by Valerius Claudius Iohanes on Fri Apr 24, 2009 12:02 am
Salvete, Omnes qui heic legitis.
This is an old thread, begun under the SVR's founders, but still of interest. At the risk of being a doofus, I think I will comment on my own position a little:
My stance in the world of thought is half-assed, eclectic and a bit eccentric but, I propose, still a valid one. Having lived too much of my little life in fear, self-judgment and the fear of judgments, all of which belong in the end to merely limited, self-interested mortals, and having in recent years hit my head hard enough against life to have come up dazed but with a greater clarity of sight, I now embrace all the things in my life that are recurrent but are not simply vices. That is to say, I honor my own Ingenium Mortale - my limited but insistent Self that is ever trying to come to be. (And which, you know, may finally be getting a little closer to that goal. It had better - I'm not getting any younger!)
Among these things I now allow myself to hold dear are:
a reverence for other people's beliefs,
a disdain of extremism and prejudice, and the actions springing therefrom,
a faith in the basic unity of the best of teachings,
an acceptance of the utter imperfection of Men and Things,
a love of epigrams and quote-culling and explication,
a joy in the Indefiniteness of Life (again, an acceptance of Universal Imperfection and Ultimate Ignorance),
a joy in the notion of the Gods, who are Immortal also for their recurrence in our minds,
a grimmer acceptance of the nature of the Anima Mundi (in so far as a mortal can accept something so prodigious and inhuman),
and a bit of hero-worship for the better sorts of men and women, for the Good Ideas and Good Conduct they exemplify.
In addition, and as a more recent discovery, I have come to admire and concur with the notions and fragmentary knowledge (as imperfectly known and transmitted) of the imperfect sages such as:
Herakleitos,
Ecclesiastes,
Lao-tzu,
Zeno of Citium,
Epicurus,
Christ,
Epictetus, and the Stoics generally,
and so on. Although my education suffers from my own limitations, it nonetheless continues.
As for traditions, I follow none in a hard-core 'religious' sense. I make appeals or give testimony for the Gods, but rarely, just as I rarely go to mass to receive the Eucharist, and only rarely find the moment free to light a candle to the Beings and Powers I honor.
What are the Gods? Magic remnants and present Spirits - places of refuge for Notions of Life and of Living - ghostly partners in a broken world.
Who are the Gods? They are family.
I honor Shamash-Jehovah-Iuppiter, the Spirit of Justice and Living Right;
I honor Iesu Christ, my native Spirit;
Tellus Mater I honor, the Spirit of Life Unbound or Abundant;
Minerva I honor, Divine Kin and Spirit of Intelligence and Good Conduct;
and I also honor the Two Greater Spirits:
- the Minor Spirit, of perseverence and peace, of compassion & good conduct, and
- the Major Spirit, of the horrifying Anima Mundi, of Suns and Atoms, of dread Necessity and Ubiquitous Eternity.
And I hope that is not too long, rambling and repetitive. Valete.
Valerius Claudius Iohannes
Curator anno MMDCCLXII
Centurio Honorarius Societatis
Civis ab MMDCCLIV
:: Adversitas bono viro intelligentiam docet. ::