(Nimue)
In the photo I am standing outside a yurt, where I spent a few days recently. The view before me is more dramatic than the photo shows. There were kites, ravens, owls and butterflies. It's entirely possible that I saw my first wild pine marten. Faced with a few days living close to nature, with traffic sounds only rarely audible, it's not so difficult to feel like a Druid. I did a lot of contemplating, meditating and connecting with the land, I was inspired and a lot of what happened felt magical.
If you can give yourself time and space to feed your soul in this way, then definitely do it. Take the space and the time, give yourself opportunity for wild encounters and deep communion.
The trickier question is what to do if that isn't available to you. I can say from experience that it's much harder to feel magical and inspired when you can't reliably stand up, much less go outside. When 'nature' is a bit of sky and trees visible from the window, it is harder feeling connected. When you don't have resources - time, health, energy, money or some combination thereof - going away for a magical retreat just isn't an option. I've had quite a few years when that was the size of it, and that means I'm deeply aware of how blessed and privileged I am to now have opportunities like this.
One of the things it's really important to be alert to around spirituality, is the role of privilege. The more you have to begin with, the easier it is to go to a Druid Camp, or a retreat, to go and do yoga on an exotic beach (which seems popular), to visit sacred sites and to invest in getting to feel spiritual.
Lack of resources can limit you in all sorts of ways. Doing rituals at home is difficult through to impossible if you have little or no space and privacy. Attending community rituals may be impossible if you don't have the resources.
I've lived my Paganism every day, in all kinds of ways. Meditation, contemplation, activism, seeking to live responsibly and honourably, working with inspiration - it's always been part of my everyday life. However, those parts of your Druidry are easily woven into the everyday living, but they won't necessarily make you feel special, magical, uplifted or like a spiritual person. Meanwhile better resourced people may be online posting photos of the beautiful robes they wore to the beautiful ritual in the beautiful place… and it can make someone who can't do or afford that feel second rate. I've been there enough times.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to feel glamorous, nor is there anything wrong in seeking to be uplifted and to feel good about what you do. There should be joy in the path, and scope to take pleasure in what we're doing. It's good to celebrate the experiences that nourish and inspire us. At the same time there are balances to strike around recognising privilege, and the ways in which our experiences act on us.
It's easier to feel like a Druid in some contexts. Feeling like a Druid it is then easier to feel like what you do matters and that your efforts are worthy and worthwhile. It can be a lot harder feeling like a Druid when you're slogging away at a day job, or hauling yourself through another day of pain and dysfunction. No matter what you're doing, it's worth taking the time to ask whether it makes you feel special, or makes you feel banal. Make sure your special feelings aren't just manifestations of privilege, and make sure you aren't undermining the real and valuable things you do just because you don't have the ideal trappings top support it.
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