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Chanting the Wedding Blessings

Hereabouts, just before a couple jumps the broom, it's customary to chant over them the Threefold Wedding Blessing.

Thirty-two years ago, I chanted them over two dear friends; today, in honor of thirty-two years together (and wishing them thirty-two more) I'll chant them again.

As one would expect for a wedding, the blessings are paired. (Read closely: the pairings are not random.) After each pair of blessings, assembled family and friends will respond: So mote it be.

(We have it from the ancestors that, when you respond So mote it be to a blessing, it is considered as if you had pronounced the blessing yourself.)

Then they'll jump the broom.

The Wedding Blessings

Grace of form, grace of voice be thine.

So mote it be.

Grace of charity, grace of wisdom be thine.

So mote it be.

Grace of beauty, grace of health be thine.

So mote it be.

Grace of sea, grace of land be thine.

So mote it be.

Grace of music, grace of guidance be thine.

So mote it be.

Grace of battle-triumph, grace of victory be thine.

So mote it be.

Grace of life, grace of praise be thine.

So mote it be.

Grace of love, grace of dancing be thine.

So mote it be.

Grace of pipe, grace of harp be thine.

So mote it be.

Grace of sense, grace of reason be thine.

So mote it be.

Grace of speech, grace of story be thine.

So mote it be.

Grace of peace, grace of all be thine.

So mote it be.

"So, what have you been doing lately?"

I haven't seen N in quite a while. Foolishly, I ask the expected question.

“Thank Goddess, I finally got the new bathroom finished,” she can't wait to say.

Woe upon me, she whips out her phone and, finger-jabbing, speaks the dreaded words.

“Want to see some pictures?”

The definition of a bore is someone who says the same thing to anyone. (Interesting people discuss topics of mutual interest.)

No N, I don't want to see your pictures.

No one wants to see your pictures.

Gods, clueless pagans.

She'll show me three pictures of the toilet—from different angles, of course—three of the sink (same), then the shower. Then, if I'm really lucky, maybe I'll get to see some close-ups of tiles and grout, too.

And that's just the beginning. She'll stand here, rapid-scrolling, with running verbal patter, for just as long as I'm fool enough to play the polite.

Sorry N, you're committing a major breach of hospitality here. I understand that you've worked very hard and are proud of the results.

Seriously, though: how could you possibly think that anyone else would be interested?

Boorishness, meet dishonesty.

Big Questions

How long have you been pagan? Five years? Twenty-five? All your life?

Time, then, for some big questions.

Has your paganism made you a better person?

Has your paganism challenged you to grow?

Has your paganism bettered the lives of those around you?

Sour cream keeps for a long time, but this particular batch—filmed over with a scum of red goo—is clearly well past its Use By date.

Normally, I would take it out back and scrape the contents into the compost; then I would wash the plastic container and put it into the recycling. But I'm busy making breakfast and suddenly the extra work seems more than I want to do. I replace the lid and, feeling a pang of guilt, put it into the garbage.

I'm a pagan. I reuse, repurpose, and recycle religiously, and I mean that literally. In the general way of things, I generate very little garbage, throwing out maybe one bag of garbage every couple/three weeks: mostly dental floss (the commercial stuff is all plasticized) and non-recyclable plastic (like the bags that leaf spinach comes in). I feel a little stab, seeing the eminently-recyclable plastic sour cream container in amongst the spinach bags, but I steel myself and turn back to my breakfast-making.

I don't get far in my preparations, though, standing at the chopping board in a miasma of guilt as pungent as a fart. I heave a sigh, retrieve the sour cream, and take it out back to the heap. Life would be so much easier if we had no values.

Many come to the Old Ways from shame cultures, seeking an escape from the internalized guilt that poisons their natal societal air.

Well, I've got some bad news for you: only sociopaths feel no guilt. When it comes to guilt, pagans feel our share; we're just differently guilty. Perhaps the very best to be said is that when pagans feel guilt, it's because we've broken our own rules, not someone else's.

First of all, you've really got to love the name: Olympiódorus, “Gift of the Olympian (or Olympians).” Gods, what a name to give your kid. Was this child loved, or what?

The Late Classical neo-Platonist philosopher Olympiodorus (c. 495–570)—known as the Younger to distinguish him from a famous older namesake—was the last pagan to head the School of Alexandria. A number of his writings survive, from which we can tell that he was a deep thinker indeed.

Thinking pagans have long organized their ethical thought around the virtues. (“An it harm none, do what thou wilt” is all very well so far as it goes, but—apart from telling you what not to do—it offers little, if any, guidance on what to do, on how to live well, or—maybe more importantly—on how to interact with others.) The virtues, though, give us ideals to which we can aspire. The Rede is lazy ethics: it doesn't offer much in the way of motivation to better, or surpass, oneself. The virtues, though, do. One can—and should—always become better, more virtuous.

Who can number the virtues? Certainly not me. But I can name some among the Many: Courage. Generosity. Love. Hospitality. Truth. Piety. Loyalty. Beauty. Temperance. (If “Temperance” rubs your fur the wrong way, think “Balance” instead.) Excellence. Responsibility. Duty. Honor. Wisdom.

Well, according to our friend, the well-loved Olympiodorus, the virtues all reciprocally imply one other. Though fully itself, each virtue contains all the others. There's Courage, which is Courage of Courage (Winston Churchill once said that Courage is the chiefest of virtues because it makes all the others possible), but there's also Beauty of Courage, Generosity of Courage, Hospitality of Courage, etc. It's a deep thought, staggering in implication.

Our man takes it further. As the virtues reciprocally imply one another, he says, so too do the gods. Each of the gods implies all the others.

Each of the gods implies all the others. Within each of the gods, all the others are contained. Ye gods. This isn't three-dimensional chess. This is nine-dimensional chess.

Hey Boss Warlock:

What does the Lore say about suffering?

Once two witches were taken. “Deny the Horned,” they told them.

One refused, and went steadfast to the gallows. Seeing her faithfulness, many took heart and were made resolute to resist. In this way did the Craft survive, and the Red Thread go unbroken.

The other denied the Horned with her lips, but in her heart she remained firm. She lived to a ripe old age, teaching the Old Ways all her days, and in this way did the Craft survive, and the Red Thread go unbroken.

Both suffered. Which did better?

Life is full of pain. So Boss Warlock is wont to say, with no little irony, in the face of inconveniences and minor obstacles, meaning: It could be worse.

(For this he was once accused of closet Buddhism. “No need to get insulting,” said Boss Warlock.)

As lovers of life, we pagans do what we may to ease suffering. “Kill cleanly,” says the law of the hunt, meaning: When you must cause suffering, cause as little as may be. To relieve the suffering of another is an act of generosity, and worthy of the great of heart.

As pagans, we live by the virtues. Winston Churchill once said that of all the virtues, the chiefest is Courage, because Courage makes all the others possible.

So when we meet with suffering, we do our best to do so courageously, and better it be if we can make that suffering serve some larger purpose. While we may, we thole: endure. When suffering becomes unendurable, we make, if need be, an end. To end suffering is always virtuous.

This is our people's way.

Guilty as charged.

Yes, I do occasionally post on non-pagan topics—Justin Trudeau's butt, for example.

(But is Justin Trudeau's butt a non-pagan topic? ”If you want to understand the gods,” said Socrates, “look at excellence.” ) Yes, I do occasionally get grief about it, mainly from myself.

Please find attached my pathetic collection of excuses, many of them mutually-contradictory.

You can draw your own conclusions.

Just because it doesn't have a pentagram on it, doesn't mean it isn't pagan.

I like to think that I'm writing about the Deep Paganism. Just because it doesn't look pagan on the surface, doesn't necessarily mean that there's no pagan there.

To the pagan, all things are pagan.

Sunsets, recycling, milk. Stupas, church architecture, the Qur'an. Beads, shoveling snow, men's bodies.

To the pagan eye, there's pagan everywhere.

Maintaining a healthy paganism means having outside interests.

To the Deeply Pagan, our paganism touches on everything that we do, think, and say.

Still, the healthiest relationships are always the ones in which all parties involved keep up their outside interests.

I may be a Paganism Bore, but so long as I can maintain interest in at least some non-pagan topics, I'm not completely hopeless.

Well, so I like to tell myself. You be the judge.

It's a test.

Aha! You think this is non-pagan? Look more deeply, my friend!

Everybody needs a break now and then.