Box

It starts with the housemate who orders the mother's day gift, or the birthday present for a second cousin law.

Then, the day begins to wind down. It requires a moment of silence. A moment where procrastination desires to develop into a tangible beast. You have to sense it. You have to be aware. You have to listen to the calling.

 You don't understand at first, but a part of you guides you into a state of supreme understanding about the nature of the world. You don't fight it anymore. You just let it overpower your ordinary mundane senses. Your harness this new... Creative energy...

And waste an entire evening making polyester models.

 

Because why not?

A tired nonsense post.

Firstly, I apologise for this post. Tiredness and I have been cheating on life for quite a while, so while I will try to be coheriant in writing, I may occasion drift and lose the strength to guard grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc. So conclusively, bare with me!

But on the upside, things have been moving along quite nicely. I've finally got round to reading The Time Traveller's Wife and The Other Hand. I enjoyed both books, but I found The Other Hand best written and more gripping. (I'll write reviews later.) I've started reading "Jpod" by Doulas Coupland, which is a very weird humour book. It's kept me entertained though. I'll also probably try to read a couple of others on a go, it makes it easier to read more sad or serious stuff when I have a crazy wacko humour book to read now and then to dilute things a bit.

My appetite is a bit screwed again, but I'm trying to eat more, again. Maybe I'll talk about recipes I followed in future posts.

I've been volunteering for a charity dedicated to raise awareness for hearing loss and the deaf commuinity [among many other related things] which has been great. Funnily enough, there was a strange coincidence today. I was an event in Bristol, and I was introduced to a particular lady who was responsible for managing events in the South East of London. That includes East Anglia, where I'm from. We were talking, and she mentioned she was doing an event in my hometown, on the Monday when I'm actually home. So... I'll be helping out there too. It is strange. I could have passed this opportunity to get involved with the charity in the first place. I could have let myself sink further down to a pool of anxiety and depression. But that one time I didn't has lead to some pretty good things. Of course, it's not always that simple. And if it was a matter of myself simply deciding not to feel down then the game of life would be much easier.

I also met a man who is very good at sign language, and combines it with religion.
Oh, religion and deafness is also what I really want to do for my third year dissentation. I've decided that writing a novel for marking in a short time is not for me. I'll still do creative writing, but I really want to get involved with research within the study of religion, especially with a sociological perspective.

I imagine if I told my brother about all this, he'd find it quite a bit boring. But maybe he'll like me talking about the LARP game I was involved with Saturday, and another I will be involved in later this week.
 If I get enough sleep.

Speaking of which, adios!

Progress of learning British Sign Language

I have recently been attending a sign language society (more of a 'club') in university where we practice signs, and try to learn them by heart. It's been useful for extending vocabulary, and it's nice to come across simple sentences and realize you can say them in both English, and BSL. I've made a short list, and there are at least 183 signs I can recall. I'd like to increase this amount.

I've decided it would generally be pretty awesome to do something with this hobby - either through writing with deaf characters, getting into education and giving lectures for deaf awareness, raising money for Action on Hearing Loss, etc. At some point in my creative writing course we have to write about a 5 year plan in regards to how to get to a particular career we want to do, or particular life aim, and later, even be mock interviewed for the position. We were told to aim high, but it had to be a job that was being advertised somewhere. As a joke, I thought of applying as a 'Mystery Shopper' in South Korea, (Yes I found an advertisement for one written in English.) but more seriously I think I'm heading towards the lines of following my own interests and making something out of it. Otherwise, I'll just get bored. I should probably start working hard to get a good degree, but I realize it may not be so essential, as I'll need to gain experience than anything else.

What is Druidary?

As a student studying religion, I have to sometimes look outside the frame of 'structured' or organised religion, and take a good look at other, more 'spiritual' religions. This is a very short introduction about my understanding of what is Druidary.

The issue is, there are multiple groups of people that are called the same name 'Druid' yet vary significantly. Scholars have issue in discussing about Druidary because of this, and also because contemporary Druidism found in across the world can vary from a religion, a spiritual outlook, or a philosophy.

 Dr Suzanne Owen describes contemporary Druidary as

"a British response to the land of the Britons."

However, she admits there is a problem with this, because you can find Druidary across the world. She goes further, to mention the concept of awen, the Welsh word for ‘inspiration’. Through the groups she had studied, Pagan and a few Christian, there is always awen.
Each group also had a relationship with the outside, even the Victorian groups. During the rituals the outdoors is also significant.
The eightfold calender is also important for a lot of Druids, and this is probably influenced by Pagans ideas.
There is an ambulatory towards some kind of Diety. This can be the Christian idea about God, or the a Pagan Deity, or it could even be an animist idea of a 'spirit' - which can be described as anything. The sheer vagueness helps Druidary avoid a doctrine, which can encourage members to join.

Other reasons people are influenced by Druidary is because it is not patriarchal, and it is very much an individual exploration. Some see it as an alternative to religion, (despite others call it a religion!) as they associate religion with hierarchy and institutions. Most Druids would except Druidary being known as a 'Spirituality'.

 According to Dr Suzanne Owen, there are three main threads of Druidary.
- During Victorian times there was a 'Druid' organisation that were interested in British, Nationalist interests. They were friendly societies. It was men only.

- Then Pagan roots of Druidary became altogether a different development, yet under the same name. There is a keen interest in environmentalism, and it is often quite romanticised. The ideology  questions such as haswhat has industrialisation has led to? How can we get back into nature? There a are a few links with the friendly societies, but many more differences. The main difference is that there are equal opportunities for women and men. The Pagan influence may have become popular because of it's openness, just as Wiccan had been adopted by the US by those looking for more feminist ideologies.

- There is another thread from Christian tradition. There is contemporary forms of Druids who identify themselves as Christian. These tend to be smaller groups then their Pagan cousins, and can really intergrate and share ideas between them. I personally wouldn't call these complete, seperate stands, but more like a diversity of Druidism itself. Like... the different kinds of apple you can get. These druids are both the same fruit.
 
There are other threads, such as secular Druidism too. But as with any open religion, or spiritualism with no doctorine, you'll forever find individuals who have unique backgrounds but feel they rightfully belong in a certain group, and who are we to say otherwise?

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You can find more about what  Dr Suzanne Owen has to say about Druidary here.

Websites that may interest you:
http://www.druidry.org/druid-way/what-druidry
http://www.druidry.co.uk/
http://www.druidry.org/board/dhp/index.php?sid=989d8db616c86978694332fe33d4fe60
http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/south/series3/druids.shtml
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/articles/d/the_druids.aspx

Other blog posts:
http://matthewslater.blogspot.co.uk/2008/01/christian-druid.html
http://www.druidry.org/druid-way/other-paths/christianity-druidry

Druidary in the news:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2173194.stm