August 2, 2024 • 59 mins
What exactly is a Druid and what do they do? In this episode and in her new book Celtic Druidry: Rituals, Techniques, and Magical Practices, my guest Ellen Evert Hopman unravels some of the mysterious lore surrounding Druidism and shares how our contemporary understanding of this ancient practice is not really complete.
Ellen Evert Hopman is the author of a number of books and has been a teacher of Herbalism since 1983 and of Druidism since 1990. She is a professional member of the American Herbalists Guild and has presented on Druidism, herbal lore, tree lore, Paganism and magic at conferences, festivals, and events in Northern Ireland, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, and in the United States.
In this episode, Ellen discusses:
- What a Druid is and what it’s not
- Her practice as a Celtic Reconstructionist Druid
- Druidism throughout history
- The Druid’s role in ancient society
- The striking similarities between East Indian and Celtic cultures and religious practices
- Celtic ritual and ceremony
- The importance of magic
- Druids and shamanism
- What it means to truly be a Druid
- The Tribe of the Oak Druid training program
- How ancient Druids used restorative justice
Ellen Evert Hopman’s website
The Tribe of the Oak Druid training program
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Wendy (00:02):
This is Wendy Halley, and you're listening to Lucid Cafe.
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Alright, so in today's episodemy guest Ellen Everett Hopman
shares what she's discoveredabout Celtic Druidism in her 30
years as a Celtic historian,teacher, and a practicing Druid.
Her new book, Celtic Druidry: Rituals, Techniques, and Magical (01:59):
undefined
Practices is a handbook forbecoming a modern Druid. In our
conversation, she shares how ourcontemporary understanding of
Druidism is not really complete.And you might be surprised to
learn about the rather importantroles Druids played in ancient
society. So Ellen is the authorof a number of books and has
(02:23):
been a teacher of herbalismsince 1983 and of Druidism since
1990.
She's a professional member ofthe American Herbalists Guild
and has presented on Druidism,herbal lore, tree lore,
paganism, and magic atconferences, festivals, and
events in Northern Ireland, inIreland, Scotland, Canada, and
(02:46):
in the United States. Pleaseenjoy my conversation with Ellen
Everett Hartman. Ellen, thankyou so much for joining me.
Ellen (02:59):
Well, thank you for inviting me.
Wendy (03:01):
Of course. Yes. I was interested to talk to you
because I don't know much aboutDruidry. That's that's a mouth
that's a hard word to say,Druidry. Say it 10 times fast.
So you just released a new bookcalled Celtic Druidry, Rituals,
Techniques, and MagicalPractices.
Ellen (03:23):
Mhmm.
Wendy (03:23):
It is chock full historic information, which I think is
great because I think the wholeDruid world is probably very
misunderstood and maybe notcompletely accurate, the
information that we have. So Iwould love to start right there.
I'd love to hear your definitionof what a druid is and what that
(03:46):
practice is all about.
Ellen (03:49):
Oh, boy. Well, there are many different kinds of druids.
There's druids, and there'sdruids, and there's druids. We
like threes. The number 3 isvery important.
Okay. But there are people wholiterally say all you have to do
is sit under a tree and hangout, and that makes you a druid.
Wendy (04:13):
Oh, really? I'm sure it's that easy!
Ellen (04:15):
Yeah. There are people who will tell you that. So how
how do I become a druid? Well,just go sit outside and watch
the clouds or something. Andthat's a druid.
But I am what's called a Celticreconstructionist druid. And
what that means is that we lookto the old teachings, the
(04:38):
literature, the wisdom tales,the poetry. There's a lot of
material out there. The otherthing you'll hear people say is
we don't know anything aboutdruids. There's nothing out
there so you can make up whatyou want, but that's because
they haven't bothered to look.
In the book, I tried very hardto give examples of ancient 2000
(05:01):
year old poetry and written bydruids and and little herb
spells that have been passeddown. And, I mean, there's a lot
out there. And I think one ofthe big problems is that people
haven't really looked at theIrish material. People tend to
look at the British material.There was a big British revival,
(05:23):
English revival in the 1700,which was brought about by
masons who were all men, ofcourse.
Of course. And there was also aFrench druid revival, which
nobody talks about at least inAmerica, which they were also
masons. So it was very male,very masonic. So people think
(05:44):
that that's what it is. But ifyou look at the Irish material,
we're very fortunate because wehave volumes of books.
We have the laws of the poets,for example, the Euricak Narir,
which I think every person whocalls himself a druid needs to
look at that book because itgoes through the bardic training
(06:06):
year by year, and it's only 8years. We know that druids spent
20 years studying, but in thebardic training, it's 8 years,
and it tells you what you needto know each year, how many
stories you have to memorize,how many alphabets you have to
know, and it goes on and on andon. And it's nothing about
(06:27):
sitting under a tree. But what Isay in the book is that being in
nature is half of it. The otherhalf is scholarship, and that's
the half that most people don'twanna they just wanna look at
their phone.
Wendy (06:45):
That sounds like a lot of work. Yeah.
Ellen (06:47):
Yeah. But I do provide a list of books, what I consider
the basic books for people toread, and I just try to help
people on the way if they reallywanna learn this because it's a
big subject. I've been at it for40 years, and I'm still
learning.
Wendy (07:05):
I bet. Yeah. Because you're a druid scholar. Right? A
practitioner.
Druid. Yes.
Ellen (07:12):
The druids were actually the intellectuals of the Quran.
Wendy (07:16):
Yes. You did write about that. Yeah. I just wanna clarify
that culturally, Druids werepart of ancient Ireland. Is that
correct?
Or...
Ellen (07:26):
No. Well, we had druids all over Britain in Scotland.
Wendy (07:31):
Oh, okay. So the UK.
Ellen (07:33):
Well, what was called the British Isles, which used to
include Ireland, and then, ofcourse, down into to Gaul, which
is France and parts of Germany.I mean, Druids were a class
within Celtic society. So theywere the equivalent of Brahmins.
You know, in India, you have theBrahmins, and they are a sacred
(07:55):
class. And people were born intoit's called Nemed, which means
sacred in old Irish.
You were born into the Nemedclass. The kings and queens came
from the warrior class, which isequivalent to the Kshatriya in
Hinduism. And they had to beritually elevated into the Nemed
(08:18):
class. That's why you had tohave a a big ritual. And we just
saw that with king Charles.
You had to have this ritual tosanctify him, to enable him to
be elevated. Even though he wasborn into the nobility, he had
to be elevated, right, andanointed and all that stuff.
Well, it's the same thing. Theking had to be ritually elevated
(08:39):
by a druid, and we even havestill some of that ritual. And I
do talk about that in the book.
It's called the Oidach Morin,which is the testament of Moran,
and it it tells it's a druidtelling a king, a young king, a
new king, how to be a king, andthat's part of the ritual. So
(09:04):
the druid had druid parentsusually or grandparents and was
born into it and was trained bytheir parents, father and
mother. There were femaledruids, which a lot of scholars
have ignored, of course. But,but but, of course, yeah, I
found plenty of evidence forthat. And if anybody's
(09:24):
interested, I have an essay.
It's floating around on the onthe Internet, and it's called
female druids. So if you justlook up Ellen Everett Hartman,
female druids, it'll pop up, andyou can read the evidence that I
found, and it wasn't that hard.
Wendy (09:40):
It wasn't that hard to find it?
Ellen (09:42):
To find the evidence.
Wendy (09:44):
Okay.
Ellen (09:44):
Yeah. It wasn't. I mean, there's plenty of evidence out
there.
Wendy (09:48):
I was really intrigued by the comparison between Indian
culture and Celtic culture.
Ellen (09:54):
Mhmm.
Wendy (09:55):
Is that just a coincidence, or is
Ellen (09:57):
No. Is there a Okay. Yeah. I like to think of the old
Celtic religion, Druidism iswhat I usually call it, as being
the western end of Hinduism.Hinduism is the eastern end of
Celtic religion.
I mean, it's the same religion.It's part of the Indo European
(10:20):
continuum. And so the classstructure is exactly the same.
The idea that cows are sacred,that you make offerings to fire,
you make offerings to water.It's the same religion.
And, well, I wrote a series ofnovels. If you look up my name
and the Druid trilogy, it'llcome
Wendy (10:42):
You are prolific. You have written many, many books.
Ellen (10:46):
Yeah. I'll keep A
Wendy (10:47):
lot on herbalism and and some fiction too. Yeah.
Ellen (10:50):
But in the novels, I talk about when the first missionary
showed up, in the 2nd century,long before Patrick, and the
confrontation between theindigenous druids and the
missionaries. That's it's a 3novels about that. 2nd to 5th
century. But I do talk aboutthat in there. And I think the
essay, yeah, the essay femaledruids is actually in the back
(11:13):
of one of those books.
Wendy (11:15):
Okay. So it's like historical fiction.
Ellen (11:17):
Yeah. Although, they made me, classify it as fantasy
because if you have druids,you're supposed to make it
fantasy. You're not allowed tomake it history.
Wendy (11:28):
That's right. Because of the misunderstanding Right.
Ellen (11:31):
Of that. Because of Merlin.
Wendy (11:32):
Druidism. Yeah.
Ellen (11:34):
But, yeah, it's it's historical fiction. You could
call it that. But it's based onwhen I was writing the books, I
had been studying Celtic historyfor 30 years. I've now studied
it for 40 years. So, yeah, sothere's actual research that
went into the books, all mybooks.
Wendy (11:55):
Yeah. And so do you find that a lot of people are
surprised to hear the truehistory of Druidism?
Ellen (12:01):
Well, most people don't care about Druidism. Yeah. I
just
Wendy (12:07):
Well, I mean, the people who are interested.
Ellen (12:08):
The people who do care? Yeah.
Wendy (12:10):
Yeah. I mean Yeah. Okay. That's how
Ellen (12:12):
you go. Yeah.
Wendy (12:13):
I didn't mean, like, the whole world is like, no shit.
Really? I had no idea.
Ellen (12:21):
Yeah. No. I think well, I'm very used to hanging out in
Celtic Reconstructionistcircles, which I've been doing
for 40 years. So the people thatI associate with are not
surprised. But what youtypically get mostly with people
who come to my talks or peopleonline, you typically get people
(12:43):
who will immediately say we knownothing about druids.
So just make up what you want.That's what you hear all the
time. And then I have toconstantly go, wait a minute.
You know? But
Wendy (12:55):
So what got you interested originally in the
history of it all?
Ellen (13:00):
Well, I was born in Austria, and my mother was an
artist. And she was veryinterested in archaeology, and
there were a lot of digs goingon, and there still are, of
course. But they were digging upall these Celtic graveyards, and
they were finding jewelry andmetal work. And my mother was
(13:21):
fascinated by that. So I grew uphearing about the Celts.
And what I remember most, andmothers are very powerful when I
look back on it because I didn'tthink anything of it. But what
happened was she would talkabout the Celts, but she would
talk about them with suchrespect. That's what I really
(13:42):
got as a kid was this respect,this profound respect, and
that's what really came through.And I never thought anything
about it, and I promptly forgotabout it, and it wasn't until my
thirties when I heard Celticmusic for the first time, and I
heard somebody on the radio saythis is Celtic music, and I
went, Celtic, wait a minute. AndI loved I just loved the music.
(14:06):
I adore I still do. It's myfavorite music. But
Wendy (14:09):
So that seed that your mom had planted Yeah. Began to
sprout.
Ellen (14:13):
Yeah. And and I literally hadn't thought about it. I'd
never heard the words spoken outloud. Nothing. And then I I went
to, Findhorn in Scotland, and Iactually lived at Findhorn for a
summer.
That was the Finhorn is thefirst new age community in the
world, and it's in the MorayFirth of of Scotland, and I was
(14:34):
there for a whole summer. Andfor one week of that summer, I
got to go to Iona, the island ofIona, and that was the first
time I heard the word druidsspoken out loud because there
were stories about the druids.And, again, as soon as I heard
that, some part of me justimmediately resonated. You know?
(14:58):
I knew it was something.
Wendy (15:00):
How do you make sense of that kind of I mean, I know your
mom planted the seed, and shehad a lot of reverence for
Celtic culture, but you seem tohave a very strong passionate
connection. Do you have any kindof theories as to why it feels
so powerfully strong and whyyou've dedicated so much of your
(15:20):
life to understanding theculture and the practices and
what it really means to be aDruid.
Ellen (15:27):
Well, I have theories.
Wendy (15:29):
I love theories.
Ellen (15:30):
Okay. Well, I've I mean, I've done past haven't we all
done past life regressions? Youknow? And I remember a 7th
century lifetime as a druid.And, also, for me, druidism, I
haven't really connected withwitchcraft the way a lot of
people connect to witchcraft,mainly because the witchcraft
(15:51):
that I've been exposed to hasbeen modern.
It's been wicca, which wasinvented in the 19 thirties, and
somehow I'm not built that way.I'm more interested in the old
stuff. So if somebody came upwith a witch tradition that was
2000 years old, I'd probably beinterested. This is our
indigenous history. This is whowe are.
(16:14):
And what happened was, first,the Romans came, and they did
unspeakable things. And,
Wendy (16:21):
Really? I think I heard something about that. Yeah.
Ellen (16:26):
So we had first, we had the Roman armies who came in,
and we had to try to get repelthat. And then when we finally
kicked them out, then along camethe Roman Catholic church. So
it's been 2000 years of misery,you know, on that level, and
(16:46):
trying to impose anauthoritarian patriarchal
structure on top of a forestbased, not 100% egalitarian, but
very pro female compared to theRomans and compared to modern
day, you know, like women wereactually honored.
Wendy (17:06):
Wow. That's a novel idea.
Ellen (17:07):
Yeah. What an idea. But, I mean, that's who we were. We
were a forest culture. There wasunbroken oak forest from the
west coast of France all the wayto the Black Sea, and probably
in Russia too, but I've neverbeen to Russia.
But it was unbroken oak forest,And that's our indigenous state.
That's who we are. Even Irelandif you go to Ireland now, they
(17:29):
only have 1% of their forestleft. And there's a terrible
history there too. The Englishcame in and cut down all the
trees.
And and it now you have thesecorporations who are planting
Sitka spruce plantations, whichdon't belong there. That's an
Alaskan tree. And Oh, nokidding. And it kills everything
(17:52):
underneath. So all the thebushes and the berries and the
flowers, herbs, it should bethat's all killed off.
Wendy (17:59):
Nice try, I guess. I mean
Ellen (18:01):
Well, it's
Wendy (18:03):
If they didn't do a lot of, research on indigenous Oh,
they don't care. Trees.
Ellen (18:08):
No. They just don't care. It's all about profit. They
think of trees as farming. Youknow, you're farming trees, so
you grow them for a certainnumber of years and then you
clear cut.
That's the way they think.
Wendy (18:21):
I see. Okay.
Ellen (18:22):
Just for money. That's all they think about.
Wendy (18:24):
Oh, I thought it was the illusion of, see, we're helping
the planet by planting trees.
Ellen (18:29):
Oh, no. It's a business.
Wendy (18:31):
Okay. I I guess that was my my wishful thinking.
Ellen (18:35):
I mean, there are people in Ireland and in Scotland and
in England and all over theplace who were trying to plant
the indigenous trees back. Butit's just little groups of
people working really hardagainst the these giant
corporate interests when thegovernment keeps giving the
corporations the go ahead torape the land, basically. But
(18:57):
that's a whole
Wendy (18:59):
That's a whole other conversation.
Ellen (19:00):
Another con but, anyway, yeah. So we're still the way I
look at it is we're still tryingto get out from under the
mentality, what came in 2000years ago. And, yeah, it's been
bad news ever since kind of.
Wendy (19:17):
Okay. Let's get back to the role that druids played in
society. How would you describethe various roles? Because it
wasn't just one role. Right?
It was Right. You already talkedabout of them being
intellectuals Right. Scholars.
Ellen (19:33):
Right. And They were scholars. They were called the
people of arts. In our culture,we have something called a
master of arts. It's a degree.
Right? Well, that's what theywere. They were the people of
arts. They were the masters ofthe arts. And so some of them
were ritualists.
They supervised the sacrificesand rituals. Some of them were
(19:56):
sacred singers. Some of themwere sacred poets. Some of them
were genealogists. Some of themwere historians.
Some of them were herbalists,what we would call doctors,
which was a combination ofherbalism and magic. But some of
them were judges, some of themwere lawyers, all the educated
(20:17):
people. And then they were theteachers of the children of the
nobility. Obviously, theyweren't teaching the lower
classes. You know?
But yeah.
Wendy (20:28):
I'm probably gonna be asking you a lot of ignorant
questions, so forgive me inadvance. But the way you're
describing it is clearly verydifferent than my understanding,
my maybe more Hollywoodunderstanding of the druid Mhmm.
Or the fictionalized version ofthe druid that shows up in, in
fantasy books and such. Soritual's obviously super
(20:51):
important, and I think it's beenimportant in every culture
throughout history. How do yousee the importance of ritual
playing out with the druids?
Like, in your own life, do youuse a lot of ritual?
Ellen (21:06):
Yeah. Ritual today has the same place as it did in the
past in the sense that it's away to bring the whole community
together. And, well, a druidwould be working for 1 king and
a tribe. And that's one of thebig differences between druids
(21:27):
and witches, for example, orcunning folk. The witch is an
independent agent and you don'tknow who they're working for and
therefore they're scary.
Whereas the druid is alwaysworking for the tribe and
they're working for the king andyou know what side they're on.
But the rituals, I mean, theyhad lots of different rituals,
(21:48):
but, obviously, you had thingslike marriages, marriage
contracts, the usual stuff, whatwe call baptism, baby blessings,
that kind of thing, or blessingthe soldiers before they go off
to war and all that, but alsothe big seasonal festivals. And
in fact, we just celebratedBeltane, which is May Day.
Wendy (22:09):
Right.
Ellen (22:10):
And for the Celts, there were really only 2 seasons of
the year. There was a dark halfand a light half. So there's 2
New Years. Right now, there arepeople arguing about when is the
Celtic New Year. And one factionsays, oh, Celtic New Year is at
Samhain, which is Halloween.
And the other faction says, no.Celtic New Year is Beltane,
(22:31):
which is May Day, but they'reboth right.
Wendy (22:34):
They're both. Yes. Okay. Gotcha.
Ellen (22:36):
And so those are the 2 big spirit nights of the year,
and you have all kinds ofrituals that go on. So for
example, for the May Day or orBeltane that we just had
actually, okay. I'm gonnabacktrack. It's not Beltane yet.
I call Beltane or May Day, theway most people celebrate it.
(22:58):
I call that the secular Beltanebecause the real Beltane is at
the full moon, and it's when thehawthorns bloom.
Wendy (23:06):
Ah, okay.
Ellen (23:07):
And I've been I've been keeping a careful eye on the
hawthorns behind the house, andI recently spoke to somebody in
Ireland and I asked them. Isaid, are your hawthorns
blooming yet? And they said, no.Not yet. There's just buds.
And it's not it's not Beltaneuntil the Hawthorne blooms. And
the reason is that once theHawthorne blooms, that's the
(23:29):
signal that it's warm enough tosend the cows up to the hills
because the tree knows. Sothat's what the druid has to
keep their eye on the hawthornsand then has to tell the tribe,
hey, the hawthorns are blooming.It's time. It's time.
Yeah. So then you have this bigritual which involves 3 fires,
(23:49):
we like the number 3, and it'sone big fire which was probably
dedicated to a a male deity, oneanother big fire for a female
deity, and then a third smallerfire. So first, you have to
ritually light the small fire,and that means, like, holding a
crystal to the sun or gatheringwildfire from a lightning strike
(24:13):
or some from nature, somenatural or using well, they
didn't have matches. But Right.Right.
Using some natural fire, youhave your little fire. And, from
that little fire, then you lightthe 2 big fires and then you
have to pass all the cowsthrough in between the two
(24:33):
fires. And the two fires have tobe close enough that a white cow
passing through will have herfur singed brown.
Wendy (24:41):
Wow. That's intense.
Ellen (24:42):
Okay. Close. Yeah. And every cow has to go through
those two fires. And this tiesin to Hinduism again because the
reason for this is that the cowis a lunar animal.
It's an animal of water becauseit carries liquid, otherwise
known as milk or soma. Mhmm. Andthe fire is the opposite. Right?
(25:07):
Just like dark half of the year,light half of the year.
Fire and water. Yeah. Fire andwater. So milk is liquid. You
got the fires.
So you pass this lunar wateryanimal between 2 ritual fires,
and fire and water cometogether. And I talk about this
in my novels a lot. But wherefire and water come together,
(25:30):
you have the greatest potentialfor magic and transformation.
The whole world is made of fireand water in Celtic thinking. In
in its interest in Scandinavianthinking, they say fire and ice.
Wendy (25:44):
Makes sense.
Ellen (25:46):
And they had 2 seasons, a fiery season and an icy season.
So at Lunasa, which is Lammas,they call it Lammas, which is
actually Anglo Saxon, comes fromLoof, Mass, but the word is
lunasa. You have fiery animals,which are horses. Those are
(26:06):
creatures of fire. And if youread the Rigveda, there are
hymns to horses, and guess what?
They're fire animals. So youtake these fire animals, horses,
and you pass them through water.So you drive them across a river
or through a pond or somethingbecause you have to bring fire
(26:28):
and water together again.
Wendy (26:29):
That's to symbolize that time of year. Is that
Ellen (26:32):
Well, it's it's magic. Like, at Lunasa, which is around
August 1st, last week of July,1st 2 weeks of August, The crops
are not yet in. You're waitingfor the wheat harvest or the
oats. They're sitting out in thefield. They haven't been
harvested yet, and they're notquite ripe yet.
So you still need magic. Youstill need good weather. You
(26:54):
still need rain. You still needgood luck, the luck of the
harvest. So you do this ritualact to bring fire and water
together to empower whatever itis that you're trying to
manifest.
Wendy (27:10):
Okay. So is all magic ritual based then?
Ellen (27:15):
No. Okay. Well, can you
Wendy (27:19):
tell me a little bit about how magic works
Ellen (27:21):
with the druid tradition? There's many different kinds of
magic. I mean, it could be asolitary practitioner sitting in
your house doing magic. In thebook, I have herb magic, for
example.
Wendy (27:34):
Right.
Ellen (27:34):
I even quote some old Scottish writings about that.
There are certain herbs that youtwine together and you put under
your milk pail so that thefairies and the witches won't
steal the milk. You know, or youcan hang a wreath on the house
to protect the house so thefairies won't come in. So, I
mean, that's just one type ofmagic.
Wendy (27:55):
So let me ask this question then.
Ellen (27:57):
Yeah.
Wendy (27:57):
If you perform some magic
Ellen (28:00):
Mhmm.
Wendy (28:00):
And things didn't go the way you hoped it would go Mhmm.
How would druids explain that?
Ellen (28:06):
Okay. So you do a ritual. You set it all up. You make your
offerings. We're more intogiving praise to the gods and
goddesses.
That's that's what we do more.Working magic for a specific
intention is rare.
Wendy (28:21):
But Okay.
Ellen (28:22):
Usually, we're praising the deities. So we do our big
whatever it is, and then there'salways a place in the ritual
where you do a divination to seeif it was accepted. Now back in
the day, they would have taken aliver, a nice liver, and they
would have cut it open to seewhat was going on in there. But,
(28:43):
what we modern druids will usecards or bones or, you know,
something like that. And we welook to see if it was accepted.
If the if the omens are good,then we go, okay. We did our
job. That's fine, and then we goeat. You know? But if but if the
Romans are bad, that means thatwe either have to start all over
(29:06):
again or there's something thatthe gods are asking of us.
Something that we And you
Wendy (29:14):
just have to figure out what that is.
Ellen (29:15):
Out what it is exactly.
Wendy (29:17):
Got you. And so is there direct communion with the gods
and the goddesses?
Ellen (29:22):
We hope so.
Wendy (29:24):
One of the questions I wanted to ask was any parallels
to shamanic practice?
Ellen (29:30):
Yes. The druids were also shamans. That was a big part of
it. In fact, see, there's moderndruids, and you see this in
Britain that wear white robesand nice clean white robes and
all that. That's actuallyEgyptian.
Wendy (29:47):
Oh, really?
Ellen (29:47):
Yes. Because the accounts that we have of the ancient
druids, they wore plaid.
Wendy (29:55):
I love plaid.
Ellen (29:56):
Yeah. Well
Wendy (29:58):
I do. I I never would have alright. So they were
plaid. That's amazing. Alright.
Ellen (30:04):
By the different numbers of colors in your plaid, you
could tell what status somebodyhad.
Wendy (30:12):
Right.
Ellen (30:12):
Okay. So the king could wear 7 colors, the druid could
wear 6, and then it kinda wentdown from there. So that was
your calling card. You didn'thave a a label or a card, but
you wore your plaid and peopleknew just looking at you, they
knew exactly who you were. Theslaves could only wear one
color, and farmers might wear 2.
(30:36):
The young lords who didn't haveterribly much property but might
be a good warrior, they wouldget 3 colors. And it just kinda
went up from there. But we alsohave writings that talk about
the druids wearing a cape offeathers. Okay? Now isn't that a
typical shamanic costume?
Wendy (30:57):
It certainly could be. Yeah. Absolutely.
Ellen (31:00):
And you don't see that in Hollywood, usually.
Wendy (31:04):
Oh, you don't. You don't. No. Does that mean they would do
things to alter theirconsciousness and travel to the
dreaming realm?
Ellen (31:15):
Absolutely. And in fact, in the book, I talk about
different trance techniques,which you can do at home. Yeah.
There's there's a famous poetictechnique called the stone on
the belly, where you literallygo into a dark room, complete
silence, complete darkness, wrapsome a plaid around your head
(31:37):
maybe so there no light comesin, and you you don't eat
anything. You fast, and you puta huge rock on your belly, and
you lie there and you incubate apoem.
Now if you think about this, andI've thought about it, you're
lying there with a big rock onyour belly. What does that
(31:58):
represent? What does thatresemble?
Wendy (32:01):
Well, pregnancy. Exactly.
Ellen (32:04):
A lot of the techniques are about going back to the womb
or being pregnant. No kidding.Okay. And even with the harp,
the harp was the druidicinstrument. If you were a
harper, you were automaticallygiven land because you were
automatically noble, and you hadto have land.
But there's a there's a ritualcalled the raising of the belly,
(32:27):
the belly of the harp. So thesound box of the harp, a new
harp that's just been made, youput the strings on when it takes
months, and you you keeptightening, tightening,
tightening, and the belly of theharp rises.
Wendy (32:43):
Okay.
Ellen (32:45):
Yeah. The sound box is a belly, and it there's a lot of
that.
Wendy (32:50):
You think it has to do with just creating, whether it's
creating magic, creatingconnection, creating art?
Ellen (32:56):
I think it's very feminine. I think it's very
female. I mean, at Imbolc,there's an old tradition of
making a bride doll, an image ofBridget, and putting her on a
bed by the hearth. Okay. So thebed it's a bed of straw.
And a lot of people think, oh,it's a doll. It's it's a baby
(33:20):
Bridget. You know? Isn't thatcute? And it's gonna attract
Bridget, and she's gonna comedown the chimney and leave her
footprint in the ashes, and thenwe'll be blessed.
But when I looked into it, itturns out that back in the day,
when a woman gave birth, theywould put straw on the floor,
and she would lie on the straw.She would give birth on the
(33:42):
straw, and you can imagine theafterbirth and the blood and all
that. And then they would, thisis all very sanitary. They would
pick up the straw and take itoutside and burn it.
Wendy (33:52):
That makes sense. Yeah.
Ellen (33:54):
Yeah. So this Bridget doll, it's actually an image of
Bridget ready to give birth.She's giving birth to spring, to
the new year at Imbolc. I don'tknow if I put that in the book
or not, but but I but I did talkabout some of the other rituals,
(34:15):
and they're very feminine. Yeah.
It's about being pregnant.
Wendy (34:19):
Yeah. That's the impression I got when I was
reading your book. Yeah. It didfeel very feminine.
Ellen (34:26):
Mhmm.
Wendy (34:26):
A lot of the the practices and the poetry and the
one of the things that reallystrikes me, which is not
surprising at all, is therelationship that Druids have
with the natural world and thatthey're constantly, it seems,
attending to, paying attentionto what's happening in the
(34:48):
natural world. Yeah. Inrelationship with the tree
spirits and all of the thenature spirits, it seems like.
Ellen (34:56):
Mhmm. Well, that's what we lost when the Roman Christian
religion came in. That's whatwas lost. Initially, it wasn't
lost so much. There was a aChristian tradition called the
Caldi who were CelticChristians.
But then there was a Synod ofWhitby, and the big Christians
(35:16):
got together and had the Synod,and they decided that, no. We
can't have that. And they threwout the Celtic church, and they
forced everybody to become RomanChristians.
Wendy (35:25):
And Really? That's shocking too. Well It's not.
It's not. It happenedeverywhere.
Ellen (35:33):
Yeah. But but it initially, you had the pagan
nature religion, which honoredthe seasons, which honored the
trees and the herbs, and thefire was sacred, and the water
was sacred. And the animals weresacred and the people were
sacred. You had all that. Andgradually, they melded with the
(35:55):
missionaries who showed up, Andit was kinda peaceful in
Ireland.
It was not peaceful at all inGaul, in France, and Germany. It
was terrible. There's a lot ofviolence that went on, forcing
people to convert. Right. Andcutting down sacred trees,
destroying temples, the wholething.
It was terrible. So that wenton. And it initially, there was
(36:16):
kind of a melding, and it itwasn't so bad because the the
clergy that was coming in, themissionaries were intellectuals,
and the druids wereintellectuals.
Wendy (36:26):
So They had a meeting of the minds.
Ellen (36:28):
Yeah. They were talking to each other. They were sharing
stories. They were learnedpeople, and that was okay. But
then they were forced to becomethis patriarchal mindset, which
came directly from Romanculture.
Roman culture was verypatriarchal. And it it actually
goes against who we were for1000 and 1000 of years. And I
(36:53):
think we're still struggling toregain what was lost.
Wendy (36:58):
Yeah. No. It's very sad.
Ellen (37:00):
Yeah.
Wendy (37:00):
But then there's people like you who are who are digging
deep and sharing thisinformation, which is great.
Ellen (37:08):
Well, yeah, that's what I've been doing for the last 40
years. All my books Yeah. Thedifferent Druid orders that I've
created or cocreated or been apart of, I've just been plotting
along.
Wendy (37:21):
Well, what made you write this particular book now? I
would have thought this would bea more foundational book that
maybe you would have writtenearlier in your time practicing
as a druid.
Ellen (37:32):
Yeah. That's not the way I see it at all. No? This book,
Celtic Druidry, is an overviewof what I did for for 40 years.
I mean, what I believe to be theessence of Druidism.
Somebody who's a newpractitioner, they don't know.
(37:53):
But, I mean, I've talked tothousands of Druids literally.
I've read 100, if not thousandsof books and articles and helped
to create Druid orders. And sowhat I did was I just took all
of that and distilled it into anoverview of what I consider to
be important if you're gonna bea druid. And I I don't think I
(38:17):
could have written that book 30years ago.
There's no way.
Wendy (38:21):
As you're talking about it, I yeah. That seems very
clear. You needed to have allthis experience
Ellen (38:26):
Right.
Wendy (38:26):
First.
Ellen (38:27):
Plus the ancient literature that I mentioned, it
it I didn't learn thatimmediately. That's something
that I had to learn over time.
Wendy (38:35):
So what do you hope this book will do for folks who are
interested?
Ellen (38:40):
Well, it's it's set up so that you can be a solitary
practitioner, most people are.To really be a druid is to serve
a tribe. So if you're reallygonna be a druid, you're really
supposed to be serving a tribe.So you have to identify who is
your tribe and how are you gonnaserve them. You
Wendy (38:59):
know? Okay.
Ellen (39:00):
It's it's not a solitary function. Although these days,
most pagans, most witches, mostdruids are solitary, which is
kind of because we've lost ourtribes. We always had tribes.
Wendy (39:13):
Right. Yeah.
Ellen (39:14):
So my hope is that somebody could pick up the book
and be a practicing druid,whether they do it by themselves
or they identify their tribe andwho they serve.
Wendy (39:26):
Are there druid schools out there that you feel are
doing the practice justice?
Ellen (39:32):
Well, yes, as a matter of fact.
Wendy (39:34):
Yeah?
Ellen (39:35):
Well, I founded a group, and I was archdruid from 2014
until just a few months ago. Andwe now have a new archdruid,
which is fantastic because I wasable to hand it off to somebody
else, which is to me, that meansI was successful. You know?
Yeah. But it's called tribe ofthe oak, and you can find us at
(39:57):
tribeoftheoak.org.org.org.
And we have a training program.So we have a website,
tribeoftheoak.org. We also havea public page on Facebook. It's
a tribe of the oak druids publicforum. We do online rituals for
people because we have membersall over the world.
(40:19):
So people in Ireland, Canada,all across the US, Australia.
We've had people in Mexico,Japan.
Wendy (40:27):
Alright.
Ellen (40:28):
Yeah. So I'm trying to think where else. Anyway, we're
all over the place. So the onlyway we can have a ceremony
together is to do it online. Sowe're also cyber druids.
But our train our trainingprogram is very thorough. It
takes years to finish. You can'tjust go sit under a tree. You
(40:48):
know what I mean? But I thinkthe quickest well, I did have 1
PhD student who did it in 1year, which was astounding.
But most people take, I wouldsay, at least 3 to 5 years to do
the we have a very large readinglist, and on our website you can
find all the books. So the firstthing you do is you have to read
(41:10):
all the books. And then you canstart your, what we call,
fostership, which is 1 on 1mentoring. So it's a process.
Wendy (41:19):
Yeah. So you have to really, really want to because
it sounds like you're dedicatingyourself to a lifestyle.
Ellen (41:24):
Yeah. It's a lifelong pursuit. Definitely. And we
recently had a scholar inIreland look at our mailing list
excuse me, our book list, notour mailing list. We don't have
a mailing list, but they'll lookat our book list and update it.
So the scholarship has beenrecently updated if you go to
the website.
Wendy (41:45):
So it sounds like this particular group prides itself
on authenticity, honoring thepast in a way that maybe
Ellen (41:54):
Well, no. But always been Yeah. The the druids didn't
write down their rituals. Theydidn't
Wendy (42:01):
Oral tradition. Yeah.
Ellen (42:02):
Yeah. It was an oral tradition. So we're piecing all
we're doing it that's why it'scalled Celtic Reconstructionism.
We're trying to piece it backtogether. And then there's
certain parts of it thatabsolutely we will not do.
We don't encourage people totake heads.
Wendy (42:17):
That's probably a good idea.
Ellen (42:19):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We don't go in for that. We don't
have slaves.
Wendy (42:23):
Another good idea. Yep.
Ellen (42:25):
Back then, everybody To
Wendy (42:26):
not have them, I mean.
Ellen (42:27):
Everybody had slaves back then.
Wendy (42:29):
No. I mean, now. Not to have them now. It's a good idea
Ellen (42:32):
not to have them now. Still have them Yeah. Now.
Wendy (42:34):
I know.
Ellen (42:35):
We we discourage that. You know, so there's certain
things we don't do, obviously,and we are not advisors to
kings. But if you're a druid,it's perfectly legitimate to
have strong political leaningsand fire off letters to
political leaders because that'sthat's a final Druid tradition.
(42:57):
You could even say to them, I'myour druid, and this is what I
think. You know?
But,
Wendy (43:05):
Yeah. I'm I'm trying to imagine how that might go over.
Yeah.
Ellen (43:08):
Not too
Wendy (43:12):
well. Is there kind of in the same vein, are there strong
ethical guidelines that anyonein the practice adheres to or
agrees to adhere to?
Ellen (43:23):
Yes. We have the laws, the old tribal laws. They're
called the Brehon laws.Thankfully, we we have that.
It's about the equivalent of 25law books, which in the old
days, the druids would havememorized the laws, and they
would have recited theprecedents.
But the nice thing about thelaws is they're all about
(43:45):
restorative justice. And that'ssomething that modern lawyers
and judges and town councils andwhatever. Some people are
starting to look at that. InVermont, I think there was even
a restorative justice project.
Wendy (44:02):
I believe so. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds familiar. Mhmm.
Yeah. I can't I can't rememberthe details. But
Ellen (44:08):
What if they wanna see how it was done 2000 years ago
because they had century aftercentury to figure it out. You
know? Right. And that's whatit's all about. It's about the
basis of the law is restorativejustice.
So if anybody's a lawyer outthere, look at the Brehon laws,
(44:29):
brehon. And those are the oldtribal laws, and I think you
will find them very interesting.
Wendy (44:39):
Hint. Hint. Hint. So do you find that a lot of people
are drawn to these practicesdespite the amount of dedication
it requires? Or do do peoplefind out what it really entails
to do it authentically?
Ellen (44:59):
When they find out that druids were scholars, they
usually run away screaming.
Wendy (45:03):
Yeah. That's kinda what I was wondering.
Ellen (45:08):
Because they don't wanna read books. And I've watched
this change. I mean, I've beendoing this for 40 years. So when
I started out, there was noInternet. Finding information,
the only thing you could do wasgo to the library.
And then eventually, if you gotreally lucky, you discovered
that there were pagangatherings. And so you would
(45:29):
travel 10 hours to go sit sitwith somebody and listen to them
talk, and and you would havethese big discussions around the
fire. And gradually, we welearned about books. There were
certain books out there, andeverybody was hungry for it. But
then the Internet came along andsmartphones and TikTok and
(45:51):
things like that, and thenpeople didn't wanna read books
anymore.
So now
Wendy (45:56):
That's a thing. Yeah.
Ellen (45:57):
Yeah. It's like pulling teeth to get people to read
books. And they think they thatthat all they have to do is go
on TikTok and find a druid orGoogle something
Wendy (46:07):
and they'll Druidry in, 40 seconds or less.
Ellen (46:12):
Yeah. Yeah. And anything more than that, you know, I've
I've had people actually tellme. They say, I wanna be a
druid. I want you know, I wannastudy with you.
And I'm like, okay. Well, here'sthe first thing you have to do.
You have to read the books. Idon't wanna read books.
Wendy (46:28):
And then
Ellen (46:28):
I then I had somebody tell actually, 2 people now have
told me, what you should do isyou should take all the books
and book by book, you shouldmake videos of each book, and
then we can watch the videos.That's what you should
Wendy (46:45):
Yeah. Look. Thank you for that suggestion. Yep. Yes.
Put that in that suggestion box.
Ellen (46:51):
In my spare time, I'll send
Wendy (46:52):
you That that'll be hours to make your life easier. Yeah.
Ellen (46:55):
Yes. So you don't have to read a book.
Wendy (46:58):
Yeah.
Ellen (46:58):
But I literally, people have literally said that to me.
Wendy (47:01):
Well, yeah, it's unfortunate because, I mean, any
practice, it requiresdiscipline, especially a a
practice like this because it'sI think maybe people just get
eager to jump to the good stuff.
Ellen (47:13):
Well, they want the title. They just want the title.
Wendy (47:16):
The title. They okay. I thought maybe they wanted to get
right to the ritual and themagic and healing and No. No.
They just want the title?
I'm a druid. Well, you can callyourself a druid. Yeah.
Ellen (47:27):
Yeah. But anybody can call themselves a druid.
Wendy (47:32):
What I mean. Yeah.
Ellen (47:34):
But yeah. But when they do when someone says, I'm a
druid, you say, okay. Who didyou study with? How long?
Wendy (47:40):
Right. Right. Yeah.
Ellen (47:42):
What have you read? What have you studied? Where have you
traveled? Who have you met? Aska few questions.
Wendy (47:48):
Yeah. I think that's true. I have a, shamanic
practice, and I think that'strue of shamanism as like, the
general shamanism.
Ellen (47:57):
Mhmm. Well, in the in the book, there's a section. I don't
know exactly where it is, but Italk about their their shamanic
techniques. Some specificdruidic magical techniques,
crane magic, where I talk aboutstanding in the posture of a
crane on one leg with one armextension.
Wendy (48:15):
I was looking at that. Yeah.
Ellen (48:16):
Yeah. And then there's seeing, how to do a seeing. The
most important part, by the 8thyear of bardic training, a seer
was expected to have masteredthree skills. Or illumination
between the palms. And is aspontaneous uttering of poetic
(48:39):
prophecy using the tips of thefingers as a mnemonic device
composing and reciting at thesame time.
Is an altered state brought onby repetitive chanting or
singing, kind of like, kirtanwhere the mind and the body
becomes synchronized to anexternal rhythm. Yeah. It's just
(49:00):
like, Indian kirtan.
Wendy (49:02):
Yeah. Yeah. No. That makes sense. Yeah.
So this book is an invitation tostart having a personal
practice. Right. But, really, ifyou would encourage people who
are really interested to dotraining of some sort, like with
is it the the white oak whiteoak?
Ellen (49:19):
Tribe of the
Wendy (49:20):
oak. Tribe of the oak. Where did I get White Crow?
Ellen (49:22):
White Oak White Oak no longer exists. The order of
White Oak went defunct, which iswhy I started tribe of the oak.
Oh, okay. Yeah. White Oak wentfrom 1996 to 2014.
And then in when it collapsed, Isaid, I'm not gonna let this go.
You know? In in 2014, I started
Wendy (49:43):
I don't know why White Oak came came out of my head.
But
Ellen (49:46):
Because it's in the book.
Wendy (49:47):
Oh, maybe that's why. Yeah.
Ellen (49:51):
Alright. Talk about that. I mean, the a lot of the the the
lessons and so on were createdby White Oak Druids, but the
order of White Oak no longerexists. And but a lot of the
people that were in White Oakmigrated to tribe of the oak,
and tribe of the oak is aliveand well.
Wendy (50:11):
Okay. So, how would you say that being a druid has
enriched your life?
Ellen (50:19):
Well, for 40 years, it's been my life. I mean, it's hard
to I mean, it's my spiritualpractice. I mean, as I go
through the year, the season ofthe year, I'm I'm observing the
Celtic Festivals. I've beenworking with Bridget. She the
goddess Bridget.
She's been working with me for40 years now. I've been a
(50:40):
devotee of Bridget. So it's it'spart of me. It's who I am.
Wendy (50:46):
Understood. I was just trying to get a kind of a
picture of how this life as adruid is different from a life
not as a druid.
Ellen (50:56):
Well, I I've been a druid for so long. You don't know the
I don't remember what it waslike. To not be a druid, but,
but I imagine that to be a paganin general, if you're really
doing it, is to be very close tonature. And to be a druid is to
be very close to nature. So Inever feel alone if I step
(51:23):
outside.
Like during COVID, I had noproblems. I had no you know, I
kept hearing people saying thatthey were having all this
terrible time. They were aloneand they were isolated. Blah
blah. I never felt that waybecause I would look out the
window and I would see crows orturkeys.
I would go outside and there thetrees were there. You know?
Wendy (51:45):
And Oh, your nature spirit friends.
Ellen (51:47):
Yeah. I was surrounded by when I'm in the city is when I
feel alone. When I'm walled offwith cement and
Wendy (51:55):
I'll drink to that. Yeah. Yeah.
Ellen (51:57):
But when I'm in nature, I never feel alone. So Yeah. And
I'm very fortunate because Ilive in in the woods, in an oak
forest, which is the ideal placefor a druid to be. Absolutely.
Yeah.
So
Wendy (52:11):
Yeah. And I think what you're just reflecting on is how
disconnected we all are. I won'tget on my my soapbox about our
disconnection from the naturalworld, but Mhmm. But it's it's a
sad thing.
Ellen (52:28):
Well, that that again is part of what we lost 2000 years
ago when the Roman church camein and said that god is
something unknowable. It's a manwith a beard who's hanging out
up in the sky.
Wendy (52:39):
Planet. Yeah. So it takes our attention away from the
planet.
Ellen (52:43):
Exactly. Exactly.
Wendy (52:45):
And then a lot of other things ensued. Right? Right.
Colonialism and ownership of theearth.
Ellen (52:51):
Yeah. And the water wasn't sacred anymore. The fire,
we feel happy polluting water.We feel happy polluting the
fire. We feel happy clearcutting forests.
It all comes from that from thatmentality.
Wendy (53:04):
I know. It's it's a thing. It's a whole cultural
worldview that's unfortunate,and it's Yeah. It's done a lot
of harm, I think. Alright.
So I got on the soapbox a littlebit. Alright. So where do folks
find your book or any of yourbooks? Right?
Ellen (53:22):
Yeah. I have an author page on Amazon. You can see all
my books there. I'm on Barnesand Noble. I'm distributed by
Simon and Schuster.
You can go to inner traditions,Baer and Company. A lot of my
books are there. The novels arenot. The novels are only on what
happened was I had a the novelswere originally with a
(53:44):
publisher, but they went out ofprint, and libraries and
bookstores won't buy books thatare self published. So I ended
up I I had never self publishedbefore, but once those novels
went out of print, I said I'mnot gonna let them print and I
self published for the firsttime.
So they're on Amazon.
Wendy (54:04):
Okay. Alright. And you also have a website?
Ellen (54:07):
I have a website, Ellen Everett hotman.com. You can also
get the novels there.
Wendy (54:11):
Right.
Ellen (54:12):
But the rest of the books can be found anywhere. Alright.
If you just Google my name,they'll come up. Or go to Ellen
Everett hottman.com, they'llcome up. Or go to Amazon,
they'll come up.
Or Barnes and Noble or Simon andSchuster. Yeah.
Wendy (54:27):
Okay. Is there anything that you would like to add that
we haven't talked about that youthink is important?
Ellen (54:33):
Well, one of the things that I always think about is
druids and trees. Sometimespeople who know nothing about
druids, they either think thatthey are old men with beards or
they worship trees. That's whatthey'll tell you. We don't
worship trees. What we see thesacred in trees just like we see
(54:55):
the sacred in every herb, everyanimal, every element.
But I have an expression thatthat I came up with, which is
every tree is a church for adruid. And this is where sitting
under a tree is actually veryvalid because a tree spans the 3
worlds. The roots go down to theunderworld of the ancestors and
(55:16):
the fairies. The branches go upto the sky world of the gods and
goddesses. The trunk is in themiddle world, which is where we
are.
Mhmm. So and this is whereshamanism comes in. Absolutely.
If you wanna travel, oak treesare incredibly useful for this.
Find an old oak, and you can goin about 3 feet up.
(55:39):
There's usually like a almostlike a chakra. I think of it
well, a tree is like a straw.It's a green very thin green
straw held up by cellulose. Theouter layer is dead. You know,
the bark is dead.
In the center of the tree iscellulose, which is dead, and
and it's all there to hold upthis very thin green straw. So I
(56:04):
think of it as an elevator. Soyou go into the tree, and you
can go ride up the elevator intothe branches and then out the
branches, and you can fly Mhmm.To wherever it is you gotta go.
So if I wanna go to Ireland, forexample, I go up and then I go
out the branches and I flyacross the Atlantic and I land,
(56:25):
the shore of Dingle usually.
Wendy (56:28):
Why not?
Ellen (56:29):
Yes. Or you can go in and then go down through the roots
and you'll find yourselftunneling through the earth, and
that's where the fairies are andthe ancestors. So if you wanna
communicate with them, you godown. And that's why when you
make offerings for ancestors orfairies, you put them on the
land. So liquid offerings thatgo down, or you make offerings
(56:52):
to water, which takes it down,or you leave offerings on the
land.
But if you wanna make offeringsto the gods, you put it in fire,
which takes it up to the skyworld. Okay. So depending on who
you're communicating with. Soall you have to do is have a
tree, any kind of tree. Oak isideal, but any tree, even a
little tiny tree.
(57:13):
I like to think that if we're onMars, you know, people ask me,
what happens if there's willthere be druids on Mars? I've
been asked that. Absolutely.
Wendy (57:21):
People ask that question.
Ellen (57:23):
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Wendy (57:24):
That's that's a that's a weird question.
Ellen (57:28):
Right. But but okay. So so what they're asking is is
this only connected to theearth? No. It's the 3 worlds.
It's three directions.
Wendy (57:38):
And you can access them from any planet.
Ellen (57:41):
Exactly. So you could be in Mars sitting there Hanging
Wendy (57:45):
out with Elon Musk. Yep.
Ellen (57:47):
Yeah. And there's this little tiny 6 inch tree, maybe
in a pot even. Mhmm. And you sitin front of it, and you're in
church.
Wendy (57:56):
Okay. Well, I'm glad that you solved that for the folks
who are concerned about Druidrypractice on Mars. That's good.
Nice work. Alright.
Well, Ellen, thank you so muchfor coming on and chatting with
me.
Ellen (58:14):
Thank you very much for inviting me. This was fun.
Wendy (58:20):
Alright. So now you know that becoming a Druid is a
little more involved thansitting by a tree. If you'd like
to learn more about Ellen's workand her books, there's a link to
her site in the show notes aswell as a link to learn more
about the Tribe of the Oak.Thank you so much for listening.
Thank you for your lovelyreviews and feedback and
(58:42):
donations to the podcast.
I am truly The next and finalepisode of season 6 will feature
my old friend and two timepodcast guest, Linda River
Valente, who will share with usher astrological take on the
upcoming year. Unsurprisingly,it's gonna be a wild ride. Well,
(59:03):
I hope the rest of your day is areally good one. Until next
time.
This is Wendy Halley, and you're listening to Lucid Cafe.
(00:32):
Hey. Welcome back. If you're anew listener, thanks for tuning
in. Or rather, thanks forclicking.
Unless you have a radio dial onyour device, I guess. Alright. I
just wanna say how disturbed Iam with how quickly time is
moving. I know I've talked aboutthis before, but it's getting
(00:54):
worse. April feels like it was 2years ago and yesterday, 5
minutes.
How does that work? You don'thave to answer that. Okay. So
update. The Become Your OwnShaman introductory online
course is coming along.
I have now completed all thefoundational instructional
(01:17):
videos and now I'm creating thevideos for the experiential
exercises. I'm pretty pleasedwith how it's turning out. At
the rate time's moving thecourse will either be available
in 2032 or next month. Buteither way, it'll feel like 10
minutes from now. So if you wantto check it out, the best way to
(01:38):
find out when it'll be releasedis to sign up for my newsletter
and I'll put a link in the shownotes.
Alright, so in today's episodemy guest Ellen Everett Hopman
shares what she's discoveredabout Celtic Druidism in her 30
years as a Celtic historian,teacher, and a practicing Druid.
Her new book, Celtic Druidry: Rituals, Techniques, and Magical (01:59):
undefined
Practices is a handbook forbecoming a modern Druid. In our
conversation, she shares how ourcontemporary understanding of
Druidism is not really complete.And you might be surprised to
learn about the rather importantroles Druids played in ancient
society. So Ellen is the authorof a number of books and has
(02:23):
been a teacher of herbalismsince 1983 and of Druidism since
1990.
She's a professional member ofthe American Herbalists Guild
and has presented on Druidism,herbal lore, tree lore,
paganism, and magic atconferences, festivals, and
events in Northern Ireland, inIreland, Scotland, Canada, and
(02:46):
in the United States. Pleaseenjoy my conversation with Ellen
Everett Hartman. Ellen, thankyou so much for joining me.
Ellen (02:59):
Well, thank you for inviting me.
Wendy (03:01):
Of course. Yes. I was interested to talk to you
because I don't know much aboutDruidry. That's that's a mouth
that's a hard word to say,Druidry. Say it 10 times fast.
So you just released a new bookcalled Celtic Druidry, Rituals,
Techniques, and MagicalPractices.
Ellen (03:23):
Mhmm.
Wendy (03:23):
It is chock full historic information, which I think is
great because I think the wholeDruid world is probably very
misunderstood and maybe notcompletely accurate, the
information that we have. So Iwould love to start right there.
I'd love to hear your definitionof what a druid is and what that
(03:46):
practice is all about.
Ellen (03:49):
Oh, boy. Well, there are many different kinds of druids.
There's druids, and there'sdruids, and there's druids. We
like threes. The number 3 isvery important.
Okay. But there are people wholiterally say all you have to do
is sit under a tree and hangout, and that makes you a druid.
Wendy (04:13):
Oh, really? I'm sure it's that easy!
Ellen (04:15):
Yeah. There are people who will tell you that. So how
how do I become a druid? Well,just go sit outside and watch
the clouds or something. Andthat's a druid.
But I am what's called a Celticreconstructionist druid. And
what that means is that we lookto the old teachings, the
(04:38):
literature, the wisdom tales,the poetry. There's a lot of
material out there. The otherthing you'll hear people say is
we don't know anything aboutdruids. There's nothing out
there so you can make up whatyou want, but that's because
they haven't bothered to look.
In the book, I tried very hardto give examples of ancient 2000
(05:01):
year old poetry and written bydruids and and little herb
spells that have been passeddown. And, I mean, there's a lot
out there. And I think one ofthe big problems is that people
haven't really looked at theIrish material. People tend to
look at the British material.There was a big British revival,
(05:23):
English revival in the 1700,which was brought about by
masons who were all men, ofcourse.
Of course. And there was also aFrench druid revival, which
nobody talks about at least inAmerica, which they were also
masons. So it was very male,very masonic. So people think
(05:44):
that that's what it is. But ifyou look at the Irish material,
we're very fortunate because wehave volumes of books.
We have the laws of the poets,for example, the Euricak Narir,
which I think every person whocalls himself a druid needs to
look at that book because itgoes through the bardic training
(06:06):
year by year, and it's only 8years. We know that druids spent
20 years studying, but in thebardic training, it's 8 years,
and it tells you what you needto know each year, how many
stories you have to memorize,how many alphabets you have to
know, and it goes on and on andon. And it's nothing about
(06:27):
sitting under a tree. But what Isay in the book is that being in
nature is half of it. The otherhalf is scholarship, and that's
the half that most people don'twanna they just wanna look at
their phone.
Wendy (06:45):
That sounds like a lot of work. Yeah.
Ellen (06:47):
Yeah. But I do provide a list of books, what I consider
the basic books for people toread, and I just try to help
people on the way if they reallywanna learn this because it's a
big subject. I've been at it for40 years, and I'm still
learning.
Wendy (07:05):
I bet. Yeah. Because you're a druid scholar. Right? A
practitioner.
Druid. Yes.
Ellen (07:12):
The druids were actually the intellectuals of the Quran.
Wendy (07:16):
Yes. You did write about that. Yeah. I just wanna clarify
that culturally, Druids werepart of ancient Ireland. Is that
correct?
Or...
Ellen (07:26):
No. Well, we had druids all over Britain in Scotland.
Wendy (07:31):
Oh, okay. So the UK.
Ellen (07:33):
Well, what was called the British Isles, which used to
include Ireland, and then, ofcourse, down into to Gaul, which
is France and parts of Germany.I mean, Druids were a class
within Celtic society. So theywere the equivalent of Brahmins.
You know, in India, you have theBrahmins, and they are a sacred
(07:55):
class. And people were born intoit's called Nemed, which means
sacred in old Irish.
You were born into the Nemedclass. The kings and queens came
from the warrior class, which isequivalent to the Kshatriya in
Hinduism. And they had to beritually elevated into the Nemed
(08:18):
class. That's why you had tohave a a big ritual. And we just
saw that with king Charles.
You had to have this ritual tosanctify him, to enable him to
be elevated. Even though he wasborn into the nobility, he had
to be elevated, right, andanointed and all that stuff.
Well, it's the same thing. Theking had to be ritually elevated
(08:39):
by a druid, and we even havestill some of that ritual. And I
do talk about that in the book.
It's called the Oidach Morin,which is the testament of Moran,
and it it tells it's a druidtelling a king, a young king, a
new king, how to be a king, andthat's part of the ritual. So
(09:04):
the druid had druid parentsusually or grandparents and was
born into it and was trained bytheir parents, father and
mother. There were femaledruids, which a lot of scholars
have ignored, of course. But,but but, of course, yeah, I
found plenty of evidence forthat. And if anybody's
(09:24):
interested, I have an essay.
It's floating around on the onthe Internet, and it's called
female druids. So if you justlook up Ellen Everett Hartman,
female druids, it'll pop up, andyou can read the evidence that I
found, and it wasn't that hard.
Wendy (09:40):
It wasn't that hard to find it?
Ellen (09:42):
To find the evidence.
Wendy (09:44):
Okay.
Ellen (09:44):
Yeah. It wasn't. I mean, there's plenty of evidence out
there.
Wendy (09:48):
I was really intrigued by the comparison between Indian
culture and Celtic culture.
Ellen (09:54):
Mhmm.
Wendy (09:55):
Is that just a coincidence, or is
Ellen (09:57):
No. Is there a Okay. Yeah. I like to think of the old
Celtic religion, Druidism iswhat I usually call it, as being
the western end of Hinduism.Hinduism is the eastern end of
Celtic religion.
I mean, it's the same religion.It's part of the Indo European
(10:20):
continuum. And so the classstructure is exactly the same.
The idea that cows are sacred,that you make offerings to fire,
you make offerings to water.It's the same religion.
And, well, I wrote a series ofnovels. If you look up my name
and the Druid trilogy, it'llcome
Wendy (10:42):
You are prolific. You have written many, many books.
Ellen (10:46):
Yeah. I'll keep A
Wendy (10:47):
lot on herbalism and and some fiction too. Yeah.
Ellen (10:50):
But in the novels, I talk about when the first missionary
showed up, in the 2nd century,long before Patrick, and the
confrontation between theindigenous druids and the
missionaries. That's it's a 3novels about that. 2nd to 5th
century. But I do talk aboutthat in there. And I think the
essay, yeah, the essay femaledruids is actually in the back
(11:13):
of one of those books.
Wendy (11:15):
Okay. So it's like historical fiction.
Ellen (11:17):
Yeah. Although, they made me, classify it as fantasy
because if you have druids,you're supposed to make it
fantasy. You're not allowed tomake it history.
Wendy (11:28):
That's right. Because of the misunderstanding Right.
Ellen (11:31):
Of that. Because of Merlin.
Wendy (11:32):
Druidism. Yeah.
Ellen (11:34):
But, yeah, it's it's historical fiction. You could
call it that. But it's based onwhen I was writing the books, I
had been studying Celtic historyfor 30 years. I've now studied
it for 40 years. So, yeah, sothere's actual research that
went into the books, all mybooks.
Wendy (11:55):
Yeah. And so do you find that a lot of people are
surprised to hear the truehistory of Druidism?
Ellen (12:01):
Well, most people don't care about Druidism. Yeah. I
just
Wendy (12:07):
Well, I mean, the people who are interested.
Ellen (12:08):
The people who do care? Yeah.
Wendy (12:10):
Yeah. I mean Yeah. Okay. That's how
Ellen (12:12):
you go. Yeah.
Wendy (12:13):
I didn't mean, like, the whole world is like, no shit.
Really? I had no idea.
Ellen (12:21):
Yeah. No. I think well, I'm very used to hanging out in
Celtic Reconstructionistcircles, which I've been doing
for 40 years. So the people thatI associate with are not
surprised. But what youtypically get mostly with people
who come to my talks or peopleonline, you typically get people
(12:43):
who will immediately say we knownothing about druids.
So just make up what you want.That's what you hear all the
time. And then I have toconstantly go, wait a minute.
You know? But
Wendy (12:55):
So what got you interested originally in the
history of it all?
Ellen (13:00):
Well, I was born in Austria, and my mother was an
artist. And she was veryinterested in archaeology, and
there were a lot of digs goingon, and there still are, of
course. But they were digging upall these Celtic graveyards, and
they were finding jewelry andmetal work. And my mother was
(13:21):
fascinated by that. So I grew uphearing about the Celts.
And what I remember most, andmothers are very powerful when I
look back on it because I didn'tthink anything of it. But what
happened was she would talkabout the Celts, but she would
talk about them with suchrespect. That's what I really
(13:42):
got as a kid was this respect,this profound respect, and
that's what really came through.And I never thought anything
about it, and I promptly forgotabout it, and it wasn't until my
thirties when I heard Celticmusic for the first time, and I
heard somebody on the radio saythis is Celtic music, and I
went, Celtic, wait a minute. AndI loved I just loved the music.
(14:06):
I adore I still do. It's myfavorite music. But
Wendy (14:09):
So that seed that your mom had planted Yeah. Began to
sprout.
Ellen (14:13):
Yeah. And and I literally hadn't thought about it. I'd
never heard the words spoken outloud. Nothing. And then I I went
to, Findhorn in Scotland, and Iactually lived at Findhorn for a
summer.
That was the Finhorn is thefirst new age community in the
world, and it's in the MorayFirth of of Scotland, and I was
(14:34):
there for a whole summer. Andfor one week of that summer, I
got to go to Iona, the island ofIona, and that was the first
time I heard the word druidsspoken out loud because there
were stories about the druids.And, again, as soon as I heard
that, some part of me justimmediately resonated. You know?
(14:58):
I knew it was something.
Wendy (15:00):
How do you make sense of that kind of I mean, I know your
mom planted the seed, and shehad a lot of reverence for
Celtic culture, but you seem tohave a very strong passionate
connection. Do you have any kindof theories as to why it feels
so powerfully strong and whyyou've dedicated so much of your
(15:20):
life to understanding theculture and the practices and
what it really means to be aDruid.
Ellen (15:27):
Well, I have theories.
Wendy (15:29):
I love theories.
Ellen (15:30):
Okay. Well, I've I mean, I've done past haven't we all
done past life regressions? Youknow? And I remember a 7th
century lifetime as a druid.And, also, for me, druidism, I
haven't really connected withwitchcraft the way a lot of
people connect to witchcraft,mainly because the witchcraft
(15:51):
that I've been exposed to hasbeen modern.
It's been wicca, which wasinvented in the 19 thirties, and
somehow I'm not built that way.I'm more interested in the old
stuff. So if somebody came upwith a witch tradition that was
2000 years old, I'd probably beinterested. This is our
indigenous history. This is whowe are.
(16:14):
And what happened was, first,the Romans came, and they did
unspeakable things. And,
Wendy (16:21):
Really? I think I heard something about that. Yeah.
Ellen (16:26):
So we had first, we had the Roman armies who came in,
and we had to try to get repelthat. And then when we finally
kicked them out, then along camethe Roman Catholic church. So
it's been 2000 years of misery,you know, on that level, and
(16:46):
trying to impose anauthoritarian patriarchal
structure on top of a forestbased, not 100% egalitarian, but
very pro female compared to theRomans and compared to modern
day, you know, like women wereactually honored.
Wendy (17:06):
Wow. That's a novel idea.
Ellen (17:07):
Yeah. What an idea. But, I mean, that's who we were. We
were a forest culture. There wasunbroken oak forest from the
west coast of France all the wayto the Black Sea, and probably
in Russia too, but I've neverbeen to Russia.
But it was unbroken oak forest,And that's our indigenous state.
That's who we are. Even Irelandif you go to Ireland now, they
(17:29):
only have 1% of their forestleft. And there's a terrible
history there too. The Englishcame in and cut down all the
trees.
And and it now you have thesecorporations who are planting
Sitka spruce plantations, whichdon't belong there. That's an
Alaskan tree. And Oh, nokidding. And it kills everything
(17:52):
underneath. So all the thebushes and the berries and the
flowers, herbs, it should bethat's all killed off.
Wendy (17:59):
Nice try, I guess. I mean
Ellen (18:01):
Well, it's
Wendy (18:03):
If they didn't do a lot of, research on indigenous Oh,
they don't care. Trees.
Ellen (18:08):
No. They just don't care. It's all about profit. They
think of trees as farming. Youknow, you're farming trees, so
you grow them for a certainnumber of years and then you
clear cut.
That's the way they think.
Wendy (18:21):
I see. Okay.
Ellen (18:22):
Just for money. That's all they think about.
Wendy (18:24):
Oh, I thought it was the illusion of, see, we're helping
the planet by planting trees.
Ellen (18:29):
Oh, no. It's a business.
Wendy (18:31):
Okay. I I guess that was my my wishful thinking.
Ellen (18:35):
I mean, there are people in Ireland and in Scotland and
in England and all over theplace who were trying to plant
the indigenous trees back. Butit's just little groups of
people working really hardagainst the these giant
corporate interests when thegovernment keeps giving the
corporations the go ahead torape the land, basically. But
(18:57):
that's a whole
Wendy (18:59):
That's a whole other conversation.
Ellen (19:00):
Another con but, anyway, yeah. So we're still the way I
look at it is we're still tryingto get out from under the
mentality, what came in 2000years ago. And, yeah, it's been
bad news ever since kind of.
Wendy (19:17):
Okay. Let's get back to the role that druids played in
society. How would you describethe various roles? Because it
wasn't just one role. Right?
It was Right. You already talkedabout of them being
intellectuals Right. Scholars.
Ellen (19:33):
Right. And They were scholars. They were called the
people of arts. In our culture,we have something called a
master of arts. It's a degree.
Right? Well, that's what theywere. They were the people of
arts. They were the masters ofthe arts. And so some of them
were ritualists.
They supervised the sacrificesand rituals. Some of them were
(19:56):
sacred singers. Some of themwere sacred poets. Some of them
were genealogists. Some of themwere historians.
Some of them were herbalists,what we would call doctors,
which was a combination ofherbalism and magic. But some of
them were judges, some of themwere lawyers, all the educated
(20:17):
people. And then they were theteachers of the children of the
nobility. Obviously, theyweren't teaching the lower
classes. You know?
But yeah.
Wendy (20:28):
I'm probably gonna be asking you a lot of ignorant
questions, so forgive me inadvance. But the way you're
describing it is clearly verydifferent than my understanding,
my maybe more Hollywoodunderstanding of the druid Mhmm.
Or the fictionalized version ofthe druid that shows up in, in
fantasy books and such. Soritual's obviously super
(20:51):
important, and I think it's beenimportant in every culture
throughout history. How do yousee the importance of ritual
playing out with the druids?
Like, in your own life, do youuse a lot of ritual?
Ellen (21:06):
Yeah. Ritual today has the same place as it did in the
past in the sense that it's away to bring the whole community
together. And, well, a druidwould be working for 1 king and
a tribe. And that's one of thebig differences between druids
(21:27):
and witches, for example, orcunning folk. The witch is an
independent agent and you don'tknow who they're working for and
therefore they're scary.
Whereas the druid is alwaysworking for the tribe and
they're working for the king andyou know what side they're on.
But the rituals, I mean, theyhad lots of different rituals,
(21:48):
but, obviously, you had thingslike marriages, marriage
contracts, the usual stuff, whatwe call baptism, baby blessings,
that kind of thing, or blessingthe soldiers before they go off
to war and all that, but alsothe big seasonal festivals. And
in fact, we just celebratedBeltane, which is May Day.
Wendy (22:09):
Right.
Ellen (22:10):
And for the Celts, there were really only 2 seasons of
the year. There was a dark halfand a light half. So there's 2
New Years. Right now, there arepeople arguing about when is the
Celtic New Year. And one factionsays, oh, Celtic New Year is at
Samhain, which is Halloween.
And the other faction says, no.Celtic New Year is Beltane,
(22:31):
which is May Day, but they'reboth right.
Wendy (22:34):
They're both. Yes. Okay. Gotcha.
Ellen (22:36):
And so those are the 2 big spirit nights of the year,
and you have all kinds ofrituals that go on. So for
example, for the May Day or orBeltane that we just had
actually, okay. I'm gonnabacktrack. It's not Beltane yet.
I call Beltane or May Day, theway most people celebrate it.
(22:58):
I call that the secular Beltanebecause the real Beltane is at
the full moon, and it's when thehawthorns bloom.
Wendy (23:06):
Ah, okay.
Ellen (23:07):
And I've been I've been keeping a careful eye on the
hawthorns behind the house, andI recently spoke to somebody in
Ireland and I asked them. Isaid, are your hawthorns
blooming yet? And they said, no.Not yet. There's just buds.
And it's not it's not Beltaneuntil the Hawthorne blooms. And
the reason is that once theHawthorne blooms, that's the
(23:29):
signal that it's warm enough tosend the cows up to the hills
because the tree knows. Sothat's what the druid has to
keep their eye on the hawthornsand then has to tell the tribe,
hey, the hawthorns are blooming.It's time. It's time.
Yeah. So then you have this bigritual which involves 3 fires,
(23:49):
we like the number 3, and it'sone big fire which was probably
dedicated to a a male deity, oneanother big fire for a female
deity, and then a third smallerfire. So first, you have to
ritually light the small fire,and that means, like, holding a
crystal to the sun or gatheringwildfire from a lightning strike
(24:13):
or some from nature, somenatural or using well, they
didn't have matches. But Right.Right.
Using some natural fire, youhave your little fire. And, from
that little fire, then you lightthe 2 big fires and then you
have to pass all the cowsthrough in between the two
(24:33):
fires. And the two fires have tobe close enough that a white cow
passing through will have herfur singed brown.
Wendy (24:41):
Wow. That's intense.
Ellen (24:42):
Okay. Close. Yeah. And every cow has to go through
those two fires. And this tiesin to Hinduism again because the
reason for this is that the cowis a lunar animal.
It's an animal of water becauseit carries liquid, otherwise
known as milk or soma. Mhmm. Andthe fire is the opposite. Right?
(25:07):
Just like dark half of the year,light half of the year.
Fire and water. Yeah. Fire andwater. So milk is liquid. You
got the fires.
So you pass this lunar wateryanimal between 2 ritual fires,
and fire and water cometogether. And I talk about this
in my novels a lot. But wherefire and water come together,
(25:30):
you have the greatest potentialfor magic and transformation.
The whole world is made of fireand water in Celtic thinking. In
in its interest in Scandinavianthinking, they say fire and ice.
Wendy (25:44):
Makes sense.
Ellen (25:46):
And they had 2 seasons, a fiery season and an icy season.
So at Lunasa, which is Lammas,they call it Lammas, which is
actually Anglo Saxon, comes fromLoof, Mass, but the word is
lunasa. You have fiery animals,which are horses. Those are
(26:06):
creatures of fire. And if youread the Rigveda, there are
hymns to horses, and guess what?
They're fire animals. So youtake these fire animals, horses,
and you pass them through water.So you drive them across a river
or through a pond or somethingbecause you have to bring fire
(26:28):
and water together again.
Wendy (26:29):
That's to symbolize that time of year. Is that
Ellen (26:32):
Well, it's it's magic. Like, at Lunasa, which is around
August 1st, last week of July,1st 2 weeks of August, The crops
are not yet in. You're waitingfor the wheat harvest or the
oats. They're sitting out in thefield. They haven't been
harvested yet, and they're notquite ripe yet.
So you still need magic. Youstill need good weather. You
(26:54):
still need rain. You still needgood luck, the luck of the
harvest. So you do this ritualact to bring fire and water
together to empower whatever itis that you're trying to
manifest.
Wendy (27:10):
Okay. So is all magic ritual based then?
Ellen (27:15):
No. Okay. Well, can you
Wendy (27:19):
tell me a little bit about how magic works
Ellen (27:21):
with the druid tradition? There's many different kinds of
magic. I mean, it could be asolitary practitioner sitting in
your house doing magic. In thebook, I have herb magic, for
example.
Wendy (27:34):
Right.
Ellen (27:34):
I even quote some old Scottish writings about that.
There are certain herbs that youtwine together and you put under
your milk pail so that thefairies and the witches won't
steal the milk. You know, or youcan hang a wreath on the house
to protect the house so thefairies won't come in. So, I
mean, that's just one type ofmagic.
Wendy (27:55):
So let me ask this question then.
Ellen (27:57):
Yeah.
Wendy (27:57):
If you perform some magic
Ellen (28:00):
Mhmm.
Wendy (28:00):
And things didn't go the way you hoped it would go Mhmm.
How would druids explain that?
Ellen (28:06):
Okay. So you do a ritual. You set it all up. You make your
offerings. We're more intogiving praise to the gods and
goddesses.
That's that's what we do more.Working magic for a specific
intention is rare.
Wendy (28:21):
But Okay.
Ellen (28:22):
Usually, we're praising the deities. So we do our big
whatever it is, and then there'salways a place in the ritual
where you do a divination to seeif it was accepted. Now back in
the day, they would have taken aliver, a nice liver, and they
would have cut it open to seewhat was going on in there. But,
(28:43):
what we modern druids will usecards or bones or, you know,
something like that. And we welook to see if it was accepted.
If the if the omens are good,then we go, okay. We did our
job. That's fine, and then we goeat. You know? But if but if the
Romans are bad, that means thatwe either have to start all over
(29:06):
again or there's something thatthe gods are asking of us.
Something that we And you
Wendy (29:14):
just have to figure out what that is.
Ellen (29:15):
Out what it is exactly.
Wendy (29:17):
Got you. And so is there direct communion with the gods
and the goddesses?
Ellen (29:22):
We hope so.
Wendy (29:24):
One of the questions I wanted to ask was any parallels
to shamanic practice?
Ellen (29:30):
Yes. The druids were also shamans. That was a big part of
it. In fact, see, there's moderndruids, and you see this in
Britain that wear white robesand nice clean white robes and
all that. That's actuallyEgyptian.
Wendy (29:47):
Oh, really?
Ellen (29:47):
Yes. Because the accounts that we have of the ancient
druids, they wore plaid.
Wendy (29:55):
I love plaid.
Ellen (29:56):
Yeah. Well
Wendy (29:58):
I do. I I never would have alright. So they were
plaid. That's amazing. Alright.
Ellen (30:04):
By the different numbers of colors in your plaid, you
could tell what status somebodyhad.
Wendy (30:12):
Right.
Ellen (30:12):
Okay. So the king could wear 7 colors, the druid could
wear 6, and then it kinda wentdown from there. So that was
your calling card. You didn'thave a a label or a card, but
you wore your plaid and peopleknew just looking at you, they
knew exactly who you were. Theslaves could only wear one
color, and farmers might wear 2.
(30:36):
The young lords who didn't haveterribly much property but might
be a good warrior, they wouldget 3 colors. And it just kinda
went up from there. But we alsohave writings that talk about
the druids wearing a cape offeathers. Okay? Now isn't that a
typical shamanic costume?
Wendy (30:57):
It certainly could be. Yeah. Absolutely.
Ellen (31:00):
And you don't see that in Hollywood, usually.
Wendy (31:04):
Oh, you don't. You don't. No. Does that mean they would do
things to alter theirconsciousness and travel to the
dreaming realm?
Ellen (31:15):
Absolutely. And in fact, in the book, I talk about
different trance techniques,which you can do at home. Yeah.
There's there's a famous poetictechnique called the stone on
the belly, where you literallygo into a dark room, complete
silence, complete darkness, wrapsome a plaid around your head
(31:37):
maybe so there no light comesin, and you you don't eat
anything. You fast, and you puta huge rock on your belly, and
you lie there and you incubate apoem.
Now if you think about this, andI've thought about it, you're
lying there with a big rock onyour belly. What does that
(31:58):
represent? What does thatresemble?
Wendy (32:01):
Well, pregnancy. Exactly.
Ellen (32:04):
A lot of the techniques are about going back to the womb
or being pregnant. No kidding.Okay. And even with the harp,
the harp was the druidicinstrument. If you were a
harper, you were automaticallygiven land because you were
automatically noble, and you hadto have land.
But there's a there's a ritualcalled the raising of the belly,
(32:27):
the belly of the harp. So thesound box of the harp, a new
harp that's just been made, youput the strings on when it takes
months, and you you keeptightening, tightening,
tightening, and the belly of theharp rises.
Wendy (32:43):
Okay.
Ellen (32:45):
Yeah. The sound box is a belly, and it there's a lot of
that.
Wendy (32:50):
You think it has to do with just creating, whether it's
creating magic, creatingconnection, creating art?
Ellen (32:56):
I think it's very feminine. I think it's very
female. I mean, at Imbolc,there's an old tradition of
making a bride doll, an image ofBridget, and putting her on a
bed by the hearth. Okay. So thebed it's a bed of straw.
And a lot of people think, oh,it's a doll. It's it's a baby
(33:20):
Bridget. You know? Isn't thatcute? And it's gonna attract
Bridget, and she's gonna comedown the chimney and leave her
footprint in the ashes, and thenwe'll be blessed.
But when I looked into it, itturns out that back in the day,
when a woman gave birth, theywould put straw on the floor,
and she would lie on the straw.She would give birth on the
(33:42):
straw, and you can imagine theafterbirth and the blood and all
that. And then they would, thisis all very sanitary. They would
pick up the straw and take itoutside and burn it.
Wendy (33:52):
That makes sense. Yeah.
Ellen (33:54):
Yeah. So this Bridget doll, it's actually an image of
Bridget ready to give birth.She's giving birth to spring, to
the new year at Imbolc. I don'tknow if I put that in the book
or not, but but I but I did talkabout some of the other rituals,
(34:15):
and they're very feminine. Yeah.
It's about being pregnant.
Wendy (34:19):
Yeah. That's the impression I got when I was
reading your book. Yeah. It didfeel very feminine.
Ellen (34:26):
Mhmm.
Wendy (34:26):
A lot of the the practices and the poetry and the
one of the things that reallystrikes me, which is not
surprising at all, is therelationship that Druids have
with the natural world and thatthey're constantly, it seems,
attending to, paying attentionto what's happening in the
(34:48):
natural world. Yeah. Inrelationship with the tree
spirits and all of the thenature spirits, it seems like.
Ellen (34:56):
Mhmm. Well, that's what we lost when the Roman Christian
religion came in. That's whatwas lost. Initially, it wasn't
lost so much. There was a aChristian tradition called the
Caldi who were CelticChristians.
But then there was a Synod ofWhitby, and the big Christians
(35:16):
got together and had the Synod,and they decided that, no. We
can't have that. And they threwout the Celtic church, and they
forced everybody to become RomanChristians.
Wendy (35:25):
And Really? That's shocking too. Well It's not.
It's not. It happenedeverywhere.
Ellen (35:33):
Yeah. But but it initially, you had the pagan
nature religion, which honoredthe seasons, which honored the
trees and the herbs, and thefire was sacred, and the water
was sacred. And the animals weresacred and the people were
sacred. You had all that. Andgradually, they melded with the
(35:55):
missionaries who showed up, Andit was kinda peaceful in
Ireland.
It was not peaceful at all inGaul, in France, and Germany. It
was terrible. There's a lot ofviolence that went on, forcing
people to convert. Right. Andcutting down sacred trees,
destroying temples, the wholething.
It was terrible. So that wenton. And it initially, there was
(36:16):
kind of a melding, and it itwasn't so bad because the the
clergy that was coming in, themissionaries were intellectuals,
and the druids wereintellectuals.
Wendy (36:26):
So They had a meeting of the minds.
Ellen (36:28):
Yeah. They were talking to each other. They were sharing
stories. They were learnedpeople, and that was okay. But
then they were forced to becomethis patriarchal mindset, which
came directly from Romanculture.
Roman culture was verypatriarchal. And it it actually
goes against who we were for1000 and 1000 of years. And I
(36:53):
think we're still struggling toregain what was lost.
Wendy (36:58):
Yeah. No. It's very sad.
Ellen (37:00):
Yeah.
Wendy (37:00):
But then there's people like you who are who are digging
deep and sharing thisinformation, which is great.
Ellen (37:08):
Well, yeah, that's what I've been doing for the last 40
years. All my books Yeah. Thedifferent Druid orders that I've
created or cocreated or been apart of, I've just been plotting
along.
Wendy (37:21):
Well, what made you write this particular book now? I
would have thought this would bea more foundational book that
maybe you would have writtenearlier in your time practicing
as a druid.
Ellen (37:32):
Yeah. That's not the way I see it at all. No? This book,
Celtic Druidry, is an overviewof what I did for for 40 years.
I mean, what I believe to be theessence of Druidism.
Somebody who's a newpractitioner, they don't know.
(37:53):
But, I mean, I've talked tothousands of Druids literally.
I've read 100, if not thousandsof books and articles and helped
to create Druid orders. And sowhat I did was I just took all
of that and distilled it into anoverview of what I consider to
be important if you're gonna bea druid. And I I don't think I
(38:17):
could have written that book 30years ago.
There's no way.
Wendy (38:21):
As you're talking about it, I yeah. That seems very
clear. You needed to have allthis experience
Ellen (38:26):
Right.
Wendy (38:26):
First.
Ellen (38:27):
Plus the ancient literature that I mentioned, it
it I didn't learn thatimmediately. That's something
that I had to learn over time.
Wendy (38:35):
So what do you hope this book will do for folks who are
interested?
Ellen (38:40):
Well, it's it's set up so that you can be a solitary
practitioner, most people are.To really be a druid is to serve
a tribe. So if you're reallygonna be a druid, you're really
supposed to be serving a tribe.So you have to identify who is
your tribe and how are you gonnaserve them. You
Wendy (38:59):
know? Okay.
Ellen (39:00):
It's it's not a solitary function. Although these days,
most pagans, most witches, mostdruids are solitary, which is
kind of because we've lost ourtribes. We always had tribes.
Wendy (39:13):
Right. Yeah.
Ellen (39:14):
So my hope is that somebody could pick up the book
and be a practicing druid,whether they do it by themselves
or they identify their tribe andwho they serve.
Wendy (39:26):
Are there druid schools out there that you feel are
doing the practice justice?
Ellen (39:32):
Well, yes, as a matter of fact.
Wendy (39:34):
Yeah?
Ellen (39:35):
Well, I founded a group, and I was archdruid from 2014
until just a few months ago. Andwe now have a new archdruid,
which is fantastic because I wasable to hand it off to somebody
else, which is to me, that meansI was successful. You know?
Yeah. But it's called tribe ofthe oak, and you can find us at
(39:57):
tribeoftheoak.org.org.org.
And we have a training program.So we have a website,
tribeoftheoak.org. We also havea public page on Facebook. It's
a tribe of the oak druids publicforum. We do online rituals for
people because we have membersall over the world.
(40:19):
So people in Ireland, Canada,all across the US, Australia.
We've had people in Mexico,Japan.
Wendy (40:27):
Alright.
Ellen (40:28):
Yeah. So I'm trying to think where else. Anyway, we're
all over the place. So the onlyway we can have a ceremony
together is to do it online. Sowe're also cyber druids.
But our train our trainingprogram is very thorough. It
takes years to finish. You can'tjust go sit under a tree. You
(40:48):
know what I mean? But I thinkthe quickest well, I did have 1
PhD student who did it in 1year, which was astounding.
But most people take, I wouldsay, at least 3 to 5 years to do
the we have a very large readinglist, and on our website you can
find all the books. So the firstthing you do is you have to read
(41:10):
all the books. And then you canstart your, what we call,
fostership, which is 1 on 1mentoring. So it's a process.
Wendy (41:19):
Yeah. So you have to really, really want to because
it sounds like you're dedicatingyourself to a lifestyle.
Ellen (41:24):
Yeah. It's a lifelong pursuit. Definitely. And we
recently had a scholar inIreland look at our mailing list
excuse me, our book list, notour mailing list. We don't have
a mailing list, but they'll lookat our book list and update it.
So the scholarship has beenrecently updated if you go to
the website.
Wendy (41:45):
So it sounds like this particular group prides itself
on authenticity, honoring thepast in a way that maybe
Ellen (41:54):
Well, no. But always been Yeah. The the druids didn't
write down their rituals. Theydidn't
Wendy (42:01):
Oral tradition. Yeah.
Ellen (42:02):
Yeah. It was an oral tradition. So we're piecing all
we're doing it that's why it'scalled Celtic Reconstructionism.
We're trying to piece it backtogether. And then there's
certain parts of it thatabsolutely we will not do.
We don't encourage people totake heads.
Wendy (42:17):
That's probably a good idea.
Ellen (42:19):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We don't go in for that. We don't
have slaves.
Wendy (42:23):
Another good idea. Yep.
Ellen (42:25):
Back then, everybody To
Wendy (42:26):
not have them, I mean.
Ellen (42:27):
Everybody had slaves back then.
Wendy (42:29):
No. I mean, now. Not to have them now. It's a good idea
Ellen (42:32):
not to have them now. Still have them Yeah. Now.
Wendy (42:34):
I know.
Ellen (42:35):
We we discourage that. You know, so there's certain
things we don't do, obviously,and we are not advisors to
kings. But if you're a druid,it's perfectly legitimate to
have strong political leaningsand fire off letters to
political leaders because that'sthat's a final Druid tradition.
(42:57):
You could even say to them, I'myour druid, and this is what I
think. You know?
But,
Wendy (43:05):
Yeah. I'm I'm trying to imagine how that might go over.
Yeah.
Ellen (43:08):
Not too
Wendy (43:12):
well. Is there kind of in the same vein, are there strong
ethical guidelines that anyonein the practice adheres to or
agrees to adhere to?
Ellen (43:23):
Yes. We have the laws, the old tribal laws. They're
called the Brehon laws.Thankfully, we we have that.
It's about the equivalent of 25law books, which in the old
days, the druids would havememorized the laws, and they
would have recited theprecedents.
But the nice thing about thelaws is they're all about
(43:45):
restorative justice. And that'ssomething that modern lawyers
and judges and town councils andwhatever. Some people are
starting to look at that. InVermont, I think there was even
a restorative justice project.
Wendy (44:02):
I believe so. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds familiar. Mhmm.
Yeah. I can't I can't rememberthe details. But
Ellen (44:08):
What if they wanna see how it was done 2000 years ago
because they had century aftercentury to figure it out. You
know? Right. And that's whatit's all about. It's about the
basis of the law is restorativejustice.
So if anybody's a lawyer outthere, look at the Brehon laws,
(44:29):
brehon. And those are the oldtribal laws, and I think you
will find them very interesting.
Wendy (44:39):
Hint. Hint. Hint. So do you find that a lot of people
are drawn to these practicesdespite the amount of dedication
it requires? Or do do peoplefind out what it really entails
to do it authentically?
Ellen (44:59):
When they find out that druids were scholars, they
usually run away screaming.
Wendy (45:03):
Yeah. That's kinda what I was wondering.
Ellen (45:08):
Because they don't wanna read books. And I've watched
this change. I mean, I've beendoing this for 40 years. So when
I started out, there was noInternet. Finding information,
the only thing you could do wasgo to the library.
And then eventually, if you gotreally lucky, you discovered
that there were pagangatherings. And so you would
(45:29):
travel 10 hours to go sit sitwith somebody and listen to them
talk, and and you would havethese big discussions around the
fire. And gradually, we welearned about books. There were
certain books out there, andeverybody was hungry for it. But
then the Internet came along andsmartphones and TikTok and
(45:51):
things like that, and thenpeople didn't wanna read books
anymore.
So now
Wendy (45:56):
That's a thing. Yeah.
Ellen (45:57):
Yeah. It's like pulling teeth to get people to read
books. And they think they thatthat all they have to do is go
on TikTok and find a druid orGoogle something
Wendy (46:07):
and they'll Druidry in, 40 seconds or less.
Ellen (46:12):
Yeah. Yeah. And anything more than that, you know, I've
I've had people actually tellme. They say, I wanna be a
druid. I want you know, I wannastudy with you.
And I'm like, okay. Well, here'sthe first thing you have to do.
You have to read the books. Idon't wanna read books.
Wendy (46:28):
And then
Ellen (46:28):
I then I had somebody tell actually, 2 people now have
told me, what you should do isyou should take all the books
and book by book, you shouldmake videos of each book, and
then we can watch the videos.That's what you should
Wendy (46:45):
Yeah. Look. Thank you for that suggestion. Yep. Yes.
Put that in that suggestion box.
Ellen (46:51):
In my spare time, I'll send
Wendy (46:52):
you That that'll be hours to make your life easier. Yeah.
Ellen (46:55):
Yes. So you don't have to read a book.
Wendy (46:58):
Yeah.
Ellen (46:58):
But I literally, people have literally said that to me.
Wendy (47:01):
Well, yeah, it's unfortunate because, I mean, any
practice, it requiresdiscipline, especially a a
practice like this because it'sI think maybe people just get
eager to jump to the good stuff.
Ellen (47:13):
Well, they want the title. They just want the title.
Wendy (47:16):
The title. They okay. I thought maybe they wanted to get
right to the ritual and themagic and healing and No. No.
They just want the title?
I'm a druid. Well, you can callyourself a druid. Yeah.
Ellen (47:27):
Yeah. But anybody can call themselves a druid.
Wendy (47:32):
What I mean. Yeah.
Ellen (47:34):
But yeah. But when they do when someone says, I'm a
druid, you say, okay. Who didyou study with? How long?
Wendy (47:40):
Right. Right. Yeah.
Ellen (47:42):
What have you read? What have you studied? Where have you
traveled? Who have you met? Aska few questions.
Wendy (47:48):
Yeah. I think that's true. I have a, shamanic
practice, and I think that'strue of shamanism as like, the
general shamanism.
Ellen (47:57):
Mhmm. Well, in the in the book, there's a section. I don't
know exactly where it is, but Italk about their their shamanic
techniques. Some specificdruidic magical techniques,
crane magic, where I talk aboutstanding in the posture of a
crane on one leg with one armextension.
Wendy (48:15):
I was looking at that. Yeah.
Ellen (48:16):
Yeah. And then there's seeing, how to do a seeing. The
most important part, by the 8thyear of bardic training, a seer
was expected to have masteredthree skills. Or illumination
between the palms. And is aspontaneous uttering of poetic
(48:39):
prophecy using the tips of thefingers as a mnemonic device
composing and reciting at thesame time.
Is an altered state brought onby repetitive chanting or
singing, kind of like, kirtanwhere the mind and the body
becomes synchronized to anexternal rhythm. Yeah. It's just
(49:00):
like, Indian kirtan.
Wendy (49:02):
Yeah. Yeah. No. That makes sense. Yeah.
So this book is an invitation tostart having a personal
practice. Right. But, really, ifyou would encourage people who
are really interested to dotraining of some sort, like with
is it the the white oak whiteoak?
Ellen (49:19):
Tribe of the
Wendy (49:20):
oak. Tribe of the oak. Where did I get White Crow?
Ellen (49:22):
White Oak White Oak no longer exists. The order of
White Oak went defunct, which iswhy I started tribe of the oak.
Oh, okay. Yeah. White Oak wentfrom 1996 to 2014.
And then in when it collapsed, Isaid, I'm not gonna let this go.
You know? In in 2014, I started
Wendy (49:43):
I don't know why White Oak came came out of my head.
But
Ellen (49:46):
Because it's in the book.
Wendy (49:47):
Oh, maybe that's why. Yeah.
Ellen (49:51):
Alright. Talk about that. I mean, the a lot of the the the
lessons and so on were createdby White Oak Druids, but the
order of White Oak no longerexists. And but a lot of the
people that were in White Oakmigrated to tribe of the oak,
and tribe of the oak is aliveand well.
Wendy (50:11):
Okay. So, how would you say that being a druid has
enriched your life?
Ellen (50:19):
Well, for 40 years, it's been my life. I mean, it's hard
to I mean, it's my spiritualpractice. I mean, as I go
through the year, the season ofthe year, I'm I'm observing the
Celtic Festivals. I've beenworking with Bridget. She the
goddess Bridget.
She's been working with me for40 years now. I've been a
(50:40):
devotee of Bridget. So it's it'spart of me. It's who I am.
Wendy (50:46):
Understood. I was just trying to get a kind of a
picture of how this life as adruid is different from a life
not as a druid.
Ellen (50:56):
Well, I I've been a druid for so long. You don't know the
I don't remember what it waslike. To not be a druid, but,
but I imagine that to be a paganin general, if you're really
doing it, is to be very close tonature. And to be a druid is to
be very close to nature. So Inever feel alone if I step
(51:23):
outside.
Like during COVID, I had noproblems. I had no you know, I
kept hearing people saying thatthey were having all this
terrible time. They were aloneand they were isolated. Blah
blah. I never felt that waybecause I would look out the
window and I would see crows orturkeys.
I would go outside and there thetrees were there. You know?
Wendy (51:45):
And Oh, your nature spirit friends.
Ellen (51:47):
Yeah. I was surrounded by when I'm in the city is when I
feel alone. When I'm walled offwith cement and
Wendy (51:55):
I'll drink to that. Yeah. Yeah.
Ellen (51:57):
But when I'm in nature, I never feel alone. So Yeah. And
I'm very fortunate because Ilive in in the woods, in an oak
forest, which is the ideal placefor a druid to be. Absolutely.
Yeah.
So
Wendy (52:11):
Yeah. And I think what you're just reflecting on is how
disconnected we all are. I won'tget on my my soapbox about our
disconnection from the naturalworld, but Mhmm. But it's it's a
sad thing.
Ellen (52:28):
Well, that that again is part of what we lost 2000 years
ago when the Roman church camein and said that god is
something unknowable. It's a manwith a beard who's hanging out
up in the sky.
Wendy (52:39):
Planet. Yeah. So it takes our attention away from the
planet.
Ellen (52:43):
Exactly. Exactly.
Wendy (52:45):
And then a lot of other things ensued. Right? Right.
Colonialism and ownership of theearth.
Ellen (52:51):
Yeah. And the water wasn't sacred anymore. The fire,
we feel happy polluting water.We feel happy polluting the
fire. We feel happy clearcutting forests.
It all comes from that from thatmentality.
Wendy (53:04):
I know. It's it's a thing. It's a whole cultural
worldview that's unfortunate,and it's Yeah. It's done a lot
of harm, I think. Alright.
So I got on the soapbox a littlebit. Alright. So where do folks
find your book or any of yourbooks? Right?
Ellen (53:22):
Yeah. I have an author page on Amazon. You can see all
my books there. I'm on Barnesand Noble. I'm distributed by
Simon and Schuster.
You can go to inner traditions,Baer and Company. A lot of my
books are there. The novels arenot. The novels are only on what
happened was I had a the novelswere originally with a
(53:44):
publisher, but they went out ofprint, and libraries and
bookstores won't buy books thatare self published. So I ended
up I I had never self publishedbefore, but once those novels
went out of print, I said I'mnot gonna let them print and I
self published for the firsttime.
So they're on Amazon.
Wendy (54:04):
Okay. Alright. And you also have a website?
Ellen (54:07):
I have a website, Ellen Everett hotman.com. You can also
get the novels there.
Wendy (54:11):
Right.
Ellen (54:12):
But the rest of the books can be found anywhere. Alright.
If you just Google my name,they'll come up. Or go to Ellen
Everett hottman.com, they'llcome up. Or go to Amazon,
they'll come up.
Or Barnes and Noble or Simon andSchuster. Yeah.
Wendy (54:27):
Okay. Is there anything that you would like to add that
we haven't talked about that youthink is important?
Ellen (54:33):
Well, one of the things that I always think about is
druids and trees. Sometimespeople who know nothing about
druids, they either think thatthey are old men with beards or
they worship trees. That's whatthey'll tell you. We don't
worship trees. What we see thesacred in trees just like we see
(54:55):
the sacred in every herb, everyanimal, every element.
But I have an expression thatthat I came up with, which is
every tree is a church for adruid. And this is where sitting
under a tree is actually veryvalid because a tree spans the 3
worlds. The roots go down to theunderworld of the ancestors and
(55:16):
the fairies. The branches go upto the sky world of the gods and
goddesses. The trunk is in themiddle world, which is where we
are.
Mhmm. So and this is whereshamanism comes in. Absolutely.
If you wanna travel, oak treesare incredibly useful for this.
Find an old oak, and you can goin about 3 feet up.
(55:39):
There's usually like a almostlike a chakra. I think of it
well, a tree is like a straw.It's a green very thin green
straw held up by cellulose. Theouter layer is dead. You know,
the bark is dead.
In the center of the tree iscellulose, which is dead, and
and it's all there to hold upthis very thin green straw. So I
(56:04):
think of it as an elevator. Soyou go into the tree, and you
can go ride up the elevator intothe branches and then out the
branches, and you can fly Mhmm.To wherever it is you gotta go.
So if I wanna go to Ireland, forexample, I go up and then I go
out the branches and I flyacross the Atlantic and I land,
(56:25):
the shore of Dingle usually.
Wendy (56:28):
Why not?
Ellen (56:29):
Yes. Or you can go in and then go down through the roots
and you'll find yourselftunneling through the earth, and
that's where the fairies are andthe ancestors. So if you wanna
communicate with them, you godown. And that's why when you
make offerings for ancestors orfairies, you put them on the
land. So liquid offerings thatgo down, or you make offerings
(56:52):
to water, which takes it down,or you leave offerings on the
land.
But if you wanna make offeringsto the gods, you put it in fire,
which takes it up to the skyworld. Okay. So depending on who
you're communicating with. Soall you have to do is have a
tree, any kind of tree. Oak isideal, but any tree, even a
little tiny tree.
(57:13):
I like to think that if we're onMars, you know, people ask me,
what happens if there's willthere be druids on Mars? I've
been asked that. Absolutely.
Wendy (57:21):
People ask that question.
Ellen (57:23):
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Wendy (57:24):
That's that's a that's a weird question.
Ellen (57:28):
Right. But but okay. So so what they're asking is is
this only connected to theearth? No. It's the 3 worlds.
It's three directions.
Wendy (57:38):
And you can access them from any planet.
Ellen (57:41):
Exactly. So you could be in Mars sitting there Hanging
Wendy (57:45):
out with Elon Musk. Yep.
Ellen (57:47):
Yeah. And there's this little tiny 6 inch tree, maybe
in a pot even. Mhmm. And you sitin front of it, and you're in
church.
Wendy (57:56):
Okay. Well, I'm glad that you solved that for the folks
who are concerned about Druidrypractice on Mars. That's good.
Nice work. Alright.
Well, Ellen, thank you so muchfor coming on and chatting with
me.
Ellen (58:14):
Thank you very much for inviting me. This was fun.
Wendy (58:20):
Alright. So now you know that becoming a Druid is a
little more involved thansitting by a tree. If you'd like
to learn more about Ellen's workand her books, there's a link to
her site in the show notes aswell as a link to learn more
about the Tribe of the Oak.Thank you so much for listening.
Thank you for your lovelyreviews and feedback and
(58:42):
donations to the podcast.
I am truly The next and finalepisode of season 6 will feature
my old friend and two timepodcast guest, Linda River
Valente, who will share with usher astrological take on the
upcoming year. Unsurprisingly,it's gonna be a wild ride. Well,
(59:03):
I hope the rest of your day is areally good one. Until next
time.
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