Peace in the North - a Druid Reflection
'With the blessing of the Great Bear in the Starry heavens and the deep fruitful earth. I call upon the spirits of the north, and of earth. I bid you hail and welcome'
Order of Bards Ovates and Druids prayer to the North.
These are words I have heard and spoken for 23 years, beside the Long Man of Wilmington and within our own Grove Ceremonies. The bear in the north holds the greatest symbolism of north to me, she holds the north and the sky above us during the winter solstice. The great bear in the starry north is Ursa Major and the North Star within this prayer.
I always thought I knew the North, the feeling it brought within me. I felt a strong connection with the Great Bear, loved the winter months in England and Europe, and always felt the Winter Solstice touch something deep within me.
Fifteen years ago, I was introduced to the Bear Feast—an animistic ceremony created by Kate Fletcher and Corwen Broch based on their paleolithic research and time in Sapmi. The ceremony honours the bear, the great hunt, and gratitude for the year's life, food, and relationships. My first feast was at the Ancient Technology Centre, held inside the Earth House—a prehistoric round building built into the ground, with a smoke hole in the roof. It is the first neo pagan ceremony I have experienced that felt real, that felt trully connected, I understood it and felt it deep within.
The ceremony honoured the Great Bear and the ancient hunt, where ancestors woke the bear, leaving it the choice to help humanity survive or kill the hunter. During the day after the hunt, we welcomed the bear and spirit to join us to celebrate and honour their life. They were placed on an altar. We did a drum journey by the fire back through the year, made prayer sticks, and honoured the fire. Singing specific songs as the day flowed. In the evening after our meal, we sang a beautiful song sending their spirit in gratitude back to dance in the sky. We placed our prayers into the flames to send with the bear's spirit to Ursa Major in the starry north.
Then came the magic. As our basket of prayers and the bear's spirit ascended through the roof, we stepped outside under the stars. Continuing our song, we looked up. Directly above us was Ursa Major, receiving the spirits of everything that had kept us alive that year.
It brought me to tears, and still does. It hit me deep in my bones that our ancestors shared this kind of relationship with Ursa Major. They would have stood by the fire during the winter solstice, singing to the constellation, praying for the sun's return, and sending gratitude to those who came before.
But last week, I had an experience so profound I almost lack the words.
Three friends and I travelled to Sapmi in Northern Sweden, to a village called Lainio. We stayed in a beautiful log cabin to craft a Sámi drum with Peter Four Bears Junkka, a skilled Sámi Noaidi, and his wife Christelle Andrea Junkka. It was a dream I had chased for years. I knew it would be a big experience, but I wasn't prepared for my soul to completely take root like it did. I have travelled to a few places and met indigenous shamanic healers but this time felt different. It was a place my ancestors knew.
Each night, the Aurora Borealis danced across the northern sky. But the magic struck again when the northern lights joined directly across the Great Bear constellation. Nearly every night, I sat and watched that gateway to the ancestors open, the Polaris star shining directly overhead.
By day, as the sun moved through the south, a deep peace grew within me. The briggter the day, the clearer the aurora was.
The land was incredibly still; often, the only sounds were ice and water.
I realized that before this, my understanding of the North was not as deep as my understanding now. Even though it was autumn rather than winter, all the elements of the North were there. Sitting with the growing ice each day, I felt its gifts of boundaries and rest.
Peter himself was a pure representation of the North—full of peace, wisdom, boundary, and humour. He taught us the importance of patience with the drum, explaining that you must give it the energy of fire before you can play or connect with it. This patience brings its own rest and space. I am a drum maker, I am a person who loves peace, my own company, nature. But this experience of deep peace is unlike any I have felt. The understanding of the simple ways of Sami life I had read in theory, and met people on webinars but to experience is very different.
This land moved me to tears from a depth I cannot fully explain. It is undeniably a place where the gateway to the ancestors is open, and where the bear dances among them each night.
Knowing that the Great Bear gave the North its Name says it all.
Arktos Megale is the Ancient Greek name for the constellation of The Great Bear, the constellation that gave the Arctic its name.
Kate Fletcher and Corwen Broch
Coming home, I realize that the Norths is the hearth of the earth. Without the frozen North, life simply cannot exist.
I leave you with a song by Kate Fletcher and Corwen Broch called Look to the North. It has become a prayer of deep importance to me each winter. Its lyrics call out to the snow, the ice, and the aurora: "Stay wild for us, guard your wealth from plunder, stay a place of wonder." Like the drum Peter taught us doesnt need to be made tight because the magic is the patience and energy from warming it from the fire, we must keep the energy of this sacred landscape alive. It must remain a place of deep peace for the south of the earth to remain fruitful!!! We must protect it.
May we all look to the North, look to the Great Bear, and remember the ice that protects our world. Ice protects us as much as the bear and our ancestors in the starry skies do.
With the blessing of the Great Bear in the Starry heavens and the deep fruitful earth. I call upon the spirits of the north, and of earth. I bid you hail and fairwell - Blessed Be
Closing prayer to the North - OBOD
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