Nimue Brown's Blog, page 53

The Witches Feast

(Nimue, review)

This book is ideal for people who are new to Paganism and want to celebrate the wheel of the year. It’s based on the standard eight festivals that a lot of modern Pagans follow, but is helpfully clear about where all of this comes from. For each festival, you get a selection of insights about the history of the festival and an array of things you can work with.

The approach is very open and would likely work for most Pagan paths. The book doesn’t offer you rituals you can just take and perform but instead gives a lot of prompts. From there you can decide what you want to explore, and how formally or informally you want to do it. If you’re looking for some small ways to mark the turning of the year, this book will give you that. If you’re looking for inspiration to craft large community rituals, you can do that from here, too. Although you would need to source your ritual structure elsewhere – which is easy enough to do.

This is a good book to put into the hands of Pagan teens. There’s plenty to get on with but nothing that would take a person into difficult territory. If you’re a parent looking for inspiration to help you celebrate the seasons with your child, you could use this book to good effect.

If you’ve already been studying for a while the odds there won’t be anything new here. This is a book that probably works best for people in the UK and places with similar seasonal cycles. It’s a small book so it doesn’t tackle regional variation in any great depth. It isn’t a deep dive into the seasons – this is a small book and you can read it quickly. That makes it ideal if you want quickly accessible inspiration. It’s great in that with this book, all of your wheel of the year content is in one place – and in a lot of books it’s scattered through a whole host of other content, and not as easy to find.

Buy the book here – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CDB1CNPL

Tiny Druid, massive landscape

(Nimue)

In this photo I’m stood on the side of Haresfield Beacon, Gloucestershire. It’s a hillfort. Keith was further up on the ramparts when he took this photo. Behind me is the edge of the Cotswolds. What you can’t see from this image is the great expanse of the Severn flood plain and beyond that, the majesty of the Malvern hills. 

Very small Druid, very large landscape.

I find this good in all kinds of ways. Human stories tend to put humans centre stage, and within that we are all prone to seeing ourselves as the most important feature of our own stories. Being in a big landscape encourages us to shift that focus and see how small we are in the grand scheme of things. The enormity of a landscape puts life into perspective. Our hopes and dreams, fears and troubles all seem small when pitched against anything so manifestly larger than ourselves.

One of the things I greatly appreciate about being out on the land, and under the open sky is this sense of smallness. It’s also an invitation to think expansively. Being a small thing in a big space invites you to think beyond your own experiences and see a story that is far bigger than your own narrative.

Here there is room for wonder and awe. It’s liberating, and good for the soul. 

Home is where the craft is

(Nimue)

This year’s upheavals have prompted me to think a great deal about what makes a space feel like a home. I’ve spent my adult life wanting (and often having) the apparent security of home ownership. Renting feels precarious. However, having had to move out of homes I’d invested in buying on two occasions now, I’m a lot less convinced that there’s any real security to be had in ownership.

A place feels like home to me when I feel welcome and wanted, and that’s far more important than who owns the ground, or the walls.

One of the things that turns out to be important to me is having things in a space that I’ve made. Even better if I’ve made them specifically for the space. We started out with one of my rag rugs being a bath mat, and a few weeks ago I made awen bunting for my desk, and the octopus draft excluder. At this point I have the space to craft (actual table!) and the space for things I have crafted, so I’m getting to work. In the coming weeks I’ll be making the first blanket for this space, and the first rag rug. Having a rag rug I made for somewhere else isn’t quite the same. 

There’s something about spending time in a place making things. There have been some bits of sewing – cloths for breadmaking, two skirts, some repairs. Really digging in with a big project has a different feel to it and affects my relationship with the space. Making things for a home is an investment in the idea of it being a home for the longer term, and that’s a good feeling too.

Crafting and upcycling create stories around objects. In the foreground of the photo there’s a bag I’m working on, and as all its components come from somewhere, the bag is rich with stories. I’ll be rag rugging with dead clothes, so all of the associations of those garments go into the rag rug and form part of its significance. Buying items doesn’t create stories in the same way and there isn’t the continuity. Making things also involves building a relationship with objects and the space, and I like how that works.

Druid conversations

(David, Nimue)

Nimue: David and I talk most days, and we often share things about what we’re doing in the Pagan parts of our lives. As I’m not involved in any regular groups at the moment, I really value having someone to check in with about what’s going on for me spiritually. These conversations often go to interesting places and are frequently the jumping off point for blog posts. I thought it might be interesting if I share a recent exchange.

David: Reminded to focus on simplicity in my practice, which I’m pretty sure is a subconscious response to my interest in pursuing knowledge of Qabalah. It’s a hugely complicated magical system, pretty much diametrically opposite mine. So while I’m interested in learning a bit more, I will do so as an interested reader rather than a practical learner sort of thing.

Nimue: I get what you mean about studying things lightly with curiosity rather than as a practitioner – that’s mostly been my relationship with witchcraft. I only dabble occasionally.

David: I’m more witch than druid, strictly speaking. Nature witchcraft, really, and I’m quite comfortable with the notion that my hedge druidry helps to shape it. Intentional simplicity is at the core of my practice, along with seeing magic in the mundane and communing with land spirits. Ceremony doesn’t feature.

Nimue: I’m honestly not sure how to draw a line between that and Druidry. For me, magic seems like a way of participating cooperatively in the world.

Having agreed on that sense of participation, we went on to discuss the suitability of this for blogging. For me, one of the key things here is a sense of dialogue and exchange. I’m not trying to wield power over anything else. I’m an animist, so any magic I might enter into is an act of negotiation with the rest of the world. This is something I approach through a prayer-like process. You can engage with anything in a prayer-like way, it doesn’t have to be deity oriented. So I try to start conversations about things I want to change, and to ask about what I should be doing and what would be helpful.

Seasonal Paganism

(Nimue)

I’m going to be talking about seasonal Paganism at the weekend, at a Faery themed event at The Folk of Gloucester. I’m particularly going to be talking about this in relation to the folk traditions of the UK. We’re not long past the autumn equinox, and one of the really notable things about it is the lack of songs. The same is true for the spring equinox.

Most of the traditional folk music in the UK that relates to the seasons has to do with stuff people were doing – bringing harvests in, making beer, shearing sheep, going to seasonally specific markets and fairs, and so forth. Some of the things that seem seasonal are basically just innuendos. Almost anything that starts on a bright May morning is likely to be romance, voyeurism or a mix of the two! Of equinoxes, you don’t hear much.

The Irish festivals we honour as part of the wheel of the year relate to settled farming life, so there are plenty of things that tie in with them, and plenty of folk songs to draw on. As Samhain relates to Halloween, which is very much present in folk tradition, there’s plenty to draw on. Imbolc and Candlemas fall at the same time so there are also traditions there. There are plenty of traditions around Midsummer and Midwinter that a modern Pagan can draw on. Equinoxes? Not so much.

If you want Pagan associations for the equinoxes you have to look at the alignments of prehistoric monuments. However, the people who built our stone circles were nomadic, or semi-nomadic so their wheel of the year was not the one we now celebrate. I would assume this must have been a very local thing and depending on which resources you were travelling to at any given point in the year.

The folklore for Samhain brings up some interesting things too because in terms of folk traditions it most certainly isn’t just a festival of the dead. On the Christian side, All Souls Day, isn’t as important as All Hallows Day / All Saints Day which follows it. This is a time when the fairy courts might ride out (as with Tam Lin). While there are some divination traditions around who might be going to die in the winter, there’s also a lot of seasonal divination for romance and partners – mostly involving apples or apple pips which are of course most plentiful at this time of year. This isn’t even slightly weird because there’s a lot of divination out there about who your sweetheart will be, regardless of the time of year.

Traditions shift over time, and reflect people’s lived experiences. As most of us aren’t working flat out with harvesting and getting livestock in before the weather turns, we can afford the time to honour the equinox. Our more recent ancestors couldn’t and so didn’t. Further back, things were different. Seasonal responses are an interplay between human culture and the natural world, which is why there’s no fixed right way of doing things.

Out and about

(Nimue)

On Thursday night I’m performing at a local storytelling event with James and Keith. We’re using a format Keith has led on before – The Hopeless Home Companion, based a bit on a radio programme called The Prairie Home Companion. It’s the first time James has been on the team for one of these, and it should be a giggle. We’re regulars at these events, having contributed stories for the open mic section, and stood in one time when the booked musician dropped out at the last minute.

Interestingly, I didn’t pitch it as Ominous Folk, but this appears to be a well established ‘brand’ now that can go out doing things that aren’t purely musical – this will be mostly spoken word and a couple of songs. It’s also evidently a bigger brand than the original team. This is also a factor for the gigs we have coming up at the weekend where Ominous Folk will be myself, James, Keith and Jessica Law. We’ll be performing as Jessica Law and the Outlaws as well, but it’s very different material and music styles, and Jo who has organised the faery event is fine with that.

These might be the last gigs for Ominous Folk. It’s certainly the last gig for this year, and much depends on what other people decide to do. I am dedicated to keeping an unaccompanied group singing project going, but it might make more sense to do that as The Jovial Crew – which we’ll be out as at Christmas and which is also a mumming side. I’ve tried to keep Ominous Folk going, but for a number of reasons, Tom Brown has been problematic to work with this summer. I’m not prepared to keep doing things I find uncomfortable. Ominous Folk was very much my project from the beginning, so I have no qualms about either ending it or changing it depending on what looks most likely to work moving forwards.

On the Sunday of the faery event I’m putting my Druid hat on to do a talk about seasonal Paganism. There’s free stuff in the day on the 7th and 8th. I’ve not been out much as a Pagan speaker in recent years but it is something I’ve done in the past and am getting back into. I’m very much open to suggestions if anyone wants me for anything.

Excerpt from In A Hedge Druid’s Grove

(David)

A five-minute downpour in the valley, vertical, with no wind, dramatic, sounding like a hundred bass drummers immediately over my head on the roof of my study. The trees and shrubs in our back garden seemed to lift their faces to it in gratitude.

I walked through to our front room window and enjoyed the vigorous stream that immediately flowed down the avenue, as it always does in heavy rain like this, spreading from the lower gutter opposite, halfway across the narrow tarmac road surface, and flowing like a young river.

I’m convinced the line of our avenue is close to the original route of a westerly flowing stream down the hillside. I’ve seen a map of 1880 that shows five springs in the valley, three high on the southern hillside and two high on our northern hillside, one of which is above and to the east our house. I assume it flowed down where our avenue was later built, until, near to where the mill was then, where the primary school stands today, it joined other streams in the bottom of the valley and together they entered the tidal marsh.

In A Hedge Druid’s Grove

Mourning a tree

(Nimue)

I’m not going to share an image of the tree, either standing or cut down, because I don’t have any photos of my own. For those of you beyond the UK who have not seen the news about the pointless destruction of a much loved and iconic tree, perhaps those words are enough to give a sense of what has happened here.

I did not know the tree personally, but I have seen images. It moves me that so many people have spoken of their love for the tree, and their grief at this being’s destruction.

We lose trees every day, and too many of them go unmourned and unnoticed. We’ve lost so many trees to the UKs failing high speed rail project. Some of them were ancient, beloved and iconic, too. We lose trees in the name of development and progress. Last year I saw saplings taken in a misguided attempt to make a place safer, as though trees are the problem and not male violence itself. We lose trees every day. Some of them beloved, some of them unremarked and uncared for.

We’re also losing trees to disease, especially ash dieback. We’re losing trees to climate chaos, to heavy rains that loosen roots and high winds that take trees down. I mourn those trees too, I have lost trees around my home to this.

I mourn for the trees that never were, for the ones denied a place to exist in the first place. I mourn the carparks and the former-industrial wastelands where there is so little life. I mourn the new housing estates and the relentless building of new roads. We take life out of the landscape continually. We create spaces where life cannot exist.

Humans are so quick to destroy things that don’t perfectly fit into our plans. We ruin landscapes to make them a bit more convenient for us. I wish we could learn to approach the land and the living wild beings more cooperatively, seeing them as part of the world and just as entitled to be here as we are. Not as things to use or get rid of on a whim and not as necessary sacrifices to our deranged notions of progress.

Accepting ‘negative’ emotions

(Nimue)

There are schools of thought that denigrate certain emotions as negative or undesirable. All of our feelings are part of our human experience and it is critically important to have room for everything.

As I’m recovering from years of intense depression, I’m noticing some things about my relationship with my own more challenging feelings. Perhaps the most important thing is that they aren’t irrational feelings and they are not – of themselves – a problem to fix. There’s a lot of talk around depression that treats the distress itself as the problem to solve rather than tackling the cause of the distress. I was depressed for reasons. Take away the reasons and I am no longer depressed. When things come up for me that are uncomfortable it’s because there’s a problem I need to take seriously, not because I’m intrinsically broken. I’ve got a lot of re-learning to do around this.

A ‘negative’ emotion isn’t something to fight off, it’s a fair response to an experience. Equally, if unhappy feelings come up, it isn’t proof of an inevitable slide back into the darkness. It is ok for me to feel sad, or worried, or to be upset by something. There should be room for all such feelings as they arrive and it should be safe to feel and express them.

Undoubtedly I would be easier and more comfortable to deal with if I was perfectly happy about everything all the time. However, no one who cares about me would want to negate my personhood by demanding that of me. I am allowed to have bad days. I am allowed to not cope perfectly with every challenge I face. Being cross, or upset or worried does not make me a problem and there is no reason to expect to be treated that way.

I’m finding that sometimes I have to stop and talk myself through this. I have to actively remind myself that I am entitled to my full emotional range and that all of my feelings are valid. I’m sharing all of this because I’m prepared to bet it isn’t just me. There’s so much going on culturally that disallows the more difficult feelings and the more intense feelings. We stigmatise strong emotions and that isn’t healthy. Learning not to care too much, not to feel too much or invest in anything too much isn’t being an adult, it’s being dead on the inside.

If we don’t want to be good little cogs in the corporate machine, we need our feelings. In face of destruction of the planet we urgently need our rage and grief. In face of massive social injustice we need our rage, our outrage, and our courage. More than anything we all need the space to feel compassion and to care. If we can’t bring that to our own emotional responses we’re going to have a hard time showing up anywhere. 

It’s good to care about things, and vital to care enough that you can also be hurt. Being willing to be uncomfortable is an essential first step in tackling every problem we might face. The kind of depression that numbs you out and leaves you hollow isn’t because you’ve had negative feelings, but it could well be because you’ve had no way to express your feelings or act on them.

Writing life insights

(Nimue mostly)

David has already had a pop at this on his substack, which you can read over here – https://davidbridger.substack.com/p/a-get-to-know-me-questionnaire and you might want to sign up for.

How long have you been a content creator?

I hate this term and I think it devalues creativity and those of us who work in the creative industries. I’ve been writing professionally since my mid twenties. I’ve been a writer performer, musician and generally creative person my whole life. Some things I do for the sheer joy of it, some of the things I do to pay the bills. I’m not into creating content. I’m into sharing ideas, stories, beauty, strangeness and charm.

What is your professional name and what is the significance behind it?

I’ve been through a few names at this point as a writer and as a person. Nimue is my middle name and it sits with my surname better than my first name does. It’s a name from Arthurian legend – sometimes a lady of the lake, often embroiled with Merlin.

What inspired you to start writing?

Exposure to books, stories and poetry at an early age. My father was writing and that showed me that writing was a thing a person could do. He’s still writing and has a weekly Hopeless, Maine column.

Is there a new style of content that you want to try?

I’m always easily tempted by new things. I find light novels interesting, but I’d need to find a story I could illustrate myself, or the right person to work with.

What are your hobbies outside of writing?

‘Hobbies’ is another term I’m uneasy about. My life involves reading a lot. I like making things – crafting and baking mostly. I walk, I dance, I play music and love live music. Druidry, folk and steampunk are the places I call home.

How do you plan out your content?

When I’m planning non-fic I figure out titles and content areas for chapters first. With fiction I have a list of key plot points which I fettle as I go. I prefer not to plan too much but not all projects allow me to wing them.

What are the tools of your trade?

A big mug, a good window, paper and pens. I do most of the typing on a laptop and much of the necessary self promotion from a desktop because it handles images more effectively.

As a content creator do you experience burnout? If so, what does that look like for you and how do you recover?

I’ve suffered with this a lot in the past, made worse by despair and physical illness. At the moment I’m doing well. I think the key things are to feed my brain good things, to have an emotionally satisfying life and plenty of inspiration. Happiness wards off burnout and when I focus on being happy I’m a better and more effective creator

Which work are you most proud of and why?

I’ve written a lot of books over the years, and how I feel about any of them varies a lot. I’m really not good at picking favourites on any front

Do you believe there are misconceptions about being a magical or pagan content creator?

That you should give everything away for free is a big one, which ignores how much privilege that requires. The main misconception about writing is that either you’re a huge financial success, or you are a failure. In reality most of us live somewhere in between there, with small followings, selling books and not raking in the big bucks.

What do you like and dislike about being a content creator?

I dislike the term, and alongside it I dislike the way in which creativity is devalued in our profit orientated culture. I like pushing back, and celebrating the human soul, making beauty for the sake of it. I really like the days when I feel able to invest heart and soul in the worthwhile nature of what I’m doing, and when I resist the pressures to conform.

What are some of the challenges and struggles you face creating your content and how do you overcome them?

In the past the biggest challenges have been around having the energy to create while also needing to invest most of my time and energy in bill-paying work. Then for a while my biggest challenge was being too ill to do anything much. Currently my biggest challenge is time management because I have a lot of projects on the go and I’m having to be clever about juggling things.

What is your opinion on monetization, paywalls, and exclusive content?

I make a lot of my work freely available. Some of it I sell. I appreciate that everyone has to eat and I support all individual creators in handling that whatever way works best for them. It is frustrating when large, profit-making companies keep important information – like academic papers – behind paywalls, especially knowing that the people doing the work do not benefit financially from that.

Do you have any boundaries on this platform why or why not?

I am protective of other people’s privacy, and I won’t allow any comments that are abusive of other people who have commented. I do allow more malicious comments through because often this gives me productive opportunities to tackle issues and sometimes I follow through on that with blog posts.

Do you have any current goals for your output?

I just want to keep doing what I do and have fun with it. I’d like to be more economically successful but in the current economic crisis, too many people have no money for nice things, which is making it hard for all creative folk right now. I’d like to live in a kinder society that supports people in having good lives.

What are some of the mistakes that you made and how did you fix them?

I don’t really think about my history in terms of mistakes. I learn from the experiences I have, I experiment and try different things. You can’t know how some things will work until you try them so how can what you try be a mistake?

Have you ever wanted to quit writing content and why?

Many times when I was depressed and exhausted and no longer able to believe there was any point trying. Support and encouragement from others has kept me going.

What did you wish you had known before starting this journey?

To focus more on my own happiness.

Do you post on any other platforms?

I’m all over the place and feeling too lazy to put all the links in this post, but most of them are on the front page of the Druid Life blog, so if you poke about you can find them. I don’t reuse content, so you’ll find different things different places.

Do you have any advice for anyone starting this journey?

Do it for love, and do the things that give you most joy. The odds of making a living at this are slim and focusing on what makes you happy is a better life choice.