Nimue Brown's Blog, page 13

Bertie Buckland, Chief Druid

(Guest post from Michael Wood)

This story starts with an old postcard dated 1925. It was sent to my grandmother from her father while he was away on a business trip.  My mother was very proud of her grandfather and kept this card for years in an envelope in an old brown leather box.

Mum and I were going through family memories together and mum paused over this particular postcard and removed it from its old envelope to show me. It turns out that this was not just any old business trip, on the front of the postcard was a sepia picture of the Stones at Stonehenge with a view looking Northeast, on the back were just a few words. I found that it was written One hundred years ago and these were very much the days when communication was slow and sparse. It was addressed to Madge Buckland in South London, with lovely cursive writing flowing from an old fountain pen, next to the address was the date June 14th 1925, with just seven words: “written on the altar stone by dad.” 

‘Dad’ was Bertie Buckland, my great grandfather  and 1925 – 1926 was his year in office as the Chief Druid of England, I never met Bertie unfortunately, but he played a big part in my growing up. Along with being the Chief Druid he was a silversmith and I remember handling and polishing some of his work which mum had around the house. It was lovely to feel the physical connection to him. My mother was incredibly proud of her grandfather and would tell me stories as we polished his silver  – always finishing with the reminder that first and foremost, “I was a Buckland.”

I inherited my mother’s pride of her grandfather and his picture along with the postcard is framed and on display in the entrance of our family home in Blackrock,  Dublin.  South London to Dublin is a long story but we will get to that shortly.

My mother has now sadly passed but before she died last year, we talked a lot about the book I was writing. “That sounds interesting dear,” she said to me, “make sure you finish it and tell everyone about it – and remember you’re a Buckland.”

 My book, Just One Conscious Breath, isn’t about Druidism per se, but there is a thread going back to Bertie because it’s an autobiography and story of awakening. I draw on events from my life and explain how the breath undramatically woke me up – and how you can do it too.  At the end of each chapter there is a short breathing space to embody the lesson and the writing.

‘Oh,’ and I nearly forgot, that long story from South London to Dublin…. Well, that’s all part of my awakening and spirit of adventure – to hear more you will just have to get the book. I think Bertie would approve of it, although he may confused by the reference to “buy it on Amazon” – failing that, of course, he would be reassured to hear that you can also order it from your local bookshop.

For more: PilgrimBreath.org

(Note from Nimue – I have a copy of this book and hope to be reviewing it soon.)

Survival and the diet of crumbs

(Nimue)

No matter where you are in the world, the odds are that recent political choices in America are going to make life harder for you. For women, POC, queer, impoverished and disabled people, life in America is set to get much harder and more dangerous. It’s worth noting that these may be ‘minorities’ but taken as a whole, that’s the majority of people.

Here’s what I’ve got.

Having lived through a great deal of domestic abuse, I can say with confidence that it is possible to survive on a diet of crumbs – psychologically speaking. It’s incredibly hard work to be looking for crumbs of hope and tiny good things when mostly your life is a trashcan fire, but it is possible, and worth doing. You will feel exhausted doing it, and it will not entirely protect you from depression and anxiety. It will stop you sliding so far into despair that you either can’t function, or become complicit.

Look for the small beauties and the slightest reasons for gratitude. Focus on any small good you can find, and the slightest wins. Hold onto possibility and fight for every shred of hope you can keep alive. Nurture small and realistic dreams because if you can make anything good happen, it will help you a lot. Not giving up is an everyday fight when you are in a toxic environment. Fighting will cost you, where giving up or joining in would be much easier.

It’s when we give up, or worse still join in, that they win. This is how oppression triumphs and how all good things can be defeated. Whatever fight you take on in your own life is part of a much bigger fight, and your contribution matters. In keeping going, you will be able to help others keep going too. Sharing what good you can will help other people keep their heads above water. The good you can do in helping other people survive is vitally important.

No one can survive on a diet of crumbs forever. It takes a tremendous toll. But, when the choice is between the crumbs you can find, and the starvation of your soul, pick the crumbs every time. If you share those crumbs, by magic everyone has a bit more than if you try to keep the for yourself.

When things are terrible, it can seem like the good things are trivial and pointless. This is not true. Love, joy, and comfort are more important than ever in challenging times. Frivolous things can also be sanity saving things. Don’t feel like you have to embrace misery to fight – it doesn’t work that way.

Those of us who are better resourced right now can step up and try to make sure that there are more than crumbs on offer.

Dame Evergreen

(Nimue, review)

This is an utterly lovely poetry collection. Most of the poems relate to fairy tales or myths, and much of it I recognised as I went along. Helpfully there’s a listing at the back identifying the material that inspired each piece, so you can check if you aren’t certain. There are extra pleasures for anyone who knows the original tales, but these poems read well regardless of whether you know the basis or not. It’s thoughtful, magical stuff.

The writing is lyrical, often haunting, insightful and feminist. I found it rich and deep – and a truly rewarding read. I can very much recommend the collection and I think Pagan readers of poetry will find much to delight in here.

Widely available as an ebook and in paperback – check out the options here – https://books2read.com/u/b5grol

Welcoming the winter

(Nimue)

Autumn only seemed to last for a few weeks. Now in my part of the world the weather is cold and grey, and feels wintery to me. Recent walking has allowed me to enjoy some of the stunning colours of the autumnal beech trees. While many trees have dropped their leaves now, the beeches haven’t quite finished, and their copper tones are glorious. Still, it definitely feels like winter.

I have always struggled with winter and the extra physical challenges it brings. Being cold increases muscle stiffness and soreness, so the cold part of the year has always been hard on me. There are a lot of practical challenges on many fronts.

This year I’m feeling like I can welcome the winter. It’s a new feeling, being more able to engage with what the season is doing rather than feeling distressed by it. Enjoying the gifts winter brings feels like a possibility now open to me.

As I had long suspected, this is straight up a privilege issue. Enjoying the winter is easy if you are well resourced. The more resources you have, the less impacted you are by the difficult bits. As is often the way of it, privilege is hard to spot when you have it, and many people aren’t keen to recognise it. Telling people off for ‘complaining’ and ‘making a fuss’ is a lot easier than examining your own advantages.

My physical health is better than it’s been in a long while, which means I’m starting the season with far less body pain. Access to a decent sized bath, and to other sources of warmth and comfort mean I will hurt less. Good thermals – bought last winter- are helping. My improved circulation is getting a lot done. I’m still wonky and if the winter is harsh I will struggle, but at the same time I am far better off than I was.

This year I get to welcome the winter and to honour the season without the deep anxiety of previous years. For this, I am deeply grateful. I am focusing on the subtle beauties of misty days, bare branches and fallen leaves. There are fungi out there, and migrant birds to watch for. The cold isn’t so bad when there’s snuggling up to do, and early nights are much more tempting now that I reliably get to sleep. I have so much to be grateful for, and with that comes the recognition that for many people, this winter will be hard, and for many, it will be fatal. You can’t welcome the winter if there’s a realistic chance of it killing you before your time.

How do we challenge hatred?

(Nimue)

In recent years we’ve seen a rise in the intentional radicalising of young men. Straight, white young men particularly. It’s something that has long worried me, and that is tremendously complicated.

Part of the point of feminism is challenging the expectation that women exist to make men feel comfortable and good about themselves. We need men to feel badly enough about rape and abuse that they don’t go in for those things. However, this is being weaponised to encourage lads to feel like they are the real victims in an uncaring world that has nothing good to offer them.

Partly that’s true. All of our young people are facing a grim future. They can’t expect decent jobs, or to be able to afford a home of their own. Climate chaos will dominate their lives. War, hatred, fear and the threat of violence impacts on them all. They aren’t reliably being taught critical thinking skills, or how to tell good information from rubbish. They do not know who to trust or what to believe in, and this makes them incredibly vulnerable to people who would willingly turn them into haters and aggressors.

There are no simple answers here, or quick solutions, but at the same time this is not an issue we can afford to ignore. This is not something any of us should decide is someone else’s responsibility.

When we post online we have no idea who sees our content, and little idea how it impacts. The jokes we make, the criticism we offer, the judgements, the ridicule, the devaluing of specific groups of people – all this can help make it easier for the shittiest people out there to prey on unhappy young people. I understand the need to vent – the frustration, misery, pain, fear and bitter experience that underpins some of this incredibly negative posting. I don’t want to tone police anyone, I know that doesn’t help either. We need to be able to talk about the issues.

But at the same time we’ve got to find ways to talk about the issues without helping the worst people out there to fill young humans with hate. I know full well that the far right loves to blame the left for this radicalisation process – they claim it happens because we are too woke, not giving fair attention to privileged kids, not soothing them enough. I do not believe that hatred is a natural reaction to compassion, nor that asking for rights for everyone is bound to feel threatening to those who have privilege.

So, how do we change this conversation? How do we help all young people feel like they are going to be the solution, not part of the problem? How do we engage and encourage without pandering to a patriarchal system? How do we call people out in ways that might encourage them to do better rather than making them double down? How do we convince people that they are better than this, capable of more, and that oppression hurts everyone? Almost no one wins in oppressive systems, but the attraction of feeling superior to someone else seems to be remarkably persuasive. The illusion of being a winner in an oppressive system lures in enables who are likely themselves to also become victims.

Right now I have more questions than answers, but I feel this is essential territory to wade into.

Witches, stories and children

(Nimue)

Spending nine days being a witch at Belsay was an educational experience to say the least. I have been out in a pointy hat before and am very aware of how powerful and iconic they are. Smal girls especially loved my colourful witches hat, and a lot of other people did too. I had a lot of questions about whether I was a real witch, and it was clear those asking where hoping for a ‘yes’. I opted to play it mysterious, because I didn’t want to be dishonest, but I didn’t want to disenchant anyone either.

My performance history has mostly been about adult audiences, with the occasional child thrown in. For this gig, the focus was very much on the children. I took the material I had – which was not children’s stories, but traditional content, and songs inspired by tradition. I honestly had no idea how that would go.

The kids were amazing. Their ability to sit quietly and concentrate was impressive. Their enthusiasm and willingness to engage with the material was wonderful. Many of them stayed for thirty minute sets, but a couple of times I ran to forty five minutes because they were so keen. Which led to the exciting discovery that yes, I can still handle a forty five minute set on my own.

I had a core of material I’d planned to use, but I also did my best to respond to what my audience was interested in. I sang 700 Elves for a girl who had come dressed as an elf, and adapted Lay the Bent to the Bonny Broom as a story for a boy who was fixed on the idea of demon shapeshifters, for example. I had a version of Tam Lin as a story that went down stunningly well every time – I did edit out the pregnancy bit, which turns it into a tale about a young lady who rescues a boy simply because he needs rescuing.

I took the opportunity to talk about witches in folklore and history, about cunning folk, herbalism and things of that ilk. It felt good to be sharing that and talking about how people related to folk magic in the past.

My main takeaway from this is that I would happily do it again. I know I can trust the material, and trust young humans to be willing and able to engage with it. Some of them discovered a real hunger for folklore and landscape stories that they had not been aware of before they came to me. Those experiences were humbling and powerful. Folklore helps root people in the land and connect them with the past – it’s magical stuff.

I’ve never considered myself someone who was especially good at dealing with children. I have no doubt that the magic and the authority of the pointy hat helped me, but I can take that energy with me without needing to wear the headgear. I discovered capacities I did not know I had, to bewitch and engage, educate and inspire, and that was a lot to take onboard.

The anti-fascist Druid

(Nimue).

For me, the Druid path is inherently anti-fascist. There are people who try to make it about blood heritage, race, notions of purity and superiority but those people are wrong and just playing out their own vile ideas. They are not real Druids.

That we have a bard path is evidence enough that Druidry is intrinsically anti-fascist. Fascists hate creativity, silence poets, and strip beauty from the world. Thus being creative and imaginative and daring to consider possibilities that are not offered to us is a meaningful form of resistance.

Druidry has always been about service and community. We don’t know a great deal about the ancient Druids, but they had roles in Celtic society that were about knowledge. Fascists tend to be averse to knowledge and actively suppress learning and study. Undertaking to learn and to teach is also a form of resistance.

For me, justice is a really important part of the modern Druid path. We have to speak against injustice, and stand against it in whatever ways we can. Those of us who have most power and privilege have the greatest obligation to act. We should not place the struggle for justice on the shoulders of those vulnerable people who most urgently need fair treatment.

We know that ancient Druids stood for peace and would go onto battlefields to halt conflict. We must seek the peace that is based on justice, not the false peace that comes from playing along with oppressors.

If we succumb to hate, cynicism, bitterness or apathy, then fascism wins. The most important fight any of us can take on in the face of what’s happening, is the fight to keep our hearts open, and not to let the aggressors colonise our minds. We have to believe the best of each other, and trust in each other’s goodness as much as we can. We need to stay tender and compassionate, and willing to imagine that things can be better. Without that belief we will fail to step up and do what we can do.

Words of love and solidarity matter right now. Whatever comfort and support we can offer each other, is worth offering. I have many friends – including many Druid friends – in America, and I grieve alongside you over what’s happening. I honour my friends around the world who have the wisdom and compassion to recognise that this is our problem too, that we are all affected by what’s happened and by what is likely to follow.

Focus on what you can do. Whatever it is, if you can act in some way to support community, to care for people, or for the living world, to create beauty, share ideas, keep hope alive – do those things. It’s all there is.

I am dedicated to doing what I can to help support good people in not succumbing to fear or despair. I’ll share what I can to nourish hearts and hopes, and to keep alive ideas about better ways of being and how we build that future. It will not build itself.

Lessons from a scallop

(Nimue)

You don’t get to choose what comes in, but you do get to filter. What you let go of and what you retain is up to you.

There is abundance. There’s always a lot coming in. Everything you need is out there, moving towards you.

(I pause to note that this is a different issue for shellfish because they aren’t constantly experiencing other shellfish denying them access to what they need. But, the truth is there, that as a species we have all the resources we could possibly need. What we don’t have is any inclination to share them fairly.)

When all you do is absorb and release, how can you not love everything? All there is to life is love, and the experience of being.

It was a curious set of experiences, some on a beach, some in the middle of the night. I don’t eat a great deal of meat usually – just enough to protect me from becoming anaemic, which has been an issue for me in the past. I had sat with shellfish, then later eaten a scallop, and afterwards, I was very aware of it, as a presence. This does not normally happen to me around food, but it’s also not the first time I’ve ingested something and then found it wanted to talk to me.

We take in energy all the time from our food, and that energy shapes us and changes us in all kinds of ways. There are old adages about ‘you are what you eat’ and apparently I am a bit more scallop than I was, and it’s been a strangely forgiving experience.

End Times

(David)

End Times is the book of my stage play, narrated by a Pagan everyman walking the world after the collapse of human civilisation.

Here below are the opening paragraphs.

This isn’t a bad road, as roads go. It hasn’t been maintained since the Before, but then few have, especially unused ones in deserted places like this. It would be hard on the suspension of a car, if any cars were still around. It would be hard on my ankles if I wasn’t walking carefully, even in these good boots.

I found them on a dead man in his snowbound cabin last midwinter. Buried the old man but not his boots. Burned his chopped firewood every day and ate from his larder, until springtime melted the snow and his mountain neighbours unwelcomed me.

It’s a good road for safety, this one, high on a spine of hills but not too high to show me on the skyline if someone looks up from the plain. I could stride out along here with reasonable confidence.

Could, if I felt like it. Which, truthfully, I don’t.

Not only because I’ve been walking for too many days and nights with all I own wrapped in my bedroll across my back, and I could do with finding a safe hole to rest up in.

Mostly it’s because the dawn view from up here is pretty much the same as every other dawn view that I’ve seen since the Before. Desolation isn’t too strong a word for it. Ruined, wasted, abandoned civilization.

While you can buy paperback and ebook versions from many online sites, there’s a lot to be said for getting copies directly from the publisher – https://payhip.com/b/XdIeY

https://www.beatentrackpublishing.com/DavidBridger

Utility and spirituality

(Nimue)

Archaeologists are most likely to identify items as potentially spiritual when they cannot identify a practical use for them. The idea that spiritual things must, by their very nature, be separate and different from worldly things is both longstanding and widespread. I don’t think this is an approach that is reliably true from a modern, Pagan perspective. I’m not especially convinced it helps that much for thinking about the past, either.

Perspectives vary on whether you need special tools set aside for your practice, or whether you use what you have. Cups, knives, and brooms are often an issue. Do you do ritual in regular clothes, or special clothes? Do you have special candles, or incense, or any other item that is in some senses ordinary, but set apart for use? Different people have different approaches.

Sometimes the answer depends on what you can afford, and what you have room for. There are matters of style, too. Folk magic tends to use whatever is close to hand. The more ornate and ‘high’ your ritual is, the more likely you are to use dedicated gear for it. We need what we think we need.

As an animist, I find the idea of non-magical items a bit tricky. Everything potentially has spirit. Anything can bring inspiration, ancestral connections, a history involving the living world. I don’t experience life in a sacred/non-sacred way so what I do spiritually isn’t hived off from other things I do. I don’t feel any need to dedicate things in specific ways in order to work with them. Increasingly, what I’m drawn to is the Druidry in my everyday life, not the fancier stuff.

I don’t think anyone’s take on this is wrong. It’s important to do what feels resonant and meaningful. At the same time, I think a lot of Pagans are persuaded that they need to buy special things to be able to do the Paganism properly, and that just isn’t true. It might be more relevant to think about the history of an item – who made it and in what conditions, and with what impact on the planet – rather than whether it has a nice symbol on it.