Screenreader greenpane News and Extras
News (click)
House of Danu Lughnasadh Festival weekend (July 30 to August 2), Santa Cruz mountains north of Watsonville. 2nd Annual Gorsedd. All Bards, Ovates, Druids and Neopagans welcome!
In October 2009, Isaac Bonewits was diagnosed with cancer—he has a good prognosis but feels crappy due to treatments. Send Isaac and Fay prayers, healing vibes and cash.
from Storycatcher (click)
pages 18-19
written by Christina Baldwin
of Peerspirit, Washington,
reprinted here with author's permission
I have read a story of a tribe in southern Africa called the Babemba in which a person doing something wrong, something that destroys the delicate social net, brings all work in the village to a halt. The people gather around the "offender," and one by one they begin to recite every thing he has done right in his life: every good deed, thoughtful behavior, act of social responsibility. These things have to be true about the person, and spoken honestly, but the time-honored consequence of misbehavior is to appreciate that person back into their better part of himself. The person is given the chance to remember who he is and why his important to the life of the village.
I want to live under such a practice of compassion. When I forget my place, when I lash out with some private wounding in a public way, I want to be remembered back into alignment with my self and purpose. I want to live with the opportunity for reconciliation. When someone around me thoughtless or cruel, I want to be given the chance to respond with a ritual that created the possibility of reconnection. I want to live in a neighborhood where people don't shoot first, don't sue first, where people are Storycatchers willing to discover in strangers the mirror of themselves. I want to be surrounded by a story-based culture that itself remembers story is essential to human survival.
Screenreader What's a Tribe?
Druids
tribe, clan, tuath, tuatha
written by Larzean
18 December 2009
Tribe. Clan. Tuatha. In Old Irish, tuatha means "family" or "clan." Ochre Hills Druid Grove is a modern tuath or tuatha. Since I had to call it something, I finally settled on "grove" because I am particular to Druidry. I went through "clann," "group," "tribe," "circle" but none quite fit. "Grove" is the closest estimation of my vision for Ochre Hills.
While it's true that Druids don't have to be Neopagan (for short, "Pagan"), the vast majority are. I happen to resonate with Celts but to others, Celts are as inviting as a dull thud. It's true that not all Druidry is Celtic/Gaelic—ADF has established Kins or branches, be they Middle Eastern, Norse, ancient Greece, Slavic, Welsh and Roman. I fully expect that local people who choose a Druid path will be attracted to various Druid kinships—it depends 100% on what you are drawn to. And that's just Druids—among Pagans, there are many other kinship groups such as witches and Kemetic. Each Pagan is a branch of a tree where we study our chosen "branch" but take nourishment from the roots and trunk which is the larger grove. Each individual Pagan no longer has to feel she is a sapling.
A superb talk about tribe was written by Brendan Myers in his book The Mysteries of Druidry, page 159-160:
"Celtic spirituality is socially expressed. The notion of a completely personal, inner belief as we understand it today would have been unthinkable to most ancient European people. Someone who wishes to pursue her spiritual need and aspirations through Celtic Mysticism should therefore think seriously about bringing together her closest friends and relations into a group of some kind. For nothing reinforces and advances a spiritual life more than the companionship and encouragement of family and good friends.
WHAT BRINGS PEOPLE TOGETHER?
In the ancient Celtic world the tuath ("tribe"), and not the individual, was the basic political and economic unit of society. A tuath was a multi-faceted community of 2,000 or 3,000 people, resembling a corporation, a political party, a labor union, a family, and a commune, all rolled into one. It was this tuath, and not the individual, which owned land, paid or received the dowry of its married women, paid the debts of its members incurred by committing criminal offenses, and received the compensation for criminal offenses inflicted on its members. A tuath also exercised territorial sovereighty. It could raise an army from all of its able-bodied men, and many of its women, to drive other tribes out of its territory or even to capture more land. A professional class of warriors with the tribe, who had better armor and weapons, would be almost constantly engaged in warfare, from cattle raids and border skirmishes to full scale campaigns of conquest. And finally, it was as a member of a particular tuath, having the various social relations that membership in a tuath affords, that individuals addressed themselves to the Gods, the spirits of the world around them, the ancestors, and all the supernatural powers which were important to them. In modern Irish, tuath is the word for the nation-state.
There are many names for the kinds of groups that modern pagans form. Wiccans normally refer to their groups as Covens. A Celtic group composed entirely of Druids or apprentice Druids is usually called a Grove. A mixed Celtic group of Druids, Bards, warriors, artisans, and so on, is often called a tuath, or sometimes a clann (a family). A common word for a gathering of pagans of any kind is a "circle," after the circle in which participants of ceremony sit or stand together. Whatever it si called, it is a smaller, more intimate kind of community than a Christian congregation, as it is not normally more than 15 or 20 people. This size tends to foster the deepest, most intimate kinds of friendship among its members. Our innate emotional resources can form intimate family bonds with only a limited number of people at any given time. As in an ancient Iron Age Celtic community, a modern community of Celtic spiritual seekers should have variety: there should be Druids, Bards, poets, seers, warriors, artisans, and craftspeople. Each of these roles has its own body of skills, traditions, and standards of excellence which can be internalized to form the basis of a spiritual path. And most importantly, there should be a sense of togetherness, of safety and strength, and of belonging."
It is altogether possible that we won't see anything resembling this sort of tuath in our lifetime, but we can head in that direction, right?
And this is just the beginning. I highly recommend Myers' book.