Tuesday, 19 September 2017

Review: Pagan Portals - Australian Druidry

As pagans in the British Isles celebrate the Autumn Equinox at the end of this week, those in Australia will be celebrating the Spring Equinox. But the standard pagan Wheel of the Year, with its eight festivals marking the solstices, equinoxes and cross quarter days of Samhain, Imbolc, Beltain and Lammas, doesn't really fit well with the Australian climate, even if you reverse it.

In Pagan Portals - Australian Druidry, author Julie Brett offers ways of honouring and celebrating the land, flora and weather systems of a continent very different from England or even most of Europe. Her book has the subtitle Connecting with the Sacred Landscape and comes from years of experience of doing just that.

Publisher Moon Books says on its website:
Pagan Portals: Australian Druidry works as a supplement to the study of Druidry and other nature-based spiritual paths as practised in Australia. The seasons, animals, plants and ancestral histories of the land in Australia are quite different from those of the Celtic lands where Druidry originates. Julie Brett discusses the difficulties of following a nature-based tradition in an environment wildly different from Druidism's place of origin, and offers practical information on how to adapt the practice of Druidry to suit the energy of the land and respect its spirits and ancestors.
Although I don't live in Australia, I found the book thought-provoking and inspiring. There is a lot to be said for observing nature, the weather and the cycles of the seasons wherever you live and adapting your spiritual practices to fit what is really happening around you rather than what the standard Wheel of the Year says ought to be going on.

You can view Pagan Portals - Australian Druidry on Amazon

Links and previous related posts
http://www.moon-books.net/
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2013/10/pagan-eye-new-moon-over-australia.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2013/02/pagan-eye-witchy-sunset-over-australia.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2016/10/shopping-candles-and-candle-magic-in.html

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Appreciate this post. Will try it out.