Nimue Brown's Blog, page 406

The humbug post

It is traditional at this time of year for me to grumble publically about other people’s festivities and how much I detest them. This year is, in a number of ways, being worse. The rise of foodbanks in the UK, my awareness that many people will be hungry over the festive period, and 80,000 children homeless, makes the traditional gluttony even more abhorrent than usual. While MPs claim expenses for heating their second homes, many elderly people have to choose between heating and eating.

I have a lot of politically engaged people around the world in my social networks. I’m signed up to a lot of petition sites. As a consequence on a daily basis I’m hearing about international acts of eco-vandalism and eco-suicide. Unspeakable things undertaken in the name of profit. There are so many of them. Every now and then there’s a victory for sense and compassion, but the victories seem all too small in relation to what’s wrong out there.

It could be that things have always been this awful, and, not having the internet my whole life, I didn’t know. But foodbanks are a recent thing, and it used to be that we worried about homeless children in distant lands, not as a charity issue on our own doorsteps. There’s always been some degree of injustice for the poor, but the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest has never been bigger, and it keeps growing.

Quite honestly, this stuff scares me. It’s emotionally exhausting as well. Yesterday I had information coming in about how CO2 emissions from airports are calculated, and about the rise in foodbanks. We need to be talking about the transatlantic trade agreement. I started feeling like I could not cope and did not know what to say. I’m just a small voice, a little blogger writing for a few hundred people here and at ruscombe green. I send out press releases to local newspapers. In a good week maybe I get an idea in front of a few thousand people. It’s such a tiny contribution to be able to make. If I gave away everything I own, I could not begin to alleviate the short term misery in this country, much less anywhere else.

With all of that on my mind, it’s hard to work up much enthusiasm for festive shopping. I do at least have the scope to shop local this year. I’m buying things from independent Stroud shops and from the market to a significant degree. It’s a lot less grim than being exposed to the endless, useless, plastic mass produced soulless tat that dominates at this time of year.

What I want for me, more than anything else, is a few days away from it all, not breaking my heart over news items and causes I can do far too little about. What I need is some belief that it is worth my while to keep going. I could do with being able to stop without feeling guilty about it. But there is so much out there needs doing. Could we just have a couple of days while the wealthy politicians stuff their faces with food and sit in their large, well heated houses and do not inflict any new forms of suffering? A break would be nice. We’ve got plenty enough awfulness to be going along with. And if any of them dare to talk about Christian values during this season, as they brutalise the poor and attack the land, please, please would the Christian deity be so good as to smite them for taking the piss.

In the meantime, I’ve just been rendered a bit weepy by warmth and kind words from people on facebook. I suspect I’m burning out. I do not believe that people working themselves to mental and physical collapse is the way to go, and I know I should apply that to me, and mostly I don’t manage that.

Intelligent Designing

 

Many writers are drawn to the romance of historical settings. Not me. I’m drawn to the bloody stupid. I’m enchanted by the crazy things that struck our ancestors as being a good idea. Not the events of history that contributed to the great ‘march of progress’, but all the wrong turns, and all the things that never were. The Victorian era was awash with insanity. The mad inventors, the youthful sciences, the quack medicine, the showmen and charlatans, the mermaids, the flying machines… I love them all.

So while other people have beautiful heroines and splendid science and great moments of history… I have Druids on a traction engine, socialite archaeologists, devices that don’t work, random explosions, and Penance Biscuits.

The Penance Biscuits owe more to time spent as a pauper living on a narrowboat than to anything specifically Victorian. We bought an edible, food-like substance, that was very, very cheap. It was also very dry, and very sad, and seemed to be made out of desiccated hopelessness, and tasted like wood shavings and futility. I started wondering in what circumstances anyone would consider these things to be a good idea, and so they were re-named the Penance Biscuits, and from there gained a life of their own and a significant place in the plot I was working on.

Fiction, for me, is a bit of a cobbling together process. Like a mad inventor of old, I sit at my table, hammering together things that have no place being attached to one another. Things I read, and things I observe. Bits of my own life, twisted out of all recognition. Daydreams and ideas, wondering ‘what if?’ and trying to cheer up the kind of day when you’ve accidently bought something truly miserable but are going to have to eat it anyway. Sometimes there are explosions. Sometimes the strange creation hobbles out into the world and runs over a puppy.

Without further ado then, the beginnings of the fictional Penance Biscuits, and an ornate bucket that turns out to be quite important…

Intelligent Designing book excerpt, read by the author.

 

Of Gods and Stories

I have no idea how the universe works. Not a clue. Ok, some tenuous grasp of some of the physics, but when we get round to issues of deity and eternity, I make no claims to insight whatsoever. The whole thing confuses and unnerves me, and has done since I was about four and started trying to get my head round such things. I’ve made my peace with not knowing, and have settled into a place of maybeism. Maybe there are Gods. Maybe there aren’t. Maybe everything is part of the divine. Maybe there’s a grand plan. Maybe not. It’s a good way of not getting into fights with people over issues of belief, because, for all I know, they could be right.

From that position, the idea of working with Gods is tricky. I assume you need a very confident, hard-polytheist belief in the literal existence of Gods as autonomous and individual personalities in order to work with them. Maybe they are like that. Maybe the archetype people have it right…

The one thing I do believe in, is stories. Not least because so little actual belief is called for. Stories have power, and that is a power I know how to trust and invest in. Religions are, for the greater part, gatherings together of powerful stories that are meant to show us something. The measure of any story, be it religious, historical or fictional, is the effect it has. The greater Truths about living and dying, being human, being good, being effective… these are more important than whether or not a person actually existed, or whether people a few thousand years ago thought they were looking at a God or a fictional character.

We blur the lines between deity and fiction all the time. Ovid’s dream deities, might have existed as Gods, or maybe he made them up for that story. We’ve turned Thor and Loki into modern movie stars, and we aren’t sure what of the Welsh myths is ancient tales of deity, and what is mediaeval fiction. I have come to the conclusion that it really doesn’t matter. If a story moves you, and inspires you, that’s far more relevant than whether some people a few thousand years ago thought it was true. If The Lord Of the Rings is your sacred, inspirational text that has done most to teach you how to live, why should that be less valid than taking up a really old story that might or might not have originally been religious? Why should it matter if the story is about real, historical events? Robin Hood is a powerful icon. So are Lady Macbeth and Captain Kirk, for some people.

Stories change people. They give us shapes in which we can reimagine ourselves. They give us ways of choosing and living we might not otherwise have thought of. They give us ideas, hope and possibility. No, I have no idea if Blodeuwedd was really a Celtic Goddess. What I do know is how that story touched, changed, maddened and inspired me. That’s where the power lies.

The truth is out there (X Files). In all kinds of places. In galaxies far, far away, in girls who are shot by religious extremists, and miraculously do not die, in modern heroes and ancient tales. Whether we believe in deities or not, we can see the very real effects their stories have. There is a lot of reason in honouring the power of stories. It is not where they come from that matters, but where those stories are taking us.

Gratitude and perspective

It’s been a week. The lows were alarming – stressful things bad enough to give me panic attacks, and the distinct possibility that, due to a technical malfunction, I’d lost all of my photos and older work. Alongside that, a whole array of smaller trials and troubles that, by Friday, had me almost at screaming point.

Today, journeys in perspective. This time a year ago, and for years before then, panic attacks were not a noteworthy event. They were a daily occurrence and I was really ill. That I’ve come to a place where a panic attack is something to notice, marks a huge change in quality of life for me. Yes, the panic attacks are still horrible, debilitating and demoralising, but I am so glad that they are now rarer. I am better at managing them than I was, better at keeping going. I did what needed to be done.

I’ve lost a lot of things, and people along the way. I’ve lost homes and sanctuaries. Death has taken people I love. Life changes have put physical distances between me and too many people I care about. There were times when I had reason to believe that I could be deprived of the people who mattered most to me, and when I thought I’d probably lost everything I owned. I’ve been deep in debt, to degrees that terrified me, but I came through and got it sorted. I’ve been threatened with homelessness by the ‘charity’ The Canal & River Trust. I survived their bullying and they did not get to take my boat from me on the flimsy pretexts they use to intimidate liveaboard boaters into quitting the canal.

There’s an odd thing here though, because that experience has not toughened me. Other, smaller loses are just as alarming. Perhaps more so. The thought of losing all my photos cut me up. The thought of losing my work, the same. It’s not like losing a home or a person, and I would not have been so grieved; I have some sense of proportion, but life experience to date has not brought me to a point of being able to shrug off the smaller losses. Perspective does not always mean being able to shrug things off. That which I still have from former periods of my life, is really important to me. Books and clothes that date back to my teens. Kitchenware that was once my grandmothers. I smart over a large, earthenware pot of my grandfather’s which I left behind. Small friends lost along the way. The experiences of coming close to losing everything have made me value even more the things that have travelled with me.

The choice to let go of most of the cuddly toys this year, was a stinger. I’d given mine to my child, and we have run out of room. We picked the ones to keep, we let the others go. It was surprisingly difficult. Some of it may be to do with animism. I do not see inanimate stuff as irrelevant. Objects become imbued with stories and history. They become a part of life lived, and many seem to me to have a presence of their own, that is not easily dismissed. I do not give away, or throw things away easily or lightly. I do not discard people lightly or easily, either.

I have my files and photos, thanks to the awesome people at Webworks in Stroud. I shall express my gratitude to them by going back there to source all future technical things rather than searching online for bargains. They are an independent local retailer, and as I want to make sure they are around to rescue me next time, they get my custom. I find myself awash with gratitude to people who have just been lovely to me through the stresses and hassles. Small acts of kindness, fellowship, encouragement and hope. It makes worlds of difference.

As was pointed out in the comments yesterday, every setback is an opportunity too. A chance to learn something and be wiser for next time, if nothing else. A chance for other people to be noble, generous or heroic. A chance to get a different perspective. Most of this week has been shitty and hard, but I come to the end of it with a heart full of relief, deeply grateful for all the small gestures along the way, and for the good bits. Sun on a winter’s morning. Sleeping well. Mostly having the things that matter most to me. Glad that I know how to love fiercely the tiny things that are lovely. Glad that I know how to appreciate a quiet day, an easy day, a small win.

The power of (not so) positive thinking

There is a school of thought that encourages positive thinking, as the best way of attracting good energy into your life. The person with the positive outlook will see the opportunities and grasp them. The person who believed they can succeed will have a go in the first place. Like most excessive simplifications, it’s not actually of much use. People who go around expecting things to go well for them will spend a lot of time let down, disappointed and potentially confused. Sure, a positive attitude may help you take the leap into the unknown, but that can also lead to falling flat on your face.

People who practice optimism can end up needing to also practice cognitive dissonance, in order to deal with the way experience fails to tally with expectation. Pessimists, on the other hand either get to be a bit smug (didn’t I say that was doomed?) or pleasantly surprised when things go better than anticipated. The downside to pessimism is that it can reduce the urge to get in there and have a go. It’s not so easy as a pessimist to work up the belief that you can make a real difference.

Nature does not teach us optimism. Nature teaches us that everything dies. Many of those things will die in sudden, violent ways as a consequence of something else wanting to eat them. Nature shows us that no amount of positive thinking will stop winter being a hard time of year for most living things, and very hot summers from being potentially lethal, too. Nature shows us the unexpected arrival of earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, floods, droughts and famines. A positive attitude and a belief in your own ability to survive will help you there, but it won’t make the disasters go away.

The person who anticipate shit can plan for it. Strategies of avoidance, mitigation and so forth are available if you firmly believe the universe will dump on you every now and then. It comes as no surprise, when, like Eyeore, we find a ‘well, that’s just what would happen’. There’s less trauma in it going wrong predictably.

If it’s all lovely, all part of the grand plan, the best imaginable world… if it all happens for a reason and the gods never send you stuff they know you can’t take, if the universe is love, then when it goes wrong, either you need a very twisted take on what ‘love’ means or your reality takes a pasting, too. If you see existence as neutral, and potentially hostile, then you can just accept the horrible stuff. It fits with your reality. That doesn’t make you blind to the good stuff, it doesn’t undermine the love, beauty and wonder when they manifest, but sets them in context. Understanding the crap can help you hone an appreciation of that which is not crap, too. If you don’t have to pretend it’s all love and light, it is easier to recognise and honour the bits that really are about love and light, and therefore also easier to work with them in more meaningful ways.

Gender and Paganism

The subject of gender in spirituality – men’s mysteries, women’s mysteries, has come up on the Druid Network facebook group this week. I have no problem with people doing anything that makes sense to them or that they find useful, but this is one I struggle with personally.

Biologically speaking I am straightforwardly female – and always have been. I bleed, I carried a baby, I managed to produce milk, I curve in places maidens and mothers tend to curve. I can talk about bleeding and babies and feminine sexuality no trouble at all if it comes up, but I tend not to seek out the spaces designed for such conversations. I have a sense of not belonging in those women’s spaces, of not being properly qualified somehow. I do not know why that is, and I’ve given it a good deal of thought.

Psychologically speaking, I’m androgynous. Back when I was at college, I minored in psychology and spent some time looking at ideas of gender and gender identity. I did some tests, I know what I am. A great deal of gender is social construct rather than biologically determined. I had quite a gender-neutral childhood – no playing princesses, nothing of the pink and glittery, and culturally no kind of exposure to the sort of femininity that does heels and makeup. Critically, no television and no glossy magazines. So I grew up without having any idea about how to be *that* sort of girl. That aspect of my teens was perplexing, as I tried to figure out what the rules were and where on earth I fitted. As much of my social life revolved around being a drummer in a band, and other musical options, I tended to hang out with guys a lot. I had a couple of close female friends, but they had tomboy tendencies too, so the things regular girls seemed to be doing remained mysteries.

I’m a geek – another area of life dominated by guys. Geek girls were few and far between back when I was a girl. Every music performance space I’ve been involved with has been male dominated. Guys with beards and guitars are a bit of a folk cliché, but just what you want if you’re a fiddle player looking for someone to jam with.

One of the things I really like about Druidry is the way we don’t automatically polarise along gender lines. Most of the rituals and groups I’ve been involved with have simply never made gender an issue. Biological gender, psychological gender, orientation, life stage… none of it matters usually. I’ve only seen a few spaces that did seem polarized, and I stayed away from them. I had a keen sense of there being no space for me in a circle that seems to be about ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ in a very straight sense. I don’t want to try and act out that part and I have no idea how to relate to anyone on those terms.

Being female is not my defining spiritual experience. Being human is not my defining spiritual identity, either. I like it when circles have dogs in them, when cows and sheep turn up to watch, or birds get involved. Being alive is not my defining spiritual identity, because I have a growing sense, of and affinity with the dead people who also show up sometimes. To be a Druid, is to be present. The rest is just detail.

Honouring the inspiration

Inspired by Talis Kimberly, I find myself thinking about how we manage the flows of creativity, and what constitutes an honourable response to inspiration. For some, the awen is hard won, and the finding of ideas is a difficult process. For others, awen is a constant fountain of possibility. I suspect most of us move about between those two points, depending on other variables in our lives.

If you believe in the awen as a sacred force, then when inspiration comes, it does so as a divine gift, as a moment of significance, a spiritual engagement with the universe. To ignore that (as Talis pointed out on facebook yesterday) is a kind of blasphemy. Awen does not arrive to be a fleeting amusement or an opportunity to feel smug about how clever we are. It arrives with purpose, and to do something.

But, to do what?

Over the years I’ve found that those original flashes of inspiration are very seldom the whole. It’s like a door opening a crack. Often there then follows a process in which I have to work out how to open that door a bit further so that whatever wants to come through, comes through. Simply taking the first moment of inspiration and writing a song, a poem or a short story would be leaving the door just that crack open and never finding out where it went. This is all very personal, other people will work in other ways.

While I work in all kinds of forms, fiction and non-fiction, from tiny haikus through to epic novel series attempts, the novel was always my form of preference. Novels are not just one good idea. They are lots of ideas. The first flash of possibility isn’t going to turn into a novel all by itself. I have to wait, to seek more, to give the first ideas time to ferment and grow. Sometimes they wither away instead, and while that’s not a comfortable process, I’ve come to find it inevitable.

For me, the process of working with the awen involves quite a lot of time just sitting with it, being with the ideas and the possibilities until I start to see lines of connection between them. Taking the raw clay of an idea and playing with it to see if it might turn into a teapot or a really nice urn. Taking the sparks of inspiration and seeing if I can light a fire big enough to burn down half of my old ideas, and boil a kettle while I’m at it.

What I have seen, plenty of times along the way are people who do not take their inspiration forward. Folk who will devote hours to reimagining political systems, but who won’t put that anywhere more than a couple of people can see it, and would never muddy their hands with actual politics. People who imagine writing novels, but never put pen to paper. But then, for the greater part these have also been people who have never considered the idea of inspiration as inherently sacred. I should not, I know, judge too harshly, but it frustrates me nonetheless.

We only get this one life in any way we can be wholly certain about. Why wander round in a cloud of daydreams but never do anything to manifest the ideas that come to you?

By Peace and Love to Stand

We swear, by peace and love to stand, heart to heart and hand in hand. Mark, oh spirits and hear us now, confirming this, our sacred vow.

 

It’s a popular one for Druid circles, and I confess I find it ever more difficult. In a big Druid gathering, the odds are that I don’t know everyone well. Obviously I want to believe that all the other Druids around me are splendid and lovely people with whom I could easily stand heart to heart in all things… but we know how that goes. It’s a big dedication to make to a bunch of people you don’t know. More so, if you’ve experienced conflict with other Druids and are quite aware of the possibility that people can say this with you and get out the knives for a hearty backstabbing later.

I have spoken those lines in circle with a small number of people who went on to treat me really badly. Every time it comes up now, unless I know the circle, I feel that unease, and even when I do know everyone, the memory of who I have shared those words with in the past makes it uncomfortable.

I’ve stood in circles with people I am not entirely comfortable with. Again, with those big circles at Druid camp, at Avebury and the like, there’s every scope for being in circle with someone who irritates the hell out of me, or I feel uncomfortable with, or have clashed with, or just plain do not much like for some reason. In big community rituals, the choice is to either deal with the lack of peace and love some individuals may evoke, or step away from the community space.

To be part of a community is to deal with the people in that community I find abrasive and challenging. To be part of a ritual swearing to stand in peace and love, with those same people, is not easy. Is it hypocritical to even say those words when you don’t honestly suspect they will be universally upheld? Is it enough to offer them as an aspiration? We’re asking spirits to witness this as a sacred vow… that has implications.

Increasingly for me it goes… We swear by peace and love to stand, as far as is humanly possible, with some right to self-defence in emergencies and trying not to add to any pre-existing feelings of content. Heart to heart… because I would be open and honest and give freely of myself, really I would but on the other hand I’m very tired of doing that only to have my heart trampled over carelessly by people who do not give a shit… and hand in hand… well, there is some of that going on just now yes. Mark oh Spirits and hear us now, confirming this our sacred vow, but please don’t be too hard on us when we mess up, because someone will and I’m not sure how good a job I can do of this one.

A mix of spoken word and silent, slightly desperate appeal to the universe.

I’m also aware of the many who have honoured that pledge, heart and hand over many years, and it is a shame that experience of the few has so discoloured this for me that I find it hard these days to share it with the many. But, we keep trying, and hoping and aspiring, because these are good aims, and I’d rather fail while trying, than not try.

The Pie Song

Please be advised that if anything in this post seems smutty, it is entirely your own fault!

About ten days ago I was making a pumpkin pie for my bloke (he’s not from round here!) As I was working on the pastry, it occurred to me that I couldn’t think of any kind of songs that leant themselves to pie making. It’s December, so all the seasonal stuff has a bias towards that other festival. What to sing while making a pie?

I come from a folk background. It is worth noting that, in folk, anything can be a euphemism. Playing the violin, games of cards, fairground attractions, going for a walk, listening to nightingales… its remarkable the number of apparently innocent practices that, in a folk song, will lead to pregnancy and/or hasty marriage!

The last threads in this peculiar history, are that yesterday I was out with Druids and others, doing things to mistletoe (no, that’s not a euphemism….). I was expecting my old friend Dave, from Bards of the Lost Forest to be there, and he wasn’t, because he was being ill. There’s a man who’d appreciate a good pie, I had thought. There is also my good friend Edrie, who has been poked by medics over the weekend (not in the fun way, so much) and she’s the sort to enjoy a good pie, too.

And so I’ve recorded it. This one’s for you, recovering people, Dave, Edrie hope you feel better soon!

The Pie Song

(oh, and this is just a thrown together, recorded at home sort of thing so please forgive the imperfections.)

All for the giggles

It’s hard to ignore politics right now, given the kind of shit politicians are inflicting on us. The only thing that reliably enables me to cope with being at all politically aware, is satire and comedy. The news Quiz on radio 4, The Now Show, anything Mitch Benn sings, the Daily Mashup… It is all so much more bearable when you get to laugh at it regularly.

There’s a power in laughter. To laugh at the vile and disgusting things people in authority do, is to reclaim something. To laugh is to have some freedom still, some fighting spirit. Laughter means you aren’t beaten yet. It is so easy to be beaten down by the woes and wrongs of the world into a state of apathy and despair. Laughter is an antidote to this. It keeps us alive, alert, feeling and it reduces the squashing.

Sometimes it is bloody hard to laugh. Those are also the times when the skills of the comedian, are at their most critical. It’s when we are howling that we most need to be able to follow that with something else. And when there is no way of making a joke out of the latest god-awful policy, it is worth finding something else to laugh at. Giggling is good for the soul. It is a gentle erosion of self-control, a release of tension, a reminder of how and why to love each other.

I have two ports of call now when I need cheering up. I go on youtube and watch Ylvis videos. Their Stonehenge song is an especially good antidote to anything maddening going on in the Pagan community. A little light ridicule of the overblown that resonates in so many ways.

I also indulge in Professor Elemental videos. http://www.youtube.com/user/iammoog is a good place to go. A man with a rare knack for making things funny. Even on really bleak days, he can usually make me laugh, and I treasure that. A friend with a sense of humour is a very good sort of friend to have.

I spent the first thirty odd years of my life believing that I had no capacity for comedy. I became, due to circumstances, a person who did not laugh much. One of the surprises about spending that first week with Tom (more than four years ago now) was just how much we laughed. Around him, I became someone who could joke and play. We play a lot. Giggling has become part of my life, and that’s a big improvement.

I’ve made a conscious effort to try and get more laughs into my work. On the fiction side, it’s becoming easier. I think even when the content is serious, throwing in the odd giggle helps. There’s only so much seriousness a person can take in one go, the relief of laughter makes it possible, oddly, to handle more of the dark stuff.

As I trend towards the end of this post, I’m conscious that it should have a punch line. A lack of forward planning on my part there…  which rather goes to demonstrate there’s actually nothing less funny than talking about laughter. Go and giggle at something else. Tomorrow there will be a song, all being well, and you can snicker at it.