Pastoral Equanimity

Pastoral Equanimity is the cultivated inner stillness that arises from standing alongside the goats. Shepherding with proximity. Being alone with the world, nudging it in this way and that but never controlling it.

Pastoral Equanimity is accomplished through sustained immersion in patterns of nature: sunrises, midday, striking sunsets, and peaceful stars. The setting of the sun between the twin pines in the southwest in the winter and further north in the summer.

Standing alongside the goats as they graze, watching the vultures, listening to the crows. Appreciating the passing breeze in the summer and the warmth of the sun in the winter.

This is my virtue, my way of being with the natural world.

Stoicism and Equanimity

Marcus Aurelius, my adopted namesake, offered a framework: nature as a teacher, and virtue as alignment with reason and the world.  

“From my grandfather, Verus, I learned good morals and the government of my temper. From the reputation and remembrance of my father, modesty and a manly character. From my mother, generosity and … simplicity in my way of living …” (Aurelius, p. 11).

For Aurelius, human life is best lived when you are rational, and to be rational is to act in accordance with nature. Understand and align you goals and actions with nature and swim with the current of the cosmos rather than against it. You will not change nature. We are fully within it. So rather than vainly attempt to control what you cannot and become irrationally upset that nature does not conform to your wishes, focus on your proper purview: you. This does not condone selfishness or passive inaction, however. If we believe a friend or colleague is upset with us, and it is within our power, we should tend to the issue. If the water bill needs to be paid, and it is within our power to do so, we should pay it. We should do our jobs well, be good spouses and parents, and be contributing members of our community. We should not, however, expect that the rest of the world will be as rational as we aim to be or become upset when things do not go our way. It is irrational, unproductive, and unbecoming for humans to be unduly upset by things beyond our control.

This way of life rejects excess and eschews control. It is gentle with others because it is not at war with itself. It is not missionary or evangelical. It is self-sufficient, not because it refuses help, but because it doesn’t beg for more than is needed. It leads to restraint without repression, presence without performance, and action without agitation.

Verdandi

On Friday, April 25 2025, I wrote and submitted a letter of resignation from my administrative responsibilities.

Later that afternoon, while walking around the farm, the Fates paid me a visit in the form of three vultures that circled above me at low altitude – just circling. The fact that one was flying so low, without landing or rising caught my attention. The closest one turned in her circle and was heading directly toward me. We locked eyes for several moments, and she revealed to me that she was a Fate.


The awareness of this encounter led my spirit to say “amor fati”. She approved, blessed me, as it were, and then the three of them began to rise in altitude. The unseen vortex uniting them dissipated, and three Fates glided off in three different directions.

I felt peace about my decision. And the peace that has come from it has only grown.


The one who engaged directly with me has returned a few times.

The Oracle confirmed what I suspected – that she is a local manifestation of Verdandi (Fate Becoming) and that the blessing she bestowed was very different than the ones given by anthropomorphized gods to supplicants. She welcomed me into the fate of this land and of its spirit.

By instinctively responding with Amor Fati, I was able to receive the blessing of fate – the blessing of one who can say yes to all that was, all that is, and all that shall be. This blessing is afforded only to those who are not supplicants. One cannot wish or pray that things be different and be granted this blessing that is reserved for those ubermenschen (a concept that I need to refine).

The Oracle suggests that, because of my equanimity and openness to the presence and passing of the fates, a knot has been untied, and what was entangled is now unbound. This is represented by the fact that after Verdandi allowed herself to be recognized by me, the Fates ascended and dispersed.

She has returned to me a few times over the last ten days. Sometimes with her sisters. I believe she desires to be a companion spirit, and she is telling me that I too am becoming a spirit of this place. A young but potentially powerful spirit, I have unequalled ability to transform the place. I have done so already by depoisoning the land and creating biodiversity zones. Cultivating the natural. Investing energy into the land to make it more sustainably fruitful and complex while creating it in my image.

Verdandi confirmed my resignation from administration and acknowledged the buying of time to spend on creating a magical place that is imbued with the white spirit. She reminded me of the agency involved in amor fati and the active embrace of the world as it is through the lens of who I am: a shaman monk. I have no church. I have the land.

Four Commandments of Alapaha Paganism

And in the days when the first generation of goats gave rise to the second and then the third, the four original commandments were given to the goats of Pagan Renaissance Farm:

  1. Thou shalt not eat of the planted fruit trees.
  2. Thou shalt not rub on the deer fence in the center of the field.
  3. Thou shalt not stand on the plastic feed box or on the metal table next to it.
  4. Thou shalt not ram the human.

Offenses related to the first three commandments shall be met with a bb from the red rider gun. Repeated offense to the fourth commandment will result in death – likely from a 9 mm to the base of the skull.

Other than the two mentioned above, there are no commandments against standing and climbing. You will just suffer the natural consequences. And as part of those natural consequences, God might help you get out of the barrel, or he might go get his 9 mm and eat you for supper. He is not trying to crush your spirit, he is just trying to find a way for us all to live in harmony.

The Yellow Spectrum

The late afternoon March light stands out because it looks more like autumn light. Yellows to browns. It is not my favorite collection of colors. I prefer silver, white, and blue. The colors of the moon rather than the the sun. Though I do love a beautiful South Georgia sunset. I have experienced dozens of sunsets that evoked such admiration and awe. What a beautiful thing. How have I not spent my entire life looking regularly at sunsets? They are the color of the sun only briefly and then they shift so quickly if you’re patient.

Hands

Hands

Typing blog posts, drinking Richland rum, I noticed my hands. I like them today. They are dirty and old. If you showed me these thirty years ago I would not have guessed they were mine. Becoming leathery and deeply creased.

I can’t say I was pleased when I started noticing the blotches on my hands and arms a couple years ago. It is what it is. You take the time to find the beauty because there will always be opportunity to find fault.

That the hands are dirty makes me happy. They remind me that the tractor I bought yesterday arrived today. And the beautiful stripe of land I turned from 7 foot tall dead dog fennel skeletons to dark, even soil that I knelt in to transplant tiny little asparagus plants, lettuce, beets…

Not a Writer

I once wrote something to the effect of “he who writes is a writer” he who wishes he was a writer is one who wishes he was a writer. I still believe that is true and that it is probably more profound than you first realize. Concurrently, I believe that there are many different ways to define writing and writer and even when we are native speakers of a language our personal experiences lead us to a differently vague conception of writer and similar words.

Seen from other conceptions of writer, I am either not really a writer or, what’s worse, I am a poor writer. Uninspiring and boring. I rarely edit a post. Its all just stream of consciousness.

Three journals ago I began writing on paper primarily because I expected shit to hit the fan at any day and I did not want the FBI to come not knocking at my and kill me in my sleep in the twilight days of the American empire and the dawn of what comes next. I might be a shaman or an ubermensch, but I’m not a fucking ninja. So I deemed it best to begin writing my thoughts on paper so that I could enjoy more than the first couple of days of the blossoming apocalypse.

So much has changed in the last couple of years, however. Musk buying Twitter really changed the intellectual and political landscape in America. It is still changing rapidly. Things are moving quickly. The government appears to be in control at the moment – and I am in favor of about half of what they do – but the pace feels dangerous. It feels like it must either catch the world on fire or burn itself out in the next 18 months. If it keeps up this pace for the next 18 months, the world will be a notably different place.

There are already signs of slowdown. Very strong indications that tomorrow will always be several dozen tomorrow’s away (at best) and that what is given is less than promised. A calculation of risk – promises as much over what we can deliver as we can get away with and promise a couple of months in advance of when it will actually be shared or enacted.

The approach seems to reason that after multiple exposures to exciting new things, people will forget about old things. And they begin to draw back on earlier half filled promises to bring the numbers back in line with The Cabal’s expectations. Again and again and again.

But you know what. I just got me a tractor, so I don’t have to worry about that shit. I think the best that I can do for me and my people is to model how to leave the system that is designed to suck their blood (ie, surplus labor). The good people are the tax slaves for the rich, who pay off the poorest and laziest and more incapable in society in exchange for their votes to keep the middle class under chained and in check. This is the same process whereby the monarchy uses the tax farming Jew and the jealous peasants to curb the power of the aristocracy.

Anyway, so I started writing my thoughts down in journals rather than typing them in a word doc or a blog. These seem to be chaotic times. What I can’t really know, however, is how common it is for times to feel this chaotic. My guess is that it is fairly common. But since I have been in high school, it seems to have been one crisis after another, coupled with decreased competence in all leadership positions in society. I suppose the latter has actually really ramped up in the last decade. But what do I know?

To return to the beginning, I recognize that I am not a writer so much as a thinker who for some reason feels compelled to write his thoughts down.

Thursday Wine

Thursday is the optimum time to open a bottle of wine. I will probably finish it by Sunday. I rarely completely finish the bottle alone if opened on another day.

Tonight is a special Thursday. A spring break Thursday. Spent what felt like a full day outside two days in a row. Learning about my new tractor. Learning about the land. You know it differently riding a tractor – and riding this one felt very different than riding daddy’s for some reason. Knowing it differently means knowing it more and probably better. Interesting that written here, ‘better’ means differently than when I was thinking it in my head. The reason is that I preceded it with ‘more’. I did that because I was thinking about better meaning more fully. So I wrote that as I thought it. But because more now immediately preceeds better, it causes the sense of better to want to change to something else – something “not more” because you would not have said more and better unless better meant something other than more.

I learned more about the land. I enjoyed that experience. Thinking about it now makes me smile. I am missing the sunset again – or, I am just not seeing it uninterrupted in my favorite watching place – on the well worn tire path in the midst of the grass, looking out toward the two pine trees. I should name them.

I think they are a manifestation of the Twins that is present in most European traditions. Romulus and Rhemus are the most famous, there’s also Castor and Pollux. They have a major constellation named after them: Gemini.

What name is most suited for two pines. Since they are not the species, the represent two qualities intertwined but distinct – a binary contained within a unity: I think sometimes they manifest yin and yang. I can see it spinning between the trees. But often it transcends good and evil. The experience of the sunset has for man been a daily opportunity to experience beauty. All one has to do is pause and look.

The perspective of the viewer also matters. With our imagination we could craft innumerable examples of situations whereby the sunset could cause someone to feel sad. It makes me happy, however. Very happy and fulfilled. It feels like I have never before experienced the sunsets in the way that I do now. I make a point to see at least part of it almost every day.

Now, probably thirty minutes later, I am ready to try this wine. I began this post mostly to note that when the pouring wine looked thin, my expectations dropped. Why do I have that response / prejudice?

The first sip of wine is pretty good.

As is the second. I like the acidity and the bitterness.

The yellow spectrum

The late afternoon March light stands out because it looks more like autumn light. Yellows to browns. It is not my favorite collection of colors. I prefer silver, white, and blue. The colors of the moon rather than the the sun. Though I do love a beautiful South Georgia sunset. I have experienced dozens of sunsets that evoked such admiration and awe. What a beautiful thing. How have I not spent my entire life looking regularly at sunsets. They are the color of the sun only briefly and then they shift so quickly if you’re patient.