Nimue Brown's Blog, page 30

Deliberate Optimism

(Nimue)

Most of the time, optimism is something I have to work at deliberately. Experience has taught me to expect the worst, and it’s far too easy to get into panic-brain mode. Panicking leads to imagining the most terrible outcomes. I have a powerful enough imagination to be able to go to some pretty awful places at high speed.

There’s nothing irrational about it. I can reliably trace the panic back to specific events – and in some cases to lengthy periods of my life. The trick is remembering that just because something has gone horribly wrong in the past, doesn’t mean its bound to be the same this time.

This also can have its downsides. Optimism in face of experience can just set you up for the next fall. If someone fails you, and apologises and you go another round and the same thing happens… and happens again… there’s certainly a point at which giving up is a good idea. The triumph of optimism over experience is not reliably the winning move.

I want to think the best of people, expect the best, be hopeful and stay cheerful. I don’t want to be cynical, cautious and spend my time second guessing everyone else’s motives and intentions. There’s a kind of grace in the wilful naivety that makes it possible to have another go.

So much of this comes down to the kinds of stories we tell ourselves. In our stories, we attach meanings to experience. Including meanings like; this proves there’s no point trying, no point trusting or being available or vulnerable. We’re all in the process of turning our experiences into stories that will guide our future choices. All too often, that happens in unconscious ways – as with how my panic-thinking tends to go. The trick is to take control of the story and be deliberate about it.

Mostly I’m choosing deliberate optimism and hoping for the best. I’m also thinking carefully about where the edges need to be, and at what point people making the same mistakes should be treated as a deal breaker. I prefer to assume incompetence rather than malice. However, there does come a point where there is no meaningful difference between the two anyway, and at that point optimism is not a good choice.

Contemplating power

(Nimue)

“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” It’s a popular thought, and one I entirely disagree with. The primary effect of this kind of idea is to make well meaning people think that they should not seek power, and to doubt their own goodness if they do.

Corrupt people seek power to further their own ends. Corrupt people use power in corrupt ways. We can be powerful without being problematic. Having power does not make it inevitable that you will abuse that power. Even if you are tempted, it’s possible not to succumb. We can be better than that. We can have easy opportunities to exploit and harm for our own benefit, and refuse to do it.

Being powerful isn’t just about having power over others. Courage is a powerful thing. Lifting and encouraging other people is a power move. Acting to protect others requires standing in your own power. We can use what power we have to tackle injustice, to be restorative, and to heal. These things all require having and using power.

While we are persuaded that power itself is a bad thing, we won’t step into those spaces or take on those roles. If leadership is only for the cruel and corrupt, nothing is going to play out well. We need power that is rooted in compassion and a desire for peace and justice.

It’s worth considering the everyday opportunities we have to be powerful for each other, and what we might achieve on those terms.

Being a Roman

(Nimue)

Today I’m heading north to be a Roman on Hadrian’s Wall. I spent some time on the wall last year with Keith as he was being a Roman. I wasn’t involved in that, but this year I will also be kitted up and on site.

At first glance it may seem a bit weird to have a modern Druid being a Roman, given the history of what the Romans did to the Druids. However, Roman Britain wasn’t a place that was suddenly populated by a lot of people from Rome.

The Roman army came from all over the Roman Empire. Chester is known to have had Spanish troops at one point, and towards the end of the Roman era was manned by the descendants of previous soldiers in the area. This suggests to me the probability of Roman-British folk because regular soldiers did not get to take women with them.

Over time, Iron Age tribes in the UK adopted Roman ways of doing things, so a lot of what looks Roman is often Romanised British. I’m going to be presenting as female for this event – the Romans seem to have been more into gender roles than a lot of early peoples. I’m not going to be high ranking, obviously as I’m kicking around with the regular soldiers. So, I am therefore the sort of person who lived in the little town that would inevitably have built up to serve the needs of the fort.

History is often complicated, and the shifts from one era to another involve all kinds of interesting, messy details.

There’s a lot to be learned by experience. If anything interesting emerges during this week, it will be a little while before I post about it. I’ve set up a steady supply of posts in advance, and won’t be online much – the Roman internet being people dashing about with physical writing, and scrolls being a bit expensive for the likes of me.

Food choices for Druids

(Nimue)

The food we eat has a massive environmental impact. However, food as a subject is emotive and divisive, and suggestions about greener living often ignore poverty, disability and illness. For me, finding kinder ways of handling things is really important, so I’ve got some food suggestions that I hope are inclusive. If I’ve made any mistakes on that score, please tell me.

Food waste is an easy thing to work on. Primarily this means not throwing away edible food, and not buying too much food so that it goes off before you can use it. This can be harder around illness, but it’s still worth just trying to do the best you can. Avoiding food waste saves money. Re-using left overs is good, and if you plate smaller portions and let people go back for seconds if they want, you get more usable leftovers. This is all much harder if you can’t afford to run a fridge, but I suspect people who are in that much difficulty are already avoiding food waste as much as possible.

If you are eating meat, consider cutting back on how much meat you eat, and replacing it with other options – but only if your body can handle other proteins. Beef is especially environmentally damaging, so if it is feasible for you to cut back on that, it’s a good choice. Some people have very few things their bodies will accept as food so it’s really important to avoid making people who are already suffering feel guilty about what little they can eat. If you have options then reducing the amount of meat in meals is also worth a thought. If you are pressed financially then vegetarian food can often be a cheaper choice.

Packaging is a big issue with food. You may be able to cut back on non-recyclable packaging. It’s worth looking at reducing the amount of packaging you are buying, even if it is recyclable and this tends to be at its worst around snacks anyway, rather than essential things. Multi-bags of things that are also in their own bags are obvious offenders. Plastic recycling often gets dumped in developing countries, so cutting back on those single use plastics is a good choice if you can.

There are some conflicts here. I’ve seen a few people pointing out that going vegan has meant they eat more processed food than they used to. You might be able to take your own containers to the local butchers, but you might not be able to source vegan and vegetarian proteins without a lot of packaging. If you are souring locally, the impact of food miles and your local economy may also be factors. How far should you drive to visit your local farmer’s market?

There are always trade-offs, and we each face questions of what we can personally sustain with the bodies and budgets we have. Druidry is not the quest for some imaginary state of perfection. However, being thoughtful about what we do, and doing the best we can in the circumstances is the approach to aim for.

The importance of including disability

(Nimue)

Disabled people have always existed. Some people are born disabled, many become disabled as a consequence of accident or illness. It is really important that the stories we tell reflect and include this. For bards and Druids, this is highly significant around how we imagine the distant past, and how we present our ideas about a sustainable future.

There is a problematic fantasy out there to the effect that disability is a modern issue. This story encourages us to think that back in the past, when we all lived close to nature, everyone was fit and healthy, and that if we only went back to more ‘natural’ living, we’d all be well.

Some illness is unequivocally the fault of modern society. Many are not. The past offered humans a whole array of diseases and opportunities for crippling injury. The future may offer fewer such risks, but if it does, that will be on the basis of social and medical advances.

Whatever story you are telling about what we might do, it’s important to factor in that people have diverse bodies and options. For most of us, the more outlandish things that are feasible at twenty are not anything like as feasible at fifty. Simply recognising that can do a lot to make a piece more inclusive. If you write from the assumption that everyone should be able to do everything, it’s really alienating for people who can’t. Lots of people can’t.

We urgently need to imagine better ways of living. However, if we leave large numbers of people out of that vision, we’re going to have problems.

Ideas about rewilding and nature can, if we aren’t careful, invite in ideas of eugenics. Survival of the fittest is a notion that has been used to justify letting the ‘weak’ die as a natural and scientific process. It assumes that physical robustness is the most important thing, so tends towards both ageism, and sexism as well as being obscenely ableist. In terms of our collective wellbeing as a species, physical robustness is not the only consideration, and never has been.

We need stories that value an array of skills and ways of being. We need to see people as having worth beyond the labour that can be extracted from their bodies.

Bog blogging and Jessica Law

(Nimue)

Here we have Jessica Law and the Outlaws covering The Rattlin’ Bog – a video taken during a recent band practice. It’s all very low tech, so the sound balance was mostly handled by having people closer to or further from the camera.

Jess has a new children’s book out which I talked about in this post and which celebrates wetlands. Bogs tend to get a bad name, but are wonderful, liminal places that support a great deal of wildlife and also absorb a lot of CO2. If you’ve got a small human in your life, maybe get them a copy.

If you fancy booking us as a band, we’re suitable for folky, steampunk, fairy, Pagan, and other alternative events and best suited to spaces where people want to listen to the words. We’re in Gloucestershire, but we can travel further afield.

Jessica has a lot of music on youtube, so do go and have a poke about in her channel!

Everything eats in an ecosystem

(Nimue)

It is the time of year when cute things are eating other cute things. In my part of the world, birds, mammals and insects are all busily having young. Plants are growing, and perpetuating themselves. Everyone who is not a plant is engaged in the process of eating someone else – on a daily basis.

For some people there’s a temptation to take sides, wanting to protect some creatures from being eaten by other creatures. We absolutely should protect wild creatures from being killed by our domestic pets. There is an argument for protecting rare and endangered creatures from predation by more secure species.

Often it’s more even-handed. Or pawed. The otters eating the cygnets, the owl chicks eating the songbirds. Often what happens is that we respond emotionally to things we find cute and endearing at the expense of creatures who don’t push those buttons. In an ecosystem, everything eats. Prioritising some at the expense of others would damage the ecosystem.

It can be tempting to ‘rescue’ small, cute things you find alone at this time of year. Many of them are fine, and have not been abandoned. Some are not fine and will die if you do not save them. It’s always a good choice to rescue wild things from roads and other human-created problems. Always rescue wild things from domestic ones. But otherwise, it’s better to leave them alone. Not everything is meant to live. The death of one cute thing provides a meal for another cute thing. To honour nature we have to respect that.

Becoming a narcissist

(Nimue)

I have a very loud neighbour who tends to shout his conversations. His life is clearly falling apart, and he has no idea why. Some days he loudly blames me for how much noise I make. Apparently I read loudly! What happens is never his fault, it’s always down to someone else. He’s on a path, and he does not know it, and he won’t seek help. It’s a common problem.

A lot of mental health problems are caused by stressful and traumatic experiences. While we can act to try and protect ourselves from these, a good attitude will only get you so far if life is grinding you down. Narcissism is entirely different in that it is a state people get into because of the choices they make. That can start with trauma and a desire to protect yourself from further hurt.

No one wants to be uncomfortable or to hear criticism. No one wants to find out they’ve messed up, or got something wrong, or misunderstood. However, we all have to square up to those moments now and then. Handling it well gives us room to fix things, improve and grow. Refusing to be accountable and finding ways to blame someone else instead is the road to madness.

The process of bending reality so that you’re never wrong, creates cognitive dissonance. It can feed paranoia, and the idea that someone else is causing you harm. You can end up believing that a person who is simply flagging up issues, is unfairly attacking you, and that reasonable criticism is actually bullying. A person doesn’t have to get far into this for it to seriously impact on their relationships. You can’t have substantial or sustained relationships if you can’t own your mistakes, and instead make other people responsible for your actions.

Narcissists gaslight other people primarily because they are so involved in lying to themselves. They can cause tremendous damage to others. It is however much easier to escape from a narcissist than it is to live with the consequences of being one. The further a person goes down this route, the more harm they do, the harder it becomes to admit that they’re getting things wrong. That leads to doubling down on mistakes and on justifying ways of behaving. Thus the person doing this to themselves gets ever more detached from reality, and has ever more to lose if they admit what they’ve been doing.

We can protect ourselves from this horrible illness with self-honesty, and self-respect. When you own mistakes you give yourself power to change your life for the better. Embracing opportunities to learn is about developing courage and integrity. Admitting that you’ve fallen flat on your face is honourable.

We can help other people to stay well by being kind in face of error. If we don’t punish each other for honest mistakes, its easier to admit to them. If we help each other to learn and do better, and if this is done kindly then there are fewer reasons to be defensive in the first place. When we see people being blamed unfairly, we can speak up and affirm what’s real.

Narcissism is destructive, and causes huge harm to the person who falls into it. While it is absolutely a condition created by personal choices, that is also informed by the wider culture we live in. If people fear punishment and humiliation when they make honest mistakes, it is harder to act well. There’s also interplay between narcissism and privilege – it’s far more likely to be an issue for people who think they should have everything their own way and that the slightest infringement on that is wholly unfair.

Climbing back into my skin

(Nimue)

This last year has been very much about making my Paganism more embodied, and healing my body as I go. I have a history of disassociating. I’m very good at it. I’ve used it to deal with relentless body pain, as an escape from physical cruelty, and to try and deal with what lack of physical stimulation does to my brain. That last issue I think was being made worse by disassociating, but there we go. When all you’ve got is a hammer, as they say, problems tend to look like nails.

Much of the body pain is stiffness caused by the hypermobility, and tension caused by stress. When stress was a constant issue for me, there wasn’t much I could do but ignore it. Keeping a body calm and comfortable takes resources and opportunities I mostly didn’t have. Being able to take the time to relax and do soothing things is important for being well. So is not being stressed out of your mind in the first place.

What I have now feels like a soft animal body that I can inhabit. I am still sore a lot but nothing like the levels of pain I used to deal with. Sleeping better helps my body relax and recover, too. Gentle, physical affection in an ongoing way turns out to have a massively soothing effect, dialling down the stress and helping me to be more relaxed and comfortable in my own skin. This has been quite a surprising process.

It’s not easy being a Pagan when you’re also expending a lot of mental effort trying not to notice that you even have a body. I don’t recommend it at all.  Being able to enjoy and celebrate the experience of being alive has changed my spiritual life, from something ideas-based into something I live in an entirely different way. Having room for nature in my own body makes me feel more connected to the world around me. I feel like I’m part of the world, not separate from it, and this has really helped my mental health, too.

There’s so much pressure on us as people to live in ways that fundamentally deny our animal selves. It’s not good for mental or physical health to try and function like working machinery and to ignore what our bodies need. Rest and peace are such vital things. We all need gentleness and downtime, scope to play and relax. Our mammal selves struggle with overstimulation and relentless work. The more room I make for this body I have, the less I suffer.

What does your creature-self need right now? What parts of your animal self are you obliged to deny? What can you do today to honour nature as it is expressed by your own body? No matter how pressured you feel to be a machine, these are always questions worth asking.

Pagan talks

(Nimue)

I’m going to be at this event at the end of June, talking about creativity and the bard path. I shall get my soap box out because I feel passionately that everyone should have the opportunity and the resources to be creative. I’m also going to be talking about the ways in which AI steals from all of us, and why that matters.

I like talking at events. I’ve done a modest amount along the way – both online and in person. I’m not really a ‘deliver a paper’ sort of speaker. I prefer, as with this talk, to be able to pick a topic that I know deeply and can speak on with confidence without having to script it. I also like being able to go with the flow in terms of mood and audience. I like to be able to respond to what seems to engage the people I’m with rather than having to stick to  planned speech.

My usual approach is to have a running order of sub-topics within the area I’m tackling, and then to take that point by point in an off-the-cuff sort of way. I find I’m more relaxed when I can do this, because I’m working from places of strength and confidence.

There’s no one right way of doing this, of course. It depends on what works for you, and the kinds of audiences you are dealing with. Some spaces very much want the delivery of carefully written papers. Whatever makes you feel most relaxed and confident is the best choice for you if you’re intending to get out on a stage in front of people.

I’m very much up for speaking at events if they are in viable striking distance for me, or if accommodation can be sorted. I can also do workshops, especially around creativity and meditation. I will consider online events, especially if I don’t have to be up late at night to participate! I am no sort of night owl, more a limp pigeon, and my ability to talk coherently at length deteriorates as the night wears on, so that’s a factor.

More about the June event here – https://pagantribalgathering.org.uk/