Woman with oak. Photo by Kevin Young.
Bartgrinn's words are written this way.
Nerida's words are written like this.
You were a Druid and that means that you were one of the healers or holy men for the Celtic people, yes? Have I understood correctly?
Why would you call us holy?
[Laughs] Excuse me using such an ugly word.
Healing powers were a gift that could be used. It was part of getting a livelihood, to help people.
Sometimes we could heal them. Sometimes we could make them better. Sometimes we could help them—go somewhere else.
Sometimes, most of the time, we got something for it in exchange.
[Wryly] Sometimes we had to run.
[Laughs] Oh dear!
Did not happen that often, but it did happen.
‘Holy’ is something that the people from the Church used.
There is a big difference between ‘holy’ and sacred. The Earth is sacred, not holy.
They needed to make a distinction, so they called themselves ‘holy’. They had a ‘holy mass’. They were ‘their holiness’. Things like that.
Because they knew the Earth was sacred; so was Nature. And somehow they knew they could not use it because they would never be as good. It would have upset the other people. So that had to create this new word, that they could use.
They made it holy.
So don’t talk to us about being holy, my friend.
We worked with the support of Nature. And we respected Nature for giving us medicines.
What was it that you wanted to know about it?
[Big sigh] There’s quite a bit that we would like to know about it.
Yes.
As I understand it, you also came back, reincarnated, to the same group of people more than once because they wanted you to come back and use your gifts and build on your knowledge, and continue to work with them in another lifetime.
Yes. It was mainly our self with other people who did this kind of work. We wanted to come back and learn more. It would have been such a waste, having all these experiences and then going somewhere else and doing something different.
Sometimes you wanted to know more about it, to educate others with the same knowledge.
Before, we would have decided to go somewhere else in another lifetime, do something very different. This was like—you would call it in your time—an addiction. Learning, learning, getting better at using things--without finishing the life of someone (if they didn’t plan to do so).
Dandelion leaves, photographed by Christine Siracusa.
We were very careful in using plants.
But sometimes there was a little leaf that got into it that wasn’t supposed to be there. Or the person was weaker than we thought. This is experience you gain over the years. So we knew we wanted to know and learn more about it.
I know you were in Britain at the time when invaders from the north came—
Yes. Stealing the girls.
Did you also experience the coming of the Romans?
I’ve heard about that. I’ve seen what they left behind in some areas when they went through. I was lucky enough at that time to avoid them—personally.
Mmm, they were mainly operating from the southeast, I guess.
I can feel a very big disappointment here.
Really? That you weren’t fighting the Romans?
You’d have loved to hear that.
[Laughs] Aah.
Why would anyone want to meet them in person?
If you have a healthy mind, stay away. That’s what we did.
If you saw what they left behind in some areas, why would you go for a personal encounter?
I know they destroyed sacred trees.
Pause.
[Nodding] Amongst other things.
They loved to kill.
It was like collecting—you would call it, now—trophies.
When they played with dice in the night, they would talk: ‘Ah, today I had quite a handful of them. And then I just finished them off. It was easy. They had no weapons—not what we would consider weapons. Stupid little sticks and clubs. Tiny, weak arrows.'
They would say, ‘We went there to conquer, to make it a better place. We were going to develop these areas.’
Of course, there were owners and the Original people there. But, they were considered ‘not good enough’.
'Romans murdering Druids and burning their groves,' later impression by Thomas Pennant c.1781.
It still happens. It has always happened.
There is some group of the population who thinks they are superior to others. It’s not quite right.
They just don’t understand. Why would you bring a culture from someone and somewhere else to Original people in a totally different area?
They have cultures, these people in these areas, that are more sensible for the area they live in.
So, if it’s (what they called) a ‘higher civilisation’ back home, that could result in a very poor civilisation and a very low standard of living in the long term in a different area.
They did not have that understanding. They thought, ‘We are so superior. They have no idea.’
They would not listen, they would not observe and they could not see. They were blind in the eye of understanding, deaf in the ear of listening and understanding.
If you don’t see things right; if you don’t hear the right things, how can you form an opinion for yourself?
Because then you just try to put your ideas onto someone else, into a different area, that was not made for that kind of understanding and attitude.
They still do it. Humankind always did it. Which makes it wrong to say they’re ‘Humankind’ because there is no kindness in that.
Pause.
You understand?
I do.
Good.