“You may say this to Théoden son of Thengel: open war lies before him… None may live now as they have lived, and few shall keep what they call their own.”– Aragorn, speaking to Éomer on the eve of the War of the Ring; from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers

A month ago, my wife attended a town meeting here in Hadley, Massachusetts, concerning prevention of war with Iran. The meeting was sponsored by a number of local organizations, including the Order of the White Oak. Given the events in the last few weeks, which appear to be bringing us closer and closer to war, we felt it essential to distribute this information as widely as possible.

These are the notes my wife took at the meeting. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the basic principles of the Order of the White Oak is social action:

We wish to apply the ethical insights we derive from the ancient Celtic past to contemporary concerns; environmental and ecological issues, human rights and social issues, and many other national and international peace and social justice issues that are of rapidly increasing importance.

Our understanding of the roles of the ancient Druid prompts us to follow them in an involvement in the academic, artistic and social justice arenas, as well as in purely spiritual and religious matters.

I haven’t had much of a chance to take on that role here at Druid Journal so far, but it’s certainly my intent to do more of it in the future.

Tara is the ancient seat of the kings of Ireland; it’s a hillside at the mythopoeic center of Ireland, where the nobles and chiefs would come every year to pay homage to the king and reaffirm the ties that bound the island together. The whole countryside there is riddled with archaeological sites, most of which remain unexplored because the country simply cannot afford to examine them all.

Now the government of Ireland is planning — indeed, they have already begun — to rip a huge road right through the center of this area, destroying who-knows-how-many irreplaceable sites in the process. Read the rest of this entry »

I have been a member of the Ancient Order of Druids in America since this summer, but there are no other druids in that order anywhere nearby. For us, it has been very important to find other druids, because of the children. Read the rest of this entry »