Pagan Values

Yike, It's nice to have something to write about, since I seem to have been "blocked" for over a year now.

At the same time, it makes me want to giggle, like I'm nervous.

It feels weird, rebellious, contrary, to try to take over "values" (not like exclusively, but like really own that we have them too)

How did they (yes, "they" you know, "them") manage to cordon off that word for themselves? no fair!

and then, like I said, I don't know if I have "pagan values"

I've been intrigued for a while by the fact that "pagan" and "heathen" kind of mean the same thing, and that isn't really about religion, it means like country folk, right? people too far from the city centers to be hip to the church. Now the city folk seem more likely to be pagan or atheist than the country folk, but I don't have stats on that, so don't quote me.

But I like to think of it meaning "just regular folks" - living our lives, not so caught up in the stories people tell each other that we forget the basics.


Anyway.....

I have values, and they're rooted in something, but they're rooted in like truth, or they try to be, which feels different from being rooted in religion. You can't disprove something that would uproot my values. At least I don't think so, is there something like that out there?

At least I HOPE they're rooted in truth.


Right now I cant' think of much beyond

Reverence for life

Is that my only value?

Possibly.


Now, for me that doesn't translate into being opposed to legal abortion, it doesn't even translate directly into opposing the death penalty (though as it stands, I do)

It's not so much about that kind of stubbornness. It's never that easy, life is way complicated

and quality of life is important, fullness of life, being able to fully blossom as a human being (or a flower, or a bug, or a giraffe), so equality is important, respect is important, kindness is important, justice is important.

But it's NOT simple.

Today at the dogpark, I was like COVERED with caterpillars and inchworms and things (ok, not covered, but seemed always to be finding a new one on me) and I kept moving them, not killing them, and putting them on trees and leaves and things - reverence for life, right? Except, I wonder about the trees, and what those caterpillars grow into, and what they consume to do it. If I was focusing on the plants they will go on to eat, killing them would most likely have been "best"

So my values often don't give me answers, they give me questions I don't know the answers to

(and it's not June yet, so maybe this doesnt' count?)