Applications of virtues

 

 

I had been Senior Druid of the Grove I had founded maybe five years with little success in finding a replacement or a competent stand in.

I had shut down the grove formally with the group on Lughnasa, only to have them ask me to restart it for Samhain

This I did , as a reluctant unappreciated leader,only to find Myself , Home-less and Grove-less in a  month.

After a grove Yule that wasn’t, without Me,

I was asked to lead again to keep the grove alive.

I agreed to do this in a limited capacity,

It was at this time that a collective program was being shared amongst Groves that included  nine virtues as a principal part of our religious beliefs and practice.

The virtues were a component of a package that was bundled together to be the beginning of a formal spiritual training or schooling.

I had been developing my own Ideas over the years as had many of my Druid friends,

but this was to be the official system of Our Druid Organization

It was the Organization that made sure  we had all the aspects of our training that other religions do.

Our virtues were further distinguished by referencing the three functions or castes  of indo -European society.

While I am willing to indulge intellect and imagination in our  exploration of Druid Spiritual Fun.

Issues of Class and Society are not to be play acted.

Indo- European models are not complete or functional without slavery.

Perhaps it was this, and the odd notions that virtues were coupled with vices, that  put me off on taking virtues on, as what my religion was all about.

.

It was a challenge to moderate a discussion group of Dedicants about Their feelings and thoughts about these nine virtues or any others as it was very personal and objective and students want to offer the answer they believe the teacher wants to hear.

Or in this case the course was devised around what the student has to say,

or wants to be.

This marked a very stark divide between the motive and intent of a Druid worship group seeking to honor a spiritual presence,

and  those seeking to be heard and acknowledged  by a study group.

This seemed to accentuate the difference between Druid as Priest/mystic and Senior Druid as the facilitator of a study program group.

I did not understand it at the time but I sensed that the Organization had become a Brand, the study program its product, and groves the outlets, a consumer oriented approach that perverts vocational concepts from being descriptive of the work done to the fantasy of expectation and desire for outcome.  A paradox of profession and confession,

getting hokey with my folky

I encounter the virtues again a few years later.

I was part Of the first group of Priests Ordained by the Organization .

The second group were all of the Senior Druids of Groves of the organization.and Study Program.Students.

I was then expected to complete and submit for review the Dedicant  Program and its’ essays about the nine virtues .

By this time the program had produced a couple of crops of virtue loving essayists who just didn’t think it was fair that I hadn't written anything about what was so fundamental to our Organization.

I was again struggling with producing the required expression  on a number of levels.

 

It lacks a genuineness and inspirational nature that I associate with my Spiritual Brand of Druid

It felt coerced or contrived on my part,

not the real love, real deal, real thing I try to stay true to.

My Kindred Spirits were not urging me to write these essays, they were supplying Me with other tasks.

Informing Me.

I did not want my voice to be one that was critical of the program.

I did not want to be used by the critics of the program or the anti-clergy crowd.

I did not see our duty to codify our training of each other as vital as kindness.

 

Years later I paint cards of the nine to draw and read as omens.

I treat the words like beings in and of themselves as well as within us,

Things to live by or through. We need to be careful of what we embody.

Urged to use them as a Priest, Struggling to compose with them as a Bard, I have a found their use as a Seer.

I have to say that it is not a good practice to use virtues as part of judgment of others, Including their level of Mastery in a Program or Vocation.

Others may feel it is important and enriching doing it,

But It is not my thing, and it’s not what My religion, My Priesthood is about.

I am not a Priest of a Program,

perhaps a Priest of process.

A process that has been very public for over twenty years.

I am not closing the door on the Program by pointing out that I don’t like how it is being used in the Organization.

I am not  claiming to be a master or knowledgeable of the program or to have any experience with it as an accepted and understanding insider.

I am A Druid with my Arts. and many Muses.

Poet~Prophet & Private~Profit

 

 

Harvest is a claiming .

With Triumph there is Tribute, Tax,or Tithe.

With Domination there is Domain and Dominion.

We  have been conditioned to think this is the cost of ownership, a business expense,

Mastery instead of Mystery.

The House rules

Eco

Order gets it’s cut.

It is not the only game in town, and life is not about being a played.

Life is Work, and struggle, there is no getting around that.

It’s often not easy, but sometimes it is.

Difficult and challenging situations  are what we are built for.

Opportunities for our Genius to break free.

To be Heroic.

We don’t have to sell out.

We can protect our common wealth. from the invisible Hand .

Market values are not social  ones. The Fair is just that,there can be no thievery .

It is important to honor your Muse for her gifts,

and not manipulate them in service to

another master.

I don’t know if volunteer not for profit groups have a future in a corporate economy.

Share holder expectations, guaranteed return on investment, are not forces  that move the Earth,or govern the World.

Our share of the harvest changes with the luck of the season,

some are better than others.

A crop circle

There is no expectation for what we are owed for our service.

Value and credit have a spiritual worth.

It helps to gather with love, respect and gratitude.

It hurts to feel like a commodity,in a commercial scheme

A consumer who is not a producer.is not a whole being.

Bargains and Business , Trade and Treaties.have an extra dimensional aspect.

Agreements, understandings ,contracts,oaths,couples.mergers

Where is the fidelity, loyalty,Trust?

Where is the heart and Soul?

There is no burden of spiritual Debt or Original Sin in Neo Pagan   Druid Belief or Disbelief.

Lucky for us!

Proxy Pagan Praxis Placebo

At our most simple level we feed from place.
We find sustenance from outside of our selves.
We find our living from our surroundings.
We also feed from one another,
Finding comfort in the act of sharing, and security in a common aspect of living.
Everything feels  good .
Doing it’s thing .
It is enriching and inspiring to be part of Nature.
It is important to Me to share my feelings with Out of Doors
With the Insects and weather,
With sticks and smoke,
With dirt and stars
Community

Our voice

Our Voice is the energy of our Vibrating breath being transmitted beyond our being.

We have a good deal of control as to the content ,tone and qualities of our expression .

We should be aware of  our effect.

We may not be the source of our own creative spiritual voice or soul.

It shines through us, when we let it,

We are the Moderators ,of passage, conductors of thought, learners of language.

Resonant boxes, sound makers and story tellers.

We shape and craft our surroundings as part of a greater conversation and song.

Choosing our part in how and what we wish to share.

Controlling as best we can what comes out of us.

Finding humor and humility in surprise outbursts of discovery.

Don’t make demands of your Audience, it is the world.

there have  always been unseen listeners.  It isn’t all about Being heard.

The loudest or longest doesn’t win.

It need not be a competitive participant driven ,popularity poll .

• It is not about social manipulation and influence.
• It is about inner truth and honesty.
• Author and authority to what is authentically our own sound.

 

Communication begins with a recognized response .before the conversation can begin.

out of this world

molds growing on the sole of My Hob-Nailed Brogans.

Making  Me think of the molding of My Soul.

The shape of our Spirit form and how our concepts of Self inhibits or expands our understanding and exploration of our own Psychic composition, and living function integrated in the larger body of the Whole.

The diversity of expression of form and color,endless subtlety

The fruiting of individualization from a community  within a community with unique structures, and individual Identities.

I’m not sure where I pick up this stuff, Unaware of what grows on me

Something that I had passed over, that stuck with me, taking on a life of it’s own.

Finding Opportunity in My company.

Awaiting the right time. the right conditions to emerge and bloom.

The invisible collective emerges to elevate the next generation

Millions of children, genetically differing from their parents and each other.

They have attained a unique personhood, because our life paths crossed.

sharing this space and time, 

The paths of our ancestors, and the destiny of spores,

witness ,wonder

Perhaps this is too intimate and personal a thing to share with all the World?

To admit that I find Beauty in taking part  in this dance of Beings .

So many partners

Reflected below the surface, Glass Catfish and Ghost Shrimp

, A couple of the critters I keep ,

Teachers in transparency, with little to hide

clearly sensitive, curious and hungry.

Friends that I regularly feed, They appear naked except for the eyes and antennae , mouths and stomachs.

They also display openly the hidden symmetry and order of inner organization that make up their bodies.

They prefer to live in groups when they make their way in this world.

They have a lot to show us about getting a long ,   for see- through creatures

Too revealing a Pet? Our Life journey is a movement.

The things we touch with our passing as well as the things that have touched us.

Feeling

Partners from out of this same World.

Different but not Foreign, Strange but not Alien.

We share the experience of Now

What it is to be.

The Doggy Bag of Druid ritual

There are some basic understandings I hope sink in with the regular habit of Neo-Pagan group worship.

An important one is not the ritual event but what the people take home with them.

What do we internalize and take on as domestic practice?

I  often serve up more than can be digested immediately, or perhaps it’s in the nature of the subject, or object.

We can’t get it  all at once ,at one time.

Like breathing or eating, we space it out, we break it up, and take it in.

We as living beings are composed and surrounded by a host of spirits.

We by choice and intent  with action feed Beneficial Spirits.

We are also empowered to clean ourselves and our surroundings of hostile agents.

We have Beneficial Spirits who aid us in the places we can’t reach.

This is all profoundly personal and private self discovery as well as aspiritual hygiene practice to be doing next to people you may not know.

It is even weirder when you think that you are alone,

as if in the presence of a stranger.

Imaginary Friends of child hood, places and times , relatives 

Our lives fingerprint is an amazingly unique story  of synchronistic connections ’Fate, Luck , Destiny .

Yet, we are cosmic emanations , born of this Earth

We are naturally part of  the bigger picture, made of the same stuff.

Special and significant in our integration in a much larger body with a will and awareness of its own.

fellowship

I found myself taking part in an Action,

A Do –it  Fellowship.

We would worship  in the open

The threads of connection community worship gatheringsPerhaps there is more to it  than the structured organization documentation requirements

Maybe it’s more of a family thing.        Instinctual  protective reaction

We are destined to grow out of

I am part  of the Old ADF generation that needs to be able to respectfully distance themselves from projects and programs that I don’t fully believe in and stand behind.

My path is not designed by committee, or approved by a council .

I Try to love the world as it is

I believe I am