What About the Pagan Values Project

This is a new concept to me. While I've been a casual, personal blogger for a few years, I've never been active in the blogging communities. I'm slowly breaking in by reading some blogs and reaching out and commenting. Putting my thoughts out there, challenging opinions and being challenged right back. The philosopher in me is in heaven. Recently I heard about the Pagan Values Project. I did a little investigating and found that this is the third year from the project. I also found while there are many people who have embraced this project as a great discussion forum to share beliefs and opinions, challenge their own thoughts and inspire others, there is a population of people who disagree with the project and feel it's intent is to put a border around "Pagan Values" and define what "Pagans" should believe. I personally do not believe this is the intent of the project at all.

To me, this project is about communication. Communication is a personal value of my own, and I also think this is a value of every religion and spiritual path in some way or another. As my own personal value, I look at communication the way to help others understand each other. Whether that be understanding what we need done, how to work together, expectations, expressing feelings; we need communication and this is why I value it so highly. There is an art to communication, sometimes simple as in communicating our basic needs, other times more complicated, such as communicating how depression affects us. As a value held by religions and spiritual paths, communication may be the value people use to identify with communicating with the Divine. Through prayer, ritual, meditation, observation, or any other method. We communicate with the Divine to express our needs, our gratitude, our love, our desires, our celebrations and any other connection we make with the Divine. To me, this project is a great example of a value held by many, Pagan or not. Communication is just one value this project promotes, but there are other such as community, differences, tolerance, Deity and many more.

I do not expect that every Pagan conforms to every value another Pagan has. Rather I look at values as belonging on a continuum. At one end is where a person finds little value to the attribute, on the other end is where a person finds great value to the attribute. There will be some values that many, if not all, Pagans identify with. I do not think that there should be a boundary placed around these values, but it is a great starting place to help answer the question of "what do Pagan's believe?" I also acknowledge that because we are not placing boundaries around what "Pagan Values" are, it means we know that we are ever evolving. There will always be growth, and this project helps to promote this growth, both on a personal, individual level, as well as growth among the Pagan community itself. Personal growth is another value that I hold higher up on the continuum of values, and I'm sure there are many people who feel the same way.

Defining values as belonging to "Pagans" or "Christians" is another argument I've noticed as I browsed through some discussions of values. My view on this is that a value by definition is an attribute or belief held by a specific culture. There is Pagan culture and there is Christian culture, as well as hundreds of other religions who have their own culture also. When someone identifies something as "XXXX Value" it does not mean they are laying ownership to that value, only that it is found within a grouping of values held by many of that culture. This means that the same value can overlap among several different religions or spiritual paths. It is important to understand this designation because there may be some values that are shared, but some values that are not shared. This is just another way to categorize things. For the blogging world, you might compare it to tagging. One blog post may be tagged with 1, 2 and 3. And the next tagged with 2, 4, and 6. Both blogs hold the tag of 2, but the other tags are a difference between them. It doesn't mean one is better than the other, just that there are similarities and differences. This is another value I hold, celebrating the similarities and differences among all people. Multiculturalism is a great thing and it is being more widely accepted everyday.

These are just a few of my points supporting this project and I think it will be a great forum for discussion to build and celebrate our similarities and differences.

Bright Blessings,
~Ava

Exploring Agnosticism

I've heard the term Agnostic a few times lately and I'll admit, I didn't know much about what people meant when they claim this viewpoint on religion, so I did a little reading. The basic gist of Agnostic is that deity is unknowable, therefore there is no belief of or against deity. Currently I'm in the process of exploring my own personal beliefs so I took some time to contemplate if I fit into this category of beliefs. Quickly I determined I do not. I have great respect for this viewpoint as it makes a lot of sense to me. Especially since I hold a lot of weight on academics and logic. However, I also have a strong spiritual and emotional side. While I do believe deity is unknowable in a scientific measuring system, I don't want to remove personal measuring. One view I picked up from Universal Eclectic Wicca, is the idea of UPG, unverified personal gnosis. This is the idea that we can all have our own personal experiences with the divine which make them true to us, but not anyone else. If I receive a message through meditation or in nature, and it really speaks to me, giving me inspiration or altering the beliefs I currently hold, this is UPG. It doesn't affect anyone but me, however it is extremely meaningful and true for myself. Because I believe in UPG and the ability for the divine to speak to me through the emotional and spiritual self, I know there is deity, it may not be in any form describable by human means, but the divine is there and the divine speaks to me. I am inspired by the messages I receive, both big and small. Therefore, I am not agnostic.

On a side note. For all you philosophers out there, I know this post opens up a lot of questions. There are always a lot of questions when religious views and proof of deity come up. However, one question I might do a bit of thinking and philosophical research on is where I bring up the physical, spiritual and emotional self. Some people might even say there is an intellectual self. Can there really be more than one "self." Isn't this all one big make up of one person? Should a person be separated into more than one self? Does that take away a person's identity? Is it nonsense to talk in this way? Dang philosophy, so many questions and so many answers. This should be a fun area to explore sometime. I really hope I have time to come back to it!

Joy and Death

Last night America surprisingly received the news that Osama Bin Laden was dead. This news met me with mixed emotions. Here I was happy that so many people are finally receiving some sort of closure for the horrible actions he masterminded (although there is some arguments suggesting he was not behind the terrorist attacks on 9/11). However, I cannot help but reflect on my own personal morals. Is death by another's hand ever really moral? Even considering the horrendous acts committed by his direction? This is in regard to official violence, which refers to the acceptance by society on violence directed by authority which is stated to have a benefit to society. Am I for or against this type of violence? It's hard to say, there are so many angles, it is not a clear cut dilemma. I do not like conflict, but I recognize it exists and I know it has to be addressed. I also know that we need to defend ourselves from the uncontrollable action of others, both personally and as a society.

One thing I do feel is that celebration upon a death is not right. I acknowledge the significance of the death of Osama Bin Laden, and I have announced it publicly, with a slight corner of my mouth turned up. However, along with my announcement I also directed to another important point, the war is not over. This statement means a lot of things to different people. It means there is still war. There is still fighting. There is still death. It also can mean that we are one step closer to the end, and also, that step is bringing closure and "justice" to many other people who lost their lives or lost loved ones in the attack.

Many other people are celebrating. They are adding an element of joy and celebration to this death that bothers me. People are glorifying this death, and treating it as a war trophy, which it is not. It is not a trophy for a person to pull a trigger and willingly kill another, no matter which side of the fight they are on. It may be considered a necessary action, which I do not deny, however that person may have emotional stressors about this for the rest of their life. Not to mention all of the troops who have been emotionally and physically scarred through the last ten years of fighting. This death is not one to be celebrated. It was necessary and it is done. It is time to acknowledge the significance and move on to healing our loved ones and continue to protect ourselves, while moving on to the next defense strategy.

With mixed emotions, I wish blessings on all those affected by war...that would be every person living and dead. Bright blessings on a hope for a peaceful future, may our actions have the results we are working so strongly and courageously for, with few ill effects.

Ava