My Discovery of Druidry

By T.M. Ryan

When I saw the post looking for blog contributions, I thought it may be helpful to someone out there if I share my brief path so far into Druidry.  It wasn’t that I was seeking it out at the time, but rather Druidry seemed to open itself up to me based on circumstance.  Perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself; let me rewind time to the summer of 2023, and where I was at mentally.  Our family had just dropped my son off to college, which marked a change in my life.  The typical baseball trips and countless adventures we had together would soon end, as my son began a new chapter.  It was a time of reflection for me as well, now that I had more time on my hands.  

It was during this time I would try yet again to explore the Bible and see what it meant to me.  Our family had always been part time members of the Roman Catholic Church, that is to say we attended Christmas and Easter mass.  Other than that faith and spirituality were never really a part of my life, although I was always interested in the myriad answers humans would try to come up with to explain our existence.  I found myself once again trying to better understand the faith that I could never identify with.  The Crusades where the faith produced so much death. Their constant focus to convert others.  The accusation of priests across the world.  The parishes all around me that were closing due to low attendance.  I could see this faith slowly crumbling in my community.  

During this time of detachment, I spent my time researching stocks which eventually began to consume me.  I would check stocks continuously throughout the day, over trading and being too involved with our finances.  This turned into frequent emotional roller coaster rides where I could be up one week or down the next.  It became more like gambling instead of investing.  During this time, one morning I woke up and had a sore near my lip.  I had never had cold sores before, but figured well it must be my turn to enjoy this part of life.  After a few days however, it was clear this wasn’t a typical cold sore.  It began to spread up the side of my face toward my ear, and was now more of a raw rash that was erupting out of my face.  I went to the doctor and casually asked for some meds for a cold sore.  The doctor looked at me sideways and explained I had shingles, and that whatever was triggering this was causing it to expand and swell into the ear.  The doctor advised me to try and eliminate whatever stress or trigger was causing this to happen or I could lose hearing in my right ear.  I left the office in a panic.  What have I done?  Where had I been?   What was this constant swirling of emotions that kept ripping through my body?    It didn’t take me long to figure out what had been causing it.  Later that day just the act of pulling my phone out to look at it caused nausea.  I turned the phone off, took a few days off from work and began to retreat within myself.  I knew I had been using my phone a lot, and eventually discovered I had been using my phone for over 9 hours a day!  I was using a needless device for over half the time I was awake every single day.  I decide to turn it off for three days, to gather myself.  Little did I know the impact.  

The first day was tough to break that contestant itch to check, but after a few days I could feel myself slowly relax.  The shingles began to recede as the tension began to release.  On the second night, right before Halloween, I had a deep personal experience that I will always remember.  At that time, I had nothing left; I couldn’t write anymore, and I couldn’t draw or paint.  Creative outlets I had always leaned on were dried up.  I had nothing left to give.  While in deep meditation on the second night, I felt sudden pulses of energy.  I saw a vision with trees and small animals scurrying about.  There was a figure sitting on a ledge near a stream with a beam of blueish light projected softly all around him.  It was a natural presence, and for a moment I wondered if this was myself or something else?  While observing this scene, I eventually would hear a phrase “Come back to your roots” It wasn’t just heard but rather felt, and I knew exactly what it meant.  It wasn’t forced, just a gentle flow of energy that seemed to explain the problem:  I had detached from all the things that used to inspire me.  The long camping trips as a kid, the weekends spent swimming at the local lake or going hiking at one of the many local parks.  

After doing a lot of research on the topic, it became clear that Cernunnos was revealing itself to me, as this natural energy deep from the Earth that was calling me back to my primal ways and instincts.  To understand modern society doesn’t always have the answer, and how we’ve been removed from our natural habitat.  This was a small poem that seemingly flowed out of me at the time:

Mind Frayed; time delayed.
How did this come to be?
A mortal man, sent with no plan
Faced with Eternity

After that weekend, I started to look at life a little differently…I started to think more deeply on what’s really important in life. I started to discover a faith that just opened itself up to me naturally…