Nine Virtues: Piety

As defined by the Handbook: Correct observance of ritual and social traditions,  the maintenance of the agreements, both (personal and societal), we humans have with the Gods and Spirits, Keeping the Old Ways through ceremony and duty.  

piety -n,  pl -ties 1. reverence for God or devout fulfillment of religous obligations.  2) the quality or state of being pious.  3) dutiful respect or regard for parents,  homelande, etc: filial piety 4) a pious act, remark, belief or the like. (Webster's Universal College Dictionary -1997 Gramercy Books Random House New York New York

Religion is  a semi-solitary activity.  We each struggle with our own available resources.  Piety is our day to day interactions with the spiritual realm, and our intent and actions  in recognizing them and making them holy.     It's the time sitting at our shrines making offerings, its about attending the eight sabbats and keeping them sacred,  and its about keeping our spiritual lives organized and tidy.   I was recently chastised about not walking the walk in my faith.  Its not always about attending a weekly church service, especially in the case of paganism.  It is the talks to the deities, ancestors, and nature spirits and making those connections, and keeping those connections open.   It is the meditations and following through of our oaths: 

I , Cat take the name Stonegiver in honor of the patrons who bless my paths.    I promise to forge pathways with the spirits, Shining Ones, and ancestors.   I take an oath to finish the Dedicant’s path, and follow the guidance of the powers towards  whatever paths they may lead.   I take an oath to make room in home and hearth for all powers gathered here.    I promise to stay steadfast in my devotions and to keep the light of the Gods in my heart. 

It is doing the legwork to understand our religion and the beings that inhabit those realms.  

   

   

Nine Virtues: Wisdom

Wisdom: good judgment, the ability to perceive people and situations correctly, deliberate about and decide on the correct response (ADF Publishing 15).

 

Wisdom is the state of being wise.   It is gained by a combination of knowledge, experience, and intuition, and using this combination to make decisions and act in situations.   All actions feed into the totality of experience that affects wisdom, but not all actions are wise ones.   Unfortunately, there is not a nice equation that reflects proportions of knowledge, experience, and intuition that result in wise actions.  Wisdom is not easily obtained, and generally one recognizes true wisdom after the fact.  I know that I don’t normally go around spouting sage advice, but when I have been considered wise, it is because I looked into the totality of the situation.

 For the most part, I am in agreement with Wisdom as a virtue, but I dislike the definition, wisdom doesn’t always mean the ability to perceive people and situations correctly, sometimes wisdom can come from looking at a situation completely different perspective, but it does not always mean that it was correct.  Copernicus was a great astronomer, who reasoned out a heliocentric model of the universe at a time when a geocentric model was definitive.   He was, however, partially incorrect, and it would take Kepler a couple of hundred years later to determine.   This does not mean Copernicus was any less wise, it meant that he was dealing with incomplete information which can affect us all.    Therefore, I might redefine wisdom as the ability to perceive people and situations correctly at that given moment; deliberate about and decide on the correct response. 

Works Cited

Publishing, ADF. Our Own Druidry. Tuscon: ADF Publishing, 2009.

Nine Virtues: Vision

Vision: the ability to broaden one's perspectives to have a greater understanding of our place/role in the cosmos relating to the past, present and future. (ADF, 13)

It seemed somehow fitting that I pull an ogham regarding vision.   I pondered the meaning of what meaning nGẻadal would have in regards to vision.  NGẻadal   means harmony and health (xxx), and others describe it to mean working and tools (Ellison, 37).    Psychologists and psychiatrists might argue that not living up to one's values causes imbalance which results in anger and shame which them results in depression and lack of self esteem.  Vision is the ability to recognize one's own place in the world, and to recognize where we come from, where we are currently, and where we want to go.     It is also the foresight to be able to change those paths, and thus live in harmony and health.   Vision is the ability to set dreams and goals., and gives us the ability to see the tools that are needed for those goals. 

Vision is not always cut and dried.   The virtue of vision asks us to stretch our minds outside of the box, and to think about the effects of our actions and lifestyles in accordance with the other virtues.  In this way, vision goes hand in hand with other virtues.  In this way, vision is a tool.   Perseverance without a goal is meaningless.  Vision fuels creativity.   If one does not have an understanding of one's self, how can one have integrity, and sometimes wisdom is vision in disguise.   Seers use their vision to understand the omens, and bards and artists use their vision in creative pursuits, whether it is a piece of artwork, or a deliciously bold tale.    Vision, too, lets scholars be flexible, and see other points of view in the same way that broom and reed are flexible and resilient.  

Bibliography

Ellison, Rev. Robert Lee "Skip". Ogham: The Secret Language of the Druids. Tuscon: ADF Publishing, 2007.

Publishing, ADF. Our Own Druidry. Tuscon: ADF Publishing, 2009.