I grew up Southern Baptist, but the church wasn’t always welcoming to me. I believe in God, but not the God of their Bible. I believe in a genderless entity, a creator and a destroyer who can make and unmake our world, whose gift of free will has made people misrepresent them. I have pieces of my Christian upbringing with me always, but for as long as I can remember the church has been a forest or a field or a river for me. Never a building.
For as long as I could remember, the Sundays I loved were the Sundays spent on the back of my horse. My mom and I are both highly sensitive people, and animals and nature ground us. In recent years, I’ve turned to the one practice that makes sense to me: druidry.
I thrive in routine and practicality. What I deem practical doesn’t necessarily mean Diana agrees. She’s still very much Catholic, but it seems like a divine plan to have her be the one to encourage and help me find my way on my druidic path. I practice all three branches of druidry: bard, ovate, and druid tradition. I write, sing, and craft, as well as practice husbandry and healing. I’m trying to be a better part of my community. My fear of people slows me down in that respect.
I’ve built my altar and am halfway through my first Book of Awen, a grimoire of sorts. My next desire is to make a staff. It has been a blessing to realize what gifts I’ve been blessed with my whole life, and difficult to reconcile that I still have much to learn about them. But in times like these, I know that being able to read and tend to the land and its inhabitants is of utmost importance. My practice goes hand in hand with becoming the prepper I’ve always wanted to be.
Magic isn’t a matter of fiction for me. I hold the belief that science is just magic explained. One day, we’ll know all the answers, but until then why deny energy. Energy, empathy, premonition, divination are all as real to me as my gardens and creatures. There may not be a direct explanation for me right now, but I’m sure one exists. Learning divination and how many ways things can be interpreted has been an adventure for me, especially when I’m still relatively skeptical. But my writing has power because I make it so. Why can’t scrying be similar?
I have loved my druidic journey and I hope to continue learning. If I practice nothing else, I at least hope to always practice kindness, understanding, and the very witchy threefold rule.
Rowan Liddell 