Pagan Values of a Druid UU

I'm flying in right at the end of the 3rd Annual Pagan Values Blogging and Podcasting Month. Truth is, I've started this post several times and have never been happy with the results. Being a Druid UU, my intention has been to fully examine Unitarian Universalist Principles and compare them to those expressed by my teachers in Druidry and my own inner voice. But each time I started I got bogged down in the details, winding down tangled, lengthy paths of words that confused things more than they brought clarity.

The past couple of weeks have actually been one of amazing transformation for me - of new beginnings. While I have explored the path of Druidry for the past two years now, I have recently taken a new step on my journey. Yesterday, I completed my initiation into the Bardic Grade of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids (OBOD).

In taking this step, I have come to realize the source of my writers' block in regards to my Blogging Month entry. It was too complex, too rational and intellectual and ultimately emanating from my head and not my heart. As Philip Carr-Gomm writes, "Only one aspect of our Being grows and is satisfied by the purely rational...Another great part of ourselves needs the nourishment of the trans-rational - the aesthetic, poetic, mythic sides of life that cannot fully be explained or described by the mind."

And THAT, I feel is the real difference between Unitarian Universalist and Pagan Values. While they share many similarities, a great majority of UUs have wrapped themselves so tightly in the blanket of reason, intellect and logic that there is no room for the mystical, magical and unexplained. And while their last stated principle is "Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part," the Druid in me strongly believes this doesn't go far enough. In my experience, Pagan Values would place this as their first value or principle (not the last) and also word it differently. Instead, it should read something like, "Reverence for the interdependent web of all existences of which we are a part." 

So here it is, my 11th hour entry for the 3rd Annual International Pagan Values Blogging and Podcasting Month. May your path, wherever it leads, be filled with mystery, wonder and intimate connection to our glorious Mother Earth and the lovely universe in which she spins. 

Yours under the Sacred Oaks, 

Skybranch /|\