Trinities and Allies: Working Druidry Thoughts

[chronarchy]

Over the past few years, I have noticed that even though my path is one of Druidry and nature worship, I tend to talk mostly about the Deities and the Ancestors; often, I speak less specifically and with less honor to the Spirits of Nature than I do to the other two Kindreds

Comments

[prophet_maid]

I too have a harder time connecting to the Nature Spirits. I think of them as the "gods" of animism, which again, hard time connecting to those. I would love to hear more about your thoughts on them.

[chronarchy]

Sooner or later, for sure. The Discipline 2 work, we've decided, has to stay "private" until a person becomes clergy, but we've found it valuable to take some of the work we do and make it fully public, too (such as the Prayer to the Ancient Wise). Mostly, it's not so much that it's soopur-seekret-drooidee stuff, but it'll include some specific directions to our "astral congregating place" (which we commonly refer to as "the Mound"), so we don't want to spoil the work for the new Priest by giving them the script in advance

[prophet_maid]

That's neat, but I wasn't even thinking about the Clergy Order work or anything like that. I just think the ideas behind the Nature Spirits isn't really fleshed out. It feels like a "hey, we're a nature religion, let's worship nature" tacked on. I was actually thinking about this the other day, and lo and behold you post about it now.

[chronarchy]

It feels like a "hey, we're a nature religion, let's worship nature" tacked on.

I think that I sometimes get that feeling more about my own personal religion than about ADF's general religion: I've seen people who get a lot of "bang" out of the NS portion of our rites.

I hope that more people getting those personal experiences will help flesh us out as an organization with the NS getting more attention, though: I can see (and feel) that we lack some of that.

I also like that we can chat about what we think we're lacking and what we'd like to work on. . . and that it's okay :)

[wcm]

I agree that some people are more attuned to certain Kindreds. For me, I am more connected to the Gods and Nature Spirits. I have a harder time with the ancestors. I try to get outside a lot, garden, am an environmentalist... nature looms large in my life. I'm very much an animist.

[prophet_maid]

So what do you think of my conception of the Nature Spirits as the "gods" of animism?

[athenamsb]

Ashley, this is exactly how I view them. I almost exclusively use the term "Noble Ones" in private ritual, because the idea of deifying the natural spirits around us is like deifying the humans. It just doesn't feel right to me. Yes, I agree that there is a lot to be gained from attuning oneself to the natural world around us, but I do not worship such things any more than I worship humans. In order for me to "pay due" to the spirits of the natural world, the "gods of animism" as you say, I have created (in my head, of course) a capitalized version of the beings of the Middle Realm. For example, there are cranes all over the world, but Crane is the Noble Spirit that embodies them. There are spiders and owls and wolves, but the Noble Ones behind their energies and instincts are Spider and Owl and Wolf. Plus, there are many more ethereal creatures that I just don't understand, The Sidhe, the Faeiries, etc. :P

[prophet_maid]

That's pretty similar to how I view them. Glad I'm not the only one :)

After all the reading I've been doing, I've concluded that the IE Gods are ultimately Gods of order, society, and civilization. While there is the occasional naturalistic God (Usas comes immediately to mind) most of them are Gods of human structure. Even Gods that i learned back in the day were "sun gods" turn out to be Gods of some human endeavor, like Apollo or Artemis.

Between that and my general love of Daniel Quinn (who advocates for animism, amongst other things), I make offerings to the Noble ones as benevolent beings beyond our order. Where Outdwellers are opposed to what we do, the Noble ones were here first and oversee the non-human world.

[athenamsb]

I have to admit that I have gained more insight, knowledge and overall spiritual growth from working with the Ancient Wise than from anything else, and this idea of working with a similar class of Nature Spirits definitely intrigues me.

I do have some Ancient Wise-related questions, but I haven't asked because I'm not sure I'm allowed to know any more than I do. I have been working with them since Raven and Carrion's consecrations at Summerlands a couple years ago.

I just cut a long post that I suddenly felt I needed to email to you. Don't know which you'll get first, but I'm going to gmail now.

[anonymous]

Of course with me it's nature spirits ancestors, the shining ones.

Maybe we can do my meditation from lastyears equinox that worked on connecting with natue at a druid moon or litergy? I did write to help some people......who were not there.... to connect with nature more..

After it warms we can also as a grove sit by the stream behind the uu and just observe..

I can see some grove outings coming up.

[anonymous]

Strange that it did nor say who I was....... it's Paul... or moonwolf1999 on lj.

[moonwolf1999]

Strange that it did nor say who I was....... it's Paul... or moonwolf1999 on lj.

[kargach]

Since I've started working outdoors and all around the county, I've definitely felt more of an affinity for the Nature Spirits than I did before. Every day is like a new discovery, just yesterday before the ritual I saw three does and about twenty of what I'm pretty sure were wild turkeys of some sort, all in the same back yard. I've seriously been considering working this into some form of divinatory tool. So I'll certainly be interested in anything you develop here!