All text, original art and images (including backgrounds, and logo header art, this page) ©2000 to Present by Morgaine, for use by ADO. All rights reserved. Photographic images © as credited; used by permission. No part of this document or work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, copied, quoted, performed, or distributed in any form or by any means without prior written consent of the author and copyright holder. Copyright law requires us to take action to protect our own rights. Please do not oblige us to prosecute you. For brief, plain language summaries of current internet copyright law and guidelines for ethical use of copyrighted works, please visit R.I.G.H.T.S. A short visit should resolve most (if not all) of your questions.Other people's rights are important to us. We write all of our own copy and create as much of the art for our site as possible using freeware; however we do use some clipart images provided as "public domain" or "free for individual or nonprofit use". As a result, mistakes may sometimes occur: copyright holders may request removal or grant consent for use or be credited for "anonymous" works by contacting our WEBMISTRESS with appropriate proof of copyright. NON-ORIGINAL CLIPART (such as email icon used above) used by permission of: KINLEY MACGREGOR & GRAPHICA MEDII AEVI GRAPHICS, AON, Celtic.net, Dover Publications Free Clipart, Bradley W. Schenck, Barry's Clipart, PreRaphealite.com, RetroKat, Badger's Medieval Clipart, AND EponaWorks.
Over the ages, the Avalon Mystery Tradition has amassed a daunting body of wisdom and lore far beyond what can be learned in one lifetime by any one person or group. Contemporary Avalonian groups tend to found their spiritual practices on specific Avalonian archetypes and eras, forming Tradition branches not unlike the denominations of mainstream religions; our spiritual focus is the “Faery” (native) Druidry of the Age of the Mothers, in the time before the Celts. Avalon’s is a re-emerging Tradition, whose isolated adherents were reunited only recently through the web-working of the Celtic Sisterhoods; a reunion which opened the way to the very roots of Avalon’s wisdom. Avalon Druid Order (ADO) is a product of this reflowering of Avalonian Tradition, and Avalon’s root wisdoms form the basis for our spiritual teachings and practice.Our spiritual ancestors, the native Druids remembered in Celtic literature, were a peaceful people whose culture was subsumed by the incoming warrior cults and the followers of a new religion. Avalon Druid Order offers guidance in reclaiming our spiritual birthright, teaching the tools of self-empowerment and spiritual midwifery through rich, continuing oral and written traditions, and ancestral spiritual practices that promote tolerance for diversity and good stewardship through direct experience of spiritual communion and immersion in a holistic, pantheist worldview. We live a richly meaningful life honouring a balance with Nature; those with the courage to change and adapt will find here a template for harmonious living that is desperately needed today.These root wisdoms provide the basis for our life and spiritual practice within the Order. Our Druid Way does not derive from medieval grimoires, the minds of fantasy writers, or the annals of hostile cultures, but from a source native to the western world, whose wisdoms the Celts recognized and absorbed into their own lore and practice. We study Celtic literature as a window looking into Avalon’s earlier, native spirituality. The spiritual ancestors who founded Avalonian Tradition are remembered in Celtic lore, but they are not Celts, and while there are many points of overlap there remain also many important points of divergence. It is a Way unlike any other, forged by the ancestors to endure far beyond the present day.The heart of our spiritual community is the gathering around the central hearthfire, where the dream that defines our collective ancestral identity (or “folk soul”) is held. Here, through diligent study and practice, we are each reborn to Tribal life, practices, customs, culture, and spirituality: the wellspring of our Druid practice. From life in the gathering we come to know the Call to Avalon as a Call to Service, but service comes not easily to all people. Our story of Avalon is the story of the Wasteland, of how humanity causes the land to become barren and of how it may be restored; we believe that the key to this healing and renewal lies in reviving the native spiritual worldviews of our earliest ancestors... This is our ancestral Druid Way.Today we work to reclaim our primal authority, adapting our spiritual craft to the needs of modern peoples and times. Avalon’s re-emergence in this time has long been foreseen, but prophecies are not guarantees; they must be manifest by those with heart for the task, and if those people come not forward the tasks remain unfulfilled. We are each here, then, in answer to this Call. To answer and effect this great spiritual renewal means being more than knowledgeable and erudite; it requires us to take action, to change, and to ask ourselves certain vital questions: “Whom do I serve?” “Why are we all wounded and how may we all be healed?” and “What do these wonders signify?”...Many come asking for answers, but it is our questions that actually matter. We can teach you how to ask the right questions, but we cannot tell you what answer(s) you will find after asking them, and we cannot ask them for you. Your answers are already within you. They are revealed by your own questions, through direct exploration, and by your own unique experience as a “walker-between-the-worlds”. In ADO we teach the tools of self-empowerment and community within a safe learning environment. We provide the means to access certain keys, but there are no guarantees. A spiritual path is a road with many windings and which way is right for another none can say, for the road is different for everyone. In the end there is only the path we follow, and those from which we turn aside.Our Way is not a way for all people, for all Druids, or even for all Avalonians. Which of us will find our greatness here and which will discover a calling elsewhere, none can say. You are come seeking Avalon and you have found her. And you are come seeking Wisdom, but even the Wisest cannot say if you will find it; for Wisdom is a gift from and to the Self, and many the tests of its attainment. Even now you stand upon the threshold of change. Will you embrace it? It is said that when the Seeker is ready the Path reveals itself; therefore follow where your heart leads, and should it so prompt you, come you in with open mind and heart and you shall be likewise met.
