Nimue Brown's Blog, page 28

Be creative, no matter what!

(Nimue)

All of the creative industries are a mess at the moment. Most people who work creatively are obliged to work other jobs too, or deal with poverty. It’s disheartening, and it can make people feel like giving up. Financial necessity forces brilliant people to put down what they love most because they have to focus on survival.

Even so, it has never been more important to be creative in whatever way you can manage. We need ideas and inspiration. Humanity faces crises – in climate chaos, in war, in unsustainable ways of living and being. We collectively need new ideas about how to live. Being creative is vital to this.

Creativity does not have to be focused on solving these problems in order to bring benefits. Anything that shakes us out of everyday mindsets has the potential to inspire change. Creativity helps us connect with each other, emapthise more, understand each other better. Through making and sharing human expression, we can find joy that doesn’t cost the Earth. We can empower and uplift each other and enrich each other’s lives.

Make time to create – in any way that speaks to you. Make something with your own hands, with your own heart. Add beauty to the world. Do something practical. Know that you can change things through your actions and that you have it in you to put something into the world that was not there before.

When we are creators, we aren’t so involved with being consumers. When we see ourselves as makers we’re in a stronger position than when we feel we have to buy the answers to all of our needs. Share what you do, because other people need your unique vision, your skills, and the inspiration that you alone can offer.

Creativity should not be the territory of some privileged few. It should be part of regular life for everyone. Being creative should not depend on being able to make it pay, either. It should be about joy and expression, sharing and beauty. Recognising the value of that by paying for it can be a very good thing – I pay to see bands, I buy books, and craftwork and all sorts. Buying items or experiences that have been made with love is a good thing to do. It’s a way of celebrating what gives us most pleasure, and helping the people who do that to stay viable.

The arts are often treated as frivolous, unnecessary and indulgent. However, this is territory in which we share our humanity and collectively explore ideas. This is how we dream together to co-create the future, rather than just being sold fake solutions by people who care only about making more money.

Keeping up with history

(Nimue)

Our understanding of history changes all the time. New archaeological finds, new science, and new understandings are constantly informing how we think about the past. This is particularly an issue for Pagans. As a community we have a fondness for old books. The trouble with old books is that old history can be really out of date.

Once upon a time if you dug up someone who had been buried with weapons, you would think you had dug up a man. Now that we can use DNA, we know that some women were buried with weapons and some men were buried with a lot of bling, mirrors and other ostensibly feminine stuff.

History changes, which is quite an odd thought. The values and meanings we might attach to things change, too.

It’s problematic when people latch on to out of date facts. That aforementioned gender issue is one of them – gender roles and identities have always been more complex. Queerness isn’t a modern invention, and yet there are a lot of people who imagine gender identity in history as a simple binary. Our storytelling habits of the last few hundred years have distorted impressions of gender in history.

Human learning evolves over time. What we know gets refined, and sometimes re-thought entirely. Failure to teach each other about the messy bits, the mistakes, misconceptions and whatnot can be really misleading. The way in which knowledge evolves is an important subject in its own right. All we ever have is the best understanding we’ve come up with so far. That doesn’t mean we’ve failed if we come up with something better. It doesn’t mean previous efforts were necessarily lies. Not understanding the processes of learning leads people into conspiracy theories and some very odd ideas about what’s going on.

History doesn’t stand still, you have to keep up with it.

Birthday Blessings

(Nimue)

Birthdays are a good time for taking stock, and today is mine. I wrote this post a little in advance because today I’m on holiday. Holidays have not featured much in the last fifteen years, nor has time off, so this is a wonderful thing to be able to do.

Last year was the loveliest birthday I’d ever had – a very gentle day spent with Keith and James, involving a Roman museum and a lot of ice-cream. So many good things have happened since then. This last year has brought dramatic improvements to my physical and mental health. This has improved my quality of life dramatically. That’s largely due to being less stressed and being able to sleep well.

Good sleep is a tremendous blessing. It’s easier for being calm and relaxed. I spend a lot of my time feeling quietly happy – another huge blessing. My life has opened up to include a great many things that bring me joy – more music, more adventures, more inspiration. The incredible, everyday blessing that comes from feeling deeply loved and cared for. Up until this year I hadn’t experienced anything like it.

That has all brought other blessings. I feel comfortable in my own skin in a way that I never have before. I’m not anxious all the time, no longer afraid of getting everything wrong. I don’t have to be hypervigilant, don’t have to second guess everything.  I’m living with someone who finds me good in many ways, and who expresses that all the time in ways that are helping me heal my battered confidence and damaged sense of self. I’m learning new ways of thinking and being.

Having spent a lot of years in overwhelming distress and mostly wishing to die, I now actively want to live. That’s a huge, incredible, transformation and a life changing level of blessing. I want to live. I wake up feeling hopeful and looking forward to the day. I do not dread the future, I am not smothered by the past.

There were things in my past that felt like utter failure. I gave everything I had, tried my hardest all the time, and never felt good enough or happy. I now have a life that isn’t full of struggle or extreme effort, and where just showing up as myself and being relaxed and happy gets a lot done. There have been rounds of having to push hard to keep things going – but that was around dealing with the challenges of cancer treatment. That gave me a lot of perspective.

A relationship should be a source of joy, and  should be a blessing. Being able to give that without running myself ragged is wonderful. Being able to experience that, results in feelings that I have a hard time wrapping words round. Profound gratitude is very much part of it, as is a continuing sense of wonder at discovering just how sweet and good life can be.

Contemplating wool

(Nimue)

The drop spindle is a bit of technology whose use goes way back into prehistory. Spinning wool was the start of how countless people through history have made clothes, and having warm clothes is essential for life in the northern parts of Europe.

As part of my time on Hadrian’s Wall, I spent a lot of time spinning. When I started I knew some theory and had tried a few things briefly many years ago. It took a while to get the hang of it, and to figure out the timing and the flow for feeding wool fibres to the turning thread. I’ve enjoyed it. The process has taught me about the value of clothing when you have to make the material in this way.  A dress represents many hours of work.

As a joky aside, I find myself wondering if Celts fought naked to avoid damaging their precious trousers!

One visitor reflected on how grim she thought life must have been for the woman who had to spend all of their time spinning. I found myself comparing that to the lives of the people who worked in fabric making factories, and the lives of ordinary people now. The person who spins can also look after their children (and sheep!) talk, sing, tell stories and if they have any coordination, they can wander about. I cannot wander about. As a way of life, hand spinning is clearly far less horrible than factory work – which routinely killed and injured people pre 20th century.

It’s interesting to ask what progress means and looks like. We free ourselves from spinning into the convenience of having massive amounts of poor quality clothing, the production of which is compromising life on the planet. There have to be better ways.

After being triggered

(Nimue)

When it happens, it can be hard to spot that triggering has occurred. Whatever brought it on brings the past into the present, and it can be difficult to tell what was before, and what is now. That can be disorientating, but I often find the confusion it causes is a clue I can identify that helps me get a grip on things.

While triggering is happening, it can be very hard to think clearly or act usefully. However, there’s always a process of surfacing from it, and that is a very productive time if you dare to work with it. Being triggered is emotionally overwhelming and difficult to deal with, so the mop up work is unpleasant, but it does get a lot done.

I find it helps to identify exactly what set me off and why. That’s never comfortable work. However, once I have that information I can look at the experience more effectively. I may have been triggered because I encountered something far too close to previous experiences. On reflection I might decide that’s not a situation I accept, so I will back away from it. I might find there are parallels with the past, but that it isn’t the same.

If I’ve found parallels, but no genuine threat, I can work on changing my relationship with the situation. I can ask for help, flagging up what triggered me and what would protect me from that if something similar happened in the future. I can talk about what would help me deal with those issues, or think about how to move on from them.

I have found that I can improve my control over my thoughts, and recognise what’s historical stuff flaring up and what’s a current problem. I can reduce the impact of triggers, I have dialled some down entirely. It’s a lot easier for having dependable help and support.

It’s not possible to do this work where the triggers are themselves traumatic or damaging things. The process is hard of itself. Healing can be messy and painful, and doing this means facing old wounds and distress. But that is the path out, and it is possible to work free from the impact of historical trauma. What exactly you need to do will be informed by what’s in the past, and what’s happening now. You, as the person experiencing that, are the person most qualified to figure out what would help, and what you can change for yourself. It’s empowering to take control of the situation in this way. Trust yourself that even when you feel out of control, in there somewhere you know what you need to do to heal.

I remain very much a work in progress, but there is progress all the time. I’m learning how to trust myself, and how to trust that I know what I need. I know what helps me and what hurts me, and where that’s respected, life is a good deal easier.

Foxgloved foxes

(Nimue) this came out of one of Adam Horovitz’s writing sessions in a giddy, delighted sort of way…

Foxgloved foxes

Foxgloves to wear, how small and neat

How slight, petite must be the feet.

For while the glove suggests the hand

The fox has none, so I understand.

Now foxes, tiny pawed come dancing,

In my thoughts, yapping and prancing

Little whimsyed foxglove feet

Unlikely paws I’m keen to meet.

Raucous joy in fox strange tune

Haunted refrain raised to the moon.

Your voice the frightened baby’s cry

Courting as though you think to die.

In pinks and purples, fetch your gloves

The floral paws that yellow loves

Gloves for feet seem apt when shoes

A creature more mundane might choose.

Your spotted depths catch every eye

Oh wear these gloves, come try, come try!

Fold yourself into bright petals

Gild yourself without fine metals.

Find your wealth in a flower bank

In dells and groves and woodland dank

Bold reynardine with pretty flashes

Draws the bees through hedgerow dashes.

Charm the world with blossomed feet

Foxgloved foxes, foolish, sweet.

Clothing – easy ways to be green

(Nimue)

The fashion industry is one of the most environmentally harmful segments of modern capitalism. However, the good news is that you can avoid contributing to this without needing much wealth or privilege.

The single biggest problem is people buying new clothes, wearing things once or twice and throwing them away. The UK sends a truly obscene amount of material to landfill in this way. This is a very easy thing not to be part of. I can imagine some medical exceptions where you might have to throw clothes away – but most of us really don’t have to do this.

If you buy something and get bored with it, give it away. If you use clothes shopping to support your mental health, try buying second hand and vintage – there’s more to do in finding clothes that way, but feelings of reward often increase in line with effort made.

Shopping isn’t a great answer to emotional distress. Not least because it locks us into systems that sell us dissatisfaction and are set up to make us feel like we have to have new things all the time to be happy. It can be addictive, and the happiness hits can be very small. If this is impacting on you, then looking for other ways to soothe and support yourself if very much in your interests. It’s important to have things we can take pleasure in, but rapacious capitalism weaponises this against us, harming us and the planet at the same time.

Clothes are often sold as the means to find love, friendship, admiration and identity. They don’t really deliver any of that. Clothes can be powerful in terms of self-expression, but throwaway fashion isn’t a statement of individuality or character, Looking for other ways to meet those needs makes for a better life, and a more sustainable one.

Back to the yurt

(Nimue)

Last year, Keith and I spent a couple of very happy days in a yurt. We’ve decided to go back for a week, starting from today. I’ve got the blog loaded with content, and I’m not going to have much internet access, so I won’t be able to work. This is probably a good thing, as it’s been rather full on of late.

It is an absolutely luxury and a privilege to be able to take some time off, and to spend it in a beautiful, peaceful environment. Holidays have not really featured much in the last fifteen years, so this is a very big deal for me. Having the time to rest, relax and reboot my brain a bit is a wonderful prospect. Hopefully I’ll come back with a head full of ideas and a recharged body. No doubt I’ll have plenty of blog material.

It is also a huge luxury and privilege to get to spend time in a yurt for fun. Being off-grid, having a drop toilet, cooking on a fire – these things are quite entertaining when you have time and not much else to be doing. When your actual life is like this, but you also have to interact with the modern world, it is tough. Slowing down like this only works if you can also take time off. I had some experience of this in the two years of living on a boat.

This kind of ‘retreat to nature’ experience works as a holiday, and works if you can genuinely just live day to day, but otherwise it’s hard. I’m painfully aware that we cannot all ‘retreat to nature’ full time – most of us do not have the skills (I do not have all the relevant skills). The pressure we would put on the land if too many people wanted to live in a yurt in a field, would be horrendous. At the same time, living closer to the land has a great deal to show us, and having those experiences may help in face of everything else. This field gets to stay pretty wild because of the yurt, so that also has an impact. As every, it’s all about balance.

The photo was taken by Keith last year while we were there.

Having a vision

(Nimue)

Having a vision doesn’t mean waiting around for some flash of divine inspiration. It can be a deliberately chosen thing, and it can operate at many levels.

It’s good to have a sense of personal direction. Where do you want to go with your life? What do you aspire to? Ask at the same time what kind of future you want and what kind of society you want to live in. Think about what you’d have to do to make any of that possible, and what the everyday moves are that would take you – and everyone else – in that direction.

I envisage a future where people are kinder and living sustainably, where resources are shared fairly and everyone can flourish, and the wild world can thrive.

This is quite n ambitious vision, but I try and hold in my head what that would be like, and to find my own small ways of moving towards it. Seeking joy in ways that don’t consume a lot of resources seems like a good idea on those terms. I advocate for fairer and kinder ways of doing things. I support and amplify people who are heading in the same direction.

As individuals most of us aren’t going to single handedly change the world in a noticeable way. However, society is just a lot of people, and change can start anywhere. Making what change we can and trying to inspire others to do the same will have an impact.

Visions don’t need to be realistic – in fact I think there’s an argument for saying they should not be. Realistic visions keep us trapped in the same paradigm, doing what’s pragmatic and expedient at the expense of what’s good and necessary. Beautiful, hopeful, wild, outlandish visions have more potential to inspire us and to change things.

I dream of having a garden, and to be able to grow a few food plants and do more to support wildlife on my doorstep. I can’t buy a wood or a field, but I can help my local community buy out a local area of land. Having a vision makes it easier to tell when something comes along that I’d actively like to support. It keeps me alert to good opportunities.

It’s worth taking the time to invest in daydreams and hopes, and see what they bring up for you. Most of us, I think would like gentler lives, with more rest and time off to enjoy ourselves. Most of us want community, respect, and to live somewhere pleasant. More kindness, more beauty and more delight are things to aspire to. A vision of something better can hold you together through challenging times, creating purpose and hope. One of the things we need to do is stop believing that new and better products are going to give us all the human things we are missing. Once we step away from consumerism and look round for alternatives, more options appear.

Learning from history

(Nimue)

One of the things I like about re-enactment work is the opportunity to engage people with history. This very much ticks some boxes in relation to things the ancient Druids seem to have been into. Living history and bringing the past to life for people and can really open things up, and lead to conversations about the everyday lives of ordinary people now and in the past. I’ve never been keen on the kinds of history that focus on wars and rulers, and most of us don’t have much to connect with around that. Talking about food, clothes, ways of life are much more relevant.

When you don’t know much about history, what you’re most likely to have is a progress narrative. Many people have the impression that human history is about progress, that things get better, and that how we do things now is best, and also inevitable. Get to know more about the past and it becomes obvious that people have always been complex, and that brilliance and innovation are not modern. There are lots of ways of doing things, and our current, exploitative and unsustainable take on capitalism isn’t inevitable, or any kind of pinnacle of achievement.

The Romans had both cement and plywood. At the same time they raise issues for us about military organisation, imperialism, colonialism, social structure, and storytelling, to name but a few obvious points. Our sense of the Iron Age British comes almost entirely from what the Romans had to say about them – especially so with the Druids. The Romans are the sources we have from the time, which is complicated. People only being seen from the outside rather than leaving their own record is not just a Druid issue.

We’re so used to seeing history as told by the victors, but you can’t hope to understand people without hearing their story of who they are and what they do. The absence of information around the Iron Age British is a good jumping off point for raising the issue of other absent and silenced voices.

Take a look at history and even when you are dealing with your own ancestors, you will find people who are not like you and whose lives are wildly different. And at the same time you’ll find people who needed all the same basic things you need, and who dealt day to day with the same basic realities and challenges of existing. We have a lot in common with our ancestors. Learning to see both the shared experience and the diversity can, I think, open us up to better relating to the diversity of people around us.

I had one striking encounter with a chap who had been amazed to discover that the Romans worshipped many Gods. “When we know there’s only one,” he said. “No,” I said. He’d never met a Pagan before, never talked to a polytheist, thought that everyone needed Jesus, and in the space of a few minutes discussion based around history, had to rethink his entire world view rather dramatically. I was gentle with him, but also fairly firm. I did not ask if he would like me to pray that he found Odin, or Zeus, or Jupiter.