Druid Journal

Guidance by Word, Card, and Star

  • Words of the Day: Arda, Assassin, Beauty

    My old blog, the Word of the Day, is defunct, and I’m getting ready to take it down. Before I do, though, I’m going to repost some of the best words here over the next few weeks. Enjoy! Arda In Tolkien’s cosmology, Arda means the Earth, as well as the sun and the moon and… Continue reading

  • Words of the Day: America, Angel, Apollo

    My old blog, the Word of the Day, is defunct, and I’m getting ready to take it down. Before I do, though, I’m going to repost some of the best words here over the next few weeks. Enjoy! America In the English-speaking world, America almost always refers only to the United States, even though technically… Continue reading

  • The Bear: Downloadable Guided Meditation for Security, Abundance, and Rebirth

    While vacationing in Acadia, Maine, I recently found myself strongly drawn to carvings and pictures of bears in the shops and on signs and so forth. And once, while hiking, I thought I heard a bear (they have a distinctive shuffle). I meditated on this, and began to remember the many times in my life… Continue reading

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  • Seven Meditative Vignettes

    These seven mini-meditations were first posted as part of the blog Druid Journal Meditation, which I worked on in 2007 and 2008. Since that blog is now defunct, I’ve reposted the meditations here, along with some ruminations on their meanings. Continue reading

  • Sarah Palin: A Reading

    Today I found myself inspired to do a name analysis reading, and since Sarah Palin and her political influence have been on my mind recently, I decided to inflict her with one. Sarah, the name which represents her spiritual guidance in the social world, is a Biblical name, and one of the oldest: the name… Continue reading

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  • Zen and the Art of Tarot III: Card as Koan

    This is the third post in a series on the relationship between Zen Buddhism and the Tarot. It came about because I decided to try mixing Zen philosophy and visualization meditation in my attack on a personal issue of mine. The personal issue, as I explained in depth in the previous posts, is a persistent… Continue reading

  • Zen and the Art of Tarot II: Meditation and Release

    In my previous post on Zen and the Tarot (Illusion and Attachment), I talked about an issue I’ve been working on recently: my tendency to feel as though I do not deserve the good things in my life (my job, my loved ones, my access to nature, etc.). Intellectually I know that it makes no… Continue reading

  • Zen and the Art of Tarot I: Illusion and Attachment

    Recently I discovered that I have an odd emotional malady — maybe you’ve got it too. Basically it’s this: whenever I think about something I’d like to have in my life (an evening out with friends, curtains on all my windows, a better job, more time in nature), I instinctively and subconsciously ask myself whether… Continue reading

  • Defining Paganism IV: Is Paganism a Religion?

    In the last few posts, I proposed a definition of pagan based on the notion of prototypes. In this definition, pagan does not refer to a precise, countable set of people in the world. Instead, pagan refers to a set of overlapping and related prototypes — witch, druid, indigene, shaman, earth-centered, local, and probably some… Continue reading

  • Defining Paganism III: Prototypes of the Pagan

    In the last post I laid some linguistic groundwork by talking about what word meaning was, and what it wasn’t. In brief, a word is not a clearly defined area of conceptual space, but a set of prototypes: classic, perfect, typical examples of the class. For example, the prototypical house is a a single-family home, free-standing,… Continue reading

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About Me

Word, Card, and Star – a journey through language, divination, and inspiration. A chronicle of my search for guidance, insight, and a connection to nature and the ancient world. Along the way, I hope to discover beauty, connection, groundedness, and a sense of wonder.

Serialized fiction offered at Patreon

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Link to fiction blog Axon Firings
Axon Firings: Jeff’s fiction blog

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