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Druid Statements on the Environment Released 25 Years Ago

July 4th, 2015

800px-Planet-earth-12035-12418-hd-wallpapersI have just finished writing the foreword to a collection of interviews with key figures in the Druid movement that has been put together by Ellen Evert Hopman. It’s due to be published later this year with the provisional title ‘A Legacy of Druids’. I rather like that – we have pods of dolphins, swarms of bees, and now legacies of Druids!

As I’ve been writing this, Pope Francis has spoken out about Climate Change, as has the Dalai Lama at the Glastonbury Festival – at the ‘spiritual centre of the event’, as the festival website describes the Peace Garden, with its stone circle built by Ivan McBeth, OBOD member and founder of the MODS (The Megalithic Order of Druids).

A member has asked me to make a statement about Climate Change too, but I think the world of Druidry is in an entirely different position to the two world religions represented by Pope Francis and the Dalai Lama. They have finally made these major position statements, whereas we’ve been taking this position since the late 1980’s.

I’ve written about this in my foreword to Ellen’s collection:

And Druidry’s legacy? It has become a vibrant alternative to the more mainstream religions and spiritualities – one which ironically may have been seen as an anachronism, but which has in reality proved itself to be more attuned to the current needs of humanity and the Earth than them all. As I write this, Pope Francis has just made a statement on the threat of climate change, and the Dalai Lama has also just spoken of it at the Glastonbury Festival. The Druids were warning us about this more than twenty-five years ago.

For those who would like to read a comprehensive statement that reflects the beliefs of probably all Druids and many others too, have a look here:  A Pagan Community Statement on the Environment: www.ecopagan.com  And if you agree, do sign the statement as has the Order, and many of its members.

8 Responses to “Druid Statements on the Environment Released 25 Years Ago”

  1. I feel incredibly honored by being mentioned in the same sentence as Pope Francis and the Dalai Lama… Thank you Philip. The MODS actually stands for the Megalithic Order of Druids. Evolution does seem to take a long time, although patience, never giving up and positivity will eventually triumph…

    • Glad you like it Ivan! It’s been wonderful seeing the Dalai Lama televised there! I shall change the Order title. I hope readers get the ‘mods and rockers’ allusion!

      • Hello Ivan (waving at you from Southern New England). You are one of the people who should have/could have been included in A LEGACY OF DRUIDS except I only met you a few years ago! Your Spirit is forever in the stones.

  2. Druid mods …… Presumably that means according to the old Brythonic and Gaelic tongues, that we’ll be riding Llambrettas and Bhespas then! 😉
    Curiously enough, we also have here in Highland Scotland an annual arts event similar to the Eisteddfod called ” Am Mód. 🙂 Rioghaill Náiseanta, or in English , the royal national mód

    • Ah yes the Mod Ossian! I wonder if Ivan knows that nice coincidence?!

  3. I have always wondered where Gerald and Ross were during the Killing Fog of London in the Winter of 1952. So far as I know, neither of them mentioned this event, which led directly to the Clean Air Act of the 1960’s in the USA and bans on burning coal in London, along with a host of other regulations. Did they not see a connection between Druidry and Industrial Smog that killed thousands?

  4. If we are not activists to stem global warming and protect our still living planet so that the natural cycles which have always sustained us and all Life on Earth can once again dominate, then truly the future is horrific to contemplate and all else is moot. Consider the consequences of rising seas, loss of fresh water, rapidly spreading desertification, and loss of the forests, with all the diseases, and wars these will spawn amongst the billions of people of our now unsustainably over-populated planet. How could any rational person not take up an activist lifestyle against the continued use of traditional “dirty” energy sources, unsustainable overconsumption and ongoing pollution of our sacred Mother, our only home in the universe? I would add that making education available to all can only help to increase awareness and create the sense of global community that is needed to call a halt to our specie’s war on nature, and Life on Earth itself.

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