Contemplative Druidry | Contemplative Inquiry

I have been thinking of peace, at the personal level, as something other than an energy or state. I am learning to understand it as a virtue to be cultivated, in the sense described by modern Pagan philosopher Brendan Myers. ‘Virtue ethics’, first articulated by the ancient Greeks, is the branch of philosophy that investigates character and identity (1).

To live a fulfilling and happy life, according to Myers, we need to install ways of understanding and being in the world that support our aim: these are the virtues. He specifically talks about the virtues of wonder, such as open-mindedness, curiosity, creativity; the virtues of humanity, such as care, courage, respect and generosity; and the virtues of integrity, like reason, acknowledged vulnerability, forgiveness and the will to let go.

I like Brendan Myers’ approach to virtue ethics. I find it inspiring. I particularly appreciate his account of both the work and rewards of practising virtue ethics: “through the process of identifying and working with virtues, we reach towards the person we want to be and the world we want to live in”. He points to “the possibility of a greater depth of life experience that can appear when I am willing to let go of my illusions, willing to risk harm and despair, in pursuit of a more honest relationship with reality”.

Myers’ approach has influenced my practice, to the extent of creating, working with and revising my own list of personal commitments (2). This is a working document, not a set of commandments or protocols from elsewhere. The commitments are not coterminous with virtues, but virtues are identified and included in them. The first to be named in my list is peace. I say: “I will live from the peace of the centre”. This statement has primacy over the others and is formulated differently. “I will live from …” is different from the “I will cultivate” that begins my other statements. It is linked to my regular use of a (slightly modified) Druid peace prayer: “Deep within my innermost being I find peace; silently, in the stillness of this space, I cultivate peace; heartfully, within the wider web of life, may I stand in peace”. The commitment “I will live from the peace of the centre”, draws on the whole prayer.

I notice that peace, rather than love, is currently the foundation of connection with my innermost being, or the divine within me. Spiritually, heartful peace best describes the reality of my lived experience of non-separation from the divine. This is what I feel moved to take into the world as a form of action (living from). I find this more challenging than finding peace in my innermost being in meditative spaces. Turning outwards, I find often find the world distressed, deluded and difficult to navigate. I am part of this world and therefore obviously vulnerable to my own distress and delusion, and also to a certain ignorance about falling into the mire myself.

Finding and modelling peace are consequently at the top of my list and it is this peace practice that I frame in terms of virtue. The ultimate peace that I experience within is something else, an inspiring gift for which I feel grateful: it is not a personal possession or attainment. Nonetheless, it supports in the work of bringing peace into my daily life.

(1) Brendan Myers Reclaiming Civilization: A Case for Optimism for the Future of Humanity Winchester, UK & Washington, USA: Moon Books, 2017

(2) Personal Commitments (Revised May 2024):

I will live from the peace of the centre.

I will cultivate skilful will and strong will, always within the context of good will, towards self and others.

I will cultivate positive health and well-being, within whatever constraints that may apply.

I will cultivate discernment, creativity and wisdom, to the best of my understanding and capacity.

I will cultivate a life of abundance in simplicity, living lightly on the earth.

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May 10, 2025

HAIKU: 7.50PM 9 MAY 2025

beyond the May blue sky,

a waxing gibbous moon:

below, evening shadows spread.

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May 7, 2025

‘A SLOW GREEN’

The church of St Mary de Lode, Gloucester, seems to sit among trees. The building salutes the sky without arrogantly trying to reach it. There is a bench towards the foreground of my picture. I am standing in a friendly urban space, a green space. It is one of many made possible by the Churches and Priories of the old city. This space is open to all.

In another such space, on a granite seat close to my home, I recently noticed the words “this is a slow green, stay for long enough”. I have been savouring these words ever since.

They draw me into an easy receptively, not least when the month is May and the day is warm. The riddle of ‘a slow green’ invites immersion and reverie rather than effortful attention or strategies for problem solving. ‘Stay for long enough’ is probably the wisest counsel. Let’s take the time we need gently to befriend such nurturing spaces when we are blessed to find them.

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May 1, 2025

A MAY’S EVE GIFT

Such casual abundance

In each passing moment:

A May’s Eve gift.

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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 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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