Druidcraft: The Magic of Wicca and Druidry. Philip Carr-Gomm
help us live out our lives. Once we learn how to tread the ways that lead into this Otherworld, we find ourselves in the realm of the Ovate-Witch – a realm presided over by the Goddess with her consort ever-present as the fertile God, Cernunnos as he is sometimes called. It is here that we learn of the mysteries of death and rebirth, and of the force that guides us through this process, the force of life itself – sexual energy. Imagine this force as a crystalline sparkling liquid in a cauldron of the Goddess, stirred by the God. As droplets fall from this cauldron, they bring energy and creative power to whoever and whatever they touch.
Change the image of the cauldron to that of a sacred well – a spring. The water in the well is this same energy, conveys the same power, and you see the water flowing from the sacred pool into a stream, which joins a river, which joins the sea. Water flows through the world, and through our bodies, and brings us life. And in death we are ferried across the waters to the Blessed Isles in the West, until after a time in the Summerlands, we are born again through the waters of the womb into new life on Earth.
This realm of water, of the cauldron, of life force, not only brings sensual pleasure and rebirth, but also healing and deep refreshment. If you gaze upon the surface of this sacred pool on the night of a full moon, you may be able to see beyond time, through time, to gain a deeper knowledge of your own being and of the fate of the world.
This is the realm of the Ovate, and I believe it is the realm of the Witch too. The outer forms of Ovate and Witch, or Druid and Wiccan practice may differ, but it is the same pool, the same wellspring that each hopes to contact. And the way that we can do this is through listening to the old stories, for that is the way, in an oral tradition, that spiritual teachings have always been conveyed.
The Forest School of Druidcraft
With the coming of Christianity to Ireland, many of the pagan ways were not lost – they simply took on a Christian gloss. Luckily, the old art of storytelling did not die. The new dispensation allowed the Bardic schools that were already established to continue taking pupils, and these flourished until the seventeenth century in Ireland, Wales and Scotland, retaining their memory of the old stories and their teachings of the creative power of music and voice.
So there you have the most amazing thing happening – the spiritual tradition of the Druids and Ovates as embodied in the Bards and their tales, is taught for over a thousand years, in modified and Christianized form in the Bardic schools. By the time the last of these schools closed its doors, the old tales were well and truly embedded in the collective mind – in folklore and in the popular imagination. The very landscape of Ireland and the British Isles is steeped in these tales, and all we need to do, to connect once again with their power and the teachings that they convey, is to journey into the land and listen to these old stories once again.
The tales then become our teacher, the wilderness and the forest our school.
An Invitation
Over the next five chapters you are invited to join just such a school, where we can listen to the songs of the Earth and the old tales, and explore that magical territory shared alike by Ovate and Witch, by Druidry and Wicca.
The Bard’s Tale
Each chapter is like a lesson in this Forest School, and begins with a Bard telling a story, just as the teachers of the old Bardic schools told the old stories to generations of students, connecting those gathered around them to the current of ancestral wisdom that was conveyed in the vivid images and extraordinary events described.
In the stories that follow, I have retold some of these old Celtic tales – keeping to the structures and key themes of the old stories, but retelling them in my own way. These tales are meant to be told and retold in many different ways, and are not meant to be read as set in stone. Also, I deliberately refrain from explaining the stories too much. Their power lies in their ability to sneak past the rational mind and too much explanation destroys this power.
The Colloquy
Each tale is followed by a dialogue between a teacher and a pupil. The dialogue is a highly effective method of teaching – it was used in ancient Greece, and is well-known as the teaching method favoured by Socrates, in what has come to be known as the Socratic Dialogue. It was also used by the Druids and in Irish texts such a dialogue is known as a ‘Colloquy’, the most famous of which recounts the conversation between two poet-shamans in The Colloquy of the Two Sages.
Practical
After the Colloquy, the practical section of the lesson suggests ways in which you can work with the ideas presented. Just as the stories are not set in stone, neither are these. I see Druidcraft as a path of freedom and creativity. Both Wicca and Druidry offer tools, perspectives and sources of inspiration for us to craft our own practice. We can continue to honour tradition, while also honouring our own gifts and needs, making use of the materials and inspiration available, not only here, but also in the wonderfully varied worlds of Wicca, Druidry and allied subjects.
History
At the conclusion of each chapter, the history section answers the question: ‘Where is all this coming from?’ As you will see, the material presented is based on solid facts and historical sources. At the end of the book there is a Resource section which provides notes and further avenues for study.
Avronelle
I have named our school ‘Avronelle’, an old name for the land around a great chalk figure in Sussex – the Long Man of Wilmington. But Avronelle is really somewhere in the Otherworld, somewhere far away, but also very close. It is a place beside the sea, a place that can lead you to cross the threshold between the Known and the Unknown, so that new energy, new ideas can flow into your life as easily as the tide washes back and forth across the shoreline …
The Secret of the Returning Tide
Let me dip thee in the water,
Thou yellow beautiful gem of power! In water of purest wave, Which pure was kept by Brighid.
A blessing on the gem,
A blessing on the water, And a healing of all bodily ailments To each suffering creature!
from The Silver Bough, (ed. Marian McNeill)
Druidcraft can be seen as both a spiritual path and a path of magic. The art of living well involves knowing how to be both active and passive – how to engage with the world and contribute to it, and how to relax and let life flow around you. It is the same with the art of magic. It involves learning how to be passive or receptive – how to let life’s blessings flow effortlessly towards you – and how to be active – how to influence your life positively to become a force for good, for creativity and healing in the world.
The blessing above is an ancient one, and was used in Ireland