Nimue Brown's Blog, page 20

Rain Meditations

(Nimue)

If you listen to the rain without paying it much attention, it can sound rhythmic. However, the deeper you go in your listening, the more complex it becomes. Each falling droplet creates its own sound on impact, depending on where it lands. Each falls in its own time. The intensity of rain, the force and speed of it can vary a lot – even through a single downpour, so there’s a lot to listen to.

For me, meditating by listening to the falling rain is usually a complex journey into sound, and the way water impacts on my surroundings. It’s not an uncomplicated kind of relaxation, because of the arrhythmic nature of rainfall. It is an opportunity to engage deeply with the natural world, while not necessarily being exposed to it – you can do this readily enough from the comfort of your own home.

My most interesting rain meditation experiences have been under canvas. Encountering rain this way puts you in a kind of sound bubble, inside the rain but not rained directly upon. That’s a really interesting experience, being in an island within the rain, and letting that bring up whatever it inspires.

I think it’s best to be directionless with this. Simply be with the rain while in a meditative state. For me that works primarily as a sound experience, but people are more focused on seeing might find a great deal to explore by contemplating the visual experience of falling rain. Snow can also be good this way if you get any – I tend to find it hypnotic.

Community and leadership

(Nimue, reblogging)

This is an excellent post about community and leadership. It explores the challenges people can bring to groups, and how to approach that compassionately. While the perspective is Buddhist, everything here works (to my mind) from a Druid perspective too.

Red Flags: A Buddhist Perspective

Druidry and nudity

(Nimue)

Some Pagan and magical traditions use nudity. We don’t have that organised kind of approach within Druidry and I’ve never so much as encountered tales of Druid groups who expected nakedness. What I have run into a great deal of is people on the Druid path who appreciate spaces where clothing is optional.

When it comes to immersing yourself in the natural world, fewer clothes can be a great advantage. Of course this doesn’t have to mean full blown nudity – but it could if you wanted to. Simply getting your feet bare can do a lot to increase your sense of connection to the ground. Any bare skin gives you some interaction with the weather and the sun.  

Being mindful of what too much sun does to us is essential. I use fabric a lot to manage my body temperature, and this is an important consideration for any kind of outdoors communing with nature. Heatstroke can make people very ill, hypothermia can kill and there’s nothing spiritual about making bad choices and harming yourself.

One aspect of nudity that people on the Druid path might consider, is the issue of justice. It would be great if we could desexualise bare skin. The idea that bare skin justifies sexual assault, or that clothing equals consent is abhorrent. Anything we can do to desexualise nudity is a way of working towards greater justice and a kinder society. We all have bodies, and the existence of those bodies is not permission for anyone to do anything to us. Consent should be explicitly given, not inferred, and how we think about nudity contributes to this understanding.

If we were able to desexualise nudity, we might also take down the assumption of threat that can go with nakedness. The idea that a naked person is a harmful person is something we could do with tackling. If we were more used to seeing non-threatening, non-sexual nudity we’d probably all have fewer hangups about our own bodies and a more forgiving approach to human forms as a whole. We might learn to be kinder to ourselves, and to each other, and less horrified by the animal nature of our own bodies.

Treating the human body as intrinsically obscene, is a very odd choice. That takes us into the realms of sin and temptation. We need to dismantle the idea that someone else’s naked body could ‘make’ another person do anything at all. There’s nothing wrong with feeling tempted by someone’s bodily presence, but such feelings need responding to with respect and care. It’s not really that difficult, we just have a lot of cultural stories that justify appalling behaviour. Ideas of sin and temptation look a lot like victim blaming to me.

We attach a lot of meaning to bodies, body shapes, clothing and lack of clothing. It’s all pretty arbitrary. Our bodies are to a large degree just the accident of our genetic inheritance. We’re impacted by our environments, affluence – or lack of it, life experience, opportunities, illnesses and so forth. A person’s appearance is not a moral issue, and probably has more to do with luck than virtue – or a lack thereof.

If nudity feels challenging, it’s worth taking some time to sit with it and give it a ponder. It can teach us a lot – and that information is well worth having. It’s good to be comfortable in your own skin, and the barriers to that can reveal a great deal.

Low carbon leisure

(Nimue)

The resources we use for our own amusement is an area in which we have a lot of scope to think about acting in ways that are more considerate to the environment. However, this absolutely does not have to be about being miserable and feeling limited. Low carbon leisure options have a lot to offer.

Time spent resting is really good for us. Most of us could use more sleep. Sleep is an eco-friendly thing to be doing.

There’s a huge amount of joy and pleasure to be had from being sociable and sharing things in a social context. Storytelling, music, community singing, dancing, and just hanging out are all good examples. If we aren’t travelling far, these can be joyful, low carbon choices.

Being creative also gives you a huge amount. Crafting and upcycling are rewarding activities, and can sometimes help you consume less in other ways, or keep things out of landfill. Repairing, and repurposing can be a lot of fun, and can reduce your carbon footprint. Clothing has a huge environmental impact, so keeping clothes in use is a really good choice and you can have a lot of fun with it along the way.

Gardening – if you do it in a planet friendly way is a good option. Cooking from scratch is a hobby that can reduce your household waste, and lower the environmental impact of your food. Being creative with leftovers is a great choice.

Many of us suffer from over-stimulation. Turning off most, if not all of the gadgets, reducing the light level and doing something gentle can really help us. Using less energy can help us relax more, rest more, and improve our health. These are largely cheaper choices, too, so that’s helpful to the household budget.

Getting outside to walk, cycle, or run, or just to sit gives us a great deal. There are physical and mental health benefits to getting some fresh air and whatever movement we’re equal to. If you can, then doing some of your local journeys this way is really good for you, and better for the planet. Getting outside and moving about is rewarding as a leisure activity, and if you start from your own door, it’s really low impact.

When we make low impact choices we’re also being kinder to each other. Low energy use activities are inherently quieter and less impactful on others than anything that uses a lot of energy. Higher energy use tends to go with noise and light pollution, air pollution, and disruption.

If this kind of thinking interests you, then do check out my Beyond Sustainability book – https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/moon-books/our-books/earth-spirit-beyond-sustainability

Manifesting – a re-think

(Nimue)

At the moment if we talk about manifesting, it tends to mean trying to bring things we want or need into our own lives. I’ve never felt easy with this – how can I ask for things for me, when we need solutions to climate chaos, genocide, poverty, extinction and all the rest? I recognise that I’ve struggled to think magically because I cannot solve any of these massive issues and because my own far smaller issues never feel worthy of attention when there’s so much wrong out there.

Recently it struck me that there is a whole other way of approaching this. A way of thinking about manifesting that doesn’t just revolve around personal privilege, and that doesn’t feel problematically self-indulgent.

What I need to manifest in the world, is me. I need to manifest myself as effectively as possible, to do the most, the best, that I can do. I need to bring myself into the world effectively. There’s still a great deal I won’t have the power to change, but if I manifest myself effectively, I’ll have the most power I could have to do the most good that I can do.

This is available to all of us. It means working with what we have. To be effective, we need to be as well as we can be, and have the resources we need. Seeking to magically manifest yourself isn’t self-sacrificing or self-defeating because to be able to show up, you need the means to do that. If you’re asking for help to show up effectively, you are by definition asking to be in a position to be able to act.

We need to manifest ourselves as acts of magic in the world. Seeking inspiration and pouring that out. Seeking enough abundance that we can share something of it with others. Bringing kindness into the world, hope, possibility and whatever else our manifesting leads to. Working out who to be, and how to manifest ourselves effectively. Being open to what’s being asked for. All around us, every day, beings – human and not human – are filled with need. What if we are the ones who are meant to answer those cries for help? What if it is our purpose to become the magic we want to see in the world?

I’m going to be investing more time in trying to figure out how to do this. I can’t fix everything – and its pure ego thinking that’s on me in the first place. It’s on all of us and we are in this together, whatever we choose to do as individuals.

Being an Outsider

(Nimue)

In my first post about Heart Festival I talked a little about how I used my position as an outsider to support what I was doing as a bard. Having been explicit about feeling like an outsider led to some conversations, and having a friend point out to me that I tend to identify that way. This was a useful prompt.

Being an outsider is a feeling that goes back to early childhood. My wonky body made me prone to falling, so I did not feel safe on playgrounds. I was always at the edges, never felt able to join in. I realised when my son was little that the rampaging around a lot of kids do when small is the beginnings of social interaction for many of them, and that I’d missed out on some things. I was slow, socially, and I struggled figuring out how to deal with people.

It’s easier in spaces with obvious rules – as with folk clubs, sessions and musical groups. Pagan ritual spaces are more predictable, moots less so. For a long time I dealt with my social struggles by running things – when you’re in charge of something you know what your role is and that’s often a lot easier than showing up and trying to figure it out.

Over the Heart Festival weekend it struck me that a lot of people feel like outsiders for all kinds of reasons. Many people struggle socially, and often quietly in ways that don’t draw attention. If I can own it, there will be times when I can create more space for others simply by acknowledging the issue. It’s not easy inviting people into the heart of a thing without creating barriers, gatekeeping or cliques, but it is possible.

More often than not these days, I can choose where I stand. I don’t have to skulk nervously at the edges. I can dive in. I can let go of the old fears around not being welcome and not successfully managing to grasp the unspoken rules. Given that what I most want to do is bring kindness, affirmation and encouragement, there’s not really much reason to expect anyone to have a problem with that. Yes, when I get carried away I can be a bit of a manic puppy, but I’ve learned to pay more attention to where that’s welcome and who might feel unsettled by it.

I think one of the things I need to do is start trusting myself that I can handle social situations. I maybe do better around people than I think I do. Maybe I need to take up more space. If I’m doing that I can make more space for other people.  I had one rather shy woman admit to me that she’d thought about bringing her knitting but hadn’t felt confident that it was ok, but seeing me crocheting realised that she could do something similar. If my having wool in my hands empowers someone else to bring something they love out in public then this is A THING and I want to do more of it.

I think I will always want to spend some time at the margins, because margins are intrinsically interesting places. I can also dive in, and decide that I am properly a part of what I’m doing, choosing not to see myself as an outsider. While I’m doing it, I can keep an eye out for those other fragile children who lurked at the edges of playgrounds, because it won’t just be me.

Sharing some good news

(Nimue)

Those of you who regularly read the blog will be aware that over this last year, my partner has been dealing with cancer. At this point last year he was experiencing considerable pain, and getting that investigated. There was an initial operation in September last year, which established that he did have cancer, a second operation that didn’t entirely remove it, and then radiotherapy from the start of  January for six weeks. He handled the whole thing brilliantly, but it made for some very tough months.

Uncertainty is itself emotionally gruelling. In June there was a scan to see how things were going and at that point they couldn’t confidently say. Healing takes an unpredictable amount of time, and the scanning method cannot differentiate between still healing and still having cancer. This is not an unusual thing for people to face after treatment, and we knew it was a possible outcome so weren’t as thrown as we might have been.  Even so, waiting has not been easy. We’ve both done our best to stay positive and hopeful – the odds were in his favour – but still, it’s scary territory.

This week we had the happy news that the most recent scan showed Keith as cancer-free. Monitoring carries on from here for some years to come, but realistically the odds of it reoccurring are very low. It’s a huge relief, obviously.

So many people go through far worse, we’ve been very lucky really. It’s really demonstrated to me how important it is to do what you can, make the best of what you have, and not let fear stop you from enjoying whatever you can enjoy right now.

Talking about Druidry with Julie Brett

(Nimue)

Julie Brett is the author of a brilliant book on Australian Druidry – which I reviewed some years ago – https://druidlife.wordpress.com/2017/09/04/new-books-for-druids/

Her work really made me think about the importance of localism in Druidry, honouring the landscape you are in, and the way the seasons manifest around you. She’s a lovely soul, often sharing her beautiful artwork online, and regularly having chats with people for her podcast. So when she asked me if I was up for that, I dived in enthusiastically.

Her Forest Spirituality podcast is available from lots of podcast sites, so if you ahve a preferred place to listen it will be worth looking for her there. Here’s a link for my interview.

https://forestspirituality.podbean.com/e/nimue-brown-and-localised-druidry

Druidry, service and working for free

(Nimue)

Many Druids consider service to be part of the path. I’ve done plenty of that along the way, giving time to charities, local organisations, and Pagan outfits. I’ll give what I can, and as I’ve never been massively affluent, giving my time and work is often more effective than giving my money.

Over the years, it’s got worse. Venues struggling to stay open are unable to pay for performers. Magazines unable to afford print runs. Events that can’t afford to put speakers up for the night or cover petrol. People on tight budgets unable to afford tickets, books, or cds, or anything else that might make things more viable. I do what I can.

It’s increasingly difficult to make things work – this is true for event organisers, small publishers, writers, musicians, artists, small businesses of all kinds. I’m a fan of gift economy but I also know how terrifying it is to have a business model that is basically hoping someone will chip in. Not that this is any more irrational than hoping to sell tickets, or books or whatever you’ve got.

This situation is not an accident. Not everyone is struggling economically. The ‘cost of living crisis’ is a consequence of corporate greed, and those with power using it to leverage more money out of everyone else.

So, what’s the Druid take on this? Give what you can, but be alert to situations that would exploit you for someone else’s profit. Support small and independent business where you can – your money makes a huge difference. If there’s a free thing, and you can afford to throw some coins in the bucket, that makes a huge difference, too. Many important things only happen thanks to volunteering and donations, so if you can get in for any of that, it’s a valuable thing to do. At the same time, a reminder that the existence of charity represents a failure of government.

No matter what resources we have, we can help push back by valuing unpaid work, and recognising it. Too often at the moment there’s the double-whammy for creators of not being paid for work that has a discernible economic value, and then being treated as some sort of failure because of not earning much. If we lose our small venues, where will the gigs of the future happen? If we lose our magazines, our events, and all those other valuable resources we will all be poorer for it. Support for the people trying to keep things going is worth a lot.

If we had universal basic income, there are a lot of things we could afford to be more relaxed about paying for. As it stands, we’re going to end up with a situation where only people who have support from partners or family can afford to work in the creative industries. This worries me greatly – and I say this as someone who is currently supported and more insulated as a consequence. I can afford to give my work away, and to say yes to the gigs that can’t pay me. I do so because I know there’s a lot that wouldn’t be viable right now without this kind of service. I also don’t want it normalised. I don’t know how we get things on a better footing without some political changes, but I do know that we need to keep talking about this.

You can pick up my self-published books for free over here – https://ko-fi.com/O4O3AI4T/

If you like what I do, there’s certainly more that I could do if I had more of a reliable income. Patreon support is something I really appreciate. https://www.patreon.com/NimueB

Resident of the heart

(Nimue)

On Friday of last week, I arrived at The Heart Festival, and learned that ideally what they wanted from me was a poem for their closing ritual on the following Monday morning. “What does love mean to you?” was a question I was encouraged to explore, as were the people working on a visual art project on site.

I’ve not previously been part of this community – I went for a day to their first event last year. I don’t do yoga. There are no Indian-derived or Hinduism-informed aspects to my spiritual path, and at the outset I knew almost no-one there. So, I put my faith in the process (whatever that was going to be) and started listening and making notes. I immersed myself as fully as I could in the festival – feeling very much like an outsider, but also understanding that to do what had been asked of me, I needed to be inside the event as much as I could be.

I came up with a poem for the open mic session on the Sunday. This was the space where I felt most at home – it was an eisteddfod to all intents and purposes, and sharing the diversity of what people found important and sacred was wonderful. It turned out I wasn’t the only person to feel a bit outside the core of the thing, and my acknowledging that opened more room for more people than I had anticipated.

By Sunday I had come to the conclusion that what was needed wasn’t exactly what I’d been asked to do. What I felt was that as a community, they needed me to use the perspective of an outsider to reflect something back to them. I drew on the notes I’d been making, to try and capture what I thought was the heart of the Heart Festival, the humanity of it, the mix of aspiration and earthiness. Being seen can be a powerful, affirming thing. Being recognised, understood and honoured on those terms can give people a lot. I decided that was the approach to take, and given how it went, I have no doubt it was the right one.

The writing process felt like a leap of faith, but there was a lot of opening and trusting in all of that, which has been really good. I need to trust more, in all kinds of ways. I wrote from my own heart, and trusted my intuition, and what happened on Monday morning was more powerful and effective than I had dared to hope. I’ll be typing that up and it will end up on that community’s website – I will share the link when I have it. I’ve also been asked to record an audio version which might go with a series of photos from the weekend and again, I’ll share that once it’s out in the world.

This has been a tremendous learning experience for me. In terms of trusting my own bardic work, it’s been huge. I have learned so much – a huge array of things personal, philosophical, healing-related and more. It’s been a deep, powerful, genuinely transformative kind of experience that left me doing some serious thinking about the whole direction my life is going in. This will take a while to unpack. I have things to consolidate, things to work with, ideas I need to sit with, experiences I need to digest.  Things arising from that will find their way to the blog in the coming days (weeks, months perhaps).

I’m feeling really inspired at the moment, uplifted and empowered. I have been challenged in some profound ways, for which I am deeply grateful. My thanks to the lovely people who put Heart Festival together, and took a chance on me, and on the idea of a resident poet. The edge of the comfort zone is the most powerful place for growth and learning, and a lot of us went there together over recent days. It’s been really good, and I know there is a great deal more to come as I work through these lessons and insights.