The Druid's Grove

This is usually how religions die. It happens when the mythical presuppositions of a religion become systematized as a finished sum of historical events under the severe, intellectual gaze of orthodox dogmatism, and people begin to defend anxiously the credibility of the myths while resisting every natural tendency within them to go on living and to throw out new shoots — in other words, when the feeling for myth dies and is replaced by the claim of religion to have historical foundations.

— The Birth of Tragedy Friedrich Nietzsche

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Not only is the bond between human beings renewed by the magic of the Dionysiac, but nature, alienated, inimical, or subjugated, celebrates once more her festival of reconciliation with her lost son, humankind. Freely the earth offers up her gifts, and the beasts of prey from mountain and desert approach in peace. The chariot of Dionysos is laden with flowers and wreaths; beneath its yoke stride panther and tiger. If one were to transform Beethoven’s jubilant ‘Hymn to Joy’ into a painting and place no constraints on one’s imagination as the millions sink into the dust, shivering in awe, then one could begin to approach the Dionysiac. Now the slave is a freeman, now all the rigid, hostile barriers, which necessity, caprice, or ‘impudent fashion’ have established between human beings, break asunder. Now, hearing this gospel of universal harmony, each person feels himself to be not simply united, reconciled or merged with his neighbor, but quite literally one with him, as if the veil of maya had been torn apart, so that mere shreds of it flutter before the mysterious primordial unity. Singing and dancing, man expresses his sense of belonging to a higher community; he has forgotten how to walk and talk and is on the brink of flying and dancing, up and away into the air above.His gestures speak of his enchantment. Just as the animals now talk and the earth gives milk and honey, there now sounds out from within man something supernatural: he feels himself to be a god, he himself now moves in such ecstasy and sublimity as once he saw the gods move in his dreams. Man is no longer an artist, he has become a work of art: all nature’s artistic power reveals itself here, amidst shivers of intoxication, to the highest, most blissful satisfaction of the primordial unity. Here man, the noblest clay, the most precious marble, is kneaded and carved and, to the accompaniment of the chisel-blows of the Dionysiac world-artist, the call of the Eleusinian Mysteries rings out ‘Fall ye to the ground, ye millions? Feelst thou thy Creator, world?’

— A phenomenal passage from Nietzsche’s “The Birth of Tragedy”

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Eternal Recurrence

What do you guys think of this idea Nietzsche presents? It's a different type of reincarnation where you won't have a similar life, nor a different life, but you'll have the SAME life recurring over and over again. What do you guys think of it? I'm trying to grasp my life around the meaning of it and what it would entail in reality. Would it maybe be a symbolic recurrence? Dionysian following Apollinian following Dionysian following Apollinian eternally? It doesn't seem like he's talking about it symbolically. What do you guys think of it?

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My (Current) Definition of Druidry

(A personal disclaimer. I do NOT claim to speak on behalf of anyone or any group and this includes the ancient Druids. No one knows what they believed in so why in the world would I know? This is strictly my opinion and may or may not relate to your own beliefs)

In my opinion, druidry is the development of one’s Self (and society) through observation of the natural forces of the universe. I sort of follow a Nietzschean-based version of this. Everything is about finding the balance and unity between two opposites, the Apollinian and the Dionysian. The Apollinian you can think of as the order impulses. The impulse of creation and patterns. The Dionysian would be the opposite. It would be that of chaos and destruction. This gyration of the two opposing sides is what society and our individuals Selves do throughout each relative history. What druidry does, is it attempts to find a type of internal balance and unity of these two opposites.

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Dionysus, Apollo, and Modern/Post-Modern Art

Some reflections spawned from reading my “Yeats and Nietzsche” book about society and duality.

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The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.

— Friedrich Nietzsche

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It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!

— Friedrich Nietzsche

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So I just found a book entitled “Yeats and Nietzsche” at the library and am currently obsessing over it. Favorite poet + Favorite philosopher = epic win :)

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I do not know what the spirit of a philosopher could more wish to be than a good dancer. For the dance is his ideal, also his fine art, finally also the only kind of piety he knows, his ‘divine service.’

— Friedrich Nietzsche

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One day had Zarathustra fallen asleep under a fig-tree, owing to the heat, with his arms over his face. And there came an adder and bit him in the neck, so that Zarathustra screamed with pain. When he had taken his arm from his face he looked at the serpent; and then did it recognise the eyes of Zarathustra, wriggled awkwardly, and tried to get away. “Not at all,” said Zarathustra, “as yet hast thou not received my thanks! Thou hast awakened me in time; my journey is yet long.” “Thy journey is short,” said the adder sadly; “my poison is fatal.” Zarathustra smiled. “When did ever a dragon die of a serpent`s poison?”—said he. “But take thy poison back! Thou art not rich enough to present it to me.” Then fell the adder again on his neck, and licked his wound.

— Thus Spake Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche

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