Druidry and relationship

Part of the process of becoming a Druid is recognising that we have a relationship with everything. It can be a bit mind boggling to start with; ‘everything’ being difficult to think about. We tend to be conscious of some of our human relationships, but not all of them. Working with the elements is one way of starting to consider what our relationships with the wider world, are. Just recognising relationships takes us forward, and being conscious, we can do a better job of them.

Thinking about the earth, we can consider food and bodily waste, the land we live on, the landscapes we move through. What relationships do we have with those? How could we improve that? What is our relationship with rain, the water we drink, the polluted oceans and endangered sea life? How could we have a better relationship with water? Think about the essential air we breathe, and the pollutants we put into the atmosphere. Again, how can we improve? What about fire? The sun, the energy we consume, how are we doing on that score?

It’s a daunting prospect to rethink your whole life in these terms. Start small. Pick a change you can make. Recycling is easy. A bit more walking, a bit less driving, perhaps. Plant a tree, change your cleaning products. Once you feel confident in those changes, look around for another one that doesn’t seem to tricky, and do that thing. Step by step you change your relationship with the planet, and you become more aware of how your life is part of the same web as all other life. You are part of nature, too.

Human relationships inform a lot of the bad environmental choices we make. Pressures to earn, travel for work, consume, own, demonstrate wealth – in doing these things we perpetuate poor relationship with the planet, and those people around us. How much of what we do comes from unreasonable workplace demands, unsympathetic family, judgemental peers? That need to have status, to impress people, can put us under a lot of pressure. Making a lifestyle change to honour nature can bring human relationships into critical focus. Why am I working all these hours to pay for all these things that are destroying the planet? Could I do something else?

If we are unkind to the humans around us, if we dominate them, push them around, take from them, use them… what kind of relationship can we hope to have with anything else? And if, (as I suspect is more likely for a proto-Druid) we are on the receiving end, trying to do the right thing in face of the unreasonable, how can we make that work? The bullying boss, the demanding family member, the snide remarks from a neighbour, the pressure to give our kid what ‘everyone else’ apparently has… how can we have a good relationship there? In my experience, challenging the unreasonable outright does not tend to resolve much. The demanding and bullying ones do not like being wrong, and will feel threatened, angry and will dig in.

How can I have an honourable relationship with nature, if I cannot honour the nature in myself with a sufficiency of sleep? I should have started asking that one a decade ago.

Good relationship, on the other hand, is a joy. Supportive, nurturing, encouraging connections help us to experiment with life, cheer us on when we try new things, mop us up when we fail. Good human relationships enable us to live lightly. A good friend won’t judge you for not wearing the latest fashions, won’t laugh at you for not wanting a faster car. A good friend accepts you, and may well join you in a quest to do differently. Where there is mockery, discourtesy and unkindness, there is no kind of friendship at all. If stepping onto the Druid path reveals some less than lovely things about the people around you, that can really hurt. It may also be a necessary learning experience. It is better to know. In seeking good relationship, you can and will find good people to relate to, and better, happier, more rewarding ways of being.