di Andrea Romanazzi

One of the tasks of the shaman and the ovate is the oracular art. From Delfi to Cuma, Sibille and Maghi have studied these techniques. To deepen the oracular study and try to interface it with the OBOD teachings, I went again to the wooded clearing of the Ovate. I was looking for a place to undertake my studies.

“…A small wooden house, modest…a stove, a bed, a small desk. A small window looked out onto the woods, which were almost always dark. Here I found a curious book, I couldn’t read it right away… I understood that it was what I had to study… I had found the place to deepen my knowledge as an Ovate…”
I have actually made many trips to such a small cabin. As I told you, I was curious to understand the use of herbs in divination. What did I do before. Divination was done through my Drum. I placed some corn seeds on top of the skin and intoning a song, I tapped the frame with the clapper. Depending on where they were positioned, I drew auspices. However, the gwersi opened me up to another instrument: the Ogam. Let’s start trivially with the tools, the twigs. At the beginning I wanted to create a small bag containing the plants of my area but thinking about it, I was not and I am not that expert to then associate their divinatory powers. I’m actually working on it today. I bought a few herbarium-books… the aim will be to create “my Ogams”… But I don’t want to digress. However, I wanted to devote myself to a well-known oracular medium. So I had a mutual friend (Hagal) in Glastonbury buy a set of Ogam. As the 13th gwers actually says, there is no basis for a method of teaching oracular technique in the course. Honestly, I didn’t like the way of extraction, it wasn’t mine… the drum is my “horse”, it could not be excluded.
It took several trips to the cabin for enlightenment to come.
“…it’s all dark out there, it seems cold, here in the warmth, under a blanket, I think about the oracle, about how to read the Ogams. Often this huge book in front of me is incomprehensible, the language is not clear… it seems that the answer is not here. And I look out, at this slightly dark wood, at the falling leaves…”
I was looking for a way to integrate Ogam and Tamburo, I withdrew into my place of study but I seemed stuck at a dead end. I also thought this indicated that I should use Ogams canonically.
“…it’s all a birds chatter here, shadow and light get confused, look, a leaf has stuck to the glass, it has fallen…Fall? But is this a message? The message! The answer to my request finally opens up before me…”

Answer found! The drum is the world tree, the Ogam its leaves. It was the message of the falling leaves. Now my technique is this. I put the Ogam on the drum, beat the frame with the clapper until the twigs fall. Until there are three left. From here I carry out the divination. I have to be honest, I will be really thankful to the gwersi for that. I would never have integrated my oracular method in such a way on my own. I’ve also improved it a lot. In fact, before I deduced from the position, now the Ogam sticks have very specific meanings. The answers are much more complex than YES/NO.
To end this part based on the oracular technique, I now present my Drum. Each symbol present is linked to an experience carried out in the underworld. You can’t see it well from the photo but the plants and related spirits that I met as well as my spirit guides are drawn.