As I mentioned in my other blog, why am I doing a post on NaNo over here when I’ve already shared a few of the gory details there? Because the nature of my spirituality is based in the act of creation, and specifically, in the act of creating and telling stories. Which is, after all, the nature and spirit of National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo (or as Star called it, National Write a Crappy Barebones First Draft Month, aka NaWriCraBaFirDraMo).

The act of writing is an act of creation, and like all such endeavors has many ways of being performed. Some writers are planners, careful plotters, whose characters work out their surprises in outlines or deep in the author’s dreams, and rarely take the throttle of the story into their own hands. Other writers have no idea where they are going or what they are doing, and they are happily holding on for dear life and not worrying about it. Many writers are somewhere in between. The point of NaNoWriMo is to be at the extremity where it does not matter where your characters are going, or even where the story or what the story is all about. The point in NaNo is to uncork your creativity and flow out in a river, rather than carefully tapping and letting controlled streams ebb out.

This is extremely difficult for me, and I can clearly see why. I am by nature a very careful and reserved person. I enjoy small surprises, but tend to get nervous when things go in unexpected directions. As such, one would expect my writing to be more cramped than loose, more mechanical than lyrical. As I grow older, and less certain, I find it is. I let my creativity out only in carefully controlled settings.

But I haven’t always been this way with my creativity, even if I’ve always been a cautious sort of person. It was in writing that I first discovered that I could be careless–it was in writing that I finally realized at last a means to being heard instead of being overlooked or ignored. Even if no one else saw what I wrote, I knew it existed. And I knew it would last–a secret immortality.

When I look back at my writing from my youth (particularly back in the day when I was an epic poet), I find my stories are surprisingly, refreshingly, unabashedly flowing. My voice is clear, not careful on the page, even if that page was folded between two covers and hidden in a drawer. There is no hesitation in my words, no plan in sight for where it is going. There are only words; there is only story.

I think that the secret to why I keep coming back to participate in NaNoWriMo is because in the writing I do during this time, I can capture fleeting tastes of the flow I once freely uncorked when I was younger. During NaNoWriMo, it is far easier for me to shout upon the page once more, to give up and give in at last to what it is that moves through me and with me. NaNoWriMo is communal, controlled chaos, and because I know I can resurface in a month from it, I can plunge myself into it. NaNoWriMo, in this way especially, is like a shamanic ecstasy–it is the point to return, but you return with wisdom and a story to tell.

I go to NaNoWriMo, and I return, because I am a creator, and it is my purpose to create, and I cannot keep the flow bottled up forever. It is during NaNo that I feel the most connected to my path, and to the story that I wish to tell about myself. I feel the most connected to what is divine in me, and all around me. I go to the place where stories bubble through my fingers and surprise me, and there I find Brighid, who is my story and who is my light, and I return with that light shining through me like through a clear glass.

In short, NaNoWriMo is a ritual. A ritual in which that everything I forgot I believed in makes itself absolutely apparent, and I realize that I never actually forgot it in the first place. No wonder I feel compelled to perform it every year.

This is rather late in coming, but good things are always welcome, and I guess a little shameless plugging of others’ work is fun too.

Heather at Say The Trees Have Ears nominated me for the Honest Scrap Award back in October. I love reading Heather’s blog, and find a lot of inspiration in what she has to say, so I’m sure that you (the few who read this blog!) will too. Thanks again Heather.

Here are the rules:

1. Share 10 honest things about yourself.
2. Present this award to 7 others who have encouraged you or whose blogs you find brilliant in content and/or design.
3. Let them know of the award and the guidelines.

Here are the seven others (unfortunately, or rather fortunately, Heather nominated many people whose blog’s I follow–I’m going to try not to do any repeats!):

1. Heartshadow at Flamekeeping
2. Star at The Song and the Flame
3. Erin at The Adventures of Ranger Elf
4. Vee at Athenaeum for the Artist
5. Erynn at Searching for Imbas
6. Lupa at Therioshamanism
7. Caelesti at Politics and Polytheism

And here are 10 honest things about myself:

1. Some people are cat people. Others are dog people. I am a bunny person. And not just in the sense that I prefer rabbits as pets to anything else. Technically, in the Chinese zodiac, I was born in the Year of the Tiger, but for the longest time, due to lunar calendar confusion, I assumed I was born in the Year of the Rabbit. I didn’t discover otherwise until a short while ago, and it baffled me. If you know anything about the Chinese zodiac, you know that a Tiger is pretty much the last thing I am, and if you know me, you know that the Rabbit is pretty much exactly me.

2. I have the worst eyesight of anyone I know.

3. My hot-button topics are: any issues where science and religion meet (or more frequently, collide); public education and young adult empowerment issues; the environment and humanity’s impact/interaction with it; and book crimes (censorship being the most prominent topic, but understated dismissal of genre fiction as “real literature” is another). Touch upon one of these topics, and I can go on for hours.

4. I learned how to be kind and considerate to others from my parents, but mostly from working as a softlines (clothing) associate and cashier at Target. I always say, “thank you” and “hello” and “have a nice day” to associates at any store. I always leave 20% tips. I always hang or fold my clothing when I am finished trying them on, and I always carry them out to a rack or attendant. I always hold the door for people walking in or out. I always try to let people out of a driveway when there is a lot of traffic (when it is safe to do so). Thank you Target shoppers for showing me the lowest depths humanity can come to, and also showing me how to rise above it and be a nice person.

5. My favorite things to bake are cookies and scones.

6. If I decide that I like you, it will take a lot to change that decision. If I decide that I don’t like you, it usually won’t take much to change that decision. There are levels to my friendships: it takes a lot of XP to level up with me. To use a gaming metaphor. Very few have made it to the truly “best friend” level; most are comfortably on the “I enjoy talking with you and am interested in your life but we won’t hang out after school/work/whatever” level. In fact, most of my friendships existed completely within school. Sad, but true, and something I’ve resolved to change since… I’m out of school.

7. If I hadn’t been set on majoring in film, I may have been a fibers/crafts major. If only I had learned to crochet earlier!

8. I was born on the Capricorn/Aquarius cusp. If you know anything about the western zodiac, you may know this makes for some really strange and often wildly opposite motivations/impulses/inclinations.

9. I love space. I love the science of space, the wonder of it, the vastness, loneliness and beauty of it. I love stories set in space, and I sincerely believe it is humanity’s destiny to move out into the stars and discover we are not alone.

10. It’s very difficult for me to see myself in a year, let alone five or ten years. What I’ll be doing, where I’ll be, who I’m with. In fact, it’s been a big blank pretty much since the end of junior year in college.

So, feel free to check out my friends’ blogs, and I hope they inspire you as much as they do me. Friends I’ve nominated, feel free to participate or not.

Though the clouds had been hanging overhead all morning, it didn’t start to rain until a low rumble of thunder had sounded like a horn heralding an army. And then the sky unfolded. I sit here listening to it flow, then ebb away again quietly. As time passes, it rushes out more heavily so that the glass of the windows drum like thunder, which I haven’t heard since the first low peal about an hour ago. And then just as swiftly it seems to die again, so that I can hear individual drops falling off the leaves and petals of the bougainvillea outside in the front garden.

I suddenly race outside to drag pillows from the chairs in the front garden. In less than a second I, and the pillows, even though they have only been out for a short time, are soaked through.

This is Texas autumn. When you live in a place where October and November may still mean 100 + degree weather, or stifling humidity from hurricanes and sudden, swift flooding, showers like this one accent the gentle, pleasant weather and seem to say, “See? Texas knows how to take care of its citizens too.” After years of extraordinary drought, rain like this opens the mouth of the earth, and makes it sing.

This year, the latter half of October and November have unbelievably pleasant, gentle, cool and filled with sunshine. Storms, some small and gentle, and some loud and frightening, are bringing the world back into green life after several years’ worth of parched brown summers. In the northeast, autumn is a time of death, decay and oncoming cold. This year’s Texas autumn is a time of abundant green, and blessed relief.

I think when I sat down and began to type, I wanted the rain to inspire me to say something spiritually moving or wise. It hasn’t given me any great insights, except that to listen to it is enough. It is enough that this is where I am right now, listening, sitting, thinking, and letting the rain bring back life to my own parched soul.

In the lands where the ancient Celts thrived, October was the time of settling cold, final preparations for long winter, and the death of the old year. In the lands where some of their modern descendants eventually came, the leaves are turning gold, red, brown; the breezes are growing stronger and more chill; the sudden storms of summer are giving way to steady rainfall and in extremes, frost appears at the window. It is easy to see how traditions of the dying year can thrive in this environment.

In the lands where my ancestors came, the leaves remain on the trees; the long drought of summer is largely broken by storms, though the heat remains; there is no chance of frost until January. Maybe. My choice to honor this time of year as one of the memory of death and the meditation on the cycle of endings and beginnings may take a bit more effort to embrace, because the natural world around me seems to be alive, even thriving, after the extreme thirsty summer and the blessed new rains.

And yet, I choose to align myself with the patterns of the Celts because while externally my world isn’t preparing for a long sleep or death, internally, my own world is descending into the long dark-half of the year. It is the end of summer, samos.

Scél lemm duíb: (I have news for you:)
dordaid dam, (the stag bells,)
snigid gaim, (winter snows,)
ró-fáith sam. (summer is ended.)

Other pagan voices on Samhain:

Alexei Kondratiev

Beyond The Fields We Know

Gus diZerega

Ali at Meadowsweet Myrrh

Historically, Samhain is the end of the Celtic year. As the Celts reckoned their days from sundown to sundown, this night was also the beginning of the new year, and the time to celebrate the final harvest, and the Feast of the Dead. The spirits of the world, and the sidhe, were particularly active at this time of year, and on Samhain night, the risk of passing into the Otherworld was never more clear as the gates between the worlds are swung open for the night. Cattle were butchered in preparation for winter, seeds were planted to lie dormant until spring, and time itself flees from the world, opening the door to the future, the past, and standing outside of the rest of year.

For me, Samhain is all about memory, death, and walking between two worlds. The memory of the storyteller, as Samhain marks the beginning of “storyteller season”, when those holed up against winter would spin days-long stories around the fire. The death of the natural world, the death of friends and family, and the mythical death of gods (depending on what kind of myths you follow). The death of inner thought patterns, the reformation of bad habits, the death of relationships, wanted or not. The delicate balance between this world and the Other, and the thin veil that opens at Samhain to allow passage between both; the deadly, and ecstatic journey from one world to another. The fili, who straddles the line between at all times, is never more free, or more exposed.

Samhain is probably one of the more serious holidays I observe–certainly the most outrightly religious and ceremonial in tone, if not necessarily in actual practice.

As such, my solitary, contemplative Samhain observances often stand in stark contrast to other pagan celebrations, which also focus on the above, but mainly use the time to celebrate the last harvest before winter and the mighty dead with more social and fun observances. It goes without saying that my quiet, often emotionally charged interactions with the divine are on the absolute opposite end of the spectrum when compared to my secular friends’ celebrations of Halloween. To most of my friends, the spirit of fun, shedding of rules and donning of disguises and party atmosphere of Halloween is religion in and of itself, and anticipated far more than Christmas or even one’s birthday. I’ve never been able to fully embrace it, but can understand it.

I can approach this lighter side mainly in the almost-ritualistic way I participate in NaNoWriMo every year. At midnight tonight, the madness begins, and in true spirit of the season, I embark on spinning a days-long story of my own, with plenty of wild embellishments, unrealistic goals and anarchic structure, style and themes. Anticipating, and gleefully dreading, this time of creativity and rapid work is perhaps the closest I can come to feeling the spirit of Halloween that my friends feel, and as such, I am able to connect to this holiday in a celebratory way as well as a serious one.

As I attempt to write a ritual calendar for myself, I find myself unprepared and little at a loss for what I shall be doing this year. In past years, I have used this time to pour small libations of water to the beloved dead that have passed on this year: few people close to me have died this year, but relationships, viewpoints and assumptions have. I would also light a candle in the window for the dead to follow, and just to meditate on. Several years ago, I used this time to formally dedicate myself to the search for divinity.

Last year, and the years I was in Philly, I would take the time to write down things I wanted to “end”–bad habits, destructive “tapes” in my head, etc.–and walk to the graveyard in Old Pine Street Church where most of the headstones have no names, but a few still have tiny American flags stuck in the ground beside them. This is a special graveyard that has a kind of quiet magic about it–high walls and talls trees would muffle the sounds of the street, even as it was two feet away from traffic. I would be able meditate for a few moments even as the trick-or-treaters walking outside of the graveyard seemed miles away. I would rip the paper up and bury it, or, miming ripping it up, I would carry it home and burn it. Divination with tarot and ogam would often follow, as this time of year seems particularly potent for the kind of energy needed to interpret these tools.

Two years ago, I participated in the Celtic Reconstructionist I Stand With Tara ritual, which was an interesting and powerful experience, but a little too full-blown for me to recreate and recast in an annual way.

So, tonight, as I write and keep the flame with my other flamekeepers, I shall be actively meditating on what this time of year really means to me, and what I can do that embrace it and harmonize with it. What I can do to honor memory, death and the places between will depend largely on my own cycles reconciling with the cycles of the natural world (so often out of sync, particularly in Texas), and my spirit attempting to connect again with the spirits of the land, and the gods I honor and follow.

As I remember what it means to tell stories, and how all stories end in death, tonight I can allow my spirit to wander freely again with the other spirits of the world, and carry knowledge, truth and light as a wind between the worlds.

One of the most wonderful times of year in Texas is October, when the monarch migration is in full swing, and swarms begin floating through the city streets: wandering through traffic, dipping into gardens, gently drifting, replacing clouds in an empty Texas sky over houses and neighborhoods. Every year I’m thrilled by it, and this year is no different.

This afternoon, on a rare, gorgeously perfect day, I stood in my balcony doorway and watched scores of monarch butterflies drift over my house northward. I almost felt like telling them, “You’re going the wrong way!” but I know that it isn’t so. I feebly tried to capture them on my camera, but such is the nature of a terribly slow digital camera-phone and the fleeting, ethereal creatures flying by scores in the sky that I was unable to get more than blurry specks in my pictures.

As they drifted over the roof of my house like a crest of a wave, some fluttered down to my mother’s rosebushes and plants in the backyard garden, and others wandered into the tree in a neighbor’s yard, disappearing so quickly into the landscape of my neighborhood that their presence was lost in a twinkling. Only when they rose up again and showed themselves clearly against a blank sky did they remind the world of their wandering status, their itinerant existence. Only when they had to move on did they distinguish themselves from the natural workings of this small  world. Birds kept flapping around as though irritated, hungry but not hungry enough to forget how poisonous these annual visitors are. My parents’ dogs ignored them, sprawled in the grass and only rousing themselves to bark at passing joggers through the fence or defend the background from squirrel squatters. I’m not sure, but I saw several cars proceeding slowly down the street, so as to watch the procession (or to avoid getting butterfly splatters on their windshield).

As I watched, I could not help thinking of the time when I was living in Philadelphia that a twitterpatted and territorial butterfly kept me company while I intruded on his park bench. He had looked similar to a monarch, but he wasn’t. His presence had also seemed like a sign, or an omen, but I knew it wasn’t. Nonetheless, seeing his wings on the white pages of my book gave me the same shivery, gentle feeling that I get when I pray, or meditate, and feel connected to the inherent divinity of the universe. So now, in the presence of scores of these butterflies, I wondered if I would feel the same shiver down my back, the same deep heartache.

The sunlight glanced off of wings, off of the leaves on the tree, sending confusion through the air as leaves morphed into monarchs, and monarchs faded into leaves. It took about thirty minutes for the entire swarm to move through. A few stragglers floated by later. Some time after that, one or two flew over and then none at all.

If there is a kind of beauty that most touches me, it is the sort of beauty I find in this migration, in these butterflies. The intimate connection between creature and land so that when the sunlight hits just in the right place, the two cannot be distinguished. The staggering genetic memory that allows these creatures to embark on this life-long flight over the country, a flight they will never return from, but their grandchildren will. The simplicity of the story that carries them: the story of movement and quest, searching for shelter. The cycles of life, the woven pattern of my years and my environment together forming an event I can remember for as long as I have lived here full time, and the rediscovery of life continuing as it always has in your absence, and the sorrow of returning home to see how much has changed, and how little has not.

Just before I closed my balcony door, I felt the gentle touch of the sun and a cool breeze upon my back, like the hand of Brighid on my shoulder and her faithful laughter. In many ways, she seems to say, I am just as much a passer-through this place, even this Earth, as these butterflies are. But just like them, I have a part to play in the grand story of the year, and I am just as much a part of my home, and my land, as these wandering souls are.

I smiled, and closed my door.

Or, what I am currently thinking about.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m in the process of trying to find a job, and move out of my parents’ house, where I have been living since I moved here from Philadelphia about a month ago.

I’ve noticed that whenever I came home from college to stay for an extended amount of time, I undergo a peculiar kind of regression. When I come home, I feel like I become my younger self, my high school self, and I feel like I am often treated as such by other members of my family.

I was not a happy high schooler, though I hid it well. I repressed a lot of anger, resentment and hurt, so much so that I have a continued problem with my temper, getting frustrated, bitter, and even hysterical (in my own repressed, silent way). It’s inherited, I know, but that doesn’t help to alleviate it, or even help me to avoid it as I continue to live here. It also doesn’t help that with each day I long more for the day when I can come home and be alone; totally relax, and not have to muster up enough energy to interact happily with my family. It’s not their fault–they like to talk, understand. But a steady stream of interruptions, a steady amount of noise and interference, and a continued call for my socially acceptable mask wears away at my patience, and eventually exposes the simmering temper I try to keep under a lid.

What I am thinking about: what is the source of my anger? Is it a symptom of being a loner and having to continue to act with the people I love and share a home with? Is it a result of not having a place where I can just be completely “off”?

Is it deeper? Is it one of the wellsprings sourcing my depression? If so, what is it that I am so angry with that tiny irritations, like a slow Internet connection, seem like a personal affront or attack from the Universe itself?

One of the things I’m trying to do with my path is made a coherent and meaningful calendar of holidays– holy days. While much my calendar is based on a personal journey, and sort of follows several different stories at once, one of the numerous threads I’d like to incorporate into it is a small observance at the full moon each (more or less) month.

These observations are carefully tied into several other ideas and concerns of mine, but at the core, the lunar holiday schedule is based off of Amergin’s Mystery, as it is sometimes called. I’ve picked and chosen names for each full moon based on the lines in the first part of the poem. Beginning the full moon after Samhain, I hope to implement something a little more substantial than what I currently have right now with the full moon of Wind.

But since the full moon of October 4 recently passed, and since I am trying to start getting the mindset needed (or desired) more available to my brain, I want to ponder what it may hold for the coming month–the moon called Stag.

The stag is a highly symbolic creature in several stories and mythologies– the Welsh and Irish legends naming them as creatures of wisdom, age, adventure. In Irish myth, transformation into a deer occurs several times, such as in the story of Fionn’s wife Sabha, and his son Oísin. It is a faery beast, able to pass between the two worlds of humans and the world of spirits. The White Hind, the doe, is often a call to the adventuring knight to go questing, a signal that marvelous adventures await. As such, it is a symbol of the pursuit of wisdom, of the otherworld, of things uncanny.

The god was associated with deity or worshipped in several European cultures, with particular note in the Eastern European and Germanic peoples, including the Celts, and northern peoples, were reindeer in particular were prominent. The stag was worshipped as a kingly figure: noble, solitary, devoted to his people and protector of his land.

For more information on the lore of the stag, and the deer, see the OBOD lore page.

So what lessons may I take from the Stag and incorporate into my own life?

As my job hunt continues, I am finding that the metaphor of the quest is particularly meaningful and useful. Through my quest, I’ve mostly come up empty. Very few places have called me in for an interview–some of them fantastic prospects, and others less so–much like the young knight who has traveled long and far with no reprieve or sign of noble adventure.

However, since the advent of the full moon yesterday I have noticed a tiny pick up in the number of emails, calls and good leads I’m finding. And more than that, I’m noticing that while the delays, lack of responses and unsuccessful interviews are continuing, tiny rays of hope–contacts, names, recommendations, and further education prospects–are shining out even in the midst of all that frustration. Even if the interview scheduled for today was postponed, I got another interview for tomorrow afternoon.

Because I am the skeptical sort, I can’t say that these happenings are a result of Stag in my life, or lunar energy or whatever. Instead I’ll chalk it up to a merry meeting of coincidence, more focused job-hunting searches and even more refined uses of my resume and cover letter (I’ve gone through so many versions it had better be getting better).

I may contemplate on the subtle shift of focus I’ve had since recognizing the Stag moon, and chalk up my more positive turns and attitude to that, or meditate on the energy of the Stag, and the moon, and their role in my life this month, and see where that takes me. I may see these flashes of hope as I would see the tail of a white Stag, beckoning me deeper into the forest, spurring me on, and think that I’ll have Stag to thank.

(For the record, on the day I get a job, I’ll probably run around my backyard naked, pour out a bottle of wine, swear an oath of celibacy and sacrifice a goat or five  in thanks to the fickle employment gods. So much for being a skeptic.)

But in the meantime, using the wisdom of the Stag–his focus, mediating abilities and his call to adventure, to stay on the quest–I can continue to rouse myself out of depression when the job hunt seems overwhelming, when my prospects look nonexistent, when living at home seems like several steps backward instead of an intermediary position. The calm majesty of this kingly creature can settle in my heart and give me comfort when I am in the heart of the deep woods without a place to go.

And his flashing tail, and spring into the dark, can lead me to the quest–to my home.

Tonight is my Flamekeeping shift. I’m trying to take this time to be more definite in my beliefs, and laying out a solid plan of practice. As I sit and ponder, I struggle with the all too familiar, growing knowledge that often haunts me as a writer: what I say cannot capture what it is I am feeling or understanding. Sometimes, it is very close. Other times, my words utterly fail in the face of pure perceived experiential knowledge.

The more think about my path, and the more I sit and look inside myself and try to define what it is I believe, the more trouble I have with this inability of language to capture what it is I feel about the world, about myself, and about my place in it. These key ingredients to a coherent set of assumptions about the world–spiritual beliefs–should, if anything should be communicated, if only to myself for greater clarity. The closer I seem to come to something, the stiller I become, waiting for it to manifest as a clear thought that I maybe, maybe will finally be able to capture on paper. The closer, the quieter I become, straining hard to hear it sound through my inner ear.

Still closer, and still elusive.

As I focus on the flame tonight for Brighid, I think of how easy it is to see the hotness of the yellow color, to feel the tiny warmth radiating and the pulsing light gently wash on the immediate surroundings. How easy it is to perceive, and understand, without the medium of words. Even my words here, trying to describe what I see, and what I feel, take far more time to process and only then approximate my experience.

An Seanchas Fior is a path based primarily on the power of words to shape our lives, to form patterns to live with. My path therefore appears to be founded on something weak, insubstantial, and ultimately, inconsequential. Words are a product of our imagination, stories the product of words.

But suddenly a last thought shimmers through my head as I prepare to extinguish the flame, and go to bed. What if, my thought whispers, what if it is the other way around?

What if words are a product of stories? This seems logical. After all, our experiences of life came first, and our words came second to try to share them. Thus, my world, based upon words, is actually based upon stories, not words; on events, not things.

What if, that tiny thought says, what if that path, and everything my world stands upon, is a flame–an event based upon the interaction of other things, which are themselves, a result of the interaction of other things. What if words are in fact far more powerful than we often consider them to be: what they fail to capture may not be a thing at all, but an event–insubstantial, but not inconsequential. Their power, or lack thereof, hints at the truth: that what they fail to capture cannot be captured at all.

I am a flame, ready to ignite, ready to be blown out. I am a word on the breath, ready to exhale, ready to fade.

The interested may find the relevant conversations (and conclusions) here at TC:

Celtic and Kemetic

Erinnightwalker’s Intro Post

I am, appropriately, Finn over at TC, and have posted at length in those conversations.

While now I’m regretting the time, arguments I’ve spent and anger I’ve suffered while trying to address this, it just goes to show that this is a highly sensitive, “hot button” topic for members of the Celtic polytheism community, especially for Recon-minded folks like myself.

I want it to be abundantly clear, particularly for these newcomers who suffered the indecency of these egomaniacal trolls, that the historical evidence shows the Celts, being a conqueror culture, were a syncretizing, blending, boiling stew of cultures that took languages, gods, and practices willingly, unabashedly and wholeheartedly. The historical evidence also shows the Celts were a tribal culture, placing great importance on family and community, yes, but adoption into each other’s families and communities was highly practiced, and the adoption of pan-Celtic deities, attracting worshipers from all walks of life, and all over the European continent is clear in the record of lore.

There is no place in today’s society for the arrogant tribalism, racism and xenophobia espoused by the people who told these seekers they were unworthy of worshipping “their” gods; that “their” gods were uninterested in their worship, and wouldn’t accept them unless they were, under duress and after extreme abuse and embarrassment adopted by “their” clan; and who slap unwarranted curses of “cultural misappropriation” on those who wish to explore their culture and build relationships with those gods.

The Gods call whom they will, regardless of race, family, and gender, and they will gladly accept with open arms those who seek to worship and work with them honestly, authentically, and devotedly.

*steps off soapbox*

Once again, over at Pagan Prompts, there is a another question to help me get my thoughts together:

What values and virtues do you believe should be universal for all pagan paths – not just your own – and why are these virtues/values important? How should they be practiced?

The language of this question is at once intriguing, and unnerving. The way I read it, this question could be (or maybe should be) asking what values and virtues should be universal for all paths, regardless of whether it was pagan or not. And that is when a line that is far too easy to cross should be tread upon very, very carefully.

After all, what person won’t espouse some particular value of hir belief system as being universally important? And yet, so many values of so many belief systems are out of balance with each other and our way of life; so much so that they cannot be cast universally upon humankind without seriously retarding and restricting our moral and ethic growth.

Still, it is an interesting question to ponder, and an opportunity to examine various faiths to find the common points between them all. These similarities, these values, can maybe point to an ethics system that evolved purely from the social interactions and relationships between humans, regardless of how they mystically experience their world.

1. Desire (and respect) for life. This seems to be absolutely the first universal value of every healthy and socially adjusted human. To kill another, to rob someone of hir being, is universally condemned. (Note, while this could tread dangerously into the argument of abortion, I won’t follow that thread, except to merely point out that in that difficult place, and often heart-wrenching decision, we must remember that there are two lives who are affected, not just the unborn fetus’.) I am not sure what else I can say about it because it seems to me to be pretty abundantly clear. This is, perhaps, the one I think is directly linked to that strain of evolution we have emerged from: the desire (the need) for the individual to survive. When we began to live and work together, we maybe began to understand that the group needs to survive.

2. Desire to cease suffering. Some paths make this their entire focus. I believe that in every human is born the potential, and moreover, the genuine desire, to aid others and to alleviate suffering. Not just of their own, but those who are around them. As we grow, circumstances may dictate changes, or even destroy, that desire, but perhaps it is my optimism for humanity that allows me to persist in this belief, and to place it among these values. And indeed, in a lot of paths I see being followed around me, every deed done by the believer or the dedicant is done in the name of healing, and in the genuine desire to aid others.

3. Freedom, and its pursuit. I think this includes the freedom of mind (and speech) and body. Again, the execution of various social structures narrows or eradicates this value in the minds of the people who live in them, but I believe this value is ultimately connected to the other two: a healthy life, and a life without suffering, cannot occur with slavery of the mind or the body. All too often, those are hand in hand, but often, many religions have shown their commitment to the other two with the condemnation of slavery. I also think that the quest for freedom is a value for religions of the “downtrodden,” several of which have grown far beyond any semblance of an underdog religion.

4. Memory, and its persistence. I think this, broadly, includes traditions, customs and culture, and even could extend to the creation of art, song and story. Which as we all know is what I get really excited about. Where would most of our belief systems be without the value of memory, and moreover, the continued commitment to memory that allows future generations to live noble lives? Indeed, one could make the argument that all of the major religions are based exactly on this value. I sometimes see religion as telling yourself a story over and over again, until you start to see yourself living that story. As such, the impact of memory is immense on the cultures, and the peoples, of the world.

I can’t think of any others at the moment that aren’t essentially the souped up versions of these, which I hope have been boiled far enough to merit their place on this universal list of values. I’m sure I could boil it down even further, but there you go for now.

In later posts, I may return to these, especially as I continue to explore my own principles and beliefs.