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2 The Berkeley History 3 Neo-druidic Liturgy 4 External links |
The founding of the first congregation of the Reformed Druids of North America, or RDNA, at Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, in 1963 marked the start of at least one branch of neo-druidism. This congregation is called, in terms of the organizational structure, the Carleton Grove, and in terms of RDNA tradition, the Mother Grove. (Some suggest that all of neo-druidism consists of RDNA and organizations that are each descended from the Mother Grove in a series of schisms. One may assume that the others admit, on one hand, to some form of temporal priority of RDNA, and to having been influenced to some degree by RDNA's thought. But on the other hand, they may suggest that innovations not fully integrated into RDNA are equally important. It is not obvious that any neo-druids consider the relative merits of such accounts worth arguing about.)
Carleton's requirement that each student participate regularly in religious services was the most focused of the factors occasioning the promulgation of "the Reform". Nevertheless, Celtic mythology, spiritual eclecticism, more general counter-cultural agitation, and easy-going self-irony were also important themes by the time the religious requirement was rescinded in mid-1964, and the loss of the specific protest motivation did not obviously weaken the organization. Oversight effort in 1967 from priests no longer regularly present in Northfield probably has served as precedent for ensuring continuity of leadership at later times of ebb in local momentum.
The early antagonism between the Carleton Grove and the administration of the college has subsided if not disappeared; for instance, a campfire ring known as "Druid's Den" is maintained by the college, and Carleton]] Grove activities are announced in college-published literature. The 40th anniversary year of the RDNA saw two reunion gatherings of the Mother Grove, one at the anniversary of the first service and one coinciding with the Carleton College Reunion. These ceremonies gave evidence of continuity of the early years' themes described above. For instance, besides the service continuing the free-wheeling balance of reverence and irreverence, a Koranic reading echoed a substantial study of the Koran by at least one of the early Arch-Druids of Carleton.
Robert Larson, a patriarch ordained in the Carleton Grove in 1963 or 1964, relocated to Berkeley, California about 1966, and eventually encountered Isaac Bonewits there. Together they founded a small congregation with affinities to various Wicca groups and to various practitioners of ceremonial magic (or Magick if they were Crowleans). Since then it has had several periods of greater or lesser activity. Currently the most visible group is Ár nDráiocht Féin ("A Druid Fellowship" in Gaelic). They are centered on the East Coast of the United States, in New York and New Jersey, but with branches scattered throughout the rest of the US as well.
The original ceremonies of the neo-druids involved gathering in a wooded place
periodically (usually weekly, but some groups used astrology to calculate meeting times), for
The major holy days are the quarter days (solstices and equinoxes) and the solar festivals (approximately half way in between the quarter days, these are: Beltane, Lughnasadh, Samhain and Imbolg). These are celebrated with (usually outdoor) parties with a religious theme, much singing of religious songs, dancing in circles, etc. Various individuals will also have their own private ceremonies. Often, small groups will break off, and perform their own separated ceremonies before rejoining the general group - these groups are often split along initiatory lines as those of higher degree work their own ceremonies.
Individual choice is a major theme. So is ecology, though more in the sense of being sensitive to it and living lightly on the land than in the sense of a study of the interrelationship of lives at various scales.
The major gods are, in RDNA liturgy, the Earth-Mother (addressed as "our Mother") and Dalon Ap Landu, the Lord of Groves; otherwise, the Earth and the Sun (named in Gaelic). Some individuals prefer to devote most of their praise, however, to other gods, like Health or Music (usually also named in Gaelic). And "A Druid Fellowship" has various scholastic posts and honors, though usually in the arts as devoted to religious praise rather than as formal studies.
Neo-druidism is considered a Neo-pagan religion.The Mother Grove of the RDNA
The Berkeley History
Neo-druidic Liturgy
Specifically in the Mother Grove, the use of Scotch rather than Irish whiskey has been an ironic tradition dating from the first ceremony, at which a partial bottle of Scotch whiskey had been at hand, left unfinished at the end of a party the previous night.