Druids In Cars, Going To Festivals

Episode 134 - What Defines Religion?

We're trying something new this time (and the following two episodes), to get us into the car at the same time, though we were in different cars for this drive; while Rev. Dangler was returning to Columbus from ConVocation 2026, and Rev. Avende was returning from blessing houses during the Anagantios rite our Grove does.

Zoom cuts out a lot of the background noise, which is mostly fine, but also changes the way we sound on the podcast... so we'll probably have more experiments to do to decide whether we like this as a solution or not. You'll also hear a couple of dropped and failed connections on this episode, which is the worst-sounding of these three episodes.

We discuss the following theorists / sources in this episode:

• Thomas A. Tweed's first chapter of Religion: A Very Short Introduction
• Niniann Smart (find an overview of his Seven Dimensions of Religion on this page: Definitions of Religion) (we learned in doing background research for this episode that Smart used he/him pronouns after the episode was recorded; our apologies for the accidental misgendering of this late scholar).
• Fenggang Yang's second chapter of Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule
• Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's Title VII, Section 12 regarding Religious Discrimination
• Isaac Bonewits' Advanced Bonewits Cult Danger Evaluation Frame (ABCDEF) can be found on Neopagan.Net.

We also discuss the oddities of colonialism and state definitions of religion, and some of the conversations that go on in academia around those topics.

Rev. Dangler's vaccine article can be read on his Patreon. 

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Episode 133 - Spirit Ally Relationships, Anxiety, and Boundaries

Taking off of our last episode, Rev. Avende dives into the last statement and we discuss the anxieties around our spirit relationships, setting boundaries, and how our biases around people and spirits impact our relationships on each plane of experience.

One of the things that comes out of this discussion is the change in ADF's Dedicant Path work between when Rev. Dangler joined and Rev. Avende joined, particularly focusing on the patronage requirement in the old work that we no longer do.

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Episode 132 - Jan's Rainbow Stole

Rev. Avende has a new stole (well, new since our last season, so like, two years old). Jan explains the process of making it, where the idea came from, and discusses with Rev. Dangler the process of what that means in relationship to our spirit allies. You can see what the various stoles we mention look like below (or on the episode page, if your podcast app doesn't support photos in the description).

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Episode 131 - Uncle Mike's Rant: Unverified Personal Gnosis (UPG)

Rev. Avende and Mike Bierschenk were traveling home from Trillium 2024, and started discussing that tried-and-true experiential lore: Unverified Personal Gnosis, or "UPG" for short.  Mike's general point is that we should re-evaluate how we think about religious knowledge that individuals discover on their own. If we are going to suggest that talking to deities and spirits is normal, how do we deal with the information we receive when it comes to us? We talk about the pitfalls associated with those experiences, and how we manage to work through that in our communities.

This is the last episode from our previous hiatus (we think), so going forward, we're hoping to have some slightly more timely content to share :)

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Episode 130 - Dead People Don't Get To Tell You What To Do

How do we take the ancient lore in context of our modern lives? This week again, Rev. Avende and Mike Bierschenk travel home from Trillium 2024 (after a mid-drive coffee pick-me-up), and they talk about squaring their practice with the lore that's out there, leaving things behind, and moving forward from those experiences. Where else will you find a consideration of questionable necromancy, tempered by considerations of how we may be useful to our descendants?

About halfway through, the discussion turns to a meditation on places where ancestral knowledge is missing, and what we can do in our experience to honor that tradition, and make it our own.

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Episode 129 - Jan Wants a New Omen Set!

Traveling home from Trillium 2024, Rev. Avende and Mike Bierschenk discuss how the omen reading went at the main rite. Inspired by the Spirits, they tried a new omen process, which has since become a new casting cloth in the two years since (you can see a picture of it, as well as the original omen inscribed in the sand, in the linear notes on our Podbean page, if you are reading this description on a service that doesn't transmit images). There's a great discussion about the different sorts of divination we've seen and the hope we have to see more inventive divination methods in the future.

We even managed to locate the original audio from the omen in this Trillium rite, so you'll find that spliced in at the end of the episode, before the outro music kicks in. (Spoiler alert: this omen will be referenced in the next episode as well.)

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Episode 128 - ADF Clergy - Reporting for Duty

Today, we talk about one of the administrative tasks required of us as priest: the reporting aspect of maintaining our credentials is a time-intensive process that brings up a lot of feelings for us, yet it reveals a lot about our work. It rolls back around to the idea of journaling as a practice, which is a different way of looking at these reports than we often experience. We talk a bit about unexpected lessons around divination journaling as part of this as well.

You can find Rev. Dangler's "pretty" report on his Patreon (where you can get the answers to the reporting questions he couldn't answer in the podcast), and Rev. Avende's "legible" report on their website.

You can also find the Three Cranes Grove, ADF, newsletters in our Newsletter Archive to see those omens we've recorded, and check out Rev. Avende's list of "Things No One Told You About Being a Priest."

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Episode 127 - Nehalennia

Today, Jacque and Rev. Dangler discuss their relationships with Nehalennia, a Belgic goddess who is known from a series of votive altars, and a modern working temple at Colijnsplaat, which you can visit! The other one mentioned is in Archaeon, an archaeological park in The Netherlands.

You can also see a picture of the elephant on the ceiling of the church at Lucerne.

We mention the Crane Breviary and Guide Book, which you can find on Lulu or at The Magical Druid, and the Nehelennia Oracle by Bela Síol, which goes in and out of print; the best link we have today to this deck is the author's Facebook page. You can read our friend Molly's review of the Nehelennia Oracle Deck for some additional context and pictures.

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Episode 126 - Druidry At A Distance

Recorded in May 2025, right after Wellspring, we have a returning guest, Jacque, who is along for the ride to talk about "Druidry at a Distance." Jacque introduces us to the Virtual Fire Protogrove, which meets virtually via Zoom a couple of times a month to be social and do ritual. This Grove is a way to find conneciton and work together even though they may not be physically close to each other.

We talk about different ways of communicating in ritual and over distance, including in our in-person rituals. We talk a bit about ASL in ritual, and the process of taking photos for Rev. Avende's Installation rite, along with many other experiences that either create or bridge distances in our lives.

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Episode 125 - Back on the Road - Trillium!

This is the episode that would have kicked off Season 7 if we'd released it in 2024. We recorded this one in February of 2024, when we were blessing houses at our annual Anagantios rite. We discuss what we love about Trillium as a festival as we prep for the festival season. If we sound excited, it's because we definitely were, and that excitement was well-founded!

We talk a lot about what it's like around the fire, what we hope it will be like when we arrive and help with the work of running this festival. We even talk about what Rev. Avende might do for a workshop... so you should send us ideas about both the podcast and maybe what workshops we should do. Even though this was recorded earlier, do it :)

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