Little Druid on the Prairie

Wow, what a week. Lots of things to think about this week.

My daily practice has been mostly out of sorts this week, between returning from vacation and getting sick (airport crud, yuck). I did manage I think two days, but it was just an off week altogether for my regular practice.

Lesson learned: I’m good at routines, and when my routines go out the window, so does any kind of regular anything I’m used to doing (exercise included in this category). Doubly so for any practice I haven’t fully established yet.

I have started preparing for Lammas though, and what I’m going to do as a solo practitioner. I know I need to do at least one solo high day during this journaling process, and I’ll only be doing the study group ritual for Lammas (the protogrove is doing an all-day festival 2 hours north of my house, and after spending two weekends on vacation or being part of a wedding, I can’t for my own mental health give up a third weekend in a row. More on that later). Since I won’t be coordinating two group rituals, and Yngvi is doing most of the legwork for our Scandinavian celebration with the Study Group, I have time to prep for a solo ritual. I’ll be using my standard Anglo-Saxon template, but I haven’t decided how I want to modify it just yet. Something I’m thinking about.

Then, as I was getting over being sick, I spent all of Friday and Saturday being a bridesmaid in a Very Big Catholic Wedding. This was… exceedingly taxing mentally and physically, and left me feeling very out of sorts with my druid practice. I grew up protestant, but joined the Catholic church in college, because I fell in love with the Mass and the Rosary and the Saints. Also because I had a wonderful church where I was feeling really spiritually nourished. Unfortunately that blew up in my face spectacularly. (I was severely traumatized, and when I went to tell someone about it, I was told that “Maybe God was trying to teach me something” and people sided with my abuser. It was devastating.) I left the church, and then Christianity altogether. (Obviously, as I’m clearly now a Druid.)

However, being back in a very traditional church for a very traditional ceremony, with the candles and the plainchant and the responses and everything? Really hit a sore nerve. It’s not that I have any interest in being Catholic again. I really don’t. (I spent the entire homily trying not to roll my eyes at the priest.) But there’s a lot of nostalgia there that I haven’t quite figured out how to enjoy without feeling horrible about myself as a person. This is compounded by the fact that I know if my family found out that I have left the church for good, they would be devastated, and even at 30 years old, I still have trouble when I disappoint people and don’t live up to their expectations, especially my parents. Religion is HUGELY IMPORTANT to them.

Also, after the wedding, I spent a good amount of time talking to my husband about religion and faith and what I’m doing, and he basically told me that he won’t stop me from doing what I think I need to do about my religion, but he wants no part of it and has no interest in doing any of it with me. My home based practice will be solo, for good. He is extremely independent, and mostly a Humanist, and as long as I’m happy and fulfilled, he’s fine, but he won’t be joining in with any of my high days or little ceremonies at all. He’s pretty much done with any kind of religion, and only really is interested in studying things for the sake of learning. While this isn’t really surprising, the fact that he’s not even interested in learning about what it is that I do and believe was a little hard. It is good that he is okay with me doing what I feel is right for me, and following my own path, but it’s also a little sad that he doesn’t even care to know what Druidry is at all. But that’s his choice, and I can live with it. I’m not sure what it will mean in the future if we have kids, but that’s mostly something we can discuss when we actually decide whether or not we’re having any kids at all.

So while this week wasn’t one much where I did a lot of actual home based practice, I did a lot of very deep thinking about my Druidry, and what going forward on this path may mean. I’m still processing all of it, and I suspect will be for awhile. There’s a lot to parse here.

While I do that though, I’m going to remember some very good advice given to me by Rev. Michael Dangler:

When you don’t know what to do, wash your hands, light a candle, and hug a tree.