Pagan Values event 2012

Welcome to the 2012 Pagan Values event.

Started as a blog carnival in 2009 and expanded into an open event for bloggers and podcasters in 2010, this event lasts the month of June and provides a bully pulpit for Pagans and Polytheists and many others to speak about our Values.  In a world where our many faiths and paths are often held up for ridicule or as straw dogs of evil for Fundamentalists, it would be easy to remain silent; especially as articulating our values and how we act upon them challenges the Fundamentalist’s claim of ownership over all Values and Virtues, and can attract unwanted attention from them

However, in not articulating these things we also miss out on the friendships and connections that can arise with like-minded folks of many Faiths and Paths.  We miss out on the opportunity to speak the Truth of who we are and what we do.  We miss the chance to perhaps bring some much needed change and inspiration to a world in need.

What are the Ethics, the Virtues, and Values that Contemporary Paganism has taught you to cherish, to live, to bring with you in your every interaction with the world?  What do you do, inspired by these values?  What adventures, or misadventures, has your Paganism and the Values and Virtues and Ethics it has inspired led you too?  What and who have you encountered on your spiritual and moral journey as a Pagan?  How have you acted upon these Values.  What have you done inspired by these Virtues?  What wrestling matches have you had when these Ethics encountered the real world?

Write of these things on your blogs, speak of them on your podcasts, share the links with me either here in the comments section of this blog post, or on the Facebook page for the 2012 event.

Thank you,

Pax / Geoffrey Stewart

Note: until July 1st this post will be stuck to the front page of the Pagan Values Blogject…

Ethical Eating?

So one of the early contributions to the 2012 Pagan Values Event was from Selina over at Cauldron to Kitchen, who shared the first of her series of posts “Pagan Kosher” from August of last year on our 2012 event FB page.  I was intrigued because last year Jessica from over at Malaise Can Sit, Jeeze! shared a similarly themed post “Eating Gi“.

Another contribution from last year posted in From David Salisbury’s Cauldron, entitled Animal Rights: My Pagan Value is not unrelated to this topic as he discusses the global food industries treatment of animals…

A little poking around the Interwebs also showed that the good folk over at Pagan Blog Prompts did an Ethical Eating prompt back in June of last year; and Lady Lala from the multi-author blog Practical Pagans also wrote about Ethical Eating last year…

Ethical Eating is sort of a catch-all term that can include moral and ethical bases for things from buying/eating Organic and Fair Trade items, to Vegetarianism and Veganism, to engaging in the Slow Food or Localvore movements.

I really don’t have much to say for myself on this topic yet, since most of my food choices are trying to navigate what seems the sometimes competing complexities of eating healthier, and buying what I can actually afford.  But I am trying to learn more about this topic, and figured a post connecting to several posts and resources was in order…

There are a number of very useful resources out there on the topic of Ethical Eating, including a very basic guide from New York Magazine, a list of resources and links on Ethical Eating from the Unitarian Universalist Association, the transcript (because the link to the video sadly does not seem to be working) of a segment on Ethical Eating from Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, and an enjoyable post about Ethical Eating from the Aquarian Newspaper…

So what do you think of this topic?  How do you engage with the practice of Ethical Eating?

Isaac Bonewits Neo-Pagan Ethics and Theology

This video is from an interview done in 2002 as part of a 10 year anthropological study.

Integrity

 T. Thorn Coyle recently posted a Youtube video on the topic of Integrity.  This video is from her teaching series Fiat Lux, as well as her work in Kissing The Limitless.

 

The Delphic Maxims Blogging Party

Earlier this year Star Foster at the Patheos Pagan Channel started blogging about the Delphic Maxims, and has inspired a spontatneous Blog Party on that worthy topic with a number of bloggers participating.  There were a few shares on this on the 2012 Pagan Values Event Facebook Page and Thalassa at Musings of a Kitchen Witch has a great summary post of who is participating so far!

What sources of inspiration, what texts, what lore, speaks to and inspires your quest for excellence in your Pagan path?

Living Our Values

The recent post The Work of a Witch,  by Witch and fabulously well written and eloquent blogger Hecate Demeter is well worth reading.  In it she discusses her plans for spending a week with her grandson, and of not only living her values as a Witch but sharing them with her grandson…

“Is this the work of a Witch? Yes. Yes, it is. When I was raising Son, I was doing the work of Demeter, the work of THE MOTHER. And, now, I am doing the work of Baba Yaga, the work of THE CRONE.

What I’m passing on is the joy of simple pleasures outside. The love of place. History. Physical strength. A memory of a time when everything was OK and blue jays showed up for breakfast.”~Hecate Demeter (C) 2012

Hecate’s entire blog is well worth reading, not only for its excellence in writing, but for a wonderful example of a Pagan and Witch who is living her values day in and day out, who wrestles with the questions raised by her faith and path and who is willing to share the lessons she’s learned with others.

Compassion

So there is a fascinating discussion of Compassion and boundaries and relationship entitled The Problem of the Pagan ‘Us and Them’ going on over at Bishop in The Grove over on the Patheos Pagan Portal.

That post, and the discussion, are informed by a previous post by Theo  Teo Bishop on Where Does Compassion Belong Among Pagans and Polytheists,  and a responding post by Steven T. Abell entitled Compassion in Cold Climates, both very much worth reading.

At the same time, or at least recently, a new study was released that showed that this virtue seems to show up as a reason for doing good more with non-religious folks than for religious folks… although I have to say the scope of the study seems relatively small given the methodology… I’d love to see more studies on this topic.

Does anyone have any other readings, articles, or thoughts to share on the topic of Compassion in Contemporary Paganism?

 

(edited to corect Teo Bishop’s name, and with my compliments and apologies to the gentleman.)