(Image : “LOTR Fanbook-The Shire”, SG, 2010)

OBOD  (Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, UK) is structured in three “grades”, which constitute the essential Training the Order has to offer. All three grades are complete in themselves, so you go in until you feel that you´ve had enough. I would certainly encourage all Members to go through the whole cycle of the three grades, because it´s getting out of the last one as a Druid, that you really get the feeling that…”Now, to begin again! Really do it, this time!” It is the paradox : the Course is a Circle, not a never-ending journey!…Each time you complete the circle (in the next twenty years or so, lol), you will feel more complete: the Journey of a Druid never ends…

Difficulties are obstacles to transcend to be able to go beyond limits (mostly self imposed!), and grow as a person. Gandalf the Grey becomes Gandalf the White becomes…Gandalf!

I have finished the Course, and so, am a Druid “grad” of OBOD. As such, and knowing the Course well for having gone through it all, in much detail, I can help Bards (art,storytelling, writing, etc.), Ovates (ecopsychology, Journey in the Forest) and Druids (psychosynthesis, Pathworking, and other stuff). This is also what we, as a Grove, have to offer.

The two other components of the “Lothlorien-Nemeton Grove”, Mika (my daughter), and Adam Brough (my daughter´s soulmate) are also experiencing the OBOD Course. Mika is at the gate of her graduation as a Druid, and Adam at the gate of the Druid grade. We think that by 2011, we will be three OBOD Druid grads, working together, both in the context of a Grove (the Lothlorien Nemeton), and the context of SYNERGY (I am a PS grad, and Mika as well; Adam is still studying the Will Parfitt Course (for SYNERGY, please click one of the Pages next to the title of the blog, and for Will Parfitt, please see right-hand blogroll).

All three of us, working as a “triad” or “triangle”- are clear about the function(s) of the Earth Sanctuary, as indicated in the Pages above.

Our main task on the physical level is to maintain this place, which the group that is behind the scene (working with me in the context of SYNERGY) has now bought. It certainly makes a difference in the general feeling about being “Gaian Druids” to know that you are the guardian of a land that actually belongs to you. As my daughter once said “You cannot breathe imaginary trees”, and she was so right, the Druid Journey has certainly to be translated to physical reality. That was our main effort this last decade: beginning with our (holy) roots, going through the hard process of owning the land we stand on.

(Images : “Lord of the Rings Fanbook”, SG, 2010)

…Revamped an old “Cultures of Middle Earth” round robin book, and created a whole new Lord of the Rings fanbook. My own tribute to Tolkien and P. Jackson. Did I tell you that I´m a huge fan of both ? Yeah. Of course. *grin*

PS.- Not selling anything, this is private art.

(Image : The Sanctuary, soul card, SG, 2005)

…Personally, I think that “Ecopsychology” is another name for Neo-Druidry. Some may not agree of course, and that is OK, they say that among 10 Druids there are 11 opinions! Lol.

In general and very roughly, there are four groups of so-called “Druids”, and I think that it is very useful to learn how to distinguish them, because they show vastly different ways of being in concrete reality, and also vastly different aims.

The Old Ones, of which practically nothing is known. They didn´t write down their teachings,have never built a temple in stone,  and have not left a mark in History, apart from some really faint traces that have been handed down the long corridors of Time. I list them because they are the genesis, the origin, true or false, of the other three groups.

The Romantic Ones, which are a re-creation of what a past century felt about the subject, a century in which there was no electricity, no highways, no Internet – and in which nothing was really verified. That´s where you can find the robed Druids and Druidesses who know all about casting spells and calling to the ancient gods, though they often dine at McDonald´s; those are the ones that are traipsing through the new forests, or even public parks sometimes since not so many forests are left, in flimsy fake-medieval robes, and trying very hard to look ancient, though most of them haven’t even got to the ripe age of 50. (No offense meant, it is just a passing remark, that happens to be true.)I think that these people are compensating the harsh reality of modern life, the very hardship of what our society has become, through happy dreams.

The Reconstructionists, who are very serious people who think that intuition is a valid way to perceive History, (particularly “His-Story”, lol), and are very precise about a lot of rather vague stuff,

And then there is a new group, which is still largely a sort of seed-group, which is pushing through the earth, straining towards the Sun, like a very modest plant still, – The Future Druids, the Gaian Druids, or Neo-Druids.

Our Druid Grove is part of this last group. We do believe in intuition, use it a lot, but do not think that it is really a valid way to “re-construct” the past, because such an enterprise as rebuilding an imagined past according to non-verified present beliefs distorts what is happening in the present, and sometimes even veils what should be happening if we are to correct past facts that have brought us to this collective disaster of a present, (yes, a long sentence, read it again, lol); we don´t need robes and wands and staves, but yes, we care about the Future of Earth, and in midst of this preoccupation for the becoming of the human species of which we are a part, absolutely, we understand that humanity needs a new Myth, for “without a Vision the people perish”, so, having gone through a real Druid training (OBOD), we might as well be called “Druids”, OK, Neo-Druids, if you will.

…This Vision that we have been so clearly a-creating in our far away valley these last few years, is that of a Humanity that would finally consciously acknowledge the simple fact that we human beings are Children of Planet Earth. Whatever our nations pretend to be, first and foremost we are Gaians, Earthlings. From all Internet users down to Eskimos and Bushmen.

(Sorry to draw such a scale, I actually do not mean to imply that people who are not Internet users are not human, lol.)

Yes, we envision a number of people starting to live the Gaian vision, very discreetly at first, inside themselves to begin with, people living with the clear knowledge that some things have to stop, like the desecration of the planet. I´m talking about people who would truly understand, because they have been coolly trained, that things cannot go on like they are, running around in stupid circles, that something must change, and that this “something” is the very structure of the patriarchal ego, which is an extremely limited historical view, even of physical reality: since man walked on the moon  (at the very least) and invented quantum physics,  we do have a pressing need to get out of the Freudian back alley:

Everything in our lives can be aligned to prosperity, agape *and abundance of intelligence, which is how Nature really works. There is no real necessity to botch human evolution.

We could, yes we could. We could do it, you know. Difficult ? Yes. Impossible ? No. Anyway, what with Climate Change and Peak Oil, we may be forced to change. Change into what, is now The Big Question.

If you find it difficult to accept the idea that our civilization is still barbaric, and that we DO have to evolve as a species, don´t change anything except this basic understanding, which you have to “grok” with your very bones : we are Earthlings, and we will have to deeply acknowledge this fact. Or we will disappear. Easy choice. And a long long process. Do we really have the time?

It all boils down to the fact that all of us are collectively responsible for the welfare of all of humanity, and of the entirety of the planet.

War is a boorish, unrefined, uncultivated, churlish way of facing collective problems. Warriorship as a patriotic demonstration can best be used on an entirely different  level : I mean, a mental way of tackling problems, of grappling with reality. I do think that we have enough enlightened brains on this planet to create an entirely new game.

As for us as a group, as a Project, as a Neo-Druid Grove, we have made that choice already. Actually, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, we are deep into the consequences of it. As a group we have touched the brass tacks of what it means. This sense of consciously  “being on the side of the woods” (as Tolkien says through Treebeard), is what makes us Neo-Druids. We may even, if the Myth becomes as necessary as bread, sew some nice white robes and dance through our very own woods. We may as well, since we so deeply feel part of the Great Fellowship of Life on this Earth.

In this deep sense, we have the Vision of a huge Rainbow of Consciousness/Energy spanning thousands of years, from the Old Ones right down to us, the Druids in jeans. A new Ark of the Covenant, if you will. Or a new lease on our renting this planet from our great-great-grandchildren.

…Rivendell lives! Long live Rivendell!

 ;-)

 PS.- Agape  : Christianity. Love as revealed in Jesus, seen as spiritual and selfless and a model for humanity.

1. Love that is spiritual, not sexual, in its nature.
2. Christianity. In the early Christian Church, the love feast accompanied by Eucharistic celebration.

In the New Testament, the fatherly love of God for humans and their reciprocal love for God. The term extends to the love of one’s fellow humans.

The Animus (the masculine part of women) is usually, and culturally, projected on men. We fall in love with the Aragorns of the world, we never stop to think that maybe this lovely ruggedy energy could actually be ours. Ever seen a hairy Arwen ? Lol. Such is our deep deep cultural conditioning.

But I discovered that lots of our courageous Prince Valiant energies could be ours, it´s a question of looking inside and being truthful with ourselves. In my PS work, way back then, I realized that I was sort of in awe with Strider (Aragorn)- (no, not the actor, Tolkien´s character), because these energies were mine. I didn´t want to be Arwen, I wanted to own my Strider energies, and what a wonderful addition to my life!… I also realized that a whole part of the events of my past life had incorporated these energies, oh yes, I certainly did some rather non-female things in my life!…

All of which, being my real life experience, had me thinking that maybe our culture has some rather shady agenda dividing people into male and female stereotypes. That´s what Jung (GrandPapa Carl Gustav) tried to say when he formulated that men have a female part of their psyche (the Anima), and women a masculine part (the Animus). Though…mmmm…Granddaddy being a staunch Swiss macho man (Goddess knows I´m familiar with those characters having had a very Swiss e-dew-kation!), he naturally thought that the Anima business was more “normal” than the other one!

Anyway, I did work with my Animus, and even gave him some really well-known faces at the time, Merlin for one, Gandalf, my inner Druid, (yeah, I know he´s a Mayar, not a Druid), Aragorn-Strider, and Elrond, the half-elven. (You must have guessed that I am a Lord of the Rings fan ?…).

It helped a lot to feel that these “masculine” energies were actually mine! So I stopped projecting them “outside”, and could finally let my men be the troubled, fragile, chinked beings that they really were…oh blessed relief for them…See my point?

This post goes with the preceding one about Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess. The Sun was considered a female entity by the ancient Celts, as it still is in the German language : die Sonne, der Mond. When I speak about a shady agenda above, it is so, or why should solar qualities systematically be attributed to the masculine, and lunar ones to the female? Examining both, you get to understand the agenda, lol.

Note *** Just so you get this right : yeah, I am an Elf, and yeah, I am 3000 years old! (No, not Arwen.)

Hahaha

(Image : “Druid Review”, final exam, SG, 2009)

A year or so after receiving the lovely scroll that marks the end of my formal training as a Druid at OBOD (actually you may find out that it never ends!), the final Initiation.

…I was in the kitchen, talking with Mika and Adam (the other two parts of the Earth Sanctuary Project´s coregroup) over coffee one morning, about how hard it is sometimes to maintain this land, and how sometimes we would love to travel or go someplace different, smaller, easier, – and how we couldn´t ever go back to living in a town flat, when a sudden realisation hit my brain.

I, who thought I couldn´t ever live in a town again, had the sudden vision that all the trees of the world were now rooted in my heart, and the mountains, and the rocks, and the little river, and all the animals, deer, fox, squirrels and eagles, and that I could, without batting an eye, pack my suitcase and go…anywhere!

Tears just welled up in my eyes.

All the forests of the world are now rooted in my green heart.

I have become the Grove.

(Image : “Amaterasu”, soul card 145,  collage on cardboard, SG, 2010)

…Did you know that for the old Celts the Sun was a female symbol?

Oh how different everything would have been if the warm energy and the smile of the Goddess had not been banished to the night side of the Western psyche!

Amaterasu – omikami, ” the great august kami that shines in the heaven” –  is a sun goddess and one of the principal Shinto deities.

(Image : “Use Your Imagination” Journal, recycled paper bags, SG, 2010)

Couldn´t resist…

I do declare, earnestly, nay, I avow, I allege, I asseverate, that this feckless tyro, this neophyte, this greenhorn, this factitious filibuster, this facetious sassy tenderfoot, this pesky pugnacious rogue, is causing quite a pother among the class.

…Happy translating, dear BabelFish!

Don´t mind me, it´s just a pretext for uploading a new image!…

(The Lady Dragon laughing, obstreperously, of course!)

(Image : “Use your Imagination” Journal, SG, 2010)

Hehehe…another gem at Dictionary.com :

quaquaversal

(Image : Revamped “Use your imagination” Journal, recycled paper bags, SG, 2009)

…Yesterday I counted them : I have created 18 journals in less than two years! Only two of them are completely finished, cover to cover.

I consider them as “works in progress”. Usually I go back and take them up, adding, changing, sometimes quite drastically. Like this one, “Use your imagination”, which I started two years back.

I´m quite happy about the results; these are already a nice legacy to leave behind to my children and grandchidren. They´re proof that I have existed in exactly this way, with a happy colouring and enthusiasm (“enthusiasm” meaning “transported by the gods”), and what a peculiar, odd, quaint and kooky way this is.

…Wait a minute! Eighteen in two years, and assuming this won´t slow down too much (given the happy-go-lucky way “the gods” daily transport me!), it means 180 journals in twenty years from now! Woah. They will have to rent a TRUCK to move “The Legacy”! …(Or make one huge bonfire!)

Hahaha

PS.- Not counting the 1.157.822 posts that constitute my group work in the InnerNet!

Bah, maybe the Net will crash, and good bye all good intentions.

 *sigh*

(Image : Mandala 46, Anchoring the Light, SG, watercolours)

…Not much more we can do these days, but anchoring the Light as concretely as we possibly can.