Five tenets, five lessons, five guide stones to live your life.
Faith
To have faith is to believe and hold true in the Gods and yourself as you walk the Path. You do not need to hold stock in a religious leader, a priest, any person at all. Your communion with the Divine is between you and the Divine alone and thought the Community (that is other Pagans) may assist and guide you, they alone or in plural cannot walk your path for you or tell you who you are or interpret how you can get closer to the Gods.
People are fleeting, but the Gods are with us forever. When we’re moneyless and living on the street or highly paid overlooking the mountain, never forget the Gods in abundance or pestilence as you commit to them. Walking the Path is not easy nor should it be. The easiest path the walk is a path the world will take. The hardest Path to walk is one where you must not only look at yourself and what you do, who you are, why you do it; but challenges you to be better not for an everlasting reward or favor or power, but because being the highest image of yourself is what you need to be to live a happy, fulfilling life.
Transformation is hard and painful. The fire of change will sometimes require you to set ablaze parts of yourself and your past for the betterment of your future self. Despite what may occur or the choices you decide to make or the Gods make hold fast to the Gods and your Tenets.
Temperance
The path between satisfaction and ruin starts and ends with temperance, discipline and your ability to control yourself and your actions. With quick access to adult content, fattening foods, immediate pleasure, we as a people have drifted far from what it means to execute temperance. There’s no goal to starve yourself or become monk detached from the world, but physically, mentally and spiritually balance yourself to not give in to quick fixes and easy band aids on what takes focus and commitment to overcome.
Perfection and purity are not the goal. We all make mistakes and will eventually miss that holiday, eat that cheeseburger, put your Book of Spirits on the floor and do it later. The point is to strive to do better and not simply will it but be it. We are an imperfect people living in an imperfect world of chaos, bad days, and sometimes things just suck. But to have that understanding that your bad days don’t become you or possess you. But a temporary storm that will fade as the promised sun shines.
Knowledge
Not only to have knowledge, but pursuit it. We are challenged to ever ascend in our understanding of the world and what it can and can’t do. How to change, mend, or bend its properties to achieve what’s good for us and the environment as a whole. Spiritual knowledge and knowledge of the mundane world are equally important as we live in both and thus require both. Learning also means sharing and uplifting others so we as a community uplift our skills, abilities and understanding of the world for our collective success. It also means keeping secret that which is powerful and will hurt. Knowledge is power and many are ready at different times.
Some concepts simply aren’t for the average person. Keeping oaths and promises to the community and the Gods are often required to achieve levels of understanding. Keeping your promises and sharing what ascends the community are two concepts that synchronize. If you don’t know- learn, if you learned- experience, and if you’re experienced- teach. We are as strong as our weakest link. So guide, uplift, and sharpen your mind and your brothers’ and sisters’.
Strength
Strength is the power to see, recognize, and change. Change requires sacrifice and to look at yourself in the mirror and know what needs to be done and do it. The cost of doing it varies, and seems insurmountable at times, but without strength you risk languishing frozen by fear. It takes time as you descend from a point of faith and the ethereal to getting deeper and deeper into the physical. A mountain cannot be climbed in a day, and no one can or should ask you to make immediate decisions and set entire aspects of your life and yourself aflame immediately. Its taking the dedication to recognize and taking the slow arduous process to refine and sharpen yourself, your life, and your practice.
Your position varies depending on the situation and where you are in your life. Be it mentally or spiritually we all have times where we are weak and fail at a task or set of tasks or goals. You are not a mountain, but a mountaineer. If things are getting tough and hard to weather there’s nothing wrong with taking a break and having some rest. The struggle will be there tomorrow, rest for the day and come back swinging, even if you need a few tools to help you on your way.
Action
This is the final practitioner’s virtue and relates to the Divine power of a simple demand. . . .do. Rituals, prayers, hopes and dreams mean nothing if you aren’t willing to put the footwork behind your words. Do not ask for money if you’re unwilling to study, learn new skills, and refine yourself. Do not ask for the Gods to bless you with a better life if you’re unwilling to strike out people, places, and actions that hold you down and hold you back. Actions must be informed by the previous virtues starting with faith and before acting, strength. There are times where the best action is to stop and wait until the right time, but remember there is no perfect time.