First Oath

The First Oath

The first oath is not a public one, nor is it meant to be a final commitment to anything beyond the study required for the Dedicant path. The Dedicant pledges to pursue the three core values of ADF Druidy: Virtue, piety and study. ADF offers a sample one which is fine, but I want to try to personalize mine some.

I've been working on writing my own for a couple of days, and this morning got it done. We're planning to speak these on Monday, Sept. 12, under the full moon. I will post the text after it's said.

This is the first really formal step on this path, the moment of commitment. It's exciting.

Over at our other blog, A Weed By The Wall, I've been writing a series called "My Pagan Soul." I'm trying to trace my spiritual evolution, from my upbringing as a Methodist, through periods of agnosticism alternating with efforts to return to the church, to finally having to admit that pagan ideas resonate with me much more than do Christian ones. Shaking that early formation is not easy (somehow, backing away from Christianity into agnosticism feels like much less of a discontinuity than turning from Christianity to paganism), and it's taken me a few years of wrestling to get to this point.

But I am here now and this oath will be my moment of embracing it fully.