Druidry and western philosophy

I find myself once again thinking about the relationship between philosophy and Druidry.

Modern philosophy grew out of a tradition that goes right back to the ancient Greeks. Not the ancient Celts. Most of what we know about ancient Celtic philosophy comes from what we can extrapolate from Roman writing and mediaeval texts. At best, it’s an inexact science, but I think it would be entirely fair to say that whatever Celtic (and therefore ancient Druidic) philosophy looked like, it did not look like the history of philosophy that we now have. There’s plenty of Roman writing to suggest that the Celts had their own philosophers, and that the Druids were the thinking classes. But what did they think?

As a modern Druid, I felt pretty much obliged to poke around in philosophy. I did not enjoy the experience. To me, what I encountered felt too sterile, too abstract. That which pre-dates science is in many ways proto-science, trying to make sense of reality. In many ways the models we have now, based on empiricism, research and observation, are better models than the random guesswork of the ancients. So, while there’s an element of academic interest, it does feel a bit pointless to me getting bogged down in the history of human guesswork and confusion. I would rather turn to psychology research to ponder the workings of the human mind, than to philosophy, which depends almost exclusively on introspection and self reporting to try and make sense of mental phenomena. Again, philosophy was the proto-science for psychology. I am not at all fascinated by all the debates spawned by Christianity. I am sad about the history of fear that goes with how the church responded to thinking, I feel it’s useful to know the gist, but I have finite time, and learning the ins and outs of who burned whom when and for what bit of heresy, does not inspire me.

My feeling, undereducated in this area as I am, is that philosophy as a subject rapidly gets bogged down in its own language and habits of thought. To someone who is not an initiate of the mysteries, encountering it is often bewildering and frustrating. I ask this, what does it achieve? Are the dominant thought forms of our times driven by academic philosophy? Or by the mentality of the marketplace? Are we driven by a desire for truth, or political expediency? There seems to me to be a horrible gap between where academic philosophy goes, and where the unconsciously held philosophies that guide us all, get their power from.  I guess that makes me more interested in social science, some kind of anthropology of the here and now.

Being able to think, question and reason are liberating, powerful tools that can help us fight superstition, stupidity, short term thinking and self destructive behaviours. Most people will not turn to Plato or Spinoza for that.

I confess that I’m not that interested in who exactly came up with what about where ideas come from when pondering the issue thousands of years ago. I care about how people here, and now, think, and don’t think. I don’t see any place for Druidry, modern or historical, in the tradition we’ve got, and I wonder about the potential for new lines of philosophy. What happens if we take what we know, and start asking all the basic questions about how and why again, looking at now, looking at the future not the past, looking at need, and what would help rather than throwing energy into pondering impossible intangibles that do not help us to be better people, live richer lives or take better care of what is around us. I don’t give a shit about Kant. I don’t think he can tell me how to turn public thinking away from short term profit towards long term survival.

We need a Druid philosophy stream that is not about mainstream academic philosophy, but is about us, here and now. Maybe all that means is that we need to keep asking awkward questions in public places and challenging each other to come up with something resembling answers.

Questing for inspiration

I talked a few blogs back about the difference between the raw material of inspiration, and the connections and sense of flow – the awen – which turns that raw material into something new. I’m reading Darryl Reamey at the moment, who talks about how the habituations of seeing or experiencing something makes it normal, and we cease to experience wonder. When all is normal and mundane to us, we are unlikely to feel inspired by it. This is, I think, one reason a great many people see inspiration as mysterious. Real life, everyday life is not inspiring. It is normal, humdrum, familiar.

There are many things that coax us towards not thinking. Repetitive patters of living, the brain blanket of media, the material cocoons we voluntarily wrap about ourselves the better to sleepwalk through everything. We expend a lot of energy, collectively, making the world safe and predictable. Then we settle down into the assumption that we know what we’ve got, and can stop bothering with that nasty business of thinking about things.

Every morning, the sun rises, bringing light back after the hours of darkness. And every morning the birds sing their response – levels of enthusiasm depending a lot on the weather conditions. Every day features small miracles and wonders. If you are going through life assuming it to be banal and predictable, you won’t even see them. We learn not to look, not to think, not to wonder and not to feel. We take each other for granted, along with the sunrise.

Predictability and freedom from thinking creates a kind of comfort. It’s an easy sort of life, but ultimately not all that satisfying. Rather than tackle the underlying issues, it’s easier to drown that discomfort in alcohol, or bury it under hours of television, or computer games, or whatever your current poison happens to be. We’ve spent millions of years evolving to be thinking, feeling, creative creatures. Our ancestors depended a great deal on their brains and ingenuity. We are squishy things with lousy teeth, no claws, no natural armour, no camouflage, and barely the capacity to remain warm. We’ve evolved to think, but somewhere in our more recent history, we got into the habit of not thinking. It doesn’t suit us.

Not thinking helps to keep us docile and biddable. Therefore encouraging people not to think is in the interests of anyone who wishes to control others. Thinking, if you make a habit of it, will turn you into a radical and a revolutionary with very little help from anyone else. All it takes is casting of the habit of banality, and the assumption of familiarity. We hear a tragedy on the news. The news is full of tragedies. We shrug. Someone points out that our postal voting system would shame a banana republic. We think corruption is normal and inevitable, so we do nothing. The government takes away a few more rights and essential resources, but we’ve been told we are powerless, so we lie down and take it. Umm….

Inspiration is not just about recognising all that is wrong in the world and finding the courage to do something about it. Inspiration is the experience of opening your eyes all over again, like a child, a puppy, any new creature that still knows how to be surprised. Finding inspiration is easy as soon as you throw off the shackles of taking things for granted. All around you, there is life. Right in front of you, there is something beautiful. It may be small. It may be a dust mote caught in a sunbeam. But it is there, and as soon as you start looking, you will see it. Casting off assumption about relationship and seeing what is good, and what needs more care and attention, brings inspiration into how we live.

I look at the patterns of cloud across the sky. I listen to the birds. Today, the rain was wild, and that was intoxicating. Now I revel in experiencing warmth and comfort, safely out of the rain. I have no idea what this afternoon will bring. Inspiration is part of my everyday life in no small part because I know how to be surprised. There is far less mystery in inspiration than people imagine, and far more mystery in all of life than many people would dream of.

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.

Science and Meditation

This morning on Radio 4 there was a news item on scientific recognition that meditation really does have some effects. I would have thought this was a no-brainer, but then, in certain circles, nothing is real unless you’ve poked it in a methodical way.

Meditation is nothing more than an organised and deliberate form of thinking. If you change the way you think, you have the scope to change your behaviour and your emotional experiences. This is the understanding that underpins cognitive behavioural therapy, currently used to help tackle depression and anxiety. Thoughts and feelings do not belong to separate systems, and they both belong to and are influenced by what happens to your body. In essence, it all comes down to the same chemistry.

When we think, pathways form in our brains. The more we do something, the easier it becomes to think it, and the faster it translates into action. This is obvious when you try and learn a script, or an instrument. Practice is partly in the mind. Thinking something through contributes to practice even if it’s a physical activity. If you never imagine killing your neighbour with an ice pick, the odds of you doing just that are pretty slim. If you imagine, every day, killing your neighbour with an ice pick the odds of you doing it are going to be somewhat higher. The same probabilities apply to pretty much everything else as well.

Meditation can be used for all manner of things, but at the heart of it lies the intention to slow down and become calm. Deep breathing, resting the body, thinking calming thoughts and imagining soothing things are frequent habits in meditation. They form the basis from which more complex meditation can follow. This develops the habit of being able to deliberately become calm. Introducing a few minutes of deliberate calm into every day helps break the hold of stress and anxiety in life. It also gives a tool that can be drawn on in times of need. Even when there isn’t time to meditate, the habit of drawing breath, and settling into a calm mindset can be very handy in a crisis. The more in the habit we are of becoming calm, the more readily our mind can run down that particular track. It’s simply a skill to master.

We know that stress and anxiety have effects on the body – raised pulse and blood pressure, trouble sleeping, tight chest, difficulty eating and digesting, shoulder pain, headaches to name but a few. Creating calm helps to tackle these. The pains and trials of stress and anxiety induced illness are real. There can be a tendency to write off such problems as ‘all in the mind’ or ‘psychosomatic’ but the mind is real, feelings are real, and our emotional lives matter and need taking seriously. Depression is a crippling illness and it can be born from ongoing distress.

In terms of quality of life, our emotions are one of the things that influence us most. Emotions are not always rational, and don’t seem scientific, or terribly measureable, but that doesn’t make them less real, or less important. The view that sees emotions as irrational silliness can also be rather too quick to assume we have no control over them. Working with our own emotions, we can come to understand them, to see what prompts them, to work out what is justified, what needs expressing, and what we have been feeding in the darkness to our own detriment. Taking time to meditate can be a way of accessing our own emotional lives and developing a calm space from which to have a relationship with ourselves.

By consciously shaping our own thought forms, we can take control of ourselves. At the same time we create spaces for the unconscious to breathe. Rather than crushing and repressing the unconscious self with its dream logic and animal impulses all jumbled together, we can embrace it. There is a deep realness that comes from being more at peace with the unconscious mind.
How we feel shapes the ways in which we think. If we aren’t in good relationship with our own emotions, the rational, logical thoughts we are so sure we have, may be no more than illusions based on misconceptions. About the most irrational thing we can do is cling to the idea that intellect and emotion are separate, incompatible and that one is better than the other. We need both.

Zen and the art of druid maintenance

I’ve just finished re-reading Robert M Pirsig’s ‘Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance’ so forgive the blog title, but this book is probably going to prompt a few blogs. If you’ve not read it, the relevant bit for today’s meander is that it is a novel about philosophy. I also like Jostien Gaarder, who writes YA fiction of a philosophical persuasion.

Philosophy is a subject that has always appealed to me as an idea. I’ve read all sorts of things over the years, in an unstructured way and aside from folk writing on the pagan side, I don’t really engage with it as well as I want to. I spend a lot of time here, and other places, writing blogs that are products of deep thinking, and I don’t even have ‘philosophy’ as a category. I’ve not felt able to.

‘Zen and the art’ has crystalized something around this for me, and I wanted to post it and see who bites!

‘Philosophy’ is a Greek word. Pick up any book on the subject and you start with the Greeks, logically enough. What I’ve encountered of later writers exists in a framework that harks back to those Greek models, and uses the language from there. As an author, a bard, I care about language and would say that in other fields – dabbling along the fringes of the sciences, for example, I cope adequately with unfamiliar technical terminology. Not so philosophy, and re-reading ‘Zen’ I crashed headlong again into how hard I find the terms. I first read the book in my teens, and struggled with it. This time I found the concepts easy enough to grasp, still struggled with the subject-specific language, and then realised what the problem is, and it isn’t really the language at all, it’s the assumptions inherent in the language.

The kinds of questions in ‘Zen’ and in other things I have read have a hardness to them. There’s an underlying assumption of solidity, that there are clear lines to be drawn, truths to be pinned down, facts to reveal. This is not my world view. I want to explore thinking about the universe and my experience of this tiny bit of it. What I want is the act of thinking, not someone else’s definitive answers. I’m not even necessarily looking for answers, I’m looking for the experience of contemplating the questions and considering the implications of the myriad possibilities for answering it.

This is what I want – and if it exists somewhere and you can point me towards it, please, please do.

I want a discipline that exists to help people learn what questions to ask of themselves and how to think about experience, emotion, relationship, value and so forth. I want a discipline that does not give me a world view or views, but gives me the tools to construct my own, and that will not allow me to then imagine I have the monopoly on truth. I then want to find there are a whole bunch of other people doing the same thing and willing to swap notes about it, a shared intellectual journey into deeper understanding of self in which authority remains within the self.

Every now and then a small voice in my head pipes up ‘that’s Druidry, isn’t it?’

I think the answer to that currently is ‘it’s what I want Druidry to be.’ I think there is a lot in druidry that does prod a person in the direction of independent thinking about things (I need a word for this, philosophy is not the word) and the all important emphasis on the non-dogmatic is there, but not the tool kit. I have a potentially irrational belief that the tool kit for this could be assembled and shared. It would be a toolkit that doesn’t have a long history of mind-body dualism to contend with, and isn’t obsessed with categorising things or defining them. This would be the tool kit that enables you, me, to make a whole new thing.

Where is it?

Philosophy without history

Generally speaking, if you dive into philosophy as a subject, what you get is a history lesson about who thought what, when. Compare and contrast different ways of understanding the world. I’ve stuck my nose in a few such books over the years and mostly they depress me. In much the same way that literature courses teach you about the history of fiction, philosophy tends to throw you at the thinking of others.

Now, compare this with maths. Can you imagine sitting in a maths class and being told all about who came up with what equations, when, who disagreed with them, who got in there with some totally unworkable theories about calculating the circumference of a circle and so forth? Of course not. When you study maths, you learn little or nothing about the history of maths, and everything about how to do it right now. The sciences all tend this way, which is a shame because a little more attention to the history of science as a subject would make clearer how flawed, subjective and politically motivated it can be.

Going through school, I found that art and music as subjects struck a decent balance between doing the thing and learning about grand masters who had previously done it a lot better than you could ever hope to do. So why is it that we teach some subjects with a view to being able to do them, and others with the intention of making sure people know all about the other people who did them?

I can say from experience that a degree in English literature gives you very few of the tools you need to write a novel. About the most useful one I picked up, was how to do research.

Philosophy, as a subject, is all about asking questions. Why are we here? What is life for? How do we live well? As well as a whole host of others. These are questions philosophers keep coming back to because there is no way of establishing a definite right answer. Philosophy is all about the things we cannot define, pin down or be certain about, and as a consequence takes us into areas of doubt that have huge significance for how we understand ourselves and how we live our lives.

What would happen if we started teaching philosophy to school children? Not in terms of Descartes thought this and Plato said that… but in terms of flagging up those big questions and inviting people to think about the answers. Throw in the wise words from history, by all means, but make people think for themselves! I would love to see philosophy taught as a practical subject, a ‘how to think and question’ topic, as much hands on as any pottery class. What I’m most interested in is not historical philosophy, but how each of us crafts the individual philosophy that guides us in life. So many people seem to do that unconsciously, not knowing there even could be an alternative.

Your homework for today, with all due reference to Douglas Adams, what is the ultimate question about life, the universe, and everything?