The Book of Hedge Druidry: A Complete Guide for the Solitary Seeker

by Joanna Van Der Hoeven

The Book of Hedge Druidry is for those who feel called to explore the magic and mystery of the powerful earth-based spirituality of the British Isles. This tradition will help you look to your ancestors, to the spirits of place, and to the fair folk for the guidance and inspiration they breath into your life. Explore the awen, the gods, the world tree, the four quarters, and much more. Develop your own practice with mystical meditations, prayers, and magical rites that will help you create balance and harmony in all that you do. Learn how to become a "hedge rider" who straddles the boundary between this world and the Otherworld, finding spiritual guides and companions whose insights will alter your own understanding of yourself and the world. Druidry is a powerful tradition that evokes the mystical spirit of times past. This book is a guide to the techniques of Druidry so that you can connect to a higher wisdom for the benefit of all.

• ISBN13: 9780738758251
• Publish Date: 1 August 2019
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Llewellyn Publications,U.S.
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 384
• Language: English

Reviews

[HekArtemis]

This is a perfectly suitable book for beginners of any Pagan practice, but it's pretty boring for anyone who isn't a beginner. I am not a beginner. I am giving it four stars because I can recognise it as being a good book even though I was pretty bored throughout.

I listened to this on audio and I do not really recommend it in audio. The narrator is a good narrator, however she is obviously not Pagan at all. This book has made me realise that Pagan books should be narrated by Pagans, or at the very least people who have thoroughly researched pronunciation. There is only so many times an experienced Pagan can listen to the word "sam-hain" before they want to tear their hair out and gouge out their eyeballs. The weird part is that her pronunciation was fine for a whole bunch of oddly pronounced Celtic words, but Samhain was wrong every time. And okay I could be fine with it if it were only a few times, but I am going to estimate she said it about 50 times - there is a section on the festivals, so it is indeed mentioned a huge number of times. It was kind of stressful, and unfortunately any beginner listening to it is going to learn the wrong pronunciation.

Furthermore, audio is not the best medium for a book that has a few bullet point areas. Listening to someone list a bunch of herbs and plants and their properties, or the Ogham and all it's pieces, is not that fun, it's difficult information to retain - the written word is better for such a thing so you can easily go back to reference it later when needed. This is possibly going to be a problem for a majority of Pagan books though.

The author occasionally made mistakes regarding certain things, like the phases of the moon - no the New Moon is not "technically" a tiny sliver of moon, it's literal 0% of reflected light according to astronomy. She also oddly missed a few things, like she would describe a ritual in which you would turn counter clockwise, but then doesn't explain why counter clockwise is the direction you would turn (nor that in the southern hemisphere you would perhaps want to turn the other way instead). I did however appreciate that she discussed how different the cardinal points are for each individual and how dependent it is on region, that is often a point Pagan writers ignore.

Overall, as I stated at the beginning, this is a perfectly suitable book for beginners. It's got a few issues, but that is probably true of all beginner Pagan books sadly. It's solid for what it is. The audio book is not something I recommend for the explained reasons. I personally was wanting a not beginner book, something that delves a bit more deeply into hedge craft and not general Pagan practices, beliefs and ideas. Oh well.