Buddhism promises the end of suffering in this very life. Christianity and Islam promise an eternity of paradise in the next world. Hinduism promises rebirth into greater and greater beings and eventual unification with God. What does Druidry promise? The question of the goal of religious practice is perhaps a fundamental one for any spiritual path and is one that is reflected upon often within my religious community. For most members of Ar nDraiocht Fein (ADF), it is not a happy afterlife, although many within Druidry believe in just such an outcome. The struggle to earn a beneficial status after death does not feature as a major component of the tradition. The concept that the deeds of this world affect one’s status in the next does not feature strongly in the religious dialogue of Druidry. Instead, Druidry is a religion, much like Buddhism, that focuses on maximizing the quality of the lived experience of one’s current existence.
How exactly is this maximization to be understood? Many within the tradition argue that the promise of Druidry is the achievement of health, wealth, and wisdom. This formulation is a modern gloss of ancient paganism’s very pragmatic approach to religion that sought to achieve tangible goods from humanity’s relationship with the Gods in this very life. Through acts of devotion, the ancients expected a gift for a gift. Specifically, they sought gifts that humans value, like health, wealth, or wisdom. This expectation was grounded in the ancient social institution of the patron-client relationship. Under this institution, people or groups from different social classes would make alliances with each other, exchanging goods or services for mutual benefit.
One of the key features of the patron-client relationship was the sharp distinction between the relative social standing of the parties involved. This distinction governed the responsibilities expected of each. Those having the higher social status were expected to give the greater gifts because their magnanimity was an essential expression of their superiority. A superior being, by definition, gives superior gifts. One can easily see how relations between Gods and humans came to be fitted into this social paradigm. Humans give inferior gifts and in return receive superior gifts because the Gods are superior beings. This is perhaps the standard interpretation of humanity’s relationship with the Gods within ADF and provides much of the stated impetus behind religious practice.
Yet there is much to question about this interpretation and the promise that stands behind it. The most serious problem is the general observation that the members of ADF are often not the wealthiest, healthiest, or the wisest members of society. It is an indisputable truth that we continue to suffer despite our religious practice. This fact seems to undermine the whole premise of a gift-for-a-gift relationship with the Gods. In the ancient world, this charge was met on multiple levels.
Perhaps the most common answer was that the Gods were essentially fickle, and while they work justice over the very long term regarding the aggregate whole of humanity, their relationship with any single person was likely to be marked by seemingly arbitrary swings of fortune. However, this rather pessimistic view of the nature of the Gods did not deter their worship because there was also a strong sense that a definite way to ensure a poor outcome was not to honor the Gods at all.
A second approach was to argue that individuals who suffered excessively were not doing their worship correctly. If you met ill fortune, it was a sign that you had lost the favor of the Gods because you had committed some slight against them for which they were now extracting retribution. This slight could be as simple as not being generous enough with a sacrifice or could include any number of failures or insults.
A third argument that is still offered up in the modern context, but was used in antiquity as well, is that the Gods and other spiritual beings cause or allow our suffering so that we might grow as people or learn important lessons. In the 5th Century B.C.E, the Greek poet Aeschylus put the argument this way:
Zeus has led us on to know,
the Helmsman lays it down as law
that we must suffer, suffer into truth.
We cannot sleep, and drop by drop at the heart
the pain of pain remembered comes again,
and we resist, but ripeness comes as well.
From the gods enthroned on the awesome rowing-bench
there comes a violent love. (109)
Of these three arguments, the first has been looked on least favorably by most ADF members. In general, the Gods are perceived as being much more beneficent, just, and faithful than they were by the ancients. Thus, an argument based on their fickleness is not likely to resonate with most modern people. The second argument does hold some traction in the ADF community upon occasion, but with serious limitations. These limitations are related to the same objections posed to the first. If a worshipper’s intentions are good, sincere, and honorable, and if he is generally pious, then it does not square with a positive conception of the Gods to believe that such a person is being punished for a failure of etiquette or some minor violation of protocol.
The impulse to engage in this type of thinking is also tempered by the fact that making the charge that a person is not conducting her religious life properly; thus, she is being punished, is an extremely controversial charge to make within ADF. This charge can lead to hard feelings and consequently, is not often made. Additionally, there are invariably counterexamples where extremely devout members of our community suffer horribly for no apparent reason, and it becomes psychologically difficult to blame them.
The third argument is popular and seems to work for minor instances of suffering, for example, a lost job that results in gaining new skills or a new perspective. However, in cases of profound suffering, especially to innocents, this claim can seem hollow and unconvincing. Often, there seems to be no logic or lesson to extreme suffering, and furthermore, many who suffer are not in a position to learn anything. Very young children, for example, do not have the capacity to understand their suffering. This line of reasoning also leads invariably to the troubling question of why the Gods, if they truly care about our well-being, require us to learn in this painful way.
Whatever one thinks about suffering, its very ubiquity seems to present a challenge to the premise of the reciprocal relationship between Gods and humans. Even if we are not prepared to abandon the idea of the reciprocal relationship, then we at least must admit it is deeper and more mysterious than it first appears. For these reasons, I do not think the achievement of health and wealth is the essential promise of Druidry. Wisdom is perhaps another question, which I will address shortly. I think the promise of Druidry lies at a wholly different level than the mere acquisition of worldly benefits. It lies at the intersection of our identity with the world in which we find ourselves, a world that remains paradoxically mysterious to us despite our complete enmeshment within it. Druidry shapes the way that we relate ourselves to the world, creating a deeply satisfying spiritual and psychological experience in the process.
Through Druidry, we are sensitized to the web of relation that connects all beings within the Sacred Earth. It reminds us of our position in that web, and anchors us in a world that is often confusing and frightening. It promises each of us that we belong here in this lived moment, not like a pilgrim simply passing through to another place, but as one who has come home. This deep sense of belonging, of belonging in relation to others, is one of the most powerful aspects of Druidry. One can hear an echo of this sense of belonging in David Whyte’s poem “What To Remember When Waking:”
You are not
a troubled guest
on this earth,
you are not
an accident
amidst other accidents
you were invited
from another and greater
night
than the one
from which
you have just emerged. (27)
Such an understanding gives us strength during difficult times. Through this sense of belonging, we escape from the alienation from our environment and from all living beings. Instead of alienation, our experience of the divine imbues the world with a sense of wonder and spiritual significance that transforms our everyday life experiences into a daily meeting with the most profound and awe-inspiring manifestations of the Sacred Earth. It is perhaps in this sense that Druidry can be said to develop wisdom, for it is the profoundest kind of wisdom to be able to feel at home in the mysterious, wondrous, terrible place we call Earth.
