This is a draft of a
statement of progressive socio-policy principles based on my understanding of
basic Pagan religious choices and spiritual inclinations. While I have expressed it in the plural, it is my own
reasoning and rhetoric, and no others’ – most notably it does not represent the
opinion of ADF or any other group or whatsis with which I am associated. It is
me at the end of a plank, neck stuck-out, right next to John Beckett this week.
I invite critique. I have not attempted to fine-tune for obvious exceptions to
these guidelines, which are many. I do not believe that setting simple rules
and sticking to them without exception is generally wise, and so all this is
offered only as an example of the kind of theological and values-thinking of which
our movement is yet rather short.
I: Principles
1: Axiomata
• We declare that individual humans contain a worthy spark
of the divine flame, a pure spring of the divine waters, and that the
individual mind and will embody the divine will in those sparks and springs.
• We perceive that individuals are naturally entangled in the web of both
nature and society (human nature). Therefore just as we owe honor to our own
divine nature we owe conscious participation to our networks and the duty to
ensure to individuals full and equal participation in all aspects of civic and
religious life.
• We assert especially a holy sovereignty of the body, mind and will of living
humans. Barring an unarguable need, it is not the business of community or individuals to
intrude on the choices of the flesh or spirit.
• We assert the divine freedom-of-action of every being as a
primary Good. When such freedom is reduced the good of all is reduced, so let
us be wary of responding to fear with restriction.
• Likewise we observe the interdependence of living things
and systems, and acknowledge that individual will must often conform to larger
need. In this we pray to wisdom for guidance.
• Because wellness and good outcomes are cumulative in a
system we therefore undertake to seek wellness, wholeness and harmony in our
lives and work.
• Thus we describe these principles, that we may seek that
harmony for ourselves and our communities.
2: Property
• We perceive that the world and its beings belong each to ourselves. All being
is holy life, and all life proceeds on its path as our interactions allow.
• It seems fair that individuals should claim such resources
as are needed for their own life and work. When such claims are done in the
public eye and with community consent we call such claiming ‘property’ and ‘ownership’.
• We assert the spiritual right to claim a hearth on the
land, and take our spiritual place among the beings of the land. In this we
follow the customs of our community, but we stand, at last, on our spiritual
right of claiming.
• Such claiming bestows an equal responsibility for the
well-being of the beings and communities of the land, balanced with our right to use resources
according to our need. In this let us seek wisdom and balance.
• Therefor we also advise against greed. To hoard resources
in private is to deprive community of its life-flow, for little beyond imagined
benefit. Let wisdom teach the difference between prosperity and greed.
3: Gender, Love, and Pair-Bonding
• Perceiving gender-presentation to be a social construct,
we affirm every individual’s holy right to be who they are led to be, according
to their will and work.
• We assert that sexual and intimacy expression and the
pursuit of sexual and intimate pleasure are of equal value to the bearing of
children; that they develop and deepen the human person in ways otherwise unobtainable.
We assert a religious right to seek sexual and intimate pleasure for our own
sake, and that of the greater good of our communities.
• Therefore we acknowledge and celebrate the joining in Love
of all people who are drawn together by true and holy Eros, or by Caritas, or
even by Agape.
• Specifically we feel bound by religious duty to honor all
bonds of loving union made between consenting persons. In this we again may
take advice from the community, but we assert our religious right to sanction
unions regardless of statute.
4: Duty to the Land
• We perceive the ‘ecosystem’ of the world around us as a
direct expression of holy spiritual persons and powers, present in and as the
land. A major part of our spiritual work is to establish and maintain
relationship with those beings and systems.
• We choose to live as participants in the ecosystem in
which we reside, doing our best to do good for both ourselves and for whole
systems.
• Therefore we assert that human society has a collective duty
to protect and maintain local and planetary ecosystems. We see a religious duty
to pursue this work in our own lives, and in public policy, as we are able.
5: Duty to our
Fellow-Humans
• We assert the individual sovereignty, as equally-noble
spirits, of every mortal born. While fate and strength may set us all in our
several places, we find no spiritual cause to see greater merit in one human
ethnic clan, lineage, gender-group, or circumstance than in another.
Individuals rise and fall according to our fates, and our heritage or biology
need not be our destiny.
• We assert that it is contrary to harmony and beauty to grant privilege to one
sort of human, or place restriction on another, based on the fate of their
birth.
• Especially we hold that the gods and spirits are
unconcerned with the family, ethnic, or gender heritage of their worshipers.
Those who assert such things deform the truth.
• Therefore we welcome to the Hearth of Kinship and the Fire
of Worship all who come with a guest’s heart, regardless of ethnic or gender
presentation. We affirm a core of relationship with all humans.
6: Duty to the Gods
and Spirits
• We perceive the divine in and as the uncountable beings of
myth and lore, from the Ancient First Ones to the nearest garden-spirit. These
beings great and small entwine in the webs of spiritual ecosystems.
• As ‘religion’ it is our work to help establish and
maintain the relationships between mortals and the spirits. Therefore it is our
religious duty and right to perform ceremonies of worship and spiritual craft,
as our traditions teach.
• In this we claim all the customs and ways of those
traditional religions; the raising of idols as presences of the divine; the
establishment of Altars and Fires of Offering and worship; the honoring of the
features and wonders of nature as the presence of the divine; the keeping of
the Sacred Calendar, and the words and songs and deeds of ritual. Likewise we
claim as part of holy tradition the practices of divination – sortilege,
mediumship, and the seeking of omens; also the work of spiritual healing, and
of spiritual methods of seeking luck, prosperity and blessing, which are often
called ‘magic’.
II: Specifics
In light of these principles we claim these social and
spiritual rights and duties of our religion, without disallowing any others
which might reasonably follow from our premises:
• We assert the right to keep public and private rites of
worship and offering without hindrance, and with the accommodation offered any
religious body. This includes all the common works of religion – marriage, funeral,
sacrament, and other personal-passages.
• We assert the right to make private spiritual services of the kind called
divination and magic available to our folk and the community.
• We declare that every member of our society is kin, worthy
of maintenance and the chance to contribute to the people’s good. We support
societal effort to prevent and relieve disadvantage, hunger and want.
• We see that we, individually and collectively, owe the land the honor due a
parent – to care for it as we would an aging Elder. We support careful
restriction of commerce in service to those goals.
• We affirm the social equality of ‘queer’ sexual natures and gender non-conformity
with the common norms. We affirm the value of personal sexual expression as
greater than that of social conformity or regulation.
• We affirm reproductive autonomy and body sovereignty for
all people. We support responsible reproductive planning for all people, and ready
access to birth and pregnancy management for women and their doctors.
• We affirm the right to compose families and affection-groups as life and
choice lead.
• Centrally we affirm both the sovereignty of individuals
and the obligation of individuals toward the human collectives that sustain us,
and likewise to the spiritual collectives existing in the worlds around us. Let
us each keep our own flame, and come to the Fire of Sacrifice together.
