For me personally, I feel that a daily practice is essential to maintaining the connection between the self and the natural world. Though we are never truly separated, our marvellous human brains can create a feeling of disconnection, which can be alleviated through a daily practice.
A daily practice could consist of taking time to meditate and/or contemplate aspects of the self, of the world, of the gods, ancestors, spirits of place, and other pieces of the great puzzle. If one follows a specific deity, one should try to connect to that deity, whether in communion as a mystic or in prayer as a devotee (or both). Remembering your roots is a very grounding experience and so honouring the ancestors every day can have a great impact on your life, whether you are honouring your ancestors of blood, place, or spirit. You might also give an offering as part of a daily practice, if you so desire. You might simply think of what there is to be grateful for and a mini-ritual of gratitude can become a part of your daily practice. Asking for blessings, both for yourself and your loved ones, for those whose voices are not heard, for those who are suffering; prayers of peace can all be a part of daily practice.
Paganism and Druidry have no liturgy in the broad sense, but we can create our own set of rituals and daily practices to help us remember that the spiritual and the mundane are one. Everything is both very normal and sacred at the same time. When we take time to pause and reflect on this concept and others within our tradition, we are raising our awareness of life and the world around us. We begin to act from a place of intention instead of a place of reaction. With daily contemplation and meditation, we also become more grounded and less easily caught up in our shadow selves: the unconscious and emotional responses to situations that usually have no bearing on the present situation. We can become aware of our soul wounds and celebrate our achievements. We can become more aware of how we live in the world and work toward the benefit of the whole, in a holistic worldview. Why else be Pagan, much less Druid, if we are not there to support the whole? We are there for the earth, for the gods, for the ancestors. We must be present and centred within ourselves in order to be of greatest benefit to the All. Druidry is all about service.
Therefore do consider a daily practice, if you haven’t got one already. Think about ways in which you can take a few minutes or a few hours each day to connect with the world around you, to step outside of your head and be with the world as it is, awake and aware. Think about connection and you may find that your practice deepens with time and your inner strength grows with each and every day.
Day-to-Day Routine
Working alone in our own tradition has a great many advantages: we can study, work, meditate, pray, and perform ritual whenever we feel like it, whenever it strikes our fancy. In a group tradition, in order to get everyone together at the same time and on the same page, there may be a set time and place for ritual, as well as perhaps a study, prayer, and meditative structure for everyone to follow. In our practices as Hedge Druids, it is up to us to decide what suits our purpose and how best we can work in whichever capacity.
I prefer to have structure in my life. The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate how we can incorporate our Druid practice into our daily lives and, if we prefer to have a structure, how to create that effectively. My own daily practice follows a repeating pattern each and every day. Some of the prayers I say every day, repeating the same words. This does not mean that they lose their significance over time, but they allow me to find new meaning to the words spoken each and every day and also give me a sense of continuity in my own tradition. What can be extremely beneficial is to create your own book filled with prayers, meditations, and contemplations for each and every day. You can organise this by the season and have four different themes for each, honouring the times and tides of life. Your daily prayers will revolve around these themes, and so perhaps for winter your prayers can include protection and inspiration during the long, dark months and/or prayers for others who are struggling during the season. You can come up with your own liturgy, should you so wish, though some would say that having liturgy in Druidry is anathema. I would disagree, finding it extremely beneficial to maintaining a daily practice; the point is that I create my own liturgy and do not impose it upon others. It is a structure for me and me alone. Here are some ideas on how to do something similar:
1. Start the day with an opening prayer as soon as you wake up. Every morning, I take a moment to be fully aware of myself in my body as the very first thing that I do. I then go outdoors or by an open window to take stock of the day and commune with nature. Watch the sun rise every morning, if you can, or just look out the window and notice what is different and what is the same as the day before.
2. Have an altar or shrine space where you can begin your day or to make offerings should you so wish. Write up some prayers that can be recited and are appropriate to the seasons. You can also bless your altar space and yourself each and every morning with water or incense. You might say something like “Lady Brighid, be with me this winter’s day. Cloak me in your green mantle and let me be protected from harm. May the cauldron of inspiration warm my spirit, may my soul be kindled by your flame. May your light shine upon and bless others this day and may they have the warmth and nourishment that they need.” Dip your finger into a bowl of water and say, “Drops of awen be upon my lips, upon my work. May the Lady Brighid guide me this day and every day.”
3. Recite a prayer before each meal. You could say “I give my thanks for this food I am about to eat. May it lend health, strength, and nourishment to me. I give my thanks to the spirits of land, sea, and sky for their bounty.”
4. Leaving the home, you could say a prayer for protection. “Power of sun and moon be with me, strength of fire and storm protect me, swiftness of wind guide me, flowing of sea nourish me, solidity of earth hold me, this day and every day.”
5. Go about your daily activities with a Druid’s perspective. Remember that you are part of the whole, in everything that you do. Recite the prayer before meals just before you have lunch; you can do this silently in your mind if necessary.
6. Upon returning home, say a prayer upon entering, such as “Thanks be to the powers of sun and moon, of fire and storm, of land, sea, and sky for being with me this day as I return to the sanctity and sanctuary of home.” You could keep a small bowl of water by the door to dip your finger in and touch your forehead as you enter, blessing you upon entrance. This is also a great way to leave the worries of the world at the door and enter into your own personal space in a good frame of mind.
7. Meditate as often as you can. Find out whether you are suited for morning, midday, or evening meditations and try to incorporate that into your schedule as much as possible. If that means foregoing television for half an hour, please do it. You can usually watch your programmes on replay or record your favourite shows.
8. Close your day with an evening prayer, perhaps while watching the sun set. As you began your day with prayer, you can you finish it in the same attitude. You might even like to incorporate singing into your evening prayer. Perhaps you could sing the “Song of Amergin,” to remind yourself of your connection to nature:
I am the wind on the sea;
I am the wave of the sea;
I am the bull of seven battles;
I am the eagle on the rock;
I am a flash from the sun;
I am the most beautiful of plants;
I am a strong wild boar;
I am a salmon in the water;
I am a lake in the plain;
I am the word of knowledge;
I am the head of the spear in battle;
I am the god that puts fire in the head;
Who spreads light in the gathering on the hills?
Who can tell the ages of the moon?
Who can tell the place where the sun rests? 38
9. Just before you go to sleep, as you lie down in bed, you can also say a prayer, perhaps something like “Lady Brighid, I rest my soul in your blessing this night. Guard me and mine, this night and every night, by your beauty and grace, so may it be.”
Grounding and Centring
Grounding and centring can be an essential part of daily practice. It can help us get through difficult times such as grief and help us to find a balance point where we are able to fully feel our emotions yet act in the most appropriate manner relevant to the situation. We are acting from a place where we are sovereign in ourselves, where what we say and do is from a place of intention rather than reaction.
So how do we ground and centre? There are many different ways of performing these actions, but here I will offer my own personal way of doing it. You can do it before or after your daily meditation and it complements that practice immeasurably. Daily meditation helps us to maintain the practice of grounding and centring throughout the day and not just when we are performing the work itself.
I begin by taking three to nine deep breaths, fully feeling the air entering my lungs and expanding my body and then releasing the breath, ever so slightly pulling in the lower abdomen to expel all the air. After I have taken these breaths, I allow my breathing to return to its natural state, which can change depending on how I am feeling, my physical and mental health. Here, I am not trying to control my breath, but just to be aware of it. Is it high in my chest with short breaths? Is it deep and relaxed? Is it somewhere in between? I spend a few moments with just my natural breath and then I begin grounding.
Grounding is taking excess energy and releasing it from the body and mind. There are many ways of releasing this energy, and when we do release it, we’re not necessarily releasing “bad energy”—just excess energy that is not helping us in any shape or form, whether good or bad. The idea is to return to a balance point, and so releasing excess energy helps us to achieve that state. Keeping in excess energy—perhaps energy that we’ve picked up from others during the day or from situations—can leave us completely stressed out, and so releasing this ensures that we keep an even keel. I visualise the energy being released with my natural breath, out of my body and mind. If I wish, I can return that energy to the earth, to the air, to the water, whatever element I wish to release into. I avoid releasing energy into a fire or flame for this exercise, because I use fire for more transformative magic and spellcraft. So, for me it’s usually into the earth or air.
Once the energy has been released, I sink my roots deep into the earth in order to ground myself. This was an exercise taught to me by my teacher, Bobcat (Emma Restall Orr). I envision a tap root extending from the base of my spine, going down into the earth with every out breath. I spread my roots into the soil and then take a few moments to breathe, in and out, through my roots in the soil, allowing the cool, slow, natural energy of earth to fill and ground my being. When I am done, I breathe my roots back into my body on the inhale and then finish the grounding practice.
This is then followed by centring. Centring is where we return to our true self, our point of balance. It’s the reset button of our soul. To do this, I envision the World Tree within my body, running through my centre. I feel my roots deep in the Lowerworld, feel my body firmly in the Middleworld, and my aspirations and goals reaching toward the Upperworld. A beam of white light connects all aspects of the World Tree within me and I breathe this light up and down my body, allowing it to fill every aspect of my being. When I feel fully returned to centre, I allow the image of the World Tree to blend with my soul, to be carried within me, inspiring and centring me wherever I am and in whatever I’m doing.
Another way that I centre is using prayer beads. I have a beautiful mala created by a friend that I use to recite a prayer over and over again, allowing the vibration of my voice in the chant to wash through me, body and soul. After I have gone through all the beads (108 of them) in the stillness and silence, I can feel my body and mind clean and clear, having reset myself and now being completely centred.
And this is pretty much all there is to my own practice of grounding and centring. It helps me maintain a balanced perspective during the good times and the bad times and also allows me to take some time for self-care and compassion. Try it in your daily practice, if you wish.
Having a daily practice such as this can deepen your awareness of the sacred, of the blessings and gifts in your life, and attune you to the natural world. I think it is a very important part of being on a Pagan path and especially on a Druid path, to remember the connectedness that we have with all beings, all the time—that we are part of a whole and that we cannot be separate from that in any capacity. This can also provide us with comfort and sustain us during hardships. Having a daily practice can become a haven of peace and quiet in a tumultuous life or during a difficult period such as mourning and grief. It can provide a structure for our lives where before it may have lost meaning or integrity. That being said, some prefer a much looser structure than the one outlined above, and whatever works for the individual, as long as it is done with honour and integrity in a holistic sense, will be beneficial.
It has been a dreadful month. The Hedge Druid has known deep sorrow, trials, and tribulations throughout the long winter. But still she goes to her altar every day and lights her candle to Brighid, saying her devotional prayers. In this, she finds solace. In the words spoken daily, she finds her strength. The little altar is like her true north—it guides her through the darkest nights, the light of her goddess burning brightly in her soul.
38. Lady Gregory, Gods and Fighting Men, Sacred Texts, accessed February 15, 2018, http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/gafm/gafm09.htm.