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Mountain Ancestors Grove, ADF

A Year of Contemplation

One Day it Will All Make Sense (Day 72)

3/13/2019

 
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Image Credit: Pixabay

Today’s theme caused me to explore the space where religiosity and humanist realism overlap. 

ADF’s style of “druidry” is really a pan-Indo-European devotional polytheist practice, and in this kind of practice there’s a lot of preference placed on learning about things unknown through the process of divination. When we’re left wondering about possible outcomes: cast the runestaves. When we’re fearful about the future: pick a card. When we’re looking for the hidden bits of causality, and answers to the question of “why”: consult the oracle. 

Much of what’s happening when we engage in divination is us trying to find where to place the blame for misunderstandings, failures, hopes, and fears. We’re seeking to assuage our feelings of being wronged because things didn’t go how we wanted them to. 

Whenever you find yourself blaming providence, turn it around in your mind and you will see that what has happened is in keeping with reason.”
​(Epictetus, Discourses, 3.17.1)

​Essentially, we’re looking for a detached, comforting, and elegant answer to the question of “why”. There isn’t a lot of room for boring things like reason, logic, and things beyond our control. 

Remember when “shit happens” was making the rounds in the U.S. vernacular? According to the Dictionary of American Proverbs (Yale University Press, 2012) the phrase first appeared in print in the late 70’s in Wesley Brown’s novel Tragic Magic. Brown, very astutely, said, “Once you know the reason why shit happens, you shouldn’t have to ask the question anymore.” It’s awareness that helps us know those reasons… but it’s our ego that convinces us those reasons have to be something special, magical, or metaphysical. 

Usually, things come to pass because of complex causality. Nothing happens “out of the blue”. Everything has reasons for becoming. 

In Buddhism there exists the principle of Pratītyasamutpāda (Sanskrit: प्रतीत्यसमुत्पाद). Commonly translated as dependent origination, or dependent arising, it’s a key principle in their teachings. Essentially, what’s being said is: all phenomena arise in dependence upon other phenomena. In other words, if this exists, that exists; and if this ceases to exist, that also ceases to exist.

We can’t always see the whole story, but one thing I can say for sure:

Like our lives, there are a LOT more quotidian experiences than there are miraculous ones. 

One day, it’ll all make sense… even if today isn’t that day, remain aware. 

Like Shakespeare wrote in “The Merchant of Venice” - truth will out. 

Keep practicing. 

(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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