• About
    • Mission & Vision
    • Our Leadership
    • ADF: A Druid Fellowship
    • Photos
  • Services
  • Calendar
  • Resources & Social Justice
  • Membership
  • Blogs
    • Prairie Tidings (Church Blog)
    • Rev. Badger's 2019 Stoic Blog
    • The Practical Bard (Rev. Missy's Blog)
    • Little Druid on the Prairie (Rev. Lauren's Blog)
  • Policies
  • Contact Us
  • About
    • Mission & Vision
    • Our Leadership
    • ADF: A Druid Fellowship
    • Photos
  • Services
  • Calendar
  • Resources & Social Justice
  • Membership
  • Blogs
    • Prairie Tidings (Church Blog)
    • Rev. Badger's 2019 Stoic Blog
    • The Practical Bard (Rev. Missy's Blog)
    • Little Druid on the Prairie (Rev. Lauren's Blog)
  • Policies
  • Contact Us
Mountain Ancestors Grove, ADF

A Year of Contemplation

You’re a Product of Your Training (Day 90)

3/31/2019

 
hThis month’s central focus has been awareness, an alloy of “paying attention” and “self-knowledge”. Over the last four weeks we’ve sat together with the contemplations, quotes, and ideas, essentially cross-training in the discipline of awareness.

We’re the products of our training.

Gods be praised, we’re training in something meaningful and healthy. I can remember times in my younger life when I wasn’t as mindful toward my “training”. I mean, sure, I spent hours upon hours in the dojo… and as such, I was the product of that discipline. I also spent a lot of time in bars (as an employee AND as a customer), trying to get both paid as well as “laid”. I spent time in high-pressure, less-than-ethical sales, training myself to talk people into spending money they don’t have for shit they didn’t need, all for the sake of filling my pockets with money.

I was training myself to be selfish and self-important… and that’s what I became.

Whatever we train in will become ingrained within our bones. If we train our discipline, we’ll become disciplined. If we train our cruelty, we’ll become cruel.
​

If we train with improper form and technique we’ll think we’re doing great when we’re really not… and it takes awareness to know the difference.

Practice makes perfect? Not really. My wife says that “practice makes consistent”.

Perfect practice makes perfect.

Although unattainable, in training, strive for perfection.

(See y’all tomorrow)

Reason in All Things (Day 89)

3/30/2019

 
Through practiced awareness we take in data from our surroundings. Once we have that data, how do we evaluate it all? Ryan Holiday, and many Stoic philosophers, believe the one, true, and right way is to use reason. Utilizing the detached, 3rd person camera view, objective mind is to take the next step toward social and communal evolution.

But is there really ONE answer? If so, the polytheist in me has a hard time with this.

It’s not like it has to be reason OR ignorance, reason OR impulse, reason OR mindlessness. We’re not just talking about the brain or mind in opposition to our emotions or spirits…

It’s more like: in all things, we must deploy a reasoned mind, a loving heart, and a welcoming, fearless spirit. It’s not one over another. It’s the “right” choices from all aspects of ourselves. It’s using our disciplined minds to know that we are holistic people, and need to train our emotional intelligence as fiercely as we train our disciplined minds.

After all, isn’t that more reasonable?

(See y’all tomorrow)

Why do you Need to Impress These People Again? (Day 88)

3/29/2019

 
Remember the movie (or book) Fight Club? In it, there’s a fantastic line that goes something like, “We buy things we don’t need to impress people we don’t like.”

Read that line as many times you need until it scans as both absolutely ridiculous AND perfectly true… because it’s 100% both. 

Once we’re aware of of those facts, don’t they seem like they’re the antithesis of what we’re working on here with these daily meditations, or religious practices, or ANY sort of self-improvement process? Of course they do. 

All the shit we do in order to impress these people isn’t done because we WANT to do those things… we do them so we can get some sort of desperately-sought approval from people who aren’t worth the anxiety they cause. #EgoBullshit

So, ask again: Why do we need to impress these people? 

(See y’all tomorrow)

Cowardice as a Design Problem (Day 87)

3/28/2019

 
Why do we experience cowardice? Is it because we’re afraid of pain, or loss, or perhaps it’s something more nebulous… we’re afraid of being caught in a situation for which we’ll not be prepared. 

Have a plan.

The Stoic principle of Premeditatio Malorum connects us to the stream of ills that could possibly befall us. We meditate on all the terrible situations we could possibly find ourselves, no matter how terrible. 

It’s the belief of the Stoic that by practicing this, they will not be shocked and caught “flat footed” when they find themselves in bad situations, no matter how damaging. 

Sounds easy, but like today’s title implies, cowardice is a design problem… and it’s not that cowardice is the problem. Cowardice is a byproduct of ego, which is the real problem. 

(See y’all tomorrow) 

Pay What Things Are Worth (Day 86)

3/27/2019

 
Clothing, jewelry, and shiny cars. Are these “the good things” in life? What do we pay for these things? More than they’re worth?

When we see others paying exorbitant amounts for the above things, we understand this price to be OK. $2-3K for a great suit, $10K for a watch, and $80-100K for a badass car. The time and energy it took to raise that kind of money all balances out once we have the goods in hand, right?

Wrong.

Peace of mind, a happy spirit, and a life with little stress… what are those things worth?

When we die, we won’t be able to take any of it with us… be it a shiny car, or peace of mind… we will only look back on our time here and weigh what we have against what we’ve “spent” to get it.

Invest in the things for life that have actual value, and that cannot memdevalued or taken by others.

Gods be good, we’ll come out ahead in the end.

(See y’all tomorrow)

What Rules Your Ruling Reason (Day 85)

3/26/2019

 
How does your ruling reason manage itself? For in that is the key to everything. Whatever else remains, be it in the power of your choice or not, is but a corpse and smoke.”
(Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 12.23)

There’s a bit of ourselves that we usually hold in reserve, used so we can keep an eye on our internal processes, and employed to guide us to choices rooted in virtue. It’s that bit of ourselves constantly counseling (hopefully) into healthy decisions for ourselves and others. 

Roman satirist, Juvenal, is known for his question: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Literally, “Who will guard the guards, themselves?” (Satire VI, lines 347–348) In other words, perhaps, an oversight unit… like internal affairs is to police departments. For the sake of this month’s awareness practice, consider: what are we using as oversight unto ourselves? 

I’ve been thinking about: who or what is keeping that little bit of ourselves in check? Maybe the answer is hope. A belief that we can wrestle with our egos, and from a higher position, emerge victorious. Wrestlers will all tell us that the key to victory is not in hoping, but in practicing. 

But even in our practice, what’s the guiding force behind its “ruling reason”? What’s the root, of the root, of the root of our practice? 

Always a deeper cause, there is. Causes that cause the causes. On and on. 

(See y’all tomorrow)

Wealth and Freedom are Free (Day 84)

3/25/2019

 
One of my favorite parts of these daily contemplations is starting with the title, reading only that, then putting the text down and sitting with only the title for several minutes. So, after reading today’s title… 

*shakes fist at monitor* “Tell that to the underprivileged, and marginalized, Mr. Holiday!” Grrr. 

After my initial reaction, usually as self-entertaining and righteous as the one above, I read the remainder of the daily entry. Metaphor unpacked, I now see the title’s relevance to the month’s practice-theme, awareness, and the Stoic objective, mastery over desire. 

... freedom isn’t secured by filling up on your heart’s desire, but by removing your desire.”
(Epictetus, Discourses, 4.1.175)

It’s not about getting everything we want. It’s wanting everything we have. From where I’m sitting, it would appear one path to be naturally occurring, while the other in much need of “landscaping”. 

Reframing what is desired is how we get to the point of wanting what we have… in other words, contentment in the now. Specifically, the “now” that we have control over. Ourselves. 

I asked myself, “what wealth cannot be taken by outside forces?” That is the “free” wealth Holiday is talking about in the title. What freedom isn’t contingent on circumstances beyond our control? That’s really the only “freedom” that’s truly free. 

Unburdening ourselves from desire’s trap IS the practice; however, we’re so hell-bent on staying attached to the pseudoreality of societal wealth and freedom, we think we only have to unburden ourselves once (myself definitely included). Liberation, like magick, is a process… not a thing. It’s a lot of ongoing hard work, blood, struggle, loneliness, and strength born from our own individual journeys, complete with humble aspirations, gracious successes, and resilient failures. 

Like liberation, and magick, the unburdening practice is ultimately our own individual responsibility.

(See y'all tomorrow)

There is Philosophy in Everything (Day 83)

3/24/2019

 
Picture
Image by morhamedufmg from Pixabay

Well, of course there is! 

Perhaps it would be better to say: because we practice a mindful, aware life, every interaction or moment of engagement offers a opportunity to put our practice to the test, thereby putting philosophy ‘in’ everything. 

Every friend, every social hiccup, every blinding success… everything contains opportunity to practice. 

Funny thing is, whether we practice or not, the opportunities arise, nonetheless. 

Be prepared, yeah? 

(See y’all tomorrow) 

The Straightjacketed Soul (Day 82)

3/23/2019

 
Picture
Image Credit: iStockPhoto

The diseases of the rational soul are long-standing and hardened vices, such as greed and ambition - they have put the soul in a straightjacket and have begun to be permanent evils inside it. To put it briefly, this sickness is an unrelenting distortion of judgement, so things that are only mildly desirable are vigorously sought after.”
​(Seneca, Moral Letters, 75.11)

What ills have trapped our souls in straightjackets? 

There are so many to choose from, really. Seneca touches on greed and ambition, two very relevant and immediately-apparent conditions in our world today, as they were nearly two thousand years ago when Seneca made his original observation. 

Greed and ambition, like many conditions of the “human condition”, show up in all our lives in varying levels of presence and intensity. No amount of anything practice will turn those hungers and desires off, but we can manage how much of our attention we grant those feelings, and what we choose to do when we’re feeling them. 

For me, I have to combat not-enough-ness, daily, in many of its various and sundry forms. One in particular that stands out is miserliness. Talk about straightjacketed soul… metaphorically speaking, one can’t be generous when one’s arms and hands are bound. It’s hard to “give” when bound. It was modeled for me by my maternal grandmother (of blessed memory), the woman who reared me, probably because she was a child in the middle of WWII, and not-enough-ness was very real and present for her. That kind of experience can really break someone… and yet, while we are the product of our circumstances, we still have control over the final manifestation of what (or who) that product is. 

Miserliness appears in my life in the tension between Hospitality (the Virtue) and List-keeping and Weighing “value” of Generosity (the weaponized Virtue). My grandmother was the freakin’ queen of weaponized hospitality. I promised myself I’d not be that way in my adult life, and would be generous, unlike her. Truthfully, it’s not that she wasn’t generous, she was just shitty about it. For a long time I was the idiot-Hospitality version of generosity, and that’s just another style of straightjacket. It’s not that I wasn’t giving, it’s that I was giving too much. However, the problem wasn’t that I was was trapped by doing too much giving, or too much withholding. The problem was, and is, that I’m trapped by Hospitality, itself. 

The straightjacket of Hospitality. 

Wait. What the hell is the “straightjacket” of Virtue??? 

Throughout our daily lives, Virtue challenges will pop up along our paths. Here we have the choice of do we “virtue” or do we not “virtue”. Let’s say, we choose to “virtue”. Yay. Good for us, yeah? The next phase of this process is HOW do we “virtue”? How are we being virtuous? Is it too much virtue, or too little virtue? Are we going to use our virtuous action to hold power over someone later? All this, and more, is about how we “virtue”. 

Ultimately, we would like to reside in perfect virtue, and to feel free within that virtue and in all the actions we take… but, we will fail. That’s OK. We’re supposed to, otherwise how can we get the change to try again? 

But what about the “straightjacket of Hospitality”? Being trapped by the virtue itself means that we (our egos) take advantage of the space between missing the mark (failing), and getting back on track. If, while we are within the zone of getting back getting back on track,we simply get back on our feet, dust off, make things right (rupture/repair), and keep on keepin’ on, then, yay! However, if we get “ego-fuel” from our choices that happen during the getting-up-and-getting-back-on-track process, then our egos are trapped within that virtue. We are doing the virtue for the sake of ego and not for the sake of the virtue practice itself… for the sake of others. 

We can choose to be a free-spirit-who-virtues (virtue as verb), or we can feed our egos in a facade of virtue practice that looks like virtue from the outside, but has all the nutritional value of spirit-fast-food. 

Ouch. The “diseases of the rational soul” can really knock us for a loop, can’t they?

So, from where do these ills and straightjackets arise? 

Ego (but, y’all saw that coming, right?), and it’s lust for comfort and validation. Full stop. 

Are we even aware of the bound condition of our souls? 

More often than not, no. 

We are responsible to be the doctor for our own spirit-illnesses. While we can get guidance to heal and free ourselves, ultimately, if we’re not even aware we’re sick, then we can never truly heal. 

We must free our souls from their straightjackets.

(See y’all tomorrow)

The Sign of True Education (Day 81)

3/22/2019

 
Picture
Image by Dariusz Sankowski from Pixabay

What are the outward signs and inner processes of being educated? What tells the word that you are an educated person?

Degrees? Diplomas? Dissertations? Doctorates? 

Maybe.

Certificates? Classes? College? Courses? 

Perhaps. 

Awareness of reality? Ability for reflection? Acceptance of our place in Cosmos? 

Definitely. 

(See y’all tomorrow)
<<Previous

    About the Blog

    Awakening the desire to explore Stoicism, and how it relates to his existing beliefs, Rev. William committed to working through the text, The Daily Stoic, a year-long journey to awaken the Stoic mind. 
    How things are structured can be found in the first post. 

    About the Author

    Born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, Rev. William attended Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado where in 2007 he graduated with a degree in Religious Studies, minoring in Psychology. Currently residing in Longmont, CO, he is one of the Priests and founder of Mountain Ancestors Grove.  He spends his time playing mandolin (and some guitar), writing, engaging in LGBTQIA+ advocacy and education, community service, and sharing a larger vision of how a polytheist perspective can lead to greater human understanding, acceptance, and gods be good, peace. 

    Archives

    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.