Nimue Brown's Blog, page 224

Cherish Diversity

One of the ways Molly Scott Cato identifies to resist fascism, is by cherishing diversity. Within the Pagan community, how we do and don’t do this is rather interesting. We like diversity in so far as it applies to us – as a minority community, our safety depends on an inclusive majority that embraces difference. Many of us are old enough to remember what it was like before EU laws gave us some legal protection.

On the whole we’re pretty good at diversity within Paganism as well. We’re good at accepting the idea of polytheists and animists, we’re doing better with our atheists too. We cope just fine with people following pantheons other than our own, or following paths other than our own. Put a God and Goddess honouring traditional Witch in a room with an animist Druid and a polytheist Heathen, and an ancestor honouring Shaman, and the odds are all will be well.

We are at our least good with diversity when the differences are at their smallest. It’s people who identify as being on the same path or honouring the same deity who are most likely to get into arguments about the right way of doing things and who is really real. It is at this point precisely that we find diversity threatening. This kind of diversity suggests that our personal gnosis about a deity might not be absolute truth, or the only truth. Our vision may not be for everyone. We are validated when other people back this stuff up, but if someone else has been chosen by the same God and told something different, we struggle to embrace that. It inclines us to try and invalidate each other, or prove that our way is better.

Key to cherishing diversity, is to understand why we, and other people find diversity threatening. The problems come when you need the validation of everyone else to feel ok with your thing. With straight people who need to make everyone straight it’s easy to wonder if fear of personal queer feelings may be the root issue here. With monotheists who want to make everyone follow their religion, it is clear that their religion has no room for the idea of other Gods. We are no different. We argue most with those closest to our beliefs because we also need validation and reassurance.

It’s not irrational. When you are the only person who believes something, or experiences something in a particular way, you may feel mad. Everyone else may decide you are mad. Solitary belief can be dangerous. Belief shared with others feels safer. We all want to feel safe and none of us want to feel mad. Owning that fear, it becomes easier to look at personal discomfort with diversity. We are afraid of being isolated and socially shunned. We can deal with that by trying to make everyone more like us, or we can deal with it by undertaking to accept each other regardless of difference. The first option is impossible and can only create tension, resentment and conflict. The second option is perfectly doable if we can square up to our own fears.

Shopping for a sense of self

Many adverts encourage us to feel that their product will help us ‘discover a new you’. Some do it explicitly, others by showing us the joyful, rewarding lives we could have if only we switched to their tampon brand, their skin cream, their shampoo. If you are feeling lost and dissatisfied, purchasing your identity can be persuasive. Buy this coffee to have a kitchen full of attractive friends. Buy this soft drink so your kid will have a social life.

This diet. This brand of clothing. This holiday destination. This credit card… Of course when we buy them, they do not magically transform us into beautiful, successful, satisfied human beings with shiny kitchens. Unsatisfied by ourselves, we remain open to the next suggestion about the trainers, deodorant, make of car that can save us from ourselves.

Alongside this, we are persuaded to buy things for the kind of person we want to be, or want other people to believe we are. We buy the yoga clothes and the pilates ball. The frozen smoothies, the exercise bike, the DIY stuff, the cookery books for fancy dinner parties we will never host. The massive table for the fantastic dinner parties we will never host… And the things we buy do not transform us into a domestic goddess, or a sleek athlete, or anything else.

We keep consuming. We keep buying things we do not need, and that do not make us happy. We keep buying the idea that we could become the people we wish to be through our purchasing. Alongside this, we buy into the idea that our brand choices are a good expression of identity. If we wear a designer label, it means something about who we are. If we pick tango over pepsi, it’s an identity statement. Adverts are loaded with messages about how your buying choices represent you, and give signals to other people about who you are. The most basic social needs we have for love and friendship will be answered by purchasing the products that draw the right people to us.

The more unhappy we are, the more vulnerable we are to these cynical manipulations. The more energy and resources we put into trying to buy a sense of self, the less we are investing in growing something on the inside that might answer all these needs. The more obsessed we are with purchased surfaces, the less able we are to look past them and see the human beings around us.

 

Being a spirit of place

Standard Druid ritual has us, somewhere near the beginning, saying things like ‘hail spirits of this place, spirits of land and sky and whatever else lives here. Hail and welcome.” We make our circles, and we welcome the spirits of place into the space. This is something I’ve felt uneasy about for a while.

Recently, I had an experience of being cast in a similar role. I came into a space I have a longstanding relationship with, and where I work. Someone I have never seen in that space before but who happened to have got there first, thanked me for being there and welcomed me in. The whole approach gave them the appearance of owning the space, and cast me as the outsider.  It was not a happy or comfortable experience. It was the exact opposite of feeling honoured or respected.

Respect for spirits of place begins with the recognition that they are intrinsic to the space while you have come into their space. It also depends on recognition that they are part of the space, and you are probably not. Or you are less so.

If you are doing ritual in your own home, think about how you would welcome a person who also shares your home to share ritual space with you. It may make sense to acknowledge that you are the one making ritual space, in your shared space and to asking them to join in.

If you were in someone else’s home holding a ritual space, you wouldn’t thank them for being there. You’d thank them for hosting the ritual space. You’d thank them for letting you run a ritual space in their home.

It is all too easy to rock up to a place you want to use for ritual and act like you own it. Even when you have legal possession of a place, it is important to remember that any spirits of place you may call on won’t see it that way. If you want to honour them as the spirits of place, your recognition of their relationship with the place will be a key part of that.

I can say with some confidence that being in a place where you feel you belong and having someone who is not of that place welcome you as though you were an outsider and the place was theirs, is not a good way to start. It does not create feelings of warmth and delight. It may create feelings of annoyance, resentment, and worse.

I’ve stood in too many circles that have said ‘we bid you hail, and welcome.’ I don’t think this is the right language for creating meaningful relationships.

Wild Earth Wild Soul – a review

 

Bill Pfeiffer’s book – Wild Earth Wild Soul – offers itself as a route to creating ecstatic culture. It does this by imagining that you, the reader, are planning to run a ten day Wild Earth Intensive along the lines that the author runs such events. You probably aren’t going to do this, something the author is perfectly aware of. It is however an engaging way of structuring a whole array of ideas about how we build community and transform our relationships with people and the planet.

The underlying principle is that if we spend time encountering other people and wild things in a safe and open hearted way, we will change. If we give ourselves time to be authentic, fully feeling beings engaged with what’s around us, we will find bubbling up within ourselves the same understanding that underpins indigenous wisdom around the world. While much inspiration is taken from indigenous elders and speakers, the principle is that we can’t just borrow from others. We have to make this for ourselves, wherever we are. It’s a really good principle.

Read this book for the philosophy it offers. Read it for the things you can adapt and fit into your own life. Read it in a group and try some of the things collectively. It would be an ideal book for a study group, grove, coven, moot or other Pagan gathering to take on as a shared basis for study.

If you were thinking about running a group of any sort, this book is well worth a read. It’s written with the assumption that you are starting with few or no tools and attempting to run a complex and ambitious event. It’s consequently full of valuable insights into how to step up as a leader – especially when you have no experience.

It’s nice when your area has established leaders and elders to turn to. However, this isn’t always the case. Many of us who have now been taking such roles for fifteen, twenty years or more did not have anyone to learn from in that way when we started out. In those circumstances you look around for what role models you can find and cobble together what you can, and learn by doing the work. This book is an ideal read for someone in that position. It also makes explicit that it is totally ok, and often necessary, for people with no previous experience to step up in this way.

I can definitely recommend this book. I think most Pagans would find something useful for them in Wild Earth Wild Soul. It’s always possible that, having read it, you will decide that a ten day Wild Earth Intensive is in fact what you should be doing – and that would be a fine outcome. That’s not what’s happened for me, but I want to use it as a jumping off point for talking to my local Transition group about how we build resilience, and what kind of community skills we might need to nurture between us.

More about the book here – https://billpfeiffer.org/core-programs/core-program-wild-earth-wild-soul-intro/book/ 

A poem about friendship

Outside my Orbit

 

He wanted the cool relationship of planets

Held at predictable distances from each other

Moving in and out of proximity on pre-ordained arcs.

The friendship of planets; gas giants Jupiter and Saturn,

Of cratered moonscapes and lifeless, dry seas.

The friendship of rock enduring ages

Comets passing but never touching each other.

Influencing with gravity alone.

 

I want the relationships of woodland

Where we live and grow and die together

With our roots and branches intertwining as we

Exchange dreams, ideas, moments of life

Like birds, bugs and squirrels moving freely

Through the verdant home of our community

I want the relationship of woodland

Where we lay down layers in leafmould

For those who come after, where we

Make beauty, shelter and fresh air

Out of ourselves. Messy, overlapping, co-existing

Soil sharing, rain bathing and sun kissed

Together in disorderly involvement, in vibrant

Leaf rich lushness, co-created, co-living.

 

He is lost in space with his Uranus jokes.

I have earthy companions with thickets full of bird song,

And I know where I stand

 

(I didn’t make up this scenario, someone I once considered a friend has written a piece describing friendship in terms of planets, and I admit to not being impressed by the idea or their Uranus joke. When things annoy me in this way I try to emulate an oyster and grow something more attractive around the initial grit.)

Defending Democracy

Last night I heard Green MEP Molly Scott Cato talking, as part of a panel, about how we defend democracy. A significant part of it was about identifying fascism and talking about the cultural context that allows fascism to flourish. The rest was about what we can do, individually and collectively, to resist fascist and authoritarian urges and to create a better sort of society.

There were beer mats available for people to take away and deploy. I’ve found those beer mats online so am sharing both sides of them. You can find them here – http://mollymep.org.uk/molly-at-work/campaigns/fight-fascism/

 

 

Contemplating privilege

Often, prompts to consider personal privilege come at awkward times. A person who feels got at and on the defensive is unlikely to want to do any serious soul searching. It is more productive to do it quietly and privately, when you aren’t in the middle of a difficult conversation.

We can’t ask people who have less privilege than us to educate us about how things work and what we need to do to improve. It’s simply not fair, or viable. Not least because one of the most reliable sources of privilege is being in the majority, whereas it is minority people who often experience prejudice and discrimination. Privilege means having some resources and opportunities at your disposal and one of the ways we can use that well is to harness it for some self-examination.

The point of doing this is not to feel guilt. The point is to understand. If those of us with privileges do not understand what we’ve got, we will keep adding to existing problems. We will uphold the idea that we are ‘normal’ and that people without the same privileges are ‘other’. We will feel entitled to what we have, rather than seeing the ways in which we are fortunate. When we really think about our own advantages and how we come to have them, we have to acknowledge the role of luck and circumstance. It opens the door to seeing that often, the more privilege you have, the less you did to earn it. It remains the case that your best shot at being a wealthy person, is to be born into an affluent family.

What advantages you? What improves your lot unfairly? Consider your class background, your race, your level of education (which probably has a lot to do with your class background and race). Consider your health, which underpins your ability to work and earn. Think about what you grew up with, which doors opened easily for you, and what it is that you take for granted. Be willing to feel uncomfortable. There is nothing wrong with feeling uncomfortable.

When you can lay out your privileges, you can move from feeling entitled, to feeling gratitude. This can be a very powerful shift. Rather than feeling you are owed, you will see the ways in which you are blessed. Most of us are blessed in some ways. If you are reading this from a screen, you have blessings in your life.

You may during this process also see where you are not privileged. It is possible to be both. Your race may give you privilege where your ill health gives you disadvantages, for example. Be realistic about how these things impact on you. Avoid seeing it as a competition.

Imagine what would happen if you lost your privileges. Do you imagine that this means being pulled down to an unhappy level? Or do you see it as elevating other people so they have the same rights and opportunities as you? If you believe in scarcity, you may see improving the lot of others as necessarily reducing your share of the good stuff. If you run into such thoughts, scrutinise them. If we are raising people up, no one is disadvantaged.

It’s important to look at any ideas we have that may underpin a desire to stay privileged. Do we think we are better and deserve more? Or do we fear we are not, and that we will be outclassed if barriers are removed for others? Do we just not want to have to change to accommodate other people’s needs? Are we invested in the idea of our own normality? Do we think people are responsible for their own problems; do we blame their choices, past lives, karma, ancestry, intelligence…? Do we think they are just making a fuss and not trying hard enough? If you feel resistance to levelling the playing field, ask what you are afraid will happen. Interrogate your beliefs.

Check your privilege. Do it quietly while no one is watching. Sit with it. Ask it questions. Imagine how life would look without it. Ask yourself how you benefit from inequality. Ask yourself what you can change. Recognise what you have, and practice gratitude, not entitlement.

The joy of dead trees

One of the problems with humans is that we like to ‘manage’ trees, parks and woodland by taking the dead trees out. This is fair enough if they’re dead, upright and at risk of falling onto a path at no notice. Otherwise, it makes very little sense. Wherever possible we should leave dead trees where they are.

A dead tree is an amazing habitat. All kinds of insets will make homes beneath the bark. Birds will feed on those insects, and also use holes in the tree for nest sites. Small mammals, bats, slow worms and lizards can also find homes amidst the decaying wood. Mosses, fungus and lichens can all make their homes here, too.

It is all too easy to see death as untidy, or unpleasant. However, a dead tree remains a great source of beauty as it goes through the decay process. Out of its death, comes life.

In pine woods, it is usually the dead trees that let the light in. You may have miles of dense trees (usually a plantation) with nothing but old needles underneath, and then come to a place where there is light, intense green plant life, ferns, mosses, saplings – invariably because a tree has died here and let in a possibility.

The death of a tree is very much part of the life cycle of a tree. It is a good thing to witness. It gives us stories about longevity and life after death that are a lot more sustainable.

 

Find out more about ancient woodland here – http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/about-us/ancient-woodland-restoration/ancient-woodland/what-is-ancient-woodland/

The healing power of kindness

When faced with someone in difficulty, it’s very easy for any of us to minimise what we’re seeing or being told. We may well fear that if we are helpful, or cut them slack, we will be taken advantage of. And of course in some instances, this will prove to be the case. However, when we can be kind to each other, we can have powerful effects on each other.

Workplaces often make people ill – they are a massive source of stress and anxiety. People who are overworked and falling behind can seem like a hazard to those who are keeping up. One person’s shortfalls are another person’s escalating problem. It can be hard to push back against that, and it may well carry risks. If we can be kind to each other, we can resist the work culture that will run us all until we collapse. Kindness is a route to not seeing each other as disposable and replaceable.

With kindness, you can find the options that allow people to participate. Reliably stopping the meeting when you said you would stop the meeting can radically improve inclusion. Listening to what people can manage and factoring that in is really powerful. Support and enable people to do the best they can, and more often than not, they’ll do that. When we treat each other kindly, we’re not usually going to open the floodgates for people being exploitative and taking the piss.

When we look after each other, we open the way to being recipients of care as well as givers. We create a culture of care, of watching each other’s backs and helping each other out. We stop counting the cost to us of everything we do when we don’t feel reduced by that. In a culture where support flows to where it’s needed, when you are resourced, you can better afford to be generous. If enough people are prepared to embody the idea that what goes around comes around, they will turn it into a shared truth.

Healing takes time, rest, peace, less stress. It doesn’t really matter what you’re healing from, if the people around you are kind and supportive, you’ve got a better shot at it and will do it sooner. If we are kind to each other, not only can we help with individual healing, but we create a scope for cultural healing, for community wellness and for relationships based on trust and doing our best. Kindness is the key to dismantling exploitative systems that treat people as disposable. Kindness is the key to building something better.

It need not be dramatic. Small injections of kindness into your normal day will have a significant influence on the people around you. It’s also a self-empowering thing to do. When you give with confidence, you also get to feel better.

Connecting with nature

Pagans talk a great deal about ‘connecting with nature’ and I think it’s something we could afford to consider. Granted, it can be very useful shorthand, but it can also be a way of making what you do superficial. When we treat nature as generic rather than looking at it in specific ways, what we’re most likely to connect with are our own pre-existing ideas about nature. To make real connections, we need more precision.

It’s important to remember that nature is not one single, homogenous thing all moving in the same direction at the same time. Pagans tell a very simple wheel of the year narrative, but many living things don’t go along tidily with it – I’ve been blogging about alternative wheel of the year stories over at Sage Woman blogs for some time now, I think this is important work. If we want real connection, we have to start by not imposing our stories on what we see.

There is a world of practical difference between what you do to connect with a tree, and what you do to connect with a bird, or a fox, or an insect or a hill. The less experienced you are, the more sense it makes to focus on smaller things – it is easier to try and connect with wood when you have first invested time connecting with specific trees and landscape features within it.

Real connection takes time – you can’t go out for half an hour to connect with a wood you’ve never visited before and expect to have a deeply meaningful experience. There’s a lot you need to learn, first. If, as a newbie Pagan you do that and something, or multiple things have clear and powerful messages for you, there’s a very good chance that you are just hearing the voices of your own ego and imagination. Most wild things are not sat round waiting for a human they can tell all the important stuff to. Most landscapes are fairly indifferent to us and building relationship takes time. You need to turn up frequently, at different times of day, in different seasons, and weathers, and pay attention and be open. If after some weeks or months of this you start to get some feelings about a place, you’re probably onto something real.

If you’re getting messages that cast you in an important role, be suspicious. Interrogate yourself and check your own motives. If you get messages that ask you to do things you wanted to do anyway, it may well not be coming from outside of you.

If you want to dedicate to a place, a tree, a creature or some other aspect of the natural world, the most important offering you can make is to look after it. Wild things do not need our incense anything like as much as they need not to be choking themselves on discarded plastic. They do not need our prayers anything like as much as they need us to petition other humans to keep them physically safe.

If you want to make deep connections with ‘nature’ you can only really do this by being specific. Don’t ‘get out into nature’. Go to a particular hill, stream or tree. Watch an individual bird and listen to its song. Spend time with a specific plant. Being outside doesn’t automatically make you connected. If you walk through a landscape, oblivious to its details while telling yourself a story about what a good Pagan you are for connecting with nature, you’ll not see the woods, or the trees.