Dressing the part

(Nimue)

One of the wonderful things about going to Pagan events is how expressively people dress. It’s true of a lot of spaces, especially geeky, nerdy spaces. Most of the time we all dress for the roles we are supposed to be playing. A lot of those roles call upon us to be subdued, unremarkable, and unchallenging. We are to be ordinary and not draw attention to ourselves.

It’s good to be in spaces that invite creativity and expression. The opportunity to go out as your best self, your favourite self, is a blessing. Being around people who support an enable that is good for the soul. When we can meet each other as our most interesting selves, our most inspired and happiest takes on who we are, that’s a wonderful thing.

It makes me think about the kinds of rules and roles that we construct for ourselves the rest of the time. The joyless construct that is ‘being a responsible adult’ and the ways in which being a worker/consumer crush the originality and playfulness out of us. Expression is rebellion. Joy is essential, and adults need to play too. Playfulness keeps us innovative and creative – keeping our problem solving skills in good shape and ready for use. In our playing and daydreaming we can find what we want from life and move towards ways of being that would better suit us.

This photo was taken at Fantasy Forest, with a performer I’d previously run into at a steampunk event in Shrewsbury. It was a delight to be around people who had unleashed their wilder inner selves and were letting their desire for enchantment out to play. I wonder what the world would look like if we had more scope to construct our lives along those terms. If we could live more in the forest of our shared dreaming, and not so much in the soulless spaces people have tended to create.