I cannot think of any of that reduce our rampant consumerism, eschews a long long car ride for any reason, or does anything of long term significant value to reduce pollution or the other damage human beings do to the planet or each other, with one exception. I know we like to think we do but I see scant action to reinforce that self-image. There seems to be an environmental requirement to this pledge that I haven't met.
The pledge also says that we have allegiance to all the earth supports. I have a guy that comes by to spray for bugs. I have done nothing for the people of Rwanda. You get the idea.
Is that nitpicky? Yes but I think we should be when we take such a pledge. It speaks to character and our magickal good sense. Though, I fully support the sentiment.
Please understand that I know some reader out there does a lot. This is not intended to insult you. I also know that everyone tries now and again to do a good thing for the planet and its inhabitants. I simply know very few that could really take this pledge.
Pledges are important. They need to be followed by actions that reinforce them. They need to be well-considered before and after taking them.
The Ten Commandments has something about bearing false witness. In magickal things, our equivalent is falsely taking or breaking an oath or pledge. For essentially, we would bearing false witness to the Gods and the Universe. We'd be saying we are something that we are not.
I haven't done enough in my life that I'd come close to taking this. Maybe someday soon, I will evolve to that point. Even so, I'd need a long track record of living like that before I would. Perhaps, for many of us, striving to be worthy of this ideal should be a goal.
3 comments:
If everyone waited until they had "done enough", nothing would ever get done. I believe you pledge to do the best you can, where you are, when you can, and that's enough. I was at the zoo last summer, and in the midst of the exhibits was a big display about bushmeat, along with lots of worried little kids and parents hard-pressed to get their minds back on the Thompson's gazelles. I thought to myself, "I promise, if the issue ever comes up, I will not buy or consume bushmeat, but nobody in this room is ever going to be in that situation, so stop guilting us about it."
If you feel guilt, that is your own, not mine. The point was in taking pledges and oaths and how we need to think of them.
Couldn't read that pledge and the type was too small, sorry, but what I saw there was something about the Earth, and it got me thinking: I have been led to do some magickal work recently with "Gaia" the spirit or energy of earth consciousness. This is connected to the reiki and energy work of healing that I do, but it does not necessarily use or call upon elemental forces as we might understand them. Do you know of/do any effective Gaia or earth spirit work? I recall you once had an American goetia. Perhaps this is not as binding as the oath they are putting forward, if that is what it was about, anyway.
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