Making Cents

A penny for your thoughts?

I figure that the inaugural post on this website should be a brief exposure of me, my debut into Druidry, and the chain of events that led to A Druid's Two Cents being created.

Is there such a thing as a humble beginning?

I could take a page from the about me section from the jacket of any publication from 1436 to present, going on endlessly about the merit and tumult of my childhood. Instead, I choose to put the relevance of my upbringing into a pleasantly short exposition:

I favored the company of trees and musical instruments to the company of humans, and my favorite toy was a bookshelf that otherwise gathered dust in the living room.

Druidry was a product of 2010.

In my early teen years, I was wandering my neighborhood when I noticed this old, beaten-up journal laying splayed out in the road. It was an unlined leather journal that was half-soaked, and fell apart as I rummaged through it. There was no name or address, and the only date listed was in the inside of the front cover - May 2004. I wrapped it in an old t-shirt and stored it in my backpack.

That evening, I closed myself off in my bedroom and began to investigate. I almost mistook the penmanship for printed type, it was so meticulous. I was fascinated, and spent the evening scribbling my own notes in a composition book to later research at my local library.

Most of the pages were illegible and lost to the elements, but the ones I could still interpret were packed from margin-to-margin with notes, philosophies, rituals, and a few hand-charted diagrams. Mentions of a “Druid Path” were scattered in the literature, along with seemingly anachronous opinions about the OBOD, and the Order of the Golden Dawn.

This author referred to themselves as a Hedge Druid, and they seemed thoroughly engrossed in their research. Each passing page held another rabbit hole, another branching inquiry into esoteric spiritual philosophy that blurred the line between inherited wisdom and personal inspiration.

Though passionate, this druid was… misguided, to put it generously.

Whether it was creative liberty or considerable revisionism, I found a few misconstructions written repeatedly. Ancient druids originating from Scandinavia, Futhark runes whose uses ran against their historically known meanings. They also included some… opinions against established orthodoxies like the Abrahamic religions. Sorting their studies from their revisionism, I compiled my own journal on Hedge Druidry, with full intent to practice.

That was until the church made its presence known.

The religious circle I was in at the time was not an understanding or accepting one. As soon as my path was discovered by them, the old journal and resultant notes were forcibly confiscated from me and destroyed. One of the members went so far as to create fake social media profiles of druids living in catacombs to mock the spiritual journey they were so eager to abort - and still insisted I was the weird one.

After I recovered from that betrayal, I scoured the neighborhood for the author of this journal. I had to know more, but after a rut of confused glares and slammed doors, I abandoned my search empty-handed. The journal has remained a mystery since.

The remaining task of divorcing the church was stretched out over the following years, primarily due to one of the member’s bizarre, obsessed stalking.

I spent the following years counting change.

The druid path remained unwalked by me for the following decade - the embarrassment and other unpleasantness from the members of my now former church was enough to dissuade me from religious practices altogether. Adopting a scientific, atheist approach, the remainder of my minor years were deeply rutted in the dry aplomb necessary to survive.

2020 later came, bringing a litany of global crises that I hardly feel necessary to recount - if you are on this blog, you most likely already know. The lockdown scenario left me a lot of time to reflect on

2022. I was spending an idle moment browsing a beginner’s group for Celtic Paganism and Druidry on Facebook, eager to contribute to the budding I stumbled on a post asking for thoughts on Celtic neoculture being dwarfed by those in the Norse lineage. As ungentlemanly as it is to compare sizes, I still took the time to express my opinion which can be seen in the blog post on the topic. I remember typing the post script before hitting post:

Just a druid’s two cents.