Journal The Druid’s Way

[Romolo]

August 19th (midnight)

When I got to the woods, the darkness was near-complete. Where was the Full Moon? Still behind the trees. Moonrise was at 8.40pm, I was early. I had hurried. What for? (This would soon be revealed.) My eyes adjusted quickly and the dark/grey turned blue/silver. I decided to sit down in the grass, and keep my magical artifacts in my bag. Earlier today I had found two lip-formed leaves by picking in a stagnant pond with a long, dead branch of a weeping willow. They had great oracle potential. I sat down in the dark grass on a small hill (ten steps and I was at the top) with the edge of the woods behind me. I waited, but no lighter shade of grey appeared above the trees in the East. I got up, poured out some water on the grass that had carried me, and moved on. I knew this grove well. I walked silently and swiftly. There was a bench where I had been on another nightly occasion. I closed my eyes, and heard an insane wail. From the tone, I could tell it was a small mammal in the act of dying. Or maybe it was being sacrified. I know other witches are active here: one day I found the front leg of a roe tied to a tree (see March 2nd). I took the heart-breaking sound as an omen to leave the dark woods and go home. Just before I left, in the last staight line (I could already see the orange light of the street lamp), I tripped over a stone the size of a plum. I managed not to fall, picked up the stone, and walked on. Now the moon was out in full glory, with the fiery gold of a Supermoon above the horizon. The moon pointed at me, like a finger. I appear for everyone, I am given, I cannot be claimed. In my dark hand, I held a grey piece of terran rock, and the lunar rock behind me was golden. Later, in front of my altar, the moon appeared in the south, this time in her recognizable silvery white aspect. I had tied a cup-shaped piece of white clay against the rock, and the clay reflected the moonlight. And lessons washed over me, insights, healing.

 

[Romolo]

August 21st/22nd (past midnight)

The Book of Nature contains all, we just have to open it, flip the pages, and read the imagery. A few days ago I pulled out a full-grown fennel plant from the garden, and I was struck by its roots: they reminded me of snakes. So different from the fennel's bulb and the lush, celestial & feathery foliage!

I placed the cluster of roots on a wand and wound a snake of clay around it. Medusa-whose-hair-are-roots. Was this how her story begun, some five milennia ago, long before she transformed as a character into the great spectacle of the Greek mythology? Proto-Medusa, a chthonic goddess who "knows" the Underground. She can "see" what is below.

I will consacrate this wand to Hekate and do more explorations in the coming days.

 

[Romolo]

September 3rd

Ever since I started "the Great Work" I can say that I've become more oriented towards the World and the other(s). I am now a more reliable person, a better friend, a better son and brother. There is now something other than myself at the core of my life, which must seem like a paradox to the non-initiated, for whom magic is obsessed with the Self. I believe this is a misconception. Magic leads us back to the World, despite ourselves. It offers a bony hand on a dark trail where no light shines.

Surrender has been (and remains) a powerful key word on my journey. It has been the ultimate requisite in opening up towards spirituality. Nothing can be achieved without surrendering. Sometimes I had to meticulously follow through on rituals and series of devotions without seeing any results. Instead I felt a slow growth, like a root growing deeper, or reality shifting less than a degree. The Great Work is slow.

The more I advance, the more difficult it becomes to describe this advanced understanding, and the less I feel the need to. In the past days, I often sat in front of a flickering cursor. Nothing felt urgent enough to be written down, but I see it as a challenge to continue to do so.

 

[Romolo]

September 5th

Today I tried to make paint out of black nightshade. Curiously, after straining the berries, the liquid was not black but translucent green, similar to absinth. Adding soap and cornstarch (as the website questionably suggested) was a recipe for disaster. I will need to try another batch, but will wait a few weeks until all the berries are ripe. I really need at least two cups filled to the brim. I can use the paint to trace sigils on paper, to paint a spiral on wands, to leave marks on walls, or to make consacrated aquarels.

In Margaret Baker's "Discovering the Folklore of Plants" (a booklet that disappoints more often than it helps), I discovered only one thing about nightshade that I had not read elsewhere: "Nightshade had cowshed and stable uses also; a nightshade collar saved cattle from the Evil Eye and nightshade was an instant cure. A bewitched human, too, should consider a wreath of nightshade around his forehead."

In a vivid dream I had as a kid, I was on the back of a flying cow. I can still feel the sturdy warmth of the cowhide against my bare legs. The cow had the wings of a bat, but held open like an albatros or dinosaur. Maybe I will make a wreath of nightshade and wear it during a ritual, so that I can connect with the kid that I was, and still am.

 

[Romolo]

September 15th

The alto of Summer has made place for the tenor of Autumn, which came with some relief. The Wheel slows down and I was able to lose myself in "Ash-Wednesday" a mysterious poem by T.S. Eliot, full of necromantic wisdom.

The poem starts with the lines: "Because I do not hope to turn again / Because I do not hope / Because I do not hope to turn". I see turn as a return to towards older versions of ourselves, as in "I do not hope to forget what I have learned" (and turn again, be stupid again, regress). This fear is foreshadowed by lines already eroding, crumbling as he writes them, like the bones of a skeleton falling apart. Maybe (I say maybe because in poetry all depends on the reader/mirror that reflects the words) the full line should be "Because I do not hope to turn again to this world" (which could be line 0 of the poem), so literally, not to return to this world, not to be reborn, at least not in a form of flesh.

More gothic/necromantic cues in part II: "Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper tree / In the cool of day, having fed to satiety / On my legs my heart my liver and that which had been contained / In the hollow round of my skull". The leopards, I believe, are an image of hunger related to fasting, the feeling of having hunger literally eating your organs. Lent is a huge enabler of self-remembering and fuels gnosis. Through lent, you become "bones". All unnecessary thoughts (the flesh) are gone. In the following verses, these bones (or what was inside them) will also sing: ("Under a juniper tree the bones sang, scattered and shining / We are glad to be scattered, we did little good to each other / Under a tree in the cool of the day, with the blessing of the sand / Forgetting themselves (!) and each other, united / In the quiet of the desert")

I love the image of bones scattered in the sand, drawn into focus by the grasshoppers chriping. Grasshoppers typically sing when no moving or threatening human bodies are near, or when humans are still, silent, sleeping, harmless. They are therefore a powerful metaphor for the meditating or praying human being. I heard this before in medieval songs, like "El Grillo" by Josquin De Prez, but it is always concealed in humor so that its deep truth stays hidden. Grasshoppers symbolize a state where the inner monologue ceases or dries up. The thinking makes place for pure surrounding noises. When the body is praying, meditating or really listening, silence contains the answers, more than words ever will. But as we all know, sitting still, not only as a gimmick or a parody but really, is very hard, especially in nature. In part VI, the poet turns again to the lady/sister/goddess: "Blessed sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden / ... / teach us to care and not to care / Teach us to sit still / Even among these rocks"

 

[Romolo]

September 16th (after midnight)

It looks and feels like this journal will come to a closure almost exactly one year after it began. I started off this journal, "The Druid's Way", with not more than a yearning, a curiosity towards the figure of the druid. It is only after one year that I can begin to list some characteristics of my practice.

Firstly, druid magic is magic of the empty hand. The practice is not aimed at obtaining anything materialistic, and certainly not at "causing change to occur in conformity with will". Human beings rarely know what they really want or need. The surrounding world knows better. In druid magic there is a proximity, an openness, the outstretched hand in the form of a vessel, of an ear. Knowledge can only be received, but it can never be asked. All this acquired information is processed, stored, reworked, and merged in something like a "cauldron".

Second, this cauldron exists in the physical world. There is, in fact, an externalized archive of memories, moments, and insights available in the form of wands, stones, feathers, trinkets, pebbles, clay shapes, shards of glass, and any other object that strikes the druid with wonder or potential. Druidry focuses around these ritualistic objects. It is a highly creative road. Druid magic happens with a closed third eye. There is no visualization at work. Odin keeps one eye (the inner eye) closed, with the other eye he sees all there is to see. It is a subtle protection, to filter out the rubble and the madness of the world. I believe Odin sacrificed his inner eye. Knowledge is ritualized, never visualized. The metaphors are tangible.

Lastly, and maybe most importantly, the druid learns to read the infinite, magnificent pages of the Book of Nature. As above, so below is fractal. The world is alive with infinite allegories. By applying the first rule (empty hands) and second rule (closed third eye), the druid is guided/drawn to those places in the woods or city where new wisdom awaits. The druid "reads" pages and chapters that can run or stretch over several weeks. Accessing these places (both in body and mind) requires absolute surrender, which is made easier when there is devotion. Druids are priests, there must be faith. If need, faith that can be approached almost like a system, just like qabalists do, but a small "inner flame" will do wonders that no calculations can ever do. I worked mostly with Hekate, Odin and Diana.

I have started editing my journal to reduce it in length: from the 11.000 words I would probably only keep one third if I were to rewrite it. I am mostly interested in those passages that stand the harsh judgment of my future self. On the other hand, exactly those paragraphs would have not been written if I had not also produced the more cringe parts... I am therefore merciful towards all earlier versions of myself. In the end, I carry them all inside of me, like the rings of a tree.

I invite anyone who stumbles on this journal and finds it appealing to walk the Druid's Way. From my experience, an arch of four seasons is ideal to see the four elements at work in all their iterations. This is a Path which offers tremendous room for advanced understanding. There is, in fact, no dogma, no roof between yourself and heaven, only the foliage of the trees. May some of my words or diary entries be arrows, outstretched hands/branches, hooded shapes in the mist.

Warmly/Darkly,

ROM
OLO
MOR