 My name is Danny and welcome to Esoteric Moment. Today I'm doing another book review and that is a very popular book that many Druids really love that is the Druidry Handbook by John Michael Greer. This author wrote the book while he was the Archdruid of AODA, which is the ancient order of Druids in America. This book actually serves as the main textbook for their first course. Of course, purchasing the book does not automatically make you a member of their organization or start you along that path, but it is a really good way to catch the flavor of that order's Druidry. The book has a few different parts, the first part being mostly history, especially about the revival of Druidry. It's brief but very easy to read. If you're someone who's really into reconstructionist viewpoints and paganism, it's probably not going to be to your taste, but generally it's pretty interesting. This order does use a fair amount of work from this author. I'm just gonna write it up here because I can never pronounce it correctly. The order I belong to, Obad also does, but I'm always a little squeamish when he comes up as a source because his academic methods are really sketchy. You know, you have to look at his resources, understanding that he made up a lot of it. We're not sure what is really historical and what isn't, that doesn't take away from his inspiration, but I always like to throw that caveat out when he comes up. The second part of the book kind of talks about modern Druidry and what a practice in today's world looks like. The author talks a little bit about Olin, talks a little bit about the Olin symbol and rays of inspiration. He talks a little bit about inspiration for a modern pagan like Merlin, Taliesin, the King Arthur stories, how myth plays a role into a modern practice. And then part three is where you get to the meat of the book. And it talks about the order's three paths, the earth path, the moon path and the sun path. The sun path being celebrating the year, doing the equinoxes and solstices, celebrations and maybe cross quarter days. The earth path is one of action and practice, one of how do you make your life be more sustainable and in sync? How do you observe nature and work with it? How do you really feel like you're a part of nature and connected? And then the moon path is all about meditation. And there's a lot in this book about that path in particular. Interestingly, the author goes pretty in depth about how he feels readers should be doing meditation and what meditation forms are best for a druid practice. And there's this weird kind of tension between the author saying, there are lots of ways of doing this and do what works for you. And also being like, this is the best way, this is really the way that you should be doing meditation. And that tension really kind of frustrated me, especially on meditation. I don't think that there is a best way of meditating. And I think beginners in particular benefit from feeling like they have lots of options and that they can't fail. And establishing a practice of meditation is one of the hardest things you can do. I think beginners should feel like they can be as comfortable as they want and whatever position works for them and that there isn't a wrong way practice. It is a practice. Generally, I think the book is well written. The tone is really easy to read. It's a pretty fast read. I think many people will get a lot out of this book and if you're interested in druidry but still kind of not sure what it means to have a druid practice or you're kind of thinking about what order works for you, I definitely would read this one. AODA is never an order that really appealed to me. Kind of the way they set up their groves and how ritual is done in their organization is just not quite my thing at this point. But there are lots of members and they have some great resources. This book being one of them. Interesting thing about the very end of the book is that it includes a pretty detailed explanation of what your first degree course would be like through this organization, which I think is a level of transparency that you don't get in all of the organizations for druidry and is really useful when trying to figure out what works for you. Or if you're deciding to work solitary, not belong to an organization at all, I think it can give you a really great jumping off point on how would you formulate a year and a day study practice or what would really work for you. If you are interested in other druid orders and you haven't experienced AODA, I think this is a great resource. And if you're just trying to understand what druidry means in a modern context, I really think this is a must read. In the comments below, I would love to hear if you have read anything by John Michael Greer and if so, what your favorite title was from him. Thanks for watching and as always may you find peace in the sacred grove. Today I am filming from Brittingham Community Garden which is one of the community gardens that I'm a member of. And I wanted to film from here so that we could talk about connecting to plants and learning how to really establish a relationship with those plants.