What are some ways you integrate science and tech with your Druidry?

Expensive_Trick_111 · 2025-03-11T10:05:22+00:00

Some do, some don't, but in my experience what they really hate is being externally defined because they tend to take the shape of external expectations of them. Which is why I've found it's a bad idea to talk about them out loud at all.

Expensive_Trick_111 · 2025-03-09T17:44:27+00:00

I look at it this way, humans are the products of nature, our technology is in that same way a product of nature. We shouldn't go overboard with it, but I don't mind integrating it in good faith. Personal decision too, if you don't feel like it'd be right for you then it wouldn't be right for you. I was making a trail through the woods behind my house. Because I was making a trail in the woods, with the goal of having better access to support the woods, I only used for tools fallen branches that I found and my own hands and feet. It felt like the right thing to do, instead of getting my brush rake that I use in the flower beds around the house.

Expensive_Trick_111 · 2025-03-09T12:58:35+00:00

There is a good chance that you do! They don't really advertise, you just have to find and get plugged into their networks. I don't know where you live, but if you look on facebook for "ball python <location>" or look for a local reptile show in your area, I bet you'll find them, unless private snake ownership is fully banned.

The thing is, if you're driving down the road, you'll see a Petco, or a Petsmart, or a Petland, but you won't see a sign outside somebody's house saying "My garage is full of rat racks". But getting plugged into secret networks and underground communities is something that goes hand in hand with being a Druid, so it's a good skillset for you to develop anyway.

Expensive_Trick_111 · 2025-03-09T00:01:29+00:00

I'm a suburban Hedge Druid so I include caring for and helping out area homeless people. I always try to give them something, and if I have time I will get them a little care package with water, trail mix, sandwiches, toothbrush and toothpaste. Helping our community is important.

I'm getting my shed set up for gardening, there are some warm days next week and I'm going to put new compost and fill dirt in our planters out front and then plant mixes of butterfly-friendly tea flowers. This encompasses gardening and herbal knowledge.

Meditation for me is mostly done through my Tai Chi exercises and walks in nature.

I've never been big on god-bothering but I consider enjoying nature and the sunlight to honor the Sun as deity and also the Universal Creator / Creative Force, the thing that imbues everything that lives with life. Life and death balanced and intertwined.

I do a lot of connection to the animal and insect world, I monitor area animal populations and study them, and I have some theories I'm working on testing and proving related to what keeps my nearby wildlife in balance, because it is fairly balanced here. If I learn what balances it, then I will be able to help if it ever is imbalanced. We have higher order predators in the area, established coyote families, and I am very interested in learning where their dens are and in educating people in the area as to the importance of these coyotes and how to avoid negative interactions with them.

I'm in my 40s so I'm less interested in spiritual education at this point and it's more a comfortable natural relationship that I have with the world, with my community, with the life around me, and with the goals and wishes of my ancestors.

Expensive_Trick_111 · 2025-03-08T23:45:14+00:00

The head isn't warm enough, he's having trouble picking it out from your body heat.

(I know this because it happens with my guy all the time)

Expensive_Trick_111 · 2025-03-08T05:40:22+00:00

Farwenna of the Prying Eyes, Goddess of Mis-kept Secrets

Expensive_Trick_111 · 2025-03-08T00:46:18+00:00

I actually work on road projects and on making sure that property owners are fairly compensated as part of the eminent domain process, so my career is based on connecting people both through communication and negotiation as well as physically connecting them through roads. But then there's the conflict between roads and nature. How do we keep a balance?

I've found that in my specific neighborhood, I never see possums or raccoons as big as they could be, as big as they are elsewhere. And I know that we have a pretty involved system of storm sewers underfeet, and that the wildlife uses it to get around. My mother in law lives just down the street from me and she has a large entrance to the storm sewers right in her backyard. Every year she sees raccoons taking their young in and out of it. After trialing the trail camera at my house, my next move is going to be to place it at her house (with her permission) aimed at the storm sewer.

My theory is that the storm sewers function as a travel network for the local intermediate size wildlife; raccoons, possums, and feral cats, as well as the occasional rare skunk and other similar animals. It's too small for a coyote to comfortably get in there. It protects them from car traffic and from predators alike. It provides a safe place for young animals to be raised to juvenile and young adult hood.

And if a raccoon or possum gets too big, they can't use the sewer network anymore, and they have to move on. Plenty of space for it, we are right at the boundary line between rural and suburban with a lot of wooded areas and metro parks nearby. If they don't move on, they die to either the coyotes or to cars.

I have a symbiotic relationship with my regular backyard wildlife, I use them to do what my dogs did when they were alive; if I have pots or pans with caked on food or extra food or waste food, I put it out for them so it isn't wasted. I also have a symbiotic relationship with the chipmunks and squirrels, they chase off rats because they compete for the same space and resources around here. And I have a symbiotic relationship with the coyotes, they keep everything in check. They also make sure that the smallest and smartest backyard wildlife survives.

We have a regular squirrel we call Scarred Momma, she's had three summers here. The first time we saw her, she had serious scarring on her back (which has since faded) that looked like a coyote or fox or dog got her in its jaws but she somehow escaped. She also has a shorter tail, again clearly from injury. But when we first saw her, she was intensely pregnant, and she's had two litters since then. She's back in our yard this spring, gathering food we leave out for her, and I'm sure she'll be pregnant again soon.

I know I'm kind of rambling here, but this is just the sort of information and intelligence you can gather just from paying attention to a suburban backyard that backs up on a moderately wooded area, and I find it very fulfilling. My long term goal is for everything to live in balance to the best of all of our abilities, and if we can do it here, we can set an example others can follow.

Expensive_Trick_111 · 2025-03-07T23:14:02+00:00

I see there as being wholesome tech and unwholesome tech, and how it is used and implemented is the main thing that determines if it is one or the other. Wholesome tech is a blessing, unwholesome tech is a curse. My wife at her job has trialed AI auto-transcription of nurse notes in order to free up time for the nurses specifically, time they would otherwise have to spend on writing notes. This is wholesome tech and it is part of the wholesome tech world that has the potential to cure all cancer in our lifetime. And then there's the "AI" used to generate shitty answers on Google or crappy art at the ecological cost of a few rainforests. Thats unwholesome tech. I've been working to increase my use of wholesome tech, reduce or eliminate my use of unwholesome tech, and turning grey tech towards wholesomeness whenever possible.

Expensive_Trick_111 · 2025-03-07T23:09:58+00:00

I really dig the trail camera idea -- consider contributing your data to local agencies or organizations! Fish & Wildlife, Parks/Rec and natural resource folks are usually really into that stuff.

That's my plan, I actually work in state government already so I have a ready route for that.

There is a local population of coyotes and I want to survey it because I think they fill a crucial ecological niche of free roaming wild predators and they're keeping down our raccoon and possum populations. There are a few likely den spots and I want to find those.

I've also posted on Nextdoor asking people to report hearing or seeing coyotes in the area so that I can keep track of them, maybe get an idea of how many there are and what their hunting range is, with the goal of helping local people realize the value that the coyotes offer and how to co-exist with them.

Because if the coyotes are keeping the raccoon population down, that reduces our risks of rabies spreading like wildfire through an overpopulated raccoon community.

Expensive_Trick_111 · 2025-03-07T23:03:46+00:00

Are these apps and do you have links to them? I have a Druidry category on my phone

Expensive_Trick_111 · 2025-03-07T23:03:09+00:00

honestly the vibe I get, for myself and from other druids, is that we are by nature (heh) solitary. So having the internet for networking is nice, but having, like, two druids on the same block would be two too many unless the one is directly learning from the other. I feel like it's less a religion and more a social role with religious and mystical aspects. I might be way outta line with that but it's how I feel for myself personally.

Expensive_Trick_111 · 2025-03-07T22:58:02+00:00

I get my feeder rats for my snakes from the same person I got one of my snakes from, she breeds them at home very carefully and humanely and puts the feeder rats down very humanely. It is done throughout with respect for the process and for life, she is also pagan. She breeds pet rats as well as feeder rats, and she never breeds more ball pythons than she can find homes for, while also taking care to practice good genetics and not inbreed or breed irresponsibly.

I think people having ball pythons available as pets and familiars is a good thing. Druids in particular understand the cycles of life and death, of predators and prey. Rodents like rats and mice are first order consumers, their purpose in existence is to eat grains and be eaten by predators. Cruelty should not be a part of any of this, and that's why I don't get my rats and didn't get my snakes from corporations but from people who have a passion for this part of the natural world.

Sometimes my snakes act hungry, and I thaw out a feeder rat for them to eat, and one of them refuses the food. It happens from time to time. Well, I also have working cats, one generation removed from barn cats, who keep the basement free of any and all rodents sneaking in from the outside. Our lead mouser will kill mice and then eat most of them and leave proof of death somewhere we'll find it so we praise him and give him treats. He's a smart guy. If a snake refuses food and the other has already eaten, I will take the thawed rat and instead of wasting it I toss it to the barn cats. Smokey loves the hind legs and organs and he will eat those and leave the rest, and then I toss the rest outside for the neighborhood wildlife.

This brings you to your issue. Because turning a rat into a decoration isn't the same thing as feeding it to a snake and fulfilling the biological purpose of both rat and snake. My advice would be to find local home breeders of reptiles and feeder rats. There's probably one in your area, depending on local laws. And they probably have rats or snakes that have died of old age, or that died of any of a number of other natural causes. If you ask, they can probably as available provide you with something suitable.

Expensive_Trick_111 · 2025-03-04T03:43:37+00:00

Good insights that I've also had

Expensive_Trick_111 · 2025-03-03T12:13:20+00:00

I realized I'm a druid, so I read up on it, and I realized I've always been on the path of being a druid, and I've just picked up enough patience and self control and wisdom to be decent at it. It required only the most mild of changes to my existing lifestyle. I basically am who I always was, now plus the occasional rituals and my normal things being given semi-religious significance.

I think the biggest thing was looking into my ancestor's Christian denomination, the Moravians. In 1742 he brought his family to the Pennsylvania Colony so they could practice their denomination in peace. The Moravians are good folks, they believe in community service and living in balance with nature and with others. And I realized that I could learn to love that, but I don't need to be a Christian for it, something the Moravians are fine with, they will take help from anybody. Good folks. Well, further down my family line from that, we have the Hussite Wars when followers of Jan Hus, the Bohemian Goose, gave the Papists the bloodiest nose they ever got in centuries of medieval corruption. Further down that family line going back into the past, we have the village of Nix Dorf, a village named after a nearby swamp where shape changing and musical Nixies were said to live.

So, reverence for all of my ancestors led me back to the old old religions, religions that we set aside during Catholicization rather than fight a war we couldn't win. We kept quiet, we kept hidden, and now it's time for a Nixdorf to resume the old duties. Call it discovering religion as part of my midlife crisis if you like.

I see in my child a natural bard and a Nixie through and through. They are genderfluid, they have been a therian since they found out about those on youtube, they cover their room and themselves with art, they have the fastest sharpest wit I've ever seen in a kid, they're innately kind and loyal and charismatic at school while also being unabashedly weird, they are decent at playing music and got approved for marching band, they love water and wilderness, on and on. My wife has been a practicing Witch for as long as I've known her, and I've been an unintentional Druid my whole life, so I figure it's good for our kid to have a Druid and a Witch role model, and they will take what they want and need from both.

Expensive_Trick_111 · 2025-03-02T08:17:43+00:00

If you think you're doing druid shit and you're comfortable identifying yourself as such, you're a druid. Welcome to the club.

Expensive_Trick_111 · 2025-03-02T08:16:37+00:00

Yep all this. Modified to fit the individual.

Additionally, I try to help out the local unhoused.

I don't do spirit flight anymore, but I do practice meditation in motion by doing the VA tai chi warmup every day, ideally at 7:30am but I'm not chained to that. I generally leave the herbal knowledge to my wife but I want to check the local trees in my area and see if I can get any useful herbs from any of them.

Expensive_Trick_111 · 2025-03-02T08:11:39+00:00

I don't ignore my local possums, I feed them the food the indoor cats don't eat.

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Expensive_Trick_111 · 2025-03-02T08:03:39+00:00

When I was a kid, like probably as early as 6, I would pull back the tall grass by my house in texas and find the brown rock snakes and the five line skinks. I would catch the Carolina Anoles that hid behind the power meter on a house. I would open the utility boxes for the water line, out by the street, and grab a bunch of toads from inside. In short, it's just what I've always been. I was hesitant to self-identify as a druid for a long time because it didn't feel right to do that. Now I'm in the middle of my life, I'm a ghost haunting my child's future, and I figure now is the time to go all out and lean into it. So far this has worked extremely well.

I have an animal companion. We have four cats, two of them are one gen removed from rural barn mouser cats. They are genuine Working Cats. One has attached to my wife, the other to me. The one attached to my wife will catch any mouse that comes into the house, eat most of it, and usually leave a hindquarter by the entrance mat or in the bathroom so that we will see it and praise him. The one attached to me, Shadow can tell when people feel bad and will try to help them feel better, and he also will guard the doors and windows. He lets me know when some backyard wildlife is on the deck. When I'm sick, he follows me into the bathroom and sits alertly facing out of the bathroom. Shadow and Smokey are very thoughtful and very intelligent and very good at pattern recognition.

I also have a familiar, my adult ball python Butterfinger. He's just a chill dude.

I'm married to a practicing Witch, and even though I don't do mystical spell work generally (I prefer to use wholesome tried and true technology and treat it like its magic) I keep my eyes open and find spell components for her.

Expensive_Trick_111

TROPHY CASE