Finding peace in a new chapter in council

This has been a quiet blog for the two years since I stopped attending Mormon services.

Thursday this week, 16th, marked exactly two years since I wrote to family and my religious leader informing them of my decision to stop going.

In the two years since, I've found joy and delight in getting involved in community groups like a amateur drama group, a choir and helping at my son's football training. I've delighted in these experiences. They've been healing and invigorating.

In the midst of all that, I've continued feeling a sense of longing, a lack of peace, place and purpose. I've found myself questioning what the point of it all is. Life has felt meaningless.

Not only was Thursday exactly two years since breaking a spiritual connection, it was also perhaps the first day of starting a new one.

A friend at choir had invited me to join a "men's group." I accepted, in part out of curiosity, but more so because the invite he forwarded from the organiser spoke of something of substance and depth. This wasn't going to be idle chit-chat around a pint at the pub.

Despite my expectation of something of significance, I was unprepared for the evening. It was, initially, a little unnerving to experience something very different but, eventually, strangely familiar.

A council circle, I have since learned, has roots in Native American traditions. It has been lifted and adapted by, what I grew up calling, "new age hippies." In that sense, I felt like I was among friends, given my parents, along with some friends and nearby aunt and uncle were products of that culture.

A council circle in the UK seems to take inspiration from the Native American custom, but builds in other elements of old customs of the british isles such as old folk culture and paganism as well as hints of eastern philosophy.

Paganism (tan, tan, taaaaaaan) is a term, similar to "heathen," created by Abrahamic religions to act as a catch-all pejorative of "others." The Vikings were called pagans, the celts were too. In essence, it tends to mean pre-christian and usually has roots in ecological appreciation and connection with nature.

Anyway... I digress.

As human's we are naturally unsettled by new experiences. The brain has evolved to find safety in familiarity. For me, this was initially emotionally unsettling. I struggle meeting new people at the best of times, but the addition of an alien set of cultural icons, rituals and symbols was initially disconcerting.

I won't go into a lot of detail about what was said or done, because one of the foundations of council is confidentiality. It's also the sort of experience that has value in the Instead, I might use this blog from time to time to document how I feel and think in response to the experience.

And what I have felt, since Thursday, more than anything else, and for what feels the first time since 2014... is deep and calming peace.