What daily practices does Paganism promote for well-being?

[elfs]

The older meaning of philosophy, "love of wisdom," was meant to encourage the followers of any one given school of wisdom to put that wisdom into daily use. Cynicism, Epicureanism, Stoicism, Skepticism, and Neoplatonism all started with premises, but ultimately pushed their students to express the consequences of those premises in their daily lives. The word "ethics" originally meant the study and development of excellence in one's character. Ultimately, all of these things come down to one idea: daily practice.

There is daily practice in most successful philosophies. Buddhism's includes daily meditation, mindfulness in each act, the the mantras of no ego and no permanence. Islam has the adhan. Christiantiy has daily prayer, as well as The Contemplation of the Christ in all its stations. Stoicism, the longest-surviving of all the non-theistic (or perhaps pantheistic) philosophies, has its own, and I'm most familiar with those: the morning contemplation of one's place in the world and its affirmation of fate willing, I will accomplish the work the world has brought me; the evening contemplation of one's work, three times and contra fate, and how closely it aligned with your morning affirmation, the regular assessments of impermanence, value, mindfulness, and self-discipline. Stoicism, especially, has a tradtion of psychological self-care that I find both demanding and valuable.

Christianity, Buddhism, and Stoicism might seem wildly different, but underneath, at the personal level, they have their similarities, especially the counter-tribal varieties that most people find admirable. All three have comprehensive daily regimes that assist you in maintaining your mental health in the full face of the truly despairing state of human existence.

I have yet to see a book at a Pagan bookstore or hear of daily practice at a Pagan gathering that imposes the same sorts of self-discipline and self-care on pagan practitioners. Do Pagans have these sorts of teachings? Or are they attached, willy-nilly, from other philosophical bases?

Comments

[elf]

(Long-time reader, first-time commenter.)

Pagan gatherings are catchall things, least-common-denominator events; daily practices are trad-specific and sometimes line-specific and don't translate well to large groups.

The wiccan-flavored versions of Paganism (which is the ones I know well) often have daily practices in their training. The details are tied up in the specifics of the tradition, and they're not widely publicized because there's no expectation that they'll be useful for people without the practices, lore and personal connections that made them useful for that group.

In Feri, the Flower Prayer is a daily practice for a lot of us. Some run the Iron Pentacle every day. (I find that a good training exercise for beginners and somewhat disruptive for a life that includes a day job.)

A lot of Pagan religious witchcraft, as contrasted with the other kinds, is a priesthood-based path: there's no need to announce a "daily practice" list because the underlying assumption is that all practitioners are devoting substantial portions of their life to the path; they'll be sorting out the details of their daily devotions themselves.

Buddhism, Christianity and Islam all claim their path is suitable for everyone--that all people would be better off if they followed it. Witchcraft-Paganism doesn't. We know this isn't for everyone, so there's no need to write texts accessible to everyone. There's a need to reach the people who are looking for us, those who need to find us, but the recent flood of pop-Wicca books has done plenty in that direction. (They've also done plenty of damage, wherein people think those are "the real" Paganism because they're written down. It's given a lot of people a very skewed perception of witchcraft religions.)

Anyway. Um. We do have daily practices. We do have spiritual disciplines centered around a set of ethical values (or vice-versa; depends on how you arrange that). There's no neat universal set of them, and not even any almost-universal set, but we recognize ones that are similar to our own.

[contrarywise]

There are daily Pagan practices that are encouraged but generally not held to be mandatory unless one's relationship to one's tutelary Deities/Spirits or one's spiritual training require it. Many of them are ongoing devotional acts such as offerings made before meals, morning and evening observances, meditations of various kinds, dream reflection and journaling, and other acts that are woven into one's standard operating procedures and thus might not seem worthy of comment. Some are borrowed from other spiritual paths and are done for the same or similar purposes, which may or may not be directly related to one's Paganism, per se. But you're right, there's not a lot of discussion or documentation of daily spiritual practice in Pagan publications, and perhaps that's a niche that wants filling.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[contrarywise]

I can think of a few situations when a Pagan would be expected to perform daily observances: during clergy training, or at the request of one's tutelary Deity/Deities, for example. But you're right, Ace: it's not a universal thing by any means, and the specifics of that daily spiritual practice tend to vary widely from person to person and tradition to tradition.

In my experience, people adopt daily, or at least regular, spiritual practices because they have a generally positive, noticeable effect in their lives. If a particular practice doesn't deliver, it may be modified, swapped for something else, or practice may be abandoned entirely without jeopardizing one's identity as Pagan, or as a particular sort of Pagan. There isn't a commandment or expectation of most Pagans to perform a particular act daily in order to qualify as a Pagan, as there is in other religions, although participation in traditional observances throughout the year (alone or with others, as circumstances allow) is often expected.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[kenshardik]

I cannot speak for all Pagans - nor would I try to - especially since I am Wiccan. I have had many discussions about morality and consequence and acting intentionally with the head of my tradition. We both have issues with what are considered by many the cornerstones of Wiccan traditions: the Wiccan Rede and the Threefold Law.

The Wiccan Rede is usually written/spoken as, "An it harm none, do what ye will." The basic idea is that as long as your actions harm no one, do what you want to do. But there are a number of problems with this. What exactly is "harm"? What exactly is "none"? You can come up with simplistic counterarguments ("What if someone was about to kill people with a gun and I had a gun?") and append statements to the Rede to try and make it more precise ("An it harm none, do what ye will; an it cause harm, do as ye must"), but at the end of the day the Rede tries to cover too much moral ground. Many have come to the conclusion that what the Rede really means is that you have freedom of action but must take responsibility for your actions. So why doesn't it say that?

Many Wiccans (and other Pagans) believe in the Threefold Law: "Whatever you do to others comes back to you threefold". One of my problems with many forms of Christianity is the idea that if you do bad things (i.e. sin) then you will pay for it when you die (damnation). The religion basically threatens you to be good or else you'll pay for it. I don't see the Threefold Law as any different than threatening someone with suffering if they do bad things. Why can't you simply do good things because it's a good way to live? Why must there be a penalty to force you to be good?

I expect some Wiccans (and other Pagans) use the "willy-nilly" approach. I know many Pagans who meditate. I have done several rituals where there was guided meditation as part of the "work" of the ritual. I think in general that people who are drawn to Wicca are unhappy with traditional religion and being told what to do. They are looking for a direct connection to the divine and, through initial readings of the Rede and the Threefold Law, will hopefully develop an understanding that they are responsible for their actions and their outcomes.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]