WHO ARE THE DRUIDS?

In such a time as now, when much of our civilization has become neglectful of the Earth and the well-being of our planetary ecosystem, we must return to the ways of old in seek of guidance.
Many ancient cultures have existed that we could draw inspiration from that practiced living in harmony with nature.
But one group of seekers held a particularly and characteristically strong reverence for the natural world and mankinds' place in it - as part of it.
These were the Druids.
Shrouded in mystery with most of their native history either destroyed or filtered through the bias of their conquerors, the origin and ways of the Druids has remained deeply esoteric.
Demonized by the early Christian churches and depicted as devil-worshipping, human-sacrificing savages, the Druids have largely, and quite unfortunately, inherited a false identity.
For it's only to those that delve deeper and can navigate the lies that befell the Druids that a clearer picture of these prestigious leaders can take shape.


"An FhÌrinne in ahaidh an tSaoil." The Truth against the world. 
This was the primary teaching and belief of the Druids, to whom, truth was invaluable and sought after with the utmost ardency.
In fact, so intrinsic was the crucial nature of Truth to the Old Irish, that it served as the basic linguistic concept from which words such as holiness, faithfulness and justice were born.
The Druids were considered among their people, and even amongst the Greeks and Romans as 'the most just of men.'
However, women were equally as eligible to earn the rank of Druid, should they dedicate themselves to the pursuit of knowledge and Truth.
In comparison to other European cultures of the time, such as Greece and Rome, the Celts had an amazingly advanced view on women's' rights.
In stark contrast to the Greek mentality that women were simply the bearers of children and objects of pleasure, the Druids had an affinity and deference for the feminine energy and many women attained positions of great power within Celtic society.

For the Gaulish Druids, speech was so sacred that it was forbidden to keep their wisdom in the form of writing.
All knowledge was passed on orally and was thus learned over the course of many years through devout study and the use of advanced memorization techniques, such as the incorporation of riddles into the lessons taught.
This would often involve following their teachers' itinerant lifestyle, wherever he or she wished to roam.

Within ancient Celtic culture, the Druids were the seekers of knowledge, the intellectual class of their time, serving a multitude of roles, such as philosophers, judges or Brehons, educators, historians, physicians, seers, astronomers, astrologers, poets and musicians.
Once one had chosen a profession and spent three years in study, the student earned the title mac fuirmid, meaning one "is set" on his or her decided path.

By the sixth year, he or she was considered a cli, of the word cleith, meaning the pillar of a house. After 7 to 9 years of research, one became qualified as anruth, or noble stream.
Only after a total of 12 years of intense study could one earn the status of Ollamh, the highest title that could be achieved in any profession, and thus be recognized as a master of his or her craft.

Dedicated to a life of study and learning, their quest for wisdom knew no end.
They taught that one ought to live with nature in harmonious fashion, accept pain and death not as evils, but as part of a divine plan and that the only true evil was that of moral weakness.
The Druids were seen as channelers of the divine, having authority beyond that of the kings.
Their power was such that if a Druid deemed violence unnecessary, entire battles could be halted. Druidic philosophers were among the earliest European people to think of the human soul as indestructible and transmigratory.











































They understood that the world from which we came is the world that we shall return to again. 
For them, heaven was not to be found above the Earth, but within it. 
The ritualistic cite of worship, Seahenge, gives us a glimpse into this unique belief, where an inverted tree trunk lay within a circle of smaller, wooden posts as an offering to the Otherworld.

The Druids were fascinated and enamored with circles and celebrated the cyclic, circular motion of life and the cosmos with rituals that honored the ebb and flow of the seasons.
Pantheism too was a core credence as it was understood that all things, objects, mankind and animals alike, had a spirit or essence that was to be respected and cherished.

Indeed, trees were of extraordinary significance to the Druids.
In particular, the Oak and Hazel, whose nuts contained the wisdom of their ancestors, are often mentioned with great acclaim from insular Celtic sources.
Even the word Druid itself means "Oak Knowledge".
It was believed that he or she that understood the tree, understood survival and how to co-exist with nature.
In fact, the Irish Druids devised and used an alphabet, Ogham, or The Tree Alphabet, wherein each letter took the name of a tree.
This form of writing was used particularly in poetry, warnings and challenges to enemies and magical incantations or spells.
One Ogham library of inscribed knowledge, known as "the rods of FilÌ", was carved entirely into bark and wands of Hazel and Aspen.
However, the only surviving Ogham texts were those carved into stone and thus impervious to fire or decay.
All Druidic poets carried with them a small branch, ordained with a number of diminutive bells, which would twinkle when shaken.
An Ollamh poet carried a golden branch, while an Anruth carried a silver one; all others carried branches of bronze.
Let us now, in the spirit of Druidic gratitude, remember and honor the mighty providers of life to whom we are utterly dependent, the trees.


http://timewheel.net/Tome-Who-Are-The-Druids