Individual Practice Pt. 3

 In our last post regarding personal practice, we examined creating a personal weekly practice via weekly rituals.  In this post, we would like to delve a little deeper and create a monthly personal practice.

This idea builds upon the last two posts we have made.  We are building upon the foundations of the previous posts because that allows what we have become used to to give us a platform for new growth.  In this practice you will be making formal offerings to the Sacred Three; the ancestors, the Sidhe (and land spirits), and the gods, only now, it will be all of them in one ceremony.  As before, we suggest coming up with a way to easily remember your once a month ritual.  Typically we look to following the moon cycle as a way to make sure that at least once a month we do this larger form of offering.  We tend to do ours on the full moon, but anything you can reasonably remember is perfect.

As for the format, we suggest building on what you are doing weekly.  It will make things a bit more formal because you will be not only opening the ritual itself, but give a formal greetings to each of the Sacred Three individually.  Typically, we do it thusly:
 

• Opening the rite: Since we do our rite at the full moon we have incorporated as a opening, the moon prayers from the Carmina Gadelica into this portion of the ritual.  We use three candles, one for each of the Sacred Three, lighting the candles is symbolic of lighting a sacred fire, it is a sign of welcoming the beings and a way to make offerings to them.
• Offering Section: In this section of the ritual, we make offerings to each of the Sacred Three in turn.  In our rite, we begin by making an offering to the ancestors, then moving to the Sidhe, and then finally the gods.  We usually make similar offerings to what we do weekly, but depending on personal gnosis this could change for this particular rite.
• Divination Section: We use this section as a way of hearing what the Sacred Three have to tell us.  Whether you utilize tarot, runes, or Ogham, we feel that having a conversation with those we honor is important.
• Blessing/Libation: in this section we dedicate as glass/horn/chalice of a beverage to let the Sacred Three bless us.  Sacred Reciprocity is the cornerstone of our practice and gift calls for gift.  We invite these beings to come into the vessel and bless the beverage we have within it.  Then, in communion with these beings we drink that blessing.
•  Ending: The closing of ritual should be a reverse of the opening, with a prayer of thanksgiving to the powers that you have offered to.  Extinguish you candles but let the incense fully burn, just remember to practice fire safety.

As in your weekly practice, this format can be tweaked to your own way of doing things.  It is important to make this sort of ritualized offering your own.  This is a personal interaction between you and the Sacred Three.  This ensures that your  monthly practice means something deeply to you.   

So there we go, using this and the previous posts, you have the tools needed to begin your own personal practice.  As has been stated several times in these posts, feel free to tweak any of these ideas to make them your own.  It is important to personalize these rites to give them power within your like.  

In some of the next posts, we will discuss how to involve your family members in these practices, as well as going to publicly Druid-led rites.

 

 ***Burning candles and incense can pose fire and health hazards. To stay safe, keep candles and burning incense away from flammable materials, never leave them unattended, and ensure they are placed on stable, heat-resistant surfaces.***

 

Individual Practice Pt. 2

 In our last post regarding personal practice, we examined creating a personal daily practice via daily prayers.  In this post, we would like to delve a little deeper and create a weekly personal practice.

To begin with, we would suggest seeing this as an extension of you daily work, just with a little added complexity.  In this practice you will be making formal offerings to the Sacred Three; the ancestors, the Sidhe (and land spirits), and the gods.  Each of them in turn with their own offering on a specific day of the week.  We suggest to give yourself a easy to remember schedule for these offering times.  We have utilized a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule to great effect, but any set schedule that you can keep to is what is important.  

As stated earlier, each of the days you chose will be dedicated to a specific group, ancestors one day, Sidhe (fae folk) another, and the gods another.  These days of offering will be times that you make a formal offering to those you venerate.  It is also a time to commune with those beings and reflect on the changes they have brought to your practice.  It can be highly personal time for you.

Next we suggest a format that you can remember easily.  It doesn't need to start out as elaborate and complicated.  In fact it can be quite simple.  The set up we have used to great effect is to have an offering bowl to receive libations an incense burner, and a candle as the tools and a memorized beginning, middle and ending for the ritual itself.  Below is a set of suggestions, feel free to change them to suit your own practice:

• Beginning:  The Opening of this can be as simple as saying a prayer while lighting your candle.  We usually open our ceremony with a prayer to the beings that we are venerating that day.  Lighting the candle is symbolic of lighting a sacred fire, it is a sign of welcoming the beings and a way to make offerings to them.
• Middle: This is the meat of the ritual.  This is where you make offerings to the powers that you are venerating in the ritual.  We usually make a libation offering to beings we worship, ale for our ancestors, dairy for the Sidhe, and whisky for the gods.  These are just suggestions, let your intuition lead you on what to offer in libation.  Over time, the beings you offer to will let you know their desires of libations. We also make an offering of incense to these beings as well.   As before, the choice of incense is up to your intuition and in time the beings offered to will let you know what the like.

• Ending: The closing of ritual should be a reverse of the opening, with a prayer of thanksgiving to the powers that you have offered to.  Extinguish you candle but let the incense fully burn, just remember to practice fire safety.

This format can be tweaked to your own way of doing things.  It is important to make this sort of ritualized offering your own.  This is a personal interaction between you and the powers.  This ensures that your weekly practice means something deeply to you.   

Lastly, there will be days you have that you just can't do your practice.  Something may come up, or you may be ill,  or you just can't summon the energy to do it.  We implore you, DO NOT WORRY when this happens.  It doesn't make you a terrible pagan.  It doesn't mean that you have to begin all over again.  You are human, you are fallible.  It is okay, the Sacred Three WILL UNDERSTAND.  Just do your best and center your practice around your life the best way that you can.  Remember, this is about right relationship and not about being the best.  Even the gods have off days.  Take it a step at a time and you will be doing great.

***Burning candles and incense can pose fire and health hazards. To stay safe, keep candles and burning incense away from flammable materials, never leave them unattended, and ensure they are placed on stable, heat-resistant surfaces.***

  

Vocational Druidry

 Recently a friend made a post on social media asking about what sort of title you would classify yourself in when it comes to being a magical practitioner.  A part of my response was that I view myself as a "vocational Druid" instead of a spiritual one.  While many of the people reading my post may have understood what I meant, I thought I would write this blog post to help educate those who may not know what I mean by it.

Let me begin by stating that ALL forms of Druidry are valid to those practicing them.  In fact, Sylvan Celtic Fellowship was originally envisioned to be a place where Druids from all walks could come together to learn from one another.  But it is particularly important to us that we state that, even though we as a group look at being a Druid a certain way, that does not mean we feel that other forms of Druidry are somehow wrong.

When looking at the history of the Druids from Celtic times to the modern day we can see marked differences in what it means to be a Druid in different eras.  Druid author, Isaac Bonewits broke it down into classifications of  "Paleo", "Meso", and "Neo" Druidisms...   The Paleo-druids being the original Druids that served the Celtic peoples as the scholarly elite of the tribes.  This class withing the social structure contained the knowledge and genealogies of the peoples who spoke the Celtic languages.  

The Meso-druids were those of the Celtic Romantic Revival period.  They patterned Druidry after romantic notions of the time, such as sun-worship.  Much of the Druidry that comes from this period was also crafted in the image of the Barddas by Iolo Morganwg, a known forger.  Much of this style of Druidry still exists in the modern world and is based in the idea of the Druids being a magical sect, similar to witches (and wizards) in popular imagination of modern society.  They hold to the Eight-spoked wheel of the year and are usually an initiatory tradition.

Then there are the Neo-druids, whose origins date back to the 1960s founding of the RDNA at Carlton college.  These organizations are more scholarship based, and hold to having religious ceremonies for their Druid congregants for the wheel of the year.  They may or may not be initiatory based.  Many of these organizations are based here in the United States.

 

Sylvan Celtic Fellowship tends to view Druids as a vocation instead of a spiritual or magical order.  We definitely feel that training and initiation are important to becoming a Druid, but to us, it  is not a spirituality or magical tradition on its own.  Like the Paleo-druids of old, we work for the people.  We carry the keys to our traditions, spiritual, magical, and societal.  We teach, we hold coming of age ceremonies, we actualize the wheel of the year, and we serve our people in the capacities of counselors.  So to us, we view being a Druid, as our jobs to the people we serve and our community.  We serve the people, the land, and the gods.

Domhnall Irvine 
Chancellor SCF

Individual Practice pt. 1

 We have examined the idea of modern tribalism before in this blog.  But groups are made up of individuals and it is the individuals that we would like to address in this blog.

Often times, we see in books and in real world organizations, the push for group practice.  Whether this comes from the Witchcraft coven idea or other sources, it isn't what we know of how people always function when it comes to spirituality.  Many times true spiritual interaction is private to the person.  The most moving moments in a person's spiritual life often happen when they are alone.  This is not to say that group practice is in any way wrong, but more on that later.

So, how does the person new to Celtic polytheism start to cultivate their own individual personal practice?  Well we look to the past and the here and now.  We look to surviving practices among the living Celtic cultures and we seek to adapt them in a non-colonizing way.  Personally, I would begin by choosing one of the living cultures that resonates with you and look to their ways.  Get to know the culture in a personal way, learn the language, meet the people and make connections to them.  Show respect for their living culture and ways.  For me, it was looking to my Gaelic roots and immersing myself in Scottish and Irish history and folklore.

To begin to build one's practice it is easy to find material in the Carmina Gadelica.  The book contains prayers for almost any and every occasion in daily life.  The material in the book is mostly Christianized but the prayers come from much older and more pagan traditions.  Also modern pagan authors have attempted to paganize the prayers from the book.  Morgan Daimler's "By Land, Sea, and Sky" is a great resource for this.  I began building my personal practice around a series of daily prayers from the Carmina Gadelica.  I chose to do prayers at specific times of day and at meals.  I begin my day with a prayer upon waking, and a hearth enlivening prayer, then at midday, I do a prayer to the Sun, in the evening, I make a prayer to the Moon, and before bed, I do a smooring prayer for my hearth, and a shielding prayer before sleep.  I have been doing these long enough now that I have them memorized for the most part.  These daily actions help me feel connected to my deities, ancestors, and the spirit beings around me.

So, for me, I think beginning small and making these little prayers daily is your best place to start.  Once you get going, it is really easy to maintain.  You don't need any tools or special space or even to make offerings when you do this.  Just go about your day and take a few seconds to say these prayers, whether aloud or to yourself.  You can even do them while at work at your job.  I started with writing them down on my phone and reading them, aloud when I could, but silently when I had to.  Over time, the prayers become memorized and you can say them without having to read along.  Once memorized, you can really make a deep connection emotionally to the beings you honor.  

This is part one of a four part series on Individual Practice for a Celtic Polytheist.  Many of the concepts here are from a Gaelic point of view, but please understand that if you follow a Welsh, Breton, or Gaulish path, the idea is still sound.  We reccommend translating the prayer of the Carmina Gadelica into these other languages OR construct your OWN prayers in those languages.  We will touch on other aspects of individual practice in other installments.

Resources:

- "Celtic Flame" by Aedh Rua, iUniverse Books 2008.  This book includes practical information on building a personal practice for the individual.  The author uses prayers from the Carmina Gadelica in this work to great effect.

- "By Land, Sea, and Sky" by Morgan Daimler 2011.  A fantastic resource for any Celtic pagan/polytheist out there.  Morgan is well versed in Irish folklore and has done their research on the Carmina Gadelica.  HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

- "An Introduction to Gaelic Polytheism" by Marissa Hegarty 2022.  A very in-depth and well annotated book on the subject.  The author is well versed in their field and it shows.  Marissa uses her knowledge to help the beginner craft their own walk within Gaelic polytheism, including building a daily practice with prayers from the Carmina Gadelica.

-  Gaol Naofa  This website is a great resource for Gaelic polytheism and it has sections for daily prayers taken from the Carmina Gadelica.

We're back!

 It has been a LONG while since we last made a post here.  Life has carried the members of SCF to different places and has caused our physical presence to be diminished.  However, we intend to keep an online presence alive for as long as possible.  That includes trying to revive this blog.  While we may not always have time to make a post in a regular manner, we WILL do out best to not go YEARS this time.

Mabon, Tribalism, and Fitting it all Together…

When trying to craft a modern Celtic ritual calendar based on what we know of the ancient Celts and their celebrations, we realize that the modern pagan calendar of 8 “sabbats” feels like a bit of unnecessary add on.   We have just passed the modern pagan celebration of “Mabon” here in North Carolina and it has gotten us thinking about things related to Celtic calendars and how things fit together for us here at the Fellowship.

Mabon is a modern construct for paganism.  The Celts didn’t celebrate anything called “Mabon”.   And while neo-lithic cultures predating the Celts did seem to honor the solstices and equinoxes, the evidence we have of various Celtic cultures points to them not celebrating those times of the year.  Not that having a fall ritual/festival at this time of year is a bad thing or invalid…

The Need for Gatherings

When modern Paganism was creating itself it drew on the available scholarship of the day.   It looked at the celebrations of not only the Celts but Germanic peoples.   With the “Quarter” and “Cross-quarter” days a cohesive cyclical year of celebrations came into being.  This was before the days of Celtic Reconstructionism and people specializing in particular areas of paganism.  The balanced and cyclical year became a staple of most modern pagan traditions and most organizations tend to use some form of it even down to today.   And it makes sense.  Communities need regular gatherings; we enjoy spending time with people of like mind.  Having regularly spaced times of ritual or spiritual gathering during the year helps us stay connected and helps us build our own modern mythos.   So how do we remain true to a Celtic path and still maintain close contact outside of the four Celtic high days?

Modern Tribes

One way we do things in Sylvan Celtic Fellowship is we have created a tribal system for people.  It is a way for people to come together in fellowship and spiritual celebration.  We don’t use the “grove model” adopted by many modern Druid organizations.  More can be gleaned by reading our previous blog post here.   The point though is that our modern hearths, clanns, and tribes are able to come together for their spiritual needs outside of our Druid led Celtic holy days.   Although the Solstices and equinoxes are not inherently Celtic celebrations there is no need to stop using these aspects of the neo-pagan “Wheel of the Year”.  In our tribal system we have begun using these days to grow our own tribal traditions.  

Customs and Traditions

Each Hearth, Clann, or Tribe in Sylvan Celtic Fellowship should set up their own ways to celebrate the solstices and equinoxes.   By doing this each group becomes its own unique entity.  The Hearths, Clanns, and Tribes will forge their own customs and traditions for these days.  And it doesn’t necessarily have to be religious ritual that groups do.    For example, our sister organization for the Mabon season holds a Thanksgiving style feast.  Your group could hold a feast, go for a weekend camping getaway, hold a toasting circle; the options are entirely in your hands.   As time goes by the traditions that each tribal unit comes up with will give them their own identity.    Along with the Druid led Celtic holy days, the solstices and equinoxes will come to fill out a yearlong cyclical calendar that will be unique to each tribal unit.   Our hope is that as more tribal units come into being, each with its own identity, that the tribes will have the diversity that our ancient counterparts had.

A quick update!

It has been several months since we have had a chance to blog here at Sylvan Celtic Fellowship.   Life sometimes manages to get in the way of things but we still aim to post things relevant to Celtic Spirituality and the Fellowship.    One of the updates we look to start is to start posting weekly for our folk and the Celtic tribal based worship system we call “The Sylvan Path”.   We aim for the updates to be able to be usable by solitary members, full family hearth units, clann groups, and full on tribal units.  We also hope that “The Sylvan Way” units can be of use to those folks who may not have reached out to an organization or who do not wish to.   We may take the collected series once finished and publish it into a hard format for people to purchase, but all the stuff we do will be free if you want to read it here.
We are going to write a few entries to get us started and then begin publishing them once a week, once we have about 6 weeks’ worth.  That way we can hopefully keep things rolling for you, our readers.  So stay tuned!

Of course “The Sylvan Way” won’t be our only posts here.  We plan on being more active.  Our goal will be at least one regular blog post for the SCF blog at least once a month in addition to the weekly updates.     We seek to be a place of options for the Celtic pagan community and our own Sylvan community.    So keep watching this space.   Hopefully in a couple of weeks we will have some more good stuff coming this way!