We generally call a Celtic sacred space a ‘nemeton’. Nemetona was a Gaulish goddess whose name means ‘She of the Sacred Grove’. Nemeton is a Gaulish word. We know that Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic speakers worshiped in groves, sacrificing water fowl because they are seen as masters of land, sky, and sea. In Irish, groves are called garrán for groves which are not oak, and doire for groves which are comprised of oaks. Names of places like Derry in Ireland... Read more
Michael Dangler says, “…the cosmos is divided into three parts. What these three parts are and who inhabits them is far less important than their actual number.” in his article 9 Tenets of Druidic Ritual. He is speaking to the occurrence of three worlds (or multiples of them) in Indo-European paganisms. The evidence for the three worlds in Druidry and Gaelic paganism comes from basic oaths that exist within the lore (Mac Mathúna). The Celts, even the gods, would swear... Read more
Building a Devotional Practice with the Sea, complete with description and an example devotional prayer. This includes oceans, sea, lakes, streams, and other bodies of water. Read more
Beliefs The Indo-Europeans and their descendants were patriarchal. I don’t think there ever was a completely unbigoted culture ever in history. As long as people cling to fear, misconception, and untruths, there never will be. But our local cosmos can have as much fairness in it as we’d like it to have. And so, though the domestic cult traditionally favors the male head of the household, our modern feminism can inform our reconstructions. This way we can benefit from our... Read more
The Celtic year is divided into two halves. Summer and Winter. The former is a time of working and summer experience. This ‘summer experience’ is written and talked about among Celtic pagans as Samos. ‘Winter experience’ is expressed as Giamos. Our experience of these forces is all we can talk about because they themselves are an invisible working of nature. A triskellion showing three spirals of dual forces. The year was often seen by our deep Celtic ancestors to be... Read more
When approaching the land as the object of a devotional practice, one should not focus on the creatures living on the land, but the land itself. Read more
Reconstructionism is a methodology, not a religion. My religion is Celtic or Gaelic Paganism. We may call it Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism, but that is giving our religion a middle name after the method which we use to arrive at facts and best guesses about our pagan practice. Calling our religion Druidism or Druidry is problematic. Our Priests are Druids; their practice is Druidry, but not everyone is a priest. Saying the entire religion is called Druidism is like lumping all Catholic... Read more
Pagan groups can be whatever you want them to be. The angle of what we wish is broader than what will work, most of the time. And when you involve more people, you can expect the choir of requests to make changes or do various things within the group to get exponentially wider. If you are starting or redefining a group, you’ll want to aim for what will work over what you project as optimal in your mind. It is so... Read more
Samhain is a magical time. I hope to honor it so I try to build my articles on the best scholarship available to me, and I try to be skeptical. I’m an untrained psychic from birth and have been a seer since I was a child. I never learned a methodology; it has always been with me. I believed in magic but was not sure about the gods for the longest. I was skeptical I could even say I existed... Read more
” Extremely little. The total of evidence we have for the druids could probably fit on a few pages. All that comes down to us directly are a handful of references by Roman authors, non of which sets out to describe the druids, the mentions are all incidental.” – Redditor “We don’t know what druids wore. We don’t know whether men and women worshipped together. We don’t know what druids believed or taught. We don’t know what druids said or did during their... Read more
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