on the virtues of Wicca
Thought I'd share a topic my coveners and I have discussed at a moon and did a working with over our annual coven retreat in July. It's a bit of ramble, so bear with me.
My profession requires me to spend a lot of time waiting in public schools, and while doing so I have noticed that several schools have a poster titled "The Six Pillars of Character" which they define as caring, respect, citizenship, responsibility, trustworthiness and fairness. This made me think about the medieval concept of the five knightly virtues - chivalry, fealty, charity, piety, and gravitas. This symbol for those five nightly virtues is a heraldic flower called a cinquefoil - a yellow star-shaped flower with five petals. I've used that symbol for years as a "hidden pentacle" in several different historical re-creation groups.
That led me to think about the pentacle of course, and what the virtues of a Wiccan would be. I thought about the Wiccan Rede of course, and the Charge of the Goddess and God, and about the list of virtues used in Asatru - which include strength, loyalty, courage, joy, freedom, honor, realism, vigor, and revering the ancestors. I also thought about what some Wiccan traditions call the Ardaynes - a long list of (sometimes-badly rhymed) rules or guidelines Wiccans are supposed to follow, and these are commonly considered interpretations of the Rede.
Bad rhyming and scansion aside, it seemed to me that the Ardaynes were ungainly - too long and in some cases too fulsome. So I brought the topic up at a moon, and my coveners and students came up with what they considered the five primary Wiccan Virtues, as follows:
REVERENCE -which includes ethics, tolerance, respect for others, and humility, as well as reverencing the Divine.
WISDOM - which includes legacy/lineage, ethical intelligence, learning, teaching, self-reflection, and patience.
INTEGRITY - which includes responsibility, accountability, and credibility in the "a witch is as good as their word" sense of the word.
CONNECTEDNESS - which includes stewardship of the earth, active citizenship, service to the coven and the community, and being a mentor or clergy.
INVOLVEMENT - which includes supporting education, advocacy for Wicca as a world religion, being active in the community, participation in and out of a coven, and commitment to a spiritual path.
In the moon, we added an additional expanding spiral to the center of the flower, which we felt indicated synergy and symbolized the Lord, the Lady and the Self. We then did a working with cord and beads to build yourself a reminder of these five Wiccan Virtues to take with us in our daily lives. It was interesting to me , in particular to see what students thought were crucial virtues as a modern Wiccan.
When we held our annual retreat, we had students think of deities, male and female, to associate with the Wiccan virtues, and then did a long guided meditation where students drew down a pair of these deities associated with the Wiccan virtue they thought they needed more help with. The results were interesting, and I'll be intrigued to watch how my students and coveners bring the lesons learned into their lives. For my part, I spent sacred time with my patrones, Hecate and Shiva, about the Wiccan virtue of wisdom, and one of the side effects of that was to resume a scrapbooking project I'd set aside, with pretty clear instructions that a path to wisdom is integrating the past.
My profession requires me to spend a lot of time waiting in public schools, and while doing so I have noticed that several schools have a poster titled "The Six Pillars of Character" which they define as caring, respect, citizenship, responsibility, trustworthiness and fairness. This made me think about the medieval concept of the five knightly virtues - chivalry, fealty, charity, piety, and gravitas. This symbol for those five nightly virtues is a heraldic flower called a cinquefoil - a yellow star-shaped flower with five petals. I've used that symbol for years as a "hidden pentacle" in several different historical re-creation groups.
That led me to think about the pentacle of course, and what the virtues of a Wiccan would be. I thought about the Wiccan Rede of course, and the Charge of the Goddess and God, and about the list of virtues used in Asatru - which include strength, loyalty, courage, joy, freedom, honor, realism, vigor, and revering the ancestors. I also thought about what some Wiccan traditions call the Ardaynes - a long list of (sometimes-badly rhymed) rules or guidelines Wiccans are supposed to follow, and these are commonly considered interpretations of the Rede.
Bad rhyming and scansion aside, it seemed to me that the Ardaynes were ungainly - too long and in some cases too fulsome. So I brought the topic up at a moon, and my coveners and students came up with what they considered the five primary Wiccan Virtues, as follows:
REVERENCE -which includes ethics, tolerance, respect for others, and humility, as well as reverencing the Divine.
WISDOM - which includes legacy/lineage, ethical intelligence, learning, teaching, self-reflection, and patience.
INTEGRITY - which includes responsibility, accountability, and credibility in the "a witch is as good as their word" sense of the word.
CONNECTEDNESS - which includes stewardship of the earth, active citizenship, service to the coven and the community, and being a mentor or clergy.
INVOLVEMENT - which includes supporting education, advocacy for Wicca as a world religion, being active in the community, participation in and out of a coven, and commitment to a spiritual path.
In the moon, we added an additional expanding spiral to the center of the flower, which we felt indicated synergy and symbolized the Lord, the Lady and the Self. We then did a working with cord and beads to build yourself a reminder of these five Wiccan Virtues to take with us in our daily lives. It was interesting to me , in particular to see what students thought were crucial virtues as a modern Wiccan.
When we held our annual retreat, we had students think of deities, male and female, to associate with the Wiccan virtues, and then did a long guided meditation where students drew down a pair of these deities associated with the Wiccan virtue they thought they needed more help with. The results were interesting, and I'll be intrigued to watch how my students and coveners bring the lesons learned into their lives. For my part, I spent sacred time with my patrones, Hecate and Shiva, about the Wiccan virtue of wisdom, and one of the side effects of that was to resume a scrapbooking project I'd set aside, with pretty clear instructions that a path to wisdom is integrating the past.