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15 August 2021 14:17The existential terror of "now give the spirits something in exchange, like tobacco" like sure man, I'm going to buy a product from a fucking tobacco company and dump it in the countryside. "Bury a crystal under a tree."
What about offerings of my garden? Better, maybe, tho it can be dangerous to transfer plant material across distances due to disease.
What about leftover blood from my dog's raw chicken? Chicken blood seems witchy. That's a leftover, though, and besides - even if this brand is supposedly "raw", it might have all manner of bacteria or hormonal treatments in it.
What about thoughts, vibes, breath? Doesn't that seem a bit, well, like you haven't made an effort - seeing as its well documented that the spirits like whiskey and smokes and entire swords and four horses complete with a chariot.
What about blood? Artisson recommends some of your own blood on a twig for the fairy spirits and look mate, I'm excited about your writing and I see you've done a lot of research, but do you really want to walk right up to the Good Neighbours and say "here, have some of my body that can be used as a tangible link to control me with"? That feels like a really basic Do Not Do This.
I'm troubled by the number of people who will merrily meme "late-stage capitalism LOL" and then do whatever it was they wanted to do anyway; increasingly, I do think there's a very serious call for people to reject this comfort, to consider the reality of how the things they want to own are produced, and take responsibility for it by saying no. What's the point of knowing these things if they don't change our behaviour - if we merely use them as a joke to show in-group membership, as if people who just buy things are the sheep - but people who buy things after solemnly intoning that there is no ethical consumption under late-stage capitalism are the wolves. If you know that, it's time to consider yr ethics and hold them as meaningful.
The most unpopular one of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle has always been reduce; and when you start talking about this, people become defensive because it's "nice" to have a new set of dinner plates once in a while. But nobody ever said this would be easy or pleasurable, only that it is necessary - and that maybe does require spirituality, the habit of considering something bigger than themselves.
One is not supposed to make sweeping moral statements; but I do think that people whose spirituality is nature-based should dramatically reduce their consumption down to the essentials. The reality of how things are produced demand nothing less.
Part of my current practice at this involves asking - "Could I make this myself?". Its good to meditate on the steps that come before the making of a textile, say, to understand the true cost of its creation.
I think a lot about Tolkien, in the 1930s, and from there to people further back and contemplate: people in the past had all the beautiful things of life. That is, friendship, lovers, children, music, play, wonder. To what extent has the modern world enhanced those things? We shouldn't dispose of modern life entirely - penicillin is good, as is skype and the telephone. But the reality is that, most of the innovations of modern living don't benefit me - I look at the roads, that allow the lorries by, to fill up warehouses with products & feel that I am diminished by them - having lost the countryside - rather than enhanced by their wealth.
Where I used to live in Newham there were ~73 deaths a year directly linked to air pollution (with many more unrecorded, or days of disability created). Despite this, there were plans for both a new runway at City Airport and the building of the Silvertown tunnel - which would worsen the problem significantly. When I talk about hating the modern world, people react quite defensively like oh but I do love getting to drive on roads and fly on planes, as if that loving is sufficient to make those deaths worthwhile. But they didn't do the dying, & I suspect if we spoke to those 73 spirits and told them they could have another 20 years at the cost of the end of airports...and they didn't get the wealth from the airport either. If we asked the residents of Newham to choose between the risk of an early death and one million pounds a year each from the airport - or neither - then at least we'd be receiving both pros and cons. In Lewisham, a 9-year-old girl had seizures for three years before dying as a result of a polluted road nearby. And I hear that and ask, would it be so bad to get rid of cars entirely. Which sounds like a huge loss of life and pleasure to people who are accustomed to a driving way of life, who like getting about; but had Lewisham council proposed we sacrifice a 9-year-old and scatter her blood on the site of the road ahead of building, it would have been shocking. But the child would be no less dead.
We could adapt, we could have all the beautiful parts of life - our families, friends, lovers, music and dance and wonder.
When we think of the things of the modern world in terms of lives lost (and there always are lives lost - if not human, then animal and spirit), we get a better picture of what must be paid for what we have. And I really do loathe this; I can't stop thinking about it; we can call it "climate anxiety" as if it's something that can be solved with five weeks of councilling, but I don't see a way out of the climate and ecological emergency without people in the global north adapting their consumption patterns profoundly.
Anything else is relying on the development of some wonder-technology ("we'll do it all with electric power not coal!") which almost certainly relies on turning the global south into one big lithium mine. The average Australian uses 21x more power than the average Kenyan; if we're serious about global development, then it's not just about the Australian cutting their power use by 20% - they need to cut it by 70% so that the Kenyan can increase their power useage, and still come out under budget.
I think about my ragwort and willowherb and bramble that I've allowed to flourish, and breathe through their splendour; try to say no to anything where suffering might have been created by my wanting. Clothes, notebooks, craft equipment. Candles. These sacrifices hurt me - I don't feel purified by them - but the whole of modern living is designed to seduce us away from noticing what's wrong. This is normal; everyone's doing it; it's weird if you don't do it.
(My friend explained to me that in Marxism, "alienation" can refer to a mug. When you buy or use the mug, you are "alienated" from everyone involved in the mug's production, i.e. you don't even think about it - from the designer to the truck driver to the people who dug out the clay; and you're also alienated from your own labour (i.e. it isn't done for you, and people who benefit by it won't know you either.) I've never read Marx, but their explanation has stuck with me, and I try and 'see' this in consumer objects. In a way, doing this is a Weird experience - this cup is not a cup, but a culmination of actions that has been invisibly taken; or a Hauntological experience, this object is haunted by what has happened to it.
Neo-paganism is part of the way there, with advising you to cleanse new ritual objects of old ties and energies; but falls short when it suggests you should therefore buy something new from Dollar Tree instead of buying second hand, as if objects in shops just Occur, and the violence done in their creation leaves no mark at all).
And so, I am troubled by a culture of nature-based spirituality which seems to have very little interest in the networks of the world; can see the interconnectivity of all things on an etheric level, but not an economic one.
And it's not a simplistic materialism == bad, be austere so that you might reach heaven; but a very serious call to ethical behaviour, to surrender something enjoyable for a greater cause we cannot see or appreciate directly. In many ways, it is the sacrifice. I might be leery of buy some tobacco as payment to the spirits - but I understand that all things must be paid for, and I understand when I buy a roll of tobacco from the shop the payment has been made by another for my pleasure. Is that not enough to say no? And I understand that all things must be paid for, even if I do not know for sure the other end of the bargain will not be upheld - still, I make my payment in trust and hope - and that payment is "not having things I really want" and what I want is "somewhere, a stranger I will never meet gets to live their life in peace, free from environmental/corporate terror". And I understand that all things must be paid for, which is why seeing t-shirts sold for £3 sets my nerves on edge, because the payment has been made (but not by me) to bring that price so low.
Part of me wants to soften what I'm saying, with "it's about a balance, one doesn't need to be absolutist". And yet, the demand that we continue consuming is so strong, so normalised, that maybe we SHOULD be absolutist about this for three months - consuming only absolute essentials, and then afterwards reintroducing luxuries one at a time, at-need. A period of strictness, to really teach ourselves that these things are not needed - that if it was between a road and a lost life, you'd choose life - and the goal would not be suffering but joy, say, the rediscovery of joy that comes from knowing how many pleasures are possible without payment, without mediation through some kind of product. To consider that a post-carbon life could be beautiful and exciting, not austere at all but flourishing with life - life in the hedgerows and skies and fields, life in our villages and communities, life spent with loved ones.
I'm thinking of getting some wood knives and learning to whittle. Wood taken from the place of the working, carved into a little owl or other devotional shape, and then left in the woods once more - linked to the place, for the pleasure of the spirits who claim it, or for humans who pick it up or see it, that has a bit of effort put into it, a bit of beauty, but is biodegradeable and will reduce back to nothing. better than tobacco or a crystal, I think. if it isn't, then it'll have to suffice or I'll speak with spirits who will accept it.
And with a good-quality knife, that's a hobby that can last one for years on the smallest of impacts. I'm thinking of making a drop-spindle and pirating wool from the hillsides and learning to spin. These aren't the pleasures I would have chosen, and I don't think I'll become more spiritually or morally refined for making them; it's physical, material, about survival and wellbeing. What could be more important than those things? If this is what it takes to put the world and the weather and human communities back into balance - yes, I could give up everything for that.
What about offerings of my garden? Better, maybe, tho it can be dangerous to transfer plant material across distances due to disease.
What about leftover blood from my dog's raw chicken? Chicken blood seems witchy. That's a leftover, though, and besides - even if this brand is supposedly "raw", it might have all manner of bacteria or hormonal treatments in it.
What about thoughts, vibes, breath? Doesn't that seem a bit, well, like you haven't made an effort - seeing as its well documented that the spirits like whiskey and smokes and entire swords and four horses complete with a chariot.
What about blood? Artisson recommends some of your own blood on a twig for the fairy spirits and look mate, I'm excited about your writing and I see you've done a lot of research, but do you really want to walk right up to the Good Neighbours and say "here, have some of my body that can be used as a tangible link to control me with"? That feels like a really basic Do Not Do This.
I'm troubled by the number of people who will merrily meme "late-stage capitalism LOL" and then do whatever it was they wanted to do anyway; increasingly, I do think there's a very serious call for people to reject this comfort, to consider the reality of how the things they want to own are produced, and take responsibility for it by saying no. What's the point of knowing these things if they don't change our behaviour - if we merely use them as a joke to show in-group membership, as if people who just buy things are the sheep - but people who buy things after solemnly intoning that there is no ethical consumption under late-stage capitalism are the wolves. If you know that, it's time to consider yr ethics and hold them as meaningful.
The most unpopular one of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle has always been reduce; and when you start talking about this, people become defensive because it's "nice" to have a new set of dinner plates once in a while. But nobody ever said this would be easy or pleasurable, only that it is necessary - and that maybe does require spirituality, the habit of considering something bigger than themselves.
One is not supposed to make sweeping moral statements; but I do think that people whose spirituality is nature-based should dramatically reduce their consumption down to the essentials. The reality of how things are produced demand nothing less.
Part of my current practice at this involves asking - "Could I make this myself?". Its good to meditate on the steps that come before the making of a textile, say, to understand the true cost of its creation.
I think a lot about Tolkien, in the 1930s, and from there to people further back and contemplate: people in the past had all the beautiful things of life. That is, friendship, lovers, children, music, play, wonder. To what extent has the modern world enhanced those things? We shouldn't dispose of modern life entirely - penicillin is good, as is skype and the telephone. But the reality is that, most of the innovations of modern living don't benefit me - I look at the roads, that allow the lorries by, to fill up warehouses with products & feel that I am diminished by them - having lost the countryside - rather than enhanced by their wealth.
Where I used to live in Newham there were ~73 deaths a year directly linked to air pollution (with many more unrecorded, or days of disability created). Despite this, there were plans for both a new runway at City Airport and the building of the Silvertown tunnel - which would worsen the problem significantly. When I talk about hating the modern world, people react quite defensively like oh but I do love getting to drive on roads and fly on planes, as if that loving is sufficient to make those deaths worthwhile. But they didn't do the dying, & I suspect if we spoke to those 73 spirits and told them they could have another 20 years at the cost of the end of airports...and they didn't get the wealth from the airport either. If we asked the residents of Newham to choose between the risk of an early death and one million pounds a year each from the airport - or neither - then at least we'd be receiving both pros and cons. In Lewisham, a 9-year-old girl had seizures for three years before dying as a result of a polluted road nearby. And I hear that and ask, would it be so bad to get rid of cars entirely. Which sounds like a huge loss of life and pleasure to people who are accustomed to a driving way of life, who like getting about; but had Lewisham council proposed we sacrifice a 9-year-old and scatter her blood on the site of the road ahead of building, it would have been shocking. But the child would be no less dead.
We could adapt, we could have all the beautiful parts of life - our families, friends, lovers, music and dance and wonder.
When we think of the things of the modern world in terms of lives lost (and there always are lives lost - if not human, then animal and spirit), we get a better picture of what must be paid for what we have. And I really do loathe this; I can't stop thinking about it; we can call it "climate anxiety" as if it's something that can be solved with five weeks of councilling, but I don't see a way out of the climate and ecological emergency without people in the global north adapting their consumption patterns profoundly.
Anything else is relying on the development of some wonder-technology ("we'll do it all with electric power not coal!") which almost certainly relies on turning the global south into one big lithium mine. The average Australian uses 21x more power than the average Kenyan; if we're serious about global development, then it's not just about the Australian cutting their power use by 20% - they need to cut it by 70% so that the Kenyan can increase their power useage, and still come out under budget.
I think about my ragwort and willowherb and bramble that I've allowed to flourish, and breathe through their splendour; try to say no to anything where suffering might have been created by my wanting. Clothes, notebooks, craft equipment. Candles. These sacrifices hurt me - I don't feel purified by them - but the whole of modern living is designed to seduce us away from noticing what's wrong. This is normal; everyone's doing it; it's weird if you don't do it.
(My friend explained to me that in Marxism, "alienation" can refer to a mug. When you buy or use the mug, you are "alienated" from everyone involved in the mug's production, i.e. you don't even think about it - from the designer to the truck driver to the people who dug out the clay; and you're also alienated from your own labour (i.e. it isn't done for you, and people who benefit by it won't know you either.) I've never read Marx, but their explanation has stuck with me, and I try and 'see' this in consumer objects. In a way, doing this is a Weird experience - this cup is not a cup, but a culmination of actions that has been invisibly taken; or a Hauntological experience, this object is haunted by what has happened to it.
Neo-paganism is part of the way there, with advising you to cleanse new ritual objects of old ties and energies; but falls short when it suggests you should therefore buy something new from Dollar Tree instead of buying second hand, as if objects in shops just Occur, and the violence done in their creation leaves no mark at all).
And so, I am troubled by a culture of nature-based spirituality which seems to have very little interest in the networks of the world; can see the interconnectivity of all things on an etheric level, but not an economic one.
And it's not a simplistic materialism == bad, be austere so that you might reach heaven; but a very serious call to ethical behaviour, to surrender something enjoyable for a greater cause we cannot see or appreciate directly. In many ways, it is the sacrifice. I might be leery of buy some tobacco as payment to the spirits - but I understand that all things must be paid for, and I understand when I buy a roll of tobacco from the shop the payment has been made by another for my pleasure. Is that not enough to say no? And I understand that all things must be paid for, even if I do not know for sure the other end of the bargain will not be upheld - still, I make my payment in trust and hope - and that payment is "not having things I really want" and what I want is "somewhere, a stranger I will never meet gets to live their life in peace, free from environmental/corporate terror". And I understand that all things must be paid for, which is why seeing t-shirts sold for £3 sets my nerves on edge, because the payment has been made (but not by me) to bring that price so low.
Part of me wants to soften what I'm saying, with "it's about a balance, one doesn't need to be absolutist". And yet, the demand that we continue consuming is so strong, so normalised, that maybe we SHOULD be absolutist about this for three months - consuming only absolute essentials, and then afterwards reintroducing luxuries one at a time, at-need. A period of strictness, to really teach ourselves that these things are not needed - that if it was between a road and a lost life, you'd choose life - and the goal would not be suffering but joy, say, the rediscovery of joy that comes from knowing how many pleasures are possible without payment, without mediation through some kind of product. To consider that a post-carbon life could be beautiful and exciting, not austere at all but flourishing with life - life in the hedgerows and skies and fields, life in our villages and communities, life spent with loved ones.
I'm thinking of getting some wood knives and learning to whittle. Wood taken from the place of the working, carved into a little owl or other devotional shape, and then left in the woods once more - linked to the place, for the pleasure of the spirits who claim it, or for humans who pick it up or see it, that has a bit of effort put into it, a bit of beauty, but is biodegradeable and will reduce back to nothing. better than tobacco or a crystal, I think. if it isn't, then it'll have to suffice or I'll speak with spirits who will accept it.
And with a good-quality knife, that's a hobby that can last one for years on the smallest of impacts. I'm thinking of making a drop-spindle and pirating wool from the hillsides and learning to spin. These aren't the pleasures I would have chosen, and I don't think I'll become more spiritually or morally refined for making them; it's physical, material, about survival and wellbeing. What could be more important than those things? If this is what it takes to put the world and the weather and human communities back into balance - yes, I could give up everything for that.
