Nimue Brown's Blog, page 24

Folk horror in the forest

(Nimue)

Some books are easy to review. This is the other sort because it is brilliant and at the same time it definitely won’t be to everyone’s taste.

We all know Sherwood as a place of camp, swashbuckling adventure. Sherewode, on the other hand, is a mysterious, dangerous forest where old Gods walk, and many of the monsters are human. Called by mad stag goddess Caerne, The Hooded are rising to fight the forces invading the forest.

This is definitely a folk horror novel. It draws heavily on folklore, and it’s both violent and unsettling. There’s a lot of death, and the constant threat of sexual violence, but there’s nothing unbearably graphic. However, the story is not folk-horror shaped. In many ways, it is the people who are the source of the horror – as is normal in the genre. But there are no innocent outsiders here, no Pagan traditions impinging on a modern world. Everyone is complicit in some way, and the dark, violent horrors of the forest are of everyone’s making.

The cast is massive and there are a lot of different perspectives. If that’s a dealbreaker for you, don’t venture in. You have to spend a while trusting the book as it hops around between the huge cast and trusting yourself that you will be able to keep track of them all. To further complicate matters, while these characters echo familiar folk from the Robin Hood stories, they are not as you know them. This is deliberately unsettling and disorientating at times. There’s an intrinsic uncanniness to it.

The writing style is often like an early epic – like The Tain, or Beowful, or something of that ilk. The language and phrasing is poetic, and often stark. The deeper we are in the forest, the more mythic the writing tends to be, and that also means that we don’t spend a lot of time exploring people’s feelings and motivations, that we just get the raw encounter with action.

Each one of the many characters believes in what they are doing. Their motives vary – revenge and greed are dominant forces, but care, protection, religion, and all the messy things religions inspire people to do are in the mix. While the old gods are present and unsettling, it is without a doubt the things characters do in the name of Christianity that are most disturbing. This is a vey mediaeval take on Christianity – full of burning people for the good of their souls, and seeing the forest as the enemy.

The main reason I know this is folk horror, is because of the way it will make you want to move in, if you’re that sort of person. If you’re drawn to the murder village, or looking for Cabal, if you’d welcome the bloodied stag girl with too many sharp teeth, if in your darker moments you would take out people who destroy forests for personal profit, then Sherewode will speak to you. If you identify with outcasts, with folk at the margins then you’ll feel at home here. That’s what folk horror does best.

This book is part of a series. You don’t need to have read any related material to jump in, and I will be reviewing the others – I have two more to read at present.

Dressing the part

(Nimue)

One of the wonderful things about going to Pagan events is how expressively people dress. It’s true of a lot of spaces, especially geeky, nerdy spaces. Most of the time we all dress for the roles we are supposed to be playing. A lot of those roles call upon us to be subdued, unremarkable, and unchallenging. We are to be ordinary and not draw attention to ourselves.

It’s good to be in spaces that invite creativity and expression. The opportunity to go out as your best self, your favourite self, is a blessing. Being around people who support an enable that is good for the soul. When we can meet each other as our most interesting selves, our most inspired and happiest takes on who we are, that’s a wonderful thing.

It makes me think about the kinds of rules and roles that we construct for ourselves the rest of the time. The joyless construct that is ‘being a responsible adult’ and the ways in which being a worker/consumer crush the originality and playfulness out of us. Expression is rebellion. Joy is essential, and adults need to play too. Playfulness keeps us innovative and creative – keeping our problem solving skills in good shape and ready for use. In our playing and daydreaming we can find what we want from life and move towards ways of being that would better suit us.

This photo was taken at Fantasy Forest, with a performer I’d previously run into at a steampunk event in Shrewsbury. It was a delight to be around people who had unleashed their wilder inner selves and were letting their desire for enchantment out to play. I wonder what the world would look like if we had more scope to construct our lives along those terms. If we could live more in the forest of our shared dreaming, and not so much in the soulless spaces people have tended to create.

Jackdaws who might not be omens

(Nimue)

There are several large jackdaw roosts around Stroud that have been in use as sites for many years. Recently, a significant crew of jackdaws started turning up in the evenings to roost somewhere near my home. There are a lot of trees round here, so there are plenty of suitable places for them. Initially the magpies were grumpy about it, but they seem to have got to grips with the change.

Most normally I hear them as they come in for the evening. There are sometimes small bursts of noise from them in the day. On the day of writing this post, at a point where I was really struggling, it sounded like the whole flock went over.

I’m not that into taking signs and omens from the wild world. However, I do experience immense comfort from the presence of wild beings. An hour or so later a massive flock of long tailed tits and blue tits all turned up together on my bird feeders – the most birds I’ve seen out there in one go. It felt affirming, on a day when I really needed some affirmations.

The wild world can be a real antidote to human struggling. Over the years I have often depended on wild things for comfort in fae of grief, loneliness and depression. That’s not much of an issue for me these days. I still feel a huge sense of gratitude for these blessings of contact, for the experience of wild beings near to me and for the feeling of belonging in the world this gives me.

Sometimes it is the indifference of nature that comforts me most. Sometimes it is the feeling of being part of a more than human community. Just occasionally, that wild contact makes me feel seen. Whether it was an omen or not may be apparent in time but in the cheery calls of my wild neighbours I find hope.

High summer and climate chaos

(Nimue)

I realised this year that I’m far more alert to the signs of shifts between seasons than I am to the peaks of seasons, so that’s something I want to change. I’m interested in exploring the wheel of the year day by day, but inevitably some things draw my attention more than others.

UK summers are unpredictable, and there is no knowing when bit is going to be most ‘summery’. The hottest part of a summer might be anywhere between May and September. Thanks to climate chaos, our summers are getting cooler and wetter, although we can still get heatwaves as well, because chaos.

I’ve not seen many bats this year. Bats are not doing well at the moment, because of what humans have done to insect populations. It’s heartbreaking. I miss them. I used to see bats all the time in summer, and while I have seen some, there have not been anything like enough of them this year.

The wildflowers have been extravagant this year. Some plants are clearly coping with the damper and cooler conditions, but not all will. There are implications for our already ropey food security.

At least the cooler weather makes it more feasible to walk. I’m keen to get back to walking more for transport, wanting to be fitter as well as more sustainable. I’m finding that the humidity drops my blood pressure and makes me limp, which is awkward as that makes walking difficult.

For me, this summer is raising questions about joy, and the cost of joy – the carbon footprint of being out and about doing things that make me happy. How much is too much? I’m not flying. Is that enough?

And at the same time I know that the biggesl problems are private jets and massive yachts, huge cruise ships, energy use from AI, and the pollution caused by war. But at the same time, there are fewer bats, and I do not want to be part of the reason there are fewer bats. Sometimes it is hard to figure out how to balance things, and what is an acceptable trade-off, and whether what I do can make any difference at all.

Alice in the Land of Time and Space

I’ve worked in the publishing industry more of the time than not since my twenties. There are a lot of different roles out there that call for writing skills but don’t result in your name being on the cover. I enjoy supporting other people in developing their work, and I’ve done that in various ways, including as an editor, and as a ghost writer.

This year I worked on a book written by a Japanese monster maker. The story is Kazumitsu Akamatsu’s creation and is illustrated with photos of the fantastic models he makes. It’s like nothing else. I came into this as a co-writer/technician to polish up the translation. It was a challenging, fascinating text to work on. At present I have 100 print copies – a very limited UK first edition, some of which are available through ko-fi. I am only posting these in the UK at present. https://ko-fi.com/s/a09d1f40ed

I’m delighted to have my name on the cover of this one. It is the kind of job where I would expect to be a ghost-writer, not named as a co-writer. Being recognised in this way is delightful, not least because it means the team putting this book together felt that having my name on the cover was an asset to them.

Moving text between Japanese and English Is quiet a process. If the two languages share a parent language, it must have been Neolithic or earlier. It is entirely possible that no such shared parent language existed. I’m not a Japanese speaker, but I know a fair amount about the language, which helped me a lot.

Through the book I tried to balance keeping the tone of the original, and bringing in language more consistent with the faux-Victorian setting. Alongside that I needed to make things sound more familiar to an English ear. How the two languages handle expressions of time are quite different, for example. How politeness is expressed doesn’t automatically translate. There was a lot to think about. I hope I’ve done this charming story justice, and that where I’ve brought my own voice and whimsy into the mix it’s been in a way that supports the original text.

Non-solitary meditation

(Nimue)

Usually the first piece of advice for meditating is to find a quiet space on your own where you won’t be disturbed. Of course it works differently if you go to a class. What do you do if you can’t get that private, solitary space? What if you have no quiet space, no private space, what if saying ‘I need half an hour of undisturbed time’ doesn’t work?  Does that mean you can’t meditate?

It will certainly impact on what you do, but meditating remains possible even in less than ideal situations.

Pick shorter meditations and things you can fall into quickly. It’s better to spend ten minutes doing something you can make work in that time. Don’t be ambitious if that’s just going to be thwarted and result in frustration. There are people who claim that if you can’t meditate for half an hour, you should meditate for an hour. Those people are assholes, and do not recognise what privilege they have. Do what you can, you do not owe anyone else time that you do not have for your own meditation practice.

Work with what’s around you. Children can be really disruptive, but if you treat their presence as just a noisy manifestation of nature and be present in the way that you might be for a storm, a flock of loud birds, or similar, then you can work with it. Staying present to them means you can meditate without putting their safety at risk.

Sometimes meditating on something or someone else can be a great help. I sometimes need to distract myself from what my body is doing, at which point there’s no gain in focusing on my own breathing – as we’re so often encouraged to. If instead I concentrate on my partner’s breathing, I can drop into more relaxed states while also distracting myself from pain. Sometimes apparent problems can be assets if you can figure out how to use them.

There are advantages to learning how to work with what you’ve got. The result is tools that you can use in adverse circumstances. If you can only meditate when you’ve got a lovely, peaceful and supportive environment, then you can’t use meditation as a self-defence tool. Learning how to slip into calmer states when in less optimal circumstances means you can do it when you need to. Meditation can give you coping mechanisms for challenging circumstances. However, if you only use it when you’re already comfortable, dropping into it at need is harder.

Waiting for circumstances to be perfect is often a hiding to nothing. It can be a form of self-sabotage, a form of procrastination, or a way of avoiding commitment. Making the best of what you’ve got is always the better choice. You can often get a lot done in situations that aren’t ideal. Perfectionism is the enemy of action. Identifying what’s good enough, workable, adequate – all of this is liberating and enabling. Do what you can, because it is better to make the most of what you’ve got.

Authenticity and self-knowledge

(Nimue)

Finding your most authentic self is a process. Most of us have to spend time unpicking things around who we’ve been told we are and what we’ve been told we should be, in order to find ourselves. On top of that, the authentic self isn’t a state pf permanence. To be authentic is to be responsive. The true self responds to experience in order to change and grow. Experience allows us to be more than we were, and to go deeper into ourselves.

The most authentic version of you today may not look much like the you of a year ago, and be little like the you of ten years ago. Some creatures shed skins and shells to grow, and we can be similar on the inside.

While some of the quest for authenticity is inward looking, it’s also about how we decide to be. It’s not ideal having a version of yourself that only lives inside you head. Sometimes circumstances might make it unsafe to express our true selves, but if we are not in danger then we need to bring who we truly are into the world. How much space you have for your true self is an important question. Who are you allowed to be?

 Living a life based on pretence is soul destroying.  If you’ve felt unable to be your authentic self, don’t beat yourself up about it. Change, and grow as much as you can, because it’s the process of becoming more authentic that matters, not where you’ve been, or what other people have denied you. Be angry about that if you need to be, but don’t get trapped in it if you have room to break out.

Recently I’ve been trying to work out whether I’m actually quite laid back, or just not in the habit of even thinking about preferences. Do I go along with things out of apathy, or a desire to be cooperative, or a feeling there’s no point arguing? In the past it’s been all of those things. At the moment I’m finding that the desire to be cooperative is large, and that there are a lot of things I genuinely don’t have strong feelings about.

However, alongside those are things I really need and feel strongly about. Quiet time, outdoors time, social time, intellectual stimulation, affection, enough sleep, the right diet – these very basic underpinnings of life are really important to me. I don’t function well if I don’t have what I need, and I’m no longer willing to routinely compromise around the things I really need. But, with those in place I’m otherwise quite laid back and able to roll with things. The compromising on essentials is not part of my authentic self, it’s something that was put on me and that I’ve had to unpick.

Self knowledge is not something we can ever fully achieve. Every new experience reveals something to us about who we are. Every challenge calls on us to look at our values and priorities. Every day brings opportunities to try something new and seek better (for us) ways of living and being. Trying to live in an authentic way is really a commitment to exploring, experimenting, taking risks and being willing to change. For me, that’s an important part of what it means to be on the Druid path.

Conversations with stone

(Nimue)
Outside the window I heard the weird whispering
Of gravel gathered, bathed in blue white house light.
We were river rocks, they murmured, stream sonorous
Offering stories as I lay wakeful and waiting for sleep.
We were submerged stones, our wild water knew the tread
Of mammoths, of massive creatures lost to this landscape.
We were Doggerland, but did not define ourselves, did not call
Anything very much, we were stone in stream, sifted and scoured.
Their memories moved me, the wash of waterways unnamed
A lingering of land long shifted beyond all recounting, remembered
In smooth stories of pebbles, washed up in this pale place
Non-beach of modern making, displaced but unperturbed.
Your mud was a mammoth-trod riverbed, no recourse if
You are scraped, shipped, spread in someone’s driveway.
Ancient rivers still move in the memory of stones they shaped.
Crunch beneath my boots, slip slightly, remain unchanged.

What is normal?

(Nimue)

What we grow up with tends to seem normal to us. What our families do, what our communities do, is normal. If there’s something wrong in that, then the job of learning differently isn’t easy. If you grow up with abuse, then not having that colour your expectations is hard. Equally if you grow up with racism – either as something normalised or something you were subjected to, seeing beyond that to better options takes time, and most likely, some support. This can take many other forms, too.

Changing your reality is sometimes necessary for healing, and for functioning more effectively. This is a hard thing to do alone. You weren’t the only person involved in building that previous version of normality. It helps, therefore, if you can talk to other people about it.  Building a new sense of ‘normal’ is easier if you aren’t doing it alone.

This is why many new Pagans find it so helpful to connect with other Pagans. If you’ve left a religions, you’ve also left a community and a world view, so there’s a lot to rethink. If you didn’t come to Paganism from a spiritual background, then just building a sense of how spirituality can be part of life is a bit of a process. If you’re escaping from the consumption and relentlessly destructive nature of capitalism, it helps if other people are around to show you what’s possible, and to help you build new values.

We are co-creators of reality. When we meet as communities, we build shared stories about what’s good, valuable, normal. We can build each other better and kinder stories w3hen we work on this deliberately.

Summer birds

(Nimue)

These are fledgling long tailed tits, on the birdfeeder outside my bedroom window. There are often more of them, and on the morning I took this picture there had also been baby blue tits alongside them. They’re an everyday blessing at the moment, showing up to take advantage of suet blocks in the feeders.

They were around last summer, but did not come so close. They like the plant pots as places to land, and they very much like the suet, and do not seem too worried about us, so long as we don’t make any sudden moves. I’m not quite sure how many fledglings there are, but certainly three, and maybe more.