The Bardic Book of Becoming

The Bardic Book of Becoming
Author: Ivan McBeth
Publisher: Red Wheel/Weiser
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2018-01-01
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1578636345

The Bardic Book of Becoming is a warm, user-friendly, eclectic introduction to modern Druidry that invites you to take the first steps into the realms of magic and mystery. In this book you will be introduced to the various techniques and practices of a Druid in training. Written by Ivan McBeth, the cofounder of Vermont's Green Mountain School of Druidry, with Fearn Lickfield, the book incorporates lessons, visualizations, rituals, and magical stories. Many different activities and exercises are included that provide the reader with hands-on learning. Ivan also provides personal stories that demonstrate his own journey from spiritual seeker to Druid.

The Bardic Book of Becoming

The Bardic Book of Becoming
Author: Ivan McBeth
Publisher: Weiser Books
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2018-04-01
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 163341079X

The Bardic Book of Becoming is a warm, user-friendly, eclectic introduction to modern Druidry that invites you to take the first steps into the realms of magic and mystery. In this book you will be introduced to the various techniques and practices of a Druid in training. Written by Ivan McBeth, the cofounder of Vermont’s Green Mountain School of Druidry, with Fearn Lickfield, the book incorporates lessons, visualizations, rituals, and magical stories. Many different activities and exercises are included that provide the reader with hands-on learning. Ivan also provides personal stories that demonstrate his own journey from spiritual seeker to Druid.

The Lark and the Wren

The Lark and the Wren
Author: Mercedes Lackey
Publisher: Baen Publishing Enterprises
Total Pages: 504
Release: 1994-11-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1618241230

A GHOST OF A CHANCE A voice, an icy, whispering voice, came out of the darkness from all around her; from everywhere, yet nowhere. It could have been born of her imagination, yet Rune knew the voice was the Ghost's, and that to run was to die. Instantly, but in terror that would make dying seem to last an eternity. "Why have you come here, stupid child " it murmured, as fear urged her to run away. "Why were you waiting here For me Foolish child, do you not know what I am What I could do to you " Rune had to swallow twice before she could speak, and even then her voice cracked and squeaked with fear. "I've come to fiddle for you-sir " she said, gasping for breath between each word, trying to keep her teeth from chattering. The Ghost laughed, a sound with no humor in it, the kind of laugh that called up empty wastelands and icy peaks. "Well, then, girl. Fiddle, then. And pray to that Sacrificed God of yours that you fiddle well, very well. If you please me, if you continue to entertain me until dawn, I shall let you live, a favor I have never granted any other. But I warn you-the moment my attention lags, little girl-you'll die like all the others and you will join all the others in my own private little Hell." At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).

Bardic Nationalism

Bardic Nationalism
Author: Katie Trumpener
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 450
Release: 1997-05-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780691044804

This magisterial work links the literary and intellectual history of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Britain's overseas colonies during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to redraw our picture of the origins of cultural nationalism, the lineages of the novel, and the literary history of the English-speaking world. Katie Trumpener recovers and recontextualizes a vast body of fiction to describe the history of the novel during a period of formal experimentation and political engagement, between its eighteenth-century "rise" and its Victorian "heyday." During the late eighteenth century, antiquaries in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales answered modernization and anglicization initiatives with nationalist arguments for cultural preservation. Responding in particular to Enlightenment dismissals of Gaelic oral traditions, they reconceived national and literary history under the sign of the bard. Their pathbreaking models of national and literary history, their new way of reading national landscapes, and their debates about tradition and cultural transmission shaped a succession of new novelistic genres, from Gothic and sentimental fiction to the national tale and the historical novel. In Ireland and Scotland, these genres were used to mount nationalist arguments for cultural specificity and against "internal colonization." Yet once exported throughout the nascent British empire, they also formed the basis of the first colonial fiction of Canada, Australia, and British India, used not only to attack imperialism but to justify the imperial project. Literary forms intended to shore up national memory paradoxically become the means of buttressing imperial ideology and enforcing imperial amnesia.

The Eagle & the Nightingales

The Eagle & the Nightingales
Author: Mercedes Lackey
Publisher: Baen Books
Total Pages: 416
Release: 1995
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780671876364

Nightingale, a gypsy Free Bard, is tasked with finding out why the High King of the human kingdoms is allowing the Church to become ever more overtly hostile to non-human sentients, as well as to anything that it does not at least indirectly control, such as gypsies and Free Bards.

A Song of Flight

A Song of Flight
Author: Juliet Marillier
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 465
Release: 2021-09-21
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0451492838

A young warrior who wields both the power of her music and the strength of her sword faces a grave threat in this enthralling historical fantasy. Bard and fighter Liobhan is always ready for a challenge. So when news arrives at Swan Island that the prince of Dalriada has gone missing after an assault by both masked men and the sinister Crow Folk, she's eager to act. While Liobhan and her fellow Swan Island warriors seek answers to the prince's disappearance, the bard Brocc, Liobhan's brother, finds himself in dire trouble. His attempts to communicate with the Crow Folk have led him down a perilous path. When Liobhan and her comrades are sent to the rescue, it becomes clear the two missions are connected--and a great mystery unfolds. What brought the Crow Folk to Erin? And who seeks to use them in an unscrupulous bid for power? As Liobhan and Brocc investigate, it will take all their strength and will to continue pursuing the truth. With the safety of their loved ones in the balance, the risks they must take may cost them everything.

The Bell at Sealey Head

The Bell at Sealey Head
Author: Patricia A. McKillip
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2008-09-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1440635870

An “elegant” (Library Journal) fantasy from the World Fantasy Award-winning author of Solstice Wood Sealey Head is a small town on the edge of the ocean, a sleepy place where everyone hears the ringing of a bell no one can see. On the outskirts of town is the one truly great house, Aislinn House, where the aged Lady Eglantyne lies dying, and where the doors sometimes open not to its own dusty rooms, but to the wild majesty of a castle full of knights and princesses…

The Naming

The Naming
Author: Alison Croggon
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Total Pages: 515
Release: 2010-12-07
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0763652512

"An epic fantasy in the Tolkien tradition, with a strong girl hero. . . . I couldn’t put it down!" – Tamora Pierce Maerad is a slave in a desperate and unforgiving settlement, taken there as a child when her family is destroyed in war. She doesn’t yet know she has inherited a powerful gift, one that marks her as a member of the noble School of Pellinor and enables her to see the world as no other can. It is only when she is discovered by Cadvan, one of the great Bards of Lirigon, that her true identity and extraordinary destiny unfold. Now, she and her mysterious teacher must embark on a treacherous, uncertain journey through a time and place where the forces of darkness wield an otherworldly terror. The first book in a projected quartet, Alison Croggon’s epic about Maerad and her remarkable yet dangerous gift is a beautiful, unforgettable tale. Presented as a new translation of an ancient text, The Naming evokes the rich and complex landscape of Annar, a legendary world just waiting to be discovered.

Contemplative Druidry

Contemplative Druidry
Author: James Nichol
Publisher:
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2014-10-09
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9781500807207

Contemplative Druidry is an evolving aspect of modern Druidry. Rather than talking in purely abstract terms, this book focuses first on the experience of people practicing contemplative Druidry now. Only then does it look at the bigger picture and draw conclusions for the developing spirituality of modern Druidry as a whole.'Contemplative Druidry' takes the five months of March-July 2014, and offers a snapshot of how 15 practitioners of Druidry in England today understand and practice contemplative Druidry, and why they value it. Responding to a set of questions either in live interviews or through written responses, they describe both what contemplative Druidry means to them personally, and how they see it fitting in to the context of Druidry as a modern pagan spirituality. In this way 'Contemplative Druidry' acts as a contemplative inquiry, with many voices offering perspectives on contemplative Druidry, its place within Druidry as a whole, and its wider contribution to the development of modern spirituality, particularly within pagan traditions. The contributors, in alphabetical order of first names, are: David Popely, Elaine Knight, Eve Adams, JJ Middleway, Joanna van der Hoeven, Julie Bond, Karen Webb, Katy Jordan, Mark Rosher, Nimue Brown, Penny Billington, Robert Kyle, Rosa Davis and Tom Brown. In his introduction, the author describes the experience which led him, already a practising Druid, onto a more contemplative path. He talks of how he turned outwards to his own community, as well as inwards to his personal practice, and brought together a group dedicated to developing a practice of contemplative Druidry in Gloucestershire, England. The book is in many respects a fruit of this work, and 11 of the 15 contributors are involved in the group. The other four are independently engaged with contemplative and meditative practice in Druidry, and agreed to be part of the book. The main section of the book is divided into three parts. The first is about the people involved - their childhood spirituality, their histories of questing for a spiritual practice and home that made sense, and their commitment to Druidry as an identity and set of values. The second is about practice - formal sitting meditations, ways of contemplative engagement with nature, forms of group practice, contemplative arts, and having a contemplative stance in every day life. The third is about potential - what the practice of contemplative Druidry can do for the individual and its benefits to the community as a whole. The book ends with a set of author's reflections and conclusions, including suggestions about how contemplative practices can become more widely adopted within the Druid community. There are eight appendices, which include models of group programmes and solo practices for contemplative Druidry, and also two threads from the Contemplative Druidry Facebook group, one about contemplation and mysticism and the other on pilgrimage. The book has a foreword by Philip Carr-Gomm, Chosen Chief of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, a significant contribution in its own right under the title: 'Deep Peace of the Quiet Earth: the Nature Mysticism of Druidry'. The foreword endorses the view that contemplative Druidry is an idea whose time has come. 'Contemplative Druidry' is an introduction in that it raises awareness of contemplative practice in Druidry, and potentially in pagan spirituality more widely. It provides documentary recognition of the approach. And it sets a note of contemplative inquiry and exploration, rather than offering a fixed set of teachings that people are invited to assimilate in a top-down kind of way. The book is therefore of interest both to people with a personal interest in contemplative Druidry, and to those with a more general interest in the life and development of modern Druidry, pagan paths more widely, and evolutionary spirituality as a whole.

Pagan Portals - The Awen Alone

Pagan Portals - The Awen Alone
Author: Joanna van der Hoeven
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
Total Pages: 109
Release: 2014-11-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1782795464

Druidry is a wonderful, spiritually fulfilling life path. Through the magic that is Druidry, we build deep and abiding relationships with the natural world around us, and through our connection to the natural environment we walk a path of truth, honour and service. We aim to immerse ourselves in the present moment, in the present environment, in order to share in the blessing that is the cycle of life. Throughout the ages, people have withdrawn from the world in order to connect more fully with it. This book is an introductory guide for those who wish to walk the Druid path alone, for however long a time. It is about exploration and connection with the natural world, and finding our place within it. It covers the basics of Druidry and how, when applied to the everyday life, enriches it with a sense of beauty, magic and mystery. This book is for those people who feel called to seek their own path, to use their wit and intelligence, compassion and honour to create their own tradition within Druidry.