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Druids celebrate their holy day today, too
Posted on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 (CDT) by Thoth
 The only thing the ritual shared with Easter was timing — and a few brightly colored eggs constituting an offering to the “shining ones.” They purified their ceremony by making a banishment offering to the “out-dwellers and tricksters.” They chanted, their voices ever rising and ever faster, to “open the gates,” a sign they had formed a spiritual center around their three altars.
They drank apple juice from a communal horn in accepting the blessings of the “waters of life” from kindred gods and goddesses of the Celts, Romans, Gauls and Norse. They made sacrificial offerings of bird seed to the nature spirits, tobacco and root beer to the ancestors and offered olive oil and praise gifts to individual patron gods chosen from hundreds.
Today, the Druids of the Three Cranes Grove of Columbus celebrated the seasonal holy day of Ostara, which marks the spring equinox. This day, this ritual, was to honor the Norse deities of Eostre, the goddess of spring, and Nerthus, the Earth Mother, and accept their gifts of renewal and fertility.
Eostre, the Druids note, was the name adapted by Christians to name their spring observance of Easter.
Twenty-three people, some
clad in white robes, sought to strengthen their relationships with a
host of neo-pagan gods through ceremony in a shelter at Highbanks Metro
Park.
Michael Dangler, the priest
of the local Grove, or congregation, and Jim Dillard, the senior Druid,
led the colorful ceremony encircled by their fellow celebrants.
“We are building a
relationship with our gods, not unlike you do with friends,” Dangler
said. “ We give them love and respect and occasionally give them gifts.
We give to them and they give back to us.”
Druids embrace a
nature-based philosophy in which they find spirituality in other
creatures and seek to honor and protect the Earth, said Dangler, 28, a
North Side resident and information-technology specialist at Ohio State
University.
At points during their hourlong ritual, the Druids knelt to touch, or even kiss, the ground.
While Druids reject many
religions' belief that there is but one God, neo-pagans share many
guiding principles with Christianity and other faiths, said Dillard,
41, a retailer from Reynoldsburg.
While Christians and Jews
have their Ten Commandments, the Druids have their Nine Virtues:
industry, sensuality, courage, strength, honor, hospitality, reason,
memory and vision.
“We seek to live honorable
lives. To be good to each other, to love each other — that's the core
of most religions,” Dillard said.
Their offerings dispensed
and blessings accepted, the fellowship of Druids shared a recessional
before gathering for a potluck lunch.
Walk with wisdom from this hallowed place,
Walk not in sorrow, our roots shall ere embrace.
May strength be your brother, and honor be your friend,
And luck be your lover until we meet again.
Copyright: The Columbus Dispatch
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