April | 2025 | Contemplative Inquiry

April 28, 2025

HERTHA AS EARTH MOTHER AND COSMIC GODDESS

Hertha (Nerthus, Erth) was a Germanic Goddess of the Earth, associated with fertility, domestic animals and nature. She was believed to live in an island grove, whilst also touring the land in a cow drawn chariot to bring peace and joy to those who celebrated her. Our ancient information is derived from the Roman author Tacitus, in his Germania (1). Current accounts also link her to themes of rebirth, kinship, health, longevity and tradition. It is said that she can descend through the smoke of any fire to bring gifts. See: https://journeyingtothegoddess.wordpress.com/2012/12/25/goddess-hertha/

Algernon Charles Swinburne’s Victorian poetry is mentioned in two of Ronald Hutton’s Divinity lectures at Gresham College (2,3). In particular he describes the poem Hertha (3) as an important example of Pagan currents in Victorian British culture. Although widely seen then and (for some people) since as transgressive, Swinburne’s voice is confident and strong – as I hope these extracts show:

“I am that which began:

Out of me the years roll;

Out of me God and man;

I am equal and whole;

God changes, and man, and the form of them bodily;

I am the soul.

“Before ever land was,

Before ever the sea,

Or soft hair of the grass,

Or fair limbs of the tree,

Or the flesh-coloured fruit of my branches, I was, and thy soul was in me.

“First life on my sources

First drifted and swam;

Out of me are the forces

That save it or damn;

Out of me man and woman, and wild beast and bird; before God was, I am.”

As I read these verses, Swinburne’s Hertha is cosmic as well as local, universal as well as tribal. Swinburne clearly values Hertha’s specific name and lineage and he identifies Hertha with the World Tree in some verses. But he does not simply revive the old North European traditions. His Paganism models a new culture for a new time.

Although another 150 years have passed since Swinburne wrote this poem, I find it directly relatable. For me, it contains one of the most powerful affirmations of Panentheist Paganism I have heard: “I am the mouth that is kissed and the breath in the kiss, the search, and the sought, and the seeker, the soul and the body that is”. What better time than Beltane to celebrate Hertha and the 19th century seeding of Modern Paganism.

(1) Tacitus Agricola and Germania London: Penguin, 2009 (rev ed)

(2) The Modern Goddess and Where did Modern Paganism start? https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/

(3) Algernon Charles Swinburne Complete Poetical Works Delphi Classics, 2013 (Kindle edition)

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April 27, 2025

TOWARDS BELTANE 2025: BLUE SKY HEALING

Thursday 24 April was a landmark afternoon for my wife Elaine and me. We were able to walk, sit and have coffee in Gloucester Docks. Such ordinary and taken for granted pleasures – until April last year, when Elaine broke her hip. Later, as her bones slowly recovered, her underlying heart problems were triggered at the turn of the year, setting back her overall recovery.

We are in a different place now. Elaine’s physical recovery, and her recovery of agency, are creating a new reality. The picture above is generally tranquil, yet includes the energy of a seagull in flight. The sun is getting warmer. We can relax a little, and celebrate, enjoying the promise of a new season, in the run-up to Beltane 2025.

Now, contemplating the image of a still boat against the background of Alney Island in its spring abundance, I feel grateful for the moment and grateful for our lives.

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April 24, 2025

BOOK REVIEW: THE 15-MINUTE CITY

The 15-Minute City: A Solution for Saving Our Time and Our Planet (1) advocates that everyday destinations like schools, stores, and offices should only be a short walk or bike ride away from home. The intention is to make cars far less necessary for contemporary city-dwellers, and thereby “to reinvent our life-styles and rethink our relationship with space and time”. Its key values are proximity, interconnectedness and fulfilment.

This book is about how cities are run, who they are predominantly run for, and how they could be run more inclusively. It provides an inspiring store of information for people concerned with these issues, not least urban Druids. It has 21 chapters:

Chapter 1 is a call to action, emphasising “the urgency of reimagining urban ecosystems in the light of contemporary challenges”.

Chapters 2 to 4 discuss the ‘fragmentation’ of cities over time, especially due to city roads and zoning.

Chapter 5 is about learning lessons for “a more inclusive urban future”.

Chapters 6 & 7 look at changes beginning with the 1973 oil crisis and moving on to the “challenges and realisations of 2020”.

Chapters 8 to 11 focus on Paris, where the ’15-Minute City’ was invented.

Chapters 12 to 19 cover particular locations and their complex histories: Milan, Italy: Portland, Oregon, USA; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Sousse, Tunisia; Melbourne, Australia; Busan, South Korea.

Chapter 20 looks at the notion of the 20-Minute Territory as applied in Scotland and on the Ile de France.

Chapters 21 discusses the role of new technologies and summarises the book.

By 2050, 68% of the human population will be urban. Changes are needed in the ways that urban ecosystems work for people’s health and wellbeing, now more than ever because of the climate crisis. Author Carlos Moreno writes, “urban life is the heart of the problem, but it is also the solution if we enable it to be. Never in the history of humanity has survival been so compromised by lifestyle”.

Moreno also believes: “our journey through these cities is also an exploration of ourselves. By offering an urban setting that is conducive to conviviality and proximity, we can rediscover the value of mutual cooperation and sharing. We are nourished by authentic interaction and the solidarity of a reinvented urban life “

It may be that it is now too late to save the kind of civilisation in which we are living. From a seemingly uninvolved and above-the-battle standpoint we may even see advantages in its fall. But I have come to think that it is better to work from the opposite point of view – that there is something worth working for, despite the apparent odds. The work itself can be a spiritual discipline, taken on for its own sake. Carlos Moreno offers us one neighbourly way of addressing our apparent spiral into a dystopian world.

(1) Carlos Moreno The 15-Minute City: A Solution to Saving Our Time and Our Planet Wiley, 2024. Foreword by Jan Gehl. Afterword by Martha Thorne.

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April 17, 2025

A NEW LENS

Yesterday I bought a new phone. I find this process stressful and have been putting it off for a long time. But now I have the phone, I can celebrate a new camera. These pictures were taken between 5.30 and 7 pm yesterday evening, when the sun didn’t set until after 8.

My celebration of the camera, here, was also a celebration of clear light and a more abundant greening. The spaces are familiar, but their specific manifestation and my specific experience were, as always, new. My feelings were those of simple gratitude, pleasure and appreciation.

Above, I enjoyed the varied colours and forms of leaves, and the effects of sunlight on them. Below, I noticed the abundance of leaves and catkins on a birch tree.

Towards the water margin, I saw tangled green fecundity on the ground, and the freshness of full rich spring, at the same time utterly magical and yet so familiar, so taken-for-granted that it is easily passed without noticing.

Still closer to the water, and looking out over it, is another familiar scene, this time with contrasts of light and shade and emphasising the energy of rippling water.

Finally, big sky and the power of blue. I was especially drawn to the apparent division of the water. It looks like a tidal effect in the canal, but I am not sure of the cause. Within my contemplation, I am happy with the mystery.

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April 11, 2025

MODERN DRUIDS (RONALD HUTTON) 2 MODERN DRUID MOVEMENTS

Modern Druids is the most recent public lecture (2 April 2025) presented by Professor Ronald Hutton in his tenure as Professor of Divinity at Gresham College, London. I provide a link below (1). This is the second of two posts about the lecture, focusing on Modern Druid movements in Britain from 1781. The first, concerning Hutton’s take on early modern perceptions of ancient Druidry, is published at https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2025/04/08/ . It distinguishes four understandings, named by Hutton as Nationalist, Green, Demonic and Confessional.

Turning to modern Druid movements, Hutton also distinguishes four different kinds, emerging from the later eighteenth century up to the present:

Masonic Druids The Ancient Order of Druids was launched in London in 1781, as a closed society with initiation rites, secret memberships, signs and passwords, loosely modelled on Masonry. Its purpose was to give working men opportunities for participation in the performing arts. By 1820 it had become a huge success, moving beyond London to the Midlands and North of England. Some members wanted more focus on the insurance side of friendly society life, and in 1833 the United Ancient Order of Druids was formed, splitting off from the AOD. The UAOD lasted until the late twentieth century. The original AOD still exists.
Theosophical Druids emerged in the period from 1910 as an esoteric spiritual group. It followed the ideals of the Theosophical Society and worked towards the recovery of ancient mystical wisdom from all religions and philosophies. Founded by George Watson MacGregor Reid, and originally called the Order of the Universal Bond, the new group mixed Egyptian, Greek, Zoroastrian, Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist ideas with Irish and Welsh literature and using Druid names, roles and status. In 1912 a group of members went to Stonehenge to celebrate the Winter Solstice. Increasingly identified as The Ancient Druid Order they continued their association with Stonehenge for over 70 years. Always unpopular with the archaeologists of that period, the ADO sometimes had the support of the government and site administrators and sometimes not. In 1985 the festival that had grown up on the site was banned under Margaret Thatcher.
New Age Druids is the name Hutton gives to the Order of Bards Ovates and Druids (OBOD). The first iteration of OBOD was a split-off from the ADO in 1964 led by Ross Nichols, who took the new group to Glastonbury for their public ceremonies. On his death in 1975, the Order went into hibernation until 1988, when Philip Carr-Gomm, who had been a youthful apprentice of Ross Nichols, re-awakened it. By 1988 the human potential movement, and a new Celtic revival strand in western alternative spiritualty, were both gathering in strength. True to its Theosophical roots, OBOD declared itself to be a spirituality rather than a religion and opened itself up to people of all religions and none. The bulk of the membership identified as either Pagan, Christian or Buddhist. OBOD declared an aim of “uniting humans with the natural world and their own true selves”, to “heal the disorientation implicit for many in an urbanised and atomised social existence” and “to give peace”. Hutton goes on to mention The British Druid Order (BDO) and The Druid Network (TDN) but doesn’t say much about them. Although they hived off from OBOD, dual or multiple membership is common.
Counter Cultural Druids When the Stonehenge Festival was banned in 1985, many people felt they had lost a clergy and a temple as well as a festival. Some wanted to fight for a religion they saw as under attack. (Hutton does not specifially mention the ‘Battle of the Beanfield’.) The single most prominent leader who arose was Arthur Pendragon, ex-soldier, ex-biker gang leader, and mystic. He was prominently associated with the Glastonbury Order of Druids (GOD), the Secular Order of Druids (SOD) and the Loyal Arthurian Warband (LAW). These groups campaigned for civil liberties and preservation of the countryside. They held demonstrations against laws that limited the former, and organised protest camps on the routes of controversial road and building schemes. Arthur was frequently prosecuted and invariably acquitted by juries. Hutton identifies Arthur as part of a long tradition of working class protest, in which the use of costume and theatre is used to make disempowered people visible. Arthur himself had a more mystical view of his mission. Once, while looking for a sign, he noticed an attractive ceremonial sword in a local shop. Asked where it had come from, he was told that it had been Excalibur in the movie of that name.

Modern Druidry in Britain continues to mutate and develop, but Hutton ends his analysis at this point. I recommend readers to visit the link below and draw their own conclusions.

(1) https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/modern-druids/

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April 8, 2025

MODERN DRUIDS (RONALD HUTTON) 1 ANCIENT INSPIRATION?

Modern Druids is Ronald Hutton’s most recent public lecture (2 April 2025) in his role of Professor of Divinity at Gresham College, London. I provide a link below (1). This is the first of two posts about the lecture, summarising Hutton’s take on early modern perceptions of ancient Druidry. The lecture goes on to describe the Modern Druid movements that have come out of an already existing inspiration. That will be the focus of my next post.

Most of what we have believed ourselves to know about the ancient Druids is derived from comments by a limited number of Roman authors. The most prominent of these are Julius Caesar, Tacitus and Pliny. According to Hutton, recent scholarship has tended to undermine the reliability of these sources. Both Caesar and Tacitus are known to have invented material for their histories. Pliny wrote after the Druids in both Britain and Gaul (= much of modern France, parts of the Netherlands and the Rhineland) had been repressed. Nonetheless, what these authors said has strongly influenced later beliefs about Druids. Fascination with Druids, as custodians of lost ancient knowledge, has been a feature of Northwestern European culture from the sixteenth century onwards.

Over this period, Hutton identifies eight distinct ways of imagining Druids and Druidry. The first four are visions of the Celtic Druid past. In his analysis Hutton names them as Nationalist, Green, Demonic and Confessional. They are all projections onto the past from somewhat different groups of people, which also speak to contemporary British concerns of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I describe these four ways below. (I will cover the remaining four ways, concerned with Modern Druid movements, in my next post.)

Nationalist Druids (favourable) They are understood as patriotic, as defenders of the nation, representatives of piety and wisdom, and a link to tradition and the past. However, in a UK context, or even within the island of Britain, there are questions about what the nation is and whose traditions are being celebrated. By the end of the eighteenth century, a time when most Welsh people still spoke the Welsh language, Wales was the nation that most strongly identified with Druid heritage. A key figure in this was Iolo Morganwg, who I have written about in other posts (2,3).
Green Druids (favourable) Druids are associated with woods, caves and natural spaces. They are therefore an antidote to industry, urbanisation, modernity and forms of ‘civilisation’ about which many people had strong misgivings. (My own observation is that this early modern image of ancient Druidry, in its late modern deep ecology form, is the most influential current in 21^st century Druidry – JN)
Demonic Druids (unfavourable) The ancient Druids were said to be a despotic heathen priesthood who practiced human sacrifice and ruled through fear, ignorance and superstition. The Romans did the Celts a service by breaking their power. This account appealed to imperialists and evangelical Christians whilst also being a gift to Gothic fiction.
Confessional Druids (favourable): The story here is that, sometime between the days of Noah and Abraham, wise men, inspired by God, set forth from Palestine to Britain to teach a pure religion. These were the original Druids. British Christianity was therefore, in a sense, both native and ancient. William Stukeley (1687-1765) Druid enthusiast, Church of England priest, and the first scientific archaeologist, held this view.

I am grateful to Ronald Hutton for his analysis. By understanding the cultural soil out of which modern Druid movements, beginning as least as far back as 1781, emerged, he helps to explain why some people over the last 250 years have chosen to claim the name for ourselves. More about that in my next post (4).

(1) https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/modern-druids

(2) https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2021/09/07

(3) https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2020/05/11

(4) https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2025/04/11

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April 7, 2025

GREYFRIARS PRIORY HAIKU

within the Priory ruins

this weathered arch

frames a living sky.

Note: The priory is the Greyfriars Priory, Gloucester, England

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April 2, 2025

CONTEMPLATIVE DIARY?

Recently I have wondered whether to change the name of this blog from Contemplative Inquiry to Contemplative Diary. I won’t, because the inquiry focus has been very strong over the years. It is ancestral to the diary approach and a deep influence upon it. Some of the older inquiry posts continue to be read. The most popular is A Parable About a Parable first published in July 2018 – https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2018/07/31/.

But most of my current posts are not like that. They tend to be more informal, more embedded in daily life, more obviously situated in time, place and everyday personal experience. My most recent post, Spring Forward – https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2025/03/31/ – is a case in point.

This shift in emphasis developed in the years of the Covid pandemic and is characterised by living the Wheel of the Year day-by-day (rather than festival by festival) in a specific location. I use my own photographs much more than in the early days of the blog. For me, these changes fit with a name like Contemplative Diary.

Yet the diary approach is itself a fruit of inquiry. It has emerged as I become relatively less concerned with fundamental questions. They are now settled for me as far as they can be in this life. My current work comes out of an individual life practice grounded in modern Druidry, with a firm ethical basis and a light touch in formal ritual and meditation. All of these are illuminated by the sense of a divine presence from which the world, including me, is not separate.

Contemplation and inquiry are still at the heart of my work, in simpler and more relaxed forms than was right for the early years. The diary approach marks an emerging phase of my contemplative inquiry, rather than a break with it. Where it will take me going forward, I cannot yet say.

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Month: April, 2025