Towards the end of the 2020 year, I wrote several posts that discussed how my Druidry needed to change in order to work better with where I am, and where I intend to take my Spirituality. To put it into a more appropriate context, this is a lot like trying to add upgrades to a car. Much like that process, the first steps are to tear things down completely, see what you have to work with, and then rebuild from the base up. For me, I have essentially just disassembled everything within my Spirituality, and am now working through what I have available to me.

In a previous post, I discussed how my Druidry placed me in a position of danger. This came from a perspective of seeing Druids as “peacemakers” and that Druidry was about trying to soothe over ruffled feathers from any direction. While there are likely folks within Druidry that will see both of those as correct perspectives for their Druidry, it’s not for my own. The first steps for me in this entire process is building my new boundaries of where I will allow my Druidry to take me, and where those boundaries will limit who gets to cross through into what I do.

I have spent countless hours thinking about and slowly developing my personal boundaries. For those who think its an easy and seamless process – bully for you. For me, its not been an easy process, and is continually being shaped as I progress through what I am doing. My personal boundaries are in place for me, not for others. Coupled with my own identification of where my limits are at, it means that my Druidry will not allow me to be reckless or overly open with my own personal energies. This is a major change for me. I cannot just extend myself for any individual any longer. For me to be anything for anyone else – I have to be something for myself first. Think of it in terms of making sure that you have things covered for you before you try to cover the same things for others. A good example of this is when flight attendants will tell you to insure that your oxygen mask is on before trying to help others get theirs on.

There is more to all of this, though. When rebuilding a car, all of the body parts are taken to a particle blast to remove paint and expose the bare metal. By doing this, flaws in the body work can be uncovered and repaired. Bad repairs will also be exposed, so that those can be dealt with as well. This is a process I am still working through. For instance, as I pointed out, my ideals behind what Druidry is – in respect to what I do in my own Spirituality – have now been challenged. And found lacking in some respects. Now, I am going through the process of repairing some of this additional shit that no longer applies. Well, not really repairing. More like removing. By doing so, I am rebuilding the body of what my Spirituality is by finding the definitions that really speak to my Spirituality, uncovering the concepts that have primary meaning to who I am – and finding how these apply to who I am.

So, what kind of Druid am I? Well, I’m still me. I don’t really like the idea of pushing the definitive aspects of myself into a single descriptive hole. I’m just me. The kind of Druid that I am? Again, I’m me. Currently, I am studying under the system provided by the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids (OBOD). But when I am done – wherever the end of that road winds up being – I am still just me. What I learn through OBOD is good material. Will I use all of what I learn? Probably not. But I will adapt what I learn that is useful for me. Will I learn from other systems? Possibly. Will I learn from other Paths? I already have. Some of what I have already learned is what makes me who I am today. Some of it, is just knowledge that I have squirreled off to the side. It’s not a part of my Spirituality, but its a part of a toolkit that I can pull out when I need to, and alter as I feel I need to. I am not bound to any particular methodology.

Not that long ago, someone had referred to me as being like the Mandolorian on the Disney+ tv series. I do what I have to do to get things finished. Sometimes, it’s not the most polite way to achieve the ends to that means. However, it’s the toolkit I had in hand at that moment. I’m not on my Spiritual Path to make other people happy. But I have certainly walked my Path in that matter. I can’t do that any more. At least I can’t do that, and stay true to who I am, and where I am meant to walk. I have to change the ways that i have done things in the Past, so that I can continue forward. That goes for my Spirituality as well. I am finding that my Path is starting to dip to areas I had never considered before. A darker side of the forest, if you will. For me to walk here, I am going to have to be far more true to myself than I have been.

I still have a long way to go before I can start fine-tuning the motor, before I can paint the body, before I can work with the interior – but this is a start. Yes, I will continue talking about the steps that I take, here on the blog. Yes, I can guarantee you that there will be many people that will disagree with some of the things that I do and some of the changes I make. But I can promise you this – what I do will be true to what I need to do. Your mileage will definitely vary.

–T /|\