The Disciplines
Most people are accustomed to think of Druids as being divided into three ranks or sects: Bards, Ovates, and Druids or (far less frequently) Bards, Warriors, and Ovates. However, the Disciplines are not 'levels' or sects, but focus groups. Each uses the same skills in very different ways. We must each learn all of the skills no matter which Discipline we follow. We begin with elements of Song-craft not because it is easier, but because it is the more familiar and grounded study. Because their skills are separated only by the focus and intent with which they are applied, any Avalonian Druid can perform tasks across Disciplines at need, merely by adjusting their intention, methodology, and perspective. Thus, while we appear to be learning separately, we do arrive at a place where our work overlaps that of others. Tribes and Druids, Craftspersons and Tribes, Craftspersons and Druids, all are intertwined in a much more complex pattern within Avalon than in other Druid Traditions. These fine distinctions require us to move more cautiously through our training and to master subtleties, rather than using a broader stroke.
We, who are the ancestors' inheritors, now offer you the chance to test your own mettle. We cannot promise you a place amongst our Druids, but whether as a Tribe or Druid member, each hand given to the task helps to shape the world to come. In our time, we will each face the choice of whether to suffer the harsh light of Truth, or to take the easy way into Shadow. Which will we choose: The Way of Service or the Way of Glory? Which matters more: the life of the individual or the life of the collective? Can one exist without the other? ... Today we stand upon the verge of completion, whence the full power of Avalon may be invoked; then will Avalon truly 'emerge from the Mists' to reclaim her place in the full light of day.
In this time, we each have our roles to play. Your role in this story is just begun; where it shall lead, is entirely up to you. By your own words and deeds will it be determined, moment by moment, day by day.
Arthur. A few will also have deduced that the Druid Brotherhood must be that same Order of the Wise from which Arthur's mentor, Merlin, hailed. Fewer still will realise that these two wisdom circles once represented separate parts of a single spirituality or faith, that this faith was the native or 'Faery' Tradition of our ancestors, or that Arthur's 'Golden Age' actually represents the height of a desperate struggle to preserve a way of life and being that had endured for millennia before Arthur was ever conceived, from a doom precipitated by the very religion that Arthur himself embraced. History tells us that they failed and that Avalon "went into the Mists"; the Celtic myths and our own lore tell us that Avalon went 'underground' to await rebirth in a later age. While image of Avalon's withdrawal into the Mists is potent, rebirth is even more powerful. Those of us following the Hidden Ways know that Avalon was not lost to the world, anymore than the Great Mother was lost to us; she merely did what we all must do in the course of Nature's Cycle, retiring to the Otherworld where her strength and power were renewed. We are privileged to live in the time of her rebirth at the dawning of this new age, and we are honoured to share with you now something of how her Sister and Brotherhoods manifest in this time.
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Historical Overview
Avalon's Faery Druids are among the "native Druids" referenced in later Celtic myth and legend. Fortunately, not all of our tongues lie beneath the stone of Uisnech and we do not wither at the disbelief and disdain of modern 'authorities'. Our presence is everywhere attested many ages before the Celts' arrival in the Isles and in the 'New World' (for wherever the ancestors were, there too is Avalon). We are taught that the same spiritual template was used by all of Avalon's earliest ancestors, and it remains in use today within our community: Three Orders of nine sites each, each with one a regional 'hub' from which the Mysteries were taught and Druids sent out to serve the Tribes. This archetypal template sprang from the nine original Tribes descended from Avalon's three Royal (or 'Noble') Houses. As the land changed, so the regional centers changed, but many are still known to us. The 'New World' names linger now only in the secret lore and place names of the Algonquin peoples, and in the memory of the land itself. For all that has ever been is remembered in stone and bone; nothing is 'lost forever'.
The life of the Tribes revolved around the central Hearthfire where the Council met and the Dreamers dreamed. As in Council, a circle presided over by nine Sisters and one Brother was considered complete; nine such complete sites made one complete Order. We are taught that only a complete "Ninefold" Order can evoke and direct Avalon's full power and authority. This ancient template still governs our work here in ADO. Of course, there are deeper mysteries within this template in the workings of the Sister and Brotherhoods themselves.
Functions of Avalon's Early Sister and Brotherhoods
It is said that the power of Avalon derives from Love -- not the love of the individual, but the Love that is inherent in Unity, in the Druid Mind (the All-Mind). Without balance there is no trust, and without trust there is no love, only need -- and need cannot bring us to Avalon. Only Love can do that, and it is Love's true nature that we learn by living our spiritual path. Just as the far ancestors stood alongside their spiritual and blood kin in tribal community, working and blessing the fields, guiding the hunt, gathering stores, preparing remedies, and being stewards of important community resources, so we strive to serve our fellow sisters and brothers in community today. We strive to reclaim our roles as the soul's midwives and the land's stewards, trained to recognise and work with the landscape of Avalon's Dreamtime as it manifests today; healing, strengthening, and shaping it to enhance itspower as both a beacon for souls seeking passage, and as the portal through which they cross to the realms of the Otherworld.
Some of our ancient regional centres were the sites of perpetual choirs kept to maintain the Harmony of Creation, using the monoliths to store, direct, and channel primal forces and energies. It was part of our work to act as facilitators between this world and the powerful Otherworld forces that guided souls between lives. In Avalon, we call these soul guides the "Heart's Midwives" (Welsh, "Periglour"). Within this Great Work, women and men held different roles -- and the same remains true today. Other sites were devoted to Initiation through Rites of Passage now forgotten in Western civilization; rites manifest through creative collaborations between the Tribes and their Druids, and here our task was to facilitate an experience of cathartic self-transformation. Many sites were dedicated to the living relationship between the quick and the Ancestors (e.g. "the Mighty Dead"); here, our function was to remember, recount, and renew the lore that is our inheritance from our forebears. Then as now, the Sister and Brotherhoods prepare the few with the hardihood for this work to assume these and other roles in local communities.
Life in the Sister & Brotherhoods
The far ancestors moved with the current and flow of the Life Force every day. The main function of the Sister and Brotherhoods was to teach and instill as second nature the personal and group spiritual disciplines necessary to attain the aware experience of Harmony, from which Love in its highest form derives, and to guide us in the wise use of this power for the highest good of all. Our far ancestors had many methods for accomplishing this, most of which we continue to practice today. Some of these methods include:
- Daily Banishing, Shielding, Breathwork, Sound & Movement
- Daily offerings to the Ancestors and Spirits of Place
- Intensive, continual Immersion in the Sacred Story Cycles
- Daily Personal Devotions & Salutations to Spirit
- BoSL (Book of Shadows and Light), including personal development, regular Immrama & Doorway (communion & spiritual inquiry) & community/world service
- Blessing and Resanctifying the Land
- Tending the Central Hearthfire, the Well of Wisdom & Sacred Grove
- Regular Gatherings Celebrating Feast Days & Celestial Observances
This is a short list of the average routine for our Avalonian Druid ancestors, but it is also a fair representation of the practice as it is known and kept today. Those who shrink from the rigours of Medieval monasticism would do well to remember that the template for such spiritual discipline derived from the pagan Mystery Schools and Druid Colleges. Our members do not expect to learn watered-down, 'popular' Druidry, and we ask no less of them than did our forebears. For those who are able to shift from the modern mechanistic-materialist worldview to an ancestral worldview, there remain many hunts, tests, and challenges. Few today have the hardihood for the full power of the Mysteries. Most who embark on this course will never finish it. Modern culture and conditioning will defeat them. It is a long road and difficult for those accustomed to easy answers and instant gratification.
The ADO Sister and Brotherhoods
The Avalonian Order of Ninefold Sisterhoods (AONS) and Druid Brotherhood of Iona (DBOI) are complementary, self-empowering Druid Women's and Men's Wisdom Circles mirroring the functions of women and men within the greater Circle of Community (or general membership) of the Avalon Druid Order. Unlike the ancestors, who shared essentially the same tribal spirituality and culture, modern Seekers come from many different backgrounds that often leave them ill-suited to the demands of life in a collaborative collective. We must reclaim basic community skills and learn a shared culture before proceeding to other studies.
For ADO members, the Tradition handed down through the Community of Tribes and our Druid Motherline defines our spiritual life and practice, our customs, ways, and worldview. Here members learn what is needful to prepare them for a life and personal spiritual practice in Avalon. Wherever possible, e-community provides educational outreach for members living in isolation from working Groves, relieving individuals of the need for frequent extensive travel. Candidates for Druid studies are drawn from amongst those members who have distinguished themselves through consistent study, spiritual practice, service to the Order (volunteerism), and who demonstrate a genuine affinity for traditional training as defined by "the Hunt".
Unlike some Neodruid Orders, we do not guarantee that you will be chosen as a candidate for the Druid novitiate. If a life in the Tribes will not content you, please consider joining one of the many organizations (such as OBOD, BDO, AODA or ADF) whose sole function is the training of Druid clergy. True, these groups are not Avalonian, but their teachings are Druidic and are valid in their own right. Forcing traditional training through a non-traditional lens will only deepen existing power and control issues, making us unfit to serve Avalon (or indeed, Druidry) at all. By the same token, while training is compassionate it does not cater to ego; on the contrary, its purpose and intent is to gently provoke or re-activate our issues, so that we may recognise, face, and transform them in positive, life-affirming ways. How we respond to these provocations will determine whether we succeed at becoming Druids. Remaining in a competitive, power-oriented, mainstream mindset will only distort our perceptions and experiences of the path and those who teach it. The shift from modern to traditional worldviews is perhaps the most difficult change facing today's Seeker, requiring us to confront many ingrained habits of thought and feeling until new habits are firmly established. This means completely redefining the world around us and our places within it. Changing one's worldview means making spirituality a top priority. It takes tremendous commitment, patience, and trust. We cannot make this commitment for you. You must decide where your heart is given. We each choose our own ways.
For those who persist and achieve a place in the Druid novitiate, Tradition recognizes three main disciplines (roughly analogous to the three 'rays' or 'pillars' of the Awen), each of which represents three main areas of specialized study:
"For this is the great secret, which was known to all educated men in our day; that by what men believe, we create the world around us, daily new."
Prologue, "The Mists of Avalon", MZB
Lore
Thanks to modern works of fiction, nearly everyone has now heard of the Sisterhood of Priestesses who served the Holy Isle in the time of
