Writing Druidry

In the winter 2010 to 2011, I wrote Druidry and Meditation. It was not a difficult process, it took me a couple of hours to hammer out the basic form I wanted the book to take, and then just weeks of typing, refining, checking and getting it done. I knew what I wanted to say, and that probably helped.

I’m working on Druid book number two. I started last autumn with the same kind of plan for the shape of it, and the first draft went just as smoothly as Druidry and Meditation had. I enjoyed a brief period of feeling rather pleased with myself. And then a nagging, uncomfortable suspicion set in. I’d accidentally written a history book.

I did not set out with the plan of writing a history book, exactly, but the whole thing got away from me. I’m used to fiction developing its own momentum, but had rather assumed non-fiction books would behave themselves and do as they are told. Apparently they don’t, and the muses of non-fiction are as fickle and challenging as any others.

The major problem with having accidentally written a history book, has everything to do with my not being a historian. I read a lot. I have a degree in English Literature and am in the habit of exploring in fields that are not my own. I am however, painfully under-qualified for the thing I ended up doing. So the last few months have involved frantic reading and re-reading of books, borrowing books, buying books and generally trying to prop up my less than perfect understandings not only of the known history of druidry, but the way in which history itself is crafted as a narrative.

I’ve just read Stuart Piggott’s ‘The Druids’ and frankly, my brain hurts. I can’t recommend that one as being beautiful prose. I wonder what I would have made of it, if I’d read it before I read any of Ronald Hutton’s work.

One of the big problems for pagan readers who want to learn about historical paganism, is that the books are a nightmare. On the one hand you get the highly speculative and unfounded new agey stuff, which may or may not have some real history in it. On the other, you get the hardcore academic stuff, which is harder to find, not easy to read, and often written about pagans, rather than for pagans, which can result (as with the Piggott) in a hostile tone and attitude that make the reading feel like some masochistic form of penance. We’ve got Ronald Hutton, but there’s only one of him, and he does do an admirable job of trying to be accessible and academically solid, and not hostile, and not overly romantic all at the same time.

Ownership of history is very important. Written history has always belonged, by definition, to the literate and educated, which tends to mean the wealthy, and the powerful. Literacy might be almost universal in the western world these days, but ownership of the written word isn’t. Ownership of history isn’t universal. Making history is a selective process, because that’s the only way great swathes of time and multitudinous life can be rendered coherent. The stories told are picked by the story teller. If your community doesn’t have a story teller, a history maker, then your history is in someone else’s hands. Most people in the wider world encounter Celts and Pagans not through our own writings, but through sensationalist and often misleading depictions in the media.

There’s plenty of reason to think that the druids of old took responsibility for learning and conveying the history of their people. In trying to write about history in just the broadest of ways, I’ve become very aware of what there is, and isn’t. I’m aware that the sources we tend to draw on – Roman, Welsh, Irish, all exist in translation, and which point we’re mostly at the mercy of the translators. I know enough French to know that there are usually words that do not translate tidily from one language to another, and that in substituting in an approximate, some vital nuances can be lost. I also know that texts out of context, with no sense of who the author was writing for, literary conventions of the time, and so forth, are much harder to meaningfully assess. This gives us a lot of problems.

It brings me back to the question of just how important ancient druidry is for modern druidry? I feel strongly about history as inherently important. It is the story of our tribe. I’m not sure we will ever get decent ownership of that, much less enough information to feel comfortable that we do know who the ancient druids were.

This has turned into a bit of a ramble, not least because my brain is fried. I shall go back to working on the current book, and see if I can hammer out something meaningful. Watch this space…

The importance of being bored

It may seem counter-intuitive, but boredom is a good thing. I’m conscious that a lot of modern children live very scheduled lives. Outside of school there are clubs, extra lessons, and when those run out, the television and computer games will provide. Many children do not experience boredom. At the first sign of grumpy inspiration-fail, parents rush in to provide distractions. After all, bored children are horrible. I think this probably true for a lot of adults as well – both the boredom-avoidance, and the being horrible in face of it.

There is a difference however, with being an active participant in your own life, and killing time. There’s a mid ground, a place of occupied but not happy, which is very easily achieved. Filling up the time with noise and trivia makes us not notice it. Then sometimes, when trying to go to sleep, or when there’s a power cut, or something else to break the rhythm, the absence of anything real to do can become painfully apparent.

Boredom is not a thing to drown out or suppress, but a thing to experience when it comes. If there is an underlying ennui, a sense of dissatisfaction then maybe a bottle of alcohol and a film will make it go away for a while, but it seldom fixes it. Boredom can so often be born of soul-hunger and a need for substance. If we drown it in quick fixes, it keeps floating back to the surface.

My child does not have a television, or a games consul. Sometimes I find him things to do, but every now and then he gets some time when no one directs him. He responds to this in all kinds of ways – grumpiness included. There are times when even a book won’t help him, and he gets restless. Out of that restlessness comes a will to do something. From the knowledge of boredom, comes the knowledge of that which he really enjoys. It gives him perspective. He’ll start talking about grand schemes for wild adventures, and nurturing big aspirations.

I’ve noticed that if I allow myself the space and time to be not-busy, I become more conscious of the things in my life that frustrate me. I start to feel where the lacks are, where the need lies. This can be a depressing sort of process, but I’m learning to go with it. Like my child, when I’ve had enough time to get properly uncomfortable, I start imagining what I really want. From there, I can start imagining how to go about it, and once that’s in place, good action can follow.

Sometimes, what boredom creates is an awareness of my need to do something, make something, change something. Out of what seems like stasis, comes energy for renewal. But without allowing the bored stage, that doesn’t happen, we just run round the same little tracks in the same little circles, using the same sorts of tricks to distract ourselves from thinking too much.

For me, thinking about things is very much a part of my druid path. It’s through thinking and questioning that I find my way forward. Anything that reduces my willingness to explore and create change, does not seem like a good idea to me. Too much insulating comfort suppresses hungers that, when allowed some space, turn out to be for other things entirely. Too much facebook can make me feel dull and disorientated. Time outside feeds my soul. If I sit indoors and never turn the computer off, I may never find the impetus to go out. When I turn everything off and look around me, then I find the will and energy to do something different.

Going Druid

When I started learning about druidry, I was daunted by the enormous void that I could see between studying the subject and being a druid. It didn’t help that the books I was reading didn’t offer much about what it takes to move from reading about druids, to being a druid. So I thought it might not be a bad idea to offer some suggestions about how to start making the transition. It’s got a lot to do with how we see ourselves, that sense of druidness has to be earned in our own eyes before we can claim it to ourselves, much less anyone else. Please do add more in the comments if you feel so moved. What I’ve gone for here are things that can be fitted into any sort of life, that do not take insane amounts of time or resources, but that seed a shift in consciousness.

 

1)      Time outdoors. If possible, be outside every day. Not just in a passing through sense, on route to somewhere else. Take time, just a few minutes is a start, to simply be, outside. Feel the sun, the wind, or the rain on your skin, or look at the night sky. Feel the earth beneath your feet. This will go places all by itself, and when it does, just follow along.

2)      Do something creative every day. That doesn’t mean an epic act of artistic endeavour, although it can. Anything you bring your inspiration to, that you tackle creatively, counts. What matters here is the deliberate giving of time and energy to working with inspiration.

3)      Undertake an act of service every day. Do something for your environment, your community. From picking up dropped litter to making time for someone else, a small kind word, a little act of generosity – it all counts.

4)      Practice appreciation, every day. Take a moment to notice the things in your life that are good, be they ever so small. Do not use this to deny or blot out the bad, but having an awareness of where you find your own joy, and making a habit of looking for it, is really important.

5)      Give yourself opportunities to be excellent, every day. Anything can be done well. Anything can be done with spirit, passion, integrity and style. Excellence is a Celtic virtue. When you do something excellent, also allow yourself a little bit of time to enjoy that. Where you can, also recognise the excellence of others.

6)      Ask yourself what it is that you want, and what it is that you need. These are very basic questions that open the way to understanding the self. They also tend to lead to other, bigger questions, so when those suggest themselves, ask them too, and see what comes.

7)      Listen. Not just to those around you, but to the wind, the bird song, the sounds of your environment. In becoming silent, it also becomes possible to hear your own voice, the one that easily gets lost under the babble of immediate concerns. In listening, it can become possible to hear more than the surface sounds. We talk about the voice of spirit, and how we hear that is worth far more consideration than this blog offers. Listening is the beginning.

8)      Practice doubt. This can be applied to every thought and action in every day we live, so for the sake of sanity, only do one at a time! Everything can be viewed differently, imagined differently, recreated. We can only re-imagine if we first doubt that what we are used to, is all there ever could be. Practice scepticism, ask why, and why not, and see where it takes you.

9)      Consider that everything you do and say, matters. We disempower ourselves by refusing to take ourselves seriously. Again, one role, one event, one situation at a time keeps this manageable. Start looking for your own importance, influence and power in your life as you live it, and take control of that. Acts of excellence and service will be part of this, as will the listening, creating and appreciating.

 

These are all ways of opening doors to new kinds of relationships with both the self, and the wider world. Once you start passing through those portals, it becomes very much about finding your own way. Druidry is often likened to a forest. There are well worn paths, there’s also a lot of smaller ones, and much unexplored landscape. How you walk, where you walk, is always going to be down to your own efforts.

Cyclical Living

The way we focus on the wheel of the year in some pagan traditions can make it tempting to try and shoehorn all life into the solar narrative. I’ve griped about this one before. There are however some good and helpful lessons to take from the idea of the wheel of the year. Cyclical living can be considered in much more abstract ways.

We can picture life as a straight line, a journey from point to point. Viewed this way, each experience is a line, a village we will only pas through once, a view we will not see again. In many ways, linear thinking makes it harder to learn, because it reduces the idea that there is anything to learn. If we’re always moving forwards, whatever we get, it won’t be this. With a linear life view, all losses are permanent, all ends are absolute. There is no way back.

A cyclical view allows a very different way of thinking. If life has tides and seasons, things come round again. The corn dies to the scythe, the leaves fall, but come the spring there are new corn stalks pushing up, new buds coming. They may not be the same leaves, but they grow on the same trees. Each turn of the tide is its own, unique moment, but the ebb and flow are continuous, moving seamlessly from one stage to the next. If we view life as ebb and flow, as cycle, as change that holds constancy and constancy that is full of change, then there is every reason to learn from each turn.

I have experienced death in life more than once along the way. Not just the death of loved people, but the death of things within me. Hopes, dreams, ideas, beliefs, sense of self. If I believed at any point that those deaths were absolute, I’d have long since gone crazy. The linear life view would have broken me long ago. But I have a cyclical sense of things. Even when there is winter in my soul, I do not completely forget the existence of spring. When something dies, I do not entirely forget that death is part of the cycle. The moon waxes and wanes. Tiny plants grow on the corpses of fallen giants. Life has a startling ability to continue, and this is as true within as without.

There are stories in the Wiccan tradition about death and rebirth – The Descent of the Goddess – following Persephone into the underworld, and back into the daylight, knowing that the underworld part of the saga awaits. There aren’t any neat Druid/Celtic parallels that I can think of, although there is Taliesin, dying to Cerridwen and being reborn. There is Blodeuwedd who is flowers, and then woman, and then owl. That story has always spoken to me. I think about Rhiannon’s story of loss and trial and eventual release. These are cycles of descent and change, of suffering and transformation. They aren’t as clear as the Persephone narrative.

Going down into the darkness is part of life. Into the darkness of loss and uncertainty, of pain, disease, fear, depression. There are those who talk about the darkness inside the cauldron, the place of potential, waiting to be gestated, imagined into being, born into the world. There are warmer and happier way of understanding ‘darkness’ but for me, each cycle of descent is a narrative of pain and terror. Something dies. There are days of crawling through dark places with no sense of direction, and days when I just lie there and whimper, inside my head. The outside may appear to be functioning, but that’s not always indicative.

The process of emergence is not like watching a butterfly unfurling its wings. It is not the joyfulness of seeing a chick breaking free from the shell or a baby being born. But then, who can say what any of those things are like, from the inside? It’s a slow crawl, it is as bloody as the descent, and as fraught with difficulties. Sometimes the idea of being held in the darkness seems preferable, making a non-space, of not feeling, not doing, not allowing myself to care. That can feel like safety, while the idea of being vulnerable to feeling, to the scrutiny of light, is unbearable. Climbing back out of the hole, feeling like I have no skin on, nothing to protect myself with, does not seem to get any easier with practice. So far, I have always managed, sooner or later, to climb back out of the hole, hanging on to whatever tiny shreds of hope and inspiration I can find. Life is cyclical. There will be other holes, other long descents and arduous returns. Other journeys through dark lands. At least knowing this makes them less of a shock when they turn up.

I am making the trudge back from the underworld, again. I come back knowing that either one day I am going to shatter entirely and throw myself in the river, or I am going to have to find a way to be myself, hold some space that is mine, and have some place to sing the wilderness song in my soul. Sing with blood and teeth and mayhem. There has to be another way of doing things. And the wheel turns…

Nature, Mindfulness and Emotion

Here’s a thing I keep banging my head against. I want to be mindful in all things, conscious of my actions and words and in control of them. I consider this essential for living in ethical and honourable ways. What this means in practice is that I spend most of my time trying very hard to maintain suitable levels of self control.

I think it was Jo VanderHoeven on her blog (see blog links for Octopus Dance) who talked about how, with mindfulness, we feel the emotion and allow it to pass through us without being caused to act by it in a way we might later regret. (I’m trusting Jo will correct any mistakes here on my part.)

Now, here’s the rub. Most of my emotions are so intense, so all consuming, that the idea of them passing through gently is hard to imagine. I live in fairly intense emotional spectrums, and repressing any emotion so that it does not result in a physical expression is unspeakably hard. Experience to date suggests that the physical expression of my emotions does cause distress to others, and I am not comfortable with causing that distress, so mostly I try not to. Frequently I fail.

The quandary: Do my emotions, in their raw, chaotic and powerful state, constitute my nature, or are they something that I need to learn to tame and control? If they are my nature, are they allowable, is there some place for them, somewhere in the world? If I tame them, I might be able to become the more placid, docile, biddable person I feel certain the people around me would find it more comfortable to deal with. Would I be a better person if I could tame the extremities of my feelings?

Or is there anything in here that might have an intrinsic value, somewhere, somehow? (I’m unconvinced, but I have to ask for the sake of balance.)

I’ve spent most of my adult life trying for control, trying to be what those around me want me to be – of which one of the key elements has always been expressing a gentle, co-operative persona, which is just a construct, is not in any way ‘real’ in terms of how I understand myself. And there are days when holding that together and keeping it smiling is so hard that I just want to curl up and weep.

I will confess that I have spent my whole life yearning for some kind of space where I could feel safe about letting some of the other stuff out. There have been times, sharing music, when I’ve been able to express and feel fully alive, in the moment, whole… but music is abstract, and it’s easy for people not to have to look too hard at what’s really going on there, which makes it inherently safer. There are times when the sheer loneliness inherent in feeling unable to share my emotional self, is crippling. I say it, in case there is someone out there who feels this too, and who can find some catharsis, or companionship in these words.

I’m not sure it is mindfulness. It’s a good cover. It may in fact be fear. I know perfectly well that what lives on the inside is a fairytale monster full of teeth and excess. If it gets out, if anyone sees it, I will become an exile. Hiding is survival. Mindfulness keeps the fear of what I am under control.

I know I am blessed with some brilliant, insightful and forthright commentators on this blog. This is without a doubt the most personal thing I have ever put in a public place. It will be interesting to see what anyone does with this.

Radical Ancestors

I’ve been reading about the history of radical faith and politics in the UK. It’s part of the research for the next book, which is not about the history of radical politics or this kind of religion, but that’s a whole other story. However, some things have struck me.

From the first radical noises in the 1200s, the first rebellions that I’ve read about, people have been protesting about the way in which money and power collect into the hands of the few who then control the law so that the money and power remain in their control. While we’ve come a fair way from feudal times (it’s your Count that votes!) I read this stuff and I realise we are having all the same arguments today. All the ‘takeover’ protests, all the troubles with bankers, and the way in which the very poor are being made, all over the world, to pay for the indulgencies and gambling of the very rich.

The history of radical politics fills me with despair, because it is so obvious that the same essential battle has been going on for centuries, and we still have power and wealth in the hands of the very few. Quality of life, life expectancy, and personal freedoms have all advanced on where they were for the early radicals, but compared to how things could be… we are living in the dark ages still. I also despair because of the ease with which the radicals of history sometimes turned tyrants themselves. The history of violence inherent in the history of protest is not anything to be proud of. Radical history has no shortage of figures who were in it for their own gain, recent history too. If we tear down the king in order to be king ourselves, we are no different from what went before, no matter what we spouted along the way.

At the same time, radical history also awes me. There were plenty of people who gave up comfort to campaign for rights. There were people who endured imprisonment, barbarous physical punishments and death in trying to improve things. I do not honestly think I would have the courage to stand by any belief all the way to the scaffold or the stake. We have at least made enough progress in the UK that being a radical is not automatically a means of courting death, but there are still countries where you can die for daring to defy oppression and tyranny. There are still people brave enough to give their lives in the hopes of making a difference. The heroism inherent in such sacrifice deserves far more recognition than it gets.

In the midst of this, I also feel hope. Wherever there have been wrongs in the world, there has always been some small, courageous voice raised against them. I feel concern because I have no doubt that many people with repressive, controlling, diminishing ideals for the rest of humanity think that they are bravely speaking up for the common good. There are people who are determined to feel spiritually, or psychologically harmed by what others do. Even if they aren’t present, directly affected, or even able to see it. The idea that someone is having gay sex, being a pagan, letting their women drive cars… is so offensive to some people that they would have no problem answering ‘an it harm none’ with the assertion that they are indeed being harmed and must protect themselves from the horror. While anyone believes they have the right (god given or otherwise) to control other human beings, in this way, we are going to have problems.

Reading about the tradition of crazy prophet women from the 1600s, writing illegal pamphlets touting ideas the elite didn’t want to hear… I think yes, this is something I belong to, just a bit. I watch the discourse across blogs, and it’s not so very different from the way people used to carry out arguments through pamphlets. Just a bit quicker, and sometimes with better spelling.

Historically, radicals have not tended to get what they want up front. It takes time to turn an insane heresy into an idea everyone can embrace. The transition from slave trading to the abolishment of it, was not rapid. Civil rights movements take time. They have to build support and belief, convince the mainstream that ‘normal’ does not mean ‘right’ and establish a whole new way of viewing the world before they take hold and themselves become ‘normal’. Every battle for human rights, freedom of expression, the equal valuing of all human life, has been slow won. But we do win more of them than not, eventually. So long as there are voices of dissent and people willing to question, there is hope.

Social fairness and the resistance of power is as much an issue as it ever was. We aren’t fighting over Biblical interpretations so much these days. The new heresies have everything to do with issues of climate change and human responsibility. The kind of radicals I’m interested in are talking radical compassion, radical resource redistribution, radical revaluing. The greatest dangers lie in thinking it’s all fine, and that we can sit back and trust that our freedoms and rights are safeguarded. Ask who has power over you, and ask what is done in your name, without your consent. One piece of repressive legislation is all it would take to turn most of us into criminals, or victims, or both.

Interview – Joanna VanderHoeven

I first met Jo through The Druid Network some years ago when she volunteered to start producing a podcast. Since then I’ve been following her various exploits with interest. Jo is a woman of remarkable energy, whose interests and creativity range widely. She’s in many ways a new voice in Druid writing, and someone whose words I find resonant and inspiring. I’m very excited about her book.

Nimue: I notice you’ve said online that your book on Zen and Druidry is your
third book contract, so, what were the other two? I’m clearly behind here.

Jo: My other two books are a medieval fantasy (pulp fantasy my partner calls it!) called Falconwing and I also have a book of poems, entitled Instinct & Inspiration (the poetry book feels a little juvenile now, as it was written over ten years ago, and my style has very much changed – and improved!).

Nimue: Zen and druidry – how did you come to bring these two traditions together?

Jo: I’ve always had a great interest in religion, spirituality and philosophy from around the world.  I’ve been on the Druid path for over 10 years now, formerly a Wiccan.  I can’t quite remember how I stumbled upon Zen, but I began to see the similarities between the two emerge as I delved ever deeper into both Druidry and Zen.  Both have roots that can be traced back to India – at different times, it seems the proto-Celts went west, while Zen went east! The tenants and philosophies were much alike.  I also found that while studying and practicing Zen (in essence, meditation) it could be applied to Druidry and both would benefit.

Many people seem to think that Zen meditation is all about clearing the mind, focusing on having no thought. In reality, Zen teaches us to notice our thoughts as they happen, and as we observe we can eventually change our patterns into something much calmer, less chaotic – simplicity in its essence.  Rather than emptying our mind, we notice thoughts as they arise, and by noticing not allowing them to control us. This eventually leads to a state of mindfulness – being completely aware of  yourself and your surroundings.

This was essential in my Druid meditation. Whether practicing inside or outside, complete mindfulness was the key to true connection. Carrying that mindfulness into everyday activities was the next step.  It has allowed me to deepen my Druidry even further, allowing for profound change. Not only the principles of Zen deepened my Druidry, but the practice as well!

Nimue: How important to you is that historical angle and sense of connection between the two traditions? Or possibly, is the connection there because of the history, or is it something else, or both?

Jo: I think the connection is there within most spiritualities – they develop as we search for a meaning for our existence, for a reason why things happen… they are all rooted in the same basic human condition. Much in the same way as I see similarities between Heathenry and Druidry, so too did I make the connection with Zen and Druidry. In fact, you could say I’m a Zen Heathen Druid! Celtic and Heathen recontructionists are face-palming right now, aren’t they?

I wouldn’t say that it’s all that important to have the historical connection – everyone’s path is their own, no one can walk it for them. Therefore, each person has their own needs, which may or may not be met by an existing tradition, spirituality or philosophy.  Whether there is a historical connection or not, if it works, then it is meeting the needs of the individual.  For me, that is what is most important.

Nimue: Good words! I know you have an ‘evolving tradition’ attitude, from your words on belly dancing. How does that thread fit with the others?

Jo: Do you mean how does belly dancing fit in with Zen and Druidry?  I find dance one of the greatest physical expressions of emotion, inspiration – it’s storytelling without words.  So much is happening with your body when you dance – and also with your soul.  Being completely mindful of your dance, feeling every muscle, allowing the story to come through you, your story, maybe how you are feeling at that very moment – it’s just such a great expression, or reflection, of your own soul.  Sometimes it can simply be a physical release – I like nothing better than to put on some David Bowie or Led Zeppelin when I’ve had a trying day, and thrash it out in my living room when I get home. Other times I am expressing an emotion, such as love or peace.  It can also be a meditation, almost trancelike, shifting our consciousness to reach other states of being.

I love the movements and music of belly dance – there are so many different kinds of belly dance, from all over the world.  I love exploring all the different styles – in my workshops, I take a different style of gypsy belly dance and teach it.  Our last workshop was learning moves from the Rajasthani gypsy tribes – this month we are learning Turkish Roman moves and steps.  I find belly dance so expressive – it can be hard and edgy, with modern music such as Beats Antique, it can be soft and flowing, as with veil work, mysterious and moody with swordwork, cheeky and fun with cabaret – there’s a dance style to suit every mood!  I love expressive dancing – Flamenco with its passion is another favourite.

So, to answer your question – they are all great ways to be completely in the moment, to express your soul song – I suppose each is a language unto itself!

Nimue: Do you work with any druid groups at the moment?

Jo: I was a member of Clan Oghma for about a year, but had to give that up as I just couldn’t make the dates with my schedule. I was already a member of a group that I started up about five years earlier, Spirit Grove. It’s funny you should ask this question, as I have just left Spirit Grove as well now, to focus on a more solitary path.  I always find it difficult to achieve the deep spiritual experiences that I have in my own solitary practice when faced with group ritual. As well, I’ve moved out to the countryside, so I’m quite far away from both previous groups.  I really enjoyed working in a group – it’s a totally different dynamic, but now I’m called to walking a path in the quiet company of the heath where I live, the North Sea and the birch and pine woods of home.

I took both the OBOD bard and ovate courses, so I suppose I’m a member of OBOD. I’m also a member of The Druid Network, and also the Order of the Yew.

Nimue: And, where can people find you online? Or offline, for that matter…

Jo: At http://www.autumnsong.com, and I am also on The Druid Network. You can also find me on witchvox.com, and of course on facebook. I also have a blog at wordpress.com which is called  octopusdance.

Walking between worlds

One foot on a goat, one foot on a well. There’s an ongoing negotiation in my life between being here, and being somewhere else. There’s the allegedly rational (and frequently insane) real world that I have to connect with for day to day living, and the other places, where the call is stronger, and there are times when it feels a lot more real. The spirit worlds, the places of dream, imagination and possibility are essential not only to my druidry, but also to my creative work. However, misrepresent them out here in the ‘real’ world and there would be hell to pay.

Talk to the right people and anything magical, or spiritual becomes delusion. It’s proof of mental instability, an inability to cope, a lack of reason. At best you’re just silly. The faintest hint of magic can and will be used to by some to invalidate you, take away your voice, your right to autonomy, your ability to judge. I know that the police checked me out online about a year ago. I know my ex is out there just looking for dirt to throw. Who else is reading, waiting for me to say something that can be taken out of context? (You aren’t paranoid if they are out to get you!) Mostly I don’t talk much about magic, or religious experience, I keep to the rational, because it is a way of protecting myself from others.

However, the realms of dream and spirit are no less present in my life for not being talked about too much. I’m not sure why I’m blogging this today, perhaps a need to push away from the constraints of anxiety, to stand my ground and assert my own right to be.

I dream rich and wild. I always did as a child, and right through my teens. Then in my twenties, my dreaming narrowed to a handful of oft repeated anxiety dreams, reflecting a soul sickness I couldn’t admit to, much less tackle. Away from that which was poisoning me, I’ve started to dream again. The vibrancy has returned, along with wild variance of setting, narrative and content. I meet people in dreams who tell me things. I have experiences which resonate into my waking life. Partly this has happened because, in private, I have given myself permission to feel a much broader range of emotions, and to hope again. I’m not as fearful as I was.

In my sleep, I walk between worlds. I experience things, sometimes, that feel more real to me than my waking life. Most dreams are not that extraordinary, but they come, and with them a sense of being somewhere else.  A couple of nights back I lived for days on an otherworldly journey. I must have been through multiple cycles of dreaming, going back into the same narrative line. I think I’ve visited some of those places before, although not in a while. In my teens there was a city, and I went back to the same places there, although I haven’t seen them in a while.

So I’m starting to ask questions about the relationship between this waking life, and the dreaming one. They bleed into each other so frequently. If a dream affects what we do when awake, the dream has a reality in a rational sense. I’m still very tired from the journey dream of the weekend. That tiredness is undoubtedly real. But there are a lot of places you can’t show up dazed because you’re in the throes of a profound spiritual experience. Hung over, sure, half in the spirit world? Less easy to explain.

There are days when I wonder if the problem is that we spend too much time ‘here’ and not enough time in those dreaming places. I gather most adults don’t sleep enough, and that will eat into dream time. Those who run countries tend, from what anecdotal evidence I’ve encountered, to be even more sleep deprived than average. Maybe what our politicians need is a good dose of dream sleep, a chance to be in that other place, and to straighten out their sense of what real is. Too much reality, I suspect, really isn’t good for a person.

Ownership, revolution and prediction

Those of you who follow the blog will remember that when Tom’s bike was stolen a few months ago, I was quite cross. Now we’ve had a petrol generator taken off the boat. That must have taken determination – it was heavy and awkward, and not very accessible. It also didn’t really work reliably, so someone’s going to be sorely disappointed. This time I find myself less angry, more sad. Someone, for whatever reason, felt the need to do that. Maybe they were desperate, maybe their whole relationship with the world was so messed up that it didn’t seem out of order. I’ll never know. But what I predict, is more of it.

The government is saving money by cutting funding, cutting services, cutting money for the ill and unemployed. It’s not going after the unpaid tax of the superrich or tightening up the laws, its hitting the poorest people the hardest. But they’re Tories, it would have been naïve and optimistic to expect any different. What happens to people when there’s no work, no money, no opportunities, no hope? Some will no doubt get out there and do something radically positive. Many will lack the skills, energy and imagination, but will still want to be able to eat. As resources and opportunities become scarcer, crime, and disorder are almost bound to rise. Not just here, but in crisis stricken Europe, and further afield too. Desperation tends not to result in peaceful co-existence.

What will follow? Will those who have, respond with compassion to the desperate acts of those who have nothing? That seems unlikely. Will we see greater punishments for those who are guilty of the crime of being poor? A glance back at history says this is probable. Governments dislike poor people, treating them as at best an inconvenience, at worst, vermin. Does this kind of approach from on high breed peace and law abiding behaviour? Again, history says not. Angry people are more likely to become radical, revolutionary and potentially violent. And so it spirals into greater levels of violence between state and citizens. It would be easy to go there, and absolutely insane.

I make no secret of being a revolutionary. My idea of revolution has everything to do with radical cultural upheaval, the kind of revolution that takes place inside the mind of the individual. I’m very much opposed to violence, and for that matter, to theft. But who is stealing from whom here? As a big, affluent supermarket chain seems poised to get government sponsored slave labour, I think we have far bigger theft considerations before us. As the bankers who broke our economies continue to take millions in bonuses while payments to teachers, nurses and soldiers remain tiny in comparison, we ought to ask who, exactly, is behaving in a criminal way right now.

We won’t get change by rioting in the streets. All that achieves is the hurting and harming of people who were not to blame. We won’t get justice by throwing out a parliament and replacing it with another, we’ll likely get the same over kind of privileged people with the same assumptions and beliefs. And if the anger bubbling below the surface of so many countries now does erupt into violence, it will be ourselves we harm. History is full of violent uprisings that have lynched unpopular rulers, and so often all you get is a new set of corrupt and self serving monsters at the top. Rising up creates yet more evidence to tell the rich and powerful that poor people are basically nasty and dangerous, and should be restrained for their own good. In violence, we can only lose.

If we want justice, if we want a fair world, we are going to have to fight for it. Not fight in a violent sense, but fight with a willingness to take personal action, to speak out, to refuse to co-operate with corrupt and unjust systems. We have to stop doing what we’re told and start thinking for ourselves.

Last night my dreams were so wild, vivid and otherworldly that today I hardly know where I am. I’ve been reading about 17^th century radicals, which probably hasn’t helped. People of that age had a Christian framework to lean on, giving definition and shared language to new movements. We don’t have that language any more. I would say that culturally we have no dialogue about right, or good, or ethical, we have a system based on short term expediency and financial gain for the few. That has got to change. Next time you hear someone getting angry about the cost of migrant workers, or disabled people, or the unemployed, or single mothers, or any other manifestation of exploited poverty, ask who exactly, is being treated unfairly here. There but for the grace of (what?) go any of us, and most of us would hope for more compassion if we fell into difficulty. There’s not much I can do today that makes a difference, aside from a decision to be less angry about a theft, and more angry about a wider context that has anyone feeling it’s ok, or necessary to do that.

Urban Nature

I’ve been in Gloucester this week, watching the ducks and swans around the docks. There were rabbits along the edge of a building site – a brownfield location that can’ have been wild for years. And yet at twilight, the rabbits were playing and foraging. I’ve heard of otters in city canals and peregrine falcons nesting on communications towers – although not in Gloucester.

I don’t think nature perceives any great separation between it, and us. The things we build are just different kinds of habitat – some of them must look barren and challenging to a creature’s eyes, but useable none the less. To the falling seed there is no difference between a patch of mud in a gutter, and a patch of mud any other place. It’s what you’ve got and there’s little choice but to get on with it.

I get the impression a fair few humans do see a divide between the things that we have made, and nature. So we get irate about moles digging up the lawn, squirrels and bats getting into the loft, pigeons flying about inside our shiny shopping centres and so forth. We made it, so we imagine we ought to be able to control it. Nobody briefed the moles on this one, and the pigeons were all at lunch when the announcements were made…

A fox in a city is just as natural as a fox in a field. It does what it is in the nature of foxes to do, and even if that’s new, it’s still fox nature. Is a human in a city as natural as a human in a forest? We shouldn’t be any different, it should all be human nature. But there is a change, and it tends to happen inside our heads, were we also keep the great nature/civilisation divide. We think it matters where we are, and so we act differently. We feel differently about urban spaces.

I’ve never had a bunch of pagans suggest they wanted an urban ritual. Right in the middle of the shops, or at the crossroads, or the car park. I know of one pagan group only who did that kind of urban ritual. Most urban pagans use ‘nice’ spaces, stay indoors, or get out of the city. Granted, doing it in the middle of the street might attract unwelcome attention. But it also wouldn’t feel the same, and that’s a far more interesting consideration. We’ll travel for hours to get to sites made by our ancestors, but don’t feel so spiritual about the spaces knocked up by our contemporaries.

I’m no less a druid when I’m in a city. I’m no less spiritual, no less capable of undertaking a little private ritual. I’m no less aware of spirits of place, and the ground down there under the layers. And yet I have never done an urban ritual. The closest I’ve got were inside a museum, and in a garden in a built up area, but there were trees! Could I stand somewhere that was all tarmac, litter and decay, and do good druid ritual? I think the answer ought to be ‘yes’ and I also think the answer is probably ‘no’ and one of these days I’m going to give that some serious attention.