Nimue Brown's Blog, page 14

Co-creating happiness

(Nimue)

Once upon a time, rather a long time ago there was a man who told me that he could not bear to make others unhappy. He went on to explain that this meant if he upset me, I should not tell him. I did not have many further dealings with him after that.

It would be very nice if we were all naturally perfectly happy with everything everyone else did, but clearly that’s not realistic. Even when everyone is trying their best, differences in needs, and preferences mean we won’t be perfect for each other. That diversity matters, and it means that we all have to deal with some discomfort now and then.

Happiness is not something we can co-create by demanding that everyone is, or pretends to be perfectly happy. Shutting down someone else’s scope to express their feelings is a really unhappy-making thing to do. Room for a bit of honest misery is less miserable than having to pretend to be happy, in my experience.

So much more is possible when we’re prepared to be imperfect together. Compromise is possible on those terms. Finding the middle ground, the options and possibilities to make the best of it for everyone starts from being ok about the imperfectness of being human. None of us is going to be perfectly happy with everything all of the time, but when we cooperate we can radically increase the scope for everyone to be happier more of the time, and that’s an excellent goal.

Justice can seem like an abstract idea, something cold and hard and perhaps intrinsically painful. It doesn’t have to be. My journey along the Druid path has had me thinking about justice in terms of how it relates to everyday life. Seeking to be just in our everyday doings is so important. Big philosophical principles are meaningless if you can’t put them into action. Who gets to be happy and on what terms is a question of justice. It calls for the fairer sharing of both resources and responsibilities, and for treating everyone’s time with equal value. To push someone into a life that denies them joy is a deeply unjust thing.

To co-create happiness, we have to be accountable to each other. We have to find ways to balance needs and preferences, and be alert to our own power to limit others. My desire to be comfortable should not translate into my feeling entitled to cause harm to someone else. When I get something wrong, I want to hear about it so that I can learn and do better. If we’re too self protective, if we refuse to be accountable, we cannot participate in creating collective happiness. That in turn reduces a person’s scope for being happy – so there’s an aspect of enlightened self interest to this, too.

Perfectionism breeds misery. The desire to be seen as, or treated as perfect actually makes it harder to be happy. It’s a path that does not allow a person to act fairly, creating new cycles of unfairness others might criticise and new opportunities for discomfort that must be shut down. This is not the road to anywhere good and the desire for short turn discomfort avoidance can betray a person into harming their own best interests.

The magic of comedy

(Nimue)

Comedy is a very good choice for anyone on the bard path. It can be used to get people to engage with topics they might otherwise find difficult. Comedy can challenge authority, and satire is a way of pushing back against oppression.

Energetically speaking, laugher can dispel a lot of things. It can break tension and radically shift an atmosphere. Skilfully deployed it can help us manage other emotions, or helpfully diffuse them. Fear and anger can be soothed by comedy. I’ve been told that if you are into chaos magic, laughter is a go-to tool for getting rid of unwanted entities. It can work on people too – nothing takes power from someone like making them into a laughing stock.

It’s vitally important not to punch down with this.

Laughter is a very human experience, when we laugh together that can break down barriers and make us feel more connected with each other. It can be a force of solidarity and empathy. we laugh socially – we’re more likely to laugh when other people are laughing, there’s a communal aspect to it.

When we laugh at ourselves, we can soften brittle egos and let go of the need for perfection. When we know we are safe to laugh at ourselves, we’re in a good place.

Being able to see the comedy in a situation can sometimes really help with resilience. Graveyard humour can help you get through. If the mountain really is a molehill then laughter can bring problems down to size. Not taking ourselves too seriously can make life a good deal more bearable, especially when that protects us from pomposity, grandiosity, and other such silliness.

Laughter is healing. We’ve known that for a long time. Laughing helps our bodies recover from setbacks and is good for our mental health.

Comedy therefore is a healing tool, a tool for justice and a toll for personal growth, which makes it well worth considering if you are on the bard path.

Winter darkness

(Nimue)

Most of us do not experience anything like as much darkness as our ancestors did. We have steady sources of domestic lighting, and there’s a lot of street lighting out there – so much of it that it lights the night for most people, whether they wanted that or not.

Winter darkness is long, and deep and cold. The less insulated you are, the more impact it has. I have had some experience of this, living off-grid on a boat for a while. Being a small household in a large, dark landscape can feel very lonely indeed. Experiencing that makes it obvious why humans tend to group together huddling round whatever source of light or heat we have. At this point, that is more likely to mean a city rather than a fire pit.

There’s nothing like a winter’s night to remind you of how small you are, how fragile and easily harmed. Being alone in the cold and dark is a great teacher about just how much we need each other, for practical and emotional reasons. As a species we aren’t very good on our own. Our survivability has, through history, depended a lot on our capacity for mutual support.

It’s in many ways natural of us to want to protect ourselves from these things. However, the better able to insulate ourselves we become, the less aware we are of how much we need each other. How much we depend on each other. The way in which our lives connect, and our mutual dependence have been made less visible to us under this industrialised form of capitalism. You won’t see the person who bakes your bread, or the person who grew the wheat. You won’t have seen your clothing worked from raw materials into useful textiles.

Winter darkness is an invitation to sit with our own vulnerability and to reflect on how much we depend on each other. We might not have that so immediately obvious in our lives as it was for our ancestors, but the need for each other is as real as it has always been.

Spooky Season

(Nimue)

I’ve come to this late, deliberately. We’ve recently been through a number of festivals – the Christian festival of All Hallows Eve, the popular, commercialised version that is Halloween, and a Pagan festival most often referred to by its Irish name – Samhain. I’m set on moving away from using Irish names in my own practice, because I’m not practicing Irish Paganism. As I’m not formally celebrating rituals with anyone else at the moment, my lack of names isn’t too awkward.

This year I’ve not seen so many Pagans posting pictures of awful seasonal tat, or enthusing about it appearing in the shops. That’s been a bit of a relief. Mass produced rubbish designed to go rapidly into landfill really is at odds with Paganism, it’s good to see less of that. Spooky cute is fine by me. Enjoy whatever of the season speaks to you – there are plenty of ways to source genuinely cool decorations and have fun with the pop culture side. If something harmless makes you happy, go for it. There’s no conflict inherent between joy and spirituality.

I honestly struggle with the idea that ‘the veil is thin’ at this time of year. The folklore around this season includes fairy activity and romantic divination – it’s not all about the dead people. The dying away of the year does naturally invite reflections on mortality and remembering those who have passed. Some traditions have the dead returning at this time – especially those we’ve welcomed and invited.

The reason I struggle with the idea of the veil being thin only now is that November is just as spooky a month. We go in for cheer a lot in December, but it is also a traditional time for ghost stories. Bleak January conditions can result in stark, ghostly landscapes. February tends to see a lot of suicides. Winter is particularly good at killing people, but death isn’t just for Christmas, it’s a constant presence throughout the year.

If you don’t normally give much thought to death, the dead or your ancestors, this is a good time of year to make a little space for that. However, some of us are haunted all year round, and will always see the skull under the flesh. There’s no wrong approach here, the key thing is to figure out what works for you.

All things bookish

(Nimue)

If you enjoy my blog posts, you might be interested in my books. These are a mix of traditionally published and self-published work. Some are available for free, some you would have to buy if you felt so moved.

I’ve been writing Pagan books since 2010 – some of my titles are explicitly Druidic, some are a bit broader in terms of Pagan interest. You can find my traditionally published books with the Moon Books imprint of Collective Ink – https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/moon-books/authors/nimue-brown

There are a couple of Pagan books in my ko-fi store – this is where to pick up free ebooks. I also have poetry collections and a couple of novels. Ghosts of the Lost Forest is very Pagan (cw for a suicide attempt and anorexia.) Hunting the Egret is more Pagan fantasy, with adult themes (talk to me if you want spoilers, there’s a more complex content warning on this one). Spells for the Second Sister leans towards the fantastical side, with fairytale elements that may well appeal to Pagan readers. https://ko-fi.com/O4O3AI4T/shop

My graphic novels are published by Sloth Comics in the UK, and by Outland Entertainment in the US. Those can be found most places that sell books, as can my other traditionally published work. I’m easy to find with a search engine! I do have a few trad-published novels out there as well – Intelligent Designing for Amateurs (comedy, steampunk) Letters Between Gentlemen (co-written with Professor Elemental) and When We Are Vanished (weird, post-apocalyptic.)

If you find me on Amazon, you get a mix of the traditionally published and self-published books. Plus some of the anthologies I’m in. https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/Nimue-Brown/author/B00AZM663S

How gratitude helps us

(Nimue)

There’s an old saying that familiarity breeds contempt. It is certainly true that human brains respond more to novelty, and that we can get complacent about what’s familiar to us. This can rob us of the value of what we already have in our lives. If we’re always looking for the new shiny thing that might get us interested, we can become jaded, complacent and indeed contemptuous of what’s around us.

Making time for gratitude is a great antidote to this. Gratitude reminds us to love what we already have. It can open the way to re-enchantment as we invite back in those feelings of appreciation. Gratitude shows us the beauty that is already around us, the worth of the people already in our lives, and the wealth we already possess. It’s a form of magic we can practice on ourselves in order to find joy again in what is already in our lives.

Overlooking the blessings we have is such an easy mistake to make. We’re encouraged to do it – throwaway capitalism depends on selling us dissatisfaction in the first place. If we were happy with what we have, we might only replace the things that are worn out or broken, and that doesn’t fuel economic ‘growth’. If we were happy in ourselves, how could anyone sell us ways to endlessly try and improve, fix and otherwise reinvent ourselves? Exploring gratitude means pushing back against all of this, but the rewards for doing so are huge.

Take the time to really appreciate something familiar today. Slow down for that, relish it, take all the pleasure you can in it. Whether that’s a hot drink, the view from your window, or a living being who shares you life. Take a little time to really treasure that experience and you’ll find it gives you far more than if you just rush on. We experience meaning and significance when we invest those feelings into our lives. You don’t have to wait for some dramatic event, or for the wonderproduct that changes everything. You can love what you already have.

Gratitude opens the way to joy. It gives us a peaceful appreciation of life, that isn’t so vulnerable to external pressures

The trouble with Druids

(Nimue)

‘Druid’ is a wonderful term – mysterious, powerful and alluring, the word itself is often what first attracts people to the path. It conjures up images of wise old sages, able to speak with kings and stride onto battlefields to stop the fighting. For many it conjures up Merlin, archetypal wizards, Celtic nationalism, a sense of connection with the past and more. But, it is also practically quite problematic.

You can’t reconstruct a priesthood without the social context is belonged to. A modern person cannot do anything like what an ancient Druid might have done, because everything around us is so different. If you want to do some of that work, you’d have a better shot at it as a Christian bishop. As soon as you pull something out of its context, it doesn’t work in the same way – this is an issue for anyone trying to work with ancient Pagan religions.

Not everyone wants to be a priest, or be full time. We are short of modern language for people who are attracted to Druidry but don’t want to be Druids. Clearly back in the day, Druids were the priesthood for a population that honoured Gods, showed up for rituals, believed in broadly the same things and acted on that at least some of the time. I think it was a major mistake in 20th Century Paganism to think that everyone wanted to be their own priest or priestess. Not everyone does, and even the people who do will have times when they don’t want to be that either. Everyone needs time off, and someone else to turn to for guidance now and then.

To effectively work with inspiration from ancient Druidry, we’ve got to adapt it to the times we live in and the lives we lead. Nothing else makes any sense. Your daily life is probably not as focused on keeping your livestock well and happy as was the case for most of our ancestors. You do not deal with anything like as much darkness as they did, and so on. Religions adapt and change all the time – to stay relevant. There’s always an interesting tension between people feeling like they need to get back to some more authentic, earlier version of the religion, and people who feel the need to modernise. You can see this in all of the world’s religions.

Ancient Druidry would not have been one static thing, either. It will have changed in response to circumstances.  We don’t have much evidence to work with around that. However, consider pre-historic monuments and the way long barrows we often built over the top of pre-existing structures. Religions and practices evolve to meet the needs of people at the time. Religions are human-centric, and exist primarily to meet human needs. We get into trouble when we lose track of that and start imagining that older practices have authority and relevance when they no longer make any actual sense to us.

Kindness or enabling a problem?

(Nimue)

I’m a big fan of having kindness be the default. Cooperation gets a lot done. There’s no point demanding perfection – people are flawed and make mistakes, don’t know everything and to get things done you have to roll with this. Waiting for perfection means doing nothing, while kindness in face of honest human inadequacy gets a lot done.

However, kindness without some discrimination can become part of the problem. If those of us who aren’t affected by workplace bullying are kind and forgiving to the bully, then the bullying will continue, for example. What this issue tends to involve is people who have power declining to use it where that power could prevent abuse. If it’s easy for us to be kind to someone because we are not impacted by their problematic behaviour, then we probably have privilege issues.

At some point, kindness becomes complicity. It’s difficult if you are feeling anxious. Bullies create environments in which challenging them feels unsafe. It may genuinely be an unsafe choice if you have no power. It is also not easy to tell what’s going on when  other people’s kindness looks like complicity, because it might genuinely be enthusiastic participation in whatever isn’t good. Unsafe spaces are often set up to make it hard for you to change them.

There are no simple answers here that will reliably work for all situations. It is not easy deciding whether someone deserves the benefit of the doubt, or needs calling out. When calling someone out would put your job at risk, that’s a really unsafe place to be – few of us can afford to act in ways that could cost us our incomes, and whistleblowers are often mistreated. Plenty of cultures – in business, in religious and social groups – will close ranks rather than admit there’s a problem. It’s often easier to throw out the person making a fuss, than a more involved person who is behaving badly.

I usually have the luxury of getting to choose who I work with. I won’t knowingly go along with people who I have good reason to think are abusing their power. Being self-employed and working with lots of different people has always made that easier for me, and it’s an advantage I try to use wisely.  What I know for certain is that being kind to people to are deliberately horrible doesn’t make them become better people. I feel like it should, but I’ve tested this a few times, and it doesn’t fix things.

Druidry and reading

(Nimue)

Any topic we might choose to explore is a relevant one on the Druid path. There is no aspect of human experience that you can’t bring your Druidry to. There is no subject that you can’t learn from. Any non-fiction book you pick up can therefore be considered part of your study as a Druid. It’s the dedication to ongoing learning, to the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom that is intrinsically Druidic. Where you take that is up to you.

The scope for learning and study isn’t limited to non-fiction. We can learn a lot from fiction about other people’s perspectives, cultures and experiences. Reading widely helps us develop empathy with others, and to be more understanding of experiences different to our own. Even the trashiest of throwaway paperbacks have things to teach us about human desire, and what gives other people comfort, even if we are not personally moved by it.

There is nothing un-Druidic about seeking comfort. Our mammal bodies need rest, our brains need pleasure and enjoyment. We don’t function well if we’re obliged to be busy and disciplined all the time. We need to let go, and unwind, and any harmless thing that lets you do so is a good idea. That’s time spent taking care of your mammal self. Physical books can be great in this regard, because we can turn off the gadgets, snuggle up and be taken somewhere else for a while. It’s a low carbon activity, too. Most of us would benefit from quieter, gentler time with no demands or pressures, and reading can give us that.

What are we here for? What is life about? Books – fictional or not – can help us explore these questions. We can find inspiration, and challenge in the safety of a page and respond to that in our own time and on our own terms. We can seek joy, and amusement and the comfort of a happy or satisfying ending to a tale. We can see our own concerns played out, and see how common our experiences are and all of this is helpful.

Much as I love the internet, our gadget-based, high speed culture robs a lot of people of their scope to concentrate. It’s good to go deeply into things and really spend time with them. If you’ve got this far (about four hundred words in) then you obviously do have the capacity to invest in reading, and the inclination as well. There’s nothing inferior about online reading – there’s a great deal of valuable material to be found online if you can avoid being distracted by the noise and the flashing lights.  The choice to take time, to make space, to move slowly is an important one.

Working with writing has, at times, made it difficult for me to read for pleasure. Editing and reviewing, or reading for research for a job is very different. When you have to read critically, have to remember what you’ve read, don’t get to pick what you read, and when there is a job to do and responsibilities to fulfil reading ceases to be fun. Government documents are the least fun, I have found. Sometimes it has taken a deliberate shift to come back to reading for pleasure and to reassert that as part of my life. It’s always worth the push.

Circular inspiration

(Nimue)

When inspiration flows, it creates cycles. We might think about this as being akin to other natural cycles, like the way water moves through the world. Inspiration is supposed to flow and move, hoarding it doesn’t work. The person who jealously guards their creative energy will find they have less of it, not more.

It’s all too easy to feel persuaded not to share. Fear of the knockback, the put down, the ridicule. Fear of not being good enough, or ready. These are things to overcome. There are people who will try and knock you down just for daring to put your inspiration into the world. That’s their tragedy, but it doesn’t have to be yours. No one is ever perfect, or totally ready, and if you wait for that time then you never get to do anything. Your understanding will always be somewhere ahead of your ability, and that gap doesn’t close, no matter how good you get.

Like a fledgling bird, sometimes you just have to jump and hope that you have wings and can figure out how to use them. It’s good to remember that most fledglings get this right.

When we bring our inspiration into the world, that can inspire others. It might empower them to share something of their own. It might brighten their day, or spark an idea in then. The more we do that, the more we inspire each other, the more powerful this becomes.

Here’s a little story… back in the summer I was reading Steven C Davis’ Hurnungaz books. I was so taken with Caerne – his mad stag goddess – that I wanted to try and draw her. I wanted to get across something of her enigmatic nature, her ambiguity and strangeness. I waved this piece of fan art at Steven, because I know most authors get excited about fan art and it’s a way of giving something back.

What happened was that this image sparked something in Steven’s imagination, and as a result he wrote a small piece inspired by it, and asked if he could use my image for the cover. This piece has such rich and intensely poetic language in it that I have no doubt it will send some other reader off in another direction.

It’s a mix of pencils and oil pastels