An interesting discussion from a list that got me thinking...

[sabre_hawke]

EDIT: This post has been edited at the request of the original poster, as of 12/21/05, 4:15pm.This is a post I made on my coven/trad list in response to something someone else said about their path. Part of their path is based on Asatru, and part of the quote was

Comments

[sabre_hawke]

I think I might add to these: 1) Do your best to say what you mean and mean what you say, but bear in mind that you may be taken literally when you were speaking figuratively or vice versa. Be gentle as possible without being so subtle that they don't get it. and (under HONOR) 2) Treat every being with dignity and respect.

As I have read and reread these things, I realized that though I was raised to believe these things, that my experiences have refined the "rule" as it exists in my head, and that this experience definitely colors this list. So maybe it's a combination of what I was taught, and what I would teach.

An interesting discussion....

[nman_in_black]

I am in awe at the content of sabre_hawke's comments.

I particularly appreciated what was said about the generation-to-generation "pass it on" she describes.

Some of the "rules" I learned growing up in the mostly-Scandinavian household, particularly from my father, were very bad rules. Number One was (and this was even said verbally many times), "If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well." What "well" meant, however, was "perfectlyI remember a particular incident where my new bedroom in the newly remodelled house had a built-in wardrobe under construction. My pure Viking father had bought two perfect 4 X 8 sheets of no-void AB plywood (not even to be heard of now)for the sliding doors. He measured, carefully, the 6', 6" opening the doors needed to fit, but on the way out to the shop that got translated into 66" and were dutifully cut with the table saw to that length

Re: An interesting discussion....

[sabre_hawke]

You know, I've had this in mind all day, and have been wondering what you would say when you read it. I guess this means you're back from holiday travels? I hope you are well.

When I started writing this all out, and then thinking about it again today, I realized two things. 1) I've left some of the "rules," out - such as the one you listed above, and (perhaps not ones to make the "big list" but certainly ones that have stuck with me like glue much the same way the "worth doing well" rule stuck with you were, "never leave tools out in the rain," and "never force anything, are examples." I kind of lumped these into the "take care of your resources and never waste anything" rule, but when Tully throws something away out of the fridge, or when David (my 2nd husband) left some tool (a bad habit he had) outside -- well, the proverbial fecal material would hit the rotary blades, I tell ya! And I discovered, to my chagrin, that I couldn't push hard enough to put more ram in my desktop a few years ago, because I didn't want to break my

Re: An interesting discussion....

[sabre_hawke]

(continuing

Re: An interesting discussion....

[nman_in_black]

"Never out in the rain" is one of those "perfectly" rules that I have learned to moderate. I have gone to the expense of buying fibre-glassed handled tools (so far, a garden rake and a shovel) because when they are parked under a tree overnight, the grain of the wood, which isn't there, can't raise and get rough. Fibre-glass tolerates what wood cannot. The rule is a good one, just not worth doing "perfectly." It's a "well-enough" rule.

I remember when sabre_hawke) herself, korens_puppy and butch have as part of their tasks in life to learn how to root out old power-rules that harm, edit or discard them, rather than be paralysed by them or humiliated by them constantly.