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Interview with a Druid: Rob Henderson of Shining Lakes Grove
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Courtesy of Rob Henderson
Modern Druidry is growing in the Pagan community. A leading American-based organization is Ar nDraiocht Fein (pronounced arn ree-ocht fane), also known as ADF, which has groups located throughout the United States and is expanding into other countries. The Irish name roughly translated means "Our Own Druidism."
Michigan is home to three groves and one protogrove including Shining Lakes Grove in Ann Arbor. This group has been in existence since the early 1990s. They offer public rituals for all of the eight holy days and host other regular events throughout the year. Below is an interview with Shining Lakes Grove's Senior Druid, Rob Henderson.
How long has Shining Lakes Grove been around? Were you there from the beginning?
SLG officially became an ADF Protogrove in September of 1993, and got our provisional charter on May 1st, 1994. I didn't join until June of 1996.
Would you say that Shining Lakes Grove is family friendly?
I'd definitely say that it is. Our mission to provide open public ritual keeps us focused on doing ritual that is accessible to anyone who comes to us. While we don't make any special room within the actual ritual just for children, the rituals give children and adults plenty of opportunities to honor the gods in their own ways. We also have an officer called the Youth Activities Coordinator who provides children's activities at our High Day rites.
Was Druidry your first Pagan path? How did you come to it?
No, I was involved in various eclectic pagan groups from 1990 (age 22) to 1996 when I joined SLG. Some of my friends were pagans and it sounded interesting, and also it was a very tumultuous time in my own life and the pagans I knew seemed relatively well-balanced so I wanted to see if that would help me become balanced as well. Generic paganism had some appeal to me, but it was never as focused as I wanted it to be, and also the people I worked with didn't take the gods as seriously as I did. I guess I should clarify; they tended to view the gods as archetypes or energy forms or whatnot, rather than as real entities. When I attended my first SLG ritual, I knew that I had finally found a group whose beliefs matched up well with my own.
You're involved with the ADF Clergy Program. Can you explain more about that? Do you perform weddings, funerals, and other ceremonies, and can you perform legal weddings?
Well I should distinguish between being on the ADF Clergy Council, and being in the ADF Clergy Training Program. The Training Program is just that, a program to train people to be ADF clergyfolk. Sadly ADF doesn't provide much of the details on the public portion of its own Web site, but you can get more details about it from the Vice ArchDruid's personal site at Druidkirk.org, though at least a few of those courses are now out of date.
I currently have eight of the eleven required courses for the First Circle completed, and have agreed to get the remaining three finished by the end of September to maintain my Dedicant Priest status. In 2002, several ADF members were given temporary clergy credentials pending completing the CTP in a certain amount of time, and that's when I was given my Dedicant Clergy Status. Once I have First Circle done, I think it's currently two years after that I have to complete Second Circle, then two years after that to complete Third Circle, and then I'll be eligible for full ordination.
As an ADF Dedicant Priest, I'm allowed to perform legal weddings (I've done eight so far), and burials (I haven't done any of those yet), perform hospital visitation, and all of the other activities that clergy of other religions do.
Do you have a personal favorite High Day rite? If so, why do you like that one best?
It's funny, in ten years of doing interviews as SLG's Senior Druid, nobody has ever asked me that before! And now that you've asked it, I find that I don't have an answer! It's like being asked which of one's children is one's favorite; they're all very meaningful to me. I'm finding that having each High Day come and go establishes a kind of rhythm to my life, knowing year after year that as the seasons come and go, our celebrations and traditions come and go right alongside them, and they each become an important part of my life.
Pagan groups come and go. What do you attribute the longevity of Shining Lakes Grove to?
Having a large organization like ADF to give us support helps a lot, but mainly I attribute it to our emphasis on devotional-based ritual instead of energy-based ritual. The other groups that I was involved with, and other groups I've talked to in the years since I joined SLG, most of them do energy work as an integral part of their rituals and other workings, and that leads to a very, well I guess I'd have to call it "intimate", group relationship. And when you have that kind of heightened relationship with everyone else in your group, it's like having several significant others, and that's usually not a recipe for stability.
Our more laid-back ritual style with an emphasis on action instead of energy may seem boring to some, but it's a lot easier to keep a large group together when we're not all up in each other's business, or whatever those crazy kids call it these days. The ancient cultures we study were pagan, but also very stable and supportive, and I've always wanted SLG to behave more like that.
Has SLG felt the squeeze in the downturn of Michigan's economy? Do you feel alternative religions are being hit harder than mainstream ones? And do you have any sage advice for new Pagan groups starting out?
Sadly, the economy hasn't affected our donations directly, since we barely get any donations anyway! But several of our members are involved in the auto industry, and I know that one has been laid off, and I'm worried that money issues will get worse for us before they get better. I hope that we can provide a supportive community for our members during these troubled times.
Are alternative religions being hit harder? Not from what I've seen, at least not financially, if only because most pagan groups don't have a lot of money to work with even in the best of times. In more general terms, I've definitely noticed over the years that people tend to be more active in pagan groups when the economy is good, and less so when the economy is bad, which is really the opposite of how it works for most churches! We do work with this weird dichotomy that many of our members treat us as a religion, but many of us treat it more like a hobby or a pastime, and when times get rough for folks in the latter category, they drop the "fun stuff".
Advice for new groups, in terms of money, or just in general? Given ADF's support of our Grove, I don't know that I could give any advice to any new non-ADF group that would be helpful. Money-wise, I'd say that if you start a new group, expect to fund anything for the first year or so out of your own pocket, and keep your goals realistic. SLG is a well established group with lots of members and a fairly large public presence, and we still have trouble getting enough money just to run rituals and maintain our website. We pagans don't have a real sense of paying for what we want to get out of our religion yet, and that's unlikely to change in the near future.
If someone is interested in attending one of SLG's public rituals, do they have to be a member of ADF, SLG or even a Pagan?
Ever since Isaac Bonewits founded ADF, one of our primary goals has been to provide open public ritual to our local communities. Our Grove's High Day rites are open to any member, non-member, and even any non-pagan who chooses to join us. If you're used to small group ritual, particularly energy-based ritual, then what we do is probably going to look a little weird, and yes, kind of boring. But I think that what we offer has a place within the greater pagan community, and I personally find it very satisfying.
Is there anything else you would like to tell people about SLG or ADF in general?
Being a very open pagan group can be challenging and being part of a very open pagan group isn't for everyone, but if you want to be part of developing and living a modern pagan tradition, you should certainly attend one or two of our events. If you don't like it, then you certainly don't need to come back, but if it does call to you, as it called to me thirteen years ago, then you'll never find anything else that's quite like it.
To learn more about SLG, ADF and other Druid groups, visit:
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