Druids In Cars, Going To Festivals

Episode 70 - Hybrid Experimentation: A Pandemic Ritual Recovery

This past weekend, Three Cranes Grove, ADF, took our first steps toward reopening our public ritual practice: we conducted a small, semi-private hybrid ritual, where folks attended in person (masked and socially distanced) and remotely.

On their way out to our Cutios (Rain Moon) ritual, Revs. Avende and Dangler discussed their preparations, and the basics of the setup for the ritual, along with what they hoped it would be like. Then, on the way back, they looked a bit critically at what worked, and what they found most interesting about the format after being away from public ritual for so long.

Intercut into this episode are a few audio examples of how the rite sounded (an artifact of the recording process), which will let you hear how the priests worked in (and how the folk responded to) the immediate pandemic experience that was at the top of their minds.

Our hope, as a Grove, is that as other pagan groups reopen (locally and distantly), some of our experiences might serve to help them build a plan to serve their communities in a safe, careful manner.

Find us on Facebook, check our our Grove at threecranes.org, and learn more about Druidry at adf.org. We can't wait to see you again soon.

Episode 69 - Ritual Preparation

How do we start preparing for ritual, in both physical and spiritual ways? How is it different for us when we do group ritual and persona ritual? How can we simplify it and make it easier to get out the door, even in these weird pandemic times?

Today, we take a walk in the woods, as there aren't quite festivals to go to yet in our cars, and go over how we prep for various ritual scenarios. It was a good conversation that has us ready for more.

Find us on Facebook, check us out at threecranes.org/podcast, and learn more about Druidry at adf.org.

Episode 68 - The Flame in the Snow

Season 4 is upon us! While there aren't festivals to go to (yet), we're planning and plotting for our coming season. At our Grove's annual Anagantios (Stay-At-Home Moon) rite, Revs. Dangler and Avende traveled out to their members with a slightly altered version of our usual rite. The discussion ranges from experiences of the pandemic year, the updates we've made to our practice, and the joy of doing the work, even in this strange time.

This year's Anagantios rite had some last-minute changes thanks to some rather inclement weather (remember that blizzard that flowed through the US in mid-Feb?), but it gave us a chance to chat.

There is, as always, more to come, and we expect our regular season to start up in April as usual, even if we aren't actually headed to specific festivals.

It'll be lovely to ride along with you again.

Follow us on Facebook, learn more about us at threecranes.org, and find out about Druidry at adf.org. See you soon!

Episode 67 - Season 3 Finale: Our Pandemic Year

It's been a year, hasn't it?

We reflect on the past year of not being in cars, and pretty much not going to festivals, and talk about our content, where we've been, and where we're going. Mostly, though, we talk about the projects that got us through the past season, and what worked, and what didn't.

There's a lot of stuff mentioned in this episode, so this description is going to be a bit of a linkbomb. If you can't click the links in your favorite podcast app, head over to http://druidsincars.podbean.com/ to find this episode's description, and click the links there.

We talk about festivals that are tentatively planned for in-person work, if it's safe. You can find info on those festivals, including any updates to their plans, at their websites. Specifically called out in this episode are the following fests:

• ConVocation
• Trillium
• Wellspring
• Summerland

We also talk about a few particular resources and videos we did. Most of these can be found on either Rev. Avende's Patreon or YouTube (where you'll find both the omen sermons and the Little Oaks children's religious education), or Rev. Dangler's Patreon or YouTube (where you'll find the reopening workings and a forthcoming article on the personal magical work). If you like our work, consider supporting one or both of us on Patreon: every little bit helps. There's also the Three Cranes Grove, ADF, YouTube Channel.

Other projects mentioned:

• A "Stay-At-Home Fire Circle" for those missing festivals as much as we do, especially those late night fire drum circles
• The "Animal Crossing: New Horizons" rite, which was livestreamed and recorded
• MJD's "Reopening Workings" document
• A free intro to the "Little Oaks" work

Also, if you need some work to do yourself, we can't recommend Rev. Avende's #PrayerADay Project highly enough: a prayer for each day in November. We've talked about it before on this podcast (check out the bonus episode for a refresher), and it's really an awesome way to get some structure and get involved, spiritually. We start November 1, but we're already gearing up for the work.

Wanna submit some "listener mail?" Send it to us at druidsincars@threecranes.org. If you want to read your letter yourself, send a link to your audio file in cloud storage (or send audio by Facebook Messenger)!

As always, thanks for riding along with us. We know it's been hard, but traveling this journey with you has been amazing.

Find us on Facebook, check us out at threecranes.org (where you can also find information about our upcoming rites, currently hosted via Zoom, which you can attend from anywhere), and learn more about Druidry at adf.org.

Episode 66 - Multifaith Families, Teaching Our Kids, and Growing Our Families

At Harvest Nights 2019, Rev. Avende sat down with Rev. Pezza, offering a window into some household practices including kids, and the impact of multifaith relationships on how we raise our kids. They also touch briefly on how ritual connects with kids coming into Deaf culture.

Find us on Facebook, visit us at threecranes.org, and learn more about Druidry at adf.org.

Episode 65 - Let's Talk About Trance (a slaphappy chat)

What is "Orange?"

Sometime after midnight, on the dark roads of Ohio in October 2019 returning from the Harvest Nights Gathering, we recorded a fairly slap-happy episode to keep ourselves awake. Our topic? Trancework. Our conversation? Wide-ranging and unfiltered. Our advice? Sometimes questionable. But we talk a lot about what works for us in trancework and what doesn't, and how we manage to achieve and understand our experiences.

This is the last recording we did going to (or from) a festival in 2019 (don't worry, we have a bit more content coming this season).

This episode also covers a lot of the practical work that we learned in Trance 1 and Trance 2 in ADF's study programs, so if you're working through the ADF Initiate or Clergy study, this might be an interesting discussion.

Find us on Facebook, donate at threecranes.org/donate, and learn more about Druidry at ADF.org.

Episode 64 - Our Reasons For Priesting

Revs. Avende and Dangler talk about their experiences of being priests in a variety of ways, focusing in on why they are priests, what it is that fulfills their vocation, and what it's like to have resonance between calls. It's a very late-night episode, full of weird metaphors and attempts at description, but also strangely coherent for the time it was recorded.

We're approaching the end of the Festival Season That Wasn't, and are remarkably still running off of last year's recorded sessions. We want to thank you for riding along with us, and listening throughout this time. There's more to come yet this season, and we have plans to record even more episodes, but do consider sending us topics at druidsincars@threecranes.org. We've still got a long list, but we can always add to it.

Find us on Facebook, donate at threecranes.org/donate, and learn more about Druidry at adf.org.

Episode 63 - Patrons Part 2: Patrons, and How To End a Relationship

Continuing on from last week's discussion, we talk about what it's like to end a relationship with a spirit that has meant a great deal to you. Not every being who walks with us for a time is there for all our time, and that is okay. Hear our personal experiences with ending our patronage relationships, and what sorts of things we did to ensure that the relationships were ended in ways that allowed us to continue moving on.

Find us on Facebook, learn more about us at ThreeCranes.Org, and learn more about Druidry at adf.org.

Episode 62 - Patrons Part 1: Patrons, and How To Find Them

Summerland 2020 is here! We're still in a socially distant world that doesn't let us come together in person for festivals, but you should know that Summerland is THIS WEEKEND, August 14-15, 2020, and we're hosting it virtually. You can still register, and some of it is FREE. Check out threecranes.org/summerland and catch us for a good ritual and some workshops!

As we got to the end of our long drive home from Harvest Nights, we worked through one of our most often requested topics: the patronage of deities and spirits.

We spoke about our personal experiences with finding deities who became patrons, how those relationships grew and changed over time, and what it was like setting boundaries in these relationships.

We also talk somewhat extensively about the process of being "claimed" by a deity, seeking one out, and even weird relationships we can't describe except to call it a "courtship."

Part Two will come next week, with a tease about the topic at the end of the episode.

Find us on Facebook, check out Summerland, and learn more about Druidry at adf.org.

 

Episode 61 - Refill the Cup, Rekindle the Flame

"You cannot serve from an empty cup," and "A buried wick gives no light." Today we talk about how we manage burnout, and how we learn to recharge. It's a short conversation, but an important one about self care that we all need to have, no matter our role in the work.

Find us on Facebook, visit us at threecranes.org/podcast, and learn more about Druidry at adf.org.