Missed Opportunities

“Missed opportunities were never superficial wounds; they cut straight to the bone.” - Jodi Picoult, American Writer.

The American football player Harrison Butker, with the Kansas City Chiefs, has recently been in the public eye for all the wrong reasons. For those who missed the news, back in May, Butker was invited to give the commencement speech at the Catholic university Benedictine College. During the speech, he spewed a message that was homophobic, transphobic, anti-Semitic, anti-choice, and anti-diversity. He capped it off by telling the female graduates that the most important titles they could have would be housemakers.

I won’t point out all the errors in Butker’s views, for they are legion (to use a Biblical allusion). Many others have done that already. Even the nuns of Mount St. Scholastica publicly criticized his statement about women’s roles.

I want to do something different. In this post, I want to focus on how he could have handled this speech better, regardless of his beliefs. 

American football has a history of remarkable personalities that he could have drawn upon. For example, there is a quote by the legendary coach Vince Lombardi, “Football is like life. It requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication, and respect for authority.” Being a successful football player, this quote would have been perfect. Butker could have built an entire inspirational speech around this without touching on religion. 

Some may push back, saying that, as a Christian, he was obligated to “preach the gospel.” However, according to his own Bible, “To everything, there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). To put it in less poetic terms, there is a time and place for everything. That includes when and where to express what he knew would be divisive and controversial.

But let’s say he still insisted on inserting religion into his speech. He could have worked in that you should treat others as you want to be treated (Matthew 7:12) or the importance of being gracious (Colossians 4:6). Today, when there’s so much rudeness, anger, and strife, those passages seem appropriate. I don’t have to be a Christian to know that these are universal virtues that build up rather than tear down.

Unfortunately, Harrison Butker missed the opportunity to be remembered as one who builds up others.

Measuring Life

Recently, I saw the following meme posted on social media: 

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”

From what I understand, this quote, in its current form, came from the book Tahitian Choreographies by Vicki Corona, published in 1989. 

There’s a profound truth in this quote.

It’s through physical existence that we have a chance for experiences, both great and small. The feeling of heat from the sun on a warm summer day and the brisk chill of a winter morning. The joy of hearing the beautiful laughter of a small child and the shock of the bone-rattling sound of thunder from a spring storm. 

These, and so much more, are experiences that life offers us.

Embodiment in this world is an opportunity, not an endurance test.

Soft Polytheism

There are two competing views of the gods found in contemporary Paganism. According to one view, known as soft polytheism, the great multitude of gods and goddesses are avatars of two supreme deities, the Horned God and the Great Goddess. The alternative view, hard polytheism, is that each god or goddess is not an avatar but an individual with autonomy and agency. 

Personally, I’m a hard polytheist. While I think the gods are more complex than some fellow hard polytheists give them credit for, I believe that each god has personal autonomy and should be treated as individuals.  

That being said, soft polytheism isn’t as new as some of its critics claim. There is some historical basis for soft polytheism.

Photo of Isis statue Andrew Winning/ Reuters / Corbis

The ancient Roman novel titled Metamorphoses, also known as The Golden Ass is the only ancient Roman novel in Latin to survive in its entirety. Written by Apuleius between 158 C.E. and 180 C.E., the story revolves around a character named Lucius who has an intense curiosity about magic. In the novel, Lucius performs a spell to turn himself into a bird. However, it goes horribly wrong, and he accidentally turns himself into a donkey or ass. He then goes on a long journey throughout the classical world as a donkey. 

In the last chapter of the novel, Lucius encounters the Goddess Isis. This excerpt is lengthy, but it’s important. I’ve emphasized details pertinent to the subject at hand:

Behold, Lucius, here I am, moved by your prayer, I, mother of all Nature and mistress of the elements, first-born of the ages and greatest of powers divine, queen of the dead, and queen of the immortals, all gods and goddesses in a single form; who with a gesture commands heaven’s glittering summit, the wholesome ocean breezes, the underworld’s mournful silence; whose sole divinity is worshiped in differing forms, with varying rites, under many names, by all the world. There, at Pessinus, the Phrygians, first-born of men, call me Cybele, Mother of the Gods; in Attica, a people sprung from their own soil name me Cecropian Minerva; in sea-girt Cyprus I am Paphian Venus; Dictynna-Diana to the Cretan archers; Stygian Proserpine to the three-tongued Sicilians; at Eleusis, ancient Ceres; Juno to some, to others Bellona, Hecate, Rhamnusia; while the races of both Ethiopias, first to be lit at dawn by the risen Sun’s divine rays, and the Egyptians too, deep in arcane lore, worship me with my own rites, and call me by my true name, royal Isis.

If that excerpt sounds familiar, it should. Compare it to the first sentence of the Charge of the Goddess by Doreen Valiente:

Listen to the words of the Great Mother, who was of old also called Artemis; Astarte; Diana; Melusine; Aphrodite; Cerridwen; Dana; Arianrhod; Isis; Bride; and by many other names.

Others have noticed the similarity between the two. According to historian Ronald Hutton, it’s likely that at least part of Charles Leland’s Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches drew on Metamorphoses. Hutton writes that while Valiente was fine-tuning the work of Gerald Gardner, who had incorporated the work of Charles Leland and Aleister Crowley, she kept the Leland source and wrote the more succinct Charge. The rest, as they say, is history.

With this, we can draw a connection between the 2nd-century beliefs of a specific Roman pagan cult and the Wiccan belief formulated in the mid-20th century, which many contemporary Pagans follow today.

Whether or not one agrees with the concept of soft polytheism, there should be no doubt about its ancient pagan roots.

The Self as Paradox

In an April 14, 2024 post, I wrote about how the Self is a contradiction. Meaning that the Self is both real and nothing. I want to address a related aspect of the Self in this post. 

The autonomy of the Self was significant to existentialists and absurdists such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, Beauvoir, and Camus. As evidenced by my writings, the autonomy of the Self is an essential issue of Dark Paganism. Personal autonomy allows the individual to grow and achieve authenticity.

However, while the Self is autonomous, it’s dependent upon forces outside itself. The popular idiom, “No man is an island,” is very true. From the cradle to the grave, we depend on others for all aspects of who we are, including life itself.

Therefore, the Self is both autonomous yet dependent. It’s through autonomy that we reveal our true Selves. However, the very existence of the Self is dependent on others.  

The Self is a paradox.

Blog Changes

Now that my life is so prearranged,
I know that it’s time for a cool change.
-    Cool Change by the Little River Band

I’ve written a lot, and I do mean a lot, about self-care. Self-care, of course, being a manifestation of self-love. I say this because someone may care for themselves out of a sense of obligation to someone else or what they deem a higher cause. However, I suspect such self-care would be less consistent and less effective than self-care resulting from self-love.

There’s a phrase that “actions speak louder than words.” It’s time for me to act upon what I’ve written.

 

Without going into details (I tend to be a private person, and I’m not into the current fad of oversharing), so as to care for myself, I need to change how often I post. This means that rather than posting weekly, I will start posting here bi-weekly. 

With these changes, I plan to post again on May 4th, 2024. Check back then.
Frater Tenebris

The Self as Contradiction

I’m a big fan of Tim Blake Nelson. I first saw him in one of my favorite movies, ‘Oh Brother Where Art Thou’ where he played Delmar, the not-very-bright prison escapee. Nelson has also appeared in other great productions, such as ‘The Ballad of Buster Scruggs’ and ‘Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities.’ So, I was really pleased when I came across the following quote by him,

“Really, life is full of contradictions. Life is messy.”

This quote reminded me of something. It's true that life is full of contradictions. The Self is also.

In my book, The Philosophy of Dark Paganism, I compare the Self to a hurricane. The characteristics of a hurricane are well known. It’s a massive rotating storm of rain and wind that wreaks havoc in its path. Anyone who’s lived through a hurricane will tell you it’s real. If you’re in the path of a hurricane, denial of its reality may kill you.

However, suppose one focuses on the contents of the hurricane. In that case, one will see that it consists of the same ‘stuff’ as the atmosphere surrounding it. This becomes apparent if you fly into its center, called the ‘eye.’ In the eye, not only is the stuff of a hurricane the same as the outside, but the hurricane’s characteristics also disappear. Instead of gale force winds and rain, you’ll find blue skies and calm winds. At its center, a hurricane is nothing compared to the rest of the atmosphere.

One could say that a hurricane is both real and nothing. It’s all a matter of perspective.

With this analogy in mind, let’s look at the Self. The effect of the Self on the world is very real. The news is full of the impact of individual and collective Selves on the world. However, the Self is not a thing. You can’t capture the Self in a bottle and study it under a microscope. The Self is an ever-changing, dynamic phenomenon that’s an emergent property of our physical and spiritual bodies.

The Self, like the hurricane, is both real yet nothing.

toldinstone YouTube

I’ve mentioned before that I watch a lot of YouTube videos. One of my favorite channels is “toldinstone.” 

 

The owner of the toldinstone YouTube channel gives a brief bio:

I'm Garrett Ryan. I earned a PhD in Greek and Roman history, and taught at a few universities before leaving academia. These days, I spend most of my time writing, traveling, and - of course - making videos about ancient history.

Every Friday (and sometimes also on Tuesday), I post a video about the Greeks or Romans. Some of my videos explore ancient buildings and cities. Others answer frequently-asked questions, tour famous museums, or delve into ancient mysteries. All my videos aim, in some small way, to bring the past to life.

Following is a recent video by Dr. Ryan that’s a good fit with this blog.