Notes and Additions to Chapter Four
The Sacred Circle

1. The calling to four directions in crafting a sacred circle is very much a mainstream practice within modern Druidry, and most often it is at this point of a rite when it is done. However, there are many within Druidry who don't call to the four directions at all, but to the Three Worlds (see below).

2. In addition to the four directions of the compass points, acknoweldging the directions of above and below allows that circle to become a sphere, better creating the bubble that is a place of reverence beyond distraction. Some in the Druid community use this, adding a seventh, the centre; however, this is seen by others to be an import from Native American traditions and so avoided. Instead, the above and below comes from the honouring of the Three Worlds (see below).

3. The way in which Druids often call to the spirits of place, and indeed at times to the ancestors and the gods, is through calling prayers, invocations or acknowledgement to the Three Worlds. These are the worlds of earth, sea and sky. Some Druids use this form instead of calling to the four elements and directions.

The earth is often understood to be the realm of life, nature and the living; the seas, through the poetry of the sun setting in the west, are sometimes referred to as the place of the ancestors; the skies, through poetry of visions of the expansive, are sometimes also the place of the gods. For myself, however, honouring of the Three Worlds is far simpler: it is a way of ensuring that I am fully awake to my environment, to the spirits around, above, beneath and within me.

It seems strange to me that I would not have emphasised this in the original text of this book. I wonder if I felt it to be a significantly less used practice at the time and decided to leave it out or allowed it to be one of the parts cut in the final edit. Honouring of the Three Worlds is now fairly widespread within mainstream Druidry.