thank-you for recognizing those signs. Honestly, it helps to see that someone understands and gets it, especially for someone as young as myself.

My parents still feel entitled to open my mail. So do my siblings. Especially since I normally dont get mail. Further more, I live in a small town, and as the song goes, "Hate Lives in a Small Town". Everyone's really stuck up about whose who, whose related to whom, who has what, who did what, and they are essentially are assholes to each other. My family is the least concerned with all of it, and we laugh about it, so we're very very normal. But we still need to keep up public appearance due to a family buisness.

My parents are awesome, but I've never managed to be "honest" with them. I mean, Im a truthful guy, but I brush things over, make things seem alright, ect. I dont like to pester anyone with my actual emotions or thoughts. Nor sure if thats just how I am, or if I've been "guilted" into feeling that way.

Anywho, as far as the whole Druid thing, I don't know how they'd take it. My father is the most conservative in the family. He'd be least accepting of the whole concept. My mother is very loving and caring, so she'd be most accepting. But their overall reaction... unknown.Though, based on what you know from the above, here the odds: I might very well get disowned and "de-homed" as a worse case scenario. A really long yelling (at) session in which Im belittled, humiliated, and essentially isolated and made to feel as though I'm an ungrateful freak.

So yeah... kinda in a situation in which getting caught with a sex toy would be a better situation than OBOD material. But honestly though... this is what I want. Not sure how much you guys know about me from my earlier, but I havent told my full story and no intent to do so at the mom. But my spiritual path has been... one that I dont want to go in a reverse direction with. I need to advance and get further away from the "old me". Cause that version terrifies me, and Im lucky to have escaped "him" at all.

[Dendrias]

Have You escaped "him"? Can You?

Your family sounds a bit like my family, except the yelling and disowning part. My parents used to keep a lot in the cellar and don't like to talk about it. So, I had a tendency to do this, as well. But moving away and living with my wife was a good turn.

How do You feel in Your situation, especially when it comes to the reasons why You want to follow a special spiritual path - although You know about the consequences for "being caught" might have? You don't have to answer this, of course, if You don't want to.

Have a good time, nevertheless.

[Mountainheart]

I wonder if the people saying that you should simply 'come out' about your interest in paganism / Druidry haven't lived with deeply religious parents. From my own personal experience I would recommend keeping it quiet until you are not dependent for anything anymore: and I would say that it's OK to keep your spiritual beliefs private if that's what you need or want to.

Basically don't feel pressured by anyone to do anything: follow your own path.

[Kima]

I started looking into druidry about a year ago and still haven't told anyone. Luckily for me, I don't live at my parents and thus don't need to actively conceal anything (they're Evangelicals so, even though yours sound more extreme than mine, I understand where you come from. Involvement in anything "occult" is pretty much the worse thing that could happen to you). Any close friend knows that I meditate, have a deep connection with nature and might have seen druid-related material in a corner of the room, so I am very honnest about who I am in practical ways but refuse to explain myself away to anyone who asks.

I believe that the way we require minorities to always be fully legible to others is unfair. It's as if you were constantly reassuring people that whatever you do is not threatening to them, even when you're trying to change the order of things. It depoliticizes everything.