|
|
|
The Gorsedd of Coldrum - Inspiration and Vision The idea to hold a Gorsedd in Kent had been something that had been coming in and out of my consciousness for the last year or so. Working with the idea, sometimes 'filed it away' for many months, trying to balance to notion that I gave up public ritual in Kent yet was still being asked to offer public ritual, especially by those who remembered and played a part in the open public rituals of the 1990's, when I was the Pagan Federations Regional Co-ordinator for Kent. It was at the Moontide Retreat run by Emma Restall Orr (aka Bobcat) in September 2006 that once again the notion of a Kent Gorsedd was tugging at the edges of my own soul journey. Again still shunning the notion and not giving the attention it deserved, it was flied away. Soon after the Autumn Equinox, a Druid of my Grove invited me to join the ritual that is created by the good folk who run the moots in East Kent. On my journey to East Kent, while driving on the M20, it was as if suddenly the urgency and need for the Kent Gorsedd was formulating of its own accord within the dark recesses of my estranged mind. I discussed and mooted the idea with my Druid friend as she drove me to the ritual. This was probably the first open ritual I had been a part of, here in Kent, with local Pagans for some many moons. It was the sense of the Kent pagan community that I had not experienced for a long time. Meeting old friends and making new, meeting the inspiration soul who lives and cares for the woods, who knows the magic and dynamics of the shift edges of that place. And as I was leaving and saying my good byes, I felt the Kent Gorsedd starting to manifest, as if I could not stop it if I wanted to. To reaffirm this the old friends were reminiscing about the old open rituals and asking 'when are you going to do them again'! I knew that the Gorsedd was not to be static yet needed to be linked to land, place. It was in meditation that I saw the rites at the four corners of Kent and the four corners of the year, the solstices and equinox. Open, public ritual for everyone to attend, gatherings for the Kent pagan folk, upon different terrains of the Kent landscape. Re weaving my own connection and indeed service to my pagan community, on our land. At around Samhain 2006 I spoke to my dear friend and fellow druid priest Sue Bouvier, and ask if she would lead it with me. For both of us the balance between the pair of us as Priests of the Gorsedd was something we craved, needed and knew would work, as we have worked ritual together many times before. And so with our passion and vision mixed with our deepening connection to the Cantiaci, the ancient tribe of Kent and love of this land we took our vision and inspiration to the Coldrum Stones and rewrote the Gorsedd Rite. And so, as they say, the rest is history and the Kent Gorsedd was inaugurated in the Winter of 2006 at the Coldrum Stones, Neolithic Long Barrow, Trottiscliffe, North Kent. Its future is being woven..... The Gorsedd went into a period of Hibernation from the Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice of 2007, due to personal reasons and a need for the inspiration of the open rite to be re-woven. The Kent Gorsedd will return at the coldrum stones, at the Spring Equinox 2008. Rob Wilson |
