Nimue Brown's Blog, page 463

Enemies of the druids

Roman imperialisms pushed historical Druidry underground a few thousand years ago, and changed it at the very least, perhaps destroyed it. I’m no historian. Modern druids do not find themselves battling the armed forced of an expansionist state. We belong to no specific country, and can find ourselves on both sides, and none, in all manner of political arguments. It doesn’t look like anyone will be marching on us any time soon. When enmity is that clear cut, working out how to respond may be easier. Fight or acquiesce. You also know who to fight, and to whom you might surrender. These days we’re not in the same fights and there is much less clarity.

Modern Druids do not tend to fight such battles. Our enmity may be private. We may have taken up pens, rather than swords, to fight human rights abuses, animal cruelty, environmental vandalism or any one of the many issues besetting modern culture. When we do this, in practice what it means is that we are fighting a lot of the people around us. I talk about television dependence, battery raised children, car impact, consumerism. I’m not talking about a distant foe, I’m talking about the people in my village. These are not people I want to start a fight with. They are often people I like.

And then other times I’m talking about banks, politicians, corporations, government bodies, laws, habits of culture and systems. Trying to fight that is not unlike trying to fight fog. It’s there, I can see it, but it offers me very few actual targets I can hit. And again, all these things are made up of people, and many of them are going to be basically decent people who are only doing their job, or who have a different value system to me, or who have just never considered the consequences.

Now and then there’s a genuine nasty, some individual whose behaviour, actions, words make it clear they aren’t basically a nice person with whom I might not see eye to eye. Those who use and abuse, those who are deliberately cruel for their own amusement or gain and who do not care who they trample on during their struggle for success.

Even if I could go out with a sword and twat them, I wouldn’t, because that’s a response that reinforces the idea that might is right, and that’s not the culture I want to live in. I find myself banging my head against unfair systems, closed minded officials, and the general apathy of people who don’t want to know, on quite a regular basis. Truth be told, I anticipate this will be the way of it for the rest of my life, because it’s something I’m choosing to do.

There are times when offering a different example, responding with compassion and patience, or just working it through logically will shift something that had been a problem into something that can be worked with. It’s great when that happens, and if there’s just the faintest suggestion it can, then I don’t mind putting in the time. But there are plenty of people and structures that refuse to listen, much less see. There are places where the ‘norm’ is unassailable, to deviate is to be wrong, and there is no room for discussion. There are minds where only one explanation can exist, and there is no room to consider others. This is where the biggest, and the most interesting challenges lie. The measure of our Druidry is not what we do on the good days when all is happy and straightforward. The true measure of our ethics, our values, or characters even, is what we do when we’re up to the eyeballs in crap, with nowhere to go, no one who will listen, no obvious way to fight… then you see what a person is made of.

I’ve met some immovable objects in my time. Some instances that sounded a lot like ‘you can’t get there from here.’ I’ve come to the conclusion that the only thing to do is totally refuse to accept this. There is always another way, so long as you’re breathing. Always another button to push, ear to bend, letter to write. Always a way to protest and raise awareness. And it is possible to go after the wrong without trying to destroy the people involved in it. That’s a tricky one, and there are going to be exceptions (I think I’ve found one, but, who knows?) It’s not what we achieve that defines us as Druids, it’s how we go about it. Doing the right things, for the right reasons. Not the expedient things. Not the things that serve us, but the things that need doing. All of us, in our lives, will find battles we can’t win, enemies we cannot talk round. But merely the trying can create change, and the more people are out there living their druidry, and trying, the more difference it’s going to make.

Fencing off the good bits

This is her little bit of heaven. She’s worked hard for it, sacrificed years of living to making the money that would pay for it. Or maybe she’s found it by chance, and it cost nothing at all. What she wants to do now is put a fence round it. A big fence, strong enough to keep anyone out who wants a piece of her lovely place. Perhaps it’s her sacred space. She is afraid that someone will take it from her, or ruin it. She knows that if other people come here, it will be ruined because that’s what people do.

Maybe you’re nodding your head just now. Maybe you have a special place too. One that needs loving and protecting. One you ache to build walls around.

Ownership of the land is all about putting fences around it and dictating who has access, and who does not. 60 odd years ago walkers protested about land owners keeping them off mountains. Public rights of way matter. No one, powerful person or corporation should own natural beauty and deny it to others. Here’s another story that may invite a few nods.

You’ve seen it – perhaps it’s a field, or a hill. A bit of woodland sloping down to the river. No paths go there. The road doesn’t even come close. From a distance, it calls to you, whispering that there is magic. Perhaps there’s an ancient site hidden amongst the leaves, an exquisite view, a hidden grotto. But there is no public right of way, so either you trespass, or you move on, because you do not have the right to be here.

Now where are we? Torn between a range of impulses, some to protect and nurture, some to keep private and secret. We also hanker after the secrets, the magic we are not supposed to have. And then there’s the fear, of what other people are like, and what they will do.

In my own life, the canal has become my home. When I first started boating, more than a year ago, the canal was my refuge, my sanctuary. And then a couple of weeks on, the sun came out and suddenly there were hordes of people, with dogs, children, bicycles, noise and banality all over ‘my’ space. And there were boaters, the sort who have hobby boats and a lot of money. ‘My’ canal wasn’t mine any more. I will confess that I was not best pleased about this. I felt that something precious had been snatched away from me.

But I do not own the canal, or the towpath, or the sun. Everyone else needs these things too. After a while I realised that these other people only come by day. In the evening, the space is mostly mine again, quiet, with only the more peaceful, less intrusive visitors. I came to terms with that. I also spend a lot of time hauling other people’s rubbish out of the water, and the undergrowth. There are people who do all the things you fear having happen to your space. When people bring their noise and the ugliness of their lives onto the towpath, leave their litter and dog mess, I hate it. But at the same time I have to ask, what happens if this space touches them, just a little bit? How much better is their life for being in this lovely space? Are they doing this because they simply do not know how to do anything else? What right have I to want them elsewhere? Am I in fact one of those people who, having found a good thing, wants to build a high fence around it?

Fences are human inventions. Nature does like thick, impenetrable undergrowth, challenging rock formations, swamps, and other things that prevent easy access and a direct route from point A to point B. Humans like fences, and not just around our property, but also around our communities, our beliefs, our relationships. Sometimes we’re so busy keeping the bad stuff out that we fail to notice mostly what we’ve done, is to lock ourselves in.

There are no druid temples, we have to go outside, to where there is no fence, or we feel safe climbing over one. But that desire to own sacred space, to control important sites is also with us. It’s worth pondering what we want to keep in and what we want to exclude, and why, and whether there’s any reality or consistency in the mix at all.

Godless Pagan Ethics

Pretty much everyone who criticises pagans, if they stop doing the ‘it’s just silly’ routine go onto ‘but you have no proper ethics’. This has everything to do with the assumptions that ‘proper’ religions come with a rule book, and not having a rule book obviously means that we don’t have any rules. I could get distracted here down a side track about the precise usefulness of rules that are 2000 years and more out of date. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s decking, his BMW or his mobile phone contract…. You have to do some wriggling to make those old rule books fit. There’s a basic assumption here, that the rule books of ‘proper’ religions were all dictated by God. Never mind that some of them aren’t compatible and it wouldn’t be PC to discuss that. All of them, written by God, therefore, ethically sound.

Now, whether or not you think God was there at the beginning, the rules were written down by people. Translated into new languages, by people. Interpreted, and applied, by people. That, by my reckoning, puts a great many people in the mix. My suspicion is, that people came up with the rules and wrote them down in the first place.

What happens if we accept the idea that all of the great religious books were written by people (maybe inspired by god)? People are flawed and make mistakes. Also, times change, and religious ideas can become less relevant. But if people wrote the rules, then people are individually and collectively responsible for what those rules do. Including killing people for ‘moral’ crimes, starting war, spreading hatred etc etc.

The age of a thing s not even proof that we, as modern humans, reliably think it’s a good idea. The UK traditionally went in for hanging, and now it doesn’t. Laws can change. Understandings of crime, compassion and the value of human life can change, and should. What makes sense in one context can be pure madness in another.

So yes, I’m a pagan, and I don’t have a rule book. I feel personally responsible for all the choices I make and all the things I do, and feel entirely unable to blame any of my actions on supernatural beings. The gods have NEVER made me do anything. I also don’t have a rule book that I can quote to feel morally justified about killing people, depriving them of their land, their dignity, their human rights. I don’t feel the kind of moral superiority that makes me inclined to be hugely judgemental of people I don’t know, but who have apparently messed up. Compassion matters to me more than rules. And when I think about it, all those neighbour loving, shirt giving recommendations in the Bible seem to get overlooked in certain quarters.

To be pagan is not to be without ethics, it is to know that you, and only you are responsible for the ethical choices you make. No hiding behind a book. No waving your bloodstained hands in feigned innocence, saying ‘it is god’s will, we have to’. No neatly doging the requirement to think about what I do, and who I judge, and no assuming that any law is morally, unassailably right and leaving it alone. I care about what is good, what is needful, what makes the world a better place, and  do not think the ‘ethics’ of the market place or the ‘values’ of consumerism serve us very well at all by that measure.

I don’t even think it matters where ideas come from, how old they are, or who came up with them. What matters is what an idea does, what is achieves in the world, who it helps, who it harms. “By their fruit shall ye know them,” yes? Ask what good it is, and if the answer is ‘no good at all’ then consider that it might be derived from human fear and human failing, and not any kind of deity at all. What is human, can be changed by humans, and we owe it to ourselves to really consider the implications of that.

Misery and religion

No matter what faith or path you follow, the relationship between religion and suffering comes up sooner or later. One of the atheist arguments is that religion clearly doesn’t work, god does not intervene, cruelty and injustice continue. What many religions offer are ideas about the true source of human unhappiness, and how to deal with it. The idea that you can be saved from suffering by following the edicts of a religion doesn’t stand any scrutiny at all. What you might get are some tools that enable you to handle it better.

How a religion formulates its relationship with pain is very telling. Is it good for you, as the older book religions sometimes suggest? Or is it something we can and should avoid, as modern society seems generally keener on as an idea? Do we need pain and misery in our lives to make us rounded, spiritual people, or do we need to overcome it in order to achieve permanent happiness? How a religion, or for that matter a religious person handles this issue can be quite telling.

There is a theory that by normalising suffering and emphasising the universal nature of it, religions comfort us with the knowledge that we are not alone. True happiness is impossible in this lifetime, we can only hope for a nicer afterlife. The trouble with this theory, is how readily it lends itself to keeping people in misery whilst telling them that it’s good for them. Compassionate sharing is one thing, oppression another and there are times when it’s not easy to see what you’ve got.

Druidry doesn’t have one clear answer. “Nature is good,” the famous Reformed Druid tenet, suggests that anything natural is to be accepted, if not celebrated. The good with the bad. It is, after all, perfectly natural to suffer. Calls to compassion and service however, are very precisely calls to alleviate suffering.

My experience of Druidry is that we tend to be pragmatic about pain. You won’t catch many druids seriously ascribing it to past life misbehaviour or ineffable plans. We can be collectively quite ruthless when it comes to looking for our own involvement in what happens to us. We tend not to blame the gods, but look at what we could have, or can do differently. The sphere of action is entirely human, even if we do seek advice and input from elsewhere. Druidry does not encourage people towards spiritual masochism, or to the willing acceptance of needless burdens of suffering. It does encourage us towards making the best of what we have, and doing what we can for ourselves, and reaching out to others for help, guidance and support when we need it. And to offer the same.

Honouring nature, we recognise that all things have their season, for good or ill. All things pass. Life can be short and brutal, but is no less beautiful for that. Nature’s predators seem cruel if you are inclined to empathise with the cute, fluffy, ill-defended tasty things. Suffering is natural. Not wanting to suffer is equally natural. Being afraid of suffering and doing self destructive things in a misguided bid to dodge fate, is probably also natural. Getting yourself killed thanks to an irrational belief in your own immortality is natural. Once you start looking at it, nature is vast and many faceted. You can find any example you want out there somewhere. Being a druid does not mean emulating whatever you happen to see other bits of nature experimenting with. It’s the thinking, feeling, compassionate attempt to make the best of things.

Needless suffering helps no one. Challenges well met carry us forwards. Caring is the one thing most likely to open you to pain, and the one thing most likely to ultimately save you from it. And Druidry, is knowing this and doing something with it. The something, of course, is always going to be down to the individual to decide.

The meaning of ego

I first encountered the term ‘ego’ when I was studying psychology. It’s a Freudian term, and in that sense it pretty much means your reality interface. There’s the id, full of repressed things and animal impulses, there’s the superego which is a bit like your inner uber-parent forever pushing you to do more, and better. The ego mediates between these two inner aspects, and between you and the rest of reality.

Like a lot of terms, it’s been borrowed and re-used, and this has caused me some confusion. When religious people talk about the dismantling of ego, they are not, as far as I can make out, suggesting the taking apart of your Freudian-style reality interface. This comes as no small relief to me, I had been troubled by why anyone would aim for this! People use words in such unhelpful ways sometimes. What I believe has happened here, is that the word ‘ego’ has been appropriated as a translation for the word ‘atman’ which features in Buddhism and describes a certain part of the personality. This is all a great deal of challenge for me because my grasp of Buddhism is, at best, tenuous, and my exposure to New Age thought around ideas of self is not what it might be.

So what is the ego? I’ve just been reading Alain du Botton’s book on Religion for Atheists (highly recommended) and what he describes as ‘ego’ sounds a lot to me like the Freudian notion of ‘id’. Full of fear, hunger, neediness, grasping after anything that might fill the breach, irrational and unreliable, the contemporary ‘ego’ is that which distracts us from living fully and being in the moment. Compare that to my first comments about the id. Linguistically speaking, it’s a bit of a shambles, not to mention perplexing. I’m relieved to be less confused. The assertion that we should seek to limit, if not dismantle our egos has, frankly, troubled me. I quite like my reality interface! But apparently it was never about that.

In Freudian language, the id can be used almost interchangeably with the word ‘unconscious’. In terms of modern psychological thinking, this language and the concepts it represents are woefully out of date. However, in religious and therapeutic language, it still has currency and relevance. There are aspects of the brain that are never conscious – the functioning of your pancreas and spleen will never be likely to intrude on your awareness. Other than that, what we have are a lot of things we may never properly consider. It’s not ‘unconsciousness’ in an inaccessible sense, more in the sense that there are a great many things we don’t really look at or think about. We can look at them, and think about them. By challenging them, we cease to be governed by parts of our self we imagine we cannot access and know nothing about. It makes for an easier sort of life, on the whole. Never being mystified by your own emotions and actions confers a great deal of benefit.

The id, as a concept, covers all the things we have repressed as being unacceptable – effectively all that we refuse to consider, and all those animal inclinations, to fight, feed, flee, reproduce… the urge to violence and greed could be seen as part of this. All the basic survival stuff that needs mitigating by more civilized ideas. I think considering the impact of these urges, and how we relate to them, can be very helpful. I think much of what we tend to ascribe to the unconscious, all those things we do and claim we don’t know why, would be available to us, if we stopped to look.

I do not think that ‘ego’ is the right translation of ‘atman’. I think on the whole it might have been a bit more useful to take the original word and use it, with explanations, rather than borrowing another word and trying to meld the two together. Languages do not translate neatly, especially not the language of concept. Assuming one word can be mapped neatly onto another is often more trouble than help. But, it’s where we’ve got to. ‘Ego’ as a word is also laden with connotations of big headedness, self importance. And while humbleness can be a consequence of belief, for someone who starts out pretty humble, the association of ego and self importance can take emphasis away from those ‘unconscious’ urges that could stand a much closer investigation. Atman seems more like emanations from the id into the awareness, unmitigated by a suitably strong ego, or fears generated by the superego, that the frail ego is equally unable to handle. I think. Which would make the experience of atman not the consequence of ego, but the absence of a suitably strong ego, from a Freudian perspective.

In the meantime, I think the moral of this story is that words are crude tools that need using carefully.

Tales of spirit and afterlife

One of my core beliefs is that we cannot know what comes after this life. We can guess, and we can make up stories but the uncertainty is intrinsic to the human condition, and I am sceptical about any claims to knowing. However, ideas about the afterlife shape what many people do in this one, and it’s nice to have some kind of working model to pin current existence to. Up until recently I had a very simple working model – accepting the state of not knowing, I would assume there was nothing beyond my own biology and no afterlife, and live accordingly. So while I’m a spiritual person, I have adopted a more atheistic mindset for how I approach life. It’s a good, pragmatic approach, but it lacked spirit and I’ve never been wholly easy with it.

What I’m going to share today is the new story about the afterlife that I’ve been working on, and have decided to adopt. It owes a bit to Phillip Pullman, there’s nothing especially original here.

If we took my computer apart, we would not find the internet inside it. We would not find the means to create and store the entire internet either. If the internet was an unproven, theoretical idea and we thought maybe it didn’t exist, we might find my computer passably supported this. And at time of writing, I’m not online. The quest for internet, from the boat, is frequently an act of faith and devotion! Now, there is no cluster of cells in the brain that can happily be designated as the soul. We’re not even entirely clear on how consciousness works. Hopefully you see where I’m going with this. What if consciousness and soul are to the body what internet is to the computer? Or the television and radio signals are to those devices? Without getting bogged down in the metaphor, there is room in a rational reality for things that make a thing go, but do not live inside it.

Now, what if soul is not a single, indestructible lump of stuff? What if it has more in common with the rest of physical reality, such that it can disintegrate, and change? So when we get to the end of our lives, our continuation as a coherent spiritual identity might depend on a number of things – strength of soul and personality, having the kind of self that is able to survive (what would than mean?) being happy enough with oneself to want to continue, intact, into another form. A person could choose to merge into the whole, Nirvana style. They could choose to disintegrate from self loathing. They could choose to reincarnate. They could be too weak to do anything but disintegrate.

I like this for a number of reasons. All those people who think they were Napoleon in a former life get to be sort of right, they have a bit of something that once was, and those kinds of famous, high impact spirits are likely to be more visible even if you only get a shard. There is no requirement for an external judge in this story, we do it to ourselves, we get to choose. There is continuation of spirit, but not necessarily continuation of conscious awareness, which would explain why some of us remember bits of past life and some do not. There is room to find more than one person in life for whom you feel deep soul resonance, because there may be many souls with whom you have some sparks in common. There may be scope (I nod to Pullman here) for those who are very close to become part of the same entity after death. This story holds room for change, chaos and uncertainty, but also for continuity, it’s not offering any kind of clear certainty, but lots of possibility. There is scope for inherent justice within it, because to get to choose what happens to you after life, you will need the kind of soul whole enough, aware enough, strong enough to do that. What people will get at the end would depend a great deal on what they have done along the way.

While this story does not require the presence of a judgemental deity, it also doesn’t preclude the idea of deity, and I like that too. After all, what does happen to a really enlightened, really powerful soul that has been through various incarnations? There’s room to birth gods here.

I know it’s a story. I might be right, I might not, and I hold that uncertainty very carefully. I like this story because it has scope to be useful, and it gives me a new way of looking at the world. I’ve spent a decade or so with the ‘no afterlife’ story informing what I do, and that was interesting, but it’s time to experiment with a new perspective and see what I can learn by holding it. No doubt at some point along the way I will feel the urge to fettle it. I may even abandon it entirely in favour of something else. This is an idea I am increasingly comfortable with. Our relationship with reality must grow and change as we do. All good relationships grow and change if we stay in them. Absence of change is not a hallmark of fidelity, it’s a very slow way of smothering something to death.

The nature of happiness

When I talked about how the gods may challenge us, Helgaleena made some great comments about not wishing distress on anyone even for the sake of learning, but that happiness exists as part of a bigger cycle. I want to jam on those ideas a bit today.

Much of human understanding depends on knowing things in comparison with other things. When we make subjective judgements, a great deal depends on what our context is. My idea of luxury will be very different from the ideas held by a millionaire, and from the ideas of someone in a war or famine zone. However hard we try to be objective, we experience the world in the context of what we have already experienced. Thus there is a relationship between my knowledge of joy, and my knowledge of pain. I might appreciate things less if I had more. Experience of bad relationship makes me count my blessings in this good one. A great deal here has to do with what we choose to believe about our experiences and what we choose to focus on. Some people can find the good in anything, some people always see the one thing that isn’t perfect. Recognising that as a choice, and seeing where other choices can be made, can radically change life experience.

Familiarity may well breed contempt. If we eat cake every day, then cake seems like a staple, not a luxury. We may enjoy it less as a consequence. We may even grow bored with it, or we may balloon in the midsection and become miserable as a direct result of too much cake-related happiness. Excess of indulgence can lead to both desensitisation and misery. Excess of pain or horror can also desensitise and is equally miserable. Happiness lies in the balance, and requires things to be less than perfect some of the time.

It’s only after slogging my way up the hill in the rain that I feel the exhilaration of pushing my body to its limits. Only in learning how to jump from a moving narrowboat have I become confident in my judgement and physical abilities. Only in confronting the anxieties of the court room could I have come to this current place of confidence in dealing with my ex. My fear of him has reduced, my confidence in the system increased, but only because I’ve gone through a thing. The celebration of success, the joy of achievement, the knowledge of being better than you thought you were, only comes by taking on a challenge. The challenges themselves may well be fearful, may include risk, cost, pain… to be meaningful they cannot be easy. The challenge of climbing a mountain or learning to swim is no different from this.

We only learn and progress by taking risks – the bard risks public humiliation if they muff up the words or forget the tune. The Druid risks satire and public attack if they get on television and defend their faith. But until we act, express, step up, we cannot fully be ourselves. Being happy requires that self expression. It’s a lot easier to be happy, or at least upbeat and optimistic when you have a sense of your own strength and potential – a sense that can only come from being tested.

Of course when there’s no respite between tests, it can be harrowing and exhausting. The places of respite are vital. Otherwise there’s every chance of being worn down. When we’re picking our own challenges, that can be managed, but life dishes it out with little consideration of whether we can take another blow. There is always a far side, or a moment when things ease off. It helps to know that on the far side you will have greater confidence in yourself. At the very least, you will know you were the person who was tough enough to survive. You learn to trust yourself, and you learn how precious all the small things are.

The person who needs adulation, wealth, material possessions, cheerleaders and all the rest to feel happy, is going to spend much of their time being sorely disappointed, or trying desperately to get on some reality tv show. The person who knows how to relish the small things, can find little pockets of happiness in almost any day. A person who knows how to cherish the little things can get out there and make those moments, put on the song that makes them dance, play with a dog, call a friend. Happiness is not something mysterious that happens to us, it’s what we make out of what we get. Life is life a box of chocolates… leave it out in the sun too long and it gets sticky and unpleasant.

Today happiness is not being rained on too much. Happiness is a warm cup of coffee, and sitting next to a very lovely man. If the sun comes out, I shall be ecstatic. I have chosen a life in which it does not take much to make me smile, and so, I smile a lot.

The mocking of pagans

It’s a popular sport in certain British newspapers. I won’t name them, they do not deserve any more attention than they already get. Paganism has become an emblem of ‘political correctness gone mad’ taking it seriously in any way is seen as the government bowing ot the loony fringe, upholding the rights of a few superstitious and misguided idiots. Then a few spurious and usually inaccurate ‘facts’ are chucked in as proof, feet are stomped, self righteousness expressed.

I think what infuriates me most is that these reporters aren’t stupid, just prejudiced. They cannot see beyond their own very narrow and frightened world views to consider anything else at all. Which is not healthy. We live in an age where the dominant philosophy is that there is one true way – which is ’rational’, consumerist, middle class, conformist, a bit like how we imagine the nineteen fifties might have been. We live with a consensus that trumpets the superior, rational, reasoned and scientific nature of its own thinking. The trouble is, it doesn’t bother to check the facts. I’ve read enough science to know that once you get past school-level content, science is big, scary, and often a bit insane. We’ve taken apart atoms enough to know that most of reality is made up of nothing in particular. Hard facts are never as hard as people want to believe they are.

Pagans are still an easy target for anger and resentment. Not least I suspect because we don’t tend to produce the kind of fanatics who may kill a person whose words they do not like. That’s very much to our credit. We will fight stupid writing by trying to offer something better, or by ignoring it. I’m not ashamed to be seen as a ‘soft’ target in that context.

It tickles me that people still default to the assumption that paganism equates to an irrational, superstitious belief in impossible things. The majority of pagans I’ve met are far less interested in belief than they are with engaging with the world in a meaningful way. The one we live in. The one our species seems hell bent on destroying. Given the choice between a pro-planet movement and a mindset that say ‘no, we can use all of this with impunity’ I know what looks like irrational belief to me. We have solid science for the existence of the placebo effect. What is placebo but the power of positive thought and belief? We know that the single biggest indicator of survival in life threatening situations, is belief. There are plenty of logical reasons to assert that belief, is not inherently irrational, it is a very powerful survival skill. Not necessarily belief in a deity, but belief in self, in ideas and ideals, in possibility. There’s not a huge practical difference between belief and hope.

There are tones that are easily audible in the articles that mock pagans. Resentment is there by the bucket load. There’s also a lot of fear, because any suggestion the world is not as you believed it to be, threatens many people. I suppose if it’s in your nature to mock, persecute, harass, denigrate and otherwise abuse, then not being on the side of the powerful is going to be a terrifying prospect. What if paganism took over? What if all those snide and cynical journalists found themselves in the vulnerable minority? They believe in tormenting vulnerable minorities, and they’ve seen The Wicker Man, so of course they’re worried.

The other thing I frequently hear in the words of people who live by mockery, is loneliness. I get a real sense that these are folk who don’t have a great deal of warmth and joy in their lives. The trouble with being cynical, is that it limits your scope for enjoying anything. You can’t celebrate, or cherish in the same way with a cynical heart. If you look at the world through cynical glasses, its very hard to form deep, trusting and emotionally satisfying relationships. The urge to mock and pick, the urge to put down in order to bolster up your fragile ego, is a ticket to sure fired loneliness. Human relationship calls for a bit more… well… humanity.

And of course when they publish the anti-pagan tripe, we roll in, we argue with them, we talk to them, we pay them attention. I fear it feeds the monster, and when you’re talking to someone who is selectively deaf, you can be sure they will only pick out the couple of things they wanted to hear. I don’t think there’s much to gain by arguing with them directly. It’s not what we say to these people that will change their minds, if anything can, it’s what we do. I have a great deal of faith in what the pagan community can, and will do into the future.

And no, I neither danced naked for Beltain, nor sacrificed any virgins.

Masks, guises, self creation and the interweb

It is very easy to create a whole new person online. An email address, a facebook presence, maybe a blog. A casual glance reveals hosts of Mistletoe Ravenchild, Dancing Butterfly, Merlin the seer, and their many friends. Online, we have space to be the people we want to imagine we are, without the same limitations of reality, especially with a name to hide behind. There are a number of consequences. It can be empowering and liberating, a chance to free a previously crushed inner self. It can also be easy to hide behind the façade and abuse people in way you would never think of doing publically. The internet costumes we don can hide all manner of intentions, for good and ill.

As the people who know me personally can testify, I’ve been through a few names and identities on the way. The changes mark marriages, primarily, and also shifts in my writing identity. My previous incarnation was an erotica author, my current one is doing druidry and dark fantasy fic, and I have no idea what else. But for anyone with too much time on their hands, it’s possible to find out, or figure out who I have been, and where I came from. The names were never about hiding my ‘true’ self, only creating a focus for what I’m doing. I know a lot of people doing similar things, using the internet to smooth the transition from one life stage to another. I believe Native American people have a tradition of changing names as life stages call for it. I think there’s a lot of merit in that. Who we are, changes, and sometimes the name shift helps recognise that process.

I find the ways in which people utilise internet identity fascinating. It can be the perfect stalker tool, masquerading as someone else to keep up with the object of obsession, inventing a life to back up the name in hopes of getting attention. So many online relationships begin with a few carefully chosen lies, and crumble when reality threatens to intrude. It’s as if, the virtualness of the space enables us to imagine that what we do here doesn’t matter in the same way. An online ‘affair’ is not a real affair. Online abuse is not the same as shouting in someone’s face. But the effects are the same. The emotional impact of the worlds we create online can be just as powerful as anything in the physical realms.

My feeling is that no part of life should be assumed to be less inherently real than another, where we are engaging with other beings. Part of the problem with the net is that we are talking through computers. I don’t think computer games are entirely real, and I can spot the lines between fantasy and reality, but the nature of the internet is to blur this. I can put my fantasy here. I can claim to be anyone, anything, and you only have my word for it, and what common sense tells you.

However, I’ve never compartmentalised my life. What I do in ‘unreal’ situations has, for the most part, been what I would do ‘for real’. I find that the easiest way to keep track of things and avoid awkward ethical wrangles. Honour is part of my druidry. If I am dishonourable online, then I am dishonourable, as I see it. The online bit makes no difference. In just the same way that I would not act dishonourably in a pretend game (not that I play much of anything). There is an exception though, and that’s the writing. If I only told stories about well meaning, honourable people, we wouldn’t get much plot. If I subscribed to the belief that what we think is as real as what we do, this would cause me some problems. But, I am a writer first and a druid second, if I’m honest. There’s not much in it, in terms of essentialness to my sense of self, but I cannot function without writing, and therefore I cannot afford to have a philosophy that makes writing a villain as bad as being one. One of my beliefs is that beliefs can be consciously and deliberately chosen for specific reasons.

Who I am online is not who I am in person. But I try to get it as close as possible. Online I can proof and edit what I say, and I don’t have to bother about what my body language looks like. You don’t get my scruffy clothes and broad Gloucestershire accent. So while I am constructing my online persona, you are also constructing me, from what I say and what you know, what you imagine and what you want me to be. And I am doing the same with you. Who we want the other person to be can be as important a part of that, as who we want others to think we are. It’s so easy to find what you are looking for – be that love, an ego boost, proof that the one we hate is indeed truly evil, or some other blend of self service and self delusion. The internet can make it very easy to be dishonest with ourselves, but can also be a powerful space for sharing truth and voicing things that would be too hard in person. Like most tools, it comes down to how we choose to use it, and that has everything to do with who we are, and who we want to be.

Re-enchantment for Druids

In my blog on Seeking inspiration recently, I talked about how we lose that sense of wonder we had as children. We start to imagine the world as familiar and predictable, and begin a process of selectively not seeing all the ways in which this is not so. I have spent a while in that sort of conceptual space. It had a lot to do with feeling like I had to fit in with other people’s ideas of what a responsible adult might look like, and it was also a reaction against experiencing people whose reality was highly dysfunctional. It is possible to hold a sense of magical reality whilst being able to cope with the ‘normal’ reality the majority of people at least appear to inhabit.

Re-enchantment does not mean moving away from the world as is, into some fantasy in which you are a fairy princess, or a dragon. It is not escapism. Re-enchantment is about forging a deeper and more spiritual relationship with the world, as it is. Not taking anything for granted is an essential first step here.

If we deliberately narrow our experience – from bed, to car, to work, and home to television with very little else in the mix, we do not allow ourselves opportunity to experience something unfamiliar, and we reinforce a mundane impression of the world. Seeking out opportunities to be surprised isn’t that difficult. Going somewhere new, talking to a stranger, reading more widely, and most importantly, going outside and getting some direct, first-hand experience of the natural world. Life is amazing, from the miraculous fuzzy ducklings of spring, through to the intensity of summer blossom, the vivid colours of autumn and the pristine shock of snow. Each day offers us weather, sky, a precise moment in the seasonal cycle, and scope for seeing a thousand things we have never noticed before. There is wonder in the small detail. The blue flash of a kingfisher’s startling wings. The sheer beauty of a dawn chorus. The smell of the air, after rain.

It’s easy to go through life with a head full of what we just did, what we’re about to do, what we wish we were doing, what were worried about and all the mental clutter that makes it hard to live now. It is possible to be thinking about your life without being so inward looking that you entirely miss the external reality. The trick is to not treat most of external reality like some kind of wallpaper. It’s not a backdrop for the film plot of your life, it needs taking seriously. Noticing, or not noticing, is a habit of thought. It just takes practice.

The next step is to feel. For some reason, the last I don’t know how long… few hundreds of years? We’ve been collectively wary of emotion, seeing it as the opposite of good thinking, the enemy of rationality, and at odds with civilization. Emotion is intrinsic to being human. You can’t feel a sense of enchantment if you are not willing to feel. It may not seem ‘grown up’ to be cooing over lambs, or to cry over a dead swan, but the wrong there lies with our culture, not with the emotional response. Being willing to be moved to tears by beauty, or to be filled with ecstatic laughter over the pure joy of something, requires a letting go, an opening up. People may look at you funny. You may seem crazy to others. You may seem crazy to yourself. It is a process.

From here, the magic inherent in the everyday world starts to open up. Life feels more vivid, more real, and more immediate. The small things become relevant and important. A day can become a good day for hearing a bird sing, or because there was a rainbow. The previous priorities and obsessions of an entirely fabricated, human-centric awareness, change. You stop expecting to be able to buy happiness and start knowing where to find it. You pause in delight over the way in which the water is catching the light. You smile because this morning you saw a fox, and that was a beautiful moment. You notice how the air smells and how the ground feels beneath your feet. And then, because these things start to matter to you, and you are paying attention to them, you become more aware of what they do, how they interact, the individuality of them, and the connectedness. Where before there was barely regarded scenery, now there is spirit, and relationship.

It’s a process with no end point. There is always more to see, further to go, more to recognise, to understand, to engage with. I think a big part of druidry is this quest for relationship, but there’s not a vast amount of information out there about how to do it. You certainly don’t need the right robes, or necessarily even the right rituals. I’m going to finish with a quick plug for Druidry and Meditation, because I’ve explored a lot of ways of seeking this awareness shift in that book, so if you want to explore further and could use a few more tools, it may help.