Current mood:

curious

Druidry, Ritual, Patron Deities & Patron Trees
My first ideas on what druidism meant as a belief system were based on limited cultural references, information I had come across by side-affect of researching Ogham (namely their "emphasis" on trees), and somehow I got it into my mind that Druids were pantheists. Not in the sense of 2. Belief in and worship of all gods. but 1. A doctrine identifying the Deity with the universe and its phenomena.

The Pantheist Movement was my first resource on pantheism.

Is Nature Your Spiritual Home?

Do you feel a deep sense of peace and belonging and wonder in the midst of nature, in a forest, by the ocean, or on a mountain top? Are you speechless with awe when you look up at the sky on a clear moonless night and see the Milky Way strewn with stars as thick as sand on a beach?
When you see breakers crashing on a rocky shore, or hear wind rustling in a poplar's leaves, are you uplifted by the energy and creativity of existence?

Do you find it impossible to believe in supernatural beings, and difficult to conceive of anything more worthy of reverence than the beauty of nature or the power of the universe?
If you answered yes to these questions, then you will feel thoroughly at home in the World Pantheist Movement. Our caring and celebratory approach focuses on nature rather than the supernatural, on what we can see and do and live out rather than on invisible entities that we can only imagine.

I don't know why I had imagined Druids to have less emphasis on deity forms? Or- to put it bluntly, why they would have anything to do with the Pantheist Movement- except to have a strong affiliation with nature aspects.

Learning as I researched further (and partly in joining ADF and until I read more- relying sort of blindly on those around me) that they do/did worship Gods & Goddesses, & that further ADF encourages ritual practice to such an extent- I am sort of overwhelmed. Only because my background in polytheistic ritual is based in Wiccan & Native American form (one, a religion so new you could modify it w/o doing it wrong, and gracing the shelves of *every* metaphysical section out there, and the second- a way of life and belief deeply rooted and still living- making it easy to reference respectfully).

What tools did the Druids use in ritual beyond the aspect of sacrifices- living and no?

Reading and researching, bits & pieces are becoming more clear to me, but this has formed into another reason as to why I question partaking in grove celebration so early. I feel like though it's spelled out for you at the celebrations, you should know more on a personal level before partaking in something that includes opening astral gates to communicate with deities.

Also- while I have background with polytheistic viewpoints, I am still figuring out how I feel in this respect. I keep going back and forth ad nauseum between viewing deities as elemental iconography & 'physical' manifestations that can influence & guide you on their own accord.

...and yet I am waiting for one to choose me.

I will skip questions on personal pantheons for now to say that I think it would be interesting if (instead of or also affiliating with patron deities) we had patron trees.

petboy mentioned that it is his understanding that different trees are affiliated with different patron deities- at least in the Celtic region. If this is so I think it would be a good way of becoming more accustomed to the idea of Patron Gods & Goddesses on my own personal and practicing level.

Perhaps a little while from now I will feel intimately close with the idea of deities (as I do sometimes) but all the time, and I'll think this entire train of thought was cute and quite in the past.