Everything eats in an ecosystem

(Nimue)

It is the time of year when cute things are eating other cute things. In my part of the world, birds, mammals and insects are all busily having young. Plants are growing, and perpetuating themselves. Everyone who is not a plant is engaged in the process of eating someone else – on a daily basis.

For some people there’s a temptation to take sides, wanting to protect some creatures from being eaten by other creatures. We absolutely should protect wild creatures from being killed by our domestic pets. There is an argument for protecting rare and endangered creatures from predation by more secure species.

Often it’s more even-handed. Or pawed. The otters eating the cygnets, the owl chicks eating the songbirds. Often what happens is that we respond emotionally to things we find cute and endearing at the expense of creatures who don’t push those buttons. In an ecosystem, everything eats. Prioritising some at the expense of others would damage the ecosystem.

It can be tempting to ‘rescue’ small, cute things you find alone at this time of year. Many of them are fine, and have not been abandoned. Some are not fine and will die if you do not save them. It’s always a good choice to rescue wild things from roads and other human-created problems. Always rescue wild things from domestic ones. But otherwise, it’s better to leave them alone. Not everything is meant to live. The death of one cute thing provides a meal for another cute thing. To honour nature we have to respect that.

Birds at the window

(Nimue)

The flat I’m currently in has some metalwork that can take window boxes, and bird feeders. I put what I could into the available space shortly after moving in. Last summer I had herbs, strawberries and insects out there. It took the birds a bit longer to catch on, but this spring I’ve had a steady supply of visitors.

My main visitors are blue tits, great tits, robins and magpies. The tits favour the hanging feeders, while the robins and magpies go after whatever I’ve left in the window boxes for them. Often it’s sunflower seeds. So long as I don’t move, they will all come in when I’m just a few feet away on the other side of the window, which always feels magical.

One of the magpies came by as I was typing this. I don’t have a phone camera, so getting good shots has been tricky – so far we’ve had some magpie-ish blurs. The smaller birds are so cautious that we won’t risk alarming them by moving with a device.

I’ve had a couple of bits of shiny plastic dropped into the window boxes. My guess is that was also the magpies.

(Typing briefly interrupted by a visiting robin!)

It feels like a meaningful way to connect with the local wildlife. I’ve taken a space that was lifeless, and created some habitat and resources. I’m growing a few things that I can eat, and I’m providing food for my bird neighbours, and resources my insect neighbours can use. It’s a very small gesture in the grand scheme of things, but it’s what I can do here.

Hills to climb

(Nimue)

I was about half way up Cam Peak at this point. It’s a hill in the landscape of my childhood, and I had not been up it in many years. I only got half way, my blood pressure being too low for the steeper climb behind me.

When I was a child, this hill was covered in bracken. That’s been cleared, and now this stunning array of bluebells shows up each spring. It’s the first time I’d seen it in person, even though I’ve been back in this area for about fourteen years. It shows how long plants can wait in the soil for the conditions that will let them flourish – these must have waited decades.

I wasn’t sure how far up the hill I’d be able to get, but to be able to get any distance up a hill is a tremendous victory for me. Years of low blood pressure have sorely limited my options. It turns out that getting enough good quality sleep is key to me having good blood pressure, although it’s also affected by heavy periods and hormonally charged night sweats, and anything else that costs me a lot of electrolytes. I’m managing it all a lot better than I used to.

Bluebells always make me think of my grandmother – who loved them dearly. I think about how she grieved in later life when she wasn’t strong enough to climb the hills and see them. I think about that every year when the bluebells appear, and what the loss of landscape does to a person. I thought I’d started down that path as well, and it’s been extraordinary finding a way back.

I’ve done a lot of physical healing in the last year. I’m stronger, I can play the violin again, I can walk a few miles on a good day and I can get up hills a bit. I am hopeful that further progress is possible, and maybe next year I’ll be able to get to the top of Cam Peak. I’ve got a number of goals about local places I want to be able to walk to more reliably, and it feels realistic to imagine that I’ll be able to do that.

I feel like I’ve been given a second chance at life. I’m not on a downward spiral into lost mobility, lost stamina, lost functionality. Healing is possible. Deep, peaceful, restful sleep is allowing me to recover. Not being stressed out of my mind all of the time is making good sleep possible. I’ve got muscles to build, and I have to work on my stamina, but that’s possible. I need to be careful around the things that mess me up, but I’m daring to imagine a future where those are occasional setbacks, not the defining features of my life.

Balance

(David)

This past winter has been challenging for me, healthwise, in that since last autumn I haven’t been able to write even one new page in my fiction works, and I’m only managing to make an occasional post here. Nevertheless, in the deep, still quietness, things are occurring.

My magical practice has by necessity through these months been reduced to three small acts each day, but an interesting new practice as winter eases into spring is drawing a single card of a morning, now and then, from the Urban Crow oracle deck created by MJ Cullinane, which was recommended to me by a fellow dedicant of the Morrigan.

This week I’ve drawn two cards from it, three days apart.

The first was Upheaval. The guidebook entry starts with this: “Nature does not discriminate. Upheaval is a reminder that things can change on a whim, through no fault of your own. Are you prepared for change? Are you able to regain your composure and fly off to a better, more stable position?”I sat with it for a while, seeing in my health crises of these past several months a quite relentless continued upheaval, and I’m satisfied that, yes, I am able to do this.

The second card, today, is Balance, for which the guidebook entry starts with this:
“Have you ever noticed how even on windy days, crows and other birds can stay perfectly positioned on a thin telephone wire? They seem almost unfazed or unbothered by the wind. When we are in balance, we meet external forces with our internal strength, giving each space to exist in harmony.”

A timely image, this, because I’ve been sitting at my study window watching Nature’s first flourishing of the season while strong winds off the Atlantic have ruffled everything relentlessly out there in our valley. And then yesterday I heard my friendly neighbourhood Crows calling for the first time in what feels like ages. I answered them, even stepping outside on unsteady legs to call back and not caring if my neighbours heard us, and that raucous conversation filled my heart with gladness.

This all reminds me strongly of standing on the bow of a ship in my old life, balancing as if surfing as we powered at speed through the oncoming waves out into the Atlantic, where even on a fine day the seas can be mountainous. That sensation is the most thrilling one of my life. It’s what I remember of my old life with overwhelming joy, and what I look forward to enjoying again in my next life when this one is done. Perhaps too in the Otherworld between my goes at this human life.

Balance. Physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. It brings me happiness. I’m grateful for it.

Waxwings

(Nimue)

Waxwings are seasonal visitors to Stroud, passing through as part of their annual migration. I’ve seen them once before in my life. They are charming birds, mostly pinkish, with feather tufts on their heads that suggest punk hairstyles. They have a lovely, trilling call.

This year a large flock of them showed up on Rodborough common (local to me) to feast on the hawthorn berries. I found out about this thanks to social media, where there were some glorious photographs taken pn days when the light was better. At the point where we were able to go and see them it was a rather grey day with high winds and a storm coming in – not ideal photography conditions. The flock were flitting between trees, and Keith was able to take a photo that gives some sense of them but does not convey the colours.

A lot of people went out to see them, and watched them respectfully. 

We’re fortunate to have these commons – bit open spaces that you can just visit and wander round. These grasslands are home to all kinds of wild things – orchids, butterflies, fungi and birds. They’re a wonderful habitat even though it might look like there isn’t much going on if you don’t know what you’re looking at.

Access to green spaces is so incredibly important for human wellbeing. We need the wildness that all too often we’ve pushed to the margins.

Bringing wildness into your life

(Nimue)

How can you bring more wildness into your life? This is a good question to ask when you’re looking for ways to bring Druidry into your everyday life in a way that will be enriching.

Do you have any space where you can invite wildness? If you have outside space, then making room for the wild things isn’t too difficult. Often what you need to do is less rather than more. Leaving some space for wild plants to take over is really effective. Bug hotels, bird boxes, feeders and the like can help wild beings thrive. A small, unmown section of lawn creates a habitat for insects. Planting flowers that support bees and butterflies will invite them in. If you can plant a tree, or a native shrub, you will create a home for many other beings.

Learning about what might work where you are is a good area of study to support your Druidry and helps you build a relationship with the land you live on.

This is a very individual process, depending on your resources and the environment you live in, but it is often possible to do something. If you’re in a limited situation and struggling for ideas, feel free to get in the comments and I’ll see if I can suggest anything.

By making more room for wildness, you serve the natural world and do something to help your local ecosystem. You will also increase the wildness you encounter daily, and that’s really rewarding and contributes to your spiritual experiences.

Back in the summer I put out some window boxes – I have no real outside space. I’ve been growing herbs and strawberries, and the pots quickly attracted insects. The insects attracted small birds, so I’ve put out a couple of feeders and I’m now seeing small birds on those feeders most days. It’s a beautiful and heartening thing. Sitting near the window and watching blue tits and great tits feed is soothing and uplifting. I’ve enjoyed the plants for their own sake as well and my tiny harvests have been rewarding.

Body confidence, nature and Druidry

(Nimue)

Making us feel inadequate about how we look underpins how a great deal of advertising works. We’re sold things on the basis that either they will make us look better, or will compensate socially for our not looking photoshopped enough. Living a greener life is a lot easier if you aren’t persuaded by this in the first place. Living a happier life is more feasible if you aren’t being manipulated by this kind of material and have some resilience against how it plays out socially.

Druidry can do a lot to help a person with body confidence. When you spend time outside, encountering that which is not human, it will change your beauty standards. All trees are beautiful, and old trees have the most character. Wild creatures come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. Further, the land absolutely does not give a shit how you look.

When we’re focused on the living world, filing your hair and skin with microplastics becomes a lot less appealing. Using problematic chemicals to try and look younger impacts on your relationship with the planet. Druidry celebrates wisdom, diversity and authenticity and helps show us how we can be at peace with our natural selves. Nature is part of us, too. The impact of time on the human body is part of how nature manifests in us, and walking the Druid path makes that a much more comfortable process.

Humans can be cruel when it comes to body shaming, and it’s a common way of attacking and trying to hut people. It doesn’t really matter how you look, those intent on causing distress this way will find something to take issue with. There’s an extra layer for anyone female, or female presenting because there’s such a long history of reducing femininity to attractiveness and making opportunity conditional on beauty. The way in which older women are so often overlooked and made invisible is an ongoing problem.

A fair percentage of how anyone looks is an accident over which they had no control. Our faces and body shapes owe considerably to our genetics. How we respond to food, exercise and stress is also something we don’t get much of a vote in. Not all bodies react the same way. Mine responds very badly to a reduced calorie diet as I am clearly designed to survive famines and I store hard. So I can end up having no energy while gaining weight. I do much better if I eat well and have the energy to be physically active. Working out what your particular body needs is an individual process and one that isn’t well supported by the largely unscientific assertions of the massive and lucrative diet industry.

There’s no one right shape to have. Figuring out how you want to be and what makes you happy is also a process. Seeking self knowledge is good Druidic work, as is figuring out how to be at peace with yourself and how to work with nature as it manifests in your body. Working out how to look after your body so that it supports you in living as you wish to live is good Druidic work. For me, this includes being strong enough to walk and dance because these are both important spiritual expressions for me. I’m happiest with myself when I feel strong, I like there to be some softness in my body, and those are the key things for me.

Spending time visualising yourself as a tree is a popular Druid meditation, and one of the best ways to teach you to think kindly about your own form.

Mourning a tree

(Nimue)

I’m not going to share an image of the tree, either standing or cut down, because I don’t have any photos of my own. For those of you beyond the UK who have not seen the news about the pointless destruction of a much loved and iconic tree, perhaps those words are enough to give a sense of what has happened here.

I did not know the tree personally, but I have seen images. It moves me that so many people have spoken of their love for the tree, and their grief at this being’s destruction.

We lose trees every day, and too many of them go unmourned and unnoticed. We’ve lost so many trees to the UKs failing high speed rail project. Some of them were ancient, beloved and iconic, too. We lose trees in the name of development and progress. Last year I saw saplings taken in a misguided attempt to make a place safer, as though trees are the problem and not male violence itself. We lose trees every day. Some of them beloved, some of them unremarked and uncared for.

We’re also losing trees to disease, especially ash dieback. We’re losing trees to climate chaos, to heavy rains that loosen roots and high winds that take trees down. I mourn those trees too, I have lost trees around my home to this.

I mourn for the trees that never were, for the ones denied a place to exist in the first place. I mourn the carparks and the former-industrial wastelands where there is so little life. I mourn the new housing estates and the relentless building of new roads. We take life out of the landscape continually. We create spaces where life cannot exist.

Humans are so quick to destroy things that don’t perfectly fit into our plans. We ruin landscapes to make them a bit more convenient for us. I wish we could learn to approach the land and the living wild beings more cooperatively, seeing them as part of the world and just as entitled to be here as we are. Not as things to use or get rid of on a whim and not as necessary sacrifices to our deranged notions of progress.

Thinking about balance

(Nimue)

Equinoxes always invite considerations of balance, what it means to us and where we are with it. Do you need more balance? Do you feel like you’re in stasis and need to shake your life up? Are some aspects of your life out of balance? Are you experiencing balance as harmony or as many forces pulling in different directions? Is balance a good thing for you?

I’m finding that I feel most balanced when there’s a lot going on. When there are many things pulling me happily in different directions, that works for me. I like having a mix of energies in my life, different flavours of things, different spaces to be in. I’m calmer and much more settled in myself when my life is more chaotic.

Conversely, in the times when life was narrow and predicable, I felt unstable. Emotionally I was far less balanced and I was not at peace with myself.

What works as balance for me may well look like mayhem from the outside. The ways of living that some people would no doubt find soothing and peaceful leave me fractious and uncomfortable.

Balance is a really personal thing. Your emotional centre of gravity won’t be the same as mine. The balance and poise of a heron is very different from the balance of a spider web. Some insects can balance on the surface of water and others are caught in it and likely to die if that happens. 

Understanding what kind of balances you need, and how that works for you can be really productive. Other people’s stories about what balance means might not be relevant to you at all. Grounding practices really only work if you know what makes you feel centred, and that might not be what works for everyone else. I’m better off singing or dancing if I need to reconnect with myself. Some people do better with water to centre themselves rather than thinking about ground. Some people are happiest and most comfortable with their heads in the clouds and that’s fine too.

Healing lessons from a plant

(Nimue)

Last week I shared some things that came up for me after I rescued an abandoned house plant. I really wasn’t sure the plant could survive, given the terrible state it was in. About half of its leaves had shrived and died. All of its remaining leaves were in the process of shrivelling and dying. The poor thing had been exposed to more heat, cold and water than it could bear.

Put in a space that suits its needs, the plant has survived. It’s actually done more than that, it seems to be recovering. Areas of leaf that were brown and dead a week ago are turning green and coming back to life. It’s a slow process and for the first few days I didn’t really believe what I was seeing. I’ve never known a plant do anything like this before. Given how brown, dry and dead those leaves looked, this has defied all expectations.

There’s a message in here, about possibility beyond expectation. Not everything can be healed. Some of the leaves fell off, those aren’t coming back. Many of the dead ones show no signs of reviving. But, in the leaves where a little green remained, recovery is taking place. There’s more scope for hope here than I dared to think. I saw a lot of my own experiences reflected in how this plant had been treated, so I’m inclined to take personally this recovery process and gift of hope.

Sometimes things that appear to be dead, can be brought back with love and care and patience. This is a good lesson for me around my own healing processes and my capacity for faith and hope.

The thing is, this was my plant all along. I missed that bit out of the first story, an act of care in not drawing attention to the person whose lack of care had nearly killed a leafy being I have cared about for years. This peace lily was given to me by a friend many years ago. Apparently it wasn’t wanted where it was, and rather than giving it back to me, it was put outside in conditions that would shortly have killed it. It was lucky for both me and for the plant that I saw it in time and was able to rescue it. As an experience it hurt me deeply, because blatant lack of thought and care tends to do that.

Love, care, patience and kindness restores plants and people alike. We thrive when we’re safe and wanted and when our needs are understood and respected. It’s just as true for me as it is for the plant. It would be true for all of us, I think. And so my own healing journey parallels what has happened to this plant and in its recovery I feel hopeful that I see my own healing and rebuilding too.