Nimue Brown's Blog, page 451

Being Splendid

An exhausted but happy blog post after a day at the Asylum. And no, this does not mean that the men in white coats have finally taken me away – Asylum is a huge Steampunk event. Named, as far as I can make out, for the presence of The Lawn, a big place that was not only an asylum, but the first hospital in the UK dedicated to mental illness. We wandered the grounds there today, and that was a rather moving experience.

Being Splendid is a big part of the steampunk ethos. It’s there in the clothes, the creativity, the being polite and charming to each other and such good things. There might be a dash of punk in the visuals, but it’s not so much a culture of trashing the state, it’s not overtly angry. It’s subtly angry and subversive, and I love this.

It’s been an amazing day, I have met more awesome people than I can count, or, I fear, remember anything like as well as they deserve. There have been some mind-blowing conversations, more of that to follow once I’ve had time to reflect on everything a bit.

Undoubtedly the greatest joy of today has been the sheer number of people delighting in Tom’s artwork. I’ve loved his art for years now, but having so many people stop to enthuse, has been a joy. And we’ve seen so much fab stuff as well. Dr Geoff is a new and happy discovery for us, and we ended up on a panel with both him, and Robert Rankin – who is a most excellent fellow.

Wow!

There’s a fair few druidy and pagan folk here too, including John and Caitlin Matthews, launching their exquisite Steampunk Tarrot. I didn’t get the name of the artist, but I recommend checking it out – it’s not just tarot with cogs on, its thoughtful, beautiful stuff, and if I was even slightly into working with tarot cards I would seriously consider getting a set.

Tomorrow promises more awesomeness. I’m planning on posting about what we do in the panel With Professor Elemental – Tom has some stories to share, and once he’s aired them here, we’ll make it a bit more public. It’s going to be a wild sort of day.

Spirits of an unfamiliar place

I’m travelling again, this weekend finds us at The Asylum, the UK’s biggest Steampunk event. And we’re not the only Druid attraction in town, John and Caitlin Matthews are here, talking about their new Steampunk tarot!

I’ve not been to Lincoln before. It’s an old city, certainly dating back to the Romans (and I assume, before them), and with plenty of medieval architecture. We’ve done a lot of wandering around this evening, admiring the buildings, getting used to the incredibly steep hill, gazing at the vast and wonderful views. I love travelling and encountering new places, it fires my imagination and feeds my soul.

I always seek out what I can in a new place, looking for a sense of the land, the ancestors, waterways… I don’t like to feel that I’m just passing through, taking without showing respect in some way. But of course really speaking I am exactly a tourist, even though I’m working, and I am just passing through. In a few days I will get what sense I can of the place, its history, its character, and whatever I can connect with, and I will do with that whatever makes sense. But whatever I think of my own impressions, I’m careful not to lose sight of the fact that I am just passing through.

Some aspects of a place can be grasped in very little time, are taken in with the first impressions and prove true if tested in more depth or at a later date. That’s true anywhere. It takes time to build the deeper knowing, exploring a place through seasons, times of day, seeing its flows and how its mood shifts over time.

I used to go to Bromyard Folk Festival a lot – also happening this weekend. I fell in love with the vibrant energy of the place. Then I went back one time when the festival wasn’t on, and realised this was a whole different town, and a place I did not know at all. As a traveller, I can only hope to see flashes and fragments.

I’m not good at staying in one place all the time. I like knowing places deeply and forming deep bonds with the spirits of a place, but at the same time, I’m a nomad at heart. I have a huge wanderlust in me, and it is good to be out, in a landscape I have never seen before, trying to get a feel for the soil and the wind.

Dear politicians,

I know most of you won’t read this, but I’m writing it anyway because then at least I will have said it. It does not seem to have occurred to you that the greatest assets a country possess, are its people, and its natural environment. Arguably, people are part of the natural environment, but that’s a whole other story. People are one of your most valuable assets not because of what they might do for GDP, what they might produce, the tax you can raise from them or anything else of that ilk. People are your most important asset, because they are living, thinking, feeling beings. A country should take care of its people, and take pride in taking care of its people.

The health of your nation is one of your greatest potential assets. It is worth spending money one, because without health, happiness is much harder to achieve. And, knowing how much you care about money and productivity, now might be a good time to mention that well people are going to be more productive. This does not mean the solution is to tell everyone they are well, and stop supporting those who aren’t. This, between you and me, is a bloody stupid approach bound to make things worse. Stop it. Ill people are not lazy, are not scroungers, they represent incidents of your most precious resource needing support. Treat them accordingly.

Compared to the tax dodges of big business and the financial abuses of the money markets, benefit fraud really isn’t that big a deal. Get over it. I know it’s very easy to whip up hatred against the most vulnerable and marginalised members of society, but this is not ethical and once again misses the point that these people too, are part of your biggest asset.

We only have the one planet. Our water, air and soil are precious resources that we damage at our own cost. And yes, I do mean the kind of financial cost that you are capable of understanding. If we do not take care of our physical resources, we are doomed. This ought to be a no brainer, but too often you put short term money making ahead of long term viability. You might not be in office ten years hence, but you’re still going to have to breathe the air. Think about it.

We have a system that has evolved gently out of tyranny and feudalism. It’s a system that has always put the financial needs of an elite few first. If you want to carry on being the elite few, you might want to try practicing a little enlightened self interest. We are facing epidemic level obesity, anxiety and depression, along with a great many other illnesses. We are in financial crisis. We have an environmental disaster hanging over our heads the potential cost of which is beyond your wildest imaginings. You need to do something about this.

How about we stop worshiping the gods of GDP and profit for a little while, and ask ourselves what actually matters? Does it matter whether the excessively rich get to give themselves million pound bonuses this year, or does it matter that all our young people should be educated to a standard that will allow them to survive whatever the future throws at them? Do we need a few more expensive toys, or would we be better off making sure that our food chain is not loaded with dangerous poisons? People, and the environment should, by any logical measure, be the two most important considerations of any government. Not the income of the few, but the welfare and viability of everyone.

And please, stop with the bullshit about trickle down. It doesn’t. The super rich do not cause much by way of life improvement for others. If you doubt this, look around. Look at the Middle East where extreme wealth lives along side abject poverty. Wealth comes from the roots and it goes up, and currently it accumulates with the few at the top, to the detriment of the majority. If there is no one at the bottom, at the production and purchasing end, making all the small cogs go round, there is no system. Look at how any eco system works. Take out the bottom, the least powerful, most predated aspect of a food chain and watch how the big, dramatic predators die off. Nature tells us that you do not get high level predators without a healthy system supporting them.

To you who would be those predators; the tigers, eagles, sharks of the world, I say this. With nothing to feed on, you die. If you can’t buck up your ideas for any other reason, you might try doing it for that.

Imagining Pagan saints

After making a throwaway comment yesterday about not aspiring to be a Pagan saint, I started wondering what such a being would look like. It almost sounds like an oxymoron. Sainthood is so tied up with the idea of Christianity. Other religions have terms for enlightened spirits who either come amongst us by choice to help us lesser mortals along, or those who attain special status. In Shinto, a highly spiritual person might become a Kami after death, for example. There are also individuals – Ghandi specifically springs to mind, whose spiritual qualities transcend the specific religion and are widely recognised.

As far as I know, there isn’t a Pagan word that covers this. If you know otherwise, please, please do post a comment. If you want to offer a brand new word, don’t hesitate. It may be that we are missing a thing and need to make it up. It’s not just a case of looking round the other faiths and feeling envious of their saints, gurus and masters.  Recognition and parise should be part of what we do, but how do you praise what you don’t have a word for? I don’t like borrowing from other world religions to fill in the gaps.

My second, almost inevitable thought was to ask, if we had such a title, such recognition of enlightened, and deeply spiritually involved status, who would merit it? We’ve had, and have, some interesting figures amongst our leaders, but I can’t think of any one person I look at and think yes, this is the person I want to emulate. My pagan elder ideal would be fighting injustice, working for peace, would show compassion in everything they did, would share wisdom freely, abhor politics in the small sense, live close to nature, eschew commercial material distractions whilst embracing the good things in life, would be erudite, inspiring and walk their talk.  I can think of a lot of people who are clearly working to be many, if not all of those things. If you want to name someone as being a shining example, by these, or your own measures, please do leave a comment.

Saints, Gurus, Kami, Messiahs, Prophets – they are not run of the mill. Pretty much by definition. Much of what underpins Paganism is equitable – we are all able to be our own priests should we choose. We could all write our own sacred book. We can craft our own prayers and rituals, make our own path. But we do have hierarchy, we have archdruids, high priests and various other titles. I’m not fond of titles, but the kind I’m talking about becomes ridiculous if self proclaimed. Recognition is a whole other issue. But what if we took that essentially Pagan notion of equal access back to the idea of people who transcend, why could we not all aspire to be whatever the Pagan equivalent of a saint is?

Once upon a time a lot of people where writing sacred books, speaking as prophets, performing miracles and becoming saints. We moved away from that as we moved out of the medieval era. Arguably, the essence of many Pagan paths is precisely the kind of magic and vision that made the saints and prophets of old. It’s hard to imagine how something like that could really become part of mainstream culture again, without going back to the crazier superstitions that we’ve also moved away from. Can we be both rationally enlightened, and visionary? I think we can.

Confessions of a grumpy Druid

I write a lot about tolerance, inclusion, giving everyone the space to walk their own path in their own way. These are ideas that I believe in and value. Some of it is more aspirational than actual. Patience, for me, is very much a work in progress. The person I am least patient with is invariably myself but I certainly do get very grumpy about other people. Politicians and fundamentalists tend to top my list. Where I encounter narrow-mindedness, cruelty, bigotry, my capacity for any kind of compassion is sorely taxed. And I shall be honest, I am not beautifully tolerant of idiots either. Not people who lack intelligence – genuine shortage of brain power is not a thing to mock anyone for. Deliberate ignorance and refusal to think, is a whole other matter.

The trouble with grumpiness, is how easy it makes it to sit round being smug, self important, holier than thou and not actually get off my bottom and try to do anything. I know folk who do use their grumpiness as a spur to action, and I respect that tremendously. But it can so easily become an excuse in its own right, or a justification.

I’ve become ever more conscious over the last few years that people tend to have underlying motives for what they do, which aren’t always apparent from a casual look at the surface. What seems like laziness, may in fact be a person who is crippled by low self esteem. What seems like self importance or pride may be the defences of someone who is monstrously insecure. Fear, anxiety, lack of self confidence, these things all manifest in quite odd ways, and seldom self announce. They are, after all, the things anyone would prefer to hide.

How I respond to other people doing things I think are less than perfectly clever or useful, can be very much ‘in the moment’. One of the things I’ve been trying to do is work on how I think about other people, and the time I’m willing to put in on trying to see things from other angles. I ask ‘why?’ a lot, and the more I do it, the more helpful I’m finding it. Making sense of odd experiences in my history can be cathartic. Sometimes just having a best guess as to why, makes it easier to let go and move on. There was a person, years back, who went from seeming very pro and friendly, to becoming decidedly hostile. I spent a lot of time examining my own behaviour – if I could have found something of my making to correct, I would have gladly done so. Then it finally struck me, only yesterday… the change happened when said chap started relinquishing dreams and aspirations, and I did not. Was it as simple as that? Did he just resent me for not quitting as well? I won’t know if that was it, but it casts so many things in a subtly different light.

I’ve found repeatedly that being gentle and reassuring towards hostile and domineering people can have a surprising effect. If the hostility is defensive, then working to seem less threatening, less spiky myself, make things easier. It is realistically a lot easier to change myself and see how others change accordingly, than it is to expect change.

I have also learned to treasure my grumpiness. I don’t air it in public much, but it is like a smoke detector, going off now and then. Sure, sometimes it’s more of a burned toast scenario than a house in flames one, but it doesn’t hurt to be alert. I spent too much of my life trying to suppress my own frustration and unhappiness, a path that does not lead to anything good. If something irritates me, I’ll give it a good, hard look these days. I may go as far as a bit of satire (boil inducing or otherwise!) I do vent my grumpiness. It’s not, after all, my aim in life to try and attain whatever the pagan equivalent of sainthood might be. Just to do the best I can with what I’ve got. And to bitch about politicians, idiots, journalists, bigots and irredeemable assholes.

Write your own sacred text

I’m serious.  It is my firm belief that every sacred book in existence was written down by humans. I’m perfectly happy to accept the possibility of divine inspiration. However, if we could, as a species, acknowledge that there have been many flawed, human involvements in the creation and selection of all holy books, that might enable us to loosen up a bit and stop killing each other over them. I’m nothing if not an optimist. The assumption of the ‘word of God’ in holy books is the source of a frightening amount of pain, violence and death. If we could only let go of that, and view them as inspired, and written by humans, so much else would change.

Every religious rite in the world is the consequence of human invention. Again, perhaps divinely inspired, perhaps not. Every prayer, ever hymn, every pilgrimage and act of faith, is intrinsically human in origin. We tend to give validity to the practices that have been around the longest, and there are sound pragmatic reasons for taking such a line. Namely that tried and tested things may have the advantage over new stuff. But once, every last word and hand gesture of it was also new stuff, and it only got to be tried and tested, by being tried and tested. Rejecting any spiritual practice on the basis of newness, is therefore not entirely sensible. Again, if we accept the importance of human creativity and human innovation in the mix, we do not have to rely on ancient, out of date and irrelevant spiritual practices. We can make our own.

I’ve been playing with this myself for a while. Just collecting observations, fragments of ideas, ponderings. I’m a long way from being ready to share them, but the process is a really good one. It gives me time to reflect. I’m trying to condense my Druidry down into small, intense thought forms. It helps me strengthen my own practice and develop my ideas. I recommend trying it.

There is no book of the Druid faith, and I sincerely hope there never will be. There are a growing number of books about Druidry out there, but not many books of Druidry. Now, if one person wrote and published a Book of Druidry that could be a disaster, especially if anyone took them seriously. But if a dozen, or a hundred people did it, that would be a lot of fun, and we could pass the results round, borrow each other’s ideas, try and get more people writing. It could be wild, productive, really interesting. And then, why stop at Druids? What if other Pagans could be persuaded to have a go? Christians. Atheists. Why not write a book of beliefs that are non-theistic? Books about values, in the beginning was the bang, if you will. Collect things you like, if you don’t feel able to innovate, but where they come from known people, keep the names on. That human source matters. It keeps Gods out of the editing process.

Finally, put your own name on the title. The first testament of Bob. The ideas of Alice. Whatever you want to call it, but pin your unique identity, your human-ness right on the front. Then put it somewhere, and share. Let me know if you get this far, I will set up a page here and post links. I’m really, really hoping I can inspire other people to have a go at this. Let me know if you do.

Jesus Through Pagan Eyes

My review of the recent book written by Mark Townsend, with additional content with probably every famous living pagan you’ve heard of. Published by Llewellyn.

This is one of the most fascinating and thought provoking books I’ve had the pleasure to read in a long time. Author Mark Townsend has considerable experience of both Christianity, and Druidry. As a Christian he’s even been part of the establishment, as a serving priest, and has had his faith challenged by having to deal with hostile reactions from the very Church he worked to serve. Organised Christianity is full of politics, and I learned things I could not have imagined about ‘orthodoxy tests’ and pressure to conform. But Mark is not a conforming spirit, and this is part of what makes him such an interesting figure.

What this book offers is some of Mark’s perspective on Jesus, as myth and historical figure. He takes us into the differences between Church and Jesus, picking up on the fact that many Pagans have no issue with Jesus and huge issue with what other people have done in his name. Then there are essays from leading Pagan figures, exploring ideas of Jesus, followed by interviews with further well known Pagans focusing on specific aspects of Jesus myths and attitudes. There’s a vast amount of insight, knowledge and diverse opinion here.

If my experience of moots is anything to go by, when three or more Pagans are gathered together, sooner or later the subject of Christianity comes up. I rather imagine that Jesus Through Pagan Eyes is going to keep plenty of moots in raw material for some time to come.

What I would have liked twice as much of, at least, was Mark himself, sharing his feelings, beliefs, insight and experiences. I’d not read any of his work before. In many ways the Pagan contributors were expressing views and opinions I’ve heard before, although with more quotes, references and whatnot. Mark, on the other hand, as a dedicated follower of Jesus whose relationship with the establishment is uneasy, intrigues me. He’s got a lovely, lively accessible writing style, and his was the view I most wanted to spend time with. I’m one of those fairly typical Pagans who sees Jesus as the original hippy, mostly has nothing to do with him spiritually but feels no animosity, whilst being very fond of pondering the history and implications of his life and legacy. Being some distance from both my life experience and beliefs, Mark himself cuts as a fascinating figure. Jesus Through Pagan Eyes felt to me like a book that had been put together more for Christians than Pagans. I would love to see Mark come at it the other way too, exploring Jesus more for Pagans by himself, or with other Christians. In the meantime, I shall be looking for more work by this author. I think for anyone working in interfaith he’s a must read, and for anyone wanting to know what some of the big names in modern Paganism really think about Christianity, this is going to be very interesting stuff!

Away with the fairies

There’s a hide not far from the canal – private land being developed as a mini nature reserve, with tree planting and a small pond. We regularly see badgers, foxes, rabbits, buzzards and garden birds there, having permission to visit as we please! The badgers are the main attraction, because they generally aren’t easy to spot other places. However, the hide owners tend to put down peanuts to attract them. Last night, there were no nuts. A lone badger of the dozen or so from the set came round to check, and that was the end of the matter. Still, seeing one badger is a joy, and we also had an encounter with a huge, unidentified moth.

We were just getting up to leave when Tom spotted lights amongst the trees. We all saw them – a cluster of small lights that could only be seen from one angle, and that all went off at once. It was nearly dark by then. The nature area does not adjoin any gardens, ruling out fairy lights, solar lights, anything gardenish – there’s a thick hedge and a grass walkway and another hedge between what we could see and the nearest garden.

There were glow bugs in the area, but we haven’t seen any in weeks now. There is a guy who studies moths, we pondered moth traps. Much work went in to looking for a perfectly rational explanation for what all three of us had seen. Increasingly aware that none of us were entirely at ease with the rational explanations, I eventually got round to saying ‘could have been fairies.’

It’s an interesting one for me. I’m a druid and a pagan, I believe in the idea of magic and otherworldliness, but at the same time I pride myself on being a rationally minded creature, willing to consider the evidence as dispassionately as I can. I’ll always look for the banal explanation first, rather than seeing everything in terms of gods, hobgoblins, aliens, Atlanteans etc etc. But there are times when the sense of wonder, the feeling of encountering something numinous is too strong for the rational explanation.

The last time this happened to me I was in Portland with Tom, and we both saw a tiny little whirlwind spinning leaves around. It was so small, so localised, the rest of the air so still that whatever the logical explanation might have been, the sense of seeing something otherworldly was powerful indeed.

Often it’s about the language we use. Thunder and earthquakes have perfectly sensible explanations, we know what they are, and yet at the same time the power of them, and other regular, natural and universally recognised phenomena is breathtaking. Spirit and science do not need to be at odds here. It may be tempting to call things we don’t understand ‘magic’ but there’s no reason not to recognise the known as magical, too. That first rainfall after days of dry heat. A full moon haloed by mist. There’s no reason for the experience of magic to be irrational.

We saw something last night. We don’t know what it was. Any speculation is just that, no version any more evidenced than any other, despite our best efforts. Of course I want to know what I saw, but for me, that knowledge would in no way reduce the feeling of wonder, awe and delight that the moment inspired.

You can’t get there from here

Usually, it’s offered as a joke, often with a strange local person uttering the words. Logically, it shouldn’t hold up. However, nothing fills me with fear like the kind of scenario that announces itself in these sorts of terms. The form which you can’t fill in without having the right code, which you can only get by filling in the form. (We had one of those this morning). More often than not, there is a way round it, although significant resources of patience, lateral thinking and perseverance are often called for.

Life has thrown me a few seemingly impossible things to try and field in recent years. The necessity of moving when there was nowhere affordable to rent or buy in viable striking distance was one such. It led to us being on a boat – not a challenge free arrangement, but one that gives us what we need. I’ve seen plenty of systems that seem to have impossibility built into them. Things where winning is just not possible. Others hold all the power, deal the cards, name the game and decide how to interpret the rules. Every run-in with one of these makes me that bit more cynical, and also that bit more determined not to let it grind me down.

There are plenty of systems you can get round by paying them to leave you alone. In essence this is corrupt, but it’s widespread. If you have enough money to hire the best lawyers you can write letters to intimidate others into giving up. If you can pay, you can force a less affluent opponent to quit just by upping the stakes enough. The rules of the poker table seem to apply all kind of places I’m pretty sure they shouldn’t.

Part of the trouble is that we have a longstanding culture in which money buys privilege. In English history, peerages, and parliamentary seats have been discernibly for sale. Politicians today will vie to buy your vote and to court the media. The company with the biggest budget can advertise the smaller competitors out of the market or undercut them to death. Money doesn’t just talk, it carries a big stick.

You can’t get there from here. You can’t easily change country without a lot of money to wave about. If you can show the funds, you can buy your way in. Criminal courts may be free to the victim, but many kinds of justice (restraining orders, child residency orders, small claims for repayment etc) require the civil courts, and you pay for that. Justice has a price tag, all too often. I notice down here on the canal that the bigger and more expensive looking your boat is, the more you can get away with – mooring alongside the no mooring signs is a popular one. Manifestly less affluent boaters would be moved on at once, but even those with legal authority hesitate to challenge the exceedingly rich.

The more obscure, convoluted and challenging a system is, the more unfair it is. The harder you make things, the faster you exclude anyone who isn’t so well educated. The more nasty your legal language, the sooner you intimidate folk who can’t afford legal advice or can’t buy themselves out. The more aggressive you are, the easier it is it shove out people who already feel vulnerable. There is no excuse for this. All official systems should by default, be as simple, clear and transparent as is technically possible. Ideally we ought to test them on eight year old kids. If the kids can’t navigate it, the system isn’t good enough. I’m thinking here about benefits systems, tax systems, medical systems, all the facets of society we may need to appeal to for help in times of difficulty. Any system which at any point has the capacity to exclude or intimidate, needs work.

Although that wouldn’t serve the interests of anyone who can currently buy their way to advantages, and who doesn’t want to share the privilege. Or anyone who fantasises about making it to the degree they think they too will one day grease the wheels and that therefore it should stay as it is.  While any of us buy into the make believe that we’ll win the lottery, land the movie deal and get to cross over to the place of power, we’re stopping ourselves from fixing all that is sick and stupid.

We can get there from here. It might take some doing, but we can.

Talking to Jesus

I’m currently reading Mark Townsend’s fabulous book ‘Jesus through pagan eyes’ (review at TDN and other places to follow soon!). It’s made me pause and re-examine my own beliefs and attitudes about Jesus. Apparently, like a lot of pagans, I don’t have much trouble with Jesus as a figure, but I have a lot of trouble with the things that have been done in his name.

I was Christened – a social event and Grandparent pleaser that I don’t recall. I did go to Sunday school a bit aged 4 – I’d been asking awkward questions about death. They gave me fuzzy felt. I needed philosophy. I wasn’t raised Christian. My first sense of Jesus wasn’t there though, it was at my Church of England Primary school, sat cross-legged in assembly, listening to someone talking about who he was and what he means. I remember thinking how lovely it would be, to be able to believe in a reassuring, kindly protector deity who was going to make it all nice. Even as a child, I found the world a hostile, frequently unforgiving, unmerciful sort of place. If there was a benevolent God, he certainly wasn’t taking care of me.

I have such mixed feelings about deity, not least because I have no capacity for the kind of belief that works without evidence. I feel comfortable with the idea of nature gods because there’s no reason to assume they’d give a toss about me anyway. But the loving, benevolent Jesus figure?

I do see him as the original hippy. I like the idea of Jesus the rebel and Jesus the peacemaker, trying to get people to play nicely, but I’m not sure it fits the evidence. So here’s my take. He’s of the house of David, the royal line. The title ‘king of the Jews’ keeps coming up. He’s got supporters wealthy enough to own a private tomb in a garden. That sounds to me like a political figure, not a religious one. Which makes it easy to see why both the Jewish elite and the Romans would have a problem with him. If anyone could have roused the locals to fight the Romans and overthrow the current leadership, it would have been a man descended from King David. I have no idea where the carpenter story fits in to this. Unless he was a Robin Hood figure, a bringing together of many people, archetypes, lives lived, lives imagined. I do buy into the idea that if he came out of the Jewish tradition, he must have been married. I like that version of Jesus better. A rounded human being, not an impossible god. My Gran always said Jesus was a template for how we should all live, and that we seldom manage to. She’d have loved Mark’s book, and his whole outlook.

One thing I’ve noticed is that pagans, especially at moots, are fascinated by Jesus – the man, the myth, the impact. I’ve probably spent more moot time talking about Christianity than any other single issue. However you might feel about it, this is a path with a lot of power.

I’d love to feel there was some benign figure, willing to listen to my woes, offer guidance, answer prayers. I’m perfectly happy to believe that Jesus, and other kindly deities are there in just that way for other people. There has been nothing of that in my life. Perhaps I’m not open enough. But I’ll stick with the disinterested nature gods, voices of thunder and wind, energies of tides and seasons. I can see them, I have a sense of awe and reverence. And if the sun shines on me sometimes, that’s going to have to be blessing enough.