Interview with Phil Ryder about The Druid Network's Charity Status

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The following is an interview with Phil Ryder, Chair of Trustees for The Druid Network and one of the members most deeply involved in the four-year-long process of applying for religious charity status with the Charity Commission of England and Wales. I want to express again just how grateful I am to Phil for taking the time to answer my questions and give me, and all you readers, a little more insight into the long and difficult journey that TDN has made over the past several years. Congratulations once again to him and all the members of TDN on their success!

For my full coverage of this story, please hop on over to The Wild Hunt and stay tuned for my guest post tomorrow! To read the full text of the Charity Commission decision document, you can download the .pdf or visit The Druid Network's website.


Ali: Thanks so much for taking the time to do this interview, Phil! I know you and everyone at TDN must be very busy these days.

Phil: As you can imagine, I've been flat out trying to deal with the media folk — and on the whole it has been positive, within their limited ability to understand just what we are about. But I think it's important for everyone to understand just what this acceptance means and why TDN did it. I'm not sure we can cover everything in such a limited time — the amount of material we've sent to the CC would fill a very large book and covers everything from the anarchic setup of TDN through to explaining not only Druidry but all nature-based spiritualities and how they are religions. I know many shy away from that term — and I'm not keen either on the terms 'pagan', 'religion' and to some extent 'druid' — but 'religion' simply means to bind one to the sacred, and religions are defined by their identifiable method of doing that....

Oooops — there I go, going off on one! So, yes, fire away and I'll see what I can do to help.

Ali: All right, here we go!

Jeff Lilly :: Dogma Bites Man: The Role of Reason in Religion

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"The doctrine is like a finger pointing at the moon, and one must take care not to mistake the finger for the moon." — Buddhist saying

"In the beginning was the Word; and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." — John 1:1-5

And in Greek

The language of the Bible is remarkably direct and accessible. John is talking about great ineffable mysteries — things perhaps beyond the comprehension of the human mind — and yet he speaks simply, plainly, as one might to a child. Actually, even more plainly than that: the language of the Bible, even in the New Testament's original Greek, is extraordinarily simple and plain, compared to the standards of the language as a whole.

To take one very evident example: the Bible uses "and" a lot. English (and Greek) have any number of conjunctions that might serve: "because", "since", "while", "however", etc. In general usage, writers and speakers tend to vary the conjunctions they use, not just to avoid heavy-handed repetition and a simplistic style, but also to link their ideas and lead the reader from thought to thought, showing how things fit together. The Bible doesn't generally do this.

Ruby Sara :: To Pray in Color

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Greetings, friends, from the sweltering streets of the fiercely-wild urban midwest! I am honored to be posting here at Meadowsweet & Myrrh this month — many thanks to Ali for the opportunity!

From where I write this, the land is up to its ears in late summer weather — hot, muggy, days and restless nights. The rise and fall of cicadas and the smell of roasting corn. These days between, when the Beloved has died again for his people (say Hail to that Sweet King of the Raw Feast, Master in the Wheat and the Corn; the Fire in the Whiskey, the Burn in the Blood!) and the orchards settle in for apple season, I anticipate the double-edged lessons of harvest — bread and death, decay and abundance. The days grow ever shorter, but still the Mama overflows — gardens run weedy and rampant with fruit. The tomatoes ripen and swell into a ready red, the rose hips begin to turn, and those who garden anticipate zucchini bread, and zucchini casserole, and zucchini soup, and grilled zucchini, and zucchini conversations, and zucchini jokes... and sacks of zucchini left on doorsteps by anonymous hooligans with green thumbs and dwindling storage space. All hail the mighty zucchini! If we were to create a green saint of determination and fortitude, we might do worse than to nominate this outrageous vegetable/fruit. Zucchini may take over the world yet, haunting our days with its yellows and greens. I love zucchini like I love the summer — the flagrant, saucy ripeness of it, the fiercely mad dancing that goes on and on forever — a whirling, roiling drumbeat of moths and moons, of color and life.

Yes, summer passing slowly into fall is a season of outrageous color. The Mama, giving up her precious ghost, gasps her last in shocking, glorious extravagance — soon the sunset season in red and copper, thrust against a matchless blue sky. Yellow corn, squash and apples. Golden honey, and rain that turns the wind into diamond music. The smell of smoke, even... the colors of harvest not only in those our eyes perceive but our other senses as well. The color of heat, the smell of ripe apples rotting on the open ground, the sound of bees in the field.

Bob Patrick :: Divining Divinity

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On more than one occasion, I have heard the terms “polytheists” and “monotheists” used by people to describe themselves. What fascinates me is the easy way that some modern pagans identify themselves as polytheists with little understanding, it seems, of who created this term and what it implies. I have full sympathy for why modern pagans might not be comfortable using the term “monotheist” to describe themselves. I’m just not sure why they think that “polytheist” is a better alternative.

The word “polytheism” entered English from a Latin word (polytheismus) formed from Greek roots which mean “many gods”. The Latin passed into French as polytheisme. It is first used in English in the early 1600’s. This is important to note: the word comes into our language in Europe at a time when Christianity is at its height of influence, religiously and politically. In short, polytheism was a Christian word, and it was created to help draw distinctions and divisions between those who are not what Christians value — monotheists (also a Christian word). Given that this word was created by Christians to distinguish those who are not like themselves and done so for their own theological, philosophical and culturally specific conversations, I am not at all sure why someone who is not Christian would want to use it. The history and meaning of the word have their starting points in Christianity.

Without presuming to speak definitively for all Christians, I think it important to note that the Christian understanding of the divine includes, among other things, a Creator who is wholly other and separate from the creation (while still able to work through the creation); who is omnipotent and omniscient; and who is One, hence the label “monotheism.” Since Christianity created the term “polytheism” as a term to use to distinguish other religious practitioners from themselves, I think it very important to hold definitions of polytheism at arm’s length and observe how those definitions prevent us from discovering an experience of divinity that such monotheism simply cannot imagine.

The Madeleine Syndrome: A Guest Post

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Today I'm pleased to feature a guest post by Marian Van Eyk McCain, editor of the new anthology GreenSpirit: Path to New Consciousness from O Books. Her post speaks eloquently to the theme of interconnection and interdependence, and celebrates the sensual embodiment that characterizes our relationship to the natural world. Enjoy!

The Madeleine Syndrome
by Marian Van Eyk McCain

The wild honeysuckle flowers are out now in the hedges all around where I live. My garden has a rosebush and it, too, is flowering, its scent so exquisite that every time I pass it I get stuck there for a while, sniffing each one of its flowers in turn and thanking it, my whole being awash with sensory pleasure.