Fidelity

The next virtue in my series on the Nine Noble Virtues in Heathenry is fidelity. For a short description, I wrote in my original article that the virtue of fidelity referred not to just being loyal, but to deserving loyalty one’s self, and further added that it was best when earned, and a curse when forced by deception or demand. This short description stresses merit in a big way, as I believe merit to be not just a virtue within itself, but the foundation for the virtue of fidelity….

Asatru, Prison, the Media

After reading the article at The Wild Hunt, about the prison inmate (identifying his religious path as Ásatrú) who is suing to have equal religious treatment in prison as that given to inmates of other faiths; and after thinking about the points in the article I felt were relevant from a Heathen perspective, I thought it might be a good idea to write down some of my thoughts here….

Happy New Year….

…. at least, to one fifth of the world’s population! For those from the remaining four fifths of the world’s population, who are wondering what the Year of the Pig might bring, first of all I wish you a Happy New Week, and hope this article might offer some insight. While I don’t claim to know much about the Chinese Zodiac, I have a sneaky suspicion that, come what may, this Yin-Water Ox (internal sign Rat, secret sign is well, secret) will trudge through :-)

Honor

Continuing with my article about the Nine Noble Virtues in Heathenry, I will next explore the third virtue, honor. I think it’s a fair estimate, that when most people think about the virtues of Heathens past and present, honor is as commonly thought of as courage – certainly the Romanticists of the late 18th – early 20th centuries held a similar view, one that was often mixed with the pseudo-racist idea of a noble savage. But what is honor, and where does it come from? My short description for it, that it wasn’t about reputation, that it was instead about worth and integrity, seems to have raised some eyebrows and I think that’s a good starting point for this attempt at exploring the virtue….

Religion of Environmentalism

I happened upon this article, by Joseph Brean of the National Post (Canada), about how the Green movement is more and more resembling a religion, and thought I’d share a link to the article as well as my reaction to it. I don’t go so far as to call myself an Environmentalist – I believe in global warming, I’m distressed about species and habitat loss, I recycle and try to minimize the amount of trash I create in the first place, I’m against whaling (and also against ramming whaling ships, thinking of the potential disaster when a ship sinks or leaks petrol), and I’m a full supporter of the Outdoor Code, as learned when I was in the Boy Scouts; yet I spend entirely too much time on a computer, and just this evening used an environmentally unfriendly can of leather sealant to make my new leather boots resistent to all the rain we get around here….

Validation

I wanted to draw some attention to an interesting post and commentary taking shape on Sojourner’s A Pagan Sojourn. The post poses some interesting thoughts about who exactly has the authority to validate Pagan religions, and includes links to some pretty interesting articles. If validity is necessary for people of any Pagan or Heathen path, then who has the authority to grant such validity? When we say that we need validity, which sense of the word are we thinking – a legal sense, or a sense of relevance? Although I do not personally think Pagans need validation from anyone other than other Pagans, and even then only to some extent (Heathens don’t need validation from Wiccans, or vice versa, for example); I do think that the issue of validation is one that should eventually be decided upon, as it affects greatly our approach to the rest of the world. It’s posts like Sojourner’s, in my opinion, that will help get the ball rolling on this process; so I encourage people to read and take part in it.

Crystal Clear Navigation

I came across this article, about how the Norse may have used crystals to navigate with, while reading a bit in the HeathenNews forum (in my Selected Links page), and thought I’d pass it along in the blogosphere. The process being described here, birefringence, is fully explained in this entry in Wikipedia. Essentially, it is this optical property (along with polarization of light), that researchers have determined will work on cloudy days, that the Norse may have possibly utilized in their navigation (knowing where the Sun was at in the sky would have given them an accurate idea of their position), enabling them to ply the gloomy and stormy North Sea and North Atlantic. In some places, I’ve written about how the Norse culture was able to embrace Nature and technology simultaneously – if this method of navigation could ever be proven to have been used by the Norse, it would be a splendid example of this seemingly paradoxical approach.

Truth

Continuing with my article about the Nine Noble Virtues in Heathenry, I will next address the second virtue, truth, and what it means to me. I’ve written before that this virtue signifies the following: “to seek and provide truth is to seek and provide reality, to have the wisdom to determine reality from fantasy, then further determine one reality from another.” In reading this short description, it would seem that I believe there are different realities, opposed to a singular ‘Reality’; and if I equate truth to reality, and believe there is more than one reality, then it stands to reason that I believe there is more than one truth – which I do. The essence of this virtue is, to me, involved in the determination of which truths to seek and provide….

Courage

Continuing with my article about the Nine Noble Virtues, I will begin my individual treatment of what each virtue means to me with the virtue of Courage. As I have stated before, I think it’s appropriate that Courage is the first of the nine virtues in Heathenry, as it takes courage in many cases to hold one’s self to the other virtues. When people look at the Nine Noble Virtues (NNV), decide that they will try to conduct their lives with the NNV as their ethical guide, and actually remain faithful to these virtues (even when it’s unpopular or dangerous to do so), courage is required….

The Nine Noble Virtues

I was approached several months ago by Arlea Hunt-Anschutz, of Pagan Dawn magazine, and asked if I would be “willing to expand” on some E-mails I posted to the UK Heathenry list, regarding a debate about the Nine Noble Virtues, in article format and constrained to 1800 words. Anyone who knows me (or anyone who reads this blog for longer than two minutes) probably knows that I am of course quite happy to expand on just about anything that comes to mind, let alone something I feel passionately about (Expanding Inward is built on my habit of Expounding Outward). The article was to be printed in the Imbolc 2007 edition and, since I didn’t think it would be fair to post this article online until it had gone into circulation, I have been keeping myself as silent as possible about the Nine Noble Virtues (NNV) lest I be sorely tempted to post something before it was time. Since this edition is now circulating, I am quite happy to share with you my thoughts on this topic….