The nexus of my identity is not external to me.

This was a hard lesson, long to be learned, over many years and to an extent still unlearned. Coming to the realisation that what makes you you, and understanding that the sense of identity you’ve been grasping towards, can not be found external to yourself is both a fundamental to the human experience, and an ethereal concept that is counter intuitive to all the imperatives of being a member of humanity.

We are, and ever were, social animals. We can not survive alone. A individual can not hunt a mammoth. No man can stand guard to himself while he sleeps. To be a human alone is to perish. Only through community does mankind survive. A fact as true today as it was at the end of the last great ice age. Even the antisocial butterfly must have those they flutter around. We are not meant to be alone in this. Whatever this is.

Thus a dichotomy persists. All our ancestral instincts drive us to form social groupings for our protection and well-being. Yet the nexus of our identities, that which drives us to be individuals and to understand ourselves becomes easily dependent upon others. Many welcome that sense of co-dependence. Welcome being part of the greater whole, But in doing so they risk losing their individual identity.I speak here from bitter experience, I have sought identity from external nexi in the past. I have been a husband, father, lover, rock upon a shatter shore shielding those I love from the breakers driven upon us by the storm. I have been all those things, and often lost myself within those roles. The irony being that in doing so I fail in my own eyes to truly embrace what I sought to be. I say this without regret. Only with the knowledge I have often failed to be that which I wished to be, and in all things this has been when I have let my own identity be taken by the collective. I have become defined by the role I have taken and lost myself in the process.

But through all this. Through all the trails and tribulations of life. I have come to know this. Happiness can not be gained by becoming other than I am to suit the needs of those other than myself and while for a time I can find contentment in setting aside my need for meaning, and find meaning in the role of being part of the collective we. Ultimately this is fleeting, the dark clouds will return, the need to be an identity beyond the nexi of others will return. The need to be my own self and to search within myself for meaning. And thus…

The nexus of my identity is not external to me.

Ghost of the Lost Forrest is a new book by Nimue Brown, it is a book about identity and the search for identity. It holds joy and pain within its grasp. Its protagonist searches for identity in all the places you might expect, and is confused much of the time. He does foolish things, some more foolish than others. He misunderstands much of what is going on around him. Then his search turns inward.

I am normally, as you may be aware if your a regular reader, I am quite good at reviews. Or at least I find things to say that sum up my opinion in a relatable way and why I think others should read that book. I’ve struggled to do so with this one. So much so that I went back and read it again. Not that this was a chore, it is a wonderful book, and enlightening read, and profoundly personal in ways I suspect I would not be alone in discovering.

It is that last bit that has me struggling with this review, the profound personal impact of some of the aspects and segments of this book. I am not saying they would be the same for you. Indeed I highly suspect that the sections that resonated most with me will not resonate in the same way with others. While other sections will find people to resonate with that were of a more passive grace to me, at least in that regard.

Will this book profoundly influence you, and impact upon your thoughts? Perhaps…

Will it echo your own experiences, your own personal journeys, and cause you to perhaps consider things anew? Maybe…

Will you enjoy it? undoubtedly

What I can also say for sure is it will give you a window into a sub-culture, an idea of a conceptualised pagan philosophy, identity and most importantly be an engaging interesting and fun read.

It may also stab you in the guts and turn the blade. It may hurt. It may cause you to stop reading and stare into the void beyond the reading lamp and contemplate the nexus of your identity and how it may not be merely internal to yourself after all. That others have walked the same forests. The long vanished forests that still surround us. The dark pathless woods that lurk beyond our civilised islands of street lights and stone walls.

Or that may just be me…

Should you read it? Yes. because Nimue has a way of telling stories that hold truths, bound and woven within the surreal and the wondrous. truths that will echo your own, and strike cords of meaning. And she does so effortlessly, ( for a given quantity of effortless that takes twenty years to write…)

And finally, because the nexus of your identity may not be purely internal to you but a journey trod by other and there is community and hope within that revelation. We are not alone, we are not isolated islands of self cast in an inky black impassable ocean. There are bridges between us. We are each of us just one part of a great archipelago of share experience.

The nexus of my identity is not external to me, but I am not alone in this…

Ghost of The Lost Forrest by Nimue Brown is available in paperback on Amazon

It is also available in ebook on a ‘pay what you wish’ basis, and you can find details of how to get the book that way on Nimue blog https://druidlife.wordpress.com/ which you should visit anyway because it is wonderful