A holy day

Holy is the True Light, and passing wonderful,
lending radiance to them that endured in the heat of the conflict,
from Christ they inherit a home of unfading splendour,
wherein they rejoice with gladness evermore.
Alleluia!
from the Salisbury Diurnal by GH Palmer

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A pause on the road

I may try to ignore it, but I feel the energies shifting around me.  It hasn’t really been summer for weeks.  We had three weeks of our worst heat and humidity at the beginning of August, after a comparatively mild summer; when it broke, driven away by tropical storms drifting up the Atlantic coast, I [...]

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The voice of the turtle

I heard the cooing of a mourning dove while walking to work today, for the first time in months. It’s one of my favorite sounds, hollow yet intimate, distant even if it’s right outside your bedroom window. The voice of the turtle is heard in our land, as it says in the Song of [...]

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Deep inside your own heart

It’s a pity, a gentleman in refined retirement composing poetry:
He models his work on the classic verse of China,
And his poems are elegant, full of fine phrases.
But if you don’t write of things deep inside your own heart,
What’s the use of churning out so many words?
–Ryoukan, translated by John Stevens
I’ve always been a good writer.  [...]

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An Alphabet of Druidry: D

D is for Druid. The Druids were the priestly and intellectual class of the Celtic peoples in the ancient world, equivalent to the Brahmins of India and to the flamens of ancient Roman religion.  They were priests, sacrificers, poets, diviners, lawyers, judges, astrologer/astronomers, experts in every theoretical discipline.  While they may have been a kind [...]

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Report from the field

I have been tired and weary and depressed the past few days.  I am still a druid.
It has been unseasonably warm here where I am, with rain and fog and mist and humidity, and the sidewalks wet and the leaves dripping even when nothing is falling visibly from the skies.  It’s been like walking in [...]

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14 Fun Facts about Druids

Lately I’ve been poking around on the website of the Druid Order of Whiteoak. I found the following useful list of “Basic Facts about Druids”, compiled by Druid and author Ellen Evert Hopman, in the Samhain 2007 issue of their periodical, EOLAS, which is archived online.
1. Dietary restrictions – none unless the individual [...]

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An Alphabet of Druidry

This idea came to me from a popular meme on Livejournal: The reader offers the journaller a letter of the alphabet and accepts one in return.  Both of them write about five topics which the given letter suggests to them.
Five is not a Druidic number, so I shall endeavour to write about three topics for [...]

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Discovering Imbolc

I have a confession to make.  It’s a terrible, embarrassing confession for anyone who’s a Druid or any kind of Celtic Pagan.  Please don’t judge me, I can’t help myself.  Here it is: I don’t celebrate the goddess Brigid at Imbolc.
Ever since I first became interested in Druidry and Celtic Neopaganism, I have tried to [...]

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Spring after winter

It’s been a whole season in pagan time since I last updated: Alban Arthuan, the celebration of the Winter Solstice, has given way to Imbolc, the first wakening of the earth, commemorated by the Church and popular culture as Candlemas, the feast of St. Brigid of Kildare, and Groundhog Day. While my part of [...]

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