eldalonde_socie (original) (raw)

ELDALONDË AND OTHER ELVEN GROUPS
by Elthalion Peredhel

I have wandered in many lands, seeking the lost regions from which my birth into this world exiled me, and the company of creatures such as I myself. - George Bernard Shaw

I have spent some time wondering around online today, looking at the other groups I belong to and the sites listed in their links sections. And once again, I'm reminded of how different we are from these other groups.

For one thing, we function more as an actual community than just an online idea-sharing group. We have various job roles within the group, which are filled by our members and which, for the most part, require very little supervision. We are in the process of setting up a means of funding our group and our councils. We have many different talents and skills among our people, which are often used to help other members or to benefit the group as a whole.

If we were all suddenly thrown together in one physical location for an extended period of time, I think we'd do quite well. We seem to know how to function as a real, working community. A lot of other groups have talked about trying to recreate Rivendell or some other type of Elven haven, but we are moving towards it naturally, without all the planning, research, and unrealistic ideas. And our community is designed to function in a modern world, taking into account who we are now, rather than who we used to be or the trying to recreate a way of living that is quite impractical to who we are now.

The second thing I have noticed is that so many other groups are based on trying to recreate Elven spirituality and/or to put together a sort of Elven "religion". This doesn't even seem to enter into the picture for us. We already know our own beliefs, what feels right and what doesn't. We feel no need for a structured form of religion or for regular ceremonies and rituals. We celebrate holidays in a manner that suits us, and we never ask that other members do likewise. In short, we are very spiritual without being organized in our spirituality, which I think is the way it always was for our people.

Another thing I've noticed about the recent emergence of "Tolkien" Elves is that so many of them are so caught up in Tolkien that they fail to even entertain the idea that Tolkien might not have been 100% accurate. They spend a great deal of time trying to prove that Tolkien's books were based on truth, trying to analyze various aspects of the books and movies, trying to think, act, and live like the characters in the books. And it blinds them to so many things.

Those of us in this group view Tolkien as a chronicler of our history, and like all chroniclers of history, his version has some holes and mistakes in it, and is often influenced by his own views. We regard it as we would a history of the renaissance period, for instance. It is fascinating, fun to recreate for brief periods. But we all know there is more to the story than what we get in books and movies. We know that things were not as glamorous as they seem and most of us have very little desire to live that way now. We talk about it, we think about it, it can sometimes sound ideal. But that's the thing. Most of us regard it as idealistic and would much prefer to work on incorporating our Elveness into our current lives rather than trying to live as we once did in a world that is so unsuited to that way of life, and that so desperately needs us to be a part of things as they are, not as they were. We can do no good in a sheltered community, keeping to ourselves, pretending the rest of the world doesn't exist. But we can do wonderful things in the real world. That is where we are needed and where our magic is needed.