Actually, the books starts with an interview with Emma Restall-Orr, who I first met back in the mid 1990s at a Druid camp she ran at Avebury with Phillip Shallcrass. Emma has been hugely influential in Druidry and paganism, and it seems her book Spirits of the Sacred Grove (reprinted as Druid Priestess) inspired journalist Alex Klaushofer to explore paganism for herself.
Alex's interview shows more of Emma's private life than I was aware of, including the fact that she struggles daily with a painful medical condition. But she also talks about the reasons she became a Druid and her changing attitude towards organised Druidry.
But back to The New British Druids, which is a short and inexpensive Kindle book intended as the first in a series about modern spirituality. Alex said: "It’s a piece of long form reportage on my exploration of contemporary Druidry - mostly material already published in The Secret Life of God, but edited to form a standalone ebook for those specifically interested in neopaganism."
The Secret Life of God, which was published last year, is described as "a kind of spiritual investigation into twenty-first century Britain. It chronicles how, in an age when institutional religion is on the decline, people are finding new ways of believing and belonging, and puts the faces and places to the trend in which people are increasingly describing themselves as ‘spiritual but not religious’"
Based on how much I enjoyed The New British Druids, I will look out for Alex's earlier book for when summer is over and I have more evenings indoors to catch up on my reading further.
The New British Druids: Connecting with nature in the 21st century can be ordered via Amazon.
You can visit the Druid Camp website here: http://www.druidcamp.org.uk/
Links and previous related posts:
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2016/04/event-hoping-to-see-you-at-druid-camp.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2014/10/spirits-of-sacred-grovedruid-priestess.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2016/06/full-moon-at-stonehenge-at-summer.html
www.alexklaushofer.com
www.thesecretlifeofgod.net
@alexklaushofer
No comments:
Post a Comment