You can’t get there from here

Usually, it’s offered as a joke, often with a strange local person uttering the words. Logically, it shouldn’t hold up. However, nothing fills me with fear like the kind of scenario that announces itself in these sorts of terms. The form which you can’t fill in without having the right code, which you can only get by filling in the form. (We had one of those this morning). More often than not, there is a way round it, although significant resources of patience, lateral thinking and perseverance are often called for.

Life has thrown me a few seemingly impossible things to try and field in recent years. The necessity of moving when there was nowhere affordable to rent or buy in viable striking distance was one such. It led to us being on a boat – not a challenge free arrangement, but one that gives us what we need. I’ve seen plenty of systems that seem to have impossibility built into them. Things where winning is just not possible. Others hold all the power, deal the cards, name the game and decide how to interpret the rules. Every run-in with one of these makes me that bit more cynical, and also that bit more determined not to let it grind me down.

There are plenty of systems you can get round by paying them to leave you alone. In essence this is corrupt, but it’s widespread. If you have enough money to hire the best lawyers you can write letters to intimidate others into giving up. If you can pay, you can force a less affluent opponent to quit just by upping the stakes enough. The rules of the poker table seem to apply all kind of places I’m pretty sure they shouldn’t.

Part of the trouble is that we have a longstanding culture in which money buys privilege. In English history, peerages, and parliamentary seats have been discernibly for sale. Politicians today will vie to buy your vote and to court the media. The company with the biggest budget can advertise the smaller competitors out of the market or undercut them to death. Money doesn’t just talk, it carries a big stick.

You can’t get there from here. You can’t easily change country without a lot of money to wave about. If you can show the funds, you can buy your way in. Criminal courts may be free to the victim, but many kinds of justice (restraining orders, child residency orders, small claims for repayment etc) require the civil courts, and you pay for that. Justice has a price tag, all too often. I notice down here on the canal that the bigger and more expensive looking your boat is, the more you can get away with – mooring alongside the no mooring signs is a popular one. Manifestly less affluent boaters would be moved on at once, but even those with legal authority hesitate to challenge the exceedingly rich.

The more obscure, convoluted and challenging a system is, the more unfair it is. The harder you make things, the faster you exclude anyone who isn’t so well educated. The more nasty your legal language, the sooner you intimidate folk who can’t afford legal advice or can’t buy themselves out. The more aggressive you are, the easier it is it shove out people who already feel vulnerable. There is no excuse for this. All official systems should by default, be as simple, clear and transparent as is technically possible. Ideally we ought to test them on eight year old kids. If the kids can’t navigate it, the system isn’t good enough. I’m thinking here about benefits systems, tax systems, medical systems, all the facets of society we may need to appeal to for help in times of difficulty. Any system which at any point has the capacity to exclude or intimidate, needs work.

Although that wouldn’t serve the interests of anyone who can currently buy their way to advantages, and who doesn’t want to share the privilege. Or anyone who fantasises about making it to the degree they think they too will one day grease the wheels and that therefore it should stay as it is.  While any of us buy into the make believe that we’ll win the lottery, land the movie deal and get to cross over to the place of power, we’re stopping ourselves from fixing all that is sick and stupid.

We can get there from here. It might take some doing, but we can.

Talking to Jesus

I’m currently reading Mark Townsend’s fabulous book ‘Jesus through pagan eyes’ (review at TDN and other places to follow soon!). It’s made me pause and re-examine my own beliefs and attitudes about Jesus. Apparently, like a lot of pagans, I don’t have much trouble with Jesus as a figure, but I have a lot of trouble with the things that have been done in his name.

I was Christened – a social event and Grandparent pleaser that I don’t recall. I did go to Sunday school a bit aged 4 – I’d been asking awkward questions about death. They gave me fuzzy felt. I needed philosophy. I wasn’t raised Christian. My first sense of Jesus wasn’t there though, it was at my Church of England Primary school, sat cross-legged in assembly, listening to someone talking about who he was and what he means. I remember thinking how lovely it would be, to be able to believe in a reassuring, kindly protector deity who was going to make it all nice. Even as a child, I found the world a hostile, frequently unforgiving, unmerciful sort of place. If there was a benevolent God, he certainly wasn’t taking care of me.

I have such mixed feelings about deity, not least because I have no capacity for the kind of belief that works without evidence. I feel comfortable with the idea of nature gods because there’s no reason to assume they’d give a toss about me anyway. But the loving, benevolent Jesus figure?

I do see him as the original hippy. I like the idea of Jesus the rebel and Jesus the peacemaker, trying to get people to play nicely, but I’m not sure it fits the evidence. So here’s my take. He’s of the house of David, the royal line. The title ‘king of the Jews’ keeps coming up. He’s got supporters wealthy enough to own a private tomb in a garden. That sounds to me like a political figure, not a religious one. Which makes it easy to see why both the Jewish elite and the Romans would have a problem with him. If anyone could have roused the locals to fight the Romans and overthrow the current leadership, it would have been a man descended from King David. I have no idea where the carpenter story fits in to this. Unless he was a Robin Hood figure, a bringing together of many people, archetypes, lives lived, lives imagined. I do buy into the idea that if he came out of the Jewish tradition, he must have been married. I like that version of Jesus better. A rounded human being, not an impossible god. My Gran always said Jesus was a template for how we should all live, and that we seldom manage to. She’d have loved Mark’s book, and his whole outlook.

One thing I’ve noticed is that pagans, especially at moots, are fascinated by Jesus – the man, the myth, the impact. I’ve probably spent more moot time talking about Christianity than any other single issue. However you might feel about it, this is a path with a lot of power.

I’d love to feel there was some benign figure, willing to listen to my woes, offer guidance, answer prayers. I’m perfectly happy to believe that Jesus, and other kindly deities are there in just that way for other people. There has been nothing of that in my life. Perhaps I’m not open enough. But I’ll stick with the disinterested nature gods, voices of thunder and wind, energies of tides and seasons. I can see them, I have a sense of awe and reverence. And if the sun shines on me sometimes, that’s going to have to be blessing enough.

Bardic contests and other competitions

I should start by saying that I have never won anything in my entire life (although I’ve entered plenty) and that it might therefore be fair to assume I’m a wee bit jaded and cynical as a consequence.

There are contests and prizes in just about every field of human endeavour. The bardic chair, and bardic sparring being the resident Druid option. We also have the Mount Haemus awards for scholarship. Every year the ebook world gets excited about the Predators and Editors poll. One of the authors I edit for dreams of a Pulitzer – who wouldn’t? Of course we all want the recognition of a win, and whatever we say about the value of taking part, that’s not what drives people. The hunger to achieve and be recognised is there in all creative people in all fields, so far as I know. But of course most, like me, won’t even make second or third place. And then what? The sense of failure and inadequacy.

Losing is that bit worse if it feels underserved. Many online contests are in essence, popularity contests. The person who can round up the most friends, wins. In such a scenario, someone new, talented and unheard of never gets a look in. It can often seem that in contests of skill or talent, physical beauty and youth can be what wins the day. I once saw a bardic contest won by a young, slender, pretty creature who did not know her song, lost her word sheet several time and had to pause and restart, while slick and well rehearsed efforts from older, rounder and less pretty people went unregarded. And quite frankly, that kind of thing makes me really frustrated. Losing to the better person is no shame at all. Losing because your face doesn’t fit, or you haven’t done enough ass licking, is not funny.

When it comes to sports, it’s usually fairly easy to ascertain who the winner is. They lifted most, jumped highest, ran furthest, fastest and you can measure that. Where the nature of the activity does not automatically define winners and losers (ie writing poetry) there enters in a subjective element. An element of judgement. A matter of preference. Someone decides, based on whatever they like, who was best.

A couple of years ago I found myself in the strange situation of judging in a poetry contest (they picked random people from the audience). I was not popular as a judge, I got booed a lot by the audience because I did not give high marks to the contestants who were simply working to shock, or to induce emotional responses without having any meaning or wordcraft in the mix. I’m sure there were people that night who felt cheated by how I had judged them. But, I set my own criteria, as required and it being poetry, I put wordcraft before stagecraft, and depth before shiny surface and paid no attention at all to how pretty any of them were. Or how many cheering friends they had brought along. I learned along the way that I prefer not to get into competitive things. I have no problem with anyone else doing it. If I am going to compete, I would rather play chess (at which I am rubbish) than get into something painfully subjective, like a poetry slam, or one of those publically humiliating popularity votes. Because I’m not popular or pretty enough for either. Or perhaps it’s easier for me to see it that way rather than risk pitching my limited talents against the greater skills of others. See, told you I was cynical and jaded!

However, if that sort of thing does float your boat… my lovely man, who is much braver than me, is currently taking part in a contest to pick cover art for the next Professor Elemental CD. http://www.professorelemental.com/fr_home.cfm You might want to wander over and consider which, in your subjective opinion is the best bit of art, by whatever criteria appeal to you. And of course this might not be about the art at all, it might be one of those ‘bring a friend’ scenarios where the person with the most chums, or in some cases, email addresses to deploy, wins. I’ve seen that done, too. Plenty of fairish voting systems can be beaten by a couple of people with a lot of email addresses. Fortunately this poll will recognise your computer, so you can only vote once a day. In the meantime, enjoy the art!

Be mindful of your thoughts

Mindfulness comes up a lot in Buddhism. Druids who take inspiration from Buddhism seem to mention this one a lot. It’s also absolutely central in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. The more I contemplate it, the more convinced I am that mindfulness is a thing we should all be striving to achieve, regardless of path.

Self awareness means knowing what you are doing and why. Knowing what you want, how you feel about things – no repressed ideas and desires, no being driven by motives you won’t consciously acknowledge. CBT mindfulness goes further, and as part of a therapeutic process, requires us to minutely examine our thoughts. We all have habits of thought, and they influence our emotions and actions, but how conscious of those thoughts are we?

For example, I just had some really disappointing and frustrating news. My immediate thoughts are that other people will assume what happened is all my fault, that I will seem less credible, that no one will believe it was just bad luck and not some failure on my part. It takes me seconds to think this, and all the optimism of the last few days is wiped away. Seconds I could easily fail to notice. But I’ve caught it, and am trying to fight it.

Now, CBT, being  a therapy, is something people pick up after the event. It’s something you do when depression has already taken you down, when anxiety is sitting on your chest like a lead weight or low self esteem has you thinking the world might be a better place without you. Aided and abetted by circumstances, we think our way into holes. The person who has some belief in themselves and some capacity for hope, and the energy to keep going can and will prevail. The person who has taken inside every setback and criticism, who has bought into the bully’s story, or a family myth about their own uselessness, won’t fight what’s happening externally, but will instead use it as a stick to beat themselves with. I do it. Partly I do it because I sort of believe that if I can show I’m repentant and recognising my failures, I will not be beaten up quite so much by external reality. And no, I wasn’t brought up Catholic. As defensive measures go, it’s not even slightly clever or helpful. But I know it’s there. I don’t have to be the mediaeval mystic who starts hitting myself with a flail as soon as the plague comes to town.

What we think about life experience shapes how we understand what happens to us. It’s very easy to let those thoughts occur and not to think about what we are thinking. All those people who act and speak in the spur of the moment. I didn’t mean it. It just came out. I don’t know why I said that. I don’t know why I did that. Without self awareness, we cannot hope to be in control of our actions and choices. Someone else, something else, can pull our strings. We’re easy to manipulate, or running on habit, not properly engaged with what is really happening and not making rational decisions about our lives from one moment to the next.

What are you thinking?

Whose voice is inside your head? (See the blog post on hearing voices).

What are you telling yourself about the meaning of experiences?

What are you telling yourself you are entitled to do, justified in doing? Are you working up a rage, a reason to hit out, an indignant response, a ‘justified’ attack on someone else?

Are you saying ‘well done me’ at all? Or are you just bombarding yourself with criticism?

A lack of self consciousness and self awareness may seem like the easy way to drift through life. Cheerful obliviousness. Ignorance is bliss. I think this is deluded, at best. It might protect us from having to look at the aspects of self and behaviour that we don’t really like, but those who do not look, cannot change.

I’m not aware of any particularly Druid tradition of mindfulness. There are lots ways. I’m not sure that we need one. I would recommend paying some attention to what you think, step back now and then if you can, contemplate your own responses and the implications of what happens between your ears. It is entirely possible to change how you think, but to do so, you need to be aware of what you think. If you’re in a spiritual tradition looking for some kind of personal growth, I would ask what kind of growth there can ever be without proper self awareness?  Knowing how you think, and what that thinking means, is key to this. Thinking about thinking is inevitably self referential and all about the navel gazing, but ultimately, it is liberating.

Druidry and service

The most obvious response to ‘what is druid service?’ would have everything to do with working as a druid priest – celebrant work, teaching, leading rituals, maybe some spiritual guidance, healing work, that kind of thing. The trouble is, that to be offering that kind of service, you need a community that sees you in that role and has a use for you. If everyone studying Druidry aspires to Being A Druid in this sense, where is the tribe you are going to serve? Clearly we can’t all work that way, there just aren’t enough acolytes to go round!

But there is more to Druidry, and to service, than getting to be the one who flounces round centre stage in a really nice dress. When the opportunity arises, I’ll admit I’m probably as game as the next Druid for both the centre stage and the nice frock. Or whatever it is you like to wear in public. But there are other ways our Druid skills can be called upon. Druidry has the scope to take us into relationship with all kinds of non-human entities. The spirits of place might want a ritual from us. Or a tree planting. Or a litter pick. They probably care less about the fashion statements.

Opportunities to serve frequently come up in non-spiritual settings – volunteer work, care for the environment, fund raising for good causes, supporting the local school, offering bard skills to a local event. With these our Druidness may well not be visible to anyone watching. It doesn’t need to be. This is not about how great you are, or I am. It’s not about attracting attention, being important, or even about making other people respect Druids more.

Acts of service are things undertaken because they need doing, are worth doing, and either cannot be funded, or cannot be properly funded. It means giving of time, energy and creativity for the simple reason that a thing needs to happen. You might be serving the local environment, responding to an international crisis, you might be helping out in your community. It’s not about the self importance of the one doing.

Now, there are many personal gain aspects to service – the pleasure of getting a thing done, the scope for social contact, the boost to self esteem, the sense of being a valued part of the community. These are all good things. Undertaking acts of self torment and martyrdom in the name of a cause is seldom sustainable and more likely to make others profoundly unhappy than to make the world a better place. Service works better when it can be given freely, and happily, and when the one giving gets something good out of it. However, there are lines not to cross. When ‘service’ becomes an excuse to boss others about or put them down, that’s not a win. It shouldn’t be about creating opportunities to be smug, self righteous, more-druidy-than-thou or anything of that ilk. It’s not a good idea to be doing it in hopes of love, fame, attention or reward either, as none of these will necessarily be forthcoming. Do it for love of what you do, not in the hope of being loved for your service.

Boundaries are very important. Meditation and ritual work can teach us a lot about how to craft them, but service will really test them. There is always more work to do than there are people to do it. There are always more problems to solve, more pain to ease, more wrongs to right. None of us can do everything. Entering into service, in any space and at any level, holding boundaries is vital. Know how much time and energy you have to give. Guilt and a desire to please can both push us into giving more than we can sustain. A burned out volunteer is not a good thing. Better to be able to give consistently for years to come, than to make a huge effort and fall over in a couple of months.

I think service should be a part of the Druid path for all of us. How we understand it can vary. Small acts of kindness, small contributions to community and local place are not to be discounted. Ask what is needed. Ask what you can give. Ask how you can make things better. Don’t wait for someone to request a handfasting. There’s plenty of other ways to serve your tribe, even if they don’t realise they are your tribe, and haven’t the faintest notion that you are, in fact, their Druid.

The return journey

If the adventure doesn’t kill you, then when it ends, you may go home. Sam goes back to the shire, but Beowulf stays put. Some are done with adventures, others take to the road at once in search of new ones. Most of us, these days, go home. At least for a while.

If the adventure has been a good one, then recognising it is over and going home, can be a bit melancholy. But if your adventure was a happy departure from normal life, a convention, camp, re-enactment or the like, then it will be finite, and leaving is pretty much required.

It’s easy to see the journey home as what happens after the adventure is over. But of course it isn’t. The way home can turn out to be challenging (I think of hobbits again), or take a lot longer than expected, (Odysseus) or otherwise become a thing in its own right. Even when the adventure was a small one, more alcoholic than heroic, the journey home allows time to reflect and digest what happened. There’s a space to shift gears, putting the adventure into perspective, weaving it into the story of who you are and what you do. We can’t remember everything, and it tends to be the memories we dwell on that stay with us and most influence us. Deliberate reflection reinforces memory, is part of our inner story-making process.

Then, the return. Before we went adventuring, home may have felt like a small and unimportant place. An irritation. A trap. But now, coming back after the adventure, home is full of sweetly familiar things, reassuring, affirming and comforting. Think of Dorothy and how Oz changed her feelings towards Kansas. In going away, we can find perspectives on what we had all along. Exhausted and footsore from epic travels, hung over, battle bruised or however it’s taken us, home brings relief and a space in which to recover.

And plan for the next one. (In my case Asylum in Lincoln, 2 weeks hence).

I love to travel, to adventure, meeting new people, seeing new places. If I’m too long in the same place, I become restless and melancholy. I’ve come to realise a home is something I treasure most when it’s a place to come back to. The return journey is always one of discovery, the familiar seen with new eyes. Wandering is in my soul, but it’s good to have a place to belong as well.

From Pooka’s Pageant

I’m in Ipswitch, Tom the Tigerboy and I having spent the day at a Polytheist/bardic event called Pooka’s Pageant, which raises money for animal charities. It’s been a blast, and also a very important day for us.

This was the first event Tom and I have done together. We’ve both done events before, he in America, doing talks, panels, workshops and selling arts, me gigging various places, public speaking and whatnot. I’ve never done a whole set of storytelling before. And, for added drama of art without a safety net, Tom spent that set drawing accompanying picture on big sheets of paper. We were jamming on things from www.hopelessmaine.com and stories from today will go up there soon. We also did a workshop together, another first which was an absolute joy due to the fabulous creativity of all the folk we were workshopping.

It was a lovely day, inspiring and interesting, and if you happen to be in the Ipswitch area next year when it runs, I can heartily recommend coming along.

I’ve been to so few events in the last two years. It’s the first gig I’ve had since leaving my old life behind, and this marks the turning of a corner of me, with events lined up at a rate of one a month, for the coming months, and potentially at a higher frequency beyond then. I’ve missed being on stage, connecting with people, sharing inspiration in this way. I’ll admit that until I stood up this afternoon, I had no idea if I still could. I can. People laughed. It was a good sort of afternoon. Time to fall over now.

All kudos to Robin Herne for running such a fab day.

Guest Blog: Fairies and the Soul

By Nukiuk

“Would you not like to be a fairy?…and live with me in this garden where the sun never ceases to shine and where it is summer all the year?”

Queen of the Fairies offering to make a girl a fairy

Although the above quote comes from a Greek, rather than a Celtic Tale the offer and opportunity for the human soul to become a fairy was a common belief throughout all of Eurasia. Even the breeze which stirs the trees causing the leaves to rustle and the wood to creak was once believed to be the sounds of ancestral spirits speaking to us, for it was in the trees, rocks, rivers and waterways that the human soul resided. The Celts believed that the souls of the dead would go into trees planted near their graves. The  Altaic peoples who gave the Celts their words for horse among things, believed that the human soul became the spirits of the lands, rocks or trees when they passed on and that these spirits could later be reincarnated as humans. Thus we see people’s souls become nature spirits(fairies)  and that these nature fairies  become human souls.
It is more than nature spirits that human souls can become when they pass on, however, for the “Faces of friends and relatives, long since doomed to the battle trench or the deep sea, have been recognized by those who dared to gaze on the fairy march. The maid has seen her lost lover, and the mother her stolen child, and the courage to plan and achieve their deliverance has been possessed by, at least, one border maiden.” In other words the souls of the dead continue to live on among the fairies. The banshee were the souls of ancestors which appeared as beautiful maidens in order to help their family, as they were originally as much about blessing infants and giving advice as they were about giving warnings and meeting the spirits of those who had died. “There is a legend told of the Macleod family: (that) Soon after the heir of the Macleods was born, a beautiful woman in wonderful raiment, who was a fairy woman or banshee, (there were joyous as well as mourning banshees), appeared at the castle and went directly to the babe’s cradle. She took up the babe and chanted over it a series of verses, and each verse had its own melody. The verses foretold the future manhood of the young child and acted as a protective charm over its life. Then she put the babe back into its cradle and, going out, disappeared across the moorlands.” In another tale, the banshee of Grants Meg Moulach would stand beside the head of the family and advise them on playing chess. (F.S. Wilde, 1887)
So although people tend to associated banshees with death, they are really about life, for they are the souls of those who love a family so much that they continue to give it aid and inspiration. It was their place to inspire poets and artists, thus ancient Celts believed that such skills were gifts of the fairies, gifts of one’s ancestors. Thus when Christians claimed that fairies were the souls of the unbaptized dead it may have been true in part that many fairies were indeed those who had passed on in centuries passed.
What this means is that at least one human soul, if indeed the ancient Celts believed that humans have multiple souls (a point which, I argued here )is the same soul which resides in fairies. This seems even more likely when one considers that there are tales of fairies becoming human when they live among humans and eat human food for long enough. Further there are many Celtic tales of a person bringing a loved one back from the fairy court. In other words the Celts believed that the door could under special circumstances, that fairy and human souls were interrelated enough that one could become another.

 

Nukiuk is a folklorist and artist who is using Eurasia’s folk tales and beliefs to better understand the ancient folk religions. You can read more about his thoughts on tree fairies at http://fairies.zeluna.net/2011/11/tree-spirits-are-fairies.html. The References for this and other articles are at http://fairies.zeluna.net/p/resources.html.

Bards to sing their praises

One of the functions of historical bards was to sing the praises of heroes, great leaders and other worthy figures. To be ennobled in verse by a bard was to have a place in history, and when you’ve got a culture that doesn’t leave a written record, being part of the oral tradition is the only way of being remembered.

However, praise does not have to be the just the business of epic poetry, and doesn’t have to just be about war heroes. It’s something that any of us can choose as an aspect of daily practice. It’s a way of integrating your Druidry into ‘normal’ life, you can see it as part of your service, and it has a lot of powerful effects.

From an individual perspective, the giving of praise is currently seen as a way of developing your self-assertive skills and therefore can help raise self esteem. Giving praise is one of the easiest kinds of opinion to offer – let’s face it, very few people are going to reject praise or give you a hard time for praising them, so if self assertion is a difficult issue for you, praise is a safe way in. There’s also the fact that it feels good. We don’t have a culture that praises, so it may feel a bit odd at first, but it’s such an inherently lovely thing to be doing.

Having work recognised is the most tremendous morale boost. That’s as true for artists as it is for the person who just washed the kitchen floor. Recognition gives a sense of self worth, a feel-good reward for the effort made. Knowing the work had a value to someone else makes it easier to keep working. Knowing your efforts are recognised saves you from feeling taking for granted. It’s all good. While money is frequently an issue for people who live by their creativity, it’s not the be all and end all. A few words of encouragement, a round of applause, helps keep a person going. If you can’t pay your bard for their efforts, let them know you enjoyed what they did.

It’s easy to take things, and people for granted. Why thank the person who was just doing the job they were paid for? Why honour the person who was doing what any decent person should be expected to do, in the circumstances? Because it isn’t always as easy as it may look from the outside. Just because there is money doesn’t mean recognising the value doesn’t matter. A word of thanks, praise or appreciation can turn drudgery into something meaningful.

When it comes to children, there are learning implications around praise. The child who is only ever told off and criticised will have low self esteem, little confidence in their abilities and may come to think there’s no point even trying. The child who is praised for their efforts and progress feels good about learning, is motivated to learn, consolidates their successes and is likely to do better. More carrot, less stick.

There are also implications for relationships. Giving praise to those around you is a simple way of reinforcing bonds, be those of family, community, work colleagues, or amorous in nature. Praise shows appreciation, it shows that you value and enjoy those around you. This in turn improves their sense of self, their morale, their enjoyment of life, and probably increases their positive feelings towards you. Once a culture of praise is established, you are more likely to receive praise in return, which is a bonus.

There are many things it’s easy to be stingy with, without even noticing it. Praise is one of those. Being generous with praise is incredibly powerful though. Voice your gratitude. Honour those who take care of you. In praising what is good, you shift your focus towards the good things and away from the less good things. It’s win all round.

I’d like to round off this blog by praising a few people publically. Dalia Craig, my editor, who goes far above and beyond the call of duty on a regular basis, makes words look beautiful on the page, and is endlessly patient with my foibles. I would like to praise Robin Herne, running this weekend’s Pooka’s Pageant (to raise money for a Hare charity) and kindly giving me some performance space as I come out of hermitdom. Running events is hard work, takes considerable skill, a lot of nerve and vision. Wendy Stokes running the Lightworker’s Hub, always supportive, nurturing, generous with her experience and wisdom.

There are many more who deserve public acts of gratitude. I shall catch up with them where opportunities permit.

And thank you, to all of you who leave insightful, inspiring, challenging, provocative and enlightening comments here (especially Alex, who hardly misses a day). Much appreciated.

Contemplating the self

I’ve been doing a lot of navel gazing over the last few weeks, inspired by the loan of some books from a good friend. I’m exploring Cognitive Behavioural approaches to tackling depression and self esteem. I’ve thought about sharing the work, but it’s mostly too raw and personal. I’m normally fairly open here, but this would be a bit much like bleeding into my dirty laundry in public. I shall wait until I’m at the washing it stage!

All of our life experience is filtered through our perceptions and beliefs. Some of those, possibly a lot of them, are not consciously known to us. I’ve been striving for as long as I can remember to be as conscious about what drives me as possible, so it’s come as a bit of a system shock to realise how much I’ve been carefully hiding from myself for much of my life. That’s the first big danger of contemplating the self – there will be things you don’t like, didn’t want to see, were pretending didn’t exist. They may not all be awful things either, and that’s one of the most horrible ironies around using CBT methods to tackle depression.

Quite a lot of depression is underpinned by negative thinking, particularly about the self. A better sense of self may be the solution to finding happiness. Oddly enough, that can be terrifying. There are consequences to thinking well of yourself, as anyone who doesn’t probably knows. This is how we keep the monsters under the bed from sneaking out at night and eating us, metaphorically speaking. There may be other solutions.

It’s not terrible easy to have a good relationship with anything, or anyone else, if you do not know yourself, or cannot be honest with yourself. And the older and more tightly tied the knots in self awareness are, the nastier a business it is trying to get that sorted out. But if relationship is central to your druidry – as in theory, it is to mine – then the self put forward into that relationship, matters. It’s hard to hold honourable relationship with no sense of self. I have to recognise that accepting dishonourable treatment from others does not an honourable relationship make, for example.

There are traps, rat runs and pointy things inside my head that hold the inner boundaries of who and what I am supposed to be. I’ve been aware of them for a long time, but unable to get them out and look at them. I have believed them to be facts and unassailable truths. Today I got them on paper, and it became apparent that, in their many layers and circuits, there is absolutely no space for me to win. This is not some kind of private madness, cooked up on my own, it’s been carefully nurtured, supported and encouraged by others, not least because even I can see how easy it makes me to control. There’s a narrow bandwidth of acceptable behaviour: I must always be quiet, cheerful and of good disposition, make no fuss about anything, ask for no help, make no mistakes, and always be ready to run in and do whatever is required of me, at a moment’s notice, with perfect grace and good humour. I must give utterly, and ask for nothing in return. On reflection I am conscious that one does not demand such behaviour of saints, much less regular mortals. I am not, and never have been an angelic being, a superhero, an enlightened entity from another dimension, or any other kind of being that might, possibly, have a shot at being like this. But it’s been asked of me, both explicitly and implicitly.

If I am to flourish, some culling is called for. If I am to flourish, I need to do that culling gently, working in small and careful ways so that I don’t destroy myself in the process. I know already there is no way I can do this alone, and asking for help is one of the things I find intimidatingly difficult, so that’s a place to make a start.

In doing this, I am considering the possibility that a person (not just me) can change in the most fundamental ways. I am considering the possibility that a whole sense of self can be gently unpicked and rewoven. I have a feeling that if I can walk through this, it’s going to be a bit like having to walk very slowly through a burning building, but on the other side there is something, some way of seeing that is not at all like what I have now. Hopefully something I can usefully share.