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.

The Terrible Dangers of Nice

Inspired by events over the years within and outside of Paganism I'm tempted to write a book called ‘The 13th Godmother.’

A number of psychological/spiritual books are based on fairytale narratives following the journey of a young man or woman who experiences some kind of curse, makes mistakes yet overcomes all to become regent of their own life. The 13th Godmother - a witch, since fairies are pretty, benevolent creatures - curses the young innocent out of pure evilness. She reduces Cinderella to a drudge or attempts to kill Snow White or sends the innocent to a monster. She steals a baby and locks her up in a tower. She gives the little mermaid exactly what she asked for.

The witch character in the Sondheim musical Into The Woods tells the rest of the characters a little about themselves, their indolence, their greed, their need to blame someone for their problems.

Told a little lie, stole a little gold, broke a little vow. Did you?

Had to have your prince, had to get your cow, have to get your wish, doesn't matter how.

You're so nice, you're not good, you're not bad, you're just nice.
I'm not good, I'm not nice, I'm just right, I'm the witch. You're the world.

Paganism used to look critically at tales of ugly old witches and came to understand this character as the person who has the power to initiate; the person who lives beyond the mundane world; who manages to live in the worlds of the unknown and unknowable; who represents the deep magical power of the unseen and unspoken to whom people turn when they have no where else to go. Insult her at your peril! Particularly, don’t insult her intelligence. I can’t imagine why Sleeping Beauty’s 13th Fairy Godmother gets cross when the king says he couldn’t invite her because he only had 12 gold plates.

Well, Paganism in general has embraced the 12 younger sisters and rejected anything that isn’t light and airy and easy. We have a massive investment in Being Nice, of ignoring problems that many non-Pagans find astonishing and sometimes outrageous, such as some of our children behaving disgracefully, some of our men behaving boorishly and some of our women pathetically. What hope, then, of finding Pagans who can function as a Priestess or Priest, taking responsibility for the journey of another’s soul?

Here comes the wailing: 'The Pagan individual is responsible for their own soul! How dare you suggest otherwise!'

Whilst this is true, it is only true when things are going pretty well. If it is true, how do we account for Soul Loss? How do we align ourselves with the historical Druid? What on earth do we think we're doing when we light a candle for someone, or ask someone to light a candle for us? What happens when a person becomes unable to care for themselves? Pagan practice - as opposed to what we say - suggests that either such people are no longer Pagan or no longer worth thinking about.

Much of the investment in being nice has been pushed by Pagan authors who find that success brings a strange curse all of its own: they have to write books about how nice they are and how nice things should be because books about things not being nice - unless it’s voyeuristic - don’t sell. Druids never did that nasty human sacrifice. Witches only do nice spells. Shamans tiddle about in the Otherworld and never get lost. Too many write more and more unbalanced books and articles and blogs and overexpose themselves or else . . . well, they won’t die, but after so much investment in a public character it might feel like it.

There’s no point in challenging people. You get killed off and life has its own way of sorting things out. The beautiful Pagan boy who dances through life gets old and, having never bothered to do anything other than dance finds that when he can no longer dance he’s on his own. The fluffy Pagan girl, who remains a girl into middle age suddenly finds her life is a mess. The man who fashions himself on the Dagda finds he’s only put up with because his hospitality never ends, so he'd better keep doling out the goods. The group that is blinded through staring at the sun finds that all kinds of things they were told were going on, but which they ignored, have taken on monstrous proportions.

Not surprisingly, those of us who demand a little more find ourselves cast in the role of the Evil Witch. We aren’t invited to the Christening. We are treated with contempt for wanting to know how people who can’t control themselves believe they can control energies that are uncontrollable. Asking for sources of knowledge beyond ‘I saw it on the telly,’ means having to put up with opprobrium.

Groups and individuals have a terrible investment in straining to maintain their opinion of themselves. History suggests that the need to find a scapegoat is universal. Such is the genesis of the Ugly Old Witch.

Logistics

We get together at each of the festivals, every six weeks, meeting across the country, in tents, people's homes, youth hostels and anywhere else that's dry, cheap and friendly. Feel free to suggest a venue.

The Hedge School is funded by donation and each meeting is funded by Magic Hat. This means that after site fees are paid you pay what you can. If you have a large income you can help fund someone on a low income. No one will be turned away if they can't afford the suggested fee of £10 a day. The fees go towards our communal food and pay the organisers expenses. No one makes a living out of the Hedge School!

Children are part of community and are welcome. But they remain the responsibility of their parents. This means that parents may not be able to attend ritual or magical work and will be expected to entertain their kids if they start getting bored. This may mean that the parents will sometimes have to miss events.

What we do is dictated largely by the time of year. However, one thing that we will do at least once is a sharing circle, where each of us speaks and is listened to. You might be surprised at how powerful they can be. The purpose of a sharing circle is to be here now, to be truthful and to change.

Ritual, work - communal cooking, keeping the site tidy and safe, wood gathering, whatever needs doing - teaching and learning are done by everyone. We eat meat, butter, cheese, eggs and bread, and drink bog standard tea and milk. It's not obligatory to eat this way but if you have special dietary needs you'll need to bring your own alternatives.

Hedge School Philosophy

We aim to offer somewhere for Pagans to learn more about Paganism and their place in it.

Somewhere where individual skills are recognised, supported and built on.

A place where Pagans who think they want to offer help to other Pagans - as chaplains, priestesses and priests or in other consequential ways - can explore what might be a vocation.

Where those who are already functioning in those roles can find peer support and refreshment, a place to relax and review their work, and share their skills.

We aim to work in a balanced way with both darkness and light.

We don’t offer qualifications or certificates.

We do offer training and experience.

We don’t believe we have the power to save the world through meditation, what we eat, where we live, what we drive, whether we recycle or not or in any other way.

We do believe, very sincerely, that we are part of the natural world rather than having any power over it.

We believe that the only thing we can have power over is ourselves.

How We Work

We work with Deity, most often described as the Goddess. She is both Brigid and Beansidhe. Her son and consort is the God.

And we recognise that other Pagans perceive Deity in other ways.


We work with the wheel of the year, celebrating Samhain, Imbolc, Beltaine, and Lughnasagh, the equinoxes and solstices.

And we recognise that other Pagans work with other festivals.


We work in circles, with elements and quarters.

And we recognise that there are other ways of performing magic and doing ritual.


We work with people who are interested in taking their magic, their Deities, their service and their lives seriously.

And we take rest, restoration, play and relaxation very seriously.


We work on the basis that community is a Pagan virtue, one that has more responsibilities than rights, where the group has more importance than the individual.

And we know that sometimes people need time alone and community support in order to function well in, with and for community.



We're not perfect, we're not sure what perfection might look like, how or even if it might be attained.

And we believe the thoughtful, friendly search for something that might be good enough is a worthwhile way to spend time.