Druidry and seeds

(Nimue)

If you’ve encountered standard-issue wheel of the year instructions for would-be Druids, you know now is the time to plant your seeds. Not just physical seeds, but the ideas you are going to nurture this year and harvest in the autumn,

In the photo are some seedlings I have sprouting in a window box. In a few week’s time I’ll plant more, and I’ll keep planting through the summer because that way I can keep cropping.

Seed planting happens for a much longer season than spring. Flowers that bloom in the summer do their seed planting then. Autumn and winter crops exist, you may be planting beetroot and parsnip a good deal later. The wych elms have already seeded. Nature is diverse.

If you are in an area where this point in the year is full of sprouting, leafing life, then you may well feel inspired by that energy and want to work with it. If it doesn’t move you, there’s not much to gain from pushing. Trying to align your life with the stories modern Druids tell about the wheel of the year may not work for you.

Your landscape might have different seasons to the UK. Your life might have its own tides and currents that need respecting. You might not be the sort of creature that plants seeds in the spring. You might be the sort of creature that builds a nest about now, or that hasn’t really woken up yet, or is basically a speck of new life in jelly. You can be aligned with the natural world without having to be engaged with any one specific story.

Seed planting makes sense if you are engaging with ancestors who were agricultural. We have far more ancestors who were not engaged in agriculture, and who wandered around more, and lived in ways that related to their specific environments. Engaging substantially with the land can suggest things that do not relate to sowing seed.

Plant seeds now if that makes sense to you. Plant seeds later if you prefer. Be those literal seeds or ideas. Find the rhythms that make sense to you and honour nature as it actually shows up in your life.