Honourable companions,

When the Order of the White Oak planted the seeds of its own foundation, and its first dedicants took the oaths, it was agreed that there would be three things that the Order would abstain. We would abstain politics, economics, and ministry. We agreed, then, that enterprises such as these are distracting, and unconductive to the purpose of the Order, which was to promote ethics and spirituality.

Is everything political, and does the religion of paganism become political simply by existing? The advocates of this question say yes. We become political, they say, by undertaking our particular programme for social organisation and private life. The Order's purpose, as the Litany clearly states, is that we are promoting a certain standard of moral conduct for Druids today. This is political, some say, because it sets precedents, and it signals other people in society that we have declared this programme righteous. The criticism can be raised of anyone who wilfully takes up an unconventional lifestyle, which is what we as contemporary pagans have done.

I am in disagreement with the Yes answer to the political question. I say, a private action is political if and only if the intention of the action is not only to promote the rightness of that action, and hence set the precedent, for all other private persons everywhere, but also to recruit more people to do the action. I say, an organisation's action is political if and only if the aim of the organisation is not only to achieve some social objective, but also, and especially, to recruit more people into the organisation and so enclose more and more of society into the organisation's structure. Recruitment is the only essentially political act; it is also essentially evangelical.

Such is not a programme which contemporary paganism should set for itself. We should recognise that one cannot pursue spiritual visions and mundane aspirations at the same time, not because they are exclusive of each other, but because both require a full lifetime of committment, and to divide one's attention does injustice to both causes. Pagans should not divide their attention this way.

Our religion should place efforts to promote spirituality above efforts to recruit more promoters of spirituality. Our purpose is to pierce the Mist of Manannan, and deeply drink of the Well of Wisdom. Among the ancient Druids, a person who could do that was rewarded with recognition as Elder, an Ollamh.

We can still identify the Ollamh today by these signs: The Ollamh knows where her body is. The Ollamh speaks slowly, she knows what her words are, she knows whom she is speaking to, she knows the moment for words and the words for the moment. The Ollamh knows the time for listening, the time for not listening, and the time for silence. The Ollamh admits her incapacities and failures; they are, to her, the same as her successes. The Ollamh does not disturb still water. The Ollamh tends good fires. She does not let them eat beyond their hunger, nor does she let them starve. The Ollamh does not serve her best ale to drunkards. The Ollamh knows the movement of the Sun and the age of the Moon. The Ollamh knows from which direction the rain comes. The Ollamh distinguishes the real from the unreal, the true from the false, the good from the bad.

I submit to you, good and learned friends, that this effort in itself, when performed with authentic purpose and spirit, will attract similarly minded beings to one's side by their own accord. No further public evangelical recruitment need occur. When a person's spirit is a lighthouse, its beacon alone is sufficient to draw lost ships into safe harbour. By their own initiative will the ships realise the truth borne of the spirit-beacon and under their own power will they follow it home. The lighthouse need concern itself only with its shining. The lighthouse is the Ollamh and the ships are the people who surround such a person. The Ollamh sets the precedent by her actions, but it is the actions themselves, and not how she inspires other people to do likewise, that concerns her.

Let my words not be mistaken for an excuse to eschew social responsibility. We do bear certain obligations to combat injustice and disharmony where we find it. We cannot easily reach spiritually illuminated states of being while we hunger, or while we are impoverished, or injustly condemned, or enslaved. The Ollamh concerns herself with righting her social and environmental conditions, to make them more conductive to everyone's pursuit of spirituality. Even then, it is the pursuit of justice for human and environmental life that concerns her, and not how she inspires others to take up the cause beside her.

Remember, the spiritual state of a true Ollamh illuminates all whom she contacts. Those who still stumble in the Mist are drawn to the light of the Ollamh, whose soul shines like a hilltop bonfire. The universal truth of a genuine spiritual experience is its own appeal. Concerning herself with the universal Mysteries, the Ollamh operates everywhere without leaving her own grove.

Cathbad
Writing from the Grove,
and in the season of Beltaine, of the year 1999