Nimue Brown's Blog, page 210

Romance, passion and consent

It’s a popular scene in romantic tales… One person is passionately in love with the other and acts on this. In a sudden, overpowering move (likely to involve kissing) the one who is in love emotionally overpowers the object of their desire and afterwards nothing is the same. The object of desire is persuaded to fall in love, too. They may change sides in the conflict central to the story. They may betray their family and friends, or give up everything they have known. I am seldom persuaded by this bit, but that’s a story to take apart on another day.

We’re all creatures of reason and emotion. However, our considered choices about who we are and how we want to be can be – especially in the short term – totally derailed by our emotional and physical responses. Is that love? Or is it just a short term chemical response to stimulus? I’m pretty sure it isn’t consent. We’re shown persuasion of this kind in films and novels, where it’s usually presented as a good thing. It goes with the story that women say ‘no’ when they mean ‘persuade me’, that women find it hard to say yes to sex and passion and need to have their boundaries overcome, and that overcoming those boundaries by force of desire is romantic, and not rapey. If a man seduces a woman it is most usually depicted as a good and romantic thing. When it’s the other way round, the woman is more often depicted as evil. I do not like these stories.

In a seduction scene, we aren’t often shown the focus of desire being given chance to properly express their consent. For me, consent is both romantic and sexy, and verbalising desire is exciting. I find willingness to wait rather than overpower is much more romantic than seduction and that emotionally overpowering someone who has expressed an interest in that happening is much more engaging than using sexual power to strip away someone’s defences.

Power of course is a big part of it. There is power in being able to make it difficult for someone to say no to you. There is power in being able to persuade, to get someone else to submit to your desire or be so overwhelmed by what’s happening that they can’t figure out how to say no to you. To have the looks or the skill set to compromise someone else’s decision making ability seems a lot less attractive when framed in those terms. What we often see presented as romance has a lot more to do with power and persuasion than I feel comfortable with.

Owlet season

Last night there were two, possibly three tawny owl chicks near my home. I saw one of them, and they were calling in a way that meant two were definitely present, but three seemed a possibility. Young owls yell constantly so their parents know where they are. Those yells become very excited when parents arrive with food – I’ve seen this happen in previous years. Last night I didn’t see any adults, but there were several rounds of excited yelling, followed by more yelling. I wonder if I was hearing two unfed owlets continuing to call while the third one ate – it was impossible to tell.

Young owls move about before they can fly – the term for this is ‘branching’ where they hop and flutter about along branches and between trees while waiting for food to arrive. In previous years I’ve been fortunate enough to see this happening. Owls can be active before sunset – especially at this time of year when the nights are so short.

Once the young owls can fly more effectively, they will go off with their parents in the evening as they learn how to hunt. Owlet season seems to be somewhere in May and/or June – there was one on one of my regular routes some weeks ago who has since stopped shouting at night. It’s the best time to see a tawny owl – the young ones are so self-announcing that you have a decent chance of spotting them, and if you can see a young owl, you’ve a chance of seeing a parent come in to feed it.

Here’s a page full of owl calls if you need help figuring out what you’re hearing – http://www.wildowl.co.uk/owlcalls.html 

Time off – some observations

I took last week off – sort of. I still wrote a few blog posts and checked my email most days, but compared to a normal working week it was minimal stuff. I used the time to look after my home a bit, to read, craft, walk, and rest.

By Friday of my week off, I was starting to feel a bit better. That told me a lot about how exhausted I’d been. I need to make some ongoing changes around rest and time off, clearly. Once I reached this point it was also noticeable that the anxious aspects of my thinking had toned down significantly. I would like to spend more of my time not so close to the edge, so this is something to explore.

I’ve spent some time thinking about what uplifts and restores me, and how to do more of that.

I’m going to keep notes on how long I’m working each day, so I can cap the length of my working week. There are some hazy areas around working and not working for me. Is rehearsing a mumming side work? Is doing technical support for a friend part of my work time? Maybe, maybe not. I’m not going to get bogged down in the details because the self employed life is sprinkled with speculative stuff that never turns into paying gigs, and fun things that turn out to be research. I can’t read a book without learning something, but that doesn’t necessarily make it work…

I want to be able to work a solid eight hours a day when my brain is sharp and fast. I want to have the rest of the day off to do domestic things and potter about. I know if I slide into longer days I become slower and get less done for the time put in. Creativity is dependent on having time when I’m not busily thinking about workish things –I’ve not been getting this balance right. I’m hoping this time off will have given me a reboot and that I’ll be able to change some of my working patterns.

And if it hasn’t been a successful reboot, I’m simply going to do it again!

White Hare Wisdom – a review

The White Hare Wisdom oracle cards are the latest creation from Jacqui Lovesey, of Matlock The Hare fame, with Phil Lovesey involved in the guidebook. I jumped in during the kickstarter, but you can now get the cards from etsy. So, how does it work having an oracle card set based in a fictional reality?

The short answer is that this is without a doubt the best oracle card set I have ever worked with – and I have had my hands on quite a few over the years.

The art is lovely, and you can check that out here to see if it suits you – https://www.matlockthehare.com/white-hare-wisdom

There are two things that have really struck me about using this set. The first is that there are concepts here that you don’t find in most decks because we don’t have words for them. Phil and Jacqui have taken the simple approach of inventing whatever words are needed – this is very much in keeping with the Matlock the Hare setting as a whole. The concepts in here are great, these are words to slip into your personal dictionary, to relish and be inspired by.

The second thing that really struck me is the lack of judgement. Usually oracle card sets have some judgy content – if there are reversed readings it will most likely show up here. This is, so far as I can remember, the first card set that hasn’t at some point focused on telling me what I’m doing wrong or where my personal shortcomings might be. Sometimes, when I’m having a bad day, that kind of oracle reading just knocks me down further, even if it is technically right.

What we have here, is good advice. There’s recognition that if you’ve picked up an oracle set you may have problems on your mind, but the advice is warm, friendly, nurturing stuff. Every card represents ideas about kinds of energies to work with, actions to take, forms of self care to think about and sources of inspiration. If you’re looking to bring fresh energy into your life to cheer your heart and ease your journey, this is a fantastic set to work with. Every card offers a substantial message and ideas you can really dig in with.

You can find the cards on Etsy – https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/683845358/white-hare-wisdom-44-card-oracle-deck-by

A guest blog from Zoe Murphy

Brightest Blessings Blog Followers!

 

Before I introduce myself properly, I’d like to give a shout out to Nimue for giving me the wonderful opportunity to be a guest blogger on this beautiful blog. It warms my babywitch heart when writers/artists/creators support and show love for each other. For this post, Nimue asked us to possibly look at ‘living traditions.’

So, babywitch you may have read…yes, I am a baby witch, a witchling, an apprentice witch or whatever you’d like to coin me as and I am about eighteen months into my amazing, eye opening, affirming, incredible journey into witchcraft and spirituality. To be honest I didn’t find witchcraft, it found me and it found me through my irreplaceable mentor, craft mother, mama witch and very, very good friend Joolz Raven Stewart. This woman is amazing and has brought about a pivotal and important change and lifelong chapter into my life.

I am now known as This Welsh Witch on my social media channels and like I said above, I’m very much in the infancy of my learning so I am a maiden so to speak! I have actually found a warm and embracing witch and spiritual community on Instagram with some badass witches who regularly share resources and ideas and support each other’s ventures all the way. I have actually learnt a lot from the World Wide Web and while it gets a bad rap, for me and my learning it has been invaluable for contacts and study. It is now part of my daily life and learning. I am actually a Hekatean neophyte and very proud to be so. I am currently studying Hekatean Applied Modern Witchcraft by using an amazing book called ‘Keeping Her Keys’ by Cindy Branden. It’s a fantastic book and resource and will take me a year and a day (a traditional witchcraft period of study) to complete all the lessons. Hecate is the most fierce, complicated and renegade goddess I’ve read about~ Queen of the Witches~ but that’s another blog post/discussion altogether…;-)

I could discuss Hecate and witchcraft for days but my particular focus with this post is Welsh mythology, legends and the gwrachod- Welsh for witches. I am fiercely and immensely patriotic and proud of our rich and deep heritage and our language (I am a frustrated non-Welsh speaker haha) and as much as I am dedicated to my goddess Hecate, I will also be honouring the country of my birth.

I have been reading a brilliant book called ‘Welsh Witchcraft, Charms and Spells’ by Marie Trevelyan and I have been researching Welsh mythology for around seven years for my debut novel, which incidentally is due out this year. The crafting and writing of my novel has taught me so much about witchcraft that I’m hoping it will provide people with a insight into the tradition of Welsh witchcraft to carry forward. The novel and subsequent series will be a large part of my little legacy I hope!

I have also started my own hashtag, the #welshwitchseries which focuses on the legends and mythological aspects of Wales. What I have come across is that there is a wealth of knowledge among people regarding Greek myths. However, there isn’t a whole lot about Welsh ones and our heritage contains such a lavish tapestry of tales, oral traditions and a wide pantheon that it seems a shame not to bring it to the fore. I have always connected so much to Cymru on a spiritual level and it’s even deeper now because I know we have a very strong mythological identity. Obviously, we have the undeniable Mabinogion but there are also so many more creatures, figures and stories within the realm of Welsh mythology.

One aspect of my witchcraft life is my homemade charm/spell bags that I have recently listed in my Etsy shop and the bags names, intentions and contents all correspond to the Welsh language, historical figures or the tales of Wales. Within the range there are bags for Harmoni, Joio, Cwtch, Seren and Pilli Pala which pertain to manifesting harmony, joy, love, peaceful sleep and transformation. I have also bags for Cerridwen, Arianrhod and Gwenllian. I think a lot of people will be familiar with those last three and these have been a focus of my #welshwitchseries posts. As part of my #welshwitchseries posts I have also been honouring several old customs and traditions such as Nos Calan Gaeaf, Nos Calan Mai and the Mari Lwyd.

Cerridwen was on the table as a possible contender for my dedication but I was drawn to Hecate instead. You could probably call Cerridwen the Welsh equivalent of Hecate and she is still a strong warrior goddess witch that you could call upon. Cerridwen represents magic, wisdom and creative inspiration and a lot of people will know about her creation of the bard Taliesin! Arianrhod is the goddess of fertility, rebirth and the weaving of time and fate. She is also strongly linked with the moon; lunar practice being embedded in witchcraft and rituals. Gwenllian ferch Gruffydd was a warrior princess of Wales and was beheaded defending the country.

To conclude this post, in terms of my own ‘living tradition’ I have tried to imbue the qualities that these fierce women embody, into my own life and my practice. The tales of these female figures and their narratives have been passed down through oral tradition and are a symbolic part of Welsh heritage and by learning about them and extending my knowledge I feel like I have become part of another community and the wider witchcraft community. Witchcraft is becoming slowly more accepted in certain parts of society and what could be more living tradition than a lifestyle and practice that reaches back years and years and that also teaches you to reclaim your personal power. Witchcraft is teaching me to look within the depths of myself and teaching me to embrace the universe and its energy and to harness it for the good of myself and others.

I am hoping that I become part of that living tradition by passing it on to my children who can become the next tradition bearers but for now I am very much living!

IG: @thiswelshwitch

FB: This Welsh Witch

Pausing to reflect

It’s my birthday today. I find birthdays are a good time to pause and take stock of things. Quite a lot has changed for me over the last year – I’ve become more involved with Transition Stroud, which has brought a whole host of new people into my life. I’ve had a lot of upheaval around work, which has given me a better sense of my limits and possibilities. I’ve coloured an entire Hopeless Maine graphic novel. I’ve written and performed a lot of poetry, and I’ve started dabbling in storytelling.

Birthdays inevitably have me reflecting on how this day has played out in other years. Some have been memorably good. Some were deeply unhappy. It’s a day that highlights what’s best in a person’s relationships but that will also flag up insufficiency in a way that’s hard to miss. This is a good year in terms of people.

On the whole, I like how my life is going at the moment. My ambitions are on the small side and I’ve become much more focused on the details of daily life than on big schemes. The things I most want are fairly feasible. The changes I want to make moving forward aren’t very dramatic, but might improve my day to day standard of living a bit. I’m getting better at deciding when to say no, so as to protect my time and energy. I do a lot of saying yes, and I remain willing to offer help, support, volunteer work, and the such – I’m just being a bit more picky about who gets what of that. I’m working out how to step back as well as how to step forward.

The state of the world worries me immensely. I reflect a lot on what can be surmised about people living at the ends of empires and civilizations. I think about my radical ancestry – the many people who fought, and sometimes died to try and advance the causes of equality and fairness, many of whom never saw that get results in their own lifetimes. I keep reminding myself of all this because it is important perspective. Life is not like a movie, and I may not get a coherent narrative arc. The important thing is to do what I can and to stay hopeful and active, and to help as many other people do that as possible. Giving up is one sure fire way of being defeated, and while there is life, there is some sort of hope, however frail that may seem some days.

Birthdays are a reminder of how finite our lives are. None of us will live forever. If we keep on with the unsustainable choices, many of us will shorten our own lives, and the lives of others. Life, and time are the most precious things we have and the question of how to spend that well is one to keep asking.

Referencing the Tradition by Alys West

When I read Nimue’s posts about Living Tradition and The Folk Process they resonated strongly with me. I write contemporary fantasy inspired by folklore. My first novel, Beltane is set in Glastonbury and I had a fabulous time weaving as much folklore as I could manage into the story.  I’m currently editing my third novel, Storm Witch, which is inspired by an Orcadian folk tale.  Folklore is the initial seed from which the books germinated. It’s woven into the setting of both novels but, once I started dealing with the nuts and bolts of constructing a novel, the pressures of structure, characters, pacing etc. took over.

Then, last year, I started working on a collection of short stories which are re-imaginings of folk songs and ballads. I wrote the first three stories as my dissertation for my MA in creative writing and suddenly I found myself dealing with the issues which Nimue talks about in her post on the Living Tradition.  It’s fair to say I did a lot of research. I read Francis J. Child’s The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, I spent afternoons researching in the Vaughn William’s Memorial Library at Cecil Sharp House and I got the university library to order me increasingly obscure academic texts on ballad and folk song theory.  And I started to feel I was doing something far more subversive than I’d anticipated in retelling the stories of these songs.

To use Nimue’s metaphor, these academic texts pinned folk song to a board but, in this case, in a library rather than a museum. I started to feel like I couldn’t change anything. Under the weight of all of this academic erudition, I was getting further and further away from my initial vision and my words started to dry up.  The dissertation had two elements, the larger element was creative content and there was a shorter critical element.  It got to the point that I couldn’t write anything creative. My words felt too flighty, too fragile for the pressure of all of this theory.  In the end, various friends gave me a fairly stern talking to and I found enough of a way back to get the dissertation finished but my confidence in myself as a writer had been severely shaken.

On finishing my MA in October, I was shattered and, after lying on the sofa reading trashy fiction for a few weeks, I put my song stories away to concentrate on other writing. I went back to going to gigs and listening to folk music and I tried really hard not to think deep thoughts and simply to enjoy them.  Then a few weeks ago, I had a conversation with a folk musician which made me reconsider what I’m trying to achieve in re-imagining folk songs.

For me, folk is essentially about people. It’s about the people who sang the songs in the past and the people who sing them now.  It’s not an accident that the stories I’ve written are all about women.  As a writer, I want to hear the narratives which aren’t explicit in the song and too often it’s the woman’s perspective which isn’t told.  The original idea for writing these stories was sparked by wanting to know why the wife ran away with the gypsy in ‘The Gypsy Laddie’.  I’ve written a story about that now and it feels like I’ve found jigsaw pieces which have been missing since I first heard The Waterboys version of ‘The Raggle-taggle Gypsies’ in 1990.

I learned about the concept of traditional referentiality in my research which suggests that every performance of a traditional song resonates with all of the previous performances of that work.  I know this is true in the way I listen to folk music. When I hear a new interpretation of a song, I listen to it in tandem with all of the previous versions I’m aware of which means each folk song echoes with the interpretations which have gone before. For me, that’s part of folk’s magic.

I’ve realised I’m happy to refer to the tradition but I don’t want to be bound by it. The stories I’m writing need to reach forwards more than they reach back. Folk has to evolve and grow in order to stay relevant.  Anyone who is part of the living tradition is keeping folk alive in ways which are, I think, far more vital to its survival than anything you’ll find in a museum or a library.

 

Bio:

Alys West writes contemporary fantasy and steampunk.  Her novels BELTANE and THE DIRIGIBLE KING’S DAUGHTER are published by Fabrian Books.  She’s currently editing her third novel, STORM WITCH which will be published in autumn 2019.  Alys has a MA in Creative Writing from York St John University. She teaches creative writing for Converge, an education project for people with lived experience of mental health.

You can find out more about Alys West on:

Her website: www.alyswest.com

Amazon: Alys West

Twitter: @alyswestyork

Facebook: Alys West Writer

Instagram:  @alyswestwriter

 

Food and identity

What we eat is part of our sense of self. For anyone who has made a significant food choice either to protect their health, for religious reasons or for environmental ones tends to feel very invested in that food identity. Food choices can play a big part in your cultural identity and may inform who you spend time with.

Food impacts on our bodies in all kinds of ways. What energy we have has a lot to do with what we eat. Our diets shape our bodies and other people’s assumptions about who we are as a consequence of our bodies. To be in poverty, malnourished and consequently overweight is an experience that will get you blamed for your size all too often. The assumption that being larger goes with being lazy can have huge impacts on a person’s life, most critically around how the medical profession responds to larger bodies.

What we put into ourselves impacts on our mood, and our perceptions. Sugar, caffeine, alcohol, processed food, raw food, empty calories, wholefoods, things that suit us and things that don’t all shape our experiences of living in a body. How that works also depends on where we are in life and what demands are being made of us.

We make our body chemistry from the food we take in. I’ve spent a lot of time over the last year or so looking at the foods that encourage progesterone and estrogen production. Information online suggests that western diets may cause or aggravate many of the menopause symptoms, so I’ve been poking around in this. I’ve radically increased my fruit intake, amongst other things. I feel better in my body in ways I had not expected.

I’ve struggled with my body ever since hitting puberty. I don’t feel properly female – the only time I did was when I was pregnant. I feel out of kilter with my body but not so out of kilter to think I’d be any better off as a chap. My flesh has never felt easy on my bones. I’ve experienced it as a disconnection and a wrongness I have inadequate language to describe. However, in the last six months or so with a diet that supports female hormone production, I’ve felt better in myself on this score.

I spent my teens through to my thirties with a diet that was either inadequate, unsuitable, or both. I knew this at the time. In recent years I’ve been able to afford to eat whatever I want to eat, and there’s been no pressure to do otherwise. The more I go after the food that works for me, the more easy I feel in my own skin. I’ve still got all my androgynous psychology, my thinking hasn’t changed at all, but my experience of my own body has shifted, may well still be shifting.

Identity can be such a changeable thing. Who I am if I eat a lot of fruit. Who I am with, or without coffee. Who I am if I’m not mostly living on cheap sources of carbohydrate. Who I am if I am allowed to choose what I put into my body. Everything about us exists in relation to what of the world we are exposed to and what options we have, and how our experiences shape us.

Creating a new genre – a guest blog from Laura Perry

Have you ever wondered where genres of literature come from? I’ve watched the birth of a new genre over the past year or two and I’m very excited to see where this one goes. The new genre? Witch Lit.

A lot of the time, a genre of literature comes into being when someone (or more likely several someones) realize there’s a bunch of writing out there that follows a common style, theme, or set of contents. That’s exactly what happened with Witch Lit.

The term started out in casual use, as a sort of witchy-magical version of Chick Lit – fiction with strong female characters and a heavy dose of magic and witchy-ness added in. Sometimes it was magical realism; other times it was fantasy or updated fairy tales. But the magical element and female characters held strong, regardless. I was gratified to realize that my novel The Bed fits nicely into this genre, since I felt a bit off-kilter trying to stuff it into categories like urban fantasy or occult fiction.

As the conversation continued, the term Witch Lit acted like a magnet. What is Witch Lit, exactly? Does it have to be fiction? What about non-fiction that helps us appreciate and encourage the magic in our lives? What about poetry and songs that celebrate that magic and witchy-ness?

Yes to all the above.

It turns out, Witch Lit answers a need/desire a lot of people have to bring some magic into their lives via the stuff they read. Especially when that stuff involves strong, relatable female characters and maybe a touch of humor.

Unfortunately, Witch Lit isn’t an official category you can search for on Amazon or anywhere else that sells books. Not yet, anyway. Those of us who write Witch Lit began to wonder how, exactly, people were supposed to find works in this genre once they heard about it.

So we started a Facebook group for readers and writers of Witch Lit and began tossing ideas around. After a bit of conversation, we settled on the production of an anthology. It would include fiction, non-fiction, and poetry from writers whose styles varied but whose works counted as Witch Lit. It would be in e-book format only to keep the price low, and all proceeds would benefit charity. That way, people could get a taste of the genre and authors could get some exposure to readers who want a little more magic in their TBR pile.

I’m amazed at how fast this genre has built up and how quickly the anthology has come together. With 23 contributors and a total of 26 short stories, essays, and poems, the anthology is quite a substantial read for quite a low price (99p on UK sites, where we started out, which converts to about $1.26 in US currency). All proceeds go to the excellent charity organization Books for Africa. The official release date is 21 June (Summer Solstice here in the northern hemisphere) but it’s available for pre-order now, pretty much anywhere you can buy e-books online. It’s titled Witch Lit: Words from the Cauldron and it is very much a community project.

I hope our daring march into the world of publishing helps get the word out about Witch Lit. It may not be a label on bookstore shelves yet, but it’s a genre full of great reads and plenty of magic. I think the world could use a little more of that these days.


LINKS
Facebook group for readers and writers of Witch Lit: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1055104057875422/

Witch Lit on Twitter: https://twitter.com/WitchLit1

The Anthology:
Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/Witch-Lit-Witches-Who-Write-ebook/dp/B07SCVXR88/
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07SCVXR88/
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/942180
It should also be available in the Apple iStore and on Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and other online sites that sell e-books. Just search “Witch Lit Words from the Cauldron.”

Taking time off

Taking time off as a self employed or freelance person is challenging. First of all, no one pays you if you aren’t working so you have to be able to afford the economic hit. Secondly, the odds are there’s no one to cover you so all the key work has to be done to fit around the time off. Thirdly there’s the fear most of us seem to experience that if you don’t do all the work you can when it comes in, that work won’t come back – it will dry up or you’ll be less prepared for the next patch when you’re under-employed.

This week off has been a couple of months in the planning and setup. For some years now, I’ve managed to take the week off between Christmas and New Year. That’s easier because most people don’t work then so there’s not a build up of work queries to deal with. One week off a year, plus working some weekends and not always being able to offset at the time means living closer to the edge of viability than I think is clever. I’m also aware that creativity depends on downtime, and I need more downtime. I could also use some hours and energy to invest in my living space. I’m not going away, I’m just going to do different things for a week, and maybe nap more.

This blog will be running – I have some guest posts to share (which has been a great help) and will cobble a few together as I go (as I have with this one) because I need to get on the computer to check there are no ticking time bombs waiting in my email.

Patreon is still running this week, I set that up last week. If you want to support what I do, get more of it, and help me stay a bit more feasible, this is a good place to jump in – there are various levels, and everything helps. https://www.patreon.com/NimueB 

If you want to make a one off donation, that would also be lovely! Ko-fi.com/O4O3AI4T

You can also support me by buying my books, which are available from pretty much everywhere that sells books. If you want the comics and aren’t in the UK, your best bet ishttps://bookdepository.com – stuck my name in your book site of preference to see what’s out there…