Learning from Wrens

I got a notice from the bank today telling me about changes in EU law that would affect the manner in which the account would work. Or something. I didn’t read the letter to the end because I haven’t used this account for well over a decade, no money either in or out, but it’s brought back memories.

The account was for “Working Homes In The Forest” a project I set up bringing together the National Trust and a small group of people who wanted to live and work on their land. NT are well known for their innovative work but offering a place to live on their exquisite Stackpole property was taking a risk as well as being generous.

5 or so people made their way down to the National Park and set up home. They brought with them some hazel and willow poles, some tarps and some equipment borrowed from the larger Pagan camps from which they had evolved, and cut some more poles from the plentiful and graceful woodland there. A communal bender was to be a manifestation of the philosophy of the group, built as a place to eat and meet together, to sleep in if their own space experienced problems, to offer shelter, warmth and comfort to visitors, to act as a focus of the site. Quality shelter, quality food needs to be available for without this underpinning of generosity things fall apart.

Some weeks into the project I was asked by the Trust to visit and was excited at the prospect of seeing how people were at living permanently on and with the land. I brought a little food and goodies to share and a sleeping bag, and very quickly experienced the problems. There was indeed a communal bender but it was filled with rubbish, damp bedding and dankness; the burner that had been bought for this communal space from the generosity of people who supported the project, had miraculously found its way into a private space; there was no food, no extra bedding. So I spent a miserable cold night in a minute tent and watched the person who’d appropriated the communal burner also appropriate a wheelbarrow full of wood that had been cut by someone else. The most pleasurable and innocent part of my visit was attempting to gain wisdom from 10 wrens feeding together at dawn.

The Trust and all but one person on the project had problems with the way things were working out. Living outdoors is very tough and the space the Trust had offered was too wet. But the real issue was that there was no focus, no coordination, and the person who had the most practical skills was also the person who (and lets not mess about with euphemisms here) stole from others at the same time as badmouthing them to the Trust. This person also presented himself as a very experienced spiritual man, a reiki master, a seer of visions, a Man of the Woods TM, the natural leader. He wasn't confronted because there was an overwhelming need in every individual to be seen to be lovely. Actually, they just needed to get to grips with reality.

Now I recognise part of the problem, it’s something that has caused a great many other problems and not just in a Pagan context: a sense of entitlement. We are all entitled to become anything we wanna be, it’s our right to do what we wanna do. We don’t have to be genuinely grateful for anything because we manifested this all for ourselves, right?

Another part of the problem was that I trusted too easily and had really bought into the concept of egalitarianism, of individuals rising to meet problems when we're given the freedom and opportunity. Fundamentally, I still believe that we are all as important as each other, that the genuine sharing of power is vital to healthy relationship. And at the same time, for whatever many complex reasons, people just don’t work like that.

The group continued to work together with NT who moved them to a more suitable area. Working and friendly relationships were built with local families and businesses and a child was born which signalled the end of the project. Sam, who had created all these relationships and worked so hard, now had to care for herself and her child.

After my visit to Stackpole I lost interest in it. There was too much unspoken resentment and overt power-playing, too much bad faith, so little generosity, so much focus on the individual rather than the group or the project that it was just too much to take on and there was no corporate desire to deal with it. I realised that apart from Sam everyone else there just wanted to feather their own individual nests. It broke my heart a little, and I felt no little personal shame in demonstrating to a non-Pagan organisation that had trusted us that sustainable partnership was something we couldn’t manage. Rather than attempt to create more partnerships with the Trust and other landowners and risk further heartbreak I shelved the project altogether.

Getting the letter from the bank today has made me reflect on how much was possible and how little was manifested. But I’ll keep the proof that such a project did once actually exist and hope that the stirrings of desire for maturity within Paganism may evoke one that works better.

The wheel turns!

Cat Chapin-Bishop writes beautifully on many subjects, bringing her own life into her writing in a humble manner. One of her latest blogs touches that delicate spot: Fame vs. Wisdom.

http://quakerpagan.blogspot.com/2009/05/fame.html

The amount and quality of thoughtful comments in response suggest that we are, at last, ready to acknowledge that there's a problem. And that one of the answers is authentic relationship.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

. . . Personal narrative is all we have, whether as individuals or a society.

Like any narrative the Western self-view is riddled with contradiction. Decisions rarely have anything to do with the rationale that supposedly provoked them. And as with personal narratives, what does not fit is conveniently ignored.
The difficulty for anyone who tries to step outside the dominant narrative to present a different view is that we cannot, by definition, provide the ‘evidence’ that is required by the narrative that demands such evidence – a bit like going into the pub at 10pm on a Saturday night and preaching the benefits of sobriety. Neither can we provide evidence from within that narrative. The minute we step back into that world we are governed by its conventions, and any attempt to explain ourselves becomes a nonsense.

. . . My first advice to anyone who is looking for a decent therapist is always: Never trust anyone who won’t admit to having self-doubt.

William Johnson
Therapy Today March 2008

How many Pagans do you know who admit to any self-doubt? Our celebs are so beaming with knowledge and profound wisdom that there’s no room in their narrative for doubt or real questions. Most individual Pagans seem to be totally, absolutely convinced of their worldview even though they can’t begin to give a semi-rational explanation for it. This isn’t a matter of the ‘scientific’ vs. the ‘intuitive’ (the usual contemptuous dismissal of questions) it’s about not knowing what ‘Mabon’ actually refers to, who Aleister Crowley might be, and why the Goddess and God actually matter at all. No one can know everything about their religion, which is rather the point, but smug ignorance seems to be par for the course for many members of all spiritualities.

So what’s the Pagan narrative? Ancient, obviously. Unconditional love, obviously. How we reconcile the Pagan icon Boudicca’s vicious revolt with unconditional love isn’t part of the narrative. Nature-based and ecological, while our celebs travel the world and consume as much as, in some cases a great deal more than, anyone else. Freedom from Dogma as long as you obey the unspoken dogma of ‘Conflict shall be suppressed and denied’, which puts the narrative of Tolerance into context. Tribal, as long as individual freedom isn’t compromised, and without understanding the tension between ‘our tribe’ and everyone else. Love of mythology – but the tribal mythology of Cuculains dreadful killer sword, or bloodlust of so many of our mythological characters, especially our Goddesses (that we strangely interpret as pure sexuality for some reason) remains undebated.

We’re simply human. Ordinary, bog-standard people and there’s no need to feel shame, it’s just how we are, as foxes are foxes, daisies are daisies and everything else in the natural world has a particular nature. Pagan narrative paradoxically doesn’t allow for us to be part of nature. Pagans are different, we can talk to trees and communicate with The Ancients ™, intuit the meaning and purpose of Neolithic sites, know better than non-Pagans how to make the world a better place and have a knowledge of The Truth than would make some fundamentalists blush.

I attempted a conversation with one Pagan celeb recently where I suggested that most Pagans were unable to look further than their own narratives and would become very tooth-and-claw with anyone who challenged that narrative. He became very tooth-and claw, didn’t address one of my proposals, exercised his prejudices and stroked his narrative very publicly. And so it would seem that William Johnson’s analogy of trying to discuss the benefits of sobriety in a pub at 10pm holds true. Not only is it not possible and a waste of time, it’s likely to result in aggression, yes even from the most ‘peace loving’ jolly, wise and wonderful of Pagans.