Intelligent Designing

Dear everybody, I have a slightly mad fiction thing out at the end of the month. To which end I will be doing a slightly crazy thing tomorrow to help people notice it. If you would like to get involved with the crazy thing, the information is all at the bottom of this post. But, before you rush off there, please do pause for a moment, because what comes next is the opening of said book, Intelligent Designing for Amateurs.

Chapter One
Anthropological observations of the curious habits of personages native to Barker Street

Hopefully there would be dead people next door. That would liven things up tremendously. Ever since the new tenant was first mentioned, Temperance had been trying to imagine what an archaeologist would look like, and had become stuck somewhere between the beard and the muddy boots. Granny said an archaeologist dug things up, which had formed most of her impression. Temperance had never encountered an actual archaeologist before, and until recently, hadn’t even met the word in person. It was one of those large, pleasing, hard to spell words that she liked to roll around in her mouth. There were others. Obsequious. Crepuscular. Epigrammatic. Meanings did not always excite her young mind, but a word that came with a person had more appeal. Granny told her something about digging up iniquities, or possibly aunties. Antimacassars? Digging up definitely suggested mud, and led Temperance to think from there about the likelihood of dead people. Dead people went into the ground, so it stood to reason they could come out of it again. What else was there to unearth aside from coal and ore?

“Nothing at all like a body snatcher,” Granny had insisted, when the subject came up at breakfast, but Temperance wasn’t sure. What else would anyone want to dig up, really? Treasure might be nice, she supposed, but that seemed more like pirate business.
Still, having a new neighbor would cheer the whole street up. The bigger, separate house next to their little terrace had been empty all winter. Seeing the dark windows at night always inclined her to feel sad.

“How’s that sweeping going, then?” Granny demanded from inside the house.
The sweeping had not, in fact, started, the girl having entirely forgotten about the broom in her hand. Pushing curls of escaping brown hair out of her face, Temperance surveyed the twig strewn path to her grandmother’s door. Sweeping seemed so pointless. The wind would bring it all right back in no time. She sighed heavily, feeling very sorry for herself.

Before she could start on the job, the sound of hooves and wheels drew her attention to the street again. All of the delivery people had already done their rounds for the day. Horse-drawn vehicles were otherwise unusual here. The inhabitants of Barker Street were all very decent people, but not equal to carriages, excepting for weddings and funerals. Temperance loved funerals, but the approaching wagon lacked the plumes and splendid display of misery. Instead she saw a neat little trap, followed by a heavily loaded cart where a great many things were piled up behind the driver and passengers.

With a little squeak, she dropped the broom and ran to the garden gate. Then, because she did not want the archaeologist to think her childish, she slowed down. Walking in what she hoped was a dignified way, she soon reached the next property just as the tired horse came to a halt.
The person inside the trap was carefully helped down, and then approached the front door. There was no beard whatsoever, and no obvious signs of mud. Perhaps there had been a mistake? The trap itself took off at a jaunty speed. Temperance wondered if this was the archaeologist’s wife, come on ahead to make their new home nice. The man himself would probably be in a hole full of bones at this very moment, Temperance reasoned.

One of the men got off the cart. He had wild hair and a big coat. On the whole he seemed a better candidate for the adventurous life, and Temperance watched him expectantly.
“All to be unloaded here?” he asked the woman.
“If you please.” She nodded to the girl who was sitting on the cart. “I assume you can find the kitchen, Mary?”

The girl nodded and hurried inside. The two men set about unloading items of furniture from the cart and taking them into the house. Temperance felt rather puzzled by all of this. There weren’t any bones being unloaded just usual, household things. Unless the bones were in one of the tea chests. She supposed that would make sense, even if it was a disappointment.

“Hello girl,” said the tall woman, with an accent that clearly came from another place.

Temperance had spent hours planning how to make her introductions to the new neighbor. She had already established herself as being absolutely essential to Charlie Rowcroft, Barker Street’s resident inventor. Now, she meant to impress the archaeologist, or for that matter his wife, with her clever, useful nature. Thus, she would gain free access to their home as well. Staring up at the new arrival’s face, she couldn’t remember any of the planned speech and found herself instead saying, “Have you got any dead people?”

Now available for pre-order here -
http://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Designing-Amateurs-Nimue-Brown/dp/1780999526/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_pap?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368608170&sr=1-1&keywords=Intelligent+Designing+for+amateurs and no doubt other places as well.

So, here’s the planned silliness. Reblog the post, or post the pre-order link and let me know. I can spot a reblog pretty easily, otherwise tag or message me on facebook, @brynneth_nimue on twitter, or drop an email to brynnethnimue at gmail dot com. I will then write a limerick or silly verse about you, and post it wherever the link went. That could be slow and messy with Twitter, but we’ll do what we can…

Magical reality bubbles

Reality is how we make it, and that’s never more obvious than when a group of people undertake to make a new one for a little while. I’ve done pagan events, folk festivals, re-enactment, and now steampunk. With enough people, a good setting and a little time, it is startlingly easy to break out of normal, consensus reality, and be something else. It rather flags up how delicate the conventions of the consensus really are.

Coming back down after an event is something I’ve always found hard. The bumpy return to normality, putting away the costumes, remembering not to act like I’m still inside the reality bubble.  Every time I go through it, I’m aware of how much I don’t want to make the journey back. I want to spend my whole life being a steampunk-folk-pagan-druid-author-etc. I don’t want to live in the ‘real’ world, it’s far too drab and depressing. The flip side is that I need to eat, and I don’t actually have the nerve to wander the supermarkets in any kind of regalia, and I certainly couldn’t cycle in it.

It’s an ongoing issue for Druidry that, without the context of Celtic society, there’s only so much we can revive. This weekend got me thinking about the first lot of revivalists, the sheer creative craziness of Iolo Morganwg and his contemporaries. As far as I know no one is currently doing Steampunk Druids. I ran into the 3^rd Foot and Mouth Battalion, the Tea Army, airship pirates, all kinds of lovely, crazy folk. And then at his gig on the Sunday night, Professor Elemental announced a desire to become Lord Summerisle.

What would it be like to have a wider social context for Druidry? There’s no scope for recreating Celtic society, but… Steampunk is very much a heroic culture, so that’s a start. It values creativity, this is no bad thing. It does have a kind of warrior class. Some of the core components are there.

What would it be like to revive the revivalists, to play shamelessly with all that is silly about the history of modern Druidry and at the same time, to be entirely serious about the Druidry?

I have absolutely no idea how this would work or whether there would be enough interest to do anything entertaining. However, there’s three of us here, including the boy, and Lord Summerisle, and by historical standards that certainly is enough to found an order. We need an ancient history, the more ridiculous the better, and the more random famous people we can attach to it, the more accurate a revival-revival it would be. We also need a pretentious and inaccurate name, and once we’ve been going about a week, someone needs to hive off, claim even more ancient and prestigious origins and found a new one.

I also propose that only people who know nothing at all about actual Druidry should be given big and shiny titles. This would be funny, for one thing, and might appeal to folk like me who deeply resent structure, hierarchy and whatnot where it exists to fuel self importance rather than to get a job done.

If anyone would like to join me in making a little bit of crazy reality bubble, do say. We can have competitions for the best beard, and everything!

Laughing at Religion

Humans use comedy and laughter in many ways. We do it to deflate tension and mask fear, to mark boundaries of who is in and who is out. We do it to deflate ego and tackle pomposity. Laughter is the only weapon, sometimes, that the disadvantaged have against the powerful. It can be tremendously subversive, but also culturally bonding. Laugher is dangerous, so how we relate it to that most serious of subjects – religion – is an interesting question.

It is natural to fear ridicule, and as religion tends to be very personal, the mocking of religions can translate into the mocking of the faithful. Where the humour is about pointing and laughing at the silly people, this can feel alienating, and like your most sacred things are a joke to others. Pagans get a lot of this, in the media. This is in part because we look different and are an easy target, a bit like morris dancers. I happen to think most men in bells look silly, but I love morris dancing nonetheless. That which is funny adds colour to life, which is a good thing. I think the pointing and laughing is good, in an odd way. All religions are prone to pomposity, which is inherently foolish, and to costumes and rituals that become all about show and lose their substance. The laughter of irreverent outsiders can do a lot to keep us focused on what really matters, and to keep us honest.

Really good comedy depends on insight. I am better placed than a non-druid to make druid jokes, because I know the silliness we, and our ancestors of tradition get up to. If I use it for comic effect, I may do something productive. Jewish culture is full of jokes about Judaism and Jewish people, offered in a self-depreciating way to the outside world. That fascinates me. I have learned from it, and the main effect has been to improve my understanding and respect. I am aware that jokes about Islam result in death threats, sometimes. This makes me wary of comedy about Islam, but if we ever get the equivalent of ‘The Imman of Dibley’ onto the TV, I will know that a wonderful, cultural revolution has occurred. Irony, parody, and sophisticated word play comedy depend on knowledge, and on the audience knowing as much as the jester. To be jokeable about, is to be understood, at least a bit. The day I hear a mainstream comedian making cracks about Druids, is the day I know the world is really taking us seriously.

Where laughter is shared,, groups and individuals bond. Laugher breaks the ice, breaks down social barriers, and a shared joke gives common points of cultural reference and a sense of belonging. Jokes within a community, about itself, can therefore be important markers of belonging. Religion serves a function in terms of cultural belonging and a sense of place. Laughter and comedy have a role to play in that, and if we resent the giggling at sacred things, the shooting down of sacred cows, the laughter at expense of doctrine and leadership, we miss out. It is healthy to make jokes about religions. Fearing laughter is not healthy, I think.

Challenges to faith are not a bad thing. When the laughter comes from the outside, that can feel like an assault to pride, dignity, and all that we value. But like anything that tests us, it also gives us a chance to walk our talk. For me as a druid, the tradition of satire is an important one. If someone makes a joke at my expense, or the expense of my faith, my religious position is to try and come up with a better one, or a stronger way of laughing back. Each religion has its own ways but I have no doubt each can contribute to how we handle laugher coming in from the outside.

Laughter, when it hits hard, is the most amazing loss of control. It’s also more socially acceptable than a wild excess of weeping, or lust, or anger. When laughter takes hold, tears stream, bodies rock, motor control goes. Extreme laugher makes us weak and vulnerable, in a physical sense. We can therefore only do it when we feel safe. It takes us out of ourselves, something is broken down when we are overcome in this way. I believe that laughter, like all other powerful emotional events, has the potential to be a religious experience in its own right. Why should all religion be po-faced and melancholy? Surely god can be as present in a giggle as in solemnity?

The sacred is bigger than us, pretty much by definition. The only things we hurt with laughter are fragile, human egos. If there are gods, they are not human. Mostly, we do not laugh at the gods, we laugh at the strange things it occurs to people to do in the name of deity. Sometimes we laugh because that’s better than weeping. When we laugh, we are human. When we laugh, we are not killing each other. Warm hearted laughter is not the beginning of aggression. Hate is a cold, and joyless thing and those who hate will find it just as intolerable to face the gigglers. If we can laugh at ourselves, and the things we do, the odds are, we aren’t going to kill anyone, and given the history of religions worldwide, that would be a good development.

Laughter Power

Laughter is magic, medicine, self-defence and power. Perhaps this is why satire was considered the provenance of ancient Druids. But no matter what form the humour takes, being able to laugh is a potent thing.

There is a theory (I think it harks all the way back to Freud) that we laugh to cover fear and social embarrassment. Perhaps so. Laughter can diffuse embarrassment, or heighten it, depending on how it’s used. To be lost in laughter is to be beyond fear. Laughter can take us into a strange, out of control place, children go so easily from there to tears. Adults in extremis can too. Sometimes there isn’t much difference between the two, for both are cathartic.

If we can see the ridiculous in something, then is has far less power over us. J.K Rowling was onto something with her spells to get rid of certain unpleasant entities. If you can look your fear in the face and find some way of laughing at it, you will not be overwhelmed by it. When it comes to dealing with other people, laughter takes away the power to intimidate.

I remember a violent girl at school who started hitting one of the geekier boys. He laughed at her, kept laughing through the blows. She became increasingly confused, angry and finally distressed. In the end she gave up. She’d hurt him physically, but had lost because nothing she did could defeat his laughter. That’s not an easy thing to pull off.

When we believe others are more powerful than us, and we take them seriously, then we give them far more scope to do us harm. If we can laugh at their insane ideas, laugh at their assumptions, we will not be ruled by them.

Just the act of laughing makes a person feel better. It is a release, it warms us on the insides. Laughter helps with bodily healing. Oh for a better memory that could quote you studies and statistics, but it does. Unhappy people take a lot longer to get well after illness. Comedy should be available on prescription. Sharing laughter affirms bonds of community, reassures us that we belong. We are on the inside of the joke, and therefore on the inside of the group. That can mean some people pick on others, creating an outsider to joke about so that group cohesion can be held. I’ve had people try and build relationships with me around ridiculing someone else, and it’s nothing I like or would encourage. Relationships and communities that depend on laughing at someone else have no integrity or durability. It is better to be able to laugh at yourself, and at the sheer ludicrousness of life. The best kind of laughter does not reduce anyone else.

Laugh with your friends. Laugh at your enemies because nothing will reduce them in the same way. Laughter is power. The person who still knows how to laugh has not been defeated and if you can keep your sense of humour, you can keep everything else in perspective.

According to Woody Allen, comedy is tragedy plus timing.

According to my tutors at college, way back when, comedy is the hardest thing to explain. There’s a wonderful mystery to laughter, a glorious loss of control and a sense of freedom that comes with it. There are so many reasons to be able to joke and giggle in rituals, to be able to break down into laughter, bubble over with mirth and bask in the chaotic mayhem of the ludicrous. Sometimes, to be able to take things seriously it is vital not to take them seriously at all.