Natural Druidry

by Kristoffer Hughes

Share in a world of wondrous beings, of sheer potentiality beyond comprehension, and the awe and childlike surrender one feels when confronted with the enchantment of Druidry.

Genres: Paganism, Spirituality, Magic

282 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2007

About the author

Kristoffer Hughes (Wales) is Chief of the Anglesey Druid Order, a Mount Haemus Scholar, and a member of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids. He is a teacher, writer, workshop leader, and guest speaker at Pagan conferences, camps, and festivals throughout the United Kingdom, Europe, and North America. Hughes has also contributed to Welsh and English television and radio. He's the author of four books and the creator of the Celtic Tarot.

Hughes is also a Death Services Professional for Her Majesty's Coroner service. He hosts frequent Amicus Mortis/Friends Death, Death Midwifery and Mortality Salience courses in person and online.

Reviews

[hawk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book loosely season by season, reading the chapters as the year turned... tho at times also either a little before/after the festival date 🙂

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I think overall, it's a nice introduction to Druidry, rooted within ancient British and Celtic traditions, and perhaps different from others in using the Welsh names for the quarter and cross-quarter festivals of the year.

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the book included:

🌼 introductions to Druidry, the Wheel of the Year, ritual...

🌼 chapters about each of the festivals in turn, moving thru the seasons and year, with suggestions for ritual and spiritual work.

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I'm not totally sure I was into the authors position - there were a few associations/popular culture references that narrow it to a particular UK experience, and his humour didn't really work for me - but I think it would work for many, and he came across largely as unpretentious, friendly, and open 🙂

tho in places I found him creepily anthropomorphic 😬 and I felt that he made assumptions about sexuality - while he's nicely sex and body positive, imo he makes quite alot of assumptions about sex and sexuality and sensuality, including pretty normative ones about what these are. it felt abit binary, and heteronormative, especially for a gay Druid 🙁😬🙃🤔

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as for the question about 'Natural Druidry', what makes this different to simply 'Druidry' - a good question! esp given that all Druidry I'm familiar with is very rooted and situated within the natural world 🙂🙃
as it's structure, this book follow the seasons, and makes links between what's going on in nature and the spiritual focus of the season and moment.
best I could come up with, but yeah, abit unconvincing maybe. I'm personally not sure there's any other kind of Druidry, nor that this approach is alot different to others 😉🙂🙃🙂

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I mostly read this book as an introduction to the author, to get a sense of the author - there's another book of his I'm interested to read, but it wasn't available in the libraries, while this one was 🙂


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accessed as an RNIB talking book, read by ??? at least two distinct voices, but I can't find the readers' names 🤔
recorded at the RNIB Transcription Centre North West.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not quite as strong as Hughes' later books, but still good - would be especially useful as an introduction to Druidry.

[Kathleen]

There are some excellent ideas in this book. While I don't agree 100% with everything that K. Hughes presents, he hits some really thought-provoking points. He has an obvious reverence for Nature and for the traditions that he upholds, and even people who don't practice Druidry could learn a lot from what he has to say stewardship of the environment.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of distracting proofreading/typographical errors in the book. I'm talking about missing letters and stuff, not things that fall into the "differences between UK English and US English" category. I find that distracting and really disappointing, because it kept pulling me out of the flow of reading. I hope that the publisher will be more thorough in the future.

[Mariah]

Listened to an interview with Kristoffer Hughes on a podcast (now i can't remember which one!) and he sounded very insightful. I'm always curious about different perspectives on Druidry/Druidism.

[Gareth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A personal Quest for Celtic Spirituality. Well written and Honest. Very Good.