Req 10: Toward a Personal & Grove-centered Spiritual Practice
For many, many years I was solitary. I embraced Paganism at age 14, set up an alter in my bedroom closet, and read a staggering number of books of varying authority and worth. I climbed a large white pine in my backyard and held impromptu rituals in its highest branches. I scrambled down to the creek and blessed stones I found there. I honored the Gods and Goddesses of the Greeks and Romans more than any others because I was most familiar with them.
Through college I maintained an alter in my room and was involved in a interfaith group as the token pagan. In graduate school I found ADF. A year later I went to the TrilliumFestival and participated in a group ritual and met other pagans. I knew I did not want to be solitary any longer. The following year I met Robert/Gwydion at Trillium and learned he was planting a ProtoGrove only an hour away from me.
I joined Dogwood ProtoGrove and started learning about ADF Druidry in a new way. Most of our rituals were halting since neither I nor the other fledgling member were very familiar with ADF liturgy. But Robert was patient and had a big liturgy binder. In my private practice I began using more of the terminology and ritual elements I was learning through the protoGrove. But, as so often happens, things began to disintegrate. And I craved a more regular, reliable community. I asked Robert if I could begin a Druid study group in my town-I thought that some of the Wiccans I had met might be interested. He gave me leave and so I did just that. Soon after Dogwood pG became truly defunct.
We began as a discussion group, with a Celtic focus, since that was my own focus. In a short time it became clear that we were a functioning Grove, a tribe. Filing to become a ProtoGrove of ADF was a formality. As our membership had an interest in the Gods of the Norse, we voted to be dual-tradition. I knew little of the Norse, nor did I care. I could safely leave the Norse ritual to someone else. That changed dramatically. My hearth practice became almost entirely Norse for some time. I am now returning to a more generically Celtic path, but I suspect I have the heart of a mutt.
My understanding of tribe has grown and expanded. I now believe that a tribe allows one to grow in ways solitary practice cannot. Tribes have a strength that hermits do not. Our Ancestors knew this.
Recently I was asked why I wanted to be part of a Grove, or even on organization. Within that tribal community I am able to learn and explore and gain from the work of others. I am challenged by new ideas, forced to defend and reframe my own. In the Grove we have traditions; every year at Lughnassadh is the drama of Lugh entering Tara played out, every year at Samhain is the God of the new year born from the sacrificial fire of the dying year; these are binding and give me a heightened sense of the cycle of the year.
Perhaps I have not understood the essay requirement…in many ways the act of founding and guiding a Grove has been the greatest spiritual work I have done. I have grown a Grove to honor the Kindreds, and the gods that I honor have grown in number because of the Grove. Were it not for GOSH, I would not have met and worked with the Gods of my German Ancestors. Had I not tried to answer the expressed needs of the Grove, I would not now be observing the moon phases ritually-a practice that has allowed me to grow in ways I did not know I could.
So, the efforts were and are the spiritual practice…
For many, many years I was solitary. I embraced Paganism at age 14, set up an alter in my bedroom closet, and read a staggering number of books of varying authority and worth. I climbed a large white pine in my backyard and held impromptu rituals in its highest branches. I scrambled down to the creek and blessed stones I found there. I honored the Gods and Goddesses of the Greeks and Romans more than any others because I was most familiar with them.
Through college I maintained an alter in my room and was involved in a interfaith group as the token pagan. In graduate school I found ADF. A year later I went to the TrilliumFestival and participated in a group ritual and met other pagans. I knew I did not want to be solitary any longer. The following year I met Robert/Gwydion at Trillium and learned he was planting a ProtoGrove only an hour away from me.
I joined Dogwood ProtoGrove and started learning about ADF Druidry in a new way. Most of our rituals were halting since neither I nor the other fledgling member were very familiar with ADF liturgy. But Robert was patient and had a big liturgy binder. In my private practice I began using more of the terminology and ritual elements I was learning through the protoGrove. But, as so often happens, things began to disintegrate. And I craved a more regular, reliable community. I asked Robert if I could begin a Druid study group in my town-I thought that some of the Wiccans I had met might be interested. He gave me leave and so I did just that. Soon after Dogwood pG became truly defunct.
We began as a discussion group, with a Celtic focus, since that was my own focus. In a short time it became clear that we were a functioning Grove, a tribe. Filing to become a ProtoGrove of ADF was a formality. As our membership had an interest in the Gods of the Norse, we voted to be dual-tradition. I knew little of the Norse, nor did I care. I could safely leave the Norse ritual to someone else. That changed dramatically. My hearth practice became almost entirely Norse for some time. I am now returning to a more generically Celtic path, but I suspect I have the heart of a mutt.
My understanding of tribe has grown and expanded. I now believe that a tribe allows one to grow in ways solitary practice cannot. Tribes have a strength that hermits do not. Our Ancestors knew this.
Recently I was asked why I wanted to be part of a Grove, or even on organization. Within that tribal community I am able to learn and explore and gain from the work of others. I am challenged by new ideas, forced to defend and reframe my own. In the Grove we have traditions; every year at Lughnassadh is the drama of Lugh entering Tara played out, every year at Samhain is the God of the new year born from the sacrificial fire of the dying year; these are binding and give me a heightened sense of the cycle of the year.
Perhaps I have not understood the essay requirement…in many ways the act of founding and guiding a Grove has been the greatest spiritual work I have done. I have grown a Grove to honor the Kindreds, and the gods that I honor have grown in number because of the Grove. Were it not for GOSH, I would not have met and worked with the Gods of my German Ancestors. Had I not tried to answer the expressed needs of the Grove, I would not now be observing the moon phases ritually-a practice that has allowed me to grow in ways I did not know I could.
So, the efforts were and are the spiritual practice…