“I don’t see why you’re a Druid. It would be so much easier just to be a
Christian.”
I hear
this almost every time I go to any family event. My relatives cannot understand my having left
Christianity and fervently embracing Druidry.
In their lives, religion is something that you claim and profess to
other people, and defend if anyone disagrees with it. But that is almost the full extent of
it. There are some few principles one is
supposed to incorporate into one’s life, but nothing more than lip service is
paid to those ideas. (This is far from the only problem my relatives have with my religious choice, but the others aren't appropriate for this post. Maybe at some other time I will write about them.)
That,
least, was always the impression I got from it, and this was the religion in
which I grew up, my first exposure to the concept of religion.
What
originally drew me toward Paganism in general was the more open and inclusive
approach to belief. But I soon realized
that most Pagan religions were as likely to tell you what to believe as the
Christian religion in which I had grown up.
That wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t
want answer to be given to me. I didn’t
want “easy”. I didn’t want answers to be
given to me. I wanted to search for
them, and find them on my own. Oh, I
didn’t mind being given direction for that search, but I needed to find
knowledge, not be spoon-fed.
And so
my search for a religious path continued.
I did a lot of research and finally realized that a Druidic path was
closest to what I wanted. Further
research down that avenue brought to my attention the group knowns as Ar
nDraiocht Fein, or ADF as it is more commonly called. Reading everything on their public website
pretty much made up my mind that this was the kind of group I needed. I kept this group in mind while I searched
other Druidic traditions. Eventually, I
came back to it, having decided that ADF was the group I needed. I joined it and began seeking the knowledge I
wanted.
The
practice of Our Druidry does not dictate belief. This Druidry is a religion of practice. What one does to honor the Gods is
important. How one lives one’s life is
important. What one believes – the opinions
one holds – is not a matter for the church to decide.
This
fit me perfectly. I had found a format
for worship that could be shared with a community, but at no point did it
dictate what I could do in my own personal religious practice. I find so much power, peace, fulfillment, and
joy in the Three Kindreds (Gods, Ancestors, and Nature Spirits), the Three
Realms (Land, Sea, and Sky), and the Three Hallows (Fire, Well, and Tree) that
I cannot imagine that I would ever seek out any other form of worship.
I will
be writing about these nine concepts, as well as all the other things that I
find in Druidry in upcoming installments of this blog.
So, as
to why I am a Druid: it is the spiritual
practice, the religion, through which I can most fully and powerfully approach
the gods to which I am drawn, and the system of practice through which I build
relationships with Them.
