Nevertheless, happy second birthday to the Weekly Owl, born on October 23, 2007. The Weekly Owl is a Libra (29°). Mercury is in Scorpio and Venus in Virgo. The Moon and Uranus are within five degrees of each other in Pisces.

Very interesting….

In other words, training is given through guided study and a tutor’s help, and if a member of the order is able to join a grove to meet other members of the order and work with them, that is an individual choice. It has to be, because there aren’t very many groves. Potentially, OBOD could have the same sort of problem as Wicca — youngsters taking on the leadership role in a grove. But there is a slight governor that makes this less likely. To lead a fully-fledged grove, one has to have attained the druid grade in the order. Seed-groups can be formed by anyone and no organizational structure is stipulated. Few, I think, become hierarchical but remain a circle of friends.

In my own grove, it is interesting to note, none of us knew each other before meeting in the grove. That makes a big difference. For the most part, I believe, the members of my grove are willing to learn from me and I make no pretense of being a know-it-all or weilding any “power” over them. My role, as chief druid, is not to act like a priest, much less a bishop or high priest. My roles is simply to lead the grove in whatever business it decides to do, whatever kind of work it does, and to offer whatever help I can to the members who are working in the bardic, ovate, or druid grade. I am simply one who has walked the path before them and I make myself available as a mentor.

A Masonic lodge has, of course, much more formality in its rituals and offices. There is often good fellowship, but good mentoring is rare. This is because the officers are so focused on memorizing and working the initiation rituals and there is no one (past masters, for example) who are asked to mentor the new Masons. The sitting Master of a lodge of Masons is the last person to have time to mentor the new brothers raised during his year in the Oriental chair.

A chief druid of a grove is chosen by the grove and serves for as long as it may be mutually agreeable. There is very little scope for abusing authority because the grove members are free to leave. A Mason, if he wants to leave his lodge, effectively is not practicing Masonic work. It is not work that is designed to be carried on as a solitary. I think it should be designed that way, and am writing a book that attempts to lay out a kind of “solitary” Masonic work. Being a solitary runs against the grain of the Craft, because it is so much about fellowship and shared experiences. However, if a Mason truly wishes to take the work to the next level, it becomes his individual quest.

I don’t really know what covens of witches gather to do, apart from celebrating the seasonal festivals. Druid groves mainly focus on these celebrations which internalize the cycles of life and death. Other soul work or magical work or healing — these may be quite individual callings. Working group rituals for healing or peace are fairly common, but druidry today is not about the practice of magic in the spellcasting sense. The mastery of magic begins, not with ritual tools and spells, but with cultivation of that sensitivity to nature and the land which is the foundation of all other work.

All of this works at a very loose level of organization. Most druids or witches are in some way rebelling against “organized religions” so there is little incentive to get more organized. I am reminded of Jesus’s complaints against the organized religions of his own time, and how his followers over the next several centuries worked in loose local structures — churches that were very much like our current druid groves. If druidry continues to grow and more groves are created, then connections will start emerging among them. That is probably already started because of the easy communications afforded by the internet.

As groves grow larger and members more active, the grove will become a part of their lives just as church became a part of the lives of the early Christians. The grove will provide spiritual nourishment.

My experience in my grove has been that members come and go. I am almost always sorry to see them go because I can’t help feeling that the grove was not providing them with the nourishment they needed. But I wonder if early Christian congregations were not the same way. People would join to check it out and then drift away. A big difference in OBOD is that the order requires members to study lessons. This means that if a grove member does not stick to the lessons, he or she will not “get it” and can easily fall away if he or she ceases to work at it. One is not simply baptised and converted to OBOD druidry; one must work at it for years and then arrive at a place where one can carry on continuous learning and growing for the rest of one’s life.

That ought to be true in Masonry, and I suspect is the ideal goal in covens too.

Even with honest intentions, with small groups nature prefers a hierarchy, which will cause conflict later. You also have small group dynamics and group growth stages to take into account. The older generations with more life experience seem to be more sensitive to those dynamics of power early on and I have heard some good success stories from those.

As for the scourge. It’s not supposed to be used harshly, is symbolic, and other traditions/covens that borrow from Gardner seem to observe that if they use one at all.

Also, skyclad(being naked… wearing the sky), is commonly done in private for most witches (witch not necessarily equaling Wicca) I’ve talked with. There are many who support it in certain contexts. In some tight knit, and well established, covens it’s sometimes seen akin to a rite of passage.

In my opine I feel a more lodge like voting structure should be adopted across the board in most traditions to curb any possible abuse of power. One could allow most of the original structures and customs to be preserved while having protections from tyrany in the voting process. 7(5 in a bind) coveners would be around the base amount for a balanced setup assuming they had a good template to start with for a basic constitution. They could learn as they voted on small details, then that could carry over to voting on rituals and such for the coven.

Nice post. I really enjoy your writing.

Brennan

(came here via the OBOD forum by the way-lovely and interesting thoughts so will be back often)

Prospero:
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d tow’rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

On “just do it” as a solution, see my blog post on V.D. earlier…

Why worry about it? If you feel compelled to write, then write! I think it can be as simple as that.

And you are a darn good writer, so as Nike says, “just do it”! Time’s not going to slow down and wait for you.

And I’ll be one of the first to purchase your debut novel. Keep us informed of your progress.