Nimue Brown's Blog, page 369

Winter Pagan Camping

For any Pagans in the UK looking for a winter Pagan muster, this is well worth your consideration…

http://www.rainbowfutures.co.uk

Blessings of quiet

Amidst the noise and bright lights, may you find the peaceful darkness that belongs truly to this season.

Amidst the excess, waste and gluttony, may you find sufficiency. May your abundance come in forms that are of true worth to you.

Amidst the clamour of fake and commercialised jollity, may you find warmth, love and good companionship.

May the journey out of the darkness be gentle.

May your turning year bring hope, opportunity, joy and surprises. May it be better than you have expected.

And, as is traditionally said by my wise ancestors… may the skin of your bum never be turned into banjo strings.

Three kinds of beauty

There are, I think three forms of beauty. Not all are equally available to all people at all times. All are equally valid, and valuable, and some are prone to abuse and exploitation…

The beauty of body: This can come from having good genes, being fit, healthy and is most readily available to the young. It tends to be associated with breeding potential, but that���s not the only thing at stake here. At any age, health and fitness to whatever degree you can manage them confer some degree of physical beauty. Almost anyone can seek the beauty of graceful movement as well. These things are most attainable for the young.

It is worth noting that a huge industry exists around dieting and fitness, which focuses our collective attention on certain forms of physical beauty at the expense of others. There is also a huge industry around ���beauty products��� basically mimicking or replacing the appearance of good health ��� sleek hair, good skin etc. We are encouraged to replace the actual beauties of healthy existence with the bottled illusion of it, and to consider the illusion more important than the actuality.

Body adornment and modification creates beauty through skill and artistry. This can be manifested through how we dress, what we do with our hair, tattoos, jewellery and other forms of decoration. This is beauty based on taste, skill and creativity, it is a beauty that is born of the mind and is available to anyone at any life stage who wishes to hone their abilities. Adornment can be highly expressive, and may be more representative of the inner person than the genetically sourced biology we happen to stand up in.

Again, there is a huge industry around this kind of beauty, in which your creativity is replaced with fashion, designer goods, and other people���s ideas. We are encouraged to think that what we buy is better, aesthetically, than what we might put together for ourselves. We are given very narrow options in terms of what, at any point in time, is deemed beautiful.

Finally, there is beauty of soul. This is the beauty that comes to a person who has lived richly and well, has made peace with themselves. It is the beauty of a face that has smiled a lot and eyes that have love in them. Anyone can achieve this over time if they live in ways that take them towards warmth, compassion and joy. It is more available to people in their later years than to the very young. There is no industry offering to replace this for you, and as a consequence it is the form of beauty our culture has least interest in and tends not even to mention.

The beauty that is your own, coming from who you are and how you live is worth celebrating. I am convinced that the ���beauty��� we feel pressured into buying in shapes we are told are the only acceptable ones, is not worth having at all. It is simply a way of making us cough up money. Cultural definitions of beauty are dreadful. That the beautiful bodies of powerful female athletes get their muscles photo-shopped out by the media says it all really. The bodies of women who have born children. The scarred bodies, the ones that were never perfectly symmetrical, the faces that are striking rather than pretty all have a value, all deserve to be celebrated in their own right.

Each of us should have the right to explore beauty on our own terms, or not bother with it at all if it does not offer us something we want. The pressure to be all the same, all ���beautiful��� in the sense of skinny, youthful appearance with narrow wardrobe options… means that no one gets to shine. If we didn���t all have to try and live up to these impossible demands, maybe those of us who have honed and capable bodies would be more fairly celebrated. Maybe those who are truly creative in the beauty of their adornment would be allowed to stand out. Maybe we would start to see the beauty of age and wisdom. We don���t all have to be Disney Princesses, and there would be more room for true beauty in the world if we were able to work with what we have rather than trying to fit those restrictive models.

Learning to stop

I took a day off, yesterday. Almost a whole day (I sorted some laundry). This is rare for me. Normally, a day off is something that happens at a rate of one or two in a month, and means not putting the computer on. Instead I���ll end up doing a lot of domesticated things, or, in the case of September, the 21 mile epic of the five valleys walk.

It was tough in the morning. I felt like I should be doing something. (That was why I put laundry away). I wafted about a lot. What does a person do when they aren���t busy doing things that need doing or that are their work life or other people need? In the end I settled on a project that had been lying around for months ��� adapting a long strappy dress into a top with sleeves. Sleeved summer tops and dresses have been elusive to say the least. I hadn���t got round to it because overhauling a garment for me is a bit of a frivolous thing (trust me, it is a frivolous garment). I then spent the afternoon with friends, food and a film, and that was very relaxed and lovely.

By the time I got home last night, I was aware of a distinct physical change. My body had calmed to an unfamiliar degree. My mind had slowed as well. Often my thoughts ping about in fairly erratic ways and at high speeds – the mindset required for juggling kittens and chainsaws ��� which tends to be how it feels. There was nothing to juggle last night. Nothing that needed doing.

Back in January 2014, I was at a protest with a bunch of people who were talking about how nice it had been to have some days off. I���d had Christmas day off, but otherwise it had been work as usual. I hadn���t stopped, I didn���t feel refreshed and ready to dive back in. There just hadn���t been a break in my workflow and I couldn���t see how to make one. Plus, being a self employed person means a week off is a week not earning, and I���ve not felt able to justify that. This year is better. One of my stable jobs pays me for what I do but lets me organise it as I please ��� I���m not on call, and if I set things up far enough in advance, I can take as many days off as I please. ��I saw at that protest how relaxed and cheerful people were, as a consequence of getting a break, and it showed me how different my life was to theirs. The problem with that kind of arrangement is that it will leave you feeling like a second class citizen. Other people are good enough to merit time off…

I���ve had a lot of years dealing with the judgement of others, where being able to demonstrate that I was working hard was something I could use to defend myself. That���s no longer the case, but the habits of anxiety are harder to drop. The habits of fear within my body. The habits of not stopping and not treating myself as entitled to a break. There are things it isn���t so necessary to think about when you���re running flat out. What is this for? What am I doing this for? What is the point of my life? Grief, pain and fear can all be blotted out just by running hard. I���ve always been the sort of person to use work as a way of overcoming and blotting out other issues, and that���s helped me not deal with the other issues.

In stillness, in silence, in not busyness, there is room for other thoughts to surface. Questions, discomfort, existential angst, new ideas; all the checks and balances to a fuller life. Not contemplation held as a formal discipline (although that���s good too and very important to me) but a making of space. A making of space that lets something else in.

what will your demon do?

c. Tom Brown

I have a fascination with demons – the sort that live inside your head, and mine… the sort that are born of nightmare and fear, and also the ones that might be real. They crop up every now and then in my stories. This is Gary. He’s not from round here.

���My demon, who fashions Danish pastries with fingers born from the leavings of madness. He crafts so sweetly, living to delight. Who knows what those flaming eyes have seen, peering into the midnight places of soul and monstrosity. Cupcakes, light and pleasing. Croissants so airy they might float. Let me share my demon with you, children. Let me show you how he transforms tears into honey. An alchemy like no other. There are stories he could tell of degradation, the very worst one being can inflict on another, to make idle daydreams of your precious heartbreak. He cooks waffles and brownies. Spreads syrup and cocoa. It is a better magic. Is it enough to cry out in pain, describing the worst? Making a culture of compromised flesh and hope. We could bleed the world to death, you and I. Is this why we sought out poetry? To wade knee deep in fluid metaphors for torment? Chasing the title of bard because we are wounded. A world of Fisher Kings, and no one pure enough to seek the Grail. Let go. Forgive yourselves for all you have endured and lost. Make stories, turn it to crystallised history. Give the past no power over the future you shape. Pared to the bone, you must grow new flesh. Grow wings and tails, horns and haloes. Be more than downtrodden. Be the beautiful essence pain has revealed. Fertile, tree growing soil, not barren wasteland, holding tight to every poison that stripped it. We are not what they did to us. We are ourselves, and true. My demon bakes fairy cakes, light as laughter. Look yours in the eyes, be they ever so fierce. Look your demon in the eyes and demand to know what good it means to do.���

Fast Food at the Centre of the World, happening in 2015.

Surviving the season

I always struggle with this time of year ��� the rampant consumption and waste, the relentless forced jollity, the pressure it puts on anyone who is struggling emotionally or financially… the whole thing makes me bloody uncomfortable. At the same time I have all the urges towards light and companionship that underpin the seasonal insanities.

Moving to Stroud has made it much easier to buy from creative people, and some of my festive shopping has been sourced from local artisans. This makes me happier, knowing I am contributing to the viability of people who are doing good things rather than adding to the stashes of already wealthy shareholders. Money spent with local craft people stays in the local economy. Who knows where money spent on big business will end up? In tax havens, perhaps.

I haven���t decorated a tree in four years. There wasn���t room on the boat, and the flat isn���t large. This year I have decorated a tree, and I feel really good about it. The tree is outside. I���ve decorated it with a bird feeder and apples. It attracts small birds, and the comedy of upside down squirrels, who have enjoyed the apples.

I have made some gifts, I will be making others, not as a seasonal activity but as something I mean to keep doing through the year. If I put twenty or thirty hours into a rug ��� as well I might, or fifty or so hours into a piece of embroidery, appliqu�� or tapestry, there is no way I can sell it for money that reflects the time. I don���t want to devalue my work, (realistic prices means I���d earn about a pound an hour, and I���m not playing that game any more). Giving away what I make feels a lot better as a process, and not as a midwinter thing, but as how I intend to spend a fair chunk of my future.

I���ve made puddings to share with people ��� these are the only traditional festive foods I am at all excited about, and it turns out that a pudding can be steamed in a slow cooker! I will not have a moist home as a pudding consequence. Puddings are something that matter to me. My great grandmother used to make a big batch and boil them in the copper (otherwise used for laundry) I never knew her, but when I make puddings, I feel a sense of connection. Puddings were not a viable option on the boat and last Christmas I was too low for much innovation. This year, things are a bit better.

On Christmas day, I have a three hour walk on the agenda, and something similar for Boxing day. I will be out on the hills, with the sky and the wild things, out in the places that are innocent of the lunacy we���ve built up around midwinter. Other than that, I mean to spend the next week quietly, making cake, spending time with people, and even having some days off. On the whole I find that the less I co-operate with the noisy, commercial wastefest, the better a time I have of it during the dark part of the year.

Charles de Lint

I first encountered Charles de Lint in my teens. He���s a prolific author, blending myth and imagination with modern settings and real world issues. His writing has enchanted me repeatedly, not only is it glorious escapism, but it also inspires me and feeds my soul. He���s one of the authors I keep going back to, and whose books I am unlikely to risk loaning to anyone else.

He���s one of those authors who, if there was either reason or justice in this world, would have the time and space to just write without having to run around doing the job of a traditional publisher, as well, but such is the world… On Facebook this week, this appeared…

���We���ve just released our Triskell Press e-book of The Very Best of CdL. On the advice of other indie authors, I���m trying out Amazon���s KDP (Kindle Prime) program��for 90 days. KDP subscribers can download the book and read it for free. I���m only doing this because I���m trying to expand my readership and find some new fans, and Amazon���s KDP subscriber base is huge. Apparently I���ll reach a multitude of readers who���ve never heard of me. Word-of-mouth is crucial for any author to succeed, so it also *really* helps me if you Share this announcement. Thanks again to my readers here, who helped me choose these stories. I couldn���t have put this collection together without you. And once again, I owe a BIG debt of gratitude to Charles Vess, who kindly offered his cover art for this book. MaryAnn and I have the original hanging in our house. Lucky, eh?���

That an author of Charles de Lint���s calibre can no longer find a comfortable home he can rely on in mainstream publishing says a lot about the shameful and sorry mess the mainstream is in. This man is lovely and brilliant in equal measure. As it���s possible a few of you reading this blog have not heard of him, I wanted to give him a plug. The things that might have drawn you here ��� a love of things Celtic, folklore, mystery, tradition, landscape, wildness… makes you very likely to enjoy his work. Please do take a moment to check out the book.��http://www.amazon.com/Very-Best-Charl...

 

Being an object

Working through the most recent bout of depression, I���ve faced up to the way in which I tend to treat myself as an object. I see my time, energy, even my body all too often as something that exists to be of use to other people. I���ve never bought into self as object of desire or beauty ��� I just never had that sort of face ��� but plenty of people do go that way. No one does this by themselves.

We are creatures living in societies that require us to be co-operative and to act in ways that other members find acceptable. In theory this should be a good thing, and should enable to us to get along and survive. However, all too often what happens is we are competing with each other for rewards from those who control the resources. The more economically oppressed we are, the more we have to compete with each other for the resources. Never mind that we have the technology and energy to feed, clothe and shelter the world. In such a climate, how useful you can be is a very relevant issue.

It is interesting to look around and see who in your family and your social circles is allowed to be inconvenient, and who isn���t. Whose illness is treated seriously, and whose is written off as making a fuss? Who is allowed to express dislike and discomfort, and who isn���t? Who feels able to speak up and who feels obliged to stoically take it?

I think for many of us this is about how we are taught to behave as children. Some girls get to be precious little princesses and some don���t. Some boys get to be princely tyrants, and some do not. Some children are rewarded with attention and care if they act out, some if they express distress. Some get what they want for having a temper tantrum, and some will be left with bruises if they dare to express discomfort. And so we learn whether our opinions matter or not. We learn whether there is room in our lives for wanting things that are not useful to other people, not convenient, or whether we are the most important person in our little world and entitled to bawl if things don���t go our way. Those patterns, once set, are really hard to break.

In our adult social circles and relationships we will stay with what���s familiar, all too often. If we���re used to being co-operative little bees, we���ll get on with fitting in. If we���re lord of the manor, we won���t accept friends who expect us to play fairly. These patterns are so deeply ingrained, from so early a view that they shape our world view, and our understanding of who we are in the world. Our families, schools, peers and teachers help us build those realities when we are too small to know we are doing it, or what the consequences might be.

I learned to be quiet, to try hard, by busy and productive, accept what I was given with as much grace as I could muster, and not make a fuss when I wanted something different. I learned that I had a low pain threshold, so expressions of pain were trivial. As an adult I���ve been adept at finding people who would take that and exploit it, because oddly enough I feel safer being someone���s useful object than I do trying to stand on my own. Feeling useful is a form of comfort and security, and it���s that which keeps me in places where I work to mental and bodily exhaustion.

That I can see it might make it possible to change something. How do I get to feel safe without feeling necessarily that I am useful and convenient? That may take some figuring out. And as an aside, how do we get rid of all the little lords and princesses bawling for more sweeties, who get themselves into positions of power?

Valuing women

Yesterday, the Church of England appointed . Excellent news! I wish her the very best of luck and joy in what she does. I can only hope that this late introduction of gender equality in the Church of England will help reduce its patriarchal role and increase the respect shown to women generally. I can hope. I need to hope, because we have a long way to go on that score.

Then I got on to twitter, and one of the first things I saw on the subject was @susanhillwriter. ���Pleased abt 1st woman Bishop but WHY can’t women priests use some make-up and a nice lipstick and get decent haircuts ?��� I got into a conversation about this, of course. She went on to say that presenting well ��� ie wearing makeup and conforming to certain, narrow assumptions about what beauty means, is an act of respect to all the people looking at you.

We do it to ourselves. It���s a fine case in point of why patriarchal oppression is not simply something men do to women. It is a whole system of logic around how we value and treat women, and a big part of what keeps it going is that there are plenty of women like Susan Hill (writer) who are happy to act in this way in response to women like Libby Lane who are out there doing truly important things. We���ve just seen a historic moment, and the first female bishop and the first thing you have to say on the subject is that you want her to wear lipstick and get a haircut that you’d like?

Having had a look at Libby Lane, she looks like a person to me. She has her own face, and a practical haircut. Of course what lipstick and makeup does is mimic the signs of sexual arousal a woman might get in her face at key moments ��� blood to lips, wide eyes, flushed cheeks… forgive me if looking aroused is not a quality I seek in religious leadership of any gender or faith. It���s a very modern fashion to equate the wearing of makeup with looking smart. Go back just a few generations and makeup meant you were probably a women of saleable virtue. Add to that the way Christianity deems vanity to be sinful, and isn���t in favour of people offering themselves as sexual objects, and you might possibly have a whole array of reasons why a woman bishop might not want to face the cameras looking like a magazine cover model.

Let���s not talk about her values, her experiences, her interests. Let���s not talk about who she reads or what charities she supports. Let���s get on social media and discuss her makeup choices, and carefully reduce her down to the status of object for looking at. Because we wouldn���t want women thinking they could be valued for their minds, skills, knowledge, ability, compassion or experience. That way lies anarchy!

Why are women so willing to value and devalue other women based on appearance? Why does conformity to the current fashion for attractiveness play such a role in how we see people whose jobs really have nothing to do with how pretty they are? The point of religious leaders is not to look at them, but to listen. We don���t give a hoot what male priests look like, in fact we may tolerate a fair amount of eccentricity and lack of attention to fashion and desirability, so why does a woman who takes on this most unworldly of work get expected to conform to the most worldly of visual standards?

You can���t see much of @susanhillwriter on her twitter profile, and there���s only one picture of her face on her homepage. She doesn���t appear to be wearing makeup, and has a short hairstyle not so very far, to my eye, to that worn by Libby Lane. Now, there���s a puzzle! But why shouldn���t she look that way if she likes?

Exercises for learner Druids

(Or, why I mostly don���t do that thing). I���m generally not a fan of little exercises for anyone, especially not delivered through this sort of medium. It���s one thing when you���re working directly with a student and helping them find things to explore, but with something like this, fired off randomly into the ether, it���s not a good idea.

Firstly we���re all different. What works for a young, bouncy, fully able person won���t necessarily work for someone with mobility issues or agoraphobia. What makes emotional sense to a westerner living in the town their family has always lived in, won���t work in the same way for someone who is a second generation immigrant in a very different climate. Each of us stands on a unique part of the world, with a unique mix of genetic and cultural heritage and little exercises tend to generalise and assume total similarity.

Then there���s the authority issue. If I tell someone to do a little exercise, I am at serious risk of asserting myself as great and wise Druid leader and teacher, and reinforcing the sense that here is an ignorant newbie who has to be spoon fed. ��This is the dynamic of guru and follower, and it���s not how I want to work. I am always going to see myself as a student, and do not want to be in a place of authority over others. Many people come to Druidry when they are no longer children. They come to Druidry having lived, experienced, explored, contemplated and made choices about their beliefs and how they want to practice. I tend to assume that a person coming to Druidry already knows a fair bit, whilst I have no idea what it is they might know from the journey. None of that needs to be, or should be discarded; it is all part of who we are and what brought us to this point. None of us is a beginner.

I���ve been hit by little exercises that made no sense and sat awkwardly with me as emotional experiences. They were a hindrance to learning, not a help. A good tool offers a door, a path, an opening, rather than closing down our options.

So, how do we teach each other Druidry if not by giving the new folk little exercises to do? There are so many options. We can share ideas and experiences. We can talk about our own practice, and let people do with that as they will. Druidry is not doing little pious exercises every day for the sake of doing the little exercises, it���s about living, thinking, exploring and being. It���s about being real, not about issuing homework. It���s about figuring out what to do on your own terms rather than being told what to do by someone else. It is one breath to the next.

The more precise the little exercise is, the less useful it is. If it tells you what to feel, it is especially suspect. It is my belief that if we want to teach each other about Druidry, we have to let go of the desire to shape and control each other���s experiences, and the desire to have someone else tell us what to do. We have to let go of the idea that what works must work universally ��� this is not science, we aren���t looking for repeatable results and ultimate truths and we could afford more space for diversity and difference.

Do what makes sense to you. Do what inspires you. Do what calls to your heart. Do what seems important or necessary. Pause, reflect, wonder, imagine. Stopping to think about things is the only exercise any Druid, beginner or otherwise, ever really needs. Anything else it might be useful or appropriate for you to be doing, flows from that, from your specific circumstances and the direction you wish to move in. We should be looking to pass around flexible, adaptable tools, not little boxes to hide in.