If you look around the Internet or research in books you will see as many answers to this question as places to seek. You would think that it, being an obvious question would have an obvious answer, yet it is the question that Druids most dread trying to answer and there is a simple reason for this: Druidry is a journey.
To climb a mountain a person first has to pick a starting point at the base, and then start to climb, choosing where and how to go depends on where you start from, your abilities and weaknesses and the terrain that this brings you to each place along the way. At some points on your journey you may be following an easy path with many others alongside you, and at others your route is unique to your circumstances alone. But still you climb.

At first you may have been drawn to do so from curiosity, or for the challenge, or to be different, or to prove something...but part way up you discover new vistas opening up. With all the fear of falling to overcome and scuffed knees and tears, you carry on because with each new footstep new things are discovered and you can see further to the horizon...just imagine the view from the top!
You look down at those just starting their journey, you yell encouragement and general advice but they too are on a unique journey, and their pathway up the mountain and obstacles and discoveries may be different at times to your own. You are higher now, but they may overtake you. Some are boasting stupidly to those below them of their great achievements, while others who have gone further are more humble, realizing with each achievement the scale of tests still to follow.

At other times you look up and see these others waving to you, willing you to climb and share with them what they can see. If you meet a 'Druid' that does not meet up to your hopes or expectations, please just remember this story, they may have just begun and as yet not learned how much they have yet to do before boasting!
Ask any climber to describe the truth of the path. From each of them you will get a slightly different answer. Although all share the same passion to see further, and some have seen enough already to be strong in faith and understanding, each has had a slightly different journey.

You can see that anything that I tell you, or another Druid tells you in answer to this question, is personal to some extent. Some people start to explain with the base of the mountain, the Roman historians version usualy, but have they walked all the way around it? If you could talk to an ancient Roman they would tell you one thing (primarily seeing you as a threat to their desire to enslave the Celtic lands and her people) and the ancient Druids another. Still I would wager that the Druids of ancient times would also have struggled with this great question. What unites people who climb mountains? There is something shared in common, what do they learn from the top? You want that written down...ha...that's the most frustrating thing. If at the bottom it were not a mystery, would you be motivated to climb? If you were at the top and someone asked would you tell them, or say 'come and see!' Without climbing could you understand?

UNDERSTANDING is more than knowing, it is experiencing. If I tell you that sunsets are beautiful, you now share that knowledge with me, but until you have witnessed a great one for yourself with time to really notice it, you have not really understood. You have not experienced it.

Having labored this analogy about as far as it can go, the mountain is to me the journey into the mysteries and beauties of creation itself.

We are one thing because we share our commitment to understand by experiencing it directly for ourselves. We share this in common with spiritual people of many systems of faith, and recognise that, but the mountain in question is a very Celtic one. Where the ancestors wove stories that do tell of wizards, faeries and dragons, magic and heroes and great loveliness we tread in their footsteps, where we find that their system of navigating this strange realm as different as it might seem from the mundane everyday world is very real. In addition to opening up new levels of comprehension of self through the journey, it also strengthens us and helps us more clearly see and understand everything beyond ourselves and our interconnectivity with all things.

At some stage a traveler either gives up and looks for easier pursuits or realises that in every fibre of who they are, they love this place and will protect and honour it forever. This moment, not purely knowledge itself, in my opinion defines the true Druid. Knowledge and understanding are required, but so to is this moment of realisation. Past this point, the curious explorer becomes warrior, priest, seeker, protector, a student of truth and of the essence of life itself.

Some say 'Druidry is just a philosophy', or 'Druidry is anything you want it to be'.

Druidry is not limited to being a philosophy, it is not anything either imagined or created by man, it is a timeless quest for truth and real wisdom rooted in the Celtic Pagan tradition.It is embedded in our culture, our ancient landscape and system of belief and the natural universe we all share.

A druid without these is like a tree without a root.

Today there is a lot of debate among druid communities about what constitutes a druid. Some say its just an attitude and a philosophy and anyone can be a druid, even some members of other faiths that don't recognise the Goddess or pagan gods make claim to being druids (Why?), while others follow a more traditional understanding whereby a Druid learns for a long time; Our history, the folk lore and faerie tales, music and crafts (including healing and the magics) and develops themselves as a person until through direct experience that revelation of true understanding and unshakable belief is attained. It is a difficult thing to define, because like I said above, it is a journey.

Most dictionaries simply say:

An ancient Celtic order of priests, teachers, diviners, and magicians. The name itself is thought to relate to an oak tree or drus.

So if you are looking for the quick definition there it is. Of course there is much more to us than that and so will be the subject of later updates.

By far one of the best definitions, that I have read, is to be found at http://www.wildideas.net/cathbad/pagan/druid-defn.html

In nature we see that although bluff and counter bluff, camouflage and imitation play a great part in the battle to eat and not to be eaten, yet each animal and plant is true to itself and to it's own nature.

Our parents taught us as children that it is wrong to lie. And we all still do it sometimes but experience tells us that with each deception we are less able to function true to our nature and that we loose the trust of those on whom we most depend, our family our friends and associates. Most people understand this, and to be fair, druids would be no more understanding of this side of truth - being truthful - than anyone else save that we also aspire to 'honour' and the two together, 'truth and honour', are a mainstay of our philosophy and how we try to live our lives.

Truth is much more to a Druid than telling of no lies, it is the search for understanding. To understand anything fully involves perceiving the whole thing, not just the object of interest, but its history, its context, how it comes to be and where it is going to, how does it effect all that is around it and ultimately how does it fit within the great pattern (song) of the universe. The druid must look deeper than apearances and look at the true essence. Everything interconnects and interacts on a holistic level, in the search for truth pure and simple, the Druid is curious about everything and has to study the whole in order to make sense of the individual item. Nothing exists in isolation.

For the philosopher druids, this is as far as one needs to go with Truth, but for the Celtic Pagan Believer Druid this view of seeking truth enters realms of magic mystery and of the Gods in addition to the plain science. In exploring truth on these levels the Druid has to harness every gift of intuition and perception available to them. Spotting patterns and learning to perceive a moment in all of its aspects is a practice familiar to artists, poets and musicians which may well be why Bardic arts feature high in druid training and also in the need to create that many Pagans experience.

Druids have no book like a bible from which to gain instruction, our understanding is based on what is is. What is directly reality for us is the natural universe around us. We learn from the natural universe, from nature, hence we, as were our ancestors; are students of nature. When science reveals some newly seen aspect of nature, Druids do not feel that our learning is in any way threatened by this, simply human knowledge has advanced and another pattern been revealed. Where we do differ from science is that we learn about nature and ourselves by interaction from within rather than observation as if from without.

Our base of research is enriched by the gifts we have, the wisdom of our ancestors and our living interaction with spirit, our hearts and souls play as big a part in our learning as our intellects.
Honour is something that has been disappearing from contemporary life. To the Celt honour is essential.

What is honour? I will try to explain with an example: If I say to you 'honour your parents', you could take this as saying to them that you value them, love them, appreciate all that they have done for you...that would be a start. But to really honour your parents, you would take the best of all that they have taught you, become truly someone that they can respect and be proud of. You grow day by day. Pick yourself up from life's knocks and bumps, help others, be generous with your time and your talents, a good and courageous person.

Druids try to honour our land, our ancestors and our gods. We honour the land by recognising that it is she who nurtures us and gives us life, we see her beauty and seek to protect her. We honour our ancestors by remembering them, their courage and beliefs and being true to their example as best we can. We honour our gods not by groveling at there feet in worship and we do not fawn over them in endless praise, although we do love and appreciate them and rightly show it.

What we do by honouring them is try to be the best we can be and worthy of all that they have gifted us. Your honour and your truth belong to you, and cannot be bought or sold, yet they define you.

To a Celt, all things have spirit and so all things deserve respect and should be honoured. Starting with ourselves. You do not get anywhere when you lie to yourself or hide from yourself. You do not honour yourself by taking recreational drugs, or by drinking to excess, or needlessly hurting others. You do not honour the animal that died to provide you with your food when you waste it. You do not honour the Earth when you strip her bare without a thought. Honour, like truth, is the core of what it is to follow the Celtic way.

When you honour all and live by truth that is when you truly start to come alive and awaken.

In nature you are either strong or on your way to becoming extinct. It is the duty of every plant and animal to be the very best that they can be at all times. The weak are not removed from the population by some act of an uncaring god, they are removed as part of the mechanism that ensures survival and good health for the future.

But what is strength?

Our ancestors, the ancient Celts expected their people to be strong and strength was respected. There are many kinds of strength. The most obvious one of these to be physically powerful. This is a good one to start with. If I were the strongest man in the world, but had no courage, or I was so dim in my reactions that I never saw danger coming, then my strength would be of little benefit. For strength to be of value, it must be accompanied by courage.

In Celtic society, both women and men shared the responsibility of defending against attack, children as young as 13 would fight alongside adults, sisters brothers, mothers fathers cousins. All would stand together to protect the land, the young, and the very old. It was recorded by the Romans that the Celts fought extremely bravely with no apparent fear of death. So if you are to follow in the footsteps of the ancestors you will stand together when threatened and show no fear in the face of even the most fearsome of enemies. This is the Celtic way.

When a young woman gives birth to a child she requires strength and courage of the kind that might make the most powerful male warrior go weak at the knees, thus women were not considered the weaker sex but in some ways the stronger and wiser. Celtic strength is shown quite differently to the way we show strength today in modern life. A strong man then would only pick fights with those at least equal in strength, and he would protect and be gentle with those weaker. A strong farmer is the one who has a surplus of crops to share with neighbours in times of shortage, a strong host treats visitors like long lost friends, a strong teacher lights the fires of self belief in his or her students...and so it goes on. There are many ways to be strong.

Outside of combat, strength was displayed as generosity kindness and sharing of ones gifts and skills freely with others or in fair exchange.

Courage in Celtic society was nurtured by storytelling of the Bards, in which no brave deed was forgotten, and the people knew of the great people from whom they decended. Any lesser performance by the current generation would be a dishonour to the ancestors and the very blood flowing within their own veins. Another factor was the total belief in reincarnation, the people simply did not fear an honourable death because they were sure to return and again live alonside loved ones.

Druids were not expected or required to fight in physical warfare, and no warrior would ever harm a druid. Druids although skilled in all of the arts of the tribes, presumably this also included warcraft, carried no weapons of steel or bronze. Those materials would not be an asset to those who must work with magic and liaise with the Sidhe on behalf of their people. Druids would fight with knowledge against ignorance, with magic against evil, with healing against sickness and they too must show strength and courage. In Celtic society, to attack a man or woman of druid kind would be an act totally without honour and an offense against the gods.

Todays Druids try to protect our ancient history and folklore in order that our people will never forget who we are, the decendants of the mighty. Boudicca and the Iceni tribe are a classic example. Those Druids who have seen enough of the mysteries revealed in order to know the truth that we cannot die, we also have no substancial fear of death. We don't want to die needlessly or before our time, or to leave those who we love and our work unfinished, but we know that when we die we will rest a while in tir na og then be reborn and so the cycle of our existance will continue.

The Druid / Celtic values of truth, honour, courage and strength formed the basis of an honour code later adapted into chivelric codes for the knights of Europe.

In nature we observe systems in balance and mutually beneficial as being healthy, and out of balance and detrimental as being generally unhealthy.

If you love rabbits it would be unwise to kill all of the fox's. If you did you would see a population explosion of rabbits, the crops would be eaten, sickness would blight the rabbits and eventually they would no longer run like the wind and be alert. The fox may kill rabbits but the eternal dance between rabbit and fox is in balance and the fox by catching the weak and sick rabbits and controlling the population is actually helping them in the long run. The fast alert rabbit helps the fox, as only the best fox will catch the rabbits and go on to have cubs. Seen through Druid eyes, a fox is not evil killer, it is part of the balance of life.

In our lives balance is important in all things. We assume that anger and rage are bad emotions. They are not, if kept in balance. If a stranger attacks your children, in that instant anger and rage are totally appropriate. Once there is no threat, if you still are predominently angry and raging, then you are no longer in balance and that is unhealthy. Everything about ourselves has a purpose and place and it is the duty of each of us to be balanced in order that we love when appropriate, forgive when appropriate, dream when appropriate, think clearly when appropriate etc.

An important part of Celtic spirituality and faith is acceptance of ourselves and that the way we are made is natural when in balance. We Druids do not beat ourselves up over our sexuality, over our mistakes (without which how can we learn), over our moods...we do make choices that align with how we wish to develop and do our best to move in that direction without repeating our mistakes or failing to honour those around us.

Our ancestors were a civilised advanced people with a high standard of honour and keen appreciation of Justice and Balance. In difficult cases where the truth must be discerned and fair judgement given it was the Druids who were responsible for arriving at that judgement. Any who would not accept the judgement of the druids would be without honour and would be cast out of the tribe.

In our modern society the Druid is no longer the instrument of law, that having moved into the secular arena entirely. We still strive however to maintain balance within ourselves, our relationships, and the world as it is around us. This is increasingly difficult in that our sacred natural world and modern man have never before been so out of balance with one another. Many Druids quite rightly are appauled at the way the scientist plays with the DNA of other species and the industrialist takes profits at the expense of the land sea and all life on earth.

Much could be said on this subject but I will say no more as this is where Druid philosophy by necessity becomes political, we are not against society or technology, but in general principle we stand against imbalance.

Each individual Druid is free to interpret their duty of care for the 'wellbeing of the land and all of her peoples' in their own way and will speak from their own truth on this matter.

There is nothing in the natural world, living or material that has to be beautiful in order to function, and yet, everything in nature is just that.

If we talk about physical beauty isn't that just subjective?

Science say's no. Physical beauty overall is achieved when whatever it is we look at is harmonious with the great song, and there are many many examples: One well documented example is the human face. The closer it conforms in its features to 1:1.6 ratios the more lovely we consider it to be. This also applies to the human hand, where the smallest bone of a finger is 1 to the length of the next bone along 1.6 and so on. These patterns also manefest in animals, plants and even planitary motion; things that logically should have no connection to each other yet express harmonies in their form and motion.

By now I hope that you have looked at your hand...but I can almost hear you struggle with believing that your hand is linked to events in space. So here's an example. Look at a pentagram, thats a five pointed star, and one of the worlds oldest symbols of the sacred feminine. The ratio of a line that passes accross between any two points of the star divides into 1:1.6. This is the shape that Venus and Earth dance around each other every eight years! They don't have to do a perfect dance, they just do. Over many more years this forms a geometric rose, another symbol of devine feminity.

The magic doesn't stop there, the inner solar system that can be seen with the human eye is littered with beautiful coinsidences, absolutely unnecessary for the physics to work. Another example is the moon, if the moon were just 1/2 a moon diameter further away or closer to earth we could not have a perfect eclypse. Things are just perfect beyond the demands of physics to function, there is art in everything we are and that we can observe. If you wanted evidence of creative design, and a devine plan, you need look no further. The patterns of creative design are written like giant signposts wherever you look!

Think of something generally considered ugly, like a bat. A bat only flies at night so it does not need bright colours and a pretty face, in the world of the bat sight is by sound. We do not yet have the technology to see what a bat see's, but I'ld be willing to wager that seen with sound a bat looks gorgeous to another bat.

Of course there are many kinds of beauty, and when relating to human beauty it would be quite wrong to judge a person on their most obvious traites such as facial symetry.

Have you noticed that as you get to know a person who is kind and funny, couragous and sincere that they look more lovely to you over time? This happens because even with less than perfect looks, our real nature, our most real beauty is who we are inside and that is the most compelling thing for one person to love in another. The Druid, who seeks the true nature in everything eventually learns to see peoples energy (their spiritual shine) and be influenced by this as much as any visual cue. You might well have been initially attracted to someone only to get close and see a dark selfish ugliness within, that person no longer attracts you, yet by contrast the person that didn't so strongly attract you from the outset but who shines brightly from within can eclypse all others! Which then is the stronger?

Where many cultures see those less than physically lovely as perhaps paying for a bad previous life, or having offended their gods, the Celts who believe in reincarnation say that the brightest souls often choose the most difficult path by which to test themselves. Thereby when you see someone who enters life with a weakness of body or a quirk that makes them different in some way, we look more closely and admire them for there most often goes a beautiful spirit of great brightness.

The beauty that can be found springing forth everywhere around us is the gift and sign of our goddess in her many forms.

The Celts as a people love art and beautiful things, everything that our ancestors created was decorated in some way, or worked just to the bear minimum for function leaving natural features in place. We see in Stonehenge an example of this thinking applied in the times pre-celtic but the thought is the same. The great triathlon stones are engineered to be perfectly level, and lintles to slot exactly into position on top and side by side to each other. Clearly the stonemasons involved in such accurate work could have dressed the surface of the stone to straight lines and flat faces, yet the stones were as much as possible left to appear as nature created them. They recognised that the natural plays a part in beauty of form.

For the Celt, and the Druid, to create is to express the God/Goddess within ourselves and share in the creative act of the whole. It's a little like there's a symphony going on around us that cannot fully be understood and engaged with until we pick up our own harp and join in. With language and song and the result of all our arts we realise both the beauty of the whole and that we are a small part that belongs within this greater creation and deserve our place there. Ultimately the great creation is a symphony that includes every aspect of existance and as such surely requires that we adapt our whole lives to be harmonious. This is the spiritual journey of the Bard.

One could write a whole book on just the subject of Celtic Philosophy and belief based on the beauty of nature and the need for creative expression, but hopefully these few inadequate words at least will share you some idea of this druidic principle and why it is so important.

"The price of greatness is responsibility" Winston Churchill - Yes the great man was a modern Druid, which is why to quote him here is so relevant and hopefully also of general interest.

Lets talk about the ol' romantic love first:

In nature we see many examples of species that mate for life, or within their bonding appear to care for each other to great depth. With others it is less easy to interpret what they might be expressing. We see examples of caring within groups, a famous example is the way that elephants appear to mourn their dead and even the dead of other groups. We see also examples of species where this is not the case. We can only experience love from the way that we ourselves feel it. Clearly the emotion of love is optional to survival (simple lust takes care of the reproductive element), yet somehow love can enrich and give purpose to our life while we are under its influence.

True love cannot be bought or sold, predicted or engineered, it is not within the scope of mans control therefore to Celtic thinking it is within the gifts of the gods alone to bestow. When we 'handfast' our ceremonies are a place for two people to acknowledge their love for one another and before their gods and their people declare their commitment to honour it. At no point in a druid handfasting is a bride 'given away' for women in our society are not property to be given or taken, and at no point does the druid or druidess presiding assume to give the blessing of the gods for where true love is found that blessing is witnessed to have already been given. No good druid will argue with what the gods themselves have judged to be worthy of blessing, so if a 17 year old falls in love with a 70 year old, it might not be ideal from societies point of view, but as it makes both happy so be it. No druid will preside over a handfasting of those beneath the age of concent or otherwise unable to express free will.

We recognise that love does not always last, so handfastings may be for one year and a day, renewable in the happy event that love does last, or longer as the couple may wish. In Celtic culture we do not expect couples to stay coupled if the relationship causes unresolvable suffering to either or both, however we do expect those once coupled to honour each other and respect their responsibility of care for any children that they may have together. Druid thinking on relationships deals with the reality of human nature in a pragmatic way rather than trying to force everyone to conform (at least on the surface) to a romantic ideal that only a few lucky ones will ever achieve.

If at this point you are thinking we have a cynical view of love, although I would prefer you to acknowledge our approach as practical, then you have yet to hear about 'anam cara' and 'anam clannad'.

These are two of the most beautiful and enlightening understandings to be found in Celtic belief and for Druids they are a gift of hope and faith that take away so much of the pain that would otherwise follow from a broken heart or the death of a loved one, and they also breaths optimism and joy into the moments when all is well.

Anam Cara means simply 'Soul mate' and Anam Clannad means 'Soul Family'. The Ancestors believed in reincarnation it begs the question 'will I meet those closest to me in this life in future lives?'. Many of us believe that we have a soul family, a collective of very close kin travelling through time and lives together, sharing our journeys and repeatedly rejoining life on earth alongside loved ones. We each have soul mates, and a soul family which we meet over and over. These people we recognise even upon first meeting as being special and they usually have a big impact on our lives.

So strong was this belief among our ancestors that even a loan did not need to be repaid in the same lifetime in which it was accepted, for it was trusted that a return would come eventually.

We teach that all things are linked, and so all life and all existance are kin to us. We belong in this place, to this earth, to this sacred land that nurtures us and just as we belong with them they belong with us. That this connection exists, and that our souls are indestructable and eternal, give us the power to love all around us just as we have love for ourselves and those closest to us. It also implies great responsibility to care for those around us, as we will return to share their company again, far better that we help them grow and part as friends and that the land we share is left healthy and rich in life for our future incarnations will benefit from this.

When a man falls in love within some societies, it could be likened to a man seeing a fine wild horse galloping free accross a field, he fancies to own the wild beauty of the horse so he sets a trap, puts a fence around the horse and a harness upon it, then forces the horse to carry him...he has power over the horse but somehow the horse he has is not the same one that he desired. The Celtic view, expressed using the same analogy; the man see's the wild horse and runs alongside it, watches it patiently every day, gifts it with kindness. Eventually the horse may run alongside him, it may even choose to let him ride sometimes, and the horse is still free to leave at any time. The Celtic man delights in the freedom and spirit of the horse and that it finds him to be a worthy companion.

Thus in Ancient British Celtic Society, women were free. Free to own property, to rule kingdoms, to lead armies into battle and to love. Our men took delight in the prowess of our women just as Celtic women took delight in the prowess of their chosen men. Celtic love should be open and unconditional, not a cage.

As Druids, we express our love for the Gods, our land and her peoples, by accepting that it is our chosen duty to uphold and protect for future generations: truth and honour, strength and courage, beauty and creativity, love and responsibility so that others who wish to may live in the Celtic way.

A brief History of the Druids - Peter Berresford Ellis

1st Published 1994, This book takes the essential sources from ancient Rome, Greece as many other authors before have done, but places these into context by reference to Celtic literature and folk lore to which attention has been rightly given so often missed by others. In so doing it produces a readable and compelling 'balanced' view of Druids that make this book a magnificent work. This book demonstrates why in order to illuminate Druidry it has to be viewed as part of the Celtic whole. A breath of fresh air!

Chapters, The Celtic World, Origins of the Druids, Druids through foreign eyes, Female druids, the wisdom of the druids and druid revival.

The Druids - Kendrick, TD

1st Published in 1929, this book lists the classical references to druids in both translation and original form, it still forms the bedrock from which most contemporary researchers begin. Kendrick intended his research to be used such, and is to be congratulated on his lack of bias and clear concise presention. Don't be put off by the age of this book or difficulty in finding it, for it is a gem.

Britain BC - Francis Pryor

1st Published 2003, Archaeology seldom produces works like this, well informed and yet vibrant writing that would appeal to expert and beginner equally. The author is clearly deeply passionate about our prehistory, as are many, but what makes this book very special is that his approach to people of the past is respectful and it acknowledges that they were not 'primitives'. The idea that the further back in time one looks the people have to be increasingly uncivilised and primitive falsely colours many an analysis and Francis Pryors book blows away those old preconceptions. It is so well written that you will not want to put it down!

The real MIDDLE EARTH magic and mystery in the dark ages - Prof Brian Bates

1st Published 2002, This book reveals the living traditions and beliefs of the ancient Celts, and Anglo-Saxons of England from the dark ages as they survived through to recent times, ingeniously finding source material from the very group of people trying to destroy and deny the existance of our indiginous beliefs - the Bishops - who wrote to each other complaining about the continuing pagan practices of their flock...it's great fun to read and very insightful. This book is also highly praised by Prof. Ronald Hutton.

Living Druidry - Emma Restall Orr

1st Published 2004, this book is not an attempt to unravel the hidden history of Druidry, it is, as the title suggests an attempt to describe the outlook of 'living druids'. Decent credible books on the practice of Druidry and Druid thinking in the modern age are very few and far between so this book is a gem. Emma has done a magnificent job with this book. It is highly readable and tells of her own journey alongside the concepts and ideas which she explains in her own easy way that make them accessible to anyone.