But before I tell that tale, I need to go back a little farther.<\/p>\n
February 1993 marked the beginning of my Pagan journey. I went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras with some friends I met online. That was a life changing trip for many reasons, most notably because I met a Wiccan for the first time. They explained that their religion was about seeing the Divine in Nature and about worshipping a Goddess as well as a God. It included magic and witchcraft.<\/p>\n
This was what I had been looking for all my life.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, I wasn\u2019t ready for a drastic change of religion. I still had a lot of foundational work to do. I needed to finish exorcising fundamentalism<\/a> from my soul, and I hadn\u2019t figured out how to do it. And so I spent eight years dabbling<\/a> in witchcraft, Wicca, and Paganism.<\/p>\n I got nowhere.<\/p>\n I moved to Texas at the end of October to start a new job. My wife stayed back in Georgia waiting on the house to sell \u2013 I flew home for Thanksgiving, which we celebrated with my family in Chattanooga.<\/p>\n We were staying at my mother\u2019s house \u2013 the house I grew up in. After dinner I got a call from a close friend.<\/p>\n He told me he had been hearing voices.<\/p>\n Now, this friend was \u2013 and still is \u2013 one of the most grounded, this-world oriented people I know. I knew he wasn\u2019t making things up, and I knew he wouldn\u2019t be calling me if there was a \u201crational explanation\u201d for it. He\u2019s also a medical professional \u2013 if he had a medical problem he\u2019d recognize the symptoms.<\/p>\n Anyway, I told him it could be a ghost or a disembodied human spirit. It could be a fairy or a nature spirit. Or maybe it was something else \u2013 I offered to refer him to more knowledgeable people if he wanted.<\/p>\n He never brought it up again. 19 years later, nothing has changed. He\u2019s still a friend, still very grounded, and as far as I know, never heard voices again.<\/p>\n Some time the next day I realized I was talking like I was some sort of expert on the supernatural, when in fact I didn\u2019t know if I really believed any of it. I didn\u2019t know what I was talking about.<\/p>\n That realization hit me like the proverbial cosmic 2\u00d74. I heard someone (more likely Someone, but to this day I don\u2019t know who, and it doesn\u2019t really matter) say<\/p>\n \u201cGET SERIOUS OR MOVE ON!\u201d<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t know exactly what \u201cget serious\u201d entailed, but I had a crystal clear vision of what would happen if I abandoned this path. I saw myself much older (about the age I currently am), sitting in the pew of a non-descript Mainline Protestant church, trying to \u201cdo good\u201d but bored silly, and filled with regrets for what might have been.<\/p>\n I had to see where the Pagan path would take me.<\/p>\n I had to get serious.<\/p>\n And I did.<\/p>\n This is where I went from \u201cseeking\u201d to diligently following a path. And so I mark my Druidry from the Friday after Thanksgiving 2001, even though I wouldn\u2019t discover Druidry<\/a> until several months later.<\/p>\n There is very little we know about the ancient Druids with any certainty. They didn\u2019t keep written records (though they were literate) and so what little we know about them comes from outside sources. One of those sources says that Druids trained for 19 years.<\/p>\n That struck me as important\u2026 to me if not to all Druids. And it wasn\u2019t long before I knew that the Friday after Thanksgiving 2020 was going to be an important date for me.<\/p>\n The 19 year time period likely comes from the Metonic Cycle<\/a>.<\/p>\n The lunar cycle and the solar cycle don\u2019t line up over the course of a year \u2013 that\u2019s why our months have different numbers of days. But over 19 years, they do \u2013 the moon will be in the same phase on the same date 19 years apart.<\/p>\n We know the Babylonians and the Romans were aware of the Metonic Cycle by 600 BCE or so. It\u2019s likely the Celts were too.<\/p>\n Now, the Friday after Thanksgiving 2001 was November 23. I will go out tomorrow night and pour special offerings, but I\u2019m saving my big celebration for Friday. Because November 23 wasn\u2019t what was important to me \u2013 what was important was the Friday after Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n I always knew this was going to be an important date. But I never had any idea what would change after 19 years of study and practice.<\/p>\n To the best of my knowledge, none of the many contemporary Druid orders have a 19 year requirement for any of their grades or levels. OBOD\u2019s study program is nominally three years \u2013 it took me five and a half<\/a>.<\/p>\n I\u2019m too young to retire, and other than stepping aside from formal leadership<\/a> in Denton CUUPS, none of my Pagan and Druid work is something you retire from. Or at least, that\u2019s how I see it.<\/p>\n I always assumed that some sort of \u201cnext level\u201d opportunity would present itself. But that\u2019s a rather romantic idea\u2026 and a bit nerdish, too. The Gods aren\u2019t tied to the Metonic Cycle. If any of Them had something They wanted me to take on, They\u2019d tell me when They were ready \u2013 and They have<\/a>.<\/p>\n I started seriously thinking and meditating on this earlier this year. But there was always something more urgent and more important: blog posts to write, classes to teach<\/a>, rituals to video<\/a>, political movements to support.<\/p>\n A couple weeks ago it finally hit me: there will be no \u201cstep change\u201d in my Druidry, in my priesthood, or in my Paganism. Trying to force one would be unwise and likely unsuccessful.<\/p>\n But this is still an important milestone for me, and I still intend to celebrate it.<\/p>\n First of all, I want to remember my epiphany and give thanks for it. Honestly addressing those deep religious questions was hard. Without Someone yelling GET SERIOUS OR MOVE ON I might have kept trying to straddle the fence between liberal Christianity and Paganism and going nowhere.<\/p>\n I want to celebrate 19 years seriously dedicated to this path, and 27 years on it in total. There have been times when I\u2019ve thought \u201cI wonder when I\u2019m going to get tired of this and drop it for something else?\u201d I\u2019ve made oaths and other commitments \u2013 walking away hasn\u2019t been a viable option for quite some time. But it\u2019s been 19 years and I\u2019m still going strong \u2013 I don\u2019t want<\/em> to walk away. This is my calling in life, and I\u2019m glad I found it.<\/p>\n I want to review some of the steps along the way. It\u2019s easy to get so caught up in today (especially in a year like 2020) that we forget where we started and how far we\u2019ve come. This is one of the reasons I recommend journaling as a spiritual practice. I have good notes for all of these past 19 years\u2026 plus 12 years here on the blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/243\/2020\/11\/Erwin-Park-11.13.20-06.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThanksgiving Night 2001<\/h2>\n
The Friday after Thanksgiving 2001<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/243\/2020\/11\/Erwin-Park-11.13.20-07.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n19 years of study and practice<\/h2>\n
The Metonic Cycle<\/h2>\n
![\"Bryn](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/243\/2020\/11\/Bryn-Celli-Ddu-2014-02.jpg\")
<\/a>What changes after 19 years?<\/h2>\n
What to celebrate after 19 years?<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/243\/2020\/11\/Erwin-Park-11.13.20-08.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n