I wrote recently about how moved I was by an article in the Guardian, in which journalist Kiran Sidhu wrote about Welsh farmer, Wilf Davies.
Category: Meditations
‘Pareidolia’ is the trait humans have for seeing patterns which aren’t really there – such as seeing a rabbit on the moon, or Elvis in an oddly shaped carrot. In my case, it’s seeing the end of the world in a patch of damp plaster on the wall.
Still, one of the key tenets of Iolo Morganwg’s Bardism is “Y Gwir yn Erbyn y Byd” – The Truth Against the World. As Druids, we need to find out what is true – and we need to champion it even when it is unpopular or unpalatable.
In Welsh Druidry, we believe in reincarnation, and the gradual journey of the soul from Annwn, through untold incarnations in our own world of Abred, until it has become sufficiently wise to leave material incarnation behind and progress to Gwynfyd, the existence of purely spiritual life:
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Thoughts on Druidic belief and authority
I wrote this as a contribution to a discussion that’s ongoing in the members’ forums of the Druid Network. Those are private, so I thought I might post it here so that a broader audience can read it and contribute their thoughts.
I was recently reading a Substack article by Rod Dreher, a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church, which led me to this piece by David Bentley Hart. Hart talks about a man called Reuben, who he met many years ago in Lancaster, England. I haven’t read anything by Hart before; Dreher, though devout in his Christian faith, has a mystic aspect to his faith which often overlaps the Druidic worldview. Hart has this to say of Reuben:
I’ve recently been contemplating Gwyn ap Nudd, and my relationship with him. Unlike others such as Lorna Smithers, I have taken no vows and entered into no formal commitment. I am still exploring my relationship with the Gods of the Welsh and different gods, at different times, communicate things to me.
And yet, Gwyn ap Nudd’s voice has been the most insistent. Based on what he has told me, and which I conveyed in a series of posts on this blog, Gwyn is mobilising to restore balance to the world. Humanity has become too damaging to the world of nature, and to the forests – which are a part of his domain. Humanity has become too dangerous, and too damaging, to the Fair Folk, the Tylwyth Teg, who reside in this world as well as in the Otherworld.
