Blog Archives - Mountain Ancestors Grove, ADF

What is in Keeping with your Character? (Day 120)

4/30/2019

Image Credit: Gerd Altmann - Pixabay

Today is the last day of the first third of the year’s training. It officially ends the “Discipline of Perception” section of the work. These last four months we’ve been exploring what it takes to have a disciplined mind, and according to Holiday we need to remain mindful of our unbiased thoughts, general awareness, passions, emotions, and overall clarity of perspective.

One of the most important take-aways from this part of the work is this: there is no one “rational” or “good”. Each interpretation in the Multiplicity of Truth© is dependent on the character of the interpreter. We each question the script, no matter if the scriptwriter is society, time, tradition, family, or morals… for if we don’t, we lose our character and become a caricature.

So, how do we develop our character? Education, and exposure. Through these two things, we train our preconceived notions and their relationship with natural harmony. Through this process we learn to stop relying on exclusively our own egoic estimate of nature, on our own egoic value of external things. Education and exposure develop character… a solvent against ego.

With developed character we can manage to avoid toxic relationships, temptations, seduction, and fair-weather friends.

(See y’all tomorrow)

Washing Away the Dust of Life (Day 119)

4/29/2019

Image Credit: Pixabay

Watch the stars in their courses and imagine yourself running alongside them. Think constantly on the changes of the elements into each other, for such thoughts wash away the dust of earthly life.”
(Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.47)

One of my favorite jobs from my younger days was teaching environmental sciences to 5th & 6th graders in southern California’s San Bernardino National Forest. It was one of the best jobs I’d ever had, so much so, in fact, that I believed “environmental educator” was going to be my career. During that time I learned all kinds of stuff about astronomy, and the constellations. They’re fun stories, and many are tied closely with paleo-pagan stories and myth.

The stars have always fascinated us, and I love the opportunity to share what little I know with whoever will sit still long enough to listen. Seriously, that was how Missy and I spent our first night together… walking around in a wildflower field, talking about the stars and the cosmos. Rev. Bee likes to tell people when we first met I “woo’d her with stars”. I can’t take credit for that. The stars did all the work, really.

The heavens, and Cosmos in general, can create a space wherein which we can feel impossibly small, rather insignificant, quite important, and part of something bigger… all at the same time.

We need that. At least I do, that’s for sure.

We need perspective in order to remove our biases from our thought.

Tonight, I’ll have been 48 for a whole day… and I’ll be sitting outside for a bit, thinking about my own insignificance, and importance in the cosmos. I’ll take a moment to shake off the “dust of earthly life”.

Join me.

(See y’all tomorrow)

Wants Make You a Servant (Day 118)

4/28/2019

Image Credit: Hans Bruxmeier

How often do we not say what we mean to say because we want to fit in?

Not telling a customer how much of an asshole they are because we want to make the sale? Not telling our partner something crucial because we want to keep the peace? Putting up with a controlling boss because we want our jobs?

The wanting makes us servants to those who are in control of the things we want. Take note on that fact: we are NOT in control of that which we desire.

We’re servants to our desires.

Remember the wisdom of the late Bob Marley; “No woman, no cry.” It we’re not trapped by desire, we can find lasting happiness. Indifference turns something with the highest power into something with none.

(See y’all tomorrow)

Turn it Inside Out (Day 117)

4/27/2019

Image by Willi Heidelbach from Pixabay

Turn it inside out and see what it is like - what it becomes like when old, sick, or prostituting itself. How short-lived the praiser and praised, the one who remembers and the remembered. Remembered in some corner of these parts, and even there not in the same way by all, or even by one. And the whole earth is but a mere speck.”
(Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.21)

Multiplicity of Truth© means there are myriad ways of coming to be in knowing-relationship with “whatever”, and they’re all right and true, within the boundaries of those relationships.

“Turning it inside out” is Marcus’ way of saying know and understand all there is to know about something, without bias.

Let’s take something very personal to me: my wife. Rev. Bee is soft, and beautiful, and warm, and kind, generous, intelligent, and ultimately loving. Most of the time those words are the ones I use to relate to and describe her, within my own internal dialogue, as well as outwardly to others. But sometimes I practice thinking of her without the biases of love, desire, or commitment. Sometimes I image her infirmed, or as the victim of age and gravity, or dementia, all the bits about her that made her special, gone. Sometimes I contemplate my wife through the simple lenses of biology and entropy, nothing personal. Sometimes I turn it the other way inside out and imagine her as “more”, doubling her already-blinding brilliance.

The stoic idea behind all this “premeditatio malorum” is this: by consciously examining situations from the inside out, we can be less daunted by them, and thus, less likely to be swayed by them.

Interesting thoughts on the eve of my 48th birthday.

(See y’all tomorrow… after a couple morning dates with Rev. Bee and our youngest kiddo!)

Things Happen in Training (Day 116)

4/26/2019

Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay

When your sparring partner scratches or head-butts you, you don’t then make a show of it, or protest, or view him wish suspicion or as plotting against you. And yet you keep an eye on him, not as an enemy or with suspicion, but with a healthy avoidance.”
(Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.20)

Not everyone has had the experience of training in a dojo (or kwoon, or dojang, or salle, etc. etc. etc.). As a civilian, it’s rare enough to have studied fighting and combat to any notable degree (more than “I took a class at college”). Point is this: the training hall is a place where “scratches or head-butts” happen regularly, and it’s never personal.

Let me repeat that: lots of scrapes and dings… never personal.

Each day of our lives is like our time in the dojo, like our time spent in training. We move through the world trying out our well-worn (or newly-learned) “social aikido”, and like our partners in the dojo, we certainly don’t mean to do harm… even though, at times, some harm happens.

Again, it’s not personal.

Finally, even though from our perspective it’s us who are the recipients of the benefits of the training… our partners are training, too. They’re learning (probably from our screwing up) right there along with us. Side by side in the mix.

See, it’s how we interpret what we receive that makes it what it is. Most of the time, a scratch is just a scratch… and there’s no need to make it out to me anything more than what it is.

… but still keep the head up and eyes open around the scratcher and head-butter, no?

(See y’all tomorrow)

There’s Nothing Wrong with Being Wrong (Day 115)

4/25/2019

Image by Carlos Lincoln from Pixabay

Marcus Aurelius said:

If anyone can prove and show to me that I think and act in error, I will gladly change it - for I seek the truth, by which no one else has ever been harmed. The one who is harmed is the one who abides in deceit and ignorance.”
(Meditations, 6.21)

… and I’m on record as saying:

It’s more important to be Hospitable than it is to be right.”
(Ad Astra Grove retreat, 4/23/16, Topeka, KS)

Wrong happens. Minds change (gods be praised).

It’s the nature of things…

… and therefore, “right” just as it is.

(See y’all tomorrow)

A Productive Use for Contempt (Day 114)

4/24/2019

Image Credit: Precision Forensics

You know those feelings or moments that we’re willing to do stupid things for? To get that hookup, or that job, or whatever it may be… if it’s something that could cause us to embarrass ourselves or do something shameful, it’s best to head it off at the pass.

The pass of contempt.

How much less power would sex have over us if we saw it as silly, or absurd? How about that job? Would we be willing to hurt others to get there if we didn’t hold the job in such regard?

Helpful hint: pour your scorn on the systems and trappings, never people.

Fine meal? Rotting plants and flesh.

Fine wine? Just a bottle of fermenting grape juice.

Money? Think of the bacteria and such that’s on every dollar that crosses your palm.

Alure? Hardly.

(See y’all tomorrow)

The Mind is All Yours (Day 113)

4/23/2019

Image by ElisaRiva from Pixabay

The Moment - a haiku

The Body will fade.
Dementia steals the mind, too.
Reside in the now.

(See y’all tomorrow)

The Marks of a Rational Person (Day 112)

4/22/2019

These are the characteristics of the rational soul: self-awareness, self-examination, and self-determination. It reaps its own harvest… It succeeds in its own purpose…”
(Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 11.1-2)

Couldn’t have said it better.

(See y’all tomorrow)

Don’t Let Your Attention Slide (Day 111)

4/21/2019

Image Credit - Unknown (Royalty Free)

I’ve said for years that I’m a great monotasker, and that multitasking is nothing but a lure for the ego to feed off of… and just like a lure, it’s not real food.

Most of the amazing things in my life have come from times when my attention was single-focused, and not shared between dozens of tasks, responsibilities, and hobbies.

Attention must be trained, like any other part of the undisciplined mind… and it is not an unlimited resource.

It’s precious. It’s valuable. It’s more of an exclusive resource than we think.

Use wisely, lest we find ourselves without it.

(See y’all tomorrow)

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.

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