Pagan Values Blogging Month: It Begins!

So! June is Pagan Values Blogging Month, and after a couple years of muttering “next year…” I’ve decided this is the year! So June will bring you some meandering from me on the subject of “Pagan Values” — which, for the purposes of this blog, I am taking to mean “Values Which I, A Pagan, Hold.”

Firstly: “wtf do you mean by Pagan,” I hear some of you cry. “Pagan” is such a friggin’ huge umbrella term that it’s almost meaningless. Someone who is a hardcore reconstructionist trying to recreate the religion of Classical Greece is a Pagan. So is someone who wanders around in fairy wings and says “Harm None!” a lot and worships the moon.

When I say I’m a Pagan, I mean that I am a polytheist (although one who is agnostic on the “all gods are one god” thing) who worships multiple gods, seeks out mystical connection with the universe, and sees all creation as sacred. I study with Thorn Coyle, who somehow manages to be both a mystic and a skeptical academic; one of the fiercest, mostly strong-willed and disciplined people I know and also one of the kindest and most generously loving. I greatly admire that, and aspire to emulate her.

I have a lot of values — I resonate with the seven virtues of Bushido, for example, and have been very tempted to join in the long-term blogging project about the Delphic Maxims — but for this month I’m going to try to focus on the big ones, the ones that I keep coming back to over and over, the ones that feel like mine rather than like someone else’s. They are:

1. Experiential Pragmatism
2. Integrity
3. Fierce Compassion
4. Love / Reverence for the Sacred
5. Will / Self-Knowledge

I know this is uncharacteristically serious for Ego! Ego! Ego!, but I have Opinions (TM) about this stuff, and finally feel like sharing. I’ll be putting cuts fairly high up in the entries, so if you’re just here for the Avengers/fandom babbling, you can scroll on by quickly. :)