Spirits of the ancestors
Coifi
Chris Turner
1940 - 2001
Husband, father, druid
He is sadly missed.
Chris Turner
1940 - 2001
Husband, father, druid
He is sadly missed.
In 2000 Chris founded the Druids of Albion prior to his death. We hope we continue his millenium work well. I'm sure he'll tell us if we don't. He had planned a series of 10 (ten) teaching packs, only 4 (four) of which were completed. We have been building the packs from pack 5 onwards with Chris's notes and our own input, as well as reviewing, revising, and updating the original four packs. We now relaunch these as the Coifi Druid Course. We are indebted to Louise Turner Young for copies of Chris's work, and to old Druids of Albion members Heather Upfield and Ray Stirton for their support and information. Chris said "Druids of Albion have a different take on this as you might expect. The view I take, the words I hear, are these. That the structure of Druidry is more like a tree, with many branches from a common root and trunk. The way the DoA is/will be structured (we are very young and a longer way to go than I can see my way to tread) goes something like this."
He continues "The basic Grade, the Grade all full Members will achieve is that of Druid. This does not come at the end, it comes at the beginning. This is the basic ability to expand and connect with an awareness of the Universe, its origins and destiny, the celebration of the Eightfold Year, the internal Groves, history of Ancestor and Place and so on. This is enough in its basic form to allow the Druid to follow a Druidic lifestyle, and bring Druidy into hir world wherever s/he might be. This is the common knowledge and level of all Druid Grades".Chris commented "Much of the rationale for this stems from my own experience and understanding of terms and terminology. In my days on the OBOD path, I studied the Bardic Grade, which has a lot of great stuff in it, but little or nothing to do with Bardism (that I could see). A few years later, I studied Fine Art at University. This, to me, seemed the soul of Bardism - to hear the Spirit and bring it into manifestation through the channels it was my gift to have some fluency in. This may be the graphic or plastic arts, music, dance, poetry, whatever. This Bardism is a very advanced and intense medium, and cannot easily be approached in a vacuum. I needed my grounding in thirty years of hedge Druidry and contact with OBOD and BDO to properly inform what I was doing. Trying to do Bardism without some sort of Druidic preparation seems to me to be doomed to mediocrity if not failure. My own experience told me that to be Druid comes first, only then are you properly prepared to be a Bard (or Healer, Priest or whatever). It doesn't work properly the other way round."
Poem
I met a Centaur in the wood
One drowsy, summer-dappled day
As on a fallen stump I sat
With pipe in hand and thinking
In my sadness on that which was,
And is, and might have been;
All lost in rueful reverie.
He started, stamped and whirled about
On flashing hooves. Checked, pawed the ground When no
aggresive move I made,
Then stood a-quiver in the banded sun,
Regarding me with needle eye
From under wreathed and tangled brow
While all the world held breath.
At length he spoke with thick, outlandish tongue
Which I, in no surprise, could understand
Though such harsh sounds had not been heard
Since days when all the world was young.
"Where Maenads? Sileni? Where Satyrs gone?"
Then sly, "Seen Lapiths? Good for fight!"
He flexed his gleaming golden hide.
" Gone." I said in leaden tone'
" Gone these many weary years."
He stamped again. "I find!" he snapped.
A green bough slapped the empty spot
Where once he stood and stood no more.
I sighed and turned and climbed the hill, Cutting the shining
turf with my own bright hooves.
Deity
Coifi on divinity...
"Speaking for myself, I am a monotheist. Coming to the heart of Spirit I cannot conceive nor entertain the concept of a plurality. Having said that, I know that I am in a physical incarnation which is characterised by imperfection, but there you go .However, I have no problem at all with the idea of god and goddess, being the next natural, dynamic, and logical polarising development on the One.
To put it another way, I have no problem with the concept of Mankind (or Humanity in its PC form). I also have no problem with the concept of Woman (female, feminine, womanhood etc) AND Man (male, masculine, manhood etc). I do not and cannot regard "woman" or "man" as being somehow "half-human" simply because neither gender can embrace the totality of "being human". Both genders together are "human" and each gender individually is also totally "human". The humanity of a person is NOT reduced or limited simply because they as only one part of a Human Duality of gender.
From this follows that to honour, worship (pick your own verb) God or Goddess, Lord or Lady, is not contradictory to monotheism or vice versa. When I worship the Divine Creator, Eternal Spirit of Light in the singular, I also consciously and simultaneously worship God and Goddess, individually and collectively.
It works all the way down the pyramid. Honouring the Goddess or God in one particular aspect, e.g. Lady of the Waters or the Green Man, does not compromise the honouring of Goddess or God in singular and archetypal form NOR the honouring of the One Divine Source which comprehends them both, individually and collectively.
I see no conflict within the context of Druidry between the personal preference of the worship/honour of Spirit in a monotheistic, dualistic or polytheistic form. Speaking just for me, I do all three together, and I'm very happy with the arrangement. The question, to me, is simply "which of all the equally valid aspects works for YOU?". If you prefer the same level(s) as me - that's good. If you prefer a different level(s) - that's good, too."
Beltane Banners
"Back in University, I spent a lot of time developing the idea of banners as space - or area -modulators with some success. I made the link that under certain circumstances, the banner modulates or qualifies a volume of space in much the same way as a megalithic Standing Stone, and that a group of them make a dynamic synthesis of a Stone Circle. I had always intended to put the theory to the test but what with one thing and another, it never came together until now.
Let me describe the banners. They fly from a 7-foot (2m25) pole. They are about 5 feet (1m50) tall and about 20 inches (50cm) wide. There is a sleeve at the hoist, so they just slip on the pole. I have five or six ribbons a foot (30cm) long attached to the fly so they dance and flutter in the lightest breeze.
I had my chance to try them out at Beltane. I had some friends up from England who brought their robes and drums with them, and we made a Mayday of it up in the hills. We had our celebration in a local Regional Park and used a level patch of green by a stand of mature Spruce to set up the Circle. I made a Circle about 40 feet (12m) across from 15 banners, set two more as entrance markers and one outlier (yellow with a Sun symbol) away to the South East representing the Sun in the Wheel of the Year. The effect was really stunning. Once the system is worked out, you can set up a full-size Stone Circle in ten minutes and (just as useful) take it all down in five.
The ritual was great. Back at the Visitor Centre, we met up with some more friends from my work and other Druid/Shaman friends who knew about the ritual. At the end, there were about 20 of us. We went in procession with drums and rattles down to the stand of Spruce where we broke of and spent some time one-on-one with the trees, then we processed on to circle which was waiting for us.
There we were, in a circle of fluttering banners, blue sky and sunshine, trees, hills, a mountain stream and AWENs. What better! An experience to be recommended. And then, it all packs away in the car till next time.
Of course, the best bit (as always) is the unplanned and unexpected. Because of the danger of fire in or near woodland (we ALL know about THAT just now!), we didn't use fire in the ritual at all. However, the Park does have a dedicated barbecue area which they can monitor. As it happens, the path from the Visitor Center down to where we had set up the Circle passes through this barbecue area and while we were all meeting up, two separate groups of Park visitors had started two cooking fires (in the hearths provided) so when we processed to the Circle, we had to pass between the two fires - just as Tradition dictates! The final touch!
If you want to do this yourself, here's some details of what and how -
For this particular Circle, I just wanted to go out and do one straight off without having to get bogged down with fancy constructions and precise angles and stuff. The ideal numbers for this are multiples of 8 (8, 16, 24) simple because you keep on dividing in half. The actual mechanics I used are these -
1) decide where the centre in going to be (by whatever means) and stick a pole in the ground.
2) get a piece of string half the diameter of the size circle you want. Make a loop in one end and slip it over the central pole. Wherever you place the loose end will always lie on the circumference of your circle, so you don't have to carve the circle into the ground (unless you want to).
3) decide if you want an alignment or not. If you do, line up the central pole on the alignment, pull the string tight and put a pole in where the end of the string is. Walk all the way round to the other side and line up the two poles, pull the string tight and put a pole in where the end of the string is. You now have three poles in a line pointing towards whatever you want to point them at (East, mountain peak or whatever).
4) Make another alignment at right angles to the first. You can do this by eye, or compass or really accurately with another piece of string which MUST be longer than the full width of the Circle (it doesn't matter how long). Make a loop in each end of this string and mark the exact middle. Slip a loop over each of the outer alignment poles. Grasp the middle point and pull tight. The line from the middle of the string through the centre pole divides the circle into four exact quarters. Using the first piece of string, put two poles in on this new alignment. You don't need the long bit of string any more.
5) Check. You now have five poles, one in the centre, two on your first alignment through the centre and two on your second ditto at right angles to the first.
6) When you finish, you will take the centre pole out, but you need it for now to get the rest of the poles in. What you have now is a circle of four poles (the 5th will go). This actually is a valid form of Stone Circle in its own right. There are several in Britain - mostly in Scotland where they are known as 'four-posters', but I know a couple in England. To make an eight-pole circle, take your string and move round until you see the centre pole is exactly between two poles on the far side of the circle (this really is quite accurate), pull the string tight and put a pole in where the end of the string is, then put a matching pole on the other side. Do this again with the other quarter and Lo! you have a Circle of 8 poles.
7) to make a Circle of 16 poles, just divide the distance between any two poles in half by eye, pull the string tight and put a pole in where the end of the string is. Do this all the way round and you have 16 poles. (This is the one I used). To make 24, put two poles in the gap instead of one.
8) This is the easy one, and the 8x format gives you the Directions and/or the Festas, position of the Sun in the Wheel of the Year and so on. Once you have done this a couple of times, it is fun working out constructions for different numbers of poles.
IMPORTANT! - There is NO traditional, or normal, or common number of stones or sizes in ancient Stone Circles. Every one is different in some respect from all others. The RIGHT number of stones/banners in a Circle as well as shape, orientation etc is exactly what YOU choose it to be. (Very Druidic! And don't the orthodox-tendency ritualists hate it!)
9) In addition, I set up four poles in the Directions around the Mundus (I don't like the word 'altar') in the centre of the Circle.
So - I had 16 poles after I removed the central one. I took one pole out of the ring to make an entrance gap and set the two removed poles outside this gap to make the entrance obvious. I set one more pole a little distance outside at the South East to represent the position of the Sun for Beltane.
I ended up with a ring of 15 + 2 entrance markers +1 outlier +4 in the Centre =21
For the Circle, I used part of a set of 40 banners left from Uni days. These are black with white ribbons and a thin orange sleeve for the pole. The colours represent the Oystercatcher - a shore bird that we have numbers of here. Very important to me personally. For the Four Directions I used white banners with AWENs in black, red, gold and white (out of a black stripe) with matching ribbons. These represent the colours of four tutelary animals of Britain - raven, dragon, lion and unicorn which I use to mark the Directions (East West South and North respectively)
For the Sun in the Wheel of the Year I used a larger yellow banner with a spiral Sun symbol in red."
Chris Turner
Alban Hefin 2000
He continues "The basic Grade, the Grade all full Members will achieve is that of Druid. This does not come at the end, it comes at the beginning. This is the basic ability to expand and connect with an awareness of the Universe, its origins and destiny, the celebration of the Eightfold Year, the internal Groves, history of Ancestor and Place and so on. This is enough in its basic form to allow the Druid to follow a Druidic lifestyle, and bring Druidy into hir world wherever s/he might be. This is the common knowledge and level of all Druid Grades".Chris commented "Much of the rationale for this stems from my own experience and understanding of terms and terminology. In my days on the OBOD path, I studied the Bardic Grade, which has a lot of great stuff in it, but little or nothing to do with Bardism (that I could see). A few years later, I studied Fine Art at University. This, to me, seemed the soul of Bardism - to hear the Spirit and bring it into manifestation through the channels it was my gift to have some fluency in. This may be the graphic or plastic arts, music, dance, poetry, whatever. This Bardism is a very advanced and intense medium, and cannot easily be approached in a vacuum. I needed my grounding in thirty years of hedge Druidry and contact with OBOD and BDO to properly inform what I was doing. Trying to do Bardism without some sort of Druidic preparation seems to me to be doomed to mediocrity if not failure. My own experience told me that to be Druid comes first, only then are you properly prepared to be a Bard (or Healer, Priest or whatever). It doesn't work properly the other way round."
Poem
I met a Centaur in the wood
One drowsy, summer-dappled day
As on a fallen stump I sat
With pipe in hand and thinking
In my sadness on that which was,
And is, and might have been;
All lost in rueful reverie.
He started, stamped and whirled about
On flashing hooves. Checked, pawed the ground When no
aggresive move I made,
Then stood a-quiver in the banded sun,
Regarding me with needle eye
From under wreathed and tangled brow
While all the world held breath.
At length he spoke with thick, outlandish tongue
Which I, in no surprise, could understand
Though such harsh sounds had not been heard
Since days when all the world was young.
"Where Maenads? Sileni? Where Satyrs gone?"
Then sly, "Seen Lapiths? Good for fight!"
He flexed his gleaming golden hide.
" Gone." I said in leaden tone'
" Gone these many weary years."
He stamped again. "I find!" he snapped.
A green bough slapped the empty spot
Where once he stood and stood no more.
I sighed and turned and climbed the hill, Cutting the shining
turf with my own bright hooves.
Deity
Coifi on divinity...
"Speaking for myself, I am a monotheist. Coming to the heart of Spirit I cannot conceive nor entertain the concept of a plurality. Having said that, I know that I am in a physical incarnation which is characterised by imperfection, but there you go .However, I have no problem at all with the idea of god and goddess, being the next natural, dynamic, and logical polarising development on the One.
To put it another way, I have no problem with the concept of Mankind (or Humanity in its PC form). I also have no problem with the concept of Woman (female, feminine, womanhood etc) AND Man (male, masculine, manhood etc). I do not and cannot regard "woman" or "man" as being somehow "half-human" simply because neither gender can embrace the totality of "being human". Both genders together are "human" and each gender individually is also totally "human". The humanity of a person is NOT reduced or limited simply because they as only one part of a Human Duality of gender.
From this follows that to honour, worship (pick your own verb) God or Goddess, Lord or Lady, is not contradictory to monotheism or vice versa. When I worship the Divine Creator, Eternal Spirit of Light in the singular, I also consciously and simultaneously worship God and Goddess, individually and collectively.
It works all the way down the pyramid. Honouring the Goddess or God in one particular aspect, e.g. Lady of the Waters or the Green Man, does not compromise the honouring of Goddess or God in singular and archetypal form NOR the honouring of the One Divine Source which comprehends them both, individually and collectively.
I see no conflict within the context of Druidry between the personal preference of the worship/honour of Spirit in a monotheistic, dualistic or polytheistic form. Speaking just for me, I do all three together, and I'm very happy with the arrangement. The question, to me, is simply "which of all the equally valid aspects works for YOU?". If you prefer the same level(s) as me - that's good. If you prefer a different level(s) - that's good, too."
Beltane Banners
"Back in University, I spent a lot of time developing the idea of banners as space - or area -modulators with some success. I made the link that under certain circumstances, the banner modulates or qualifies a volume of space in much the same way as a megalithic Standing Stone, and that a group of them make a dynamic synthesis of a Stone Circle. I had always intended to put the theory to the test but what with one thing and another, it never came together until now.
Let me describe the banners. They fly from a 7-foot (2m25) pole. They are about 5 feet (1m50) tall and about 20 inches (50cm) wide. There is a sleeve at the hoist, so they just slip on the pole. I have five or six ribbons a foot (30cm) long attached to the fly so they dance and flutter in the lightest breeze.
I had my chance to try them out at Beltane. I had some friends up from England who brought their robes and drums with them, and we made a Mayday of it up in the hills. We had our celebration in a local Regional Park and used a level patch of green by a stand of mature Spruce to set up the Circle. I made a Circle about 40 feet (12m) across from 15 banners, set two more as entrance markers and one outlier (yellow with a Sun symbol) away to the South East representing the Sun in the Wheel of the Year. The effect was really stunning. Once the system is worked out, you can set up a full-size Stone Circle in ten minutes and (just as useful) take it all down in five.
The ritual was great. Back at the Visitor Centre, we met up with some more friends from my work and other Druid/Shaman friends who knew about the ritual. At the end, there were about 20 of us. We went in procession with drums and rattles down to the stand of Spruce where we broke of and spent some time one-on-one with the trees, then we processed on to circle which was waiting for us.
There we were, in a circle of fluttering banners, blue sky and sunshine, trees, hills, a mountain stream and AWENs. What better! An experience to be recommended. And then, it all packs away in the car till next time.
Of course, the best bit (as always) is the unplanned and unexpected. Because of the danger of fire in or near woodland (we ALL know about THAT just now!), we didn't use fire in the ritual at all. However, the Park does have a dedicated barbecue area which they can monitor. As it happens, the path from the Visitor Center down to where we had set up the Circle passes through this barbecue area and while we were all meeting up, two separate groups of Park visitors had started two cooking fires (in the hearths provided) so when we processed to the Circle, we had to pass between the two fires - just as Tradition dictates! The final touch!
If you want to do this yourself, here's some details of what and how -
For this particular Circle, I just wanted to go out and do one straight off without having to get bogged down with fancy constructions and precise angles and stuff. The ideal numbers for this are multiples of 8 (8, 16, 24) simple because you keep on dividing in half. The actual mechanics I used are these -
1) decide where the centre in going to be (by whatever means) and stick a pole in the ground.
2) get a piece of string half the diameter of the size circle you want. Make a loop in one end and slip it over the central pole. Wherever you place the loose end will always lie on the circumference of your circle, so you don't have to carve the circle into the ground (unless you want to).
3) decide if you want an alignment or not. If you do, line up the central pole on the alignment, pull the string tight and put a pole in where the end of the string is. Walk all the way round to the other side and line up the two poles, pull the string tight and put a pole in where the end of the string is. You now have three poles in a line pointing towards whatever you want to point them at (East, mountain peak or whatever).
4) Make another alignment at right angles to the first. You can do this by eye, or compass or really accurately with another piece of string which MUST be longer than the full width of the Circle (it doesn't matter how long). Make a loop in each end of this string and mark the exact middle. Slip a loop over each of the outer alignment poles. Grasp the middle point and pull tight. The line from the middle of the string through the centre pole divides the circle into four exact quarters. Using the first piece of string, put two poles in on this new alignment. You don't need the long bit of string any more.
5) Check. You now have five poles, one in the centre, two on your first alignment through the centre and two on your second ditto at right angles to the first.
6) When you finish, you will take the centre pole out, but you need it for now to get the rest of the poles in. What you have now is a circle of four poles (the 5th will go). This actually is a valid form of Stone Circle in its own right. There are several in Britain - mostly in Scotland where they are known as 'four-posters', but I know a couple in England. To make an eight-pole circle, take your string and move round until you see the centre pole is exactly between two poles on the far side of the circle (this really is quite accurate), pull the string tight and put a pole in where the end of the string is, then put a matching pole on the other side. Do this again with the other quarter and Lo! you have a Circle of 8 poles.
7) to make a Circle of 16 poles, just divide the distance between any two poles in half by eye, pull the string tight and put a pole in where the end of the string is. Do this all the way round and you have 16 poles. (This is the one I used). To make 24, put two poles in the gap instead of one.
8) This is the easy one, and the 8x format gives you the Directions and/or the Festas, position of the Sun in the Wheel of the Year and so on. Once you have done this a couple of times, it is fun working out constructions for different numbers of poles.
IMPORTANT! - There is NO traditional, or normal, or common number of stones or sizes in ancient Stone Circles. Every one is different in some respect from all others. The RIGHT number of stones/banners in a Circle as well as shape, orientation etc is exactly what YOU choose it to be. (Very Druidic! And don't the orthodox-tendency ritualists hate it!)
9) In addition, I set up four poles in the Directions around the Mundus (I don't like the word 'altar') in the centre of the Circle.
So - I had 16 poles after I removed the central one. I took one pole out of the ring to make an entrance gap and set the two removed poles outside this gap to make the entrance obvious. I set one more pole a little distance outside at the South East to represent the position of the Sun for Beltane.
I ended up with a ring of 15 + 2 entrance markers +1 outlier +4 in the Centre =21
For the Circle, I used part of a set of 40 banners left from Uni days. These are black with white ribbons and a thin orange sleeve for the pole. The colours represent the Oystercatcher - a shore bird that we have numbers of here. Very important to me personally. For the Four Directions I used white banners with AWENs in black, red, gold and white (out of a black stripe) with matching ribbons. These represent the colours of four tutelary animals of Britain - raven, dragon, lion and unicorn which I use to mark the Directions (East West South and North respectively)
For the Sun in the Wheel of the Year I used a larger yellow banner with a spiral Sun symbol in red."
Chris Turner
Alban Hefin 2000