Druidry has become a popular term of late, the meaning of which has been argued and fought over vociferously. So many types of self-identified Druids loudly haggling the price of the name and who can afford to invest in it and, even more importantly for some, who should not be spending it so freely. Despite the desire of so many, to settle the issue once and for all, there is no authority able to arbitrate and decide who among these Druids are actually ‘the real’ Druids. We are left holding dear a term which has no single claimant and yet provides a self-identity to so many varied people and belief systems. How can a word from so long ago have this much force in the world of today, binding some folks together into strong groups while driving wedges and forming gulfs between other people? Such force is active in this word because it is connected to our self concepts and identities: for some of us it is a philosophical view of the world while for others it is the heart of our spirituality and religious worldview. As part of our sacred or absolute realities it gives structure to our world and meaning to our lives and we are creatures who feel a deep need to understand our world and a need to feel that we have a reason or purpose to our lives.  Therein lay the power of simple words to both consolidate and divide, it is part of the sacred reality through which we each view our world and our role in this world. And so, a simple archaic word and its permutations have come to mean a great deal to many.
In this work I proceed to describe Druidry as I know it, not as it is in any absolute way, not as it should be if my will became absolute authority, I can speak of it only as I know it and as lived by many of the Druids of my acquaintance. I am not known to be gentle with my opponents in debate and I certainly have no desire to become a paragon of kindness in the foreseeable future but I will not herein be discussing what is not or should not be called Druidry. My reason for this is simple, I have as a cornerstone of my self concept and worldview the religion of Druidry and were it to be torn from me I would be devastated and I do not have the stomach to rip those things away from another even if it is someone who I do not understand or with whom I do not agree. What follows is the description of Druidry as religion and as adhered to by one person who has pursued this faith for two decades with an approach that has come to be called ‘reconstructionism’ and who has been a member and officer of multiple Druidic organizations. It is a view which is informed by a belief in the need for academic research and by my membership in a local group which follows a Gaelic Tribal model of organization and management and my activities working with a larger body of people to build an expansive fellowship which embraces these views and structures.
Though we have been described by our detractors as people who are more interested in academic accuracy than we are in spiritual inspiration it would be more accurate to say that we find a great deal of spiritual inspiration in academic endeavors seeking the tiny grains of ancient belief that are scattered through the evidence. We ‘Celtic Reconstructionists’ are people of a strong and enduring faith who practice a religion which is enmeshed in our Celtic identity and a desire to know as much as possible about our Celtic ancestors, be they ancestors of blood or spirit. Because of this approach we are people who do large amounts academic research in Celtic studies and use that information to develop our spiritual practices. When we hold an artifact or see a sacred site of distant ages we are thrilled because these things whisper across time to show us a tiny bit of what was. Piece by piece we reassemble this complex puzzle of ancient Druidry so that we can see it and with each fragment our view is expanded. Academia plays a strong role in our approach to Druidry but it does not destroy our ability to be spiritual and to feel inspiration, study and knowledge are, for us, the very sources of that spiritual inspiration.
Celtic culture as it exists today is often explored and embraced by us because it represents an evolved modern contextualized Celticism. Some of us learn the basics of Gaelic or Brythonic languages and use them for some communication among ourselves. We do this because language programs world view and thought patterns and is in turn programmed by those things and we know that when we learn these languages our minds are taught the steps of a mental dance which began long ago in a different world. Then we can learn older and more archaic forms of the languages and this knowledge carries us down a road where the conceptual mental dance of language is older and closer to the original steps. Each mile down that road of language carries us closer to seeing the world through an ancient window, rather than the view from here we can come to glimpse the view from there. The poetry, music, folktales, customs and traditions of today also stand at this end of a long trail that reaches into an obscuring mist of time but by following that trail we can pierce that mist. By diving into the current pool of Celtic culture we are able to drink from and bathe in a stream that flows from a far away source, a well of long ago.
Intertwined with our Druidry is our Celtic identity and for us one cannot be separate from the other. Our Druidry is a cloth woven from the threads of our spiritual needs and current lives and from Celtic strands which reach far back in time and are hung on an ancient loom of our ancestors. Celtic Reconstructionists are people who worship the Gods of the ancient Celtic peoples and who do so by trying to incorporate many of the methods of these ancestors and often in languages that are related to the languages with which those Gods were honored in ages past. We like to stand together in worship with others of like mind, holding one another as our children are born and even as our children have died. Sharing our joys, pains and our love of the Gods and ancestors. People of faith and communities of faith. This is the Druidry that I know, and it nourishes my life and all parts of my being. It is my prayer to the Gods that my people pray to that other paths of Druidry feed the souls of those who walk them with the same type of feast.
Beannacd liebh,(Blessings)