In many modern Druid rituals, the proceedings begin with the Call For Peace. Often one of the participants will first face the east, lift a hand and call out, ‘Let there be peace in the east', moving then to the other three directions in turn. In more traditional rites the Druid might raise his sword, slipping it a little from its sheath, and call, ‘Is there peace?' When nobody contradicts him, he resheaths it declaring ‘There is peace!' and walks to the next direction to ask again. Like a good deal of religious ritual, it is too often done with no real sense of what is truly being said, yet in a world so full of conflict it is such a poignant issue.
Most agree the origins of the Call for Peace to be in the work of Iolo Morganwg, the Welsh stonemason who was both student and forger of medieval Welsh poetry and tradition. Living in London at the time of the American War of Independence, the French Revolution and subsequent war with Britain, as Iolo put together the form of his Druid ritual these conflicts couldn't fail to influence his vision. In tune with other radicals, thinkers and poets of his time, he was a determined pacifist.
There are pacifists in Druidry today, and there are those eager to fight for justice: both stances are held with equal conviction and reasoning. I have stood in circles with people who have children or siblings deployed in the Middle East, and with those who have served in UN peacekeeping forces facing conflict more dangerous and barbaric than Iraq. There is violence within our own society. From a global perspective, there is not peace. As a result, for some the Call for Peace is not a declaration but a prayer to the gods.
Yet I feel this doesn't quite hit the mark: we must find peace within ourselves.
And what a glorious statement that is! How easily it can be said and how desperately hard it can be to achieve. After all, the great mystics and thinkers of our species have been pondering it for millennia in various religions, cultures and philosophies.
In Druidry, understanding peace is pivotal to our learning, and it is woven in with the focus on developing honourable relationship. Whether we are interacting with human beings or with any other part of the world around us, Druidry teaches that every decision we make must be based in honour. Of course, understanding honour, like love, is a lifelong journey, as we discover just what depth and grace can be found in respect, responsibility, loyalty, generosity, caring, patience, courage, honesty.
Such ideas are for another article. Here my question is: how do we know when we are close to truly honourable relationship? It is certainly not when we can successfully justify our behaviour, believing we are right. As Pagans, our spiritual practice must be more experiential than that. Knowing isn't only when something has found a settled place in our minds; it needs to sit in our belly as nourishment too, to guide our feet to feel the firmness of the earth, to tingle in our fingertips as inspiration, and be warm in our heart. It is the Pagan acceptance of the value of these visceral sensations that allows us to learn more deeply, not just from books or teachers, but from our own lives and memories.
So are we taught, in Druidry, how to know honourable relationship by the sensation it brings, and that feeling is peace. In other words, when we feel at peace with another, and we know they are a peace with us, it is likely that we are finding a connection based in honour.
At its very simplest (and in simplicity we learn so much, not least the first steps of any journey worth taking), we feel that sensation when we can sit together with another in quiet, with no awkward need to fill the space or break that quiet with words or actions. For we have found it when - at least in that moment - we need nothing of the other, when we ask nothing and expect nothing, yet know that should a need arise we would give all we could.
Peace, then, within ourselves, is found in a lack of need.
Life is perpetual change, and it is through a constant flow of needs that we survive, bodily, day to day, eating the food, finding the light, the stimulus, the exercise we need in order to achieve or retain our wellbeing. Yet as human beings, in truth, our real needs are both very simple and very few. Indeed, there is profound wisdom in realising that the simpler our lives are the greater our potential for wellbeing: peace isn't a result of having money or things.
Druidry teaches us, then, that peace comes through understanding the nature and simplicity of our own needs. When those needs have been met, what is left are opportunities for peace. So in Druid ritual, whether we are sharing that with others or crafting it alone, instead of calling for peace in the world around us, the power and its teaching is in knowing that, in that moment at least, we need nothing at all.
