Nimue Brown's Blog, page 92

Embodied with a brain

One of the things I’ve struggled with around ideas of embodiment is the degree to which I am head-led. I’ve come to some conclusions about this recently and am sharing them because I expect I’m not the only person on the Druid path who struggles with these issues. Druidry does tend to attract people who like to think.

I don’t do well when I try to lead with my body. Frankly, my body has no idea what it’s doing, doesn’t reliably know where the ground is and disassociates hard when panicked. I’ve gone rounds with feeling that I’m not good at being an embodied Druid because I’m very much in my own head.

When it comes to the chemistry that impacts on my whole body, that also starts most usually in my head. The things I feel normally begin with the things I think. How I respond to something conceptually informs my emotions, and that in turn defines what my embodied experience is.

I also find that if I’m trying to silence my inner voices, the main effect of that is to totally focus me inside my own head. There’s usually a lot going on in my brain such that shutting it down takes a lot of my concentration and tends to focus me inside myself. If I let my brain do what it does, while being open to the world, I end up being more present and embodied than I do for trying to shut my brain down.

While the relationship between our inner lives and outer realities can vary a lot, it’s worth remembering that the mind is as much a squishy bit of biology as any other part of us. The idea that mind and body are separate comes from a time and culture that also imagined we were made ‘in God’s image’ and separate from the rest of nature. It’s mind/body dualism that’s the issue, I think, not being brain-based.

Are you a free spirit?

It’s one of those terms that sounds really good if you don’t think about it. I have thought about it. I am not a free spirit.

My spirit is limited by my body. I’m a physical entity and biology, physics and other branches of natural science inform my experience on a daily basis. There’s a great deal I cannot do.

My body most assuredly isn’t free. I live with pain, stiffness and limited supplies of energy, all of which is often frustrating to me. I cannot reliably do all the things I want to do. I’m hardly unusual in this. Like all working people I’m also sorely limited by my position in the economic system I am obliged to inhabit. I cannot just go skipping off when I feel like it.

I was hurt by existentialism at a formative time in my life, and this has left me invested in the idea that we can only be free in so far as we are willing to be responsible. If you measure my freedom by my willingness to take responsibility, I am an incredibly free being. I’m actually a lot less responsible than I used to be because my child is an adult now. Many of my responsibilities are things I have chosen to carry.

I’ve encountered the kinds of free spirits who move on in a state of carefree joy, with no concern for the mess they leave in their wake. Freedom is always going to be tempered by your ability to care and your unwillingness to hurt, use, or abandon other people. I’m a profoundly relationship-orientated spirit and I’m in it for the long haul. I find my happiness in deep and long lasting connections with people. Doing that requires collaboration and compromise. I have no interest in being free to dance away as soon as I’m bored, or annoyed or things get difficult. I’ve had that done to me, and I do not like it.

When people describe themselves as free spirits, it can often be with complete unawareness of the privileges they have – especially health, money and leisure. It’s easy to be a free spirit when you can afford to do whatever you feel like. It’s hard to present yourself to the world as a free spirit when you’re working multiple jobs to try and keep your family alive. It’s worth being alert to feelings of superiority around ideas of not being a sheep, not being obliged to go along with the crowd. Most of us have limited options and cannot simply choose to be free.

There are other things I am bound by, as well. A sense of community and of other people being entitled to my care and support, especially. A sense of duty towards the living world that means I cannot go carelessly on my way. 

I have no doubt that the majority of people who consider themselves to be free spirits also consider that to be a good and virtuous way of being in the world. It can have everything to do with wanting to create, wander, love and exist lightly. Being a free spirit off grid is really hard work though. Being a self employed free spirit is no kind of easy option. It’s important to ask what we want to be free from, and what we want the freedom to do, and what the price tag is on all of that. If freedom means that someone else pays for it, then it isn’t really freedom at all, its privilege.

I prefer the idea that we can’t be free until all of us are free.

Druidry and dedications

Rituals are a good opportunity for making dedications and having them witnessed by your community. Along the way there have been three dedications I’ve made in a Druidic context that have had a significant impact on me. Looking back I am all too aware that on each occasion, I really had no idea what the implications were of the commitments I was making.

Something like twenty years ago, I knelt in the wet grass at Stonehenge and initiated as a bard. I pledged to use my creativity for the good of my ‘tribe’ (not language I would now use) and the good of the land. I went into that not knowing what I would be being asked to commit to (not something I’d do these days either). That dedication has become central to what I do with myself, although it has played out in many different ways. It’s what I’m for.

Something like eighteen years ago I stood in the museum and art gallery in Birmingham in front of a small baked clay image called The Queen of the Night – probably a depiction of Ereshkigal. It was a gathering organised by The Druid Network. I had an overwhelming sense of being called to walk in darkness, and I accepted the call. I’ve walked a lot of dark paths since then, bringing back what I can by way of maps for others to use. It’s been hard, far harder than I could ever have imagined, but I’ve managed to do something useful with it here and there and perhaps that’s enough.

I’m not at all sure when I made my Order of the Yew pledge but it was in the same timeframe. This order was held within The Druid Network – I’ve not been involved with either for a long time. The Order of the Yew was very much about making dedications, and I started out with something long and fancy and probably rather self-important. I took myself far too seriously back then. At some point I came back and replaced it with a simple dedication along the lines that I would undertake to love as much as I could for as long as I could. It stuck to me, that one.

Of the three, it’s been by far the hardest. I’ve broken down repeatedly to places where the amount of love I could put into the world really wasn’t much at all. I’ve given from a state of being hollowed out and exhausted for extended periods of time. I have committed, over and over to loving with an open heart people who I knew perfectly well would not reciprocate. I step forward to get my heart broken. If I knew how to stop, I probably wouldn’t because I feel most like me when I’m honouring this dedication.

In theory the key thing with making a dedication in ritual is how much you invest in that dedication and how much you are willing to take it forward. In theory. I’m never sure what to believe about anything, but I can say with certainty that these dedications marked and changed me, and invited things into my life that perhaps otherwise wouldn’t have happened.

Hopeless Necessity

I have a new fiction project on the go – details on the other blog should anyone be curious. There’s also a fair amount of other new fiction from me over there, so if you like that sort of thing, have a poke about for new Mrs Beaten stories and the tale of Barry Lupin.

The Hopeless Vendetta

If you already have a copy of the Hopeless, Maine tarot set, you’ll probably recognise this image as The Wheel of Fate. It was always intended to be a multi-purpose image, drawn for the tarot set but also as the cover of a book that does not exist.

The book that does not exist doesn’t even have a proper title at this stage. The main character is one Necessity Jones, who is an inventor. There’s a mother of invention joke trying to happen here, but it hasn’t quite hatched yet.

The Necessity project started some time before lockdown and then just… stopped. There were lots of reasons. The problem wasn’t really the project, it had more to do with the author being burned out and depressed and having a hard time imagining there was even any point writing the thing. And so it languished in a notebook, unfinished.

It also…

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Death and Empire

I hold a number of opinions about the Queen. Firstly I am simply glad for her that death came quickly and she didn’t spend months, or years suffering. For anyone who is grieving the loss of a person they cared about, my every sympathy.

But it’s complicated, and we do need to talk about the issues, too. For a lot of people, Queen Elizabeth was a symbol of a whole lot of things that made them feel comfortable and patriotic. Those people are mostly white. For a lot of people around the world, Queen Elizabeth was the face of oppression and she came to the throne when the British Empire was still very much a thing. She was the embodiment of colonialism, and the living reminder of atrocities committed in the name of the British Empire. Anyone feeling relief, or rage in response to this death is entitled to that feeling. You can’t really separate the role of the Crown in world history from the specific person most recently wearing it. That’s not how crowns and empires work.

People who suffered because of England’s desire for an empire are still being impacted by that – we’re not so many years from being obliged to let countries rule themselves again and the impacts on cultures, economies, identities and environments remain. If you can’t see how that works, I can recommend finding out about the jewels in the crown jewels as an illustrative place to start.

Here in the UK, we’ve been seriously hurting for years. Many people lost loved ones to covid. Many people lost jobs, security and mental health to the mismanagement of covid. That’s all getting worse thanks to Brexit and ongoing terrible political decisions. Most of us are scared and hurting. But there’s been no way to express that collectively, and there are plenty of trolls, on and offline, waiting to smack you about if they don’t like how you’re feeling. By dying, the Queen has given people a focal point for grief, and it’s likely the responses in the coming weeks will be informed by the sheer backlog of grief people in the UK need to process. 

Perhaps we could manage to recognise the grief of other people whose history with the Queen involves more overt forms of oppression and conquest. Perhaps we could find it in our hearts to be glad that one old lady died at home with some dignity, and to wish that kind of dignified death for everyone. Do we owe her more love and concern than any other elderly person? 

Could we perhaps stop telling each other that some people have special entitlement based on the accident of their birth? Could we instead share out that grief and love a bit more evenly, grieving the many elderly people who died of covid and government cruelty in recent years? Could we be kinder to each other in our grief? And might we possibly be willing to hear that ‘great’ Britain really hasn’t been even slightly great for a lot of people.Could we perhaps decide that life is worthy of respect, not just the lives of a select few.

And a reminder that no one owes their oppressor respect. No, the Queen didn’t go out into the world and dirty her hands directly causing misery, but a lot of other people have done so in her name and you can’t be a figurehead for something while trying to claim that you have no hand in what you’re a figurehead for or how that thing has operated in the past. You can’t sit on wealth that comes from violence, slavery and colonialism and be beyond criticism.

Upcycling with bees

The sofa came to us second hand, and was used vigorously over the years. That use included the enthusiasm of several cats, and the damage they did to the arms. 

Sofas are preposterously expensive things to buy new, and throwing away a whole one creates an unacceptable amount of waste. So, we dismantled it and did what we could. The metal fold out part for the sofa bed went to the local tip where hopefully it can be recycled. Wood from the sofa was repurposed, and some of it has been kept for future use. The fabric covering went in the bin along with some of the foam padding, but we also re-used some of that foam in rebuilding the arms.

Two of the cushions were dismantled and used to solve a problem with a different piece of furniture. The sofa bed bit was replaced with a wood base – thanks to the generosity of a friend who wombled together something from material he had lying around. We bought a piece of new foam to fit it. Solid foam cushions were reshaped and covered with new fabric and are now leading new lives as different cushions. 

We threw very little out. We ended up with a sofa that perfectly fits the space, and has more sofa and less sofa arm going on. One side of the sofa is now a bookcase and inside the sofa there is more storage space. The whole thing is more flexible and can be arranged to serve as a bed for anyone under 6ft tall, as a sofa pillow fort for me, and as a leisure space. There’s also more room for the cat!

Do reach out

CW suicide, suicidal ideation.

I imagine a different conversation.

Not the real one where you told me

How uncomfortable it would feel

To bear that much responsibility.

The conversation after the event

You have with some other person.

If only she had told us how she felt

Or reached out before it was too late.

I’m ok at the moment – I find it very hard to talk about when I’m not. Part of why I’ve had so many terrible bouts with suicidal ideation is that there were other things going on that were genuinely much more urgent than the deteriorating state of my mental health.

The evidence is finally piling up to demonstrate that depression isn’t caused by having unbalanced brain chemistry, it’s caused by distress, trauma, stress, burnout… It happens for reasons. There’s a lot that I’m working on, but there are also things I need help with. I’ve never asked for help without being deeply anxious that I would be a nuisance, or putting too much pressure on the other person. It’s loaded, asking for help to get out of something that makes you feel suicidal. I try to be easy to say no to.

But it’s a hard thing, trying to make it easy to say no when what I’m asking for is help with not wanting to die. Needing to be worth the difficulty and the discomfort. Needing to be someone it would be worth enduring discomfort for, to be someone whose life is worth saving.

If you’re on the other side of this with someone you care about… if you are scared and you feel like it’s too much pressure, that may be true. You may be facing a too-heavy load. But it may be lighter than the load of losing someone this way. I know people who have lost people to suicide. The haunting question of ‘could I have saved them’ is a terrible thing to live with. If they asked you for help, then they thought you could keep them alive, or give them a reason to keep themselves alive.

The immensity and drama of someone being suicidal can make it all too easy to imagine that what you have to do in face of that must surely also be immense and dramatic. It probably isn’t. Can you help a person feel like they have some worth? Can you express care enough that they might be able to imagine the world won’t be better with them gone from it? When you’re at those edges, small things can be life saving. To be needed – a bit, valued – slightly, good enough for someone, important to someone… 

Perhaps the scariest thing to accept is that a small action from you – some small kindness, some well considered words, some supportive action – might be the difference between life and death for someone else. Your slightest comment has the power to save or destroy another human being. That’s true whether you acknowledge it or not and regardless of whether you act deliberately based on knowing that. To know that of yourself, to accept the power and the responsibility, is to become someone who can save lives, and make life worth living for other people.

Emotional chemistry

Everything in a body is finite. This can be quite a disturbing line of thought, especially when it relates to things that are supposedly about who you are. How we feel and how we exist in the world is very much related to our body chemistry in all its complexity. For the Druid exploring nature in their own body, this impact of chemistry on who and how we are is a fascinating line of thought.

Our chemistry is informed by our experiences, environment and food. So our bodies create feedback loops. Those might turn out more like vicious circles as we spiral helplessly, feeling every more trapped by our circumstances. It’s just as possible to grow and build, although the current depth and breadth of crisis in the UK makes that harder.

One of the things I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is the body chemistry of depression and anxiety. With recent news that serotonin levels aren’t the defining issue, it’s clear something else is going on. I’ve been reflecting on my own experiences around numbness and distress and I have some thoughts. I’m a case study of one, this is no kind of scientific, but I think it’s worth sharing anyway.

Most of the chemicals washing around in our bodies have multiple functions. Adrenaline does panic and anxiety, and also excitement and enthusiasm. Dopamine gives us willpower and executive function, it also gives us feelings of reward. These are finite resources. I’m not very good at feeling rewarded – I don’t get feel-good hits from computer games, or from anything else designed to push those buttons. I have spent my life with a wonky body, constantly having to push to get things done. I live on willpower most of the time. What if that simply means I don’t have the dopamine resources to experience the feel-good side of that chemistry? What if the amount of adrenaline going into panic is why I don’t have any capacity to feel excited?

I don’t get much of a vote around panic, but I do get some say in how much willpower I use. I’m undertaking to rest more and trying to make sure I’m not running purely on willpower most of the time. Unshockingly, I feel better for doing things that way, and at the same time I’ve become a little less numb and more able to feel other things and I don’t think this is a coincidence.

I also have questions about the role diet plays here, because you can’t build your body chemicals if you don’t have the right stuff going in. Poverty is exhausting and depressing and I suspect part of that is just not being able to make the right stuff in the first place.

Treating my body as a delicate system with finite resources is working a lot better than running it hard like I’m supposed to be able to function like a machine. I really shouldn’t be surprised about this. I have got to a point in my life where I have the luxury of options, but for a long time I didn’t have that, and for many people, relentless pushing is all there is.

Soft creatures – a poem

I would ease this heart hurt rawness

Be the doc leaf balm to your stung skin

Wrap myself softly around the soreness

In your soul. Spit, faith and relief.

That warm, animal self, the puppy lick

The purr that soothes, the paw, the fur

To nuzzle and comfort as creatures do

When sorrow is simple, easy to address.

These shoulders broad enough

To put between a person and the world,

This body a pillow in face of weariness

Places to lay your head.

Warmth for the chill in your bones,

In your spirit, skin heat to ward off

The loneliness for a little while

Sleep safe beside me.

No matter how we complicate life

In essence we are just soft creatures

In need of shelter, craving safety

Asking to be welcomed home.

In memory of a tree

When we moved into the flat, the horse chestnut outside the window was obviously unwell. That was about 9 years ago. Over the years, the tree became ever more unwell, dropping leaves very early in the autumn and looking unhappy.

This year there were almost no leaves. The tree was clearly dying. We took this photo on the day the tree surgeons came to take it down. When the trunk fell, it made the whole building shake.

This horse chestnut was visited by many birds. It dominated the view from where I sit to work and most days I have looked up and seen it full of activity, and flocks of feathery people. Squirrels raced about in it, a pigeon nested there and it was popular with the crows. 

This tree has been a friend and a blessing, and will be greatly missed. I have one of its babies growing in one of my pots and this autumn I will quietly move it out into the space the old tree left behind.