Nimue Brown's Blog, page 8

Druidry and honouring nature

(Nimue)

The idea of honouring nature as it occurs in our own bodies has been important to me for some time. However, there’s always more to learn about how to do that. In recent weeks this is something I’ve been exploring from a number of angles.

Firstly I did some reading-up. I’ve been learning more about what burnout does to the brain – it isolates the more emotional, less logical part of the brain and makes it harder to manage panic. Learning and study are important parts of Druidry for me, so learning about nature in my own body feels like a meaningful thing to do.

Brains can be developed and healed through the ways in which we use them. So, I turned to meditation and visualisation to help me with this. I’ve started visualising the frightened mammal part of my brain as an anxious chinchilla – because chinchillas are cute and invite kindness. I don’t have a great history in terms of being kind to myself and it’s taken me a while to recognise that pushing and bullying myself through times of distress has only been making things worse. I would not yell at a chinchilla to try harder.

What frightened mammals need is quiet, soothing environments, food, water, safety, warmth, comfort. I’ve dealt with rescue cats. I’ve rescued panicking rodents. I know what scared mammals tend to do – they often don’t make great decisions and they need a lot of patience. I’m bringing that experience to the anxious chinchilla in my head.

The principal of slowing down has long been important to me but I’ve not been that great at doing it. There were always so many other things that seemed more urgent than taking care of myself. That’s shifted for me, not least because I’m living with someone who considers my healing and my wellbeing to be a serious priority. Self care is, I recognise, part of honouring nature in my own body. I can’t push myself to breaking point all the time.

When it comes to honouring nature outside of myself, I want to act with respect and kindness. I want to avoid causing harm, and I want to encourage flourishing. I’m better at thinking about the needs of other living beings than I am at taking my own seriously, so I need to internalise more of how I treat the rest of the living world.

The ways in which we humans see ourselves as separate from nature is a root cause of much of the harm we do. We create environments that harm us, ways of living that harm us, and all of this in turn harms the planet. The more we can engage with ourselves as natural beings in need of healthy environments and peaceful lives, the less harm we will do to the world around us.

The anxious chinchilla in my head wants very simple things, and it wants to live gently. Rather than pushing through that anxiety, I’ve started responding to it by giving my mammal self more of what it needs. My aim is to get to a point here I’m not thinking of myself as a bunch of fragments that barely cooperate. I am my body. I am this anxious mammal – I don’t quite feel it at the moment, but I’m working on it. I think there will be a lot to learn from taking better care of the chinchilla in my head, and my body as a whole.

Pagan Portals – Circe

(Nimue, review)

Circe is an intriguing figure from Greek myth. Most of us will know her from tales that in many ways centre men and forgive male outrages while judging women harshly for the same things. I’m not much of a fan of Greek myths, but I am really interested in the work being done to reframe them. That includes new translations that challenge the misogyny of earlier translators, reimaginings in fiction, and all kinds of Pagan responses to ancient Goddesses.

Irisanya Moon has written a number of Goddess titles at this point and I very much like her work. This is a book that packs a lot of myth, research and insight into a very small space along with a lot of good advice for developing your own relationship with Circe. It’s an excellent blend of insight derived from reading, and insight derived from doing.

This introduction to Circe is a fascinating read. I found it inspiring and challenging – in some really good ways. The book is an invitation to power and magic, and particularly to untame feminine power and magic for resisting oppression. Reading Irisanya’s work made me think a lot about the power of anger, and the importance of being able to change yourself, and change direction. It’s a small text with a great deal to offer and I can very much recommend it.

I ended up thinking a lot of things about how female power is so often vilified. I thought about needful rage, and boundary holding, and about the fundamental right to be powerful in your own life. If you’re all about love and light this isn’t for you. This is a more complex and challenging kind of magic, but the book absolutely makes a case for why that kind of magic is needed.

Find out more on the publisher’s website – https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/moon-books/our-books/pagan-portals-circe-goddess-sorcery

Winter Walking

(Nimue)

No matter what time of year it is, I like walking at twilight. Even in places frequented by people, it’s often a quieter time to be out, with a better chance of encountering wildlife. Fading light creates more hazards though, as at some point you won’t be able to see.

Winter light comes in at more of an angle, and can lead to strange, difuse lighting effects where it all looks a bit unreal. If there’s much moisture in the air, that’s made more pronounced. It can make winter walking feel otherworldly. Especially as the light is fading. Seeing swans in flight at that time of day – pristine white against the shifting greys of what’s around – really brings home why our ancestors considered them otherworldly. Catch sight of them in these conditions and they seem truly strange and magical.

You have to be more prepared for winter walking. The days are shorter, the light fades faster and when it goes the temperature can drop dramatically. It takes a bit more thought and planning to walk in winter twilight anywhere that winter is truly cold. Either you need to be more alert to the timing, or to be carrying more kit.

Carrying a phone is often a good choice – that meaning access to light, maps, and emergency contact. Carrying a phone but not looking at the phone may be one of the particularly unusual arts that a modern Druid needs to practice. In some ways it encapsulates what Druidry is all about – we don’t reject science, civilization or technology. We know the time and place for such things. We also know when to turn away from it and face the darkening woods, where the owls are calling as the short winter day is overtaken by the night. We know when to step into the darkness, and when to turn towards home. We are people of the wild, and also part of human civilization, and we dance back and forth between the two.

Facing the future

(Nimue)

There’s a lot to be worried about right now. The future is uncertain, and not in a good way. How do we face this? How do we move into this new year that holds more threats than promises, and how do we do that well?

I think hope is vitally important. Avoiding despair is key to being able to act. If we can stay hopeful, we stay able to do whatever good we can manage. Create hope, offer it, share it, hang on to it. Belief is a powerful force, and no matter how irrational it seems at times, belief in better things is really important.

Stay real. Don’t fake your optimism. Howl when you need to. Staying open hearted, tender, available and able to give a shit isn’t easy, and to do it you have to be present to the things that hurt. The trick is to be open to what hurts while still being able to be defiantly joyful when possible.

Joy is essential. Like hope, we will need to build it, share it and hold onto it where we can. Joy increases when we bring it to each other. It is a beautiful, revolutionary thing that increases resilience and keeps us focused on what we are for, not what we are resisting.

Be kind. Love where you can. Guard your boundaries where you need to. Give what you can. Do what you can. Play a long game and aim to survive, we need each other and there is no gain in dying on the first hill that you could possibly die on.

Communities are more resilient than individuals. Mutual support makes us all better resourced. Look out for each other, share resources and information, make connections and find things to be part of.

None of us are going to be perfect. We have to let go of perfectionism and be pragmatic. Focus on what you can do, don’t get frozen into inaction by the idea that anything short of perfection is worthless. Save what you can save, do the good things you can do.

Make time for the things that nourish you. This is the means by which you can stay strong and brave and able to step up. Step back when you need to, and keep your attention focused on what you are for, and what is most important to you. Rest in your roots, in your tradition, your spirituality and your beliefs. Sit with your values and hopes, hold them carefully and make space for them.

Protecting our integrity as individuals, and our inner resources allows us to act effectively. No matter what lies ahead, the answer is to live our truth as best we can.

Setting intentions for the coming year

(Nimue)

I like to be gentle with myself and come up with broad intentions rather than resolutions that feel like internalised capitalism. I’ve been sitting with these for a while, and these are promises I am making to myself as I move forward. I think what I’m doing this year is worth considering and I hope other people will adopt some of this too. Especially the first one. Please do the first one.

I’m going to be kinder to myself.

Being kinder is going to involve more rest, more attention to my health and releasing harmful things I have internalised.

I’m going to trust myself.

I’m going to trust that my intentions are good, my feelings are reasonable, my needs are real. I’m going to trust my body to know what it needs and I’m going to act on that. Further, I am going to trust my gut feelings, my instincts, intuition – call it what you will. I’m not sure what to call it, but I’m going to stop over-riding it because my anxieties are not irrational and I am not going to keep treating them that way.

Further to that, I’m going to trust the work that I do and the work I feel called to do. I’m going to trust my own sense of purpose and focus on doing the best that I can.

I’m going to befriend all of the different parts of myself. I’m making room for all of that, and I am not going to keep fighting myself or trying to suppress parts of myself to make other people more comfortable. I am going to be more open emotionally and I will learn not to be afraid of crying.

Whatever else I do, or don’t do in the coming year is going to flow from there. I want to leave that as open as I can, so I can find out where this takes me, without assumptions or pressure.

Peace on Earth

(Nimue)

I’m a great believer in doing things gently, the idea of violent revolution does not appeal to me. I’m interested in what we can do as individuals to shift our societies towards kinder and sustainable ways of existing. This, I think, is work that we as Druids need to be engaged with in ongoing ways. We have to imagine new and better ways of being.

This does not necessarily fix everything. Until we have a culture that rejects greed and exploitation, we will not persuade the people who do the most harm to back down from that. History shows us that important changes are often hard won, and that conflict is often involved. Sometimes positive change leads to violent backlash – Chile and Spain being 20th century examples of this.

Sometimes violent revolution doesn’t work at all – cultural revolution in Russia and China arguably just changed the people at the top, and made little positive difference in the lives of ordinary people.  I think in part this is what you get when the focus is the revolution itself and not what you want to build. Here in the UK we had a civil war, threw out the monarchy and replaced that with a Lord Protector for a while. Often you just end up with the same problem wearing a different hat.

True peace depends on justice. While those with power deny justice to everyone else, there can be no real peace. History shows us that when people are oppressed beyond what they can bear, they tend to respond with violence. Wise administrations keep their people happy enough to avoid this. For the Romans that meant bread and circuses. The French revolution confirmed that people who do not have bread are likely to revolt.

Our societies are based on unspoken contracts. Break those, and the society ceases to function. When people cannot afford food, healthcare, rent, heating – the most basic and essential things, this will not play out well. When you can work a full time job and still not afford the basics in life, anger is inevitable. When you watch the wealthiest few destroy the life of the planet for their own amusement, you may struggle with that. Unless our leaders learn wisdom and start bringing justice into the mix, someone else will. That’s what history shows us, repeatedly.

We live in strange times. It is worth thinking about what you are prepared to do, what you will accept and what you will resist. Now is a good time to consider the fights that matter to you, and the hills you are prepared to die on.

I’m not a revolutionary – all other issues aside it’s not something I’m physically capable of. About all I might do with this body is usefully put it in the way. What I can realistically do is keep talking about what would be good, and what we can do as individuals to contribute to that. History shows us that peace is often hard won, and that advocating for peace in situations where there is no justice is simply a form of complicity.

Druidry and resolutions

(Nimue)

The whole idea of celebrating the shift from December to January goes back to the Romans, so it isn’t necessarily going to be resonant for Druids. Some Druids celebrate the new year at Samhain, others at the solstice. The important thing here is to work with whatever seems resonant to you. I rather like the process of reflecting during the darker part of the year and deliberately trying to set my intentions for the year ahead but at the same time I don’t get over-invested in it.

Conventional resolutions are often problematic. Some years ago I deliberately put down anything that looked like self-flagellation. None of that ‘new year new me’ nonsense either. This for me is just a point in the wheel of the year when I pay extra attention to both looking back and looking ahead.

For Druids, I don’t think it makes a huge amount of sense to be focused too much on new year resolutions or for that matter end of the year reflections. We need to check in with ourselves far more often than that. Reflecting on what’s happened and what’s been learned can be part of an everyday practice. It’s something I make time for at least a couple of times in any given week.

It is also important to look at life and ask where our choices are taking us and whether we need to finesse that. This isn’t being about goal orientated necessarily. In fact I think it often works better not to be too goal orientated. As Druids we might be more interested in the journey we are taking and the kind of terrain we want to enter. There are questions it is good to ask all the time – what can I do to be kinder to myself, and kinder to others? What is needed right now? What isn’t serving me?

There more we check in with ourselves and act deliberately the more fully we are able to live. Our lives don’t just drift past us, unintended and taking us in random directions. The more aware we are, the more agency we have. What can I learn from this experience and how can I do better are questions that I return to all the time.

Sometimes it helps to set big, dramatic intentions if enacting them will take some organising. The intention to make a massive pilgrimage, write a book, learn an instrument etc is going to involve a few large, dramatic steps to get that moving. If you need to massively change your life, then sometimes a hefty resolution is what’s called for – regardless of the time of year. The rest of the time, there’s a lot to be said for making small resolutions to explore.

One of the good things about small resolutions is that you can more readily step away from them. Failing to keep New Year’s resolutions is a normal part of that experience and can invite shame, guilt and feelings of failure. A small resolution to give something a go and see what happens can be gently set aside if it doesn’t work. Often what works best is the resolution to be open, or brave, and a small resolution to give something a try.

If you don’t have anything else in mind, I can recommend considering a resolution to try and be kinder to yourself.

Reflecting on 2024

(Nimue)

My overwhelming feeling looking back over the last year is one of gratitude. It hasn’t been an easy year by any stretch of the imagination. There have been all kinds of challenges, practical, economic, emotional. I’ve dealt with all kinds of setbacks. Looming larger than all the rest was my partner Keith’s run-in with cancer last winter. He got through that amazingly well and has made a complete recovery – these are reasons for deep gratitude, but not the only ones.

My life has improved dramatically during this year. My physical and mental heath are much better – I continue to struggle with assorted things but it is all a lot more manageable, and no longer seriously undermining my quality of life. Much of this is due to the reduced amount of stress in my life. Again there’s a lot I am grateful for here.

It isn’t the amount of challenge in life that was the root cause of the stress – having a partner dealing with cancer is an exceedingly stressful thing to go through. What’s made all the difference is how we handle that. Keith and I have only been together for a couple of years and we’re actively co-creating a relationship that is entirely different from anything either of us has been part of before. Mutual care and support is at the heart of what we do, everyday.

The real game changer for me this year has been this process of working collaboratively to jointly tackle whatever issues come along. We look for the best in every day, we make what good we can, seek what joy there is and weather the storms together. Massive challenges become a lot more manageable on these terms, as we quite literally hold each other through the things we each struggle with.

Half of this is about stepping up to give, and the other half is about being vulnerable enough to let the other person give in turn. We’ve both had a lot to learn about asking for help and care. It’s been a transformative journey for both of us. As we are both people who need to feel useful and we are both driven to help, being able to take care of each other in meaningful ways has been significant for us both.

This last year has brought so much music – with Jessica Law and the Outlaws, Keith and I playing as a duo, and our feral folk choir Carnival of Cryptids. I’ve got the violin back after years of not being able to play. I’ve had some amazing work opportunities and been involved in some fantastic projects, and have felt more inspired around my own writing than ever before. I feel confident about where I want to go from here and how I want to change moving forward.

Despite the difficulties, it has been the happiest year of my life. I’m deeply grateful to be in a place where I know what brings me joy and how to have that reliably. I feel incredibly blessed and fortunate.

Light in the darkness

(Nimue)

Many cultures past and present have midwinter festivities, and light is usually a part of it. Bringing warmth, comfort and cheer to the cold, dark, challenging months is a very natural response.

In the darkness, the lights appear to be brighter. In the cold, the warmth is even more of a wonder. The contrasts intensify the joy. When it comes to light, it’s incredibly important to hold the balance. Where there is too much light, you drive out the dark entirely, and the beauty of contrast is lost.

This is very much a modern issue. Most of our ancestors faced far more darkness than light during the winter. Taking some time to experience the winter darkness is a way of honouring them, and better understanding them.

Modern life can be very bright. In that brightness we lose the beauty that is present in darkness, and in low light conditions. We lose the softness of it, and the way in which a dark background shows off light to best effect. You can’t see the stars when there is too much light.

This is a lesson in moderation and a good reminder that more is not automatically better. We have the means to light up the night as brightly as we can afford to. That robs us of the scope for loveliness. Not all apparent progress really improves things, and there is an art to knowing when to stop. Sometimes more is less, and this is certainly true when it comes to lights at midwinter.

(For mre of this sort of thing, check out Druidry and the Darkness)

Carols and folk traditions for Druids

(Nimue)

Christmas carols represent a fascinating body of music. There are a number of reasons why, as a Druid you might want to explore them – even if you aren’t interested in Christianity. Obviously there’s the element of community in this. Gathering to sing is good for people and carols often attract people who don’t normally raise their voices, so that’s always a good thing to support.

There are older carols that don’t have that much Christianity in them in the first place. The Boars Head carol springs to mind as an example. There’s a nod to ‘the king of bliss’ but otherwise this is a song about feasting.

Carols often feature characters that Pagans may find resonant – the three magi and Mary particularly.

The carols we best know had their tunes standardised during the nineteenth century. Before that, they were much more local. There’s a lot to be said for exploring your local carol traditions and find out which carols have a history in your part of the world. It’s a great way to connect with ancestors of place. Also, many of those local tunes are more interesting than the ‘official’ ones.

Check out wassailing too – there’s a singing tradition for this that relates to this time of year but has little to do with Christianity. Some people think wassailing is an ancient Pagan practice. Versions that focus on orchards and hanging toast in trees do have that swing. Other kinds of wassailing exist though that are more about going door to door around your  nearby big houses, singing, and demanding a reward. Some wassailing songs suggest serious violence could follow if money or drink is not forthcoming.

Mumming plays are also part of midwinter folk tradition and these also feature songs, often . Like some kinds of wassailing, these plays are largely a justification for passing a hat round. Mummers are generally disguised, which has always made it more feasible for them to bring a political dimension to the entertainment. Critiquing those with wealth and power is very much part of mumming, and aligns well with the idea of Druid satire. It’s fascinating to explore and great fun to get involved with.

Again,  there are traditional plays associated with specific places. More importantly – to my mind – this is also a living tradition, with new plays, and new political villains to lampoon…