Getting ready for Pagan Values Blogging Month

Looks like it’s that time of year again, folks! Pax just posted the first announcement for the upcoming Pagan Values Blogging Month event which takes place each June. I participated in 2009 and 2010 and I’ve already started thinking about what I’m going to do for 2011. I support this project for a number of reasons. Pax is a really cool guy who cares a lot about the community and leaving it better than he found it. I appreciate his diligence in keeping track of these posts – no easy feat, considering how many people participate! – and the fact that he’s on the ball and not waiting til the last minute to announce this. (The thing I hate the most about our local Pagan community is that they are horribly disorganized, often waiting until the night before to let you know that they’ve got a ritual or event planned. I know it’s difficult to grok but some of us actually have lives and like to plan ahead, preferring not to do ritual on a whim.) Further, he’s attempting to elevate the tone of discourse and get people to think seriously about the values and ethics of their respective religious traditions. Not only is this beneficial to the authors themselves – I’ve certainly appreciated the opportunity to reflect on issues I had kind of taken for granted previously – but it’s also a wonderful opportunity for intra- and interfaith discussion amongst the various groups that exist within the Pagan continuum. I’ve learned a great deal about traditions I’d scarcely heard of previously through this, so that’s always good.

So, anyway, this year I’ve put together an alphabetical list of ethics, values and related topics to write about. That was damnably difficult since there are several letters in the English language that are entirely absent in Greek and Latin! (Though the Greeks initially had digamma which corresponds in certain respects to our W.) To make things even more interesting I’m going to be discussing all of these ideas in relation to the Ptolemies, which will give me the opportunity to share some of my favorite anecdotes and also explain the huge impact they’ve had on my ethical and religious thinking. So, without further ado here’s the prospective list of topics I’ll be working on in anticipation of June:

A = Aretē (Excellence)
B = Basileía (Kingship)
C = Calamitas (Misfortune)
D = Dikē (Justice)
E= Eusēbeia (Piety)
F= Fides (Loyalty)
G = Gunē (Woman)
H = Hubris (Abuse)
I = Immanitas (Monstrous)
J = Jugis (Continuity)
K = Kalōs (Beauty)
L = Laetans (Joyousness)
M = Míasma (Impurity)
N = Nōmos (Custom)
O = Oíkos (Home)
P = Praxis (Practice)
Q = Quaestio (Investigation)
R = Reconcilio (Restoration)
S = Sōphrosunē (Self-restraint)
T = Tryphē (Luxury)
U = Urbanus (City life)
V = Virtus (Manliness)
W = *Wilion (Troy)
X = Xenía (Hospitality)
Y = Upsilon (Choice)
Z = Zōomorpha theōn (Animal-shaped gods)