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    • Mission & Vision
    • Our Leadership
    • ADF: A Druid Fellowship
    • Photos
  • Services
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  • 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
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Mountain Ancestors Grove, ADF

A Year of Contemplation

Your Career is NOT a Life Sentence (Day 212)

7/31/2019

 
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Image by 3D Animation Production Company from Pixabay

How disgraceful is the lawyer whose dying breath passes while at court, at an advanced age, pleading for unknown litigants and still seeking the approval of ignorant spectators.”
​Seneca, On the Brevity of Life, 20.2

We are not our careers. If we over-identify with our careers and our work, we become convinced that we’re invulnerable to the effects of aging and immune to the reality of life. We are no longer a person who is aging and living life, but instead we become a physical manifestation of a career.

Is there so little meaning in life that we need to hide deep within our careers until our cold, dead bodies are put to pyre? Is there so much fear in us that we can’t simply do our part for our time then move out of the way for others to do their part in their time?

Career isn’t a life sentence, but without mindfulness, it's easy for it to become one. Our duty isn’t to our careers. Our duty is to life and one another.

May we all thrive in duty’s embrace!

(See y’all tomorrow… for a “pragmatic” August)

Stoic Joy (Day 211)

7/30/2019

 
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Image by Andrew Martin from Pixabay

My stepkids have arrived home today for a visit, I think it’s appropriate that joy is the topic we’re covering today. Although we differ greatly as to where boundaries should go and what music is considered “good”, there is a definitive joy that arises for me when I get a chance to see them. 

When it comes to joy, there are a lot of people who believe that those folx who are exploring Stoicism are void of this feeling, but that’s the farthest thing from the truth. We aren’t necessarily pursuing cheerfulness, or the standard-issue happiness. No, those trying to live the Stoic life are seeing a deep state of being when they quest for joy. It’s a deep part of our being in the world and hasn’t got hardly anything to do with smiles on faces, or laughs on lips… how we outwardly express our state of being. When times are good, it’s rather easy to mirror happiness in the world, but that’s different from the joy we have at our core, even when times aren’t so good. 

Stoic joy is the kind that offers deep contentment with life, the kind that bolsters us so we can face each quotidian day with Courage, the kind that help us face adversity’s onslaught and get back to our feet one more time than we get knocked down… and the kind that inspires those around you. 

Stoic joy comes from having purpose in life, pursuing excellence, and embracing our duty as “good people” in a greater world. 

It’s a joy that has little to do with one’s pleasant tone, or saccharin-sweet language. 

Now, it’s time to get some burgers with my wife and stepkids.

I’ll… (See y’all tomorrow)

A Cure for the Self (Day 210)

7/29/2019

 
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Image by Angelo Esslinger from Pixabay

The person who has practiced philosophy as a cure for the self becomes great of soul, filled with confidence, invincible - and greater as you draw near.”
​Seneca, Moral Letters, 111.2

Throughout the process of living life, we are exposed to all sorts of circumstances, conditions, situations, and nexus points… and it’s how we succeed and fail when engaging them that helps to develop our sense of self. Each win or loss helps to solidify that idea of identity, as well as the pathological need to preserve and solidify that sense of “self” no matter how much selfishness or destruction it costs…

… unless we’re influenced by an outside force.

It’s through the practice of losing the self where philosophy (and few religions) shows it’s deep, lasting power: the power to be confident, and the power to be invincible in the face of the delusion of external-factor control.

The practice of philosophy is designed to help us live the Good Life… so, ditch the ego and get on with it.

(See y’all tomorrow)

Check Your Privilege (Day 209)

7/28/2019

 
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​Ever been talking to someone and thought to yourself, “This dude is a complete dipstick.” or, “Why are they always doing -whatever- wrong?” I know I have, and I’m sure I’ve been the “dude” or the “they” that someone else was referring to after a frustrating exchange with me. It takes a tremendous amount of privilege to look down at someone’s ignorance… and yet, academics do it all the time. Maybe you’ve been trying to fix something with the mechanically inept and said to yourself, “It’s a freakin’ screwdriver, brainiac… its uses are limited. Lefty-loosey, righty-tighty.” Again, it takes a tremendous amount of privilege to look down at someone’s ignorance… and yet, tradespeople do it all the time. Privilege isn’t about money, or success, or anything other than advantages in certain situations… whether we’ve worked to acquire those advantages, or they came free with our being born who and where we are. 

It’s our duty to utilize our own privilege to lift up those without the same privileges, help them awaken and evolve, and to use our power to change the systems that created the privilege-imbalance in the first place. It’s our duty, as people who are trying to live with Virtue, to be understanding and patient with others, with those who didn’t have our advantages or exposure, education, or training, and with those who are ignorant to the nuances of life that we often take for granted. 

Holiday offers that, “The more forgiving and tolerant you can be of others - the more you can be aware of your various privileges and advantages - the more helpful and patient you will be.” (The Daily Stoic, 225) 

Once we’re able to stop overidentifying with our individualized victim-identities, we can become agents of growth and change for the world around us. The individual bee doesn’t matter as much as the hive… and what’s better, the individual bee knows this fact to be true. 

Sadly, we haven’t figured out that truth yet. 

(See y’all tomorrow)  

Where is Anything Better? (Day 208)

7/27/2019

 
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Image by Prawny of Pixabay

Throughout our lives, we are nearly always engaged in seeking that which makes us happy. We chase after wealth and money, success and fame, as well as love and companionship… because we truly believe these things will be what gets us to “happy”. Don’t get me wrong: wealth, success, and the love of another are good things. Very good things, in fact…

… but is there anything better?

Wealth and money can be lost through poor decisions or taken from you by the poor decisions of others. Success and fame, by their nature, are things that always stay outside our grasp because they’re constantly changing, morphing, and mutating. Once you get your hands on “success”, you’ll find it’s idealized form shifting through your fingers, then find that success looks very different… and your quest for it begins again, and again, and again. Finally, anything from another, including love, is something that’s completely outside our control, whether we like it or not.

So, there has to be something better, right?

Yes… and that something better is: Virtue.

How we behave and move through the world is exclusively up to us. The decisions and micro-choices we make in every moment help to frame and inform our Virtue practice… again, generating the “goodness” of Virtue is exclusively up to us. No one else. It cannot be taken from us, nor can it come from anywhere beyond ourselves. It’s like we become the singular, never-ending font of our own happiness…

… and where, I ask you, is there anything better than that?

(See y’all tomorrow)

When Good Men Do Nothing (Day 207)

7/26/2019

 
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Image Credit: Crisis Response Journal

“Often injustice lies in what you aren’t doing, not only in what you are doing.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.5 

“If you choose not to decide - You still have made a choice”
Rush (Neal Peart), Freewill, Album: Permanent Waves (1980)

“Not doing anything is doing something and choosing to look away is a passive but no less mortal sin.” 
Bill Maher

“I don't believe anything's really inevitable until it happens. We just call it inevitable to make ourselves feel better about it, to excuse ourselves for not having done anything.” 
Lauren Willig

Y’all get the idea, right? 

Guilt isn’t limited to perpetrators in a reality that comes about by complex causality. Once again: Guilt isn’t limited to perpetrators. It’s shared by those who see, who know, who hear and who still choose to do nothing… while culpability may not be shared, guilt, most certainly, is. 

It’s hard to hear, and even harder to accept… as it should. It’s not about just NOT doing bad stuff… it’s about being a force of goodness and Virtue in the world. 

We desperately need it. 

(See y’all tomorrow) 

What’s on your Tombstone? (Day 206)

7/25/2019

 
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Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay

In my religious life, the practice of honoring/venerating my Ancestors is crucial. Remembering them through story, laughter, and most of all, a lot of love is as important to my outlook on life as is the Wisdom I gain from being in relationship with my wife, Rev. Bee. When I take time each day to sit quietly and reflect on my forebears, each one of them has a sort of “essence” to their memory… a flavor, a scent, a quality about them. Essentially, it’s what’s “written” on their “personal-memory headstones” in my mind and heart. Some of their epitaphs are poignant, accessible, and will remain lovely over the course of time, while others are simply an account of their own personal accomplishments when in life, accomplishments measured on a scale created by the egos of others.

Our deeds write our epitaphs. Who controls our deeds? Who do we SAY controls our deeds? 

Seneca knew what was up when it came to right-living with agency. He asked, “Is it really so pleasant to die in harness?” Maybe… but we need to know what it is we’re harnessed to. Is it Virtuous? Is it Self-serving? Once you know, how will that look on your headstone? In the end, will your work be what takes you out? Before you answer, think about what Russian historian and communism critic, Aleksander Solzhenitsyn said when he noted that, “Work is what horses die of.”  Always remember, you are a human being, not a human doing. 

What are you losing or surrendering in order to have a fancy inscription on your headstone? 

Maybe you see it as a sacrifice? Really? Is it sacra facere? If so, what is it that you’re making sacred? Fame? Superior feelings? Ego? 

Live in such a way that you make your Epitaph worth dying for. 

(See y’all tomorrow) 

Somewhere Someone’s Dying (Day 205)

7/24/2019

 
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Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

​In today’s world, especially in the US, we have ample opportunity to have “all the feels” about all sorts of tragic events: internment camps for children, dragging citizens out of homes and vehicles with no due process, open racism, shocking xenophobia, the school-to-prison pipeline, privatized corporate military… it’s a nigh-endless list of horrors. 

When we hear of these terrible things from friends, either directly or via social media, we feel for the victims of these acts, and sometimes if we’re feeling particularly awakened (or filled with blinding rage), we might even have some feels left over for the perpetrators. We want to make sure we emotionally show-up for the atrocities across the world. We not only want to have “feels” about these things, but we want to have the “right feels”. 

The right feels, however, are only one component of a three part solution to BEING a person of Virtue… not acting like one, or looking like one, or sounding like one, but rather existing as a person of Virtue. If one-third is all we’re doing, we’re only scoring 33% out of 100% as far as our humanity-response goes. 

If you remember, in an earlier post I talked about the Three Orthos: Orthopraxy (right doing or body-rightness), Orthodoxy (right believing or right mind), and Orthopathy (right feeling or emotional-rightness). Armed with all three, we exist in Virtue, in body, mind, and heart. 

Like today’s title says, someone is always dying somewhere… 

… and what are we going to DO about it? 

If we’ve convinced ourselves that our ‘doing’ ends at ‘emoting’, then we ain’t doin’ shit. 

(See y’all tomorrow)

Receive Honors and Slights Exactly the Same Way (Day 204)

7/23/2019

 
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Receive without pride, let go without attachment.”
Marcus Aurelius,
Meditations, 8.33

After sitting with today’s topic, I believe that it’s one of the hardest ones yet. Why? Because it’s one that instantly shows us how much ego we’re applying to a situation, and presents us with a direct mirror into our character, into us as people, as individuals.

Today’s lesson is an exercise in humility and non-attachment, and as such, it’s not meant to be taken lightly. Today’s lesson, when practiced diligently, will grant us the ability to distinguish the trivial from the important, a crucial ability when being humble and not attaching to things.

What’s this got to do with duty? Well, I believe it's focusing on our duty that helps us stay in a space where we can, with greater ease, become humble and not attach to things and circumstances. By concentrating on that which is beyond us, beyond our identity, beyond the individual, we can become the sagacious Stoic (or sagacious ‘whatever’) we’re training to be.

(See y’all tomorrow)

No One has a Gun to Your Head (Day 203)

7/22/2019

 
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Image Credit: Pixabay

Nothing is noble if it’s done unwillingly or under compulsion. Every noble deed is voluntary.”
Seneca, Moral Letters, 66.16b

Remember, no one says we have to do the right thing. No one is forcing us.

Like the title of today’s post said, no one is compelling us under penalty of death to do the right thing. We always have the option to be selfish, shortsighted, ignorant, and divisive. Not only that, but sometimes we feel those options are the ones that are most warranted.

I have to ask, what’s it like living like that? What’s it like being filled with enough righteous indignation to justify wrongdoing? It must be exhausting.

No one said we have to do the right thing; however, I think we are blessed to have the chance to do the right thing. It’s a blessing to be at the nexus of decision-making where we get to choose. People who choose the right thing, well… that says something about those folx.

Be one of those folx.

(See y’all tomorrow)
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    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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